The Rise of the Fallen (The Angelic Wars Book 2) (5 page)

None of them spoke for a
moment and Chris took a minute to admire how easily and casually Chef
was flying the plane. He was flicking switches, checking the panels
and screens and listening in on whatever broadcasts were coming
through his headset all at the same time. And he was doing it
effortlessly, without a trace of concern on his face. Chris was very
reassured by his manner.

The door opened and
Beatrice stuck her head in.

“
The woman is
conscious, your honor,” she said to the judge.

He thanked her and she
withdrew.

“
Well, we have a few
minutes before we have to face whatever is coming. I'm sure that this
is a waste of time, but we may as well ask her a few questions in the
interim. Mario, let me know if anything pops up, would you?”

“
You'll be the
first, judge. Right after me.” He grinned and went back to
scanning the panel in front of him.

“
Come along, you
two. You may as well hear whatever it is that this woman has to say.”

The three of them left the
cockpit and walked back to where Margaret was tied up. She watched
them approach, her expression calm and still. The madness still
gleamed in her eyes, but it was merely hinted at now.

Judge Hawkes stopped a few
feet away and met Margaret's eyes. “Why?” he asked
simply.

“
Why?” she
replied and laughed. “Oh come now. You know why, Ethan Hawkes.
Yes, I know you. As I know little Chris Wright. And Natalie. Sweet
little Natalie. Stuffed full with glory, aren't you?” She
laughed again. “Or should I say, stuffed full of Gloriel. Yes,
I know you all. As does my master.”

Now her face twisted, the
look of hatred so complete and malicious that Chris took a step back.

“
Why weren't you in
your little hole when we attacked, eh? Why couldn't you fall with the
rest of your pathetic band of weaklings? Where were you?”

“
That's really none
of your concern, Margaret. Or whatever your name is.” The judge
rubbed the tip of his nose as he stared at the woman. “So tell
me, since you seem so full of knowledge. What exactly is chasing us?
What did your 'master', as you call him, send down upon us?”

She hooted with pleasure.
“Oh, you don't know, do you? How interesting. Should I tell
you? Should I?” She chuckled and looked at each of them, her
eyes bright with wild humor.

“
You vicious...”
Beatrice stepped forward with her hand raised but the judge shook his
head.

“
Don't bother. She's
just trying to bait us. A low-level minion like this would have no
idea of the plans of her betters, anyway. We're wasting our time.”

“
Oh, is that so?”
Margaret's gleeful expression was replaced with a look of sulky
irritation. “Well, that's how much you know. You've attracted
the attention of one of the great ones. Although why they would stir
themselves just for the likes of you, I cannot understand.”

“
One of the great
ones?” The judge raised an eyebrow. “You mean one of
Hell's generals, like Lilith?”

Margaret laughed loudly
again. “The generals? That really is funny. Lilith may be
powerful, but she's still only an angel. No, I mean one of the Four.
Second only to the Lord of Hell himself in power. I don't know which
one it is; all have great power after all. But one of them is surely
on his way. And you are doomed, doomed, doomed!” And she
giggled to herself with pleasure.

Judge Hawkes glanced at
Beatrice and nodded toward Margaret. “Shut her up, would you
please?”

“
With pleasure, your
honor,” she replied with a grim smile and, grabbing a doily off
of a nearby tray, she stuffed it in the woman's mouth.

Margaret glared at her and
tried to speak, but only a muffled grunting made it past the fabric
in her mouth.

“
Good,” the
judge said. “Christopher, Natalie, let's return to the cockpit.
Everyone else, stay alert. I will update you as soon as we know
anything further.”

And with the two teens in
tow, the judge headed back toward the cockpit.

The three of them rejoined
Chef, who was still flying attentively and listening closely to his
headset.

“
Any luck with that
madwoman?” he asked as the judge sat in the copilot's chair.
Natalie and Chris stood behind them.

“
I'm afraid so,”
Judge Hawkes answered with a frown. “She mentioned the Four and
said that one of them was on our tail. This is bad, Mario. This is
very, very bad.”

“
What is it, sir?”
Chris asked nervously. He'd never heard of the Four. Four what? Four
winds? Four leaf clover?

“
I think I know,
Chris,” Natalie said. “Or, at least Gloriel thinks she
knows.”

“
Well then, what is
it?” Chris was getting impatient. “Don't keep me in
suspense.”

Natalie looked at the
judge. He sighed and turned to look back at Chris.

“
I think she means
the Four Horsemen, Christopher.”

It was a simple statement
that caught Chris completely off-guard.

“
The Four Horsemen?
Wait, hang on a second. That's in the Bible, isn't it? I'm sure my
Dad mentioned it once or twice.”

The judge's laugh was
brittle. “As a religious scholar, I'm sure that he did. The
Four Horsemen are the heralds of the Apocalypse. War, Pestilence,
Avarice and, the most powerful of all, Death. Four harbingers of the
end times. They serve Satan and are almost as powerful as he is
himself.”

Chris swallowed heavily
and then thought of something.

“
But, didn't
Margaret say that they weren't angels? If not angels, then what are
they?”

Natalie and the judge
exchanged looks. Chris thought that both of them seemed unsure of the
answer. The judge confirmed it.

“
We don't really
know. They aren't archangels, that much we can be sure of. As Sariel
told you himself, none of them followed his brother into damnation.
Luckily for us, I suppose.”

“
There's a story
though, about their origins. Just a myth really, that I heard as a
boy.”

Everyone looked at Chef in
surprise and he smiled at their expressions.

“
What? Just because
I was raised in a small village doesn't mean I didn't get any sort of
religious education.”

“
Well, what did you
hear, Mario?” Judge Hawkes asked. “And if you could,
please move it along. I think our visitor will be by in short order.”

“
Yes, that's true.”
Chef cleared his throat and began to speak, watching the controls as
he did so.

“
There was an old
priest who would visit our village several times a year. The nearest
church was a few hours travel, so people would wait for him to visit
and he would performs marriages, or say mass in memory of this person
or that. He liked to talk by the hour in between services. Most of
the children found his stories dull and paid him little attention.
Most of the adults did too, come to think of it. But not little
Mario. I loved the way he would tell stories from the Bible, but turn
them into adventures, not just dry readings from a book.”

Chef hesitated, made a
course correction and continued.

“
One day, he said
that he was going to tell me a story out of the book of Revelations.
However, it was a scary story, he said, and I might not like it. But
I, being a strong and fearless nine year old, told him that I would
not be scared and that I wanted to hear this story. And so he told me
the tale of the end of days. Of fire and brimstone. Of desolation and
damnation. And I was very scared indeed. Luckily it was a bright,
sunny summer day and there were no shadows to fear and so I listened
to the entire tale and didn't run away and hide my eyes. And when he
was done, I asked him one burning question; one thing that had caused
me the most confusion. It was about these four riders that he had
mentioned. He called them that, four riders.

“
I said to him,
'Father, where do such things come from? How could they come to be?
Surely they are not from God, are they?' And he looked at me and
said, 'Mario, my child, these riders are from the Devil. They were
made from pieces of his flesh, carved out with his own hands and
molded into four sons.' He shook his finger at me and said, 'Remember
that, child. The Devil has four sons. And one day they will come into
this world to tear it apart and give it as a gift to their father.'

“
'But who are they
really, padre?' I asked. And he replied, 'They all have secret names,
but we call them War, Greed, Pestilence...and Death.'”

Chef cleared his throat
and swallowed nervously. “Well, that's what the old padre said,
anyway. Perhaps he was simply old. Or mad. Who can say? But that is
what he told me.”

“
Is that possible,
judge?” Natalie asked in a hushed tone. “Is it possible
that the Devil created offspring from his flesh the way that God
created him and Sariel and Michael?”

“
I don't know. But
it's a horrible thought, isn't it? Horrible in that it makes an awful
kind of sense.”

Chris shook his head in
denial. “No, it can't be.” He looked plaintively at Judge
Hawkes. “Sariel said that Luci...that his brother couldn't
create new life, he could only corrupt. That's why the Fallen have to
inhabit the bodies of the dead. They can't be born into human form
like me and Natalie and the others with angelic souls have been.”

The judge peered
sightlessly out of the front window at the approaching clouds.

“
But that's just
it,” he said as he stared blankly. “If the story is true,
or based on the truth, Satan didn't create new life. He took pieces
of his own essence and imbued them with intelligence and purpose.
Gave them the power to destroy. Oh, I have a horrible feeling that
Mario's priest was closer to the truth than we might want to
believe.”

“
It doesn't matter
now, Ethan,” Chef said. He nodded at a thick formation of
clouds on the horizon. Clouds that they were flying straight into.
“What matters is that we are about to hit a thick bank of storm
clouds and that every time I've tried to adjust my course to avoid
them, they've moved back to block me.”

They all stared at the
uninterrupted blackness ahead.

“
That's impossible,
Chef,” Chris muttered.

“
I know it is,
Chris. As impossible as angels born into human bodies, or demons
walking the Earth wearing dead men as their skin. But there you go.”

Chris looked at the
clouds. They were billowing and black and it suddenly felt as if the
plane was actually a submarine, churning its way into a mass of ink
spewed by a gigantic octopus. As he watched, flashes of lightning
dazzled the eyes as they lit the clouds from deep inside.

“
Is there no way
around them?” Judge Hawkes asked Chef. The man just shook his
head, his lips closed tightly in a thin line of concentration.

The judge looked at Chris
and Natalie and they returned his gaze nervously.

“
You'd better go
back and strap yourselves in. I'll make the announcement to the rest
of the staff.” He picked up the copilot's headset and put it
on.

“
Let's go, Chris,”
Natalie said and hurried out of the room, Chris closely on her heels.

They found seats and sat
down side by side, just as the judge's voice came over the speakers.

“
We're about to
enter a bank of violent thunderclouds. This may be the threat that
Natalie told us about. We don't know what to expect, so be ready for
anything. Now please, strap yourselves in and stay calm. This could
get rough.”

The staff scrambled to get
seated and put on their belts. Even through her gag, Chris could here
Margaret hooting with laughter and he felt a mixture of anger and
fear. She really is nuts, he thought and tried to ignore her.

He looked out of the
window and watched the light fade from the sky.

What could be out there,
he wondered. He hadn't seen an angel fly yet in the real world. Could
they? Chris thought of Sariel's wings, grimacing at bit at the memory
of the maimed one. If they were both whole, could he fly? Chris
doubted it. They were big and strong, but Sariel was huge. He could
not imagine those wings being able to lift the angel off of the
ground. So if one of the Four was after them, how was it flying?

He caught himself. You're
assuming that whatever is out there, if anything is, looks like an
angel. It could look like anything. Chris sat back and waited. We'll
know soon enough.

The lights inside the
plane seem to glow brighter as the darkness outside became complete.
Natalie leaned across Chris and peered out of the window.

“
Can you feel
anything, Nat?” Chris asked in a whisper. She squinted into the
blackness and then drew back with a gasp as a blast of lightning
followed by a deafening boom shook the plane.

“
I'm not sure,”
she said heavily. She sat back and gripped the armrests so hard that
her knuckles turned white. “Gloriel only knows that some
malicious presence is almost on us.” She closed her eyes for a
minute and then turned and looked at Chris.