“Good dog,” Aaron said, patting his head and opening the door to allow the animal to confront his prey.
They were waiting, sitting around a circular table. Lehash and Lorelei smiled as Scholar scowled.
“There’s our mighty bloodhound,” the gunslinger said, reaching out to give the dog a pet.
Gabriel licked his hand. “I’m not a bloodhound. I’m a Labrador retriever, and I found you very easily because of your stink.”
The constable jokingly sniffed beneath his arms. “Didn’t think I was that ripe, but maybe I was mistaken.”
“I’m not impressed,” Scholar said, adjusting the cuffs on his starched white shirt. “Sure, he was able to find us in here, but I’m curious to see his level of success when taking on the whole world.”
Gabriel walked around the table until he was standing in front of Scholar. He sat down at the fallen angel’s feet, never taking his eyes from him. “We’ll never know until we try, will we?” the dog said, his voice filled with far more insight than Aaron would have imagined.
“He’s right,” Lorelei said, trying to hide her amusement. “We’ve gotta at least let him try. What can it hurt?”
The scroll had been returned to its protective canister and Scholar tentatively reached for it. “I feel just as strongly about the presence of animals in my place of work as I do about cigar smoke.”
Lehash rolled his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “Just let the dog sniff the damn scroll.”
Scholar carefully slid the piece of parchment out of the tube and into his hand. Gabriel’s head craned toward it, sniffing the air, and Scholar recoiled, pulling the scroll away.
“That’s close enough,” he snapped.
“No, it isn’t,” Gabriel told him.
Aaron stepped forward, holding his hand out to Scholar. “Give it to me,” he said firmly.
Scholar started to object, but Lehash shifted in his chair, his steely gaze intense. “You heard the boy,” he drawled menacingly.
As if it was the hardest thing he ever had to do, Scholar placed the rolled parchment in the center of Aaron’s hand. The Nephilim knelt down beside the dog and began to unroll the scroll.
“That’s much better,” Gabriel said as Aaron placed it beneath his wet, pinkish nose. “It smells very old.”
Aaron could feel Scholar’s tension behind him as a bead of moisture began to form beneath one of Gabriel’s nostrils, threatening to drip onto the priceless document.
“Easy there, Scholar,” Lehash warned, “or you just might piss yerself.”
“I’m done,” the dog said, and Aaron moved the scroll away just as the glob of moisture rolled from Gabriel’s nose and dripped harmlessly to the floor.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Lorelei chided as Aaron handed the parchment back to Scholar.
The angel said nothing, quickly rolling the scroll up tightly and placing it back inside its protective container.
“Well?” Aaron asked for them all as he turned to Gabriel. The anticipation level in the room was extremely high. Much was riding on the dog, and Aaron wasn’t quite sure how he would handle the situation should Gabriel fail. What would happen to Vilma then? He didn’t want to think about that. Instead he focused on the Lab.
The dog ignored his question, getting up from where he sat and walking around the room in a circle, head bent back and sniffing the air.
“The anticipation is freaking killin’ me, dog,” Lehash growled, but Gabriel didn’t pay him the least bit of attention as he continued to wander about the room.
Suddenly the dog let out an enormous sneeze, paused, and then sneezed again. “I have it,” he said, his voice flat, and Aaron was about to get excited when he noticed that the hackles had risen on the back of his friend’s neck.
“What is it, Gabriel?” he questioned, kneeling beside the dog. “What’s wrong?”
“I know where the Malakim is.” The dog looked nervously about the room, his ears flat against his head. “And it is someplace very strange.”
Katspiel did not know how much longer he had.
The magick had given him the information he so desperately sought, but now it demanded payment, and he no longer had the strength to hold it at bay. The forbidden was in him, moving about freely, completely unhindered, partaking of flesh and blood, bone and spirit—all that defined him.
He was an Archon, an angel endowed with the facility to wield the mystical arts of Heaven. Not all were seen fit to wear this mantle, only a few selected by the mighty Malakim. Katspiel was one such being, and over time he learned the protean nature of the power he would attempt to tame.
It was killing him now, but he was left with little choice. It was either die as the conjuring nibbled away at his life force, or be brutally killed by the displeased rage of Verchiel. Either way, Katspiel knew it was only a matter of time now before his life came to an end.
The Archon rose unsteadily to his feet upon the church altar, swaying in the darkness that had become his world since the magicks he sought to sunder, bound to the fallen angel Lucifer by the hand of God, lashed out and took away his eyes. He and his brethren should have stopped then, heeding the Creator’s warning, stepping away from Verchiel’s mad plan. But they had come to call the Powers leader “master,” their existences inexorably intertwined, their fates becoming as one.
The location of the last Malakim burned in his mind, and Katspiel summoned his wings before it was too late. Enshrouding himself within their feathered embrace, he went to his master, all the while trying to imagine what the world would be like after the Word of God was undone and Lucifer’s punishment was set loose upon the land. And as his wings opened in the school and he sensed that he was in the presence of Verchiel and the first of the fallen, Archon Katspiel realized that he was glad he would not be alive to experience it.
“Master Verchiel,” he announced, hearing the sounds of an angelic being in the grip of torment, and the low, rumbling laugh of his master. “The last of the Malakim has been found,” he managed, and slumped to the floor, the muscles beneath his decrepit flesh no longer capable of sustaining his weight.
“You have served me well, Katspiel,” Verchiel said, an eerie calm in his voice, perfectly at ease with the horror his command would soon unleash. “And your loyalty shall be remembered long after the punishment is meted and order is restored to the heavens above and the earth below.”
Oh yes, Katspiel was certain that the commander of the Powers was correct in that. He and his brothers would indeed be remembered for what they had done.
Remembered in infamy.
It nearly killed him to see her this way.
Aaron carefully sat down on the mattress beside Vilma. She had kicked away the light covers they had provided for her, writhing and moaning as if caught in the grip of a bad dream. Her breathing was shallow, and the golden manacles covering her wrists sparked and hummed as the power inside her tested the limits of angel magick. She had become more restless since Gabriel had gone, but his canine friend was needed elsewhere if they were going to help her.
The girl let out a pathetic cry and thrashed her head upon the pillow. A single tear broke loose from the corner of one tightly closed eye and trailed down the side of her face. He felt a hitch of emotion become trapped painfully in his chest and reached out to take hold of one of her hands. It felt warm and dry in his, and Aaron tried with all his might to infuse some of his own strength into her.
“Hey,” he whispered, not wanting to startle or scare her. “Just wanted to stop by and see you before I leave. But I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
He wasn’t sure if she was even able to hear him, but it didn’t matter. He needed to talk to her, needed to show himself why he was doing what he was about to do. If there was any doubt, he didn’t recall it now.
“We’re going to look for an angel—a Malakim, they’re called—and I think he might be able to help you.”
Vilma seemed a little calmer, and he lik
ed to think that maybe it was because of his presence. Aaron knew it wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t help feeling a certain amount of guilt. This wasn’t what a beautiful, eighteen-year-old woman’s life was supposed to be like. She should have been thinking about finals, graduation, and the prom, not about whether an angelic force from Heaven living inside her was going to cause her to go insane.
He rubbed his thumb gently across the back of her hand. “So I need you to hang on for me, to be strong, ‘cause there’s still a lot of things we need to talk about once you get better.”
Vilma’s life had been turned upside-down by her association with him. He felt like a kind of super virus, infecting anybody that got too close. The casualty rate of the Aaron Corbet disease is pretty high, he realized, thinking about all those who had died just for being part of his life: his foster parents, his psychologist, Stevie, Zeke, Camael, and Belphegor. Squeezing her hand tighter, Aaron decided that he wasn’t going to let Vilma become part of that depressing statistic. He would rather die himself than have anything else bad happen to her.
Aaron released her hand, letting it gently fall to her side. He had to leave; the others would be waiting for him. He leaned forward, placing a tender kiss upon her forehead. “I’m so sorry for this,” he whispered. “And I’m going to do everything that I can to make it up to you.”
She offered no response and that was fine with him. Vilma seemed to be resting peacefully at the moment, and he took that as a sign for him to take his leave. Quietly he stood, his eyes never leaving her sleeping form, and backed away. He turned and just about jumped out of his skin when he saw that Lorelei was standing at the foot of stairs, her plastic makeup case, filled with angelic remedies, in hand. He hadn’t heard her come down, and he put his hand against his chest to show that she nearly gave him a heart attack.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to wake her.”
Aaron looked back to the girl upon the mattress. “That’s okay. She’s sleeping pretty well now.” He continued to stare at her, his heart aching.
“I don’t want to state the obvious, Aaron,” Lorelei said, “but you do know that this isn’t your fault, right?”
He didn’t answer, not fully believing that what she said was true.
“What’s happening to Vilma would have occurred whether you were in the picture not.” She reached out and laid a supportive hand on his shoulder. “She’s a Nephilim, Aaron, and you didn’t make her that, no matter how guilty you feel.”
He thought about all that Vilma had been through. “Verchiel used her to get at me. I should have—”
“Verchiel just made an already complicated situation a little more complicated,” Lorelei interrupted. “No matter how rotten you think you are, Vilma’s better off having you in her life than not. We all are.”
He took his eyes from Vilma and looked at the Nephilim with the snow-white hair whom he had learned to trust as a friend and confidant. “Do you really think so?” he asked, the weight of his responsibilities feeling perhaps the tiniest bit more manageable.
She laughed softly and smiled at him. “I’m Lehash’s daughter, for Pete’s sake. I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”
He took it for what it was worth, and at that moment its value was quite high. “Thanks,” Aaron said, turning back to Vilma for one final glance. “Take good care of her until I get back, would ya?” he asked Lorelei as he started up the stairs.
“You just worry about finding the Malakim and getting what we need,” Lorelei responded. “Right now Vilma should be the least of your worries.”
And she was right, Aaron knew as he walked down the hallway and out the front door. They were waiting for him on the front walk, Gabriel wagging his tail as the boy pulled the door closed behind him and stepped off the porch.
“Ready?” Aaron asked, a nervous sensation forming in the pit of his stomach.
“I was ready about fifteen minutes ago,” Lehash grumbled, finishing up the last of a cigar. “Now I’m just plum chompin’ at the bit.”
“What’s ‘chompin’ at the bit’?” Gabriel asked the angel.
“Ants in my pants,” he responded, flicking the smoldering remains of his cigar to the street.
“You don’t really have ants in your pants, do you?” the dog asked, confused by this new expression. “If you do, you should get them out before they bite you.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Lehash snarled, not having the patience to explain to the animal any further.
Aaron decided that it was time and called upon the power that was his birthright. Flexing the muscles in his back, he eased his wings from beneath the flesh and opened them to their full, impressive span.
“Group hug,” he said, surprised at his own attempt at levity. “Let’s do this.”
The gunslinging angel and dog huddled closer. And he took them within his wings’ ebony embrace, departing Aerie on a mission most dire, the fate of the woman he loved hanging in the balance.
CHAPTER TEN
“Hard day at the office?” Taylor asked.
Lucifer found himself back within his psyche. It was good to be away from the physical pain, even though he was beginning to feel an uncomfortable sensation in his chest. He wondered how long it would be before the pain found him, even this deep within the psychic landscape of his own fabrication.
They were sitting at a small kitchen table, very much like the one at which they had shared many a pleasant meal. And as in the past, this Taylor, this creation of Lucifer’s fevered mind, had made a nice candlelit dinner.
The first of the fallen shuddered as the light of the twin candles illuminated a large door floating in the darkness around them. He studied the thick steel monstrosity created by his psyche to keep at bay the horrors of what he had done in Heaven. Has it lost more of its padlocks and chains? he worried.
He was sure it had.
“What, you’re not going to answer my question?” Taylor asked as she picked up her napkin and placed it on her lap.
“I think Verchiel is succeeding,” Lucifer said, eyeing the door. He could have sworn he heard movement on the other side. “He’s found a way to undo the Word of God.”
Taylor cut into her meal as she spoke: steak with mushrooms and thick, brown sauce. He loved mushrooms. “We can’t allow him to do that.” She primly placed a large piece of meat into her beautiful mouth, and he watched her chew as he considered his response. She was thin—dainty, really—but the girl could eat, and enjoyed doing so without the slightest hint of concern, he remembered fondly.
“No, we can’t. But I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold out.” He knew the meal was only a fabrication of his thoughts, but it looked fabulous, and he dug in hungrily. “It’s only a matter of time before he has everything he needs to set it free,” he said, hearing another padlock fall.
Two glasses of red wine appeared on the table, and Lucifer watched Taylor pick hers up in a delicate hand and take a small sip. “Not that that isn’t enough,” she said, setting down her glass. “But is anything else bothering you?”
Something on the other side of the door pounded three times, and another lock clacked open to dangle uselessly from the end of a link of chain. “He told me that I sired a child. I have a son.”
Taylor didn’t respond; she simply cut another piece of meat. How could anything he said to her be a surprise? After all, she was a creation of his imagination.
“How did I not know this?” he asked, pushing his plate away, his appetite suddenly gone.
“Remember, there was time when you no longer wanted to be the Morningstar, when you attempted to abandon your true nature,” Taylor responded as she picked up the napkin in her lap and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She had cleaned her plate.
“It was when I was with you,” Lucifer said. The door suddenly trembled, and he felt the vibrations of the assault as something hurled its weight against it.
Taylor smiled at him and nodded. “And you almost d
id forget,” she said, crossing her long legs and letting the simple sandal she wore dangle from her foot. “We were happy—at least, I thought we were.”
Lucifer felt a pain blossom in his chest and almost mistook it for God’s Word coming undone, until he realized that it was the agony of his heart breaking yet again with the memory of leaving her. “I started to have dreams—about what I had done, the lives that were lost because of me—and I feared for your safety.”
He stood and moved around the table toward her. She rose to meet him and they gently embraced. “It was never my intention to hurt you,” Lucifer said, holding her tightly. “But I was insane to think that I could ever experience happiness after what I’d done,” he whispered. “My penance wasn’t finished, so I had to leave, for your sake as well as mine.”
The door shook upon its hinges and more locks fell as Taylor looked up into his eyes. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you? Our child.”
Lucifer remembered the vision he’d had soon after being captured by Verchiel and becoming aware of the Nephilim prophecy. It was the image of a young man, a big yellow dog faithfully at his side. “Yes,” he answered dreamily. “I think I have.”
“His name is Aaron,” Taylor said, laying her head against his chest. “It means exalted—on high.”
Lucifer smiled and kissed her gently on the top of her head.
And the door vibrated threateningly as the punishment of God raged upon the other side.
Aaron had always believed that he shared a special, almost psychic bond with Gabriel, and that had only been intensified after the emerging power of the Nephilim saved the dog’s life. The boy was testing this theory as they traveled through the void between an angel’s place of departure and its final destination. The two had already shared dreams, so Aaron figured sharing thoughts in the waking world wasn’t all that farfetched.
As they left Aerie, he had asked the dog to think about what he had seen while sniffing the ancient scroll and to direct those thoughts to him. It was an overwhelming experience. Aaron’s mind was bombarded with Gabriel’s thoughts. At first they were simple, dealing with base needs like food, shelter, warmth, and companionship. But then they became more complex: recollections of places, events, important moments in the Labrador’s life. Aaron had never imagined how much a game of fetch at the park had meant to the dog, or having his stomach rubbed, or that piece of steak in the doggy bag from a fancy restaurant.
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