The Fallen 3 (20 page)

“What is this place?” Lucifer asked. “Where have you brought me?”

“A place of waiting,” the child said. He rested a small hand upon the wall, gazing at the beast trapped on the other side.

“Waiting?” the Morningstar asked. “Waiting for what,
exactly? The dark times you told me about when we first met?”

The child laughed. “Yes, the dark times. They’re almost here.” The little boy’s eyes danced mischievously, excited by the prospect.

It was as Lucifer had feared;
this
was the time that had been prophesied.

He was mesmerized by the horrors frozen around him. “What are they?” He gestured toward the walls of ice.

“They are my brothers and sisters,” the child explained as he advanced toward Lucifer. “When the Almighty brought His damnable light to the universe, my family and I fled to the pockets of shadow where the Creator’s light couldn’t reach, and we watched Him and all His light had wrought from afar.”

“You are far older than you appear,” Lucifer said, realizing that he was in the presence of a power older than creation itself.

The child admired his reflection in the icy wall.

“I like this shape,” he said, looking at his small hands, adorned with rings. “So small and innocent looking … but, really, so much more.”

The child smiled, and Lucifer was again treated to a brief flash of the creature before him, and its true form. It was even worse than he remembered.

“We watched as He created the stars, and the planets, and the earth.… We liked the earth.”

The child moved to another section of wall and gazed at the enormous figure frozen within.

“Didn’t we, sister?” he spoke to the thing. “We liked it so much that we came here to hide, and to plan our eventual return.”

The child returned his gaze to the Morningstar.

“The Lord of Lords didn’t even know we existed. He never bothered to consider that something might have existed before His light, and so long as we kept from His attention …” The child’s voice trailed off, and he spun playfully around to head back from where he had come.

“But my family was impatient,” he continued, “and every so often they would spread their malignant influence.”

The child faced Lucifer, putting up his hands as if claws and baring perfectly white teeth in a parody of a snarl. “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night … good Lord, deliver us,” the child recited in a singsong voice before breaking out in laughter.

“Your family created the monsters of the world,” Lucifer stated.

“Initially,” the child answered. “But then some of those monsters produced monsters of their own, and so on, and so on.”

The child cocked his head as if a thought had just come into it.

“It’s like your fallen angels,” he suggested with a smile, “creating the Nephilim.”

“The Nephilim are not monsters,” Lucifer snapped defensively.

“Really?” the child asked, a slight hand going to his chin. “That wasn’t what I was led to believe.” He clasped his hands behind his back and he began to pace. “I had a nice conversation a very long time ago with one of your brethren,” the child went on. “And we discussed these creatures. He was an angel of the Powers, I believe. What was his name again?”

The child looked toward the stalactite-covered ceiling, tapping his tiny chin, goading Lucifer.

“Verchiel,” Lucifer said quietly, a weight forming in the pit of his stomach.

“That’s it,” the child said, pointing happily. “Verchiel. I suggested he might want to focus on those Nephilim.”

“Instead of focusing on your brothers and sisters, and the creatures
they
created,” Lucifer said, as things suddenly became more clear.

The child nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “Having angels on the planet poking into every dark corner was becoming quite annoying. The Powers needed a distraction, and by whispering sweet nothings into their leader’s ear, I had found the perfect one.

“But, my family did not approve of my efforts,” he sighed. “They were tired of hiding. They wanted to wage war against the Creator and His angelic forces. I couldn’t allow them to do that. We weren’t ready … yet.”

He shook his head sadly.

“Which is why you see them like this,” the child said, gesturing to the creatures frozen about them. “I needed my siblings to be more patient than they were willing to be, so I put them to sleep, giving myself the chance to steer the world in a direction that would benefit me.”

“You?” Lucifer questioned.

“Me, and my family, of course,” the child offered quickly, but Lucifer saw who was the true master behind this scenario.

“Won’t they be angry with you?” the Morningstar asked. “For having imprisoned them? I know I would be,” he said, the Light Giver sparking brightly in his hand.

“Perhaps,” the child said, his gaze traveling over the ice walls that imprisoned his family. “But they’ll come to realize it was for their own good.”

“Or not,” Lucifer suggested.

The child fixed him in a stare far colder than the ice of the cavern.

“Why did you come here, Morningstar?” the child asked. “Have you come to accept my offer?”

Lucifer gripped his sword tightly as he regarded the horrors trapped within the chamber walls, horrors that would soon be unleashed upon the world if what the child said was true.

He saw no other choice. Lucifer dropped to one knee before the child and bowed his head.

“I have,” the Morningstar answered.

The child’s eyes twinkled happily, and the world slid that much closer to eternal darkness.

Geburah extended his hands, letting the power of Heaven leak from the tips of his fingers.

The rotting body of the Corpse Rider averted its single milky eye from the brightness of the angel’s divinity.

“Give it to me now,” Geburah demanded.

“I cannot,” the Rider gurgled. “If I do, it will be the end of me.”

The Powers’ leader bore down upon the female corpse, forcing himself to contain his fury.

“Explain,” he demanded.

“I gather that the object will not permit itself to be picked up by one it does not see fit to touch it,” the leader of the Riders explained.

“Do tell,” Geburah said. “Where have you put it?”

The corpse pointed to the pile of ashes on the floor. “There … resting in the remains of one who attempted to retrieve it.”

Geburah walked closer to the ash, studying the instrument. It certainly didn’t appear dangerous.

“Show me,” the angel commanded.

The leader hesitated, her blind eye searching the room for a volunteer, and of course there was none.

“You!” the leader commanded one of the other corpses.

A girl wearing cutoff shorts and a large shirt tied at the waist strode forward. On legs barely covered in flesh—yellow bone peeking out through tears in what little skin remained upon them—she approached her leader.

“Pick it up,” the leader commanded her.

The corpse turned her gaze to the instrument but did not move.

“But I will perish,” the corpse whined.

“Yes,” the leader acknowledged.

The dead girl did not move from where she was standing, weighing the command she’d been given by her leader.

Geburah could stand it no more, his patience at its lowest ebb. The angel surged toward the corpse, grabbing her by the back of the neck and throwing her atop the instrument.

The corpse landed awkwardly, emitting a high-pitched squeal as she momentarily thrashed before exploding into flame.

“Fascinating,” Geburah said. He turned his attention to his brothers, who were watching with cautious eyes, and he knew what they were thinking.

They were creatures of the Divine, and should have no worries at all about retrieving the holy object, but what if things had changed? What if the instrument no longer recognized their divinity; what if their time upon this accursed planet had left them tainted? What if the instrument knew their plans for the world, and did not agree?

Those were questions that only served to infuriate Geburah. Here he was, so close to fulfilling Verchiel’s final solution for this wretched world, and still it eluded him.

Geburah was almost considering prayer to seek his answer when the unconscious teen lying on the floor started to move.

The young man slowly crawled to his feet with a strangely blank stare.

The Powers’ leader found it odd that the carrier did not react in any way to the sight of walking corpses and winged angels standing before him as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He looked about the room, and seemingly beyond it.

“It is a pathetic place,” the carrier said with little inflection.

Geburah watched with a growing anticipation as the human turned his attention to the instrument nestled in the ashes of the unholy, and bent to retrieve it.

“And one that must be brought to a close,” the carrier continued, as he brought the instrument toward his mouth.

Geburah smiled broadly.

He could not have agreed more.

Aaron opened his eyes, and the cracked and water-stained plaster ceiling of the classroom gradually came into focus. He couldn’t move just yet, every nerve in his body numb from the psychic assault.

Something had gone wrong … something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

At first everything had seemed to be going well. Lorelei’s magick had allowed them to enter the subconscious of the kid with the instrument. There had been a bit of a struggle going on there, the kid seeming to have some control issues with the device.

They seemed to have arrived just in time though, giving the kid what he needed to muster some control and override the instrument’s desire to start the countdown to the apocalypse.

But the instrument proved to be stronger than they’d anticipated.

Lorelei had been in the process of explaining to Dusty—the longer they stayed within his mind, the more they seemed to know about him—that evil forces were at work, attempting to get him to trigger the End of Days.

Aaron guessed that they might have let their guards down just a little.

Lorelei had been encouraging Dusty to be strong until they had a chance to reach him physically. She told him they would protect him against those forces that were trying to steal the instrument, as well as against the instrument itself.

Yeah, everything had seemed to be going just fine, until Dusty had attacked. Although Aaron was pretty sure it had been the instrument asserting its control, not Dusty.

Finally feeling as though he could move again, Aaron mustered his strength and rolled onto his side. Vilma lay on the floor beside him. There was blood on her lip.

“Vilma,” he called to her. She seemed so incredibly still, and he couldn’t see if she was breathing. His heart began to hammer painfully in his chest with worry as he reached out, grabbed her arm, and gave it a shake. She moaned, and he gasped with relief, the rapid-fire beating of his heart starting to slow.

Gabriel lay on his side, legs straight out, his thick pink tongue lolling from his mouth to curl on the floor.

“C’mon, Gabe,” Aaron said. He forced himself into an upright position, feeling his head go light. He focused, taking in deep breaths through his mouth, exhaling through his nose.

Milton appeared to be all right, peeking out from beneath Gabriel’s floppy golden-yellow ear, squeaking for the dog to wake up.

Aaron placed a hand upon the dog’s side, feeling a powerful heartbeat.

Vilma groaned louder, and then began to cough. She rolled onto her side, choking, and Aaron slid himself closer, taking her into his arms.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re going to be all right.… Slow, steady breaths, that’s it.”

She was tense as he held her, but she soon relaxed and her breathing came under control.

“What happened?” she managed groggily.

“I think we were forcibly removed from Dusty’s subconscious,” Aaron said.

Gabriel was sitting up now too. The mouse sat atop his head, cleaning himself.

“You all right?” Aaron asked his best friend.

“I’m hungry,”
the dog said.

“Guess you’re fine,” Aaron said, relieved that they all seemed to have survived relatively unscathed, when—

“Lorelei,” Vilma said, pushing herself from his arms.

The instrument had gone after Lorelei first, knowing that she was the anchor holding them all there. The attack had been savage, like razor-sharp claws being raked over their exposed brains as an inhuman voice screamed for them not to meddle in the affairs of God.

Lorelei lay within the circle, curled in the fetal position.

Aaron crawled across the floor into the circle, not worrying about preserving the chalk lines.

“Lorelei,” he called to her.

She remained perfectly still as he carefully rolled her over onto her back. Vilma gasped at what they saw. The girl, who was only a couple of years older than he and Vilma, appeared to have aged another ten years. Her skin was a sickly gray, and dark trails of blood ran from each nostril.

“What’s happened to her?”
Gabriel asked, pushing between them.

“It’s the magick, I think,” Aaron attempted to explain. “It’s too much for her to control.”

Vilma held Lorelei’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

“Her heart seems to be all right,” Vilma said. “Gabriel, go and get Kraus,” she told the dog.

Gabriel, Milton still riding atop his head, spun around and galloped from the classroom in search of their doctor.

“Hang on, Lorelei. Help is coming,” Aaron said, soothingly. He supported her head on his thigh and was gently stroking her snow-white hair when her eyes fluttered open.

“I’ll be fine,” Lorelei said weakly as she struggled to sit up.

“Lie still,” Vilma ordered, gently pushing her back. “I just sent Gabriel to get Kraus. Let’s make sure.”

“No time,” Lorelei said.

Ignoring their attempts to have her rest, the girl managed, with their help, to climb to her feet. She held on to the windowsill to steady herself.

“Don’t know how much longer we have,” she said, panting as if she’d just run a race. Her nose was still bleeding, and she brought the sleeve of her blouse up to wipe at the steady stream.