It took a moment for his brain to shake off the shock. He knew these two.
“Where did you come from?” Mallus asked.
“Long story,” the dog named Gabriel barked.
“Will you come with us?” Dusty asked.
Mallus could feel evil approaching them, and he looked at them both with desperate eyes.
“You won’t have to ask me twice,” he said, the sphere of God power growing bright as the sun in his grasp.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was nothing—and that was exactly what Aaron wanted.
He didn’t want to feel the pain of failure anymore, the disappointment of all who had suffered because he wasn’t good enough.
Nothing was exactly what he deserved.
But suddenly, he was disturbed by the strangest sensation.
Something cold touched his nose, pulling Aaron back from the void. He opened his eyes to find two beady eyes staring at him, and a pink nose twitching.
It was a mouse, and Aaron remembered that his name was Milton.
“What are you . . . ,” Aaron began, as a hand reached into his field of vision and scooped the mouse away.
Aaron rolled onto his back and looked up into the face of his father.
“Hello, Aaron,” Lucifer said, placing the rodent on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to see you here.”
“Is that you?” Aaron asked, recalling the last time he had seen his father. He had plunged a sword of darkness into the Nephilim’s chest. “Are you you now?”
“In this place, I am,” Lucifer said. “But out there . . .” The Morningstar looked out into the perpetual shadow. “I’m afraid that I’m still not in control.”
Aaron sat up with a grunt, his every muscle protesting the movement. It felt as though he’d been lying inert for weeks.
“What happened to you?” Aaron demanded.
“Let’s just say I let my guard down,” Lucifer explained. “I let my guard down and a very old, very powerful evil took root inside my body.”
“The Darkstar,” Aaron said, remembering the name he’d heard from a goblin warrior.
“Satan, the Darkstar,” Lucifer corrected.
“But I thought that you were . . .”
“Satan? Never took the title, despite what others have said throughout the ages. But now he’s taken over my body and turned me into the monster that legend made me out to be.”
“We have to stop him,” Aaron said, rising to his feet. “We have to get you back.”
“Yes,” Lucifer agreed. He reached up and gently petted the mouse perched on his shoulder. “But I think we need to deal with you first.”
“Me?” Aaron asked, surprised. “There’s nothing wrong with—”
“He’s inside you,” Lucifer said, touching Aaron in the center of his chest.
Aaron winced, the pain suddenly excruciating.
“When you were stabbed, he planted a seed of darkness in your soul.”
The skin on Aaron’s chest burned, and he ripped open his shirt to reveal a large, jagged, black circle in the center of his chest.
“What is this?” he asked his father in surprise.
“The seed is growing.”
“How do I—” Aaron dropped to the ground, bent over with agony.
“The darkness always leaves a piece of itself behind, to fester and grow. It’s preventing you from healing. It’s feeding on your courage, making you doubt who you are—what you are.”
Aaron mustered a short laugh through his pain. “That’s where you’re mistaken,” he choked. “I’m not at all who you think I am or what I’m supposed to be.”
“You’re wrong,” Lucifer countered. “You’re special, Aaron. Capable of so much more than you even realize.”
“I’ve failed in just about everything that I’ve tried to do.”
“And that’s how the darkness wins,” Lucifer scolded. “You might’ve failed at some things, here and there, but they’re only minor pieces of the whole plan.”
Lucifer knelt down, placing a firm hand upon Aaron’s shoulder. “The victor of the battle is yet to be determined.”
Aaron looked down worriedly at his chest. The black mark was growing larger. “How can I stop this?”
Lucifer’s grip on Aaron’s shoulder intensified, and his eyes bored into his son’s. “Deep inside you is the strength of many.”
Aaron felt a new sensation within his chest. “My skin!” He tore off his shirt, which had started to smolder, to burn. His sigils were prominent, blazing red, superheated from within his body. “What’s happening?”
“Those marks,” Lucifer stated, pointing to the designs on Aaron’s skin. “Each represents a warrior of Heaven who fell in service to me—to my misguided cause—during the war with Heaven.”
Aaron gazed down upon his chest. The sigils surrounded the circle of black, seemingly stopping its advance.
“These marks give you a portion of the power that those soldiers gave to me when they swore their allegiance.”
Aaron could feel the divine fires burning within him.
“My destiny,” he said.
“You will save the fallen, and realign the world with Heaven.”
“My destiny,” Aaron repeated, rising to his feet as his body crackled with energy.
“The creature that possesses my flesh—Satan Darkstar—has certain plans for Heaven,” Lucifer told him. “Plans that must be deterred. But before any of this can happen, you must leave this place.”
Aaron’s wings exploded from his back. Lucifer seemed to grow smaller, but then Aaron realized that he was growing larger.
“You have to defeat the darkness,” Lucifer called up to Aaron. “Not only out there . . .” He gestured toward the outside world, then pointed to his own chest. “But in here.”
Aaron towered above his father. “Are you real?” he asked. “Or are you just another manifestation of my subconscious?”
“Does it really matter?” Lucifer asked, turning with a wave before disappearing behind a curtain of black.
Aaron considered the question, turning his eyes up to the pinprick of light above him. He extended his arms toward the growing light. It had been so long since he had seen light.
The passage of shadow, up toward the light, grew smaller—more constricted—the harder he tried to reach it.
His wings flapped mightily, until there was no more room for them to move. He sank his fingers into the darkness of the tunnel walls and hauled himself upward, closer, and closer still.
And then the passage began to move, thrashing and undulating as if caught within some sort of powerful storm.
But Aaron held on, bracing himself with his legs and feet, while he continued to climb, inch by inch, until the opening was just above him. He was feeling weaker the closer he came, but the sigils upon his flesh blazed hotly, reminding him once more of what they represented. Their power helped to spur him on.
He climbed into a tiny chamber, a wall of white tile all that stood between Aaron and his freedom. He hauled back his fist, punching at the barrier. But it did not break. The confining space continued to shake, dislodging him from his perch and sending him tumbling back down into the constricting passage.
Aaron scrambled back up and punched at the tiles again, this time with a furious scream. The sigils flared upon his skin, illuminating the confined space. The surface beneath him was wet, soft, and pink, and quivered at his assault.
The chamber shook violently again, and he could feel something in the passage below him. It was as if something had come up from below him and was attempting to pull him back down into the darkness.
Aaron’s anger flared, the sigils igniting. Actual flames of divine fire leaped from the names, and Aaron felt their warriors’ fury and again pulled back his fist, and with a cry of utter determination delivered a blow shattering the tiles outward in a shower of ivory.
Aaron shot into the daylight and landed on the ground of Aerie.
Crouched on the groun
d, he watched the giant Malak stumble back, hands going to his shattered teeth.
The knowledge that he’d been inside Stevie hit him like a slap, and for a moment Aaron felt pangs of sympathy for the injured and moaning giant, before his Nephilim spirit again usurped his feelings with its unbridled fury.
Aaron crouched down, calling upon a sword of fire.
Lucifer’s words whispered in his ear, as the armored giant roared through jagged and broken teeth, charging at Aaron.
You have to defeat the darkness.
Malak pulled his arm back as he ran, a sword of ebony black taking shape in his grasp.
Aaron sprang from the ground, flying directly at the distorted visage of his little brother. He swung his own blade of fire directly at Malak’s face, striking the giant in the side of the head in a shower of sparks.
There was a sudden flash, and Aaron was thrown back to the ground, the impact of his body shattering the street beneath him. He rose, shaking off the rubble to resume his battle.
Not only out there . . . Aaron heard Lucifer’s voice say.
He looked down to his bare chest, at the circular black mark, and found that it had grown smaller.
But in here.
In his thoughts Aaron saw Lucifer touch the center of his chest, showing him where the most corrosive darkness existed.
And with that Aaron understood exactly what needed to be done.
Through the wafting dust and smoke, he heard the sound of a child in distress. Instinctively Aaron advanced to help, but stopped when he saw his foster brother sitting in the center of the street, crying pitifully.
“You killed us, Aaron,” Stevie cried, tears streaming down his face. “You did nothing to protect us, and so we died.”
Aaron felt a tightening in his chest as his black mark grew a little larger.
The faceless unsaved appeared again behind the crying child, and they, too, began to wail.
“God put you here for a purpose,” Stevie said. “But you failed him, Aaron.” Stevie’s eyes fixed him with a glacial stare. “You failed us all.”
The darkness inside Aaron started to churn. But he would have none of it.
The sigils burning on his skin, he reached for his chest, sinking his fingers into the skin around the dark mark, taking hold of the darkness and ripping the cancerous mass from his body.
“What have you done?” Stevie screamed. “What have you done?”
Aaron willed the divine fires into his hand and watched the darkness be consumed by the fires of light. Stevie ran at him, the seven-year-old transforming into an armored engine of hate.
Aaron understood now that victory was not to be judged by the tiny failures, but how the final battle was fought.
A battle that could only be fought without self-doubt.
Malak bellowed, his voice echoing from within the scarlet helmet he wore. His hands had become like knives, long and razor sharp, ready to cut flesh from bone.
Aaron fashioned a sword unlike any other he’d made, as if it had been forged in the fiery passions of God’s heart.
He’d carried the guilt of what he had done to Stevie for so long, allowing it to fester deep inside him.
Allowing it to grow.
He’d given that guilt a certain strength, a power over him, and now he knew that it was time to let it go. To accept what he had done. It was a necessary loss. If he had to do it again, there would be no choice.
“What. Have. You. Done?” Malak’s claws were ready to rip Aaron’s still-beating heart from his chest.
But it wasn’t to be.
Aaron pivoted at the waist, God’s blade of heavenly fire held tightly in his grasp, cutting through his foe’s armored neck, severing the helmeted head from its body. He watched the head spin in the air, as Malak’s armored form crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
The head continued to spin in space. All around them grew dark and cold. The head burst into flame, and in that flame, Aaron saw a face.
A beautiful face that called his name.
“Aaron.”
He grinned, for not only had he been delivered from darkness—
But he had been delivered into the arms of the one whom he loved with all his heart and soul.
“Vilma,” he whispered.
* * *
Enoch ran across the mall’s parking lot and into the woods as fast as his legs would carry him.
He was bigger now, stronger, and it was all because of the memories that had been restored to him.
Enoch knew exactly why he had been sent back to earth—and what God had told him to do. But in order to fulfill God’s commandment, he needed to get away. No matter how much it pained him to leave Jeremy behind, he had to escape. Without him alive, the world, and all of God’s creatures, would meet a terrible fate.
Enoch was amazed at how sure he was of his body. No longer being a toddler made it that much easier for him to run. He had outgrown his shoes and was running barefoot, cautious not to step on anything sharp and injure himself.
The black-suited assassin appeared out of nowhere.
Enoch screamed, struggling with his foe, but even though he had grown, he was no match for his preternatural opponent.
The attacker moved to pin him, but Enoch flailed his arms, grabbing at the figure’s black mask and twisting it violently, before it came away in his hands. He was stunned by his attacker’s apelike visage. Its yellow eyes glinted as it snarled, showing off a pronounced set of canine teeth.
Enoch had readied himself for a terrible fate, when his attacker bent down and sniffed at the child’s face and body. Still pinning Enoch to the ground with its superior strength, the apelike creature reared back, eyes twinkling—as if it had learned something from Enoch’s scent.
The creature emitted a terrible howling sound and hauled him up from the ground. Enoch struggled as he was dragged back toward the mall parking lot, but his efforts were fruitless. The creature simply picked him up and placed him under its arm as it barreled through the woods.
He was in a panic, thrashing his arms and legs wildly, when suddenly Enoch found himself falling. His attacker dropped beside him, lifeless, a knife—no, it was a metal feather—sticking out from its apelike face. The child scrambled away from the body, only to be stopped by a figure in a long coat, with huge wings.
Huge metal wings.
“Who?” the child asked, as the angelic figure loomed above him.
“Child of God,” the man said, “I know of you and have sworn to help restore the Metatron.”
Enoch could not believe his ears. “You know me?” he asked excitedly.
The strange angel stiffened, his head flying back in a silent scream. All Enoch could do was watch in terror as he collapsed, dead.
Three more of the masked assassins walked toward him, knives in hand, and Enoch spun around to escape.
Only to run directly into the arms of another killer, who had come up on him from behind.
* * *
Satan Darkstar had returned to space.
The Lord of Shadows floated above the earth’s atmosphere, studying his prize.
He should have been happy—satisfied—taking it all away from God and from humanity itself.
But this was just one small victory. The battle that he foresaw gnawed at him like a wolf chewing on a bone.
It seems so small now, Satan thought of his prize.
The Sisters’ memories were fresh in his mind. The ancient power that had been in their possession for so very, very long provided him with tantalizing glimpses of how to make his desires a reality.
A being of tremendous power, the Metatron, had been sent from Heaven to the world of man. The Metatron had been given a special path to come and go as he pleased, but this thoroughfare had been closed off when the being met with a horrible fate.
But though it was closed, the door remained.
All he needed was the key to open it.
Satan felt his ire rise. He had lost God??
?s power in the Himalayas, but surely there were other keys. Keys that if used correctly could perform the function that he required.
What did the humans call them? These special keys? Skeleton keys.
He would use a skeleton key. He would replace the power of God that had been given to the Metatron with another power of similar strength.
Now where could something of equal divine power be found? Satan Darkstar thought as he floated in the vacuum of space. A cruel smile teased the corners of his angelic visage, for he already knew the answer.
This body he had stolen. There was power unlike any other deep inside it. A power that had been created by an act of supreme defiance—
When this creation challenged its Creator.
As a punishment for this act of insolence, the Creator took all the pain and misery that had been created from Lucifer’s defiant act and placed it inside His rebellious creation.
Lucifer would endure the hell of what he had done to remind him of his sins against his Creator, his Holy Father.
Satan Darkstar felt the energy churn inside him, a reminder of what existed at this body’s core.
Hell was inside him: a power to rival that of God and Heaven.
This would be his skeleton key.
Satan opened his wings of black and dropped back down into the atmosphere, through the thick shroud of clouds, to the world—
His world.
Waiting below.
There was much to do before the conquest of Heaven. He needed to call upon his troops.
He needed to gather his armies, for there was a war soon to be fought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vilma wasn’t sure how much more her body could take.
The room had become like the surface of the sun, or at least what she imagined the surface of the sun to feel like.
Aaron’s body was white hot, his skin covered with the glowing angelic sigils that were his birthright.
“I love you so much,” she whispered in his ear, as she held him tightly. Her own skin tingled painfully, on the verge of blistering. “Please, come back to me.”