The Fallen 4 (20 page)

There were no complaints this time. Roger reacted without a single word. After some difficulty he managed to open the first and largest of the dolls, and then removed and opened the one inside that. After a few minutes he held the single piece of wood that was painted to look like a baby. He studied it for a moment.

“Yes,” he said finally, as if talking to the wooden child. “It’s all starting to become clearer.”

He picked up the largest doll and held that in his other hand. Roger’s head turned as he looked from the largest doll to the smallest doll.

“Yes,” he said again, placing the baby inside the empty body of the larger doll with a hollow
clunk
.

“Much… clearer.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

D
usty stood before the giant sword. He could see little more than a darkened outline through the milky haze that obscured his vision.

“Are you sure about this, Dusty?” Aaron asked from beside him.

Dusty could hardly hear the question. The emanations from the Instrument crowded his head. “I’m good,” he managed, momentarily turning his failing eyes from the vibrating blade toward Aaron’s voice.

The Instrument had been plunged deep into the flesh of the earth by the monstrous Abomination of Desolation, and was now tuned with the new horrors of the world. It saw everything that happened across the globe, and wanted to share all of that news with Dusty. The sword could also see the future, and wanted to show him the multitude of those possibilities too.

That was more than enough to drive a normal person insane, but Dusty wasn’t normal. He hadn’t been normal since he’d come to possess the Instrument. If he’d had the choice, he would have broken the psychic connection with the great weapon, but Dusty knew that wouldn’t happen until he was dead.

He felt Lorelei’s hand upon his shoulder. “Just let me know when you’re ready,” she said into his ear.

Dusty didn’t want to do this, but he owed it to his new friends, and the world.
Who knows
, he thought hopefully.
Maybe whatever I do today will free me from the damn Instrument tomorrow.

It was worth a shot.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said over the nauseating hum inside his own head.

Lorelei was going to use her magick to help him focus, to keep his mind from spinning into oblivion with the Instrument’s millions of visions and alternate realities. Dusty could faintly make out the scroll containing the spell and Lorelei’s copper bowl as she set them on the ground next to him. She’d also brought a dove for sacrifice (
How many of those poor things bite it in a week here?
he had to wonder) and the globe from the science room to use as their map.

“Remember,” Aaron said. “We get the locations of the Fear Engines, and then that’s it. Break the connection as quickly as you’re able. No need to put yourself at any more risk than absolutely necessary.”

Dusty nodded. Part of him wanted to scream that simply being near the sword was a huge risk, but there wasn’t any point in making Aaron feel worse than he probably already did.

Dusty turned his focus to the blade before him. “Ready when you are,” he said to Lorelei, who dropped the last of her special ingredients into the bowl.

The contents of the bowl began to smoke, and Lorelei picked up the small rolled scroll and started to quietly read from it.

Dusty opened his mind to the Instrument—and almost immediately wished that he hadn’t. He felt as though he were drowning, drowning in sheer terror. Images bombarded him, barely giving him the opportunity to process one before another replaced it. It took everything he had not to scream, everything he had not to search out the nearest jagged rock and cut his own throat.

Anything to make the visions stop.

Dusty could hear Lorelei, far off in the nightmarish distance, telling him to focus on her voice. She was persistent, demanding that he hear her and follow her commands. Amidst scenes of a world of horror, bloodshed, and unnatural death, Dusty zeroed in on her voice. He concentrated, finally feeling the onslaught begin to subside.

He felt like he was in a whirlpool now. A numbing coolness was all around him. The images were still with him, still clamoring for his attention, but suddenly he had the strength to sort them.

To assess them one at a time.

Lorelei instructed him to observe the nightmarish scenes unfolding before him and to visualize the fear they caused, then follow that fear. The imagery was devastating, and painted a picture of a world Dusty wanted nothing to do with.

Humanity was in danger. The darkness stretched to claim more and more of the earth. Dusty watched as tendrils of fear began to snake up into the ether. That was what he needed to track. Those threads of emotion would lead him to the engines.

Dusty followed those paths, and the trails ended in the strangest of places. But there they were, the engines throbbing with collected fears.

“I’ve found them,” he exclaimed, nearly losing his concentration.
Focus,
he told himself.

Before he could gain his composure, the Archon magick was inside him. It flowed through Lorelei and into him. The magick was like liquid lightning, singing in his veins and boiling his blood. Dusty screamed as the magick punched through his fingertips, engulfing the old globe. The tin globe exploded, sending jagged pieces of metal whizzing through the air.

The magick was wild. Tendrils of energy pulsed from his hands, striking the earth, worming down into the soil. The ground churned as a huge section of dirt, rock and grass rose up into the air. The soil took on a spherical shape, a representation of the
planet, spinning slowly as it hung in the crisp New England air.

“There!” Dusty yelled as a column of light erupted from the magickal globe, followed by another, and another after that.

Three beacons of light, marking the locations of the Fear Engines.

*   *   *

Lorelei was impressed.

Dusty was handling the Archon magick like a pro. It had left her body when it had been summoned, and had flowed into the waiting receptacle that was Dusty.

She still held the leash, but was shocked and delighted to see how the ancient magick was taking to the young man. She could not help but think about the day when the magick would no longer listen to her commands, but would turn on her like an angry dog, beaten one too many times by its master. Then the magick would utterly consume her.

And then it would be up to Dusty to help the Nephilim with their mission. Watching as he located the Fear Engines with pillars of light, she saw someone who was certainly up for the task. With a little more training, he would be just as good as she was.

Maybe even better.

Lorelei could sense Dusty’s enormous potential. He had the ability to hold and control vast amounts of powerful magick. It made her inevitable death that much easier to accept.

It also made her more willing to take a chance. As she
watched him wield the power of her spell, Lorelei was tempted. If Dusty was able to locate the Fear Engines that had been hidden by powerful magicks, could he also help her find the wayward Lucifer?

It was certainly something to consider. His disappearance gnawed at her, making her all the more determined to find the missing Morningstar.

With Dusty’s help, she hoped to solve the mystery, to the benefit of them all.

*   *   *

Aaron approached the spinning ball of earth, his eyes focused upon what could best be described as the hot spots. There didn’t appear to be any particular rhyme or reason to their placement, but then again, he had never been part of a secret gathering of angelic beings that wanted to see humanity go extinct.

“Does this look right to you?” Aaron asked as Mallus came to stand beside him.

The others had stepped up for a closer look as well.

“As right as anything the Architects might have their wings in,” the fallen angel said.

“Why these places?” Aaron asked as the globe slowly spun, revealing the three locations. “Why in these particular spots?”

“You’re asking me to think like them,” Mallus said. “I haven’t a clue. Perhaps they have some special meaning to the Architects, or maybe they mean absolutely nothing at all.”

“In the long run it doesn’t really matter,” Vilma said, watching
the beams of light. “We just need to get to these places and take care of the engines.”

“Right,” Aaron said, trying to make up his mind as to how they should proceed. “Since we really haven’t a clue as to what we’ll be up against, I want us to go in teams.” He stopped to study the earthen globe for a moment. “Vilma and Cameron, you’ll go west. Verchiel and Melissa, I want you to go east.” He paused again, collecting his thoughts. “Since I have to go with Mallus, one team will have to do double duty—”

“I’ll do it,”
Gabriel barked, interrupting him.
“I’ll go.”

Aaron smiled at the good-hearted nature of his dog’s offer. “That’s all right, buddy,” he told the animal. “We can—”

“I can do it,”
Gabriel insisted, his stance stiff, his gaze intently upon Aaron.

“Gabriel, I know you want to help, but—”

“I’ve changed, Aaron,”
Gabriel spoke.
“More than you realize.”

And before Aaron could question him further, Gabriel decided to show them all.

At once the Labrador’s body began to glow, sparks of divine fire leaping from his golden fur, which looked as if it shifted and moved. Strangely enough, it reminded Aaron of a wheat field caressed by the wind.

The dog seemed larger and fiercer, and suddenly Aaron was afraid. Where was the sweet animal that he loved with all his heart and soul? Where was the dog that meant so much to him that he’d brought him back from the dead?

And then it hit him. “I did this.”

The dog looked up at Aaron with eyes flecked with golden fire.

“Yes,”
he said.
“I knew that you had changed me, that I had become smarter than other dogs, but this was totally unexpected.”

Aaron didn’t know what to say. He knelt in front of Gabriel.

“I had no idea that—”

“Neither did I,”
Gabriel said.
“It just kind of happened when I was attacked outside the school’s barriers.”

Aaron reached out to pet the animal, but hesitated.

“Please don’t be afraid of me, Aaron,” the dog said sadly.

Aaron threw his arms around the animal’s large neck in a hug. He had a sudden, painful sensation, but it quickly dissipated as Aaron felt his body assuming his more angelic guise, somehow triggered by his contact with Gabriel.

“I could never be afraid of you,” he said.

“I do so hate to break up this charming emotional display,” Verchiel chided, “but the earth, if I’m not mistaken, is still in danger.”

Aaron released his dog and stood. Gabriel’s gaze followed him, waiting for Aaron’s decision.

“Gabriel will take the last of the engines,” Aaron said.

The dog nodded, divine fire sparking around his head.
“I won’t let you down.”

Aaron retained his fearsome angelic form and stared at his
friends, his fellow Nephilim, his soldiers. His gaze lingered upon Vilma longer than the others, a message passing between them as their eyes momentarily locked.

He loved her, plain and simple, and she loved him back. But in order for that love to survive, and to become even greater than it already was, a world needed to be ordered.

That was their mission.

Their purpose.

“Be careful,” he told them all. Suddenly he realized that this could be the last time he saw some of them alive. He wanted to say more, but there wasn’t time.

One by one the Nephilim took on their angelic guises, spreading powerful wings, wrapping themselves within their feathered embrace, and then they were gone.

Gabriel was the last to go.

“I love you, Aaron,”
the dog told him in his kind doggy grumble.
“Thought I’d like to tell you that, just in case.”

It took everything that Aaron had not to beg him to stay. “I love you too, Gabe,” he managed before his voice cracked with emotion.

Gabriel’s stance then stiffened, and he shook his canine body as if shucking off water. Golden fire swarmed around the dog’s form like eager fireflies, until he disappeared, until there was only the light of the divine.

Then that too winked out; the dog, and the fire, were gone.

“Are you ready?” Mallus asked Aaron.

Aaron managed to tear his eyes away from where Gabriel had been.

“Yeah,” he told the fallen angel. “As ready as I’m going to be. Where are we going?”

Mallus stepped closer to him and grabbed his wrist in a powerful grip.

“Do you see?” the angel asked.

For a brief moment Aaron didn’t understand. Then an image, as clear as day, appeared in his mind.

“Yes, I see,” Aaron replied.

“Then let us be gone.”

Mallus stepped closer as Aaron stretched out his wings of black, and enclosed them both.

*   *   *

The globe spun as Dusty stood, shivering, in its shadow.

“Are you all right?” Lorelei asked, still managing the Archon spell that held the young man in check.

“Yeah,” he said, though there was strain in his voice, “but I think I’m ready to be rid of this connection.”

“Wait,” she said, limping forward, leaning upon her cane.

Surprised, Dusty turned his milky eyes in her direction.

“Can you hold on for just a little bit longer?” she asked as she approached him.

“I’m not sure that I can—”

“I need to ask you a favor,” Lorelei interrupted.

His eyes blinked. “Okay,” he said cautiously.

“I need you to let me in,” she said. “I need you to let me see what the Instrument is showing you.”

Dusty slowly nodded.

“I have to find him,” Lorelei said.

“Lucifer,” Dusty stated.

“If things continue as they are…” She paused, considering the future. “We need him,” she finished with finality.

“Are you sure you’re strong enough to handle this?” Dusty asked her.