AFTERLIFE
The Novelette Companion To
VINDICATED
By
Keary Taylor
Copyright © 2011 Keary Taylor
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
First Digital Edition: November 2011
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Taylor, Keary, 1987-
Afterlife (Fall of Angels) : a novel / by Keary Taylor. – 1sted.
Summary: Cole Emerson never was and never will be a good man. He will stop at nothing to protect Jessica from one of his brothers hell-bent on exposing what has happened to her. Even if it means ending a few lives.
“...new torments and new tormented souls
I see around me wherever I move,
and howsoever I turn, and wherever I gaze.”
- Canto IV, Inferno, Dante
They always screamed.
There was something satisfying about the intake of breath every single one of them would take, just before the scream came bellowing out. The way their eyes would widen. The way their chests would rise and fall rapidly, despite their need to breathe anymore.
There was just something satisfying about seeing another person writhe in misery.
“Down,” Cole condemned the man before him. His followers around him heckled and cheered from the spiral staircase, sinfully delighted to be having another soul join them in their eternal wretchedness.
For that was what Cole was. Miserable. Damned. Forsaken.
He pressed the red-hot rod to the back of the man’s neck, watching as his flesh gave way to the imprinted X. Moments later the man’s own set of glorious wings burst from his back and Cole simply watched as the newly branded angel was dragged down into the fiery depths by his brothers.
Like it had been after almost every trial since he had been sucked back into the afterlife, shouts and brawls broke out around the cylinder. Some of the council left, mostly the do-gooders. They weren’t ones to fight. Everything was peace and butterflies with them.
But those who served with him were built from contention and upheaval.
That was all the world of the dead felt like lately. Chaos.
Cole rubbed his chest absent mindedly as he zoned out the noise around him. He remembered the chaos that once filled him. He remembered the feeling of his entire being collapsing in on him. It had been a long time since he had felt pain. He barely even remembered what it felt like until he felt the pull from within. But even while he hid, licking his wounds in his crumbling family estate, he wouldn’t return to his world. The pain made him feel… alive. Almost human again.
But a dead man can’t fight the call of the dead any more than the tides could fight the pull of the moon.
Cole closed his eyes, drawing for a moment on his last few minutes in the human world. The feeling of Jessica’s lips against his would be something he clung to for the rest of his never ending existence.
The shout and sound of flesh connecting with flesh brought Cole unwillingly back to the present. His black eyes flashed to the two brawling angels who occupied the catwalk with him. They threw fists, shouting words that were too horrendous to even have meaning in the world of the living.
“That’s enough!” Cole bellowed as his hands curled into fists. The two men froze where they were, their own cold black eyes meeting Cole’s.
“I expect more out of you, Duncan,” Cole said quietly, his voice resonating who he was and just how much power he possessed. “You’re a leader and you’re acting like a freshly made angel. Whatever your quarrel with this man is, surely this is not the way a council member handles it.”
Duncan’s eyes grew hard as he looked back at Cole, the same way they probably had before he shot his mother and father-in-law at Christmas over one hundred and fifty years ago. Giving one last shove to the other lowly angel, enough to knock him into the abyss below, he turned to walk back to the staircase.
Cole tried to ignore his mutterings of “not under his leadership for much longer” as he watched Duncan retreat.
Letting his eyes search the stone walls, Cole looked for the cause of all this trouble.
As soon as Cole returned from the world of the living and reclaimed his position, Jeremiah had started the upheaval, hungry for the position of leader of the condemned back. He had so graciously pointed out Cole’s grave betrayal in returning to the world of the living and abandoning his duties.
And now Cole might lose everything.
Unless Jeremiah was down below, spending time among their fellow men and women, Cole realized he wasn’t in the cylinder. There was stone in the bottom of his stomach, giving him the sinking feeling that he knew where Jeremiah was.
Cole wouldn’t pretend that he didn’t hear the whispers. He sensed the doubt that others had in his ability to lead the condemned. Echoes about Cole losing it brushed the stone walls, each wondering how a woman could drive him to such madness as to return to the world of the living.
He had lost leagues of credibility.
Walking to the stairway, Cole stood in the shadows. He crossed his arms over his chest, his wings folding behind him.
He would wait for Jeremiah.
As much as he didn’t like it, his follower’s words affected him. They were right. He had lost it, in a way. Cole’s love for Jane had tortured him for centuries but he’d dealt with it. But as soon as Jessica came along… She’d pulled out a whole new creature in him.
Time meant nothing in the afterlife, but being dragged on and on as he waited for Jeremiah to return.
And as simple as he might have felt a single drop of rain land on the back of his hand, he felt Jeremiah’s presence again. Stepping out from the shadows, he watched as Jeremiah descended the stairs toward the heat of the below.
As soon as Jeremiah met Cole’s eyes, a sly smile grew in the corners of his lips. The familiar beast of anger flared inside of Cole.
“Going missing in the afterlife is a dangerous thing,” Cole said, managing to keep his voice even.
“As you would know best,” Jeremiah tested. He stopped two stairs above Cole, meeting his eye, measure for measure. Jeremiah may have been young, but he didn’t lack confidence because of it.
“Where have you been?” Cole asked.
The smile broadened on Jeremiah’s face. He stepped down and passed Cole on the stairway. Stopping below Cole, Jeremiah half turned back. “She’s a stunning creature. I see why you couldn’t get her out of your head.”
The beast inside of Cole snarled. “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he lied easy as he blinked.
“I wonder what her skin feels like, what those perfect lips taste like,” Jeremiah said thoughtfully.
The crack of Jeremiah’s head against the stone wall behind him echoed for all to hear as Cole’s hand wrapped around his throat, pinning Jeremiah against the stones.
“You will stay away from her,” Cole hissed.
Unharmed, and without the need to breathe, Jeremiah simply chuckled, his black eyes darkening in glee. “There’s something peculiar about her. I can smell it. She’s not fully one of them anymore, but not really one of us. Is she?”
“She’s where she belongs,” Cole growled. The knife that had been lodged in his chest for months now gave a little twist.
“I’m curious to see what she’s capable of,” Jeremiah said easily,
despite Cole’s tightening hand around his throat. “I think the others on the council might be curious as well.”
Cole met Jeremiah’s eyes, feeling the beast grow and shutter within him. But what could he say without giving himself, and Jessica away?
“Leave her alone,” Cole said, releasing Jeremiah. Without waiting for a reply, Cole descended down the stairway.
“Thy soul is hurt by cowardice,
which oftentimes encumbereth a man
so that it turns him back from honorable enterprise.”
- Canto II, Inferno, Dante
His eyes kept drifting to her serene looking face. The trials of the exalted were so boring, he couldn’t seem to pay attention. So instead he watched her. Jane.
Cole recalled how infatuated he had been with her the first time he laid eyes on her. She was feisty, had a lust for life he had never seen in a woman in his era before. Their eyes had locked on each other, a terribly hot wave of connection fizzling between the two of them. Cole wanted her like he had wanted nothing else in his life.
Cole got what he wanted in life.
But to find that she had been promised to another man was a crushing blow to Cole’s ego that he could not handle. He was Cole Emerson, women did not turn him down. Father’s came to him, trying to strike bargains for him to take their daughters into marriage and into bed.
But Jane. Jane. She was destined for better. Given to the one man Cole would always be over-looked for.
Money did not equal love. Despite being given to another, one who was wealthier than even Cole was, she fell for Cole. Over the course of only a few short weeks, secret meetings were made, hesitant, forbidden touches began. The fire between them grew into a blazing torrent that threatened to destroy the both of them. And their families.
But despite everything Jane felt for Cole, despite everything that he knew she felt for him, she refused to break off her engagement.
Cole would never be quite good enough for Jane, or her power-hungry father.
Or their son.
Even creating a new life, a child together, was not enough to make Jane be a part of Cole’s life.
As he watched Jane, now long dead and judged, he felt… distant. There was still that ache that was inside of him. There was a void that had slowly ate at everything else inside of him, that made him into the monster that he was. But it seemed to almost be a memory of what the past had been. Like he didn’t feel the un-bearableness of everything. It was almost like he only remembered what he had felt, and like he had clung to it for so long that he didn’t know how to let it go.
And every time he looked at Jane he saw Jessica.
Jane was a new kind of pain now. She was a constant reminder of the one thing in his life that he truly could never have.
Cole had money, he had houses and carriages. He had fine clothes and servants. Even though Jane would never marry him, he did have her.
But as much as Cole had wanted Jessica, as much as he did everything in his power to get her, Cole had, and never would have Jessica.
All because of a simple boy.
One boy was all it took to defeat the power that Cole had over women.
The trial ended with the man before them being escorted to the above, to a place Cole had never been allowed to see. The other residents of the afterlife set to whatever it was they did to serve out the rest of eternity.
But Jane stayed, staring emptily out into the vastness of the cylinder. Without thinking about it, Cole gave a powerful beat of his wings, carrying himself to the staircase just above her. She ignored his presence as he descended, her wings tucked comfortably behind her.
“I still don’t understand it,” Cole said, stopping a few stairs above her. “How did you manage to get into the above? After everything you did?”
“Of course you don’t understand, Cole,” she answered simply, shifting her weight back, propping herself up on her palms against the hot stone beneath her. “You have tunnel vision.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, his voice harsh sounding.
“You fixate, Cole,” Jane said, her blue eyes meeting his. “You see what you want to see and nothing else. You saw the sins I committed with you for those few years, and to you, I did nothing else with my entire life.”
Cole stood there, anger at being made to look foolish by a nothing angel flaring within him.
“And you don’t see what has changed within you,” she said, a sly smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “You are not the man I fell in love with. Nor are you the man who has led the condemned for the last century and a half.”
“I will always be Cole Emerson. I will always be a branded angel that those around him saw fit to lead them.”
“Yes, you will always be those things. But you didn’t used to be a man who would let a woman you care for go to another man. You didn’t used to be a man who ached because he saw that woman hurting. You didn’t used to be a man that was suffocating because of his own fear.”
“What am I afraid of?” Cole scoffed. Fear was not a word anyone had applied to him since he was a human child.
“You’re afraid of her being hurt,” Jane said as she stood, standing just inches away from Cole. “You’re afraid of Jeremiah bringing her back here and of what will happen to her once she joins our world.”
Cole just held Jane’s eyes, defeat sinking into his dead stomach.
“You know that once she joins our world she will truly be lost to you forever. You know where she will be placed. She’s lead a good life.”
He simply stood there, feeling a war raging in his body. Oh how he wanted to silence Jane, to make her stop speaking words he wouldn’t admit were true. But this was Jane. He could never lay a finger upon her.
“This is the point where you have to decide what man you want to become,” Jane said as she lifted her hand and traced a finger along Cole’s jaw. “Are you going to be the man who sits back and lets Jeremiah have his way with her? Or are you going to be the man who will do anything for her, even if he can’t have her?”
Everything felt very still inside of Cole as Jane dropped her hand from his face and stepped away. Holding his eyes for just a moment more, Jane stepped around Cole and started up the staircase.
He let his eyes slide closed, feeling as if he couldn’t breathe. But no one would save the leader of the damned from suffocating.
Cole would ever be alone.
“O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance that harms you.”
- Canto VII, Inferno, Dante
Cole sat alone on the catwalk, waiting. Pondering.
He’d finally gone to her. He couldn’t leave her unaware any longer.
Unable to take facing her in the real world, in seeing her face, in being so near her scent, Cole had gone to her in the only way he could.
In the In Between. The dream world, a state of passing. Limbo.
He’d told her that she was being watched. He had warned her to be careful.
Through the dark he could sense her. He could almost touch her, could almost smell her. But she wasn’t in his world and he wasn’t in hers.
And now here he sat, feeling shredded, ripped apart, like a wounded dog, beaten by his master, but still sitting at her feet, licking his wounds.
Yet again he had searched for Jeremiah, only to find him gone.
So he waited.
Only minutes later Cole heard the footsteps walking down the tunnel, out toward the cylinder. Cole continued to stare at the stone walls in front of him. His legs dangled above the abyss below.
“You’ve grown soft,” Jeremiah said as he emerged from the tunnel. He stopped at the edge of the stone walkway.
“And you seem to think that your opinion matters,” Cole said, not looking up.
“Look at all the talk I’ve created already,” Jeremiah said. “Your reputation is failing. Just look at you.”
“Careful,” Cole said, his eyes feeling heavy. He wished he could remember what slee
p felt like. “I have my position for a reason.”
“You will not have it for much longer,” Jeremiah said. Cole heard him turn to go.
“Jeremiah,” Cole called. He heard him hesitate. “This is my final warning to you, to stay away from her.”
“Or what?” Jeremiah scoffed.
“Or I will cause you to lose everything.”
“Look around you my friend,” Jeremiah laughed. “I have nothing to lose.”
A smile cracked on Cole’s face as he looked over at his subordinate. “You are so young. Remember that you still have people you care for in the world of the living. I am not above causing them to lose everything.”
Jeremiah’s face grew stony for a long moment. Cole saw the way he swallowed hard, the way his fingers twitched. “You dare not return to their world. You will lose everything should you return.”
“Remember, I told you this was your final warning.” Not waiting for a response, Cole spread his wings and pushed off 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.