“Step back,” he told his wife, motioning for her to move away.
She hesitated, her eyes fixed upon the writhing being.
“Theo, please,” he urged as he readied to mark the creature again with his blood.
The angel must have sensed that as well, exerting itself to the maximum, shucking off the remainder of the Solomon spell and surging up within the protective circle, reaching out to grab hold of John from the front and dragging him forward.
The angel wailed and shrieked in agony, breaking a circle of containment causing it excruciating pain. John helped to destroy the circle as well, his flailing legs disturbing the circle of salt and chalk.
The angel’s mouth opened wide enough for John to see, and feel, the heat of the fire from within, and he actually prepared himself for the pain to come when—
Something else entered the circle, something long and thick and dripping with a foul-smelling slime. Something with a spinelike protrusion that stabbed into the neck of the divine being with incredible force, breaking the skin with an audible pop.
The angel squawked, releasing its grip upon John, allowing him to fall to the warehouse floor.
John recovered, looking up to see that a muscular, fleshy appendage had shot from his wife’s mouth.
“Dear God,” he murmured, climbing to his feet.
The Coalition staff, as well as Griffin and Nicole, rushed to his aid.
“Theo,” John said. “What are you doing?”
The tongue retracted into her mouth like an old vacuum-cleaner cord.
“I’ve rendered him harmless,” she said, watching with steely eyes as the angel collapsed to the floor.
John went to the divine being and knelt beside him. He saw at once that the energies within the being had diminished, only a faint bluish glow was now emanating from its eyes and mouth.
“What did you do?” John asked.
“Poison,” she said. “One of my demons produces just enough of the toxin every thousand years; it was more than happy to give it up.”
The angel lay perfectly still, eyes wide as it suffered the effects of the demonic toxin.
“Go ahead and question it,” Theo continued. “The poison should have loosened its tongue as well, almost as good as sodium pentothal.”
John continued to kneel cautiously before the creature.
“Can you hear me?” he asked it.
The angel twitched and moaned, fighting not to respond, but it did.
“Yesssssssssss,” it said, dragging out its answer like the hiss of a serpent.
“Why have you come here?”
“The . . . the Nothing . . . it advances . . .”
“The nothing?” John questioned. “I don’t understand.”
“It comes from the end of it all,” the angel said, struggling with every word. “Undoing what has been done . . .”
John couldn’t quite grasp the angel’s meaning.
“What was your mission here?” he asked. “Why have you come to Earth?”
“The . . . key,” the divine creature said, its body wracked with terrible trembling.
“The key,” John repeated. “Tell me of this key.”
“It is a key . . . a key to their continued survival . . .”
“Whose continued survival?”
“Infernal . . .” the angel spoke. “The infernal of Hell.”
“This key you speak of,” John asked the angelic being. “How will it allow the infernal to live . . . to survive?”
“The Vessel . . .” the angel spoke. “It will open the Vessel . . . begin the exodus . . .”
John didn’t care for the sound of that. “Exodus?” he questioned. “What does that mean?”
“Exodus,” the angelic being repeated. “Dark . . . exodus.”
• • •
Deep within the bowels of the Coalition headquarters, the Messenger sat, his preternatural senses attuned to the world.
“Oh my,” he said, cocking his blistered head ever so slightly so that he might hear a bit better. “That will never do.”
The Messenger shifted uncomfortably within his circle and reached out with his mind to one adorned with his marks.
To one marked to do his bidding if need be.
They had been put there intentionally, secret commands and connections hidden amidst the protections and controls.
“Hmmmmm, there you are, my dear,” the Messenger said, beginning to scratch symbols into the pale flesh of his arm.
Symbols that were old before the dawn of creation.
“Can you hear me, woman?” the Messenger called across the void. “Hear my voice . . . listen to my commands . . .”
The Messenger waited until he felt the connection established, the markings upon the woman’s body coming to life with its function.
Its purpose.
“Silence the Heavenly creature,” the Messenger commanded.
“Kill the angel.”
• • •
Theo watched what occurred next in a kind of disconnected haze.
It was as if she wasn’t even really there, instead sitting in the best seat in a darkened theatre, a huge box of buttered popcorn in her lap, as the events transpired.
The divine being was explaining why it was here, talking about some catastrophic event that it and its brethren were attempting to prevent.
Dark Exodus.
The story certainly was getting good, suspenseful, and she had no idea where it might go next.
Theo never expected this. What a twist.
Suddenly, she felt her body change. Since her possession, there was always one form of demonic entity or another waiting on the outskirts of her psyche, waiting for the opportunity to surge forward should her guard inexplicably fall.
To take control.
Theo wasn’t even aware that it had happened, her physical form, twisting and morphing as she sprang from where she stood. Her husband saw the movement from the corner of his eye, turning toward it, wearing an expression of shock and surprise.
He called her name as she pounced.
“Theo!”
She wanted to tell him that she didn’t understand, that she had no idea what was happening, but her voice had been taken.
A demon had control.
Theo actually cried out as she backhanded her husband aside. The blow was fierce, savage, with an intent to hurt.
She wanted to see if he was all right, to go to him, to explain.
But the demon was in the driver’s seat, breaking into the protective circle to perch upon the divine creature’s body.
Theo tried to regain control, using every ounce of mental strength she could muster, but it wasn’t meant to be.
There was nothing that she could do to stop it . . . to stop the terrible act she was about to perform.
Her body shifted and changed even more horrifically, and everything that she was became enshrouded in a haze of red. Perched upon the angel, she attacked, razor-sharp claws ripping and tearing at the human flesh it wore.
It tried to scream, to fight back, but the demonic poison still coursing through it held its abilities in check.
They tried to stop her, they really did.
The girl, Nicole, summoned more of her ghostly animals to swirl around her, to bite and scratch and claw.
But it was all for nothing.
Not even her husband, with all his skills, could remove her from her prey. It was a bloodbath, short and sweet, the angel’s body torn to shreds. She wallowed in the blood, in the gore, hacking and slashing and biting to be certain that it was dead.
That the angel was no more.
And then the demon receded into the black, horrible place of her psyche, where the others awaited it.
Leaving her kneeling upon the dismem
bered body that had once held the essence of the divine.
Now empty.
Dead.
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling herself on the verge of collapse. There was the taste of blood in her mouth and its scent in her nose.
They were all staring at her now, the expressions of absolute horror over what she had done.
“John,” she called to her husband, as she stepped off the corpse beneath her. She was reaching out to him with a hand that was more talon, bloody skin still hanging from its claws. “John, I don’t know what happened, I . . .”
“It’s all right, Theo,” he said to her. She could hear the concern in his voice. “We’ll take a look and see . . .”
“Something’s wrong, John,” she told him as he approached. “I think you need to keep away.”
John looked as though he’d been physically struck.
“We’re going to help you,” he told her.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed. What if she lost control again? What if she did to him what she had done to the divine creature eviscerated at her feet?
“I think you should listen to her, John,” said a voice from another part of the warehouse.
The voice was followed by the sound of footsteps, and they all turned to see Elijah walking toward them, a contingent of Coalition operatives by his side.
“Something went wrong,” John attempted to explain. “I’m not quite sure what . . .”
“I understand, John,” Elijah said, staring at John’s wife.
“Theo,” he said to her.
She acknowledged the disfigured head of the Coalition with a nod.
“Something isn’t right, Theo,” he said, his good eye staring at the dismembered body. “Do you agree?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes,” she finally said. “Something is very wrong.”
“Then you understand what we must do?” Elijah asked.
John stepped in. “Excuse me? What are you saying?” he demanded to know. “What are you going to do?”
“John, please,” Elijah said. “It has to be this way . . . for our own, and her, good.”
“Damn it, tell me what you’re going to do!” he screamed.
“John,” she cried out to him. “Honey! Please.”
“Theo, I . . .”
She turned her gaze away from him to look at Elijah and his people.
“Do it,” she said with a nod.
The Coalition agents encircled her, clasping their hands together.
She chanced a look at her husband then and saw that he knew what was going on . . . what was happening.
“It has to be this way,” she called to him.
The Coalition operatives began to chant, the spell flowing through the air, wrapping her within its embrace.
She felt its effect almost immediately, as did the demons inside her.
They tried to fight her, to break free, but she was at least strong enough to keep them in place this time.
This time.
“Theo!” her husband screamed, and he tried to go to her, only to be stopped by Griffin, who grabbed his arm.
John struck Griffin, causing the man to stumble back, blood pouring from his nose.
“It’s going to be all right, love,” she tried to soothe him, as the spell shut her down, causing her to crumple limply to the floor.
She struggled to stay conscious for just a bit longer, to reassure her husband.
“This is all for the best,” she said. “For my own . . .”
• • •
“Good,” Elijah said, gesturing for another group of Coalition agents to step in.
They approached Theo cautiously, one of them dragging a portable stretcher over to where she lay.
John stormed toward him, Elijah’s security detail getting between him and the angry husband.
“Where are you taking her?” John demanded.
Elijah pushed his agents aside, assuring them it was all right.
“We’ll take her back to headquarters,” Elijah said. “We’ll look her over . . . try to figure out what’s wrong.”
“And if you can’t?” John asked bluntly.
Elijah was taken aback by the question. There was so much he would have liked to tell the man, but things had become so precarious of late.
“We’ll do our best, John,” Elijah said, dropping a comforting hand upon the man’s shoulder. “I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.”
They had placed Theo on the stretcher and were removing her. Elijah’s eyes fell upon the bloody corpse lying there, a corpse that had once contained the spiritual essence of one of Heaven’s messengers.
And he wondered if the words he had just spoken to John were nothing more than a reassuring lie.
18
Emma Rose wiped away the tears that dropped down upon her drawing pad.
She’d been thinking about the sisters and how they had died because of her.
Feeling another spell coming on, she grabbed the piece of charcoal she was using and let the images come to her—wash over her—guide her hand.
Emma Rose had no idea why she had been given such a gift, the ability to see preternatural events as they were about to occur around the world. Some were just odd; a rain of frogs, monkeys scrawling the first verses of Genesis in feces upon the floor of their cages, while others . . .
Devil-worshipping cults emerging from the shadows to proclaim their faith, a lake in the Anjou region of France turning to actual blood, a man who awakened from the most disturbing of nightmares to find his body covered in the writings of language unspoken since before the birth of Christ.
These were the things she saw in staccato images and that she drew upon the thousands of pieces of paper she was given each day. Normally, she just drew, taking the pictures from inside her head and putting them down, but now, since talking to Elijah, she had a purpose.
She was looking for something . . . something connected to a container of some kind . . . a vessel.
Or maybe even a place where this object could be found.
Emma was very tired, more tired than she had even been in her life. She wanted to sleep in the worst way, but she didn’t want to disappoint. What if the image came when she was at rest, and somehow it got lost amongst all the other random visions that flowed through her mind?
No, she needed to be vigilant, searching for that one . . . special . . .
The image came like a bolt from above. It was far stronger than many of the other visions she had had, this one totally taking her over. The last thing she remembered was the image arriving—and then nothing.
Emma Rose wasn’t sure how long she’d been out, coming out of her creative fugue state, her hand throbbing in pain.
She looked around her room and was shocked by what she saw. There were papers everywhere, each and every one drawn upon, but there were also the walls . . . and the floors.
Every flat surface that she could reach was drawn upon with charcoal, as well as something else. Something dark and maroon that looked like . . .
Emma looked at her drawing hand and gasped. Her fingers were bloody and appeared to have had their tips cut so that she might bleed . . . and draw because she’d run out of pencils.
In her lap was such a drawing, the coppery smell of blood wafting up into her nostrils. She looked at the image and felt a strange sensation that she didn’t quite understand.
It was a sensation of recognition, but she had no idea why.
Every one of the countless new drawings was of the same thing, a large, mansion-type house from all different angles, but she could tell it was the same place.
Over and over and over again.
Deep in her heart . . . in her gut, she knew that this was it.
That this was the place that Elijah
was searching for.
Emma Rose proceeded to gather up all the artwork in order to show him.
Elijah needed to be shown.
He needed to know.
• • •
Fulcroft Prison lay in smoldering ruins before them.
Firefighters and emergency personnel were on the scene, scuttling around like ants, doing whatever it was that they were doing.
John looked at it all, seeing nothing but the image of his wife hacking away at the body of the angelic being, eventually blending into the moment when they took her away.
They took her away.
“John, did you hear me? Are you okay?”
Brenna Isabel’s voice was like a slap to the head, and he looked away from the rubble of the maximum-security prison to see the FBI agent watching him, caution in her eyes.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said. “Wandering thoughts.”
“Theo?” she asked.
“Amongst other things.” He looked back to the ruins of the prison. “Think anybody could have survived in there?”
“They’re hoping, yeah,” Brenna said, then paused a moment before finishing. “Theo will be fine, John.”
He looked at her.
“Do you really believe that?” he asked her. “You saw what she did.”
Brenna said nothing, which told him much.
“She’s losing control,” he said. “Getting unpredictable.”
“Elijah will help her,” Brenna told him.
“Elijah can only do so much,” he said. “When does it come to the point that he can’t handle all this?”
“It’s the job we’re faced with,” Brenna said. “We don’t have the choice . . . we hold back the tide until . . .”
“Until we can’t do it anymore, and it drowns us.”
“I don’t want to be drowned,” Brenna said.
“Neither do I,” John answered.
“Then we’d better start doing our best to keep the tide from coming in.”
“It’s all so simple to you,” John told her with a slight grin.
“Black and white is so much easier than gray,” she said. Brenna turned her attention back to the smoldering prison remains. Firefighters were spraying the rubble with multiple hoses to keep the thick dust down.
Dark Exodus Page 26
