The Fallen 3 (16 page)

A full belly always won out over a clean kitchen.

Still maintaining his animalistic form, Fred hauled Dusty into the living room and dumped him on the filthy floor.

He looked around the house with his feral eyes, sniffing the air with his long snout to be sure he was still alone.

There was nothing unusual in the air, only the scent of the
boy, the stink of decay, and his own familiar musky smell. The Corpse Riders had yet to arrive.

Fred returned his attention to the young man at his feet.

“Don’t look too special to me,” the beast growled, a thick pink tongue snaking across his sharp teeth.

But the boy was special. Word had gone out through the unnatural community, to all the denizens of the dark. The Corpse Riders were looking for a lone boy who stank of ancient power.

Fred sniffed at the boy again. The smell was most certainly there. There was no mistaking that he had hit the jackpot.

The Corpse Riders had put out the cry, claiming the boy could be the key to the community’s continued existence upon the planet. Fred had even heard rumors that the peacocks—those winged cretins, the angels—were somehow involved.

Fred coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the floor.

But there was no doubt; if the peacocks were involved, then it had to be pretty darn important, especially if they were rubbing elbows with Corpse Riders.

Dusty twitched and moaned, still held in the grip of oblivion, and Fred considered getting some rope to tie the kid up, just in case he awoke.

With a clawed hand he stroked his hairy chin.
What to do?

The kid’s heavy leather jacket was open, and he could sense something powerful from somewhere inside the coat. It was
probably what everybody was looking for, whatever that was.

The beast-man tilted his head, trying to see into the darkened folds of the jacket, hoping for a glimpse of something that might shed some light on the mysterious possession.

Fred couldn’t see a thing, but whatever was inside that jacket was giving off a kind of aura, a steady heartbeat of power that made the air around the unconscious boy thrum.

The wind howled outside, the heavy rain pattering against the side of the ramshackle house. There was the steady
drip, drip, drip
from a leak in the dining room ceiling behind him. The house was falling down around his pointed ears. He could certainly use the reward money that was promised.

Fred figured his parents had still been around the last time anything was done to this house, and he had killed them almost twenty-five years ago.

“What do you have?” he asked the young man on the floor with a curious growl. Using the toe of his boot, he kicked at Dusty’s side, hoping to feel something. Getting no satisfaction from that, he again looked around the room, extending his preternatural senses outward to test his surroundings. As far as he could tell, he was still alone.

Nervously Fred knelt beside the boy. A tiny voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like his mother warned him not to attempt what he was about to do, but he’d never paid much attention to his mother. Hell, she’d had relations with a werewolf. Why would he ever even think about listening to a
word she had to say, never mind the fact that she’d been dead and gone for a very long time.

“Just a peek,” he grumbled. He could feel the pulse of power from within the folds of the jacket; it made the yellowish, coarse hair on the back of his hands stand up as if charged with static electricity.

Plunging his hand inside, he fished around, searching for a pocket. When he found it, he reached in, his clawed fingertips brushing against something hard. He eagerly grabbed hold and pulled it out so he could see.

For a moment he was holding a harmonica.
Is this what everyone’s so fired up about?
he wondered. Then what appeared to be a simple mouth organ became something else entirely. Fred was suddenly holding a piece of the sun. It burned like nothing he’d ever felt before, worse than silver—and silver was the most painful thing of all.

The beast-man shrieked, trying to let go, but he couldn’t. The flesh of his hand melted into a giant, dripping ball—the source of the most intense agony he’d ever experienced trapped within it.

Fred thrashed his hand about, attempting to loosen the object, but his hand was aflame now, burning like the head of a torch doused in gasoline. The pain was too much, and he dropped to the floor beside the unconscious Dusty, trying to put out the fire.

“This is your fault!” Fred cried as his hand blackened
and thick oily smoke started to fill the air. A spastic movement caused his hand to bang against the wood of the living room floor, and the wolf-man watched in shock as the hand crumbled to ash. The harmonica that glowed white with the intensity of Hell dropped harmlessly to the floor.

Fred clutched the oozing stump of his wrist, staring in wonder at where his hand used to be. He had been warned not to touch anything, but did he listen?

His mind racing, he was thinking about running to the bathroom upstairs for bandages, or at least some kind of antibacterial ointment, when he heard the sounds. Hugging the stump to his chest, Fred listened to feet thumping up wooden steps. The smell of rotting flesh and decay permeated his nostrils, eclipsing the smell of his own burning flesh. He knew he was no longer alone in the house.

His guests had made their way up from the cellar.

The Corpse Riders had arrived.

For a moment Dusty thought he was awake. He wasn’t sure where he was, exactly, but he knew he wasn’t alone.

He felt as if he was lost in a fog; the air was thick with a roiling, moist smoke that swirled about his face, blinding him to his surroundings. He was trying to remember what had happened when the fog lifted and he found himself standing in front of a diner.

He knew this place, but he didn’t really know why. It didn’t
look at all familiar to him. He dug through memories of all the little restaurants where he had worked or visited for a quick bite, but he couldn’t quite place this one.

It looked crowded, but as he approached the large plate-glass window, he saw a figure sitting in a booth, and that figure waved him inside.

Dusty moved closer, realizing that he knew the old black man.

It was Tobias, the man who had given him the instrument.

He found the door through the fog and pulled it open, a bell ringing in welcome. He walked down the aisle toward Tobias.

“Hey, Dusty,” Tobias said. “Have a seat.” The old man gestured across from him.

Dusty slid into the booth and realized that he was really happy to see the old man.

“How are ya, kid?” Tobias asked.

Dusty didn’t know how to answer.

“Well, I guess I’m a little confused,” he said, looking around the diner. There were other people sitting in booths, and they all seemed to be looking at them. They were all dressed so strangely. Some wore robes, some wore what looked to be leather armor.…

Is that a Viking?

“You’re probably wondering where you are,” Tobias said, pulling Dusty’s attention back to him.

“Yeah,” Dusty began. “I don’t remember how I got here and …”

The image of the strange old man with the Buick suddenly flashed before his mind’s eye … a man who suddenly looked more like an animal.

“You’re nowhere really,” Tobias explained. “You’re someplace that the instrument has created. That I’ve created. That
they’ve
created.”

He motioned with his chin to the others sitting around them. “Someplace where you’d feel safe.”

There was suddenly a steaming cup of coffee in front of each of them.

“I still don’t understand,” Dusty said, again looking around the diner. It was like looking at a sampling of people from every time period in the world’s history.

“Which is why you’re sitting here with me,” Tobias said. “There are things I didn’t have time to share with you before giving you the horn.”

“Harmonica,” Dusty corrected, sampling the strong brew.

Tobias cocked his head ever so slightly, his milky white eyes moving quickly from side to side inside his skull.

“It’s a harmonica now. It changed.”

“Interesting,” Tobias said with an understanding nod. “However it appears now, there were things that I didn’t get to explain. I figured since you’re currently lying unconscious on a werewolf’s living room floor, it was as good a time as any to fill you in.”

Dusty remembered the old man who had given him a
ride—
Fred
—changing, his face contorting into something inhuman, snarling as he lashed out, punching him, before everything went to black.

“A werewolf,” Dusty said. “Is that what he is?”

“Just one of the beastly things that hide in the deep shadows of the world,” Tobias said. “You’d be surprised what’s lurking around out there.”

Dusty found his attention again drawn to the people around the diner. They were still staring, watching him with desperate eyes.

“Who are they?”

“They were like you once,” Tobias explained. “Like me.”

Dusty looked back to the old man across from him, puzzled.

“We’ve all held the instrument for safekeeping,” Tobias said.

“All of them?” Dusty asked. He turned in his seat, eyeing the other customers. No wonder they were so oddly dressed; thousands of years must have been represented there.

“The instrument takes a piece of us before it’s passed on,” Tobias went on. “The longer we hold it, the stronger our presence becomes here.”

“Wait a minute, you’re dead,” Dusty said, facing the old man again. “I felt you die.”

Tobias nodded. “You’re right. It happened not too long after I gave you the instrument.”

“How?”

“Let’s just say the folks who want the instrument want it so badly that they’re willing to do just about anything to get it.”

“The werewolf?” Dusty asked. “And those worm things we faced in the alley before you gave me the instrument?”

“Yeah, they want it,” Tobias said. He turned his blind eyes toward the window and appeared to be looking out at the unnatural fog. “But not for themselves. They want it so they can give it to someone else. I’m sure the instrument has already shared its purpose with you.”

“It’s to be used to summon the end of the world,” Dusty replied.

“Yeah,” Tobias said. His hands felt across the table for the sugar dispenser. He took it and brought it over to his cup, pouring sugar onto his spoon and stirring it into his coffee.

Dusty picked up his own cup and noticed that the coffee never went down; their mugs were always full.

“I should probably apologize for dropping that in your lap; it’s a huge responsibility, and I should’a asked you first,” Tobias said.

Dusty agreed; he should have been asked if he could handle the responsibility.

“But I was desperate,” Tobias said. “And you did come to my aid, exhibiting the kind of character necessary for one who holds the instrument.”

Tobias pointed his dripping spoon out into the restaurant. “They all did at one time.”

Dusty nodded, even though Tobias could not see his response.

“So, who are those … things trying to get the instrument for?”

“Angels,” Tobias said.

Dusty made a face, thinking maybe he’d heard the man wrong. “Angels?” he repeated, to be sure.

Tobias nodded. “Angels of the heavenly choir Powers. Or those that have survived, anyway.”

“Why would angels want the world to end? I thought they were all nice and working for God and stuff?”

The old black man chuckled.

“You don’t know much about angels, do you?” he asked.

“Well, I thought I did,” Dusty answered. “Since when did they get to be bad guys?”

“They’re not bad guys per se,” Tobias started to explain. “It’s just that they have a different view of this world, and of God’s favorite creations.”

“Let me guess. They don’t like us.”

“They’re jealous,” Tobias said, holding his cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. “It was the Powers’ function to protect humanity from the various creatures that hide in the shadows, but they got distracted by something that they thought was more of a threat.”

“Something bigger than the worm things and wolf-men?” Dusty asked.

“Yeah, ever since angels started visiting the world of man, there has always been a complicated relationship with humanity. Some fallen angels loved us … a little too passionately, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Fallen angels were getting busy with us?” Dusty suggested, just to be sure he was getting it right.

“That’s it,” Tobias said. “And in some cases, babies were born. Nephilim. And the Powers saw these babies as a bigger threat than the monsters hiding around the world.”

“The angels were killing babies?” Dusty couldn’t believe what he was hearing; his whole perception of what angels were, and did, was being completely turned on its head.

“When they could,” Tobias answered stoically. “Most of the time they couldn’t tell until the child turned eighteen; that was when the angelic nature that was part of them usually woke up.”

Dusty clutched his still-full coffee cup, absorbing the information.

“And did they succeed?”

“No,” Tobias answered. “They were stopped by one of the Nephilim they hunted … a special Nephilim.”

“So a Nephilim kicked their asses? Good for him.”

“You would think,” Tobias said. “But here’s where it gets sticky. It appears that their leader, Verchiel, had a backup plan.”

“This Verchiel sounds like a real dick,” Dusty observed colorfully.

“Yeah, you’re not too far off with that description,” Tobias agreed. “But Verchiel had Powers angels hidden around the world, waiting to carry out his final wishes.”

“And let me guess. It has something to do with the instrument.”

“See, I knew there was a reason you got picked,” the old man said.

“These Powers angels want to end the world to wipe out the Nephilim?”

“Let’s just say they want to hit the restart button on the whole planet.”

Dusty suddenly realized the enormity of the responsibility that was in his hands. “Well, I won’t let them have it,” he promised the old man. “I’ll use it against them if I have to, but they won’t take it from me.”