Gabriel cowered, ears flat against his blocky skull.
“Aaron, what is wrong with you?” the dog asked with a sad whine.
And for a moment Aaron pondered that question as well.
What is wrong with me?
Aaron finally understood the validity of Wormwood’s mission, but why did that understanding suddenly feel so very wrong?
Gabriel jumped up on him, licking at his neck and face, even though Aaron still held the sword raised above his head.
And realization dawned on Aaron. Looking upon the face of the Abomination had clouded their minds, bending the Nephilim to the giant’s will.
Wormwood had reached the sword.
The angel’s hand moved through the air, its armored fingers extending to grip the giant sword’s hilt once more, and to finish what it had begun.
Aaron knew that as soon as those fingers closed upon the weapon, it would be done. He could feel it at his very core.
This was the end of the world, and he had managed to get himself a front row seat.
In the wink of an eye, the other Nephilim awoke to the reality of their situation … to the world’s situation.
“Oh my God,” Vilma said, her eyes fixed on Wormwood.
Aaron heard the gasps and sobs of sorrow from the others as they all came to the same horrible realization: they had failed the world they were supposed to protect.
Then suddenly there came a bloodcurdling scream as something flew through the air above their heads. With wings blackened and charred, Verchiel rocketed across the sky, his sword glowing as if it had been plunged into the heart of the sun.
The former leader of the Powers descended as the Abomination’s fingers began to close upon the hilt of its weapon. With a blow so swift that the act was seen as only a blur, Verchiel brought his blade down, severing the armored hand of the Angel of Destruction from its wrist.
Wormwood reared back, the life stuff of angels streaming from the stump of its wrist. It gazed in shock at the sight of its hand momentarily twitching, before going still on the ground.
Verchiel did not stop there. Wings pounding furiously, he leaped into the air, hovering before the face of the giant. Verchiel’s burning blade descended once more, this time burying itself deep within Wormwood’s skull, and bifurcating the angel’s face.
From the open skull of the angelic entity that had been summoned to destroy the world, there came an explosion of fire and light, followed by an eerie silence.
The Nephilim looked at the sight before them. Verchiel was kneeling upon the ground, his body smoldering. Much of his hair and the first layer of flesh had been burned away. His armor was filthy with char and soot.
“Must I do everything?” he snapped as he forced himself to stand.
The body of the Abomination of Desolation lay still upon its side, decomposing swiftly in the sun. It would be no time at all before there was nothing left of the apocalyptic giant. But its sword was still in the ground, still radiating a sense of menace.
Verchiel looked as though he might fall over at any moment. “I need time to heal,” he said, marching across the lawn turned battlefield.
As he passed a body lying in the grass, it lifted its blackened head.
“What … have … you done?” Geburah asked.
Aaron watched as Verchiel stopped. The charred form grabbed hold of Verchiel’s ankle with its blackened skeletal hand.
“This … this was yours … this was your plan.…”
“Times have changed, Geburah,” Verchiel responded. “This was not the answer.”
Geburah turned his disfigured features up to his former leader.
“Traitor!” he cried, extending a bony finger to point at Verchiel. “Traitor to the cause of the heavenly host Powers. Traitor to—”
Verchiel’s movement was swift, his sword silencing the accusing angel by separating his head from his body.
Aaron was shocked.
“We’re done here,” Verchiel said, not looking at any of them as he passed.
But Aaron disagreed.
Standing there at the dawn of a new day, he could feel that things were different now.
They were far from done.
In fact, he sensed that this was only the beginning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A FEW DAYS LATER
Damn it.
She had failed again.
The newest attempt at finding him had given her only a deep, cold nothing.
Lorelei tried for more, digging deeper, searching, stretching the spell as far as she was able.…
But Lucifer was nowhere to be found; it was as if he had somehow left the earth.
The Nephilim magick user opened her eyes with a gasp, returning from the freezing void to her weakened body.
“You okay?” Aaron asked, kneeling beside the old wheelchair where she sat.
She was still clutching the metal urn in her lap, where she had burned the ingredients of her Archon spell, including that of a black feather from one of Lucifer’s wings. The thick, strange-smelling smoke still wafted up from the bowl to gently stroke her face, forming an undulating ring of gray about her head.
“I’m fine,” she lied. Since communicating with Heaven, she’d never felt worse. Lorelei could barely stand on her own, which was why she needed the wheelchair.
Milton perched on her shoulder, close to her ear. It seemed as if the little mouse had adopted her since Lucifer had gone missing. She felt his whiskers tickle her neck, and reached up to rub the soft fur on Milton’s tiny head.
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Aaron told her. He took the smoking urn from her lap and placed it on one of the lab tables.
From beside her chair, Kraus reached down to grasp her wrist and check her pulse. “Her heart is racing,” the healer said. “She’s overdoing it.”
Aaron seemed upset, but these days when didn’t he? Things were bad, and getting worse. Staying alive wasn’t going to be easy in the days to come.
“I don’t want you doing any more magick until you’re feeling stronger,” he instructed her.
Lorelei leaned her head back against the chair.
“Yes, sir,” she said, eyes closed, hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, I still can’t find him.”
A dark cloud passed over Aaron’s face.
“Where is he?” Aaron asked beneath his breath. “When we need him the most, he drops off the face of the earth.”
Milton squeaked his concern from Lorelei’s shoulder. He missed his friend.… They all missed their friend.
“It feels like that,” Lorelei said. “When I search the ether, all I come across is a bottomless, freezing nothing. No trace of him at all.”
“But where could he have gone?” Aaron asked, thinking aloud.
Lorelei could see how much this was bothering the boy, almost as much as it was bothering her. They needed the Morningstar if they were going to survive what was coming … if the world was going to survive what was coming.
“There might be something I overlooked in the Archon writings,” she suggested. “Let me go to the library and—”
“No,” Aaron snapped. “No, no, and no again,” he stated flatly. “You’re going to rest, and you’re going to get better. We agreed. This was the last spell that you were going to perform for quite some time. Remember? We made a deal.”
Lorelei sighed—recalling that she had indeed agreed to stop—before she started to argue.
“But I think there might be a spell that would allow me to search further … into another plane of existence even.”
Aaron’s stare was penetrating, his dark eyes reaching deep into her soul.
“I can’t lose anybody else,” he said to her. “I need you.… We need you. Please, no more. It’s going to kill you if you keep on with this.”
Lorelei knew when to quit, leaning her head back once more.
“Fine, I’ll rest,” she said. “But as soon as I’m feeling better …”
“F
inally,” Kraus said. “Something sensible from her mouth.”
The sound of hard toenails clicking across the floor made Lorelei turn the wheelchair toward the open doorway and Gabriel.
“There’s my beautiful boy,” she said as the dog came over to her, tail wagging.
“Feeling better?” the Labrador asked, standing up with his paws on her legs to lick her withered face.
“I was until you crushed me, you horse,” she moaned jokingly, pushing the dog from her lap.
“Sorry,” Gabriel said, sitting down and leaning against the wheelchair so she could scratch behind his velvety soft ears. The dog closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure.
Aaron thanked her again, telling her to get some rest, and left with Gabriel, leaving her and Kraus alone.
“Do you want me to take you to your room so you can lie down?” he asked, taking hold of the chair’s handles, ready to wheel her there.
“No,” she said flatly. “I want you to take me to the library.”
Milton squeaked close to her ear, cautioning her. But mice were always cautious.
“Lorelei,” Kraus began. “You heard Aaron. He doesn’t—”
“Yeah, I heard him,” Lorelei interrupted. “He told me to rest, but I’m not that tired right now.”
She took hold of the chair’s wheels and started to wheel herself toward the doorway.
“Maybe a little light reading before bed will put me in the mood.”
The time for caution had long since passed.
Leaving the science building, Aaron noticed that the sun had already started to set, and it was only a little bit after two in the afternoon.
This was how it had been since the instrument brought the Abomination to the world. Even though the angel did not succeed, darkness came earlier now.
Gabriel stopped, lifting his snout in the air. “It’s earlier than yesterday,” the dog grumbled about the dusk. “Not by much, but still earlier.”
Aaron looked up into the sky and wondered if there would come a time when there would be only darkness, but he already knew the answer. He was going to try to fix that with the others of his ilk. It was only one of the many things they would have to repair to restore some semblance of normalcy to the world. Aaron wasn’t sure he knew what normal was anymore.
Crossing the school grounds, Aaron came across Vilma and the others. His heart did a little flip when he saw her, as it always did, and as she turned to look in his direction, he wondered if her heart did the same.
She seemed different since Jeremy had gone missing. They’d searched for him as well, with about as much luck. Even though Vilma told him that she was fine, Aaron sensed that something was off.
Was he being paranoid? Perhaps even a little jealous? Yeah, there was that, but Aaron could see a change in her. And like the world now, she seemed a little bit darker each day.
“Hey,” she said, leaving the others to continue practicing with their weapons.
Melissa held a sword of fire in each hand, doing some impressive combat moves, while Cameron sparred with some imaginary enemy. The boy seemed as good as new, even his damaged wing was growing back, something that they had been unaware that Nephilim could do.
Aaron liked that they were getting better at tapping into the full potential of their angelic natures. They were going to need it if they were to survive what was coming.
“Have you talked to him yet?” Vilma asked, moving into his line of vision.
“That’s where we’re going,” Gabriel barked.
Aaron had been putting it off, hoping that his father would return from wherever it was that he’d gone, but …
“I still don’t trust him,” Aaron said.
“We’ve talked about this, Aaron,” she said. Vilma stepped a little bit closer, reaching out to touch his arm. “We need guidance, and since Lucifer is missing …”
“I think he’ll be back,” Aaron said quickly. “Maybe we should just give it a little more time.”
“I don’t know if the world has more time,” she said. “Have you seen the news?”
He had. Creatures were emerging from the shadows to stake their claim on the changing world—a world not equipped to deal with threats of a supernatural nature.
“So much has happened in such a short period—the threat has become so much bigger,” Aaron said, looking at her. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“I never said you weren’t. It’s just like you said, so much has happened. But if we’re going to beat this, we need somebody with experience.”
Aaron laughed sarcastically. “Aren’t we in this mess because of him?” he asked. “Isn’t it because he and his Powers buddies were too busy killing us—killing the Nephilim—that these things were allowed to survive?”
He turned his face from her.
“Doesn’t sound like the kind of experience we need.”
Vilma crossed her arms, and Aaron knew she was getting frustrated.
“That was his job before the whole obsession with wiping out the children of fallen angels. Maybe he’s forgotten that, but even if he can remember just a little, it’ll be a help to us.”
“Ya think?” Aaron asked, chancing a look at her.
Yeah, she is frustrated, on the way to being pissed.
“We need help, Aaron,” Vilma said flatly. “We lost more than half our original number dealing with Wormwood, and even before that we were stretched pretty thin.”
“She’s right, Aaron,” Gabriel grumbled, looking up at his friend with dark, penetrating eyes.
“Of course she’s right,” Aaron replied, reaching down to ruffle the Lab’s ears. “She’s always right.” There wasn’t a hint of condescension in his voice. He agreed with Vilma. “But in this case, I just don’t like that she’s right.”
“I don’t like it either,” Vilma said, moving up closer.
It was bad enough that Aaron had fought alongside the Powers angel to defeat Wormwood, but for him to be a part of their daily life? It made his skin crawl.
“I feel like I’m betraying them,” Aaron said. “Everyone he and his thugs killed, my parents, Stevie …”
Vilma ran her hand along his arm.
Aaron shook his head as if trying to loosen some sort of secret meaning as to why this was happening.
“I don’t get it,” he said, growing angry again. “Why would God do this? Maybe He does hate us.… Maybe we are monsters in His eyes, like the Powers believed.”
Melissa and Cameron stopped their training as Aaron’s voice grew louder, and were watching him.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Vilma said forcefully, upset by his angry words. “I think what we’re dealing with here is a lot bigger than we realize, and a whole lot more complicated.”
“If you say that His ways are mysterious, I’m gonna laugh in your face.”
“Well, they are,” she argued. “He’s God. I doubt He thinks like you or I do.”
“You know what I think?” Aaron asked, then launched into answering his own question. “I think He’s a jerk to put us through this … to put the world through this.”
“What makes you think He has a choice?” Vilma asked Aaron. “How do you not know that this isn’t how He plans to fix everything?”
Aaron could feel himself becoming even more pissed off, and decided maybe he should quit while he was ahead and just talk to Verchiel.
They stood there for what seemed like a very long time before Vilma broke the silence.
“You know, you’re very sexy when you’re tormented,” she said, seemingly trying to suppress a smile.
Aaron didn’t want her to see him smile, fighting—unsuccessfully—to remain angry, so he turned away before she could see.
Vilma came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Whether it knows it or not, the world is depending on us,” she said to him in a whisper. She rested her chin upon his shoulder. “I know it’s hard for you to have him around.… It’s hard fo
r all of us, but it doesn’t seem as though he’s going anywhere, so we might as well utilize what he has to offer.”
Aaron sighed as she squeezed him tighter, resigning himself to the task at hand.
“Are you going to do this or not?” Gabriel then asked, obviously tired of hanging around, and of their displays of affection.
“Yeah,” Aaron said, mentally preparing himself. “Is he still in the chapel?”
“Last I checked,” Vilma said, releasing him from her embrace. “He’s been there since the battle with Wormwood.”
Gabriel had gotten up, starting to walk in the direction of the chapel.
“Coming?” the dog asked, turning to look at him.
He hesitated momentarily before willing his legs to move.
“Good luck,” Vilma called after him.
Aaron waved over his shoulder as he caught up with Gabriel, the two of them walking side by side as he thought how he’d rather be fighting trolls, or Corpse Riders, or even angels of destruction.
On their way to speak with Verchiel.
Dustin Handy stood before the Abomination of Desolation’s giant, protruding sword blade, which had become a monument to the battle that been fought there.
He was nearly blind now, able to see only shadows and the outlines of shapes. He imagined that it wouldn’t be long until this, too, had left him.
But here, before the sword, Dusty could see differently. He guessed that it had something to do with his connection to the instrument. After all, it had become Wormwood’s sword. He’d believed that the instrument had abandoned him after he’d called the Abomination of Desolation, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.
The sword had started to call to him.
At first he’d believed that it was nothing, just his remaining senses growing more acute now that his sight was leaving him. But then the strange voice began to call to him. Even though he was practically blind, he was able to follow the summons, leaving his new room in the dormitory and exiting the building into the cool fall morning.
It didn’t take him long to realize what had drawn him from his bed. He couldn’t see it, but he knew he was standing before the sword. The closer he got to it, the louder it spoke.