Free Afterlife: A Fall of Angels Novelette by Keary Taylor Page A

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