On Black Wings (21 page)

Becks looks back at me and shakes his head. “Don’t be so pessimistic. Seven hours. We’ll make it.”

A space rock that kills the world, kind of like the dinosaurs I suppose. Our mission, save the human race. I trust the President, he was a nice man given our circumstances, and it felt odd meeting him like this. Still, I can’t imagine the heartache he is suffering right now, left in some alternate world, one that will likely never exist again if we are successful.

I rest my head on Azrael’s shoulder and get some sleep, and he doesn’t seem to mind. I don’t know how long it’s been when I wake up.

CHAPTER XXXII:

Tubes are in My Nose

Bright lights shine in my eyes.

I hear beeping, there’s tape all over me, and I am restrained in a bed. I look from side to side, and I’m surrounded by machines. An oxygen mask covers my face, and air is being forced into my lungs. My head hurts like nothing I ever felt before, the throbbing is like a constant headache from a nail being stuck deep into my skull.

I’m in a hospital room.

A nurse walks in and smiles, shining a pen light into my eyes and taking notes on a chart. I struggle to speak, my words slurred and stopped by my mask. I try to move my arms, but I can’t, I’m too weak and numb from a massive dose of painkillers.

“Now, now,” the nurse says, “just calm down. You are fine. Shh.”

I try to speak again, and my lips are numb, they hurt, and my face feels like it is swollen. I want to speak, but I can’t, I feel the words in my throat but I can’t get them to come out. I struggle and grab the bed railing, the cuff around my wrist tight and pulling on me, the sensor clip on my finger pinching.

I can’t feel my wings, and I’m taller. I feel different, like I’m somehow back in my older body. I shift on the bed, and I can’t feel my wings.

I start to panic without them.

The machines beep louder in my struggles, and I hear my heart rate increasing. Another warning buzzer goes off, and the nurse checks the machines beside me.

“Don’t worry, we are taking care of you,” the nurse says, a hint of urgency in her voice. She shouts out the hall. “Doctor! BP is 180 and climbing fast!”

A voice shouts from the hall, “Light sedation, calm her, I shall be in shortly!”

The nurse grabs a vial from the cart beside me and loads up a syringe. She shoots it into my IV, and I struggle, shaking my head, no, no. There’s something wrong about my hair, I can’t feel it, it’s like I’m bald now.

There are also heavy bandages on the back of my head, and my head is somehow in a cushion or being restrained. The headache increases, and I squeeze my eyes shut to seal away the pain.

I was in the truck, and I fell asleep. That’s the last thing I remember. We were on a mission to save the world. We had rescued Azrael, and Colonel Becks and our three men were on our way to launch a missile into space that would stop the world from being destroyed. I know it, it was real, it happened to me.

The doctor walks in, he’s a younger man with glasses and combed-back hair. He has a kind face, and soft blue-gray eyes.

“Jessica, Jessica relax, you are just fine.” He gives my arm a squeeze. “Just relax, you have been through a lot and need to relax. We’re taking care of you. Your family is fine, and you are here in Saint Joseph downtown. Nod if you understand.”

I nod, and I feel the sedative course through my veins, calming me. The beeps for my blood pressure start to space out, and my eyes grow heavy.

“This morning you had a little accident.” The doctor checks a chart and looks into my heavy eyes. “You had an aneurysm in your brain, likely from an accident when you were younger. Your husband said something about a boating accident when you were young and we think that’s the one. This released a little blood into your brain, and we call that a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, just a tiny one, and you are a very lucky woman. Nod if you understand.”

I nod. I feel so tired, but the pain in my head is pounding, it feels so hard to even think clearly.

“You collapsed just as you came downstairs, and your husband called 9-1-1. We rushed you into surgery and stopped the bleeding. We have to run through some tests, but from what we can see you have a good chance at recovery and leading a normal life. I need you to be strong, Jessica. Nod if you understand.”

I nod, land lean my head sideways, the pain growing as I try to move it. I look out the window with sleepy eyes, and the sky is blue, there is no ash, no clouds of death, and life in the valley goes on just like it always has. Was this all a nightmare from my accident? Was this all a dream while I was fighting for my life in surgery? Oh my God, it all seemed so real.

“Jessica?” The doctor pulls my chin gently towards him. “Try not to move your head Jessica, it’s why we have you restrained. You need to lie still for the next day or so, then we can let you sit up after we are sure you are okay. Nod if you understand.”

I nod, feeling the tears roll from my eyes.

“Jessica?” He smiles at me. “Jessica do you want to see your family? There are here waiting for you to wake up, and I can have your husband come in if you want to see him. Would you like that Jessica? Is your husband’s name Tom, Jessica?”

I shake my head no.

“It’s Brad isn’t it?” He smiles.

I nod.

“I will go get Brad in a moment.” He checks the chart and looks over at the nurse. “Are you sure these dilation numbers are right? Jessica, I need to check one thing and then I’ll go get Brad, is that okay with you?”

I nod, trying to smile. My nightmare is over. My fevered dream is ending. My world is back to normal, at least as normal as it will ever be post-recovery. I am going to get better, recover, beat this, and go on with my life again. I am never going to tell anyone about this crazy dream of mine, never again.

The doctor checks my charts and leans over me. He shines a light in my pupils, one after the other, temporarily blinding me. He stares through his glasses and smiles at me, the first normal face I have seen in a while, the first welcoming one, and the first one that cares.

A strange dark pattern catches the light in the reflection in his glasses. I miss it at first, but I watch intently as he leans over me to check some of the electrodes taped to my head. It’s a criss-cross pattern or stitches, and at first I think they are the ones on my shaved head, but the angle is all wrong. The pain wracks my head as I try to figure things out, and the sedative fights my consciousness.

For the stitches to be there, and the position of them to be…no, it’s all wrong. I move my head slightly and hear the beeps for my blood pressure increase. I try to catch the light just right and check the stitches again in the reflection in his glasses. I can’t get a look, I can’t see.

The doctor holds my shoulders and leans down near me. “Jessica, Jessica, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

The angle is perfect as I look into his eyes. Under my oxygen mask black stitches criss-cross across my mouth, and my lips are sewn tightly shut.

I thrash, I panic, I squirm in the bed trying to escape. I grip the rails so tightly I can hear them creak. The warning buzzers go off in my room and the nurse panics, shooting shot after shot of sedative and painkiller into my IV. The doctor holds me down, screaming for the orderlies. Strong men rush into the room and hold me, and I strain, tears flowing from my eyes and the men hold me still in the bed, the pain echoing through my head, the poison seeping through my body and throwing a leaden blanket of fatigue over my consciousness.

CHAPTER XXXIII:

I am So Alone

I’m lying in a hospital bed, alone, drugged and doubly restrained.

The machines beep around me, keeping me awake and alive.

I have been lying here for hours.

The lights of the city burn outside, it’s night, it’s dark.

I’m so alone. I’ve given up on crying a long time ago. A small part of me wants to believe the stitches in my lips were another hallucination. I keep tracing them with my tongue on the inside of my lips. They aren’t a hallucination, they hurt, and they taste like bitter pus.

I’m so sore from struggling, my arms are bruised, and my shaved head still feels like someone drove a nail through my skull. I’m so tired, but something is keeping me awake, some chemical dripping into my veins from the IV drip machine next to my bed. I feel it, like some artificial caffeine rush keeping my heart rate just elevated enough that I can’t sleep. How I want to sleep, to float away to some other world and leave this body behind, to travel to some nightmare where I am at least free and whole again.

God, if you can hear me, take me in my sleep. Please let me sleep.

The hallway door opens and light filters in the room, hurting my eyes.

“He can’t hear you.”

It’s a shadow at first, it’s all I notice. He walks into the light. His deep, penetrating blue-gray eyes, a stern nose, and chiseled features remind me of someone. His brown hair is neck-length and pulled back in a short tail, and he has a thin beard and mustache on his smiling face. He wears a suit and long overcoat, with a red tie.

King Tanas.

He’s not with his men, and he’s not in his tent, and he’s not smiling and sweet-talking me anymore. I struggle weakly, the beeps on my machines rising just a little, and he sits beside my bed. He grabs my hand and strokes it lovingly, and I feel my stomach turn. I stare at him through tear-stained and hateful eyes.

“Don’t fight us, Seraph Jessica.” He strokes each of my fingers, examining the oxygen clip on my longest. “This is how it shall be if you fight us. You shall lie here forever, in hospice after hospice, wasting away, never allowed to sleep, never allowed a moment of rest, slowly going mad from your delusions and visions.”

He looks genuinely sad, and I can’t speak back. There’s so much I want to say, how I hate him, how could he do this to me, and that I know who he and his friends are. How everything he told me were lies, and how he and his friends are out to rule the world through treachery and deceit.

He wipes a tear from my eye, staring at me, the pain visible on his face but I hate him so much I don’t care for false sympathies. “I could make things the way they were. You, in my tent, with your beautiful armor and your sword. I could even get you your horse! I could change this all, make this tortured life go away, and raise you back to your righteous position as the Angel of Death, in our domain, of course.”

“Seraph Jessica, listen, the world has grown tired.” He sits back and turns a lamp on, sitting underneath the light, darkness around him. “It grows tired of wars, it grows tired of hatred, racial killing, false national ideals, and prejudice. It groans like an old man in his final days, every war an aching joint, millions sacrificed for no reason at all except for the wicked machinations of man who believe in a god who would tell them to murder, steal, and rape for righteousness.

The world has forgotten who God is.

And War grows stronger every day. Join with us, and let us put an end to War. Imagine that, to slay the beast, to put him to his own sword, and to bury his ways forever, nevermore to terrorize us with his madness. We can do this! What God is a god who keeps a book holding this beast at his side? On his very throne, and his vaunted Son is the one who opens this and unleashes this evil upon an innocent world?”

I stare at him through narrow eyes. You were in that book too, Tanas. Monsters all, with monstrous dreams. I shake my head, no.

“Listen to me!” He’s grabbing my arm, still sore, the bruises spreading. “There will be a point where God himself is powerless to this beast. God does not always know what his creations are capable of. Will you not see the foolishness of your ways? Join with us.”

I shake my head, no.

“I will make this offer once.” He sits back, resigned. “And you will have one chance to respond. This shall be your final chance. Seraph Jessica, now listen.”

He closes his eyes, stroking his thin beard, and then sighs. “What will become of this world will be one where souls rest eternal, where hatred and conflict have no home. The children born of this world shall never leave, never go to Heaven, and we shall throw off the meddling of our Father in Heaven like a child who leaves home to become an adult.

The world shall grow up.

There shall still be death. There shall still be coin. And there shall still be the nations of men. The world as you know it will ever be the same, although every day you pick up the paper, there shall not be one mention of war or killing or violence. This world shall collectively forget its hatreds, and go on as if the concept of war were alien to Mankind’s knowledge. Swords shall be beat into plowshares. The religions of the world shall fade into obscurity, relics of a time where men needed to believe in a God who would carry them home after senseless battle and needless sacrifice.”

He stares in my eyes.

“I can’t ask you to believe me, to trust me, or to even like me. I ask none of this. We are different creatures from a different time, lost much as yourself in this world we never anticipated would end up like this. Overpopulated, connected, intermingled, massive, with voices crying high from the mountain like Moses but peaching the gospel of hatred and distrust, feeding into the madness of War. How can you defend that, Seraph Jessica? How in you with your right mind could defend a world that sends its children off to blood sacrifice to a god of hatred and malice, a beast named War?”

I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, wanting the world to go away. I feel the tears run down my face. I am in so much pain.

“Look in my eyes, Seraph Jessica, for I have but this one offer for you, and I shall need you to look upon me to make your final decision. If I restore you, give you back your wings, we shall require you to do the following things:

Return to Heaven.

Open the book.

Release us in true form and spirit.

Once done, we shall slay War together and put an end to this madness. Before the object from the stars ever gets here. With him slain, the scion shall have no power. The world will never know the better. We shall pass into a new age of peace. You shall live on forever as the Angel of Death, and Azrael shall be welcome to join us. Your children shall grow up in a world that does not know the scourge of War, never knowing the better, the world collectively giving up on its hatred like a childish obsession.