Leviathan

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gabriel awoke with a start.

He’d been dreaming about chasing a rabbit through a dense forest, weaving and ducking beneath thick bushes and low-hanging branches, when his drowsing reverie turned unexpectedly to nightmare. The rabbit had stopped and spun around to glare at him with eyes that did not seem right. They were unusually dark, almost liquid in their shininess, and when they blinked, a milky coating seemed to briefly cover them. Gabriel had seen many rabbits in his years—but never one that looked like this. It was wrong—the bunny was wrong.

Its body had begun to writhe—to undulate as if something inside of it were trying to get out. Slowly, cautiously, Gabriel had backed away, growling in his most menacing tone. The animal lay flat on the ground. Its body had continued to pulse and vibrate, its scary eyes never leaving the dog. Gabriel barked: a succession of sharp staccato bursts and snarls, hoping to scare the rabbit away. He had wanted to run, but didn’t want to turn his back on the creature. How embarrassing, he had thought in the grip of his nightmare, to be chased by a rabbit.

The rabbit had suddenly stopped moving, although its unwavering gaze never left Gabriel. Slowly its mouth began to open—wider—and wider still. The dog heard a disturbing wet crack as the animal’s jaws popped from its socket. He wanted to run—but he was afraid. The rabbit’s lower jaw dangled awfully, its mouth a gaping chasm of darkness. From within, the sound of movement came. Gabriel had whined with fear and was turning to flee, when something exploded from the rabbit’s body…

Still shaken from the disturbing dream, Gabriel glanced about the room from his post atop the bed, nose twitching—searching the air for anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed to be fine, but then he caught a whiff of something that made his mouth begin to water. Food, and if his senses could be trusted, it was meat loaf. He’d had his breakfast and half an apple before Aaron left for work, but the thought of a snack was quite alluring.

Gabriel turned to sniff at the wound on his leg. Aaron had wanted him to stay off of it, but it was feeling much better. The dog jumped to the floor and stretched the hours of inactivity from his limbs. It felt good, and he barely noticed any discomfort. He walked around the room in a circle, just to be certain. There was a little tightness in the muscles of his thigh, but nothing that could prevent him from heading downstairs for a handout.

He stood at the door and hopped up on his back legs to take the doorknob tightly in his mouth. Slowly, he turned his head, pulling ever so slightly until the door came open. Gabriel made his way down the hallway and carefully descended the stairs. At the foot of the steps, he again sniffed, pinpointed the kitchen as the source of his treat, and made a beeline for the doorway.

Mrs. Provost was sitting at the kitchen table and was about to take a bite from a meat loaf sandwich when Gabriel appeared.

“Well, look who it is,” she said with a hint of a smile. She took a large bite and began to chew.

Gabriel padded into the kitchen, tail wagging, nails clicking on the linoleum floor. His eyes were fixed on the plate of food, and he licked his chops hungrily.

“Now don’t go giving me the hungry horrors routine,” Mrs. Provost said as she wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and looked away. “Aaron said I wasn’t to give you anything, even if you came begging.”

He watched closely as she took another bite of the delicious-looking meat-and-bread combination. How can Aaron do this to me again? he wondered, remembering the incident at the rest stop. He felt the saliva begin to drip from his mouth and land upon the floor beneath him.

“Don’t stare at me,” Mrs. Provost said, finishing the last of the first half. “He was very serious, made me promise and everything, so you might as well just go on back to your room.” She picked up the other half.

Gabriel was sure he’d never been so hungry, and couldn’t believe the woman wouldn’t share even a small piece of her sandwich. It was very selfish. Remembering his success with the little girl and her family, he reached out with his mind to reassure the woman that Aaron wouldn’t be mad if he was given only a bite.

I’m sure it would be fine if you gave me a bite of that sandwich.

Mrs. Provost convulsed violently as his mind gently brushed against hers. The table shook, spilling the cup of coffee next to her plate. Gabriel stepped back, startled.

She had set her sandwich down for a moment, but picked it up again, opening her mouth to take a bite. Again, Gabriel lightly prodded, suggesting that it would be very nice of her to share. She froze and gradually turned in her chair. His tail wagged in anticipation as he came closer. But the old woman stared at him, a strange expression on her face, as if she had never seen him before. She was still holding the sandwich in her hand, and he continued to hope that he would get some of it, but a primitive instinct told him that something was wrong. He felt the hackles of fur on his back begin to rise. Quickly the dog looked about the kitchen for signs of danger, his nose twitching eagerly as he searched for a scent that was out of the ordinary. There was a hint of something, but he did not know what it was.

Mrs. Provost made a strange noise at the back of her throat, and the skin around her neck seemed to expand, like a bullfrog. And then she blinked, a slow, languid movement, and Gabriel saw that same milky covering over her eyes that he’d seen on the rabbit in his dream.

Suddenly he didn’t care whether he got a bite of the meat loaf sandwich. He backed toward the doorway never taking his eyes from the strange old woman. Her scent had changed. It was like the ocean—but older. He had to get to Aaron.

Gabriel spun around and bolted for the front door. Again, he jumped up and grabbed the knob with his teeth. He could hear sounds of the woman’s approach behind him. The knob turned, and he heard the click of the latch—and another sound. The woman was coughing loudly, hard. Gabriel had just pulled the door open when he felt the first of the projectiles hit his left leg. He chanced a quick glance and saw a circular object, smaller than a tennis ball covered in wet, glistening spines, sticking in his thigh. He wanted to pluck it out with his teeth, but feared the spines would hurt his mouth. Aaron will get it out, Gabriel thought as he turned back to the open door.

But Mrs. Provost was coughing again and he felt the pricks of more barbs as they struck him. Suddenly the door seemed so very far away. How can this be? Gabriel wondered. He was running as fast as he could, yet he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was all so confusing. A horrible numbness was spreading through his body, and he slumped to the floor in the doorway, his nose just catching a hint of the smells of the Maine town outside.

But there was something else that he smelled, and it came from the woman. Gabriel felt her hands roughly grab at him and drag his body back into the hallway. If smells wrong, he thought as he slowly drifted down into oblivion, like something from the ocean.

Like something bad from the ocean.

Aaron couldn’t believe what he had committed himself to.

His thoughts raced as he let himself into Mrs. Provost’s home. I’ve got to be out of my mind. But it was too late now; he had agreed to help Katie search the abandoned factory, and that was what he was going to do. Who knows, he thought, maybe I’ll be able to figure out why I’ve been feeling so strangely, or where Camael’s gone, for that matter.

“Mrs. Provost?” he called out, walking toward the kitchen. He was hoping for something to eat before his Mission: Impossible began. It would be just as easy to make a sandwich, but he wanted to be sure his host wasn’t planning for something else. He didn’t want to annoy her; something told him that would be a bad thing.

The kitchen was empty, but he noticed a plate with a half-eaten meat loaf sandwich on the table. Aaron returned to the hallway and called again. “Mrs. Provost? Are you home?”

Getting no response, he decided to go upstairs and check on Gabriel. He would need to clean the dog’s wound, then feed him, and most likely make himself something to eat before embarking on his nighttime maneuvers with Katie.

“Hey, Gabriel, how you feeling, boy…,” Aaron said as he pushed open the door and stepped into the room. His eyes fell upon the empty bed, then went to the comforter on the floor, and he saw with a growing unease that it, too, was missing his best friend. Aaron stepped farther into the room, leaving the door open wide behind him.

“Gabriel,” he called again as he peered around the bed, finding nothing. He began to panic. Maybe the dog had injured himself so badly that he’d had to be taken to the veterinarian, which would also explain the half-eaten sandwich and Mrs. Provost’s absence. Aaron decided to give Katie a call, just to be sure. He turned to the doorway and stopped.

Mrs. Provost stood in the hall, just outside the door.

“You scared me,” Aaron said with a surprised smile. Almost immediately he knew something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong?” he asked, advancing toward her. “Where’s Gabriel—is he all right?”

The woman did not respond. She simply stared at him oddly with eyes that seemed much darker than they had before.

“Mrs. Provost?” he asked, stopping in his tracks. Instincts that could only be connected to the inhuman part of his identity began to scream in warning, “Is there something…”

The old woman’s neck suddenly swelled. She bent forward, coughed violently, and expelled something toward him.

The sword from his nightmare was suddenly in Aaron’s hand, and instinctively he swatted aside the projectiles. Most exploded into dust upon contact with the blade of light, but pieces of some fell to the hardwood floor, and he tried to make sense of what he saw. They looked like fat grapes, fat grapes with sharp-looking quills sticking out of them.

The old woman grunted with displeasure, a wet gurgling sound like a stopped-up drainpipe, and he saw that her throat again had begun to expand. Aaron swung the blade of white light, directing its powerful radiance toward what he had been fooled into believing was a pretty cool old woman.

“No more,” he heard himself say in a voice that did not sound at all like his.

The blade’s luminescence bathed Mrs. Provost in its unearthly light, and her throat immediately deflated, expelling a noxious cloud of gas. Her callused hands rose to shield her eyes against the searing light, and he saw something that chilled the blood in his veins—a second eyelid.

Aaron advanced toward her. “What are you?” he asked, his voice booming. “And where is my dog? Where is Gabriel?”

The woman crouched on the floor. His mind raced with the strangeness of it all, and he thought of the things frozen in the basement of the veterinary clinic. Is it all connected? he wondered, and a voice deep down inside him said that it was.

Mrs. Provost sprang from the floor, an inhuman hiss escaping her mouth as she lashed out at him, attempting to swat the blade away. The strangely sweet scent of burning flesh perfumed the air, and Aaron stumbled back, startled by the attack. The old woman screamed, but it sounded more like the squeal of an animal in pain. She threw herself from the room, clutching at her injured hand, where she had touched his weapon.

Aaron wished the awkward sword away and ran after her. Mrs. Provost was running erratically toward the stairs, as if she was no longer in control of her motor functions. He could only watch in horror as her feet became entangled and she tripped, tumbling down the stairs in a shrieking heap.

Aaron ran down the steps as the woman’s body spilled limply into the foyer. He knelt beside her and reached to touch her neck for a pulse. Her heart rate was erratic, and her hand had begun to blister, but other than that, she seemed relatively unscathed. A low, murmuring gurgle escaped from her throat, and she began to writhe upon the floor.

Aaron reached down and pried open her mouth, keeping an eye on her throat for swelling. He tilted her head slightly so that he could see into her mouth. Something in the shadows at the back of her mouth scuttled away, escaping down her throat. Disturbingly enough, based on the quick glimpse, whatever it was reminded him of a hermit crab he’d once had as a pet. He quickly took his hands away.

Something was living inside Mrs. Provost. Again, he thought of the frozen animals in the freezer back at the clinic, their bodies changed—twisted into some new and monstrous form of life. He wondered if they, too, had something hiding away inside them.

He touched the woman’s chin again, pulling open her mouth slightly. “What are you?” he asked, hoping that by using his preternatural gift of languages he could speak to the thing hiding away inside Mrs. Provost. If it worked on dogs and other animals, why not on this?

Her body shuddered, the flesh beneath her clothes beginning to writhe.

“What are you?” he asked again, more forcefully.

It started as a grumbling rumble in what seemed to be the old woman’s stomach, and he watched with increasing horror as the bulge that formed in her abdomen traveled upward, toward her chest—and then her throat. The skin of her neck expanded, and Aaron immediately backed away. He was about to summon his weapon of light when Mrs. Provost’s mouth snapped open and a horrible gurgling laugh filled the air, followed by an equally chilling voice.

“What am I?” it asked in a language composed of buzzes and clicks. “I am Leviathan. And we are legion.”

“Come,” a voice boomed in the darkness, echoing through the endless void that had become his being. “Hear my voice and come to me.”

Stevie knew not why, but he found himself responding, drawn to the powerful sound that invaded his solitude. It reverberated through his cocoon of shadow, touching him, comforting him in ways that the darkness could not.

“Oblivion shall claim you no longer.”

And then there was a light, burning through the ebony pitch—and he winced, turning his face away, blinded by its awesome intensity.

“Fear not the light of my righteousness,” the voice said. “There is a powerful purpose awaiting you beyond the Stygian twilight—work to be done.”

And the radiance continued to grow, consuming the darkness, pulling him from the embrace of shadow and into the heart of illumination.

“Come to me,” said the voice, so very close. “And be reborn.” Reborn.

Verchiel knelt before he who mere moments before had been a child. Silently the Archons watched as the angel held the face of the magickally augmented boy in both hands and gazed into eyes vacant of awareness.

“Do you hear me?” he asked. “Your lord and master has need of you.”

The angel examined the magnificently muscled body of the boy-turned-man, pleased with the work of his magicians. The arcane symbols that had been painted, then burned into his naked flesh, had formed permanent scars decorating the perfect physique. These were marks that would set him apart from all others; symbols that proved he had been touched by the divine, transformed into something that transcended simple humanity.

Again, Verchiel looked into the eyes of the man. “I call upon you to come forth. There is so much to be done,” he whispered. Lovingly he touched the man’s expressionless face, running his long, delicate fingers through the blond, sweat-dampened hair. “I have need of you,” he hissed, leaning his mouth close to the man’s own. “The Lord God has need of you.”

Verchiel brought a hand to the man’s chin, pulled open his mouth, and blew lightly into the open maw, an icy blue flame briefly illuminating the cavern of the open mouth. The body of the man, who had once been Stevie, twitched once and then was still. Verchiel continued to stare, willing the man to consciousness, a vacant shell ready to be shaped into a tool of surgical precision.

An instrument of redemption.

The man’s body began to thrash, flopping about on the floor of the sunroom, and a smile languidly spread across Verchiel’s pale, scarred features. “That’s it,” he cooed. “I’m waiting—we’re all waiting.”

Awareness suddenly flooded into the man’s eyes, and his body went rigid with the shock of it. He began to scream, a high-pitched wail of rebirth that tapered off to a wheezing gasp as he rolled from side to side on the cold solarium floor.

Verchiel gestured toward the door, and several of his soldiers entered the room. They lifted the man, mewling and trembling, from the ground and held him aloft.

“Look at you,” Verchiel said, a cold, emotionless smile on his face. “The potential for greatness emanates from you in waves.” He held up a single, long, and pointed finger to the man who was crying pathetically. “But there is something missing. Something that will make you complete.” He turned to the Archons, who held pieces of an armor the rich red color of spilt blood. “Dress him,” the Powers’ leader ordered.

And the magicians did as they were told, covering the man’s body in crimson metal forged in the fires of Heaven. When they completed their task, they stepped away, and Verchiel approached. Every inch of the man’s transformed flesh was encased in blood-red metal—all except his head. He was a fearsome sight in his crimson suit of war, but he gazed pathetically at Verchiel, eyes streaming tears of fear and confusion.

“It’s all so new to you now,” Verchiel said, holding out his hands to the man. “But I will make it right.” Fire appeared between the angel’s outstretched hands, at first no bigger than the flame on the head of a match, then growing into a swirling fireball of orange. “I will teach you,” the angel said as the fire grew darker, taking shape, solidifying into a helmet the matching color of lifeblood. “You shall be my tool of absolution.” He placed the helmet over the man’s head. “My implement of absolution.”

Verchiel stepped back, admiring the fearful visage standing before him, clad in the color of pulsing rage. “Malak—,” he said, extending his hand, introducing those around him to the newest weapon in their arsenal. “Hunter of false prophets.”