Seraphim (56 page)

Bright blue and orange flashes burst beneath the ocean’s glassy surface; bombardments and cannonades reverberated throughout the landscape.

Gamble once again raised his hands and called forth more legions, this time a troop of giant beings made of stone, with six arms, standing fifty stories high. They came from the north. Faceless, without eyes, they proceeded across the mirror ocean toward the swirling vortex, their synchronic cadence vibratory; each granite footfall fracturing the glass surface. In three of their six hands were long, stone maces; in the other three, stone shields.

As the first of the soldiers reached the vortex, they rode the swirling waves down like a carnival ride.

Everyone stared in silence, waiting.

Suddenly a scream broke from the hole; a high, vehement wail of such magnitude that it made the skin on Duncan’s back crawl.

It was the seraph, he knew. It had been injured.

Gamble raised his hands triumphantly. “Yes!”

Then a terrific explosion. From the vortex, fragmentary rock went spraying into the air, from boulder-size to the tiniest of pebbles.

The seraph rose slowly, almost decrepitly, from the fissure. It was black with demons, those creatures teeming over its body, clawing, biting, slashing at its skin. At the approaching stone titans, the seraph shot bursts of concentrated energy, reducing each one to piles of rubble. When through, it descended once more, resuming the war with Gamble’s minions below.

“
Noooo!
” Gamble cried.

Amy raised a hand, and upon a tremendous peal of thunder a striate of lightning burst from the roiling clouds, delivering upon its dazzling end a long golden sword. The weapon struck Gamble mid-chest, impaling him to the ground.

Still upright, Gamble stared down at his chest, then began to laugh. “How archaic! And yet so superbly realized! My dear angel, what’s stopping me from calling down my beasties and having them tear you all limb from scrawny limb?”

“Because you’re more man than you are god,” Amy said, “and through grace you’ve discovered an appreciation for life that one seldom obtains until the end game. It’s over, you’ve lost, and are content to leave the arena humbly. Because, Gamble, thanks to the human in you, you can be a true gentleman and see the fairness in the fight.”

“But are you so sure this is the end of me?”

“Look at your hands,” Amy told him.

Gamble stared uncertainly at her, then, hesitantly, peered down at his palms. “My lines...they’re...gone,” he said.

At his feet, a mass of worms had begun congregating.

Gamble glanced down at his feet, at the worms about to devour him. “So, you succeeded in turning the humble giant into a killer, after all. I never thought it possible.” Then he looked at Amy. “But to have concealed it inside of me for even a breadth of a second—that was truly cunning.”

“Your grandiosity was your downfall,” she said. “There were countless places within you to hide. Besides, it learned its last chapter from you.”

“Checkmate,” he said, grinning.

“Please, call back your armies,” she said. “Don’t make the seraph do battle any longer than it has to. And, for the love of God, stop your apocalypse.”

“Come now, I’m not
that
much of a gentleman,” he said with a wink.

“Very well,” she sighed. “Go down with your ship, then.”

“Do I have a soul?” he asked.

“That’s not for me to decide.”

“Then there’s a chance for my salvation? A chance that I might taste the Shallows?”

“A chance, perhaps.”

“Then, my dear angel, I shall keep my fingers crossed.”

“Oh, and just in case you should decide to change your mind and try something slippery, like not letting us get out of her alive, the seraph and I have arranged a babysitter to make sure you remain a true gentleman.” She tapped his shoulder. “Turn around.”

Gamble turned. Standing behind him was a figure adorned in khakis and majestic, white feather wings. He smiled, his arms folded proudly across his chest. A furnace blazed behind his eyes.

“Father Kagan,” Gamble groaned. “Charmed, to be sure.”

“I wouldn’t piss him off,” Amy said. “Hell
has
come to my rescue, and he is it.”

“We have to go,” Kathy said, pointing to the ocean. The whirlpool had grown much larger; was now encroaching upon the cliffs.

They started for the shuttle.

Epilogue

Tyler Everton turned off the dirt road onto a paved, two-lane highway. “Beautiful country,” he remarked. “Too bad it’s going down the shitter.”

“It’s Gamble’s shitter,” Kathy reminded him.

Amy turned to Chris. “It’s time I told you about your mother.”

Chris’ eyes went wide. “Tamala?”

“Yes, she was Gamble’s first seduction. Gamble chose Tamala because of her unique ability to enter minds, just like your own. Not only was she going to bear his first daughter, but over the years was going to seek out the six remaining women for him and psychically prepare them to receive his offspring. ‘Hook them up,’ as you say. But, as you know, your mother was also gifted with the ability to see the future, and, while pregnant, she began having visions of Patricia and Katherine. And Duncan. It was from these visions that she perceived her own situation.”

“Wait a minute,” Chris said. “She was pregnant with Gamble’s first daughter?”

“Yes, and that was one of the reasons she killed herself, knowing she was going to give birth to, in essence, a devil.”

“What were the other reasons?”

“To keep the secret. She knew that if she stayed alive, Gamble might have ultimately stayed in her mind long enough to have seen her visions of, and the days leading up to, this very day.”

“So, what, like my mom tipped you off? Before or after she died?”

Amy laughed. “After, Chris. And it wasn’t me she tipped off, but those who came right before me.”

“Right,” Chris said. “Then she’s a hero.”

“Yes, Chris,” Amy smiled. “Your mother’s a hero.”

“But...since her death, who did Gamble find to replace her? I mean, I bet there’s maybe one or two people out there who can do what my mom could do; what I can do.”

“Oh, Gamble can hook people up. He just likes to dole out the work, feel important. No, he had to finally resort to doing it himself. Because you’re right, Chris—there’s no one else out there like you and your mom. You’re two of a very special kind.”

Duncan shook his head. “So why Emilio Chavez,” he said. “Why take me back to that night, then get me thinking that the boy was the key to the whole thing?”

“This time around, Emilio was placebo,” Amy said, “as Gamble had guessed. But all the other times before, he wasn’t. It was those times we failed, and Gamble got the better of us. You see, because the seraph cherished the deaf boy, it decided to use him as a vehicle for delivery. But each time we unleashed it from the boy, it was overpowered by Gamble and his daughters. It wasn’t until we finally found a way to accelerate its final stages of learning—to hide it inside Gamble himself—that we stood a chance.”

Duncan said, “So why didn’t you just hide it inside Gamble from the start?”

“No, that would have been devastating. All that abhorrence at once would have destroyed it. The seraph had to learn in increments over many generations, had to build up a threshold before we could plant it inside Gamble. And please, don’t think Emilio died in vain. He was crucial in the seraph’s final development.” She winked at him. “And so were you, you criminal.”

Duncan grinned. And that was okay. After all, he’d forgiven himself. “So, how many times did we go back in time trying to defeat Gamble?”

“Just a handful, Dad. I doubt we could have made the trip too many more times. We’ve just about used up our ability to time travel. It’s become very degraded.”

“So what was it that I hooked Emilio into?” Chris said.

“A failsafe device,” she said. “Say we’re at the cliffs and Gamble somehow manages to kill all us angels after we’ve just released the seraph from the boy. Consequently, without our help, how does the seraph hope to return back in time and escape certain death? Easy. By wiring the boy into our own schematics, we made it so that if the seraph ever encountered such a situation, or felt the least bit in jeopardy, it and the boy would instantly be whisked back in time to a pre-selected point of origin before anybody got the wiser. Fact is, that’s exactly how the seraph saved itself in all the previous attempts. Still, not without some scars, to be sure.”

Chris nodded heavily. “Righteous. But still pretty risky. All Gamble would have had to do is kill the boy right off the bat.”

“It was never without its risks,” she affirmed.

“What was Gamble ultimately after,” Rachel said. “God?”

“No, not God,” Amy said, “but a place called the Shallows. He would have had access to an unlimited number of souls. And, most of all, immortality for himself.”

“Bad news for us if he would have gotten there,” Kathy said.

“Bad news,” Amy agreed.

“Tollbooths up ahead,” Tyler said. “Which one, Chris?”

Chris concentrated. “Two,” he said. He looked at Amy, smiling. “Two.”

With rosary in hand, Juanita crossed herself.

“Where’s this one going to take us,” Patricia said to Amy.

“Back to the apocalypse,” she said. “I still have that mess to clean up.”

“Can you do it without the seraph?” Chris said. “I mean, it’s gonna be tied up for awhile, right?”

Amy sighed. “Yes. But with Gamble gone, my cohorts and I will find those harpies easy pickings.”

“What about the other god,” Rachel said. “What will you do with him?”

“That’s up to God to decide,” Amy said. “Who knows, He might just open up another universe just for him.”

“Maybe we could use another set of ears,” Patricia said. “I mean, God’s got a lot on His plate as it is. Maybe He could use a fill-in.”

Amy laughed. “Maybe He could, Patty. Maybe He could.”

“Like, where’s the real hell been throughout all of this?” Chris said.

“Accumulating shadows,” Amy said.

“One thing’s for certain,” Duncan said. “After today, man’s never going to be the same.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Amy said. “Man will have more faith in his demons now. And with his faith bolstered in the devil, so will his faith be bolstered in God. It’ll be a more united front all around, mind you, but the same song and dance, just with the music turned up a notch.”

“Do you think maybe that’s been God’s intention all along,” Chris said, “to get man back on track, to get him polarized again? I mean, to tell the truth, this whole thing stinks of destiny.”

“I have to agree with Chris,” Duncan said. “Big time destiny.”

Amy thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you something. We broke every rule in the book to achieve what we did today. I doubt very seriously that God is breaking out the champagne right now. My relations and I have got some serious answering to do, the seraph included. If you think this was all preordained somehow, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t think God ever saw Gamble coming.”

Rachel smiled. “I know I’m just a silly human, but I don’t think you’re giving God enough credit. I think the old boy’s still full of surprises.”

Amy laughed. “Alright, Mom. Maybe He is.” She stared at the tollbooths ahead, smiling. “Maybe He is.”

The smile waned from Rachel’s face, and she said, “Am I ever going to get my little girl back?”

Lamentably, Amy said, “No, Mom, I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to seeing me this way. I’ve been through too much to ever going back to being a little girl.”

“Look at the bright side,” Duncan said, “At least we won’t have to put up with her as a teenager.”

“I have a question,” Patricia said. “If you were able to keep Gamble’s second daughter—the one occupying Katherine’s soul—away from him initially, then why weren’t you able to keep the rest of his daughters away from him?”

“First off, remember that it was Chris’s mother who tipped us off about Katherine. After we saved Kathy, we
did
keep an eye on the priest, and the rest of the girls that he prepared for Gamble. But, we really only needed to make sure Gamble didn’t complete the seven before we confronted him with the seraph,” Amy said. “Each time I tried saving the seventh girl, Melanie Sands, just for some cushion, it didn’t work. Gamble had grown far too powerful.”

“Just for some cushion?” Patricia said. “God, that sounds so...heartless.”

“Cliché as it is, this was war, Patty. Those girls bought us the time to get where we needed to be. Sacrifices had to be made.”

“The apocalypse was a huge sacrifice,” Chris said in Patricia’s defense. “Something tells me you let Gamble get away with it.”

Amy nodded. “Yes, but it was only for a day. Imagine the casualties if it would have lasted a year. Or a decade. Or eternity.”

Tyler pulled to the tollbooth. The red gate lifted, and the cloaked attendant waved them through.

Suddenly they were back where they had begun, in Rock Bay. Harpies dotted the trees like patient vultures. Carnage was everywhere; smoldering pile-ups; dead, mutilated bodies.

“Here we go,” Tyler said.

“Here we go,” Amy agreed.

“Look!” Kathy said, pointing excitedly out her window.

To the west was a large, gray mass covering an expanse of open field. It was moving.

“Wolves,” Patricia said. “There must be thousands of them.”

Then, before their eyes, a glorious resplendence erupted from the mass, as each wolf suddenly changed into a human figure, each adorned with wings, carrying long, golden swords.

Tyler stopped the shuttle, and Amy headed for the doors.

“Don’t wait up for me,” she said. “This is going to take awhile.”

“Wait!” Juanita said. “What happens to us?”

“Tyler’s going to take you to a safe house,” Amy said. “You’ll all be fine.”

As she exited the shuttle, a sword of magnificent light bloomed in her right hand.

“Let’s get it on!” she said.
“Let’s get it on!”