Babylon (Eden Saga Book 2)
Babylon
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
BABYLON
Copyright © 2012 by Matthew C. Plourde
This book is available in print at Amazon.com.
Digital Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any character resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Book 2 of the “Eden Saga” by Matthew C. Plourde
http://matthewcplourde.wordpress.com/
Acclaim for Eden (Book 1):
"...the kind of book that keeps you wanting to turn the pages while also dreading the end."
-Dimpel Patel, Luxuryreading.com
"Eden is now on my list of favorites and I highly recommend reading this to everyone looking for an inspiring and adventuresome read!"
-Hazel O'Shea, Juniper Grove
Cover artwork by Axel Torvenius
First Edition: April 2012
For my son, Owen, for showing us all the way home.
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are, and not be questioned.
- Maya Angelou
Chapter 1
Alexandra advanced upon the man in the suit. Why was he just standing there? Didn’t he fear her sword? What did he know?
She scanned the ruined building but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Smoke wafted through the broken windows with each gust of torrid wind. Debris was scattered on the floor. The orange-black sky roiled like a churning sea beyond the exposed roof. Erzulie stood at her side, right where the fallen angel had been since the earthquake and their impossible journey to the bottom of the world.
“I will finish this,” Alexandra said as she prepared to lunge at the man.
When did she become as coldhearted as Koneh? Was “coldhearted” even the correct word? He was as much a victim of God’s grand plan as she was. Koneh believed he was fulfilling his destiny and she couldn’t fault him for that. His death flashed through her memory in stop-motion like a crude flipbook. Before the harsh truth of their separation could flare into a crippling emotion, Alexandra shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“You are deliciously not what we expected,” the man said.
Alexandra attempted to tally the battles and losses along her journey – too many to count. Her entire life had taken one unexpected turn after another and her shattered heart felt as if it was on the brink of collapse. Tight leather hugged her legs. Her entire body ached. The cropped, split ends of her raven hair danced in the corners of her eyes as she raked him with her glare.
The man in the suit smiled. His perfect face and welcoming demeanor threatened to disarm her. Why was she here again? Why was this man significant to her?
“You doubt,” he said. “Even now, after you have been to Eden and back, you doubt. How very interesting.”
Alexandra hardened her face and narrowed her eyes. He was right, but she wasn’t about to show him any weakness.
“I have no doubts,” she said, proud of her clear voice despite her uncertainty and gathering fear.
Why did she doubt? She wasn’t sure. She realized this man was important, and that he had to die. Why? What did he do that was so terrible? Could she as easily destroy this man as she did Ael?
No. She corrected herself. Slaying the fallen angel hadn’t been trivial. Ael beat Koneh in his weakened state and Alexandra would have failed if she hadn’t pressed her unique advantage: nobody expected her to be a threat.
“Well, no matter,” the man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Erzulie, I command you to seize the Mih’darl!”
Now she remembered! This was the same dream she experienced while on her journey to Eden. If Erzulie followed the commands of her master, then the greatest fear in Alexandra’s heart would come to pass - she would be truly alone in this new, cold world. Koneh was gone and now this man wanted to take Erzulie away from her.
“No,” Alexandra whispered as she dropped her sword. Koneh’s sword. The wooden floor shuddered under the weight of the weapon. “This is a dream, a vision of the future.”
“What?” the man in the suit said. He raised his hand to halt Erzulie.
“I’ve had this dream before,” Alexandra said to herself.
The man in the suit studied her for a few moments, nodded and said, “Lilev has kept some things from me.”
Lilev was a name Alexandra wasn’t likely to forget. She was the demoness who claimed to be Koneh’s mother and promised to delay Derechi’s army so Alexandra and her friends could reach Eden. Lilev betrayed Ael and, apparently, this man in Alexandra’s dream as well. What was at the root of the demoness’ betrayal? Why did Lilev want to know about the future? Why did she spare Alexandra in Brasilia?
“You might just hold the key after all,” the man in the suit said as his face transformed from trepidation to wonderment. His voice had also changed. He grasped Alexandra’s shoulders and said, “You can save me!”
Why was she so slow to react? She tried to push away, but his grip was unyielding. The world outside the ruined building began to lose focus. The sounds of their movements and the buffeting wind became muffled. Smoke was less palatable in her throat.
The dream was ending.
Anxious now, Alexandra searched the man’s eyes and said, “I don’t understand. Who are you? How can I save you?”
“My name is Shaun and I... I am trapped.”
Alexandra shook her head.
Shaun’s face contorted and flipped between anger, despair and pleading. “Please,” he said, “you must help me!”
“I don’t know how!”
He fell to his knees and covered his head with his arms. Then, after a few moments, he became still and peered at her from beneath his sandy bangs. The confusion that dominated his face was gone, replaced by a cool smile.
“Shaun is a stubborn one, to be sure,” he said, his voice again a smooth purr.
Alexandra blinked and then widened her eyes. She recognized what had happened to Shaun. Father Callahan had warned her of this phenomenon during one of their many discussions on their journey.
“You... You are possessing him?”
Shaun nodded.
No, this man wasn’t Shaun, whoever that was. As the dream melted, she knew why she intended to kill this man. Though the events were supposedly in the future, she knew.
This was Satan, called Iblis, and he pursued one goal - use Alexandra in his conquest of Eden.
The dream faded to near darkness and Alexandra clung to one final thought: her conclusion was somehow flawed. There was some other, more elusive reason why she wanted to kill Iblis. But like a speck of dust in her eye, that reason skirted just out of sight as the rooftop disappeared.
Chapter 2
“Are you okay, my Lady?” The melodious voice broke through Alexandra’s crumbling dream.
She fought through the sleepy haze and searched for reality’s solid ground. Was she dreaming? Or was she truly glimpsing the future? She would’ve dismissed the outlandish notion of foresight a few months ago, but not after her journey to Eden. Airborne pigs would have likely only garnered a raised eyebrow from her after all she had witnessed.
Most of her new friends had lost their lives on the expedition, including her adopted father, Richard Callahan. Though her eyes lagged, her hands tightened over the beaded rosary wrapped around the hilt of her sword. The laws of the wasteland demanded she sleep with the war instrument at ready. Her guilt over the loss of Richard weighed heavy and constant upon her conscious. Did she recently dream about him too? She couldn’t remember.
“We should get moving,” Erzulie said. The fallen angel smiled as Alexandra awoke.
Alexandra rubbed her eyes and examined her one remaining companion. Constructed by God to serve, Erzulie was once the Champion of Love. Fallen from grace, the angel’s white-in-white eyes conveyed a wide range of feelings. Despite Erzulie’s assertion that she was merely mimicking emotion, Alexandra believed otherwise. She reasoned that the fallen angel had risen above her limits. Well, she admitted, it was more hope than reason. Hope that Erzulie wouldn’t betray her like in her dreams.
Like Marco had betrayed her.
Alexandra shook the unsettling thoughts from her head. No, Erzulie was her only friend here in this frigid expanse of what was now the dry ocean floor. They needed to stick together if they were to survive the trip home, wherever that was. Alexandra needed to trust.
“Are you cold?” Erzulie asked, concern spreading over her perfect features.
Alexandra chuckled despite her locked joints, frostbitten skin and cracked lips. “I’m way beyond cold at this point.”
Seemingly unamused, Erzulie embraced her and stroked her shoulder length hair. “You are so strong, Lioness,” the fallen angel said. “That you have made it this far is a victory. To have reopened Eden too... We never could have hoped for so much.”
Frowning, Alexandra said, “Why do I feel like I failed, then? Why do I have this life-sucking hole in the middle of my heart? Koneh is gone. Richard is gone. Was it worth the lives we lost?”
“Shhh, quiet now. You will rejoin them when your time of the flesh has ended. You will see them again in Eden.”
Alexandra broke free of the angel’s grasp. “That’s just it. I don’t even know if I made the right decision!”
“Of course you did,” the angel said, her voice motherly.
“There were other choices I could have made,” Alexandra said. “I could have waited.”
“Waited? For what would you have waited?”
Alexandra shook her head. “I don’t know. More information, maybe. Everything happened so fast. We were fighting, desperate.”
“The odds of our success were slim,” Erzulie said, her face inquisitive. “But you needn’t doubt. You made the right decision.”
Alexandra frowned. “The more I consider it, the more I question. I just don’t know. Who’s to say the old Crone isn’t right? Maybe Eden was better off closed.”
“Eden is your gift from Elah,” Erzulie said. “A final reward for a life well spent. Your ultimate home.”
“And those who don’t meet the lofty entry requirements? What reward do they get?” Alexandra asked with a sneer. She teetered on the edge of disgust with herself. What right did she have to reopen paradise for the moral elite while the rest of the shattered world suffered?
Erzulie smiled again. “They are given another chance. In this way, Elah teaches you about your soul.”
“Elah left us,” Alexandra said humorlessly. “Some teacher.”
“Even you aren’t certain of this,” Erzulie said. “For now, I think it best we focus on what we do know.”
Alexandra stood and shifted her sword to the scabbard across her back. Koneh’s sword, Koneh’s scabbard. His presence was an open wound that refused to be ignored. He was taken from her only moments after she realized she loved him. Now, Alexandra feared she was one tenuous step away from being truly alone. Was Erzulie next to leave?
“I know something doesn’t seem right,” Alexandra said as she scanned their meager camp. “I feel empty.”
“Of course you do. You are separated from your love.”
The angel wasn’t getting it, but Alexandra didn’t know how to explain it to her. Even when she made the decision to reopen Eden - under duress - Alexandra wasn’t certain about it. Now, after she had some time to think about that choice in the lonely wasteland, her doubts mounted.
Before they began the day’s walk under the new orange sky, Erzulie produced a torn sack with meager contents.
“This is all that’s left of our last camp’s supplies,” Erzulie said as she handed Alexandra a water bottle and pouch of beef jerky. “You must make it last.”
Without really hearing the angel’s words, Alexandra took a sip from the bottle and a bite from the salty meat. Her mind was elsewhere as she began the arduous task of navigating the former ocean floor between Antarctica and South America. Was Koneh really waiting for her in Eden? Was everyone? Had she really changed the world?
Each breath both seared and froze her lungs. The air tore through her insufficient layers. It became apparent that Koneh viewed the journey as a one-way trip for them. He didn’t anticipate her reckless actions, her snap decision to save her friends and abandon paradise. He also probably didn’t foresee Alexandra sharing her feelings for him. How could she have known that her affections would have had such a profound effect on him? That she would be responsible for his death too? If she had known her love for him would be the forgiveness required to end his sentence, she may have reconsidered.
She shook her head. Was there a right choice in any of it?
One foot and then the other. The familiar drudge resumed its monotonous rhythm. Alone with her thoughts, she analyzed and reanalyzed the recent months throughout the trek.
“I sure made a mess of everything, didn’t I?” Alexandra asked later that day. The human and angel shared a moment of rest under a rock formation, safe from the dangerous sky. Derechi, the demon lord who hunted them, surely had fliers scanning the area.
“Nonsense,” Erzulie said. “Do you recall what I said to you in the cave after you slayed Ael?”
Though the events of that day seemed a part of her distant past, Alexandra had been reliving them throughout their exodus from Eden. There was a comfort in the past when she faced the future in her dreams. A comfort and a haunting.
“I told you that you had righted many wrongs that day,” Erzulie said. “You ended Koneh’s sentence and reopened Eden. It was everything he had hoped for.”
“Are you telling me he wanted to die?”
“We weren’t certain what would happen if he was forgiven,” Erzulie said, “but he longed for peace. After all he had suffered, nobody deserved it more. Your love and forgiveness have granted him that peace. Of all I know of Eden, I am positive of this fact. He waits for you and you will be reunited.”
Reunited. Was it possible? Did paradise await Alexandra too?
She sighed. “And why can’t I return to Eden now?” Alexandra asked.
“As I told you,” Erzulie said as she tucked a strand of Alexandra’s hair behind her ear, “your paradise is a reward only when the flesh expires. Alive, you may only visit once for a limited time. Such is the way He created it.”
Alexandra mumbled.
“Crappy rules.”
“All life has rules. Even you cannot disobey them just because you are at odds.”
“And what of the other rules I’ve broken?” Alexandra asked as she looked at her hands. “How did I-?”
“Your miracles are part of life,” the angel said. “You just happen to be more in tune with that part of life than most.”
Alexandra huffed.
Erzulie nudged her and said, “Plus, having a divine pedigree certainly only helps you as you discover your talents.”
So, there it was. Again. She couldn’t reenter Eden alive, but how much longer could she survive without enough food and water? Maybe she was closer to Eden than she thought. The idea was a pleasant one and Alexandra closed her eyes. She mused about the possibility of dying on the ocean floor, and the thought wasn’t so terrifying. She would be reunited with her mother and the man she loved. Maybe God’s gift really was something she wanted. Deserved? Her heart resumed its conflicted loop of doubt.
“No time to nap,” Erzulie said as she shook Alexandra. “We should use the light to cover a few more miles.”
Alexandra grumbled and stretched her stiff joints. “How soon until you can fly again?”
Erzulie had sustained grievous injuries in the battle against Ael. She required time to heal those wounds by whatever mechanism angels used to recover. Unfortunately, they needed to put Eden as far behind them as possible. She just hadn’t had enough time to rest.
“Not until it’s safe to hibernate again,” the angel said as they resumed their strenuous trudge.
Memories of the Veracruz army base and Erzulie’s last hibernation floated into her mind. Alexandra learned a valuable lesson all those months ago - the survivors of this new world were unpredictable, and possibly dangerous, when truth of Alexandra’s healing powers was revealed. They didn’t know how to react and neither did she. Was she really the daughter of God? The question became less absurd with each passing month.