Penitent 36

We killed. Edward was fevered from the killing. I walked now, but he kept me close, always a hand on me, always checking.

Human and fallen. A new race. We killed them in all of their sizes, in all of their forms.

"We must stop what should have never been," Edward said to the others, each time a battle was over.

Many times these new ones were too weak to fight as if their own hybrid-state had failed to produce even the average strength of either species. The weak ones were often attached to the food supply—the remnants of humans in such a state of decay they were barely recognizable. The hybrids would attach themselves, their wings pumping weakly as they seemed to have no other purpose but to feed, as if they had grown so quickly and perversely they hadn't caught up to it.

These perversions were knocked to pulp by Emmett and Rose as they passed. What they missed was soon destroyed by the Denali sisters.

And so we progressed in the infinite labyrinth of shame. And it was miles in, days in surely, that the beating started, the slow faint thrum from deeper in, so light at first, noticed only by me, not for its resinous pitch, but for its beat felt first in my wrists crossed beneath Edward's chin, and then further up my arms, until my own heart blended in, and I couldn't be sure I hadn't heard my own beating pulse all along.

But Edward heard it. He answered me before I could ask. "If the earth had a pump, then I feel it in this putrid water. I feel it under my feet."

"It runs through me," I said.

"Through you and deeper," he answered.

"It tells the way," I whispered.

"So it does," he said.

"The way," Rose echoed, and through the Denali's behind us, "The way." And all the way throughout the ranks this echoed, but it was not overt, but rather notes, sounds.

Emmett and Rose seemed to understand as they followed the drum. They ran high on the walls, the strength in their legs evident, in their arms as they held weapons, Emmett a club similar to Edward's though of a heavier iron, and Rose a spear in one hand, a huge wicked knife in the other. Their weapons were crusted with kill-matter, their hands were strong on the hilts.

The pace became speedier. I had long since taken up my place on Edward's back. So he carried me to my fate. So he would share in it. But often, he would take my hand loose from where it gripped, and he would kiss it long and warmly. And I would run that hand over his shoulder down to his heart where I would press my fingers. And my love.

Battles would break out, and Edward would run through them. We ran now. He did not look right or left or hesitate. We went deeper, and the others would catch up. Rose would spring ahead, then Emmett. I would sense the Denalis close behind. We ran, and ran. And ran. Feet in the water, feet in the sludge, in the death.

And the beating drum inside of me now, running up my arms, until I was the drum. And the beat and the drum.

He dropped before us, that old one we could not destroy. Caius. He side-stepped Emmett while three more fallen ones dropped onto his massive frame. He flattened Rose against the wall and two more were upon her at once. Edward ran to him and cut him deep, but he slashed at Edward as he fell and I heard the fabric of Edward's coat tear.

I jumped off then, and sought a place on the wall as they locked in deadly struggle, one giant black jumble of hate. I inched along, leaving my love behind, even as the beating, drumming, pulsing drew me on, even as I side-stepped the others, and left the sounds of battle behind me, even as each step brought an ever echoing splash, as I slid and righted myself and came to a split, one tunnel left, one right, even as I chose the one that spoke the loudest, and the truest, and I let the black hollow suck me in.

I ran, and I ran, and it grew darker, but my ears did not fail, could not as the whole tunnel was a pipe on the beating drum's organ, a singular pulse.

I slid, I stumbled but stayed on my feet, upright again and running, running toward the sound.

When it grew so loud that it seemed to make my very brain breathe with its incessant gavel smash, the tunnel opened then, and I halted in a large, cavernous opening whose dank air denoted a depth of earth I had not imagined reaching, and I felt the miles between myself and everyone I'd known or loved.

In the center was a glow. And a form that lay beside the glow. It was not a fire, it was a light, and it came from the ground itself, the rocky, slick ground. So the form, which I could not make out, seemed to be a ring, a ring of earth, but as I drew closer, it was not a ring at all, but a crescent shaped form, as dark as the rock, as grainy as the soil that lay strewn about. It had the form of a woman, and it was a woman, but whether she came from the earth or the earth came from her, I could not tell, but she was one with it, another dying corpse, or a corpse not yet born, I could not tell, there was no warmth, no light.

I fell to my knees. And when I did, the glow from the strange light that came from a hole in the earth, grew brighter, so bright that it seemed to slice to the high ceiling, and then I saw what I had not seen. They lined the walls like bats. They were the darkness. I had run past them, all along the way, and here they congregated, the very heart of their existence, around her, the mother who had no life, and me. I felt the wetness on my thighs, and it was blood. I had started to menstruate, the first time since I'd given birth. They stirred, and it was a great sweeping sound, a bellows sound that blended with the beating, the pulsing, and I put my hands over my chest and realized…I was the drum. I was the life.

I lifted my eyes then, I looked as high as the ceiling would allow, the great dome of the fallen ones, and I thought of my sons, I thought of Edward, and the love I felt was so enormous, I thought my body would break open like an old wine skin, and in its place would be my shiny, bloody, glory.

I stood then, my feet strong on this solid hellish place, and I lifted my arms and opened my hands, and I stood over the light, and my blood ran down my legs like a fountain, and it hissed as it fell into the light, and the warmth of the light and the blood merged on my legs, on the apex, the place where I experienced love and birth, the holy place, and the fallen took up a low groan, and it was not pleasure.

I brought my gaze down to her. She was more pronounced now, as though her form had risen more clearly and cleanly from the rock. She was so womanly, I saw that now, her breasts, her waist, the roundness of her hips, her shapely legs and small feet. She was so clearly a woman. I felt my milk run then, soaking my shirt, sliding over my stomach. I knew it ran to join the blood. I knew it flowed down to the light that came from the earth.

She moved. Did she move? The walls moved, the ceiling. One dropped down from high above, but the fall had been heavy and hard. Then another. And she moved, even as they thudded around us. And my heart beat the loudest then, and I was wet, so wet, and I took off my shoes first, my socks. My belt, my pants. I took the coat away and threw it down. My shirt. I took off the undergarments and the tie from my hair. I shook it out, heavy and long, and they continued to fall around me, like meteors from the sky, they fell.

And she sat up than, stretching as though from sleep. They fell all around us, but they did not fall on her. Or me. And my heart thudded so completely, that I stood still, the light from below warming me, the liquids from my body flowing down, hissing down.

She was before me. We were the same height. We looked alike. Our hair was the same length. But she was ruddy, as if all colors were in her skin, in her eyes. She was so beautiful, I gasped.

And she put her hands over my heart. She held them there, and slowly, slowly, the pounding drum grew softer, until it was just a heartbeat, my heartbeat underneath my chest, underneath her hands.

I breathed easier, even as the fallen ones fell, even as they fell so thick, one atop another.

My heartbeat was hers too now. She ran her hands over my breasts and coated them with milk. She took this milk and rubbed her own breasts.

Then she reached to the apex of my legs and let my blood fill her hands. She rubbed her hands together, and smoothed this blood over her own center.

Then smiling, she took my hands, and she moved me to stand where she had been, and she took her place over the light. And the light seemed to fill her flesh until it glowed.

They hurried away now. They hurried, and they scurried, and dragged their dead away. They squeaked and crowed as they hurried out of the cavernous room.

"I am not your mother," she called to all the fleeing creatures, in a strong melodious voice. "I am not your mother."

And so the exodus continued, and she held my hands.

When they had left, she moved her lovely face toward me and kissed me on the lips. I felt myself still. I felt myself heal. The flowing stopped, and her light became mine as mine became hers. She broke the kiss and drew back from me. "Go now," she told me. "He waits for you."

I stepped away and gathered my clothes, but I did not put them on. I looked over my shoulder at her, and she stood there, straddling the light that was coming more and more from her than from the earth she stood upon. "We are the heart," she said to me as she beckoned me away. "We are the life."

"You are my mother," I whispered. Then I turned away then and hurried with one thought on my mind, 'Edward.'

And he was by the entrance, against the wall. He stood there, his eyes on me, his face at ease and beautiful. He reached for my clothes, and took them from me, despicable as I knew they were, as I must be. He bent and eased my feet into my socks. Then he found my under-things and tenderly put them on me. Next my outer clothes, my shoes, and then my coat.

When he was finished he looked to the mother and said a word I did not understand. She answered, the same word. He picked me up then, as though I was his bride, and he carried me over the threshold, from the center of the world, to the tunnel that would eventually lead to our front door.

"What did you say to her?" I asked.

He kissed me then, once, and then once more. "I said thank-you," he choked on the word and kissed me yet again.

And so it was over.