“Have you seen my ball?” Gabriel asked in a voice filled with surprising intelligence.
And Aaron came to the frightening realization that he may not have been the only one to change.
Too late, the angel Camael thought, perched like a gargoyle at the edge of the building. He sadly gazed down at a restaurant consumed in flames. Too late to save another.
Thick gray smoke billowed from the broken front windows of Eddy’s Breakfast and Lunch; tongues of orange flame, like things alive, reached out from the heart of the conflagration, hoping to ensnare something, anything to fuel its ravenous hunger.
From his roost across the street, Camael watched as firefighters aimed their hoses and tried to suffocate the inferno with water before it had a chance to spread to neighboring structures. They would need to be persistent, the angel thought, for it was a most unnatural fire they battled this morn.
He had planned to make contact with the girl this very morning, to guide her through the change her body was undergoing, and warn her of the dangers it presented—dangers that came far sooner than even he had imagined.
Camael had been watching the girl— What was her name? Susan.
He had been observing Susan since he first caught scent of her imminent transformation. It was so much harder to track them these days; the world was a much larger and more complex place than it had been in the beginning. The enemy used trackers, human hounds, but he could not bear to use the oft-pathetic creatures in that way. Camael found it far too cruel.
Susan was a loner, as was often the nature of the breed, living alone without close friends or family. But she did have a job as a waitress, a job that seemed to be the center of her reality. That was where she came alive: surrounded by the chattering masses of the popular eating establishment. She would serve them, converse with them, and send them on their way back into the world with a kind word and a wave. At Eddy’s she was accepted, loved even; but outside its doors was a cold, harsh, unfriendly place.
Camael had watched and waited for the signs of change in her. He had even started to frequent the restaurant just so that he might observe her more closely. He didn’t have long to wait. Her appearance became disheveled, dark circles forming beneath her eyes, an obvious sign that she was not sleeping. The dreams were usually first, the collective memories of an entire race from thousands of years attempting to assert themselves. That alone was enough to drive some of them mad, never mind the changes that were still to come.
The firefighters below seemed to have the blaze under control and were entering the building, most likely to retrieve the bodies of those who had been trapped within.
Camael sighed heavily. At this early hour Eddy’s would have been crowded with customers—those coming off the late shift and those just beginning their workday. Verchiel certainly outdid himself this time, the angel thought as the first of the victims was carried from the smoldering building.
The girl must have been much further along than Camael had realized if they were able to find her with such ease. If only he had acted earlier this might have been avoided. He might have been able to convince the young woman to run before the Powers had a chance to lock on to her scent.
He would need to move faster with the next.
The firefighters were laying the smoking bodies down behind a hastily constructed screen on the sidewalk in front of the burnt-out shell that had once been Eddy’s. Camael counted sixteen so far. The girl’s had yet to be recovered.
There was a ferocity to the Powers’ latest attacks, a complete lack of concern for innocent lives, a certain desperation to their actions. He thought of Samchia’s murder in Hong Kong. There had always been killing, it was what the Powers did—it was their reason for existence. But of late…Why this sudden escalation of violence? It disturbed him. What had stirred the hornet’s nest, so to speak?
A frightening thought invaded his consciousness. What if she had been the One? What if Susan was the One foretold of in a prophecy thousands of years old?
Camael recalled the moment that had altered his chosen path as if it had happened only moments before. They had descended from the heavens on the ancient city of Urkish, the overpowering desire to eradicate evil spurring them on. It was rumored that the city was a haven for the unclean, a place where those who offended God could thrive in secret. The Powers were on a holy mission, and all who stood against them fell before their righteousness.
In a hovel made of mud and straw they found him, an old man, a seer, one of his eyes covered by a milky caul. He was surrounded by clay tablets upon which something had been written—a prophecy. It was Camael’s former captain, Verchiel, who first read the seer’s scrawl. His words foretold of the melding of human and angel, and how that joining would sire an offspring—an offspring more than human, more than angel, who would be the key to reuniting those who had fallen from Heaven with their most holy Father.
“Blasphemy!” the captain of the Powers had screamed as he shattered the tablets beneath his heel.
And on that day, all trace of the city of Urkish was wiped from the planet and from history.
But not the words—try as he might, Camael could not forget the seer’s words. They spoke of a promise, of a more peaceful time when his existence would not be one filled with the passing of judgment and the meting out of death. The words were what made him abandon his brethren and their holy mission so very long ago. Words that still haunted him today.
But what if Susan had been the One? It was a question he struggled with every time he was too late to save one of them. What if she had been the key to reuniting the fallen with Heaven? What if Verchiel had taken it all away in a self-righteous burst of purifying fire?
Camael finally saw Susan’s body among the last to be carried from the fire-ravaged building. Her blackened limbs reached up to the heavens, as if pleading to be saved.
It pained him that he had not been there for her.
What if she…a tiny voice in the back of his mind began to ask and he promptly silenced it. He couldn’t think that way. He had to keep going or all his past sacrifices would be for naught.
Camael turned from the carnage and strode across the rooftop. The angel tipped his head back to the early morning sun and sniffed the air.
There were others, others who needed him.
With the Powers’ attacks on the rise, he would need to move quickly if any were to be saved.
Zeke motioned for Aaron to sit. There was one chair in the tiny room, a black leather office chair that had probably been rescued from the garbage. A large swath of gray electrical tape ran down the middle of the seat and Aaron touched it to see if it was sticky before he sat.
After the business at the common, the three had quickly left the scene to avoid unwanted questions. The driver of the white Escort seemed genuinely pleased that she hadn’t killed Gabriel, and had even petted the dog before driving off. As the crowd rapidly dispersed Zeke suggested they head for his place.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the Osmond Hotel, a boardinghouse on Washington Street, not too far from downtown Lynn. Because Gabriel was with them, and pets were not allowed in the Osmond, they went around back and entered through the emergency exit held open with a cinder block for cross ventilation.
Zeke lived on the fourth floor, room 416, of the dilapidated building. It wasn’t the kind of place where one would expect to find an angel.
“A fallen angel,” Zeke corrected as he sat down on the single-size bed covered by a green, moth-eaten army blanket. “There’s a big difference.”
Aaron had bought sodas and a bottle of water for Gabriel in a bodega they had passed on the way to the rooming house. “Do you have something I can put this in?” he asked as he cracked the seal on the water.
Zeke got up and started rummaging through plastic trash bags that littered the floor. “Sorry, I don’t,” he said. “Can’t cook in the room so there’s no reason for me to have any dishes.”
Aaron poured some water into
his cupped hand and offered it to the dog. “It’s okay. We’ll manage.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said in a well-mannered voice. He dropped his ball between his paws and began to lap the liquid from his master’s hand.
Zeke lay back on the bed and popped the top on his soda can. “You all right?” he asked Aaron as he fished for something in the pockets of his tattered trench coat.
Gabriel finished his water. “Thank you again, Aaron,” he said, and licked his chops. “I was very thirsty.”
Aaron wiped the slobber on his pant leg. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said to Zeke, popping the top on his own drink. His eyes never left the dog. “Does he seem—I don’t know—smarter to you?”
Zeke produced a nip of Seagram’s from his pocket and poured the contents into his can of soda. “Not supposed to have booze in here either,” he said with a grin as he took a large gulp of the spiked drink. “Been waiting for that first sip all morning,” said the fallen angel, smacking his lips.
Aaron sat at the edge of the office chair and began to stroke Gabriel’s head.
“Does he seem smarter?” Zeke repeated, and then stifled a belch with his hand. “Yeah, I guess so, but what did you expect? You fixed him, you made him better—probably better than he ever was.”
The angel took another drink.
Aaron sat back in his chair, soft-drink can between his legs, and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s all a blur; I have no idea what I did.”
Gabriel lay down on his side and closed his eyes. The room was silent except for the sound of the dog’s rhythmic breathing as he quickly drifted off to sleep.
“What’s happened to me, Zeke?” Aaron asked. There was fear in his voice and he struggled to maintain control. “What did that…animal thing inside my head do? Talk to me!”
Zeke’s can of soda stopped midway to his mouth. “God’s menagerie,” he said. “Not animal thing. Let’s try not to be disrespectful.”
Aaron nodded. “Sorry,” he said with a smirk.
“Most people see it as some kind of animal; a dove or a lion. All of His creations.”
Zeke tipped the can of soda back and drained its contents. He then tossed the empty can into a trash bag beside the bed. “It made you complete,” he said, answering Aaron’s original question. “For the first time since you were born, you’re how you’re supposed to be.”
“And how am I supposed to be?” Aaron asked, annoyed with the man’s cryptic response.
“You’re a Nephilim, Aaron, through and through.”
Aaron slammed his fists down on the arms of the chair. “Stop calling me that!” he yelled angrily.
Gabriel jumped and lifted his head. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Sorry,” Aaron apologized, and reached down to scratch beneath the dog’s chin. “Everything’s fine. You go back to sleep.”
Gabriel lay back and almost immediately resumed his nap.
“Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but that’s what you are,” Zeke said. He had found another nip and was drinking the whiskey straight this time.
“So is this what your kind of angel does? What did you call yourself—a Gregory? Do Gregorys go around outing people who are Nephilim?”
Zeke chuckled and leaned his head back against the cracked plaster wall. “Grigori,” he corrected. “And no, that’s not what we do. Our assignment came directly from the Big Guy upstairs,” he said, pointing to the ceiling. “And I don’t mean Crazy Al in room five-twenty.” He had some more whiskey before he continued. “God Himself told us what to do. Our job was a simple one really; it’s amazing how badly we screwed it all up.”
The fallen angel spoke slowly, remembering. “It was our job to keep an eye on mankind. They were still very young when we came here, and in need of guidance. We were to be their shepherds, you know, keep ‘em out of trouble and all.”
Zeke fell silent and a look of sadness darkened his features.
Aaron placed his empty soda can on the floor beside his chair. Someone in a room close by began to cough violently. “What happened?” he finally asked.
Zeke was staring at the small brown bottle in his hand and did not look up as he took a deep breath and continued. “We became a little too enamored with the locals, lost that professional distance.” He nervously turned the bottle in his hand. “We began to teach them things, things the Lord felt they didn’t need to know: how to make weapons, astrology, how to read the weather.”
Zeke laughed harshly. “One of us sick bastards even taught the women about makeup.” The angel brought the nip halfway to his mouth. “So if your girlfriend spends two hours putting her face on before you go out for the evening, you can blame us.”
“I actually don’t have a girlfriend,” Aaron said sheepishly, immediately thinking of Vilma.
Zeke finished the last of his liquor, ignoring Aaron’s comment. “And they taught us things as well: how to drink, smoke, have sex. We went native,” he said as he squinted into the empty bottle. Annoyed that there was nothing left, he tossed it to the floor. “We began to live like humans, act like humans. Some of us even took wives.”
“And is that how the first Nephilim were born?” Aaron asked.
The fallen angel nodded. “You catch on quick. Yep, the Grigori are to blame for that whole mess—but not entirely.” Zeke stood up and sloughed off his coat, draping it over the foot of the bed. “We weren’t the only angels to find the human ladies attractive. There were others, deserters from the Great War in Heaven. They came to Earth to hide.”
A Great War in Heaven; Aaron recalled the subject from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He’d read it in Mr. O’Leary’s sophomore English class. “So that wasn’t fiction?” he asked the Grigori. “There really was a war between angels?”
Zeke plopped himself back down on the bed. Aaron noticed a cigarette in one of his hands.
“It was real all right,” Zeke answered.
He pinched the end of the cigarette between two fingers and tightly squeezed shut his eyes. Suddenly Aaron saw a flame and smoke. Zeke had lit the cigarette with his fingers. I’m dreaming, he thought.
“The Grigori weren’t there for it, but from what I hear, it was pretty awful.” The old angel took a drag and held it. He tilted his head back and blew the smoke into the air above him to form a billowing gray cloud.
“Not supposed to smoke in here either,” he said, “but I can’t help it. A real bitch to quit.”
He took another puff and let it flow from his nostrils. “The Morningstar really blew it,” Zeke said, returning to times past. “He didn’t know how good he had it.”
Aaron was confused. “The Morningstar?”
Zeke puffed greedily on the cigarette as if it were the last one he would ever have. “Lucifer. Lucifer Morningstar? Was once the right hand of God then got greedy? He and those who followed his lead screwed up even bigger than we did.”
The room stank of smoke and Aaron wished there were a window to open. He waved his hand in front of his face in an attempt to breathe untainted air.
“Compared to what happened to him, we got off easy.”
Gabriel started to dream as he lay on the floor; his legs twitched and paddled as if he were chasing something. Aaron grinned, distracted by his dog’s antics. He had always been curious about his dreams. He’d have to ask Gabriel about it when he awoke.
He turned his attention back to Zeke. “You were punished?”
Zeke nodded ever so slowly, his eyes gazing off into the past as he remembered. “We were banished to Earth, never to see Heaven again. We wanted to be human so badly, we could live among them forever, they said.” He sucked the cigarette down to the filter trying to get every last bit of carcinogen into his body.
“That wasn’t so bad—was it?” Aaron asked, caution in his voice.
Zeke rubbed the tip of the cigarette’s filter dead against the bedframe and flicked it to the floor. “Nah,” he said in a dismissive tone. “Not really. It was what we wanted any
way.”
Aaron could sense the angel’s growing unrest. Zeke reached behind himself and began to rub the back of his neck and shoulder blades.
“Except they took our wings,” he said. There was a tremble in his voice.
“Who…who took your wings?” Aaron asked.
“Who do you think?” Zeke answered sharply as he continued to rub his back and shoulders. “The Powers. They cut off our wings and…and they killed our children.”
Zeke quickly swabbed at his eyes, smearing away any trace of emotion. Aaron wondered how long it had been since the angel had spoken of his past.
“They’re ruthless, Aaron,” he said. “They can sense when a Nephilim is reaching maturity—sometimes before. They hunt it down and kill it before it can gain full use of its birthright. That’s why I did what I did—to give you a fighting chance.”
Gabriel came suddenly awake as if sensing the pervasive atmosphere of sadness that now seemed to fill the tiny room with the cigarette smoke.
“What is wrong?” the dog asked, looking from Aaron to Zeke.
“Is that how you get even?” Aaron asked. “When you find us, you do something to turn us completely into Nephilim? Is that how you get back at the Powers for what they took from you?”
Zeke sadly shook his head. “I learned long ago not to interfere.”
“And those others you’ve encountered—the Powers killed them?”
“Probably,” Zeke said in a whisper. “Eventually.”
“Why me then?” Aaron asked the fallen angel. “Why did you do it for me and not the others?”
Zeke shrugged. “I really don’t know,” he answered. “Something told me you’re special.”
CHAPTER SIX
Inside the V.I. Lenin nuclear power plant, twenty-five kilometers upstream from the Ukraine city of Chernobyl, an angel screamed in rage.
Verchiel flung open two reinforced steel doors in the dilapidated structure that housed the number four reactor, the one that had exploded in 1986 rendering much of the surrounding Ukrainian countryside uninhabitable. In his time stationed upon this world, he had borne witness to the destructive potential of the human animal many times over, and wondered with disgust how long it would be before they destroyed themselves once and for all.
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