“What do we do with this?” Emma asked, motioning down at what was left.
“Nothing we can do with it, Em, except leave it.”
“We shouldn’t look for him, just for a bit?” Emma bit her bottom lip, wondering where he went.
Wondering why she wanted to know. “Maybe he needs…needs our help.”
“I know, Em, I want to help him, too.” Dad looked down and smiled at her, a sad smile. “But I think this is what he wanted.”
Dad led them through the house, quietly checking the other rooms for anything helpful. The only food they managed to wrangle were a few small packets of crackers, much to the dissatisfaction of Emma’s grumbling stomach. She wished she still had some of Brad’s jerky. But not Brad.
She did succeed in scavenging a couple old bottles of water, tucked away in a hidey-hole in one of the back rooms, and she washed down the stale crackers with a few sips.
As Dad propped the front door slightly open, peeking through the narrow slit, Emma’s foot brushed against Ithuriel’s armor. She fought the sudden urge to pick it up and carry it, like if she left it here she was somehow betraying him. The thought made her sad, so she avoided looking down again.
“Okay, Em,” Dad whispered, holding the door so she could slip out behind him. “Let’s go.”
Emma stood on the porch while her dad scouted around the edge of the front yard. He waved her forward and they started off west across an open field, the sun beaming over the trees behind them. They passed an open, fenced lot to the north, a long building with rusted, corrugated metal on one side.
Her stomach clenched as they left the narrow road behind and entered a copse of short, stunted trees and wild brush. She took a quick breath and exhaled, willing her nerves still. It took her a second to realize what was wrong.
It didn’t feel like they were on the run, trying to hide away. It was all she had known, really, all she could remember. Going from building to building, ducking under eaves, hiding in cramped spots, waiting for the daylight to come. All that time, burying her own fears deep down for her father’s sake. Always hungry, always wondering when that morning would come when she wouldn’t wake up. But this was different, she could feel it running through her, like a cool breeze.
She wasn’t afraid.
They clambered over a rock outcropping, Dad helping Emma over the last of it, and they stood on a paved road.
Her breath caught in her throat. Dad always led her away from the major roads. The freeway wasn’t safe, he’d told her.
They were on the freeway.
Cars lined the road, twisted wreckage stretching down the lanes as far as she could see. A slight layer of ash covered the ruined metal, eddies of powder caught in the breeze, the once-bright colors of the vehicles now dull and lifeless. Car doors hung open, their windows and windshields cracked and smashed. Fire had left behind scorch marks and charred metal, or blackened heaps that used to be seats and dashes. A section of the freeway had toppled, cars leaning out over the ledge.
Butterflies twirled in her stomach as she pictured people in car seats, or leaning out windows. Trying to escape as the spikes and towers of the Hellfont split the earth, and the war between demons and angels erupted. All the car horns, and the shouting, and the screaming, cars and trucks inching forward. Tires squealing as vehicles pushed and pushed against the massed lines that had nowhere to go.
She wondered how many had actually escaped from the rusted, crumpled vehicles stuck all over the freeway, jamming into each other. She didn’t imagine there had been very many.
And maybe the ones who didn’t were the lucky ones.
“Why the freeway?” she asked. It felt so weird, standing on forbidden ground.
“It’ll be a helluva lot faster than going cross-country for one,” Dad said. He looked down the highway, his thoughts lost to Emma as he stared at the destruction.
Emma waited for him to continue. “And?”
Dad blinked, then glanced back at Emma. “And, Em, I don’t figure whatever’s waiting for us at the end of this road will expect us to march right up and knock on their front door.”
He led the way, picking his way through. Emma clambered over the rusted ruins of cars, debris scattered and thrown all over. They skirted a large van that had been flipped over onto its top, and the outer lane cleared up enough for them to walk along the narrow shoulder.
It was oddly silent, only the sound of their footsteps on gravel. Emma may not have been afraid, but she couldn’t help the itch on her neck, the ominous feeling that they were being watched.
Dad stopped them to rest a few miles up, next to a tall sign that read “Exit 178”. The town name had been scraped clear and someone had painted a big red ‘X’ over it.
They stood beside a large tractor-trailer. The tires had been stripped, the cab’s metal frame leaning on the paved road. The bed of the truck lay in a pile of rubble where the truck had crashed through the concrete median.
Emma peeked through the cracked, dusty door window, her gaze scanning the other side of the road.
She saw a broken line of cars and trucks, and a row of buildings beyond the freeway, decrepit and faded.
A sign advertising cheap apartments sat propped up on one of the landings, riddled with jagged holes.
She looked up as a breeze swept over the highway, lifting pockets of ash that swirled over columns of abandoned vehicles. So many cars. They reminded her of dead bodies, left here to rot.
Nice image, Em, she thought. She closed her eyes and wished it away, but it wouldn’t go, images of that pit stuck in her head. All those bodies. So much red.
“Em, you ready to go?”
Emma opened her eyes and nodded. “Absolutely.”
▪▪▪
Lilith crossed the great divide that separated the Hellfont from the broken earth that surrounded it. The heat of the earthen crust warmed her legs, her hooves left smooth indentations in the dirt.
She had not walked the earth for some time, not as herself at least. It was strange, the warm, fetid air on her own skin, the cries of the pathetic human herd barraging her own ears. The taste of the charred, ashen air in her mouth as she breathed. So very strange.
But necessary.
She still couldn't see Emma in the darkness of her mind, couldn't feel the girl's roiling thoughts. Lilith reached out, but where the girl had been— her thriving heartbeat, her young voice—there was nothing. It was as if the link between them had been severed.
She had to find her daughter.
Lilith closed her eyes, feeling along the link to Below. She reached out, her claws digging into her palms in frustration. So long she had planned this. So long and so carefully, only for the strings to get cut at the last second. She needed to find a way, any way, to reach Emma and bring her to where she belonged.
She focused and the tendrils of her mind spread out, seeking the location where she'd last seen, last felt, Emma. Nothing there, no one to use, and Lilith nearly cried out. Her lips drew back in a snarl and then she felt a daemon, slight, barely moving. Just a twitch of muscle, the shallowest of breaths, but it was enough.
The daemon shivered as she entered its body, her mind streaming into the nearly vacant husk, making it her own. Her teeth clicked together as she breathed the foul air, a searing pain swarming over her. She could hear the trickle of the creature's failing lifeblood, feel the shudder of its chest as it strove to take in air, the rise and fall as it fought to live.
Lilith whispered a Word, faintly, and waited as the agony reached a crescendo, a fire that tore through her limbs, crackled and spit through her head. She waited until the Word soothed over her. Sinew popped, and the dark, viscous stream of blood that seeped down her flesh hissed as the wounds sealed themselves.
She opened her eyes and took a heaving lungful of air, coughing at the dust that coated her mouth. Blue sky stared down at her, the heavens mocking her place here in the mud and dirt.
Slowly she got to her feet, now full
y enmeshed in the stitched together body of the daemon. The Word faded, renewed strength surging through the daemon's limbs, and she took in her surroundings.
Destruction, all around her, a killing field. Her daemons littered the ground, congealing blood soaked into the dirt. One of the bodies was little more than a shrunken, dried up shell. Lilith stepped on it with a powerful hoof. The corpse cracked at the impact, shooting up a puff of dust as flecks of desiccated muscle flaked off.
She took another few steps to test her footing and paused as she noticed the still body of her brother.
Azazel lay on his back, his leathery wings broken underneath his weight, the Grigori's eyes frozen wide in shock. A trail of smoke drifted from the gaping hole in his ancient armor.
Azazel was dead. Dead. Lilith stood there for several seconds, uncomprehending, the word a numb reminder.
The hot anger that bubbled up surprised her, a mounting inferno of rage that thrashed inside her heart.
Azazel had been the closest to her, even in those dark days, when God's punishment had seemed to last an eternity. When faith and the other Grigori had fled, Azazel had remained.
A scream tore from her lips, a loud baying that carried past the trees. She reached up with long, dagger-like claws, and only just stopped herself from tearing into the Grigori's flesh. No, she told herself.
She lowered her trembling claws. No, find them. Find the angel.
She snarled and put her snout up in the air. The daemon still had Ithuriel's name in its senses, awash with the taste and feel of the Malakhi. She could follow their trail. And when she found him...
Lilith ran. She took off on a headlong sprint, following the angel's trail, full of blood and murder. She crashed through trees and brush, oblivious to the noise she made. It didn't matter how loud she was. Let him hear her, let him see her. Her hooves pounded into the dirt, and then clomped down the cracked, narrow street as she railed against her daughter’s smell.
She stopped at a small one-story brick house, her nostrils flaring. They had been here, inside. The door hung slightly ajar, the breeze pushing the door open, and then closed again.
Lilith burst through the door, the wood creaking as it slammed against the wall. The odor assaulted her senses, so strong, and she didn't understand why until she looked down. Her claws ran along the Malakhi's armor, tossed in a heap by the door. She could still smell them, Ren and Emma, even now, even masked by the stench of the angel.
The rest of the home was empty and abandoned, save for one room in the back of the house. She knew it as soon as she ducked through the doorway. She knew that they had stayed here. And she knew that this is where she had lost Emma, where she had gone blind to her.
She stood in the room now, staring at the charred remnants of a spearpoint dug into the floorboards.
The stench was nearly overpowering here, but it wasn't the refuse tucked against one wall. No, it was something else, something Lilith couldn't quite place. It smelled of Ithuriel, but different somehow, like a muted perversion of his angelic scent. And it centered on the spearpoint stuck in the floor.
Lilith knew instinctively not to touch it.
She hurriedly left the house and sniffed at the air. The trail branched here, the foul scent of Ithuriel breaking off to the south, while Emma’s jogged west and then north.
She smiled. They had taken the highway, and just made her trail that much easier. All that worry, wondering where the angel might take her, and in the end Emma was still going precisely where she was meant to.
“I will see you very soon, child.” Lilith bounded through the trees, her hooves tearing up wild grass as she raced north.
Emma was going home, and it would be very un-Mother-like to not meet her there with open arms.
▪▪▪
“Kevin!”
Kevin jerked awake, his sheets soaked in sweat.
“Easy, buddy.” Anderson stood over him, a firm hand on Kevin’s shoulder. He nodded, squeezing Kevin’s shoulder. “Just a dream, man, just a dream.”
Kevin’s heart thumped in his ears, and he lay back for several seconds, calming himself. The nightmare slipped away, leaving behind the faint echo of his daughter’s shriek. He closed his eyes, and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at Anderson. “Sorry. How long was I out?”
“A few hours, but that’s not why I woke you.”
“What is it?” Kevin rose to his feet, wishing right now for a change of clothes. But everything he had was back in Haven, so wrinkled, sweaty clothes would have to do. He stretched, his back popping.
“We got company.”
“Who?”
Anderson shrugged. “You better come with me.”
Kevin sighed. Anderson had to have been a masterful poker player in a past life. “Alright then, show the way, asshole.”
He followed Anderson downstairs, and through the makeshift kitchen, stopping to grab a piece of stale bread. Some of the other survivors were already awake, and a fire had been started in the fireplace. A banged-up metal teapot hung on a rail over the fire. A handful of ragged, tired-looking men and women sat in front of the fireplace, clutching cups.
Anderson clapped one of the men on the shoulder as he passed by, and Kevin nodded at the group as he tore a chunk of bread free.
“Sam get some sleep like I told her to?” Kevin asked, as Anderson led him through a large side room.
Had probably been the dining room, Kevin thought, a small opening on one wall revealing the kitchen on the other side.
Anderson glanced back at Kevin, a smirk on his face. “Why do you think I’m the one who woke you up?”
“Because Sam’s a good kid, and you were only ever good at annoying the shit outta me.” Probably not true, but then what were good friends, if not complete jerks to each other now and again? Anderson had a way of keeping Kevin level-headed, even at the worst of times.
Anderson was family even before he’d become a Blessed.
“You mind telling me what’s going on now?” Kevin asked over another mouthful of bread.
Anderson turned down a narrow hall, and he pulled open a thick oak door, reinforced by iron slats. He stood by the door and glanced inside, his eyes flitting up the winding stairs. “Last stop for me, Kev. I don’t get paid enough for this shit.” He turned back to Kevin, his expression serious. “Just be careful, okay? He’s psycho enough without you agitating him.”
“He?” A chill breeze passed through the opening, and Kevin felt his shoulders slump. Anderson’s reaction nearly confirmed his guess. Kevin didn’t want to voice who waited for him up top, for fear he was right.
On top of everything else, this was the last thing he, or the Haven survivors, needed.
“See you after, chief.” Anderson flashed Kevin a quick salute, and held the door open as Kevin ducked through the arched stone doorway.
Kevin resisted the urge to grab hold of the pendant at his neck as he made his way up the steps, his boots clomping on the thick stone. The interior of the tower was cool, but already he was starting to sweat. He was worried about Haven, about what Abaddon had done to the compound. Ithuriel’s dome was shattered, at the least, and the survivors could only repair so much. The angel would never step foot in that dome again.
He had three Blessed left to watch over the others. Not nearly enough, not for a compound the size of Haven, and who knew where Ithuriel was. He’d only meant for this to be a temporary stop, unsure what kind of condition this place would be in, but maybe the castle would work. There were lots of windows, and spots on the grounds they’d need to secure, but the walls of the castle were solid enough.
Two men stood by the staircase. They wore dark military armor, a camouflage pattern of blacks, blues and subdued grays weaving across the armored suits. Each of the men held an assault rifle, and Kevin had the impression, from the way they glanced in his direction and their easy, assured stances, that they were hardly novices.
Shit. This was exactly what Kevin had been afraid of.
The men stood aside as Kevin continued up the steps, his teeth grinding together. The pendant slid across his chest and he shoved his hand in his pocket.
Two more soldiers stood guard on the next level. He brushed past the closest soldier’s shoulder, wanting nothing more than to wipe the thin smile off the man’s face. This was his home, not theirs. Even if he’d only been here a few hours.
He took a deep breath, and sighed as the soldiers disappeared below him. His problem wasn’t with the soldiers, but who led them.
Kevin stopped at a closed door at the top of the stairs. He clenched his hands into fists, calming his thoughts. Stop stalling, Kev, he thought after a few seconds, and pushed the door open.
A soldier, standing on the far side of the battlement, looked at Kevin over his shoulder. He nodded and muttered something under his breath at the tall angel that looked out over the valley below, his back to Kevin. The angel’s wings flexed and then settled along his shoulder blades.
“Blessed.” The angel swung around to face Kevin, stiff and wooden, armored plates running up his neck to his square chin. His eyes blazed in the morning light. The angel peered down at Kevin, staring through him, like he had already failed the Malakhi’s judgment. “Greetings from the Freehold.”
Kevin’s stomach went sour, and he suddenly wished he hadn’t eaten that bread.
“Gabriel.”
▪▪▪
Ren stopped long enough to use part of Emma's shirt to cover her nose and mouth, tying it off behind her head. He did the same with his own shirt, hoping it would help keep most of the choking red dust out.
While they stood there, Ren tying off the knot at the base of his neck, a piercing shriek sounded. He couldn't tell how far off it was, the echo of the scream carrying over the highway, but it was close enough, he figured.
Ren snapped the loop tight, and nodded towards Emma, the edge of his shirt tugging at his cheeks.
"Let's move." He took her hand and they started jogging north again, the haze dropping over them like a dense fog. Ashen flakes fell, dancing in the breeze, turning the highway graveyard into a perverted winter wonderland.
Ash & Flame: Season One Page 20
