Reckoning f-4 Page 14

  “I followed my commands.”

  “Exactly,” Aaron agreed with a slight nod. “You followed your commands.”

  Verchiel turned suddenly, stalking away from him. “I’m tired of all this … living,” he said.

  Aaron noticed that one of the angel’s blood-covered hands had begun to glow, and he readied himself for the next round of conflict. “Then let’s see what I can do about putting you out of your misery,” he replied, sword of heavenly fire burning righteously in his grasp.

  The leader of the Powers turned, his right hand glowing with incredible heat, the blood running down from the wounds upon his arms, hissing snakelike, evaporating to smoke before it could drip upon the white-hot hand. He laughed, a sound void of any humor. “I wonder if He’s listening now?” He turned his eyes toward the heavens and raised his burning hand. A tendril of living flame erupted to explode through the skylight and illuminate the night beyond it with the glow of Heaven’s fire.

  “What is that disparaging statement humans often make to each other?” the angel asked, as jagged pieces of the broken glass rained down upon him. “Go to Hell?”

  And Aaron realized what was happening. He watched in stunned horror as the crimson mist coalesced, snaking across the floor like some prehistoric serpent, over the bodies of those felled by its malignant touch, eager to invade the world beyond these walls.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Verchiel said with an obvious glee. “You can all go to Hell.”

  Kraus tried to squeeze himself deeper into the darkened corner of an abandoned classroom, a cacophony of emotions bringing him to the brink of insanity. All the anguish, anger, and loneliness that had been part of his early life was with him again, the intensified feelings bombarding him threefold.

  With his new eyes he had watched the angelic ritual performed upon the fallen angel Lucifer. Even before the last of the rite was completed, the healer knew that nothing good would come from it, and he attempted to hide himself away.

  For decades he had served the angelic host Powers, developing a certain preternatural sense for things beyond the norm. As most humans were oblivious to the paranormal, Kraus found that he had become keenly sensitive. Those senses were screaming now, and he attempted to fold himself tighter into a ball, to protect himself from the forces that had been turned loose this day.

  How could I have been so blind?

  Though a force from Heaven, Verchiel had become twisted, obsessed with the completion of his holy charge no matter how high the cost. And Kraus had helped him. How strange it was that it took the leader of the Powers host rewarding him with the gift of sight for him to truly see how things actually were.

  I was blind, but now I can see.

  Kraus heard the cries of his classmates at the Perry School as they were consumed by fire, and he shuddered in the darkness. There had been no act of mercy that fateful night, only murder.

  He was suddenly reminded of something Lucifer had said to him only days ago, and fought an unrelenting wave of fear to remember exactly what had been said. The healer had found himself drawn to the prisoner’s cage, although he had been instructed never to enter the room in which the Powers’ captive had been imprisoned. Somehow he sensed that he was needed, that his skills as a healer were being called for. Still condemned to darkness, he had gathered his instruments and healing potions, feeling his way to the schoolroom where the personification of all that was evil was imprisoned.

  Evil personified. Kraus would have laughed if he weren’t so afraid.

  The Devil had welcomed him into the room, and Kraus stood strong against him. He knew he had to be on guard, for the prisoner’s manipulative ways were legendary. He had bravely informed the prisoner that he was a healer and had come only to administer to the fallen angel’s wounds. Lucifer had said he understood, and although most of his burns had healed, he wished for Kraus to treat a few stubborn patches.

  The healer had stoically obliged. It was his duty, after all, to care for the angelic creatures around him, whether they were soldier or prisoner. But he found himself in awe of this prisoner’s demeanor. Here was the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Lies, imprisoned by the forces of Good, and all he could talk about was how much he enjoyed the springtime, and could he please have some bread for his friend, a mouse.

  Was it then that the first seeds of doubt were planted? Kraus wondered. Or had it been with those final words, as he completed the application of healing salve upon Lucifer’s burns?

  “It’s going to get worse around here before it can get better,” Lucifer had warned. “That’s the way it has to be, but I thought you might want to know.”

  He had wanted to ask the prisoner to explain, for he had already begun to suspect, to feel, that the near future was ripe with the potential for danger. The words were at the tip of his tongue, ready to fall from his mouth, when Verchiel returned from his latest defeat at the hands of the Nephilim. He had been lucky that the Powers commander hadn’t slain him then and there, but the angel had been preoccupied with his plans for the future and Kraus had quickly fled.

  The future.

  Lucifer’s words again echoed through his mind. “It’s going to get worse around here before it can get better.”

  Kraus uncurled himself and leaned back against the cold plaster wall. He remembered the last time he had seen the prisoner, hanging from the ceiling in chains, his torso cut open and something unspeakable leaking out into the world.

  “Very bad indeed,” he muttered, afraid to move, afraid to incite another pummeling wave of the supernatural force that seemed to have subsided for the moment, allowing him to gather his wits about him.

  “Why would he have told me that?” Kraus asked the oppressive gloom.

  In his mind he saw the mist leaking from Lucifer’s wound—saw how he fought to keep it inside—and Kraus knew he had to do something.

  The thought of leaving his hiding place filled him with mortal terror. What was happening beyond the walls of this classroom was not meant to be seen by mere man. And besides, what could he possibly do to prevent it?

  “That’s the way it has to be.”

  Kraus finally found the strength within himself to stand, and before he could question the sanity of his actions, went to the door.

  “But I thought you might want to know.”

  He moved through the darkened school, the eerie vapor that had once been contained within the first of the fallen becoming thicker as he neared the gymnasium. Kraus tried with all his might not to let it affect him, not to be reduced to quivering human wreckage by its touch. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, plunging headlong into that debilitating mist. He waited for it to overcome him, to crush him beneath the overpowering weight of its despair, but it did not happen. Perhaps more than the ability to see was bestowed upon me by Verchiel’s restorative touch, Kraus considered.

  It was like being blind again as he felt his way through the swirling mist, stumbling over the bodies of those who had already fallen victim to the full extent of the vapor’s malignancy. He could not bring himself to look at them, for they had been his charges for decades, their well-being his responsibility, and it hurt him deeply to know that there was nothing he could have done to ease their pain.

  A limp human shape, hanging from the ceiling’s metal girders by thick links of metal chain, loomed out of the drifting mist before him. But now that he had reached his goal, Kraus was unsure of why exactly he had come. He could hear sounds within the fog, voices raised in rage, and he suspected that the Nephilim had come to challenge Verchiel’s insanity.

  “It’s bad,” Kraus muttered to the unconscious figure, clutching his satchel of healing tools to his chest as if they could somehow protect him. The deafening sound of an explosion and the shattering of glass made the healer wince, and he shielded his head from possible hurt. “Very bad,” he whispered, and he felt the cool touch of the fresh night air invade the stagnant atmosphere of the gym.

  He noticed that the mist
was being drawn toward an opening in the ceiling where a skylight had been, and the nightmarish images of the vapor expanding across the globe filled his head. “I can’t imagine it any worse,” Kraus muttered.

  And Lucifer slowly raised his head.

  “Help me down,” he said. “I think that’s my cue.”

  Aaron watched in terror as Verchiel rose up alongside the integrated fog, wings beating the air as he followed the seething mass on its undulating course toward the open skylight, toward its freedom.

  Then instinct took over and Aaron spread his wings and leaped into the air. The manifestation of Heaven’s grief had become something akin to a single great tentacle, slithering through the air pointed at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

  “You have to stop this!” he screamed at Verchiel, his blade of fire passing uselessly through the gaseous mass. At one time the Powers leader must have been a rational thinking being, and he hoped to somehow appeal to what remained of that creature, if anything remained at all. “You claim to be a loyal servant of God, and yet you’re going to allow this to happen? Think about what you’re doing!”

  Verchiel hovered just below the shattered framework of the skylight, his tattered wings flapping furiously to keep his form aloft. His dark, horrible eyes were riveted to the snake of fog. Night had fallen outside, and despite the horror of what was happening below, the stars in the sky twinkled beautifully. If the mist were allowed to escape, Aaron wondered if the night sky would ever look this beautiful again.

  “He has to be shown,” Verchiel said dreamily, beckoning for the deadly vapor to flow all the faster. “If I’d only been allowed to complete my mission, this never would have happened.” He shook his head sadly as if there was nothing more that he could do. “It is too late—too late for us all.”

  Aaron flew at the Powers commander, thoughts racing. There had to something he could do to stop it. Anything. “It’ll be the death of us all!” he shouted at the angel, desperately trying to reach any hint of the divine still lurking within Verchiel. He had turned this monstrous haze on; he had to know how to shut it off.

  The leader of the Powers brought forth his own sword of fire, swiping at Aaron, driving him back. “Yes, it will be our death!” he cried out, his face a blood-covered mask of open sores, “and He will be forced to bear that guilt.”

  Aaron narrowly avoided the bite of Verchiel’s burning blade, riding dangerously close to the hellish mass. The angel came at him again, his bandaged hand closing about the Nephilim’s throat, forcing him back into the punishment of God.

  Aaron struggled violently to be free, but Verchiel’s grip was like steel. He felt as though he were drowning, every fiber of his being invaded by the experience that was the War in Heaven. Finally he managed to break away, falling toward the ground, unable to function—barely able to cope with what his body was experiencing. He landed with a sickening thud and painfully rolled over on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He thought of the world beyond the gym. He had seen what Lucifer’s hell had done to the angelic, heavenly beings of amazing power and strength, and shuddered to think of the horrors that would soon befall the people of the world.

  Struggling to collect himself, Aaron yelled at the angel hovering near the ceiling above him. “You have to stop it!”

  Verchiel simply smiled, the marble pale skin of his face hidden in blood. “I can’t,” he said with a shake of his head. And his smile grew all the larger and twice as terrible.

  Verchiel recognized some of the misery emanating from the body of the condensed vapor as his own. Anger turning to rage, sadness to overwhelming despair; all of them he had experienced during the Morningstar’s war in Heaven and during his own recent abandonment. He had contributed mightily to this swirling miasma of experience, and now it was to be released upon the world.

  The angel’s black eyes gazed up through the open ceiling from which Hell would escape, through the cold light of stars above, and attempted to see Paradise. He had always imagined that his mission, his private war, would eventually end and that he would return to Heaven a hero of the cause. Things would be as they had been: chaos squelched, order restored, and the memory of Lucifer Morningstar and his atrocities purged from the memories of all divine beings. Verchiel saw himself basking in the celestial light of his Lord and Heavenly Father, the favored child of God, and all was right in Heaven and the universe.

  But it’s not meant to be, the angel forlornly reminded himself, averting his gaze from the wide sky above to the snakelike monstrosity writhing in the air below him. Here was the personification of his own rage, his way of punishing all those who had hurt him. A horrible but necessary way to make things right again.

  The Morningstar had not been forgotten. His presence had continued to infect the heavenly domain like some malignant growth, blossoming into the cancerous prophecy of forgiveness, and eventually the state in which Verchiel currently found the world. He could take it no more; the denigration had to be stopped.

  “Are you watching, my Lord?” he called to the open space above him. The stars winked as if in response. “You may have been able to forgive them their trespasses, but I cannot.”

  He soared up and out through the damaged skylight into the night, gazing down as the probing tip of the gaseous appendage cautiously reached beyond the skylight into the cool night air.

  “That’s it,” the angel encouraged, a perverse satisfaction the likes of which he had never known empowering his decaying form. “This world of sin belongs to you now. Let them feel what we felt—how horribly we suffered for His love.”

  Verchiel looked out over central Massachusetts, his gaze traversing beyond New England to look upon the whole planet of man. “Will You forgive me, Heavenly Father?” he whispered. “When my sin is committed and my penance is done, will You take me back into Your embrace?”

  He again looked upon the monstrous thing that had been the bane of Lucifer as it prepared to make its way into the world.

  But something was wrong.

  It hesitated.

  Verchiel flew closer and watched in surprise as the hellish mass began to recede into the building. “Come back!” he roared pitifully, his cries of disappointment echoing through the still of the night.

  He descended, following the serpentine form back into the building, Bringer of Sorrow ignited in his grasp.

  There was Lucifer Morningstar kneeling upon the floor of the gymnasium, his own fingers now holding open the gaping wound in his chest, an expression of unadulterated suffering etched upon his features, as he gradually drew the thick crimson vapor back within himself. Standing beside him, a supportive hand upon the first of the fallen’s bare shoulder, stood Verchiel’s own healer, the monkey Kraus.

  “What is this?” the angel growled aghast, not so much that the Morningstar was free, but that one who had served him so faithfully, on whom he bestowed such a great gift, could be party to Verchiel’s own betrayal.

  “I’m taking it back,” Lucifer said, struggling to his feet with the help of the human animal. “It is not the world’s burden.” The enormous volume of swirling mist slowly burrowed back inside his body. “It is my punishment. I am its master, and it is mine alone to bear.”

  “You always were a selfish one, Lucifer Morningstar,” Verchiel ranted as he dropped from the ceiling, placing all his might behind what would be a killing blow.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Time slowed as Verchiel’s blade fell toward him.

  For a glorious few moments Lucifer had experienced what it was like to be free of his burden. It had been bliss, and for an instant he considered the possibility of life again without his punishment.

  I’ve done more than enough penance, he thought, trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to let God’s chastening of him go. I’m truly sorry for all my sins. He must know that, Lucifer rationalized. Maybe this is how it was supposed to be. Is this how I’m to be freed from the Lord’s wrath?

  He looked up
now and saw Verchiel above him, armor tarnished, skin covered in tattered, blood-stained bandages and open sores, decaying wings spread wide as he fell toward him, hissing weapon of fire falling toward his face. Is this a messenger from God? Lucifer asked himself. One that the Creator sent to tell me I am forgiven? But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, Lucifer knew the answer.

  It was not yet his time for absolution.

  Wearily he began to take it back, all the pain, sorrow, anger, and misery spawned by his jealousy. The chore was daunting and excruciating, and the first of the fallen wasn’t sure he had the strength left to finish it. But the human healer, Kraus, had lent him some of his own strength, and Lucifer had managed to complete his task.

  Hell churned inside him again. It belonged to him and nobody else. It would be his until the day he was forgiven, or his life was brought to an end.

  And not before.

  Which brought him back to the here and now. Verchiel’s blade was dangerously close. Lucifer thought of conjuring his own weapon of choice, a fiery trident that could have easily challenged Verchiel’s blade of sorrow. But in his millennia on Earth he had developed an aversion to violence, and it had been so long since he last summoned a weapon from Heaven’s arsenal. The image of the three-pronged weapon began to form in his mind.

  He was not as fast as he once was, and he could feel the heat of Verchiel’s blade upon his face as sparks of heavenly fire filled his hands. Hopefully he would not be too slow. It would be sad to have come this far only to die now.

  Although he had difficulty with the details, the trident began to take shape and Lucifer raised his arm. The weapon wasn’t quite ready, and he feared that it would not have enough substance to prevent the sword of sorrow from cleaving his skull, but there was no time left. He had to try. He pushed Kraus away, out of harm’s reach, and prepared to meet Verchiel’s attack.

  Bringer of Sorrow cut through Lucifer’s weapon as if it were not there, and the first of the fallen readied for the blade’s searing bite. He was sorry that it had come to this, sorry that he hadn’t more time to spend with his son, sorry that he hadn’t been forgiven. Then it stopped less than an inch from his nose, an equally impressive blade of Heaven blocking Verchiel’s strike with a resounding crackle of divine fire.