Vilma gave Aaron an affectionate squeeze, resting her head upon his shoulder. “And it’s all because of you,” she said. “You did this. You gave them something that they’d only dreamed about.”
She pulled away and studied his face. Her stare was intoxicating, and if all he did for the rest of his days was to look into those eyes, it would be a satisfying life indeed. She tapped the center of his chest with her index finger.
“You, Aaron Corbet,” she said, her voice like the beginning chords of the most beautiful song he’d ever heard. “You made their dreams come true.”
He couldn’t have imagined a more wonderful moment, but as everything else in his life had, that too was about to change. For he was the messenger, and he had a purpose that took precedence over everything else.
Aaron felt it begin to grow deep within his chest. It was calling to him in a voice that was growing louder and stronger with each passing second.
“Aaron, what’s wrong?” Vilma asked. She stepped away from him as he began to tremble.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said in a voice void of any doubt. This was it; through all the battles with monsters and renegade angels, this was what it had all been leading up to. “Everything’s exactly as it’s supposed to be.”
Aaron called forth his wings as the glow began to emanate from his hands, a store of supernatural power never fully tapped, until now. The citizens saw him—saw what was happening—and they began to smile, and some to cry tears of joy. The power that was his and his alone to wield called out, and he went to them, as they were drawn to him, seeking the absolution that had been so long in coming.
And as he walked among them, his touch forgiving them of their sins, Aaron Corbet thought of who he was and what he had become. Never would he have imagined that a foster kid from Lynn, Massachusetts, could command the power of God’s forgiveness. Yet this was how it was supposed to be—how it was always supposed to be. Yes, there had been hardships, the loss of loved ones, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but from all the pain and suffering, a thing most wonderful had been achieved.
The fallen angels of Aerie glowed like gigantic fireflies, dancing in the air above him on iridescent wings that made a sound like the gentle stroking of harp strings as they flapped. Aaron turned and saw that Scholar now waited before him. The fallen angel looked anxious, gazing wistfully at Aaron and then back down the street toward his workplace.
“Don’t worry,” Aaron reassured him, reaching out to touch the front of his crisp white shirt. “We’ll take good care of your books. I think I know just the guy to do it.”
They both looked toward the man called Kraus. He had fallen to his knees, staring in awe at the constellation of angels hovering above. “I think he’ll do an excellent job,” Aaron said as the power surged from his fingertips into Scholar.
The fallen angel’s shell of flesh, blood, and bone was burned away in an explosion of white light, and the angel Tumael was welcomed by his brethren in the air above the center.
Aaron smiled as he saw Lorelei and Lehash slowly walking toward him. The gunslinger was one of the last, and looked as though he just might burst from his skin even without the Nephilim’s touch.
“This is it,” Lorelei was saying as she held onto the arm of her father’s coat.
Lehash kept his eyes on Aaron, saying nothing as father and daughter tentatively walked toward the constable’s absolution. The other Nephilim affectionately touched him as he passed, thanking him for his protection, and wishing him well on his journey home.
The cowboy angel stopped before Aaron and respectfully removed his hat. The Nephilim raised his hand toward Lehash, the outline of his fingers barely visible within the corona of the pulsing, white power he now wielded.
“Wait,” Lehash suddenly said, his own hand going up to block Aaron’s touch. “I can’t go,” he said, and turned to look at the faces of the Nephilim that eagerly awaited his ascension. “Somebody’s got to watch out for them, protect them.” He looked to Aaron. “There’s still so much they have to learn.”
Lorelei squeezed her father’s shoulder, leaning in to place a kiss upon his grizzled cheek. “We’ll be fine,” she said, and Aaron nodded in agreement.
Lehash took what would be his last look at the children of angel and human, and then stared into his daughter’s emotion-filled eyes. “You probably will be,” he said, reaching out to cup her cheek in his hand. “But there’s no harm in trying to stay for just a bit longer.” They both laughed, and embraced for the final time.
Then Lehash released his daughter and turned to Aaron, puffing out his chest. “Well, c’mon, savior boy. I ain’t got all day.”
Aaron smiled broadly, laying the flat of his palm against the gunslinger’s chest, and watched in awe as Lehash’s true form gradually took shape, the human shell shucked off like a thick layer of dirt and grime. The angel that was Lehash propelled itself skyward with a succession of powerful flaps, dipping and spinning in the air in an amazing display of aerial acrobatics, before joining the others.
“Show-off,” Lorelei said, wiping tears of happiness from her eyes.
Aaron looked up at the angels of Aerie, committing each and every one of them to memory. It was an amazing sight to behold, as if the stars had come down from the sky for a closer look. He knew that he would remember and treasure this moment until his dying day, but he also knew that it was time for it to end—time for those above him to leave.
He spread wide his great wings and held his arms aloft toward them. “You’re forgiven,” he called out.
And one by one they left this earthly plane, returning to the place of their creation, a place long denied them, but that now took them back into its celestial embrace.
Heaven welcomed them home.
Slowly Aaron lowered his gaze from the early morning sky and saw with a combination of shock and shame that there was one that he had forgotten.
Lucifer stood alone, a beatific smile upon his dark, handsome features as he looked to where his brethren had gone. There was a longing in his stare, but also a happiness for those who had finally completed their penance and were allowed to know the glory that was Heaven again.
“Is this for you as well?” Aaron asked, startling the first of the fallen from his meditations beyond the sky.
Lucifer held the tiny mouse in the palm of his hand, tenderly stroking its fur. “I don’t know,” he said sadly with a slight shake of his head. “I’m afraid to find out.”
Aaron stepped toward him and gently laid his hand upon his father’s chest. He felt the power at his core rise, and for a fleeting moment, believed that it was about to occur, that it was to come full circle, and the final forgiveness was about to be bestowed upon the one who had started it all.
But it wasn’t to be.
The divine power receded deep inside him, dwindling away to but a burning ember in the center of his being.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said sadly, removing his hand from his father’s chest, and the first of the fallen smiled at him. It was a sad smile, but one full of understanding and immeasurable patience.
“So am I,” Lucifer said, returning his gaze to the brightening morning sky above Aerie, gently stroking the tiny animal nestled within the palm of his hand.
“So am I.”
EPILOGUE
Lucifer Morningstar stood outside the Saint Athanasius Church and Orphanage and listened for the sounds of Nephilim. There were more of them out there in the world, he knew, children of the dalliances of angels, their birthrights gradually blossoming upon their eighteenth year of life.
Happy birthday to you.
The temperature had dropped considerably in the past hour, and it had started to snow. Lucifer turned his attention to the change in weather, studying the intricacies of each individual flake as it slowly drifted down from the sky. The mouse on his shoulder curiously sniffed at the winter’s rain as it fell, its tiny pink tongue darting from its mouth to lick at the water as it melted upon
the jacket of the fallen angel’s dark blue suit.
The summer in the northeast had been brutally warm, and it looked as though the New England winter was going to be just as extreme. But the weather did not bother the first of the fallen angels. He quite enjoyed the seasonal changes. If he hadn’t, he would have suggested that the new Aerie be established in San Diego, California, instead of western Massachusetts.
The fallen angels of Aerie were gone, but the Nephilim remained. They were to be the new protectors of a world rife with paranormal dangers. Verchiel and his Powers had ignored their true purpose, choosing to focus their energies on a personal vendetta rather than the job they had been assigned to do.
As he could sense the emerging Nephilim, so could the fallen angel detect the presence of things that had no right to be upon this world, things that wished Earth and its inhabitants harm. It was now the responsibility of the Nephilim to clean-up after the Powers’ irresponsibility and to keep the world of God’s chosen creations safe from harm.
But there was much they needed to learn before they could take on such an enormous task, much that he, Aaron, and Lorelei would need to teach them.
They had been here for a little more than six months, the new Aerie established within the former roost of Verchiel and his ilk. The Ravenschild Estates had quite simply become too large for their lesser number. With the fallen angels gone, this was a new time for the Nephilim, a new history waiting to be forged for them as individuals, rather than victims of a genocide perpetrated by Verchiel and his host.
As for himself, Lucifer looked upon this as yet another test from his most Holy Father above. He would help to train those who would protect God’s human flock, and finally, hopefully, achieve absolution for his most heinous sin.
The snow now fell harder, a whipping wind creating swirling vortexes of white that danced around the expanse of unkempt lawn in front of him. He could sense the small animals that lived in the overgrowth around the church and orphanage, hunkered deep within their burrows, primitive instincts telling them that this would be the first major storm of winter, that soon everything would be covered in a cold blanket of icy white.
And from this season of death there would be rebirth.
All Lucifer wanted was a chance to apologize to his Father, as he had to the brothers that had sworn to him their allegiance in Heaven so very long ago. But he knew that opportunity had to be earned, and would come at a heavy cost indeed.
The mouse on his shoulder whispered in his ear. It was cold and wanted to go inside. Lucifer obliged his tiny friend, taking him indoors and out of the storm. After all, there was still much to be done to prepare the Nephilim for the tasks before them.
He thought one more time of his brethren, basking again in the glorious radiance of the Almighty, and longed for the day that he, too, would be allowed to experience the Blessed Majesty once more. Was that a hint of envy he felt growing in the deep inner darkness of his psyche? Quickly he squelched it before it had a chance to take root, before it could do any harm. The first of the fallen had had more than his fill of jealousy’s bitter fruit.
The price of forgiveness was indeed a costly one, but it was an amount that Lucifer Morningstar was willing to pay.
Aaron and Gabriel trudged through the quickly accumulating snow in search of the newest of Aerie’s citizens.
The boy had lived with them for a day over two weeks. His name was Jeremy Fox, and he’d come from London, England. Aaron had found him living on the streets of the great, old city, begging for change and eating from Dumpsters. To the casual passerby he appeared to be just another sad example of a mental health system in desperate need of an overhaul—muttering and crying out, talking to himself as he wandered the streets of England’s largest city. He hadn’t been difficult to locate; the power of the Nephilim was strong inside him, and it practically cried out to be found.
Now Aaron found the youth behind the abandoned school, in the snow-covered playground. He was sitting atop the monkey bars, sneakered feet dangling, the top of his sandy blond head and shoulders covered with collecting snow. He had not been adjusting well, and Lorelei was worried.
“Hey,” Aaron said as he walked closer.
“Hey,” Gabriel repeated, not wanting to be left out of anything.
The youth remained silent, as if attempting to tune out the strange world in which he had come to live. Aaron could sympathize; it hadn’t been all that long since he was in the very same frame of mind.
It had been Lorelei who convinced the youth to listen to the story told by the two crazy Americans who seemed to appear from out of nowhere, a fantastic tale about angels having relationships with human women and the children that were born as a result. Jeremy had looked at them as if they were out of their minds, and Aaron was certain that he was trying to decide whether they were in fact real or just manifestations of the insanity that had taken hold of him since his eighteenth birthday. They had told him that they could help, and Aaron had watched a look of cautious hope fill the boy’s eyes.
Taking that as a yes, not giving him a chance to refuse, the Nephilim savior had taken the troubled youth within the confines of his wings of shiny black and had transported him back to the safety of Aerie.
He had been here since, but did not seem to be adapting to his new life, clinging to his humanity, refusing to accept the reality of what he was becoming.
“Lorelei’s worried about you,” Aaron said, looking up at the boy sitting on the top rung of the monkey bars. “She thought I should find you—just in case you needed to talk or something.”
Gabriel sniffed around the various pieces of playground equipment, his nose melting furrows in the two inches of snow that had already fallen.
The wind suddenly whipped up, causing the powdery snow to drift, making it seem that more of the white stuff had fallen in some areas than in others. The winter wind had a bite to it, but it didn’t bother Aaron as it once had. Just another perk of being Nephilim, he thought. Hot or cold, it was all the same to them, perfectly adaptable to any climate upon the planet.
Jeremy remained unresponsive, immobile upon his metal perch.
“Guess not,” Aaron said, putting his hands inside the pockets of his spring jacket. “Well, if you should need to, you know where I…”
The boy turned to look at him, the snow atop his head sloughing off to fall to the ground below his dangling feet. “They say that you’re some kind of bloody savior,” he said, his accent thick and full of repressed emotion. “What’s that like, then?”
It was something Aaron tried not to think about very often. He knew that he had a job to do, a purpose and a destiny. But the moniker of savior was one that he did not wear comfortably.
Aaron came closer to the jungle gym. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” he said, casually taking hold of one of the horizontal pipes in both hands. “There’s very little difference between me and you,” he told the boy. “It wasn’t too long ago that I was thinking the same thoughts you are right now.”
Jeremy’s features grew angry, and he let himself drop from his seat to the snow-covered ground. He came at Aaron then, chest puffed out, eyes wild. The older Nephilim held his ground.
“And what am I thinking?” Jeremy asked in a hiss. “Use your angel powers and tell me what’s going on inside my bloody head, mate.”
Gabriel had come to stand by Aaron, his nose covered in snow from his explorations beneath the cold, winter covering. “You shouldn’t talk to Aaron that way,” the dog warned, hackles of fur rising around his neck. “He’s just trying to help.”
Aaron reached down and thumbed the dog’s side in assurance. “It’s okay, Gabe,” he said. “Jeremy and I are just talking. He’s a little upset.”
The Lab grumbled something and then became distracted by a squirrel, and he bounded off in pursuit of the animal with an excited bark.
“You want me to tell you what’s going on in your head?” Aaron asked the new Nephilim. “You’re thinking th
at the world has become insane, that everything you’ve known, everything you’ve taken for granted all your life, has been flipped upside-down since your last birthday.” Aaron paused. “How am I doing so far?”
Jeremy seethed with an inner rage that Aaron was all too familiar with. “You don’t know anything,” the boy growled, sparks of heavenly fire shooting wildly from his fingertips.
“You know how I know this?” Aaron asked. “Because I thought the exact same things when it was happening to me, when the power that was inside me—something that I didn’t want or ask for—decided to take my normal life away from me.” Aaron placed one of his own hands upon his chest, his gaze never leaving Jeremy’s. “I thought the exact same things.”
The boy’s anger seemed to drain away, as if he were suddenly no longer strong enough to hold on to it. It slipped away from him, and he seemed to diminish in size, the outrage he was feeling over what his life had become seemingly all that was sustaining him.
“I don’t know how much longer I can fight it,” Jeremy said pathetically, the snow melting upon his face, mixing freely with the warm tears that now fell from his eyes. “I can feel it inside me—clawing to get out.”
“You don’t have to fight it,” Aaron told him. “That’s why you’re here: to learn about what you truly are—to learn about your destiny.”
The boy chuckled then, wiping away the moisture from his face and snuffling. “Destiny?” he asked. “Didn’t know that I had one of those.”
“Bet there’s a lot you don’t know about yourself,” Aaron said. “Let us teach you.”
Sometimes it wore on him.
Aaron scooped up a handful of the fresh snow and began to make a snowball. “Here it comes,” he warned. The last of the snowfall had been mixed with rain, creating a slushy mix perfect for snowballs.
Across the expanse of front lawn, Gabriel crouched. “I’m ready,” he growled.
Most of the time these days, Aaron felt like Gabriel at that moment, tensed, ready to confront the latest obstacle head on.