“You fellas know each other?” Ronny asked.
“Let’s just say that we’re aware of each other’s activities,” Tobias said. The angels’ presence was making his skin tingle as though a mild electrical current was passing through his body.
“It has always fascinated us that the Archangel Gabriel would bestow such a sacred task upon lowly humans.”
Tobias felt for his cup, brought it up to his mouth, and drained the last of his coffee noisily.
“Probably ’cause he realized the likes of you couldn’t be trusted,” he replied. “Probably ’cause he knew that at the first sign of trouble, you’d be blowing the horn to bring the curtain down. Let’s be honest, your kind never really did care much for humanity.”
The leader of the remaining six Powers stepped closer, bending down to speak directly into the blind man’s ear.
“You’re right,” he whispered. His breath smelled of spice and decay. “We’ve always believed that the Lord of Lords could have done better … actually did do better.”
Tobias laughed. “What?” he asked incredulously. “You think the angelic hosts are the best He could do?” He laughed some more, shaking his head. “Most of humanity ain’t no prize, but I can honestly say we got the likes of you winged sons of bitches beat, hands down.”
Tobias swiveled his stool from the counter to face the angels.
“You have some nerve coming after me,” he said with a snarl. “Has who gave me the horn to look out for slipped your divine minds? Let me refresh your memories—Gabriel himself.”
Ronny had been silent until then but finally interjected. “All right, I can see where this is going.”
Tobias caught the sound of something being pulled from beneath the counter—probably a baseball bat. “You guys take it outside or I’m gonna start swingin’, and then I’m gonna call the sheriff.”
The owner of Ronny’s Diner and Grub moved around the counter, menacing with the bat. Tobias knew there was nothing he could do to help the man now. Ronny had had his chance.
But still Tobias tried.
“He’s right. Let’s take this outside.” The blind man slid from his stool, and suddenly a powerful hand dropped hard upon his shoulder.
“You will give it to me,” Geburah snarled.
Tobias heard a scuffling of feet, and Ronny’s angry voice.
“Take your hands off him. I warned you.”
A rush of air passed across Tobias’s face and Ronny’s words trailed off in a gurgle. The metallic odor of fresh blood filled the air, and Tobias imagined the damage an angel’s wing would do as it slashed across an exposed human throat. The bat clattered to the linoleum floor, followed by the thump of a heavy body.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Tobias said.
“Think of it as an act of mercy,” the leader said. “We have saved him from the pain that will follow the summoning of the Abomination of Desolation, when this sad world is finally brought to its end.”
Geburah’s hand was still upon Tobias’s shoulder, its grip so tight that the bones beneath had started to ache from the pressure.
“The Abomination of …?” Tobias couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’d think you peacocks would have learned,” Tobias said to them with a disgusted shake of his head. “Verchiel already tried something like this.”
The angels gasped at the mention of their former leader’s name.
“And he failed miserably.”
The blow was fast and hard. It lifted the blind man from the stool, tossing him across the restaurant, where he struck a jukebox with such force that he shattered its glass front.
Tobias dropped to the floor, stunned. He’d always wondered what it would feel like to be struck by an angel’s wing, and now he knew.
It hurt like hell.
The taste of blood was in his mouth as he pushed himself up on all fours, jagged pieces of glass digging into his hands and knees.
“The Archangel Gabriel gave me and all before me this task,” Tobias grunted, the entirety of his ancient body screaming from the punishment it had just received. “He said we would know when it was time to hand it over … that an emissary from Heaven would come to claim it.”
He could hear the Powers moving closer.
“We are the emissaries of which you speak,” the leader said. “Give me the instrument and fulfill your purpose.”
Tobias felt dizzy, and instead of attempting to stand, he pushed himself back and simply sat upon the glass-covered floor, leaning against the jukebox.
“Nah, I don’t think you’re the guys he was talking about,” he said with a shake of his head. He turned and spat a wad of bloody phlegm onto the floor. “In fact, I’ve been warned about the likes of you … angels that would want to use the instrument as a tool for their own purposes … angels that felt what the Lord God had accomplished on the earth didn’t quite live up to their own standards.”
Tobias wiped more blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“The last fella to hold the horn told me I should have a plan in case I ever ran into angels like you.”
“I tire of these games, ape,” Geburah snapped, his voice booming like the thunder of a summer storm.
“It always comes down to name-callin’, don’t it?” Tobias said. “Well, you should know that I listened very carefully to what my predecessor had to say, and I took it to heart.”
Tobias reached inside his jacket and carefully removed a horn.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” the old man asked, holding the bugle-shaped instrument out to the angels that he knew were close by.
“I promise to be merciful,” the leader said, glass crunching beneath his feet as he stepped toward Tobias.
“Here’s a little something I call ‘End of the Line,’” Tobias said as he placed the horn to his lips.
And began to blow.
Geburah and the others leaped back with horror, mighty wings spread wide to carry them away from destruction as he raised the instrument to his lips.
The horn could be used as a powerful weapon; one blast was enough to shake the restaurant to dust and pulverize even the most divine of flesh. If the full fury of the instrument was to be unleashed upon them, there was little chance that the Powers would survive.
The Powers’ leader was about to enwrap himself in his white-and-brown-flecked wings, and flee this place and the devastation that would follow the blowing of the horn, when he heard the most surprising thing.
Instead of notes of sheer destructive force, there came a pathetic and flatulent honk.
Followed by the old man’s laughter.
Geburah opened his wings and looked about. The other five were still behind him, as confused as he but mesmerized by the sight of the old man sitting upon the ground before them, laughing, the instrument clutched to his chest.
Geburah moved closer, eyes locked on the horn in Tobias’s hand.
“You’ve deceived us,” the angel said, trying to keep his rising ire in check.
“I most certainly have,” the old man said, tears of laughter running down his face.
“That is not the instrument.”
“No, it is not the instrument,” Tobias agreed. He held up the horn, which had been fabricated by mere human hands. “But it is a beauty. Cost me twenty-five bucks at a pawnshop in Michigan.”
“If that is not the true instrument, then where …”
Tobias turned his milky white eyes from the horn to the angel; all traces of humor were now gone from his ancient expression.
“Now, do you seriously think I’m gonna tell you that?”
Geburah squatted down before the old man. “We will make you tell us.”
Tobias smiled, his teeth yellowed from the passage of many, many years.
“You’ll try,” he said with a shake of his head.
The Powers’ leader rose and looked toward the angel Shebniel, he who had always nurtured a more sadistic streak during his interactions with Go
d’s chosen.
No words were needed.
The lanky angel sprang upon the old man like some great predatory beast, using his powerful wings to beat the human, bruising flesh and breaking bone. Again and again the wings came down, until Shebniel’s creamy white feathers were flecked with blood.
But the old, blind black man—one of the chosen of the Archangel Gabriel—remained true to his word. He did not tell them what they wanted to know. He did not tell them where he had left the instrument. And he died because of that.
It never ceased to amaze Geburah that anyone could harbor so much affection for this horrid place that he would be willing to die in order to save it. He gazed down upon the mangled body of the old man, the toy horn, crumpled and bent, lying by his hand.
His death was meaningless in the greater scheme of things. Tobias had only delayed the inevitable, not prevented it. It was only a matter of time until the horn made its presence known; an object of such power was not meant to be hidden.
And they would feel it.
And once it was in their possession, the countdown to the End of Days would commence.
CHAPTER THREE
Aaron could not get back to sleep. He was exhausted, but no matter how hard he tried, those last hours of rest eluded him.
Images of his foster mother and brother horribly burning replayed in his mind as their words echoed through his thoughts.
“It’s going to get worse.”
Beside him, Gabriel snored loudly, deep in the embrace of sleep. And finally Aaron had had enough. Carefully, he peeled back the covers. As quietly as he could, he slid from the mattress and padded to the window, opening it wider.
He chanced a look over his shoulder and was rewarded with the sight of the Labrador still fast asleep. He needed this time alone.
Aaron climbed up on the windowsill and willed his wings to emerge. The black-feathered appendages emerged from under the skin of his back. It used to hurt, but now he felt nothing but the pleasure and excitement of the experience to follow.
He leaped out into the early dawn stillness, his wings fanning out to their full, glorious span before thrusting him skyward.
The school that the Nephilim had adopted as their new home grew smaller beneath him. For the Saint Athanasius School and Orphanage was their home—their Aerie—where they could live lives as normal as was possible for their kind. The previous Aerie had existed in a housing development, abandoned because of illegal toxic-waste disposal. Nephilim and fallen angels who had managed to escape the Powers hid in Aerie, but after Verchiel’s death and the return of the fallen to Heaven, the remaining Nephilim had come here to the school.
Aaron pushed himself higher, and higher still, mighty flaps of his wings taking him up into the clouds. This was where he needed to be, to collect his thoughts, to reaffirm his purpose. If there was one thing he could never show the others, it was doubt.
He was their leader: the Chosen One.
Aaron was the offspring of Lucifer, at one time the Creator’s most beloved of angels, and being the son of the angel who fell so far from grace made Aaron special. An angelic prophecy said that a child of humanity and the angelic would bring forgiveness to all the angels who had fallen from the grace of God, reuniting them with Heaven.
The Redeemer.
Aaron was that being, and in his hands was the power of redemption.
It had been his purpose to forgive the angels fallen to earth after the Great War in Heaven—which he had done—but now an even heavier task weighed upon his shoulders.
Aaron strained his wings, pushing himself higher into the atmosphere, as if to escape these obligations—these burdens. The clouds were pregnant with moisture, and his flesh tingled with the cool touch of pending rain.
Opening his wings, he slowed his ascent, riding the air currents, looking down upon the world below him. From here, it looks so small … so manageable, he thought, gliding above it all.
Up here, alone with himself, he was just Aaron Corbet, not the Chosen One, not the Redeemer. Up here, he was not the leader of the Nephilim in their war against the forces of evil that skulked daily from the shadows to plague the world. He was just Aaron Corbet—if only for a little while.
The currents of air whipped at his body, pushing him toward the land below, as if to say, “You’ve had your peaceful moment. Now it’s time to get back to work.”
Aaron pulled his wings tight against his body and angled earthward. The wind whipped at his hair, drying his cloud-dampened skin in his descent.
He tried not to think too hard about what might be waiting for him below, what new threat was ready to reveal itself. Maybe there’s nothing today, he thought. Maybe today will be the day the forces of darkness take a break.
Aaron smiled at the thought as the winds of his descent beat at his face. That would be nice, but he knew it was a fantasy.
That sort of day didn’t exist for him anymore. It had become a thing of the past the day he turned eighteen, and his birthright emerged.
Extending his wings as wide as they would go, Aaron slowed his fall, gliding down toward the open window of the dormitory room he shared with his girlfriend and his dog.
What was that old saying his foster father had often used when he had to work on the weekend? No rest for the wicked?
Images of his foster family and their burning fate appeared before his mind’s eye once more, images he could never forget.
The man had been right, the wicked didn’t rest, which meant neither could he.
No slacking off for the Chosen One.
Lucifer Morningstar could not help but feel that he was at least partially responsible for breaking the world.
He had been in tune with the planet for so many millennia that he could feel its rhythm was off, like a car with a flat tire barreling down the highway—almost out of control but holding on, trying to keep from going off the road, over a cliff, and into the waiting darkness below.
Lucifer stood outside the rectory of the abandoned school and orphanage in the hills of western Massachusetts, taking in the morning and wondering how much longer they had before it all went wrong.
How much longer he had to make things right.
It was up to him now, him and the Nephilim. It was up to them to save the world, a world left in a very bad way by the machinations of a renegade band of angels.
The Powers had been assigned to protect the earth, to keep God’s favored world free of evil, of anything that might offend Him. But instead they had become preoccupied, obsessed with the halfling sons and daughters of fallen angels—the Nephilim.
To say they’d taken their eyes off the ball was an understatement.
Lucifer chuckled softly, recalling how wrong the Powers had been—how misguided.
The Powers, led by the insane Verchiel, had developed tunnel vision, seeing one thing, and one thing only, as the cause of all that was wrong with the world. The Nephilim were blamed for the ills of Heaven and Earth. And the Powers firmly believed that when they were exterminated, everything in the universe would be right again.
So while the Nephilim were hunted and murdered, the true threats to mankind waited in the darkness, untouched, strengthening, awaiting the time when they could emerge from hiding.
And that time appeared to be now.
Despite what Verchiel and the Powers believed, the Nephilim were never the problem. They were, in fact, the solution.
For had it not been for the Nephilim—for one Nephilim in particular—the world would have been consumed by madness long before now.
The Morningstar began to subconsciously rub at his stomach with his free hand. That was where he had been cut … opened.
Where Hell had been exposed to the world.
For Hell was not a place. Hell was the writhing, churning horror that Lucifer had caused when he’d turned brother angel against brother angel. It was all the misery, fear, and pain that he had been responsible for when he’d started the Great War in Heaven. Hell wa
s the Almighty’s punishment inflicted upon the Morningstar for his unforgivable impertinence. And it lived, trapped inside Lucifer, a constant, gnawing reminder of the danger of his ignorance, desperately needing to be kept under control.
Verchiel, in his insane zeal to see the Nephilim destroyed, had captured Lucifer Morningstar and had opened him up in an attempt to unleash the Hell that was inside him.
Lucifer could not help but think that exposing the world to his inner Hell, even for a brief amount of time, had hastened the emergence of the things of nightmare that had been patiently waiting for their time.
All life on the planet would have been brought to an end if not for a Nephilim whose coming was foretold in an ancient angelic prophecy. The prophecy spoke of one who would bring the Allfather’s forgiveness to the fallen angels that had sided with the Morningstar.
Aaron Corbet was the Nephilim of prophecy.
And Lucifer’s son.
The Morningstar smiled proudly at the thought. After being responsible for so much ill, it gave him hope to know that he had brought life to someone who was destined to do so much good.
Perhaps someday he would even be forgiven, although he was certain that day was still a long time away.
Lucifer felt something stir in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and looked down to see the tiny pointed snout of a mouse emerge to sniff and twitch at the air.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” Lucifer commented to the creature that had been far more than a pet to him this last year or so. He’d named his tiny companion Milton, and although the little rodent seemed to like the name, Lucifer doubted he understood its literary connotations.
“Going?” Milton squeaked.
“Yes, we’re going,” Lucifer answered, placing his hand in his pocket, allowing the mouse to scramble up his arm and perch upon his shoulder. “I just was enjoying a moment of quiet before the inevitable.”
“Death,” said Milton.
Lucifer sighed, reaching up to stroke his tiny friend’s head. Maybe he understood the significance of his name after all.
“There is always that, isn’t there?” the Morningstar said sadly. “Even when we wish there wasn’t.”