Suddenly Lucifer, the first of the fallen, let loose a scream that spoke of his final resignation. The collected horror that was his punishment flowed from his body, pouring from the opening cut into his chest—a thick, undulating vapor eager to make the acquaintance of the world.
“How utterly horrible you are,” Verchiel whispered with a kind of twisted admiration, moving closer to the magickal circle that acted as the punishment’s cage. “What terror you shall reap under my command.”
He looked about the room at the last of his soldiers, bloody and beaten by a crusade gone to seed. Once they had numbered in the hundreds, but now less then twenty remained under his command. And once they would have fought hard against a threat such as this, not unlocked its cage to set it free upon a thankless world. The angels fluttered their wings nervously, sensing the fearsome virility of the power that was being unleashed. They remembered it—the war—and what it had done to them all, the scars it had left.
“Do not fear, my brothers,” Verchiel proclaimed, “for with this force we shall be vindicated, and every living thing, whether of flesh and blood or of the divine, will know that our mission was righteous, and will beg for our forgiveness.”
The Archons began to scream, and Verchiel looked toward the angelic magicians. Somehow the power leaking from Lucifer’s body had managed to break free of its containment, moving past the mystical circle of Heaven’s soil and his adversary’s blood, swirling around his faithful sorcerers like a swarm of insects. The Archons’ screams were frantic, unlike anything he had ever heard before.
Archon Oraios ran toward the Powers commander, his head enshrouded in a shifting cloud that clung stubbornly like a thing alive. “How could we have been so foolish!” the magician wailed, arms flailing in panic. “To think that we had the right—to think that we could erase His Word!”
Verchiel grabbed the angel by his robes as he passed, throwing him violently to the gymnasium floor, and still the cloud remained. A sword of fire came to life in the commander’s grasp. “What is happening here?” he spat, watching as the punishment of God continued to leak from Lucifer’s body, past the circle of containment, and into the room.
“It’s loose,” Oraios cried, thrashing upon the floor as the cloud expanded to engulf the magician’s body. “Somehow the circle was broken and now it is free. How could we have been so stupid as to think we could control it!”
The gymnasium erupted in a cacophony of screams and moans as the Lord’s punishment acquainted itself with the others in the room. Verchiel watched aghast as warriors he had fought beside in the most horrendous of battles were reduced to mewling animals. They cowered in the scarlet cloud—the embodiment of all the suffering caused by the war in Heaven. It laid waste to them all, driving them to destroy themselves. One tore out his eyes, while others turned their own fiery weapons upon themselves. Their screams were deafening.
“You must do something,” Verchiel barked at the Archons as an angel of the Powers host repeatedly flew into one of the room’s concrete walls, as if trying to shatter all the bones in its body.
The three Archons crowded together in the far corner of the gymnasium, trying to hide from the force they had unleashed.
“Do something!” Verchiel screamed again, but they only huddled closer, trembling violently.
“They’re afraid,” said a voice, little more than a whisper.
Verchiel looked to see that Lucifer was awake, even as the power continued to leak from his body. “You did this,” Verchiel said with a snarl, pointing his fiery sword at the prisoner. “You caused this to go awry.”
Another of the Powers host took his own life, his mournful wails reverberating horribly off the cold walls before falling silent.
Lucifer laughed painfully, the rumbling chuckle turning into a wet, hacking cough. “I’m the one hanging over a mystical circle with his chest cut open, and this is my fault,” he said in wonder. “How is that?”
Suddenly Verchiel caught movement from within the circle’s center and noticed the prisoner’s pet vermin, cleaning dirt and blood from its dirtied stomach. He was about to snatch up the bothersome creature and squeeze the life from its body, but then he realized that it wouldn’t matter.
There was a sudden searing flash of heat and Verchiel looked back to see that the Archons had set themselves ablaze. He could hear their voices raised in unison as the mystical fire consumed them, begging the Creator for forgiveness. They remained alive far longer than he would have imagined possible, before their piteous pleas ceased and they collapsed to the wood floor in a pile of fiery ash and oily black smoke.
“Set me free,” Lucifer said as Verchiel returned his attentions to his prisoner. “Do the right thing. Redeem yourself. Let me reclaim my punishment. Let me put it back where it belongs,” the first of the fallen pleaded. “There’s a chance we might still be able to stop this.”
Verchiel gazed out over the gymnasium where the broken, bleeding forms of his remaining followers littered the floor. The cloud of misery was expanding, rolling inexorably toward him. It had finished with his soldiers and now wished to feast upon their leader. He tensed, waiting for its dreadful touch with a strange anticipation.
“Who said anything about wanting to stop it?” Verchiel replied as he was engulfed in the hungry red mist. He felt it cling to his body, worming its way inside him through the open wounds that adorned his flesh. He waited to feel the unrelenting horrors of the Almighty’s punishment, but instead felt the same ever-present sense of rage he’d had since being abandoned by God.
And then the leader of the Powers came to a startling realization. I’m already living the torments of Hell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In his mind Aaron saw his destination, a barely legible, weather-beaten sign that read SAINT ATHANASIUS CHURCH AND ORPHANAGE: ESTABLISHED 1899. This was where the final battle would occur. There were multiple buildings, including a church, but he knew he needed to be inside the school. That was where his father was being held. That was the image Lucifer had placed within the Nephilim’s mind.
The picture of the gymnasium inside his head made him think briefly of his own school, Kenneth Curtis High, and all he had given up—graduation, college, a human life. He had been so angry in the beginning, that his once normal life had been turned on its head by angelic prophecies and blood-thirsty angels, circumstances beyond his control, a destiny he had known nothing about. And even though time had allowed him a begrudging acceptance of his fate, it hadn’t made his sacrifices any less difficult.
He parted his wings like the curtains on a stage pulled back to present the last act of some great production. This is it, he thought in nervous anticipation, the final chapter of a story that began on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, the day his life changed forever.
He furled his great black wings beneath the flesh of his back, their movement stirring a strange, reddish fog that drifted above the floor of the gymnasium. An atmosphere of danger permeated the room, and the hair at the back of his neck prickled, a sword of fire springing to life in his hand. He was ready for this to end.
His eyes scanned his surroundings. The mist was thick, but he was able to make out the features of the old gymnasium, the hard parquet floor covered with years of dust beneath his feet, a skylight in the ceiling above, spattered with bird droppings. He moved his hand through the dense vapor, wondering what it was, knowing it couldn’t be good. It made the bare flesh of his arms tingle, his chest ache as he reluctantly took it into his lungs.
Then it hit him with the force of a storm driven wave. His weapon of fire fell from his grasp as his body was wracked with violent spasms. What’s happening? Aaron wondered on the brink of panic as the synapses in his brain exploded like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It was as if every emotion—rage, despair, love, joy—had come alive at once, more incapacitating than any physical attack. He was numb, stumbling through the billowing red fog, trying to regain control of his runaway passions. He had no doub
t now as to what this was. He was too late. His father’s curse had been unleashed.
The punishment of God was free.
Try as he might, Aaron could not wrest control of his emotions. The mist cajoled them, inflamed them, drawing them out like infection from a wound. Raw, unhindered feelings that ran the gamut from sadness to rage to joy were released within him. Again and again he lived the moments that had created them, the mundane and the profound, the joyous and the miserable.
Fear flashed through him as he saw the first foster home he could truly remember, horrible people who had taken him in only for the meager allowance the state paid for his upkeep. He felt the loneliness and anger, relived the abuse and neglect. Then that experience was viciously torn away to be replaced with another, and then another still. It was as if all the defining emotional moments of his life were happening simultaneously: the early endless stream of foster homes, the fights at school, his discovery of Gabriel—a filthy puppy tied to a tree in a gang member’s backyard—the first time he saw Vilma Santiago, and the deaths of the Stanleys, the only true parents he ever knew.
Aaron tried to block them out, to hold them at bay, but the experiences were relentless, an assault upon his every sense. His confusion turned to rage, and then to panic. He lashed out with a newly summoned blade of fire, futilely cutting through the swirling crimson vapor, doing anything to fight back, but to no avail.
The fog grew thicker, hungrily closing in around him. And suddenly, as if his own emotional turmoil hadn’t been enough, every aspect of the war in Heaven bombarded his already torn and frayed senses. He saw the crystal spires of Heaven stained crimson with the blood of discord, smelled the sickly sweet aroma of burning angel flesh, and listened to the cries of brothers, once comrades in the glory that was Heaven, locked in furious combat. How easily it all fell apart, he sadly observed as he experienced the woe of God, a despair the likes of which he could not even begin to describe. It was all encompassing, a sucking void that pulled him in and devoured all hope.
At that devastating moment Aaron fully understood the magnitude of his father’s crimes and the fallout that followed. To go against the Creator, to strike at God—it was the pinnacle of sin, the saddest of all things. He could think of no way to escape the anguish of it. The malaise was like an enormous hand pushing him down to the ground, crushing him, and he came to the sickening realization that nothing mattered, that the struggle of the fallen angels for forgiveness was to no avail.
It was hopeless.
All his sacrifice and struggle had been for naught.
With a trembling hand Aaron brought his weapon of fire to his throat and prepared to end it—to make the misery stop. He felt the searing bite of the blade’s flaming edge upon the flesh of his neck, but did not pull away. It was a blessed relief to feel something other than the sorrow of the Lord God.
“Stop,” begged a voice riding upon the churning mist of crimson.
And strangely it stayed his hand, the fiery blade faltering. Aaron stumbled through the unnatural fog, stepping over the bodies of others who had released themselves from the pain of Heaven’s fall, drawn toward the voice, an island of hope in a sea of desperation.
The image of a man hanging from the ceiling in chains appeared in the roiling vapor. Aaron moved closer and could see the glowing, archaic symbols etched upon the dark metal restraints, symbols infused with the ability to sap away the strength of the angelic.
He reached up to help the man down as further waves of drowning emotion washed over him, and he again found himself contemplating his sword. It’ll be quick and relatively painless, he thought, raising the blade of fire to his throat. Anything to take away the hurt…
“That’s not the way,” the hanging man croaked, and raised his head of curly black hair to look upon Aaron with eyes deep and dark, old eyes filled with centuries of pain.
Aaron knew this man, so long associated with all that was evil and wrong with the world. He was pulled into Lucifer’s gaze, unexpectedly feeling as though he had been tossed a life preserver, adrift in a furious sea of rabid sensation. “It… it hurts so much,” he said, clutching a prized moment of solace, fearing he would not have the strength to endure the next pummeling wave.
“But think about how good it will feel when it stops,” Lucifer whispered, his head slowly falling forward again.
The red cloud churned around the fallen angel, emanating from a gaping, vertical wound that began in the center of his chest, the horrible gash splayed open with metal clamps. Aaron was reminded of the cat he’d had to dissect in his junior year biology class, only this subject was somehow still alive.
“You’ve got to use it,” Lucifer murmured. “The pain. Use it as fuel to move past the torment, to the light at the end of the tunnel—punishment to absolution. It’s what’s kept me relatively sane since the Fall.” He strained to smile. “It’s good to see you in person, son. Only wish the circumstances were a bit less hairy.”
Aaron moved closer to the prisoner, fighting to keep his feelings in check. “Let me help you,” he said, preparing to use his heavenly blade to sever the debilitating chains and release the fallen angel that was his father.
Lucifer’s head rose. “Watch your back,” he croaked in warning, and Aaron spun around, his sword instinctively raised, blocking another weapon of fire as it descended out of the mist to end his life.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Verchiel screamed, emerging from the deadly fog.
Aaron was momentarily shocked by the angel’s decaying appearance. The heavenly armor that once gleamed like the sun was now dirty gray. The usually firm and modeled flesh of his arms and legs was wrapped haphazardly in blood-stained bandages. His face was like a single, open wound.
Their weapons hissed as they bit into one another, shrapnel of heavenly fire cutting through the air. Aaron cried out in sudden pain, his cheek glanced by the sword’s fiery embers.
“The end is upon us,” the leader of the Powers rumbled as he bore down upon his weapon, attempting to drive Aaron to his knees.
“That’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever agree with you, you son of a bitch,” Aaron snarled, calling forth his wings, pushing forward, driving his attacker back, using the rabid emotions as his father ordered.
The two angelic entities glided across the gym, locked in a furious struggle, the Creator’s punishment flowing around them, becoming darker, thicker, as if egging them on. It was taking all that Aaron had to ignore the multitude of emotions that made him want to drop his sword, to give in to the sadness and despair all around them. He raged against the disparaging feelings, reminding himself of all those who were depending on him.
Verchiel pressed his attack, his sword coming dangerously close to severing Aaron’s head from his shoulders. The Nephilim flapped his powerful wings, sending himself up toward the muted light from the skylight, Verchiel in heated pursuit. Then he suddenly spun around, arcing downward, plowing into the angel and sending them both plummeting to the gymnasium floor.
They hit the hard wood with incredible force, boards splintering and popping from the impact. Verchiel shrieked, thrashing beneath him. He reached up and dragged a clawed hand across Aaron’s face, barely missing his eyes. The Nephilim leaped away and noticed that he was covered in blood. It took him but a heartbeat to realize that it was not his own, but Verchiel’s. The injuries beneath the angel’s bandages were bleeding profusely and he stank of rot.
Verchiel climbed to his feet, his great wings flexed, feathers shedding like falling leaves. He glanced down upon himself, the blood from his injuries running down his body in rivulets to pool at his feet. “This is what it’s come to,” the Powers leader said, a despair in his voice that only added to the anguish roiling about them. “It’s all been taken away from me.” He glared at Aaron with black, hate-filled eyes. “You’ve taken it away from me—you and the monster that spawned you.”
“Do you honestly believe that we’re entirely to blame?” Aaron stare
d hard at the angel, his gaze unwavering. “That we’ve somehow pulled one over on God, and you’re the only one who knows about it?” He shook his head in disgust. “What a load of crap.”
Verchiel seethed, fists clenched before him, black blood oozing between his fingers to patter like gentle rain upon the floor.
“Sins were committed,” Aaron continued. “Crimes so unimaginable that they could never be forgiven. Or can they?”
The fog swirled about Verchiel, as if somehow attempting to comfort him. “You know nothing of what we experienced,” he growled.
Aaron extended his bloodstained arms, showing the Powers leader the black sigils that adorned his flesh. “But that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I wear their names, those who died fighting for Lucifer’s cause. And inside of me lives a piece of each and every one of them.”
The angel’s horrible face twisted in revulsion. “You’re more of a monstrosity than I thought,” he snarled with disgust.
“A monstrosity who knows their jealousy,” Aaron countered. “That feels what it was like when God seemed to turn away from them to embrace another creation on a new world. I know how desperate they were to regain his favor. Desperate enough to do something foolish.”
Vechiel glanced down at the blood pooling at his feet. “They broke His holy trust and for that they deserved a punishment most severe.” He looked back to Aaron. “I was doing what I was told to do. It was my holy mission to bring them down.”
“The fallen eventually realized that they were wrong, but have you?” Aaron asked. “If God told you, right now, that they were to be given a chance to do penance—to prove they were truly sorry—would you even be able to hear Him?”
“I followed my commands.”
“Exactly,” Aaron agreed with a slight nod. “You followed your commands.”
Verchiel turned suddenly, stalking away from him. “I’m tired of all this… living,” he said.