The Fallen 4 (27 page)

Tarshish had agreed, and the Architects had praised him for his decision, but they’d said that they needed to be certain that he truly belonged with them.

That their vision and his were one and the same.

They’d told him there would be a test, and before he could question what would be asked of him, his mind had been filled with his mission’s objective, and he’d been in awe of what was expected.

The Architects had told him how important this undertaking was, for without its completion their true design could never be realized. They’d told him that they had faith in his abilities, and without further discussion, he had been dismissed.

And now he found himself here, in the mountains of the world that, if he performed his duty, would be forever changed by this act, allowing the Architects’ vision to march forward.

Tarshish turned his gaze upward, toward his destination. There was a storm upon the mountain, winds so fierce that they might flay the flesh from a lesser being’s body, but Tarshish was as far from a lesser being as one could possibly be. He continued his climb into the raging white.

He could sense himself growing closer to his quarry and paused a moment to reconsider what he was doing.
Is it really my place to ignore God’s wishes and take action against His vision? Do I dare do such a thing?

From the corner of his eye Tarshish caught sight of something moving in the snow. Immediately his curiosity was aroused, for nothing that currently lived in the world could survive these conditions.

“Show yourself,” the Malakim commanded in a voice that caused the very air to vibrate, and an avalanche to rain down upon him.

The ice and snow came in a furious rush, but it did not touch his form, for he had made his body as hot as a star, and the frozen water hissed and steamed as it tried to pummel him with its volume and weight. But it was unable to touch Tarshish.

As it was unable to touch the other creature on the mountain with him.

Tarshish looked upon the being and knew him as a fallen angel of Heaven.

There was a certain air about fallen angels that was unmistakable.

“What brings you to this cold, misbegotten place, angel?” Tarshish asked as the snow at last settled and the mournful winds quieted.

“I could be asking you the same thing,” the fallen stated.

Tarshish chuckled, enjoying the conversation with the once heavenly being. He had spent far too long amongst the hairless monkeys that now dominated this place, and he missed these divine interactions.

“You know what I am, fallen one?” Tarshish asked. “I am Malakim.”

The angel bowed his head in reverence to Tarshish’s position.

“I go wherever I feel,” Tarshish said. “Wherever I might find the most wonderful experiences and sensations this world can provide. That is where I will be, for that is my charge.”

“And the murder of one most holy,” the fallen angel spoke. “What an experience. The sensations it will provide… glorious.” He smiled knowingly.

“You know why I am here,” Tarshish spoke, already planning how he would destroy the insolent fallen. “Now you will share with me the same.”

The fallen moved toward him in the snow. “Isn’t it obvious, Malakim?” he asked. “We have a job to do.”

“The Architects sent you?”

“As they did you,” the fallen angel said.

“They doubted that I would be able to perform my task?” Tarshish asked, incredulous.

The fallen angel smiled. “Let’s just say they wanted to be sure it was done properly.”

The Malakim scowled, disheartened by his new masters’ seeming doubt of his capabilities.

The fallen angel clapped him on the shoulder. “No need to frown, brother,” he said.

Tarshish did not care to be touched, and ignited the divine flesh of the fallen angel. The fallen quickly removed his hand and plunged it into the snow to quell the hungry fire.

Tarshish stared down at the lowly being, trying to decide whether or not to extinguish his life.

“We’ve been given a mission, Malakim,” the angel spoke, his dark eyes looking up at Tarshish. “Let’s show our new masters that we can work as one.”

A thought crossed Tarshish’s mind, one he hadn’t considered until that moment. Perhaps this was one of the Architects’ tests. Maybe they wanted to see if he could work with others of like mind to restore the world to what it should be.

The fallen angel knelt in the snow, ministering to his wound, but Tarshish started back on the path to his destination. The Malakim could feel the wounded angel’s eyes upon his back.

“What should I call you, angel?” the Malakim asked without turning.

“Mallus,” the angel replied.

“Mallus, I am Tarshish,” the Malakim announced. “Tarshish the forgotten.” He then turned to look at the fallen one, who had withdrawn his charred appendage from the ice and snow. It was a black, withered thing now, but it would eventually heal.

“Prepare yourself for what we are about to do, Mallus,” Tarshish continued. “For we will either be exalted for our actions—”

He turned back toward the mountain.

“—or we will be damned.”

*   *   *

On the shore Baby Roger sat in the sand, a chilling wind rustling the downy soft hair atop his rather large head.

They’d wanted him to wear a hat, but he would not hear of it.

Jeremy and the old woman had given him a pail and a shovel, and he had gone to work gouging out shovelfuls of damp sand, and dumping them into his bucket.

There is something mesmerizing about the action
, the baby thought.
Putting something inside of something else.

Something hauntingly familiar
.

When the pail was full, Roger immediately tipped it over, emptying its contents and beginning the process all over again.

Fill. Put something inside something else.

There was some deeper meaning, just out of Roger’s grasp.

He wanted to cry out in frustration, to scream his rage at the crashing waves and seagull shrieking in the sky above, but it wouldn’t help him find the answers he sought.

As he dug, Roger checked to make sure that he hadn’t been left. Jeremy and the woman were standing close by, talking amongst themselves. He was sure they were talking about him.
What should we do about little Roger?
He wished he had the answer to give them.

Drawn to his task, he again shoveled sand into the pail, filling it to overflowing.

What does this mean?
the babe asked himself as he stared at his bucket. With a shriek he grabbed the pail in his chubby hands and emptied its contents. Unable to control himself, he was about to start filling the pail again, when he glanced up at the white-capped ocean. He studied the birds as they rode the currents, the winds beneath their wings making it seem as if they were defying gravity as they hung there in space.

The wings.

The baby was inexplicably transported to another corner of the world, as if lost in a memory. In this vision he was transformed into something akin to God. Standing atop a mountain peak, his grown-up body adorned in armor made from the rays of the sun, he extended his will upon the world of man. Somehow Roger knew that this had been reality.

This was his true nature, what he had been created to do.

His name was not Roger. He was Enoch. And he was an
emissary of the highest order. God, human, and angel, Enoch was a trinity of the Allfather’s most cherished creations. He was to watch over the world and its inhabitants.

He was the Metatron, the voice of God here on earth.

Elation flowed through the child, as tears rolled down his chubby face. Memories of being touched by the Lord of Lords filled his mind.

He’d been human, but he’d been transformed into so much more. He could not remember why he had been chosen, but Enoch had been taken to Heaven and paraded before all the heavenly hosts as the recipient of God’s greatest gift.

And Enoch had been transformed before all the angels.

Enoch was the Metatron.

On the beach the seagulls wailed, wings flapping against the winds to remain aloft.

The flapping of wings.

The sound in his ears was suddenly deafening.

In his memory, wings beat the air unmercifully as an angel of Heaven flew about his head. Standing atop the snow-covered mountain, he tried to bat it away, but the attack upon him was relentless.

Attack? Who would dare attack the Metatron?

At first he believed it was only one. He saw the angel, a sword of burning in his grasp, darting and weaving through the snow-filled air, attacking Enoch with such ferocity.

He wanted to understand why this was happening… why
the angel would wish to do him harm, but he could no longer allow it to go on.

Summoning the power of God from within, the Metatron readied a strike against his angelic foe, but as the power flowed from within, it was taken by another.

Stolen by a second being of Heaven.

He tried to fight them, but they had taken him by surprise, not allowing him the opportunity to defend himself, to strike back.

The pair had driven him to the floor of the mountain peak, swarming atop his large and powerful armored form. He did not know what they wanted, but something told him that soon it would be revealed.

They did not hesitate in their act of savagery. Powerful magicks were at work then, immobilizing him, cutting off his connection to the Almighty. There was little time wasted as they went to work upon his divine armor, cutting it open to reveal the next layer of the trinity beneath.

The pain was excruciating as they sought out their prize, searching for what lay at the core of his being.

The two heavenly beings were eager to reach his humanity, cutting deeply through the angelic aspect to find the soft human center. He saw them as they peered inside the shell of God, finding what they had been searching for.

“Why?”
he wanted to ask as the angel reached in to pull his humanity out into the cold. Enoch squirmed in the cold of
the mountain, the angel holding him tightly by the scruff of the neck as the other—the magick user—conjured a dagger of blinding white light and stepped in close to use it.

It was senseless to struggle, but he did. It was what humanity did in the face of adversity, no matter how hopeless it appeared.

Enoch struggled, even as he died.

The angelic being with his dagger of light sliced Enoch’s throat from ear to ear, the cut so deep that it nearly severed his head from his body.

And they let his body drop to the frozen ground, gouts of blood pumping from his wound to stain the virgin snow.

The baby’s vision had gone completely red with the passing of the memory, and he began to scream. He knew now what he had been, and what had happened.

And why he had returned.

He continued to scream, rolling around in the sand as the birds cried out, riding the winds above his head, the terror of what he had experienced—and what might be to come—pouring out of him in a fit of cries and tears.

The old woman was suddenly there, retrieving him from the sand and taking him into her comforting arms.

But there could be no comfort for Roger now.

The woman tried to shush him, bouncing him up and down as Jeremy stood nearby, confused by his sudden outburst.

“What’s wrong, Roger love?” the woman asked in her gentlest whisper.

“My—my name isn’t Roger,” the baby said between gulps of air as he struggled to compose himself.

The woman looked into his face as she tried to understand.

“I know who I am now,” the baby said. “I know why I am here.”

With new composure he declared, “My name is Enoch.”

Then he shuddered. Because if he knew who he was, then so did
they
.

*   *   *

“Just so I understand,” Aaron said. “You two killed a godlike being, and now you want me to somehow help you make it right?”

Mallus and Tarshish were silent. They all sat at the card table. The old Malakim fiddled with a puzzle piece, and Aaron could just make out the puzzle’s picture.

An abandoned factory. What an odd choice for a puzzle image,
Aaron thought, before getting back to the point. “Well,” he prompted.

“We didn’t kill the godlike being, per se,” Tarshish explained. “Just its human aspect.”

“Okay,” Aaron said. “So this being, this Metatron, it’s still alive?”

“No, the Metatron is comprised of three aspects, the divine, the human, and the angelic. All must coexist together. By killing its human aspect, we caused the Metatron to unincorporate.”

“And the other parts went where?” Aaron asked. “Back to God?”

“They exist in the world,” the Malakim said. “We would have to find them, control them, and then bring them back to you.”

“And what would I do with them?” Aaron asked.

Tarshish was silent as he picked up another puzzle piece and looked to see where it might fit in the image before him.

“These aspects would be joined to you,” Mallus said.

Aaron listened. “And?”

“And you would become the Metatron,” Tarshish finished, snapping the puzzle piece into place. “The perfect fusion of God, angel, and man.”

Aaron considered what they were saying, looking from Mallus to Tarshish. “Why do I get the sense that this wouldn’t be the greatest thing for me?”

“Probably because it isn’t,” Tarshish replied matter-of-factly.

“Being the Metatron is possibly one of the greatest honors that could be bestowed upon a human,” Mallus said.

“Yeah? Then why do I hear a big ‘but’ coming?” Aaron asked.

“But you would be the Metatron,” Tarshish said.

“No more Aaron Corbet, no more leader of the Nephilim,” Mallus explained. “You would be the Metatron.”

Aaron sat there, soaking it all in. He could feel his anger begin to rise as yet another responsibility was thrust upon him. After already giving up so much, the divine still wanted even more from him.

He wanted to tell the two angelic beings to forget it, to find another host for the godlike power that they had set loose
upon the world. But Aaron just wasn’t wired that way.