A Hundred Words for Hate (9 page)

“Caution,” said a voice nearby.

Remiel leapt into the air, his burning sword at the ready, only to pull back as he dropped to the ground.

Malachi emerged from behind the great Tree, his vestments of shimmering light spattered with the blood of angels.

Malachi had been one of the originals that sprang from God. First there had been Lucifer, the Light Bringer—and then there had been Malachi, he who would bring life.

“Forgiveness,” Remiel said, averting his gaze temporarily from the great elder angel. Slowly his gaze returned to the dead, and the powerful Cherubim that knelt among them.

“What has happened here?”

Malachi emerged further, his body radiating the power given him by the Almighty.

“It was as if Zophiel had been touched by madness,” the angel explained. “He had been here, guarding the Tree, when the soldiers arrived, and when told to step aside, he seemed to snap . . . and this is what occurred.”

Remy rose to his feet, stricken by the words of the Life Bringer.

“How is this possible?” Remiel asked, still staring at the angel kneeling among the dead.

“Perhaps a flaw in his design,” Malachi suggested, having assisted the Lord God in the execution of the Cherubim’s creation. Malachi had assisted in the design of them all; this was what he had been created for—an extension of God’s artful hand.

As Malachi spoke, the Cherubim Zophiel looked up, madness burning in the three sets of eyes.

“No!” the powerful angelic force bellowed, rising up to his full and impressive height. His armored form was shaking—trembling—as if fighting off some invisible force.

“Quickly, Remiel,” Malachi ordered. “Before more damage is done.”

Remiel knew what he had to do; it was the same thing that had been needed from him since the war began, what seemed like an eternity ago.

Zophiel continued to vibrate as he swayed upon powerful armored legs, eyes suddenly falling upon a mighty sword protruding from the back of one of the angels he had slain.

“Don’t do it, brother,” Remiel warned, his own sword at the ready.

Zophiel hesitated, and for a moment Remiel saw in the Cherubim’s look a Heavenly being in the throes of torment.

But as quickly as the expression had come, it was gone, leaving only a maniacal force of violence behind.

With a bellow that combined the enraged cries of eagle, lion, and man, Zophiel grabbed hold of the mighty sword’s hilt and yanked it free. The sword pulled from the ground, but the body of the fallen angel still hung upon the large ebony blade. The Cherubim roared again, spreading his multiple sets of wings, raising his corpse-adorned sword to strike.

Remiel leapt into the path of the descending blade, blocking the sword’s burning arc with his own sword of fire. The fire from his weapon jumped to the corpse hanging limply from his attacker’s sword, voraciously consuming the dead Heavenly flesh and armor till nothing remained.

“The time for mercy is at an end, Remiel,” he heard Malachi say from behind. “Put the poor beast out of his misery before more bad comes of this.”

Using his sword, Remiel shoved his attacker back, spreading his own wings to put the Cherubim on the offensive.

“Nothing good can come of this, Zophiel,” Remiel roared, swinging his weapon in cracking arcs of fire. “Yield. . . . Set down your sword and surrender.”

The madness had taken the Cherubim’s voice, rendering the former sentry for the Garden nearly animal in his responses. He brought his black weapon down with a piercing cry as Remiel soared up into the air to avoid its bite. The sword cleaved the earth, the grass and flowers growing wild there withering before catching fire.

Remiel descended, his own weapon poised to deliver a killing blow. The Seraphim drew back the sword, aiming the blade for the base of the Cherubim’s neck, where his armor ended. Thrusting forward with the sword, Remiel’s aim was true, but Zophiel, in his maddened state, was faster. The sword blade slipped past its target, allowing the Cherubim to reach up and grab hold of Remiel’s chest plate and snatch him from the air.

Wings flapping wildly to get away, Remiel was thrown backward, slammed into the Tree of Knowledge’s trunk with enough force to shake the Tree so violently that fruit upon its branches began to rain to the ground.

Things were momentarily black, but the Seraphim struggled back from the abyss, surging awake to find the sword he had dropped.

Remiel lunged for his weapon, his slim fingers gathering around the hilt just as Zophiel’s armored foot dropped down to pin the blade to the ground. Remiel looked up into the faces of the Cherubim to see him standing there, the black blade raised above his head.

But it did not fall.

Remiel could see the struggle going on behind the Cherubim’s eyes—the inner conflict threatening to rip the angel sentry asunder with its fury.

“Put down your weapon,” Remiel told the tormented angel, sensing that there might be a solution that did not involve one of their deaths.

Zophiel stumbled back, his huge sword dropping to his side as his free hand grabbed at his head. The Cherubim was struggling, unable to do battle on two fronts.

“Strike while you can, Remiel!” Malachi commanded.

The Seraphim reacted, picking up his sword and springing from the ground prepared to deal a killing blow to his foe, but Remiel pulled back on the savagery, watching the Cherubim in the midst of some great inner struggle.

Malachi was suddenly beside him, wrenching the sword from Remiel’s hand.

“Slay him now, while we have the chance,” the elder angel bellowed, as he turned to face their beleaguered foe.

And just as Malachi was about to strike, the air was filled with a trumpet’s blare.

“Lucifer,” Remiel said, gazing up into the heavens.

Malachi and Zophiel were listening as well as the wail of the battle horn was replaced with the sound of flapping wings . . . hundreds and hundreds of flapping wings.

Sensing that his moment was fleeting, Malachi swung out with the sword, hoping to catch the Cherubim unawares. But Zophiel was at the ready, parrying the blade and lashing out with his other hand, swatting Malachi aside like some bothersome bug.

“No!” Remiel yelled, recapturing his sword to finish what he should have done before, his moment of compassion perhaps leading to their undoing.

The Cherubim did not press the attack, instead stepping back and away. He looked to the sky as the pounding of angels’ wings filled the air, before looking back to Remiel.

And without another word, the angel sentry spread his own wings, leaping into the air, and then was gone in a crackling discharge of energy as he tore through the veil that separated this reality from others.

“After him,” Malachi hissed, crawling to his feet, but this time Remiel did not heed his command.

“No,” the Seraphim said, quickly walking from the clearing.

“No, brother?” Malachi asked incredulously.

Remiel turned to face the powerful angel. “Eden cannot be allowed to fall into their hands,” he said as he pointed toward the sky. “The Cherubim is the least of our problems now.”

Malachi did not respond, but the sneer upon his radiant features told Remiel that the old angel was not used to having his words go unheeded, but there was no time for delicate feelings. There was a war on, and his Lord God was depending on what he would do next.

“Quickly, now,” Remiel said to him. “Come with me or be trapped here forever.”

The elder said nothing more as wings emerged from his back, and with a single, powerful thrust, he launched himself into the heavens and was gone.

Thoughts returned to the mission at hand, he hacked his way through the verdant jungle, hoping that he wasn’t too late. Remiel knew where Lucifer and his legions would try to enter the Garden, and he made his way quickly toward the entrance to Paradise. Emerging from the dense wall of green, Remiel saw the twin stone posts from which the gates to the Garden hung.

Still open wide and beckoning.

This would be where they would try to gain entrance.

The sounds of winged flight and the bleating of war horns echoed through the air as Remiel passed through the passage to gaze up into the sky.

Soldiers still in service to the Lord God were in battle with the followers of Lucifer . . . the blood of angels raining down from the air to quench the thirst of the lush Garden below.

Outside the posts, Remiel spread his arms, taking hold of the gates in each hand, ready to slam them shut and sever the tie between Eden and Heaven. He hated the thought of it, Eden being such a beautiful place, but the Morningstar planned to corrupt it, turning it against their Lord and Master.

He could hear the legions of Lucifer in the sky above, their screeching cries growing louder as they readied to drop down upon him—to prevent him from doing what the Almighty desired.

“Remiel!” called a voice that he knew belonged to the Morningstar; it wasn’t even necessary to turn.

“Paradise isn’t for you, Lucifer,” Remiel roared to the heavens, using all his strength to swing the mighty metal gates closed.

And as they came together, the locking mechanism slipped finally into place with a sound like the cracking of the universe’s largest bullwhip, and the floor of Eden, just outside the locked gates, began to tremble and shake.

The ground began to disintegrate beneath his feet, and Remiel took to the air, watching as the Garden of Eden started to become less and less defined, no longer attached to the Heavenly Kingdom—cut away, and slipping from the present reality into another.

Cast adrift in a sea of realities too numerous to count.

Likely never to be seen by Heaven—or any other—again.

“This is a surprise,” Remy said, the memory of the last time he’d seen the elder angel fresh in his thoughts.

“I gather you never imagined you would see the likes of me again,” Malachi said as he reached up to bend a beautiful flower toward himself so that he could smell it.

“These days I never rule anything out,” Remy said, and smiled at the ancient being. “Let’s just say I’ve learned from experience.”

“Experience,” Malachi said with an accepting nod. “And what experience, may I ask, brought you to this?” the elder asked as he scrutinized Remy’s appearance.

“Let’s just say the affairs of Heaven no longer agree with me,” Remy replied, attempting to be respectful, but having a difficult time keeping the annoyance from his tone. “So I’ve removed myself from the equation.”

“You live as one of them?”

“I do.”

“Fascinating,” Malachi said. “Do you see what you’ve inspired?” the elder then asked the unmoving form of Adam.

“Can he hear you?” Remy asked, moving closer.

“Yes, he can,” Malachi answered. “But the passage of time is finally catching up to him.” The elder turned his gaze from the withered form inside the transparent sarcophagus to Remy.

“So he’s dying?” Remy asked, pangs of sudden emotion tightening in his chest.

“They were never meant to live forever,” the designer said. “The fact that he’s lived this long is quite remarkable.”

Remy recalled his fascination with the first humans: how he would perch unseen in a tree within the Garden to watch these fabulous new creations that God had brought into existence. He had always known how special they would be, even though many of his kind did not.

“And this has something to do with needing to find the key to Eden?” Remy asked, remembering what brought him across the country.

“It does,” Malachi said. The elder was staring again at the withered form inside the see-through box. “It’s all connected, I believe,” he said, reaching up to wipe away a smudge from the front of the case.

“Connected to what?”

“It’s coming back, Remiel,” Malachi said, his dark eyes growing wide with excitement. “The Garden . . . Eden . . . it’s coming here . . . drawn to this world. Drawn to him.”

Remy couldn’t believe his ears. He’d thought the Garden had been destroyed countless millennia ago, when the gates were slammed closed and it snapped away from reality.

“But that’s impossible . . . isn’t it?” Remy asked. “I thought that once it had been severed from its connection to Heaven that . . .”

“Did you honestly believe you would ever see me again?” Malachi asked.

“Got me,” Remy said with a smirk. “Like so many others of our ilk, I thought you had been a casualty of the war.”

There was a stone bench beside the stream and Malachi went to sit. Remy followed, listening as the elder explained where he had been.

“The war,” he said sadly. “I watched it from a distance with a disbelieving eye, never imagining the horrors that transpired. Here were the beautiful creatures that I helped to create, slaughtering one another with such abandon, jealous of their Lord . . . jealous that He did not love them enough.”

Malachi stared off into the man-made jungle, reliving what he had experienced.

“I could no longer stand the sight of it and left,” he said, disgust in his tone. “So I headed out there . . . into the universe. What I was searching for, I did not know.”

Remy could understand what the elder had felt, for he had experienced it as well, though his personal search had not taken him to the stars, but to the Earth below.

“I found nothing out there to assuage my feelings of sadness, of disgust,” Malachi said.

“So you came here,” Remy stated.

“I wandered the planet for some time, hiding myself away, observing the Earth as it evolved,” Malachi answered. “I found myself drawn to him . . . to Adam. . . . Like a light far off in the distance, I went toward it, searching for purpose.”

Malachi stood up from his seat, walking toward the life-support unit, his back to the detective.

“And I found it with him, and those who care for him. I believe it has something to do with his . . .
our
connection to the Garden,” the elder said. “Somehow his impending death is calling Eden here . . . to this plane of existence. To make things complete again.”

Malachi was silent as he stared within the life-sustaining case at the first of humanity.