Great White Throne (17 page)

“If you can fix the truck,” Laoth said, “then Lucifer will be able to restore Babylon.”

“Yes.”

“How long do we have?” she asked.

Gabriel turned to her. “We can’t know that.”

“I know, but—”

“Nothing is going to survive long. We’ll fight for Aisha and move on. We should be in Jerusalem by tomorrow.”
 

“There are so many in trouble,” Naomi said. “Why so much focus on Aisha?”
 

“The Lord has his reasons. Stay inside our circle.” Gabriel marched ahead. I rushed to keep up with him, with Naomi close by my side. The baby slept.

“He’s just focused on the mission,” Laoth whispered beside us. “There’s a reason God made him the messenger.”

“I can hear you.” Gabriel spoke without turning back.

Laoth smiled at us. “He’s always listening …. You couldn’t pray for a better angel to guide us.”

Our group grew quiet after that, keeping up a steady pace along the road by the sea’s edge. The angels seemed more tense with each mile. It made the hairs stand on the back of my neck.
 

After a while my legs began feeling the weight of the march. And I hadn’t been the one carrying a baby. I leaned close to Naomi and asked, “Need a break?”
 

“No.” She wiped her brow, leaving a streak through the dust.

“You sure?”
 

She nodded. “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

I looked down at the infant’s body. “Want me to hold him?”

She stopped walking and stared at me. The angels stopped, too. Even Gabriel. A long moment passed. The sun was falling over her left shoulder, nearing the horizon. “Maybe. It’s worth a try.” She looked to the angels. “He’ll be hungry soon anyway. It might be a good idea to rest here a few minutes.”

Gabriel had come to her side, and he was nodding. “We should still reach the group before sundown.”

She began undoing the long cloth wound around her body. The baby burrowed his face into her chest.
 

I turned to face the sea as she nursed him. Nothing stirred the bright, serene surface.
Dead
Sea. It was hard to imagine so much water without any life in it. Even the sky seemed dead here, without birds around to dive in after fish.

“Elijah,” Naomi said after a while. “Come here.”

I went to her side and sat on the dusty ground. The boy was looking up at me. His big, curious eyes made me smile.

“Ready to hold him?” Naomi asked.

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“Be very gentle, very quiet. Make your arms into a cradle, like mine.” I did it, feeling awkward as the angels watched with their half-stoic, half-amused faces. “Here, I will wrap him up.”

I reached out my arms and Naomi gently handed him to me.

He began to whimper.
 

“What am I supposed to do?” I felt helpless as Naomi began coiling her cloth around the baby and me.

“Slide your arm through here,” she instructed. The baby cried again. “Good,” she said, “now through here.” I put my arm through a gap in the fabric, and then Naomi tied something behind my back, synching the baby close to my chest. My arms were free, and he was staring up at me, wailing.

“Let’s walk,” Naomi said over his cries. “It might help.”

“Waaa! Waaa!”
 

I rose to my feet.
 

He screamed at me. “Waaaaa!”
 

I took a step, then another.

“Waaa.” Softer this time.

I hit my stride and the angels caught up and encircled us.

The boy whimpered, as if to show he still wasn’t happy about this, but he was willing to tolerate me. He yawned wide and fell quiet.

“He likes you!” Naomi said, looking down at him, then up at me. She was smiling, for the first time I’d seen in hours. There was a bounce to her step. It probably helped to shed the extra weight. My back already felt the difference.

“He’s putting up with me,” I said. “Are all babies so young this big?”

Naomi shrugged. “Not sure.”

Laoth joined us. “This is better, with Elijah carrying him.”

“I agree,” Cassiel said. “If we’re attacked, they can split up. That will divide any demons. Some might go for Naomi, while others go for the baby.”

“Why would they go for me instead of him?” Naomi asked.

“Remember, there’s no perfect unison between Lucifer and them,” Laoth said. “They obey him out of fear, maybe adoration, but they can disobey, too. Some might not like that he’s picked a daughter of man to be the mother of his child.”

“Who else could he pick?” I asked.

“Another demon,” said Cassiel.

“Or one of us.” Laoth’s voice was tense. “Not since the ancient days has spirit joined with flesh.”

“The nephilim.” Disgust filled Cassiel’s perfect angel face. “They were the progeny of such unions. I hoped to never fight their kind again.”

“You might be disappointed,” Gabriel said. “I sense darkness ahead.”

WE APPROACHED THE river at a steady pace. The figures standing by its shore were not yet close enough for me to make out their faces. None of them seemed anything but human. Their stillness and raised guns told me what I needed to know. Apparently they couldn’t see the angels for what they really were. I felt sure they’d be running if they saw four winged creatures approaching.

One of them shouted something at us. It sounded like Arabic. For the first time in a while, I missed my precept. Gabriel didn’t slow, and we followed close.

The man shouted again and motioned a command. The group fanned out around him. I counted eleven of them—all black-robed men, no sign of Aisha. Just behind the men, a truck looked like it had crashed into the river. The back half of it was out of the water, covered in a desert-colored canopy. The men seemed to be guarding whatever was inside.

Gabriel continued ahead, despite the guns aimed at us. We were now within a stone’s throw. The man in the center raised his gun and fired a shot into the sky. He shouted at us again. His long beard and dark eyes looked fierce. That was almost comforting, because it was human.

Gabriel turned his palms forward, lifted his arms, and said something. It must have been Arabic, too, because the group’s apparent leader laughed. It was a laugh of disbelief, not humor.

The leader said something back, calmer this time, and all the others started laughing. The leader shook his head and glanced back at the truck. When he turned to us again, he leveled his gun at Gabriel and said a word. I felt sure it meant
stop
.

Gabriel stood still and straight as a fencepost, shaking his head as if sad. He pointed to the truck and said something, but it wasn’t words. It was a deep groan, like stone grinding against stone, like the dragon’s voice. The men cowered back, fear and confusion in their eyes. A few looked back at the truck, where Gabriel was pointing.

The back flap of canvas slid to the side, and a dark woman stepped out. Jezebel.

She showed no signs of harm from our attack on Patmos. Her black-scaled body sauntered up to the leader of the men. She leaned close to him, and her forked tongue slid out of her mouth as she whispered something in his ear. He craned his neck toward her.

I wanted to shout a warning, but I felt a sudden lump of jealousy in my chest that she would entice this man, and not me. The light of the setting sun made her body glow like molten lava. I stepped forward, but something held me in place. Laoth’s grip was firm on my arm. It jarred me to my senses.
God help me
.

Gabriel moved ahead of us alone. He spoke in the same strange language, as if issuing a command. Then he drew a sword of blazing flame. He hadn’t been carrying a sword. It seemed pulled from another place, like his wings.

Jezebel, still pressed close to the man, put her hand on the curve of her hip. “A pleasure as always, Gabriel,” she said, pronouncing his name like it was forbidden fruit. “The Master looks forward to seeing you. He says it’s been too long. Give me the child and the seer, and you may leave without pain.”
 

Gabriel replied in the strange language, with more words than before. Whatever he said made Jezebel take a step back, though her pose remained confident.

“You’ll have to kill all of them,” she said. “You’ve had your time on earth. This is
our
time.” She ducked behind the leader of the group, and they unleashed fire at us.

In a blink, Gabriel, Laoth, and Cassiel flashed ahead. Dumah wrapped Naomi and me tight in his arms, so that his broad body covered ours completely. I couldn’t see past him, but I heard the gunshots. I heard the bullets hitting Dumah’s back like dull thuds, his grunts of pain, and the screams beyond him.
 

The gunshots stopped. A heavy rumbling replaced them, like an avalanche crashing toward us. Dumah stood and turned. His back bore a hundred dark holes. Blood soaked through his shirt. The giant angel staggered as he stepped forward.

Up ahead, an army of dark little creatures surrounded the angels. Gabriel and Laoth moved among them like flickering flames in a bed of coals. But the coals were moving, too, roiling chaos up to the angels’ waists. Cassiel was facedown on the ground. None of the men were still standing. Jezebel stood on the back of the truck, with her arms held out parallel to the ground, like a sorceress commanding her minions.

Gabriel swung his flaming blade in a low arc, splitting a dozen of the dark creatures in half. As they fell, more flooded into the space.

And more were coming at us.

Naomi and I backed away as Dumah charged forward. He hit the creatures like a boulder against ants. They flew back, but came again. Their black, spindly arms grabbed at his legs. One of them leapt onto his back. It looked like a short, burnt tree come to life, and it stabbed its arms down into Dumah’s flesh.
 

He did not slow. Neither did the fiends.

Dumah reached Laoth, and the two of them pressed together into the swarm. They carved a path to the truck. Jezebel leapt away, into the river. Dumah dove after her, and Laoth turned back to us.

Naomi and I had nowhere to run. The creatures swept toward us. Their eyes were pale and red and feverish. They had no mouths, no noses. They looked frail, as if their limbs were twigs that would snap.
 

“What’s happening?” Naomi asked, terrified.

She couldn’t see them.
“Evil, dark things. They’re fighting the angels … and charging at us.” Running wouldn’t work. They were too fast. “Here.” I held out the baby to Naomi. He was eerily silent, eyes wide open. “Stay down and pray. I’ll fight.”

She nodded and curled into a ball on the ground. None of the creatures were going to reach her and the child without going through me first.

God, give me strength. Protect us.

One of the creatures dashed forward. It came up only to my waist, but its body struck like a whip around my legs. I fell, and immediately they were on me. Thrashing and stabbing, like barbed wire yanked over my skin.
 

I tried to jerk my arms away, but the creatures pinned me down. I watched in terror as they swarmed over Naomi’s back.
 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
God, save her! Please—

Laoth landed beside me. The darkness cringed back. She whirled in a blur of light, blazing through the fiends like a flame through kindling. Moments later they were gone. She was helping me to my feet.

Just beyond us, at the rear of the truck, Gabriel was kneeling over Cassiel’s motionless body.