The God of Wombs (Previous Part)
When we arrived at Dollmaker City, it was under attack. Chazaqiel and his followers, the Reconstructionists, had broken through the city’s walls.
Angels lay on the ground screaming in pain, limbs and wings ripped off their bodies, black blood pouring from their wounds, but the angels were unable to die.
Near the river, Chazaqiel forced another angel to the ground and then twisted off her head. It rolled toward the water, still alive and still screaming.
Yevun set me on the ground and then ran toward Chazaqiel.
“You’ll destroy all of us!” he yelled.
Chazaqiel had changed since I’d seen him in the basement of the Parallax lab. His black skin had become translucent. His nerves, veins and muscles all glowed neon inside his body.
He and Yevun grabbed each other and began tearing at each other’s flesh.
“I’ll take us back to Heaven!” Chazaqiel yelled. “Our own Heaven. A paradise where we bow to nobody else.”
“God will never allow it.”
“All these years, and you’re still afraid of Him?”
Yevun tore off Chazaqiel’s left arm and threw it on the ground. Blood sprayed from Chazaqiel’s shoulder. Neon light poured from his eyes.
“You coward!” Chazaqiel yelled. “You’ve always been afraid. Even when we swore the oath on the mountain, you were shaking with fear.”
He lowered his jaw like a snake and then bit down on Yevun’s head. Yevun screamed in pain. Other angels began chanting.
Yevun struggled but freed himself from Chazaqiel’s teeth. His neck had mostly detached from his body, but his flesh and muscle tissues melded back together.
He dug his fingers into Chazaqiel’s stomach and tore out his intestines. Chazaqiel fell to the ground, light pouring from his body, his veins writhing like worms.
The sky filled with black clouds. Lightning crashed into the ground. Behind me, I heard Destiny calling my name.
I turned and saw her and Anselmo hiding underneath one of the pomegranate trees. The child-dolls that hung from the tree’s branches were screaming.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“We’re fine,” Destiny said. “What about you?”
“I’m just glad to be on the ground again. Yevun’s palace isn’t far from here. I’ll take you there. We’ll be safer there than out here.”
I led them toward the palace. The child-dolls watched us, screaming.
“They’re alive?” Anselmo asked.
“I think so,” I said.
“Why does Yevun do this to these children?”
“I’m not sure.”
Around us, the city began to distort. The limestone walls grew and shrank. The ground split open and then resealed. Black clouds swirled in the sky.
Finally, I saw the palace ahead of us. I brought Anselmo and Destiny inside. More of Yevun’s dolls sat near the throne, whimpering.
“There’s a cave underneath the palace,” I said. “I’m not sure how deep it goes.”
“This is where you saw the other Nephilim before?” Destiny asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure we’re safer there?”
“It has to be safer than being outside.”
The ground shook again. The limbs of the dolls rattled. Chunks of limestone fell from the ceiling.
I brought Anselmo and Destiny to the staircase behind the throne. Then we went down the stairs to Yevun’s workshop.
Doll parts had been left scattered on the tables. A young Afghan girl sat in a cage in the corner. Destiny ran toward her.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
The girl spoke in Dari.
“We need to help her,” Destiny said. “Do you see a key anywhere?”
Anselmo searched the tables. “Maybe we could break the lock with a hammer.”
He picked up a hammer and a screwdriver and then used them to break the lock open. The young girl ran into Destiny’s arms.
Above us, the ground shook, raining dirt on our heads.
“We need to go deeper,” I said.
We went down the next staircase, into the room where I’d seen the blood machine before.
The other Nephilim stood against the walls of the cave. Between them, I saw the blood machine, filled with wires and gears and the heads of young children.
Destiny and Anselmo stared at the machine, not speaking anymore.
One of the Nephilim walked toward us. A twelve-foot-tall woman with black hair, wearing a tattered dress.
The young Afghan girl hugged Destiny’s leg.
“You speak English?” the Nephilim asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Can you tell us what’s happening up there?”
“Chazaqiel and the Reconstructionists have attacked the city.”
She turned to the other Nephilim and spoke in what sounded like Yiddish. The other Nephilim whispered to each other.
“If the Reconstructionists win, it will be very bad for us,” the female Nephilim said.
“They’ll kill you?” Destiny asked.
“They can’t kill us, but they can destroy our bodies. We need to go into the tunnels. It’s safer there.”
“The tunnels?” I asked.
“I’ll show you.”
We followed her past the blood machine, toward a tunnel that led deeper underground.
“My name is Esther,” she told me. “You’re Chazaqiel’s new son?”
“I’m not his son, but he did this to me. My name’s Vadym.”
As we went deeper, the ground stopped shaking and the distortions faded.
The walls of the tunnels were filled with gigantic bones. The bones of dead Nephilim. A burial ground.
The tunnel broke off in two different directions. We turned down the left path and then went left again.
Encased in the walls, rather than bones, were strange objects. Stones that glowed with ethereal colors. Paintings of ancient worlds. Strange mechanical devices like clocks with six hands.
“What are these things?” I asked Esther.
“Artifacts that the Watchers brought here from Heaven. They keep them hidden here.”
“If these angels can’t die, how will this end?” Destiny asked her.
“I’m not sure, but it will end eventually.”
The Nephilim began sitting against the walls.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I think we’ve gone deep enough,” Esther said.
Exhausted, I sat down, too. Then I closed my eyes, and I slept.
Two days passed before Yevun finally appeared. I was happy to see him, but only because I imagined seeing Chazaqiel would have been much, much worse.
“Is it over?” Esther asked.
“Yes,” Yevun said. “We’ve won. Come with me, please.”
We followed him back through the tunnels.
“Where are Chazaqiel and the others now?” Esther asked.
“In the mortar pit,” he said.
He turned left and then we went deeper again.
The little Afghan girl stayed close to Destiny, holding her hand.
Soon, we reached a large, open pit, filled with dried mortar. Looking into the pit, I saw the limbs, torsos, and heads of angels scattered across the ground. Other angels buried these body parts in the mortar walls.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“We’re binding the Reconstructionists to the pit,” Yevun said.
He led us down the stairs into the mortar pit.
“Vadym,” Chazaqiel hissed.
I saw him in the wall, staring back, his head stuck in the mortar. His skull shone through his translucent skin. His veins wriggled against the white bone.
“It doesn’t end here,” he said. “One day, I’ll be free again, and you’ll pay for your betrayal.”
The faces of other angels jutted out from the mortar. They cried in pain. Their scattered limbs squirmed as they tried to break free from the mortar, but they’d become a part of it now.
“We could have been gods, Yevun,” Chazaqiel cried. “We could have ruled our own Heaven. Do you know what life you have left to you now?”
“I know,” Yevun said.
Yevun, Armaros, Azazel, and the other Dollmakers began chanting. Slowly, the heads and limbs of the angels in the mortar walls turned to mortar, too.
Once Yevun and the others were done chanting, we followed them back through the tunnels to the room with the blood machine.
“We need to feed now,” Yevun told us.
The other Nephilim hung their heads, walked to the cave walls and sat on the ground. Destiny, Anselmo, and I stood where we were, though. The little Afghan girl clutched Destiny’s leg.
Yevun walked toward us.
“You can’t leave now, you understand?” he said. “You’re part of this city now too.”
“You can’t keep us here forever,” Destiny said.
“This is the only place in the world left for you.”
“What are you going to do to us?” Anselmo asked.
“You’ll become Nephilim, too. You’ll live here with the rest of us. You’ll help us stay pure.”
“I won’t!” Destiny yelled.
The girl cried out and hugged her leg tighter.
“It’s not your choice,” Yevun said.
Destiny took the girl’s hand and ran with her toward the staircase that led back up to the workshop. A few angels chased after them, caught them, and held them on the ground.
I turned myself into fog and tried to move toward the stairs to help them, but then another angel started chanting and my body turned back to flesh.
“We know your tricks now,” Yevun said. “There’s no escape this time, Vadym.”
A few of the other angels picked up the tubes that extended from the machine. The tips of the tubes ended in sharp needles. The angels jabbed the needles into the veins in the Nephilim’s necks. As their blood was drawn into the blood machine, its gears began turning.
Armaros ran toward Destiny and the Afghan girl, trying to save them too, but one of the angels swatted him away.
He flew into the cave wall and then fell onto the floor, unconscious.
“I know this seems cruel to you,” Yevun told Destiny. “But this cruelty is nothing like you’d see if we allowed ourselves to become demonic. The purity of these children purifies us just like the blood of our Nephilim. It brings us back to God.”
He went to the young girl and stroked her hair.
“Don’t be afraid,” he told her. “Heaven is real, and soon you’ll be saved.”
“If God is real, how could you turn your back on Him?” Destiny asked.
“To live our lives how we wanted meant more to us than to live how we were intended to live.” He pointed at me. “Now go, Vadym, and take your place with the others.”
I stared at the other Nephilim, blood draining from their necks. They seemed to be sleeping now.
“It won’t hurt much,” Yevun told me. “You’ll grow tired. You’ll sleep. After, we’ll let you rest.”
Was this really my fate? Was this really what the world had in store for me?
I felt like I did in the courtroom, hearing the judge read out my sentence. Fifteen years in Hell seemed like a gift, though, compared to eternity.
I went and sat against the wall with the other Nephilim. An angel shoved the needle-tip of one of the tubes into my neck. The tube filled with blood and my eyes grew heavy.
I thought about what would happen to Destiny and Anselmo. I thought about the pain they’d go through as they changed. The suffering.
I thought about Alexei, still bound to the dirt where the Parallax Medical building had once stood. Where Chazaqiel had spent decades bolted to a metal wall.
I thought about my mother in Saint Petersburg, telling me all her dreams for me. All her hopes.
She’d died before I could help her. I was happy she hadn’t seen me being arrested. I was happy she wasn’t around to miss me anymore.
I remembered lying in her arms as a child, feeling her kisses on my forehead, feeling loved.
She would have done anything for me, but there was nobody to miss me now, and that was good. There was nobody to mourn me. Nobody to remember who I was.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
I leaned against the wall, and I slept.
Every few weeks, the angels drank my blood. Afterward, I’d feel very weak. But I’d wander the garden, I’d drink the pomegranate juice, and I’d sleep in the grass next to the trees.
Slowly, my strength would come back, but just as soon as I felt like myself again, the angels would feed again. They’d feed on Destiny and Anselmo and all the others trapped here in this hellish city.
I sat with Destiny and Anselmo in the shade of one of the pomegranate trees. Destiny had grown white feathered wings on her back. Anselmo’s wings were black and scaled, with a texture like hard leather.
I looked around at the city. During the fighting, the palace had been destroyed. The trees had been burnt to the ground. The porcelain doll-children had been smashed to pieces. In the months that had passed, though, Yevun and the other angels had worked hard to rebuild the city. To turn it back into what it once was.
“We could leave if we wanted to,” Anselmo said. “The walls are still broken. We could escape.”
“Where would we go, though?” I asked.
“We could go back to my ranch.”
“We’d need money,” Destiny said. “We wouldn’t last long without jobs.”
“We could grow our own food. Learn how to be self-sufficient.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Above us, hanging from one of the tree branches, was a doll with the head of the Afghan girl who Destiny had tried to save. The girl began singing, but her voice wasn’t hers. It was Frank’s. The Pinkerton detective who’d freed Chazaqiel from a circus cage a hundred years ago.
“Over in Killarney, many years ago, my mother sang a song to me in tones so soft and low.”
“It’s awful to be a soul forced to wander this world forever,” Yevun had told me. “I’m sympathetic to the dead Nephilim. The dolls give them a bit of happiness to look forward to. A few hours to feel alive again. To see the world. To feel the sun on their skin.”
A fate worse than death. Endless suffering in a dark and silent tomb.
The same fate as Alexei and Reid, who Yevun had moved to the mortar pit and bound to the walls. Still alive and unable to escape this world.
But maybe the mortar would rot and one day, they would be free again. Like Chazaqiel said, everything needs to end eventually, even this world, even the God who created it.
That’s the only hope I have left.
I looked up at the clouds. At the summit of Mount Hermon, two hundred angels had sworn a curse-oath together. They would turn their backs on God and Heaven.
Two hundred angels, damning us to purgatory just like they’d damned themselves.
Did they know how many other people would suffer, too? Did they care?
Destiny started to cry. I put my hand on her back.
“No matter what happens, we’ll always have each other,” I told her.
The child-doll stopped singing. The wind blew through the pomegranate trees.
It was such an awful feeling. To know that Heaven is real. To know I’ll never see it.