The Fallen 3 (29 page)

There was no hesitation as the Son of the Morning launched himself, missile-like, at his enemy, driving his still fiery blade into the chest of the blood-colored Devil.

Lucifer’s powerful wings strained as he put all he could behind his sword, pushing it deeper and deeper into the heart
of his foe. It surprised him that the Devil did not attempt to escape. Instead it extended its muscular arms around the Morningstar, drawing him close in a nearly loving embrace.

The Devil continued to hold him as Lucifer struggled in his grasp. It brought its large mouth of many teeth closer to his ear. Lucifer expected to feel the bite of the beast, yellow teeth chomping down on the flesh of his throat, but he felt the Devil’s breath upon his neck, and heard the words spoken ever so softly.

“Thank you.”

And before Lucifer could question what the Devil’s thanks meant, the underground chamber began to quake in the throes of too much violence and death, and caved in upon them. The space filled with tons of ice and snow, and the corpses of things better left entombed and undiscovered.

The Abomination of Desolation had placed a sphere of divine protection about its kneeling form.

Aaron watched with cautious eyes as Verchiel flew out in front of them, heading toward the barrier of destructive energies that surrounded the giant angel at a breakneck pace.

Above the din of their flapping wings, Aaron called out for him to be careful, but it appeared as though the Powers’ former leader had not heard, or at least had chosen to ignore his warnings.

Verchiel struck the wall of energy with a flash, his angelic form
seeming to catch fire as he was violently thrown to the ground, rolling around in the dirt to extinguish the voracious flames.

Aaron, Vilma, and the other surviving Nephilim all stopped before the barrier, flying around the humming sphere of energy searching for a way to penetrate it.

Aaron’s hair stood on end the closer he got to the bubble. Pulling back his sword arm, Aaron struck the shield, and the energy discharge repelled him.

Seeing that the blow did little, Vilma halted her assault.

“How can we stop this thing if we can’t get at it?” she asked, hovering beside Aaron.

“There has to be a weak spot,” he said.

William struck at the barrier from another angle, but to similar effects. The boy was thrown to the ground with a flash.

Aaron heard the sound of struggle and looked down to see Verchiel crawling unsteadily to his feet, wings flapping away the dust and dirt that covered them.

“And if there isn’t one, we’ll make one,” Verchiel said, approaching the energy shield. He extended his hand as close as he could without touching it. “The barrier is of divine origins,” he stated. Then, turning his cold gaze to Aaron, he said, “As am I and as are you and your friends.”

His words seemed tainted with poison. Aaron knew it must have been difficult for Verchiel to admit something like that. It went against everything he’d once believed.

Aaron flew down to stand beside the angel.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked. It killed him to be asking anything of this monster, but the fate of the world was at stake, and time was of the essence.

Verchiel walked around the crackling sphere of power, peering in at the giant angel wreaking its havoc on the world.

“A collective strike,” the former Powers commander stated. “We should combine our efforts, striking the barrier with all our might in one devastating blow.” He fixed his stare on Aaron. “We just might be able to get inside, and once we’re in … that’s another story entirely.”

Aaron believed it plausible, and at the moment it was the only plan they had. He gestured to the remaining Nephilim to join them, and they obliged, flying down to land before the barrier.

He could feel their suspicion of the former Powers angel but hoped to rally them as a single force to breach the Abomination’s shield.

“Bring forth your weapons,” Aaron instructed.

And one by one their weapons of heavenly fire sprang to life in their hands.

“And on the count of three, we strike the barrier together,” he told them.

The Nephilim seemed to understand what he was asking of them, their eyes betraying their fear. Aaron would have been afraid too if he’d had the chance to stop and really think about their situation.

Aaron called Verchiel over to them.

“Together,” Aaron stressed loudly, gripping the hilt of his sword in both hands. “One.”

The Nephilim and Verchiel stood ready with their weapons.

“Two.”

Aaron gazed through the barrier at the divine giant, an angel of the Lord created to terminate all life upon the planet. It made him wonder about the kind of God that had been responsible for
his
creation, and the creation of all the Nephilim.

The idea of what would happen if they failed danced at the corner of his thoughts; what would happen to Vilma? To Gabriel, Lorelei, and the others … and what of Lucifer?

“Three.”

He pushed aside the potential for failure, thinking only about what they were about to do, and once past the barrier, what they would do to defeat the angel Wormwood.

Aaron saw it all as if in a dream. Everyone moving in slow motion as one, their weapons cutting through the air on a course toward the energy shield. All of them hitting the near invisible barrier at once. With devastating effect.

The explosion of light drove them back as the barrier fell, but Aaron knew that they must surge ahead, attacking en masse if they were going to stop the angel from completing its mission.

They charged the space.

The Abomination of Desolation watched their approach, hands still clutching the giant sword’s hilt.

Aaron felt in his gut that they had to separate the angel from its sword. He knew that destructive energies were being directed into the earth through the weapon’s great length.

But before they attacked, Aaron wanted to try something else.

“Wormwood,” he called out. “We are the protectors of this world, and we humbly ask you to cease your actions against it.”

The angel’s armored head turned as Aaron soared past, its giant, glowing eyes tracking the Nephilim.

“You were summoned prematurely,” Aaron continued. “It is not yet time for this world to die.”

For a moment Aaron believed that his pleas might have been heard.

The angel removed its armored hands from the hilt of the murderous sword, and turned its silent gaze toward those on the ground before him.

The situation suddenly felt very wrong to Aaron.

“Watch it!” he cried out in warning, just as the angel sent out devastating blasts of divine energy from the tips of its fingers.

The power was like a living thing, viper-like and infinitely more deadly. Five tendrils of heavenly energy lashed out at those who the angel believed were its enemies.

The Nephilim scrambled to escape.

Aaron watched in horror as one of Cameron’s wings became enwrapped in a fiery tendril. The boy cried out in pain
as his wing was consumed, leaving only a burnt nub.

Aaron flew down to help, but new tentacles of fire pursued him.

Vilma grabbed the injured Cameron, attempting to help him fly away, but she wasn’t fast enough. Another tentacle of writhing fire followed her.

Evading his own pursuer, Aaron leaped into the air, flying with all the speed he could muster to try to intercept the impending attack against his teammates. Swinging his sword, he cut the twisting appendage of flame in two, the blade of his heavenly weapon absorbing the angel’s hungry fire like a dry sponge.

He watched in horror as the fire expanded, morphing into a giant hand to snatch the pair from the air.

There was nothing he could do.

Then Verchiel appeared, pushing Vilma and the injured Cameron from the fire’s path, taking the brunt of the flame’s embrace.

The former leader of the Powers fell from the sky ablaze, landing at the angel Wormwood’s feet.

This seemed to distract the giant. It tilted its gaze to the still-burning angel, and reached to pick Verchiel from the ground.

Kneeling beside Vilma, and a nearly unconscious

Cameron, Aaron watched in wonder as the Abomination turned its attention to the holy entity it held in its hand.

* * *

Verchiel could feel an invading presence inside his mind.

The Angel of Destruction reached out to him psychically, probing the smoldering creature of Heaven in its hand. It did not understand why the divine creatures who served the Lord God were attacking it, and sought answers.

Verchiel experienced its immense presence, and that, coupled with the intensity of the pain he was experiencing as a result of being burned, made him wish that the fire had done its job and killed him.

Wormwood brought him closer, probing deeper, peeling back the folds of his mind in its attempts to find the answers it sought. It learned of the Nephilim, and how Verchiel had led the Powers in a wave to wipe them from existence, and how he had failed and been sent back to Heaven to face the wrath of God.

And it learned how desperately Verchiel wanted to be forgiven, and how he would do anything—even attempt to kill an instrument of the very God he sought absolution from—in order to get it.

Verchiel gathered his thoughts, painfully creating his awesome sword, and surged up from Wormwood’s palm, thrusting the fiery blade through the opening in the visor of its helmet, and into one of its glowing eyes.

The Abomination of Desolation cried out its pain, hands shooting up to claw at its injured face.

Verchiel spiraled down to the earth, his body and wings
badly marred from Wormwood’s assault. The others looked at him with shock and awe as he landed upon the ground.

“Kill it,” he proclaimed, barely able to keep his head up. “Kill it, while we still have the chance.”

A
aron watched for a moment as the angel called Wormwood stumbled about the lawn of the school, blindly roaring its disapproval in a deafening voice. Then he led the surviving Nephilim toward their injured prey. He did not need to tell them how important this attack was. They were as aware as he was that if they did not stop this angel, they would all die. The world would end, and that would be that.

Verchiel had provided them with an opportunity they could not squander. For Aaron doubted they would have another.

Jeremy heard his mother calling to him. It sounded as if her voice was coming from very far away, from down some long, lonesome stone corridor.

“I need your help, luv.”

He wasn’t quite sure where he was at that moment: someplace dark and cool—hiding from the pain. At first Jeremy tried to ignore her pleas, snuggling deeper into the darkness. But he could still hear her. She simply called for him all the louder.

“You must come for me.”

He knew that pain was waiting for him if he chose to answer her call. But what kind of a bloke would ignore the cries of his mum?

Jeremy rose toward consciousness, swimming through the inky blackness on his way back to a world of hurt. The closer he got, the more he remembered. The Powers angels and the
thing
that had crawled into his mouth and wrapped itself around his brain stem, taking over his body.

And he remembered trying to kill his friends and almost succeeding. If it hadn’t been for the dog … for Gabriel … he might just have.

Jeremy opened his eyes with a moan, every inch of his body screaming for attention. It felt as though he’d been scoured with a wire brush and then dipped in brine.

Pleasant, it was not.

There was a struggle going on at the front of the school, and Jeremy strained to get to his feet, compelled to join his friends.

But his mother had other ideas.

She continued to plead with him. He looked around to see if she was someplace nearby but realized the sound of her voice was coming from inside his own head.

This is a new trick
, he thought, struggling to maintain his balance as he continued to be racked with pain.

“Please, Jeremy,”
she begged.

He could hear the panic in her voice.

“You must come now, before they come for him.”

There was an explosion at the front of the school, and the sound of screaming. Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed. Concentrating with all his might, he brought forth his battle-ax of fire. He was about to join the fray when his mother called again, diverting his attention.

“I can’t do it alone, son. If they take him, there won’t be any chance of fixing this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“Who, Mum?” Jeremy asked the voice inside his head. “Who will they take?”

There was a pause, and the sounds of violence filled the air around him, and then she spoke again.

“The child,”
she answered.
“We must save the child.”

Jeremy had no idea who his mother was talking about, or how she was able to communicate with him, but he felt her urgency and was suddenly overcome with the need to do exactly as she asked.

The battle raged on at the front of the school, but it was no longer his concern. Jeremy had to get to his mother.

Painfully, he spread his wings and wrapped himself in the comfort of their feathered embrace. He thought of the hospital room where he’d last seen his mother, and prayed that he wouldn’t be too late.

For the sake of the child.

For the sake of the world.

For the sake of Heaven.

Vilma soared toward the roaring giant. She knew she should be terrified, but she also knew that fear would only work against her. Being scared would only be an obstacle, something that would prevent her from doing what needed to be done.

The enraged angel loomed closer, and closer still. She thought of her aunt and uncle … her cousins … and all the other people whom she’d loved in her relatively short life. What she was about to do, she did for them, but she also did it for herself.

Vilma wasn’t yet ready to die; there was far too much she still wanted to do with her life, and for these things to happen she had to try to kill the angel that was attempting to take her future, the future of the world, and the futures of everyone she loved.