Aerie

PROLOGUE

It never seems to rest, Alastor reflected as he shoveled the last bit of a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast into his yawning maw. He belched powerfully, speckling his ample front with flecks of chewed food, and dropped the greasy paper plate to the floor beside his leather recliner. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and what the fallen angel had hidden in the basement of the Bourbonnais, Illinois, home was already calling out to him.

“Alastor,” it whispered like the buzzing of a housefly. “Come, Alastor. Look upon what you have cast away.”

Alastor chose to ignore it. The monkeys, Reggie and Katie, he thought as his eyes caught the clock on the wall, they’re often amusing. He snatched up the remote control in a meaty hand, scattering potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers from atop the coffee table before him. He would lose himself in the trifle of morning television, a distraction from the incessant whispers in the cellar.

“Do you remember what it was like before the war—before you listened to the seductive reasonings of the Morningstar? Do you remember, Alastor?”

“Quiet!” the angel spat. He jabbed a sausage-thick finger down onto the remote to turn up the volume, settling his excessive bulk back into the recliner. It was a cooking segment, which he enjoyed, as mouthwatering meals were prepared by world-renowned chefs with the assistance of the program’s hosts.

Reggie dropped an egg on the floor and the studio audience went wild with laughter. Alastor joined in the hilarity, captivated by the antics of the human monkeys. If the Creator had ever bothered to mention how thoroughly entertaining these fragile creatures could be, he would never have pledged allegiance to the Son of the Morning.

“Remember what you once were, Alastor of the heavenly host Virtues. Come and recall your former glory.”

The audience was laughing again and Alastor seethed. He had missed the latest morsel of primitive humor.

“Damn you, be quiet!” he screamed, driving a fleshy fist down onto the chair’s worn armrest. “I looked at you yesterday—and the day before that. I have no desire to see you now.”

The chef produced a soufflé from the oven and the audience showed their approval with a burst of applause. Feigning exuberance, Katie explained how to acquire the recipe for the delectable dish, and he thought about writing the information down, but the whispers from the cellar beckoned for his attention.

“A chance to remember how you once were—the beauty and the power…”

Alastor hauled his bulky mass up out of the chair, a rain of crumbs from his last meal sprinkling down to the refuse-strewn floor. “I am still beautiful and still powerful,” he bellowed, one eye fixed on the morning program, lest he miss something of importance. The Reggie and Katie show broke to a commercial about adult diapers and the angel turned his full attention to the taunting voice.

“What will it take to shut you up?” he growled, knowing full well what the answer would be, what the answer always was.

“Look at me,” the whispers hissed. “Look at me and remember our time together.”

Alastor turned back to the television. A dog food commercial was showing-a small human child playing with puppies.

“No matter how often I see you, it never satisfies your need,” the fallen angel grumbled, wondering offhandedly how the dog food would taste.

“And it never shall. I will not allow you to forget what we once were.”

“Even if that is what I desire?” he asked, his attention drawn to an ad for the talk show that would follow Reggie and Katie. The show’s topic would be crib death, and he smiled with the secret knowledge of things that the simple human brain could barely begin to perceive. If he were so inclined, he could tell them all why their babies die in the night. If he were so inclined.

“I have no interest in your desire,” said the voice from the basement. “Come and look upon me or I shall taunt you all the rest of the day and well into the night.”

Reggie and Katie returned, and it took all the strength that Alastor could muster to pull his eyes from the entertaining visuals. “If I spend time with you now, you’ll not bother me for the remainder of this day?” he asked, shambling closer to the kitchen.

“Yes, come and look.”

Alastor lurched into the kitchen, gasping for breath as he propelled himself toward the cellar door, eager for the promise of blissful silence.

“Anything for some peace,” he growled, in his mind planning his television viewing for the remainder of the day.

His sweatpants began to slip below his middle, and he reached down to pull the elastic waistband up over his protruding stomach.

“Peace. An unattainable pursuit since our fall from Heaven; do you ever think we’ll experience its bliss again?” the bothersome voice asked through the door as Alastor took hold of the knob and turned it, a cool dampness wafting up from below as he pulled the cellar door open.

“I’ve found my own peace,” he said irritably, leaning on the rail to carefully descend the wooden steps that creaked in protest beneath his weight. “Is it what I knew in Heaven? No, but I will never see the likes of that again.”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs and glanced around, surveying his accumulation of goods, items he had acquired in the years since deciding he would live as a human. There was furniture, enough to fill multiple dwellings; boxes of books, clothes, and kitchen implements; tools; cans of paint; three lawnmowers; at least four televisions still in their boxes; and so much more stored away out of sight.

Alastor remembered when he had made the choice. The Powers were on the hunt, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before they found him. It was all about survival, so he did the unthinkable.

“That was your second fall,” the creeping voice spoke from within the room, pulling him from the past. “When you attempted to sever our bond.”

Alastor lurched forward toward the source of his irritation, his slippered feet scuffling across the cool, concrete floor. Carefully he maneuvered around an ancient bureau. “There was no other way,” he said, almost losing his balance as he stepped over a wooden milk crate filled with old toys made from tin. “It was that, or die.” The fallen angel steadied himself with the help of a foldaway bed, and continued on toward the object of his torment. “I had no choice,” he said again, perhaps more to convince himself. “How many times must I tell you?”

Everything that had defined him had been lost during the war. Alastor had fled to Earth with others of his ilk, the fearsome Powers in pursuit. For countless centuries he wandered the planet, purposeless, hiding from his would-be punishers. He had almost decided to give up and accept his fate, when it came to him: He would hide amongst the natives. He would become one of them, renouncing everything that defined him as a being of Heaven.

It was a perfect plan. By giving up his angel’s ways and surrounding himself with all things human, Alastor hoped to mask his scent from the Powers that hunted him. The angel glanced across the basement, catching his reflection in a mirror against the wall.

“Look at you,” the voice said from close by, dripping with disdain. “Look at what has become of you.”

Alastor was fat, morbidly so, but that was all part of the mask he wore. “I’ve explained why I must be this way,” the angel said, eyes fixed upon the mirror.

For millennia the angel had found the concept of humanity revolting and then had been shocked at how easy it was to be one of them—how simply he slipped into the role of humanity—and he found the experience to be quite enjoyable most of the time. Alastor had grown particularly fond of eating and television.

The fallen angel looked away from the mirror, suddenly unnerved by his grotesque appearance. “I tell you there was no other way.” He continued through the basement, drawing closer to the source of his tribulation.

“I’m here,” he announced, his breath coming in wheezing gasps as he stopped before a large wooden table bolted to the wall. The top of the workplace had been cleared away, the only uncluttered surface in the entire room, and resting on it was a long, cardboard box.

“Do you miss us?” asked the voice in a sibilant whisper that tickled his ears.

Alastor felt the scars on his back begin to burn and itch beneath his heavy, cotton sweatshirt—slightly at first, but growing to the point where he wished he could tear the flesh from his back to make it stop. He gripped the ends of the table and squeezed.

“Of course I miss you, but…”

“Take us back,” the voice commanded, hissing. “Make us whole again. It was never supposed to be this way.”

The fallen angel shook his head sadly, the flesh of his face and neck wobbling with his repressed emotion. “If I were to do that, I would most certainly be destroyed,” he said, fighting back tears.

He reached for the box flaps that hid the artifacts of his past and pried them apart, the scars upon his shoulder blades screaming for his attention.

“But we would be together again,” the whisper from within the box cajoled. “As we are meant to be.”

Alastor had wrapped them in sheets of plastic to protect them from the dampness. He gasped as he always did when he looked upon them, never fully remembering the extent of his sacrifice. He started to close up the box, not wanting to be reminded.

“Look at me,” the voice within the box demanded.

“I have looked,” he responded slowly. “And as usual, I am filled with an overwhelming sadness.”

“Unwrap us,” it ordered. “Look upon us and remember.”

Alastor found himself doing as the voice requested, pulling back the plastic wrap to expose the box’s contents. He remembered the pain—the decision, as well as the act itself—to sever from his body the final remnant of what separated him from the monkeys.

To be human, they had to be cut off.

Alastor mournfully gazed upon his severed wings. He had reasoned that without them, it would be easier to assume the human role, and it had most certainly helped, but that was before they began to speak to him.

With a trembling hand, the fallen angel gently stroked the downy soft surface of the wings and a faint smell of decay wafted up from them. He knew that it was impossible for the appendages to actually communicate with him, and defined the oddity as fallout from his attempt at being human. He had seen talk shows about situations just like this. The experts would say that he was delusional. Alastor smiled. To be human and insane; he had achieved far more success than he ever imagined.

“Put us on,” the wings whispered seductively. “Shed the grotesque shell that adorns you and wear us again.”

Alastor began to close the wrappings.

“What are you doing?” they asked, panic in their sound.

“I have done as you asked,” he responded to his psychosis, continuing to place the sheets of plastic over the severed limbs of flight. “I can do no more than that.”

“Please,” the wings begged as he began to close the box.

His body wracked with guilt, Alastor ignored the plaintive cries. “I’m sorry,” he managed.

The angel secured the box and stepped quickly back, listening for the sounds of protest that did not come. Perhaps they are honoring their bargain after all. He turned from the table, longing for the comfort of his chair, the television, and a large slice of pie. He smiled. It’s odd how much better things always are with pie.

The laughter seemed to come from all around him.

Alastor whirled, startled by the harshness of the sound. His eyes immediately went to the box, but something told him that the sound did not come from there. Had his psychosis manifested in another way, or was he no longer alone? The angel’s mind raced as he scanned the cluttered basement area before him.

A figure clad in crimson armor emerged from behind the curtain of coats hanging on pipes that ran across the cellar ceiling. Alastor gasped. The way the figure moved—stealthy and silent, almost as if he were watching something created by the madness of his own mind. Was it possible? Had his troubled thoughts created this specter in red? Something else to torment him?

But then it spoke, pointing a gauntlet-covered hand. “You try to hide, covering your pretty angel stink with the smell of man.” The crimson figure shook its helmeted head, an odd clicking sound escaping from beneath the face mask. “You don’t do the magick, and you cut away your wings,” the man said, making a hacking gesture with one of his armored hands.

“The Powers…,” Alastor croaked, forcing the words from his corpulent mouth. “You serve the Powers.”

He knew the answer, even before the figure clad in armor the color of blood nodded. He knew, for senses long atrophied had kicked in, the scent of Heaven’s most aggressive host filling his nostrils with its fetid aroma of bloodshed.

“And you’ve come for me?”

Again the creature nodded.

Alastor studied the agent of the Powers, a part of him marveling at the beauty of the fearsome suit of metal that adorned his foe. The armor had been forged by Heaven’s hands, of that there was no doubt. The faint light thrown by the cellar’s single bulb played lovingly off the intricate details of the metal skin; it made him remember days long past, of brethren that died beneath his sword, of his fall from grace.

Panic gripped the fallen angel. He did not want to die. From within he summoned a glimmer of strength, a spark of angelic fury untapped since he had fought beside the Son of the Morning. In his mind he saw an ax and tried to bring it into the world.

The spark of heavenly fire exploded to life in the palm of his hand—and Alastor began to scream. It had been so long that it burned him. His flesh had become as that of a human, and the fires of Heaven began to consume the delicate skin. The stench of frying meat filled the basement, and the fallen angel perversely realized that he was hungry, his swollen stomach grumbling to be fed.

He tried to concentrate on the weapon he saw in his mind’s eye: a battle-ax like one he had wielded in the war. In his charred hand the flames began to take shape, and Alastor felt a wave of optimism the likes of which he had not felt since devising the plan that almost made him human. He brandished the ax, fearsome and complete, at his attacker.

The figure in red giggled; an eerie sound made all the more strange filtered through the mask that hid his face.

“You find me amusing, slave of the Powers host?” Alastor asked, attempting to block out the throbbing pain in his burned hand. “We’ll see how comical I am when my ax takes your head from your shoulders.”

Again the armored warrior laughed, reminding Alastor of some demented child. They continued to stare at each other across the cellar space, the fires of Heaven still burning in the fallen angel’s fragile grasp. The pale, doughy skin of his arm had begun to bubble and smolder. The pain was excruciating, but it helped him to focus.

“You gave it all up for this?” the red-armored horror asked, looking around at the clutter of the basement before turning his gaze back to Alastor.

The eyes within the helmet were intense, boring into his own like daggers of ice. The servant to the Powers shook his head slowly in disgust.

This act of condescension only served to inflame Alastor’s rage all the more. How dare this lowly servant look down upon me? Does he not realize the courage and fortitude my sacrifice has required?

From deep within, Alastor dredged up the final remnants of what remained of his long inactive angelic traits. The fallen angel bellowed his disdain and threw his massive bulk across the cellar floor, scattering his accumulated belongings in his wake. He hefted the battle-ax of fire above his head, ready to cleave his enemy in twain. The flaming ax descended, passing through the coats and sports jackets that hung from the ceiling pipes, and continuing its destructive course into a musty, cardboard box filled with pots and pans.

The fallen angel spun himself around, the burning ax handle still clutched in his blackened grasp. The flaming weapon decimated a box of letters and tax records, sending burning pieces of paper up into the air, then drifting down upon him like burning snow. But despite the savagery of his assault, the weapon had yet to find its mark.

Through the burning refuse Alastor scanned the cellar in search of his adversary, weapon ready to strike yet again. He found the armored man standing before the worktable, his scarlet glove resting atop the box that contained the precious wings.

“How much did it hurt, Alastor?” the invader asked. “How great was the pain to murder what you were?”

Alastor relived the shrieking agony as he hacked his beautiful wings from his back; how he had blacked out after cutting away the first, only to return to consciousness and do away with the other. The pain had been excruciating, and was second only to his betrayal of the Creator.

The sight of the armored creature near his wings stoked the fires of his fury to maddening heights. Barely able to contain his rage, Alastor propelled himself at the figure, a cry like that of a hungry hawk erupting from his open mouth as he moved with a speed contrary to his bulk. He lifted the flaming ax above his head, but unexpectedly the intruder surged forward to meet his attack. The warrior struck quickly, fiercely, and just as fast leaped out of the fallen angel’s path.

Alastor crashed into the long, wooden work-table, practically ripping it from the granite wall. The box fell, and he watched it open, spilling its precious contents as he slowly turned to face his attacker. The armored intruder stood perfectly still, his cold, predator’s gaze watching him.

A terrible numbness had begun to spread from his chest, traveling to all his extremities. Alastor gazed down at his body gone to seed with the sweet indulgences of humanity, and saw the pommel of an ornate knife sticking out from the center of his chest. His strength suddenly leaving him, he watched helplessly as the ax of fire fell from his grasp to evaporate in a flash before it could hit the floor.

“What… what have you done to me?”

The fearsome figure shrugged its shoulders of metal. “Pretty little symbols etched into the metal of the blade,” he said, drawing the same symbols in the air with his finger. “Symbols to take away strength—to make you easier to kill.”

His legs no longer capable of supporting his enormous mass, Alastor pitched forward atop his wings. The aroma of their rot choked his senses, and he was overcome with a crushing sense of loss.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to them through the plastic cover. He felt his body being turned and gazed up into the disturbing visage that straddled him.

“How?…” Alastor slurred, the magicks carved upon the knife blade affecting even his ability to speak.

His attacker reached down, taking hold of the knife that protruded from the center of Alastor’s body.

“How?” the attacker asked, gripping the hilt.

“How did … how did you find me?” Alastor gasped.

The figure standing over him again began to laugh, that horrible sound of a demented child. “Find you?” it repeated, exerting pressure on the blade, cutting down through the flesh and bone of the fallen angel’s chest. He completed his jagged incision, then extracted the blade and replaced it somewhere beneath the layers of his armor. “We did not need to find you,” the Powers’ servant said as it dug the fingers of both hands into the wound. “We knew where you were all along.”

Alastor closed his eyes to his inevitable fate, focusing all his attention on the rapid-fire beating of his heart. It reminded him of the sound of flight, of his beautiful wings as they beat against the air.

And then what Alastor had sacrificed so much to keep was stolen away as the visage of death clad in scarlet tore his still-beating heart from his chest.