Original Sin

Chapter 3

Coffee. They were sitting in Common Grounds drinking coffee like two completely normal people. Hailey could almost forget they were immortal beings, almost forget they were cursed.

Almost.

But as Charles Dickens so poignantly stated, "Almost carries no weight."

"You still take your coffee black?" Alex attempted conversation. He sat across from her, swirling the black liquid slowly around in his cup. He stared at it, refusing to meet her eyes.

"It's the only way to drink coffee. This is original," Hailey replied, lifting the cup to her lips for a taste. She swallowed but wrinkled her nose slightly. "It's just so cheap now, diluted and polluted."

Alex lifted his head and stared at Hailey, his face serious now. Obviously he had no time for small talk. "We have to talk, Hailey." His tone was ominous. There may have been no outward indications of an impending catastrophe, but Hailey and Alex were in the same place at the same time. Disaster was imminent. That's how the curse worked. It never failed, not once in 10,000 years. 

"Talk about what? We've talked and walked since the beginning of time. What could possibly be left unsaid between the two of us?" Her heart admonished Hailey's tone in the face of her lover, but her brain ignored it. She'd had enough catastrophes in this very long life, and she didn't need Alex or his comfort to make things better. She needed peace. She needed resolution and closure.

She needed an ending.

Silence followed. Alex looked heartbroken knowing Hailey had had enough of this. She understood that pain, seeing someone you love endure such hurt. When God decided to enact His wrath upon them, He punished both parties. Being together meant ultimately being torn apart. Lucifer was forced to give up his Heavenly status and serve as a carrier of damned souls from this world to an afterlife in Hell. Hailey lived forever, avoiding sickness and injury, but was never allowed in the same place as Lucifer for too long. Destruction would follow them wherever they went, and they would witness the end of peace and prosperity for humankind. God had judged them and deemed their love a fault among His perfect creations.

Mankind had never come close to this kind of emotional torture.

"You know, you never answered my question," Alex muttered, finally taking a drink of coffee, only to spit it back into the cup. "You were right about the coffee," he said very quietly so as not to offend the poor barista sitting behind the counter.

She nodded her head, up and down, almost robotic, and avoided eye contact. The strength in Hailey might dissipate if she looked him in the eyes, and right now she might cry if she even glanced in his direction. 

How could she still love him so deeply after so long? 

Hailey let out a breath, stood, and paid for the coffees. She turned to Alex, tugging his leather jacket sleeve, hoping he'd get the hint and follow her out the door. If she had to address this complicated subject, the choices they made and their immortal existences, Hailey needed to be someplace outside of town, someplace beautiful and close to perfect. The Garden hadn't existed for a long time, yet she continued to search earnestly for any semblance of it left in this crumbling world. 

Perfection...What a tedious ideology.

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Paris, 1349

Incessant screaming. There was no escaping the sound of it. Who was crying this time? A motherless child? A childless mother? A widow? Who knows? There was little difference now. After so many weeks, all the dying and their relations' wails took on the same tone. Isolde could no longer distinguish those still alive and those close to death. Perhaps this era would turn out to be the end of time, just as Revelations stated?

But Isolde didn't have time to dwell on that. Another child in the next room desperately needed her attention. He couldn't have been more than six or seven. The soiled sheets were evidence he had been bedridden for a while. Already the black spots were beginning to show on the underside of his arms, the first points of attack. She brushed his bushy brown hair away and touched his forehead. It was burning. The boy was barely awake, rolling his eyes to the back of his head and mumbling incoherently. His parents stood at the foot of the bed, mother sobbing and father trying his best to maintain composure.

"How long has he been feverish?" Isolde asked, knowing the answer would surely doom the child.

"Three days, doctor," the father said, shaking in his boots.

At this point, Isolde knew the boy was going to die no matter what she did. His life would be cut short; at most the boy would live another few days. She turned to his parents, shook her head, and urged them to get the others to safety. They cried, both of them. Isolde wished they could see the sympathy on her face. What good was her miraculous bedside manner if it was hidden by a mask? She advised them of places in the countryside to take their remaining five children, then packed up her tool kit and left as quickly and quietly as she had come.

Outside at last! For a brief minute, she was free to breathe the fresh spring air. Pity that there was also a perpetual smell of death wafting up from catacombs under the city. The doctor's mask, a demonic, bird-looking thing she detested, finally came off, and for the first time all morning the sun touched her cheeks. The streets were bare and, aside from the crying, silent. No carriages or horses pacing up and down, no vendors selling their wares. Ditches of human sludge, blood, and trash piled up and bled into the walkway. 

"Still lovely even in the face of death."

Isolde felt, rather than saw, Amis. His strong, tanned arms slithered around her torso. She traced the veins outlining his hands. What a scandalous act in this day and age! 

Fortunately for her, he was always around because there was always a soul to collect during these sickly times. This plague would certainly diminish the population in Europe and most of Asia, but it would eventually pass, as all things do. Then people would discover new territory away from those cities deemed "uninhabitable". They would build their lives as peacefully as they knew how for as long as they could.

The strength and resilience of humanity should be commended, Isolde thought.

"I suppose if I'm the last face someone sees before they die, that's not such a bad thing. However..." She paused and turned around to see his mesmerizing, angelic face. Without another word, she picked up the mask once again. "They don't see much with this in the way. It's a shame, really." 

"You worry me some days, Dinah. Your heart is so full of compassion for others, there's no room left for me." He cocked one eyebrow up and grinned like a mischievous adolescent. 

"This is as close as I can get to being a mother." It was a sad truth- The curse inflicted upon them left her barren, another cruel punishment. Wary of his penetrating gaze, Isolde kept her eyes fixes on the stones at her feet. She had to question, yet again, if this life as Lucifer's wife was worth the price she had to pay. 

"We have each other," Amis said gently caressing her cheek. "That's enough, isn't it?"

"For now." Isolde's tone was firm, questioning Amis's ability to fill that void. 

She'd questioned things far too frequently in recent years.

A shout rang out across the city. Someone a few blocks over was calling for a doctor to help his ill daughter. She needed to leave, to become Isolde once more and care for dying children as though they were her own.

But Amis wouldn't let her leave without a kiss. It wasn't deep or passionate, but the warmth that radiated from his lips kept her tears at bay for the moment.

Is this really a fair bargain? Isolde wondered as she ran toward the scream. She met the frantic father outside his home. He led her into his daughter's bedroom, curtains drawn and parents worried.

When she saw the dying child, so small, beautiful, and pale with long, curly locks, the tears returned once more.