The Fallen 3 (12 page)

Lucifer came at him again, powerful thrusts of his mighty wings hurtled him toward the youth, his flaming sword cutting a swath across the child’s throat in an attempt to decapitate him.

But it appeared to have little effect.

“Now is that any way to treat someone who has come to make you an offer?” the child scolded.

Lucifer landed in a crouch, his sword of Heaven’s fire still crackling in his hand, still ready to strike.

“What could you offer me?” the Morningstar scoffed.

The child smiled sweetly and faced the altar.

“There will come a day,” he began as he waved his hand in front of the monstrous idol of worship, “when the God that has abandoned you will have no power over the earth.”

There were sudden snaps and pops as jagged cracks appeared upon the statue’s form; pieces dropped off, crumbling as they hit the altar floor, where they then disintegrated.

Lucifer studied the child.

“The messengers of He who believes Himself most holy will no longer believe in Him, and they will attempt to exert their own beliefs on how things should be.”

The idol had been reduced to a pile of dust. The object of worship, which once held great power, was now no more.

The child looked at Lucifer.

“And darkness will claim the world.”

As the child spoke, Lucifer saw hints of things crawling in the darkness of the boy’s mouth, things that wished to remain hidden.

For now
.

“And when that time comes, I’ll be there to claim what was
always mine … what was taken from me when the wretched Creator brought light to the universe.”

The words left Lucifer’s mouth before he could check them. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“I am the dark, and you are the Son of the Morning,” the child said, spreading his arms. “What a world we could build together.”

Enraged, Lucifer turned his back on the thing pretending to be a child. “A world that will exist only in your twisted imagination,” he said, sensing the boy behind him.

“Perhaps,” the child said. “But then again, perhaps not.”

Lucifer felt something touch the armor that adorned his back, and suddenly he was so cold that his beautiful form began to tremble. The feeling was like nothing he had ever experienced.

“Time will pass, the world will change, and from the darkness my lesser brethren will emerge, heralds of a new age dawning.”

“And then?” Lucifer asked, not turning around.

The child giggled mischievously. “Now that would be telling.”

“We can’t think like that,” Lucifer told Lorelei. The memory of the boy child’s promise of a world enshrouded in darkness still left him cold.

There was a time when he had been held captive by the
Powers’ leader, Verchiel, when he thought
that
had been the future the child had predicted. Lucifer thought once Verchiel and his plans had been thwarted, the ominous future that had been foretold was moot.

But now he wasn’t so sure.

“You look as worried as I feel,” Lorelei said.

Lucifer shook his head and smiled, reaching across the table to place his hand upon hers. “We’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “The other Nephilim get stronger every day, and it won’t be long until we’re able to send them out individually to deal with some of these manifestations.”

“I guess you’re right,” Lorelei said, forcing a smile of her own. “They can’t stay students forever.”

“No, they can’t,” he told her. “Eventually they will have to step up and claim their rightful place as protectors of this world.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Better?”

She nodded. “Thanks,” Lorelei said. “When I’m tired, I have a tendency to embrace the doom and gloom.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Lucifer said. “Archon magick isn’t something to be taken lightly. That’s some heavy-duty stuff.”

He was about to suggest that maybe it would be wise for her to stop using the angel magick so frequently, but never got the chance.

Gabriel sprang up with a loud bark and bounded for the wall of windows.

“They’re back,”
he growled, as Milton scampered back to his master and climbed swiftly up Lucifer’s pants leg to take his place upon the fallen angel’s shoulder.

The Labrador put his front paws up on the windowsill, peering out intently.

“And I smell blood,”
the dog said, turning his worried canine gaze to them.
“Somebody is hurt … or worse.”

A
aron was the first to reach home.

Wings slowly unfurling, he appeared behind the administration building, cradling Janice in his arms.

The smell of her blood was overpowering, and it aroused the angelic-warrior essence that was part of him, stirring it to anger. It took everything he had to keep from summoning a blade of fire, and going off to kill something in a fit of rage, as he knelt to lay the girl’s body down upon the grass.

But there had already been enough violence.

One after another the Nephilim appeared behind him. William was helping the injured Kirk to stand. They looked as though they’d been through a war, their clothes filthy and torn and spattered with blood, their enemies’ as well as their own.

“Get him to Kraus right away,” Aaron ordered.

Aaron didn’t know the extent of the boy’s injuries, but if anyone could treat him, it would be Kraus. The man who acted as their healer had once cared for the health of the Powers, but now he had come over to the side of the Nephilim, using arcane remedies, and perhaps a little bit of angel magick, to care for the ills and injuries of Aaron’s small band.

Gabriel’s worried bark filled the air, and Aaron glanced over his shoulder to see the animal and Kraus hurriedly moving toward them, Lorelei and Lucifer close behind.

“Take care of Kirk,” Aaron said to the healer.

William was practically carrying Kirk, the youth barely conscious as he was helped toward the older man.

“What about Janice?” Lorelei asked.

“It’s too late for her,” Aaron said, his gaze fixed upon the dead girl on the ground before him. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. He had to look at her; he had to remind himself once more of what death looked like.

They all needed to see it.

Lucifer suddenly appeared at Aaron’s side, and an overwhelming sadness washed over him, threatening to break Aaron’s fragile hold on his emotions.

“She wasn’t ready,” Aaron said, feeling the heavy responsibility of being a leader. “Maybe if she’d had more training … if we’d all had more training … I should have—”

His father gripped his shoulder tightly, stopping his words.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Lucifer said. “You can’t second-guess yourself. We all had a hand in this.”

Gabriel came up along Aaron’s other side, bringing his cool muzzle up to lick his master’s ear.
“I’m so sorry.”

“I know, Gabe,” Aaron said, ruffling the dog’s velvety soft ears. “I just wish I could have saved her.”

“We did what we could, Aaron,” Vilma said. She knelt beside him. “We were in the midst of battle; all of us were fighting for our lives.”

“And she lost hers,” Aaron said.

“It’s going to happen, Aaron,” Lucifer said. “Despite what we hope and want.”

Aaron wished he could argue, but he knew his father was right. They were at war, and the sad truth was that people died. No matter how young they were, or how special they were supposed to be, they weren’t invincible.

And that made him very angry.

A gasp, followed by a familiar chuckle, caught Aaron’s attention. Cameron and Jeremy were huddled off to his right, and Cameron was looking at something that Jeremy was showing him. The expression on Cameron’s face was one of surprise—and perhaps disgust.

“What is that?” Aaron roared, getting to his feet, pushing past his father, and striding toward the pair.

Cameron immediately stepped away from Jeremy, and Jeremy tried to hide what he was holding behind his leg.

“It’s nothing,” Jeremy said defiantly, chest puffed out.

“Then why are you hiding it?” Aaron demanded, reaching for Jeremy’s wrist and pulling his hand up.

It was a bloody ear from one of the slain trolls.

Aaron couldn’t control himself. He lashed out, punching Jeremy in the face and driving him to the ground.

“Is that what you think we are?” Aaron demanded. “Savages taking trophies from the enemies we kill in battle? What were you going to do with that, Jeremy? Make a necklace? You make me sick.”

Jeremy, red-faced with fury, threw the bloody ear to the ground. His wings sprang from his back, and sparks of heavenly fire crackled at his fingertips.

“Go ahead,” Aaron taunted. “Keep trying to prove that I was wrong about you … that you’ll never control the power inside you.”

The battle-ax flared to life in Jeremy’s hand.

“That’s enough,” Vilma ordered, moving to stand between them.

Always the referee
, Aaron thought, recalling that she had been there the last time he and Jeremy had almost come to blows. And then he remembered the sight of the two of them as he’d entered the trolls’ chamber, their hands entwined—and the way they’d been looking at each other.

After the day he’d had, Aaron was done with the nonsense.

“I think you should get out of the way,” Aaron warned
Vilma, his eyes never leaving Jeremy’s. He flexed his shoulders, releasing his own wings.

“Aaron, I know you’re upset but—”

“He’s been asking for this since he came here,” Aaron interrupted.

Vilma seemed taken aback by the cruelty in his voice, and she looked at Aaron in such a way that he felt ashamed.

But not ashamed enough to back down.

“Fine,” she snapped angrily. “If you won’t listen to me, maybe he will.” She turned her back on Aaron to face Jeremy.

“Jeremy, please,” she pleaded.

Jeremy’s mouth moved, as though he was trying to say something but had trouble forming the words.

“Do you know how hard it is?” he finally blurted out. “How hard I have to work to keep it bottled up inside?”

The ax disappeared from his hand as his wings began to enfold him.

“Every last one of you can go to hell for all I care” were the last words Jeremy spoke as he disappeared within his wings. He was gone.

Vilma turned on her heel, storming past Aaron without even looking at him.

“Something has to be done about him,” Aaron said coldly. “He’s too unstable … dangerous.”

“Like I wasn’t?” she asked, stopping short. “If I remember correctly, I tried to kill you.”

Aaron had nothing to say, choosing not to think about how untamed and extremely dangerous Vilma’s angelic nature was when awakened, and how he’d feared that it just might kill her.

He avoided thinking about anything that could possibly take her from his life.

“I’m going after him,” she said, and her tone told him that her decision wasn’t up for discussion.

Aaron knew he’d been wrong, that anger had gotten the better of him, and he opened his mouth to apologize to her. But she had already spread her wings, wrapping them about her. And then she, too, was gone.

Aaron stood there alone, embarrassed. He saw that Lorelei and the others were seeing to Janice’s body as his father came to stand beside him.

“I guess I could have handled that better,” he mumbled, watching the others carry the body of the girl toward where they’d decided to store their dead.

Lucifer shrugged. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I guess that’s probably not a bad idea.”

It had started to rain, that kind of rain that seemed to bleed through the skin and into the bones.

Dusty felt as though he were ninety, trudging along the lonely side road where his last ride had dropped him.

He’d finally made it to Boston, and was now heading west.

He had no idea where he was going, but the images that played inside his head told him the instrument knew exactly where to take him.

At the faint sound of tires hissing on wet pavement behind him, Dusty turned quickly, sticking out his thumb and hoping that the driver was feeling charitable on such a miserable evening.

A number of cars, vans, and trucks had already passed him by, and he couldn’t really blame them. What sane person was out walking the roads in godforsaken weather like this?

Only someone who could summon the end of the world with his harmonica was the insane answer.

As tired as he was, Dusty hated to sleep. His dreams had been filled with the most horrific of sights, almost as if the instrument were showing him how bad the world had become, and that maybe it was time to use the heavenly doomsday device for its rightful purpose.

The world is filled with so many monsters
, he thought, pulling the collar of his jacket tighter against the back of his neck in an attempt to keep the water out. He could feel the instrument in his pocket grow warmer in agreement.

Too many monsters
.

The old, blind black man hadn’t bothered to tell him what a struggle it would be to carry the instrument, that it had a mind of its own. It was a struggle Dusty hoped he could continue to win. That was all he needed—to be responsible for the end of the world.

He passed a particularly dense section of woods and felt cold tendrils of dread vibrate down the length of his spine, and he wondered what could be watching him from the darkness.

He’d noticed that the longer he held the instrument, the more heightened his senses became, making him more aware of the things that hid in the shadows, watching … waiting.

Dusty stopped walking, squinting his eyes to peer through the trees, searching for signs of movement. His hand hovered over the harmonica in his coat pocket, ready to take it out, and use it if he had to.

If there really was something there, he couldn’t see it.

Again he heard a vehicle approach. Dusty greeted it with his thumb in the air. It was raining harder now, and the cold made his feet feel numb and set his entire body to trembling.
Maybe I’ll get a nice bout of pneumonia out of this
, he thought, watching as an old Buick passed him. A doomsday instrument in his pocket and pneumonia in his chest, he couldn’t imagine life getting any better than that.