Reckoning

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Time slowed as Verchiel’s blade fell toward him.

For a glorious few moments Lucifer had experienced what it was like to be free of his burden. It had been bliss, and for an instant he considered the possibility of life again without his punishment.

I’ve done more than enough penance, he thought, trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to let God’s chastening of him go. I’m truly sorry for all my sins. He must know that, Lucifer rationalized. Maybe this is how it was supposed to be. Is this how I’m to be freed from the Lord’s wrath?

He looked up now and saw Verchiel above him, armor tarnished, skin covered in tattered, blood-stained bandages and open sores, decaying wings spread wide as he fell toward him, hissing weapon of fire falling toward his face. Is this a messenger from God? Lucifer asked himself. One that the Creator sent to tell me I am forgiven? But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, Lucifer knew the answer.

It was not yet his time for absolution.

Wearily he began to take it back, all the pain, sorrow, anger, and misery spawned by his jealousy. The chore was daunting and excruciating, and the first of the fallen wasn’t sure he had the strength left to finish it. But the human healer, Kraus, had lent him some of his own strength, and Lucifer had managed to complete his task.

Hell churned inside him again. It belonged to him and nobody else. It would be his until the day he was forgiven, or his life was brought to an end.

And not before.

Which brought him back to the here and now. Verchiel’s blade was dangerously close. Lucifer thought of conjuring his own weapon of choice, a fiery trident that could have easily challenged Verchiel’s blade of sorrow. But in his millennia on Earth he had developed an aversion to violence, and it had been so long since he last summoned a weapon from Heaven’s arsenal. The image of the three-pronged weapon began to form in his mind.

He was not as fast as he once was, and he could feel the heat of Verchiel’s blade upon his face as sparks of heavenly fire filled his hands. Hopefully he would not be too slow. It would be sad to have come this far only to die now.

Although he had difficulty with the details, the trident began to take shape and Lucifer raised his arm. The weapon wasn’t quite ready, and he feared that it would not have enough substance to prevent the sword of sorrow from cleaving his skull, but there was no time left. He had to try. He pushed Kraus away, out of harm’s reach, and prepared to meet Verchiel’s attack.

Bringer of Sorrow cut through Lucifer’s weapon as if it were not there, and the first of the fallen readied for the blade’s searing bite. He was sorry that it had come to this, sorry that he hadn’t more time to spend with his son, sorry that he hadn’t been forgiven. Then it stopped less than an inch from his nose, an equally impressive blade of Heaven blocking Verchiel’s strike with a resounding crackle of divine fire.

Lucifer turned to see his son in all his Nephilim glory, wings of raven black, body adorned with the names of those who had sworn allegiance to the Morningstar and died for his cause. He certainly was a sight to behold.

“Thank you,” Lucifer said with a sigh of relief.

“De nada,” Aaron replied before turning his full attention to the Powers commander.

“Let’s finish this,” the Nephilim said impatiently, and the angel Verchiel appeared eager to oblige.

Blades still touching, opposing forces sputtering and sparking angrily, Aaron placed himself between Verchiel and Lucifer Morningstar. It was his turn now.

He remembered the first time he had seen the angelic creature that would unmercifully steal away so much that was important to him, immaculately dressed in his dark suit and trench coat, gliding into his foster parents’ house on Baker Street as if he belonged there. He actually believed that what he was doing was right, Aaron thought bitterly. Killing his parents, burning down their home, and kidnapping his little brother. Oh yes, that was exactly what God wanted, for sure.

The sight before Aaron now was nothing short of pathetic—filthy, blood-covered, and ragged—but no less dangerous. He thought of asking the creature to give up, providing him with a chance to put away his sword and stop the inevitable, but he knew it wouldn’t happen.

“So, we going to do this?” Aaron asked, his steely gaze unwavering.

Verchiel spat upon the floor, a thick, bloody phlegm that, by the sound of it, was filled with teeth. “Oh yessss,” he hissed as he wiped his mouth with the back of a bandaged hand, and attacked.

Aaron parried his assault and followed through with one of his own, driving the last of the Powers away from the still recovering Morningstar. It’s like fighting a wild animal, he thought, the angel growling and spitting with each opposing move as they hacked and slashed at each other across the gymnasium floor.

Aaron’s back struck up against the cool concrete wall and he managed to duck as Verchiel’s blade cut across its surface, leaving a deep, smoldering furrow in the building stone. The angel moved in to strike again and the boy saw his opportunity, a memory of countless fights while growing up. Using his wings, he propelled himself forward and slammed his fist into the face of his foe. It was like hitting melting ice, wet, on the verge of yielding, but not yet ready to crumble. Verchiel flipped backward, wings flapping wildly as he landed on the floor.

Certain that at least two of his knuckles had been broken, Aaron shook the pain from his hand. “That was for Doctor Jonas,” he said, remembering his psychiatrist, the first victim of the Powers’ hunt for him.

Verchiel’s face was a bloody mess, a combination of blood and teeth oozing from his swollen mouth as he rolled to his knees, beginning to rise. Anger flared in Aaron and he surged toward the angel again, preparing to deliver a powerful kick to his side.

The Powers commander caught his leg, twisting it savagely to one side, and Aaron fell to the floor. The angel scrambled across the floor toward him, a horrific, blood-stained sight, the insane jagged grin of a jack-o’-lantern on his once pristine features.

The Nephilim lashed out with the heel of his shoe, connecting with the side of the angel’s face. It did little to slow him down as he scrabbled atop Aaron, wings flapping, long, spidery fingers winding about his throat and beginning to squeeze.

“I’ve longed for this moment, monster,” Verchiel gurgled, bloody saliva dripping from his injured mouth and running down Aaron’s face. “To kill you with my bare hands, to watch the accursed life leave your eyes.”

Vibrant blossoms of color exploded before Aaron’s eyes as the angel’s viselike grip grew tighter. Instinctively a weapon of fire began to form in his hand, but he couldn’t concentrate, the images in his head a jumbled mess. Darkness began to creep in around the edges of his vision. He thought of a knife, a simple thing made for only one purpose.

With failing strength he drove the blade into Verchiel’s side. The tip of the knife deflected off the angel’s armored chest plate, sparks of fire exploding between them, but it was enough to distract his foe, and his grip loosened. Aaron managed to pull a knee up beneath his attacker, and with the last of his reserves, he flipped Verchiel over and behind him. He flexed his wings and sprung up from the floor, whirling around as the burning knife grew into a sword of fire.

Verchiel was already up on his feet, charging, Bringer of Sorrow held aloft in both hands. “The prophecy dies with you, Nephilim!” he screamed as he brought the blade down upon Aaron. “I can be satisfied with that victory alone.”

The force of the blow was devastating, driving Aaron to his knees as he blocked the blazing sword’s descent. “Hate to disappoint you,” he snarled as he leaped to his feet, pushing Verchiel away with his sword, “but the only victory today is for the fallen angels, when I put you down once and for all.” He could feel the strength of the angel warriors whose names adorned his flesh surge through his body. Never had he felt so sure of anything as he did at that moment, perfectly attuned to what he was and what he was supposed to do.

Verchiel attacked again, his sword of heavenly fire dropping again and again as it attempted to cut him down, but his blade did not—could not—touch the Nephilim. It was as if Aaron was anticipating the Powers commander’s every move, countering each parry with one of his own. Verchiel’s attacks became more wild, more frenzied, but still the Nephilim did not fall.

His patience waning, Aaron finally lashed out on his own, swatting Verchiel’s weapon from his hand. The angel snarled, summoning yet another instrument of death, but Aaron responded in a similar fashion, disarming the angel commander with perverse ease.

“It’s done,” he said, his voice filled with confidence.

Suddenly the angel warrior seemed to wilt before his eyes, as if the fight had finally been stolen from him. Verchiel dropped to one knee, his head bowed.

“Do it,” he spat, refusing to look at the Nephilim.

Aaron clutched the hilt of his own blade all the tighter, feeling the heat of his weapon course through his arm. The warrior’s essence housed inside him screamed in rage. Here was his enemy kneeling before him in supplication, an enemy that had taken away so much, and still he stayed his hand. If he were to strike at Verchiel now, it would be no better than murder.

Verchiel raised his swollen, blood-covered face to fix him in the most horrible stare. “Kill me now,” he demanded.

Though Aaron wanted to raise his blade and cut the monster’s head in two, he restrained himself. “I may be an abomination in your eyes,” he said, “but I am not a murderer.”

Verchiel moved like lightning, surging up from the ground, a knife of fire in his grasp.

“Mercy from my most hated foe,” he hissed serpentlike, lashing out at Aaron’s exposed throat. “It would have hurt me less if you had taken my head from my shoulders.”

Aaron blocked with his hand, the knife slicing through his palm rather than his throat. He jumped away from the enraged angel.

Verchiel swayed upon his feet, knife of fire still clutched in his hand, but he did not attack again. “This is far from over.” He spread his wings and soared toward the open skylight. “Perhaps another time,” he called as he escaped into the night with the flapping of mighty wings and a snowfall of molted feathers.

Aaron knew what he had to do.

“Be careful,” he heard a voice say from across the gym, and he saw that his father was watching. The human healer knelt by his side and was stitching closed the vertical wound in his chest with a rather large needle and what looked to be thread spun from gold. “We’ve got quite a bit to discuss when this is all over,” Lucifer said.

Aaron nodded as he spread his wings for flight. “We certainly do.” Then he soared through the hole in the ceiling, in pursuit of the angel Verchiel.

The night air was cool upon his skin, a kind of balm to his injured hand, and it reinvigorated his senses, clearing his head as his eyes perused the evening sky in search of his prey.

He can’t have gone far, Aaron mused. Wouldn’t have gone far. Verchiel must know that I will chase him. He doubted that the Powers leader would pass up the opportunity to take him out once and for all. It didn’t look as though the angel would be alive for much longer. This had to be Verchiel’s last chance to ruin it all, to stop the prophecy from becoming reality.

Aaron heard them first, the hungry crackle of heavenly fire as it cut its way through the air. He dove to the side as four daggers of flame passed harmlessly through the spot he had been hovering mere seconds before. But a fifth had been thrown in anticipation of his reaction. The fiery blade penetrated his upper thigh with a bubbling hiss, burning through his pants, plunging beneath the flesh to the very bone. It was as if someone had poured molten lava inside the wound. Aaron cried out, gripping his injured leg, attempting to stay aloft.

Then, like something out of the worst of nightmares, Verchiel dropped from the sky. The angel actually appeared to be in even worse shape, flesh in various stages of decay, wounds ripe with infection. Even as they hovered in the open night sky, Aaron could smell the nauseating scent of rot. It was as if all the evil and insanity that had shaped this once heavenly creature into what he was today was bubbling to the surface, showing the world his true face.

They fought, their powerful wings pounding the air unmercifully. It was hard to focus above the pain in his leg, and Aaron’s endurance was rapidly waning. The bitter conflict had to end soon. A sword of fire flashed in Verchiel’s grasp and Aaron lashed out, kicking savagely at the angel’s wrist and making him drop it, but another was already forming to take its place. Aaron kicked again, this time with his wounded leg, and explosions of jagged agony sliced through his body.

Verchiel seemed to sense the Nephilim’s dwindling fortitude. Aaron could see it in his red-rimmed eyes as yet another sword of fire appeared in his hand. “You will know your better!” the angel screamed, flecks of blood flying from his mouth as he soared across the short distance of sky, sword arcing downward toward the Nephilim.

Aaron wasn’t sure why he thought of it then or why he hadn’t thought of it before, but the inspiration came to him suddenly, fully formed, and a weapon the likes of which he had never wielded before burst to existence in his hand. It was a gun, much larger than Lehash’s pistols, the barrel long and thick. It had none of the delicate beauty of the gunslinger’s twin weapons, reminding Aaron more of the guns he’d seen in some of his foster father’s Friday night action movies, something that would have been used by Arnold, or maybe even Clint. Something used to take the bad guys down once and for all.

Aaron almost found the change of expression on Verchiel’s twisted features comical as he raised the fearsome weapon forged from his imagination and heavenly fire. Almost. If only the whole situation hadn’t been so damn sad.

He pulled the trigger, and a sound like what he would have imagined from the Big Bang erupted from the weapon. A tongue of fire at least a foot in length lapped eagerly at the air as the force of the blast tossed Verchiel back. He began to spiral down toward the church below, a tail of smoke trailing from a grievous hole in his shoulder. The once fearsome angel crashed through the large, circular, stained-glass window at the front of the Saint Athanasius Church.

Still clutching the hand-cannon forged from his imagination, Aaron followed, cautiously entering the church through the broken window ringed with jagged teeth of multicolored glass. It was dark inside, the only light thrown from the stars and the half-moon above.

As Aaron touched down upon the altar, he checked the landscape. Most of the church’s religious trappings had been removed. Rows of benchlike seats were spread out before him, and a bloody trail ran up the center aisle to end with Verchiel as he crawled laboriously toward the front doors and escape. Aaron allowed his wings to catch the air and glided down the aisle, favoring his injured leg, the powerful weapon still at his side.

Verchiel sensed his presence, halting his progress and slowly rolling onto his back. The angel’s breath rattled wetly in his lungs. Shards of stained glass clung to the sticky surface of his gore-covered body. Aaron gazed into the darkness of the circular wound that had been blown into his right shoulder and imagined that he was gazing into the angel’s soul. It was as he suspected: nothing there but a yawning blackness.

“What are you waiting for?” Verchiel gasped through his swollen and bloody mouth. “This is your chance to destroy the one that wished with all his heart to see you wiped from existence.”

Aaron raised his weapon, sighting down the barrel, taking aim at the one that had caused him so much grief. He was repulsed by this creature lying on the floor before him, the furthest thing from a being of Heaven he could possibly imagine.

Verchiel chuckled, bubbles of blood forming at the corners of his mouth. “I would have purged the world of your taint,” he taunted. “Burned the ground you walked upon with heavenly fire.”

But Aaron also felt something else: a certain pity for the being that had once been a soldier of God, then became so twisted and poisoned by his hatred and his inability to forgive that it had turned him into a monster.

“There would have been no one to mourn your passing,” Verchiel continued, shaking his head from side to side, “for I would have slain them as well.”

Aaron knew that angel was trying to goad him into action, and he decided he would not play the game. He lowered the weapon, allowing it to disintegrate in a flash.

Verchiel’s face twisted in confusion. “What are you doing?” he asked, a quivering rage evident in his question. “I’m prepared to die now. Kill me.”

Aaron shook his head slowly, a now familiar sensation beginning to build in the center of his chest. It was the beckoning of a higher power to release those imprisoned within cages of fragile flesh—to allow them the opportunity to stand before their Lord God and beg for absolution. It was the power that defined him as the savior of prophecy, and it coursed up from his center and down the length of his arms, emanating from his outstretched hands.

“Kill me,” the angel demanded again, struggling to rise to his feet.

And though it pained him greatly, Aaron knew exactly what he was supposed to do with Verchiel. He had to let go of his anger, of his hate for the pathetic monster that had caused him and the ones he loved so much hurt. And he was better for it, experiencing the true meaning of his God-given gift.

“It’s not my place to judge you,” he said, his voice calm, showing not a trace of anger.

Verchiel’s black, soulless eyes bulged as Aaron reached out to him. Suddenly the angel knew what was about to happen. He wasn’t going to be slain by his most hated enemy.

This was a fate far more horrible than that, and he tried to flee.

Aaron reached out, taking hold of Verchiel’s head in his hands, and let the power of forgiveness flow through him and into the leader of the Powers host.

“I forgive you,” he whispered as the Powers commander struggled to be free of his hold. “But will He?”

Verchiel shrieked in fear, his sword, Bringer of Sorrow, appearing his hand. He attempted to lash out at Aaron but didn’t seem able to control the fire. The sword lost its shape, the flame instead flowing down to consume his arm, eating away the wounded flesh and continuing on.

Verchiel thrashed in the Nephilim’s grasp, trying with all his might to escape, but the fires of Heaven hungrily devoured his shell of flesh, leaving behind a being of muted light, one that did not shine like the others Aaron had set free. This one was different.

Aaron released the creature and stepped away from the angel in its purest form. Verchiel knelt upon the floor of the church, quivering as if cold, but Aaron suspected it was fear that brought this reaction. The frightened creature raised its head, gazing up at the ceiling, seeing far more than the images of Heaven’s glory painted there.

“It was all for you,” Verchiel muttered in the tongue of the messengers. The glow of his body began to intensify, and soon he was enveloped in a sphere of solid, white light, as if a star had somehow fallen from the sky to lie upon the floor of the church.

Aaron shielded his eyes with his wings, saving his sight from the searing intensity of the light. “I am so sorry” were the last words he heard uttered by the terrified Verchiel as he was taken in a flash.

Taken up to Heaven to face the judgement of God.