Armageddon (24 page)

“Yeah,” Aaron agreed, feeling a tear roll down the length of his face. “Yeah, I am.”

Stevie smiled, but there was nothing joyous in his expression; in fact, Aaron found it completely chilling.

“Good,” the child said, beginning to rock again, and clapping his hands wildly. “Good. Good!”

Aaron rose and backed away, as all his self-preservation instincts came alive.

Stevie peeled away the skin of his seven-year-old self and shucked it away like an old blanket, revealing a red-armored monster hiding beneath.

“Good!” Malak screeched, leaping at Aaron, a spear appearing in his hands, the point aimed at his chest.

Aaron tripped on his own feet, falling to his side. He watched as the spear point plunged into the pavement, only narrowly missing him.

“Stevie,” Aaron pleaded, pushing himself up from the ground as the armored warrior yanked his weapon from the street’s grip. “I’m not going to allow this to happen again.”

Malak charged.

This time Aaron was ready, lunging forward to grab hold of the spear. The power of the Nephilim came alive, filling Aaron’s hands with divine fire, superheating the metal spear until it glowed and began to melt.

Malak savagely kneed Aaron’s side. Aaron cried out, leaping
back in pain. It felt like he’d broken a few ribs.

Malak tossed the melted spear aside and drew a sword from the air. It, too, was forged of a dark metal that glinted in the faint sunlight of the abandoned housing development.

“Please,” Aaron begged.

Malak moved like a dangerous thought, sudden and swift. Aaron shrugged the powerful muscles in his shoulders, allowing his wings to emerge. He leaped from the path of Malak’s sword, flying over his foster brother’s head to land behind him.

“I don’t want to do this,” Aaron said desperately. He was painfully aware that this was all happening just like it had that day.

The day he’d killed his brother.

Malak spun around, his movements a blur despite the weight of the armor he wore. He charged at Aaron, the impact sending them both crashing to the ground.

Their struggles were ferocious. Malak no longer wielded a sword, but now had a black-bladed dagger that descended inexorably toward Aaron’s face. The Nephilim twisted to one side, and the point of the blade stabbed into the ground. Aaron flexed his powerful wings, bucking his body and flipping Malak from atop him.

There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation from his foe as he recovered immediately, coming back at him. Aaron had no choice but to defend himself, calling on a weapon of his own. He pictured something large and majestic and watched as it
grew to life in his hand, just in time to drive Malak back with a halfhearted swipe.

“I don’t want to do this again,” Aaron said with finality.

The blade burned brightly, and Malak stood back from the crackling yellow-and-orange fire.

Then he began to laugh.

It was an insane sound.

“You were supposed to protect us,” Malak said from behind his mask. “Keep us from harm.”

Aaron was about to protest when he saw the street filling with faceless figures.

“That was your purpose,” Malak continued. “At first God thought you were a mistake, but then He saw your potential.”

Malak’s voice changed, becoming high and squeaky. “Hey, maybe the Nephilim aren’t monsters at all. Maybe they’ll be a force for good in the trying times to come.”

The faceless throng gathered behind Malak.

“He was wrong, Aaron,” Malak told him. For once, the voice behind the mask sounded incredibly rational. The armored figure reached up to remove his scarlet helmet, revealing the face of his preternaturally matured sibling.

This is who Stevie would have become if . . .

If I hadn’t been forced to . . .

Aaron’s sword of fire suddenly became so very, very heavy. It was all he could do to hold it aloft.

His brother was silent, as were the countless others, their
accusations an enormous weight on his weapon.

“I never wanted to . . .”

Aaron didn’t know what to do or say. He hadn’t been born a hero, and as far as he knew, neither had the other Nephilim. It had been thrust upon them, whether or not they wanted the responsibility.

“I just wanted a good life,” Aaron said. He gasped at a vision of another life, of his job, his wife . . . his son.

We were going to get a dog.

Aaron looked at his weapon with utter contempt.

“I don’t want this.”

The sword vanished, as did the wings upon his back. He could feel the sigils of power that adorned his flesh in times of battle gradually cooling and starting to fade.

“I never wanted any of this.”

The faceless throng surged closer to Malak, their forms blending with the armored killer’s, causing him to grow in stature.

Aaron stared, dumbfounded, at his brother, who now towered above him.

A monster consisting of Aaron’s greatest failures.

“Admit it, the Lord God was wrong,” the giant said in a chorus of booming voices.

“He was wrong,” Aaron repeated dully.

“There is no place on this earth for the likes of you and your kind.”

“There is no place.” Aaron’s voice was weak, filled with failure.

“Do you accept your fate?” the giant demanded to know.

Aaron was done, finished with it all. His despair overwhelmed his heart.

“Yes,” he whispered.

Malak grabbed him with an enormous scarlet mitt, raising the Nephilim to his face.

Aaron did not struggle, his fate already sealed.

“Welcome to oblivion,” the giant said, opening his mouth and tossing Aaron inside like a measly snack.

And everything was as it should have been.

*   *   *

Dusty sat at a small table inside the empty convenience store, eating a sandwich and contemplating the future.

“I wonder who Bob was,” Gabriel said, nibbling at the dry dog food in front of him.

“Hmm?” Dusty questioned, momentarily distracted from his visions.

“I wonder who Bob was,” Gabriel repeated, while munching his kibble.

“Bob?” Dusty asked.

“This store,” Gabriel said. “Bob’s Famous Foodmart.”

“Oh.” Dusty gazed out the filthy windows at the parking lot and the road sign for Bob’s Famous Foodmart. “I don’t know.”

“Well, whoever he was, he had a nice store,” Gabriel said.
The dog moved his attention to his bowl of water, lapping loudly.

Dusty imagined the place before the Abomination of Desolation severed the earth’s ties with Heaven and the world had become a nightmare. “Yeah,” he said, picking up what was left of his cheese sandwich. “I’m sure it was a nice store.”

“Do you think there will be a time when there are nice stores again?” the dog asked.

Dusty chewed a bite of sandwich, thinking of an appropriate answer. “Are you asking me if there will come a time when everything will return to the way it was?”

“I guess,” Gabriel answered.

“Afraid not. The good old days are gone. But the future . . .” Dusty stared outside again, images of potential futures vying for position. “The future could be interesting.” Dusty’s heart started to race. “We have to leave,” he said, standing and extending his hand.

Gabriel nuzzled his head against Dusty’s waiting fingers. “Is the future calling?” the dog asked.

“It very well could be.”

And then they were off.

S
atan had waited long enough.

He’d told the Sisters of Umbra his most special desires, and they had left to consider his requests.

He’d warned them that his impatience was a hungry thing, and it would serve them well to act swiftly, or they would be consumed by its voraciousness.

His anger at being kept waiting was further agitated by the fact that they’d put some sort of magickal lock on their door, in an attempt to prevent him from gaining entrance to their lair.

How dare they,
he thought as he drew upon magicks far older and stronger than theirs to shred the barrier and allow him access.

His arrival was like the most destructive of storms. Satan emerged in all his fearsome glory, half expecting the Sisters to
be cowering in fear at his coming. But what he found was far more disturbing and bothersome.

The bodies of dead yetis lay scattered about, their once-glowing forms dimming as they began to decay.

“What has happened here?” he asked, walking amongst the dead. He could sense a power here, one that was not part of the armored remains where the Sisters resided.

An ancient power. A divine power.

A power potentially dangerous to him.

Feeling unsettled, the Darkstar was about to retreat when he heard something alive amid the dead. He created a fearsome blade from the shadows of the chamber to vanquish any who hid in wait for him.

He heard the sound again. Carefully, he picked his way through the yeti corpses, toward the faint, gurgling sound. It was as if someone were trying to breathe through water—or blood.

Satan’s keen, predatory eyes caught a hint of movement, and he took to the air, flying across the vast chamber.

He believed himself ready for anything, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw—a large, fleshy mass with limbs sticking out haphazardly from its misshapen form.

“What manner of monstrosity . . . ,” Satan began, as what might have been a head rose up from the body to fix him in a multi-eyed gaze.

“Dark . . . sssssssstar,” it wheezed pathetically.

“What happened here?” Satan demanded, studying the horrendous form before him, knowing exactly what—who—it was.

The mass that had once been the Sisters of Umbra shuddered, its limbs flailing as it attempted to respond.

Satan knelt beside the horrible thing. “Tell me what did this to you.” He leaned toward the twisted hole that he believed was a mouth.

There was no reply.

Satan became annoyed by the creature’s pathetic efforts. “Is that the best you can do?”

Tears began to leak from the thing’s eyes, and the Darkstar was repulsed. He could see that it did not have long to live.

“Did you do what I asked?” he pressed.

The fleshy monster quivered in an attempt to answer him, but Satan did not understand.

Which made him all the angrier.

“The passage . . . did you find me a way in which I and my armies can reach Heaven?”

Again it moaned, but it did not answer.

Satan looked deeply into its multiple eyes, searching for his answer.

“Yes,” he hissed, allowing his weapon of shadow to dissipate, freeing both his hands to grasp the abomination’s head. “I do believe I see what I’m looking for in there.”

Satan tightly held the thrashing head with one hand,
while he pushed his fingers into the soft flesh around its eyes, penetrating its malformed skull. It took a moment of fishing, but his fingers caressed the wrinkled surface of the conjoined brains, and he smiled.

“I’ll apologize in advance for the agony I’m likely to cause,” Satan Darkstar said. “But know that I have truly appreciated your guidance, and for that I thank you.”

Satan pushed his hand and most of his wrist into the brain’s soft gray matter. The Sisters ceased their struggle, giving in to the Darkstar’s unholy act. He allowed his power to flow, darkness leaking from his fingertips to spread throughout the gray matter.

The Darkstar absorbed all the Sisters’ memories of the life they’d led before their transformation, and the countless years that followed after they’d been infused with the power of God.

So much accumulated experience . . . so much accumulated knowledge.

In an instant, Satan took from them all that they knew. All that made them what they were.

He pulled his hand free with a nauseating squelch and stared at his dripping fingers, clenching and unclenching them as if pumping the information through his own being. He saw how it all started for the Sisters of Umbra, right through to the very end.

And amidst all that, Satan found what he had been searching for—

As well as who had invaded the Sisters’ dwelling.

Satan now knew where the attacker had gone with the power of God.

The power that Satan would require to rebuild the passage to Heaven.

Satan growled, spreading his wings and taking flight.

In pursuit of the power that was his destiny.

A power that would shake the very pillars of Heaven till it fell to ruin.

*   *   *

“What am I looking at?” Lorelei asked the ghostly, angelic being called A’Dorial.

“These are the plains of Megiddo,” the angel said, gesturing to an aerial image of a desert that the angel spirit had conjured for them. “Humanity calls this region the Middle East.”

“I’m guessing this place has something to do with the Ladder you’ve been talking about.”

“It does,” the angel said. “For this was where Beth-El was built.”

“Beth-El?”

“The House of God.”

“And this was where the Ladder was kept?” Lorelei asked.

A’Dorial considered the question. “Yes, in a way. You see, Beth-El is the Ladder.”

Lorelei waited patiently for the angel to explain.

“Beth-El was erected in the early days of humankind, as the
place where Heaven and earth met. It was the prophet Jacob who gave it its other name, Jacob’s Ladder. He was third in the line of patriarchs of Israel, on his way to the city of Haran to take a wife. At the end of his first day of travel, he laid his head down upon a stone in the valley and slept.”

The aerial view shifted to what Jacob had seen in his visions.

“He dreamed that there was a ladder from earth, reaching to Heaven. He dreamed that the angels of God used it to ascend and descend.”

“Was there really a ladder?” Lorelei asked.

“Not as you’d know it, but he processed his visions using references that were familiar to him.”

The picture of divine beings flying to and from Heaven quickly morphed into another image. It looked to be a temple-like structure, shaped like a pyramid with its top cut off.

“What’s that?”

“That is Beth-El after the fall of the Metatron,” the angel explained. “Cold and lifeless. The direct path to Heaven cut off by God when the Metatron ceased to be. It is only with the Metatron’s power that it can be restored.”