Fallen Angels

by Warren DeBary

  We felt more than heard a loud thud and even more gunshots.

  “Just go, Mr. Koa,” the dean said.

  We left the office and I ran after George. Through the narrow brick lattice of the stairwell, I could see someone kicking one of the classroom doors, a large black rifle in his hands.

  Scattered shell casings littered the ground and a group of teachers waved their arms, darting into and out of the hallway, trying to coax the would-be assassin away from the classroom doors.

  The gunman shrieked as he turned the rifle on the teachers. The metallic bark of the rifle seemed instantaneous with Mr. Wheatley’s right shoulder exploding in a spatter of red, creating the beginnings of a macabre mural behind him.

  “Crap! That guy is using off-world casings,” George yelled.

  “What?” But before I could get an answer, George ran out the stairway door.

  From my vantage point, I could see Mr. Wheatley being pulled into one of the classrooms. The yells of the students melded with the lingering odor of gunpowder as a high-pitched wail broke through my confusion. My fear was replaced with a surge of anger.

  Instead of trailing George down to the football field as planned, I turned the corner, running toward the fight.

  “Hey, asshole!” I saw the gunman’s face for the first time. My God! It was Mark Feldman. He was one of my classmates in Calculus. “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed at him

  Seeing me, Mark smiled. His mouth was a little too wide, a little too animalistic to be the quiet boy I knew from math class. I heard a harsh snarl above me and a dark shape dropped down from the second floor.

  It was Tuli, or at least what was once Tuli.

  His knees were bent at an odd angle and his fingers were strangely longer and splayed. At the end of his fingers were nails like talons. Inky black pools replaced Tuli’s normally brown eyes.

  He sniffed the air the way a hyena does while searching for its prey.

  “So they think you may be the Mashiach? I am not impressed,” he said.

  “Rising, watch out!” I was shoved aside as the assault rifle barked again. The ground ripped open right where I had been standing.

  I fell down hard.

  Before I could get up, Tuli landed right on top of me. I felt a snap of pain as his knee crushed down on my ribs. Clawed hands shoved my head sideways, exposing my neck and pulling me toward yellowed fangs. I twisted and struggled, but he was so much stronger than I remembered.

  Suddenly, my mother’s pendant lit up like one of those roadside flares, the red glow so bright, it blinded me for a second. Then the smell of burnt skin filled my nostrils.

  “This one is not for you, Raphael!” Tuli’s voice roared. My eyesight blackened and went dark.

  Out of the darkness, I heard someone answer.

  “Nor is he for you, Alaz-El!”

  “Tuli!” I heard George’s voice in the background as light filled my mind. It lifted me out of the darkness. “You are stronger than that!”

  When I could see again, Tuli was crouched over me, his terrifying fangs still bared and his skin caked with gore.

  I struggled to push him away as his lips curled halfway between a smile and a snarl.

  “You will not escape, Rising! We will find you wherever you go!” Abruptly, the black eyes disappeared, replaced by the normal eyes of a human.

  Slowly, Tuli’s confused face replaced the once animal-like features. He let me drop to the floor. I spun to my feet, falling over myself, instinctively trying to get away, and I almost tripped over something. When I looked down, a feeling of dread rushed through me.

  “Dominick!”

  My friend’s small body lay inert, twisted on the hard ground. His eyes were blank and lifeless, his small chest torn open. Arcs of red splashed along the walls of the stairwell behind him.

  The realization came like a sledgehammer. He must have been waiting for me when they shot him.

  My friend.

  My fault.

  I glared at Tuli, murder in my heart, but his eyes were fixed on Dominick’s body, too. Suddenly he wailed, a cry that was entirely human and completely grief-stricken.

  “I thought it was just a nightmare, but I knew it wasn’t,” he whimpered. “Ha’ole, tell my mom I’m sorry.” With his blackened hands, he pulled out a small pistol.

  Something blurred past me.

  “No!” The gun went off as George yanked it out of Tuli’s hand.

  “You don’t have to do this!” George yelled. “We’ll find a way.”

  Tuli stared at my friend, and for that instant, I saw that although George was a lot lankier than the large Polynesian and had a lot less scars and tattoos, they had the same eyes.

  Tuli glowered. “It’s too late, George.” He gazed at the carnage around him. “You know it’s too late for me now.”

  “No, it’s not,” George said. But Tuli turned, jumped over the school fence and was gone.

  Chapter 6 – Down the Rabbit Hole

  The negotiations are going poorly.

  How so?

  They demand to see progress. The humans were given two thousand years.

  But?

  There is no choice; they were given their chance. It is time for Judgment.

  They will not survive Judgment.

  That is not our fault. They had their chance.

  There is another.

  Do you believe it also, the misbegotten lies of a traitor.

  He was one of us once.

  Well, that time has passed.

  We will see.

  

  “You okay, Matt?”

  I looked down at Dominick’s crumpled body, a ragged mannequin sculpted to be a hollow replica, not the rambunctious boy I knew so well.

  “Rising, you okay?” George asked again.

  “Yeah,” I said, although all I could say for sure was that I was confused and scared.

  The teachers had somehow taken the rifle from Mark Feldman. He seemed dazed, confused as to why his face was being pressed against the hard pavement. Others were scrambling around, tending to those who had fallen, giving aid where they could.

  “I have to take him, I have to take him now,” I heard Dr. Mdou say as he gently put his arms under Dominick’s body and lifted him away. I was in too much shock to wonder where.

  Sirens blared in the distance.

  “A little help here.”

  It was then that I noticed George's right leg was soaked with blood. Dean Alena was suddenly there, ripping the jeans open, revealing a ragged hole. George must have been shot during all the confusion.

  “Look what we got here? I guess you could use a bit more training, Mr. Koa.” The dean held a silver rod glowing with blue light and something under George’s skin wriggled and moved. With a gush of blood, a slug of metal squirmed out of the tattered opening, fell to the ground, and rolled away. The hole closed.

  I stared but George just shrugged it off like things like that happened everyday.

  “Good as new, Mr. Koa.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” George got up and shifted his weight, testing the leg.

  “We still have to get Mr. Rising out of here. The police will be here shortly, and we don’t know whose side they’ll be on.” A roar of engines and squeal of tires from the parking lot punctuated the dean’s claim. “I’ll let your father know you’re okay, Matthew. Mr. Ching is waiting for you two. Get out of here, boys. I’ll settle things.”

  “Mr. Ching?”

  “He’s one of us. He’s here to help,” the dean said.

  “What about Dominick?” I asked.

  “They’re taking care of him,” George said sadly. “Nothing we can do.”

  “But right now, Mr. Rising. You have to leave. Go to Mr. Ching’s, George. Don’t stop for anything.”

  George nodded.

  “Will one of you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Answers are coming. Just get yourself safe.” Heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor leading
to the front of the school.

  “Matty-Boy, we have to go. Now!” George ran toward the field.

  Not knowing what else to do, I followed.

  “Stop!” Someone shouted behind me, but I ducked down the stairwell and ran.

  We made our way between the bleachers and the band building, keeping out of sight as the sirens wailed. The echo from the school walls sounded like voracious wolves howling in the middle of winter.

  On the wall of the band building someone wrote in white spray paint the words, “THE MASHIACH LIVES!” I didn’t know what that meant but, with a pang of regret, I realized dripping sprayed lettering looked exactly like the horrifying image of the blood on the wall above Dominick, my friend who was now a corpse.

  Dazed, I followed George into the storehouse with its smells of old sweat, corroding plastic, and canvas. Ancient football pads and practice dummies littered the ground. A rusted, half-dilapidated football sled was overturned, its skids sticking straight up in the air.

  “C’mon Matt. We’re not outta danger yet!” George moved a large piece of plywood, uncovering a three-foot-wide hole. “Whew! That’s a smell. Well Matty-boy, you sure ruined my plans. I was hoping to meet some of the girls after school,” George said just before disappearing down the hole.

  I followed, landing with a splash in an ankle-deep puddle of water. The half-light of the storeroom had just been swapped with the near-darkness of the sewer tunnels. The only light came from the street gutter drains overhead, bright beams of light intersecting the subterranean dimness.

  Roughly twenty feet around, the tunnel itself was large enough to handle the sudden onrush of water from a tropical flash flood. Now, there was only a slow trickle. Metal-rung ladders led to manholes and access tunnels above us.

  George took out two knives from the sheath around his waste. Strange, glowing writing decorated the blades. Crackling like lightening, it lit the entire tunnel with blue light.

  “Hey, that’s the same kind of knife Tuli had,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Don’t have time to talk. We gotta get out of here first.” George started walking, but I refused to move. “What now?” he snapped.

  “All this stuff happens and now you’re saying I have to just keep going. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” George said, his eyes scanning the tunnel. When he was certain I was not going to move another inch, he sighed. “Let’s get going and I’ll answer what I can.” He limped down the tunnel and I hurried after him. I guess his leg was still giving him problems.

  “What are those knives, and what did Dean Alena do to heal your leg? I saw your leg; you had a bullet in it!”

  “Matt, if you haven’t realized it, the world is a lot bigger than you expected. You’ve been seeing things, and your Loci is helping you to see them even better.”

  “What the heck is a Loci?”

  “That is your Loci,” he said, pointing at the pendant around my neck. “It’s your focus, attuning your mind to the energies that surround you. It helps you access the energy and to use it in all sorts of ways.”

  “What do you mean? Like magic?”

  He laughed and started walking. “You’re thinking like an Earthbound. Humans are always so quick to assume that anything they don’t understand is either magical or mystical.”

  “What do you mean… you’re not human?”

  George grinned at me devilishly. “Oh, I’m human. But don’t hold this against me. I am a little bit more than an Earthbound human.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You sure you ready for this?”

  “I guess I have to be, right?”

  George smiled as if from some inside joke. “I’m your guardian angel.”

  “Guardian angel? Real funny, George. You think I’m a moron?”

  “Until you stop acting like one, yes!” he snapped. “My assignment was a simple one: to protect you.” I stared at him but he turned down a side tunnel and picked up the pace. I chased after him.

  He paused for a second, holding up his hand. When he was satisfied with whatever he was doing, he quickened his steps almost to a run.

  “I am Malakhim, and we are the ones who pledge to do the dirty work of the high and mighty.” George’s finger pointed upward. “We are the caretakers of our race, always having to clean up the mess until we may Rise up.”

  “Rise up? You have wings?” I asked, really because I didn’t know what else to say.

  George laughed but then scowled, drawing in a hiss of breath. “Wings. I just told him I’m a frickin’ angel and he wants to know if I have wings. For the record, wings are not standard issue to Malakhim. Michael and Raphael, they have wings. So does Gabriel. There are all kinds of things that have been called angels in the world, and we’re not that type of angel. We’re Malakhim.”

  I was about to demand more answers when the musty odor of the tunnel was suddenly replaced with a stench that tore at my nostrils.

  “What the hell is that smell?”

  George stopped, his face ashen.

  Out of the darkness came a screech. In the distance, I heard what sounded like a quickening drum beat. Not the sharp report of a snare, but the deep, resounding thud of a bass drum, if bass drums were made from tons of flesh pounding on a concrete floor.

  I followed George’s stare. Dust and debris fell from the roof and the broken light gave glimpses of something massive moving toward us. My pendant flashed and I stared as it pulsed with a life of its own. I’d never seen it do anything like that before.

  “Get up that sewer grate!” George commanded, pointing to one of the ladders. “Move!” he yelled with an authority that seemed strange coming from my usually light-hearted friend.

  I climbed up the ladder, squeezing into the three-foot opening at its top. Heavy iron grating about eight feet in blocked any chance of getting through. George climbed the ladder, assessing the situation.

  “Damn it! Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you learned how to use your Loci yet?” he barked, staring down the dim tunnel.

  “No. I didn’t even know my pendant could do anything.” I pulled it out and thrust it at him, hoping he’d take it.

  “I can’t use that!” he squawked, pulling away. “Stay here, and for shit’s sake, don’t move. This is going to be hard enough as it is.” He disappeared into the blackness below.

  “Hey, you big, ugly bastard!” I heard him scream.

  Anchoring myself against the tunnel walls, I stuck my head out of the hole. George was holding his two shimmering knives in front of a form that could only have come out of a nightmare.

  Whatever it was, it was large, easily ten feet tall and as long as a school bus. All black, from the top of its bony head to the end of its long, reptilian tail, its dark skin was crusted with heavy scales. Short, pointed horns extended from heavy ridges of bone above its eyes.

  The animal’s toothy snout reached to the tunnel ceiling, sniffing the air. Its gaze met mine and a wave of emotion ripped through me: the grief of a thousand widows; the anguish of a mother who had lost her only child; the sorrow of an army of soldiers, staring into their own deaths. I slumped in the agony of these overwhelming emotions, frozen with fear.

  George screamed, “Alaz-El, your battle is with me right now! Your time with him is not yet!” With an agility that was beyond anything I had ever seen, George ran up the sewer wall and somersaulted over the animal, landing softly between it and myself.

  The creature swatted at George, but he tumbled over the raking claws and swept those glowing blades across its legs. It screamed a shrieking sound, metal against metal.

  “I bet that hurt, huh, beasty!” George yelled. He ran up the wall again and slashed at it once more. But the short swords only glanced off a thick, bony eye ridge.

  George jumped away but the creature’s w
hip-like tail struck him, sending him spinning against the tunnel wall. One of his blades landed on the far side of the tunnel. The other slid under the beast.

  It took my eyes a second to adjust, but the monster didn’t even need that. It was on George immediately. George was just able to roll aside, avoiding its crushing feet, sidestepping its first claw swipe. He somersaulted away from a second claw swipe and tumbled beneath the beast’s snapping jaws.

  He picked up his blade and slashed at the monster’s throat just under its chin, cutting deeply into its scales. Blood and gore gushed from the wound. George tried to get out from under the monster but before he could, the animal dropped down and my friend disappeared.

  “George!”

  The creature turned, searching for me as I screamed for my friend. Scrambling out of my hole, I was more than happy to have it find me.

  “Hey! Over here.” I waved my arms frantically.

  When it saw me, I sprinted toward George’s fallen sword and dropped to one knee, sliding across the mossy floor and picking up the blade with one swipe. My pendant blazed and the once blue-lit sword burst into a brilliant rubicund fire.

  The creature’s eyes widened and darted back and forth, apparently confused by the reddish glow. The entire sewer tunnel was now as bright as day and George lay crumpled on the wet floor.

  “You got a problem, asshole?” My anger blinded me to the size of the monster and I attacked, swinging the long blade with all my might.

  Its scythe-like claws raked at me, but my pendant burst into fire, surrounding me with a domelike glow that the monster couldn’t break through. For a split second, I wondered at that and it gave me hope.

  I swung over and over as it retreated, dark blood gushing from the thing’s abdomen. As it backed away from my friend, I saw that George still wasn’t moving.

  Furiously, I lashed out again and again, driving the beast away. As its mammoth head snapped down, I thrust the sword upward and the blade sunk into the deep cut George had already made under its chin. The blade bit deeply into the soft tissue, plunging like a carving knife through prime rib.

  A thin cascade of fire ran up my arms and up the handle of the knife, focusing at the tip of the knife’s blade into the beast. The monstrous creature shrieked, then shuddered flame erupted on the far side of the gigantic head, cascading against the tunnel ceiling.