Spirit Fighter (Son of Angels, Jonah Stone) (23 page)

Finally, Henry retreated into the tunnel, the Fallen following him there.

Jonah and Eliza watched as every last guard disappeared through the doorway, hungry for the battle, eager to spill angel blood. No one noticed them enter the room.

They ran by two nephilim, strapped to beds and caged with the energy shields. On the left was a tall, redheaded man in a mud-covered business suit, sprawled limply on the bed. To the right was an Asian woman in a simple brown dress, just as dirty, lying the same way behind the glowing shield.

Eliza paused in front of the woman, but Jonah pulled her arm as he hurried past.

“Come on, Eliza!” he whispered urgently.

“But . . . these people—”

“There’s no time!” Jonah barked, dragging her with him. “We have to get Mom!”

Eliza shook her head and jerked her arm from his, but said, “Okay!” and hurried behind him until they were in front of their mother.

“Remember,” Jonah said, “don’t touch the shield—or force field, whatever this is . . .” His voice fell as he saw his mother close up. Her head still lay across her shoulder, her eyes closed, but puffy and bruised. The cut that he had seen in his vision looked deeper now than it had appeared, more jagged across her cheek.

“Mom!” Eliza whispered desperately through the translucent shield. “Can you hear me, Mom? It’s Eliza! Are you there?”

She did not move. Jonah’s mind flashed with visions of his mom from the past. Images of her walking him to school on his first day of kindergarten, of standing in the kitchen flipping pancakes, reading him a book at night—all the memories came flooding in. As he looked at his mother now, beaten, trapped, silent—he started to feel very sick to his stomach. Was she unconscious, passed out from the abuse she had taken, or the lack of water and food? Maybe she was just asleep. Or maybe . . . he stopped, unwilling to let his mind think that maybe it was too late.

“Mom!” he cried. He knew he was being loud, but right now he didn’t care. “Mom!”

“Jonah! Keep it down!” Eliza scolded in a hoarse whisper.

Jonah kept shouting. “Mom! You have to wake up! We came to get you, and you have to come home now.” Tears began to roll down his cheeks. “We need you, Mom! You can’t leave us. You can’t go away. We need you. I need you. I love you, Mom.”

Slowly, Eleanor raised her head and fluttered her eyelids weakly. She stared with her eyes half-open, trying to focus. Looking hazily at them, she finally realized who was in front of her.

“J-Jonah?” she said weakly. “Eliza? What are you . . . ?”

She was alive!

Eleanor opened her mouth and tried to say something else, but no words would come out.

“Don’t try to talk,” said Jonah. “Just wait until we get out of here. There’ll be plenty of time to talk then.”

He felt a new surge of energy. His mother was alive! But she was not going anywhere unless they could get her out from behind that shield. Henry had given them specific instructions on how to release her. He just prayed that it worked.

“It’s your turn now, E,” Jonah said.

Eliza looked nervous, but took two steps back and raised her hands slowly above her head. Immediately, she generated a shield of her own, of bright white light, extending from her fingertips to the ground. She began to move forward, until her shield and the one guarding her mother were almost touching. She glanced at Jonah, who nodded to her. Closing her eyes, she took one big step forward.

The shields collided, and a giant buzzing sound filled their ears. It reminded Jonah of the mosquito zapper they had on their back porch at home, except it was about a thousand times louder. Sparks flew, and Eliza was thrown onto her back. But both shields had disappeared, cancelling each other out.

Eliza lay on the ground for a few seconds, staring straight up at the fluorescent lights, dazed. But she quickly pushed herself up on her elbows, straightening her glasses.

Jonah and Eliza embraced their mom quickly, and then Jonah spun around to see if they had been heard. Blasts of light and flame shot from the tunnel. The intense battle was still raging between Henry and the Fallen. Somehow he was still holding them off, distracting them so that even the explosion created by the shields colliding hadn’t drawn any attention.

They had to move fast, and they still had the straps on their mom’s arms and legs to undo.

“Oh, Jonah,” his mother said, smiling weakly as he turned to face her again.

He grinned back. “Hold still for one second, would you?”

Her eyes grew big as he pulled the arrow seemingly from nowhere behind his back, and the bow appeared in his left hand. The white arrow glistened in the dark room as he held the point close to her wrist. Before she could protest or pull away, he swiped the tip of the arrow across the leather straps. They fell to the ground immediately. Moving over to her other arm, he did the same thing, and then he cut the bindings on her feet as well. When they pulled Eleanor up off the bed, she fell against Jonah, who caught her in his arms and propped her up.

“My dear children,” she said, “my dear children . . . you came . . .” She placed her hand on Eliza’s cheek and rubbed it softly.

“Of course we did,” said Jonah, continuing to look back over his shoulder every few seconds. “And now, we need to get you out of here.”

She held up a finger as she leaned against him. “The others,” she said, as she coughed loudly. “We can’t leave the others.”

She motioned toward the remaining seven nephilim, trapped behind their shields. They all still lay unconscious, just as she had been. The battle continued to blaze in the tunnel, but Jonah knew Henry wouldn’t be able to hold them for much longer. Soon, one of the Fallen would figure out that this was nothing more than a distraction and turn around.

“Mom,” he protested, “we don’t have time to rescue all of these people. We have to get you out of here . . .
now
.”

“Jonah,” she said quietly but firmly, “they have children too. Just like you. We can’t just leave them here for the Fallen and Abaddon. They’ll never see the light of day again. And his plan . . .” She broke off in another fit of coughing before she could finish. Even though her voice was still weak, Jonah heard the determination behind her words and knew she would never leave willingly until they had freed every last nephilim.

He looked at Eliza. “Come on, E. Let’s do this. And fast.”

Her arms were already raised, and Jonah followed her as she produced the shield and ran it into the ones covering the captured nephilim. Each time it knocked her back, but she was learning to steady herself and keep her feet. Jonah kept his bow and arrow ready, so that each time she destroyed the protective shield, he was immediately there to break through the straps.

They freed the African woman with the blond hair, the Asian woman, and then the man in the business suit. All three stumbled as they got up, falling against the wall behind them, but they soon steadied themselves and were able to walk, with some help from Eleanor.

Jonah and Eliza were approaching the next bed, which was holding a tall man wearing a Russian fur hat, when a fiery arrow slammed into the wall above them, raining shards of rock and dust on top of them. Turning quickly, they saw a fallen one standing in the entrance to the tunnel, restringing his bow to shoot again. His grotesque, scaly face smiled wickedly, his giant muscles rippling as he pulled the arrow back and took aim at Jonah’s head.

He let it fly, but Eliza was quicker. Her shield deflected the arrow, and it landed harmlessly on the ground, quickly turning into a tiny pile of black dust.

“Thanks!” Jonah shouted, but his eyes were drawn beyond the first fallen one, to the growing number of others behind him. The big one was screeching at all the rest, and Jonah knew what he must be saying.
It’s a trap! The nephilim are escaping. Come back!

“They’re headed our way!” Jonah cried out to Eliza and his mom. “
Run!
”

But there was nowhere to run. They were against a wall, and a fallen angel had quickly blocked their access to the metal door. The only other way out was the tunnel, and that was out of the question. The only thing they could do now was pull behind the safety of Eliza’s shield, squeezing tightly together as they tried to fit both themselves and the three other freed nephilim inside the protective bubble. At least half of the Fallen had poured back out of the tunnel, the others continuing to fight the severely outnumbered Henry.

All of them concentrated their arrows on Eliza’s shield, and she began to take a barrage of hits. Her arms remained in the air, but she was struggling, and each blow pushed her back just a little more. Soon they were almost against the wall, and the arrows continued to pelt them from every direction.

“Eliza!” Jonah said, as she knelt on one knee, still holding her arms up, but just barely. His mom was beside her with her head bowed, praying, but she looked weaker by the second, and he knew she could not make it much longer in her current state. The shield began to flicker, and Jonah began to wonder what it would feel like to get hit by a flaming arrow. He looked at his mom and sister kneeling there on the hard cement, and realized how much he loved both of them, and how he wished he could tell them that now. But it was too late.

In just a few seconds, they were all going to die.

Jonah looked past the fallen ones, trying to spot Henry. A line of the Fallen were coming closer, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Whatever was happening in the tunnel, their guardian angel would be of no help now.

Just as Eliza’s shield disappeared, a large fallen angel, taller and even more muscular than the rest, stepped forward and briefly held his hand up. All of the arrows immediately stopped. His yellow eyes glared at them, and he smiled arrogantly, showing them his jagged, black teeth. His hands were on his hips, and steam blew from his nostrils. His skin was crusty and covered in scales, and when he stretched his crumply wings out to their full span, even some of the Fallen retreated a step back in fear.

He pointed to the three dazed nephilim who were crouching behind Eleanor, grunted some orders, and immediately three heavily armored fallen ones came and snatched them away, slapping glowing wrist and feet cuffs on them. He walked forward and then passed by each of them, glaring down at Jonah and Eliza, before standing in front of Eleanor.

“Eleanor Stone,” he sneered, “stand up.” She remained on the floor. “I said, stand up!” She slowly rose to her feet in front of the giant fallen one.

“Do you know who I am?” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know your name,” she said, meeting his eyes with her own defiant stare, “but I do know that you are a
fallen
angel.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, but I am so . . . much . . .
more
.” He roared so loudly that it shook rocks loose from the tunnel opening and they tumbled down into the room across the concrete floor. “I am Marduk. Commander of the Second Region of Abaddon.”

Eleanor simply glared at him and folded her arms, clearly unimpressed.

“But perhaps,” he said, suddenly morphing into a tall, handsome gentleman with dark hair and a goatee, wearing a brown suit and a matching hat, “this is who you’d rather meet.” He extended his hand and smiled warmly.

Eleanor grew as pale as moonlight. The man standing before her was the same smiling man posing with her mother in the old, faded picture. The picture of her father.

“I am Victor Grace,” he said, beaming at Eleanor. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, my oh-so-special
daughter
.”

TWENTY
F
AMILY
R
EUNION

J
onah looked at Marduk—or Victor Grace?—then back at his mother. This fallen angel was Jonah and Eliza’s grandfather. Ever since his parents had told him how his mother was born a nephilim, he had known that his grandfather was a fallen one. But to come this close to him, to feel the evil dripping out of the pores of his skin, made Jonah’s stomach queasy. His mother and his grandfather stared each other down, and he saw his mom straighten her back again and regain her footing.

“I wondered if we would ever meet,
Marduk
,” Eleanor said, and even in this filthy place, covered with dirt and blood, Jonah saw her quiet confidence start to rise back to the surface. Her arms were crossed, and he remembered where Eliza got her stubbornness from.

Marduk brushed a speck of dirt off of his shoulder and slid a hand into his suit pocket. “Oh, Eleanor, I knew this day was coming. After all, why else would we have taken such care to put our little plan in place? Why else would we waste time wooing you pathetic, weak-willed humans? Winning your mother over was so demeaning, to have to stoop to her level, to pretend like I loved her. She was so needy, so empty, so void of purpose in her life. And I had what she thought she so desperately needed. I filled that hole in her measly heart.” His grin distorted his face, which was full of hateful pride and rage. Stroking the beard on his chin, he continued on.

“Everything was in preparation for this day, the day we would finally be reunited, Eleanor, don’t you see? Of course you do. You know that now. But you didn’t see it coming, did you? We were patient. Our plan was too clever for even
His
pesky warrior-angels to detect.” Even though he had taken on the look of a stately gentleman, his voice seethed, full of the evil of a fallen angel.