Thank you Coffee Time Romance for doing this Book Brew on apocalypses. My favorite part of apocalypses are the prophecies that predict them. Interpreting them is an art form. The grand master of writing prophecies isn’t Nostradamous or even any of the Biblical prophets. It is Joss Whedon. Misinterpreting prophecies, such as in Season 1 Buffy or the final season of Angel, are what lead to their fulfillment. That is beyond brilliant. The same can be said of George Lucas and the prophecy regarding Anakin Skywalker, but since we never get to know the actual words, so we don’t know how else it could be interpreted, I’m putting Whedon ahead of him.
When I set out to write a paranormal romance, I knew a prophecy was going to drive the plot. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from The Mark of Abel, the first book in a brand new paranormal series where Lucifer struggles to determine what’s more important–his redemption or his heart .
Excerpt
“He must be stopped, and I can’t do that from here.” Luke plopped down.
“And how will returning to heaven stop him?” Maggie’s words were gentle, like talking to a child. Or a crazy person. Maybe he was crazy.
“I don’t know.” He unraveled the scroll.
The path back to heaven will be found in terrors in the night turned into art and transformed by divine wisdom.
It was even in English and modern English didn’t exist when his brother had given him the scroll nearly two millennia ago. At the top was the artist’s symbol, a circle with three curved lines coming from it. Below was the prophecy written in many different languages. Some repeated, and they darted all over the globe with no discernible pattern. Until now.
Luke recalled the locked memories Janie had of her past lives and put them in order. His hands shook as he re-read the lines of translations, and he dropped the scroll. Maggie grabbed his hands.
“Careful. This is old.” Reverently, she picked up the scroll.
Luke stood and paced. “It can’t be.” He snatched the scroll and re-read it. “Why didn’t we see it before?” He laid the scroll on the desk. “Look. Each line is in a different language, the language that artist spoke.”
Maggie’s eyes went wide, and she hopped off the desk and stood next to him.
“Why is the top in English?”
Each line became a face, someone he hadn’t saved. He hadn’t found all of them, maybe about half. Now he knew all of them through Janie’s memories. He stumbled back and covered his mouth, shaking his head. Stunned eyes turned to Maggie.
“Because the artist who will fulfill the prophecy speaks English, modern English.” He shook. Maggie took his hand and squeezed.
“Maggie, there are no more lines.” His heart thumped hard, as if it could pound the truth out. “Whatever is going to happen will happen with this artist, with Janie.”
“What are you going to do?” Maggie rolled the scroll up. With a kiss, she replaced it in the ark.
“I don’t know. She knows me as Luke, a grad student. I can’t simply go up to her and say, `Guess what. I’m really Lucifer, the Bright Star of the Morning. The Devil. Forget what you’ve heard about me. It’s all bad PR. I really should get someone to handle it better, but whatever he says is going to be twisted, so why bother?”
Maggie covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
“Oh, and by the way, you are my ticket to heaven.” Luke plopped down and hung his head in his hands.
“Ticket to Heaven. That sounds like a song title.” Maggie rubbed her chin as she thought. She burst out laughing. “It’s 3 Doors Down.” She hummed a few bars. Maggie’s voice was more beautiful than the heavenly choir.
“Whatever.” He shook his head. “What am I going to do?”
“Protect her from the Grigori. At the very least Mel is after her. Fortunately she didn’t mark Janie, but why would she even try?” Maggie tilted Luke’s head up. “We know that Janie is the artist, but why would the Grigori care? It can’t be a coincidence.”
“I can’t do that if she doesn’t know who I am”””
“Luke, she’s human. You present her with the supernatural and she’ll go into denial mode. Already did when it came to me and Mel. She thought I was some sort of superhero and was either a hallucination or a nightmare. You have to keep lying to her, be that grad student, so you can get near her and trigger her memory.”
Luke shot up. “No. Absolutely not. No one can stand all that death.”
“Easy big boy.” She held her hands up. “Not all of them. Only one. Just enough to get her thinking.”
“It will hurt her. I tried that with Dacia. There are so many memories, she’s barely holding them back. She probably can’t when she’s sleeping.” Visions of Janie tossing on her pull-out bed played through his mind. That’s what she was doing when he’d first found her. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “There has to be another way.” He sighed.
“I’ve already hurt her enough,” he murmured.
“Think about all the good you can do when the prophecy is fulfilled.” She tried to coax a smile out of him. “Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.”
“I know. I know.” He plopped into his chair. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“That’s why you’re one of the good guys.” This time her smile did bring his. She laid her hand on his arm. He held it. “Just let her get to know you. She’ll come around. Besides, she’s your soulmate. The two of you are meant to be together.”
Why would God make him a soulmate?
Maggie was right. He’d have to play grad student and get to know her. Maybe things would turn out okay.
And maybe Sisyphus would get the damn boulder to the top of the hill.
<i>The Mark of Abel</i> is available from MuseItUp Publishing at
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