The transformed Aaron, his wings of glistening black spread wide, turned back to glare at Belphegor, who still sat quietly in his recliner. Gabriel tentatively peered around the doorway from the kitchen, ears flat against his square head.
“Are … are you all right, Aaron?” the dog asked.
“I’m fine, Gabriel,” Aaron growled in the voice of the Nephilim. He pointed his sword of orange flame at the fallen angel. “You wanted to know if I was the One,” he said, voice booming about the confines of the room. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think that supper’s just about ready,” Belphegor responded with a soothing smile, rising from his chair. “Would you and your friend care to join me?”
Gabriel pushed the plate of mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas farther across the dining room floor with each consecutive lap of his muscular tongue. Before he wound up halfway across the house, Aaron reached down and took the plate away.
“I’m not finished with that,” the dog said, the remains of mashed potatoes decorating the top of his nose.
“Believe me, you’re finished,” Aaron said, setting the spotless plate on the tabletop. The plate is so clean, Belphegor could put it away without washing it, he thought. No one would be the wiser.
“I would like some more,” Gabriel said with a wag of his tail.
“You’ve had enough,” Aaron responded, as he took a hearty bite of his own roast beef and gravy. Then, always the ultimate pushover, he picked up a piece of meat from his plate and fed it to his insatiable companion. “Watch the fingers!” he squealed as the animal snatched away his offering. “I still use those, thank you very much.”
Belphegor walked in from the kitchen with another steaming bowl in his hands. “Here are some fresh green beans,” he said as he placed it on the table. “I grew them myself.”
“Here?” Aaron asked, shaking his head. “No, thank you. I’m not into toxic waste.”
“I like toxic waste,” Gabriel said happily, attempting to lick the remains of potato from his nose.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Belphegor said as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from Aaron. “All the poisons have been removed. They’re quite good.”
Aaron was reaching for the beans when he realized that Belphegor did not have a plate. “Aren’t you eating?”
The angel shook his head. “No, not tonight. I actually prefer preparing meals to eating them.” The fallen angel smiled, watching as Aaron spooned a heaping portion of the rich green vegetable onto his plate.
“You are aware that we—of my kind—do not need to eat.”
“I’ve heard,” Aaron said, taking a careful bite of the beans and then eagerly having more. “Except that Camael has a thing for French fries now.”
Belphegor sat back in his chair. “Does he? I would never have imagined that. Perhaps the years upon this world have indeed softened our Powers’ commander.”
“Former commander,” Aaron corrected through a mouthful of food. “Verchiel’s the commander now—and has been for quite some time.”
“Of course,” Belphegor answered, crossing his arms. “How foolish of me to forget.”
His plate nearly as clean as Gabriel’s bowl, Aaron had a drink of water from an old jelly jar, then pushed the utensils away. “That thing with the television,” he asked. “How did you do that?”
Gabriel had finally settled down and lay beside Aaron’s chair. Aaron reached down to pet his friend as he waited for an answer.
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” Belphegor shook his head, arms still crossed.
“You’d be surprised at the things I believe in now,” Aaron said. Gabriel rolled onto his side to expose his belly, and Aaron obliged the animal. “Were those … images, those scenes … were they from some future or—”
“They were taken from your head and manipulated,” Belphegor answered, tapping a finger against his skull. “Things that you most desire, but will likely never achieve.”
Aaron stopped scratching Gabriel’s belly, earning a disappointed snuff, and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t like to think that way,” he said, eyes focused on his empty plate, but seeing something else—a future that could very well be like the one he’d seen on Belphegor’s television. “I like to think that there’s something more for me, after I find my brother and this whole prophecy thing gets straightened out.”
Belphegor chuckled. “Don’t worry yourself about the prophecy thing,” he said as he stood up from his chair. He started to gather the dirty bowls and plates.
“Why’s that?”
The old fallen angel used a spoon to scrape what remained of the mashed potatoes onto Aaron’s dirty plate. “Because it doesn’t concern you,” he answered.
“Don’t you think I’m the One?” Aaron asked curiously, leaning forward in his seat. “You heard what Camael said, and you saw what I did to your magick handcuffs.”
“All very impressive.” Belphegor nodded as he gave Gabriel a green bean from the plate of refuse. “I can honestly say that I’ve never seen power the likes of yours, and your control over it thus far is admirable, but I do not believe you are the One spoken of in prophecy.”
Aaron was surprised by the disappointment he felt; a day ago he would have traded the whole angelic Chosen One thing for a bag of Doritos. Now … “Are you positive?” he asked. “How do you know? Camael said …”
“Camael has been separated from his kind for a very long time,” the angel explained, pausing in his cleanup to gaze intently at Aaron. “He is desperate to belong again—perhaps too desperate—and he saw something in you that really isn’t there. I’m sorry.”
There was something in Belphegor’s attitude that suddenly annoyed Aaron. It reminded him of his childhood in foster care, before he moved to the Stanleys’ and learned what being part of a family was all about. Before that he was looked on as being less than other kids, perceived as a failure before he even had a chance to try.
“The essence inside you is extremely powerful, and I fear that if a true merger were ever to occur between the angelic nature and your fragile human psyche, you would be driven out of your mind. And we of Aerie would be forced to do something about it.”
Aaron remembered a teacher he’d had in the first grade, Mr. Laidon. The teacher had singled him out, telling the other students that he didn’t have a family and that the state needed to take care of him. At that moment he had felt like a show-and-tell project, something less than the other kids in his class. Aaron’s face flushed hot with the memory.
“Maybe I could be taught,” he began. “Camael says that if a union occurs properly—”
The old angel chuckled, a condescending laugh that Aaron had heard so many times in his life.
“Teach you to be our messiah?” Belphegor asked. “No, Aaron. The true One spoken of in our sacred writing will be coming, just not right now.”
“But the Archangel Gabriel said that I was God’s new messenger,” Aaron argued.
“Then he was wrong,” Belphegor emphatically stated, and picked up the dishes, signaling an end to the conversation.
Aaron felt empty, as if being the savior of the fallen had actually begun to mean something to him, warts and all. He was about to offer Belphegor some help when there came a frantic rapping at the front door. Gabriel immediately sprang to his feet and began to bark.
“Come in,” Belphegor called out, turning toward the front door, arms loaded with dirty dishes.
They heard the sounds of the front door open and close, followed by rapid footsteps. Scholar rushed in through the living room clutching a notebook in one hand. “Belphegor, we need to speak at once….” His eyes found Aaron’s and he fell silent.
“Good evening, Scholar. Aaron and I were just having dinner. May I get you something? Some coffee, or maybe some pie?”
The silence was becoming uncomfortable when Scholar finally spoke. “I need to speak with you in private, Belphegor.” He tore his eyes from Aaron’s and raised t
he notebook toward the old angel.
“Come with me,” Belphegor said. “Excuse us for a moment, Aaron.”
The two left the dining room, leaving Aaron to wonder what had gotten the angel so riled.
“So you’re not the Chosen One, then?” Gabriel said, distracting him from his thoughts.
“I thought you were asleep,” Aaron said, leaning back in his chair and watching the doorway to the kitchen.
“You’d be surprised what I hear when I’m asleep.”
“He doesn’t think that it’s me. It’s no big deal. I always knew there was a chance that Camael was full of it.” He looked at his dog lying on the floor by his chair.
“What does this mean for us now?” Gabriel asked earnestly.
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t really know,” he said, for the first time in a long while considering a future that didn’t involve the angelic prophecy. “I guess it means we can get out of here and get back to finding Stevie.”
“Do you think Camael will come with us?”
Aaron didn’t get a chance to answer, for at that moment Belphegor and Scholar returned to the room. There was a strange look upon the old angel’s face and Aaron saw that he was holding Scholar’s notebook. It was open and Aaron could see parts of drawings that he recognized, sketches of the symbols that appeared on his body when he allowed his angelic essence to emerge.
“Is everything all right?” Aaron asked. As of late, fearing the worst had become as natural to him as breathing. It wasn’t the greatest way to be, but at least he was always prepared.
“Were you serious about being taught, about wanting to learn?” Belphegor questioned.
Aaron nodded, not quite sure what he was getting himself into.
Belphegor handed the notebook and its drawings back to Scholar. “We’ll begin your training immediately.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Camael sat on the forest green, metal bench in the tiny playground, his angel eyes detecting the resonance of things long past—ghosts of children and families who had once played here. It had been seven days since he and Aaron first arrived in Aerie, and the former leader of the Powers was having to deal with ghosts of his own. He thought of those he had destroyed during the conflict in Heaven, and those slain after the war when he was performing his duty as commander of the Powers host—obliterating those who were an offense to the Creator. Since finding Aerie, he’d been thinking of them more and more, their faces and death cries haunting his every moment.
Should I be allowed to stay here? he wondered. For if he had found this place before his change of heart, before the realization that the killing had to stop, he would have razed it, burned it to ash in a rain of heavenly fire—and God have mercy upon those he found living within its confines.
A crow cried overhead as it circled a gnarled and diseased tree growing to the side of the play area. Its caws voiced its uneasiness with the area, despite the fact that it was tired and wanted to rest. The animals knew that the Ravenschild development was poisoned, Camael realized; they could taste its taint on the air rising up from the earth. The place had the stink of man’s folly, and the blackbird, knowing it did not belong here, flew on in search of another place to rest its tired wings.
Do I belong? Camael deliberated. He had searched for Aerie for many hundreds of years, but had he actually earned a place here? The faces of those who fell before him were slowly pushed aside, replaced by those he had saved. He could still hear their plaintive words of thanks and feel their touches of gratitude. Despite the violence he had wrought in the ancient past, he had still managed to do some good, and he would need to hold on to that as a drowning man would latch on to debris adrift in storm-wracked seas.
And what about the Creator? His mind frothed with questions for which he did not have answers. Does He look upon me with disdain, or pity? When the time comes, will I be permitted to go home?
The sound of claws upon the tar path interrupted the angel’s musings, and he turned to see Gabriel trotting toward him.
“Camael, have you seen Aaron?” the dog asked, stopping before the bench.
The angel shook his head. “Not since this morning. I believe he is still with Belphegor.”
“It figures,” Gabriel responded morosely.
“Is there a problem?” Camael asked, curious in spite of himself.
The dog hopped up onto the bench and sat beside him. “He’s never around anymore. I see him early in the morning when he takes me out and gets my breakfast, but then he’s gone all day and he’s too tired to play when he gets back.”
Camael slid over on the bench, away from the dog. He and Gabriel had developed a grudging respect for each other, but he still did not like to be too close to the animal. “I believe that Belphegor is attempting to train Aaron in the use of his angelic abilities.”
“And that’s something else I don’t understand,” said the dog indignantly. “First they think Aaron is a lost cause and now they can’t seem to get enough of him. Besides, I thought you were training Aaron.”
“It would seem that Belphegor and the others have at last seen in Aaron what I found several weeks ago,” Camael explained. “What that something is I cannot tell you, but it was enough to gain their trust and free us from those damnable restraints.” The angel unconsciously rubbed at his wrists where the magickal manacles had recently been removed.
They were silent for a moment, two unlikely comrades pondering a similar mystery.
“I miss him, Camael,” Gabriel said as he gazed into the playground. “I feel as if I’m losing him.”
“If Aaron is indeed the One foretold of in prophecy, you are losing him to something far larger than your simple emotional needs. He will be the one that brings about our redemption—Heaven will open its arms to us again and welcome us home,” Camael said.
Gabriel turned his head to look at the angel. His animal eyes seemed darker somehow, intense with worry. “I don’t care about redemption,” the Labrador said with a tremble in his voice. “He was mine first; Aaron belongs to me.”
The primitive bond between humans and their domesticated animals was something that Camael had always struggled to understand. How had Aaron defined it for him during one of their seemingly endless drives? Unconditional love, he believed was how the boy had phrased it. The master was the animal’s whole world, and it would love its master no matter what. That was the strength of the bond. The angel found the level of loyalty quite amazing.
“Aaron does not belong to you alone, Gabriel,” Camael explained. “There are those around us now who have waited for his arrival for thousands of years. Would you deny them his touch?”
The dog bowed his head, golden brown ears pressed flat against his skull. “No,” Gabriel growled, “but who will take care of me if something happens to him?”
Camael had no idea how to respond. It was a variation of a question he had been wondering himself. If Aaron was indeed the Chosen, what fate would the fallen meet if Verchiel should succeed in his mad plans to see the Nephilim destroyed?
The two sat quietly on the bench, the weight of their questions heavy upon their thoughts, the answers as elusive as the future.
Lorelei stepped out the back door of the house she shared with Lehash, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, searching for her father. She thought the constable had come outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. Since the strangers’ arrival, Lehash had become distant, uncommunicative, immersed in his work of keeping the citizens of Aerie safe, and she was becoming concerned.
Over the sound of the gas-powered generator that provided their electricity, she heard the reports of his guns, like small claps of thunder, rolling up from somewhere beyond the thick brush that surrounded the backyard. She started toward the sound, dipping her head beneath young saplings, careful not to spill the coffee as she maneuvered through the woods. Stepping into a man-made clearing, probably meant for development in years past, Lorelei stared at her father’s back as he fired at targets set up alo
ng the far side of the wide open space. The weapons discharged with a booming report, and several targets disintegrated in plumes of heavenly fire.
“Good shootin’, Tex,” she joked, letting him know that he was no longer alone.
Lehash slowly turned and regarded her with dark and somber eyes, smoking pistols of gold in each hand. It was a look common to the head constable of Aerie, a look that she herself was often accused of wearing. The angel Lehash took everything quite seriously.
“Practicing?” she asked, moving closer and holding out the steaming mug of coffee.
He pointed a pistol over his shoulder and fired. Lorelei jumped as an old teddy bear tied to a tree exploded in a cloud of burning stuffing.
“Well, it does make perfect,” he said, the slightest hint of a Texas twang in his voice. It never ceased to amuse her how he insisted on hanging on to the mannerisms and style of the old West. He’d explained that it had been his favorite time period during his countless years on Earth, and she guessed it was better than if he’d fallen in love with the Bronze age.
The golden pistols shimmered and disappeared into the ether with a flash of flame, and Lehash took the mug from her.
“And here I thought you were already perfect,” she said, placing her hands inside the front pockets of her jeans. “Guess you really do learn something new every day.”
He sipped at the coffee carefully, ignoring her good-natured barb. Something was bothering him, and now was as good a time as any to find out what.