A Hundred Words for Hate (36 page)

But Francis had been expecting as much, willing the golden pistol from where it waited in the ether, to his hand, pitilessly firing a single, Hell-forged bullet into the center of Malachi’s forehead.

The elder’s head snapped violently backward, the glowing scalpel flying from his open fingers, an amusing look of surprise frozen upon his ancient features.

“Always wondered what would happen if I fucked with the future,” Francis said, watching his victim fall backward to the floor.

He walked over to where Malachi lay, surprised to see that he was still alive, even with a bullet of Hell metal lodged inside his skull.

“
I have a job for you
,” he heard the Morningstar speak again.

The golden peacemaker was still in his hand, and he held it above the angel’s chest, firing another round into Malachi’s black heart.

The angel twitched as the bullet entered his body, and then went still.

“If you are so inclined.”

Francis closed his eyes, recalling the offer, and the answer he gave, as he was yanked back from the edge of death.

There was a scuffling sound somewhere behind him, and he spun around, finger twitching on the trigger of the deadly pistol.

But it was only Eliza Swan.

Eliza Swan
. Even thinking her name brought a smile to his lips.

Willing the gun away, he went to the woman.

She was leaning up against the cave wall, and it was then that Francis noticed how incredibly old she had become. He tried to do the math, and gave up. She was of Eve’s bloodline, and would live much longer than the average human woman, but even by those standards, she was pretty damn old.

Francis approached the woman, whose love he had remembered only a short time ago, and knelt down beside her.

“How are you, girl?” he asked, emotions that he would never admit to bubbling to the surface.

Eliza lifted her head to look into his eyes. “Pearly,” she whispered. “I never forgot you.”

She lifted a hand to stroke his face, and he leaned into it, reveling in the affection, but suddenly taken aback by the scent of blood.

“Eliza?” he questioned, taking her hand and staring at it. Her fingers were stained red. “Are you hurt?”

“You told me to leave the writing where it was,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “That if I didn’t, I would put myself in danger . . .”

Francis began to panic; the smell of blood was stronger.

“Why is it that I never listened?” she asked him. “Why did I always ignore the people I loved? My parents . . . you . . . I guess I was always bad news, wasn’t I?”

“You were never bad news. . . .”

She began to cough, and that was when he saw it.

Malachi’s scalpel protruding from her belly.

He gasped and reached to pull it free, but she caught his wrist, demanding that he look at her.

“I did this,” she told him. “If I had listened . . . if I had listened, none of this would have happened. Figured I’d best put an end to it . . . before I messed up anything else.”

He was about to tell her that she would be fine, that he would find a way to fix her, but he didn’t want to lie, not to her.

Her hold on his wrist grew weaker, and her hand eventually fell into her lap.

Francis reached for the blade, pulling it from her. He stared at it, listening to its faint hum and occasional crackle, before slipping it into the pocket of his jacket.

Claiming the weapon as his own.

Eliza’s eyes had begun to close, and he knew that she didn’t have much longer. There was so much he wanted to say, to tell her before she left, but all he could do was watch.

“I have a job for you.”

And remember what he had done to be here.

“If you are so inclined.”

Eden was still dying, but she wasn’t as sick as she had been before.

Izzy could feel the connection with the Garden now, the thrum of her life through her own body.

And Jon’s.

He had been the key to saving her, the two of them somehow providing the place with what she needed to fight . . . the strength to fight and possibly survive what was happening to her.

The ground still trembled violently beneath their feet as they pushed their way through the thick jungle, an effort on the part of Eden to fight back against her foes.

Izzy could feel where she needed to go, holding on to Jon’s hand, leading him to their destination. He believed that they were going to Remy, to assist the angel in his fight against the Shaitan, but she knew otherwise.

There was someplace else she was supposed to be right now.

She brought them to a stop before the gaping mouth of the cave.

“What are we doing?” Jon asked. “This isn’t where . . .”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Yes, it is.”

And as the words left her mouth she and Jon watched as the man in the suit emerged from the darkness of the cave, the body of an elderly woman held in his arms.

Izzy knew at once who the old woman was, and that she was dead, for the Garden was telling her this.

“That . . . that’s your mother,” Jon spoke aloud, seemingly knowing the information as well.

A pistol had appeared in the man’s hand, aimed at them both.

“You don’t have any need for that,” Izzy told him.

The man continued to stare. It had been a very long time since she’d seen either of them, but she knew this man before Eden had begun to tell her who he was.

“Don’t you remember me, Dad?”

His expression barely changed, but in his dark eyes she could see that he knew her . . . that he remembered.

“Izabella,” he said.

The gun was somehow gone; she hadn’t seen where, or how he’d put it away while still holding the woman, but it wasn’t pointed at them anymore.

Her father looked at the dead woman in his arms with a gaze so intense that she could feel the energy passing between them.

“She blamed herself for what’s happening,” her father said, lowering himself to his knees. “Said that it was all her fault. Purposely hurt herself so that she couldn’t be used anymore.”

Izzy knelt in the moving grass beside her mother and father.

“Why’d you have to go and do that,” Izzy said quietly, reaching out to cup the dead woman’s cold cheek in her hand. “Wish I could have spent some time with you before—”

A violent tremor passed through the earth, and a jab of pain like an ice pick to the skull caused her to double over.

Eden was in trouble again. Eden was in pain.

“We really don’t have the time for this,” Jon said. He was holding the side of his head, a slight trickle of blood leaking from his nose.

Her father was now staring at the man, as if noticing him for the first time.

“Who’s he?” he asked. “Boyfriend?”

Izzy smiled at the idea—after so many years of hate, the Sons and Daughters coming together again . . . here.

“No,” she told her father. “But you don’t have to worry about that.”

She stroked her mother’s hair.

“You need to get her out of here,” Izzy told him. “You need to bring her home. . . .” She looked at him squarely through the lenses of his dark-framed glasses.

“Her real home.”

Her father nodded, understanding what she was asking of him.

“We have some business to take care of here first,” Izzy said.

He stood, gently holding the body of the woman in his arms.

“It was nice to see you again, Dad,” Izzy said.

“Nice to see you too,” her father told her.

And in his eyes she could read that it was true—he was glad to see her.

Remiel held the young Shaitan at bay with the Cherubim’s sword.

The fire burned brightly as he held it out before him, the light from the blade preventing them from advancing.

But for how long?

The small monsters, no bigger than newborns, hissed and snapped at the light thrown from the blade, squinting and covering their eyes with nastily clawed hands.

The angel considered his options: He could flee the Garden, leaving the situation as bad as he’d found it, or he could attack, wading in among the pale-skinned creatures and attempting to slay them all before they reached their full, deadly maturity.

He didn’t particularly care for either choice, but running away was not an option.

The Shaitan were getting braver by the second, charging at him, teeth snapping. As one did this, the others followed suit. They were learning from one another, and it wouldn’t be long now before they came at him in full force.

His body was still weary, injuries slowly healing, but still healing nonetheless. He wasn’t even close to peak battle form, but all that would need to be set aside if he were to fight in hope of slaying them all.

One of the younglings charged with a horrible shriek, and Remiel sliced the head from its body. They had not yet learned of their shape-shifting abilities, but he guessed that it was only a matter of time before they did.

Their dead brother provided him with a little more time, the others pouncing upon the corpse and eating it before the body could even grow cold.

They were soon back, their full attention on him in seconds.

There seemed to be more of them now, even more newborns crawling up from the dirt.

The Shaitan were clumped together, a mass of snarling, snapping teeth and claws, hungry for the flesh of the Heavenly.

“Come at me, then,” he said, steeling himself for the approaching battle. And his thoughts quickly reviewed all the things that would be lost to him if he should fall, all the friendships, all the loves, and even the dislikes that would be greatly missed.

He hoped those things would give him the strength to do what was required of him this moment, the strength to be victorious.

The strength to survive.

The Shaitan flowed like a wave, and Remiel was ready, the slaughter of his foes the only thing that mattered.

He waited for them, but the earth itself reacted before he could.

Jagged teeth of rock and dirt pushed up suddenly from the ground, creating a wall and preventing the Shaitan from reaching him.

Remiel was confused, but remained ready for what might possibly follow.

The abominations screamed their displeasure, pushing against the blockade, and began to climb over. Roots like tentacles reached up from the ground, snagging them around their malformed limbs, dragging them back behind the wall.

A cacophony of bird cries filled the air, and he gazed up to see a cloud of strange, sparrowlike birds descending from the trees to peck at the Shaitan.

The wall of rocks and dirt continued to grow in thickness and in height, and began to push them, herding the newborn Shaitan back toward the Tree of Knowledge.

“You need to get out of here,” came the familiar voice of a young man.

Remiel turned to see Jon and Izzy emerging from the jungle. The two were holding hands, and he didn’t really understand until he noticed the jungle around him, and what was happening at their feet.

Where there had once been sick and wilted vegetation, it was now green and healthy, growing up from wherever they passed or stepped.

They were connected to Eden now, and this connection was providing the Garden with what she needed to fight back, and to survive.

“What happened to your armor?” Jon asked.

“Lost in the belly of the beast,” Remiel answered. “Good to see you, Jon . . . Izzy.”

“Good to see you too, Remy,” Jon said. “But you’ve got to do what we said and get out of here as fast as you can.”

“I can’t,” he said, looking back to the Tree, and to the Shaitan that were trying to escape the Garden’s attempts at confining them. “Something needs to be done about them before . . .”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Izzy told him. “That’s why we’re here.”

The Garden then shook with such force that he almost toppled.

“You’ve got to go now, Remy,” Jon said.

Remiel noticed that both their noses were bleeding, and their ears as well.

“We’re helping her fight, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up,” Izzy said.

Strange, catlike animals were padding from the jungle and going to the Tree, attacking the Shaitan on the other side of the rock wall.

“You need to go and do what you did before for her,” Izzy said, her face squinted up with exertion. “You need to cut her loose by closing the gates again.”

Remiel understood what they were asking of him.

“What about you two?” he wanted to know. “I think I could fly both of you through the jungle and—”

“We’re staying,” Jon said. “Somebody has to make sure that these things aren’t allowed to escape.”

“And with our help, Eden should be strong enough to keep them prisoner here for a good long time,” Izzy added, wiping a fresh trickle of blood from her nose with a sniffle.

Remiel stared, in awe of their sacrifice.

“We’re sure about this,” Jon said, Izzy nodding beside him. “Please . . . get out of here and close the gates.”

He was about to leave when he heard the unmistakable sound of magickal energies being unleashed. They all looked toward the Tree as jagged fragments of rock and hunks of tree root exploded into the air. The Shaitan were learning about their abilities, unleashing them against the forces that attempted to keep them at bay.

Remiel lifted his sword and was heading in that direction, when Jon grabbed his arm in a powerful grip.

“Go,” the man commanded. “We have it under control, but we don’t know for how long.”

He hated to leave them like this, but the thought of the Shaitan getting out of the Garden was even more troubling.

Moving toward the jungle, he passed the sad, mangled body of Adam, and as if in response to his troubled thoughts, he watched as the ground began to draw the corpse down into its embrace, swallowing him up, returning his body from whence it came.

The sounds of heated battle erupted behind him, but he did not turn. He had a mission to perform, and there would be nothing to deter him from it.

Remiel spread his wings, leaping into flight, maneuvering through the low-hanging limbs and vines, flying toward his destination. Eden looked healthier, greener, thicker, and he believed that maybe the great Garden would survive the horrors she had been forced to endure.