Paradise End

9 - Present // Merry Christmas!

Note from author 12/25/2020 - Hello all! Thanks for reading Paradise End and checking in on Raz, Zadriel, and Nashira's story! 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays to all from Lyanna Rain, Razael, Zadriel, and Nashira! Have a blessed day and I hope you enjoy the story! (Note - this chapter isn't exactly warm and cheerful but Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays anyways everybody! Hope you enjoy!)

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Singapore, 3:12 p.m. SST

The rumble of a train passing by overhead played a thundering tune across the empty square. Howling railways flooded all sounds of mice racing past sewage drainage, footsteps of citizens moving forward under sparing sprinkling weather. Stillness reached through one alley to the next, the only movement in a now abandoned town square the raindrops dancing on surfaces of reflective pooling rainwater. Electric sparks hid beneath the thick taste of industrial dreams, and past neon midnight songs.

At the bottom of gargantuan leering scrapers, vibrant blue sneakers dropped into crystalline puddles.

Cracks, snaps, ticks, poured from the city's heart, each a note in its grand changing patchwork. Tick, tick, tick, its clockwork heart lilted. Amid hissing steams, footsteps on pavement, shouting echoes in neighborhoods, squeals from brakes, and coos of rummaging birds. Step, bark, siren. The hum of flickering shop lights. Figure out what matters most, it says. Destroy that now or throw it away.

You're a cog now.

Across a clearing, the smooth, dark leather blue shoes streaked like a dash of paint over the surface of puddles. Passing below towers and precipitation clouding the overhead view, vanishing by empty roads and vendors. What a pain, now his shoes were all wet. Shrinking into his jacket, his fingers tugged his hood further down over dusty blonde locks.

He better show on time, the boy thought.

He turned in the puddles of an alley, looking across the square's features. Red flickered in a pub sign around the corner.

Careless. Couldn't afford to be careless.

About what? The bleating horns, murmurs, and whir of the city said. What can't you afford to be careless about? Why?

Not yet. Step by step, each a fraction further to breaking a carefully woven mosaic. I can't answer yet. Tick, tick. The clockwork heart pushed forward.

"Oi! Lumen!"

The boy turned around, glancing up a sodden fire escape. That idiot, he sneered.

"Easy, easy! Yeesh, you'd think you were about to kill someone with that face!" A tan messy dark-haired boy leaned over the railing on a level, a wolf-like grin over his features. He wore twill style grey buttoned vest over a white collared dress shirt, his black tie tucked underneath the vest loosely. "It's just me."

"Yes, I could tell by the sound of desperation and sadist fancies."

"Oof. Are you always this charming?"

"Only around people who can't seem to follow instructions."

"Of course," The boy in a slim suit attire dangled gloved hands off the railing's edge. "Really, you have no sense of fun now do you?"

"I disagree, Dax," the boy said, his mouth turning up slightly, "I believe you can find humor in the darkest of things if you only know where to look."

Dax tilted his head back, his grin widening, "If you say so." He swung his leg over the side of the fire escape, falling down to clear reflective puddles in the alleyway. He bounced off the opposite brick wall, rebounding all the way to the bottom. His feet splashed softly on the concrete, unscathed by his journey.

"Briony and Koharu?"

"Briony's in position now. Koharu says the bald man's giving her the stink eye, so she's also ready to go. I think the only one we're waiting on is our black cat but something tells me he'll come through."

"You'll be able to handle the ma'lak?"

Dax lifted his perfect chin, straightening, "I'll keep him busy. The question isn't if I can handle him, though; think he'll bite?"

Lumen turned away, resting his hands in his pockets. A shoe kicked lightly at a cockroach meandering around the water's edge, "He won't be able to resist." The boy glanced past his counter's shoulder, eyes narrowing. 

"So is he an angel or...?" 

The cockroach scurried along the edges of the puddle, avoiding Lumen's foot. "I'm not even sure he knows yet. He's the one who acts like a robot, made of ice, stares like a panther, but sounds like rain." He said, "A demon and an angel wrapped in one. Even so, I don't believe someone like him will be able to resist a mystery."

Dax rolled his eyes, folding his arms. "Thanks, Shakespeare."

Lumen pulled his arm out of his pockets, stepping behind Dax, "Now, if you'd be so kind my friend, it seems our guest would like to know more."

Dax's gaze flitted away over the windows, parapets, past streetlights. There – a shine of metal armor and silver tinted earrings, symbolic of higher up ma'lak spies, caught his attention, his feet moving before he could tell them to. He crouched, red light gathering between his hands, morphing into a sphere then stretching out into a humming red javelin. The lancer pulled his arm back, launching his crackling electric weapon. It generated hot flaring blasts, cutting cleanly through a corner on the edge of a terrace.

A slice split through the city, the flash of a glinting earring and glimpse of wings fell helplessly towards stories below. "So much work," He smirked, "All they ever do. It's no wonder my spear went through so easily; so stiff. Can't operate on their own for anything." Dax turned, glancing at Lumen. "You ready?"

Lumen stared at the spy's quivering limbs. His mouth turned upwards, eyes beading into the angelic form. "Always."