Fallen Angels
Page 25
It thrashed violently as it hit the ground, one of George’s Kindjals sticking out of its side. The drake gasped then stopped moving.
“Eh, think you can help a guy out?” George yelled, still holding off some of those lizard men with his remaining blade. I pulled out the knife and threw it to him. He caught it by the handle and in the same arc cut the head off one of his attackers.
“Going after Pazuzu!” I yelled in his direction. “You all right with this?”
“Go,” he yelled as he parried a blow. I ran to where I had last seen Pazuzu and realized my father was cuffed to the superstructure of the bomb. All thoughts of making a distraction went right out the window when I saw my father there.
“Dad!” I yelled, hoping he was still alive. He opened his eyes.
“Matthew?” he mumbled. Blood dripped from his brow; heavy iron manacles chained him to the frame of the giant bomb. “What are you doing here? It’s a trap,” he muttered. He looked about ready to collapse.
“Of course it’s a trap,” Devon Pazuzu said as he stepped out of the shadows of the circular bunker. “But I knew you couldn’t resist saving Dear Old Dad,” he sneered.
I sent a wave of power but Pazuzu lifted his left hand and the best shot I had dissipated in ever-weakening swirls.
I knew what was coming next and tried my best to prepare myself but was still caught by a burst of energy that cut right through me. A thundering force broke apart the concrete beneath my feet like a thin layer of ice on a pond. The ground continued to shudder. I had done something similar in the city and it had taken every bit of energy I had, almost killing me. Pazuzu threw the ground around like it was a thin crust of crème brulee, and the bastard was still grinning.
“Ricco,” Pazuzu said, and I turned to find the boy behind me, a vicious leer partially concealed by his long black hair.
It was bad enough fighting a once-god alone, but there was no way I was going to survive a fight with these two, not even to mention the guards. My teeth clenched and I pulled as much as I power as I could. The air crackled around me.
As I watched, two guards half-dragged, half-carried my father and dumped him in front of Pazuzu. Dad seemed stunned, his side dripping with blood. Pazuzu seized him by the collar and pulled him face up so he could see me.
My heart sank. It wasn’t enough to kill me. Pazuzu wanted to make a statement that he was in control and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. He wanted my father to watch me die.
His voice rang out over the concrete walls. “Kill him.”
Chapter 29 – Salvation
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Ricco said. He lifted a hand toward me, gathering power in his palm, but as he let it go, my pendant flared and deflected the blast. Ricco must have anticipated that because he was already airborne, the pole whipping toward my face.
No time to react. I twisted left as his staff moved to crush my right cheek. It took a huge chunk out of the wall instead. Ricco was a lot stronger than he’d been the last time we’d fought. My pendant flared again, and I saw lines of power connecting Ricco with the Earth, as well as a steady stream from Pazuzu himself. He glowed with it, and by the look of things, it must have been increasing his strength considerably.
I tried to cut the connection as George had shown me, but the bands of power disappeared and reformed. Ricco was much more experienced with this kind of fighting, and this time, he didn’t give me time to collect myself or even to take a breath.
“You are going to die,” Ricco laughed as the staff sparkled with energy. He was getting closer and closer to smashing my head in, and I was running out of options.
The staff slammed against my right shoulder like a sledgehammer. Something inside of me stirred as I ducked away from a second strike. I began to feel giddy, a smile crossing my face, adrenalin coursing through my body as the pain died away. This must be what my dad called battle fever because I was grinning from ear to ear in elation. I thought back to that morning session with Dad and him almost taking my head off.
Watch your opponent. They will show you how to beat them, I remembered him saying as I waited for my opponents next move.
Ricco tried to disembowel me with an upward swing of his staff. Dad always countered with an upswing and I laughed. That seemed to infuriate my attacker.
“You think this is funny?” Ricco snarled as he swung even harder, but I was now in the full combat mode drilled into me from the day I was born. I slowed my attack, taking in my opponent, and I realized something. Although Ricco was incredibly fast and inhumanly powerful, his footwork was poor. He took too many steps in his attack. He hadn’t been worked to the point of exhaustion time and time again to ingrain the proper balance, the proper stance. He didn’t have real fight training. Instead, he relied heavily on his power, and I would take advantage of that.
I watched as a powerful swing pulled him slightly off-balance, giving me just enough time to slip the pole and counter with a foot to his mid-section. With the strength he now possessed, it didn’t do much, but he grunted before he swung again. I ducked and danced closer, this time tagging him with a right cross to his jaw.
This was not magic, nor the use of some kind of supernatural energy. This was a pure, old-fashioned brawl, and my father had made sure I was ready for this kind of fight. Ricco swung the pole again and I moved away, his shoulders telegraphing his intent like a signpost. The strength of the strike shattered the concrete but I slipped inside his reach before he could react and punched him squarely in the face again and again, pummeling him, just as I had at Pazuzu’s mansion. Blow after blow fell and his nose became a bloody mess. Each time he tried to fight back, I ducked away and moved closer. I’d done the work, put in the time. Now, I’d show him what real fighters do. It was almost unfair.
“Father!” Ricco called out, his face panicked and stricken.
“Ricco, you continue to disappoint,” Pazuzu snarled.
And that was when heaven and hell and maybe a little bit of the planet Earth broke loose, all at the same time.
Ricco ducked as the remaining guards started shooting at me. Bolts pinged off my pendant’s shield, hitting with sledgehammer force, pushing me to my knees.
Pazuzu dropped my dad and lifted a hand toward me, releasing a wave of force that threw me to the dirt below.
And as I was thrown, I fell through Pazuzu’s sizzling power. Every part of me shuddered like a fish on a line and all of the pain of a thousand generations flooded through my shredded nerves like a tidal wave. I crumbled under the onslaught, my body not obeying me anymore. I slumped to the ground, twitching and trembling.
I tried to focus on what was going on around me, how George was doing, but mostly I was just trying to keep from biting off my tongue as spasms racked me. The agonizing pain increased and I saw George attack the once-god.
The guard’s shot bolts of plasma, hitting the concrete, whizzing by me like fireworks on the 4th of July. I lay there helpless, collapsing from a plasma bolt landing right between my shoulder blades. I would have hated to feel what would happen if it wasn’t for my Loci shield. Vaguely, I heard someone calling my name. And then Maya and Kayla were hauling me to the safety of an outcropping of rock. That’s when I saw George fall.
“George!” Maya screamed. Kayla pulled me up against the rock. “Matthew, get up. We have to help George!”
“Kill him!” Pazuzu screamed. “Kill the Malakhim!”
“Matthew!” Maya wailed. “Help him!”
I wanted to scream, to tell them that I would do anything for George, but I couldn’t even pull it together enough to nod in answer. The bolts of plasma whizzed by, trapping us behind the rock. I was just able to see one of the guards opening a small door on the nuclear device. Some kind of control panel lit up like Christmas, and that could not be a good thing.
The coronal glow above the platform intensified and George cried out.
Pazuzu’s voice carried over the din. “Come out, little Malakhim or I kill both of th
em. Your friend here first.”
Maya looked up at the platform, toward the guards who had George clenched around the neck. She gritted her teeth.
And that was when I realized you don’t mess with a girl in love.
With reserved motions, she drew two short metal rods from beneath her leather sleeves and flicked them through the air with practiced movements. I had to admit, she looked like she knew what she was doing.
“Kayla,” she said.
Kayla grabbed Maya by the shoulder. “Maya, we can wait. Rene and the rest of them will be here soon.” Just then, one of the guards struck George with ruthless force. George grunted.
“Come out or I kill him now,” Pazuzu shrieked. “Come out, Mashiach!” That last word was said like an insult, his teeth not quite forming over the word.
“Not soon enough. Maybe I can keep them from killing him until they get here. If I don’t get through this, tell our parents I didn’t have to be Malakhim to do the right thing,” Maya said.
Kayla grabbed Maya by the arm. “You tell them yourself, after we get out of here.” Kayla pulled a long, slender chain from around her waist.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. It’ll be like old times. I miss the old times.”
“Me too,” Maya smiled.
I wanted to scream at them not to go, to run away, find help—to go get Rene and let him stop the bomb. At least if the bomb went off, it would be quick, painless. Not the kind of torture Pazuzu would put them through, but I had so little energy left. I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything.
Maya and Kayla got up. They had no chance, not against all of them. No, goddamn it. I had to stand, had to fight, couldn’t let it all end this way, but it was no use. I was useless. My cheek low against the cold stone, my eyes were high enough to see Pazuzu with my dad at his feet, George slumped over, held by Pazuzu’s guards.
A mockery of a smile crossed Ricco’s face as he saw Maya. “Look who’s here? I knew you couldn’t stay away. Baby, don’t worry. After this is all over, I’ll take you back.”
“Baby this,” Maya said as she leaped at Ricco, the rods flickering around her, forcing Ricco to guard himself or be thrashed. Her rods danced and shimmered, darted and moved with a grace I’d only seen from George.
Kayla leapt for the guard holding my friend, the metallic chain wrapping around him, pulling him off the platform. She swung around and kicked the second guard and lashed at the third, all while I lay helpless behind the rock.
Kayla had dispatched the fourth guard and was pulling George away when Pazuzu smiled. I knew he was just waiting for an opening to attack Kayla and Maya while their backs were turned.
I struggled to pull the power of Earth and it came slowly, like a trickle in a slow drizzle. But it came. I concentrated even harder, aided by my pendant. The gold-encrusted ruby had used so much energy; the jewel was dark and smoking. But even with my Loci’s aid, the energy wasn’t coming fast enough to get me into the fight before it was over and all of my friends were dead.
“Someone help, please,” I prayed.
From somewhere high above, I felt a gust of wind, then power unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I raised my head and in the clouds above me, I felt more than heard a symphony of sound, louder and more boisterous than anything I’d ever heard. No one else reacted to the commotion, but it hummed in my ears and I felt my body tremble with power.
Somehow, I had the power to stand, to fight. Then I saw it: a cylindrical cloud, moving overhead, and I knew the power came from there.
I had enough energy to stand. I struggled up the hillside. As I cleared the platform, a guard next to Pazuzu forced my father to his feet.
Everything happened in slow motion then. I screamed and watched Dad’s confusion just before the jagged Sentient spear erupted from his chest.
Pazuzu stood behind him, the spear still in his hand, and glared at Kayla like a hawk about to strike. I pulled whatever erg of power I could and sent a bolt of fire across the distance, striking the side of Pazuzu’s face, spinning him off the platform and down to the ridge below.
Chapter 30 - End Game
The guard standing over my father was dead even before he could smell his searing flesh. My fire lashed out, burning through his face, incinerating his head into black ash. The headless corpse dropped to the concrete floor and I was over it and to my father in the blink of an eye.
Dad was on his knees, wheezing; blood gurgled from the sides of the spearhead, red bubbles forming along the shaft. I clutched at the vile weapon, trying to find a way to pull it out, to release it, but I only made the bleeding worse. His breath came in shredded gasps.
He knew he was dead, even before I could admit it. “Let it go, Matthew,” he whispered. “Did you beat them?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Everything I did was for this.”
“I know.”
He muttered, barely loud enough to hear, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
His eyes fluttered and the wheezing stopped. The red bubbles along the spear shaft no longer formed.
I pulled the spear out, allowing his body to lie flat. My tears fell, mixing with his blood, and I thought to myself that he’d be pissed if he saw me crying like this. Then it crossed my mind. What he’d really say is to get the job done, and then you can cry all you like. Finish it first.
I felt Kayla’s presence by my side, trying to soothe me.
“No!”
Kayla flinched away and her presence receded.
“I need my rage. I need it to kill Pazuzu.” She stared at me, maybe unsure if I’d gone insane. That’s all right because I really didn’t know if I had.
“Is everyone safe?” I asked.
She nodded. “For now. When Pazuzu fell, Ricco ran off. We took care of the rest.”
“Will you watch him?” There was no hesitation. She nodded again.
I glanced around just in time to see one of those sky sleds taking off. I couldn’t see who was on it, but somehow I knew it was Pazuzu.
Without another word and without looking back, I sprinted toward the remaining sky sleds. I jumped on the first one, scanning the controls. There was a button that looked enough like a starter that I immediately pushed it. The console came to life and the sled hummed. There were two joystick-looking things and I moved one experimentally. The craft shuddered. I moved the other one slightly and shot ten feet up in the air, the lurch almost throwing me off the sled. I tried the first again and turned slightly.
My father’s flying lessons came back to me. Roll and pitch were controlled by this joystick; the other controlled yaw and thrust. Got it.
I shot off after Pazuzu. I could still see his sled in the distance, heading south. I followed behind, pushing the sled as fast as it would go. The ground sped quickly passed and very shortly I could see Candlestick Park below. It was full of people and some part of my brain recognized they were supposed to play Game Three of the World Series there. My father wouldn’t be able to watch it because my father was dead. Murdered by the creature that I was about to kill.
I banked high and accelerated even faster rocketing over the Earth like a missile, trying to stay in the sun above Pazuzu so he wouldn’t see me. Just a little more and I’d have the angle I needed.
After a minute or two, I recognized the City of Santa Cruz from the aerial map dad made me memorize what seemed like years ago. I knew now was the time. I dove steeply down, a shrill whistle marking my speed, like a hawk descending on its prey. I don’t know how I heard that because I was screaming with all of the rage I had in my heart.
Pazuzu looked up but it was too late. My sled crashed into his, pinning him beneath mine as we plummeted to the Earth. I didn’t care if I died, as long as I took my father’s murderer with me.
The two sleds hit the forest floor below us, hopefully crushing Pazuzu beneath me. I leapt and tumbled; hitting the ground with such forced I was stunned but not quite knocked unconscious. I g
ot to my feet and ran, building up my energy, to find out what became of the once god. I hoped that, with luck, the impact had killed him. But I was never lucky.
Pazuzu rose from the wreckage, one dark eye shimmering. He held his right arm close to his side and favored his leg. The left side of his face, where my bolt of fire had hit him, was blistered and burnt, that eye ruined. He turned to see me better, but his leg quivered. He was hurt.
I would make sure that my father’s murderer would be much more than just hurt.
The air crackled and I leapt at Pazuzu, casting an arc of molten heat. But he lifted a hand. The fire stopped, as if hitting an invisible wall, then fell to the ground, fizzling against the metal floor.
“You think you’ve done anything, human? I’ve destroyed beings that make you look like the insect you are,” Pazuzu roared, but I didn’t waste any time listening. I wouldn’t give him the opportunity to use all of that power against me. I raced forward and cold-cocked him right across the chin.
Pazuzu’s eyes widened, but he still wasn’t prepared as I threw a right cross, catching the left side of his face. Blistered skin tore and he let out a breathless cry. I connected hard and sure, again and again, releasing my pent-up rage, battering my father’s killer.
I could feel the power of the Earth below me, feeding me, giving me the power I needed to kill my father’s murderer and I reveled in that power feeling it fill me, allowing me to strike Pazuzu with reckless abandon.
I laughed, the giddy laugh of someone caught up in the height of battle and maybe I should have been more careful. Maybe I should have not given him the time to counter my attack, but Pazuzu raised a hand and I was thrown off him. I slid across the ground and was almost thrown off a cliff to the valley floor far below. Before I could react, his power lifted me then slammed me down, knocking all the air out of my lungs.
His one good eye glared at me like a teacher would at a particularly disappointing student. “You are being used, Matthew. Don’t you understand that?” Pazuzu jeered as I tried to send a bolt of energy toward him. He flexed a flinger and it dissipated into ineffectual arcs. Heavy pieces of stone rocketed from the cliffs above Pazuzu toward me.