Legends (To Absolve the Fallen Book 3)

by Aaron Babbitt

  The rest of Mezerin’s body burst into flame, and Jeremiah sought out his next target.

  “Is it time?” a voice hissed in Jeremiah’s ear, accompanied by the sound of buzzing insects.

  “Yes, Kemuel,” Jeremiah’s voice returned. “You and the other rogue demons will help me hold this place. Allow no other demon to pass. I cannot promise that God will grant you clemency in return for what you do here today, but I can guarantee an opportunity for revenge. Metatron, himself, is on his way. If you can survive to see the final prize, I’ll give you the first swing. Until then, you may enact your revenge upon his minions.”

  Kemuel’s typical human form partially formed out of a swarm of flies. “Excellent,” his voice buzzed with delight. “I shall summon the others.”

  The sound of buzzing died away, and Jeremiah could faintly hear the sound of helicopters approaching. Things were indeed going well. Now, he could implement his own waves.

  Then, he distinctly heard the voice of Abigail Martin. She said, “Farewell, Jeremiah.”

  He looked around, but saw only carnage. Smiling to himself, he realized that Abbie was informing him that he had made good on his promise. All the prophets on the compound had been evacuated and would soon be on their way to Kingstone—the only place that would ever be safe for them. He would not be responsible for the death of even one more prophet.

  “Goodbye, Doctor,” he boomed before tackling a demon with a basically humanoid torso, plus an additional pair of arms, but serpentine from the waist down.

  ***

  Marla purposefully fell behind a little and let Nagina take the lead. The exit from this tunnel would not require Marla’s personal assistance as the entrance to it did. Besides, she wanted to make absolutely sure that no one was dawdling and that she didn’t leave anyone in the tunnel before flooding it.

  People seemed to rush past her, not interested in seeing what or whom they left behind. Most of them were traveling in packs, talking to each other in hushed tones about what they thought or had heard about what was happening behind them. No one seemed to be aware of her presence; they were bent on getting far from the danger.

  She guessed that she’d walked half the distance of the tunnel by now, and that it would probably be wise to wait here for a moment to gauge the flow of traffic. Anyway, the thought of flooding the tunnel without knowing the fate of Abigail Martin wasn’t working for her. She was already quite sure that Jeremiah meant to die here. Marla had to know that Abbie wasn’t coming for sure before she would risk drowning anyone who might be in here still.

  With a sigh, she turned and walked against the flow of the fleeing humans and prophets. They all gave her peculiar stares, as she was the only person they’d seen walking toward the imminent doom. One man stopped in front of her. She recognized him as one of the prophet refugees from the destroyed safe house in San Francisco.

  “What’s wrong, ma’am?” he asked with a hint of condescension in his voice.

  Marla stopped, scowled, put her hands on her hips, and replied, “What’s wrong is that you’re in my way.”

  He looked a little stunned by the response. Perhaps, he didn’t know who she was. He was probably just trying to keep all the mortals corralled and moving in the right direction, but his good intentions were fixing to get him hurt.

  Looking to regain his composure, he decided to remain calm. “Ma’am, you’re going the wrong way. There isn’t anything back there but death.”

  “Listen,” Marla responded with a sad laugh, “I am intimately connected to all of the death that is happening back there. I know what’s going on. I’m just going to make sure that Abbie gets out safely. If you want to, you can wait with me, but I don’t think one more person is going to make much difference.”

  The prophet took a moment to think about it, then nodded with understanding and went back to ushering the mortals through the tunnel. Marla smiled and continued walking against the flow. His heart had been in the right place, even if his nose had almost needed readjustment.

  ***

  Jeremiah walked with deliberate patience down the road. He made sure that every demon he encountered felt the touch of his fire. That just sent some of them running faster in the direction they were already going, but he had to hope that the snipers, grenadiers, and rogue demons could take them down before they got too far.

  Three more vans were coming through the first set of gates, and he sensed that these mostly contained demons. Those that had come before were merely meant to create chaos and confusion. This group intended to start the extermination process.

  He walked through the third gate and stopped. There was something he had wanted to do since he was an angel. He had seen other demons do it, but it took too much energy for him. Now, he thought it might be possible.

  The fire surrounding him changed from red to blue from the concentration he was investing in this undertaking. If it worked, it wouldn’t help him much, but it would sorely affect his enemies’ morale.

  With immense satisfaction, he felt his will overcoming his previous physical constraints. The pillar of fire expanded and grew hotter, but slowly returned to its normal color, as his body grew in size. When he had exhausted his efforts, Jeremiah stood almost twenty feet high and blocked off nearly the entire road. He had done this once to lead a group of Israelites through a desert. Now, in order to pass the third gate, the demons on foot would have to pass by a tower of fire that would immolate them on touch.

  The vans came to a screeching halt, the drivers undoubtedly concerned by the new obstacle in the road as well as the now visible approach of four helicopter gunships. Human-looking figures poured out of the vans, but within steps, they had begun changing into their demonic battle forms. A few took to the air to contend with the choppers. Most rushed toward him, still unaware or in denial about what they were up against.

  The helicopters took evasive action and immediately began firing on what they considered their primary targets: the airborne ones. The soldiers on the choppers had been ordered—by Colonel Jennings, herself—to avoid firing at anything that looked like it was burning. Only if it attacked them first were they to engage it.

  “Men,” the Colonel had told them, “I can’t say what you should expect to run into out there, only that it won’t be like anything you have ever experienced. We are in the middle of a war between good and evil, and we are on the side of good.”

  The crews had gotten very pumped by the speech and almost ran to their gunships. They didn’t know what to make of the Colonel’s speech, but they didn’t care either. Now, they knew and cared.

  The choppers let fly a volley of wire-guided missiles. The intended targets were the parked vans that seemed to be the origin of these creatures. The missiles impacted with relative simultaneity, obliterating some of the monsters in the immediate area. Most, however, were simply knocked to the ground by the succession of blasts.

  Metatron had sent in some tough demons, but Jeremiah was confident that he could show them one tougher. He clapped his enormous hands together, and a wave of fire sprang from his being and surged down the road toward the oncoming horde. It was at least thirty feet wide and ten feet high. The charging demons stopped at the sight of this rolling flood of burning death.

  Two in the middle jumped the wave. One resembled a human skeleton with elongated arms and legs. It seemed to spring over the fire with ease. It approached Jeremiah with a slight bounce in its step. Gray smoke rolled out of its mouth, apparently heavier than air. Jeremiah could tell it was laughing maniacally, despite its lack of lips.

  The other only narrowly avoided incineration. It was a conglomeration of different animal parts. From the waist down, it had the hind quarters of a horse. The torso was human, and its head was that of a black mastiff. Bony hooks emerged where hands should have been, and its face was twisted with fury and a predatory hunger.

  Two more dashed out from the sides. From the left came an albino, hairless humanoid with beady, black eyes and fan
gs. Its skin was stretched so taut that Jeremiah could see it was slightly translucent against the backdrop of a wave of fire.

  A ten foot tall, iron-plated and barbed monstrosity clanked out from the right. It shuffled slowly, but steadily, toward Jeremiah. There was no doubt in Jeremiah’s mind that those spikes would be coated in some kind of nasty poison, and it would be difficult—if not impossible—to penetrate its armor.

  And, to Jeremiah’s surprise, an insubstantial figure, composed completely of shadow, strode through the middle of the inferno unscathed. It looked, at first, to be simply a hole in his wall of fire. Then, he noticed that it had wispy appendages, slightly resembling a human.

  Jeremiah felt that six others didn’t react quickly enough, as their bodies and souls were utterly consumed. The wave of fire rolled on until it left the vans nothing more than smoldering heaps of metal. The effort had drained him a little. He could feel his fire dying in intensity. But he had achieved his intended effect. The surviving demons now approached him very slowly.

  He looked up and saw that the choppers were contending with four winged demons. When the helicopters’ .50 caliber machine guns actually hit their targets, they did tear off sizeable chunks of the demons’ flesh. Nevertheless, the demons still bore down on the airborne nuisances. One of them, and it didn’t take Jeremiah long to figure out which, was focusing its energy on regenerating the others. Something would have to be done about that.

  With a thought, Jeremiah returned to his normal physical size and human appearance. He pulled a walkie-talkie out of a pocket and radioed the men on the roof.

  “Snipers and grenadiers, focus your fire on that gray demon in the sky at the back of the group attacking the choppers. Take it out, or we’ll lose our air support. After you do that, start orchestrating a retreat—one squad at a time, starting with the men in the front lawn. I have arranged replacements for them. I still want cover fire from the roof until the last possible second. You will find a substantial bonus has been wired to your accounts. When you leave, get far from Las Vegas. It’s been a pleasure working with all of you.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the reply from the sniper commanding officer.

  He replaced the radio and smiled at the demons who stalked, even slower now, in his direction. Without having to maintain the gargantuan size or an enormous effect like a wave of fire, Jeremiah had fully recovered his strength. Before, stunts like that might have taken him an hour to recover from, but the divine touch did wonders for his recuperation.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” Jeremiah called to them as he casually strode forward. “My name is Jeremiah. I protected Eden from Lucifer; I fought him myself. I was chosen to personally watch over the Son of God. I shaped this world’s history by controlling mortals and demons alike for nearly two thousand years, much of that time as the undisputed general of Metatron’s army. Recently, my services have been required by the Father, and I exact His will once more. You have come to my home looking for a fight and evidently have no idea the mistake you’ve made.”

  As if to illustrate his point, a rocket-propelled grenade impacted the regenerating demon, and several sniper shots held it where it was as another hit it. Blow after blow came from the roof of Jeremiah’s mansion—all expertly placed. After many painful-looking seconds of being the recipient of the grenadiers’ wrath, the demon fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  “You could come with us,” the mastiff-headed demon growled at Jeremiah, ignoring the aerial combat. “It would save us all a lot of hassle.”

  Jeremiah’s attention focused on the one speaking. “Are you the commanding demon present?”

  “I suppose I am now,” the other retorted with a huff. “You wiped out anyone who would outrank me.”

  Jeremiah nodded solemnly. “I believe you.”

  The amalgam demon screamed in agony as its flesh became engulfed by flame. However, the scream did not last long, for its body was reduced to ash within a second. The others stole a look at the spectacle only briefly, then quickly returned their gaze to the one who had just annihilated seven of them with seemingly little effort and absolutely no remorse.

  “Now,” Jeremiah continued in a more lively tone, “the rest of you have a choice. Your commander has been eliminated, and you could, perhaps, flee the same fate without anyone knowing. I hear Lucifer is back, and I’m sure he’s looking for help. Otherwise, I’ll kill you right here and now. I promise that none of you will walk through that gate behind me.”

  The gunships, now able to actually damage their foes, had forced another demon from the air. Jeremiah couldn’t tell whether or not it died, but it looked like it took quite a beating.

  “And those choppers are going to wreak havoc on any other demon trying to approach my compound as soon as they’re done with your pesky, flying friends,” Jeremiah added almost narratively. “Soon, there won’t be anywhere you can run. The time to make a decision is now.”

  “You know that Lucifer has returned?” a voice that seemed far away asked from the shadowy demon.

  Jeremiah smiled. He should have known that he would get that reaction from at least one of them. Lucifer, if alive, was certainly the most powerful non-angelic being on the planet. A thousand years ago, he simply disappeared. Metatron came in two hundred years later and took control of what remained of Lucifer’s empire from the weak governing of Mastema. Gone but not forgotten, Lucifer still had a very powerful underground following. On several occasions, Metatron ordered Jeremiah to root out this underground sect, but it never worked. Jeremiah had a good deal of evidence to suggest that there were members of this group who were high-ranking commanders in Metatron’s army. His primary suspects had been some of Metatron’s most trusted advisors. He’d even expressed this concern to the once-Voice of God, but the hypothesis fell on deaf ears. Metatron never wanted to consider treachery from one of his own, even though “his own” had been taken from the Morning Star.

  “I have it on good authority,” Jeremiah answered smugly.

  The albino demon spun to face the shadow. “That sounds like treason,” it spat at the other.

  The comment was ignored. Instead, the shadowy demon asked Jeremiah, “Where?”

  “Far from here,” replied Jeremiah. “And that is where I expect you to be very soon.”

  The shadow disappeared wordlessly into the night. The albino demon looked infuriated. It gnashed its teeth and growled at Jeremiah.

  “Vorin may be a traitor, but we are not,” it snarled. “We have a job to do.”

  With that, it ran at Jeremiah, and the skeletal figure leaped into the air. The spiked, metal giant shuffled slowly after them.

  Without warning, a pillar of fire stood before the charging demon. A flaming hand wrapped around the albino’s throat before it even realized Jeremiah had moved. The skeletal figure landed solidly where Jeremiah had once been, and the barbed demon slowed its momentum with the recent complication.

  “Our very nature makes us all traitors,” Jeremiah roared right before the albino became enshrouded by fire.

  Jeremiah picked the burning demon up, not allowing it to completely disintegrate yet, and hurled it at the titan still moving toward him. The flaming mass collided and became impaled upon its compatriot. The force of the impact actually knocked the spiked demon on its back. Then, Jeremiah ordered the flame to burn with a very specific purpose.

  Jeremiah caused the albino’s body to liquefy, and the burning liquid remains seeped into the cracks of the metal armor. It acted like lava or napalm and ate away anything inside it could get to. He tried once to burn the outer shell, but it was unsuccessful. Still, as it tried to get back up, its legs seemed weaker. He wondered if he hadn’t at least softened the metal.

  Something collided with Jeremiah from behind. He’d expected as much and had braced for the impact. The high-pitched wail from behind him indicated that his plan had worked. The fire he knew to be covering the skeletal demon soon stopped the screeching noise. He’d begun to wonder
if the demon was smart enough to not charge a pillar of fire, but he was delighted when his instincts had proven accurate. Now, he had only one more to deal with.

  In the distance, he saw one of the helicopters start spiraling out of control. A flying, acid-spitting demon had detached the tail rotor. It plummeted to the ground and exploded when it got there.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Jeremiah grumbled.

  He took a human form again to conserve energy, and he had no intention of making physical contact with the barbed demon quite yet.

  “Well,” Jeremiah said thoughtfully to his adversary, “let’s see if you get weak knees.”

  Jeremiah stretched out his hand, and a line of continuous fire poured out of it and into the right knee of the iron-plated giant. The knee glowed red as Jeremiah focused all of his will on raising the temperature to a melting point.

  Finally, the knee, too soft now to hold the massive weight of its owner, gave way. The thigh slid right off, and the demon tumbled, once more, to the ground. The foot and shin still stood where the demon had been stopped. The threat itself merely rolled around on the ground in pain.

  “I may not be able to cause you to combust,” Jeremiah told it, “and I’m not sure how I would fare against you in hand-to-hand combat. But fire still has the same effect on you that it does on normal metal. You should know that I’m tempted to remove all of your limbs and leave you here to face Metatron’s anger. Alas, I simply don’t have that kind of time.”

  Jeremiah now focused a line of fire directly into the titan’s face. The demon roared, until its face finally lost all features, and its body went limp.

  Jeremiah looked to the sky. The three remaining gunships were now chasing a single demon...toward his mansion. That same familiar demonic feeling came upon him as he wondered why the demon was foolishly fleeing toward the snipers and grenadiers. However, the feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come on. Again, he tried to identify it, but why it seemed so familiar escaped him. He knew he’d felt this presence before. But when? Then, it dawned on him. He’d felt this presence in Eden.