Chapter 6
Flight 2092 en route to San Jose, Costa Rica
Shane fidgeted in his seat next to Nara. Contemplating a fall from grace was not something an angel did every day. His hands trembled. He wiped his palms on his pants to dry them. The red-eye flight’s low lighting and dull humming engine numbed his senses like the drone of honeybees. His brain was mush. He tried to keep his eyes shut and mind functioning. The clinking of glasses, rattling of ice, and popping of sodas by the flight attendants proved a welcome distraction. Choosing between cola and lemon-lime soda was a hair bit easier than choosing between staying an angel and allowing himself to fall.
His on-again demon girlfriend, Nara received a summons from her parents to assist on a job in Costa Rica. With both of her parents being upper echelon demons, disobedience was not an option. Her mother, Ronwe, hunted and killed seers who threatened to expose demons. Her father, Abaddon, sought and destroyed the religious artifacts used to fight them. According to a tip, they’d find both in a small town in Costa Rica. Hours away from meeting her parents, Shane would have appreciated being privy to this wealth of information before he’d agreed to this ad hoc vacation with her. If he’d known his girlfriend was in training to take over the family business, he’d have run. But now, he faced a decision—namely fight, flee, or fall.
Nara’s parents would pick them up outside the airport in San Jose. Shane had precious little time to consider his choices before they landed. He couldn’t very well fight all three demons outside the airport. Physically, he’d let his body go to hell since Calise left. He’d tried to waste away physically so he could die and escape the pain wracking his mind and body without reprieve. Every movement, every action brought his mind back to Calise. His heart, like a rock in his chest, weighed him down with its heavy thuds sustaining his tortured life. Drugs numbed the pain but never erased it.
If he fled from Nara and her parents when he got off the plane, he had nowhere to go. Nara’s dark influence anesthetized his mind over the last few weeks, and he relished her ability to temporarily deaden his senses. Without her, the pain would intensify.
Nara offered her solution—to fall and become a transitor. Both fallen angels and risen demons carried the name, “transitor” and were considered wishy-washy scum by both angels and demons. Shane always thought them pathetic. Decide to be good, decide to brave the pit, but do something.
A gray aura surrounded a transitor’s body instead of the sunlit yellow of an angel or the coal black of a demon, so it was impossible to know if a transitor had risen or fallen. From what Shane knew, their eyes changed, too—into hollow circles of light, as if the sun, eclipsed by the moon, allowed its bright rim of light to shine out only around the edges.
The physical changes weren’t the half of it. Nara assured him that his slate would be wiped clean from the moment of transition, all past victories or defeats erased. Only an overwhelming act of selflessness could bring him back into God’s graces and make him an angel again. Likewise, a conscious act of pure evil would propel him into the pit with his fallen comrades. Not acting either way would be much worse. God would erase his essence—the angel equivalent of a human soul—after one year in this purgatory state, a fate far worse than death or eternal damnation—he would cease to exist.
Not exactly Shane’s lifelong ambition, but Nara offered him something he couldn’t refuse: a means to erase the pain and hit the reset key. When he rose again, his essence would be renewed without the throbbing pain now dampening his every thought and action. The idea tempted him. He’d surrendered his heart to a woman who rejected him even when he knew the rules. Angels weren’t allowed to mate with humans; they were to spread their love over all of humanity. With reckless abandon, he had broken the rules to have Calise, only to have her destroy him. Angelic love—whole, complete, absolute, and everlasting—when pinpointed on one fixed object, cannot die. Shane knew now, too late, his love for Calise would fester within him until it destroyed him.
Shane had vague flashes of home, or heaven. Angels were encouraged to be born to one earthly life. A way to connect with the humans Father loved so much. Shane was gung-ho to be born and improve humanity in a way he couldn’t from the confines of heaven. Angels could intersperse their pure goodness and selflessness in a world being overrun with evil—human and demonic alike.
Demons, on the other hand, lived life after life on earth. Anything to not be in the pit. They ran rampant over the earth. Babies born of these human/angel or human/demon unions were wildcards. Not hybrids, no “mixing,” but any child could be born human, angel, or demon to any combination of parents. And the earth continued to spin…
Nara promised if he transitioned and helped her family with this absurd “seer elimination and artifact recovery mission,” she’d transition upward herself, abandon her family, and stay with him. They could save each other.
His all-consuming pain made him believe her. After falling, Shane would have a whole year to get back in God’s good graces with an act of redemption. He could do it and with a clear head, he could continue doing Father’s work.
Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t care. Desperate times…
Calise had torn his heart in two. Often, he had to remind himself to breathe when memories of her meandered into his mind. He couldn’t let her go. Falling from grace and leaving his love for Calise at the precipice gave Shane the first prick of emotional sustenance he’d had in years.
Nara offered him something he didn’t even know he could have, but with the carrot dangled, he dared not risk turning it down. He wanted to be numb permanently, not for the few moments at a time Nara provided.
Shane snapped back to reality. He needed to decide right away and weigh the cost of the despicable act Nara suggested he do. She wanted him to hand over an angel baby to her father for sale on the black market.
He couldn’t find the strength to make the right decision. The idea of starting again gave him blinders. One means to one end. He justified his actions: one innocent angel baby sold into slavery became a price he’d pay for his own sweet relief. He’d have to fall to rise.
He made his decision. “I’ll do it.”
Her eyes lit up, and she quickly unbuckled her seat belt. “Ok, let me see what we have to work with here.” She crawled over Shane and kissed his cheek. “You fall, I’ll rise. Without her cluttering your head, maybe we can be together.”
As soon as she stood up, Nara killed the lights inside the plane with a wave of her hand. People moaned. “Looks like a bit of technical difficulty with the lights everyone,” the pilot said over the loudspeaker. “We should have it fixed very soon. There’s nothing to worry about.”
She worked her way to the back of the plane with a small flashlight in her hand. In less than a minute, she settled comfortably back into her window seat, and the interior plane lights came back on. The passengers murmured sighs of relief.
Shane raised his eyebrows. “Well?”
“Six babies on the flight. One is an angel. Seats thirty-two B and C.”
The reality of what he’d agreed to slapped him in the face. Angel babies were few in number and hard to spot. He’d thought the chances were slim to none of finding one on this flight.
He was dead wrong.
Did she choose this flight on purpose? Baby angels and demons were identifiable by their eyes. The “bright carpet” was a reflective layer of tissue at the back of the eye, the scientific name being the tapetum lucidum. The same light caused cats’ eyes to glow in the dark, giving them better night vision. Angel and demon babies were hard to spot because they didn’t emit a full aura until adulthood. The only way to identify them was to shine a light on their face in the dark.
Angel eyes glowed white and demon’s glowed red.
Nara snuggled under his arm. “Turn around and have a look.”
He looked over his right shoulder.
Nara held onto his upper arm with a vice-like grip, her power to temporarily dull his pain coursing through him. He welcomed the relief. She leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “See the baby, Shane? Get it for me, for us. Do this and we’ll be a family. I promise. We could even have our own children.”
Family.
He’d wanted a family. But not with Nara, with Calise. He wavered. Images of Calise replayed in his head. His body cramped, and his head pounded. His heart pressed on his lungs, and he gasped for air, for release from the horror. Having one angel baby sold in exchange for him to be released from his prison seemed worthwhile. “There’s no other way?” Shane became like stone, tension seeped into every cell of his being.
“No. This is the fastest way to make it happen. I won’t leave you. I promise falling will take away the pain, and we can start again. We can live this life together. Don’t you see? I’m capable of love, and I want to be with you. I could defy my parents…together we could stop their angel baby black market. But first, they need to trust you.” She placed her hand on top of his. Her black aura mingled with his golden one, already producing a gray color.
He swallowed hard, losing all sense of direction. Shane looked back again at the angel baby, and his vision tunneled as his purpose set.
They deplaned with the other passengers and followed the human couple with the angel baby to baggage claim. Many angels are born into shit families like he had been. The child would rise above it and escape. Nara promised that her father’s connections in the black market were a straight business deal for profit. The child likely wouldn’t even be sold to demons, just rich humans hungry for a healthy baby.
Nara stood with Shane by the luggage belt and wrapped both of her arms around him. “C’mon. That angel will be fine. Humans aren’t capable of true love anyway.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Remember Calise? She never turned back once after she dumped you. Humans don’t deserve angel babies; they don’t have a fraction of the ability to return the love an angel can offer. But if we both rose and had a child, think what we could accomplish together.”
Shane thought of his own wretched human parents; they were never able to return the love he bestowed on them and neither could Calise. Nara was right. He sighed, defeated. Before he could change his mind, he walked over to the family at baggage claim. “Need some help?”
“Ah…no, man. We’re good.” The husband bristled at the offer, then turned back to watch the belt rotating with other people’s luggage chugging by. He tapped his foot and jangled the loose change in his pocket. His dark blond hair and business suit suggested his travel to Costa Rica would mix business and pleasure. The wife juggled the baby and a diaper bag while she attempted to attach the car seat to the stroller. Her wrinkled white blouse and creases on her face suggested she and the child had slept most of the flight.
“Here, let me help with him.” Shane put his arms out and the woman looked into his angelically beautiful face. She handed over her baby boy without a second of doubt.
Moving faster than the human eye could follow, he relocated a hundred yards away and watched the woman situate the empty carrier in the stroller. When she turned back and realized they’d vanished, she screamed.
Nara and Shane exited quickly through the revolving doors. They approached an oversized off-road truck. A window lowered to expose Nara’s father.
Shane’s aura started to flicker. He looked down at the child clutched in his arms. A gray fog materialized at his fingertips and worked its way up his arms. Almost there. He only needed to complete the transaction willingly.
“You have no choice now. It’s done. Give my father the baby.” Nara said.
Abaddon got out of his vehicle and slammed the door hard. The mammoth demon towered over him, red eyes blazing. Dressed in black from his shades to his shoes, Abaddon commanded respect from his crew cut and hulking frame to his rippling black aura and inlaid gold necklace designating him the Ambassador of Hell.
Shane couldn’t turn back. He’d put himself in a position where he’d be killed if he didn’t finish the deed.
“This is obviously your destiny, boy.” He placed a hand on Shane’s shoulder.
Shane recoiled. Emptiness and cold seeped into him through Abaddon. Maybe this was his destiny. What Father would allow him to love someone so deeply then expose their innate human cruelty? Were humans really worth protecting?
Nara placed her hand on his other shoulder. “Give him the child.”
Shane submitted. He handed the angel to Abaddon and the baby promptly began wailing. He followed helplessly as Abaddon walked back into the airport and entered a men’s bathroom, carrying the infant, his hand under its stomach, head facing down. He reminded Shane of a mother cat who picks up her young by the scruff of the neck, carrying them because she has to, not necessarily because she wants to.
Nara held him back while the baby wailed. He shivered, and Nara ran her fingers through this thick hair. The transformation spoiled his essence like rotting meat. God’s grace left him, and a gray fog settled over and enveloped him, becoming his aura. The misty cloud soaked into his body and weighed him down with the depression of a hundred miserable days. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
He felt empty.
Vacant.
Worse than if Calise had left him a thousand times. He regretted his decision immediately. Until God’s grace was taken from him, he didn’t know how much it had filled him up and been a part of him.
Nara would be no solace, she never would be. He was alone.
Without God.
Without Calise.
As emptiness and cold consumed him, he pounded on the bathroom door with both fists.
Too late.
The baby stopped crying abruptly, and Abaddon reappeared, alone.
“What have I done?” Shane abhorred himself. He was a fallen angel. For what?