Armageddon (17 page)

“Who won’t be on time?” Gabriel repeated, grumbling. He leaped through the window without waiting for an answer, knowing that one was not likely to come.

He found Dusty at the back of the store, standing, head tilted to the side.

“We’re good,” Dusty said. “She should be along in just a minute.”

“I’m going to give you a good bite if you don’t tell me who—”

Gabriel heard movement at the front of the store and immediately went on full alert. Someone, or something, had followed them in and was making its way to where they stood.

“Get behind me,” Gabriel commanded, his voice dropping
to a threatening growl.

“There’s no need for that,” Dusty said. “And even if there were . . .”

Gabriel couldn’t believe his eyes as a familiar shape stepped into view.

“Right on time,” Dusty said with a chuckle.

*   *   *

Melissa thought she saw the things from her nightmare around every corner, and found herself jumping at shadows.

She’d left the relative safety of Brideview Elementary’s bomb shelter, driven by an overwhelming sense that if she stayed, something horrible was going to happen to her and anybody who happened to be near her.

Melissa couldn’t bear to think of innocents being hurt because of her.

She stuck close to the shadows as she walked, the image of a sword poised on the periphery of her mind in case she needed to defend herself.

But for now, the activity on the street was unusually calm, which was perfectly fine with her. As good as she was at killing monsters, she didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances.

The thought caused an odd sensation in the depths of her chest, a burning, churning feeling that she’d grown to relate with her angelic nature. As a Nephilim, she thrived on killing monsters.

As she passed the burned facade of her favorite used
bookstore, Melissa stopped. She stepped up into the store through its broken window. Memories of the time she’d spent here, before she’d realized what she was and what she had to do, danced about her mind. She couldn’t help but smile.

This was where she’d bought her favorite book of all time: Madeleine L’Engle’s
A Wrinkle in Time
. She so wanted to be Meg Murry. Melissa remembered being swept up into the fantasy of the novel, wishing that it was all real, never realizing what her own future held.

She wandered into the area that had been reserved for story time and froze.

Something was wrong.

Something was there. . . .

Without a moment’s hesitation, a sword of fire appeared in her hand. She was ready.

*   *   *

“Melissa!” Gabriel barked, but she didn’t even look in his direction. Instead, Melissa turned to an open area at the back of the store. He was about to follow when he felt Dusty’s hand touch his head, and a warm tingle spread through his back.

“She doesn’t see us, does she?” Gabriel asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

“It complicates things,” Dusty said.

He left Gabriel, moving toward the girl. Dusty was no more than a foot away when Gabriel saw Melissa tense,
spinning toward him, burning sword at the ready.

“Whoa!” Dusty said, stepping back a few steps. “She really is a sensitive one.”

Melissa eyed every corner for a threat.

“What are you going to do?” Gabriel asked.

“I need to send her on her way or it’s going to be too late.”

“Should I even bother asking?”

Gabriel watched as Dusty carefully moved closer to the girl and rubbed his hands together vigorously. The Labrador was even more confused than ever. Then Dusty held his hand out toward the girl and gently blew on his palm into Melissa’s face.

“Tiny particles of the sword,” Dusty explained, stepping back to where Gabriel waited. “They should take effect right about—”

Melissa felt as though she’d been shocked. Staccato images exploded inside her head.

Feeling dizzy, she dropped down to one knee, her weapon still at the ready, just in case.

It took her a moment, but then she was able to process the vision. She saw Cameron in the woods. He was fighting one of those things from her nightmare.

And he didn’t look as though he was winning.

Melissa reacted before she could even consider what she was doing. Her wings erupted from her back and wrapped her in their feathery embrace, to transport her to Cameron’s side.

*   *   *

Dusty smiled. “That should do it,” he said, turning to leave the store.

“Where did she go?” the Labrador asked, following at his heels.

“Where she was needed most,” Dusty replied.

“Which was?” Gabriel prompted, the annoyance in his canine voice reaching new levels.

Dusty stopped, blinked his cataract-covered eyes, and then started through the broken window out onto the street. He viewed so many possibilities in his mind, but now, one path seemed more defined than the others.

“Melissa is helping Cameron with the dark angel,” he said. He stopped, pointing at the dog just as he was about to leap.

“Be careful,” Dusty warned. “There’s a piece of glass beneath your left hind paw. If it slices the pad, you could get a nasty infection. We wouldn’t want that.”

Gabriel considered the floor beneath his paws and changed his position before springing to join Dusty on the sidewalk.

“Excellent!” Dusty smiled, the possibility of infection fading from his mind. Fading from the future.

“So Melissa has gone to help Cameron?” the dog said.

“She has,” Dusty said patiently. He hoped that Gabriel would eventually understand the enormity of Dusty’s gift—curse—and trust what he had to say.

“How does she help him?” Gabriel asked as they began to walk down the center of the deserted street.

Dusty concentrated on the possible futures spread out before his mind’s eye and focused on the one with the best outcome. “With Melissa’s help, Cameron will find the army.”

“The army?”

Dusty nodded. “The army that will fight in the final battle of Armageddon.”

T
he mouse.

So tiny and frail in the grand scheme of things, but yet, so mighty.

Lucifer felt himself begin to rise up from the darkness, drawn toward the simple language of the rodent and its message.

It said that he was needed—that Lucifer Morningstar, even though he had been responsible for much horror in Heaven and in the world of man—was needed.

Oblivion pulled upon Lucifer, attempting to drag him down into the darkest void, where he would cease to be, replaced entirely by the imposter who had stolen his physical form.

But the mouse repeated his message, and Lucifer found the strength to claw his way back from the brink.

He was needed.

The Son of the Morning sank his fingers deep into the
environment of shadow that had tried so hard to claim him, using strength he didn’t know he had to haul himself up from the sucking miasma of extinction toward existence.

He was needed.

In the simplest of terms, the mouse regaled him with stories of the world since his disappearance. Things had not been going well. The earth had been cut off from the influence of Heaven, the school attacked, its charges, still alive, scattered to the world.

The Morningstar again faced the agony of what he had done—what his body, controlled by another, had done.

He remembered the look on Aaron’s face as a sword of darkness, wielded by his own hands, was plunged into his son’s body.

Lucifer felt himself grow weaker, the tendrils of oblivion starting to pull him back.

You are needed.

The mouse squealed again, and though the Morningstar’s sadness was nearly incomprehensible, he listened to the mouse. For a part of Lucifer that saw beyond his sorrow and guilt knew that if he were to succumb to the sucking despair, the world would end.

And the darkness would have won.

Despite the temptation to give in to his pain, Lucifer could not stand the idea of the nightmare that possessed his body inflicting more anguish upon the earth. Lucifer would take back all that belonged to him.

With a newfound vigor, the Son of the Morning pulled himself up from the pit of despair.

You. Are. Needed.

If he had been told that he had climbed from the mire of nonexistence for hundreds of years, Lucifer would have believed it. Never had he experienced such fatigue. But the Morningstar would not have it. He pushed through, for there was a purpose awaiting him on the other side.

He would see the darkness of evil burned away by the light of the Morningstar.

*   *   *

The Darkstar paused as the odd sensation reverberated through his body. He’d never experienced its like before, but then again, he’d never had a body such as this.

It was as if there was an irritation, just beyond his mental reach. He swayed slightly; then, as quickly as it came, the feeling was gone.

“Are you well, good master?” one of the Sisters asked.

“Perhaps you tire and are in need of rest,” said another, vigorously nodding her hooded head.

“We will disturb you no longer,” said the last of the three Sisters, shuffling for the door, the others following.

“You will stay where you are,” Satan Morningstar proclaimed.

The Sisters stopped, staring intently at him, their eyes glowing eerily from the darkness of their hoods.

“I’m fine,” Satan announced, standing tall and smiling at his servants. “Better than fine, actually.”

The Sisters remained silent.

“This world is mine,” he announced, spreading his arms and his black wings for effect. “There may be some out there in the desolation who would disagree, but I am in control.”

Just saying the words brought a twisted grin to his face. Satan liked the feeling of the muscles in his face, his true form not able to perform such a function.

His true form really didn’t have a face.

“I know that there are pockets of resistance, but they consist of poor, deluded souls who don’t understand that their world has been stolen right out from underneath them.”

Satan Morningstar paused, just in case the Sisters of Umbra had something to add to his assessment.

They did not.

“It’s only a matter of time before all forms of defiance are quelled and my dark reign falls over the world.” He paused, again waiting for a response that didn’t appear to be coming.

“Don’t you agree?” he finally asked his audience.

“Of course, Star of Darkness,” replied one Sister. “Of course.”

“It is inevitable they will fall,” answered another.

The third considered her words before speaking. “Your enemies will most assuredly fall,” she said. “But isn’t it admirable that they have lasted this long against forces so great?”

Satan rankled at the words, rearing back.

“Admirable, but pointless,” he said with a sneer. He liked sneering just as much as grinning—maybe more. “The poor souls don’t even realize that they’re already dead.”

“Such an annoyance,” one Sister said, shaking her hooded head and rubbing her clawed hands together.

“Even the tiniest of annoyances can ruin a day.”

“Especially when these annoyances do not know they’re dead.”

These were not the words of encouragement the Darkstar had wanted to hear. As far as he was concerned, the world was his, and it was time to move on to grander pursuits.

Divine pursuits.

Beyond the veils of earth.

“Those annoyances are no longer my concern,” Satan Darkstar said, a certain finality in his voice. “It is time to consider what is to come,” he continued, not allowing an argument.

He pulled the gauntlet of black metal from his hand. Darkness leaked from the tips of his fingers. It floated in the air like oil injected into water, then gradually coalesced into a rendering of the globe.

“This is mine,” Satan said, admiring his prize. “I always wanted this world, desired it more than anything else, but now that I have it . . .” He let his facsimile explode, returning his dark power to its squirming, liquid state.

“I can’t keep my mind from wondering: What’s next?”

The Darkstar looked to the Sisters. He could practically feel them bursting to respond, but they held their tongues, perhaps realizing that his question was purely rhetorical. He knew exactly what he wanted.

He guided the liquid shadow with his bare, outstretched hand.

“I always wanted to see Heaven,” the Darkstar proclaimed wistfully. “The Golden City in which He resides.”

The darkness attempted to re-create the great megalopolis, sprawling and elegant, awe-inspiring in its design. It tried, but it failed every time.

“But why would something as loathsome as me ever be allowed to look upon something so magnificent?” Satan Darkstar closed his hand into a fist, and the shadow ceased its attempts to re-create the great city of Heaven. “It is that question that now drives me.”

He opened his fingers again, and more pitch flowed forth. It formed new patterns, until the air before them was filled with beings of every conceivable shape and size.

The darkness had made an army.

“When I first hid upon the earth, I watched the comings and goings of divine beings between earth and Heaven.”

With Satan’s words, the darkness started to create a ladder, and the shadowy army began to climb up toward Heaven.

“I wanted to go where these beings of gold, fire, and
feathers went. I wanted to look upon this place where I was forbidden to venture, then tear it down to nothing and drag it from the sky, sending it burning to the earth below.”

The army of darkness still climbed the ladder before them.

“That was my dream then,” Satan said to the Sisters. “But now . . .”

The darkness dispersed, as if carried away by a powerful gust of wind.

Satan stared at the Sisters. “I want to go to Heaven. I want to go to Heaven, leading an army of every nightmare conceivable. I want to march through the great gates into the Golden City, and into the halls of Heaven, where I shall rip the Lord God Almighty from his seat of power, claiming Heaven as my own.”

One of the Sisters interrupted his rant, clearing her throat, which sounded as dry as the desert.