A Hundred Words for Hate

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Zophiel had landed upon his back in the hallway, thrashing upon the ground like some giant turtle on its shell, attempting to right itself. Remy didn’t want to give the Cherubim the chance, flying the brief distance from the kitchen to the hallway to land upon his foe, slamming him back to the floor.

“This ends here, Zophiel,” Remy cried, the Seraphim inside howling with glee as the warrior’s instincts and skills were allowed to flow. He reached out, grabbing hold of a wooden coatrack in a corner behind the door, shaking loose the multiple coats and hats that had been hung upon it, until only the rack remained.

Standing upon the struggling Cherubim’s chest, he allowed the divine fires of Heaven to flow through his hands and into the wooden shaft that he held. The wood glowed suddenly with an unearthly light, suddenly so much more than it had been.

He raised the new weapon high, preparing to bring it down like a spear. Zophiel, though badly injured, still had much fight remaining in him, flailing his muscular wings and tossing Remy up against the opposing wall.

Zophiel rolled onto his side, using the gigantic blade to help him rise.

Remy leapt into the air as Zophiel lunged, swinging the burning blade. The sword buried itself deep within the plaster wall. Zophiel tugged upon his weapon to free it as Remy dropped down upon him.

Riding the Cherubim’s back, Remy wedged the shaft of the glowing coatrack beneath Zophiel’s chin. He yanked backward with all his strength, causing the monstrous angel to stagger backward, leaving the burning sword stuck within the wall.

Zophiel flailed, slamming his enormous bulk against the hallway walls, desperate to remove the troublesome Seraphim pest.

Remy held on as tightly as he could, pulling up on the burning coatrack beneath the Cherubim’s throat with all his might until the muscles in his arms were screaming. His own hands now burning with Heavenly fire, Zophiel attempted to reach behind him, to grab enough of Remy to tear him from his perch. Avoiding the Cherubim’s wanting fingers, Remy continued to hold on.

At last the great angel dropped to the floor, but Remy did not let up, continuing to pull upon the heavy wooden rod.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement, and Remy turned his head to see Jon over by the stairway wall, where the Cherubim’s sword was still buried. The man was pulling up on the hilt of the giant blade, attempting to free it.

“Leave it,” Remy yelled to the man.

Zophiel saw Jon and what he was doing and became roused by the sight. A low growl from the angel’s constricted throat vibrated the burning shaft still clutched beneath the Cherubim’s chin as Zophiel pushed himself to his feet.

Jon pulled upon the blade, the wall surrounding the weapon beginning to smolder and burn.

With a newfound strength Zophiel reached up with his clawed metal fingers and began to tear at the shaft wedged under his chin, ripping away chunks of wood, as well as his own flesh.

Zophiel lurched across the brief expanse of floor toward the man who sought to claim his weapon. Jon saw the angel coming, increasing his attempts, but still the sword remained trapped in the wall.

Yanking back with all that remained of his strength, Remy heard the fateful snap of the makeshift weapon falling away from the Cherubim onto the floor.

Heavenly fire no longer burning at his throat, Zophiel grabbed for his sword, just as Jon managed the incredible feat of pulling it free.

The sword of the Cherubim dropped heavily to the hallway as Jon attempted to lift it. The strain of this action apparent, the Son of Adam brandished the Heavenly weapon with a surprising display of strength.

“Come on,” Jon said, fighting to keep the blade up.

He thrust the burning sword at Zophiel, the angel easily moving aside to avoid any harm. Lashing out, he struck the Son of Adam, knocking him ruthlessly to the stairs, the flaming weapon falling from his grasp.

As the Cherubim reached to reclaim the blade, Remy reacted.

The Seraphim was crying out for blood, and Remy saw no reason to deny it its fill. Holding two jagged ends of the broken coatrack that still smoldered with the divine fires of the Heavenly Father, Remy leapt, pushing off with his wings, propelling himself at his foe with great speed.

Sensing the imminent danger, Zophiel spun to meet his attack, but the Seraphim was faster. With a bloodthirsty roar, Remy thrust the two jagged ends of the poles into the already ravaged throat of the monstrous Cherubim.

The pair flew back, crashing into the wall just before the stairs, narrowly avoiding Jon, who darted partway up to the second floor to avoid being crushed.

The Cherubim struggled, gauntleted hands going to his injured throat, but Remy did not let up, leaning forward with all his strength, hands still gripping the two ends of the twin spears that had pierced his enemy’s neck. Zophiel’s hands glowed with the fire of the divine, but they began to subside, as did the bestial angel’s struggles.

Remy could feel the angel growing slack, the extensive injuries already received coupled with this latest abuse at last taking their toll. The Cherubim went limp, his powerful, armored body becoming still. Sensing that his foe was down, Remy released his grip upon the two pieces of pole and stepped back. Zophiel stood for a moment, swaying from side to side, before lowering gradually to his knees, and then falling face-first to the floor.

Remy stared at his fallen foe, but strangely enough, even as the warrior nature at his core howled in victory, he felt nothing but trepidation.

“Is it dead?” Jon asked, venturing down from safety.

“If not, I’m sure he soon will be,” Remy said, his voice sounding tired . . . flat. There were missing pieces to this puzzle, and he hated missing pieces.

The Seraphim was eager to finish what he started. . . . Remy, not so much.

He could hear Zophiel’s struggles to live, multiple, wheezing gasps as the angel sentry fought to breathe.

Remy approached his fallen foe, considering the merciful thing. If the Cherubim did not pass from this existence shortly, Remy would assist him on his way. Moving closer, Remy allowed the power of Heaven to fill his hands. Fire hotter than the surface of the sun snaked from his fingertips as he grew nearer.

Jon watched from his perch upon the stairs, crying out as Zophiel again fought off approaching death, reaching out to grab hold of his fallen weapon, dragging the burning blade to him.

Remy drew back, preparing for yet another round of battle, but quickly sensed that maybe this was not the case.

The Cherubim pulled the sword close, using the blade to prop himself up.

The two pieces of wood still protruded from his throat, dark blood oozing down their lengths, sizzling and smoking like grease on a hot stove.

Fire in his hands, Remy was ready for just about anything, watching the angel with a cautious eye. The Seraphim whispered in the back of his mind: Kill your enemy. Do it now. . . . But Remy didn’t feel that this was necessary, which just made his warrior side all the more frantic.

Zophiel reached up, removing one of the burning spears sticking from his throat, and then the other. Angel blood flowed freely, running down the front of once golden armor in glistening, dark rivulets.

Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack, the Seraphim urged, but Remy stayed his hand.

Swaying as he stood, the Cherubim hefted his mighty sword. It now glowed brighter—hotter—in his grasp, happy to be back in its master’s possession.

It had been a very long time since Remy last held a weapon that he had bonded with, a weapon as much a part of him as any appendage. Flashes of the Great War exploded in his mind, and of the blood-caked sword that he had dropped upon the battlefield when the war was done.

When he was done.

“I am at an end,” the Cherubim weakly gurgled, holding the burning blade up so that he could look upon it. “I can do no more.”

Zophiel whipped the blade forward, tongues of flame leaping down its tarnished length to lick eagerly toward him.

Remy recoiled, but did not attack.

“Take it,” Zophiel commanded, releasing the large sword from his grip, letting it land at Remy’s feet. The fire that covered the blade dimmed as it lay there. “If the warrior’s heart still beats within your breast, you must rouse it, for the Kingdom of Heaven is threatened by things most foul.”

Zophiel slowly slid to his knees, the life going out of him as the blood from his injuries continued to flow.

“A cancer grows in the bosom of the Garden,” the Cherubim warned, his voice weaker. “A malignancy that cannot be allowed to spread.”

On his knees, Zophiel’s once fearsome form grew more and more still, as fire as well as blood streamed from his wounds.

“Stop him, Remiel of the host Seraphim,” Zophiel begged as his body was slowly consumed by the fire of God leaving his dying body.

“Stop Malachi before it all crumbles to ruin.”

The words broke loose from Zophiel’s lips in a final whisper, the white-hot flames licking at the flesh of his body, surging to engulf his entire form in an inferno.

Remy watched as the fire burned white, temporarily blinding him with its intensity, before it receded, growing softer, until nothing remained but the burn mark where the Cherubim had knelt upon the wooden floor.

That and the still smoldering sword lying at Remy’s feet.

The Garden was in pain.

She had felt the illness growing inside of her for quite some time, felt it writhe as it slowly grew over the ages to maturation.

The sickness was inside . . . beneath her cool, fertile earth, feeding off the life energies of this vibrant Paradise.

Suckling upon the roots of the Tree.

It was new life that grew, dangerous life that yearned to be born.

Eden had tried to thwart their growth, making her skin shake and shift, inciting the more primitive life that lived upon and inside her to feed freely on this malignant invader.

But the illness was created to be strong, even in its earliest stages.

She had attempted to communicate with the multiple life-forms gestating within her bosom, wanting to know their purpose, and she learned that they had been created to survive, to usurp what had come before.

The Garden knew that this was wrong, that the things nestled inside her should not come to be, but she was helpless.

Those who could have protected her were long since banished.

She felt their presence out there in the ether, and she had reached out, singing for them to notice her, but they had been too far away to hear her voice.

To hear her pleas.

Until now.

After drifting for so very, very long, she was near her children again. There were more of them now: more to hear her cries for help.

Weakened by the goings-on inside her, the Garden called out as loudly as she could, hoping they would hear her call.

Hoping they would come as she grew nearer to them, and their world.

That they would come to the aid of their mother.