Reckoning

PROLOGUE

Maybe it’s time to move on, the Malakim Peliel considered as he perched atop Mount Kilimanjaro, nineteen thousand feet above the arid African plains of Tanzania.

The angelic being could count on one hand the number of times he’d had this thought in his two-millennia stay upon the dormant volcanic mountain. But always something distracted him from these musings. The coming of so-called civilization as villages turned to cities, seeming to grow up from the earth to replace the primordial jungles. The vast springtime migrations of wildebeests, zebras, antelopes, gazelles, and lions as they made their way across the Serengeti’s southern plains to greener pastures in nearby Kenya. There is so much to see here, he reminded himself. So much to feel, to hear, to smell. And wasn’t that his purpose—the purpose of being Malakim? He and his brethren around the globe acted as God’s senses, enabling the Supreme Being to experience the wonders of the world He created.

However, today was different. Something in the thin, frigid air of Kilimanjaro was telling him—warning him—that perhaps it would be wise to seek another roost.

Slowly, Peliel flexed millennial stiffness from his wings. The collected layers of dirt and ice that had clung to his stationary form over the thousands of years fell away to reveal a creature of Heaven in what had appeared to be just another natural formation dappling the frozen landscape.

“There you are,” said a voice even colder than the winds blowing across the mountaintop.

The Malakim gracefully turned, finding himself in the presence of another of God’s heavenly children. This one was dressed in human garb, accompanied by twenty of his ilk, and seemed to be the source of Peliel’s unease. “What host are you?” Peliel asked, casually brushing dirt from his intricate armor.

“I am Verchiel,” the intruder answered, bowing slightly, “of the heavenly host Powers.”

Peliel studied the beings before him, taking note of the multitude of angry scars that adorned the exposed flesh of their bodies. This angelic army had been in battle against a foe that also wielded the power of the divine; there was no other way to explain the marks of conflict they carried. What has transpired while my attentions were elsewhere? the Malakim wondered.

“Ah yes, the hunters of the fallen,” Peliel commented aloud, the wind howling about him as if in warning. “You have been searching for me, Verchiel of the Powers?” To his own ears, his voice was gruff from millennia of non-use, like the grinding of tectonic plates within the earth’s crust. “And why would that be?”

It pleased him to speak again, and his mind wandered back to the last time he had used his voice to communicate. Many centuries past, a jungle cat, a leopard, had inexplicably climbed close to the western summit of the great mountain. Curious of the creature’s intent, Peliel had appeared before the animal. It was dying, the frigid climate of Kilimanjaro’s winter season sapping the warmth from its lithe, spotted body, and in the language of its species, the Malakim had asked it why it had come to such an inhospitable place. As it lay down in the snow to die, the leopard had responded that it had been drawn up the mountain, tempted by the desire to bear witness to something greater than itself—lured by the powerful emanations of the Malakim. Peliel smiled, wondering if this was the reason these Powers had come, drawn by a sense of his omnipotence.

“I am in need of something you have in your possession,” Verchiel interrupted the Malakim’s musings.

Peliel chuckled, amused by this angel’s arrogance. “And what could I have that would possibly interest you, little messenger?”

“You and the others of your kind are direct conduits to God,” Verchiel explained. “Extensions of His holy power—receptacles for His wisdom and knowledge.”

Peliel crossed his arms across his broad chest, silently urging the angel to continue with a nod of his head.

“I require information concerning the deconstruction of God’s Word … and I shall have it no matter the cost,” Verchiel proclaimed.

Peliel’s ire was rankled by the presumption. How dare this angel think himself worthy to make demands of a Malakim? “Tread carefully, Verchiel,” the Malakim growled, “for it is within my might to see you punished for your conceit.” He unfurled his great wings of gunmetal gray, the very air around him crackling with restrained supernatural energies.

“I’m sorry to say there is little you can subject me to, holy Malakim, that is any worse than what I have already endured,” Verchiel replied, a vicious sneer appearing upon his pale, burn-mottled features. “Give me what I ask for and I shall leave you to your observation of this … fascinating continent.” Malice dripped from his disrespectful words as he chanced a casual glance over the African horizon.

There is a dangerous hate in this one, the Malakim observed, and again wondered what could have transpired while his attentions were focused elsewhere. He had no choice but to put this imperious angel, and those who followed him, in their respective places. This reckless arrogance could not be allowed to continue unchecked.

“Insolent pup!” Peliel bellowed, his voice rumbling across the mountain like the roar of an avalanche. He reached up into the icy blue sky to draw from the heavens a weapon of crackling energy, a sword of divine might. And he slammed his weapon down upon the mountain-top. The ground heaved and split where it was struck, a fissure in Kilimanjaro’s rocky flesh zigzagging haphazardly toward the Powers angels as the ground beneath their feet shook.

“Rail all you like, keeper of His Word,” Verchiel said, taking flight, his powerful wings lifting him from the tremulous earth. “It will change nothing.” And then he raised his hand and brought it down in a silent command to those who served him.

The angels of the Powers host surged toward the Malakim, screams of violence pouring from their open maws, weapons of flame materializing in their grasps.

Peliel responded in kind, his own weapon forged from the might of the storm, incinerating the first of the attacking heavenly warriors. They were no match for him, but still they came, one after another, unto their deaths. As the last of them cried out in failure and the ashes of their bodies drifted across the frozen mountaintop, Peliel turned to face their master.

Verchiel stood unmoving, his hands clasped behind his back. There was not the slightest hint of remorse for the fate of those who obeyed his command.

“You knew that they hadn’t a chance against me,” the Malakim seethed, the lightning sword humming and flashing in his grip, eager to strike again.

The leader of the army so callously sent to their fates nodded in agreement.

“But still you ordered them to attack. Why? Is it your wish to die, Verchiel of the Powers host? Do you attempt to save face by being vanquished by one greater than you?”

The angel smiled, and in that instant Peliel of the Malakim was certain that the disease of madness had indeed infected this creature of Heaven. It was a smile that told him the angel was beyond caring, beyond fear of reprisal. And for the briefest of instants, the emissary of God feared the lowly messenger.

“What has happened to make you this way?” Peliel asked.

Verchiel’s body grew straight and rigid. “I am what He has made me,” the Powers leader growled. “The deaths of those in my charge have served a purpose.” His eyes of solid black twinkled with the taint of insanity and he opened his wings as if to punctuate his mad statement. “A distraction was required.”

Peliel sensed the presence of the Archons before their attack upon him, attuned as he was to the delicate thrum of angelic magicks—magicks that were taught by the Malakim. He turned to face the threat as a doorway into a place that reeked of death and decay closed behind them. There were only five Archons when there should have been seven, another sign that things were amiss. The Malakim began to ask his students what had befallen the world of God’s man while he was preoccupied, but the words did not have a chance to leave his mouth.

Peliel knew the spells that flowed from their mouths, powerful magicks meant to immobilize prey of great strength, and he was preparing to counter their attack when he was viciously struck from behind. The ferocious heat of Verchiel’s sword had melted through the metal of his armor and punctured the angelic flesh beneath. The Malakim whirled to confront the source of this latest affront as the last words of the Powers commander became frighteningly obvious.

“A distraction was required.”

Verchiel had already leaped away and Peliel felt the spells of the Archons take hold. It was too late. He had missed his opportunity to fight back. The magick entered his body, worming its way beneath his flesh, into his muscles and bones, freezing him solid like the cold, rugged terrain on which he had dwelled these last two thousand years. His students had learned well the might of angel sorcery, and they encircled his immobilized form, gently lowering him to the icy ground as the winds swirled feverishly around them.

Peliel could feel nothing but was fully aware of all that transpired about him. Four of the Archons loomed above, muttering the incantations that kept him incapacitated. From inside his robes, the fifth of the magick users—whose eyes, Peliel noticed, had been removed from his skull—produced a tool, a knife that shimmered and glowed seductively. Its blade was curved and serrated, and the Malakim was certain that its bite would be fierce indeed.

The blind Archon plunged the blade down into Peliel’s forehead with such force that his skull split wide. The world began to grow dim, and as the veil of unconsciousness drifted across his eyes, Peliel saw that Verchiel had taken his place beside his purveyors of angel magick.

“Do you see it?” he was asking over the droning repetition of the Archons’ spell, a breathless impatience in his voice.

“It is there,” said the magick user with a tilt of his hooded head, the vacant caverns of his eye sockets filled with swirling pools of bottomless darkness.

“Then get it for me,” Verchiel demanded with a fervent hiss.

And with trembling fingers, the blind Archon reached inside the Malakim’s skull to take the prize his master so desperately sought.