He ran his thumb gently over her knuckles.
“Waiting for buses,” he repeated with a nod. “Why didn’t I think of that? It would have been a lot cheaper than McKinney’s.”
That made her laugh, but Aaron could tell that Vilma was still waiting for him to say it. “I promise,” he finally said, feeling something twist in the pit of his stomach. “But you have to promise me the same thing.”
“I promise,” she said.
But Aaron recognized the look in her eyes, and understood that they both knew these were promises they weren’t sure they could keep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Architects had been searching for Mallus ever since he had abandoned their cause. Somehow he had managed to keep himself hidden, but the Architects were patient, knowing that there would come a time when he could hide from them no more.
Once, the Architects had seen something special in the one called Mallus. His beliefs had mirrored their own. They had welcomed him into their fold and had given him purpose. But something had happened.
Something had turned him from the path they had paved for him.
The path to the future.
No longer serving the Architects’ purpose, Mallus had become a threat. As resourceful as they knew him to be, he had managed to elude the many Agents sent to find and eliminate him.
Until now.
Mallus had suddenly reappeared, the familiar thrum of his life force resonating along the strands of invisible webbing that enwrapped the world.
And the Architects had immediately dispatched an Agent to kill him.
Agents were relentless in their pursuit, never resting until they found their quarry. But once they did, once their purpose was fulfilled, their lives ended.
This particular Agent had waited patiently for its prey to surface. Now it stood on the periphery of a wooded property, its skin-tight suit blending with the environment, making it invisible to the eye. It tilted its masked face ever so slightly to the cool evening air, tracking the scent of its quarry.
The Agent could tell that Mallus was close, and that he was gravely injured. But it also caught the scent of angelic magick surrounding the land. The Agent squatted down next to the magickal boundary and leaned in close, its mind processing the aroma and determining that it was an Archon spell that protected this property.
Searching its memory with great speed, the Agent found a counterspell that would deaden an area large enough for it to enter without setting off any defensive alarms. Swiftly, silently, it followed Mallus’s scent. The Agent clung to the shadows, careful not to be seen. The Architects desired the fallen angel to look as if he’d died of natural causes. His current injuries would be the perfect cover for the real cause of Mallus’s demise.
The smell of the traitor grew stronger as the Agent neared a stone building. Pressed against the sides of the structure, it found a window, open just enough for it to slip over the sill and inside.
The Agent was close now. Mallus was in a nearby room, but the Agent’s preternatural senses picked up the scent of another. It was a human, who would pose no threat to the Agent.
Noiselessly the Agent found its way into the room. The human sat at a desk, writing, occasionally looking into the adjoining room at Mallus’s still form. The angel was lying upon a cot in a deep, healing sleep. The Agent extended a needle from the tip of one of its gloved fingers and crept silently behind the man. It pricked the back of the man’s neck and injected him with a mild sedative that would render him unconscious almost immediately.
With the human now fast asleep, his head resting on his notes, the Agent turned its attention toward Mallus. Considering that its prey had avoided elimination for so long, the Agent was surprised how easy its mission was going to be.
From a sheath on the side of its leg, the Agent withdrew a Blade of Gleaning and prepared to drive the supernaturally sharp knife into the skull of its prey. The blade would extract information that the renegade might have collected and retained during the years when he’d hidden from the Architects.
The Architects needed to know everything that Mallus had done—where he’d gone, why he’d turned on them, and who else might now know of their existence and plans.
The Agent leaned in close to find the best place to insert the blade, and noticed the sigils tattooed upon the fallen angel’s body. The markings were powerful magicks, that had successfully rendered Mallus invisible to prying eyes.
These sigils had been an ingenious plan, as long as the marks had remained intact.
The Agent surmised that the bloody bandage covering Mallus’s chest concealed not only a grievous wound but broken sigils, which allowed the angel’s presence to again be felt.
The Agent breathed in the scent of the angel who had defined its purpose for so long, then brought the knife up behind the angel’s ear. As the tip of the Blade of Gleaning touched the angel’s pale flesh, the Agent considered what it would be like to have fulfilled its purpose and no longer exist.
It found the unknown strangely exciting.
“You might want to step away from him,” said a voice from behind it.
The Agent turned toward the sound. A lone figure stood in the doorway. He had a strange stink about him, both earthly and divine.
A Nephilim.
* * *
All in all Aaron had a great night.
He and Vilma managed to enjoy their meals, both cleaning their plates. They split a huge slice of mud pie, and were so full by the last bite, Vilma thought that she might pop the top button of her jeans, while Aaron just thought that he might slip into a food-induced coma.
They lingered for a little while after Aaron paid the bill, before they both admitted that it was time to head back.
Outside in the parking lot, they kissed, a long, loving kiss that reminded Aaron how much he wanted to live. Vilma grounded him. She made his life make sense. It was that simple, and complex at the very same time.
“I love you, Aaron Corbet,” she said as their lips parted and she looked deeply into his eyes.
“And I love you, Vilma Santiago.”
Then they walked arm in arm to the back of the parking lot, searching out a patch of darkness to conceal their departure.
It wasn’t late, but it was deathly quiet back at the school. Vilma started to lead Aaron back to the dormitory, but something made him stop.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked him.
He looked over to the infirmary building. “I think I’m going to check in with Kraus,” he told her. “See how our mysterious patient is doing.”
Vilma nodded slowly as she released his hand. “Don’t be too long,” she ordered.
“I won’t,” he said.
“I’ll wait up for you,” she added, a hint of a lascivious smile playing at the corners of her lips.
“You’d better,” he warned jokingly, watching as she turned from him, continuing on her way.
So there he was, standing in the doorway of their patient’s room, Kraus asleep at the desk nearby. Aaron stared at the bedridden casualty across the room, but saw so much more.
A figure made of shadow leaned over the unresponsive angel, holding something that glinted in the faint light of the infirmary room.
“You might want to step away from him,” Aaron then said.
And the masked figure turned toward him, knife in hand.
* * *
The figure was there one second, and gone the next.
Aaron was thinking it had somehow teleported away, when he suddenly caught a flash of light heading straight for his left eye. He dove from the path of the blade, crashed into the front of a supply case, and shattered one of its glass panels. He looked to where he thought his attacker would be, but still did not see it. Then came the crunch of glass, and Aaron again found himself under attack.
Somehow his attacker was able to blend with the environment. It took everything that Aaron had to distinguish the shape that slashed and thrust its knife at him.
/> From his training Aaron knew that the best way to deal with this situation was to grab hold of the attacker. If he could touch it, then Aaron could fight it.
But the figure’s costume was strangely slippery, as if covered with some sort of grease, and Aaron was thrown off balance. The two grappled briefly as Aaron tried to regain his footing. The blade came dangerously close to him again.
Suddenly, like a switch being thrown, the angelic aspect of Aaron’s nature kicked in. He felt the warm flush as divine fire engulfed his hand, which held the attacker’s blade at bay. There was a flash of orange flame, and the stink of cooking meat filled the air.
But his attacker did not even cry out.
The two continued to struggle, until the attacker’s hand burned away and the blade clattered to the infirmary floor. The attacker disappeared into the shadows, leaving Aaron with a handful of ash.
Disgusted, and a little unnerved, he tossed the remains to the floor.
A rattle and clank sounded nearby. The drawer on a wheeled cart opened to expose surgical tools on the inside. Aaron reacted, ebony wings exploding from his back as he leaped across the room, but the scalpels were already in flight and sank into the soft flesh of his shoulder.
Aaron crashed to the floor and ripped the three surgical knives from his right shoulder. It took far more effort to remove them than he would have expected, the blades having been thrown with such strength that they had buried themselves deep into the muscle.
He dropped the bloody tools to the floor, and he carefully scanned the room for his foe. There was a sudden weight upon his back, and Aaron felt a rock-hard forearm slip about his throat, viciously hauling him backward. His oxygen was immediately depleted, and tiny explosions of color danced before his eyes. With great effort Aaron tensed the powerful muscles in his back, flexed his expansive wings to their fullest, and tossed the invisible threat away.
Rubbing at his bruising throat, Aaron listened for where his attacker had fallen. A file cabinet in the corner of the room tipped over, spilling old records from the facility’s previous occupants. The papers spread across the floor and crinkled under the invisible attacker’s step.
Aaron sprang from the floor just as something rough and jagged slashed across his face. The Nephilim recoiled and fell backward. His foe was using the jagged stump of his own arm as a weapon.
What is this thing? Aaron wondered as a surgical saw flashed through the air at him. He was driven back toward the wall as the silver blur slashed at him, barely missing. Aaron worked his way to the door as he concentrated on bringing forth a sword of flame to block the relentless attack. Then the saw blade bit savagely into his already injured shoulder. Aaron let out a piercing scream and his fire sword sizzled to nothing as his concentration was temporarily broken. He tried to pull himself together, to rouse another weapon, but the saw was already coming at him again.
Anger and fear coursed through Aaron, and a sword materialized in a rush of fire. He was ready to continue the fight. But there was no longer the need, for the saw was suddenly yanked back and away.
The mysterious patient had risen from his bed and stood behind Aaron’s attacker, arm wrapped around the nearly invisible foe, restraining him.
Aaron was about to go to the patient’s aid, when he saw a flash of something silver and the patient wielding the attacker’s knife. The injured man plunged the weapon deep into the back of their foe’s neck with the sickening sound of metal rubbing against bone.
“No!” Aaron cried as he realized what had just happened.
The patient let the body slip from his arms to the floor. With the attacker dead, Aaron could now see its form. Whatever magickal qualities had kept it hidden were fading.
“Did you have to kill him?” Aaron asked, kneeling beside their fallen foe.
The patient stared at the blade that he’d used against the attacker. It crackled with energy.
“If I hadn’t, the Agent wouldn’t have stopped until we were both dead,” he said. He then stumbled backward, catching himself before carefully sitting at the end of his cot.
Aaron stared at the corpse and realized that it was wearing a skin-tight suit. He fumbled at its throat, found the edge of its mask, and pulled it off to reveal the face beneath it. He gasped at what he saw. Aaron had seen illustrations in books, interpretations in movies, and statues at museums, but this was the last place he’d ever expected to see a Neanderthal.
“Much easier to augment than the more evolved members of your species,” the patient said. He rubbed at his bandaged chest.
Aaron stared at the apelike features of the primitive man, and again wondered if his own existence could get any more bizarre. He looked away from the dead Neanderthal to the patient, who stared at him strangely.
“What?” Aaron asked.
“Nothing,” the patient said, barely able to tear his gaze from the Nephilim. “It’s nothing.”
But Aaron new that it wasn’t.
“So you have some explaining to do,” Aaron said as he rose to his feet.
“Yes,” the patient said. “I believe I do.” He peeled the bandage away from his chest and examined the pink, puckered skin where his nearly fatal injury had healed. Cautiously he touched the scar that slashed through the elaborately tattooed sigils.
“But first I need a needle and some ink before we have any more unwelcome visitors.”
* * *
Baby Roger spastically attempted to bring the spoon up to his hungry maw, but more of the creamed peas and corn landed on his chin than in his mouth.
“Damn it!” the baby shrieked, tossing the spoon away from the high chair in frustration. “Somebody feed me this instant!”
“You said you could do it yourself,” Jeremy said, sitting at the small kitchen table, his mother across from him.
“Well, obviously I’m having some difficulty,” Roger retorted, his chubby hands wiping at the food that adorned his face, before he eagerly shoved his fingers into his mouth to noisily suck on them.
Jeremy got up from the table to retrieve the spoon. “Could you explain again how you’re talking?” he asked.
“I already told you, I don’t know… yet,” Baby Roger said. The child watched Jeremy as he approached. “You’re not going to use that spoon to feed me, are you? It’s filthy. Get a clean one.”
“I wasn’t going to use it,” Jeremy said, annoyed.
“Well, see that you don’t,” the baby scolded. “And hurry up. I’m starving.”
“How could you be starving? You haven’t stopped eating all morning,” Jeremy’s mom said as she sipped her tea.
“I’m a growing boy, and all that nonsense,” Roger declared. He started to blink his eyes rapidly, looking around the cottage.
“What’s wrong?” Jeremy’s mother asked, standing up, a look of concern on her face.
“Color,” the baby said, still blinking rapidly. “I can see colors now. Fascinating.”
Jeremy pulled his chair closer to the high chair. He’d taken a new spoon from the silverware drawer and was ready to make another attempt at feeding the hungry child.
“Are you ready?” Jeremy asked, plunging the spoon inside the jar of baby food.
“I couldn’t be more ready.” Roger tilted his round head back as he opened his mouth. “Solids are far more satisfying than formula.”
Jeremy took a spoonful of the disgusting-looking mixture and stuffed it into the child’s mouth. Roger immediately started to cough and gag.
“What’s wrong” Jeremy asked, startled by all the fuss. He looked to his mother for help.
“You nearly choked me!” Baby Roger wailed. “You practically shoved that spoon down my throat. Gently, Jeremy. Remember, I’m just a baby.”
Jeremy stuck the spoon back into the jar for another go.
“Yeah, you’re just a baby, all right,” he muttered.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” the baby asked as Jeremy gently brought the spoonful to Roger’s mouth and tipped it.
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“I mean that you’re just a few weeks old,” Jeremy said, again delving into the jar. “You’re not supposed to be talking, never mind speaking in full sentences.”
Roger had some more of his food. “I must admit, the situation here is rather unique,” the baby said.
“I’ll say,” Jeremy’s mother agreed. She got up and poured herself another cup of tea from the electric pot on the counter.
“The only thing I can assure you is that there is a reason for all this,” Baby Roger said, opening his mouth again in anticipation.
Jeremy did as was expected, shoveling in more peas and corn.
“We just need to know what that reason is,” Jeremy said.
“And you’ll know as soon as I do,” Roger said, turning in his high chair to watch the telly. “I do so hate to miss anything,” he said, craning his neck to see.
“Considering that you couldn’t speak a word before bedtime last night, I’d gather you haven’t missed much,” Jeremy’s mother said as she sipped her fresh cuppa.
“But that’s the wonder of television,” Roger said, taking another bite of his food before turning again in his chair to see into the small living room. “There’s so much it can teach you. Twenty-four glorious hours of information. I wouldn’t be half the baby I am now without it.”
“And you knew to put the telly on to get this information, how?” Jeremy asked. He dug at the last of the jar’s contents and got another spoonful.
Roger turned back to him, considering the question. “I really don’t know,” he said. “It was something akin to instinct.”
Roger thought seriously as he gummed his last bite of peas and corn. “Something told me that I needed to proceed,” the baby said. “And I did what was required of me, escaping that silly crib, and locating the remote control.”
The baby turned in his high chair to see the television again.
“It was like being immersed in a fountain of knowledge,” Roger said wistfully.
“A fountain of something,” Jeremy commented sarcastically as he got up to throw away the empty jar of baby food.
“So now what do we do?” Jeremy’s mother asked. “This is obviously happening for a reason.”