ForsakingEternity by Voirey Linger

have sensed it.
    The shop itself was somewhat repulsive, as well. The store
was filthy and smelled of Earthly decay, little more than a cheap collection of
worn garbage. Dull florescent lighting gave the store a flat, sickly-yellow
cast and the avocado-green tile floors had paths of gray grime worn by decades
of shoppers.
    Ren wrinkled his nose in distaste. How could anything from
this place be worth purchasing?
    “Where do you want to start?” Adam asked.
    “I believe the books are in the back corner. Isn’t that what
you were interested in seeing?”
    “Ah, yes. Are you coming back with me or do you want to
browse a bit?” Adam’s expression was casual, but Ren could feel a low buzz of
anticipation coming from him. Adam’s excitement for this treasure hunt was
surprisingly endearing.
    “I’ll look around first. You go on to your books and I’ll
join you.”
    Renatus strolled among the aisles, trying to sense if there
was anything Heavenly present. He doubted Meela would point them to this store
if there wasn’t, but he couldn’t feel anything of power nearby. He stopped
occasionally to examine an oddity but everything he found was of Earthly origin.
    The scroll was not among these castoffs.
    Why then had she sent them here?
    He stopped in front of a display of Christmas angels, their
wings tattered, their once-white robes yellowed and stained with time and
neglect.
    An angel damaged by fire caught his attention. Half of its
face was unblemished and golden hair hung in a tangled mass over the cheek. The
other side of the angel was a charred wreckage. The burned plastic was cracked
and scaled and the hair had melted into blackened ropes.
    “What game are you playing, Meela?” he asked it in a
whisper.
    “Cat and mouse, of course.”
    He spun around, choking on a gasp of surprise. “What are you
doing here?” The proprietor glanced up from her television to give Ren a
questioning look. Only then did he realize he could see her wings.
    Demon wings. The batlike appendages were too small to allow
for flight. Delicate skin stretched over bone, nothing more than a shriveled
remnant of the angelic wings she’d once possessed.
    If they were visible to him, that could only mean she was
invisible to the humans.
    She’d come just to torment him.
    He turned back to the shabby display with a scowl.
    Meela materialized in front of him, perched on the edge of
the table, before he could so much as blink.
    “Now you didn’t really think I was going to lead him right
to it, did you, Ren? Where’s the fun in that? I want to give you plenty of
time.” She flashed him a calculating smile.
    “Time for what?” Knowing the demoness, he wouldn’t be able
to avoid her machinations. He needed to figure out what she had planned before
she had him trapped.
    “Time to Fall, of course.”
    “You speak as if it is a foregone conclusion. This will not
happen, Meela. I will not Fall.”
    “Of course. The mighty Renatus is above temptation. You
cannot be tempted because you know nothing of love. You never did.”
    Her words held a hint of a ring, a faint resonance of truth
that chilled him. “I have loved. I do love,” he denied.
    “Do you? Tell me, angel, when was the last time you visited
the welkin?”
    The welkin. He was enveloped by a pain so acute he couldn’t
breathe. He’d never set wing inside the Heavenly Vault, never once visited a
single soul, not even his own daughter’s. How could he? She’d been such a
vibrant child. To see her as nothing more than an essence was unconscionable.
    No. His child was dead. Gone. The past could not be undone.
He could not allow this demon to use Michani to taunt him.
    “Your words are half-truths at best. I will not Fall,
Meela.”
    “You will. Time is ticking away and soon you’ll have to make
the choice. Will you go back to Heaven and spend eternity alone? I don’t think
so.”
    She leaned over the table and cocked her head to one side,
her expression knowing. “The flesh