Welcome
to the Wednesday Briefers flash group. The short stories have a maximum of a
1000 word count plus links at the bottom to the other flashers. The prompts for
this week are:
"...
has arisen..."
or use:
lamb, soul, redemption
or use ham
in an interesting way
or "You
have no faith to lose and you know it..."
or use:
chocolate or use a church in some way
or
"Family values? Your family wouldn't know family values if..."
I’m using a
picture prompt:
All
That He Desires #13
Both
of Anslee’s eyebrows rose as Jules placed the book on his lap. The chapter
heading was clearly marked The Book of Revelations. “You want to show me
something from the Bible? Why, Jules?”
Jules chewed his bottom lip.
“I… I think you’re a Fallen Angel.”
* * * *
“You can’t be serious.” Anslee
pushed the Bible off his lap and stood. He needed room to pace, by damn. Of all
the things Jules could’ve come up with, he hadn’t seen this coming, not at all.
He snorted silently. A Fallen Angel, indeed. This was almost as good as when
Jules wondered if he was his Guardian Angel, at the very beginning.
“It makes the most sense. Just…
just hold on a second.” Jules placed the Bible on the coffee table, then
reached for his laptop. After a quick search, he turned the computer around so
Anslee could see what he’d found.
Anslee brushed his long hair
back behind his shoulder, his eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline as the
shocks kept coming. Fuck, was this him—a dark Lord stumbling along two
paces behind a human? He certainly wasn’t expecting Jules to show him that.
“Okay, why are you showing me
pictures of what mankind assumes angels look like?”
Jules looked at Anslee. “Why do
you say we assume angels look like
this? Are we wrong? And if so… how do you know?”
Anslee’s mouth snapped shut.
How indeed? He just knew the pictures were close, but not dead on. Moving back
to the couch, he sat and stared at the screen. Most drawings had the wings
wrong. The base needed to be lower, farther down the back. A hazy sheen covered
his vision as everything around him faded… everything but that picture. Torn by
something he didn’t understand, he raised his hand, his finger slowly tracing
the wings of the creature on the screen.
Longing, an emotion buried so
deeply he didn’t recognize it at first, shot through him, followed by the
memory of a ripping pain. Anslee jerked his finger back as screams surrounded
him. Oh merciful Father, what had he done? He couldn’t kill, killing was wrong.
It was clearly written. He shouldn’t have listened to the one that… that what?
Led him wrong?
The clang of swords rang around
him, but that wasn’t what bothered him. It was the shouts, the words he could
hear but couldn’t quite make out. Then a bright, searing light, so pure it hurt
to look upon, blasted across the skies… followed by a feeling of falling,
crashing down.
Then… the abrupt, painful
absence of falling as he was jerked to a stop. Finally… nothing for a while.
“Anslee! Anslee? Dammit, answer
me!”
Anslee’s vision cleared and he
found a very pale Jules staring at him. Anslee looked down to where Jules
clutched at his arms. What the fuck had just happened?
“You looked at the picture of
that angel and kinda spaced on me.”
“I spoke out loud?”
“Yeah, you did. And that’s not
all. You talked about swords, words you couldn’t hear, how killing is wrong, a
pure light and falling down… Come on, dude. Don’t you see? It fits.” Jules let
go of Anslee and started tugging at his shirt. “Take this off.”
“You want me to take off my
shirt? Really?” Anslee pulled the garment over his head. “Anything else while
we’re at it?”
“Would you stop?” Jules
manhandled Anslee until he could see his back.
Anslee let his human place him as
he wished, slightly amused at Jules. “What do you think to find, Jules? Scars
from where my wings were ripped out?”
“You said that, not me. But
it’s funny how we’re thinking the same thing.” Jules ran his fingers down
Anslee’s perfect back, watching as the muscles bunched and twitched.
Anslee shivered as phantom—what? Pleasure? Something damn
sure raced through him when Jules touched him right under his shoulder blades.
That was nothing more than him reacting to Jules’ touch on his body. Right?
Anslee looked over his shoulder
at Jules, a slight smirk on his face in an attempt to hide his real thoughts.
“See anything?”
“Well… no.” Jules shrugged.
“Can you be killed?”
Anslee turned to face Jules. “No.”
“No? That’s it? How do you
know? Has someone tried to kill you before? What happened?”
Anslee sighed. “Take my word
for it, I can’t be killed. And if you think I’m going to let you slit my throat
to find out, you’re wrong—no matter how much you may wish it. I may not be able to die, but
I can feel pain. And to how I know I can’t die… well, I just do. I mean, I’ve
been here since the start, Jules. Obviously I can’t die.”
“Interesting.”
Annoyance surged through
Anslee. “Look, Jules, I’m no angel. They are good and pure and—”
“I didn’t say you were an
angel. What I said was you had to be one of the Fallen Angels. Big difference.”
Anslee stood again, his eyes on
that damn picture. The need to pace was a living thing in him. “But, according
to your Bible, they were cast down to Hell. They were not cast to Earth. Earth
didn’t exist yet.”
“But what if it did? And the
Bible was written by Man, Anslee. Mistakes can happen. Things can be left out
for whatever reason. Maybe man isn’t supposed to know about—” Jules waved his hand at
Anslee “—about this. The Bible also says not everything that’s taught in it will
be clear.”
“And just what do you think this is?”
“I think you and your kind were
given a second chance—and opportunity, if you will, to redeem
yourselves. Isn’t that what you call your kind? The Lords of Opportunity?
Fitting, wouldn’t you say?”
~TBC
