Leviathan

CHAPTER TWELVE

Camael slowly removed himself from the ruptured digestive organ and gazed about his foreign surroundings with a cautious eye.

While trapped within the prison he was made to believe that he had found the angelic paradise that was Aerie—and all the centuries of isolation and conflict he experienced had come to an end. The prophecy had occurred: The fallen angels of Earth forgiven by Heaven. It was bliss.

As he looked around the subterranean cave, the reality of the situation was driven painfully home. He had not found Aerie, and where he now stood was the farthest from Paradise any angel could possibly be.

A mournful wail rose in intensity, reverberating around the cavern, awakening the angel further to his environment. Camael turned to see the monster Leviathan in what appeared to be the grip of torture. The sea behemoth thrashed, its body viciously pounding off of the cave walls as it shrieked in pain.

A sword of fire grew in his hand, a caution in case he should need to defend himself.

“He is accomplishing what we could not,” said a voice nearby, and Camael turned to the Archangel Gabriel, withered and wane, leaning back against the stone wall.

Camael bowed his head, recognizing the angel for what and who he was. “Of whom do you speak, great one?” Camael asked, returning his attentions to the flailing beast.

“The Nephilim,” the desiccated emissary of Heaven whispered. “The latest messenger of God.”

“Aaron,” Camael gasped as Leviathan continued its dance of agony. He watched awestruck as the skin of the beast smoldered, the protrusions that dangled obscenely from the monster’s front, and of which he had been captive within, exploding, their contents spraying the air with a steaming mist.

“It would have been magnificent,” he heard the creature of nightmare rattle as a weapon of fire suddenly tore through its midsection, and a warrior angel—, one he first bore witness to only a few weeks ago—, stepped from the gash in what seemed a mockery of birth.

He was about to call out to the Nephilim, but something stayed his tongue. Camael observed the half-breed, the offspring of angel and human, and was startled, and perhaps even a little concerned by what he saw.

The Nephilim jumped from the wound in the sea beast’s stomach, his black-feathered wings flapping furiously, attempting to dry away the internal fluids that stained their sleek ebony beauty. In his hand he held a sword of fire—a weapon so fierce that it could rival those carried by the elite soldiers of Heaven. This was not the newly born being of angelic power that erupted to life mere weeks ago to avenge loved ones viciously slain, Camael observed. This was something all together different.

Camael watched as the transformed youth rose into the air before the agonizing beast, his mighty wings beating the air, lifting him to hover before the face of his enemy.

Leviathan lashed out at the Nephilim, its whiplike tentacles attempting capture, but falling upon empty air, the angel’s movements were so swift.

“Damn you,” Leviathan roared, its thick, green life stuff draining out from the gaping stomach wound to pool upon the cave floor. “Damn you—and the master you serve.”

Aaron hovered before the snarling face of the beast, sword poised to strike, and Camael marveled at the sight of it.

“Got a message from the big honcho upstairs,” Camael heard the Nephilim cry as he brought the flaming blade down in a powerful arc aimed at Leviathan’s head. “You’re dead.”

The fire blade cleaved through the incredible thickness of the sea beast’s skull with a resounding crack—the majority of the fearsome weapon buried deep within its monstrous cranium. It thrashed wildly in a futile attempt to dislodge the flaming weapon, but then grew impossibly still.

Aaron withdrew the sword and held it proudly above his head, powerful wings beating, holding him aloft. A fearsome cry of victory filled the air, and Camael stared in awe as the gigantic body of the ancient sea deity began to burn. The first flames shot up from Leviathan’s head wound in a geyser of orange fire, the ravenous heat spreading down the length of the monster’s enormity—its scaled flesh, muscle, and bone food for the heavenly flames.

Aaron flew down to the cave floor just as the monster’s body collapsed in a gigantic pyre of smoldering ash, and strode menacingly toward Camael. The spawns of Leviathan scrambled about the cave floor, their shells aflame—the final remnants of the ancient sea monster left alive—but not for long.

Camael clutched his own weapon, unsure of the Nephilim’s true intentions. It would not be the first time that he had bore witness to a half-breed’s descent into madness after manifesting the full extent of its heavenly might.

Aaron stood before him, heavenly armament in hand, and he studied the fearsome countenance of the Nephilim. In his weakened state, Camael wasn’t sure if he could survive a battle with such an adversary, but prepared himself nonetheless. Neither spoke, but the angel warrior watched for the slightest hint of attack. If there was to be battle, his first strikes would need to be lethal.

“That thing really pissed me off,” Aaron said as a small smile played across his warrior’s features. “Glad to see you’re all right.”

And Camael lowered his sword, confident that the Nephilim’s mental state was still intact—at least for the moment.

Aaron placed his hand on Gabriel’s side, watching the rise and fall of the dog’s breathing. The Labrador’s yellow coat was saturated with slime. “Hey,” he said softly, giving his best friend a gentle shake. “It’s time to get up.”

At first, the animal did not respond, his mind still in the embrace of doggy paradise. Aaron shook him again a bit harder. “Gabriel, wake up.”

“I am awake,” replied the archangel wearily, still resting his emaciated frame against the cave wall.

Aaron looked up. “I was talking to the dog,” he told the messenger of God. “His name is Gabriel, too.” He smiled briefly and looked back at his friend, who was finally beginning to stir. “Hey, pally, you awake yet?”

The dog stretched his four limbs and neck, emitting a low, throaty groan that began somewhere in lower regions of his broad chest. Then he sighed, his dark brown eyes coming open. “I was having a dream, Aaron,” he said sleepily. “I was chasing rabbits and having lots of good things to eat.”

Aaron stroked the dog’s head lovingly. “You can do all that stuff out here—without being eaten by a sea monster.”

The dog lifted his head and gazed about. “Where are we?” he asked, sitting up. “The last thing I remember … the old woman,” he said, a wide-eyed expression of shock on his canine face. “She spit something at me, and it made me numb.”

“Yep, I know,” Aaron nodded. “But I think we’ve taken care of that,” he said, and looked in the direction of the still smoldering remains of the mythological sea monster.

“The spawn cannot continue to exist without the beast’s mind,” Camael said, standing over the fleshy sacks that Aaron had liberated from the monster’s body. He was checking to see which of the captives of Leviathan were still living. “They were all part of one great beast—and the parts cannot survive without the whole.”

Gabriel stiffly climbed to his feet and shook, spattering the surrounding area with the digestive juices that still clung to his fur.

“Watch that,” Aaron said, covering his face, his wings reflexively coming around to block the spray. “I’ve got enough of that crap covering me.”

“Then you won’t notice a little more,” the dog said, and smiled that special smile unique to the Labrador.

“Maybe there’s still a chance I can shove you back into one of those stomachs,” Aaron grumbled with mock seriousness, giving the dog a squinty eyed stare. Gabriel barked and wagged his tail, none the worse for his experience being captive in the gut of a sea beast.

“Who’s he?” the dog suddenly asked, coming forward, his nose twitching.

Aaron noticed the angel Gabriel now stood by him, and seemed to be studying his dog of the same name.

“Gabriel,” Aaron said to the animal, “this is Gabriel.” He motioned toward the archangel.

Gabriel padded closer, nose still sniffing, tail wagging cautiously. “That’s a very handsome name,” the dog told the angelic being.

The archangel looked from the dog to Aaron, a quizzical expression on his gaunt features. “You named this animal—after me?”

Aaron shrugged his shoulders. “Not specifically. It’s just a very regal sounding name. When he was a pup he looked like a Gabriel to me, that’s all.”

“I was quite adorable when I was a puppy,” the dog said with a tilt of his blocky head.

The still weakened angel carefully walked toward the dog, reaching out a trembling hand to touch the animal’s head. The Lab seemed to have no problem with that, licking the angel’s hand affectionately.

“This animal has been changed,” the archangel said, stroking the fur on the side of Gabriel’s handsome face. “It is not as it should be.” The angel looked back, as if seeking an explanation.

“Gabriel is very important to me,” Aaron began. “He was hurt—near death. I saved him.”

“You saved him,” the angel repeated, holding the dog’s face beneath the chin and gazing into his dark chocolate eyes. “And so much more.”

“He did,” Gabriel said looking back.

“What other wonders can you perform, Aaron Corbet of the Nephilim?” the angel Gabriel asked, fascination in his tone.

Aaron didn’t know what to say, feeling self-conscious beneath the scrutinizing eyes of the messenger of God. “I really don’t know, but…”

“He is the chosen of the prophecy,” Camael spoke up. The former leader of the Powers was kneeling beside the now deflated digestive sacks, and the remains of the angelic beings they contained. He gazed at the bodies of the heavenly creatures, many just barely alive—on the verge of death. “What other wonders is he capable of?” Camael asked sadly among the desiccated and the dying. “He can send our fallen brethren home.”

Aaron remembered what he had done for the dying Ezekiel—how his newly awakened power had forgiven the fallen angel of his sins and allowed his return to Heaven. This ability, this power of redemption, was what the ancient prophecy that had taken over his life was supposedly all about, and whether he liked it or not, it was his job to reunite the fallen angels of Earth with their creator.

He found himself drawn to the dying angels, his entire body beginning to tingle as if some great electrical charge were building in strength inside him. Aaron was becoming familiar with these feelings. He moved amongst the withered bodies, their life forces taken by the voracious appetites of a creature of chaos, and felt an incredible sadness overtake him. How long—how many centuries has the monster been drawing them here? he wondered gazing down at what were once things of awesome beauty—now nothing more than empty shells of their former glory. Those that had fallen from grace, soldiers in service to the Creator, twisted mockeries of angelic life created for servitude: They were all here, lying amongst one another, all desperately in need of one thing that he was capable of bestowing upon them.

Release.

Aaron felt their great sadness—their disgrace, as the churning supernatural power inside him settled in a seething ball at the center of his chest. He knew precisely what to do; it now felt like second nature to him—like breathing, or blinking his eyes.

He laid his hands upon them, one after another—the vortex of power swirling at his center coursing down the length of his arms into his hands. Whether they be Orisha, fallen, or heavenly elite; Aaron touched them all, igniting their dying essences with the force of redemption. “It’s over now,” he said to them, their bodies glowing like stars, fallen from the night skies to show the fabulous extent of their beauty.

Camael stepped back, bathed in the radiance of their transformation, and Aaron wondered if it was only awe that he saw expressed upon the angel warrior’s face, or was it envy?

What the angels had become, as sustenance for a monster’s hunger, was no longer a concern—burned away to expose the final flames of divine brilliance that still thrived in each of them.

“You’re free,” Aaron said as they hovered above the cave floor, reveling in the experience of their rebirth. He spread his wings of shining black and opened his arms. “Time to go home,” he proclaimed, and with those words spoken, the dank, eerie darkness of Leviathan’s lair was filled with the light of the divine, and any trace of evil still alive within the monster’s dwelling was routed out and annihilated in purging rays of heavenly brilliance.

The vivified angels gravitated toward the Archangel Gabriel, orbiting around the messenger of God, bathing him in their luminous auras—and through the light, Aaron could see that Gabriel was growing stronger, gaining sustenance from his angelic brothers.

Aaron felt at peace as he watched the long-suffering creatures of Heaven reunite, and let his angelic countenance recede back into his body—sated, for now. The arcane sigils that were etched upon his skin started to fade, and his wings furled, gradually withdrawing beneath the flesh and muscle of his back. Both Camael and his dog had joined him, not wanting to interfere in any way with the once-imprisoned angels’ communion.

“They’re very happy to see one another again,” the dog said, tail wagging happily.

“They have been too long without the company of their own kind,” Camael said, his eyes riveted to the scene before him, and Aaron questioned if the warrior was not in some way speaking for himself as well.

The Archangel Gabriel was restored to true glory, armor glistening as if freshly forged and polished, wings the color of a virgin snowfall opening from his back. The wingspan of the messenger was enormous, and he curled them around the children of Heaven, drawing them closer to him.

“We have much to thank you for, fellow messenger,” the archangel said in a rich, powerful voice that vibrated in the air like the lower notes played on a church organ. “The monster has been vanquished—and our freedom regained.”

Aaron was speechless; even after all that he had seen over the past life-changing weeks, the sight before him filled him with awe. They all floated in the air now, Gabriel as the center of their universe, all those who had survived their ordeal, enwrapped in his loving embrace. He was taking them back—the Archangel Gabriel was escorting them home.

“Know that my blessing goes with you on your perilous journey, brave Nephilim,” the angel continued, “and that your acts of heroism shall be spoken of in the kingdom of God.”

His dog nudged his hand with his head. “Did you hear that, Aaron?” he asked excitedly. “They’re going to be talking about you in God’s kingdom.”

Aaron petted his ecstatic friend, still mesmerized by the awesome vision before him.

“With these acts, you have done much to expunge the sins of the father and to fulfill the edicts of prophecy—”

Aaron was so caught up in the melodious sounds of the angel’s proclamation of thanks that he didn’t immediately catch the meaning of the last sentence—but it gradually sunk in, permeated his brain, and alarm bells began to sound.

He hadn’t even heard the final words of gratitude spoken by the messenger. The Archangel Gabriel had lifted his head toward the ceiling of the cave, the heavenly glow about them all growing in intensity. Bringer of Light had appeared in his hand, and he pointed the mighty blade toward the cave roof—toward their celestial destination beyond the ceiling of rock and the world of man above.

Aaron charged forward, shielding his eyes from the blinding light of their ascension. “Wait,” he cried as he tried to find the Archangel within the radiant spectacle. “Did you say the sins of the father?”

He could just about make out the outline of the angel messenger at the center of the expanding ball of light. Through squinted eyes he saw that Gabriel was looking at him. “My father’s sins?” Aaron asked, wanting desperately for the emissary of Heaven to clarify what he had said. “Do you know who my father was? Please…”

The light burned so brightly now that he had no choice but to turn away, or go blind.

“You are your father’s son,” Gabriel said within the light of Heaven. “At first I did not see it, but then it was oh so obvious.”

His back to the departing creatures now seemingly composed of living light, Aaron begged for answers from the messenger. “If you know who he is, can’t you tell me something—anything … please!”

Aaron could feel the pull of the celestial powers as the angels were drawn up to Heaven. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and throw himself into the light, to prevent Gabriel from returning to God’s kingdom—until the Archangel told him what he knew.

There were sounds like the world’s largest orchestra tuning their instruments all at the same time—and he knew that it was only a matter of seconds before Gabriel and the others were gone form this plain of existence, taking their valuable knowledge with them.

Aaron fell to his knees upon the cave floor, both physically and emotionally drained.

“You’re the messenger,” he said, holding out all hope that he would be heard. “Give me a message … give me something.”

There was a sudden flash of brilliance—and the cavern was filled with an eerie silence as the denizens of Heaven returned to their homes—but not before he heard the whispering voice of the Archangel Gabriel in his ear. “You have your father’s eyes.”