by Brian Fuller
“Godspeed, everyone,” Helo said.
Rapture. The blessed effect was short-lived, and the ugly poison in his mind returned full force within seconds. They awakened in a small rectangular room much like the one beneath the trapdoor in the Red Angel Theater, on a dirt floor, a single fluorescent bulb hanging above them. A hallway curved away at one end, preventing them from seeing anything beyond. There was no welcoming party, but an incessant screaming—bloody, horrified screaming—reverberated faintly down the hall, prickling his spine.
The naked soldiers grabbed their gear. They looked ridiculous. Helo strapped on his katana and BBG holster. Melody was right beside him, and he tried not to look—she being Dolorem’s daughter made it weird—but the horror building in his heart soon made every other concern irrelevant.
“Let’s go,” Helo said, stepping to the front with Sparks and Shujaa.
The screaming stopped, only to pick up again—a different voice now, but the same abject terror. They set off at a quick pace. Helo kept his BBG up in one hand and was ready to blast Angel Fire with the other. It seemed like some drunk had built the walls, meandering around without any plan or view toward efficiency. Side tunnels branched off in weird places, the entire place lit sparsely with fluorescent lights. It was disorienting, like navigating an unfamiliar city at night during a power outage. Barred cells yawned open to the left and right with no pattern whatsoever.
A new scream reverberated throughout the tunnels. It was suddenly squelched, only to be replaced by another, though it seemed farther away than the last. Were they even going the right direction? Every place seemed like every other place.
Sparks put his hand on Helo’s shoulder. “You’ve got to watch the floor,” he said. “The dirt is more beaten down on some paths.”
He was right. They went a little more slowly, pausing at intersections. The scream stopped, and another rose. They were closer now, but it was hard to tell because of the way the sound echoed through the labyrinth.
After another terrified shriek came and went, they turned a corner and found the first straight corridor they’d come across, leading downward. The damp floor made for quiet walking beneath their bare feet, but they hadn’t gone halfway through when something crept out along the floor toward them. Helo held his hand up, signaling them to stop. What approached was like a hallowing or desecrating field overlaying the ground, except it was all black instead of red. He’d never seen anything like it, and after a glance back at a sea of wide eyes, he knew no one else had either.
Instinctively, he Hallowed the ground just before it, but when the two fronts of white and black met, the darkness pushed his hallow back. He increased the output of Virtus and held it at bay, but barely. He couldn’t keep it up for long and conserve his Virtus. He dropped the hallow, cursing their luck. A couple other Ash Angels tried to Hallow but couldn’t keep it up either, and when the wave spilled beneath their feet, he lost most of his team.
Even he could feel it.
He hadn’t been torched in a long time, and while not as strong as a full torch, the old agony of his father’s disdain and Terissa’s infidelity washed over him like a current trying to pull him under. With effort he resisted. He glanced back at Melody, who was struggling but still upright. Of the rest, only Shujaa and Sparks remained standing, and only barely, their eyes darting about as if they were struggling for mastery of their feelings. Everyone else had sunk to the floor.
Melody gritted her teeth and drew her blade, striding forward. The desecration kept flowing down the hall behind them like a flood slowly filling the cavern halls. The good news: the Ash Angel numbness hadn’t deserted him. The bad news: using Bestowals seemed to take more Virtus, like the light within him had to fight through a sticky web of darkness to get out.
He grabbed Sparks and slapped him. The man’s eyes widened and focused. This new black desecration acted just like the red to the non-Angel Born, robbing his team of their Bestowals, livening their nerves, and torching them into near uselessness.
“You’ve got to hide,” Helo said with a quick pulse of Glorious Presence. “Shujaa! Snap out of it. Hide! Melody. Help them. Help them hide.”
“What about you?” she said, face suspicious.
“I’ve got to scout ahead,” he said. “I’m the only one who can.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said, her face set like Aclima’s used to be.
“No,” he said. “That’s an order. I need you to help them. You can resist. Help them hide.”
“I should be with you!” she shouted.
He grabbed her bare shoulders. “You are not ready for what is up there, Melody. Now get going. Go!”
Her dead-eyed glare stung him. “Yes, sir.”
Then she turned away, and he plowed ahead. He didn’t know if he was ready for what was up there either. Inside, he had the sick feeling Avadan had succeeded where Cain had failed, that the crazed Loremaster had set loose the most ancient of evils into the world. But even the feeling of fear that had accompanied King’s entrance into the hold of the Tempest didn’t feel like this.
After the negative slope, the cavern jogged to the right and dead-ended in a chiseled-out section of concrete wide enough to step through. Muddy footprints marked up a concrete floor in a wide, low room with racks upon racks of costumes, all in Avadan’s size. Helo stepped inside, senses humming. A rack of guitars hung on the wall to his right.
On the far side of the room, a hallway of whitewashed cinder block stretched straight forward. He jogged to it. One of the lights blinked on and off with a buzzing click. The familiar taint of Shedim hit him a moment before he set foot in this more finished section of the lair. Metal doors lined the hall, plain and gray, save one with a golden star and the number forty-two. It was slightly ajar.
About a hundred feet down the hall, two double doors were open against the wall on the right, the foul desecration oozing from it. The closer he stepped, the worse the taint of Sheid fear was, the more powerfully the seductive, dark thoughts pulled on his mind. He blinked and shook his head. Remembering Melody singing in camp seemed to help, and he kept the sound of her voice running through his head to ward off the phantoms in his heart.
An odd grunting and the murmured, reassuring tones of a woman’s voice issued from the room. He pulled air in through his nose and caught the coppery scent of blood and the smell of burning flesh. Innocents had died. The screams he had heard had to be from the victims of Sheid creation. Maybe Avadan wasn’t bringing Satan back into the world at all; maybe he was creating super-Shedim, Shedim that could desecrate with unusual power.
He holstered his gun and slowly and silently drew his katana. Fighting a Loremaster and Shedim in the buff was ridiculous, but he was going to do it. He snapped around the side of the door and almost dropped his weapon.
The four Shedim—Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jefferson—stood by four sets of empty clothing that once held the bodies of the innocents used to create them, blood pooling on the floor at their presidential feet. A hospital bed abutted a wall to the left of the room, a boy no more than nine years old stretched out upon it. To Helo’s horror, the boy’s chest was pulled open at the sternum, a bypass machine hooked into his chest. He was still alive!
But Avadan was the true horror. He lay on a low metal table, feet dangling over the side onto the floor. A metal tray had been rough welded a foot underneath the top of the table, and in that tray glowed orange charcoal. Avadan was literally cooking himself.
He was naked, his hands clawed in agony, a stick in his mouth, eyes wild. His chest was open too, and where his heart should have been, another had been sewn into its place and beat a slow rhythm. Vexus swirled around him, a lot of Vexus. Jumelia stood beside him, hand on the stolen heart, pouring more Vexus in, the runes on her arm glowing. The black desecration flowed from Avadan, his pained countenance seeming to fight the pain and the visage of King trying to assert itself.
Jumelia’s head snapped up. She wore scrubs and sne
akers stained with swathes of blood, lustrous hair so like Aclima’s pulled back in a ponytail. But her eyes, merciless and cruel, were nothing like her sister’s.
Helo raised his arm. One blast of Angel Fire would end this abomination. But the Shedim were faster. A tendril of glowing Sheid smoke whizzed by his head, another severing his sword arm. The sword clattered to the ground, and he had to sidestep to keep from having his belly hollowed out by another. It took a chunk of his side instead.
He didn’t stand a chance.
Speed. He tore down the hallway, feet slapping the concrete. They followed. He could feel it. An unholy Mount Rushmore was coming to burn him up. A tendril of smoke took out his knee, and he crashed onto his belly, naked body squealing along the polished floor. He came to rest by the door with the golden star on it, and he yanked it open, then used his good leg to push inside just as another tentacle almost took his head off. The doorway would serve as a choke point, but four against one?
The room was about the size of a small family room, the cinder-block walls almost completely covered with bookshelves packed full of leather-bound tomes. An ancient desk straight out of Dracula’s castle hulked on the floor, books practically spilling over its sides.
Helo got up onto his one good leg and pinned himself near the door. George Washington was the first through. Helo Strength punched him, and he disintegrated into a blast of Vexus. Helo’s body absorbed the cloud, sapping his Virtus. Then Lincoln zipped into the room using Speed, and Helo Hallowed the floor, the energy it took to do it staggering. It had been so natural before, but in this vile desecration, it was like pushing against a roaring tide. Vexus steamed off the Lincoln Sheid, and it made to get on the desk, books crumbling to the floor. But Helo one-legged hopped over and rammed his fist through its back. It exploded. Again Helo’s body sucked in the Vexus cloud, Virtus draining. He couldn’t keep this up.
And that’s when a speeding Jefferson collided with him from behind. Helo hit the desk hard and fell to the ground, using all his concentration to keep the hallow going. As long as he could keep them from using Bestowals, he had a chance, but he wasn’t going to last long. Jefferson started curb-stomping him, trying to crush his head, but Helo kept scooting away, taking the shots in the chest or arms.
Roosevelt strode inside and immediately got on the desk, a smoky tendril taking Helo’s hip. Helo rolled as another kick from Jefferson shot toward his head. He punched through the Sheid’s leg with his remaining arm. Three down, Virtus almost gone, exhaustion setting in. The Roosevelt Sheid was perched on the desk, all the power now belonging to it, its flaming, smoky tendril severing what was left of Helo’s legs. Helo retaliated with Angel Fire to its face, and it toppled off the back of the desk. Helo Hallowed again.
A roar of anger shook the floor, books tumbling from the shelves, the sound more than just physical. It penetrated his bones, froze his heart. It was ancient. It was evil. It was pissed. And then the roar became laugh, a laugh so loud it seemed to shake the building. It was ancient. It was evil. And it was ecstatic. It was Avadan. The black desecration lifted for a moment and then returned full force. A sharp fear pricked at Helo’s heart, a despair impregnating the very air.
The Sheid circled the desk and blasted a hole in his abdomen. Helo prepared himself for the White Room as Roosevelt looked down at him with vapid, bespectacled eyes. Then it fled as if summoned. Helo let his head fall back to the concrete. All he had was one janky arm for motion and almost no Virtus left. He couldn’t even tap his comms unit to activate it.
He palmed the floor and pulled, but his muscles wouldn’t work right. He’d never get out. Would Avadan come for him? He tuned his ears to the hallway. The shuffle of feet and the banging of equipment was all he could make out for a moment.
“It won’t take full hold until sunset,” Avadan was saying, his voice getting louder and more clear. But unlike his cruel laugh a few moments before, he sounded weary. “I cannot risk an encounter yet. The Sheid will accompany me. Get my safe and our visitor’s heart and follow, Aunt. There is much to be done yet.”
Helo pushed against the floor with his good hand, rolling over onto his back. He thought he had enough for one last blast of Angel Fire, but then he’d be done. He just had to time it right.
Step by step, Jumelia came, her sneakers squeaking against the floor. As soon as her shape filled the door, he let loose a shot right at her heart. She dodged left and lost her arm, but he was out, his Virtus tank empty. She stepped into the room warily and with a single Strength-fueled stop broke his good shoulder.
“Helo,” she said with a grin that would have reminded him of Aclima if it hadn’t been so cruel. “What a pleasure! I’m sure I’ll enjoy getting to know you, but I don’t think you’ll like me as much as my sister. How is she, by the way?”
“Gone.”
“You burned her!” she said. “I’m not surprised. I’m sure the Ash Angel Organization wasn’t as in love with her as you were. She was such a fool to think she would get any mercy.”
“She changed back. Ascended,” he said, a warm satisfaction filling him. “You and Cain can have your second honeymoon in hell all to yourselves. Aclima is free.”
“Liar!”
The bile and anger in that single word was like getting hit in the face with a brick. Her brown eyes radiated fury down upon him. He loved it.
“Not a lie,” he said. “As soon as she changed, we put her in the river so you and your crazy nephew couldn’t touch her anymore. She’ll be at my family reunion, not yours.”
Her eyes went crazy. Her jaw trembled and clenched. She yelled, stomping him in the groin, kicking him in the ribs, and pulping what was left of his body until he felt like goo. Then she stood by his head.
“Well, you stole her from Cain, and now you’ve robbed me of her, too. You know, Cain hated it when people took things that belonged to him, and that is one thing he and I have in common. I’ve got to take your heart, but I think I’ll crush your head first so I can see your face Picasso-style.”
She raised her foot, and then a blessed katana sliced through her neck.
Melody.
Chapter 24
A Mystery of Light
Melody walked in, face set in a scowl. She scanned the room for more threats and then sheathed her katana. Her expression softened a little as she examined his destroyed body, but something of anger still smoldered in her eyes.
She touched her comms unit. “I found him,” she said. “He’s in pieces. Stand by.” She knelt next to him, folding her arms over her chest. “What happened?”
He retold the story, wishing she had the Healing Bestowal. “Tell the second unit to get with recon and to patrol the streets. Avadan is leaving through a different entrance, and there’s a kid hooked to a bypass machine in the room down the hall. See if he is still alive. I don’t think anybody’s left down here.”
“Where are all the Dreads?” she wondered aloud as she got to her feet. “There were a pile of clown suits up there. And where is that desecration coming from?”
“Avadan. I don’t know how it’s still going. I got the feeling Avadan was keeping this plan close to the chest,” he said. “Go.”
Melody returned quickly, face a little pale. “The kid hooked up to the bypass machine is dead. I found this.” She lifted the pendant—a rib from Abel’s side, the Bone of First Avarice—the pendant Cain and Avadan had worn to control the Dreads and the Possessed. But now it was just a bone, its red glow gone.
“Is this it?” she said.
“Yes. That’s why the Dreads aren’t here,” Helo said. “The contract is done. Avadan doesn’t control the Dreads anymore. The way he used them . . . well, it probably didn’t make him a lot of friends.”
She nodded and paused for a moment. “I could have helped, you know.”
“How is the rest of the team?” he asked, avoiding the incensed look she gave him. He didn’t like it.
“Barely functional,” she answered, “but on my way here, I
got my second Bestowal. Inspire. The vision says I can use it to get Shujaa and Sparks back on their feet. I’ll try Andromeda, too. She’s pretty tough. Finny and Faramir are a hot mess. Wasn’t Inspire your second Bestowal too?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What did the vision have you do with it?”
He swallowed. The desecration might not be crippling him, but it kept the bad memories fresh. “I helped Terissa forgive herself for cheating on me.”
“Oh,” Melody said, face like flint. “Well, I’ll be back. You should have kept me with you, Helo.”
Then she was gone. Helo lowered his banged-up head to the concrete floor and stared up at the fluorescent light hanging overhead. Could Melody have helped him? In his mind he could only see her getting burned by Sheid’s fire or hacked in two by one of the weapons they could instantly craft from Vexus.
When she got back, she was wearing what looked like a gypsy outfit, with a loose flower-print skirt, a tan blouse, and a turquoise wrap around her waist. Sparks had found a police uniform, but Shujaa—who was far larger than Avadan—had to settle for some loose purple shorts that might have been from an Incredible Hulk costume. Their faces sagged with the effort of fighting off the relentless, cruel desecration.
“Bad news,” Melody said. “The desecration isn’t just down here. It’s above ground and spreading into the city like a plague.”
“How is that possible?” Sparks said.
“Don’t know,” Helo answered. “Maybe it will make him easier to find if he’s the center of it, but it’s got to be exhausting to keep up. He can’t do it indefinitely.”
“Maybe he can,” Sparks said. “I think the rules just got bent. But no matter. We hunt him down and destroy him. Mission’s still the same.”
Shujaa shook his head either to say no or to clear it. “Mission is the same, but there aren’t many Ash Angels who can fight in this. The Angel Born are the only ones who won’t suffer.”
