by Brian Fuller
“Avadan can’t keep this up,” Melody said as a wish more than fact. “He just can’t.”
“We aren’t going to get any answers talking about it,” Helo said. “I’m worthless. No one can heal me in the desecration, and my body is banged all to hell. Shujaa, Sparks, see if you can figure out where this place comes out. If you meet resistance, don’t take risks. Retreat.”
“What about me?” Melody asked, voice edgy.
“I need you to search this room for anything useful,” he said. “I’m thinking this is Avadan’s study. Maybe he left clues about what he’s done or what he’s planning. And get Jumelia’s heart. I think we’ll want to interrogate her, though I doubt we’ll get anything useful.”
Shujaa and Sparks slipped away down the hall.
“Gypsy’s a good look for you,” Helo said, hoping to take the edge off her anger. Didn’t seem to work. “Do you mind propping me up so I can look around?”
She grabbed the arm he had left and dragged him over to the wall by the door, propping him up against it. The main theme of the room was books. During the scuffle with the Shedim, an actual ink bottle with a quill had fallen to the floor, a stain spreading near the desk. Avadan liked writing old-school.
Melody pulled some books off the shelves and flipped through them. “These are all handwritten,” she said. “Same handwriting. Weird language. I think Avadan wrote all of these. Crazy. Maybe he liked journaling. Diary of a disgusting freak.”
“Check the desk,” Helo suggested. The Scholus—what was left of it—would have a field day with all this stuff, though without their database to reference, deciphering all the information would probably take years.
She yanked on the drawers. “Lots of ink and quills. Hey!” she said. “Now we’ve got something.” Her aura flared, and she pulled a small safe out of the bottom drawer and set it on the desk with a thunk that sent more books sliding to the floor.
“Are Bestowals harder for you to use in this desecration thing?” she asked.
“Yes. Crack that safe open.”
Again her aura flared, and after a couple of metal-warping yanks, the door popped off.
“What do you know,” she said. “Another book. This one’s old. Really old. Title’s worn off. Just a couple of letters left.”
She gingerly removed it and shoved some other books on the desk aside to create a space for it. The cover was some kind of animal leather and was cracked and faded in spots. Melody peeled back the cover like she was afraid the book might crumble to dust at any moment.
“It’s still in pretty good shape,” she said, appearing to gain more confidence that she wouldn’t destroy it. “Different handwriting, though I do recognize Avadan’s scrawl in the margins. The main language seems a bit more normal, almost like French or something. And . . . oh! Well, here’s an illustration of a well-endowed guy Dread chained to a table and cut apart with little notations. And the next page is a well-endowed lady Dread in the same tough spot. Whoever wrote this was experimenting on Dreads.”
“That’s it,” Helo said, suddenly realizing what they had. “That’s Micah’s book! He was an Ash Angel researcher. Avadan killed him five hundred years ago or so. It has information about Angel Borns and other secrets. We’ve got to get it translated.”
“First we’ve got to get it out of here,” she said. “I don’t have enough Virtus left to haul your butt around.”
“Shujaa can do it,” he said. “But we’ve got to secure this location until they can get all this stuff out of here. I think that has to be you and me—mainly you at this point.”
“Why’s that?” she said with sarcastic surprise in her voice. “You mean you’re not going to send me away from you again? How thoughtful.”
“Hey,” he said, “you’re a Cherub doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the Ash Angels against the most dangerous Dread there is. I’m not going to have you running point with me on something like this. I wouldn’t even take Faramir with me.”
She cocked her head. Trouble. “Now you’re comparing me to Faramir?”
“I’m just saying—”
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what? I am trying to use sound combat strategy here in order to keep everyone safe! That means you and me and everyone else on the team. It is not personal.”
Sparks poked his head in the door. “Did I come at a bad time? Should I give you two a few more minutes?”
“What did you find?” Helo asked.
“The hallway is a long, straight shot right to the sewer system. It’s smelly, but it’s got a lot of exits topside. Shujaa’s at the grate. I think the place is clear. We should get you out, Helo. You look like you had a fight with a tractor. And lost. If you can Hallow, I can heal you.”
“I’m done for today,” Helo said. “We’ve got to secure all the books in here. We think we’ve found Micah’s book.”
“Now that’s something,” Sparks said. “We’ve scoured Europe for ages looking for that thing. So Avadan’s had it the whole time.” He crossed to the desk, looking down at the page Melody had opened to. “Vivisections. Nice.”
“He killed Micah,” Helo said. “Or so he claims.”
“I believe it. Both of them were a bit . . . creative. And by creative I mean crazy.”
The work of clearing the room took the better part of eight hours, not because of the amount of work but the difficulty of finding Ash Angels who could lend a hand. The bulk of the work fell to Sparks, Melody, and Shujaa while Helo leaned against the door and provided moral support. It was humiliating and frustrating. His arm was useless, so when it came time to report to command, they had to put the phone on speaker and dump it in his lap.
When they finished, Shujaa hauled him up over his shoulder and carried him out through the hallway and into the sewer. Not needing to breathe became an instant blessing.
A couple more hours passed while they found a manhole leading out to an alley deserted enough they weren’t afraid anyone would see a tall black man in purple shorts hauling the mangled torso of a white man with the help of a gypsy and a cop. Getting Finny, Faramir, and Andromeda out took a long time too. Andromeda could walk under her own power, but Finny and Faramir seemed like they’d had a stroke. They’d dressed Faramir in a devil costume, Finny in a Zorro outfit, and Andromeda in pink bunny pajamas. Getting in the van and out of sight was a relief.
Melody drove. The black desecration staining the city during the middle of the day was jarring. Instead of rising upward and outward, the desecration ran like water, flowing downward. The bottom of the van was free of it, as well as the upper levels of buildings. For Finny, Andromeda, and Faramir, getting into the van freed them from the extreme torching effects of the desecration. Their faces were sober.
Helo’s heart felt heavy. The dark film covered the streets, the parks, and the bottom floor of every building in Kansas City. It seemed to drain all the happiness from the sunshine and blue sky above them, and for the first time he wondered what it would do to the normals in the streets. He knew they could sense hallowing and desecration, but only on a low, emotional level. How would this super desecration affect them?
“Good news,” Melody said. “The desecration seems confined to the city. Once we get outside of it, we should be good.”
And fifteen minutes later it was true. Instant relief. It was like someone had flipped on a light.
“That sucked,” Faramir’s said.
Andromeda gave him a no-duh look. “Someone’s going to pay for that.”
Shujaa nodded, flexing his fists as if looking for someone to punch.
Finny leaned his head against the back window and closed his eyes. Sparks gave his friend’s head a firm rub. “All right, mate, would you rather spend a night in a cave full of nonpoisonous snakes or in a house where someone had been killed a week previous?”
Faramir perked up. “That’s an easy—”
“Didn’t ask you,” Sparks said. “It’s a question for Fin.”<
br />
Finny lifted his head and blew out a long stream of air, as if expelling some pollution from inside him. “Well, I’d definitely have to go for the house. Murder’s done. Snakes are never done. Honestly, I’d rather stay the night in one of those little bungalows on a beach, though. Roar of the ocean. Sand. Ladies not wearing much.”
“Hey, Sparks,” Helo said. “A little help.”
“Right.” Sparks healed him, Helo’s limbs reappearing and mushy torso and head filling back out. Shujaa tossed him a pair of khaki shorts and a breezy tan shirt that made him feel like he should be out on a safari. He pulled them on and took shotgun next to Melody.
“We look like a pack of fools,” Sparks said from the back. “Someone should grab a selfie. We should have bought a case of beer and poured it on ourselves so we could explain this.”
“Worst Halloween party ever,” Faramir added.
“Jumelia captured. Four Shedim destroyed,” Shujaa said. “That is something.”
They’d stuffed Jumelia’s heart in an ammo box.
“No good,” Finny said. “Five mortals dead. Five. Plus the two in the park. And now we’ve got the black carpet to worry about. The red carpet was bad enough.”
“So what is Avadan now?” Faramir asked. “I mean, taking a kid’s heart and sewing it into his own body? That’s just messed up.”
“He said the process wouldn’t be complete until this evening,” Helo said. “I don’t know what happened, but he was definitely doing the transference of Vexus needed to bring Satan back into the world but with the kid’s heart in him instead of his own.”
“The hearts of innocents are used in making Shedim, right?” Melody said. “Infuse the heart with Vexus, and then the Dread eats it, and the victim’s body becomes the Sheid. But that boy didn’t dissolve. He was still there.”
“Maybe the body will dissolve at sundown,” Faramir said. “Maybe that’s what he meant.”
Helo couldn’t quite grasp it either. What Sparks had said earlier was true. Avadan and Micah were two sides of the same coin, both insatiable in their search for knowledge. Whenever the Ash Angels spoke of Micah, it was with reverence, with the assumption that whatever knowledge he had obtained—however cruel the methods used to extract it—was pivotal in giving the Ash Angels an upper hand over the Dreads.
Avadan had that same insatiable curiosity, though his ends appeared to be selfish. As crazy as he was, Helo could admire what it had taken for Avadan to pull off what he had pulled off. He’d been patient. He’d hoarded Vexus right under Cain’s nose. He’d researched on humans, Ash Angels, and Dreads alike to gain understanding. Cain’s use of the pendant to control him had probably set his plans back for a time, but the pendant became a new opportunity in the end, perhaps even the final piece of his formula.
“What now?” Helo asked. “What’s Avadan’s play?”
They speculated back and forth the entire way back to Camp Zion. After the tortured streets of Kansas City, a drive through the warm woods in the early afternoon felt like coming home for Christmas—well, someone else’s Christmas. Helo didn’t have a lot of good memories to work from. His dad had always used Christmas as a time to celebrate the darker side of alcohol.
Still, it was good to be back at Camp Zion. The other two teams had arrived before them and were still unloading Avadan’s trove of books from the back of the vans. Helo had Micah’s book wrapped in a cloth in the console. He wasn’t about to let it out of his sight. Melody pulled up by the Sicarius Nox campsite and put the van in park.
“What’s she doing here?” Melody said.
It took Helo a moment to realize she was talking about Scarlet, who was loitering around the vans. His ex-wife was all curves and dark hair, her Latino heritage lending her those smoldering looks that had entrapped him so many years ago.
“Shujaa,” he said, “take Jumelia’s heart up to the command tent. They’ve got about two and a half hours before she shows up. I’m guessing she’ll be a fighter.”
“Yes, Angel Born.”
He grabbed Micah’s book and got out. Scarlet hurried over and gave him a big hug. “I heard it was awful,” she said. “A desecration that can torch.”
Melody walked by and threw a stink eye in Scarlet’s general direction before disappearing down the path to her tent.
“Yeah,” Helo said, disengaging from her. “It’s bad.”
“Did it, um, affect you? Bad memories and all?”
He shook his head. “A little, but being Angel Born has its perks. Everything good here? Where’s Corinth?”
She shrugged. “I think he’s up at the command tent. He’s one of the few Blanks left, and I think they’re forming a team or something. Archus Magdelene talked to him about it after you guys left. But I think it’s happening.” She put her hand on his cheek. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m good, Scarlet, really. Look, I’ve got to go report in. I’ll see you around.”
“Okay. And Helo,” she said. “It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you these past few months.”
He nodded and worked his way up to where Mars and Magdelene would be waiting for him. He felt a little ridiculous heading to the command tent dressed like a barefoot safari guide, but at least he wasn’t wearing the pink bunny pajamas.
He grabbed a stack of Avadan’s books on the way past one of the vans and followed the line of Ash Angels up to the command tent, where they were piling them on tables, a wide-eyed Archus Ebenezer looking like he had just won the lottery. Lear stood nearby with his hands on his hips, and he whistled when Helo set his stack down, keeping Micah’s book.
“Quite a haul there, Helo,” Lear said. “Good work today.”
“Thanks.” Helo didn’t consider it good work. Not only had a bunch of normals gotten killed, they didn’t get Avadan. Now Avadan was some abomination no Ash Angel had ever seen. He was happy the Ash Angels hadn’t suffered any casualties, but what kept nagging at him was Melody’s criticism. If he had let her come, would it have made the difference? Could he have subdued the Shedim and burned Avadan before the fiend had finished his dark ritual?
Helo took out Micah’s book. “Hey, Ebenezer,” he called.
“What?” Ebenezer said, distracted by all the books being piled in.
Helo handed him the book. “You’ll want to look at this one first.”
Ebenezer took it. “Yeah, I’ll get to it in a moment.”
Helo opened his mouth to explain why he might want to look at it sooner when Mars asked him to come speak with him and Magdelene. Helo waved to Lear and headed back toward the front of the tent where Mars and Magdelene sat, faces grim.
He took a seat opposite them. “What is it?”
“Explain what you saw in that room again, please,” Archus Magdelene said.
He ran through the story for about the fourth time that day, trying not to leave anything out. They sat rock still and unblinking through the whole tale, faces unreadable.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Helo said after he finished, “but that’s what I saw. That desecration is real.”
“And it’s huge,” Mars said. “That’s what’s stumped us all. The amount of Vexus needed to power something like that . . . well, it’s unfathomable. That didn’t happen when Cain summoned King into the world, did it?”
“No,” Helo said. “He had a Sheid doing normal desecration there.”
Magdelene shook her head. “This has to be King’s power. There’s no other explanation for it. The effects are being seen already. Violence has broken out across the city. It’s like people are just snapping.”
Helo was stunned. “Are you sure it’s normals? Maybe Legion is doing this.”
“No,” Mars said. “That’s the thing. It’s not. Seems like most of the Dreads and Possessed have pulled out of Kansas City. We’ve gotten reports that a horde of them showed up in Saint Louis about two hours ago. We think Legion’s gone there.”
“To prepare,” Helo said. “He’s going to d
o the same thing there. Corrupt it with the desecration.” He stood. “We’ve got to get there and start burning Dreads. We’ve got to figure out how to Exorcise Legion. If we can get there before the desecration, we can be effective. With the desecration, only Melody and I can be on the ground without getting hamstrung.”
“We know,” Mars said. “We will send people to Saint Louis, but Sicarius Nox has one mission and one only: hunt down Avadan as fast as you can. You leave tomorrow morning.”
Helo wanted a shot at Avadan in a bad way. “How do we find him?”
“You and your team have to head back to Kansas City. Wherever that desecration is, that’s where he will be. You’re the Angel Born,” Mars said. “With that desecration, only you and Melody stand a chance at getting close. I can still hardly believe it.”
“What about Jumelia?”
“We’ll interrogate her,” Magdelene said, rubbing her forehead. “But from what you’ve told us, she’s probably not going to cooperate.”
Mars’s eyes turned flinty. “First sign of sass from that Dread and she’s dust. With her gone, we’ll be one Dread Loremaster away from never seeing a Sheid on this planet again. Let your team know they’re back in the thick of it tomorrow. We’re short on uniforms, but we’re thinking you’ll need to proceed Gabriel-style for this one.”
His team wasn’t going to like it. No one wanted to go back into the black desecration. No one. Most of his team wouldn’t even be able to step out of the van. Melody was suddenly more important than he wanted her to be.
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 25
Archus
Helo let his team enjoy the bliss of ignorance for two hours before he gathered them at the Sicarius Nox campsite and broke the news: they’d been ordered back into the desecration of Kansas City to hunt Avadan. Shujaa and Sparks kept a stoic exterior; everyone else looked like he’d just told them they were going to hike through broken glass in bare feet. He supposed walking through the desecration was a lot like that. He was going to have to figure out how to keep them up off the ground.
