The Heaven Audiobook Series

What happens after the fight, and some more characters from the city under the waves.

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Episode 9 (pt 2)

Morrigan did not know who he was, but her instinct had taken her to the ocean, one of the places where she felt her power most purely, as the water did her bidding. A creature of fire would not be happy in the water, she reasoned, and once she had shoved him under all of the fight had gone out of him.

But as she stood on the beach, water sloshing around her robe hem, she felt a great weakness strike her. She looked up at the moon for her validation, and the light began to fade.

That would be why she felt great strength even as the man had grown hotter and hotter in her grasp. She swore and tossed her mask aside, gripping the burned skin as she held her head, trying to will the dizziness away.

Why had the sun been so abysmally stupid to fly over the water? Now with his power dying, he would doom not only himself, but he would rob her of the power they shared, and the world itself would freeze.

Morrigan straightened, determined. She didn’t much care for the sun god, but for her to continue existing, he had to continue existing. She set her teeth and concentrated.

The moon in the sky regained some of its luster, showing a waxing moon close to full. The water began to churn violently as she forced the tides to conform to her will. She had to do more than get him to the surface; he needed attending.

Leviathan City was nearby, and their submerisbles patrolled the waterways. She had seen them frequently when hanging above he ocean, or when seen through the eyes of albino, deep-swimming fish. The riptide Morrigan created caught one of the submersibles and dragged it to the floating body of the drowning sun god. She could feel the engines fighting as they tried to correct their course in the water, but she was too strong for them. She lifted the heavy submersible despite its efforts to stay deep, and presented the god to them.

The hatch opened and two pale faces peeked out, shouting in alarm. One woman with glittering hair and a bald man leapt out of the hatch and ran down the length of the sub to catch Barris’ outstretched arms. They pulled the unmoving god into their sub, and Morrigan relaxed at last.

As for the goddess, she collapsed on the beach, utterly spent.

[COTTON DOESN”T STEAL THE MOON UNTIL REDACTED]

#

The sub did not dive yet, though. The two pale faces appeared again after dragging Barris to the ship’s medic. They looked at each other and then at the glowing body.

“She would want us to take that one too,” the man said.

“You reckon they’re two of the same kind?” the woman asked.

“He’s got wings. She’s glowing and has a mask and a weapon. I know the heretics in the open air have their odd ways, but I hadn’t heard they were like this. And one of them altered the tides, you can’t tell me that was normal, Portia.”

Portia nodded slowly. “One problem, though. She’s on land.”

The man blanched, as much as his pale skin was able. “She… doesn’t need to know. She’d want us to break the rules to get this one too.”

Portia laughed, a short barking sound. “Tim! Are you insane? You’re willing to risk exile to test that?”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “You’d report?”

Portia held up her hands. “Of course not, not me. But you know I can’t stop anyone else from coming up and peeking out. And we’d have to lie about how we got her, keeping our stories straight.” She turned from him back to the white beach that shimmered in the moonlight. She shuddered. “I wouldn’t risk having to live here in the open for whatever that one will get us in glory.”

Tim pursed his lips and stared at the inert form. “I’m going for it. You can lick Ishmael’s balls, I’m doing this.”

“No, wait, it’s too dangerous!” Portia said, grabbing for his arm. But they were both still damp from rescuing the winged man, and her hand slipped off and he scrambled out of the hatch and ran along the length of the sub before he dove in.

“The fool!” she whispered. She didn’t want to see Tim commit heresy by putting his feet on dry land, so she climbed back down the hatch to check on the winged man.

The medic was a young man with skin so pale it was almost translucent; his dark hair and eyes contrasted strongly. His out of water beauty often made Portia’s breath catch in her throat. She composed herself by reminding herself of the rules against fraternizing with the crew.

The cot in the infirmary was soaked, water seemingly to pour out of the man as the doctor put pressure on his lungs and forced air into him to try to force the water out. But the water that came from him streamed from his pores, his ears, his nose, as well as his mouth.

“Ishmel’s foreskin, but this godfucker is a like a sponge,” Doctor Isaac muttered as he compressed the man’s chest. Water dripped off the cot and pooled on the floor. Portia smiled at the foul words coming from the doctor’s mouth – it was always a thrilling shock to hear such language coming from a beautiful man – and knocked on the door jamb.

Doctor Isaac looked up. “I don’t know what you’ve got here, but it’s not human.”

Portia nodded. “Yeah, we got that much. Will he live?”

Doctor Isaac paused to pinch the man’s nose and blow into his mouth. More water streamed from his skin, nose and ears. The doctor resumed pumping on his chest. “I have no fucking clue. He’s like a sponge, which is not physiology I’m familiar with. But I do know if he doesn’t start breathing in a moment, he’s not going to plant his seed in any winged women.”

The man stiffened for a moment, then vomited a gout of water. Ignoring the mess, Isaac reached out and turned his head so he couldn’t choke further, but pulled his hands back quickly, shaking them.

“The water is hot!” He stood back from the man, who had now begun to steam as he coughed up more water. Sweat immediately started to pop out on Portia’s forehead as she backed out of the room, watching over the shorter doctor’s head. Isaac just stood there, staring at the man, who had rolled over to better express the water from him.

The man finally opened his glowing eyes and flexed his wings, finding that they filled the room when he tried to expand them. He looked at them both and then slipped into unconsciousness.

The heat subsided. Doctor Isaac glanced at Portia and then said, “I think we need to let the captain know. And I think we need to get back home rather quickly. The Queen needs to know about this.”

Portia grimaced. “The problem is, the captain is currently trying to secure another one of these creatures.”

#

Captain Tim’s confidence was waning as he swam toward the shore. While touching the sand under the ocean was not forbidden, getting out into the open air fully was. The other creature lay with the tide lapping at her.

The open air world was so large! He looked around, grateful for the darkness to hide how much open space was around him. The ocean was so much bigger up here, and the sky was a nightmare of exposure. The moon, while the source of the tides and a minor deity to his people, was still a naked glaring orb. And the stars pinpricks of fear, millions of eyes staring at him.

For their own safety and sanity, his people – even the submarine captains – were not permitted to surface during the day. The Queen said they could not comprehend the vastness, but Tim had always wondered. If they exiled people, did they throw them from their home and sentence them to madness? Or did the people learn to deal with all this space, this wind? Portia would say people could deal with it, that they could deal with anything. He had chosen his first mate for her pragmatic common sense, which usually tethered his more radical ideas. She hadn’t stopped him this time, though. But he was sure he’d be all right.

He knew he was splitting hairs, but Tim reasoned that if he stayed with his feet wet the whole time, he would be safe from The Queen’s wrath. Facing exile was one thing, but presenting Her with this creature could be worth the risk.

The tide was going out; Tim’s time was limited. He felt a wave push against his knees and took his chance. He lumbered through the surf, the open air giving a sense of loss and agoraphobia. Gasping and trying to focus only on the figure in front of him, and not the itching feeling between his shoulder blades that anything could come up behind him, he stood ankle-deep in water beside the body.

The shape beneath the rough robe implied female, but he could tell nothing more. The mask was soot-stained and looked ot be made from bone. Curiosity shackled him for a moment, and instead of taking the body and dragging it into the ocean, he reached for the mask.

His fingers had time only to brush the mask before a bony hand shot up and trapped his wrist. He gasped and stepped backward, but she kept him in her grip. She sat up, seemingly not noticing her prey. He heard a muffled voice from behind the mask.

“So he lives. And is returning to power. That’s something.” The mask then turned to face him. It lacked any facial adornments, not even eye holes, but Tim could feel her eyes on him.

“Leviathan City citizen on land?” she asked. “How brave. What other brave things did you have planned, little brave man?”

“I- I- I-” Tim struggled as he stammered, but her grip remained unchanged.

She chuckled. “You wanted two prizes. But I think your people will have enough to deal with when Barris returns full strength.”

His own predicament forgotten momentarily, Tim looked back toward his sub, floating silently off the shore. “B-Barris? That was Barris?”

“Yes. Your people just saved the life of the sun Himself. And if I am right, you’re going to be in a world of trouble.”

“Why?”

“Well. Your people will be. Not you. You’re coming with me.” She rose to her feet and picked up her weapon.

The strike was serpent-swift, and didn’t hurt at all. She must have missed. Tim’s hand finally slipped from the deathly grip of the monster in front of him, and he tried to stumble back into the surf to return to his sub, and then home, but his feet no longer stood in the water. He had no feet.

Tim’s spirit was quickly losing his corporeal form, and he flailed in panic, watching the wisp of his being dissolve.

The woman’s mask was cocked to the side, watching. Tim’s last thought was to warn Leviathan City about the new monster in the open air, but his spirit blew away with a wisp of wind.

#

Morrigan looked with interest at her weapon. It was no longer as wicked as it had been, getting fatter as the moon waxed, but it had done its job of removing the man’s soul from his body. What she hadn’t expected was the shredding of the soul. The man had simply blown away with the night air, unlike her companions in the Underworld who managed to retain a bit of human form.

With one more glance at the submarine, and her enemy that she had to keep alive, she swung her weapon and split the air. The open, cracking wound beckoned her, and she returned home.

The boy, James, was back on her mind.
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