“It wasn’t good,” Lorelei said, holding out her hand. He reached down, grasped her hand, and pulled her to her feet.
“We’re going to have to move fast on this one,” she finished.
Vilma never really knew what she would find when she returned to the school: students learning how to summon weapons of fire or practicing aerial maneuvers above the orphanage grounds, her boyfriend and his dog waiting for her to appear, somehow always knowing that she was about to return.
That’s what she hoped was awaiting her now. She needed Aaron, his powerful arms holding her close while he whispered in her ear, reminding her how much he loved her.
She never expected this: Jeremy Fox, British bad boy and Nephilim-in-training, holding a sword of flame, about to face off against her boyfriend, who was wearing his full-on, scary, I’m-going-to-destroy-you form.
Gabriel bounded over to her, barking wildly for her attention.
“What’s going on here?” she asked as she marched toward them.
“Jeremy and Aaron are going to fight,” Gabriel said excitedly, looking back to the pair.
“I don’t think so,” Vilma said. “What is going on here?” she repeated, feeling her anger rise. Her own angelic essence began to stir, but she held it back, reassuring the power that it wasn’t needed for something this trivial.
Aaron opened his mouth to explain, but she was faster.
“I leave for a little while and this is what happens?” she asked. She glared at Aaron and then turned her icy stare to Jeremy, who was still holding his sword of fire.
“Put that away right now,” she ordered, not even close to fooling around.
Jeremy sneered, but the sword dissipated in a flash.
The other students had gathered outside, standing near the building to watch the fireworks.
“Jeremy and William were having a bit of a disagreement,” Aaron said. The sigils on his flesh began to fade as he furled his black wings, withdrawing them into his body. “Things got out of hand.”
Aaron stared at Jeremy, waiting for the youth’s response.
“Tempers flared,” Jeremy said with a shrug. “It’s all good now that we’ve had a chance to cool off.”
Vilma folded her arms and cocked her head.
“And would it have cooled off if I hadn’t gotten here when I did?” she asked.
Jeremy smiled, and his gaze moved to Aaron.
“Eventually, I’d wager,” he said.
They all knew that Jeremy had some anger issues, that the angelic essence inside him was especially wild, but Vilma had never imagined that he would actually challenge Aaron’s authority.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Aaron said. “Nothing that a few weeks of generator duty won’t solve, right, Jeremy?”
Ouch, Vilma thought. Since Saint Athanasius was officially shut down, there wasn’t any electricity to the place. Their power was entirely supplied by industrial generators wired into the school’s electrical system. The generators ran on gasoline and needed to be refilled quite frequently. It wasn’t a favorite chore of those living at the complex, so it made a pretty decent punishment when necessary.
“No problem,” Jeremy said, seemingly unfazed, but Vilma knew he was angry. “Perhaps your girlfriend would like to join me on my rounds. Make sure I’m doing it right and, y’know, keep me company and all.”
Jeremy sure knew how to push buttons, and he was doing an excellent job.
Aaron start to lean forward, and Vilma reached out to touch his arm, squeezing it tenderly, encouraging him to dial it down, reminding him that the kid was just trying to get a reaction.
“Sorry, but you’ll have to handle that particular chore on your own,” Vilma said with a smirk. “A girl needs her beauty sleep, y’know.”
“Not from what I can see,” Jeremy leered. “Everything looks fine to me.”
Vilma felt Aaron’s muscles tense again beneath her fingers, but this time it was the Morningstar himself who put an end to things.
“Excuse me,” his voice rang out.
They all turned to see the first of the fallen standing there. Even dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, he had something powerful about him.
And dangerous.
Thank God for Lucifer, Vilma thought, recognizing that there was something most definitely wrong with that line of thinking but grateful for the reprieve he provided.
“If you’d all come to the auditorium,” he said, gesturing for everyone to follow him. “Something has come up, and you’re all going to need to be briefed.”
He started to turn toward the building but quickly looked back to the group.
“That is, if you are quite finished here,” he added, a glint of menace in his dark eyes that said he knew exactly what had been happening there.
And that he didn’t approve.
CHAPTER FIVE
ONE MONTH AGO
Dustin “Dusty” Handy had always wanted to play the harmonica.
He stared at the harmonica lying harmlessly on the cracked, fast-food restaurant tabletop beside his bottomless cup of diet soda.
He’d told himself he was going to buy a book on how to play the mouth organ, and gradually teach himself to play before graduating high school.
Dustin had also always wanted to learn how to play the guitar, to ski, to make beer, and had even considered learning ballroom dancing at one time, but had never gotten around to doing any of it. Hell, he hadn’t even finished school.
But the desire to play the harmonica had stuck.
Staring at the instrument, the teen wondered if it was that long-standing wish that had caused the horn to change, for it had been a horn when the blind old man had given it to him.
Dustin’s brain felt hot. He imagined that all the information he was trying to process was about to go critical, making the gray matter inside his skull melt and run out his ears and down his worn leather jacket.
He removed the plastic cover on his cup and took a large gulp of soda and ice, hoping the caffeine would help him focus. Absently he crunched on the ice as he set the cup down, eyes still locked on the musical instrument.
There was a part of him that never wanted to touch it again, a part that wanted to leave it right there on the table of the fast-food joint and walk—no, run—away.
Yet another part of him would rather die than be separated from the harmonica.
For a moment Dusty wondered which part was stronger. Then he reached out and gently spun the harmonica on the table.
Round and round she goes, he thought. Memories of the night he’d found himself taking possession of the instrument flashed through his mind.
He’d been on his way from the bar and grill where he worked bussing tables to the tiny apartment he currently called home when he’d heard the commotion. Ordinarily he would have ignored the sound of struggle, preferring to keep his head low and not to get involved with other people’s troubles.
But that night something had made him stop. Almost without thinking, he’d paused, and then backed up a few steps to peer down the trash-strewn alley. Three good-size guys appeared to be taking out their frustrations on someone a heck of a lot smaller … and a whole lot older.
Dusty remembered feeling afraid at first, but that fear was quickly overwhelmed by anger at the sight of three goons kicking the crap out of an old man.
Maybe it was because he’d spent most of his early childhood getting beaten within an inch of his life, or maybe it was the incredible injustice of the act before him—three against one—that spurred Dusty to action. Maybe it was both; he probably would never know.
Regardless, he’d found himself yelling into the alley in his loudest tough-guy voice, telling the thugs to leave the old man alone or he’d call the cops. His warning didn’t seem to register. In fact, they seemed to start pummeling the man all the harder.
Dusty had tried to help, and it would have been perfectly fine if he’d just walked away. After all, what was he to do—take on all three? Certainly he’
d been in his share of brawls since deciding to quit school at eighteen and take to the road, but three against one was practically suicide. And he’d never thought of himself as suicidal.
A loudspeaker announcement from the bus station next to the fast-food restaurant momentarily broke Dusty’s concentration and returned him to the present. It wasn’t the bus he was waiting for. He took another large swallow of his diet cola before immersing himself once again in the review of his folly.
A large broken pallet had been leaning against the wall of the alley, and Dusty had pried a piece of wood from its frame as he headed down toward the commotion.
“Leave him alone,” he had hollered, hefting the wooden plank, making sure the goons could see that he had a weapon in case they chose to mix it up with him.
Dusty remembered the relief he’d felt when they actually stopped beating on the old man. He also remembered how fleeting that feeling was as the three thugs let the old man drop to the ground and turned their attentions to him.
The men had slowly advanced toward Dusty, and he had had to make a conscious effort to hold his ground. It had rained for most of the day, but the sky had just begun to clear, and as the three figures slowly stalked toward him, a curtain of thick clouds drew back from the moon, filling the alleyway with an unnatural light.
That was when Dusty realized that the men who were coming for him weren’t really men at all.
Sitting at the restaurant table, Dusty closed his eyes. This was the part where he usually began to doubt himself, thinking that maybe he’d been mistaken, that what he’d really seen was a trick of the moonlight, or the effects of an empty stomach—he hadn’t eaten anything that day except a stale bagel at breakfast—causing him to hallucinate.
But what had followed had proved that it was neither.
The men stood fully exposed in the moonlight. At first Dusty’s brain had attempted to rationalize what his eyes were seeing, explaining away their awful appearance as horrible masks that made their flesh appear pale and glisten as if wet. But the closer they got, the more he realized that these men were not wearing masks or even makeup.
Their eyes were black, shiny, and unblinking, like a doll’s. Their teeth were long and pointed, and there seemed to be far too many of them crammed inside their mouths.
They looked like dead men … or at least what he imagined long-dead men would look like. These men were something he wasn’t supposed to ever have seen … something that would kill him to keep their secret safe.
“A hero amongst the sheep,” one of them managed to speak through his many teeth.
“A sheep who believes himself a hero, brother,” said another.
“But a sheep nonetheless,” the final of the three monstrosities had offered.
Dusty had spent a large portion of his life being afraid. He’d always thought his abusive father to be the ultimate bogeyman. How wrong he’d been, for the terror he felt as the three creatures began to circle him made his father seem like a joke. His heart was hammering in his chest so hard that he thought his ribs might shatter. He had no idea why he hadn’t simply turned and run. It was as if he was mesmerized by the nightmare that had been revealed to him.
Dusty shook himself from the memory and tried to collect his wits.
The harmonica had started to make a soft, tremulous moan, as if a faint breath were blowing through the instrument. It almost sounded as if it were growling in response to the memories of Dusty’s fear.
As the monsters, for Dusty had no doubt that was what they were, had moved closer, he had noticed an odd smell about them. A smell that had made him think of every sad thing he’d experienced in his nineteen years, and that had made every hair on his body stand at attention.
He’d raised his weapon, bending forward ever so slightly as he prepared to defend himself.
“Now what would entice this sheep to come to the aid of the carrier?” one of the creatures asked his brethren.
Dusty tried to keep his eyes on them, turning to look at each of them as they circled him.
“Curiosity,” the second suggested. “They are naturally drawn to the misfortunes of their own kind.”
“As we have seen time after time, brother,” the third said, “they seem to gain some kind of sustenance from the suffering of others. This one has come in for a little snack only to end up as a snack himself.”
Dusty felt as though he might vomit as he watched a thick black tongue slither from the monster’s mouth and slide over teeth that seemed too sharp.
“Perhaps,” responded the first. “But I suspect that there is something more to it … that there could in fact be some connection between—”
“And you’d be right,” a new voice interrupted.
Dusty found his own gaze following those of the three walking nightmares to the far end of the alley, where the old man had been abandoned.
Only the man wasn’t lying on the ground anymore. In fact, he seemed to be in relatively decent shape considering the thrashing Dusty had seen him take.
Dusty couldn’t stand it anymore and took his chance while the three were distracted.
With a bloodcurdling scream, he’d swung the board in his hand as hard as he could. Visions of his freshman year in high school, when he’d played varsity baseball, danced before his eyes. He’d wanted to send that ball to the moon, and that was exactly what he’d wanted to do to the closest monster’s head.
The board hit pale skin and skull with a strangely satisfying thunk, the monster’s body going comically rigid as it dropped to the alley floor. Dusty’s blow had cracked its skull like an eggshell, spilling its black, glistening contents upon the ground.
Something eel-like squirmed and flopped within the oily liquid, squealing horribly as it was exposed to the light of the moon. Dusty couldn’t pull his eyes from the thing as it slithered across the ground, searching out a patch of darkness.
The monster’s two comrades lunged at him, reaching out with long-fingered hands. Dusty swung at them, driving their distorted bodies back as he moved down the alley toward the old man.
“Stay behind me,” Dusty ordered the old man once he reached him. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was he was going to do. He was probably only delaying the inevitable, but he’d gotten this far and wasn’t going to just lie down and die.
He’d glanced quickly over his shoulder to be sure the old man had heard him, and it was then Dusty had realized with surprise that he was blind, his eyes milky white in his dark brown face.
Dusty came out of his memory with a start, his hand flailing out and knocking over his soda cup, spilling the contents.
“Shit,” he muttered, getting up from the table and leaving his bags, and the harmonica, to get some napkins to clean up his mess. He plucked paper napkins from the metal container, attempting to hold back his further recollections but having little luck.
“Give us the instrument,” one of the monsters had hissed in the alley. “Give it to us and we’ll kill you quickly.”
Again there was that thing with the tongue, fat and slimy, snaking from its mouth.
Dusty had had no idea what they were talking about. At first he thought the monstrosities were referring to his makeshift weapon, but then he heard the old man softly chuckle behind him.
“I think this has gone on long enough,” he said, and Dusty couldn’t have agreed more.
Then, as if things weren’t already bizarre enough, the old man pulled a tarnished horn from inside his tattered suit coat. The absurdity of the action almost made Dusty break out in laughter, until he saw the monsters’ reaction.
The pair stopped advancing, their glistening black eyes fixed upon the sight.
“The instrument,” one of them hissed excitedly.
“Give it to us,” demanded the other, holding out a twisted, clawed hand.
The old man chuckled again. “You don’t have to ask me twice,” he said. He turned his blind eyes toward Dusty, as if he could see, moving the horn up to his mouth. ??
?You might want to cover your ears.” He smiled, then touched the horn’s mouthpiece to his ancient lips.
If he lived to be a hundred years, Dusty would never … could never … forget the sound that came from that horn. It was every horrible sound that he could imagine rolled into one.
He heard it again, in his mind, as he stood at the napkin dispenser. He heard it as he’d heard it every night since that bizarre encounter in the alley.
Dusty caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he glanced over at the table where he’d left his things. A little kid stood there now, staring with great curiosity at the harmonica.
The harmonica that had once been a horn.
Dusty remembered what he’d seen that horn do, and he dove across the restaurant, screaming for the kid to get away from his table, to get away from the harmonica.
The instrument.
The horrible sound couldn’t have lasted for more than a second. It had been a short blast, its shrillness barely muted by Dusty’s hands as they covered his ears. But even more fantastic was the fact that Dusty could see the sound as it left the muzzle of the battered old horn. As the notes flowed down the alley, the air had shimmered like the waves of heat from a desert road.
The monsters had tried to flee, falling over one another in an attempt to be the first to escape.
Neither got very far.
As the note resonated, the disturbed air seemed to expand, enveloping the horrible pair as well as the body of their fallen comrade. Then it had torn them apart. It was as if they’d exploded, their malformed, corpselike bodies disintegrating into a fine black mist that coated the walls and floor of the alley. Even their clothing had been reduced to nothing.
As Dusty raced back to his table, he imagined that child, if he should somehow rile the instrument.…
But he needn’t have worried. His scream had driven the little boy, crying, into the arms of his mother. “He wasn’t going to touch anything,” the woman huffed as she hugged the child and glared at Dusty from her booth.
“That’s good,” Dusty muttered, reaching out and snatching up the harmonica. He carefully placed it inside the pocket of his jacket. “Wouldn’t have wanted him to get hurt.”