Fire Prophet (Son of Angels) (16 page)
Jeremiah bit his lip and nodded.
When Jeremiah was ready, Jonah slammed the door of the stairwell open and bounded down the steps three at a time, grateful for the longer legs he’d grown over the last year, thanks to his angelic heritage. After bursting into the third-floor hall, he began banging on the girls’ doors too.
Girls started coming out of their rooms, confusion on their faces. Eliza emerged from her room quickly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“You’re up fast,” Jonah said, beating on the door across the hall. “Good. Get dressed.”
She stared at him as he moved past her, and suddenly she knew. “Fallen angels. They’re here.”
“You guessed it,” he said, banging on another door. “They are everywhere outside. Do me a favor—wake up everybody and get them downstairs!”
“But how did they get past the angels?” she asked, putting her glasses on. “How do they know where we are?”
Jonah had already moved down the hallway. “No time to talk about that now, E. Just get these girls up!”
Jonah heard her switch into command mode and begin
barking orders to the other girls. He knew she would have them downstairs soon. He had no idea what they would do when they got there, but they would be together.
When they reached the first floor, Jonah hurried past the dining hall and toward the meeting room. Four nuns rushed in, entering the prayer room just as he passed it. He glanced over and saw them kneel on the floor together, join hands, and begin to pray.
As he turned the corner, Camilla Aldridge strode down the hallway toward him, followed by Samuel, Marcus, and Taryn. Just behind them was Reverend Kareem, in gym shorts and a T-shirt, shaking the grogginess out of his head.
Camilla saw Jonah and paused. “Did you summon the others?”
“Yes,” Jonah said. “They’re coming. Camilla, I saw the Fallen overtake the angels on the building. They’re all over the pl—”
“Yes, dear, we know,” she said bluntly. She turned to Marcus and Taryn. “Guard the entrances, both of you. We will get the students organized and send them to reinforce you.”
The two warrior angels nodded, rushing by Jonah. Taryn stood at the door that opened up into the street. She had pulled an arrow from her quiver, bracing herself for whatever was about to come through the door. Marcus hurried down the hallway, half running and half flying to secure the back entrance.
The students were filtering down, rushing into the hallway. They began to move even faster when they saw Marcus flying by them and Taryn positioned at the front door. They glanced at each other as they ran, and the look on their faces was clear.
We really are in danger.
Camilla ushered all of the students into the meeting room, along with Samuel and Kareem.
“There has been a breach in our security,” she said, not trying to hide the gravity in her tone. “Our angelic forces have somehow been defeated. It is unclear at this point how, and it is not important at the moment. What is important is that we, together, are prepared to do battle.”
Jonah studied the faces of the students, many of whom had become his friends over the past couple of days. None of them had faced even one fallen angel before, let alone a whole company of them. No one could hide that they were scared.
“It will do you no good to worry,” said Camilla. “It is times like this when it will do you well to remember that Elohim is always with you. We will trust His strength to carry us through.”
Samuel and Kareem murmured together, nodding in agreement. Camilla extended her hand toward the young pastor.
“We angels have agreed to become visible to Kareem, as well as to the nuns in the convent. They will be critical in defending this place.” Kareem nodded, stepping forward as Camilla turned toward him and spoke. “Will you select four of your best students to join you and the others in the prayer room?”
“The
prayer room
?” Frederick blurted out. “Seriously? We have fallen angels all over the place outside, breaking right through the angelic barrier that you all said was so safe, and you are worried about us getting our prayer time in?”
“That is quite enough, Frederick!” she said, speaking so fiercely that her face almost began to emit a white-hot glow. He shut his mouth, taken aback by her forcefulness. She caught her breath and took a second to gather her emotions, now speaking in a more measured tone. “You would do well not to speak ill of what you do not fully understand. There is a reason we teach the spiritual arts. You will find that out tonight.”
Kareem searched the faces of the students in front of him. “David. Bridget. Carlo. Julia. Come with me.”
The four students followed Kareem out of the room.
“We will divide the rest of you up. Some we will send with Marcus, others with Taryn. Others will patrol the hallways with me.”
Rupert slowly raised his hand. Everyone in the room could see it shaking as he held it in the air.
“Yes, Rupert?” said Camilla, glancing back toward the doorway. “Make it quick, please.”
He looked around at the others, then back at the angel. “Are they really after us? And if they can get through the whole Second Battalion of the Angelic Forces of the West, what makes you think that we can fare any better?”
Camilla looked on him with as much compassion as she could muster in the moment.
“Yes, they are after you, all of you,” she said. “And they won’t rest until each of you is dead. We have given you all of the protection we possibly can, but we always knew there would be a day when the fight would come directly to you. What we did not expect is that this day would come so soon.”
Jonah and the rest of the students already knew this, but hearing her say it carried a new weight.
“Trust, my friends,” she said. “Have faith. This is what you were made for, after all.”
With that, she began to assign the students to different groups.
She looked at Jonah, Eliza, Jeremiah, and Rupert. “You four are with me. We will patrol the halls. Just because the doorways are secure doesn’t mean that we won’t find them trying to
enter through a window or an air duct. They are wily, desperate creatures.”
Camilla whipped around, her blue robe sweeping across the floor, and they followed, trying to keep up with her. Which was hard, considering that she was almost airborne as she strode down the hall.
“Eliza, Rupert—I want you two to patrol the first floor. Check rooms and windows. Locate all of the air vents and monitor them carefully. Do your best.” She turned to Jonah and Jeremiah. “You two, on the second floor. Same orders. I will cover the third and fourth floors, and rooftop, if necessary.”
Jonah’s mind was moving so fast he could barely process it all. That seemed like a dangerous assignment, even for an angel of Camilla’s standing. “Don’t you think that’s a lot for just one angel, Mrs. Aldridge?”
But she was already almost to the stairwell. She didn’t take the time to turn around, only waved a hand in the air, dismissing his comment with a flick of her wrist.
“Listen, Jeremiah,” he said as they entered the darkened second-floor hallway. “You have to promise me to be careful, and not to do anything stupid. You don’t have any defensive powers yet, so stay behind me and let me handle the fighting, okay?”
Jeremiah was already looking down the hallway in each direction, trying to spot a fallen angel. He didn’t respond.
Jonah grabbed him by the shoulder, with more force than he intended. “Did you hear me?”
Jeremiah snapped his head back toward Jonah. “All right, let go! I promise, I won’t do anything dumb.”
“Okay, let’s pray,” Jonah said. “We can’t see the Fallen unless we are in the hidden realm.”
They both prayed quietly and slipped into the hidden realm. Jonah drew an arrow and strung it on the bow that had appeared in his hand.
They walked down the hallway slowly, back to back. There was a window on each end of the hallway, and they both kept their eyes on those. But as they walked along, Jonah pushed open each door they came to and did a quick search of the nuns’ rooms.
Jonah felt a few drops of nervous sweat roll down his forehead. But he tried to ignore them, and kept his arrow aimed and ready.
It wasn’t long until they had covered almost all the hallway. Every room had been searched except for the last two, and so far, there was no sign of a fallen angel.
“I hope Eliza and Rupert are doing okay,” whispered Jeremiah.
“Yeah,” Jonah said, turning to look at his brother. “I just hope Rupert isn’t curled up in a corner somewhere, covering his eyes.”
Jeremiah covered his mouth to keep from laughing out loud, and Jonah smiled.
They kicked another door open, Jonah searching the room as quickly as he could while Jeremiah kept watch. The room was sparse and neat, except for the bedsheets that had been thrown onto the floor in haste. These rooms belonged to nuns, and not messy kids, after all. A quick peek at the window and under both beds told Jonah that this room was safe.
When he emerged from the room, Jonah saw Jeremiah standing as still as if he were frozen to the ground. His face was white, and his lips were pressed together firmly. He held a finger up to Jonah and pointed to his ear.
Listen
.
Jonah stood quietly beside his brother. In the room across the
hallway, the last one left to search, they heard the faintest sound. A creak, and then silence. Another creak. It stopped again.
Footsteps.
Jonah swallowed hard, pulling his arrow back a little farther. Breathing in deeply, he raised his foot off the ground and kicked in the door.
Two creatures stood in front of him, their crusty bodies hunched over. Their yellow eyes grew large with surprise. Their mouths gaped open, showing their sharp teeth, and they howled as they reached for their arrows.
But before they could retrieve their weapons, Jonah let his arrow fly.
Thud!
He strung another one quickly and shot the other creature in the chest.
The fallen angels screeched in agony, so that the boys threw their hands over their ears. The creatures writhed on the floor for a couple of seconds before they turned into black dust and seeped down into the cracks of the wooden floor.
Jeremiah stepped around the dust and walked over to the window. He slammed it shut, snapping the lock in place.
“Nice shot, Jonah!” Jeremiah said, holding out his hand for a high five. Jonah slapped Jeremiah’s hand hard, breathing in heavily.
He stepped back into the hallway just in time for a flaming arrow to whiz under his nose, missing him by mere centimeters. As he snapped his head back, another arrow sailed by, just as close, nearly hitting his shoulder before slamming into the doorjamb and disintegrating.
“Jeremiah!” Jonah yelled. “Get back in!”
He pushed his brother back into the room and slammed the door without thinking. But now he was left alone in the dark hall.
Ducking his head low, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the arrows. Another one zoomed over his head, barely missing him.
He had no plan, and he knew there wasn’t a stairwell on this end of the hallway to use as an escape. He pushed open another door and quickly entered the room, shutting the door behind him.
Think, Jonah!
He knew they would be coming as fast as they could. And what if they caught Jeremiah in the other room? If they were going to survive, he had better do something and do it now. But the only thing he could think about was his defenseless brother in a room all by himself.
He braced himself and burst back through the door, ready to fire. But no more than five feet away stood a huge fallen angel, leveling his own arrow squarely at Jonah’s chest.
Jonah met the glowing yellow eyes with his own. They suddenly narrowed, and he knew that this creature didn’t care whether he got shot or not.
“Jonah?”
The Fallen heard the voice from down the hall and took his eyes off Jonah for a split second. It was all the time Jonah needed.
His arrow pierced the fallen one through the neck. He fell to the ground, turned to black ash, and disappeared.
“Well, I can’t hit a bull’s-eye very well, but I can hit these guys,” he muttered to himself.
Jeremiah had peeked into the hallway to check on his brother and now came running toward him.
“Thanks, Jeremiah,” Jonah said, smiling.
“I was worried about you out here,” he said. “What just happened?”
“You gave me just enough time to get rid of a nasty bad guy.”
Jonah reached out his hand and pulled his brother toward him, hugging his head in the crook of his arm.
T
hey continued to patrol the hallway, walking back and forth slowly, checking and rechecking the rooms, shutting all of the windows, and placing furniture over the vents, thinking this might at least slow the Fallen down if they tried that route. Jonah glanced out the window every few minutes. Each time he could see more fallen angels swarming around on the ground.
