Fallen Angels

by Warren DeBary

  Just then, Bailey walked around the corner, his short tail waving vigorously. The smell of food wafted from the kitchen.

  “Hey kid, it’s dinnertime,” Bailey said, regarding me expectantly. I stared at the dog, thinking that the night before was nothing more than some kind of hallucination.

  “Thank you. He will be along shortly,” Aunt Emily told the little dog, and he pattered back toward the kitchen.

  “You heard him speak?” I asked, amazed.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The dog spoke. He just told me to come eat!”

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t strike you as odd?” I asked.

  “Well, yes. It’s a bit late for dinner. He usually comes around a lot earlier,” Aunt Emily said with a grin, chuckling silently to herself. “As I’ve said, the world you knew has changed forever. I have to leave for a meeting with the Council. There is much I need to discuss with them. Enjoy your dinner.” At that, she got up and headed back into her private rooms and I headed to the kitchen.

  Chapter 22 – Maya

  “See, I told you Oakland was gonna kill the Giants,” George said.

  “Yeah, its only the Game One of the World Series, George,” I answered. “Lot’s more to go.” We’d spent the last few hours watching the game and it was almost 11 o’clock. I did have to admit the Athletics shutout of the San Francisco Giants was impressive. As a Dodger fan, I didn’t really care but I got George’s attention and nodded in the direction of Ms. Maggie who was wearing a SF Giants sweatshirt.

  Unbelievably, George didn’t take the hint.

  “You wait until Game Two, it’ll be even worse,” George laughed. Shaking my head, I just stared at him.

  “Don’t you worry, Matthew,” Ms. Maggie said. When it comes time to eat, I’ll remember.”

  George was about to get himself in more trouble when I heard a heavy chime, like a large bell.

  “Its too late for anyone to come around,” Ms. Maggie said as George’s hand went straight to his Kindjals. “The protections around this house should not have let anyone close enough to ring the doorbell.”

  I followed Ms. Maggie and George to the front door. He looked out the window. “It’s Kayla,” he said as he pulled open the door.

  Kayla blue eyes were bright in the darkness of the doorstep.

  “Come in, dear. It’s chilly out there,” Ms. Maggie said as she wiped her hands with a dishtowel.

  “I’m so sorry for coming so late, Ms. Maggie. Is Ms. Emily around?”

  “No, I’m sorry, dear. She and Rene are in session with the Council. She won’t be available for hours. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my sister,” Kayla said. “She hasn’t come home since the party last night. I know she’s in trouble,” she said. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  “Hold on, dear. Have a seat and let’s see if we can get some answers.” Kayla sat on the divan in the sitting room with Ms. Maggie next to her. Bailey stood at her feet.

  “Now, calm your mind and tell me what you can see,” Ms. Maggie said. Beneath her, Bailey’s eyes narrowed in concentration. It was the strangest looking thing to see a little dog’s face like that. My Loci glowed and I saw a tendril of power reaching from the little dog to Ms. Maggie, then toward Kayla, but I didn’t think any else noticed that but me.

  Kayla calmed herself. Her breathing slowed and evened out as Ms. Maggie took each breath with her. I could tell they’d done this exercise before. I assumed it was part of Kayla’s training. Kayla’s eyes fluttered.

  “I see a cave with barrels in them, large barrels. There are iron bars and I’m trapped. I’m scared,” Kayla said. She began to whimper with fear.

  “Kayla, control it, dear. What else can you see?” Ms. Maggie asked.

  “I see dim lights down the hallway. Across the hall is a room with barrels, wine barrels, I think.” Her words were choppy and slurred as if she were drunk or drugged. “I’m so tired,” she said.

  “Kayla, that’s Maya you’re feeling. She must be drugged,” Ms. Maggie said. She placed a hand over Kayla’s forehead. I was surprised to see a gentle, blue glow emanating from her palm. Kayla brightened. “What else do you see, dear? We have to know.”

  “I see bottles on the shelves, just outside of the bars.”

  “Can you see the names on the bottles?”

  “It’s so dusty,” Kayla answered.

  “Try, dear,” Ms. Maggie encouraged.

  “I can see one label. It says Garden of the Four Rivers Winery,” Kayla said.

  “Good girl, Kayla; rest now,” Ms. Maggie said. She sat next to me, looking absolutely spent. I grabbed a pillow and placed it on the arm of the chair for Kayla to rest her head on.

  “That was very difficult for her. I had to help, but she is very tired from the effort,” Ms. Maggie said as she came over to stroke Kayla’s hair in a motherly way. “I’m so proud of you,” she told Kayla.

  “Garden of the Four Rivers?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s Devon Pazuzu’s winery,” Ms. Maggie said.

  “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go rescue her!” George shot to his feet.

  “Hold on, young Malakhim. We can’t just go barging in there all in a huff,” Ms. Maggie said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if we were caught on Pazuzu’s property again, that would hurt our cause even more than what the two of you did last night. I will try to contact Ms. Emily. She’ll know what to do,” Ms. Maggie said. “You three stay here. Get some rest, Matthew. You’re going to need it for your training tomorrow.”

  “Ms. Maggie, by the time Aunt Emily comes back, Maya may be dead. I can feel her. She is so scared,” Kayla said. I could see the fear in her eyes.

  “I’ll do my best, but she’s in with the Council. She may not even be on planet,” Ms. Maggie answered. She looked distraught, haggard, like she wished there was something else we could do. “I’ll get in contact with her even if I have to fly an AGV up to the moon, and you know how much I hate to do that! It’s the best I can do.” We watched her as she muttered to herself down the hall. “AGV’s, I hate those things.”

  I looked at Kayla after Ms. Maggie left. Her eyes were staring hopefully into mine.

  “That may be all she can do, but I can do a lot more,” I said.

  “I’m going, too,” George said. The look in his eye said he was not taking no for an answer.

  “So am I,” Kayla said, still looking exhausted but sitting up and fully alert. “She is my sister.”

  I looked at George dubiously but Kayla said, “Listen. You don’t know this valley, and I do. I’ve been to Devon Pazuzu’s house and can feel my sister’s presence. So without me, you’d just be stumbling around in the dark.”

  George shrugged. “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice,” he said.

  “No, you don’t,” Kayla said. “I got my second wind, so lets go.”

  “Let’s get going, then.” And for the second night, we snuck out of the house.

  Chapter 23 – The Rescue

  George and I started down the driveway, trying to keep out of sight of the main house.

  “Hey!” We turned. Kayla was holding the door open of a small black BMW. “C’mon, do you really think we’re going to walk there?” she asked, shaking her head.

  “Yeah, okay. That might be a better way to do it,” I responded. George jabbed me in the side.

  “Boys.” She shook her head, and that was the last any of us said until she parked in a small grove of trees near Pazuzu’s house.

  The air had gotten much colder. A light westerly wind blew down from the mountainside. There was no one around, and that made me nervous. It was as if Pazuzu didn’t want anyone to see what was going on.

  “There’s a fire access road on the other side of that ridge there,” Kayla pointed. “We could go up that way. The road leads up to the property wall. We could get over that,” she said, pointing toward a dirt road about two hundred feet away.

&
nbsp; We scrambled up the hillside in the dark, George’s expletives breaking the silence every time he kicked a rock or stumbled over some root. Amazingly, we got to the wall without incident. George was just about to climb the low rock wall when my pendant flared, alerting me to a web of interlacing strands of power lining the rock face.

  “George, no!” I grabbed his shoulder, pulling him away from the wall. “There’s some kind of power running through here. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Might be a warning for whatever’s keeping watch,” Kayla said.

  “I don’t see anything. How high does it go?”

  “Not high. Just keeps to the wall.”

  “You see anything in the yard beyond?”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  He jumped, casually twisting and turning in midair, and landed on the other side of the wall.

  Mouthing, “Show off!” I concentrated my energy the way Rene had shown me and jumped over the wall as well, landing not quite as gracefully next to George. “Let’s find something to get Kayla over,” I said.

  I heard a faint whisper of wind and Kayla landed right next to me “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “You’re not the only one in training, you know.”

  George jabbed me in the ribs again. I could already tell it was going to be a long night. “Which way, oh Princess Kayla?” he asked in a low whisper.

  Kayla focused her concentration, the same way she had back at the house, and pointed toward the rear of the outbuildings. The back of the building hung over the crest of a small ridge. At the bottom of the ridge was a concrete platform leading to a round tunnel with a steel door, reminiscent of those old World War II bunkers they had back at the Air Force base in Hawaii. There was a light fixture in an industrial looking cage, lighting the platform area. No one was around.

  Kayla pointed out the tunnel. “That’s the service entrance to the wine cellar.”

  We were hiding behind the hedge when a chill went down my spine. Looking up, I felt more than saw a very dark shape moving amongst the clouds. There was something flying up there. I tapped George and pointed.

  “Shit!” George said.

  “What?” Kayla I asked.

  “Matt, you remember that thing that attacked us on our way to the Pali?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, one of them is right above us,” he said.

  “Think it saw us?” I asked. I could tell Kayla saw the dark shape also by the way she crouched a little closer to the hedge.

  “Naw, they’re pretty aggressive. If it saw us, we would probably have already felt its claws.”

  “Well, that’s great.” I felt so reassured. “How do we get in?” I asked, looking at the fortified tunnel. It looked like it would take a bunker buster to get in.

  Kayla sprinted from behind the hedge to a dark spot beside the tunnel platform.

  “What’s she doing?” I asked.

  “Showing a lot more balls than you,” George said as he ran in the direction Kayla had. I followed.

  “What now?” I asked. Kayla shook her head and rolled her eyes in the universal sign of you dumbass and nodded toward the entrance door.

  “Wait,” George said. I could feel him gathering his power. He stretched out his hand and the bulb shattered in a spark of light.

  “Umm, well that’s cool,” I told George. He just grinned. Now we had the cover of darkness to cross the open space and make our way to the door.

  I was just about to go through when Kayla grabbed my arm. She went into that blank stare again as we watched impatiently. George kept his eyes open for that flying demon thing, and I was just getting a little nervous.

  “There’s one guard in there. Feels like he’s sleeping. I’ll make sure he stays asleep until we’re gone. Won’t be hard; must have been some party last night,” she said. “I feel Maya in there, but there are a couple of other girls. They’re terrified. We have to get them all out.”

  I nodded. George shrugged.

  “Okay, let’s go!” I ran for the door, George and Kayla close behind.

  There was not much light in the cellar. It was shadowy and dank and the tunnel ran into the mountainside for a good ways. It was big, the size of the sewer under the school back in Hawaii. Wine barrels were stacked five high. Caged alcoves stored wooden bottle racks, some of them covered with so much dust, they must not have been moved for years.

  Kayla face looked distant and far away. I could tell she was trying to sense any surprises. George was in full Malakhim mode and I shuddered as I remembered seeing him unconscious in that sewer.

  A strange growling echoed from a tunnel branching off into the darkness. “I don’t like the sound of that,” George said.

  “I can’t get a bead on what that could be,” Kayla said. “It’s not an animal, at least none I’ve ever encountered. But there are a lot of them.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said and Kayla glanced at me in agreement.

  “Let’s just find Maya and get her out,” George said.

  The main tunnel ended up splitting off into several tunnels. It was a warren of small passageways and rooms. But Kayla kept us moving steadily on course and after a few scary moments, we came across the first of the three girls behind an iron cage locked with a heavy padlock. George grabbed the thick padlock and flexed his power. It opened with a click. He looked at me with a grin.

  “I could have made a lot of money as a jewel thief,” he said with a wink.

  “You would, if you could ever keep your mouth shut long enough to not wake the entire house up,” I whispered. Kayla smirked.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of there,” George told the caged girl. She was wearing a skintight black dress that barely passed her thighs. It was ripped along one of the seams.

  Her eyes, smeared with makeup, widened as George extended his hand to her. Instead of accepting his help, she crouched further back into the alcove. “Umm, Kayla?” George asked.

  Kayla entered, shushing the girl and helping her to her feet. “We’re here to help.” I could feel Kayla sending out waves of comfort to the young girl, who broke down crying, collapsing in Kayla’s arms.

  “There were others,” the poor girl wailed as Kayla held her in her arms. “I don’t know where they took them, but I heard their screams for hours.”

  “It’s okay. You’re safe now. We have to get you and the rest of the girls out of here,” Kayla said reassuringly. The girl nodded and followed us out of her cage.

  We found another girl, and we helped her out as well. She looked dazed, perhaps drugged. But she could walk, so I helped her along as we went further into the maze of passageways.

  They both appeared to have been at the party last night. That bastard Pazuzu must use these parties to lure girls in, then trap and cage them for who knows what. It was just one more reason to get this guy. He was an animal.

  The passageway opened into a large space.

  “Ummm, Matt?” George pointed upward.

  “What the hell!”

  Kayla jumped as we realized that above us, locked in glassed cells, were hundreds upon hundreds of demon-looking creatures staring straight down at us. They were trapped behind the thick glass, but I could feel them in my mind.

  “I will eat your innards and share the rest of them with my brothers when I am released from this prison.”

  “Your world will be ours, and I will pick my teeth with your bones.”

  “Soon, human. Soon you will feel our wrath.”

  I heard them go on and on in my mind, delving deep into my thoughts. My pendant flared to life, just as it had with that Gallu demon in the darkness of the tunnel, and the voices stopped.

  “You okay?” George asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered as I shook off the dread of those creatures. Across from the army of human-like creatures, I saw cell upon cell of the flying things, much like the one that waited for us outside. There were hundreds of them.

  “He’s made an army,” I said. Pazuzu w
asn’t waiting for the end of the world. He was getting ready to end it himself.

  “I’m thinking he’s still making it.” George pointed across the room. There was a score of cells holding gigantic Gallu demons. But they were only partially formed, as if they were still in the womb, developing for their birth.

  “Maya’s just on the other side of this room,” Kayla said as she kept going, making her way past operating tables with the types of stirrups you find in a hospital delivery room. There were all sorts of equipment everywhere. It looked like a giant laboratory.

  We found Maya in a glass cell just where Kayla said she would be. She lay on the ground and I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or unconscious. The guard Kayla had knocked unconscious sat propped up against a wall of the cell. Kayla held a finger to her temple, concentrating on keeping him that way.

  “Maya,” Kayla called out. I could feel her extending her ability. Maya stirred and woke up with a squeal; her usual supreme cockiness was replaced with one of utter horror. Her eyes were frantic, afraid. Nothing like the self-assured girl I had known her to be.

  “Kayla! Get me out of here,” Maya said. “They were going to kill me. That Ricco jackass; he just stood aside when they took me away.” She shivered. George had the door open in seconds and ran in, helping her to her feet. She leaned in to him, quaking. George comforted her with soft words, words that I couldn’t hear. I had never known him to be that tender.

  The guard sitting just outside of Maya’s cell stirred uncomfortably. Kayla gritted her teeth, concentrating hard to keep him down.

  “We gotta get out of here now,” Kayla whispered, her brow furrowed, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. She was expending a lot of effort on the guard and I knew she wouldn’t take the strain much longer.

  “We’ll see you soon, Rising!”

  I shuddered as one of those demon things spoke to me. It knew me. It knew my name, and it sounded exactly like that creature Tuli had become. I looked more closely into the glass cells and realized that these things weren’t alien creatures. They were humans, humans that had been corrupted just as Tuli had been. Who knew how long those things had been trapped in there? Driven mad by Pazuzu into hating, vicious creatures.