“Yeah, I’m good,” he said. “Any idea where we’re going?”
Melissa stood, the map in her hand. She stared at the yellowed paper and pointed to an area near its center. “We’re going right here.”
“How are we going to get there?” Cam asked.
“Weren’t you paying attention in those classes with Aaron and Vilma, when they were showing our Nephilim powers?”
“I paid attention,” Cameron snapped at her defensively.
“Well, obviously not that closely when we were learning about traveling.”
“What’s to know? You picture where you want to go, or Lorelei would put an image in our heads.”
“That’s one way,” Melissa said, still studying the lines and drawings on the map.
“There’s another?”
“See, not paying attention.”
“Screw you.”
She laughed, and closed her eyes to see the surface of the map in her mind. “Aaron said that there were other ways to travel. Like reading maps and studying photographs.”
Cameron made a disgusted face. “How do we do that?”
“Well, maps are made to show us where something is in the world, and photographs are moments frozen in place and time,” she explained. “Look, the map shows a particular place in relation to the world. We know of it by looking at where it is.”
“I’m not sure that I . . .”
Melissa sighed, striding toward her friend. “Well I’m willing to give it a try,” she said firmly.
“Have you ever done this before?”
She could not help but smile. “I wanted to go to China,” she said.
“And did you?”
“I ended up at a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco.”
“What went wrong?” Cameron asked.
Melissa shrugged. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“And you do now?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But I’m willing to try. There’s too much at stake not to.”
That seemed to sink in.
“You’re right,” Cameron agreed. “So, what do we do?”
Melissa moved closer to him, flexing the muscles in her back and calling upon her wings.
“Let me drive,” she told him.
She wrapped her wings around them both, while staring at the map to make sure she remembered every detail. She’d always known that those rainy-day recesses, playing with the world globe, would someday pay off.
“This makes me incredibly nervous,” Cameron said, avoiding Melissa’s gaze.
“What, the traveling or being this close to me?”
Their eyes locked for a second, before he looked away again.
That was interesting, Melissa thought, before quickly taking control of the moment.
She closed her eyes, picturing the ancient map. Closing her wings tighter about Cameron, she felt that odd sensation that she experienced when traveling great distances.
When traveling from here—
—to there.
They appeared in a rush of warm, tropical air, the ground beneath their feet loose.
Melissa opened her wings and gasped at the beauty of it. They were on the side of a rocky mountain island, surrounded by nothing but white, billowing clouds and deep-blue sea.
Cameron tried to maneuver for a better view.
“Where are we?” he asked, just as a large section of the rock he was standing on crumbled, and he fell.
Melissa grabbed for him, but only brushed her fingertips against his before he disappeared from view, obscured by the clouds that drifted about the mountain.
“Cameron!” she cried out. She waited, listening past the rushing winds and water, searching for a sign of her friend.
Something moved below, exploding upward at a tremendous speed.
She couldn’t help but smile as she watched Cameron bank around, his powerful wings beating the air.
“For a minute I thought you might’ve forgotten how to fly,” she said, as she moved to give him space on the ledge beside her.
“I wasn’t asleep during all our classes,” he teased. “This place is beautiful. Any idea where it is?”
“Tristan da Cunha,” Melissa said. “It’s in an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean.” She squinted her eyes, looking out over the water. “The nearest land is South Africa.”
Cameron stared at her.
“What?”
“How do you know all that?” he asked, admiration in his tone.
Melissa considered the question, realizing that she had no idea. She just did. “Special Nephilim powers,” she said with a wink. There was still so much to learn about what they were. She just hoped that between saving the world and keeping it from being consumed by darkness, they would get the chance.
She glanced at the map, then up the mountain. “I think we have to go up there,” she said. “There should be an entrance.”
“Meet you there.” Cameron spread his wings and took flight.
Melissa followed. Together, they surveyed the rocky surface for an opening that would take them inside the mountain.
“Is that it?” Cameron asked, flapping his powerful wings as he hung in the air.
She didn’t see it at first. The entrance was thin, like so many of the other cracks and crevices in the mountainside.
“I think it is,” she said as the two flew in closer.
There was no place to perch this time. The entrance to the cave would have been accessible to only the most experienced mountain climbers, or those who could fly.
“After you.” Cameron gestured for her to go in first.
“When did you become such a gentleman?” she asked, ducking her head.
“When I realized that there might be booby traps.”
Melissa smacked him as she passed. “Jerk.”
She pretended to be annoyed, but it was good to be with someone. She liked having another person to watch her back and share in the adventure. She’d missed that since the Nephilim had disbanded, and wondered if they would ever be close like that again.
There were no traps inside the cave, but there was a pretty substantial drop. Melissa peered down into the darkness. “Well, shall we?”
“We’ve come this far, might as well.”
“Shall we go together?” she asked, hoping the closeness wouldn’t scare him away.
“Sure,” he said. “Ready?”
They leaped at the same time, their wings fanning out behind them to slow their descent, flames of divine fire in their hands to light the way. After a moment, a bridge of stone appeared below them, and they touched down upon it.
Cameron looked around. “Which way?”
Melissa listened. At first she thought she heard the sound of running water, but as she tuned in, she became convinced that it was something altogether different.
Something mechanical.
“Do you hear that? Like the hum of a machine or something,” she said. “Sounds like it’s coming from down here.”
She started to walk along the bridge, Cameron right beside her.
It was dark up ahead, and she held out her hand to create a weapon of fire, primarily for illumination, but also just in case.
Cameron also created a weapon. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“I missed this,” he said, almost shyly. “Y’know, getting into things with somebody else. Being alone surrounded by monsters was getting kinda boring.”
She was going to tell him how glad she was that they had found each other again, and that maybe—
Cameron’s arm shot across her middle, stopping her cold.
“Why did you do—,” she began, lifting her sword to light the path before her—or lack there of. The stone bridge came to an abrupt stop.
“Sorry to hit you in the stomach,” Cameron said.
“That’s all right,” she answered. “I would have looked pretty stupid falling.”
“Yeah, you would have.” Cameron h
eld his sword up to illuminate what was above them. “I think there’s something up there.”
Melissa used her divine fire to shape a bow and arrow. She shot a flame into the air above them. The arrow stuck in a section of the stone, and the flare shed light on a metal door in the wall at least fifty feet above them.
“Would you look at that,” Cameron said.
“This has to be it,” Melissa said excitedly, allowing the bow to disintegrate, though the divine arrow continued to burn.
“Just like the entrance,” Cameron said, flexing his wings. “Only way to get there is to fly.”
Melissa jumped, her wings carrying her up to flutter before the door.
“Doesn’t seem to be any way to open it,” she said.
Cameron joined her, darting around, inspecting every aspect of the heavy door, but realizing that she was right.
Melissa laid a hand on the metal. Cameron followed suit, placing his own hands against the cold metal surface.
They heard it first, the grinding of gears, and they flew back as the circular door swung open on its own.
“Did you do something?” Cameron asked, bewildered.
“I think maybe we both did,” she said.
Melissa flew through the entryway, landing just inside. The mechanical humming became all the more prominent inside the stone cavern.
“Last chance to leave,” Cameron said, watching as the door slammed closed behind them. “Too late.”
“Wouldn’t want you in here all alone anyway,” Melissa said to him. “You might get into trouble.”
“I was thinking the same about you.”
It was dark, and Melissa again called upon a sword of fire to light their way. “Might as well have a look around.”
They’d gotten maybe five feet inside, when the chamber was illuminated by rows of small circles of white light.
A scene of past carnage lay before them.
Melissa and Cameron stopped, their eyes locked on the skeletal remains. Desiccated bodies were strewn about the floor. There were at least six of them, their bones yellowed with age and covered with the dust of time and cobwebs.
“What . . . what happened here?” Melissa asked.
“A fight,” Cameron said. He approached the corpses, walking slowly around them. “Some of the bones have been broken, like they’ve been cut with a sword.”
Melissa drew closer to Cameron as he reached for something amidst the bones.
Cameron pulled a large feather from the remains. “I think they were angels.”
Melissa looked around. There were many feathers amongst the bones. She shuddered, giving the pile of the dead a wide berth as she continued farther into the chamber.
Which revealed yet another startling sight.
A large chair, a throne really, dominated the space. Sitting in the chair were the remains of an armored angel, slumped forward, his armor filthy with the passing of time. His wings, furled tightly upon his back, looked as though they’d been draped with sheets, spiders having wrapped them in thick white webbing.
“Who do you think this is?” Melissa whispered.
“I don’t have a clue,” Cam answered. “But he is in one piece, and sitting in the big chair.” He turned his gaze back to the pile of dead. “I’d say he was the winner of the fight.”
The corpse shifted. Melissa thought it was a trick of the eye, the soft lighting playing upon the armor. But then the corpse sprang from the throne, its web-enshrouded wings opening with a powerful rush as his armored form flew at them.
A sword of fire came to life in the ancient angel’s hand as he landed, slashing first at Melissa—who barely had the time to create her own sword to block the savage strike—before he launched himself at Cameron.
“Melissa!” Cameron cried out, already locked in battle with the armored angel.
“I’m all right,” Melissa answered, rushing to his aid.
The armored angel was relentless. He slashed at them, putting them on the defensive. There was no doubt now that this being was responsible for the pile of corpses.
The skin of the angel’s face was practically translucent, like parchment paper, with a gray mustache and beard, but it was his eyes that truly captivated her attention. They were like two LED lights floating in pools of oil.
Cameron sprang into the air, and as he did, wished his sword into an enormous battle mace. He brought the spiked mace down upon the attacking angel’s weapon with a thunderous clamor, driving the angel back.
Melissa saw her opportunity and lunged. She drove the tip of her sword into the angel’s armored side, causing an explosion of energy that hurled her and Cameron back.
Dots of multicolored Christmas lights danced before her eyes as she fought to regain her composure. She had landed atop the pile of skeletal remains, but she was determined not to meet the same fate. Jumping up, she called out to Cameron.
“We can’t let him recover,” Melissa said, already wielding another sword of fire and making her way toward their foe, who had been knocked onto his back beside his throne.
Cameron agreed, following her closely.
The armored angel got to his knees and examined the hole in the left-hand side of his armor. Their shadows fell across him, as they prepared to strike him down.
“It takes a great deal of power to do this extent of damage,” the angel spoke in a voice as dry as dust, sticking his mail-covered finger into the hole and moving it around.
The angel then turned his eyes on them.
Cameron came at him, sword above his head, poised to bring the burning blade down in a lethal blow, when Melissa stopped him.
“Wait!”
Cameron stopped, confused.
The angel smiled. “A great deal of power indeed,” he reiterated, studying them both. “A mating pair. Of course . . .”
He grunted as he hauled his armored body to his feet, using the arm of the great throne for support.
“Now, which one of you would care to explain how you got out of your cages?”
* * *
The power of God in his hands, Mallus struggled to keep his footing as he made his way back to the surface.
The surviving mutated yetis were hot on his heels. As he fled, he’d slow to turn and point the sphere of divine energy at them, releasing destructive blasts to drive them back. But the side effects did not last long. They were practically breathing down his neck.
Mallus could feel the temperature in the tunnel growing colder and knew that he was getting close to the surface.
“I didn’t think we’d get this far,” Mallus said to the ball. It seemed to respond to his statement, its color shifting to a softer shade.
He believed that the Malakim was still present here. He’d reverted to pure energy in order to contain God’s power, though he retained some level of sentience. That was what Mallus liked to believe. After so many years of solitude, he’d enjoyed Tarshish’s company and didn’t care to be alone.
Especially when on the run from an army of yetis.
As the passage’s incline became more dramatic, he knew that he was almost there. Careful with his footing, Mallus increased his speed, watching as the sky appeared through the melted, circular opening just ahead.
The yetis yowled with fury. They knew his escape was imminent. Mallus considered blasting them again but did not want to slow his pace.
No, he would push on, striving for the murky light just above him.
Mallus could smell the yetis’ filthy stink as they bore down upon him. He pushed himself, wishing more than any other time that he still had his wings so he might fly from their desperate clutches.
But the fates, or perhaps it was the power of God, saw fit to aid him. The passage grew narrower as he climbed upward, and the throng of yetis—so desperate to claim their prey—were stuck in a logjam of seething fury.
Mallus sprang from the opening, falling to his knees, the sphere of radiance slipping from his grasp. The ball of divine energy rolled across the
ground, then came to a sudden stop. Around it, the layers of ice and snow melted away.
“I should be thankful that thing isn’t fragile,” Mallus remarked, getting up to retrieve the sphere.
Now came the hard part, he thought. Tarshish had been their transportation. What now?
Mallus looked around at the frozen wasteland of the Himalayas.
The yetis exploded up from the earth, searching for their prey. Even though the sun barely shone, Mallus could see that they were not accustomed to the brightness of being above-ground. They slowed, shielding their eyes from the murky light.
Mallus began to run, hoping he’d find some kind of cover to hide him until he could devise a plan.
The yetis, catching sight of their prize on the run, immediately forgot their fear of the surface and swarmed in pursuit of him.
The snow slowed Mallus’s progress. He held the sphere out before him, to melt a path. But if he melted a path for himself, he also melted a passage for his pursuers.
Mallus chanced a quick look behind him, and did not like what he saw. The yetis were gaining. It was only a matter of seconds before they would overtake him.
Deciding to use a blast of God’s power to buy himself a little more time, Mallus turned and aimed the ball.
The ground around them began to shake, and something exploded upward in a shower of ice and rock to hang in the frigid air.
The yetis paused, fearfully looking about to see what could have caused the earth to quake so violently. Mallus used the diversion to make his escape.
“Where is it?” boomed a powerful voice across the icy expanse. “Where is what has been stolen from me?”
Mallus’s first instinct as a warrior of Heaven was to fight, to throw himself at the enemy, and to take him down by any means. But he knew that it couldn’t be like that, especially if the world was to survive. He needed to protect his prize and escape by any means necessary.
The armored figure that had exploded up from the ground loomed above the white landscape. It swooped down upon the yetis, its wings of black decimating their ranks with a mere swipe.
“Where is it?” he bellowed as the few surviving creatures cowered.
Mallus had managed to find cover behind an outcropping of ice and snow, and considered his options—which were pretty much none.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Mallus grasped the sphere in both hands and spun, ready to fire a blast of divine fury at his attacker, but was taken aback by the sight of a young man in a baggy sweat suit. And a yellow dog.