The Fallen 3 (31 page)

Lorelei leaned her head back against the chair.

“Yes, sir,” she said, eyes closed, hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, I still can’t find him.”

A dark cloud passed over Aaron’s face.

“Where is he?” Aaron asked beneath his breath. “When we need him the most, he drops off the face of the earth.”

Milton squeaked his concern from Lorelei’s shoulder. He missed his friend.… They all missed their friend.

“It feels like that,” Lorelei said. “When I search the ether, all I come across is a bottomless, freezing nothing. No trace of him at all.”

“But where could he have gone?” Aaron asked, thinking aloud.

Lorelei could see how much this was bothering the boy, almost as much as it was bothering her. They needed the Morningstar if they were going to survive what was coming … if the world was going to survive what was coming.

“There might be something I overlooked in the Archon writings,” she suggested. “Let me go to the library and—”

“No,” Aaron snapped. “No, no, and no again,” he stated flatly. “You’re going to rest, and you’re going to get better. We agreed. This was the last spell that you were going to perform for quite some time. Remember? We made a deal.”

Lorelei sighed—recalling that she had indeed agreed to stop—before she started to argue.

“But I think there might be a spell that would allow me to search further … into another plane of existence even.”

Aaron’s stare was penetrating, his dark eyes reaching deep into her soul.

“I can’t lose anybody else,” he said to her. “I need you.…
We
need you. Please, no more. It’s going to kill you if you keep on with this.”

Lorelei knew when to quit, leaning her head back once more.

“Fine, I’ll rest,” she said. “But as soon as I’m feeling better …”

“Finally,” Kraus said. “Something sensible from her mouth.”

The sound of hard toenails clicking across the floor made Lorelei turn the wheelchair toward the open doorway and Gabriel.

“There’s my beautiful boy,” she said as the dog came over to her, tail wagging.

“Feeling better?”
the Labrador asked, standing up with his paws on her legs to lick her withered face.

“I was until you crushed me, you horse,” she moaned jokingly, pushing the dog from her lap.

“Sorry,”
Gabriel said, sitting down and leaning against the wheelchair so she could scratch behind his velvety soft ears. The dog closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure.

Aaron thanked her again, telling her to get some rest, and left with Gabriel, leaving her and Kraus alone.

“Do you want me to take you to your room so you can lie down?” he asked, taking hold of the chair’s handles, ready to wheel her there.

“No,” she said flatly. “I want you to take me to the library.”

Milton squeaked close to her ear, cautioning her. But mice were always cautious.

“Lorelei,” Kraus began. “You heard Aaron. He doesn’t—”

“Yeah, I heard him,” Lorelei interrupted. “He told me to rest, but I’m not that tired right now.”

She took hold of the chair’s wheels and started to wheel herself toward the doorway.

“Maybe a little light reading before bed will put me in the mood.”

The time for caution had long since passed.

Leaving the science building, Aaron noticed that the sun had already started to set, and it was only a little bit after two in the afternoon.

This was how it had been since the instrument brought the Abomination to the world. Even though the angel did not succeed, darkness came earlier now.

Gabriel stopped, lifting his snout in the air.
“It’s earlier than yesterday,”
the dog grumbled about the dusk.
“Not by much, but still earlier.”

Aaron looked up into the sky and wondered if there would come a time when there would be only darkness, but he already knew the answer. He was going to try to fix that with the others of his ilk. It was only one of the many things they would have to repair to restore some semblance of normalcy to the world. Aaron wasn’t sure he knew what normal was anymore.

Crossing the school grounds, Aaron came across Vilma and the others. His heart did a little flip when he saw her, as
it always did, and as she turned to look in his direction, he wondered if her heart did the same.

She seemed different since Jeremy had gone missing. They’d searched for him as well, with about as much luck. Even though Vilma told him that she was fine, Aaron sensed that something was off.

Was he being paranoid? Perhaps even a little jealous? Yeah, there was that, but Aaron could see a change in her. And like the world now, she seemed a little bit darker each day.

“Hey,” she said, leaving the others to continue practicing with their weapons.

Melissa held a sword of fire in each hand, doing some impressive combat moves, while Cameron sparred with some imaginary enemy. The boy seemed as good as new, even his damaged wing was growing back, something that they had been unaware that Nephilim could do.

Aaron liked that they were getting better at tapping into the full potential of their angelic natures. They were going to need it if they were to survive what was coming.

“Have you talked to him yet?” Vilma asked, moving into his line of vision.

“That’s where we’re going,”
Gabriel barked.

Aaron had been putting it off, hoping that his father would return from wherever it was that he’d gone, but …

“I still don’t trust him,” Aaron said.

“We’ve talked about this, Aaron,” she said. Vilma stepped
a little bit closer, reaching out to touch his arm. “We need guidance, and since Lucifer is missing …”

“I think he’ll be back,” Aaron said quickly. “Maybe we should just give it a little more time.”

“I don’t know if the world has more time,” she said. “Have you seen the news?”

He had. Creatures were emerging from the shadows to stake their claim on the changing world—a world not equipped to deal with threats of a supernatural nature.

“So much has happened in such a short period—the threat has become so much bigger,” Aaron said, looking at her. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“I never said you weren’t. It’s just like you said, so much has happened. But if we’re going to beat this, we need somebody with experience.”

Aaron laughed sarcastically. “Aren’t we in this mess because of him?” he asked. “Isn’t it because he and his Powers buddies were too busy killing us—killing the Nephilim—that these things were allowed to survive?”

He turned his face from her.

“Doesn’t sound like the kind of experience we need.”

Vilma crossed her arms, and Aaron knew she was getting frustrated.

“That was his job before the whole obsession with wiping out the children of fallen angels. Maybe he’s forgotten that, but even if he can remember just a little, it’ll be a help to us.”

“Ya think?” Aaron asked, chancing a look at her.

Yeah, she is frustrated, on the way to being pissed
.

“We need help, Aaron,” Vilma said flatly. “We lost more than half our original number dealing with Wormwood, and even before that we were stretched pretty thin.”

“She’s right, Aaron,”
Gabriel grumbled, looking up at his friend with dark, penetrating eyes.

“Of course she’s right,” Aaron replied, reaching down to ruffle the Lab’s ears. “She’s always right.” There wasn’t a hint of condescension in his voice. He agreed with Vilma. “But in this case, I just don’t
like
that she’s right.”

“I don’t like it either,” Vilma said, moving up closer.

It was bad enough that Aaron had fought alongside the Powers angel to defeat Wormwood, but for him to be a part of their daily life? It made his skin crawl.

“I feel like I’m betraying them,” Aaron said. “Everyone he and his thugs killed, my parents, Stevie …”

Vilma ran her hand along his arm.

Aaron shook his head as if trying to loosen some sort of secret meaning as to why this was happening.

“I don’t get it,” he said, growing angry again. “Why would God do this? Maybe He does hate us.… Maybe we are monsters in His eyes, like the Powers believed.”

Melissa and Cameron stopped their training as Aaron’s voice grew louder, and were watching him.

“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Vilma said forcefully,
upset by his angry words. “I think what we’re dealing with here is a lot bigger than we realize, and a whole lot more complicated.”

“If you say that His ways are mysterious, I’m gonna laugh in your face.”

“Well, they are,” she argued. “He’s God. I doubt He thinks like you or I do.”

“You know what I think?” Aaron asked, then launched into answering his own question. “I think He’s a jerk to put us through this … to put the world through this.”

“What makes you think He has a choice?” Vilma asked Aaron. “How do you not know that this isn’t how He plans to fix everything?”

Aaron could feel himself becoming even more pissed off, and decided maybe he should quit while he was ahead and just talk to Verchiel.

They stood there for what seemed like a very long time before Vilma broke the silence.

“You know, you’re very sexy when you’re tormented,” she said, seemingly trying to suppress a smile.

Aaron didn’t want her to see him smile, fighting—unsuccessfully—to remain angry, so he turned away before she could see.

Vilma came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Whether it knows it or not, the world is depending on
us,” she said to him in a whisper. She rested her chin upon his shoulder. “I know it’s hard for you to have him around.… It’s hard for all of us, but it doesn’t seem as though he’s going anywhere, so we might as well utilize what he has to offer.”

Aaron sighed as she squeezed him tighter, resigning himself to the task at hand.

“Are you going to do this or not?”
Gabriel then asked, obviously tired of hanging around, and of their displays of affection.

“Yeah,” Aaron said, mentally preparing himself. “Is he still in the chapel?”

“Last I checked,” Vilma said, releasing him from her embrace. “He’s been there since the battle with Wormwood.”

Gabriel had gotten up, starting to walk in the direction of the chapel.

“Coming?”
the dog asked, turning to look at him.

He hesitated momentarily before willing his legs to move.

“Good luck,” Vilma called after him.

Aaron waved over his shoulder as he caught up with Gabriel, the two of them walking side by side as he thought how he’d rather be fighting trolls, or Corpse Riders, or even angels of destruction.

On their way to speak with Verchiel.

Dustin Handy stood before the Abomination of Desolation’s giant, protruding sword blade, which had become a monument to the battle that been fought there.

He was nearly blind now, able to see only shadows and the outlines of shapes. He imagined that it wouldn’t be long until this, too, had left him.

But here, before the sword, Dusty could see differently. He guessed that it had something to do with his connection to the instrument. After all, it had become Wormwood’s sword. He’d believed that the instrument had abandoned him after he’d called the Abomination of Desolation, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

The sword had started to call to him.

At first he’d believed that it was nothing, just his remaining senses growing more acute now that his sight was leaving him. But then the strange voice began to call to him. Even though he was practically blind, he was able to follow the summons, leaving his new room in the dormitory and exiting the building into the cool fall morning.

It didn’t take him long to realize what had drawn him from his bed. He couldn’t see it, but he knew he was standing before the sword. The closer he got to it, the louder it spoke.

The sword wanted him to touch it, and for a moment he hesitated, remembering the last time he’d touched the instrument, and what it had cost his newfound friends and the world.

But the instrument needed him, and in some sad, twisted way, he needed it, as well.

Dusty placed his hand upon the body of the blade, and even though he was nearly blind, he saw.

He saw
.

The blade showed him the evil in the world, where it was, and where it would strike.

Dusty hadn’t yet told them, Aaron and the others, what he saw when he touched the sword, only that it might help them with their efforts. It was all still a little confusing for him. The instrument was eager to show him other things too. He believed the blade was attempting to show him the future, trying to show him what was in store for a world cut off from the attentions of Heaven.

Dusty had always believed that the future was malleable, that nothing was predetermined, that the time ahead could always be changed. After seeing what the sword had shown him, he wanted to believe that now more than ever.

For his sake, and the sake of them all.

The bond with Heaven had been severed, and the silence was deafening.

Verchiel knelt upon the altar of the chapel, gazing up at a section of wall where a cross had once hung. It now showed only as an outline on the dirty white wall.

Normally, this was where his kind could feel that connection to the Creator and the Kingdom of Light the strongest, but now there was only a void.

The former place of worship had been reduced to an empty vessel, and the former Powers leader could not help but relate.

Even before Wormwood had been called, Verchiel’s connection to the Lord of Lords had been strained. It had been quite some time since he’d last heard his Creator’s voice, and even if He had been trying to communicate, would Verchiel have heard Him? Would he have listened?

In retrospect, Verchiel had been blinded by his hate for them—the accursed Nephilim—and that hate had driven him further and further from the love of his Heavenly Father. But he had not been able to see it. His hate had made him deaf. His hate had also made him blind.

Verchiel continued to kneel, and pray for answers. Answers that did not come—would not come, for the world was now alone.

There was an anger that still existed inside of him, a fury that yearned to be released upon those that offended him. It took everything he had not to turn this rage upon the Nephilim.