Fallen (32 page)

I disappeared then reappeared near Lycean,
creating a flash of light that broke up the violence momentarily.
He reacted, attacking before he realized who was there.

“You’re hurting Oliver!” I shouted.

If a werewolf can have a shocked expression
then Lycean managed it. We had been so concerned with trying to get
Black that we forgot our vulnerability again. We had no defense
against the wave of dolls now coming for us.

“Take Sophia and get her somewhere safe,” I
pleaded. “There’s nothing more you can do here.”

Lycean nodded then tore through the crowd of
dolls coming for us in order to get Sophia. I had no time to see if
they made it to safety. Magical dolls were crashing into my
Extension bubble. Fortunately, they couldn’t get through, but I
still couldn’t set more fires while they were crowding me in. I
would hit them and wound Oliver again.

I could see that Oliver was in a similar
predicament with dolls throwing themselves at his bubble
repeatedly. Then I had an idea. I might not be able to harm them,
but I could throw them around. I threw out my hands against the
inner surface of my Extension. The bubble bounded, throwing Dolls
on the outside yards away. More replaced them, but I threw them
away as well.

Oliver had spotted my method by now and was
doing the same. However, each volley thrown away was replaced by
another wave. Then those that had been thrown were able to come
back after them. This cycle would ultimately do us no good.

Then I remembered the Thames at our backs.
My next wave of dolls was hurled into the river. There they
struggled against the current, soaking up water like sponges They
flailed and screeched furiously, but still the mighty river took
them away. They had not been destroyed, but they also couldn’t
return.

I cried out to Oliver, “Throw them into the
river!”

He complied, and soon we had cleared away
the dolls that had come from the palace. Hundreds of burlap fiends
struggled to be free of the waters. But, they would be miles
downstream before they ever managed it.

Oliver and I stood alone between Westminster
and the Thames. Our fires were beginning to rage well, but we had
more to do.

“Do you think he’ll come?” I asked from
within my bubble.

“We’ve certainly gotten his attention by
now,” he said.

“Indeed you have.”

It was Black’s voice that had spoken. We
turned to find him approaching from the direction of Victoria’s
Tower. He was finely dressed in the attire of a gentleman—in
complete contrast to his character. He examined the burning tower
and palace wing with mild amusement.

“I see you survived your house fire,
Oliver,” Black said. “Come to repay the gesture?”

“We can’t destroy you, Black, but at least
we can destroy the city you want so badly,” Oliver said.

“Do you really think so?”

“We can try!” I shouted as I fired off a
series of lightning bursts.

The strikes hit Black head on, but he barely
seemed bothered. As he sought to defend himself, Oliver began the
spell that would bind the angel to himself. Black hit me with
lightning of his own and fire and a crushing shockwave that sent me
tumbling inside my bubble across the palace lawn. Parts of the
building began to crumble in the fire and collapse inward.

Oliver worked with his hands in movements
too quick for me to follow, muttering a binding as he did so.
Something happened. The force of Oliver’s spell began to take hold,
and Black noticed. He launched an attack on Oliver. Still safe
within his Extension bubble, Oliver completed his work.

Up on my feet again, I ran toward the angel,
throwing fireballs like those I had seen Oliver creating earlier.
Black waved them away, sending some to drown in the Thames while
others were redirected into Westminster. I remembered our battle
with Southresh in Tartarus and called for the river to help.

Water breached the banks like a great
serpent under my command then smashed into the angel, knocking him
down for the first time. He had been merely annoyed before. Now, he
was approaching a rage. He got back to his feet instantly, throwing
his hands up so that the ground beneath me obeyed his will.
Concrete and earth erupted in a strafing line that caught me up
within its fury. Once again, my Extension saved me, as Oliver had
said it would, but I felt weaker every second I fought with
Black.

Black vanished then reappeared almost
instantly with a great fiery sword in his hand ready to strike down
Oliver. A portal opened behind Oliver, within the Thames, as he
finished his binding. It appeared as a giant whirling vortex. Black
paused, apparently confused. Oliver took this window of opportunity
and leaped toward the vortex.

My heart sank within me, realizing that
Oliver would now be trapped within that terrible prison of angels
for the rest of his life. As Oliver fell through the portal, ready
to be swallowed up by oblivion on the other side, Black was pulled
after him. However, he resisted, stopping in his tracks, pulling
against the power of the vortex. Oliver was yanked back from the
mouth of the swirling whirlpool, but now hung in midair above the
river.

I instigated another attack, though I felt
my energies ebbing away. Somehow I had to weaken Black enough to
allow Oliver his chance. The portal already had hold of him, but
Black would not surrender to its power. I pounded at the fallen
angel with everything I could manage. He deflected what he could
while still trying to pull against the vortex that held Oliver and
him through the binding.

Black threw his fiery sword out over the
river at Oliver. He intended to kill the man he was bound to in
order to break the binding spell. I gave up my last vestiges of
strength in a bolt of lightning that arced away from my Extension,
striking the flaming sword and knocking it away where it was
swallowed up by the Thames.

Furiously, Black retaliated, hitting me with
a volley of white hot energy that decimated my Extension and drove
me through the dirt of the palace yard. Just as he prepared again
to kill Oliver and break the spell upon him, a burst of bright
light erupted. The good angel had arrived once more.

The only time I ever saw fear in Black’s
eyes was in that moment looking upon one of his own kind come to
stop him.

“My lord, what are
you
doing here?”
Black cried.

“Ridding myself of you!” the angel cried
back.

Black attempted a defense, but the good
angel waved it aside as if Black were
me
attacking him. He
then struck Black with a furious response—an explosion of raw power
that sent him reeling backwards toward the river and the swirling
water of the portal.

I watched as Oliver dropped through first.
However, Black was still fighting to survive. Great dingy wings
unfurled from his back, beating frantically in hopes of sending him
aloft. But the yawning portal, having already firming taken hold of
Oliver, now had him in its grasp.

Steadily it drew him in, meter by meter,
until his cries were swallowed up in the deathly silence of the
prison awaiting him. The portal snapped shut instantly, and a great
influx of water rushed into the vacuum where the vortex had been a
moment ago, sounding with the force of a thunderclap. The good
angel stood upon the shore watching it all transpire.

I had crawled up from the pit dug by my
arrival on the palace lawn. Limping over to where the angel stood,
I asked him if this meant we had won.

“Black has been imprisoned in Tartarus,” the
angel said. “He can be no further threat to you, or London.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You arrived just in
time to stop him from getting away with his plans.”

He smiled knowingly at me. “It was my
pleasure, Brody. That was my purpose.”

“There’s just one thing I still don’t
understand,” I said.

“What would that be?” he asked.

“When Black saw you…why did he call you
lord
?”

The kind smile he’d been wearing a moment
before slowly transformed into a sinister grin. His eyes glittered
with dark light. My previous feelings of hope and joy, while
standing in his presence, slowly dimmed to fear and despair.

“You aren’t sent by God, are you?” I
asked.

“Did I ever say that I was?” he replied.

Suddenly, the light he emanated had become
shadow. I felt like a dying animal in the desert, peering up at
circling vultures ready to devour. How had I not seen through his
veil of deception before?

“Who are you?” I asked.

His grin disappeared completely.

“Someone not to be trifled with, young man,”
he said. “Someone who will not be denied the fulfillment of my
plans simply because a rebel like Black chooses to assert
himself.”

I almost could not utter my next question
out of fear for what the answer might be. “Are you the Devil?”

He laughed out loud then—a terrible sound
that seemed as much roaring lion as laughter in my ears.

“Why did you help me?” I asked. “Why not
destroy me?”

He stopped laughing then and stooped down to
my level. “All in good time, boy. All in good time.”

A shockwave erupted from him that sent me
tumbling backward. I landed heavily on the concrete and nearly lost
consciousness. By the time I managed to sit up, both Lycean and
Sophia were there with me, asking me if I was in pain or in need of
medical attention.

The angel, whom I had once supposed to be
sent by God, was gone. Yet his machinations had come to pass. Black
was in Tartarus and out of his way, as well as Oliver. He was free
to carry on unhindered toward the inevitable course of his own
plans.

Charlotte stood at Stonehenge unable to put
into the words the heartache she felt. The stone arches that had
once stood for millennia were now reduced to rubble. Now she
understood what trap Black had meant when he had sent Tom after her
father in Greystone. No doubt he had made it through somehow. Tom
had always been quite clever. But Black had then destroyed the only
portal she knew of in and out of Greystone.

Charlotte sank to her knees in despair. Her
father and her people were now trapped without a way to sate their
ever present thirst. Greystone would become a house of madness if
something was not done to release them.

None of the ancient portal arches had been
left standing. Not that she could have mustered a new portal if she
had wanted. Vampires did not possess such abilities. But she could
find someone to do it.

That was the answer. Oliver had the power to
create portals almost anywhere. Surely, he could recreate the
portal into Greystone here. And if not here then somewhere,
somehow.

Charlotte jumped to her feet again. This was
not over. There was still hope for her father and Tom and the other
Breed. She had to find Oliver, and the only place to start was
where she had last seen him. Tidus.

She sprang into the air, her form changing
to the raven almost instantaneously. Rapid wing beats carried her
aloft where her course turned toward York. She had been deposited
there by Oliver’s portal. She only had to utilize its trace
elements to deliver her back inside King Lycean’s throne room
again.

The fires that burned Westminster Palace and
the Clock Tower had finally been extinguished by using the river in
the same way I had used it to attack Black. Much damage had been
sustained, but considering the alternative, I felt that it had been
necessary at the time and a good plan.

The only problem was the nameless angel. He
had deceived us all into thinking he was sent by the Almighty to
aid us. He could have been anyone. But I felt like I knew exactly
who he was. Whatever his plans, it would be bad.

Lycean had escorted Sophia and me back to
Tidus that same night where I received much attention to my various
cuts and scrapes and bruises, having been beaten nearly to a pulp
by Black’s furious replies to my feeble attacks. I wanted nothing
so much as to sleep for days on end. However, once I had received
medical treatment and been sent to bed, I lay awake remembering all
of the terrible events I had recently witnessed.

I wondered specifically about alternative
courses of action that we might have taken to avoid this end. Had
it really been necessary for Oliver to plunge into the depths of
Tartarus in order to save the city? And the angel, whom I had
foolishly assumed was good, why had he seemed at times to help me?
In hindsight, it must have always been to accomplish his own evil
purposes. Any seeming good had only been a means to some evil I
didn’t know about yet. And why would that angel want Black
imprisoned?

A cursory tour of the city, two days later,
found all of the captured mortals back in London. They had
returned, switching places with their doll counterparts. However,
no one seemed to know quite what had happened. There was much
confusion of mind, as well as unanswered questions. A great number
of people had apparently died, for many bodies had been found in
White Chapel. Strangely they had been nearly drained of all their
blood. Still, it was White Chapel, and the authorities assumed some
mass riot had taken place for unknown reasons.

Quite a bit of destruction of property had
also occurred, though no culprits had been found to explain it. It
had seemed, according to the press, that looting had occurred on a
mass scale throughout London. This may have even been the
mysterious cause of the fires that damaged so much of Westminster
Palace. Of the culprits, only their burlap sacks had been left
behind, strewn throughout the streets and homes of London’s
confused citizenry.

Ultimately, we were helpless. We had not
realized all that was taking place. And we had not taken any road
other than the one we now came to see the end of….And was it really
the end? Somehow, I thought not.