The Garden of Death (7 page)

“Wait, you woke up ten years in the future?”
asked Asher.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. I was
married to you, and Jazmine lived next door.”

“What the heck?”

“I know, right? Its messed up.”

“Go back to the bodies waking up three days
later part. So, everyone is walking around like a zombie
outside?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s happening
outside in this reality, but in my dreamscape, yes. It’s super
confusing. I hope it’s not like that in real life.”

“You know what this sounds like?” Lakyn said
all of a sudden.

“What?”

“This sounds like a dream you’ve been
having, and not real life.”

“Lakyn, you of all people should know that
dreams for Nephilim are meaningful,” Mum told him.

“Whatever.” I find my parents’ fights kind
of amusing and sickening at the same time.

“Maybe someone should check if there are
zombies walking around outside, so you can go deal with them. That
would be wicked.”

“So, you believe me?” I asked excited.

“Of course. If you kick zombie butt, then I
can call my girlfriend a zombie slayer.”

“‘Eden the Zombie Slayer’ has a nice ring to
it, don’t you think?” I said playfully, and then I realized he had
just called me his girlfriend.

“Aww. You just said the G word.”

I watched his cheeks flush, and I grinned
wildly. I sat up and pulled his face down to mine and kissed him.
He pulled back after a few intense moments and looked around.

“I guess we better, um… go see if there are
zombies outside.”

“Yes. We should.” I let Asher help me off
the table and stand. My legs were a little shaky, but I was glad I
had him to hold onto.

“Eden, where do you think you’re going?
You’re not well,” my mother said. Always a buzz kill.

I told her something I had wanted to say
since forever. “I’m going to save the world.”

Before either of my parents or Asher’s
sister could protest, I looked to Asher, as I took his hand, and we
walked out of the basement.

Asher

I led Eden through the front door, finally
glad to have her back by my side and alive.

“Asher…”

I stepped toward the curb and looked both
ways up the street.

“Asher, what are you doing? Come here, I
have to do something.”

“What? I’m looking for the zombies.”

“Yeah, I’m not actually sure there are
zombies in this reality.”

“Then we’ll have to summon Abraham.” I
continued looking up and down the street. A black cab drove by, and
I decided to flag it down.

“Asher, wait. I have to give you your soul
back first before we do any zombie hunting.” Eden tugged me back
when the cab pulled up alongside us.

“What? No, I’m okay for now.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you telling me you
don’t want your soul back?”

“Not at the moment.” I looked away, unable
to meet her eyes. I knew I should probably let her give me my soul
back, but I didn’t want it to affect me in any way or give me weird
side effects. Does it hurt when a soul is placed back in your body?
All the books I’ve read hint that it does. Eden dropped her hand
from my arm and fiddled with the black plastic bracelets that
entwine her wrists. I sighed and gripped her arms as I stepped
closer.

“Eden, what I meant to say was what if it
hurts when you give me back my soul?”

“You’re afraid of it hurting? That’s why you
don’t want me to give it back to you?” She looked at me in
confusion.

“No, I’m not afraid of it hurting. I’m
scared that the side effects will make me unable to defend you if
ever the zombie creatures try to hurt you.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to be
mad at me, or yell at me, but then she exhaled shakily and gave me
a small smile. I smiled back and pulled her into my chest as I
placed a kiss on her head.

“I don’t know if there are side effects. I
should have read up a bit more, but…”

“Things happened, people died, I
understand.” I gave her a big grin and she chuckled and shoved
me.

“You’re such a dork.” She wrapped her arms
around my neck and kissed me. This was the moment I had been
waiting for. It’s a moment I wished I could step outside my body
and take a picture for keepsakes. I took a mental photo anyway and
tucked it away inside the part of my mind where I kept my favorite
memories. I wished we could stay here forever this way, but we
can’t. We had a job to do. I reluctantly pulled away and looked
down at her.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“Well, it looks like the lost soul-zombie
creatures only live in my dreamscape, so we need to summon
Abraham.”

“Okay. Lead the way.” The cab I had
previously hailed was now gone, since the driver had grown
impatient, so Eden hailed another and we jumped in. She told the
driver to take us to the docks and then settled against my side in
the back seat of the cab.

“Scared?” I asked, even though I knew it was
a long shot. Eden was the bravest person I knew. I believed she
could take on anything that stood in her way. Although, I believed
nothing could stand in her way.

“No. You?”

“No. Not with you here,” I confessed because
it’s the truth.

She smiled and snuggled in for the ride.

Eden

When we reached the pier, Asher paid the cab
driver while I ran to the end of the pier and focused all my energy
on summoning Abraham. I didn’t know if it would work because I had
never actually summoned him before. He had come to me by himself
through my dreamscape. I opened my eyes and turned to Asher as he
walked up behind me.

“I think I need to be asleep for this to
work.”

“Okay… so what should we do? Should we go
somewhere and make you fall asleep?”

“I think that’s our best bet.”

We began to walk up the street toward the
road. We hopped in another cab that took us into the city. For this
to work properly, we needed to be alone, free of distractions, and
that meant being free of the confines of the Michaelite Sanctuary.
After all, Abraham had always found me outside of its walls because
of the wards that protected it. Asher Googled hotels on his phone
and found a cheap, but not seedy hotel where we could be alone—a
place where I could fall asleep and go into the dream world to help
Abraham return all the lost souls home.

As soon as we opened the door to our hotel
room, Asher went to work closing all the blinds and curtains to
make the place more sleep worthy. But there was one big
problem.

“I’m not tired, Asher.” He froze midway
through turning the bed covers back. He grinned wickedly at me. His
grin made me weak at the knees. Oh, my god, what have I said?
Before I knew what was happening, Asher had swept me up in his arms
and was kissing me hotly and passionately. He moved us back toward
the bed, and when my knees hit the mattress, we fell back in a
tangled heap. I moved back onto the pillows as Asher hovered above
me.

“We’ll have to do something about that now,
won’t we?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I knew
just what his plan to make me sleepy was, and I was perfectly okay
with that.

Eden

He was right. His plan had worked. But I
wasn’t nearly tired enough to drift into the dream world. I traced
little kisses along his jawline while he played with my hair,
twirling it around his finger.

“Did it work? Are you tired?”

“It did… but not enough.” He pulled my chin
up to make me look at him. His eyes were wide, and he was doing
another one of those knee-wobbling grins. He would be the ultimate
death of me. I kissed his lips. “Don’t get any ideas. Maybe we need
to try something else.”

“Like what? Didn’t you like what we just
did?”

“I did. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it.”

“I didn’t rush you, did I? Oh, God, I should
have asked first.”

“No, no. It was fine. It was great, but I
don’t want to be like that. Besides, if Abraham finds out what we
did to travel to the dreamscape, he’s never going to let me forget
it. Talk about embarrassing.”

He flinched. “You’ve got a point there. What
do you propose we do?”

“I’d just like to lay here if that’s okay
with you. Laying here with you is so relaxing.”

“I see nothing wrong with that.” He began
stroking my head, but I sat up.

“But we should probably get dressed first. I
don’t want us to turn up there in front of Abraham butt naked.”

“Talk about embarrassing.”

We dressed, and then flopped back into bed
again. I snuggled up against Asher’s chest, and he traced little
circles on my back and the soft skin of my arms and palms. I had
never been more relaxed in my entire life. I closed my eyes and
soon drifted off.

Asher

Sleeping with Eden made me relaxed and a
little sleepy myself, so when we snuggled back down together after
putting our clothes back on, I found myself joining Eden in the
dream world.

It was the most peculiar feeling. One moment
I was resting with my eyes shut, aware of the bed under me, and
Eden’s weight on top of me, but soon that all drifted away, and I
was falling. I woke up to find Eden was no longer laying on me, and
I was sitting on the cold, damp ground. It was dark, and I realized
I wasn’t in the hotel room anymore.

“Eden?” I called, standing up and brushing
off my jeans.

“I’m here.” I looked up to find her standing
a little ways away beside a dark cloaked figure.

“That was so weird. I was falling… where are
we?”

“In the most haunted cemetery in London,”
said a gravelly male voice. The hooded figure flipped his hood back
and turned to face me. I gasped when I realized he was a man who
looked to be around the same age as Eden’s father.

“You must be Abraham then?” I’d met him
before briefly but never really took much notice because I was
dead. When you’re a ghost, you don’t really see things in vivid
color and don’t take note of faces and detail. Looking at Abraham
now, I was surprised.

“I am. You’re Eden’s ghost lover boy, the
one whose soul she stole from me,” he narrowed his eyes at Eden
then turned back to me.

I flinched. “Yeah, that’s me.”

He turned his head to the side and studied
me. I felt like a bug under a microscope. “You still have no
soul.”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah, don’t worry about that for now. It’s
going to be sorted out once we save the world,” Eden finished for
me.

“That’s extremely dangerous, Eden. If you
leave his soul inside you, your soul will be forever damaged.”

“I am aware of that. Can we please get on
with this?” she replied.

Abraham muttered something that sounded like
‘ignorant teenagers’ and picked up his staff.

“What happened the last time I called out to
the souls?” Abraham asked looking up into the sky. I had no idea
what he was doing and wasn’t going to ask.

“I don’t know. Something pulled me back to
my waking state, my parents, or Asher, I think.”

“Where is your body now?”

“Our bodies are safe. They’re in a hotel
room. No one’s going to disturb us. We made sure of that.” I told
him.

“Excellent. Let’s do this then. Are you
ready?”

“Yes,” I said with no hesitation.

“I’m ready, yes,” said Eden, taking my hand
in hers.

Eden

I wasn’t afraid with Asher by my side, but I
was a little hesitant for Abraham to summon the souls again, after
what had happened last time. Well, I didn’t know if I had been
called back to the waking world because I was knocked out by the
sheer force of millions of souls hurtling toward me, but that could
have been the reason. Asher must have sensed my anxiety, because I
felt him squeeze my hand tight. I gave him a small smile.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We should get this over with and
get home.”

He chuckled.

“What?” I looked at him and grinned.

“Nothing. It’s just that I thought you were
anxious to get out of the Sanctuary, now you want to go back?”

“No. I just meant we have to end this and
get back to the Sanctuary, so we can find Jazmine,” I whispered
Jazmine’s name, because I didn’t want Abraham to overhear us. I
didn’t want him to assume we knew more than we were letting on.
Life was complicated as it was without the Grim Reaper knowing your
every move. After all, I couldn’t completely trust him. Asher
simply nodded, and we turned our attention back to what Abraham was
doing.

He was saying something in a strange
language, one I realized I knew.

“Is that… Enocian?” Asher looked at me
surprised.

“Yes,” Abraham replied, holding his staff in
the air. “The language of angels. I’m not surprised you recognized
it. Your mother taught you well.”

“You know Enocian?” Asher asked me.

“Yeah. Some of the words I recognized
especially the words for Nephilim and human.”

“And your mother taught you?”

“She would sometimes talk in Enocian on the
phone to my Uncle Adam.” I turned to Abraham. “Why are you using
Enocian to call the souls?”

“If you had finished your training, young
Nephilim, you would know that to summon a soul back to the body,
you need to call it using its natural language. And since we are
dealing with Nephilim souls predominantly, and because Enocian is
the ancient first language of Angels, I figured it would work.”

I was stunned.

“Huh.” Abraham ignored me and continued to
speak in the ancient angelic tongue, but Asher was paying attention
to me, as he always did. He was attuned to me in ways I had yet to
figure out. I blushed when I realized he was still looking at me as
if I had grown an extra head or something.

“What?” I poked him to try to snap him out
from his stunned stupor. It worked. He blinked.