by Drew Foote
Gabriele frowned slightly. “Harlot,” she sneered.
The firmament exploded in a burst of magma and sound. A howling head surged upward into the waiting sky. It was a heinous thing of the apocalypse: the head of a lion, cataclysmically large, atop a writhing, serpentine neck. Curved teeth filled its mouth, lava poured from its raging gullet, and a crown of jagged horns rose from its mane.
It was the face of the Beast, and it was but one of many.
Six more heads, roaring with a sound to crack the world, tore into the air from the shattered ground. They roiled in the air like a massive hydra that brayed animal hatred. A leg burst from the earth in an eruption of steam. Wicked claws, each larger than a Doombringer, gripped the plains. A second leg burst free and the monster dragged its unholy bulk from the protesting dirt.
The Beast of Revelation, the animal heart of humankind, pulled itself from the natal depths. It dominated the battlefield like a rampart of infernal belligerence, the harbinger of the end days. It was taller than Apollyon, even, at its scaled haunches. The rough Beast’s hour had come at last.
The Beast was born, and it did not slouch.
Atop its mountainous back sat Babylonia the Great, the Mother of Harlots. An ambassador no longer, she was now a Queen, terrible and mighty. Obsidian armor encased her slender shape, but her beautiful face was uncovered. Infernal power spilled from her tiny form in dizzying waves. Her cruel eyes burned balefully and her hair writhed like the Beast’s seven heads. In one hand she held a chalice filled with the concentrated sins of humanity. In the other was the searing whip with which to scourge her foes.
She and the Beast were one, the awful nature of humanity given shape. Unleashed. The Earth belonged to them, and they were not about to see it fed to the Void. They would fight for humanity.
The seven heads of the Beast rose high into the sky and screamed as one in defiance. The bones of the planet reverberated with its wrath as fault lines erupted. The humans across the world that still survived, less than half now, felt a dark part within themselves know hope and anticipation.
There was their champion, their ferocious soul bared in the face of scornful divinities.
The heads of the Beast lowered and peered at the miniscule army of Heaven. Heat poured from mouths large enough to devour armies. The Beast and Babylonia snarled hungrily, and they moved toward the Heavenly Host with the sound of an earthquake.
The Army of Hell charged.
The battle joined.
~
The lines of Heaven and Hell collided in a metallic thunderstorm. The center of Hell’s forces was comprised of gigantic Doombringers, clad in tremendous armor and armed with wicked, spiked gauntlets. They met Heaven’s equally massive siege line of Word-Bearers with a colossal impact.
The two lines of titans laid into each other with bone-crunching force. Massive marble fists pulped Doombringers who, in turn, shattered the constructs into dust. The Doombringers roared like enraged bulls, and the statuesque Word-Bearers were silent as they went about their grisly work. The ground heaved with the concussion of tremendous blows.
The flanks of the armies were composed of the regulars, the Powers and the Ravagers. They battled with reckless abandon, howling as the line wavered back and forth. The shining shield wall of the Powers held firm against the blistering assault of the Ravager’s brutal weapons. The Demons pressed forward but the stalwart Angels repeatedly repulsed them.
Archangel Gabriele hovered in the air to the rear of the Host. Her perfect mind calmly analyzed the battlefield as equations and probabilities roared through her thoughts. The din of the battlefield did not disrupt her concentration, and the severity of the situation did not trouble her. Each moment was an eternity of calculation.
She saw Apollyon and the Beast thundering toward the center of Heaven’s line. It could not withstand them. She observed the flanks of the Heavenly army hold firm in the face of the brutal onslaught. She saw the rear formation of Hell’s Banshees rain pestilent death from afar, their burning screams plummeting from the sky like artillery fire.
Gabriele decided. There was but one logical choice.
With a thought, she sent her command to the waiting regiments of Judges, Champions, and Avenging Angels. Heaven’s elite obeyed her directive. They rose on radiant wings, their souls brave and their weapons thirsting.
Gabriele ascended higher into the sky, shining like a prismatic star.
Die.
With a petrifying battle cry, Gabriele launched herself downward with blinding speed. She fell upon the flank of Hell’s army closest to the Beast like a guillotine. Nearby Demons disintegrated at the shockwave of her divine impact, blasted into snowy ash. Her celestial might tore a gaping hole in Hell’s line.
Archangel Gabriele waded into the wavering flank of the Inferno’s army like a dynamo, obliterating all that stood before her. Demons howled and leapt toward her, but she swung the Hammer of God with horrifying force. She tore into them like a grain thresher, hurling Ravagers through the air like boneless puppets. She was a pinpoint of obliteration.
They could not stop Gabriele. She was the Strength of God.
The legion of fierce Avenging Angels, Kalyndriel’s brethren, descended onto the battlefield and followed Gabriele joyously into the breach. Their shining lances lashed out at the Demons, tearing them apart with searing radiance. The shield line of Powers surged behind them, driving deep into Hell’s flank on the heels of the Archangel’s rampage.
The Angels roared with determination. Demons fell by the scores. The flank belonged to Gabriele.
To the rear of the battlefield, Angelic Judges fell from the sky upon the artillery line of Banshees with a howl of thunderous reckoning. They laid into the fragile, decayed creatures with their massive gavels, spattering their wicked essence with vicious blows. The airborne assault ripped through the Banshees like chaff, and the deadly barrage of the Demonic screams slowed, and then ceased.
Angelic Champions descended toward Apollyon’s massive, burning form, assaulting him like heavily armored hornets. Apollyon was not troubled, however. The Destroyer’s massive sword sliced through the air with perfect precision, cleaving the feeble Angels effortlessly. His black soul flared higher and higher in pulsing waves of annihilation.
Those that approached too closely, like moths to the flame, collapsed lifeless from the overpowering aura of death that surrounded Apollyon.
The Champions’ cause was futile, and both they and Gabriele knew it. They were no match for the Reaper of the World: they merely needed to buy time for the centerline until Gabriele could deal with Apollyon herself. They met their end with glad hearts as the black edge of Terminus extinguished them.
Gabriele felt the ground behind her tremble in the midst of her relentless assault. She did not turn, not yet, as she felt seismic impacts approach. Her eyes narrowed and the battle slowed in her glacial thoughts.
She felt the air wail and part, vibrating through her six frozen wings. Death sped toward her, but she waited patiently. She lowered Malleus Dei to her side.
One of the Beast’s seven heads snaked toward the tiny Archangel, its maw unhinged, dripping the liquid fire of Gehenna. Closer and closer it came, tearing through the empty space as swiftly as a striking viper. Babylonia, high atop its back, sneered triumphantly. The Archangel felt the Beast’s hot, rancid breath caress her back as the moments of time stretched and distorted, bound to her colossal will.
Gabriele began to move, ripping through the expectant instants with godlike power. She whirled, shining wings flaring and arcing before the Beast’s surprised face, as the Hammer of God careened toward the massive leonine head.
Malleus Dei struck the monstrous Demon’s skull with the force of a divine sledgehammer. It blasted the Beast’s head sideways in an eruption of gore. The ruined wreck of its crowned head writhed atop its serpentine neck, face destroyed.
The Beast leapt backward, its other heads screaming in outrage.
Babylonia grim
aced as she fought to restrain the Beast, which was lost in the throes of agony. It swayed and staggered upon the battlefield, massive claws crushing Angels and Demons alike. Six heads brayed a tormented roar, and the seventh head hung limp and dead, dragging along the ground. The Beast lashed out with mindless furor, limping backward and ravaging everything nearby.
Gabriele looked at the wounded Beast with cool satisfaction. She signaled the Judges, and they descended upon the monster’s flanks like insects swarming an enormous animal, driving it even further into frenzy. The Archangel gazed toward Apollyon, towering over the field, and his black eyes met hers.
She nodded grimly. The Destroyer strode inevitably toward her.
~
The battlefield was a din of metal and screams, a chorus of madness. Angelic and Demonic corpses filled the bloody mud, crushed underfoot by their furious brethren. Blood spilled onto the battlefield in a bitter flood. It was chaos.
The Demonic flank seized by Gabriele was in disarray, overrun by Avenging Angels that pressed deeper into the infernal lines. The massive centerline of Doombringers and Word-Bearers continued to fight furiously for every inch, the titanic creatures laying waste in equal measure. On every segment of the wavering front, Demons and Angels murdered one another with howling abandon.
The Beast continued to reel in anguish, beset by radiant Judges that scored its flanks with heavenly gavels. They plunged from the leaden sky like predatory birds, driving the fell creature into a murderous rage.
Babylonia sought to calm the Beast, and she lashed out with her burning whip. She tore the assaulting Judges into molten husks that cascaded like foundry sparks. Apollyon stormed toward Gabriele, who awaited his approach while floating serenely over the bedlam of the battlefield.
The earth roared once again. The ground began to shake even more violently than when the Beast emerged. Angels and Demons, alike, fell to their knees atop the treacherous soil. No one could move atop the heaving battlefield. The war came to a sudden stop.
A small smile graced Gabriele’s features. All was as she intended. She rose higher into the air.
“Host!” she cried, her voice ringing over the plains of Megiddo. “The Worm comes! Leviathan is redeemed, and he fights for God’s glory! Deus vult!”
The Host of Angels looked to one another uncertainly.
This was not certainly in the script.
A tremendous concussion of soil answered their confusion as the earth vomited a monstrosity unseen for millennia. Hell released one of its most diabolical children: the Devouring Worm.
Leviathan surged from the depths. He breached the battlefield like a necrotic whale, his impossible length unraveling from the fallow soil like a deranged magician’s trick. The incarnation of gluttony was unleashed upon the world, and he brought his appetite with him.
Leviathan’s monstrous mouth opened wide, large enough to swallow even the Beast in one terrible bite. The mountainous ring of teeth quivered madly as he slithered into the midst of the hellish army, devouring scores of Demons like a feeding grouper. They disappeared into the burning gullet with screams of agony.
Both Demons and Angels looked on with horror.
The Beast, startled from its frenzy by the appearance of the Worm, now glared at Leviathan with six sets of burning eyes. Furious growls emerged from its ravenous mouths, the hiss of a challenged predator. Babylonia held on tightly as the Beast tore toward the gigantic Worm like an enormous, hunting cat.
The Angels, somewhat reluctantly, began to heave once more against Hell’s battered line.
The Worm drove his way into the heart of Hell’s forces, scattering and devouring the Demons. Demons fled the event horizon of Leviathan’s mouth; they could not stop resist the Worm. They began to panic as the Fist of the Inferno threatened to disintegrate into a rout.
The Worm slithered onward, driving everything before him, but one Demon did not flee.
One Demon stood stoically as the beckoning cavern of the Worm’s gluttony closed toward him. He knew fear, but he did not know retreat. Paimon the Cruel shed his black cowl, his prismatic skin glowing, and he stared calmly at Leviathan’s approach.
Chapter 36
The Wages of Sin
“You’re coming with us?”
I looked at Makariel hopefully. The Bloody Wind was undoubtedly a monster; but as long as he was our monster, we had a chance.
“I am.”
The tall Demon stared haughtily at me down the length of his two muzzles, and smiled. He turned to Kaly, who now shone like a beacon in the heart of the blasted park. He eyed her white armor appraisingly.
“We all have our parts to play and you, little firefly, have quite the task ahead of you,” Makariel chuckled ominously. “It falls to you to deal with Uriel. Not even I can withstand his fire — but perhaps you can.”
Makariel’s grin widened.
Kalyndriel calmly returned his stare. She nodded with conviction, light bleeding from her eyes and the joints of her armor. She was a blinding vision.
I smiled slightly; I actually believed she could do it. She was made to set things right, to deliver justice to the wicked. Now that her head was out of her ass, she might just be able to defeat Uriel.
“Leave the Archangel to me,” she whispered. “I will grant him the release he desires.” Her wings hissed like live wires.
“Good,” Makariel answered gruffly. “So, here is the plan:”
“Apollyon reports that Beelzebub and a small army of possessed Angels and Demons are guarding Earth’s entrance to Limbo. The Void creature is inside Limbo. Kalyndriel and I deal with Beelzebub and the possessed, and she destroys Uriel when he appears. Barnabas protects Walter, and Walter gets his ass into Limbo to deal with the Empty One. Any questions?”
We stared in blank silence. Even Kaly looked taken aback. It was quite a lot to take in.
“Hmm, yes. Quite a few, actually,” I admitted.
Makariel sighed in exasperation, shaking his heads. “Hurry up, then.”
“How does Apollyon know all this?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” I acknowledged sourly. “What’s this about ‘possessed’ Angels and Demons? That sounds rather foreboding.”
“That’s a better question,” Makariel answered, and he focused on Kaly. “Any Angel or Demon who comes near the Empty One gets, for lack of a better term, possessed. It devours their soul, leaving behind a hollow shell: a shell that serves its will.”
He grinned, licking his lips, and pointed at the Angel. “You’ve even seen one yourself, firefly: that Ravager you dispatched earlier. Apollyon sent it to investigate matters, and the Empty One claimed it.”
Realization dawned on Kaly’s smooth features. She nodded grimly, remembering the berserk Ravager she encountered in the abandoned building. It had certainly acted possessed, behaving like no Demon she had ever seen; now she knew why.
“And that is why I could not sense its Demonic soul,” she reasoned aloud, troubled. “It was taken by the Void.”
Makariel nodded in confirmation.
I was troubled, as well. Now we had to fight an army of zombie Angels and Demons, as well as an Archangel and a Director? That hardly seemed fair. I felt my earlier confidence quickly erode in the face of such absurdity.
“That’s just wonderful,” I declared glumly.
Walter stepped forward uncertainly, fidgeting with his wrinkled hands. “And that’s why I have to deal with the Empty One? Because none of you can?”
Makariel shrugged. “Pretty much.”
Walter sighed. “And does Apollyon have an idea how I’m supposed to do that?”
“None,” Makariel answered. He sounded delighted.
The jackal laughed uproariously at the hopelessness of the situation. The ugly noise echoed in stereo from two throats. Walter’s face sank.
Kaly stepped forward and gently touched his arm, her luminescence dimming slightly. “You will find a way, Walte
r,” she said softly, quietly lending him her strength. “You have come this far, and you will not fail. Paimon has prepared you for this. Trust in yourself, as we trust in you.”
Walter looked down and exhaled a shuddering breath. He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with a hand discolored by liver spots. I could see the weight of the world, the weight of the cosmos, on his frail shoulders. I held my tongue and hoped the Angel was right.
“All right, then,” Walter murmured.
“One more thing,” I said in the ensuing silence. All turned to me. “You said something about me protecting Walter, here. Just how am I supposed to do that, exactly?”
I looked down at my empty hands, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Makariel laughed once more, and this time it was venomous. “I was waiting for you to ask that, my foppish little friend,” he sneered. “You’ll probably need this.”
The Bloody Wind extended a clawed hand toward me, and a sword appeared within its grasp. It was black and wickedly curved, much like Makariel’s own swords. It was an ugly thing, an instrument crafted to butcher, and there was no grace within it.
He offered the blade to me.
I grasped the ebony weapon gingerly and took it from Makariel. It seemed heavy with unspeakable promises, and a shudder coursed through me. That was not what I had in mind.
“This is a magical sword, of course?” I asked hopefully.
“Not even a little.”
I held the massive blade limply, looking down at its curved length with dismay. It felt as though I held a coiled viper in my hands, the herald of my own demise. Weren’t weapons supposed to make one feel powerful, invulnerable? Was it totally unreasonable to hope that someone had a magical sword for me to wield?
Kalyndriel now placed her hand on my trembling arm. I spun to face her angrily, a vicious remark rising in my throat.
How dare she try to pacify me with her damnable optimism?
The retort died on my lips. I saw the boundless warmth in her shining eyes. I witnessed her strength in the set of her jaw, the might that buoyed her shoulders. I realized that Kalyndriel truly believed we would succeed: that we would save the world. These were not platitudes or pep talks.
