Galgaliel pushed Remy to the ground and raised the sword above his head. Remy could do nothing but watch as the fiery blade began its descent, his mind filled with the painful thoughts of how he had failed everyone and everything that he had ever loved.
How he had failed the world.
At first he mistook the sound for thunder, but as one of Galgaliel's black eyes suddenly erupted from his skull in an explosion of crimson, he realized that it was something far more deadly.
The angel lurched to one side, the swing of the heavy blade going wild and cutting into the wet ground, before his body pitched forward to land in a flailing pile.
Haniel and Zophiel looked around in complete dis- may. Through the rain and blowing sand, Remy saw Francis, pistol in hand. The Guardian aimed, firing at the remaining Seraphim. Unfurling their wings, the two escaped into the air.
Francis limped over to where Remy still lay, reaching down to help him to his feet.
“Bullets forged from metals mined in Hell,” he yelled by way of explanation over the cries of the storm, and holding out the old-fashioned Colt pistol. “The metal travels through their blood like poison. It won't kill them right now, due to the circumstances and all, but they'll sure wish they were dead.”
“And you couldn't have used that earlier?” Remy asked.
“Wanted to wait for them to get here first,” Francis said, leaning in close to Remy's ear, trying to be heard above the din of the coming Apocalypse.
Remy pulled back, not sure what his friend was talking about, and saw that Francis was pointing up to what had once been the shore's edge. Remy looked in that direction and saw that they were no longer alone. A line of armed individuals stood waiting for a sign.
“Who are they?” Remy asked his friend.
“Grigori,” Francis said, a sly smile snaking over his battered features. “Had a talk with them before I picked you up at the rest home. I suggested it might be in their best interest to give us a hand.”
A flash of lightning, as if the world were being split in half, again lit up the sky, the thunderclap that followed causing a shock wave that shook the ground beneath their feet. The Horsemen were closer; their mounts reared back, pawing at the sky with hooves that trailed fire.
The sky had started to glow with an eerie light, as if the lightning had somehow ignited the atmosphere. And with this new illumination, Remy witnessed yet another disturbing sight.
The two remaining Seraphim, Haniel and Zophiel, now stood with a newly risen Black Choir. The fallen angels' bodies were little more than charred and blackened skeletons, the framework of their once-leathery wings jutting from their backs like spiny appendages. A thick, ebony aura radiated from what remained of their desiccated flesh, like steam rising from melting ice.
Beyond the Seraphim and their monstrous army, Remy could see that Israfil still knelt upon the beach, opening the scrolls one at a time. As near as Remy could tell, only two remained.
“Go,” Francis said. “Do what you have to. We'll take care of these freaks.”
Remy pushed himself against the raging elements, rushing toward the kneeling figure. Israfil appeared deep in concentration, his mind set upon the most deadly of tasks.
Remy experienced a sudden wave of panic as he came to the disturbing realization that Nathanuel was no longer beside the Death Angel. He was hidden somewhere in the storm, but still Remy pushed on.
What choice did he have?
The remaining Seraphim made a move in Remy's direction, but Francis would have none of that.
He opened fire with his pistol, using up bullets that cost him close to a thousand bucks apiece as if they were nothing more than dime-store caps. He thought about all the jobs that he'd taken, besides his responsibilities of guarding the gateway between Hell and Earth, all the creeps he had to put down for the count, in order to make that kind of money.
It was money that he'd been setting aside for a rainy day.
And Francis couldn't imagine it raining any harder than this.
The bullets did their job, the projectiles tearing into the flesh of the divine beings with devastating results.
It stopped them from chasing Remy, turning their attention to Francis.
“If you were looking to capture their attention, I believe you've done it,” said a voice standing beside him.
Francis turned to see that the Grigori had left their places on the old shore to join him, each of them brandishing the guns, knives, and swords that he had provided, and which he hoped would be returned to his personal collection once everything had settled.
Sariel admired the ancient blade. It didn't glow any more than Francis' had, but would still hack off a limb if necessary.
“It's been quite some time since I've participated in battle,” the Grigori leader said to the fallen Guardian, watching as the Black Choir began to stalk toward them.
“It's just like riding a bike,” Francis said, charging to meet their enemies halfway. “Only a lot more bloody.”
And he felt the bloodlust upon him; his thoughts returning to the day that he had fought at the side of the Morningstar, for a cause that he was foolish enough to believe was right.
The Black Choir had retrieved their own weapons from the ground, lurching at him and the Grigori soldiers, the first line of defense between them, the Seraphim, and the end of the world.
Even more frantic than before, the Choir came at them, blackened abominations roaring in rage, their weapons raised to cut them down. Francis moved among them, firing his pistol and lashing out with his sword.
Cutting a Choir member in half that had attempted to brain him with a spiked mace, Francis chanced a quick glance around to see how the Grigori were faring. Their leader's words about their inactivity in the combat area had worried him a bit at first, but seeing them in action now, Francis realized that his concerns were unfounded.
The Grigori were taking to violence like a ducks to water. But that didn't mean the battle was won yet.
The Choir were frantic, sensing a threat to their absolution. Francis had to laugh as he fired his pistol into the face of one of the pathetic creatures, obliterating its head in an explosion of blackened skull. He found it a riot that they actually believed that God would look favorably upon them for their contributions to the end of the world.
Almost as amusing as the brief idea he'd had tickling his mind that maybe he'd make some points with the big guy upstairs for helping to avert this catastrophe of such enormous proportions.
Yeah, and someday soon my fucking hair will grow back.
Francis looked around him, through the storm and creeping black fog. It was like a scene plucked from the pits he was forced to police, a little slice of Hell here on Earth.
The Choir were locked in vicious combat with the Grigori; shrieks of rage and terror filled the air, mingling with the scent of angels' blood.
Whether it be of the fallen or not, once it was spilled, it all smelled the same.
He loaded the last of his special bullets from his coat pocket into the revolver, just as three Choirs loped out from a cloud of black. Not to waste any more valuable ammunition, he stuck the gun in the waistband of his slacks and decided to deal with the abominations old school. He brought the blade down upon the shoulder of one, nearly cutting the former angel in two from collar to groin. Drawing back the weapon, he parried a blow by another of the beasts, and pulling the dagger from the inside coat pocket of his suit coat, plunged it deep between its charcoal-black eyes.
The final member of the three sized him up. It switched a short sword from one hand to the other as it eyed him, a charred lip raised in a snarl to reveal teeth like blackened corn. Finding that he had a limited reserve of patience, Francis simply pulled the gun from his waistband and shot the creature in the face, satisfied to waste the bullet if only to move things along.
Squinting against the driving rains, he searched for signs of the remaining Seraphim soldiers. He was certain that he'd hit at least one of t
hem. Lifting his nose to the air, he sniffed for a hint of their scent, but it was no use; the stink of spilled angel blood was everywhere – Grigori, Black Choir, and Seraphim, all mixing together in a nauseating miasma that tainted the air.
In the distance, but far closer than moments ago, the mounts belonging to the Four Horsemen pawed at the earth impatiently, sending tremors through the ground that caused him to stumble.
“Shit,” Francis hissed, caught off balance.
It was then that the Seraphim chose to make their move, descending out of the sky, wings spread as they glided down to attack him. Francis spun around, aiming his weapon, but Zophiel's movements were a blur, his Heavenly blade slicing through the flesh and bone of his wrist.
“Son of a bitch,” the Guardian cursed as he watched his hand, still holding the pistol, sail through air.
The angels dropped in front of him, both holding weapons that cut the gloom with their unearthly fire.
Clutching his bleeding wrist tightly to his chest, Francis eyed one and then the other.
“Well, now that we're about even, what's say we get this bullshit over with?”
Remy Chandler was dying.
With each step he took closer to the Angel of Death, he felt more of his humanity being stripped away.
An aura of death hung around the kneeling Israfil as he picked up the fourth scroll, and, holding it out before him, broke the seal. Again there came a flash, and the deafening sounds of the Horsemen as they moved closer filled the air.
The winds howled and moaned, snatching at his clothes as if trying to hold him back, but Remy fought against it, falling to his hands and knees, crawling toward the kneeling angel through the muddy sand.
“Israfil, listen to me,” he begged, yelling to be heard.
“Yes, there's pain and sadness and misery here. . . . But there's also happiness and wonder... and the strength to fight through the misery.”
But Israfil ignored his words, reaching for the fifth and final scroll.
“Is this what Casey would have wanted?” Remy continued. “Would she have wanted to see it all end because you weren't strong enough to deal with her loss?”
Israfil's fingers seemed to hesitate over the final scroll, the Almighty's permission to unleash the Horsemen and bring about the end of the world. He looked toward Remy, tears running down cheeks scoured by the wind, sand, and rain.
“Remiel,” he whispered. “How do they do it?... How do you do it?” he asked, his voice a dry croak. “It hurts so much. I thought it would be a lark . . . something to break up the never-ending monotony of my existence, but it ended up as so much more.”
Israfil paused, lowering his head.
“So much more.”
“Don't do this,” Remy said, inching closer. “Natha-nuel is insane, jealous of God's love for His complicated, and, yes, seriously flawed children.”
Israfil shuddered, dropping the scroll as his body pitched forward into the sand.
“It hurts so damn much,” he moaned.
“Let it go,” Remy said, reaching out for the scroll. “Shed your human skin and return to the form that would know what you are doing is wrong.” His fingers brushed against the ancient parchment. He almost had it, and then something had him.
Remy found himself suddenly airborne, viciously yanked away and hauled up into the sky.
“Can you hear it, Remiel?” Nathanuel spoke in his ear to be heard over the raging storm and the flapping of his wings. “It is the death cry of humanity.”
Remy thrashed in the Seraphim's grasp as the angel's wings took them steadily higher.
“And there's nothing you can do about it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She saw the riders.
They sat upon their colored horses at the horizon, waiting to begin the death of the world.
But in the sky, above the giants of the Apocalypse, two figures were locked in struggle. One had powerful wings of blinding white, and the other seemed to be just a man, willing to fight the forces of Heaven itself for what he believed.
Just a man, but in fact, so much more.
Madeline gasped for breath, her eyes opening wide as she looked about the semidarkness of her room, the disturbing images that she suspected were so much more beginning to fade away, replaced with the reality of her present condition.
She was still alive.
And though numbed with pain medication, fed through an IV hanging beside her bed, Madeline knew that her life should have come to an end hours, if not days, ago.
Her husband had gone to take care of that problem. She remembered her dream.
Or was it a vision?
Madeline was suddenly afraid for him; wishing that he were there with her, by her side and holding her hand as she finally slipped away.
But he couldn't be. He needed to be elsewhere in order to make things right, in order for her, and so many others, to finally be allowed to go.
Remy had told her that he could hear them. Call them what you want: spirit, soul, inner self. He'd said that he could hear them trapped within prisons of flesh, begging to be free.
He said it was the saddest sound he had ever heard.
She saw the image flash within her mind again. The giants of the Apocalypse, her husband above them, locked in struggle with one of his former kind.
Madeline reached across, removed the IV needle from her arm, and pulled the oxygen line from her nose. Delving into a reserve of strength that she didn't know she had, she rose from her bed and shuffled barefoot across the cold tile floor to the window.
The storm was ferocious, the wind spattering heavy rains against the panes of glass. She saw herself there, reflected against the glass in the darkness beyond the storm, a reflection of who she had once been.
When she was healthy and full of life.
The reflection provided her with the strength necessary, and she lifted her arm, placing her hand against the cool glass surface.
She thought of her husband, the angel that had come into her life and given her so much, and about how much she loved him.
A love strong enough to hold back the end of the world.
Nathanuel's hands burned him like fire.
“You embrace this pathetic existence as if born to it,” Nathanuel growled, his face monstrous in the light of the eerily glowing sky.
Remy clung to the front of the Seraphim's coat, frantically holding on.
Nathanuel pressed his hand against the side of Re-my's face, and searing pain coursed through his body as the flesh was burned away to reveal something else, something hidden beneath.
“You know what you are and where you truly belong, but still you run from it . . . hide from it in this suit of flesh and blood.”
The smell of his burning humanity filled his lungs, choking Remy with its acrid stench. The Seraphim chief was incredibly strong, as if feeding on the encroaching catastrophe. And as they hovered above the deliverers of the end, held aloft by the beating of Nathanuel's powerful wings, he reached down, taking hold of Remy's hands, and began to peel his fingers away from their desperate hold on his coat.
Remy glared defiantly at the one he once called brother, his hold more and more precarious with each passing second. And just as he was about to fall, Natha-nuel caught hold of his wrist.