Afterlife: A Fall of Angels Novelette Read Free

from the walkway.

 
     
     
    “ Consider well the seed that gave you birth:
    you were not made to live your lives as brutes,
    but to be followers of virtue and knowledge.”
    - Canto XXVI, Inferno, Dante
     
    The rain started to fall over the Rocky Mountains, the clouds thick and heavy.  Cole could smell the earth as he walked swiftly down the sidewalk.  He pulled his long, thick black coat tighter around his body as he turned right down another block.
    The building that rose before him was simple to the extent of being sad.  Wilting flowers hung from baskets that looked ready to fall apart next to the front doors.  The gravel that formed the tiny parking lot had practically disappeared back into the Earth.
    Letting the better part of him start slipping back into the afterlife, Cole let himself disappear from human eye and walked through the front door.  A nurse sat behind the front desk, filling out a chart.  She didn’t even glance up as he walked behind her, sliding his thumb along the charts that sat on a rack behind her.
    Lawrence Kepper , Room 207.
    Silently opening a drawer of the nurse’s cart, Cole reached inside and grabbed a syringe.
    The smell of slow purification was almost overwhelming in the nursing home.  Death hung in every corner here, lay on the floor, just waiting for someone to trip over it.
    Finding the door Cole was looking for, he slowly opened it and stepped inside.
    The old man was sleeping in his skeletal looking bed.  He was old, but not old enough to be considered at the edge of death.  He would still have several years.  His scent wasn’t strong.
    Cole let himself wander the small room, observing the wall that was covered entirely with pictures.  So many smiling faces, so many memories.  All these happy people.   How many of them would eventually end up under his reign?
    He smiled as his eyes found a familiar face, staring back at him from a faded and slightly yellowed picture.
    At least one of these faces already had.
    Cole turned back to the sleeping man.  Observing the tube that ran from the crease of his arm to a clear bag attached to a tall silver pole, Cole felt the itch of anticipation.
    The contents of his deadly syringe didn’t even discolor whatever it was in the old man’s bag, slowly running into his withered body.  They slipped un-alarmingly in, no one ever the wiser.
    It would take some time, but eventually the old man’s heart would stop prematurely.
    He would stand before the council.  And hopefully, Cole’s timing would be right.
    Jeremiah should have headed Cole’s warning.

 
     
     
    “ And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
    having escaped from the sea to shore,
    turns to the perilous waters and gazes.”
    - Canto I, Inferno, Dante
     
    She just wouldn’t leave.
    First she had come back with Jeremiah.  That time may not have been her fault but it did make Cole realize that Jane had been right.  Jessica caused fear to course through his blood.  He’d been terrified when she materialized in his world.
    And then she came to him in the In Between again.  Cole had told her to come, but a part of him had hoped that she wouldn’t figure it out.  Every second with her was another minute he couldn’t breathe.
    Finally she had put herself back in the afterlife and begged him not to take her precious Alex.  He marveled at how he was able to sense her presence so strongly.  She hadn’t even called to him when she arrived, yet he felt her, sure as a lighthouse shines on danger in the water.
    He just couldn’t be rid of her.
    Cole wouldn’t admit that he didn’t really want to be rid of Jessica.
    He needed something to distract himself, before he went mad.  And he had a score to settle.
    Jeremiah was one visit to the world of the living ahead of him.
    Checking to make sure no one was watching, Cole curled his wings around his body and leapt off the catwalk.
    The wrench in his gut was enough to cripple Cole to his knees with a loud cry.