Dusty remembered the old man who had given him a ride—Fred—changing, his face contorting into something inhuman, snarling as he lashed out, punching him, before everything went to black.
“A werewolf,” Dusty said. “Is that what he is?”
“Just one of the beastly things that hide in the deep shadows of the world,” Tobias said. “You’d be surprised what’s lurking around out there.”
Dusty found his attention again drawn to the people around the diner. They were still staring, watching him with desperate eyes.
“Who are they?”
“They were like you once,” Tobias explained. “Like me.”
Dusty looked back to the old man across from him, puzzled.
“We’ve all held the instrument for safekeeping,” Tobias said.
“All of them?” Dusty asked. He turned in his seat, eyeing the other customers. No wonder they were so oddly dressed; thousands of years must have been represented there.
“The instrument takes a piece of us before it’s passed on,” Tobias went on. “The longer we hold it, the stronger our presence becomes here.”
“Wait a minute, you’re dead,” Dusty said, facing the old man again. “I felt you die.”
Tobias nodded. “You’re right. It happened not too long after I gave you the instrument.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say the folks who want the instrument want it so badly that they’re willing to do just about anything to get it.”
“The werewolf?” Dusty asked. “And those worm things we faced in the alley before you gave me the instrument?”
“Yeah, they want it,” Tobias said. He turned his blind eyes toward the window and appeared to be looking out at the unnatural fog. “But not for themselves. They want it so they can give it to someone else. I’m sure the instrument has already shared its purpose with you.”
“It’s to be used to summon the end of the world,” Dusty replied.
“Yeah,” Tobias said. His hands felt across the table for the sugar dispenser. He took it and brought it over to his cup, pouring sugar onto his spoon and stirring it into his coffee.
Dusty picked up his own cup and noticed that the coffee never went down; their mugs were always full.
“I should probably apologize for dropping that in your lap; it’s a huge responsibility, and I should’a asked you first,” Tobias said.
Dusty agreed; he should have been asked if he could handle the responsibility.
“But I was desperate,” Tobias said. “And you did come to my aid, exhibiting the kind of character necessary for one who holds the instrument.”
Tobias pointed his dripping spoon out into the restaurant. “They all did at one time.”
Dusty nodded, even though Tobias could not see his response.
“So, who are those … things trying to get the instrument for?”
“Angels,” Tobias said.
Dusty made a face, thinking maybe he’d heard the man wrong. “Angels?” he repeated, to be sure.
Tobias nodded. “Angels of the heavenly choir Powers. Or those that have survived, anyway.”
“Why would angels want the world to end? I thought they were all nice and working for God and stuff?”
The old black man chuckled.
“You don’t know much about angels, do you?” he asked.
“Well, I thought I did,” Dusty answered. “Since when did they get to be bad guys?”
“They’re not bad guys per se,” Tobias started to explain. “It’s just that they have a different view of this world, and of God’s favorite creations.”
“Let me guess. They don’t like us.”
“They’re jealous,” Tobias said, holding his cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. “It was the Powers’ function to protect humanity from the various creatures that hide in the shadows, but they got distracted by something that they thought was more of a threat.”
“Something bigger than the worm things and wolf-men?” Dusty asked.
“Yeah, ever since angels started visiting the world of man, there has always been a complicated relationship with humanity. Some fallen angels loved us … a little too passionately, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Fallen angels were getting busy with us?” Dusty suggested, just to be sure he was getting it right.
“That’s it,” Tobias said. “And in some cases, babies were born. Nephilim. And the Powers saw these babies as a bigger threat than the monsters hiding around the world.”
“The angels were killing babies?” Dusty couldn’t believe what he was hearing; his whole perception of what angels were, and did, was being completely turned on its head.
“When they could,” Tobias answered stoically. “Most of the time they couldn’t tell until the child turned eighteen; that was when the angelic nature that was part of them usually woke up.”
Dusty clutched his still-full coffee cup, absorbing the information.
“And did they succeed?”
“No,” Tobias answered. “They were stopped by one of the Nephilim they hunted … a special Nephilim.”
“So a Nephilim kicked their asses? Good for him.”
“You would think,” Tobias said. “But here’s where it gets sticky. It appears that their leader, Verchiel, had a backup plan.”
“This Verchiel sounds like a real dick,” Dusty observed colorfully.
“Yeah, you’re not too far off with that description,” Tobias agreed. “But Verchiel had Powers angels hidden around the world, waiting to carry out his final wishes.”
“And let me guess. It has something to do with the instrument.”
“See, I knew there was a reason you got picked,” the old man said.
“These Powers angels want to end the world to wipe out the Nephilim?”
“Let’s just say they want to hit the restart button on the whole planet.”
Dusty suddenly realized the enormity of the responsibility that was in his hands. “Well, I won’t let them have it,” he promised the old man. “I’ll use it against them if I have to, but they won’t take it from me.”
“That’s all well and good, but you might not have a choice,” Tobias said.
“What do you mean?” Dusty asked. “You gave it to me.… It’s my responsibility now, and I’m telling you that I won’t give it to them, no matter what.”
“And I’m saying that you might not be strong enough to deny the instrument.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The instrument was created to summon the End of Days and call Wormwood,” Tobias started to explain. “It reacts to the world in which it exists.”
Dusty listened, still not quite understanding what the old man meant.
“If the instrument senses a world gone to hell in a handbag, it’s gonna want to be used to bring the curtain down,” Tobias stressed.
“But I would never do that,” Dusty attempted to reassure him. “No matter how bad the world looks.”
“You’re not listening, kid,” Tobias said. “You might not be strong enough to fight it yet. We’ve all had hundreds of years to learn to discipline the instrument’s rather dominant personality. You’ve only had it for a few weeks.”
Dusty recalled how powerful the instrument could be, how insistent.
“If it wants to end the world, there’s a good chance that you might not be able to stop it.”
Dusty considered the possibility.
“Then I’ll just have to make sure that I’m stronger,” he said bravely, although he had no idea how he would manage that.
“Good to hear,” Tobias said. “But I think you need some help.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember that Nephilim I mentioned? The special one that took out Verchiel? He’s still out there, fighting the good fight along with some other Nephilim survivors.”
The restaurant began to tremble; it was as if a squadron of trucks was passing by the diner.
“What’s happening?” Dusty ask
ed, gripping the edge of the table as he looked around. The panes of glass in the windows vibrated and the light fixtures started to sway.
“We’re done here,” Tobias said.
“Done?”
“You’re waking up.”
“But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Dusty said as the shaking grew more intense and the large panes of glass began to crack in their frames.
“Find the Nephilim,” Tobias ordered calmly. He didn’t appear to be concerned that the diner was crumbling around them. He just sat, sipping at his undrainable mug of coffee.
“And, oh yeah,” he said, as if just remembering something of grave importance.
The windows shattered, and the thick fog drifted in. The bench beneath Dusty’s rear was shaking so violently that he could barely remain upright, but he held on tightly to the edge of the table, desperate to hear the old man’s final words of advice.
“Stay alive” was all Tobias said as he disappeared into the fog.
Then the ceiling of the mental construct came crashing down and the floor opened up, and Dusty tumbled down through the fissure to be swallowed by the darkness below.
Lorelei felt herself dying.
She sat in the quiet of a classroom on an overturned metal trash barrel, looking at the blanket-draped corpses of two she had considered more than friends. She had been connected to Janice and Kirk. The Archon magick that she used to show the Nephilim to where they needed to travel had bonded her with the pair, as well as the other soldiers.
Lorelei knew Janice had had a crush on Cameron but that she hadn’t had the courage to share that with him. She knew that Kirk found monkeys hilarious and would often surf the Web looking for pictures of what he believed to be his totem animal. Janice had been afraid of heights and always got a jolt of terror when she’d been about to spread her wings and take to the sky. Kirk had been afraid that he would go to Hell when he died, and even though Lucifer had explained that Hell didn’t exist, he’d still been afraid that he was going there.
Lorelei felt those memories dying, one after another, the longer they were dead. And as the memories faded, she felt herself dying as well.
She got up and grasped the ends of the blankets, pulling each of them down to expose the Nephilim’s faces. She couldn’t stand to see them covered; she wanted to see them as they had been, not as enshrouded lumps upon a classroom floor.
She was heartbroken, but she didn’t have any tears left. Lucifer had said there were always casualties in war, but it didn’t change how much it hurt her to see them like this.
How many more friends would she have to lose in the battle against the forces of darkness? Images of Vilma, and even Aaron—dead—flashed before her mind’s eye, and she gasped.
No, something had to be done.
They needed help. It was obvious. And the prayers that she said almost daily appeared to be falling on deaf ears, or maybe her pleas just weren’t loud enough.
She’d had an idea, and had quickly pushed it aside as insanity, but it was back, scratching at a door within her mind like some starving creature desperate to find its way inside.
The Archons had been powerful enough to speak directly with the Lord God, using complex spells and magicks to actually talk to the Creator in Heaven. Lorelei wanted to talk to Him too, to tell Him how hard they were fighting, but the enemy was growing stronger, and their numbers were faltering.
She could only imagine how Lucifer would react to such an idea, which was why she wouldn’t tell him … wouldn’t tell any of them. The risk was great. She understood that. But it was a risk she was willing to take.
Lorelei stood, making a conscious decision to find the spells necessary to open up direct communications with God. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, and that it would require extensive time in the library, but it had to be done. She said her good-byes to her friends, then covered their faces again.
As she walked out of the makeshift morgue into the hall, Lorelei heard her name called.
Aaron and Vilma stood by the door to her workroom.
“We need you,” Aaron said.
There was a nervousness to his voice, an uneasiness to his posture. She knew that her plan would have to wait. Her special talents were once again required.
But once she was finished with whatever it was that Aaron needed her for, Lorelei had an appointment to speak with God.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jeremy found his fellow Nephilim in the television room. It had once been the school library, but any books had long ago been removed, leaving behind a large room of scuffed hardwood floors, some badly scratched and carved upon heavy wooden tables, and some floor-to-ceiling bookcases containing nothing but dust.
It was the perfect place to hang the large flat-screen television that let them glimpse the human world outside the one in which they functioned.
He stepped into the room unnoticed. Some were reading, while others’ attention was glued to a news broadcast of some kind.
Russell turned his head slightly to look at Jeremy before quickly turning back to the television screen. There was a look in the boy’s eyes that sent a jolt of fear through his system. Something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on?” Jeremy asked, moving closer to the gathering.
Somebody shushed him—most likely Samantha—and he started to pay attention to the television correspondent on the screen.
The woman was reporting from somewhere in France, from what appeared to be the scene of a natural disaster. It took Jeremy only a few moments to realize that there was nothing natural about what she was reporting at all.
Something had come out of a limestone cliff near a place called the commune of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, above the former bed of the Ardèche River.
Blurry still images—probably from somebody’s phone—were flashed on the screen as the woman talked. They were images of something rather large—an animal of some kind—crawling from the crumbling limestone cliff. Other, better pictures were exhibited next, showing what appeared to be something very dinosaur-like, with bat-like wings spread as it took to the air.
Jeremy knew immediately what it was.
The reporter kept referring to it as the “unknown animal,” or the “unclassified species.”
“Bloody well say it,” he found himself speaking.
The others all looked at him.
“It’s a dragon.” Jeremy gestured toward the TV. “Anybody with eyes can see that.”
“There are no such things as dragons,” Melissa said, though the tremble in her voice told him she knew otherwise.
“Right,” Jeremy scoffed. “And there aren’t any trolls, or Nephilim either, for that matter.”
The news report shifted from France to the United States, where a reporter was talking about reports of unusual phenomena. A video clip from an Iowa school teacher’s cell phone showed the disturbing image of human figures floating in the sky above a three-mile-deep sinkhole.
Human figures with obvious wings.
“That’s not us,” Jeremy noted.
“Yeah, but who are they?” William asked.
Jeremy said nothing as the hair prickled upon the back of his neck in warning. He thought he knew who those angelic figures where.
They were supposed to be dead.
But clearly they were still very much alive.
Lucifer breathed in the state of the world and was very disturbed.
It was all happening far too quickly. He could feel it in the tips of his fingers, upon the hair of his scalp. Things stirred the darkness. The Morningstar knew that it must have something to do with the surviving Powers and their plans to awaken Wormwood.
But he also suspected that it went much deeper than that. The haunting memory of a dark-haired child and a world that it foretold tormented his thoughts.
A world that was now coming to be.
Milton stirred from his spot on Lucifer’s shoulder, sensing his vast unease.
The Morningstar reached
up, gently taking the mouse from his shoulder and holding it in his hand.
“I think I’m going to have to go,” he told the small animal.
Milton squeaked in his primitive tongue, head tilted to one side in question. He stroked the rodent’s head with his finger.
“There’s someone I have to see about,” he said, placing the mouse down on the desktop. “Someone I should have been paying more attention to over the years.”
Lucifer knew that he shouldn’t blame himself, but it didn’t change the fact that a dark future had been predicted to him, a future that he had been invited to share.
He needed to know more about this prophecy, to see if it was somehow connected to the situation unfolding; was the mysterious child manipulating matters like some secret puppet master behind the curtain?
He had to know this enemy so, if need be, he could destroy it.
Lucifer had seen much during the Great War in Heaven, and learned equally as much during his time upon the earth, and he had sworn off violence, using it only as an absolute last resort. Now it appeared that there was little choice. A return to an old way of thinking was in order.
He closed his eyes in the middle of the office and remembered the armor he had worn in battle. The clothes that he wore began to smolder and burn, falling from him as the golden armor manifested upon his body, gleaming as if made from the flares of the sun.
Milton squeaked noisily from the desk, and Lucifer smiled sadly.
“There’s no choice, little friend,” the Morningstar said.
What he had to do next saddened him most of all because he knew that if this was done, it would be difficult to return to the way things had been.
Lucifer extended his hand, which shone with divine metal, and thought of the sword that he had wielded in battle against his brothers, against Heaven, against God Himself, so very long ago, when he was arrogant and stupid and jealous.
The great blade began as a spark and grew in intensity, until it became as the weapon he both feared and missed.
During the war this weapon had been like a brother upon the battlefield. In his arrogance he had called it Light Giver, an extension of his own Son of the Morning, and holding it now, he was nearly overwhelmed with a strange combination of sadness and joy.