Verchiel’s breath smelled of spice and decay, and it made Aaron want to gag. He strained his every muscle, to no avail. The Powers’ leader was remarkably strong. The mighty storm winds buffeted them, blowing their bodies about like corks caught in a river current. And still he struggled.
Aaron screamed in rage, tapping into the primal emotion that now coursed through him. He thrashed violently and rammed his head back in a brutal blow to the unsuspecting Verchiel’s face.
It was just enough to loosen the angel’s grip upon him, and Aaron was able to twist his body around. He looked into his attacker’s sneering face, into the eyes of solid black—and in their limitless depths he saw the deaths of thousands.
They were just like him, still children, unaware of the heritage that had marked them for death. Aaron could feel their pain, their desperation, their fear of what they were becoming.
And how was their terror addressed? How were these beings of Heaven and Earth helped to understand their true origins? Only with more horror, as Verchiel and his soldiers came for them. And they were killed, cruelly, methodically, all in the name of God.
Thunder boomed and Aaron freed one of his arms and raked his nails down the angel’s face, snagging one of those horrible, bottomless black eyes. Verchiel shrieked above the wail of the storm, his cry like that of a mournful seabird. He recoiled and grabbed at his injured face.
Aaron pushed himself away from his attacker, pure adrenaline pumping through his body—and something more. He chanced a glance below and saw that his house was on fire and part of the roof had collapsed. His anger intensified and he began to scream, a frightening sound incapable of being produced by human vocal cords.
Verchiel continued his taunts. “And when you are dead, we shall move through this city like a firestorm and everywhere you’ve been, everyone you’ve had even the slightest contact with—all will be washed away in torrents of fire.”
Aaron flew at Verchiel, flaming sword forming in his hand, poised to strike. “You killed them,” he shrieked, remembering the faces of those the angel had slain throughout the ages—as well as his own loved ones.
Verchiel blocked his blows with blinding speed, an evil grin slowly spreading across his pale features. The four bloody furrows Aaron had dug into the angel’s face had already begun to heal.
“Yes, I did, and it is just the beginning,” Verchiel said with an emotionless smile as he fought back with equal savagery. “You are a disease, Aaron Corbet.” Verchiel spat his name as if it were poison on his tongue. “And I will cut from the body of this world all you have infected.”
Aaron dove beneath the angel and went at him from behind. “All this death—,” he began.
Verchiel spun with incredible swiftness. Aaron just managed to duck as the angel’s blade passed over his head. He could feel its heat on his soaking scalp.
“—you do it in the name of God?” Aaron asked incredulously.
“Everything I do,” Verchiel said with a hiss, fury etched into his scarred features, “I do for Him.”
“What kind of god do you serve?” Aaron questioned, struggling to avoid the angel’s thrusts, hoping Verchiel’s anger would make him careless. “What kind of god would allow you to murder innocents in his name?”
Aaron delivered a blow to the angel’s face, rocking his head back and to the side. A wicked thrill went through his body as he watched the angel recoil from the force of his strike. Before the transformation, he wouldn’t have lasted two seconds against this berserk force from Heaven, but now Aaron believed that he could at least give Verchiel something to remember him by.
Verchiel spat blood from his wounded mouth and lunged forward, swinging his blade. His attack was relentless, driving Aaron back and away. Aaron blocked the pitiless descent of the broadsword, the blows so forceful that they began to fragment his own blade, finally causing it to disintegrate in his hand.
“Surrender, monster,” Verchiel said in a voice as smooth as velvet. “It is God’s will.” The angel prepared to cut him in half.
Aaron flexed his wings and propelled himself toward Verchiel, driving his shoulder into the angel’s stomach.
He grabbed Verchiel’s wrist, preventing the sword of fire from descending.
“Is it His wishes you’re following, Verchiel—or yours?” he asked as they struggled within the grip of the storm.
Verchiel brought a knee up and slammed it into Aaron’s side. He felt the air from his lungs explode and his hold upon the angel’s wrist falter.
“I am the leader of the Powers,” he heard Verchiel say over the intensifying weather. “The first of all the hosts to be created by the Allfather.”
Aaron wanted to call up another weapon to defend himself, but the burning pain in his side and lungs barely made it possible for him to stay aloft. He didn’t want to die, to become yet another of the poor souls to fall beneath Verchiel’s sword.
Verchiel came at him, sword in hand. He raised the great blade above his head. “His wishes—my wishes,” he said, eyes wild with bloodlust.
The winds raged, blowing Verchiel back as he prepared to bring the sword down upon Aaron. “They are all one and the same,” he said, straining against the exhalation of nature in turmoil that he had turned loose.
Aaron feebly managed the beginnings of a weapon to continue the struggle, when there was an explosion of sound that seemed to encompass all the heavens. It was a sound Aaron imagined might have been heard at the dawn of creation.
A bolt of lightning arced down from the sky, and he shielded his eyes from the intensity of its resplendence. Like the skeletal finger of some elemental deity composed entirely of crackling blue energy, it roughly tapped the top of Verchiel’s head, as if to show its displeasure.
The angel screeched in pain as the lightning invaded his body, to explode free from the sole of a foot. His body seemed to glow from within, his mouth agape in a scream drowned out by the ruckus of the storm. Verchiel exploded into flames, his body no longer able to contain the raging power coursing through it. And, like Icarus, who had flown too close to the sun, he fell from the sky.
“One and the same—are you sure about that?” Aaron asked Verchiel, watching the blazing form of the Power as it spiraled earthward. Then he turned his attentions to the heavens above.
“Are you really sure?”
Verchiel lay upon his side on the cold, damp ground, wracked by a pain the likes of which he’d never felt before. His body, charred black by the power of the lightning strike, smoldered as it cooled in the evening air.
He rolled onto his back to gaze up at the heavens where his Master resided.
The storm clouds were breaking apart, the angelic magic used to manipulate the weather in all its fury dissipating like wisps of smoke carried away by the wind.
“Why?” he croaked, slowly raising his charred arm, reaching a beckoning hand out to the star-filled night.
But the Creator was silent.
And then they were there, the faithful of his host—those who had survived, looking down upon him, their faces void of emotion. They bent to lift him from the ground, laying the burden of his weight upon their shoulders. And they bore him up into the sky away from the battleground, away from the scene of his most heinous defeat.
“Why?” he asked again, carried closer to the place where his Father dwelled, but still so far that He did not answer.
“Why have you forsaken me?”
The ground grew steadily closer, and Aaron flexed the newly developed muscles in his back. His wings flapped once, and then again to slow his descent.
He touched down on a small patch of lawn in front of the house, falling forward in a scramble to reach the smoking wreckage that had once been his home.
“Stevie?” he screamed, running up the walk that was littered with pieces of burning shingles and wood. Maybe they left him. Maybe they decided they didn’t want the little boy after all. “Stevie?…Gabriel?” he called frantically into the ruins.
�
�Gabriel,” Aaron called again as he cupped his hands to his mouth, desperate for something of his family to have survived. “Gabriel, Zeke—are you there?”
He sensed an angel’s presence behind him and spun around, a new weapon sparking to life in his waiting hand. He had already slain many heavenly beings today, and had no problem adding another to the tally.
“Stay away from me,” he warned.
Camael limped closer, paying no heed to his threat. “The child is gone,” he said.
The angel looked like hell, his face and clothing spattered with drying gore. He was pressing a hand against a wound in his chest, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“Where is he?” Aaron asked as a combination of emotions washed over him. He was truly glad that his foster brother was still alive, but an awful dread filled him when he thought of who had taken him.
Camael stumbled closer. “The Powers…took him. I tried to stop them but—” He removed his hand from the wound and carefully examined it. “I was having some difficulty of my own.” From his back pocket he produced a white handkerchief and placed it beneath his coat against the injury. “And no, I do not know where they have taken him.”
The angel seemed to fall forward. Aaron reached for him but Camael caught himself on the twisted remains of the wrought-iron porch railing.
“Are you okay?” Aaron asked.
Camael nodded slowly, his eyes studying him. “You’re certainly a sight to behold,” he said with a dreamy smile. “One that I’ve yearned to witness since…”
Aaron held up his hand to quiet the angel. He didn’t want to hear anymore, especially now.
Gabriel bounded out from behind the house calling his name excitedly. Aaron’s face lit up at the sight of his canine friend and he knelt to embrace the dog.
“You’re okay,” he said as he stroked the animal’s head and kissed the side of his face. “Good boy, good dog.”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Gabriel said, “but you have to come quick.”
Gabriel pulled away and trotted to the corner of the house.
“Gabe?” Aaron said, following.
“He doesn’t have much time left,” the dog said as he disappeared around the house into the backyard.
Zeke was lying very still in the middle of the yard beside the swing set, Gabriel sitting attentively by his side.
“I got him out of the house after the lightning hit—but I think he’s going to die.” The dog looked at Aaron, sadness in his rich, caramel eyes. “Is he going to die, Aaron?”
Aaron knelt down in the grass beside the fallen angel and gently took his hand. “I don’t know, Gabe,” he said. Zeke’s hand was cold, like a stone pulled from a mountain stream. “I…I think he might.”
“Oh,” the dog said sadly, lying down beside the Grigori. “I thought maybe you could do something for him.”
Zeke’s eyes slowly opened. “Look at you,” he said, a hint of a smile on his weathered features. Zeke gave Aaron’s hand a weak squeeze. “All grown up and everything.” He began to cough violently and dark blood frothed at his lips. “Damn,” he said as he reached up to feebly wipe away the blood. “That don’t feel so hot.”
Aaron was in a panic. “What should I do?” he asked Zeke, squeezing his hand. “Should I call for an ambulance or…”
Zeke shook his head and the blood ran down the sides of his mouth. He didn’t seem to notice—or maybe he just didn’t care. “Naw,” he said with a wave of his hand, his voice starting to sound more like a gurgle. “Too late for that.”
Camael had joined them, and Aaron looked to him for guidance. “Is there anything…anything we…I can do to help him?”
The angel shook his head of silvery hair and closed his eyes. “The Grigori is dying. Verchiel’s blade must have struck something vital.”
Zeke gasped and began to convulse violently.
Aaron clutched his hand tighter and leaned in closer. “Zeke?” he asked. “Does…does it hurt you?”
“It’s okay, kid,” he said. His voice was weak, practically a whisper. “Pretty much had my fill of this place anyway.”
The fallen angel went silent for a moment, his eyes gazing unblinkingly up at the star-filled sky.
“But I do got something to say,” he said, turning his gaze from the heavens to Aaron.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Zeke swallowed with difficulty and took a long, tremulous breath. It sounded full of fluid. “I want to say I’m sorry…,” he said, his voice trailing off in a gurgling wheeze.
Aaron didn’t understand. “For what? What are you sorry for?”
The Grigori seemed to be gathering his strength to answer. “For everything,” he said, straining to be heard. “I want to tell you that I’m sorry for everything I’ve done.”
At first Aaron wasn’t at all sure what he was supposed to do—but suddenly, like the lightning that knocked Verchiel from the sky, it became excruciatingly clear.
Aaron knew exactly what needed to be done. In all his life, he had never been so certain of anything.
His body began to tingle, the hairs on his arms standing at attention as if he were about to receive the world’s largest static shock. He held Zeke’s hand and felt the energy begin to move, flowing from the swirling force that seemed to have settled in his chest, down his arm and into the fallen angel.
Zeke went suddenly rigid, but still Aaron held him. He watched in amazement as cracks began to appear in the façade of the Grigori’s flesh, from which a brilliant white light shone.
Gabriel leaped to his feet and backed away. “What’s happening to his skin?” he barked. “What’s happening?”
But Aaron did not answer.
What had once been flesh fell away from Zeke’s body like flecks of peeling paint, and what lay beneath pulsed with a radiance amazing to behold.
This is what it’s all about, Aaron thought as he squinted through the white light, still holding tight to his friend’s hand.
No longer did Aaron gaze upon a fallen angel, banished to Earth, dying of injuries sustained while trying to protect him. Now he beheld a being of awesome beauty, its body composed entirely of light.
This is what he must have looked like before his fall, Aaron thought, almost moved to tears by the glorious sight.
Bootiful, Aaron thought, remembering his little brother’s praise.
The angel Ezekiel gazed up through the milky haze of light, his eyes wide with expectation. And Aaron realized what had yet to be said—what needed to be said in order to set his friend free.
“You’re forgiven,” he whispered in the language of messengers, and felt warm tears of even warmer emotion trail from his eyes to run down his face.
He released his friend’s hand and the aura of energy surrounding him grew in intensity, brighter, warmer. Aaron got to his feet, moving away from the spectacle of rebirth unfolding before him.
Ezekiel rose up from the ground on delicate wings of sunlight. And he turned his beatific face up to the heavens and smiled.
“Thank you,” said a voice in Aaron’s mind like the opening notes of the most beautiful symphony imaginable. He was overwhelmed in its flow of unbridled emotion.
Then, in a flash of white, like the birth of a star, Ezekiel was gone, restored to a place long denied him.
Forgiven.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Drained, Aaron fell to his knees upon the lawn. His eyes were closed but still he saw the beautiful image of Ezekiel burned upon his retinas. He started to relax and felt the wings on his back begin to recede, the appendages of cartilage and feathers disappearing beneath the flesh of his shoulder blades. His skin began to prickle and he opened his eyes to see that the black markings on his arms and chest had begun to fade as well.
Gabriel came to him, tail wagging so furiously that it looked as though the dog had no control over his back end. He dug his head beneath Aaron’s arm and flipped it with his snout, demanding to be petted. “That was nice, Aaron,” the
dog said happily. “You let him go home.”
Aaron looked to Camael. “What the hell just happened?” he asked, struggling to stand on shaking legs. “What did I do?”
The angel was looking up into the sky with longing on his soiled, yet still-distinguished features. “There is no more doubt, Aaron Corbet,” Camael said, shaking his head, looking from the sky to him. “You are the One whose coming was foretold so long ago. Finally you have come to—”
“What did I do?” Aaron demanded to know.
The angel pulled at his silvery goatee as he spoke. “You have the power to grant absolution,” Camael explained, a hint of a smile playing on his features. “Any who have fallen from the grace of God will be granted forgiveness in your presence, as long as they have seen the error of their ways.”
“That’s nice, Aaron,” Gabriel said, looking up at his master, tail still happily wagging. “Isn’t it nice?”
“Yeah, it’s nice. So they’re forgiven, what does that mean?” Aaron asked the angel. “Where did Zeke go?”
Camael again gazed upward. “He has returned home.”
Aaron, too, looked into the sky. There was no longer any sign of the storm that had battered his neighborhood. “You’re telling me that Zeke went back to Heaven.”
“Your people have many colorful names for where he has gone: Paradise, Elysium, Nirvana, the happy hunting ground—Heaven is but one of them,” Camael explained.
Aaron mulled this over. “And I sent him there?”
Camael pointed at Aaron with a long, well-manicured finger. “You are the bridge between the fallen and God.”
“God, huh?” Aaron slipped his hands casually into the back pockets of his jeans. He gazed toward what was left of his home, painfully remembering what had been done to it, to his parents—all in the name of God. He scowled and stormed away. “Y’know what?” he said, walking around the house to the front. “I don’t think so.”
Camael followed. “You can’t run away from this, Aaron,” he said, catching up to him. “It is your destiny. It was written of—”
Aaron spun around, stopping the angel cold. “Thousands of years ago,” he finished. “I know all about it and I’m not too sure how happy I am serving a God who would allow this to happen.” He gestured to the still-smoldering remains of his home. “Not to mention the hundreds—maybe thousands—of others He’s allowed Verchiel to kill in His name.” Aaron was furious, ready to take on the Creator Himself if necessary. “You tell me how I’m supposed to do this.”
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