Armageddon (2 page)

“It’s me!” yelled Frank, attempting to drag her to the cellar door.

The open cellar door.

“Frank, the door,” she managed, her voice filled with panic. He didn’t answer, his strong arms wrapped around her, practically carrying her.

“Daddy?” a voice called out from the cellar below.

“No,” Edna said, twisting her head to locate the monster. She found it perched atop a nearby counter, its awful face pointed toward the open door, sniffing the air—smelling her children below.

And then it leaped.

The creature’s body collided with them, and they fell against the wall beside the door to their sanctuary.

“What’s going on up there?” Michael called up, and Edna thought she could hear the creak of stairs.

“Michael, stay where you are!” Edna screamed.

Her husband was on his hands and knees, his eyes locked on the creature that crouched mere inches from him.

“Get down the stairs,” Frank ordered, refusing to look away from the beast. “Get down the stairs and lock the door behind you.”

“Frank, you—”

“You heard me!” he shouted as the monster attacked.

The abomination wrapped its spindly arms around the man Edna had loved for well over twenty years. Frank fought back, using all his might to drive his attacker toward the center of the kitchen.

“Go!” Frank grunted with exertion as the monster growled with annoyance.

Edna couldn’t leave her husband. She ran to the basement door, peering down the steps at her children, who stood there, their eyes shining white in the darkness below.

“Lock this door!” she commanded, slamming it closed.

Back pressed against the door, she heard the deadbolt slide into place and could not help but smile.
Good kids,
she thought, as she grabbed an overturned kitchen chair and swung it with all her might at the murderous beast that straddled her husband on the floor.

The creature cried out, falling from atop her husband to the floor. Edna went to Frank, reaching down to pull him to his feet. His face was wet, glistening in the faint light of the room, and she knew that it wasn’t sweat.

“I thought I told you to—”

“When have I ever listened to you?” Edna asked, placing herself beneath his weight and helping him toward the cellar door.

The monster was suddenly before them, cutting them off, its mouth opening wider and wider as it hissed, raising its clawed hands, preparing to attack again.

But there came a rumble so loud and intense that it shook the house.

And then there was light—a searing white light that seemed to find its way into every corner of the room.

As the monster cowered, Frank and Edna froze in terror.

And Edna had to wonder,
Is this it? Have Vilma and Aaron—the Nephilim—failed?

Is this the end of the world?

Two Weeks Ago

T
he rain continued to fall.

Gabriel sat in the shelter of the burned-out home, watching as his metal dish filled with the heavens’ tears.

Though it appeared as if he was simply resting, the yellow Labrador retriever was on full alert, his black nose attuned to the scents of the unnatural. A pack of strange beasts, which the dog did not have a name for, had been prowling the neighborhood since he and his friend Dusty had arrived at the Stanleys’ old, fire-ravaged home.

It made him sad to be there, but when Vilma had ordered him to take Dusty to a place where Gabriel felt safe, this was the first place to enter the dog’s mind.

This was where he had been happiest—the most content. He and his boy.

He and his Aaron.

Gabriel looked away from his dish and out at the overgrown yard, remembering a simpler time with his master, before he was changed into what he was now.

The holy fire inside the retriever rolled, as if reminding him that it was there, not that Gabriel could ever forget it. It was Aaron’s newly awakened power that had saved Gabriel after he’d been hit by a car.

Aaron’s power had brought him back from the brink of death.

Aaron’s power had changed him.

The dog spotted a muddy tennis ball nearly hidden in the tall grass at the far side of the yard. Rising to his feet, Gabriel trotted across the yard, lowering his nose to sniff at the ball.

It smelled of the past, before Aaron knew that he was Nephilim, before Aaron’s foster parents were slain by the murderous angels called the Powers, before Gabriel’s own transformation into . . .

Into what?

Was he even a dog anymore? Gabriel thought of the ferocious power that was now a part of him. It had been given to him by Aaron, and it had made him something else entirely.

And what that was concerned him.

Gabriel wished Aaron was there with him, that they could at least pretend things were the way they used to be.

A moan from inside the house caused the Labrador to
reluctantly leave the tennis ball and the scents of the past, and look in on Dusty.

Gabriel’s water dish was practically full, and he lowered his head to carefully grip the edge of the bowl in his teeth, lifting it gingerly, barely spilling a drop. With equal care, he carried the bowl up the rickety back steps and through the torn screen in the porch door into the burned remains of the house.

It still smelled strongly of smoke.

Smoke and death.

The scents forced Gabriel to remember the horror of what he’d experienced here.

The horror of the angels that had come to kill his boy, but had taken the lives of Aaron’s foster parents, Tom and Lori Stanley, instead. The horror that had set Aaron and Gabriel on their long journey to save the world.

He maneuvered through the rubble-strewn hallways, careful not to spill the water that he carried. Dusty moaned again, and Gabriel quickened his pace.

They’d found a dry place at the back of the house, in a room that had been the den. Using some old blankets that he’d found, Gabriel had made a makeshift bed for the injured Dusty.

Gabriel entered the room to find the young man lying atop the covers. Dusty’s exposed flesh was damp with fever from the infected lacerations that covered his body. He appeared to be awake, his glassy eyes watching as the dog carried the water bowl closer.

“Good boy,” Dusty managed, before his body was racked with convulsing chills.

Gabriel set the dish on the floor, only spilling a few drops, and approached his friend. He studied the angry wounds that covered just about every inch of the young man’s body. Bits of darkened metal were imbedded deep beneath Dusty’s skin. There was nothing Gabriel could do to remove the shrapnel from when the Abomination of Desolation’s giant, mystical sword exploded. All he could do was try to keep the infection from growing worse.

He took a long drink of the fresh rainwater before he began what had become his ritual. He lowered his head and gently began to lick the wounds clean of infection.

Gabriel worried about the state of the world. The longer he and Dusty remained inactive, the worse it would become.

But mostly he worried about his boy, Aaron.

Worried that he might not see him again.

Worried that Aaron had succumbed to his own injuries sustained during the vicious attack upon the school where he and the other Nephilim had lived until a few days before.

Worried that he—and the world—might not be able to survive Aaron’s demise.

*   *   *

Vilma lay on the cot in the tiny concrete room, staring up at the ceiling vent and listening to the hum of the artificially produced air, wondering what was happening in the world
above.

It had been two weeks since she and Aaron had been taken from her family’s home and brought to this underground installation. She’d heard nothing since about what was happening beyond these walls.

She sat up and pulled on her boots. She couldn’t sleep, and lying there wasn’t going to do her much good. She would go and sit with Aaron for a while.

She hesitated at the door, knowing what—who—she would find posted on the other side.

Vilma pushed down on the latch and pulled open the metal door.

Levi was at his post, sitting on the bench outside her quarters. His large, mechanical wings were unfurled, and he appeared to be sharpening the ends of his metal feathers.

The fallen angel stood upon seeing her. “Hello, miss,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, and his mechanical wings disappeared back beneath the long, heavy coat his kind always wore.

“Hello, Levi,” she responded.

Levi, and others like him, called themselves the Unforgiven. From what Vilma understood, these fallen angels had refused forgiveness for the crimes they had committed against Heaven during the Great War. Denied all divine abilities, the Unforgiven mastered magickally enhanced technology to carry out their mission against the Architects, as a way of penance
for their crimes.

And to finally allow themselves to be forgiven.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she continued, letting the door close behind her.

The fallen angel nodded. “Not hard to believe during these turbulent times.” He slid the file he’d been using to sharpen his wings into the pocket of his coat. “Is there anything I can do to assist you?”

Vilma shook her head. She could feel his stare from behind his goggles and hated that she could not see the fallen angel’s eyes behind the dark lenses.

“A sleeping potion, perhaps?” Levi offered.

“No, that’s all right,” she said. “I’ll just go and spend some time with Aaron.”

“Very good,” Levi said with a slight bow of his head.

“All right then,” she said, starting down the harshly lit corridor. “If anybody is looking for me . . .” She’d just about reached the corner when the fallen angel called after her.

“Miss Corbet is with the lad, I believe.”

Vilma turned to acknowledge that she’d heard him. He was honing the edges of his metal-feathered wings to razor sharpness again. She imagined the damage they could do in battle, and a shiver ran down her spine.

“Thanks,” she said, trying not to sound irritated.
When isn’t Miss Corbet with Aaron these days?

Vilma rounded the bend and approached the elevator.
The infirmary where Aaron was recovering was two levels below this one. She pressed the red button and waited for the car to arrive. Of all the places she could have ended up after fleeing the destruction at the Saint Athanasius School, she’d never thought it would be an abandoned, underground missile base.

But that’s exactly where she and Aaron had been brought by the Unforgiven and Taylor Corbet—Aaron’s mother.

Vilma leaned back against the cold cinder-block wall, listening to the metallic grinding of the gears and pulleys bringing the elevator down to her. Taylor had promised that the elevators, as well as the entire installation, were perfectly safe, but Vilma wasn’t sure she believed that.

The elevator doors parted with a shrieking whine, and she stepped inside, pushing the number six. It took a moment, but the doors closed, and her descent began with a disturbing lurch.

Levi had explained that the Unforgiven claimed places that were abandoned. Deconsecrated churches, burned-out buildings, unfinished construction, and decommissioned military bases became their secret hideouts.

This particular base in Kansas had been abandoned since the late eighties.

The elevator stopped with a savage jolt, and Vilma found herself grabbing hold of the metal railing to steady herself. The lights flickered ominously, but the metal doors slid wide.

Vilma stepped out into the mint-green corridor. The paint was chipping in many places, and there was a very specific smell to this floor. It smelled like a hospital.

She started toward the reception area, where another of the Unforgiven sat. She didn’t know this one’s name. He’d never offered it, even though she’d seen him just about every day since she and Aaron had arrived.

His head was bowed as if asleep, but Vilma knew better.

As she drew closer, he lifted his head, and she was again staring at her reflection in goggle-covered eyes.

“Here to see the boy again,” the fallen angel stated.

“Yes,” she answered, as she did every time she visited.

“He is still unconscious,” the Unforgiven informed her, although she already knew that.

Vilma often thought of the day, or evening, when she would come and be greeted with news that he was awake. But for now, she had to be content with the fact that her boyfriend was still alive.

Images of the assault upon him flashed through her mind, no matter how hard she tried to keep them at bay. The armored figure of Lucifer Morningstar—his own father—plunging a blade of darkness, a blade of black fire into Aaron’s stomach.

“Better than him being dead,” she blurted out as she had since first speaking with this Unforgiven angel that watched over the infirmary.

“Yes, that is true,” the Unforgiven replied.

“May I go and see him?” she asked.

The angel did not respond immediately. He never did.

“Miss Taylor Corbet is with him,” the angel finally said flatly.

“She always is,” Vilma responded, again attempting to keep the annoyance from her tone, but failing.

“I’m told it is a mother’s concern for her child,” the fallen angel explained.

A mother’s concern,
Vilma thought, feeling her ire rise. Where was her concern all those years he’d been without her? All the years he’d spent in foster care? Where was her concern then, when her son needed his mother?

Silence followed, and it looked as though the angel was meditating or whatever it was that he was doing behind the reception desk.

“I’d like to see him,” Vilma stated.

“Of course,” the angel said.

She took that as permission to proceed and started down the short hallway. Aaron’s room was at the far end, on the left.

Her legs grew heavy the closer she got to his room. She hated to see him like this, clinging to life.

Barely.

Nobody could tell her what was wrong with him, other than that he’d sustained a serious injury and was trying to heal.

What more should she need, really?