A Hundred Words for Hate

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hell

The memories actually helped to lessen the pain.

Francis let his mind go, allowing the buried recollections to float to the surface as they attempted to squeeze themselves between what he did remember, changing the past to something altogether new.

Brockton, Massachusetts: 1953

Eliza was crying.

She understood why it had to be this way, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept.

“How much will it take from me?” she asked softly.

Pearly knelt at the base of the wall, drawing strange symbols with a black paint that he’d made from crushing hard-shelled beans grown inside a dead man’s skull, and mixing the powder with a bit of blood from each of them.

“Most,” he said, working on the symbols from memory. They had to be laid out just right, or they wouldn’t work.

“You?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Izzy?”

The mention of their child just about broke him. He had never imagined he could feel such pain.

“I’ll mostly be gone,” he said, feeling as if the blade of his Enochian dagger had been thrust through his heart. This whole situation was killing him, but he kept telling himself over and over again that it was for her own good—it would keep her alive.

If he didn’t . . . if they stayed together . . . she was as good as dead.

“You’ll remember me as somebody you knew . . . but little more than an acquaintance.”

The forces of Heaven wanted Eliza Swan dead, and Pearly was going to do everything in his power to see that they didn’t get their way. The magick originally used to hide her from the Thrones would work on beings of that power level for only so long, which was why Malachi had suggested something more . . . permanent.

Eliza began to sob, and Pearly had to fight the urge to go to her, to take her into his arms and tell her that everything would be all right.

Because then he’d be lying.

Everything wasn’t going to be all right.

When he finished this spell, her memory would be incomplete; huge gaps of her past would be missing; characteristics that defined her as who she was as a person, gone.

In effect, she would be somebody else.

The elder had told him to take her away, to hide her from the eyes of those who would do her harm. He still wasn’t sure why Malachi was so keen to protect her, other than the fact that he had said she was special . . . and important for the future. It made Pearly a little uncomfortable, but he would do anything to protect Eliza.

Massachusetts was as good a place as any. The former Guardian angel had always had a fondness for New England. And he had met somebody very special here once, one of his own—an angel of Heaven—and his being here, in the same state as Eliza, made Pearly feel that much safer about leaving her.

He stopped his work momentarily, wiping his hands upon a rag before reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He removed a business card—the Seraphim’s business card. He lived among the humans, as a human. This angel—this Remy Chandler—helped them as a private investigator. A detective.

“Take this,” he told Eliza, handing her the business card.

“Who is it?” she asked, her voice still shaking with emotion as she read the card.

“If there ever comes a time that you need help,” he assured her, “this man will help you. That’s what he does . . . he helps people.”

Her lips mouthed the name.

“I don’t understand,” she said as the tears flowed from her eyes.

“You will if it’s necessary,” he said. “He’s a good man. . . .”

“Like you?” Eliza said, reaching out to touch his face, but he stepped away to avoid her tender touch.

“Not like me at all,” Pearly said, the faces of the angels and the men that he’d killed in service to the Thrones flashing before his mind’s eye.

He returned to his work, finishing the last of the sigils before climbing slowly to his feet.

Eliza had become strangely quiet. Pearly turned toward her and found her simply standing, staring off into space, not noticing him, the angelic magick already going to work on her.

He hated this more than anything he’d ever experienced in his very long existence, but Malachi had said that it was necessary to protect her. And Pearly would do anything in his power to keep her safe.

Even if it meant losing her forever.

He watched her as she stood there, her eyes glazed as they traced the symbols drawn upon the wall. And as her eyes finished their review, the marks gradually faded away, blending with the paint of the wall.

She wouldn’t even know they were there, keeping her hidden from those who wished to do her harm.

Pearly stood beside her, resisting the urge to reach out to her, resisting the urge to take her into his arms and hold her for one last time. She would be safe here in the life he had created for her. The house was paid for, and there was money in a special bank account, the residuals of his being on the Earth for so many years, and having such a knack for killing. Somebody always wanted someone dead, and he was more than happy to oblige—for a price—when not kowtowing to the Thrones.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and that he was sorry. . . .

But she didn’t even know he was there.

Eliza blinked her beautiful brown eyes, and then went about her business, humming a tune, strangely off-key, as she assumed the functions of her new life. Even her talent for song had been taken away.

Pearly stopped at the door for one final look. She was in the kitchen, putting some glasses away in the cabinet.

“You take care of yourself, Fernita Green,” he called out, using her new name.

Then he opened the door and stepped out into the New England cold. He liked this part of the world, the change in seasons. He hoped that Eliza . . . Fernita . . . would like it too.

Francis took one final look at the house in the quiet Brockton neighborhood as he stood upon the walk.

He had never imagined that he could feel such pain, and not even have a sword plunged through his chest.

Malachi had been very specific that they meet after he had hidden Eliza away. The abandoned church in Italy’s San Genesio seemed just as good a place as any.

Francis pushed open the door and stepped into the run-down structure to see the elder sitting in one of the pews, gazing up to where a crucifix had once hung. There was a stain against the yellow wall over the altar in the shape of the cross.

“Is it done?” Malachi asked, not even turning around.

“Yeah,” Francis replied, the weight of the word nearly exhausting.

“And nobody knows her location but you?” The elder angel turned his head ever so slightly.

“That’s right,” Francis said. “Only me.”

Malachi left the pew and came to stand before him.

“Then everything is as it should be,” he said.

Malachi then reached into the inside pocket of the suit jacket he wore and removed a scalpel. The light from the blade was momentarily blinding, and Francis reflexively stepped back.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“The final step,” Malachi answered.

Francis didn’t quite understand.

“It’s to take that very important memory away,” the elder explained.

“You’re going to cut out my memory?”

“Not exactly,” Malachi said. “I’m going to take it and move it to someplace else in your mind. Someplace where it will be waiting when we need it.”

Francis considered that.

“Will I still remember her?”

Slowly, Malachi shook his head.

“All your memories of her will be put away,” the elder explained. “That way no one will ever know where to find her . . . until it’s necessary.”

“And when will that be?”

Malachi turned back to the altar, gazing at the cross-shaped stain upon the wall.

“When it is time,” he said. “When all the pieces have fallen into place.”

Francis was suddenly afraid. He wanted to know exactly what all of this meant. He wanted to know exactly what role he and Eliza played in Malachi’s vision of the future.

The questions were just about to flow when Malachi turned back to him, scalpel of light still in his hand.

And before the words could leave Francis’s lips, the blade shot toward him.

Cutting away the brightest light he had ever known, and leaving behind only the darkness.

Hell

Malachi dug deeply within the angel’s brain, allowing the flow of memories to bleed out, flowing into and up through the scalpel and into the elder’s own mind.

“There you are,” the angel said with a joyous grin, digging deeper beneath the gelatinous folds to find—at last—what he had been seeking.

“Just a little bit deeper,” he said to Francis, who twitched about on the verge of death beneath the elder’s ministrations.

“And I should have it all.”

“You have me,” the angel said, opening his palms to show that he was unarmed.

Francis blinked wildly, momentarily unsure of what had just occurred. He had completed a side job in Italy when he had sensed the nearly overpowering presence of one of his own.

An angel of incredible power somewhere close by.

He had found the angel in the church: Malachi, he believed he was called, an important angel of the highest order that had betrayed the Lord of Lords during the Great War.

Malachi had sided with the Morningstar, but fled to Earth after the rebellion was squelched. If Francis’s memory served him correctly, the Thrones wanted this one very, very badly.

Francis had a gun in his hand, and it was pointed at his quarry.

He wasn’t sure whether the Thrones wanted this one dead or alive, but he was more than willing to use the Colt .45 loaded with special bullets made from lead mined from the resources of Hell, bullets that could end an angel of Heaven despite its divinity.

“Are you going to kill me?” the angel asked.

Francis was tempted, but at the same time could feel little malice for the betrayer, for he too had fallen under Lucifer’s spell.

Although Francis had realized the error of his ways.

“All depends on how hard you want to make this, or how merciful I’m feeling at the moment.”

The angel just stared.

“I could end it now for you,” Francis said. “One shot to the head would take it all away.”

“Yes,” Malachi said. “Yes, it would.”

“They’ll put you in Tartarus,” Francis told him. He had seen the prison, and had often been threatened with a cell there by the Thrones. He wasn’t certain which would be worse: death or time spent in the Hell prison.

“They will,” Malachi said, seemingly resigned to the idea.

“And that’s all right with you?”

“It’s how it is supposed to be,” the renegade angel said.

And suddenly there was a sound like the loudest thunder, and the air behind them began to tremble and bend as a passage was opened from the other side. The Thrones were again upon the world of God’s man.

Four of the flaming, eye-covered orbs floated from the opening out into the church, lining up in a row behind Francis.

“Thought you might be interested,” he said, pistol still pointed at the angel called Malachi.

“We are,” the Thrones answered as one.

Malachi stood with his hands crossed before him, eyes upon the Thrones.

“Didn’t know if you wanted this one dead or—”

“No,” the Thrones hissed. “This one must be made to suffer,” they said as one.

The four floated around Francis and encircled the renegade.

“What have you been doing?” they asked the elder angel directly, their voices eager. “Share with us, and your penance will be less . . . harsh.”

“It’s as if you believe I’ve been up to no good,” Malachi said, and chuckled.

“Tell us,” the flaming orbs covered in bulging eyes demanded.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Tentacles of fire shot out from the bodies of the Thrones, enwrapping the elder angel in their fiery grasp.

The angel was burning, but he did not scream.

“What do you think he did?” Francis asked, disturbed by the sight of Malachi’s flesh bubbling—melting—as the Thrones’ fiery appendages continued to entwine and caress.

The Thrones ignored the question, converging on the elder as his body began to tremble from the agony he was experiencing.

But still he did not cry out.

Francis had seen a lot of terrible things in his long life, and this had to be right up there with the worst. The Thrones must have had a serious mad-on for this guy for them to be paying this much attention to him.

Malachi had dropped to his knees, head drooping to his chest. His hair was on fire now, his blackened scalp starting to show the seared bone of his skull.

Francis still pointed his weapon, feeling his trigger finger begin to itch. He was tempted to fire, to put one shot in the angel’s head to end his torment. Nobody deserved this.

“Keep it up and there won’t be anything left for Tartarus,” he called out.

The Thrones’ multiple sets of eyes darted quickly to him, bulging at his insolence. He half expected to feel those tentacles wrapping around him at any second.

“The fallen Guardian is correct,” the Thrones said, withdrawing their hold on Malachi as he crouched there, smoldering from their touch.

The air behind them began to vibrate and blur as a passage for their departure was summoned. Francis could see the forbidding shape of the icy prison fortress, Tartarus, behind them, stepping back as the acute smell of brimstone and despair wafted out from the opening.

The Thrones again took hold of the charred and still-smoking angel, dragging him toward the passage and a fate more horrible than an eternity of death.

Malachi’s head bobbed as he was pulled through the pulsing rip in the fabric of time and space, slowly lifting his chin to look at him just as he passed over the threshold from the realm of Earth, into Hell.

“It’s how it is supposed to be,” Malachi said through cracked and blistered lips, seemingly accepting his fate.

Then the doorway began to waver, the passage to Hell’s prison closing up behind them.

Hell

Malachi admired the glint of his blade.

The information he had been seeking for so very long, extracted from the brain of the fallen Guardian, dangled wetly from its tip.

“Hello, lovely,” he purred.

How long had he waited for this moment? The elder truly couldn’t say. The time spent confined within an icy cell in Tartarus had seemed like an eternity. But he’d had his transgressions to keep him company, and his plans for the future of the universe, while he patiently waited for the inevitable to occur.

The fruit of the Tree had shown him a possible future; he just needed to have the patience to wait for it to happen.

“Eliza,” Francis hissed from the stone table below him.

Malachi glanced down at the former Guardian, whose gaze was locked upon the drop of hidden knowledge hanging from the edge of the scalpel.

“Oh, yes,” the elder agreed. “It’s all about the lovely Eliza . . . without whom I would never be able to enter the Garden.”

Francis struggled to speak. “Hidden . . .”

“Yes . . . yes, she was, but now she is found,” Malachi said happily. “I would thank you for keeping this for me, but I seriously doubt you’d accept my gratitude.”

He watched as Francis’s mouth moved fitfully as it attempted to shape more words.

“What is it?” Malachi asked. “Are you going to prove me wrong?”

“K-kill you,” Francis managed, eyes blazing with a repressed rage.

“You would try, wouldn’t you,” Malachi told him. “The only hope for the future and you would see it dead.” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s how we have come to this,” Malachi proclaimed. He motioned toward the passage from the cave. The howls and rumbles of Hell were all the louder.

“The Morningstar is free, and here we are at the precipice of war once more . . . all of creation hanging in the balance. It’s time for a level head to prevail.”

Malachi held the scalpel up to his face and studied the thread of knowledge, careful not to let it fall. His servant in the world beyond needed it. With a quick jab, he plunged the razor-sharp instrument, and the retrieved information resting on the tip, through the flesh of his forehead and on into his skull.

Malachi gasped aloud as he felt the scalpel blade—and the prized knowledge—enter his mind in a heated rush that was not too far from pleasurable.

“There,” the elder said, yanking the surgical tool from his head with nary a drop of blood. “He should have everything he needs.”

He returned his attention to Francis.

“And we are that much closer to success.”

The former Guardian glared up at him weakly, hate shooting from his eyes. Malachi hadn’t expect him to understand. Francis was part of the old ways, averse to change, even though it was all for the better.

Malachi leaned closer, the dim light of the cave reflecting off the scalpel in his hand. He could see Francis tense, but instead of cutting his flesh, Malachi cut through the leather straps that bound the fallen angel.

Malachi stepped back, watching as Francis slowly—painfully—sat up.

“I—I don’t understand,” Francis squeaked, his voice dry.

“Of course you don’t,” Malachi told him. “You’re really not supposed to.”

Francis carefully slid his bare legs over the side of the stone platform, letting his feet dangle.

“What now?” he asked, far too weak to do much of anything else.

“Now, that’s the proper attitude,” Malachi said with a nod and a grin. “There is actually one more thing you must do for me.”

Mulvehill wasn’t at all familiar with the back roads of Brockton, but that didn’t prevent him from driving like a bat out of hell.

He thought about asking the old woman where they were, but doubted that she was in any mental state to tell him.

Christ, I’m barely in the mental state to drive.

The road was empty, and that was good. He hated to think his speed would hurt anyone. He risked a quick glance at Fernita, buckled into the passenger seat next to him. She appeared to be in a kind of catatonia, staring ahead through the windshield, mouth slightly agape. He considered asking her whether everything was all right, but figured he already knew the answer to that.

The image of something huge dropping from the sky and crashing through the old lady’s roof flashed before his eyes again, and he got that awful tickling sensation in his crotch that told him if he wasn’t such a big boy, he would have been pissing himself.

It was nice to see that he at least had control of that.

There was a turn up ahead and Steven took it—big mistake. It turned out to be a private drive, leading to what appeared to be an unfinished housing development.

“Ah, shit,” he grumbled, bringing the car to a complete stop, and then throwing it in reverse. He thought about giving Remy a call again, but decided that he didn’t want his blood pressure getting any higher. When—if—Mulvehill ever saw him again, Remy would be buying the homicide cop twenty-five-year-old Scotch every week for years, taking him out to Morton’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then to the nearest Kappy’s for more Scotch just for good measure.

That would fix him.

Mulvehill backed out of the dead end and slammed the car into drive, hitting the gas just as the sky—or at least a piece of it—fell into the road in front of them.

It landed with an explosion of asphalt and dirt, but it didn’t slow him down. It couldn’t. Mulvehill knew deep in his gut that he had to keep going forward, to get them out of there before . . .

His thinking stopped. It had no experience with things like this, so it had nowhere else to go. All he knew was that they had to escape or something very bad was going to happen to them.

“Hold on,” he told Fernita, trying to sound calm, as if this were something he did all the time, but he was sure it came out high and squeaky, like some fucking cartoon character.

The air was filled with thick, choking dust, but Mulvehill swerved to the left and drove right through it—only to come to an abrupt stop. Both he and Fernita pitched forward before their seat belts snapped them back. Mulvehill’s foot was still on the gas, and he could hear the engine screaming—feel the tires spinning, but they weren’t going anywhere.

Eyes darting up to the rearview mirror, he tried to see through the dust behind them. Something—something huge—had the bumper in its grip and it wasn’t going to let them go.

Mulvehill put the car in reverse and gunned the engine, sending the car rocketing backward to hit something horribly solid. He snapped the gear to drive and stomped on the gas pedal. This time the car shot forward, but the damage to the back end made it difficult to control and they fishtailed off the road and careened down an embankment.

Fernita screamed as branches whipped at the windshield and boulders tore at the underside of the car, their out-of-control descent coming to an abrupt and violent stop when they hit the base of an old oak tree. The front of the car crumpled like an accordion.

Now Remy owes me a fucking car, Mulvehill thought just before his forehead bounced off the soft center of the steering wheel, making the horn toot briefly and his brain vibrate painfully inside his skull.

He thought he might like to grab a little nap, but frantic hands were shaking him.

“Hey,” Fernita called. Mulvehill was going to tell her to leave him alone, but the sound of sheer panic in her voice roused him more fully, and he remembered their situation.

“I’ve got it,” he said groggily, having no real idea what that meant, but he was already on the move, undoing his seat belt and pushing open the driver’s-side door. The ground was at an incline, and he dropped to his knees, sliding a bit toward the front of his car before regaining his footing. Steam hissed from the obliterated radiator, and he again cursed the name of Remy Chandler as he hauled himself up and around the back of the car to get Fernita. Pulling open the door, he leaned inside to help her undo the seat belt.

“Leave me here,” she said quietly, and he stopped, staring through the thick lenses of her glasses into her deep brown eyes filled with panic.

“What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t want you,” she said. “Leave me and get yourself away from here.”

“Like hell I will,” he said, and practically pulled her from the seat. “Be careful here,” he told her. “The ground isn’t level and . . .”

A roar from the direction of the road interrupted him. It was like the blast of an eighteen-wheeler’s air horn, only with more of an I-want-to-kill-and-eat-you kind of vibe to it.

Mulvehill had never heard of an angel who did anything like that, but he also knew there was quite a lot he didn’t know about angels and the like.

That he didn’t want to know.

Fernita looked at him hopelessly, and he felt a shiver go through her thin frame.

“C’mon,” he said, helping her down into the wooded area. He had no idea where they were going, but figured the farther away from this particular spot they were, the better off they’d be.

The old woman was doing far better than he would have expected. Mulvehill held her arm as they traversed the uneven terrain. He didn’t hear the horrible roaring again, and wondered if perhaps whatever it was that was chasing them had given up and gone after easier prey.

An old woman and an out-of-shape homicide cop—how much fucking easier could it be?

And suddenly their pursuer passed over them in a powerful rush of freezing air, leaving torn branches and withered leaves from the winter trees in its wake. It was moving so fast that Mulvehill couldn’t even see it, but he could hear it, the sound of its powerful, flapping wings as they ravaged the air.

Fernita slowed, cowering against him as she searched the open air above them.

“Keep moving,” Mulvehill ordered, pulling her along.

The angel dropped heavily into the woods, landing in a disturbance of fallen leaves.

Fernita gasped as they looked upon it, and Mulvehill found that he had stopped breathing, a terrible tightness forming in his chest reminding him that he’d be dead all the sooner if he didn’t take oxygen into his lungs.

Would that have been the better way to go?

It was like no angel that he had ever imagined, more monstrous than heavenly.

It crouched on all fours, but he could tell that it was huge. Its powerful body was covered in filthy armor that hinted at something once beautiful to behold. Mulvehill could just about make out intricate etchings beneath the layers of grime on the tarnished, golden metal plates that covered its large body.

But it was the face—faces—that made that terrible feeling in his lower regions return, and he had to make a conscious effort not to embarrass himself. The angel had one large head, but three faces—an eagle, a human, and the face of a lion, all side by side, forming one nightmarish appearance.

And they were all looking at him and Fernita with murder in their gazes.

The monster angel tensed, and Mulvehill could see that it was about ready to pounce. He reacted instinctively, reaching beneath his arm to draw his gun, chamber a round, and fire four times into the many faces.

“Go!” he cried to Fernita, not sure how far the old woman could get on her own, but wanting at least to give her a chance.

The angel reared back, one of its armor-covered hands wiping at its faces. The bullets must have at least annoyed it.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

He glanced quickly over his shoulder to see how far Fernita had gotten, and was surprised and happy to see that her old legs had taken her into a more densely wooded area.

About to take off himself, he turned back to find the angel directly in front of him. He hadn’t even heard it move, and there it was, as big as life, looming over him and smelling like an overheated truck engine. Mulvehill raised his weapon, aiming for the human eyes.

But the angel had had enough of that, thank you very much.

It bellowed, a deafening sound, before reaching down with one of its clawed, metal-covered hands to rip away the gun and toss it above the treetops.

Mulvehill cried out as two of his fingers snapped like twigs.

If somebody had described this scenario to him, he would have imagined himself curled in the fetal position on the ground, but instead he felt more angry than anything else.

Angry that two of his fingers had been broken . . . angry that his favorite gun had been tossed away into the woods . . . angry that he was probably going to die at the hands of something that he had been taught as a child was a thing of beauty and a loving servant to God.

And more specifically, he was angry at Remy Chandler for kicking open the doorway and exposing him to a world that he shouldn’t even know existed.

The anger boiled up inside him, and he reacted, hauling off and punching the monstrous thing of Heaven in the faces as hard as he could with his unbroken hand.

The angel recoiled, its many eyes at first expressing surprise, but then the lion pulled back the flesh of its maw, showing off fearsome teeth, and Mulvehill was sure he was about to be eaten.

When there was a voice.

“Hello, Zophiel, what do you have there?”

The monster angel spun around, its multiple sets of wings unfurling in a defensive posture.

As the heavenly creature moved, Mulvehill could see who had spoken. It was an older guy, maybe someone who had seen his wrecked car from the road and come down to help.

Mulvehill almost screamed for the man to run away, but something about his appearance stopped him. Something told Mulvehill that this probably wasn’t just a normal man. That he was something else entirely . . . something of this strange new world that Mulvehill had been unceremoniously thrown into.

“You’ve been on the hunt for too long, Cherubim,” the man with the white hair and beard said, a sly smile spreading across his face. “Wasting your time menacing a helpless human—is that not below you?”

“Malachi,” the Cherubim said in an unearthly growl as it tensed and sprang, even more furious now than when Mulvehill had shot it in its faces.

“You are the cause of this,” the monster angel roared, landing upon the stranger and driving him back to the frozen ground.

Mulvehill clutched his injured hand to his chest and stumbled back, away from the impending carnage.

The stranger appeared helpless beneath the bulk of the armored attacker, but then the homicide cop heard the oddest of things—laughter.

As the angel lay upon the man, armored claws reaching down to tear and rend its prey, the stranger was laughing.

The sound of merriment only proved to enrage the angelic beast all the more. Its body glowed with an unearthly light, and liquid fire began to drip from the tips of its hooked fingers and its three open mouths.

“And you have been a thorn in my Master’s side long enough,” the stranger announced, his expensive suit already starting to smolder and burn, but it seemed to have zero effect upon the person inside it.

Mulvehill was catching snippets of their heated debate. It was obvious that these two knew each other, and weren’t the best of buds.

“Your fetid touch has brought me to the brink of madness,” the Cherubim wailed, struggling to hold the stranger down. “For millennia I have fought the aftereffects of your influence, and only now am I able to see what must be done for Heaven to be saved.”

The stranger was laughing all the harder now, even as his body began to change.

“Do you think my Master would sully his touch upon a worthless creation such as yourself?” asked the old man, who wasn’t an old man anymore. “You’re nothing more than a stupid beast . . . a guard dog that outlived its usefulness a very long time ago. . . .”

The stranger had become another creature, and Mulvehill hadn’t a clue whether this was another kind of angel . . . or something more demonic.

Its skin was a dingy white, and covered with strange markings, like some of the tribal tats that he’d seen on many of the scumbags he’d arrested over the years.

“What madness is this?” the Cherubim hissed. “You are not the traitorous elder.”

“I am what should have been,” the pale, tattooed thing said, its body almost like liquid as it flowed around the now struggling Cherubim. “And what will be very, very soon.”

“You are an abomination!” Zophiel bellowed, panic clearly in its voice. “The Lord God would never allow you to exist, Shaitan!”

The pale-skinned thing had wrapped multiple limbs around its foe, powerful, knifelike fingers attempting to make their way between the seams of the angel’s armor. Zophiel’s movments were frenzied, its four wings flapping wildly as it attempted to flee the battleground, but its equally monstrous attacker would not allow it, the liquid flesh of the shape-changing foe slithering onto the Cherubim’s wings, preventing flight.

“Then we shall need to do something about the Lord God,” the new aggressor spoke. “But first things first.”

The pale-skinned thing spread across Zophiel’s body, constricting the Cherubim’s four mighty wings and wrapping around its throat.

Mulvehill knew that he should be getting the hell out of there, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the epic struggle before him. He had no idea whom to root for, sensing that either of these creatures would be the death of him—and Fernita.

It didn’t look good for the Cherubim. The shape-shifting thing had almost completely enveloped the angel’s armored form. At that point Mulvehill decided that he should probably move along, and had just started to turn when the Cherubim let loose a deafening cry, equal parts scream and thunderous roar. The angel’s fury echoed through the winter woods, the tormented sound shaking free the dead leaves that still clung to the trees.

Zophiel tore away the liquid flesh of its attacker, the Cherubim’s armored form now glowing white-hot with the heat of its divine body.

The pale, tattooed thing writhed upon the frozen ground, steam rising from its smoldering body, but within only seconds it appeared fine, returning to its more human shape to taunt its Cherubim foe.

“You have met your better, sentry,” the shape-changer said. “Accept your fate now, for your kind, and all the hosts of Heaven, will soon bow before my brothers and sisters. The Almighty will be made to see the error of His ways, and a great change will be brought upon the Shining Kingdom and all the worlds that bask in the light of its glory.”

Mulvehill started to back away as muscular tentacles shot out from the tatooed beast’s body toward the angel, whose form still glowed like white-hot metal.

“What now?” he said, running in the direction he’d last seen Fernita go, a battle of monsters still raging behind him.

Dreading what new insanity would be waiting ahead.