Armageddon (26 page)

Cameron agreed, following her closely.

The armored angel got to his knees and examined the hole in the left-hand side of his armor. Their shadows fell across him, as they prepared to strike him down.

“It takes a great deal of power to do this extent of damage,” the angel spoke in a voice as dry as dust, sticking his mail-covered finger into the hole and moving it around.

The angel then turned his eyes on them.

Cameron came at him, sword above his head, poised to
bring the burning blade down in a lethal blow, when Melissa stopped him.

“Wait!”

Cameron stopped, confused.

The angel smiled. “A great deal of power indeed,” he reiterated, studying them both. “A mating pair. Of course . . .”

He grunted as he hauled his armored body to his feet, using the arm of the great throne for support.

“Now, which one of you would care to explain how you got out of your cages?”

*   *   *

The power of God in his hands, Mallus struggled to keep his footing as he made his way back to the surface.

The surviving mutated yetis were hot on his heels. As he fled, he’d slow to turn and point the sphere of divine energy at them, releasing destructive blasts to drive them back. But the side effects did not last long. They were practically breathing down his neck.

Mallus could feel the temperature in the tunnel growing colder and knew that he was getting close to the surface.

“I didn’t think we’d get this far,” Mallus said to the ball. It seemed to respond to his statement, its color shifting to a softer shade.

He believed that the Malakim was still present here. He’d reverted to pure energy in order to contain God’s power, though he retained some level of sentience. That was what
Mallus liked to believe. After so many years of solitude, he’d enjoyed Tarshish’s company and didn’t care to be alone.

Especially when on the run from an army of yetis.

As the passage’s incline became more dramatic, he knew that he was almost there. Careful with his footing, Mallus increased his speed, watching as the sky appeared through the melted, circular opening just ahead.

The yetis yowled with fury. They knew his escape was imminent. Mallus considered blasting them again but did not want to slow his pace.

No, he would push on, striving for the murky light just above him.

Mallus could smell the yetis’ filthy stink as they bore down upon him. He pushed himself, wishing more than any other time that he still had his wings so he might fly from their desperate clutches.

But the fates, or perhaps it was the power of God, saw fit to aid him. The passage grew narrower as he climbed upward, and the throng of yetis—so desperate to claim their prey—were stuck in a logjam of seething fury.

Mallus sprang from the opening, falling to his knees, the sphere of radiance slipping from his grasp. The ball of divine energy rolled across the ground, then came to a sudden stop. Around it, the layers of ice and snow melted away.

“I should be thankful that thing isn’t fragile,” Mallus remarked, getting up to retrieve the sphere.

Now came the hard part, he thought. Tarshish had been their transportation. What now?

Mallus looked around at the frozen wasteland of the Himalayas.

The yetis exploded up from the earth, searching for their prey. Even though the sun barely shone, Mallus could see that they were not accustomed to the brightness of being above-ground. They slowed, shielding their eyes from the murky light.

Mallus began to run, hoping he’d find some kind of cover to hide him until he could devise a plan.

The yetis, catching sight of their prize on the run, immediately forgot their fear of the surface and swarmed in pursuit of him.

The snow slowed Mallus’s progress. He held the sphere out before him, to melt a path. But if he melted a path for himself, he also melted a passage for his pursuers.

Mallus chanced a quick look behind him, and did not like what he saw. The yetis were gaining. It was only a matter of seconds before they would overtake him.

Deciding to use a blast of God’s power to buy himself a little more time, Mallus turned and aimed the ball.

The ground around them began to shake, and something exploded upward in a shower of ice and rock to hang in the frigid air.

The yetis paused, fearfully looking about to see what could
have caused the earth to quake so violently. Mallus used the diversion to make his escape.

“Where is it?” boomed a powerful voice across the icy expanse. “Where is what has been stolen from me?”

Mallus’s first instinct as a warrior of Heaven was to fight, to throw himself at the enemy, and to take him down by any means. But he knew that it couldn’t be like that, especially if the world was to survive. He needed to protect his prize and escape by any means necessary.

The armored figure that had exploded up from the ground loomed above the white landscape. It swooped down upon the yetis, its wings of black decimating their ranks with a mere swipe.

“Where is it?” he bellowed as the few surviving creatures cowered.

Mallus had managed to find cover behind an outcropping of ice and snow, and considered his options—which were pretty much none.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Mallus grasped the sphere in both hands and spun, ready to fire a blast of divine fury at his attacker, but was taken aback by the sight of a young man in a baggy sweat suit. And a yellow dog.

It took a moment for his brain to shake off the shock. He knew these two.

“Where did you come from?” Mallus asked.

“Long story,” the dog named Gabriel barked.

“Will you come with us?” Dusty asked.

Mallus could feel evil approaching them, and he looked at them both with desperate eyes.

“You won’t have to ask me twice,” he said, the sphere of God power growing bright as the sun in his grasp.

T
here was nothing—and that was exactly what Aaron wanted.

He didn’t want to feel the pain of failure anymore, the disappointment of all who had suffered because he wasn’t good enough.

Nothing was exactly what he deserved.

But suddenly, he was disturbed by the strangest sensation.

Something cold touched his nose, pulling Aaron back from the void. He opened his eyes to find two beady eyes staring at him, and a pink nose twitching.

It was a mouse, and Aaron remembered that his name was Milton.

“What are you . . . ,” Aaron began, as a hand reached into his field of vision and scooped the mouse away.

Aaron rolled onto his back and looked up into the face of
his father.

“Hello, Aaron,” Lucifer said, placing the rodent on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to see you here.”

“Is that you?” Aaron asked, recalling the last time he had seen his father. He had plunged a sword of darkness into the Nephilim’s chest. “Are you
you
now?”

“In this place, I am,” Lucifer said. “But out there . . .” The Morningstar looked out into the perpetual shadow. “I’m afraid that I’m still not in control.”

Aaron sat up with a grunt, his every muscle protesting the movement. It felt as though he’d been lying inert for weeks.

“What happened to you?” Aaron demanded.

“Let’s just say I let my guard down,” Lucifer explained. “I let my guard down and a very old, very powerful evil took root inside my body.”

“The Darkstar,” Aaron said, remembering the name he’d heard from a goblin warrior.

“Satan, the Darkstar,” Lucifer corrected.

“But I thought that you were . . .”

“Satan? Never took the title, despite what others have said throughout the ages. But now he’s taken over my body and turned me into the monster that legend made me out to be.”

“We have to stop him,” Aaron said, rising to his feet. “We have to get you back.”

“Yes,” Lucifer agreed. He reached up and gently petted the mouse perched on his shoulder. “But I think we need to deal
with you first.”

“Me?” Aaron asked, surprised. “There’s nothing wrong with—”

“He’s inside you,” Lucifer said, touching Aaron in the center of his chest.

Aaron winced, the pain suddenly excruciating.

“When you were stabbed, he planted a seed of darkness in your soul.”

The skin on Aaron’s chest burned, and he ripped open his shirt to reveal a large, jagged, black circle in the center of his chest.

“What is this?” he asked his father in surprise.

“The seed is growing.”

“How do I—” Aaron dropped to the ground, bent over with agony.

“The darkness always leaves a piece of itself behind, to fester and grow. It’s preventing you from healing. It’s feeding on your courage, making you doubt who you are—what you are.”

Aaron mustered a short laugh through his pain. “That’s where you’re mistaken,” he choked. “I’m not at all who you think I am or what I’m supposed to be.”

“You’re wrong,” Lucifer countered. “You’re special, Aaron. Capable of so much more than you even realize.”

“I’ve failed in just about everything that I’ve tried to do.”

“And that’s how the darkness wins,” Lucifer scolded. “You might’ve failed at some things, here and there, but they’re only
minor pieces of the whole plan.”

Lucifer knelt down, placing a firm hand upon Aaron’s shoulder. “The victor of the battle is yet to be determined.”

Aaron looked down worriedly at his chest. The black mark was growing larger. “How can I stop this?”

Lucifer’s grip on Aaron’s shoulder intensified, and his eyes bored into his son’s. “Deep inside you is the strength of many.”

Aaron felt a new sensation within his chest. “My skin!” He tore off his shirt, which had started to smolder, to burn. His sigils were prominent, blazing red, superheated from within his body. “What’s happening?”

“Those marks,” Lucifer stated, pointing to the designs on Aaron’s skin. “Each represents a warrior of Heaven who fell in service to me—to my misguided cause—during the war with Heaven.”

Aaron gazed down upon his chest. The sigils surrounded the circle of black, seemingly stopping its advance.

“These marks give you a portion of the power that those soldiers gave to me when they swore their allegiance.”

Aaron could feel the divine fires burning within him.

“My destiny,” he said.

“You will save the fallen, and realign the world with Heaven.”

“My destiny,” Aaron repeated, rising to his feet as his body crackled with energy.

“The creature that possesses my flesh—Satan Darkstar—
has certain plans for Heaven,” Lucifer told him. “Plans that must be deterred. But before any of this can happen, you must leave this place.”

Aaron’s wings exploded from his back. Lucifer seemed to grow smaller, but then Aaron realized that he was growing larger.

“You have to defeat the darkness,” Lucifer called up to Aaron. “Not only out there . . .” He gestured toward the outside world, then pointed to his own chest. “But in here.”

Aaron towered above his father. “Are you real?” he asked. “Or are you just another manifestation of my subconscious?”

“Does it really matter?” Lucifer asked, turning with a wave before disappearing behind a curtain of black.

Aaron considered the question, turning his eyes up to the pinprick of light above him. He extended his arms toward the growing light. It had been so long since he had seen light.

The passage of shadow, up toward the light, grew smaller—more constricted—the harder he tried to reach it.

His wings flapped mightily, until there was no more room for them to move. He sank his fingers into the darkness of the tunnel walls and hauled himself upward, closer, and closer still.

And then the passage began to move, thrashing and undulating as if caught within some sort of powerful storm.

But Aaron held on, bracing himself with his legs and feet, while he continued to climb, inch by inch, until the opening was just above him. He was feeling weaker the closer he came,
but the sigils upon his flesh blazed hotly, reminding him once more of what they represented. Their power helped to spur him on.

He climbed into a tiny chamber, a wall of white tile all that stood between Aaron and his freedom. He hauled back his fist, punching at the barrier. But it did not break. The confining space continued to shake, dislodging him from his perch and sending him tumbling back down into the constricting passage.

Aaron scrambled back up and punched at the tiles again, this time with a furious scream. The sigils flared upon his skin, illuminating the confined space. The surface beneath him was wet, soft, and pink, and quivered at his assault.

The chamber shook violently again, and he could feel something in the passage below him. It was as if something had come up from below him and was attempting to pull him back down into the darkness.

Aaron’s anger flared, the sigils igniting. Actual flames of divine fire leaped from the names, and Aaron felt their warriors’ fury and again pulled back his fist, and with a cry of utter determination delivered a blow shattering the tiles outward in a shower of ivory.

Aaron shot into the daylight and landed on the ground of Aerie.

Crouched on the ground, he watched the giant Malak stumble back, hands going to his shattered teeth.

The knowledge that he’d been inside Stevie hit him like a
slap, and for a moment Aaron felt pangs of sympathy for the injured and moaning giant, before his Nephilim spirit again usurped his feelings with its unbridled fury.

Aaron crouched down, calling upon a sword of fire.

Lucifer’s words whispered in his ear, as the armored giant roared through jagged and broken teeth, charging at Aaron.

You have to defeat the darkness.

Malak pulled his arm back as he ran, a sword of ebony black taking shape in his grasp.

Aaron sprang from the ground, flying directly at the distorted visage of his little brother. He swung his own blade of fire directly at Malak’s face, striking the giant in the side of the head in a shower of sparks.

There was a sudden flash, and Aaron was thrown back to the ground, the impact of his body shattering the street beneath him. He rose, shaking off the rubble to resume his battle.