Azazel was still in shock. Why’d she save me? he wondered. After everything I’ve done, she still saved me, even though I didn’t deserve it.
His shock was short-lived, interrupted by Mea grabbing him by the back of the neck and shaking him back to reality. “Hey,” she said, shaking him again. “Hey! Are you alright?” Smiling, she slapped him on the back of the head like a big sister or brother would do. “You’re fine,” she huffed. “Now what the hell were those things?”
They stepped over to one of the beasts, dying, that had settled atop a poorly-sodded lawn while its hind legs twitched on the sidewalk. A strange creature it was. Dying, its chattering faded out, and it didn’t seem like it could decide what type of camouflage it wanted—shifting from dirt-brown to the dull green color of the lawn to the flat-gray of the sidewalk before starting the cycle again. What a strange creature, both Mea and Azazel thought, looking at each other and shrugging. Though it looked mostly like a medium-sized alligator, it muzzle was narrower and lined with more teeth—like a shark would have. Sans the reptilian scales that traditionally cover alligators, this beast was covered in an oily coat of fur and had a spiky trail that ran down its back, from just above its beady eyes to the end of its barbed tail. Instead of alligator legs, its legs resembled those of a panther’s—packed with muscle and made for hunting. With death nearing, the creature finally settled on a color, and the dying creature’s fur had settled on a rustic brown color.
Mea repeated herself, trying to snap Azazel out of his daze. “Hey, what were those things?”
“Pets,” answered Azazel. “He calls them his pets, but they look… strange. They’re not even fully grown. They were just… newborns. Newborns, immature, untrained… underdeveloped. They must have sensed us. Three, Fo(ur)…” Remembering Daikon’s secret at the last second, Azazel caught himself before saying four, a half-second too late. Realizing that Mea hadn’t caught one, he said, “Three gods. There were three of us here. They must have sensed us.”
A sizzling sound brought Mea’s attention back to the creature. Sounding like cold bacon tossed in hot grease, the creature made cracking and popping noises as it died. Smoke came off like steam as the dead creature finally stopped moving. Still sizzling, it gradually started to glow, heating up into a sort of orange and amber colored kindling before fizzling out and leaving scorched earth and black ash wherever it happened to die.
The sizzling sound started echoing around them, and Mea and Azazel looked around and saw that the other dead creatures were doing the same thing.
“Damn,” Azazel said, kicking at the nearby pile of ashes. “I thought we had more time. They watched as the disturbed ashes crumbled and soaked into the ground like rain water. “Those are his pets, Vandriel’s pets. Damn, he’s… Vandriel, he’s another god.”
“Another god?”
“Yeah, the, ah… the first rebellion in Heaven, that was him, Vandriel. Since then he’s been responsible for a lot more death and destruction than all the other gods combined—or so I’ve heard.”
“So you’ve heard,” Mea echoed back. He should know, shouldn’t he? Why doesn’t he remember? “You don’t—“
“No. That’s the thing, I don’t. I don’t remember him at all. I mean, maybe Lilly knows something, but who knows where the hell she’s at. And I mean…” Well, you cut off her arm, he thought, and I betrayed her. So…
Azazel snorted and shook his head. “I just don’t see her being too eager to help us. As for Vandriel, with him, there’s just… rumors. Rumors, ghost stories, and his reputation—and all of them are horrible. All the stories about the devil, the rebellion in heaven, the… inherent nature of evil. They’re all about him—all of them. Vandriel, the Second that comes before the First, the First Shade of the First Fallen from Light. All the stories—the ones about some cruel, maleficent, evil god; the ones you always thought that they were about me—or Vincent (Blackwell), they weren’t. No, they were about him—all of them.” Most of them, he thought. “The stories, his function, they’re all there to serve the same purpose, to set the stage for two specific things: the advancement of the Cleansing and…
“And?”
“And the return of the First, the First of the First Seven.” Azazel stepped off to retrieve his axes. They were right where he last left them, stuck in the sidewalk and stuck in the hood of a metallic blue sedan. Previously skewed through the ambushing creatures, with both bodies gone, withered away where they died and sullying the ground with burn marks as they sizzled away, his axes were left sticking out like two half-hammered nails.
“Why…” Mea asked, following Azazel around as he went to pry loose his weaponry. “Why haven’t I ever heard of him? The books in Heaven, Elysium, there wasn’t anything about him in them. I hadn’t even heard the name until now.”
“The doctrine of Heaven—umpfh.” Azazel pried his axe loose from the concrete sidewalk, leaving a nice wedge in its place. “The doctrine of Heaven missing the less flattering parts of its history, who’d imagine such a thing?” Azazel examined the blade of his axe for nicks. Seeing one, he shook his head. “Who’d do such a thing?”
Azazel huffed again and slammed down his axe back into the sidewalk. Huffing, Azazel took a deep breath then pinched the bridge of his nose. Not sure which one it was, Azazel was frustrated or stressed. “Mea,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Since you’ve… Since you’ve taken the flesh and become a mortal, partly mortal, how often have you returned to Elysium? How many times do you remember visiting it, giving instructions to Heaven’s Host, giving them guidelines to follow? How many rules have you set for them?”
Mea could sense the tension in Azazel’s voice as he talked about Heaven, his home, and she almost regretted bring it up at all. But concerning his questions, she didn’t have any good answers. For the most part, she’d been an absentee landlord.
“It’s okay,” Azazel said, reassuring her. “I’m just saying that angels, fallen or otherwise, aren’t the most creative problem solvers. They’re not the most… they’re not the greatest independent thinkers: is what I’m trying to say. And our memory, the memories of the gods… it’s not like it’s that great to begin with. Either we sleep between Cleansings, waking up only to ravage the world before we go back into hibernation—and we get to remember, or we deal with the alternative—spend our life among the mortals and let our history fade into the dark oblivion of the past. As for the books in Elysium—I’m assuming you’re talking about the ones in the Mausoleum of Past Ages, well… let’s just say that the scribes of Heaven aren’t known for the thoroughness of their details, especially concerning their failures. And like the mortals like to say, history is written by the victors.”
Mea again grabbed Azazel’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. “Hey, we’re still here—right? And if he started the first rebellion in heaven and you were around to start the second one… then we must have beaten him back then, somehow. Right? We’ll do it again.”
Azazel forced a smile and nodded. Did we though, he wondered. Did we really defeat him and his rebellious angels? Or did he just leave? Getting what he came for, maybe Vandriel just left, no longer needing or caring about Heaven.
If we won, he thought, why were there so few angels in Heaven? From what he could recall—from when he was there last and from the stories he’d heard, Azazel estimated that there was nearly 200,000 angels, roughly, still in Heaven—500,000 max, and there were nearly 100,000 outcasts walking the earth (resulting from his rebellion)… and there was also close to seven-and-a-half billion people currently walking the Earth. The numbers don’t add up, he thought.
What about Vandriel? How many angels did he have? How many did he kill during his rebellion? How many did he take with him—and where are they? Instead of sharing any of his concerns, Azazel just said, “Yeah, we beat him before. We, ah… we can do it again.”
CH 15: Desert of the Ancients
Halfway across the world, near the cradle of life, where the desert came aliv
e and gave birth to and nurtured a nest of half-fertile land; the moon’s tour of duty was almost finished, and it was now sneaking behind a mountain range painted red by the early rising sun.
Unseen and beneath it all, and while drier and less-tainted than they were, the ancient rivers that once quenched the thirst of the first mortals still flowed. Carving through undisturbed bedrock, the rushing waters flushed beneath the Earth’s skin, like the pumping veins of a well-trained athlete, and invigorated the life-giving dirt of the well-storied region. Then it came alive. The desert and nearby fields stirred, reenergized by some sort of underground stimulant.
Beginning when the night was darkest, the normally calm ground started out with a few loose kernels of dirt whipping around. But with each passing minute, the ground became increasingly restless, whipping itself into a whirlpool of swirling dirt, rock, and errant sand. Unseen and shrouded in geographical anonymity, the moon and the stars of the night’s sky were the only ones to bear witness.
Yet, as the sun rose and scattered the dark night, the sand settled and the raging tumultuous dirt calmed itself once again, becoming as still as stone.
Then it wasn’t. Like they always seemed to do, a new disturbance came with the rising sun. Although, this one was much more common. A flurry of goats.
The herd of goats, to be exact, escaped ones, trotting around and over the fields without any organization whatsoever. Simple minded as they were, the goats bleated and scattered about, only stopping to feed on whatever clusters of amber grain they happened to come across.
A little later, an old pickup truck arrived, and three men emerged out of it. Dressed in homely robes that hung just above dated sneakers and ratty boots, the oldest man was no older than forty while the youngest was nothing more than a teenager.
“Father,” the teenager huffed. “Why are we chasing goats when there are more important things happening? We cannot stand idly by while other men fight our war.” The boy wasn’t even old enough to shave. His beard was nonexistent—nothing but soft, scattered patches of shaded peach fuzz. Yet he spoke of war.
His father sighed and pointed towards the rolling hills in front of them. “Rally the goats before you speak of war. And I might remind you that if you had properly planted the fence posts and secured the fencing, we wouldn’t be chasing goats in the first place—and then we’d have more time to speak of such nonsense.”
“Yes, Father,” the boy replied instinctively and jogged towards the hills, following the trail of hooved imprints and the third man who was a step ahead of both the father and son. But just as quickly as he started, the boy stopped and turned back to his father. “Nonsense? Our people fight for revolution, and for justice. And-and-and… we should be helping—Father, are you listening?”
He wasn’t. The boy’s father was focused elsewhere. “Malick!” he yelled, waving his hand at the third man. “Malick, go right, over the berm. The trails are scattered. The goats are still spreading out.”
Malick, about a hundred feet away, nodded, glaring back at the man with his narrow, beady eyes of disdain. Huffing discretely, all he said was: “Yes, Isaiah, as you wish. Right and over the berm… to rally your goats.” Then, under his breath, he muttered, “Then we drive them back to where Armand allowed them to escape in the first place.”
As Malick turned around, to go right and over the berm, Isaiah kept a suspicious eye on him then shook his head. My kindness will be the end of me, he thought. Malick, a drifter, most certainly had a dark disposition to him, and Isaiah wasn’t the first person to be suspicion of him. Malick’s face was weathered, scarred, and had more miles on it than his twenty-five years of life should have suggested. Appearing in town, just two weeks ago, Isaiah had been leery of the man from the start, but despite his instincts, his ethics were stronger, and Isiah granted him room and board… and a job.
While Isaiah was kind, he wasn’t a fool. He watched Malick with a keen eye, and aside from meals, he was forbidden to enter the house. At nights, the drifter slept in an old shed that was a good distance from Isaiah’s home, and away from his family. And Isaiah, he kept the doors locked and slept with one eye open and his gun closer than a half-arm’s reach away. Though Malick had not done anything yet, his distrustful and deceitful demeanor grew more obvious with each passing day. Isaiah sighed then followed his son and the drifter, just right and over the berm.
Isaiah’s son, Armand, continued with his plea as he made his own way up the hill. “Father, why aren’t you listening to me? We should be fighting. This country deserves something better. That is what the rebels are fighting for.”
Isaiah shook his head again. “This country deserves something better? Your family is what is important. Your mother, your sister, your brother; they should be what concerns you.”
“But, Father—“
“Son,” Isaiah said, this time with more authority. “Yes, there is a rebellion, a revolution. There is always a rebellion or a revolution. There is always someone who thinks they can do better… someone who desires power.” He sighed. “Son. Armand. Please remember. The man who sits on the throne makes an easy target for both scrutiny and challengers. And there will always be those that are energized by bullets and bold words, but the hearts and minds of men are not so easily changed, and change is not so easily quickened. Real change takes time, regardless of who is in power.”
Armand threw up his hands. “Well then, I’m sold. Seems like you already have my future figured out. I guess that I’ll just be a goat herder like you, for the rest of my life. No more problems.”
“Malick,” yelled Isaiah, again gesturing at the third man. “Quit playing with your pocketknife. Go, wrangle the goats.” To Armand, he said, “No, son, I would not have you be a goat herder, not at first, at least .The first thing I’d have you do is to fix the hole in the fence. Then we can decide if you’re fit to be a goat herder. Now go on and help Malick find the goats.”
Armand rolled his eyes at his father’s dismissiveness then did as he was told.
Isaiah snorted at his ambitious son and shook his head. Yelling out to Armand, he said, “Can’t be a goat herder without any goats.” Then he saw something in the dirt, near a half-bushel of weeds. Kicking aside the twigs and the top layer of dirt, he saw it clearer. It was a bone, half-buried and half-exposed. Newly bleached, it was stripped clean of any flesh. Next to it was a jagged rock, sharply peeking out of the dirt. No, not a rock, a horn, buried as well. Odd, he thought. Then he heard Malick.
“Hey,” said Malick. “Isaiah.” Picking his nails with his pocketknife, Malick jabbed his head to the side, gesturing for Isaiah to come up to where he was. He raised an eyebrow as he toed at something in the dirt. “Come up here. You should see this. Come up here… onto the berm.
Armand was already halfway up and jogged over to Malick, onto the berm, and he saw the same thing Malick did. A limp look came across his face. “Father, you have to see this. It’s…”
Malick smirked. “Yes, Isaiah. Come and see.”
Isaiah finally made it up, sliding between Malick and Armand, intentionally pulling his son closer to himself and further away from the suspicious Malick. Looking down, Isaiah saw his thirty, thirty-something goats. Well, he saw half of them. The goats were strangely calm but were bleating in perfectly timed beats and trotting around in a perfect circle. Outside of them was another circle, a circle of goat bones, death circling life.
Isaiah grabbed Armand’s chest and took a fistful of rough-spun wool from his son’s robe. While not being gentle nor overly aggressive, he jerked Armand away from the berm—back the way they’d come up. “Come, Armand, Malick. Leave the goats. There is a strangeness here that I do not like. Something is awakening, and I dare not wait around to discover the depths of its corruption. Armand, I said, ‘let’s go.’” He gave his son another shove.
Isaiah turned to leave but was yanked back by his stubborn son. “Father, look—look.”
Then as Isaiah turned back around, he saw that there
was one less circling sheep. Then he watched as the ground turned into a sheep-sized black hole and sucked down another. Then another. And another.
“Come boy. Let’s go.” This time he didn’t call for Malick who was spinning his knife like a dreidel with one hand while letting the tip of the blade drill into the fingertip of the index finger on his other hand. With glassy eyes, Malick darted a sideways look at Isaiah, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and he didn’t really seem to care about anything at all, let alone some disappearing goats.
Armand was hypnotized and frozen with fear and quickly fought against his father to stay. “Father.” His voice shook with fear.
Isaiah turned back again, this time he saw the dirt stir, open up into a checkerboard of holes. Each one spit out a stream of bleached bones that only added to the existing circle of bones. It’s evil, Isaiah thought, pure evil.
It reminded him of his time in the war—another rebellion, when he was his son’s age. Though he never spoke of it, Isaiah was quite the soldier, seeing more death and taking more life than he cared to remember but could never forget. But that wasn’t the worse. During one battle, Isaiah found himself with a bullet hole in his calf and hobbling through a wooded area, retreating through a gauntlet of branches and beneath a flock of bullets. Then he was swallowed by the earth, a sinkhole.
This, he never spoke of either. Trapped for three or four days—he estimated but never knew for certain, he was surrounded by nothing but darkness. Surviving on ground water and the bugs that crept through the dirt walls of his would-be coffin, he struggled to stay alive. Then his wound got infected, and Isaiah found himself fighting against his fever dreams—dark dreams.
Then through the sweats, fever, throbbing pain of his festering, wounded calf; the darkness came alive. The shadows whispered to him—horrible things and grotesque thoughts—as he waited to die and struggled to live. The shadows grew eyes, red ones, and pawed at him with long straps of lightless, boneless fingers that hung from the branches of darker shadows… for three days they whispered to him. Then the ground vomited him up, alive and well. Though he never spoke of this either, Isaiah would find out from his fellow soldiers that he hadn’t been gone for three or four days; he had been missing for three months and declared dead.
The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones) Page 29
