For a moment, I panicked. “Don’t kill her—him!” The last thing I wanted was any harm to come to Alders. Besides, if she died, it would all be in vain; Abaddon would merely transfer to another host in the bloodline.
I didn’t have anything to fear on that account. Once the wave receded, Abaddon continued to stand upright on the beach. The water, propelled by Rogers’ supernatural power, had no effect.
He turned toward Rogers, summoning a bolt of darkness to fire at her. At the same time, Chase roared and stomped his foot. The sand on the beach shook, and then all around Abaddon, began to sink. The water Rogers had pulled up on the beach filled the hole. Together, the two had turned the area around Abaddon into a pit of quicksand.
Like the rest of us, the angel of darkness was not immune to the after-effects of our supernatural gifts. He began to sink.
During the fight, I’d been moving down the beach, making my way behind Abaddon, who was thrashing about, trying to extract himself from the thick watery sand.
I was close. Very close. I reached out—
Abaddon turned at the last moment, as if sensing the danger behind him.
Yates called out a warning. “Frank, get down!”
Instinctively, I flattened myself on the ground just as Abaddon launched a dark missile at my head. It missed me, but I heard a scream a moment later.
Twisting around to look, I saw that it had hit Yates, whose eyes were wide as saucers as he watched the impenetrable blackness spread over his body.
His cries were abruptly cut off as he was consumed by darkness. Before my eyes, Yates turned to dust, the particles catching in the gentle evening breeze and sent out to sea.
“No,” I yelled. Gathering my legs under me, I sprang at Abaddon.
I made contact with him, and only then remembered to recite the prayer to banish his spirit back to the Abyss.
“By the grace of Heaven…”
It was only then that I realized Abaddon had his hands on my chest. I felt an incredible pressure within me.
“…I renounce you, evil spirit…”
The darkness was slow to take me. The pendant Putnam had given me! I still wore it.
Still, my chest was constricting; it was difficult to speak. I had no breath left. The darkness growing in me was thick and heavy.
“…I command you…”
I couldn’t get the last words out.
A blinding flash of light appeared in front of me. Anderson thrust her hand between Abaddon and me.
It was so bright, Abaddon cried out and recoiled just long enough for me to finish.
I cried out, “…to return to the Abyss!”
Abaddon let out a psychic scream of fury and hate only I could hear.
Alders’ body collapsed, and I struggled to pull her out of the quicksand. Back on solid ground, I flipped over on my back beside her, exhausted.
* * *
Slowly, the void of darkness covering the sky began to fade. A hazy glow from the dim moonlight lit up the beach.
The lights of New York flicked back on, and the amusement park sprang to life. Sounds from the rides drifted down across the beach to us.
Beside me, Alders was breathing, but unconscious.
Chase knelt beside her, his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve done what I can; whatever injuries she’s sustained, they’re not physical.”
On her other side, on my knees as well, I said, “Will she be all right?”
Shrugging, Chase said, “I can only imagine what kind of strain her psyche has endured. She probably needs to be in a hospital under observation.”
Rogers, standing just behind Chase, said, “We’ve got to get out of here. We’re attracting a crowd.”
I looked up. Indeed, many of the amusement park patrons were gathering along the boardwalk, pointing at us and talking. No doubt, several of them had witnessed the fight and were spreading the story.
Behind us, Riley and Anderson were standing beside the spot where Yates had been before he’d been killed. Anderson put a consoling hand on Riley’s shoulder at the loss of his friend.
Together, the two came over to join us.
“I’m sorry about Yates,” I said to Riley. He nodded, but kept his eyes focused on the ground.
Chase spoke softly. “Richard, can you help me?”
Riley finally looked up.
“Can you get Alders to a hospital for me in a hurry?” Chase asked. “We’ll meet you when you get back out.” When Riley nodded, Chase looked at me, and then at the others one at a time.
“We still have work to do.”
* * *
Using her senses, Rogers detected the fifty-six remaining Grigori left on the earth, including Anton, Mike, Bob, and the new hosts of Azazel and Semjaza. There were forty-two in New York proper, with the remaining fallen angels within a few hundred miles of the city.
Rogers zeroed in on them one at a time. She, Riley, Anderson, and Chase captured the Watchers. Individually, they were no match for the four of them.
Whether the hosts were unconscious, or they’d surrendered, it made no difference: once I spoke the words and placed my hand on them, the evil spirit within was evicted from the host, and the immortal hitchhiker was cast back to the Abyss.
Throughout the entire task, I felt myself getting weaker and weaker. At first, I wondered if I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms, since I hadn’t had a drink in a couple days. In the end, I decided I probably just needed a few days of sleep, and promised myself to take a long vacation once all of this was over.
It took most of the night to track down all the fallen angel escapees and plunge them back into the eternal darkness of the Abyss.
Their rebellion was over.
* * *
Now that the Grigori were back in their prison, we returned to the motel.
Chase said, “I’ve wanted this thing out of me from the moment it found its way in—”
I didn’t need any more prompting. I touched Chase, spoke the words, and banished the spirit within him from this earthly existence. He fell onto the bed and lay still.
Anderson looked at the unconscious form of her friend. There was a tear in her eye, not of pain, but of relief. “Take it from me now,” she said. “Thank you—”
I put my hands on her shoulders, and with my prayer, sent the fallen angel within her back to the Abyss, and then guided her limp body to the bed beside Chase.
Then I approached Rogers and Riley, and removed their unwanted guests from them.
When I was done, everyone was unconscious. I had no idea how long they’d be out. Chase had said Alders would need time for her psyche heal, but I figured, since the others hadn’t been completely overtaken by their angels, they might recover much sooner.
I was the last host remaining, but I had no idea how to banish the spirit of the Archangel Michael from me.
But before I did that, there was one more thing I needed to do.
I sat on the chair beside the table and concentrated on the Abyss…
When nothing happened, I remembered what the other had said time and again: to control the power, you had to surrender to it. I had to give Michael the reins.
The moment I thought it, I felt myself being taken over.
Then … I could sense it. The Abyss. It wasn’t hell. It was a place of ultimate darkness, a prison for immortal beings.
Once I became aware of it, I recognized the metaphysical crack in the fabric of its existence where the fallen angels had made good their escape, the one Abaddon had picked at for eons.
Michael, within me, summoned the power of Heaven to seal the crack. There would be no escaping now. The fallen angels would serve out the rest of their sentence—eternity—safely locked away in Abaddon’s pit.
I had cause to wonder: If Father Norton had summoned Michael before, when Shamsiel had broken out the first time, why hadn’t he repaired the hole in the Abyss to prevent more escapees?
I willed myself to regain control of my body, but then I
felt an odd tingling sensation come over me. I recalled the words that had been relayed to us from Father Brown: the sacrifice is too high.
What sacrifice? Who had Father Norton sacrificed to summon the archangel into him?
The answer came to me in a flash, and I felt my innards contract. Unlike with Abaddon, there had been no requirement for a blood sacrifice to summon the archangel; only the ritual had been necessary.
The sacrifice came afterward:
It wasn’t withdrawal from alcohol, nor the physical abuse I’d put my body through over the past few days that was the cause of my condition. It was the archangel inside me. The radiance of the divine entity must be burning out my life essence. It was like holding radioactive plutonium; eventually, I would succumb.
Father Norton had been aged and frail; he hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes; just long enough to banish Shamsiel from Darcy’s great-grandmother.
I wasn’t in as bad a shape as the old priest who must’ve had a bad heart to begin with, but I’d been holding the power of a nuclear bomb inside me for hours.
The pressure from within increased; it was as if I were underwater. My arms became heavy; I couldn’t even lift my fingers.
I struggled to keep myself conscious.
Beside me, Chase stirred. He groaned and pulled himself up to a sitting position.
Putting a hand to his head, he looked around, gasping as he took in the scene, seeing everyone lying unconscious.
He noticed me, and, wincing as if every muscle in his body were on fire, stumbled toward me.
“Frank? Are you all right?”
It was hardest thing I’d ever done: opening my mouth and speaking.
“Just need to catch my breath…”
The spirit of the Archangel Michael returned to Heaven.
Epilogue
Alders opened her eyes slowly at first, then wider as she saw who was standing beside her bed. Her momentary look of panic was quickly replaced by confusion.
“What happened?” she asked, looking at the four faces of Anderson, Riley, Chase, and Rogers. “Where am I?”
Anderson replied, “You’ve been out for the better part of a day. You’re in the hospital. You’re going to be all right.”
“How do you feel?” Chase asked.
“Like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
Riley asked, “Do you remember anything?”
Alders’ eyes unfocused for a second, then she shook her head. “I just get this impression of drowning in a pool of darkness.” Then she blinked, her eyebrows furrowing. “Abaddon?”
Rogers smiled. “He possessed you, but we kicked his ass for you.”
“Uh, thanks,” Alders said.
“And yes,” Riley said, “we’re all free of the Watchers. There are no more fallen angels in the world. They’re all locked back up in the Abyss.”
Alders gave him a questioning look. “How?”
Anderson gave her a summary of what had happened beginning from the moment Putnam had summoned Abaddon and ending with the confrontation on the beach.
“I’m so sorry about Eugene,” Alders said to Riley when the story reached that part.
Chase concluded the tale with the final banishments of the fallen angels to the Abyss. He said, “When I woke up, Frank was lying on the floor … he had no pulse—”
Alders sat up. “He’s dead?” She looked around the room, eyes wide and brimming with tears.
“I should have died,” I said from a wheelchair in the doorway. I’d heard her voice from my room down the hall.
“Frank!” Alders said. She threw back the blanket and swung her legs off the bed. With a little hop, she landed on the floor and, conscious of the hospital gown, scurried over to me and gave me a hug.
“How?” she asked.
“From what I understand, Chase worked nothing less than a miracle, keeping me alive for almost half an hour until the paramedics arrived.”
Rogers glanced at Chase questioningly, and I knew the thought that went through her mind.
Chase shrugged. “Nothing supernatural about it,” he said. “I just kept him going until they gave him the old shock treatment to get the ticker running again.”
I smiled. “And here I am.”
* * *
Six months later, I sat behind my desk in the precinct. In the window behind me, the skyline of New York was in highlight as the sun sparkled off the glass windows of the buildings.
There was a brief rap on the door before it opened, and Alders, dressed in the plainclothes of a detective, poked her head in.
“You almost ready?” She jingled her keys. “We got bad guys to catch.”
“Yeah,” I said, standing up and following her down the hall to the parking garage.
In the past few months, after I transferred from Chicago to Brooklyn, Alders and I had managed to convince Captain Armstrong to let us partner up. We made a good team. More than that, she’d become the daughter I never had; I was like the father she’d never known.
Darcy Anderson and Serena Rogers had moved out to the west coast, taken on assumed names, and were rebuilding their lives.
Richard Riley went back to Seattle and turned himself in to the authorities. After a thorough investigation, a statement from his girlfriend, Stacy, and lack of solid evidence, the only thing they could stick him with was for jumping his parole. With a character testimony from me and Kyle Chase, the judge gave him a reduced sentence of community service.
Kyle Chase reunited with his wife. The medical board refused to reinstate his license, but he was fine with that. The last time I spoke with him, he mentioned he was in talks with a research lab that was interested in following up on some of his father’s theories.
I’d been laying off the booze and cheeseburgers for the past few months, and not only has it helped my waistline, I don’t get out of breath as easily. I won’t break any records, but I hold my own.
When we got to the parking garage, Alders put on a burst of speed and got to the car before me.
“Uh-uh,” I said as she opened the driver’s side door. “Move over. I’m driving.”
“Not a chance,” she said with a grin. With that, she hopped in, closed the door, and fired up the engine.
Here Ends The Fallen Angels Saga
About the Author
Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.
An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.
His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.
Fallen Angels
Angel Fire
Angel’s Breath
Earth Angel
Angel Tears
Angel of Darkness
The Complete Book
Visit ValmoreDaniels.com
Table Of Contents
Fallen Angels
Angel Fire
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Angel’s Breath
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Earth Angel
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Angel Tears
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 102
