Aerie

CHAPTER TEN

The armored warrior called Malak reached into the air, and from some hidden pocket in space, removed a sword of dark metal. The light of the Powers’ flaming weapons illuminated strange etchings on the blade, similar to those on the manacles Aaron had worn in Aerie. But he had little time to consider that, as Malak brought the weapon down, intending to cleave his skull in two.

Aaron rolled to the side, then flexing his powerful wings, propelled himself upward and lashed out with his own sword. The burning blade clipped Malak’s shoulder, sending a shower of sparks into the air. Malak was already moving to counter the attack, his sword gone, replaced with a long spear made of the same dark, etched metal. He struck out with the shaft of the spear, catching Aaron on the chin. The Nephilim stumbled to the side and watched from the corner of his eye as the armored warrior lunged forward, the spear’s tip searching for something vital.

His actions almost reflex, Aaron swatted the spearhead away with his sword of fire, severing it from the body of the shaft. He spun around, the weapon in his hand now seeking Malak’s heart, momentarily amazed by the fluidity of his thoughts and movements. No longer did he feel the struggle inside him between what was angelic and what was human. But now wasn’t the time for reflection.

Malak had dropped what was left of his spear and grabbed hold of Aaron’s fiery blade, halting its deadly progress less than a half inch from his ornate chest plate. Aaron bore down upon the blade with all his might, but Malak’s strength was incredible, his armored hand glowing white hot with the heat of heavenly fire. Suddenly there was a blinding flash, and the combatants were thrown apart by the force of the powerful concussion. Aaron shook away the cotton that seemed to fill his head, coming to a disturbing realization: Malak had broken his blade. The warrior had actually destroyed his sword of fire. He quickly scrambled to his feet. Malak was already standing, flexing the hand that had held back Aaron’s sword of fire. The armored glove had already cooled, returning to its original color of ore.

A strange sound filled the air. Malak was laughing—a high-pitched titter that reminded Aaron more of a small child amused by cartoon antics on television than the laugh of a bloodthirsty warrior. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, Malak’s laughter ended, and where there had been nothing in his armored hand, there were suddenly razor-sharp throwing stars. Aaron heard their metal surfaces grinding together as Malak bent forward and let the blades fly. He spread his wings and took to the air, the stars finding targets instead in the bodies of the Powers’ angels that were unlucky enough to be standing nearby watching the conflict unfold.

He glided backward, keeping a cautious eye on the armored warrior already on the move. Not paying attention to his surroundings, his back hit up against something solid and instinctively a sword grew in his hand. He spun, hacking at what was behind him. Angels scattered in a flutter of wings and trench coats, hissing menacingly, as Aaron’s blade passed through the steel poles of a basketball hoop, sending the backboard crashing to the gymnasium floor.

Distracted, Aaron didn’t notice Malak until it was too late. The armored warrior tossed a net made of thin, flexible strands of the same black metal as his weapons and ensnared the Nephilim. The weighted ends of the net restricted Aaron’s wings, and he fell to the floor atop the downed backboard. Eager to vanquish his prey, Malak charged; a dagger caked with the blood of earlier kills clutched in his armored hand.

Aaron concentrated on a new weapon, and another sword came to be in his grasp, melting through the tight weave of the net. But before he could free himself completely, Malak was upon him. He tried to turn away, but his movement was hindered by the net and the weight of his armored assailant, and the dagger’s blade bit deep into his already wounded shoulder. Aaron cried out, thrashing violently beneath Malak’s attack and managing to knock him to one side. With his sword of fire, he sliced upward through the metal mesh, cutting an opening big enough to crawl through.

As he sloughed off the net Aaron watched with muted horror: His armored attacker brought the knife blade to the face of his helmet, the tip of a pink tongue snaked from the mask and licked the Nephilim’s blood from the weapon’s edge. For an instant he wondered what kind of creature resided behind the concealing helmet of scarlet, recalling Camael’s haunting explanation of the Powers’ use of the handicapped. He thought of his foster brother, steeling his resolve against his foe and the others he would eventually have to face. Though his shoulder burned as if on fire, Aaron held his sword tightly and slowly pointed the fiery blade across the gym where his opponent waited.

“You,” Aaron said in a booming voice filled with authority. “Let’s finish this.”

Malak giggled again. His knife disappeared and he withdrew a double-bladed battle-ax from the air to replace it. The warrior hefted the heavy weapon in one hand. “Bootiful,” he said through his mask of red metal.

Bootiful.

The word hit him like one of Lehash’s flaming bullets, and Aaron lowered his weapon in shock.

“What did you say?” he asked the scarlet-garbed warrior.

Again Malak giggled, that high-pitched titter that put his nerves on edge.

“What’s the matter, Nephilim?” he heard Verchiel ask with mock concern.

Aaron chanced a glance at the heavenly monster. He was standing before the bleachers, hands clasped behind his back, a throng of angel soldiers surrounding him. One of them had Vilma slung over its shoulder, as if she were nothing more than an afterthought.

“Has something plucked a chord of familiarity?”

Malak was suddenly before him, swinging the blade of his double-headed ax. Aaron sprang back from the vicious blade, studying his attacker’s movement, the single word still echoing dangerously in his head.

Bootiful.

The ax buried itself deep into the shiny, hardwood floor, but Malak quickly retrieved it, coming at him again. The warrior swung his weapon of war, and this time Aaron responded in kind, deflecting the ax with his sword of fire.

“Why did you say that word?” he hissed, launching his own assault against Malak.

The warrior giggled, childlike, as he ducked beneath the swipe of Aaron’s blade.

“Why did you say it?” he shouted frantically, an idea almost too horrible for him to comprehend beginning to form in his mind. His attack upon the Powers’ assassin grew wilder, driving Malak back across the gym.

Malak countered as fast as Aaron struck, blocking and avoiding the weapon of heavenly fire with ease.

Verchiel was laughing, a grating sound, like the cawing of some carrion bird.

Aaron hacked downward with all his might, but Malak stepped aside, bringing his armored foot down upon the blade, trapping it against the floor as he lashed out with his ax. Aaron felt the bite of the razor-sharp blade as it cut through the fabric of his shirt and the skin beneath. He jumped back, leaving his pinned sword to disperse in a flash. Slowly he lowered his hand to his stomach, then brought it up to his face. His fingertips were stained the color of his attacker’s armor.

The sight of his own blood and the unsettling sound of Verchiel’s laughter served only to inflame his rage. He felt the power of the Nephilim inside him and it coursed through his muscles—through the entire fiber of his being. If he were to survive this conflict, he had to trust the warrior’s nature he had inherited. He had to defeat this armored foe, but still he could not get past the implication of Verchiel’s words.

Has something plucked a chord of familiarity?

Malak came at him again, battle-ax at the ready, and Aaron sprang forward to meet the attack. He dove low, connecting with the warrior’s armor-plated legs, and they crashed to the floor in a thrashing pile. Malak held on to his ax and tried to use it to drive his opponent from atop him, but Aaron kept close, rendering the weapon useless. The power of the Nephilim shrieked a cry of battle, and Aaron found himself caught up in a wave of might that flooded his body, his every sense. This must be what Camael was talking about, the unification of the human and the angelic. It was wonderful, and for the first time since learning of his angelic heritage, Aaron Corbet felt truly complete.

He fought to his feet and wrenched the battle-ax from Malak’s grasp.

“This is over,” he growled, looming over the armored warrior, ax in hand, glaring at Verchiel and his followers around the gym. The sigils upon his body pulsed with a life all their own, and he spread his wings to their full span. What a sight I must be, he thought, inundated by feelings of perfection.

“Yes, you are right,” Verchiel agreed with a casual nod. “I tire of these games. Malak, show your face.”

Aaron almost screamed for the warrior to stop, not wanting to see what he already suspected. Malak reached up and yanked the scarlet helmet from his head.

“Do you see who you have been fighting, Nephilim?” Verchiel asked, moving closer with his angelic throng.

“No,” Aaron cried, unable to tear his gaze away from the familiar features of the young man lying before him. He did not know this person, but then again, he did. “You son of bitch, what have you done?”

“With the magick of the Archons, we have transformed what by human standards was considered limited in its usefulness, into a precision weapon.”

Malak looked up at Aaron with eyes that once held the innocence of a special child, but now were filled with something else, something deadly. These eyes told a story of death; they were the eyes of a killer. The revelation was even worse than he’d imagined.

The ax slipped from Aaron’s hands and clattered upon the floor. “Stevie?” he asked in a trembling whisper, giving credence to what should have been impossible. He willed away the sigils and his formidable wings. “It’s me,” he said, touching his chest with a trembling, bloodstained hand. Images of a past that seemed thousands of years ago, of the autistic child as he should have been, flashed through Aaron’s mind. “It’s me—it’s Aaron,” he said, offering the young man his hand.

At first there was nothing that showed even the slightest hint of humanity in the gaze that met Aaron’s. It was like looking into the eyes of a wild animal, but then there came a spark and Malak’s eyes twinkled with recognition.

“Aaron?” Stevie asked in a voice very much like that of a child, and his armored hand took hold of his brother’s.

Every instinct screamed for Aaron to pull away. “Stevie,” he began.

The warrior in red shook his head crazily from side to side, an idiot’s grin spreading across his dull features. “Not Stevie,” he said as Aaron watched him reach into a pocket of air with his free hand and withdraw a fearsome medieval mace. “Malak!” he shouted, and bludgeoned Aaron across the face with its studded head before the Nephilim had an opportunity to react.

Aaron fell to the floor, the world spinning and his every sense scrambled. He shook his head and slowly rose to his knees, the smell of his own blood wafting up into his nostrils. His scalp was bleeding. As his vision cleared, he could see that Verchiel and his soldiers were standing in a circle around them. The room was eerily quiet, the only sound the armored footfalls of Malak’s approach. Aaron summoned another sword of fire.

He gazed into the face of his little brother, his murderous countenance filling the Nephilim with an overwhelming despair. He didn’t want to think about what the Powers had done to the child, did not want to know the horror and pain his little brother had endured. But he felt the guilt of not being there to protect him from harm just the same.

Halfheartedly, he raised his weapon of heavenly flame. “I … I don’t want to do this,” he said.

Malak responded with a horrible smile, and Aaron was reminded of a raccoon with rabies that had once been brought to the veterinary hospital where he used to work. Nothing could be done for the animal, and with a heavy heart, he realized the same was true now.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered as Malak rushed toward him, mace raised to strike. Aaron deflected the blow, but hesitated in his own attack. The warrior swung again, and this time the mace connected with Aaron’s injured shoulder. He cried out and tried to back away, but came up against a living wall of Powers’ soldiers.

“It ends here, Nephilim,” Verchiel barked from across the circle. “It’s time to remove from this world the sickness you represent.” The Powers’ commander looked to the unconscious Vilma, draped over the shoulder of the angel standing beside him, and sneered as he reached out to touch her raven black hair. “Let us hope it can survive the cleansing.”

Aaron’s arm throbbed with every staccato beat of his heart, and he was finding it difficult to hold on to his sword. The niggling idea that perhaps he should have listened to Belphegor played at the corner of his thoughts, but it was too late now for second guesses. He had already failed his brother; he wasn’t about to fail Vilma as well.

Verchiel’s emotionless black eyes fell upon his champion. “Kill the abomination and be done with it,” he ordered.

Malak charged at Aaron, weapon raised, his features twisted in bloodlust. They were about to continue their dance of battle, when the gymnasium was suddenly filled with the sound of a booming voice.

“The Nephilim is under my protection.”

Malak’s attack came to a screeching halt, and the Powers searched for the source of the authoritative proclamation. The angels’ circle broke to reveal the striking figure of Camael standing in the gymnasium doorway, Gabriel attentively at his side.

“And mine too,” said the dog in a throaty growl.

“Then it is only fitting that you all die together,” Verchiel said, a sword igniting in his hand.

Everything became incredibly still, a tension so thick in the air that it seemed to have substance. And then Vilma began to scream, an anguished wail of terror that alluded to the violence that was yet to come.

Still slung over the shoulder of a Powers’ soldier, Vilma Santiago had come noisily awake. Her scream was bloodcurdling, born out of sheer terror, and Aaron’s heart nearly broke in sympathy. But he had little time to consider her fear, for her cry had acted as a kind of starter’s pistol, signaling the beginning of an inevitable conflict.

The Powers were the first to react. With bird-like squawks, they leaped into the air, wings pounding, weapons of fire clenched in their hands. Camael reacted in kind, propelling himself up to confront his attackers above the gym floor.

Malak turned to Aaron, a malicious grin gracing his pale features. He began to lift the mace, but this time, Aaron was faster. He brought forth his wings, and as the mighty appendages unfurled, the body of his right wing caught his attacker, swatting him aside. Through the chaos, Aaron set his sights on Vilma, who was thrashing wildly in the clutches of her angelic keeper. Desperately trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his head and shoulder, he began to make his way toward the girl and her captor, carefully avoiding the burning bodies of angels as they fell from the air, victims of Camael’s battle prowess.

From the corner of his eye, Aaron glimpsed movement and turned just in time to avoid the blade of a broadsword as it attempted to split his skull. He stared into the still-grinning face of Malak. The armored warrior was already bringing the enormous sword around for another strike, but Aaron brought his own blade up to counter the attack before it could cut him in two. Malak stepped in close and drove a metal-clad knee up into the Nephilim’s ribs. Aaron cried out in pain, but responded in kind, throwing an elbow into the bridge of Malak’s nose.

The warrior of the Powers stumbled back, blood gushing from his nostrils. He brought his gloved hand to his nose and stared dumbfounded at the blood, and then Malak began to laugh. He plunged both hands into his magickal arsenal and emerged with two curved blades of Middle Eastern origin. “Pretty,” he said through a spray of blood dripping from his nose. He brandished the unusual weapons and came toward Aaron again, his level of ferociousness seemingly endless.

Suddenly there was a rumbling growl, and a yellow blur moved between Aaron and his attacker. He watched stunned as Malak took the full weight of Gabriel’s pounce and was knocked backward to the gym floor.

“Save Vilma,” the dog barked, slamming the top of his thick skull down into the forehead of the Powers’ assassin.

Across the gym floor littered with angelic dead, Aaron could see Vilma struggling with her captor. The Powers’ angel was holding her wrist in one hand, while in the other was a dagger of flame. Aaron darted forward, but froze as the fearsome visage of Verchiel crossed his path.

“I’ve not forgotten you, animal,” he snarled, the mottled scars on his once flawless features beaming a ruddy red. Like some great prehistoric bird, Verchiel opened his wings to their fullest and advanced. “I rather like the idea of killing you myself,” he said with a predatory grin.

Aaron glanced quickly toward Vilma and back to his newest adversary. Taking a combat stance, he held his heavenly weapon high. “Let’s do it then,” he said, determined that nothing would keep him from the girl.

Then, as if Heaven had decided to answer his prayers, an angel fell from above, its body engulfed in flames. It landed atop Verchiel, knocking him to the ground. Aaron looked up to see Camael hovering above him, his suit tattered and torn, his exposed skin spattered with the blood of the vanquished. “Save the girl!” he ordered, before turning to defend himself against another wave of Powers’ soldiers.

Vilma’s captor had driven her to the floor, a fiery blade beginning to take form dangerously close to the delicate flesh of her throat. There was murder in the angel’s face, and Aaron knew there was a chance that he would not reach her in time. But the image of a weapon took form in his mind—and a spear made from the heavenly fire that lived inside him became a thing of reality. Solid in his hand, he let the weapon fly and watched with great satisfaction as the razor-sharp tip plunged into the neck of the Powers’ angel, knocking him away from the struggling girl and pinning his thrashing body to the bleachers.

Aaron was on the move again. “Vilma!” he shouted. The girl was in shock, stumbling about as she gazed around at the nightmarish visions unfolding before her. He called her name again, and she turned to look in his direction with fear-filled eyes.

He stopped before her and held out his hands. “It’s me,” he said in his most soothing voice. She stared at him, an expression of surprise gradually creeping across her features. He was pretty sure that at the moment he didn’t look like the boy she’d said good-bye to in the hallway of Kenneth Curtis High School a few weeks ago, but now was not the time for explanations, all he cared about was keeping her alive. “It’s Aaron,” he continued, slowly reaching for her.

Vilma blinked, then turned and made a run for the door. Aaron dove for her, his powerful wings allowing him to glide the short distance and take her into his arms. “Please,” he said, holding her tightly. “Listen to me.”

She fought, punching, screaming, and kicking. She turned in his embrace and began to pound his chest with her fists. “No! No! No!”

“Vilma, it’s really me,” Aaron said in her native Portuguese. I’ve come to help you.”

For an instant she stopped fighting, looking into his eyes as if searching for lies in his words.

“Please, Vilma,” he said again. “You have to trust me.”

She sagged in his arms, the fight draining out of her. “I want to wake up,” she said in a voice groggy with shock. “Just let me wake—”

There was an explosion from the center of the gymnasium, and Verchiel emerged from the conflagration, face twisted in madness as smoldering body parts of soldiers once in his service rained down around him.

“Aaron,” Camael cried from above as he pitched another victim of his flaming swordplay at the Powers’ commander. “Take the girl and leave!”

Gabriel charged across the gym. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

The yellow fur of the dog’s face was spattered with blood, and Aaron wondered what it had taken to keep the armored Malak down. He gazed upward looking for Camael. The number of Powers’ soldiers had diminished to five and still the warrior that he had learned to call friend fought on. “Camael!” he cried, Vilma slumped in his arms, his dog at his side. He gestured wildly for the angel to join them.

“Leave me!” the former leader of the Powers shouted as he swung his sword in a blazing arc, dispatching two more attackers.

“Nephilim!” Verchiel screamed as he strode across the bodies of his soldiers.

If they were going to leave together, it had to be now. Aaron again gazed up at his mentor. “Camael, please.”

“Get out of here now,” Camael commanded. “Too much depends upon your survival. Go. Now!” Then he spread his wings and hurled himself at Verchiel.

Aaron wanted to stay, but as he looked at the trembling girl in his arms, the realization of Camael’s words slowly sank in. The citizens of Aerie were depending on him, and if he was indeed the Chosen One, he owed it to them to make their prophecy a reality. As much as it pained him, he knew that Camael was right. He had to leave.

“Aaron, we should go,” Gabriel said from his side, his warm body tightly pressed against his leg.

“I think you’re right,” Aaron answered. He took one last look at Verchiel and Camael locked in deadly combat, then spread his ebony wings wide to enfold them all.

“Nephilim!” Verchiel screamed as Aaron pictured Aerie in his mind. “You will not escape me!” And they were gone.