Extinction (The Divine Book 7)

Published by Quirky Algorithms

Seattle, Washington

This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author's imagination.
 

Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by M.R. Forbes

All rights reserved.

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Author's Note

Other Books

About the Author

I shuddered a little bit as I came out of the timewalk, taking a few stumbling steps and putting my hand up to the nearest wall for balance. Alyx fell onto her hands and knees, her voice a sick whimper as she leaned down and vomited.

"Geez," Obi said. "I told you to get here, man. I wasn't expecting the Star Trek."

I looked over at him. It had been a while since I'd seen Obi. He looked good. Probably better than I did.
 

"Sarah," I said. "What happened."

"Landon," Alyx said, recovering more quickly than I was. "I smell gore."

"You don't know the half of it," Obi said. He stepped toward her, putting out his hand. "Obi-Wan Sampson. You are?"

"Alyx," she replied, taking his hand and using it to lift herself up.
 

"Angel or demon?"

"Demon."

"Yeah. I should have guessed that."
 

She was wearing a pair of tights and a baggy sweater. It was a lot more conservative than her earlier choices.

"Based on what?" I asked.

"The first thing she did was smell the blood. I'll get you up to speed this one time because you look like you just crawled back from Hell."

"That was a few days ago."

"I believe you. Take a look around if you want, Landon. This place is nothing but death, thanks to Sarah and her new boyfriend."

"You said Adam was here. Give me the whole story."

"You want the long version or the summary?"

"Use your judgment."

"Okay, so you know I've been here for the last few months, helping Sarah and Brian deal with the changelings. It's been pretty rewarding, to tell you the truth. Or at least it was. A few days ago, Sarah comes to me and asks me if I ever have nightmares. I tell her that of course I do. Everyone does. Although, mine have gotten worse since I've known you."

I glared at him.
 

"Yeah, well, she tells me about how she used to have nightmares, back before you got stuck in the Box. Back before she helped save your life. She tells me about how you used to be able to visit her there, to fight for her in her dreams. Then she tells me the nightmares are returning. She doesn't know why, but they are, and she doesn't have you to to help her fight them now."

"She never told me any of this," I said.

"She also told me she felt like a burden to you. A needy pyschopath who can't handle her own crap. She didn't want to tell you any of that. She said, 'we're friends, right?' And I said 'Yeah, of course we are.' And so she described the dreams. Landon, man, they gave me my own set of nightmares."

"What did she see?"

"This," he said, motioning to the room ahead of us. I hadn't paid any attention to it in my dizziness. I did now.
 

The floor was littered with changelings. They were all dead. They were all covered in blood. Their insides looked to have been torn out by a serrated knife.
 

Or a pair of serrated wings.

"Only worse than this," he said. "Much, much worse. She said it was inevitable. That it had been bound to happen the moment Gervais touched Josette. A union like that was never meant to be. She was an abomination, and she had a role to play."

"That's bullshit," I said.

"That's what I thought, too. Trying to shift the blame and not take responsibility? That isn't the Sarah I know."

"And that's where Adam comes in," I said. "She always had a thing for him."

"Maybe once upon a time when he was a blonde pretty-boy. I got a peek at him, Landon. I don't know what you did, but he's lost it. His chest is covered in scars, and they look self-inflicted. His eyes are deep red. Everything about him oozes evil."

"Hate is the root of real evil," I said. "He hates me for killing his archangel girlfriend."

"You killed an archangel?"
 

I could feel the judgement from him. "They were creating a weapon that would turn the balance. I didn't have a choice. God didn't agree with what they were doing either. That's why he fell. Of course, Adam blames me for that, too."

Obi stared at me, trying to accept my reasoning. He shook his head. "Whatever, man. It isn't about that right now. The point is, he isn't just a fallen angel. He's a certifiable monster, and somehow he managed to get Sarah under his thumb."

"Is it a coincidence that you survived when nobody else did?" I asked.
 

The comment perked Alyx up, and she moved a little closer to Obi.

"I don't know, man. Sarah had me dead to rights. She could have killed me. I was coming up from the gym downstairs when I came on her and Adam doing their thing with the changelings. He pointed at me, she came over and grabbed me. We looked at one another. She didn't seem scared or remorseful for what she was doing, but when she stabbed me with those wings of hers she didn't go very deep. Just enough to ruin my shirt. Then she tossed me aside like a bag of garbage."

"So she let you live?"

"Pretty much."

"The last time, she was at war with herself. The good side against the bad side. I helped the good side win. In that sense, she was right. She'll always be a bit of both, like me. The evil side was always going to come back, but I thought she was strong enough to handle it. I guess not."

"Not when Adam was involved, I guess."

"Any idea where they went, or what their goals are?"

"Armageddon," Obi said. "Not for humans, though. For Divine. She wants to kill them all."

Kill all of the Divine.

I let the idea of it roll around in my head a little bit.
 

Kill all of the Divine.

My first instinct was that it didn't seem like such a bad idea. The Divine were the reason that humankind was under threat in the first place. It was their war that caught people in the middle, causing mass destruction, the killing of innocents, and feeding a whole lot of strife into the world.

Then the logical side of me caught up. That was a one-sided argument. The Divine weren't bad. Demons were bad. The servants of God fed the hungry, clothed the naked, healed the sick. If the Demons weren't around, they would be caretakers for the meek of humanity until the End of Days.

That was the problem there. The End of Days. The Rapture. When God would take up all those who believed in Him and leave the rest of us for demon food. If Heaven were willing to maintain the status quo concerning believers and non-believers, I would happily be out of a job.

But they weren't. I had seen firsthand how their millennia of war had changed the nature of the relationship between Heaven and Earth. The Angels I knew were doing their best to skirt the rules to win; fallout be damned.

Adam was the poster-boy for that.

Look where it had gotten him.
 

And now Sarah was caught up in the storm. The one human on Earth who might be able to help him achieve such a lofty goal. But she had spared Obi, which meant the evil side of her hadn't won over completely, at least not yet. It meant there was hope that I could stop him, stop her, stop this, before it got completely out of control.

It was a new wrinkle in the war between good and evil. A war I had remade myself to fight and was already worn out on once more. I had been in self-imposed exile for two years after the Beast was destroyed. I stayed out of the affairs of Divine and mortals alike, using the time to lick my wounds and reflect. That reflection had seemed so clear at the time, but now it was muddy and faded.

What had I accomplished since my return? The balance had remained intact while I was gone. Hell, it almost seemed like it had been on autopilot without me.
 

Now?

Abaddon had been set free, and he had killed hundreds on his march to Central Park, an event the media had portrayed as a terrorist attack using a yet-to-be-identified poison gas. I had killed an archangel, and caused an angel I had once considered an ally to fall. I had taken one student under my wing, and quickly got her killed, and she wasn't the only ally of mine that had wound up dead. I had also been duped by Gervais not once, but twice.