Armageddon (16 page)

Satan squirmed in his seat. “I’m very quickly running out of patience,” he said petulantly.

Sensing the potential for danger, the insectoid pulled his arm from the general’s clutches and continued to weave his spell. The magick user’s voice buzzed like flies upon a rotting corpse as it danced about on its spindly legs. Then it darted forward to scrawl symbols of power on the bottom half of the tautly stretched skin of innocents.

Dark magicks were at work here.

“Enough,” Satan Darkstar proclaimed, rising up from his chair. “I am finished here.”

He was about to leave the room when the screen of skin began to undulate.

Almost as if it were alive.

It was enough to capture Satan’s interest, but only for a moment.

“Here, my master!” General Skeksis pointed a stubby, clawed finger at the screen as images began to gradually appear. “This
is what has been done in your name.”

Satan watched scenes of battle: armies of demons, trolls, goblins, and a myriad of other beasts of damnation, battling the human populace.

From the looks of it, the humans never had a chance.

Satan watched with moderate interest as cities across the globe fell into ruin, their armies crushed by legions of beasts.

He was then shown scenes of fearful, desperate humans being rounded up like cattle to be slaughtered.

“Does He see this?” Satan asked.

“Does who see, sir?” Scox asked. “The general? I’m sure the general sees just fine.”

“The Lord God,” Satan roared. “The Lightbringer—does He see what I am doing to those who believe, worship, and pray to Him?”

The images of slaughter continued to play upon the skin of innocence.

At one time, this was all that the Darkstar had hoped for. All those millennia, when he had hidden himself away in the shadows, waiting for a time when he might strike—at last, that time had come.

But with it came the realization that it was not enough. That he was unsatisfied.

All the darkness, all the innocent blood, did little to quench the Darkstar’s thirst for revenge.

He did not want only the earth, but Heaven as well, and
all that it contained. He would not be satisfied until he had it.

“Bring me the Sisters,” Satan Darkstar announced, eyes still focused upon humanity’s demise. They would know how to guide him to make his dreams a reality.

“Bring me the Sisters of Umbra.”

C
ameron remembered Janice as having been a nice kid; quiet, usually dressed all in black, and hair dyed bright colors. Some of the others had said that they believed she had a bit of a crush on him, but he’d never seen it.

And then she’d died.

He really hadn’t thought much about her since she’d been speared by a troll in Russia while attempting to rescue some miners trapped in a tunnel collapse.

He certainly never expected to see her again. And certainly not like this.

Janice spread her arms and opened her batlike wings wide. “What do you think?” she asked. “Pretty bitchin’, right?”

Cameron tensed. His every instinct screamed that he was in danger. But this was Janice—one of his own kind.

At least she used to be.

“I thought . . . ,” he started, not liking the fear in his voice.

“You thought what?” Janice urged. She started toward him, stepping over the bodies of the shape-shifters she had murdered. “That I was dead?”

Cameron gripped his blade of divine flame as she came closer.

“You’re right, I was,” she continued. “But now I’m back, good as new.”

She stopped and lifted her arms again to show him. “See? No holes.”

Janice laughed. It was a cold sound, lacking any humor.

“How?” Cameron was intrigued, even though he knew that her being here with him, talking to him, was wrong.

“He came for me. The Darkstar pulled me from the darkness.”

“The Darkstar,” Cameron repeated.

His former comrade nodded vigorously. “He isn’t our enemy, Cam. I was so afraid while I was dead,” she explained. “I was all alone. Heaven never came. There was nothing, Cam—just a sad, cold oblivion.”

She started toward him again.

“Stop,” he warned, directing the point of his blade at her.

Janice smiled, continuing her advance.

“The Darkstar pulled me from the void and gave me a purpose. He showed me how wrong we’d been to serve the
light, to serve an Almighty who would cast us aside once we’d completed our service.”

Cameron slashed his blade of flame across the ground in front of his one-time friend, creating a line of divine fire between them.

Janice was repelled by the flames, rearing back with an animal-like hiss. The armored collar about her neck turned liquid and flowed up over her face as if to protect it.

“I’d hoped to convince you,” Janice said, her voice strangely muffled by the helmet of shadow. “I wanted you to join me—to join the others.”

Her words chilled him to the bone. Others?

He thought of the other Nephilim who had died, and imagined them clad in black armor, sporting wings of shadow.

“You’ve done this to the others?” Cameron asked, feeling a spike of nausea, as well as anger.

“I’ve done nothing but accept the gift offered to me,” Janice said simply. “As have the other Nephilim who fell in battle.”

Cameron seethed. “Out of respect for you—for what you once were—I’m asking you to leave.”

“Or what?” Janice challenged.

“Or one of us will be dying again.”

Janice extended her arms to either side of her body, as claws of darkness grew from the tips of her gauntleted hands. “I’d hoped you would understand,” she said, flexing her fingers.

Cameron didn’t even see her move, the attack was so swift. One second she was standing a foot away, the next . . .

Barely evading her grasp, Cameron threw himself to one side, watching as Janice’s claws sliced through the bark on a nearby tree. She lunged, slashing at him again. He leaped into the air, but she anticipated his action, using her own batlike wings to leap as he did.

Cameron spun, landing in a crouch.

Then he felt it, an icy, tingling sensation in his midsection.

“First blood,” Janice purred, bringing one of her hands to her face, as she squatted before him. The darkness of her helmet melted away to reveal her pale mouth, and she licked his blood from her claws. “What’s that I taste?” she asked, smacking her lips loudly. “Is that fear?”

A chill raced up and down Cameron’s spine as he tried to focus. The pain from his stomach was intensifying, and he could feel the warmth spreading down the front of his body.

It was his turn to bring her fear.

Cameron launched himself with a roar, flapping his powerful wings with such force that he was upon her in an instant. The force of their collision sent them hurtling backward, the two of them digging a small trench in the forest floor before hitting the base of an ancient pine tree.

Temporarily stunned, Cameron shook it off, bringing the pommel of his divine weapon down upon the armored face of his foe.

Janice cried out, struggling beneath his weight. But Cameron ignored her cries, relentlessly bringing down the end of his weapon again and again.

The Nephilim aspect of his nature knew his foe should be slain quickly, efficiently, for that was what was done with one’s enemies.

But this was different, he rationalized. This was someone who had once been a friend. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to deliver that final, decisive strike.

“Please,” Janice begged, her wide, scared eyes looking up at him as he readied another blow.

Cameron hesitated.

It was all the time she needed.

A twisted smile appeared on Janice’s pale, dead features. Before Cameron could react, she squirmed out from beneath him, slithered around his body, and crushed his mighty wings to his back, rendering him flightless.

Cameron tried to shake her off, spinning around and slamming her against a nearby tree.

Janice grunted with the impact, then began to laugh.

“You know, there was still a part of me that sorta died when you didn’t surrender,” she whispered in his ear. “That same part would have given just about anything to be this close to you.”

Cameron felt something cold and wet tickle his ear.
Janice’s tongue. A numbness crept into his legs, and he found it difficult to remain standing.

And still her grip intensified. She was crushing him.

Gathering up what strength he had left, Cameron attempted to ram himself against the tree, but one of his feet became entangled in a root, and he crashed to the forest floor.

Cameron lay on his back, looking up into the face of one he had once called friend, and instantly thought of the others, and how he was going to let them down.

Janice studied him with eyes as black as pitch.

“I want to remember you like this,” she said as she raised her claws to strike. “Helpless before me. Helpless before the blessed power of the Darkstar.”

*   *   *

Tarshish pulled the front of his jacket tighter about him, cowering in the frigid winds of the Himalayas.

“Can you feel that?” the last of the Malakim asked.

Mallus tilted his head back and closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses. “I feel something. Is it the shell?”

Tarshish looked older now, frailer. The more he used his power, the more it damaged his body.

“Not necessarily the shell,” Tarshish said. “But the residual horror of what we did.” He looked at Mallus, shame in his gaze. “Our actions were so contemptible that it left a permanent impression. A kind of stain.”

Mallus tried to pick up more of what Tarshish was feeling.
“I’m sensing something, but I’d never have guessed . . .”

“Maybe I just feel worse about it than you,” the Malakim said. “Maybe I’m more sensitive to the fact that we murdered an extension of the Lord God.”

“I feel pretty bad about that too,” Mallus insisted.

Tarshish stepped away and spread out his arms. “The shell is somewhere around here. Just imagine what a few millennia of seismic activity does—all that shifting rock and accumulating ice.”

“If it’s here, it’s buried deep,” Mallus agreed.

The Malakim dropped to his knees in the snow. “Taken within the embrace of the mountain range, that which was divine hidden from lowly eyes.”

“What are you doing?” Mallus asked him.

“Gonna make us a passage.”

“How are you going to—”

There was a searing flash, followed by an intense explosion. Mallus hurtled through the air, carried by a shock wave.

His fall was cushioned by several feet of snow, but his body smoldered, burned by the intensity of the heat thrown by the blast. He lay there for a moment, dazed, then carefully sat up to see that the ice- and snow-covered landscape they’d just been standing on had been cleared. The ground steamed, and a yawning hole gaped before him.

“Tarshish!” Mallus called out.

“Here,” answered a voice from inside the hole.

Mallus trudged toward the pit, stopped at its edge, and cautiously peered down. “Where are you?” he asked, waving away clouds of steam rising up from below.

“I think I might need some help,” a weakened voice announced.

Mallus zeroed in on the voice and found Tarshish. He appeared even older, and more frail, than he had moments before. His clothes had burned away to reveal a nearly skeletal physique.

“What have you done?” Mallus asked, carefully descending to help.

“What was necessary,” Tarshish replied, allowing Mallus to assist him to stand.

“So I’m guessing we’re supposed to follow this path you’ve made.”

“It would be a waste not to,” Tarshish answered.

Mallus felt a shiver pass through Tarshish’s body as he helped him along the circular stone passage that receded into the ground.

“Are you cold?”

“Quite,” Tarshish said, his sunken eyes locked on the curving passage before them. “Can you feel it now?”

It took a moment, but Mallus did. “Yeah,” he acknowledged, nearly overwhelmed by the waves of despair that wafted over him.

“It feels pretty awful, doesn’t it?” Tarshish noted.

“It does.”

“Think it’s time to lay these ghosts to rest,” Tarshish the Malakim said.

“I think you’re right,” Mallus agreed, firming his grip on his companion’s frail body and continuing down the passage, deeper and deeper into the womb of the earth.

*   *   *

Gabriel and Dusty appeared on the darkened street in a flash of divine fire and a rush of air.

Tilting his head back to sniff, Gabriel made sure there were no imminent threats in the area.

Confident that they were safe, he turned to Dusty, only to find that his companion was gone.

“Dusty?” the Labrador barked.

He caught movement in a nearby storefront and padded toward it just in time to meet Dusty emerging, wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants and pulling an equally large, hooded sweatshirt over his head. Gabriel hadn’t realized until then, because dogs seldom thought of such things, that Dusty had been practically naked, his clothes shredded when the Abomination’s sword had exploded.

“I was starting to get a little cold,” Dusty said.

“Sometimes it pays to have a double coat of fur,” Gabriel said. “Why did we come here?”

Dusty wandered off a bit, then paused, as if to get his bearings. “We need to go down here,” he said, heading down
the sidewalk.

Gabriel followed at his heels. “Is this how it’s going to be?” the dog asked. “I follow you around, without knowing why?”

“It’s complicated,” Dusty said, his voice trailing off.

“I think I can handle complicated,” Gabriel said, as his friend came to a stop. “What’s wrong?”

“Hurry up or she won’t be on time,” Dusty ordered, ignoring the Labrador’s question and walking faster.

“Who won’t be on time?” the dog whined.

Dusty came to an awkward stop in front of what looked to be an old bookstore, its window shattered. “In here.” He climbed through the broken window, careful to avoid the shards of glass that protruded like sharks’ teeth from its frame.