Armageddon (29 page)

Lorelei could not help but smile as the body that lay partially buried returned to life with a scream and an explosion of divine fire, which tossed away the dead that had been strewn atop him.

*   *   *

“Wouldn’t want to do that every day,” Jeremy said, as he stood, flexing his wings. He scanned the parking lot, countless corpses of enemies and mysterious allies laid out before him.

“Are you still here, Lorelei?” he asked. “Can you still hear me?”

There was no response.

“Well, I’m going to talk to you anyway.”

He pulled his wings back within himself and started to walk quickly across the lot toward the woods.

“Hopefully, you can keep up,” he said.

Jeremy was amazed at how good he felt. Whatever Lorelei had done had recharged his spiritual and physical batteries. He felt well enough to take on the world, which could very well be what he needed to do.

“I know I left the school and all, but I was given a huge
responsibility—to watch over a very special child. I believe he was sent here to help the world with its current predicament.”

“Enoch!” he cried, as he reached the line of trees. “You can come out now. You’re safe.”

There was no answer.

“Enoch!” Jeremy called again, in the direction where he’d seen the child run. “It’s me. We’re safe for now.”

“The child’s name is Enoch, if you haven’t figured that out,” Jeremy said to Lorelei. “And it’s very important that I find him.”

He made his way into the wooded area, stopping short as he came across more bodies. There was a dead Agent, as well as one of the metal-winged beings.

Jeremy circled them, searching for any sign of what had transpired. He knelt down and touched the ground with his fingers, then brought them up to his nose to sniff. The scent was there, sharp and pungent.

The smell of the unnatural. Jeremy had smelled it before.

“I have to find him,” he said, in a panic. “If they have him, everyone is in danger.”

The body of the dead Agent suddenly sat up, and Jeremy reacted, a sword of divine fire springing to life. He was ready to cleave the skull of his foe when it spoke.

“It’s me!” came a rough, gravelly voice.

Jeremy held his swing. “Me who?”

“Lorelei,” the figure said with great difficulty. The Agent
moved stiffly as it attempted to stand. “I’ve possessed this body so I can interact with you,” she said. The body listed to one side. “This takes some getting used to.”

Jeremy lowered his sword but remained on guard. Starting to pace, he said, “I need to find Enoch.”

The possessed corpse went stiff, and Jeremy was starting to become concerned that something was the matter when it began to speak again.

“I think I might be able to help with that,” Lorelei said, using the voice of the Agent. “I think I can find out what’s happened to Enoch.”

*   *   *

Lorelei hated the feeling of being inside the Agent’s corpse.

It felt wrong, and she had the sense that if she stayed too long, she’d be trapped.

“How?” Jeremy was asking, desperation in his tone. “How can you find Enoch?”

She was still getting used to her connection with the corpse, and her motor functions were improving. “I think I might be able to access his thoughts,” she managed.

“Can you find out who these guys are?” Jeremy asked.

Lorelei had forgotten that Jeremy wasn’t around when the Agents had first revealed themselves at the school and Mallus had explained who they were.

“They’re a form of enhanced primitive men, used by a group of mysterious angelic beings called the Architects.”

“Guess that explains why they look like bloody monkeys,” Jeremy said. “But these Architects, what’s their story?”

“To put it simply, they are angels who think they can do a better job than God—and want to prove it here, on earth.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jeremy asked.

“They want to turn earth into their idea of Heaven,” Lorelei said.

“Bloody hell,” Jeremy muttered. “So why are they so hell-bent on having Enoch?”

“Because Enoch was sent by God,” Lorelei said, as she began to access the memories of the Agent assassin. It was a disgusting process, something akin to wading through an ocean of foul-smelling waste. “The Architects want to stop God from having any involvement in what they’re doing.”

“But the world is going to Hell.”

Lorelei waded deeper into the memories of the Agent, taking what she could from the fragmented thoughts. The Agent’s brain was beginning to decay, and its memories were deteriorating.

“Which seems to be part of the plan,” she said, experiencing a sudden wave of overwhelming nausea, even though she was dead. “I have to get out of this body,” she told Jeremy.

“Not yet,” Jeremy ordered. “You need to find out where they’ve taken Enoch.”

The Agent corpse collapsed to its knees. “Have to leave the body,” it growled. “Before I’m trapped.”

Jeremy knelt and grasped the corpse’s shoulder. “I need to know where he is.”

It was like being inside a house as it collapsed around her, but Lorelei knew how important the information was, not only to Jeremy, but to the world. She rooted through the decaying gray matter as it bubbled and frothed, sorting through centuries of seemingly senseless murders mandated by the Architects.

Grabbing hold of a memory near the Agent’s moment of death, she followed it back down the line to where he’d first learned of his last mission.

“Lorelei?” Jeremy called, but he sounded so very far away.

She was out of time—she had to leave—and wriggled from the Agent’s decaying body like a snake shedding its skin.

*   *   *

Jeremy stared helplessly at the Agent’s corpse as it lay perfectly still on the ground where it had fallen.

“Lorelei,” he said, nudging the body with the toe of his boot. It didn’t move. “Lorelei,” he called again, his voice cracking with desperation. Enoch needed him—the world needed him to find Enoch, but without Lorelei’s help . . .

“Jeremy!” a rough-sounding voice interrupted his thoughts, and he watched another of the black-garbed assassins trudge toward him from the trees.

“Any luck?” Jeremy asked, striding toward the Agent possessed by Lorelei’s spirit.

“I think so.” The Agent’s arm lifted, and Jeremy saw that
the tight-fitting stealth suit had been peeled away to reveal the pale, mottled flesh of its hand.

Jeremy drew closer, noticing the strange arrow tattoo on the back of the Agent’s hand. His Nephilim senses told him that the mark was filled with preternatural power. “It’s like a directional signal. I just need to figure out how to make it work,” Lorelei explained in her distorted voice.

He hoped that it wouldn’t take too long. The thought of baby Enoch out there, in the hands of the enemy . . . it was almost more than he could stand.

T
he Unforgiven tried to make Aaron rest—but that wasn’t going to happen.

He’d pretended to sleep, waiting just long enough for the angel attendants to leave before getting up and searching out Vilma and his mother.

His mother.

He wondered how long it would take for him to get used to that concept.

Standing in the center of his room in the infirmary wing, Aaron closed his eyes and thought of Vilma. The connection he had with his girlfriend was a special one, and he didn’t think there would ever come a time when they would be truly apart. With his mind locked upon her image, he spread his wings and wrapped them tightly about himself, imagining that he was at her side.

It took more out of him than he’d thought it would.

He appeared at the back of the conference room with a rush of air, stumbling to one side, crashing against a freestanding chalkboard that was covered in notes.

From the corner of his eye he saw his mother stand and Vilma hurry across to him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, righting himself and attempting to straighten the chalkboard.

He could feel the cold stares of the fallen angels in the room. What had Vilma called them? The Unforgiven.

“I thought you were resting,” Vilma said, wrapping an arm around his waist.

“No time for that,” Aaron said, regaining some of his composure. “There’s too much to be done, and I’ve already been out of the picture for too long.”

“Aaron, please,” Taylor said. “We have the situation well in hand. Go back to the infirmary—rest, we’ll keep you informed—”

“A dark force has taken possession of the Morningstar’s body, and in turn, his power,” Aaron interrupted. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

The leader of the Unforgiven, Aaron believed that his name was Levi, stood up from his seat at the conference table to address him.

“The Morningstar is possessed?” he asked. “Where did you come by this information?”

“It was this Satan Darkstar, wearing the body of my father, who put me in a coma.”

“How can you be so sure that he was possessed?” Levi asked, as the other Unforgiven around him nodded in agreement. “The Morningstar is not known for his trustworthiness.”

Aaron grimaced at the implications but could understand where their doubts were coming from, especially since many of them had followed Lucifer during the Great War in Heaven.

“Let’s just say that he’s changed over the centuries. Anyway, he told me of the possession while I was in the coma.”

Levi looked around the table at his brothers. “He ‘told’ you?”

“I know it sounds nuts, but somehow he visited my subconscious. He explained the situation and told me what Satan Darkstar is planning. We have to stop him.”

“I suppose it is possible that they communicated on some psychic level,” the Unforgiven leader postulated. “The Morningstar is one of the most powerful of us, and the two do share the same blood.”

“If we were to believe all that you tell us,” Levi said to Aaron, “what did your father say this Satan Darkstar had planned?”

“Besides overrunning the planet with monsters?” Aaron started. He found himself flexing the powerful muscles on his back, his black wings slowly unfurling, and then closing again. “The Darkstar is planning some kind of attack against Heaven.”

The Unforgiven looked at one another. Their eyes remained hidden behind the goggles, but Aaron could tell that a message was passing among them.

“We will take your concerns under consideration, Aaron Corbet.” Levi turned to Taylor, who had returned to her seat beside him. “If you would please escort your son back to the infirmary, we will continue our briefing.”

Taylor opened her mouth to argue, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she stood and moved around the table to join Aaron and Vilma.

“C’mon, Aaron,” Vilma said. “We should go.”

“So that’s the way this is going to be?” Aaron asked, feeling his ire rise. “You’re not going to listen to me?”

“We will take what you have said under consideration.” The Unforgiven leader then turned away, dismissing him.

Aaron didn’t care for that. Not in the least.

He stepped away from Vilma, his wings erupting in a rush, the sound like that of a sail being caught in a powerful wind. The angelic sigils of power, part of his father’s birthright, rose to the surface of his skin.

“You’re not taking me seriously.” Aaron’s voice boomed in the confines of the meeting room. “And that makes me angry.”

Some of the Unforgiven had risen from their chairs, the sharp feathers of their mechanical wings flared.

Aaron did not want to fight them, but if that was what it took to get them to listen, then so be it.

“Aaron, please,” his mother begged, but he did not back down.

“Why won’t you listen to me?” he asked.

Levi stood calmly, and his followers closed their wings.

“The world is on the brink of ruin,” he said. “And with the child missing, and believed to be in the hands of the Architects, we are closer to annihilation than ever before.”

Levi paused.

“The child must be our focus now. Only with him can we stop this Satan Darkstar.”

Aaron thought for a moment, reviewing the Unforgiven’s words, and realized that he was right. The mysterious child that he had been told about seemed to be crucial to their continued survival. He willed his wings away, calming the angelic fire churning through his body so that the sigils receded.

“I can help you,” he said. But a wave of light-headedness washed over him, and he pitched forward.

Luckily, Vilma was there to catch him.

“It is noted,” Levi said. “But before you can be useful to anyone, you must heal.”

That wasn’t what Aaron wanted to hear, but he had to admit that Levi was right. He’d been close to death for nearly two months. It was going to take some time to recuperate.

But time was something he was afraid that they—and the world—had little of.

Even still, he was allowing Vilma and his mother to escort him out of the room, when the alarms began to sound.

The Unforgiven snapped to attention and quickly made their way toward the exits.

“What’s going on?” Aaron asked.

“Intruders,” Taylor Corbet said. “Our perimeter has been breached.”

*   *   *

Gabriel eyed the guard booth near the yawning entrance to the tunnel into the mountain. The windows were broken, and he could see, as well as smell, the blood that stained the walls inside.

“Are we just going to stand here?” he asked.

“We’re waiting to be noticed,” Dusty said.

He and Mallus stood beside the Labrador, Dusty staring fixedly at the crackling ball of power that Mallus still held.

Gabriel looked around at the desolate mountain road. There didn’t appear to be anyone, or anything for that matter, around to notice them.

“By who?” he asked, his eyes going back to the booth and the dark stains inside it. “Or should I ask, what?”

Dusty tore his gaze from the powerful object in Mallus’s possession.

“Huh,” he said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

“What?” Gabriel asked.

“Nothing that I can talk about right now,” Dusty said, as
cryptically as usual. “But it appears that I’m not the only one helping to captain the boat.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about boats,” the dog said. He looked at Mallus. It was shocking how bad the angel was looking. He appeared older, smaller, his clothes hanging on a far ganglier frame than when they’d first set out.