Rebirth - The Beautiful Fallen (6 page)

             
“That’s about the gist of it.” Chris replied.  “Faith Kent was never with a human man.  In fact, she was mostly isolated by her drunken father after her mother died in a freak accident.  But there was one constant presence in her life.  And he manipulated her just enough to make sure he’d get her pregnant.  Then he took her life and kept the baby for himself.”

             
I just sat there for a moment, not believing what I was now hearing.  Turning the picture around, I looked at the name once again.  Saffron.  This man, this creature, was my father.  That was why no one ever seemed to know exactly who my father was.  Because he was never human.  “Okay so... you're saying that I’m a demon child." I said slowly.

             
"Well, I'm not sure that I'd exactly call it that.  But yeah, he is a Fallen Angel.  And he is your father." Chris told me.

             
I allowed myself a moment to let that one sink in before I could speak again.  "So, what are you supposed to be?  Are you one of his followers or something?” I finally asked him, still not feeling sure of whether I completely believed everything he was saying yet.

             
“No.  And I never intend to be.  But I am keeping my word about something from a long time ago in this.  Besides, I have my own reasons for coming to find you too.  But I’m not getting into them right now.  Not when I know what’s coming.” Chris said, standing himself back up.

             
“You mean when you said that something was coming after me, right?  So I’m being hunted now?” I guessed.  It was kind of obvious that being born from a Fallen angel would cause that.  I would’ve imagined that just about anything holy would think that I was a complete abomination.

             
“You’ve been marked since the day you were born, just like the rest of us.  Trust me, there are a lot of things out there that don’t like those who are considered mixed breeds, especially between humans and what they consider  the damned.  So if I were you, I think I’d be trying to understand the heritage you have just a little bit more before more things start happening.” Chris told me.

             
“What about you?  Are you staying around here now?” I asked.  I suddenly didn’t like the thought that he might just disappear now after telling me all of this.

             
“I intend to.  I said before that I have my own reasons for being here.  But for now, it may be better if you went back home and went through that book yourself.  But don’t let that woman see it, or know that you know the truth.  It might just make things worse now.  Trust me on that one.” Chris said, helping me up.  I watched as he quietly put the book and pictures back in the box and handed it to me.

             
I held my pendant tightly again with my free hand.  “So, will you tell me?” I asked, looking back up at him.  It was funny, but I felt like a piece of me really didn't want to leave him now.  I wondered why I'd suddenly feel that way.

             
“About what?” Chris replied.

             
“Are you really like me?  Were you born the same way I was?” I clarified.

             
Chris just shook his head.  “Not exactly.  But I promise that I’ll explain my story to you later.  Right now, we need to get you home.  It’s starting to get late.” he said.

             
It was only then that I noticed that outside of the window it was getting darker.  Looking at my watch, I realized that it was nearly six.  Where had the time gone?  “Okay.  But you’re going to help me with all of this aren't you?” I said as we walked back outside.

             
“Don’t worry so much.  I have no intentions of leaving you now.  Just get yourself home, and don’t mention this to that woman or let her see the box.  And try not to come out after dark either.  It's a better idea for you not to after what happened in that house.” Chris reminded me.  He gave me a quick pat on the shoulder, then sent me on my way.

             
I really can't say why I decided it was better just to listen to him then.  I guess the best I could reason looking back on it was that something inside of me just felt like I should.  After all, he had just saved my life.  But with what he’d told me, I think I knew right away that my life was never going to be the same.  These are the things I found myself thinking as I walked down that long, lonely sidewalk to my house.  I carried the box close to me, feeling more and more like things were finally beginning to come together for me.  This was the start of what I was destined to be.  This was my truth.

             
What I didn’t count on was just how much danger this truth was going to put me in.

Three

             
I don’t think I ever would’ve imagined the truth that Chris told me that day.  Even if I always knew that I was different, I never would have even thought that I could be the child of a Fallen Angel.  Honestly, I don't think that anyone in their right mind would ever consider that.  Yet, sitting up in my room that night, I found myself looking at the box in my lap and thinking about all of what I’d learned that day.  I still wasn't that sure of whether I truly believed Chris about all of it.  But at the same time, I couldn't deny what had happened to me either.  I just couldn't think that it was all in my head.  Especially not when I looked at the bandage still wrapped around my wrist, and the pain I still felt from under it.

             
But looking down at the box, I couldn't help but shake my head.  The child of a Fallen Angel.  I was the daughter of a Fallen Angel.  If it had been anyone else telling me that, I knew I would've called them crazy.  But thinking about Chris, I knew that I believed him.  And with that, I was finding myself facing a very harsh reality.  One that I now knew that I had to understand.

             
Finally working myself up to face all of it again, I opened the box and pulled the pictures back out.  I guessed that I could start with trying to place where these may have been taken in that house.  I admit that I was still surprised to think that someone could take photos of something like a Fallen Angel, which I guessed in the end was what a demon really was.  But I supposed that they probably had a lot of clever tricks to use when working on what they wanted in the human world.  Obviously, they must have been able to make physical bodies for themselves, if all of what Chris had said was true.  But I had to admit, the thought that they could actually get a woman pregnant was a little more than scary.  Did these women really choose to get pregnant by these creatures?  Or were they raped in their sleep, with the Fallens acting as an Incubus would?

             
I shook my head, trying to make myself let go of the thought.  It was just too scary.  So instead, I tried to focus my attention on what I’d been doing in the first place.  I looked back at the pictures in my hands and took a moment to study them.  The one of Faith Evans, the woman who apparently started all of the trouble from what Chris had said, I was certain had been taken in that den room.  Flipping to the picture of the one with the name Saffron on the back, I reasoned that this must have been outside, possibly on that rotting deck.  I found myself looking very closely at him as I sat there.  So this was supposed to be my birth father.  Even if he wasn't really supposed to be a human, I could definitely still see the resemblance between us.  He'd really left his mark on me as far as our looks went.  No wonder that woman’s angry ghost came at me with such a vengeance.

             
But thinking about that, I had to wonder just who she had been.  Obviously, she must have been someone who had crossed them at some point.  Maybe Saffron had even killed her too.  Maybe that was why she hated the sight of my face.  Because it looked so much like his.  I had the feeling that we may have had the same eyes as well.  Even from this old black and white photo, I felt like his eyes stood out.  I had very blue eyes that many people had always commented on.  Some even told my mother that they almost seemed unnatural.  Certainly would’ve made sense now, I found myself thinking.

             
Putting the photos back into the box, I picked up the book and opened it once again to look at what was written there.  While I had skimmed through it while I was with Chris earlier, I hadn’t really taken the time to read it fully.  This, of course, was more for the fact that I'd just begun to realize that it may have been written by one of the two Fallen involved with that Evans woman.  It had freaked me out a little too much at the time, so I'd put it back.  But now, I found that I was far too curious to pass up the opportunity to really look at it.  Maybe this would give me some insight about my father, the one with the name Saffron.  Maybe it would tell me more about what happened to him.

             
The book itself reminded me a little of a journal in the way it was written.  It was very small, but someone had done a lot of writing in it.  And the handwriting definitely looked like what was on the back of Faith Evan’s picture.  I flipped through the first few pages, skimming through the words again.  But as I did, I felt my eyes widen.  This book wasn't written by just anyone.

             
It was written
by
Saffron.

             
For a split second, I felt like I had just hit the jackpot.  I was actually holding something that was written by my father.  But the reality was a lot more sobering as it set in.  This was basically a journal kept by a Fallen Angel about what he was planning to do with a woman who had been dumb enough to call on him in the first place.  There couldn't have had anything remotely good in it.  I closed it and sat it back down. 

             
But as I looked at it sitting on my bed, I found that I was still wondering about it.  Just what had he written in there?  And now that I thought about it, Chris had said that there were two Fallen Angels, as well as there being two different men in these pictures.  But the name of the other had never been mentioned.  This was enough to make me pick the book back up and reopen it.  Then, I began looking through the writing, trying to place a name for the other Fallen involved in that mess.  And, on the very first page, I found it.

             
Jade.

             
Reading more through what Saffron had written, it was beginning to sound like it was Jade in charge back then.  But the more I read, the more I realized that Saffron seemed to deeply resent that.  He spoke of taking advantage of Faith Evans, of using her against Jade to get even.  For what, I didn't know.  But I could also tell that he had become infatuated with Faith as well.  She intrigued him in a lot of ways.  Some ways that almost made me blush with embarrassment.  Apparently, Saffron saw a lot of advantages with keeping a human woman around.  But he never got the chance have them with her.  And eventually, I saw him thinking of ways that he could keep her for himself.

             
I couldn’t help but to feel mortified as I read how he planned to kill her.  It was just like Chris had said.  He planned on killing her and allowing her to be reincarnated for him, and only him, over and over again.  He spoke of changing a seal to do it.  What that meant, again, I had no clue.  But before that, it seemed like he had one more loose end to tie up as well.

             
A woman named Lacy Manson.

             
Reading more of what he had written, I realized that this was the woman I'd seen back in that house.  She did indeed have a connection to Faith Evans as well.  She apparently was having an affair with her husband.  And she had witnessed the husband’s death, although she couldn't see what had attacked him.  Saffron bragged about that one, claiming that he'd been the one to hold her down.  He even implicated that he'd sexually assaulted her as well.  But as I saw him write about her more and more, I noticed that it seemed like he had developed a particular hatred of her.  And right before he planned on killing and taking Faith Evans, he went in and apparently killed her when she was in the hospital.  He’d set her on fire.  He even bragged that he’d kept her soul for himself.  A pet, he called her.  I felt myself frown then.  Some pet.  She’d almost killed me.

             
Once I finally finished reading that part, I found that I had gotten to his plans on killing Faith Evans.  And he did write about how he'd succeeded.  He’d thrown her in front of a train while Jade helplessly watched.  His words about it were very chilling too.

             
He’ll never have her now.  She belongs to me.

             
Well, I thought, he definitely planned it out well and knew exactly what he wanted to do.  But flipping through more of the writing, I began noticing a pattern.  The dates were in increments.  And each entry spoke of new incarnations of this woman.  Flipping back towards the end, I finally found the one I was looking for.  It was his writing about my birth mother, Faith Kent.

             
I’ll be the first to admit that I really didn’t know that much about Faith Kent in the end.  I knew some of what Chris had said, and that it was claimed that her father had ended up killing her right after I was born.  But reading through the entries he’d made, I began to have the sense that she was a lot like me.  Faith Kent seemed very lonely from what Saffron described.  He actually admitted feeling pity for her.  He claimed that such a pretty creature shouldn’t be left to rot like she was by her bastard father.  So he wanted to get closer to her this time, instead of tormenting her like he had done in the past with all of the prior reincarnations.

             
But then, there was a distinct change in his focus all at once.  I actually had to reread one of the passages several times over to believe it.  He began talking about his desire to have a child.  Apparently, he was aware of other Fallen Ones, as he put it, who had successfully done it.  And he claimed that Jade had a child as well, although decades before.  These children were forbidden and often hunted, but they were also special in his eyes.  Children of a revolution, he called them.  He wanted his child to be one of the ruling ones.  He had the power to give them.  All he needed was a willing, child bearing woman. 

             
And with Faith Kent, he apparently found that.

             
“She starves for my attention, so easy it is for me to take her whenever I feel like it.  I’ll make sure that the seed is planted before he finds her.” I read softly.  So there it was.  My planning and creation.  Saffron had definitely planned me out.  And apparently, he’d also taken steps to make sure that I’d stay protected as well.  But what had happened to him since that time?  I hadn’t seen him in my lifetime, or at least, for what I could remember of it.  Could he have just decided to abandon me?  It seemed very odd that he was so hell bent on creating me, then turned around and abandoned me.

             
That didn’t make much sense either though.  Not when I thought about the pendant I wore around my neck.  I hadn't mistaken Chris’s words about that.  He was using this pendant to at least keep track of me.  And I had an even bet that Saffron had been the voice coming through it to warn me about getting out of that house.  Was there some specific reason now that he could only use that to speak with me? 

             
Suddenly, I heard a soft click.  Looking down at the box, I realized that the bottom had clicked and opened a little bit.  Apparently, there had been a hidden compartment there.  Setting the book aside, I carefully pulled the false bottom out. Inside of it was another small envelope.  Taking it out, I carefully opened it and pulled out a small stack of pictures.  To my surprise, they looked like they had been taken fairly recently, maybe in the last twenty years or so.  I could barely believe my eyes though as I went through them.

             
They were pictures of my birth mother, Faith Kent.

             
This was the first time I’d really ever seen any pictures of my birth mother aside from the one in the paper that described her untimely death.  She certainly didn’t look at all like that terrible picture they’d used.  It may not have been a death picture, but it sure as hell looked close enough like one to me.  Looking at her in the first picture in the small stack, I couldn't help but think that she was actually very pretty.  Her hair was long and blond, and she had big brown eyes.  Looking through the pictures, I saw that some of the them were very innocent, almost sweet pictures of her.  But a few of them were very provocative too.  Apparently, he must have liked putting her in those positions, maybe even convincing her that it was okay to do so.  I shook my head in disgust at it, considering now whether I should just put them away.  But then I came to the last one.  And I couldn’t help but stare.

             
The picture was a nude photo of Faith Kent sitting on her bed.  Her head was down, and she had a hand over her very pregnant belly.  Turning the picture over, I saw there was writing on the back.  Saffron’s writing.

             
Faith Kent, final days of pregnancy, baby girl.

             
There it was.  She was pregnant with me in this picture.  And apparently, Saffron had been very proud of it.  But it didn’t make much sense either.  Once again, I had to wonder just why he’d abandon me if he felt this way about me being born.  Something must have happened.  Something must have drove him to leave me behind.  Could it possibly have been what Chris was talking about with us being hunted?  Or did it maybe have something to do with what he'd been doing with this one soul?

             
A sudden knock at my door made me jump.  Quickly throwing everything back into the box, I stuffed it under the other side of my bed against the wall.  “Yes?” I called out.

             
My mother opened the door and peeked in.  “There you are.  I was getting so worried.  It's so late, and I didn't even hear you come home.” She said, actually looking relieved.

             
“I’m sorry Mama.  I went for a walk and didn’t realize how late it had gotten.  And I didn't want to disturb you, so I just came back up here to read.” I apologized.  I wasn’t about to tell her that I’d spent all of that time with Chris, or had been in that house and gotten attacked by that ghost.  I wasn't sure that she'd believe me about that part anyways.