“And on the count of three, we strike the barrier together,” he told them.
The Nephilim seemed to understand what he was asking of them, their eyes betraying their fear. Aaron would have been afraid too if he’d had the chance to stop and really think about their situation.
Aaron called Verchiel over to them.
“Together,” Aaron stressed loudly, gripping the hilt of his sword in both hands. “One.”
The Nephilim and Verchiel stood ready with their weapons.
“Two.”
Aaron gazed through the barrier at the divine giant, an angel of the Lord created to terminate all life upon the planet. It made him wonder about the kind of God that had been responsible for his creation, and the creation of all the Nephilim.
The idea of what would happen if they failed danced at the corner of his thoughts; what would happen to Vilma? To Gabriel, Lorelei, and the others … and what of Lucifer?
“Three.”
He pushed aside the potential for failure, thinking only about what they were about to do, and once past the barrier, what they would do to defeat the angel Wormwood.
Aaron saw it all as if in a dream. Everyone moving in slow motion as one, their weapons cutting through the air on a course toward the energy shield. All of them hitting the near invisible barrier at once. With devastating effect.
The explosion of light drove them back as the barrier fell, but Aaron knew that they must surge ahead, attacking en masse if they were going to stop the angel from completing its mission.
They charged the space.
The Abomination of Desolation watched their approach, hands still clutching the giant sword’s hilt.
Aaron felt in his gut that they had to separate the angel from its sword. He knew that destructive energies were being directed into the earth through the weapon’s great length.
But before they attacked, Aaron wanted to try something else.
“Wormwood,” he called out. “We are the protectors of this world, and we humbly ask you to cease your actions against it.”
The angel’s armored head turned as Aaron soared past, its giant, glowing eyes tracking the Nephilim.
“You were summoned prematurely,” Aaron continued. “It is not yet time for this world to die.”
For a moment Aaron believed that his pleas might have been heard.
The angel removed its armored hands from the hilt of the murderous sword, and turned its silent gaze toward those on the ground before him.
The situation suddenly felt very wrong to Aaron.
“Watch it!” he cried out in warning, just as the angel sent out devastating blasts of divine energy from the tips of its fingers.
The power was like a living thing, viper-like and infinitely more deadly. Five tendrils of heavenly energy lashed out at those who the angel believed were its enemies.
The Nephilim scrambled to escape.
Aaron watched in horror as one of Cameron’s wings became enwrapped in a fiery tendril. The boy cried out in pain as his wing was consumed, leaving only a burnt nub.
Aaron flew down to help, but new tentacles of fire pursued him.
Vilma grabbed the injured Cameron, attempting to help him fly away, but she wasn’t fast enough. Another tentacle of writhing fire followed her.
Evading his own pursuer, Aaron leaped into the air, flying with all the speed he could muster to try to intercept the impending attack against his teammates. Swinging his sword, he cut the twisting appendage of flame in two, the blade of his heavenly weapon absorbing the angel’s hungry fire like a dry sponge.
He watched in horror as the fire expanded, morphing into a giant hand to snatch the pair from the air.
There was nothing he could do.
Then Verchiel appeared, pushing Vilma and the injured Cameron from the fire’s path, taking the brunt of the flame’s embrace.
The former leader of the Powers fell from the sky ablaze, landing at the angel Wormwood’s feet.
This seemed to distract the giant. It tilted its gaze to the still-burning angel, and reached to pick Verchiel from the ground.
Kneeling beside Vilma, and a nearly unconscious
Cameron, Aaron watched in wonder as the Abomination turned its attention to the holy entity it held in its hand.
* * *
Verchiel could feel an invading presence inside his mind.
The Angel of Destruction reached out to him psychically, probing the smoldering creature of Heaven in its hand. It did not understand why the divine creatures who served the Lord God were attacking it, and sought answers.
Verchiel experienced its immense presence, and that, coupled with the intensity of the pain he was experiencing as a result of being burned, made him wish that the fire had done its job and killed him.
Wormwood brought him closer, probing deeper, peeling back the folds of his mind in its attempts to find the answers it sought. It learned of the Nephilim, and how Verchiel had led the Powers in a wave to wipe them from existence, and how he had failed and been sent back to Heaven to face the wrath of God.
And it learned how desperately Verchiel wanted to be forgiven, and how he would do anything—even attempt to kill an instrument of the very God he sought absolution from—in order to get it.
Verchiel gathered his thoughts, painfully creating his awesome sword, and surged up from Wormwood’s palm, thrusting the fiery blade through the opening in the visor of its helmet, and into one of its glowing eyes.
The Abomination of Desolation cried out its pain, hands shooting up to claw at its injured face.
Verchiel spiraled down to the earth, his body and wings badly marred from Wormwood’s assault. The others looked at him with shock and awe as he landed upon the ground.
“Kill it,” he proclaimed, barely able to keep his head up. “Kill it, while we still have the chance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Aaron watched for a moment as the angel called Wormwood stumbled about the lawn of the school, blindly roaring its disapproval in a deafening voice. Then he led the surviving Nephilim toward their injured prey. He did not need to tell them how important this attack was. They were as aware as he was that if they did not stop this angel, they would all die. The world would end, and that would be that.
Verchiel had provided them with an opportunity they could not squander. For Aaron doubted they would have another.
Jeremy heard his mother calling to him. It sounded as if her voice was coming from very far away, from down some long, lonesome stone corridor.
“I need your help, luv.”
He wasn’t quite sure where he was at that moment: someplace dark and cool—hiding from the pain. At first Jeremy tried to ignore her pleas, snuggling deeper into the darkness. But he could still hear her. She simply called for him all the louder.
“You must come for me.”
He knew that pain was waiting for him if he chose to answer her call. But what kind of a bloke would ignore the cries of his mum?
Jeremy rose toward consciousness, swimming through the inky blackness on his way back to a world of hurt. The closer he got, the more he remembered. The Powers angels and the thing that had crawled into his mouth and wrapped itself around his brain stem, taking over his body.
And he remembered trying to kill his friends and almost succeeding. If it hadn’t been for the dog … for Gabriel … he might just have.
Jeremy opened his eyes with a moan, every inch of his body screaming for attention. It felt as though he’d been scoured with a wire brush and then dipped in brine.
Pleasant, it was not.
There was a struggle going on at the front of the school, and Jeremy strained to get to his feet, compelled to join his friends.
But his mother had other ideas.
She continued to plead with him. He looked around to see if she was someplace nearby but realized the sound of her voice was coming from inside his own head.
This is a new trick, he thought, struggling to maintain his balanc
e as he continued to be racked with pain.
“Please, Jeremy,” she begged.
He could hear the panic in her voice.
“You must come now, before they come for him.”
There was an explosion at the front of the school, and the sound of screaming. Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed. Concentrating with all his might, he brought forth his battle-ax of fire. He was about to join the fray when his mother called again, diverting his attention.
“I can’t do it alone, son. If they take him, there won’t be any chance of fixing this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
“Who, Mum?” Jeremy asked the voice inside his head. “Who will they take?”
There was a pause, and the sounds of violence filled the air around him, and then she spoke again.
“The child,” she answered. “We must save the child.”
Jeremy had no idea who his mother was talking about, or how she was able to communicate with him, but he felt her urgency and was suddenly overcome with the need to do exactly as she asked.
The battle raged on at the front of the school, but it was no longer his concern. Jeremy had to get to his mother.
Painfully, he spread his wings and wrapped himself in the comfort of their feathered embrace. He thought of the hospital room where he’d last seen his mother, and prayed that he wouldn’t be too late.
For the sake of the child.
For the sake of the world.
For the sake of Heaven.
Vilma soared toward the roaring giant. She knew she should be terrified, but she also knew that fear would only work against her. Being scared would only be an obstacle, something that would prevent her from doing what needed to be done.
The enraged angel loomed closer, and closer still. She thought of her aunt and uncle … her cousins … and all the other people whom she’d loved in her relatively short life. What she was about to do, she did for them, but she also did it for herself.
Vilma wasn’t yet ready to die; there was far too much she still wanted to do with her life, and for these things to happen she had to try to kill the angel that was attempting to take her future, the future of the world, and the futures of everyone she loved.
And she wasn’t about to let that happen.
The Abomination swiped at her. She felt the immensity of its hand as it moved through the air, and she managed to evade it. She summoned a spear of fire to her hands.
Energy leaked out from the wound beneath Wormwood’s helmet, reminding her of the way that blood hung in the water, often attracting predators.
She’d never looked at herself in that way before, but as she flew through the discharge on her way toward the angel’s face, she believed that it was right.
Vilma drew back her arm and, using all the strength she had left, let the spear fly. The projectile managed its way through the opening in the helmet’s visor, finding its target of angelic flesh.
Melissa didn’t want to die, which was why she fought.
She believed that was probably why the others did as well. This was it; if they failed, game over. The world was done, and they died.
It was hard enough finding out that she was a Nephilim, but having the safety of the world on her shoulders as well was a huge responsibility, and one that she never in a million years imagined that she would have, but here it was. It was as big as life, as big as the thing before them that they were attempting to stop … to kill.
Melissa had summoned the biggest sword she could envision, and swung it repeatedly at the ankle of the angelic Abomination, hoping to do some sort of damage, hoping to help save the world that she and her friends were now responsible for.
Melissa had never before wanted to hurt anything so badly. She focused everything she had on one specific spot on the Abomination’s ankle, striking it repeatedly, over and over again, sending sparks of divine fire into the air with every violent blow.
And gradually, a dent in the angel’s armor began to form, and then a jagged chink appeared.
William paused in flight, his wings beating the air as Vilma threw her spear.
“Yes!” he exclaimed excitedly as the flaming weapon penetrated the darkness behind the visor. He relished the cries of pain that came from the being that was intent on destroying their lives.
He flew in low beneath the angel’s thrashing arms, aiming for a bend in the giant’s armor at the knee. If they could make it fall, they might have an easier chance at defeating it. The broadsword he summoned was a monstrous thing, created for maiming and murder, and as he flew past Wormwood’s knee, he swung out with all his strength, burying the burning blade in the opening just below the kneecap, where the armored shin brace began.
The angel lurched forward, the strike indeed having some effect upon the towering giant. William was ready to come around again, to take aim at the angel’s other leg, when he was snatched from the air.
Wormwood held the struggling William in hand, gazing down at him as if he were an annoying insect.
He struggled in the giant’s grasp, feeling the grip intensify—his bones starting to crack and his internal organs rupture. He tried to escape, using every ounce of strength he could muster, but it wasn’t enough. For a moment he experienced the crushing weight of disappointment found in failing his friends, in failing his world, but he managed to overcome it all when he felt the Abomination painfully lurch to one side when it attempted to put weight on the leg he had damaged.
Yes, William was dying, but at least he had left his mark.
And as he felt his life begin to ebb, in a final act of defiance, he flipped the angelic monstrosity the middle finger.
Take that, you son of a …
Aaron watched in horror as Wormwood crushed William and tossed aside his limp body.
“Damn it,” Aaron hissed, again taking flight, anger bubbling up inside of him—an anger that he could barely contain.
But he had to be cautious. This wasn’t some simple creature of darkness they were facing, this was a weapon of God, and it could very easily end them.
Flying closer, Aaron noticed that the angel lurched to one side as it moved.
As if its leg had been injured.
And that was when he noticed the divine energy seeping from where William’s broadsword had struck.
Maybe he didn’t die in vain, Aaron thought.
He flew through the air with new purpose. He passed Vilma, who wielded her own special sword of fire.
“Distract it,” Aaron called out as he whizzed past her.
And she did just that. He could hear her behind him, rallying the others to continue the attack.
Aaron was fixated upon Wormwood’s knee, on the damaged section of armor, as he willed the equivalent of a medieval war hammer into his grasp.
“This is for William,” he said as he swung the heavy combat hammer toward where William had already weakened Wormwood.
The hammer broke through the divine metal, crushing the angelic flesh and bone beneath, and the Abomination of Desolation cried out in surprise and agony, tipping to one side, its leg no longer able to support its massive weight.
The angel went down with a sound like thunder.
Aaron dove from the sky, ready to strike his foe again.
But Wormwood was ready for him. The giant shot out its gauntleted hand and hurled a ball of divine fire. Aaron spun out of its path, continuing on his course to the wounded angel.
He could see its injured eyes blazing from inside the heavy helmet as it readied to defend itself against his attack.
With a ferocious roar, Aaron brought forth a mighty sword and slammed it down upon the angel’s helmet. A rush of heavenly power exploded from the fissure. Aaron acted instinctively, one of his wings coming across his body to shield him as he dropped toward the ground.
Just before he struck the earth, he opened his wings wide to capture the wind and break his fall.
Wormwood loomed above him, the helmet that once protected his head broken into pieces.
Aaron gazed upon the true face of his enemy, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. It was a face not hardened and monstrous but calm and peaceful. A face sculpted by the hand of God.
Its eyes touched his soul, and Aaron lowered his weapon. The angel’s expression told him not to be afraid of what was to come.
Wormwood turned its gaze to the others that flew above its head like angry gnats, and their acts of violence upon it ceased at once.
They returned to the ground to stand with their leader.
In its gaze, Aaron found meaning in the act the angel was trying to perform. The world had become diseased, the evil growing upon it poised to spread out into the universe itself, to the kingdom of Heaven.
It had to be stopped. For the greater good, it had to be stopped.
Aaron looked to Vilma. There were tears in her eyes.
“We have to let this happen,” Aaron said to her.
She nodded in acceptance.
The weapons they held were extinguished; they would perpetrate violence against the angelic entity no longer. They understood what Wormwood had come to do, and why the world needed to end.
Aaron watched as the giant began to crawl, hauling its armored form across the expanse of lawn, moving toward the body of the great sword that still protruded from the ground.
They were all watching Wormwood. The guilt they felt for hurting such a wonderful creature with a divine purpose made them want to bow their heads in shame, but they could not take their eyes from the amazing creature.
The sound of a dog’s incessant barking shattered the peaceful calm, and Aaron turned to look toward the Labrador retriever.
“Quiet,” he ordered the animal, slowly remembering that his name was Gabriel.
“Aaron, what are you doing?” the dog asked. “Why aren’t you trying to stop it?”
Aaron turned from the dog to look at the angel, who had almost reached the sword. He didn’t answer, knowing how difficult it would be for the animal to understand the immensity of Wormwood’s mission.
“Aaron!” the dog barked, accompanied by a throaty growl as he surged forward to bite at the boy’s leg.
Aaron cried out in pain and anger, a blade of fire coming to life in his hand, a blade that he now raised and prepared to bring down upon the offending animal.