XVIII. Garden, II
"This is it. This is our safe haven," Jacob said, hopping out of the truck. "Nothing can hurt us here."
Edvardiel and Issa exchanged a glance. Paul didn't look convinced either.
"What is this place?" Edvardiel repeated. "The Garden of Eden… isn't it a part of Heaven?"
"That's what everyone thinks," Jacob said. "But that's not true. Samael made it for his daughter, Eden. To keep her safe."
"Samael the demon?" Edvardiel said, thunderstruck. "You're taking us to a home for demons?"
"Samael is an angel." Jacob was downright indignant.
"No, he's not," Edvardiel said.
"I'm telling you, he is," Jacob insisted.
"He's not," Edvardiel said hotly. "Where do you get your information from?"
"What about you? You sound awfully sure for someone clueless," Jacob shot back.
Edvardiel looked so offended that Issa couldn't help herself—she cackled.
"Are you sure you're not the clueless one?" she said, barely stopping herself from adding the word 'boy'. She extricated herself from Edvardiel and stretched before leaping off the truck and sauntering towards Jacob. Her energy was back. She wasn't sure when it would vanish again so she was going to make good use of it—by getting information from this human who'd suspiciously eaten almost as little as they did.
"Tell me," she said, stopping right before him. "How are you so sure that Samael is an angel?"
Jacob took a deep puff of his what was left of his joint, blowing the smoke upwards as he regarded her with bright eyes. "I think you know how."
Issa tilted her head, about to work on him some more when a flash of jealousy shot through their bond. It caught her off-guard and her eyes flew to Edvardiel, whose face gave nothing away. Still, when their eyes met, he glowed, aware he'd been caught. Luckily the vivid sunset veiled his glory. Did he realise he glowed instead of blushing? She made a mental note to tell him to be careful, now that they were going to mingle with the humans.
Paul cleared his throat. "I don't know who the hell Samael is but this doesn't seem very welcoming." He gestured at the towering golden gates, which reached so high they couldn't see the tops of it. "Maybe we should turn back."
"Turn back to what?" Jacob asked. "The demon wasteland that's the rest of the world? Go back to hell on earth? Go back to becoming demon food? No thanks." He began to walk towards the gates but Edvardiel was there in a flash, yanking him backwards by the shirt.
Jacob coughed, his eyes watering as he pulled his shirt free. "Dude, what's your problem? If you don't want to go in, suit yourself, but I'm—"
A muscle jumped in Edvardiel's jaw. "Do you want to burn to death?"
"With what fire? Look, keep your crazy to yourself, all right?" Jacob looked pissed enough to punch Edvardiel. "I liked it more when you didn't talk."
Edvardiel stiffened, and Issa was about to step in between them when Paul pointed at something on the ground, eyes widening. "Guys. Are those skulls?"
There were charred remains of bones and bodies scattered around the gates.
"Yes," Edvardiel said curtly. "That's why we should be careful." He stepped forward and knelt down to examine the charred remains. His forehead creased. "It's strange," he said. "I can't tell if these remains are demons or angels."
"You'd think our safe haven would be, you know, safe?" Paul swallowed and edged away from the gates. He looked ready to jump back onto the truck, drive away and never return. "Those skulls look way too human."
"They're obviously demons," Jacob said firmly. "It means the demon wards are working."
"I'm not sure." Edvardiel glanced around. "But none of these are human." He hesitated. "I think humans should be able to enter without any problems."
"Not sure I wanna test that out," Paul said.
"Then I'll go first." Jacob took one last puff of his very short joint—a stump at this point—before he threw it down to the ground and stepped on it. "We've come this far."
Paul's eyes bugged. "You could burn to death."
"Well, then, I'll die." Jacob shrugged. "We're all gonna die anyway."
Before anyone could speak, he'd reached out and rested a palm on the gates.
Paul made a strangled noise.
One second passed, and then another. Jacob was still standing, unhurt, and he turned around, beaming. "See? Faith, you guys. We've got to have some faith."
Paul muttered something about a heart attack. Edvardiel, on the other hand, stared at Jacob with an unreadable expression.
"Let me see," Jacob inspected the intricate design of the tall gates, turning his head this way and that until he stopped at something on the side. "There are instructions," he said excitedly.
Palm on the blade
To enter the glade.
.
On the gold you bleed,
A heart you feed,
For the seal to be freed.
.
The scaled will be unveiled,
The winged will be dead,
Welcome, human red.
.
Enter or burn.
"I don't get it," Jacob said.
"It's a test." Issa wrinkled her nose.
Her eyes shot to the centre of the gates, where there was a golden sword surrounded by ivies pointing down at an anatomical heart.
"I'm guessing you're supposed to put your palm on that blade over there and let your blood drip down to that golden heart," she said. "If it turns red, you're human and the gates will welcome you. If you're an angel or a demon, you're going to burn to death."
Jacob looked uneasy for the first time. "Where does it say that angels and demons will burn to death?"
"The scaled will be unveiled, the winged will be dead?" Issa quoted. "The scaled are the demons and the winged are the angels."
"But lots of things have scales and wings," Paul said. "They're going to burn birds and lizards too?"
Issa quirked a brow. "It's obviously a metaphor."
"Actually, Issa, it sounds like it'll reveal demons but burn angels." Edvardiel's voice was grim.
"That doesn't make any sense," Jacob said, looking upset. "Why burn the angels?"
"I think it burns anything not human," Issa said.
"Or it's a trick and it burns anything and anyone," Paul said cagily.
There was a deflated silence.
Issa looked around to see a reluctant Paul and a bummed-out Edvardiel, which she'd expected, but surprisingly, Jacob looked dismayed too.
"I guess we're not going in?" she said.
"I am," Jacob said with renewed determination. He groaned. "Man if only I had a smoke to prepare myself."
"If only you had a smoke to smoke yourself," Paul muttered. "You'd exist as a gigantic cloud of smoke if you could."
Edvardiel cracked a smile, which Paul returned.
"Anyway," Paul said. "There's no way I'm going first, so I'm going to wait this one out. You guys?"
"We'll need to think about it too," Issa said. "But maybe Jacob is going to charge in first." She glanced back at the truck, where Jacob was digging around at one of the containers.
Paul rolled his eyes. "Jacob is going to charge into wherever there's weed."
Edvardiel paced back and forth agitatedly. "I don't think we should try. What if I fail the test?"
Once again, they were in a valley of rocks and lifeless trees and out of the earshot of Jacob and Paul.
"I'm not exactly the person you should complain to," Issa said dryly. The gate was going to turn her into demon dust faster than she could say 'Heaven'.
"This is unbelievable." Edvardiel exhaled. "I'm not angel enough to stay in Heaven but now I'm not human enough to enter the Garden of Eden?"
"You don't know that," Issa said. "If we go by what Jacob says, Eden was half-angel herself."
"Samael was a demon," Edvardiel said vehemently.
"So you think a demon made the Garden of Eden?" Issa raised a brow.
"I don't know what to think," Edvardiel said. "The Garden of Eden wasn't supposed to be on Earth. None of this makes sense. If Eden was half-angel, why haven't I seen her? Why wasn't she in Heaven?"
"Maybe Samael didn't want the other angels to treat his daughter the way you were treated," Issa said. "So he made Heaven on Earth to keep her safe."
Their bond trembled with a vulnerability that had been thrumming under the surface all this time.
"Your angel parent never came for you, did they?" Issa said quietly.
Edvardiel turned away. "Maybe they couldn't come for me. Maybe they fell. Angels aren't supposed to cavort with humans after all." He climbed easily up the side of the valley, fleet-footed as always. "I had no idea what I was. I had no idea why the other angels hated me. I bled for the first time on Earth—I cut my foot on a rock near the beach. My blood ran red, not gold. That was when I started to realise…"
He perched himself at the edge of a sharp rock.
"Back then, I looked at so many humans, wondering if one of them could've been my mother or my father. Imagine that. I was supposed to look for Lucifer but I walked around looking at tens of thousands of humans. Nearly drove me out of my mind. I've decided I'm better off not thinking about this."
Issa clambered to where he was sitting and curled up next to him. She squirmed, not liking heights the way he did. As though realising it, he put an arm around her, simultaneously pulling her close and steadying her at the same time.
His arm glowed and he radiated the comforting warmth that she loved so much. She snuggled her head onto his shoulder.
"Do you realise you glow when you're embarrassed?" she said.
He looked at her, startled.
"Just your cheeks," she said. "You glow instead of blush. I thought I should tell you before you give yourself away."
At that, Edvardiel's face positively burned like a lamp.
"Yeah, exactly like that."
"It's not like I can control it. Stop embarrassing me then."
"Me? You stop being embarrassed."
He gave her a playful shove and she yelped, feeling as though she were about to topple off the rock.
"Dick," she muttered, even as she let him slide his arm down from her shoulder to her waist.
They fell silent, looking up at the stars.
"I don't think Eden has wings," Edvardiel said. "The garden was made for her. The instructions wouldn't have been written that way if she did."
"Neither do you," Issa pointed out.
"But I used to have them."
"But now you don't," Issa said.
"Do you think it counts?"
Issa gave him a wry smile. "If I can read the gate's mind, we wouldn't be angsting in front of it, would we?"
She still felt it—the throbbing in his heart and on his back. That pain, together with the vulnerability, was an undercurrent so constant in their bond that she barely noticed it anymore. She clenched her fists. Michael was such a piece of shit. Why did Edvardiel have to be in this endless pain?
She straightened.
That's right. Why did he?
"Issa?" He gave her a quizzical look.
"Let me heal them," she said.
He didn't need to ask what. "You can't."
"You don't know that I can't. Let me see."
Edvardiel hesitated, and then removed the pullover, turning around so that she could see the swollen mass of flesh and the jagged ends of the unhealed wing bones.
"I'm going to try and close the wounds, all right?" she said. Very lightly, she brushed her fingers against them and he winced.
"Sorry," she murmured. She reached for his glory but it was lost within the vortex of the strange new strength within her. As she released it from her fingertips, she realised it wasn't glory pouring from them but the odd, whispering power.
Nothing happened.
Edvardiel fidgeted. "Is it working?" A flicker of hope crept through their bond.
"No…"
"I told you it isn't something you could fix," Edvardiel said, uncharacteristically grumpy. "All you did is make it all itchy." She felt his disappointment.
"Itchy?" Issa said sceptically, looking at the gory, inflamed wound.
"Very." Edvardiel grimaced as he dragged down the pullover.
"Well, don't scratch it," she said.
"I wasn't going to," he protested. "I can't reach it anyway."
They sat in silence and she felt him shifting around in discomfort. She was starting to feel itchy herself like she was breaking into fucking hives.
"Do you need me to scratch it for you?" she asked finally.
"You just said not to scratch it."
"Well, but if you really need to…"
"No."
She snorted.
"Are you laughing at me?"
She gave him an innocent look. "Me? Never."