The Second Coming (41 page)

The angel held
the sword to him. The fire upon it was searing. “Before you even
came up the hill, I knew what lay in your heart. The grief and pain
is great, as is the curse your spirit bears. I smell the soul leech
upon your arm and the dead whore you killed as payment.”

John rubbed at
his arm. The soul leech that lay beneath wriggled under his
fingers. He vaguely remembered the encounter with the ghoul. He
remembered only that if he needed help, it would be there when
asked. The leech was assurance of that.

“
For a man of your abilities, you bargain with some unsavory
characters.”

John
swallowed. “I will use whatever means are at my disposal.”

Uriel said
nothing. He drew back the sword and John felt the angel probing his
heart. His wings fluttered behind him.

This being’s
power is great.

He felt fear
in the pit of his stomach. It seemed to remind him of something,
but he could not remember what.

He lowered his
head. “I am your humble servant.”

“
You show humility when required. What are you
called?”

“
John.”

Uriel smiled.
It was terrible. “Then you shall be the herald. You will prepare
the way.”

John
nodded.

“
Follow me, heretic. I have need of you.”

And the man
called John, awed and jealous of the magnificence of the winged
being, followed in the wake of the archangel.

***

Brahm rolled
to her side and moaned. The pain of her severed hand ripped up her
arm. Her iron chains rattled as she gripped at the red-stained
swathe of rags that wrapped about her stump. She fisted and flexed
the ghost-hand as if it were still a part of her.

The captives
sat in a circle, each chained to a pole with a Hunter standing
guard. The one looming over her pressed the flat of his sword to
her shoulder.

“
Move back.”

Brahm shuffled
back as Senator Thurmond approached.

He poked her
with his boot. His white robes brushed her stump. “I want to know
about your power.”

Brahm cradled
her wounded arm. Breland sat off to the side, his sinister eyes
smiling. The sword wound to his midesection was sloppily stitched.
He wore the hideous scar exposed, and with pride. Flies hovered
over it.

He should be
dead.

Mason sat up.
“Leave her. She knows nothing.”

Thurmond rounded on his former Captain. “Fool! It is
you
who know
nothing.”

A painful look
crossed the Senator’s face as he gritted his teeth. His face and
body began to split. A second set of arms and legs emerged from his
body, led by a second head. When the creature had finished crawling
from the Senator’s form, its face smoothed out and took on a
youthful, blank visage, the features melding into androgyny. Two
now stood where one once did and the second took the shape of a
young man. His phallus was erect and he played with it.

Diarmuid
sucked in his breath. “Puck! What have you done to Paine?”

Puck grinned
back. “I-I-I,” he said mockingly, “will have that pathetic brat
soon enough and then you will see.” He strode away, still playing
with himself.

Senator
Thurmond cleared his throat and an unctuous grin slid across his
face. “You see, brothers and sisters,” he said, his preaching voice
dipped once again into viscous drawl. “We are fishers of men. And
you are bait.”

Brahm’s eyes
challenged him. “What do you mean?”

“
We want the boy. His mother whelped two children — twins;
both of whom command great power. But one of them has the ability
to command the Westwood. Their afterbirth helped create it and so
they are a part of it. We want that power.”

He then
marched away from them and the Imp scuffled along behind him.

Diarmuid
called after him. “Where is Lya?”

“
Safe,” said a voice that was low and harsh. It came from
behind them. Brahm craned her neck and sucked in her breath at the
sight. A tall man in black robes approached. He had shorn hair and
a hard look in his eye. Behind him strode a magnificent being of
darkness and light. It had black wings, yet they shone in the
sunlight. Its face was terrible and beautiful. It reminded her of
the statue that she had seen upon her parents’ death. In his hand
he brandished a sword of fire.

An angel?

The second
soul within her shrieked, as if Sephirah was being burned by
it.

-No!-

Brahm could
barely peel her eyes away from the angel as it swept around to face
them.

The man in the
black robes remained behind the angel, muttering the words,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is nigh.”

The sword
swept low and close to Brahm’s missing hand. “You are insignificant
in the eyes of the Almighty,” he said, “a maggot among worms. Tell
me, Soul Runner, which of the others has touched you?”

Brahm shook
her head. “I don’t understand.” She wiggled her ghost fingers.

The angel
cocked its head. “One of the gods has lain upon you. I can smell
the beast all over you. You reek of sweat and fornication.”

White Feather
looked at her, but Brahm kept her gaze focused on the angel.

Brahm heard
Sephirah’s voice within her.

-Don’t lie to
him! He will know.-

Brahm thought
for a moment.

Don’t lie to
him.

She spoke. “He
did not give me his name.”

The angel
looked to the man in black robes. “What say you, messenger?”

The messenger
adjusted a pack upon his back and then nodded his head.

The angel
leaned in and shoved his hand against Brahm’s stomach. She moaned
with the roughness of his touch.

The angel said
nothing and then strode off, his wings trailing him. The messenger
followed, but paused for one last look at Brahm. As he did so,
Sephirah forced Brahm’s soul to sail forth and lunge at the man,
delving within him. Then her soul reeled back as Brahm tried to
understand what she had done.

-Soon we shall
be free.-

The messenger
remained motionless for a moment. Then he adjusted the pack on his
back once more and walked in a different direction than the
angel.

The late
summer air moaned silence across the Witch Plains, its humid breath
seeping into Paine's undergarments. He thought of Little Doe. Her
loss was a wound to his heart, piercing and sharp. And what made it
fester was that she had died by his hand. They had found her body
the morning after, shredded and sliced. Her mouth and eyes had been
open in suffering.

Paine’s nose
twitched as he remembered the scent of the burning flesh from the
funeral pyre. He had been the last to mount, remaining by the fire
as the others departed. He had remained until her body had fallen
into the branches and disappeared from sight. The thoughts of
raising her soul and speaking with her had been tempting. He had
wanted to apologize for his careless actions, but in the end he
rode away, leaving her soul to rest in peace. The regret had been
heavy on him for the last five days as they fled from an army that
had caught them too swiftly.

Mira and Great
Bear stood to his left, Truitt to his right, their gaze cast two
hundred yards away, to the Hunters lined in the middle of the
Plains.

He thought
also of the souls of the dead that now resided in him. After the
staff had been broken, the souls had wanted their price and he knew
they waited within him, reveling in the blood that ran through his
veins. He could not sense their presence, nor their voices, but it
still made his skin itch. And others had witnessed that the dead
had advanced upon him and dwelt within him. Almost everyone avoided
him now, as if they were expecting him to explode and that hundreds
of hungry dead would come looking for their toll elsewhere.

Gregor stood a
few feet over, his gnarled hands fingering Elenya's Soul. His eyes
appeared lost, looking toward some distant thought. Alwhin and
Brown Bear stood at the old man's side, both looking drawn and
grim.

The army of
Hunters assembled in pristine order, their swords still sheathed
across their backs at a forty-five degree angle. Row upon row they
waited, their faces expressionless and hard. The pearly-white
crosses of their leather vests gleamed in the light of the rising
sun, but paled next to the bleached white robes of the man who rode
in front of them. Gregor named him; Thurmond, the man who created
the Witch Hunters. Paine thought back to what Puck had told
him.

Is he with
them?

He looked at
the meager army of refugees. Mounted Haudenosaunee flanked the
right side, the remainder of Lindhome with the Lastborn lined the
front, bows lowered, but arrows nocked. The witches of Haven, with
daggers unsheathed, were prepared to draw their own blood. They
flanked the left with the brightly-garbed ranks of the New Boston
Guard. The mayor had sent them to help protect the city.

Man, woman;
half-breed, human; they stood together, faces haggard, but eyes
determined. Paine looked again to the Hunters that outnumbered the
refugees by four to one.

It’s
hopeless.

A shifting in
the trees to the north turned the heads of both hosts. Twelve
mighty beings marched from the woods, their gray bark-like skin
covered in tanned hides. They each stood a head taller than Great
Bear.

As if on cue,
the Haudenosaunee prodded him and whispered.

“
Obek.”

***

Seventeen.
Seventeen.
Seventeen.

Dïor, once
master of the Overlords, heir to the throne of Valbain, and High
Magus of the Empire, wriggled through the congregation of Lastborn
like a deathworm. Their mere existence twisted his insides with
revulsion. His presence skimmed past them, squeezing between their
tired bodies to avoid their touch. He brushed the wretched boy and
reeled from him.

I should kill
him.

He continued
on, one thought in his mind.

Lya.

His presence
slunk through the crowds, avoiding the old Obek as he spoke of
demons. He felt the Troll’s double gaze trail Dïor as he slid along
the shadows to materialize in front of Gregor and the Lastborn
witch with the Sight.

Sorceress.

Both stepped
back and Dïor’s lips curled in a shallow grin. He pulled back his
hood, feeling the pain of the sun on his pale skin.

Alwhin gasped.
“Dïor, you live.”

Seventeen.

“
Indeed.” He sensed the gaze of the rebel eyes upon him. Ten
Lastborn aimed their bows at him. The Revenants cowered.

He laughed.
“Put down your weapons, fools. I no longer have any quarrel with
you.”

Alwhin
motioned them to lower their arms. “What has happened to you? Your
presence has darkened.”

“
There is no time. Dark Wind is upon you and my daughter is
among them.” He pointed to the army of Hunters.

“
They have Lya?” asked one of the Lastborn men, his goateed
face contorted. Dïor sensed the waves of diluted adoration that
radiated from him. It was a tainted love.

You could
never love her like I did my Sephirah.

“
So you know she is my daughter? I'm surprised you did not
take her captive.”

Alwhin shook
her head. “I did not want to endanger her life by revealing her
identity. You have now done that, to her peril.”

Seventeen.

He spat black
mucus to the ground. “She will be far greater than any of you can
imagine. She should know who she is and take her rightful
place.”

A young human
pushed his way to stand in front of him. Dïor saw the questions in
his eyes and smelled fear wafting from him. He remembered the boy's
name, Sephirah's idea, for the suffering he brought upon her, in
his conception, his birth, his life.

Paine.

“
What do you want, whelp?”

“
You are Lya's father?”

“
And not yours,” he snapped. “I want nothing to do with you,
boy. I would have slit your throat when you were born, but Sephirah
wanted you to live. She even wrote some note as to why she had done
such a thing. Now get out of my sight.”

The boy
swallowed, but his eyes were hard. “This?” He held up a ripped
piece of parchment. On it was the writing that Dïor knew to be
Sephirah’s hand. And on it was the script that he knew only he
could see.

“
You can read this?” he asked.

The boy
nodded. “It’s the same as the script on the Tablet.”

Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen
.
“This cannot be! Only three souls
can read this. Mine, Sephirah’s and our child’s.”

And then Dïor
read the note left by his love. His insides twisted with anger and
revulsion. The pain of it made his legs wobble where he stood.

“
What does it say?” the boy asked.

Dïor looked to
him and still hated him.

He swallowed
back his pain, but his pride remained caught in his throat. He
choked as he pointed back towards the Hunters. “For your mother's
sake, I will give you one piece of advice. Get on a boat with the
half-breeds, boy. Flee this place. Dark Wind wants you and your
sister. As does that monster over there. I am going to see it does
not get its hands on you. Now, get out of my sight.”

Dïor turned
his anger towards Gregor. “So, ancient one, what do you plan on
doing to fix the mess you helped create? I should stab you for your
part in it, but my Sephirah agreed to it. Now I need you to help me
stop it.”

The old man
looked worn, like his life was nothing more than yarn stretched too
tight and ready to snap. He pulled from his tunic a black orb. Dïor
recognized it instantly. “You will need more than one of these.
Dark Wind's power has grown.”