Armageddon (3 page)

How about that he was going to pull through? That the guy she loved with all her heart was going to live?

But nobody would tell her anything.

She stopped in the doorway of the darkened room, taking in the shadow of the bed where Aaron lay and the woman sitting at his bedside, holding his hand.

“Come in, dear,” the woman said suddenly.

“Oh, hey,” Vilma said, entering the room. “I thought you might be asleep.”

“Not while I’m sitting with him,” Taylor Corbet said. “Aaron gets my full attention as long as I’m here.”

“That’s nice,” Vilma responded just to say something. “How’s he doing?” She moved to the bed. Aaron was so incredibly still and pale. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said that he was—

“Still unconscious, but I believe he’s healing,” Taylor said. “An engineer was by earlier to check on the healing ring we placed—”

“What?” Vilma interrupted. “Healing ring? What’s that?”

Taylor stood and reached across her son to turn on a small light above the bed. “We felt that we could better improve his chances if we were to assist him with the healing process.”

Vilma’s anxiety grew. “And how does this healing ring work? What is it?”

Taylor pulled Aaron’s sheet down to his waist, revealing a copper-colored ring with a glass center pulsing on his chest with an unearthly energy that seemed to mirror the beat of her boyfriend’s heart.

“It’s an Unforgiven design,” Taylor explained. “It’s a machine that uses stray life energies to boost the healing potential of the individual.”

Vilma couldn’t take her eyes from the circular machine. “And you couldn’t tell me about this?” she asked.

“I just did, dear,” Taylor said. “It’s for his own good.”

“But you could have come to me,” Vilma insisted. “You could have told me that you were going to attach some . . . some magickal machine to my boyfriend’s chest.”

She could feel herself growing angrier by the second and reached down to take hold of Aaron’s other hand. It was cold.

“It just would have been nice to know,” she said, fighting to control herself.

“You’re right,” Taylor agreed. “We should have told you, but there is so much at stake that—”

Vilma glared at his mother. “I have just as much say in his care as you. I should have been told.”

“I’m his mother,” Taylor Corbet stated.

“Sure,” Vilma said flatly. “I guess everybody has one, but I think there’s a little bit more to it than just a title.”

Vilma saw a flash of anger in the woman’s eyes.

“You think I deserve that.”

Vilma squeezed Aaron’s hand tightly. “He thought you were dead.”

“And you don’t think that tears me up inside?” Taylor’s voice began to rise. “Not a day went by that I didn’t think of
him, out there, needing me.”

Vilma refused to look at the woman.

“I needed him as much as he needed me,” Taylor continued. “But I loved him too much to go to him. I had to remind myself, day after endless day, that being with him would have been dangerous to Aaron, and the rest of the world.”

Curious, Vilma found herself responding. “You stayed away to protect him?”

Taylor stared lovingly at her unconscious son. “That was the only thing that kept me away,” she said. “The man that I had loved—Aaron’s father—I had no idea who he truly was, or how powerful.”

“Lucifer,” Vilma said.

Taylor laughed, and then smiled. There were tears in her eyes.

“I knew him as Sam.”

“Sam?” Vilma asked. “Lucifer Morningstar called himself Sam?”

Taylor laughed again, and the tears tumbled from her eyes. “He did.” She reached up to wipe her dampened face. “And to tell you the truth, he looked much more like a Sam to me than a Lucifer.”

“So, you actually had no idea who he really was?” Vilma asked.

Taylor shook her head slowly. “Not until after Aaron was born.”

Vilma’s curiosity was getting the better of her.

“How did you find out?”

Aaron’s mother’s face grew very still. “It was after I’d given birth,” she said, her voice sounding distant. “An angel told me . . . his name was Mallus, and he told me of my love’s true identity, and how there were powerful forces out there in the world who would have used me, and my child, to acquire the power they wanted.”

Vilma stared at the woman, as Taylor’s gaze lifted to meet her own.

“But all that came after I’d already been declared dead, and Mallus was helping me to escape from the morgue.”

THE HIMALAYAS

The storm raged around the two angels, and Mallus stopped for a moment to get his bearings. They’d already passed through the nearly deserted town of Lukla—the threat of the possible end of the world having dramatically cut into tourism and folks’ desire to risk their lives climbing mountains.

A raging snowstorm wasn’t helping matters much either.

Things had changed quite dramatically since Mallus and his companion were last here.

“Is it Thursday?” Tarshish, the last of the powerful angelic beings known as Malakim, suddenly asked.

Mallus looked in his direction as the snow swirled about his face. The Malakim had raised his body temperature so the
snow could not collect upon him.

“I think so, why?” the fallen angel asked.

“Sloppy joe night,” Tarshish said wistfully, referring to the old-age home where, until recently, he’d been hiding himself away. “I loved sloppy joe night.”

Mallus sighed. It had been like this for their entire journey, the Malakim reminiscing about what he had left behind when they’d decided to help the Nephilim avert the decimation of the world. For their part, the two had embarked on a mission to retrieve the power of God that had been housed inside the Metatron—a heavenly being they had destroyed while working for the Architects in this very region countless millennia ago.

Mallus squinted through the white and shifting haze, sensing the presence of other preternaturals nearby. He’d heard rumors that there was a tavern in these mountains for those of an unearthly disposition. It would be just the place to gather their thoughts—and perhaps some information to help them on their mission.

“Perhaps it will be sloppy joe night wherever we’re going,” Mallus suggested, trudging effortlessly through the accumulating snow to where he sensed the tavern to be.

“Do you think?” Tarshish asked. “Wouldn’t that be lovely.”

“I wouldn’t consider sloppy joes lovely,” Mallus said, watching the mysterious tavern gradually take shape before him. If he were human, he would not have been able to see it.

“Obviously you’ve never had the real deal. I wonder if they’d be made with hamburger,” Tarshish pondered. “Maybe yak? Wonder how that would taste?”

Mallus ignored his companion’s ramblings as he studied the magickal sigils, warding off evil forces, that had been carved into the wood of the tavern door.
A good sign,
he thought as he lifted the latch and pushed inside.

He recognized the smell almost immediately. It was the coppery tang of violence.

It was the smell of murder.

Blood was spattered everywhere, as were the remains of the supernatural beings who had been unlucky enough to have stopped in for a drink.

Nearly twenty large, apelike beasts stopped their feasting and glared at the intruders with glistening, yellow eyes. Their dingy white fur was matted with drying blood and other internal fluids.

These creatures had many different names—abominable snowmen, bigfoots, skunk apes—but Mallus had always called them yetis.

“Something tells me it’s not sloppy joe night,” Tarshish commented as the yetis roared their displeasure at the interruption of their meals and bounded across the tavern toward the two fallen angels.

“On your toes!” Mallus yelled to his companion, running to meet the first of the beastly attackers.

Though weakened by his fall from Heaven, the angel still had enough divine strength to deal with the likes of these filthy creatures. He pulled back his arm and delivered a punch to a yeti’s leathery face. The blow was solid, landing on the creature’s snout with a loud, satisfying snap. The woolly monster stumbled backward, its own dark blood streaming from its nose.

“There’s more where that came from,” the former commander of the Morningstar’s army informed the beast, as Mallus readied for the next wave.

The injured yeti emitted a terrible roar, leading the others in an all-out assault upon them. The monsters were on them in a wave of fur, fangs, and claws, each apparently starving for a feast of fallen angel flesh.

Mallus had no intention of being a yeti’s meal. The angel soldier lashed out with his fists, shattering bone and rupturing internal workings with every blow. But there was confidence in the way the beasts fought, a self-assurance that showed in the savagery of their attack.

They seemed to fear nothing.

Mallus was yanked from the floor by the arm, and before he could react, his yeti captor sank its fangs into his shoulder, tugging at the flesh. The fallen angel screamed in pain, sinking his fingers into the tough, leathery flesh of the vile beast’s face and ripping it from the yeti’s skull. The snow creature released him with a gurgling grunt, while three others charged forward,
driven mad by the scent of the angel’s blood.

Despite his pain, Mallus continued to fight. But the more he lashed out, the more effort they put into trying to bring him down.

And he feared that it would not be long before they succeeded. Mallus’s own blood streamed from his wounds to mix with that of the dead beings on the sticky floor.

“I’ve had just about enough of this,” bellowed a voice.

Mallus looked toward the sound, as a mound of muscular, furred creatures suddenly exploded in a silent flash. Innards, blood, bone, and fur spattered the ceiling and walls like some twisted abstract work of art.

The yetis atop Mallus froze. Tarshish rose from the remains of the mound, his slacks, checked shirt, and light Windbreaker torn and covered in gore. His eyes glowed.

There was another flash, and the Malakim’s clothing looked as though he’d just put it on fresh. “That’s better,” he said, admiring himself.

Survival instinct kicked in, and the yetis that still held Mallus began to back away.

“Do you want them to escape?” Tarshish asked his companion.

Mallus looked to the retreating snow beasts. Where was their confidence now? “No,” he said.

The Malakim raised a hand, passing it through the air as if stirring bathwater. The remaining yetis evaporated into a cloud,
raining a coppery mist onto the already gore-covered floor.

“That was unpleasant,” Tarshish commented.

“Wasn’t it,” Mallus agreed, gingerly touching his shoulder. He could already feel himself beginning to heal.

“Why are we here again?” the Malakim asked, as he strode about the ravaged bar. He almost slipped in a puddle of blood and grabbed at a heavy wooden table to steady himself.

“I was hoping for a quiet moment to collect ourselves,” Mallus answered. “And a chance to acquire some information.”

“There won’t be any of either, I’m afraid,” Tarshish remarked. “Unless we’re to extract that information from the dead.”

Mallus was about to agree when he heard a faint wheezing. His gaze met the Malakim’s. They’d both heard it.

The fallen angel moved carefully toward the bar. A bloodied figure was curled into a tight ball behind it.

“Over here,” Mallus said, crouching beside the injured form. The man wore a barkeep’s apron, and what little of his flesh wasn’t covered in blood was a strange golden color.
Elf,
the Malakim thought, somewhat surprised. The elves were a quiet race, usually keeping to themselves in the hidden corners of the world.

The barkeep had a ghastly wound in his side, leaking what little remained of his life blood onto the cold, wooden floor.

“He won’t be able to give us anything,” Mallus told Tarshish as the Malakim came around the bar.

“He still looks alive to me,” Tarshish commented.

“Not for much longer.”

“What kind of attitude is that?” Tarshish said, kneeling down beside the elfin barkeep and placing a hand on his head. “If I’d known you were such a quitter, I’d have stayed at the home.”

Before Mallus could respond, the Malakim’s hand began to glow, and the elf appeared suddenly stronger.

“What have you done to him?”

“I’ve given him a little bit longer,” Tarshish said. “Ask your questions. I can’t keep this up all day.”

The barkeep’s eyes were wide, his mouth moving, trying to speak.

Mallus pulled him into his arms.

“They . . . they attacked without provocation . . . ,” the barkeep whispered in his elvish language, but Mallus could understand, for he was an angel of Heaven—and even a fallen angel could understand all tongues.

“As creatures of a darker nature have a tendency to do,” Mallus acknowledged.

“They broke through the wards of protection with ease,” the barkeeper continued. “It is so, so much worse than we thought. . . .” The elf’s voice trailed off as his body began to twitch and death attempted to claim its prize.

“Not much longer now,” Tarshish announced.

“We’re searching for what became of the Almighty’s power
after it was cut from the Metatron,” Mallus quickly explained to the elf, feeling that ever-present twinge of guilt at his—their—past actions. “We believe that it created a kind of trinity, a dark trinity.”

The elf’s eyes went wide with understanding. “The Sisters,” he whispered, fear in his weakening voice. “The Sisters of Umbra.”

“Do you have any idea where we might find them?”

“He’s almost done,” Tarshish warned.

Mallus grabbed hold of the dying elf’s chin, his gaze boring into the elf’s eyes. “Do you have any idea where they are?” he repeated urgently.

“The body . . . ,” the barkeep managed. “The . . . corpse . . . of the . . . fallen . . . god . . .”

“That’s it for him,” Tarshish said, rising to his feet. “Empty.”

Mallus gently laid the corpse on the floor and stood, thinking about the elf’s final words.

“I was hoping he could have been a little more specific,” Tarshish said, perusing the dusty liquor bottles on the shelves behind the bar.