“I’m right here,” Cameron found himself responding, waving the sword of fire to attract the monster’s attention. If he could get it into the train, the close quarters would work in his favor. “Why don’t you come and say hi.”
The thing looked at him with venomous hate, and almost lunged for him, before drawing back.
“Tricky, tricky, angel-meat,” the giant spider spoke.
“Come on. I’ll show you how tricky I can be,” Cameron taunted.
“Uttu can be tricky as well,” the monster said with a horrible chuckle, and then suddenly withdrew from the hole in the train’s ceiling.
Cameron swore beneath his breath, charging across the car and spreading his wings to fly up through the ceiling in pursuit of Uttu, the giant spider. Thick strands of webbing suddenly shot through the hole, wrapping around his body as if they were somehow alive. The more he fought, the tighter they seemed to bind him, and even when Cameron managed to cut himself away from the cords that held him, more of the sticky stuff whipped after him.
“Tricky, tricky,” he heard Uttu say from somewhere above. Then it started to laugh, along with its children. It was one of the most horrible sounds Cameron had ever heard.
The webbing grew tighter around his torso, and Cameron could feel a tug from above as the giant spider tried to extract him from the subway car. He was about to summon another blade of fire, when he remembered that the point of his mission was to kill whatever beast was threatening the subway.
He wasn’t about to kill much of anything hiding down with the corpses.
Cameron let himself be drawn up through the opening, Uttu waiting to pounce just as he emerged from the subway car. But Cameron was ready, reigniting his sword of fire to cut away the webbing that bound his hands. As he flexed the muscles in his back, causing his wings to explode, he tore the rest of the fibers away.
The huge spider wasn’t expecting that, and screamed in anger as it spun more webbing to capture him. Cameron had to move quickly, flying above the sticky cords that sought him out as he glided toward his adversary.
His skin crawled with the sight of Uttu’s back, covered with the writhing bodies of its screaming babies, and he lashed out, the divine blade cutting a burning swath across the creature’s crowded back.
Raging in pain and anger, the giant spider spun around, directing another barrage of webbing from its mouth in an attempt to pull him from the air.
Cameron angled his body so that the sticky spew missed him and connected to the tunnel wall. Sensing an opportunity, the Nephilim reached out with his fiery weapon and ignited the spider monster’s webbing with the tip of his sword.
Just as he’d suspected, the heavenly flame began to consume the demonic fibers, racing down their length toward where they had originated.
To the still open mouth of Uttu.
There was a flash of divine fire, followed by the most horrific of screams, and Cameron could not help but feel satisfaction. Uttu’s head was engulfed in yellow flames as the giant spider raced atop the subway cars, spreading the fire.
Cameron flew above Uttu and then dropped down to deliver what he expected to be a killing blow, but just as he drew back his blade, the spider showed that it still had some fight left.
One of its clawed limbs lashed out with blinding speed, trying to slash his taut stomach.
While avoiding the flailing limb, his wing struck the stone ceiling of the subway tunnel, causing him to fly off balance and drop to the train tracks.
He landed in a tumble then and sprang up, ready for Uttu to attack, but only a few of the babies skittered across the gravel. Cameron quickly dispatched them.
But the queen spider was nowhere to be found.
“Crap,” Cameron spat, leaping into the air and onto the subway car. In the distance he saw the giant spider attempting to escape, its head still burning with divine fire as the monster ran along the wall, and then upside down on the arched tunnel ceiling.
Cameron began to run, burning blade in hand, eager to vanquish this latest demonic threat. Taking to the air, he continued his pursuit, eyes fixed on Uttu’s monstrous shape, until he noticed that the lighting seemed a bit brighter as the tunnel angled to the right.
His heart began to hammer painfully inside his chest as he flapped his wings in an attempt to catch up to the monster and verify his suspicion.
The monster was heading for the crowded subway station platform.
* * *
Mallus could sense the coming of the spider before it entered the station.
Along with something else of a more heavenly nature.
Not a day had gone by when Mallus hadn’t thought of the Golden City, the offenses that he’d effected against it, and the Almighty.
All in the name of envy.
He had been first lieutenant to Lucifer Morningstar, and had believed in his commander’s mission with every fiber of his being, for the angels of Heaven had been cast aside in favor of the Almighty’s newest creations.
How humanity had repulsed Mallus then.
But that was before the fall, before the Lord of Lords cast Lucifer and all who had fought with him in the Great War down to the earth to live amongst the very creatures who had stolen God’s affections from them.
It was the most heinous of punishments, but one that had taught Mallus the most unexpected of lessons.
Mallus shook himself from his musings as shrieks of mortal terror filled the station.
The subway patrons were in total panic as they tried to escape the loathsome beast dropping down onto the platform. Smaller versions of the spider swarmed from its back, attacking the people, whose only crime was wanting to go home after work.
Mallus knew not to become involved. A very long time ago he’d sworn to himself that his interactions with humanity would be limited, that he would not allow himself to become involved in their day-to-day existences.
Their inevitable fate would be sad enough without his forming any unnecessary emotional attachments.
He moved with the screaming patrons, heading toward the staircase that led up to the street. He was halfway across the platform when he paused, watching the spider as it flailed amongst the humans, its head burning with holy fire.
Mallus remembered how he’d once wielded the fire of God, and how brightly it had burned as it had consumed evil.
He wanted to leave, but his curiosity kept him.
The spider’s senses were too keen, and it spun its burning face toward him, fixing him in its stare with two empty sockets that boiled with gelatinous fluids that had once been eyes.
It was impossible for the beast to see him. And Mallus was certain that it couldn’t sense his angelic nature, for he had taken great pains throughout the centuries to shield himself against both the demonic and the divine who sought his whereabouts.
Even still, the beast seemed to know he was there, and before Mallus could escape its angry attentions, the spider lashed out with one of its front legs, the hooked claw at the end slashing across the front of his overcoat and driving him to the ground of the filthy platform.
Mallus could feel the sudden warmth begin to flow. He had been sloppy. As he looked down at himself, he realized that the situation was even worse than he’d thought. His coat and shirt were torn and stained with a substantial amount of blood.
There wasn’t time to check, but since his flesh was cut, there was a chance that the magickal wards hiding him from those who sought to kill him had been compromised.
And they could find him.
The Architects would know where he was.
Mallus surged to his feet, his head swimming from blood loss, and staggered back toward the wall. He needed to get out of there, needed to inspect his wound and the damage done to the wards, and repair them as necessary.
But the spider did not wish to let him go; the smell of his fallen angel’s blood drew the abomination and its children to him.
Mallus leaned back against the wall; the scars upon his sho
ulders weren’t itching anymore. He braced for battle with the demonic thing, but it did not come to be. A howl pierced the air, and with that Mallus heard the familiar sound of flapping wings.
Clutching his bleeding chest, he slid down the tiled wall, vision blurring, but before unconsciousness snatched him away, he saw the most magnificent sight.
An angel, wielding a burning sword of fire, landed atop the hellish beast, ending its blighted existence.
* * *
Cameron screamed as he descended upon his target.
Spinning his sword around as he dropped, he drove the fiery blade into the abdomen of the spider, setting ablaze some of the straggler children that still clung to their mother. The sword passed through the monster’s body and into the concrete, pinning Uttu to the floor.
The creature bucked and wailed, its limbs flailing as it struggled to escape.
Cameron left his weapon pinning Uttu to the subway station floor, and flew to face the beast. He was amazed that the thing’s head still burned, that it still fought to live.
Before Uttu could attack again, Cameron created another flaming blade and severed the burning head from the spider’s body with one swift and decisive blow.
The spider’s death throes were violent, but they eventually calmed, and then stilled. Cameron then touched the tip of his sword to the monster’s body, setting its remains ablaze.
The sprinkler system went off, showering Cameron in artificial rain. It felt good against his skin as it washed the stink of evil from his clothes and exposed flesh.
He scanned the platform for any of the wretched babies, and saw that there were none to be found. But littering the ground were the bodies of people who hadn’t managed to escape and had been caught up in the spider’s struggles or attacked by Uttu’s children. Cameron felt a wave of guilt pass over him. He knew he had done his best, but he hadn’t been able to keep the beast from the subway station.
A moan came from someplace behind him, and Cameron turned to see an older man slumped against the wall, sitting in an expanding puddle of blood. His eyes were merely slits, but Cameron could see that the man was actually alive and not a corpse filled with feasting spiders.
Cameron went to the man and knelt down beside him.
The man clutched at his chest.
“Here, let me see,” Cameron said, reaching out to pull the man’s hands away so that he could see the extent of the wounds. He examined the bleeding gash but also saw something else.
The man’s flesh, almost every inch of it, was covered in strange tattoo-like markings.
Cameron gasped as the man grabbed his wrist in a powerful grip.
“Have to get out of here,” the injured man said deliriously. “Have to go before… before they find…”
He then slipped into unconsciousness, and from the amount of pooling blood on the platform, Cameron knew that the man didn’t have much time before he was gone.
But the markings—the Nephilim couldn’t take his eyes from them.
Cameron knew what he had to do. He got to his feet and lifted the man into his arms. He was going to take him back to the school. Kraus should be able to heal him.
And maybe they would learn the meaning of the strange markings that covered the man’s body.
Cameron called upon his wings, bringing them around to cover him and the dying man in his arms, and thought about the school that had become his home.
And the chewing out he was likely to receive upon his return.
CHAPTER FIVE
Though he’d been to the library with Lorelei many times, Dusty still had trouble wrapping his brain around what he saw.
A door that looked like it should have led to a broom closet instead opened to one of the biggest libraries that he had ever seen.
It seemed to go on forever.
Lorelei had tried to explain it. There was something about pocket dimensions and one reality being attached to another, but she would grow impatient with his confusion and just say that it was magick and leave it at that. Magick was the answer to a lot of complicated questions, he’d noticed since coming to be with the Nephilim.
“Be careful here,” Lorelei said, touching his hand that rested on her shoulder, allowing her to guide him.
Since his eyesight had started to fail, Dusty had required some assistance in getting around the old orphanage, especially in the library. And most especially in this section, since they’d had a little incident with an angel falling from the heavens and through the floor. Aaron had talked about getting some wood to cover up the hole, but they’d been a tad busy lately.
They gave the opening a wide berth as they made their way to the section of the library where the most powerful books and scrolls pertaining to angel magick—Archon magick—were kept.
Lorelei had been bringing him here a lot lately. She was attempting to familiarize him with the various ancient writings and spells for any number of bizarre needs. From keeping the generators that supplied the school’s power going to summoning doves for spells that required a life sacrifice, it seemed these texts held all of the answers.
From what Dusty could guess, the Archons were pretty powerful, scary angels.
Though, to be truthful, since getting involved in all this insanity, Dusty had yet to meet an angel that wasn’t scary in one way or another.
“So what’s on the agenda for today?” he asked, leaning against the table in the center of the library nook.
“The usual,” Lorelei said, selecting the books she would need for whatever spells she planned to cast. As she moved swiftly from shelf to shelf, he heard the squeak of the tiny mouse that always seemed to be clinging to her shoulder.
“Let me guess,” Dusty said. “We need to find the biggest, nastiest, most dangerous threats so Aaron and the others can go and kill them. Then we’ll make sure that the security spells around the property are in order, and finally we’ll look for Lucifer.”
He watched as Lorelei’s shadowy figure turned from the wall of books to face him.
“Let’s not say that last one too loudly,” she warned.
Lorelei had been pushing herself pretty hard to find the wayward Lucifer, and Aaron had given her explicit orders not to do it anymore. Unbeknownst to him, she wasn’t listening, which partially explained the rough condition she was in. That and the spells she had been casting to calm Dusty’s mind.
The images and sounds rushing through his head had quieted enough that Dusty could function, but it wouldn’t be long before the static was back and Lorelei would have to help him again.
“But today we’re going to do things a little bit differently,” she said.
“Okay.” His curiosity was piqued.
“Today I’m going to let you do the heavy lifting.”
Dusty smiled, not quite sure what she meant. “What, we’re moving furniture too? Or—”
“You’re going to do some magick,” she interrupted.
Milton squeaked, as if as shocked as Dusty was by this news.
“You’re kidding,” Dusty said. “What do I know about magick?”
“You were chosen to carry the Instrument, a creation of God Himself.”
“Yeah. And if you remember, I was responsible for just about destroying the world,” he added wryly.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you were given this responsibility, and that you were able to control the Instrument’s power,” Lorelei said. “At least to a point.”
He thought for a moment about what she said. “I don’t know,” he said warily.
“Why do you think I’ve been having you hang around me all this time?” Lorelei asked him. “The magick needed to become familiar with you. I needed to know if it would like you.”
“Like me?” he repeated. “You make it sound as if the magick’s alive or something.”
“Archon magick is alive, in its own way,” she told him. “It’s the power of the living, and everything that ever lived, given shape and purpose.”
He ha
ted to bring it up, but if she wanted him to cast spells, then she had to know his concerns.
“I’ve seen what this magick can do,” he said. “And I’ve seen what it does… to you.”
“It takes something out of you, I won’t deny it,” Lorelei admitted.
“But, and I mean this with no disrespect, you’re not human. If it has depleted your health this much, what will it do to me? I’m only human.”
“You are?” she asked.
He was shocked by her retort. “Yeah, I am,” he told her.
She turned back to her selection of books.
“You stopped being human the minute you took the Instrument into your possession,” Lorelei told him. “Now get over here and lend me your arms,” she ordered. “We’re going to need quite a few of these if I’m going to properly teach you magick.”
* * *
Gabriel noticed that it was darker than it had been yesterday at this time. That concerned him. Most of the creatures his friends fought shunned the daylight hours.
The beasts emerged into the world to hunt with the coming of night.
The Labrador sniffed around the perimeter of the property, searching for the scent of animals that lived in the surrounding woods. He remembered a time when this was his favorite thing to do, besides eating.
But he’d been simpler then. Aaron had not yet used the power of the Nephilim to bring him back from the brink of death; Aaron had not yet changed him into something more than just a dog.
These days, when Gabriel pondered such things, he wondered if he really was better off now. Before his change, complex thoughts would never have entered his mind. He’d been perfectly content to just sniff the scents of local wildlife.
Gabriel especially enjoyed the rabbits, though his joy of chasing them had waned dramatically since his transformation. He’d come to understand how scared they were when he did that. He didn’t get much enjoyment from scaring anything. The world had become far too scary on its own.
Nose pressed to the ground, Gabriel felt the presence of Lorelei’s spells as he got too close to the edge of the grounds. The magickal boundaries made the fur on his neck and back stand at attention. Then he saw movement from the corner of his eye.
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