Leviathan

INTERLUDE ONE

“This will sting, my liege.”

Verchiel hissed with displeasure as the healer laid a dripping cloth on the mottled skin of his bare arm.

“Why do I not heal, Kraus?” the leader of the Powers asked.

The blind man patted down the saturated material and reached for another patch of cloth soaking in a wooden bowl of healing oil, made from plants extinct since Cain took the life of his brother, Abel. “It is not my place to say, my lord,” he said, his unseeing eyes glistening white in the faint light streaming through the skylight of the old classroom.

The abandoned school on the grounds of the Saint Athanasius Church, in western Massachusetts, had been the Powers’ home since the battle with the Nephilim. This was where they plotted—awaiting the opportunity to continue their war against those who would question their authority upon the world of God’s man.

Verchiel shifted uncomfortably in the high-backed wooden chair, stolen from the church next door, as the healer laid yet another cloth upon his burn-scarred flesh. “Then answer me this: Do these wounds resemble injuries sustained in a freak act of nature, or do they bear the signature of a more—divine influence?”

He was trying to isolate the cause of the intense agony that had been his constant companion since he was struck by lightning during his battle with Aaron Corbet. The angel wanted to push the pain aside, to box it up and place it far away. But the pain would not leave him. It stayed, a reminder that he might have offended his Creator—and was being punished for his insolence.

“It is my job to heal, Great Verchiel,” Kraus said. “I would not presume to—”

Verchiel suddenly sprang up from his seat, the heavy wooden chair flipping backward as his wings unfurled to their awesome span. Kraus stumbled as winds stirred by the angel’s wings pushed against him.

“I grant you permission, ape,” the angel growled over the pounding clamor caused by the flapping of his wings. “Tell me what you feel in your primitive heart.” His hands touched the scars upon his chest as he spoke. “Tell me if you believe it was the hand of God that touched me in this way!”

“Mercy, my master!” Kraus cried, cowering upon the floor. “I am but a lowly servant. Please do not make me think of such things!”

“I will tell you, Verchiel,” said a voice from across the room.

Verchiel slowly turned his attention to a dark corner of the classroom, where a large cage of iron was hanging from the ceiling, its bars etched with arcane markings. It swayed in the turbulence caused by his anger. The stranger taken from the monastery in the Serbian Mountains peered out from between the iron bars, the expression on his gaunt face intense.

“Do you care to hear what I have to say?” he asked, his voice a dry whisper.

“Ah, our prisoner is awake,” Verchiel said. “I thought the injuries inflicted by my soldiers would have kept you down for far longer than this.”

The prisoner clutched the bars of his cage with dirty hands. “I’ve endured worse,” he said. “Sometimes it is the price one must pay.”

Verchiel’s wings closed, retracting beneath the flesh of his bare back. “Indeed,” the angel snarled.

Kraus still cowered upon the floor, head bowed. “You will leave me now,” Verchiel said, dismissing the human healer. “Take your things and go.”

“Yes, my lord,” the blind man said, gathering up the satchel containing his tools of healing and carefully feeling his way to the exit.

“Why do they do it?” the prisoner asked as he watched the healer depart. “What perverse need is satisfied by the degradation we heap upon them? It’s a question I’ve gone round and round with for years.”

“Perhaps we give their mundane lives purpose,” Verchiel responded, advancing toward the cage. “Providing them with something that was lacking when they lived among their own kind.” Verchiel stopped before the hanging cage and gazed into the eyes of his prisoner. “Or maybe they are just not as intelligent as we think,” he said with perverse amusement.

“And that’s reason enough to exploit and abuse them?” the prisoner asked.

“So be it, if it serves a greater good. They are aiding us in carrying out God’s will. They are serving their Creator—as well as ours. Can you not think of a more fulfilling purpose?”

Still dressed in the tattered brown robes of the Serbian monastery, the prisoner sat down with a smile, leaning back against the bars of the cage. “And you seriously have to wonder what it was that struck you down?” He chuckled, making reference to Verchiel’s scars. “Wouldn’t think you were that dense, but then again…”

Verchiel loomed closer, peering through black iron bars. “Please share with me your thoughts,” he whispered. “I’m eager to hear the perceptions of one such as you—the most renowned of the fallen. Yes, please, what is the Lord God thinking these days?”

The prisoner casually reached within his robes and withdrew the mouse. Gently, he touched the top of its pointed head with the tip of his finger as it crawled about on his open palm. “That I couldn’t tell you, Verchiel,” he said, looking up as the tiny creature scuttled up the front of his robe to his shoulder. “It’s been quite some time since the Creator and I last spoke. But looking at your current condition, I’d have to guess that He’s none too happy with you either.”

And then the prisoner smiled—a smile filled with warmth and love, and so stunningly beautiful. How could he not have once been the most favored of God’s children?

Verchiel felt his rage grow, and it took all the self-control he could muster to not reach into the cage and rend his captive limb from limb. “And I am to believe the likes of you”—the Powers’ leader growled reaching out to clutch the bars of the cage—“the Prince of Lies?”

“Touché,” the prisoner said, as the mouse explored the top of his head. “But remember,” he said with a grin, “I have had some experience in these matters.”