Fall of the Angels

by Josh Raymer

  I turn to the right and search for the source of the spear, my mind piecing together the clues as I scan for the person who threw it. I see Augustus, angel blade drawn, running over the rugged terrain as fast as he can. The distance from which he threw the spear and hit Raphael’s neck while the angel was moving seems impossible, but we are talking about history’s greatest nephilim.

  I turn back to Raphael, who’s risen from his knees to a standing position, his hands stretched out in front of him as if he intends to choke someone. As he staggers forward, blood burbling from his mouth, I realize that someone is me.

  My view is blocked by a large shape rising from the ground in front of me. I take a step back and realize that Puriel has risen from his crater. As he sways unsteadily on his feet, he raises his right hand, which is wrapped around Raphael’s dagger. In one swift movement, he plunges the blade deep into the archangel’s chest.

  Raphael sinks back to his knees, his eyes wide and unblinking. He puts his right hand up to his chest wound as his body begins to dissolve into pinpricks of light, millions strong, that gently float away as if blown by the breeze.

  Before he completely disintegrates, Raphael looks me dead in the eye and flashes that malevolent smile one last time. Then he bows his head as if in prayer.

  It takes a second longer than it should for me to realize what he’s doing. Before I can move to stop him, the message rings out loud and clear in my mind.

  Send all forces to the plain of Megiddo. Kill everyone you find here.

  The twinkling lights consume his body, and then Raphael is gone. The spear of Joshua dislodges from his neck and falls with a thud into the grass. I’m frozen in place, his words still ringing inside my head. The small thrill of victory I felt just seconds ago is replaced by an all-consuming panic. With his last act, that spiteful archangel has absolutely screwed us. Heaven’s forces are about to swarm our position, which means we have two choices: fight or flight.

  Or…perhaps there’s a third option.

  “This isn’t right,” I tell Augustus, who’s bending down to scoop up the spear, and Puriel, who’s slowly standing to his feet. “In my vision, this isn’t where our final battle went down. We were on a floating platform above all the planets.”

  “Was it Heaven’s waiting room, where Bron and I left you?” Augustus asks.

  “No, no, no, it was bigger,” I reply. “Much bigger. Where could that be?”

  “It is the observatory,” Puriel interjects. “God likes to go there and enjoy a panoramic view of his creation. Angels do, too. It is beautiful.”

  “That’s where we were,” I conclude. “The final battle takes place there.”

  As the final word leaves my mouth, I hear a small pop above our heads. Then another. Then two more. Then dozens of pops begin to register. I tilt my head up, and fear grips my insides. Dotting the sky above us are dozens of angels.

  “Time to go,” I tell the others, the fear in my voice unmistakable.

  Puriel holds out his arm, we grip it, and our feet leave the ground. I hear the sound of wings cutting through the air as the angels divebomb our location. When we land, I know we’re in the right place. This is the area I saw in my vision. We’ll make our last stand here before I’m called away for…well, I’m not sure yet. But whatever it was, it must have been urgent for me to leave Augustus behind in battle.

  “Puriel, how banged up are you?” Augustus asks. “The fight will be here any second, and we’re going to need you. We couldn’t have defeated Raphael without you.”

  “I will live,” he says. “My healing is underway, and my strength is returning. Whatever I have left in my being, I will pour it out for this fight.”

  “Good,” Augustus says, patting his shoulder. “We’re glad you’re here.”

  If this is the final battle, it means either we’re going to end Michael with his sword, or he’s going to end us. I’m hoping for the first option, but if that’s the case, we have to be sure that Lightfall preparations are almost ready. Bron isn’t back yet, which means they must still be going on…or something happened to him.

  “Is there a way to reach out to Bron?” I ask the group. “Before the angels get here, we need to know if the Lightfall preparations are ready. If we kill Michael and expel the angels before our guys on the ground are ready, Earth is toast.”

  “I can reach out,” Puriel says. “Or better yet, I can amplify your message, Augustus. The Bronze Man will know to be listening for your voice inside his mind.”

  Puriel places a finger on Augustus’s forehead, who bows his head.

  Bron, this is Augustus. What’s the status of the Lightfall preparations? We’re out of time up here. Michael and his angels will be on our ass any minute now.

  I keep waiting for the pop above our heads to tell us we’re out of time. The seconds drag on, all of us waiting for a response from Bron, my stomach tightening with each agonizing moment that passes. Finally, a voice cuts through the dead air.

  Rio de Janeiro and Jerusalem are complete. We are headed to Kansas now.

  How much time do you need?

  Every second you can buy us is invaluable.

  We can do that.

  The word “that” is barely out when the pops begin to fill the sky above us. Augustus tosses Puriel his angel blade and tightens his grip on the spear. I fire up my fists, my gaze turned upward as our enemies begin to pour into this new arena. My heart is thundering in my chest, but I feel calm and strangely excited. There’s been a lot of heartache and setbacks since I arrived in Heaven. If I’m being honest, I’m just ready to put these new fighting skills to use and punch an angel in the face.

  “Spread out and divide their forces,” Augustus tells us. “Stay alive, both of you.”

  I sprint toward the edge of the platform to my right, Puriel swoops into the air and makes off for the far end, and Augustus heads for the middle. The angels, now thirty strong at least, start to descend—but we don’t have their full attention. They’re still fighting each other, so only a few peel away to attack us.

  I don’t see Michael or Gabriel yet. They probably want to come in at the last minute once we’re worn down and deliver the final blow, ensuring they get the glory. My excitement turns to anger at this thought. I don’t just want to buy Bron a few seconds. I want to stay alive long enough to kill one of those bastards.

  As I take up my position near the edge of the platform, an angel lands dramatically in front of me. He smirks at my glowing fists. Like most of these smug assholes, he probably thinks from looking at me that I’ll be an easy kill. We’ll see about that.

  I wave him forward. Bring it, flyboy.

  The angel flies straight toward me, so I sidestep him and grab the back of his armor as he soars past me. Using his own momentum against him, I jump, lifting him high in the air, then bring him crashing down onto the marble floor. He crumples into a heap, and before he can move, I’m pummeling him with both fists.

  I rain blows down on his face, pounding it into the ground and sending blood gushing from his nose and cheeks. Laying on his side, he raises his arm to swat me away, but I see it coming and back away to avoid the blow. That gives him time to rise to his feet and charge at me again, this time on two legs.

  Much like the first time a demon charged me in Mom’s house, I can feel my programming working behind the scenes, telling my limbs exactly what to do. Then, it was raising a gun to fire two shots into a demon’s skull. Now, it’s blocking a flurry of punches the angel tries to land with little effort from me. Despite my small size, so much of what Augustus downloaded into my brain was about using my mass effectively and getting opponents off-balance using their own movement, not mine. Let the fight come to me instead of acting as a blunt instrument.

  This angel is giving me everything he’s got. Straight, jab, jab, roundhouse, spinning back kick, uppercut—but it doesn’t matte
r. I’m floating like Muhammad Ali, dodging every strike before it even comes close to connecting.

  How did I ever fight demons without this programming?

  I could toy with this angel all day, but it would be best to finish him before a couple of his buddies show up. I focus on his face and see the muscles in his jaw tighten as he lunges toward me, spreading his arms for a tackle. I duck, spin my leg around and sweep his feet as he draws even with me. This sends the angel tumbling, and the second he hits the ground, I straddle him from behind and wrap my arms around his neck. Channeling my nephilim energy into my hands, I squeeze tight, draw a deep breath, and then jerk my hands violently in opposite directions.

  The angel’s neck breaks with a horrible snap, and his body goes limp. I release my grip just as the twinkling lights begin to overtake his form. Looking down at my vanquished foe, I feel a tiny pang of…not regret. Sadness, I suppose.

  I have no problem killing demons. They’re vile, wretched creatures who’d slit your throat just for fun. The righteous angels aren’t evil. They’re simply misguided. In their minds, they’re the heroes who will die defending their home.

  But whether you’re on Earth or in Heaven, the simple fact remains that if someone tries to kill you, you do everything you can to defend yourself. I am sad that it’s come to bloodshed with the beings whose grace powers my abilities. I wish there was another way. But they have their mission, and so do we—and we can’t afford to fail.

  I return my focus to the battlefield in time to see two angels land dramatically a few feet away from me. They stare at their brother-in-arms turning to a flurry of lights, the white pinpricks reflected in their eyes as their brows furrow.

  “You will die for that,” one of them says, pointing to the fallen angel.

  “We’ll see,” I tell him.

  They both charge me, so I blast them with a small cleansing flame and knock them off-balance. I go after the one on my left, flaming fists catching his midsection, then his face on both sides. Before I can swing again, the other angel hooks my arm with his and catches me in the ribs with a thunderous punch. I have so much adrenaline going that I barely feel it, although my brain notes that I’ll probably be pissing blood for a week after that hit. I sweep my captive arm downward and break his grip, then backhand him across the face. I deliver a swift kick to the solar plexus of the one on my left who’s recovered from my flurry of punches.

  His buddy fires off his own kick. I see the leg coming in slow motion, and as the programming takes over again, I roll backward over my left shoulder and then use that momentum to bring myself into a kneeling position, where I deflect the punches of both angels, throwing them aside. I need to even the odds against these two. I stand, spin over my right shoulder and catch the angel to my left with a vicious roundhouse kick to the head that knocks him out cold.

  Seeing his companion go down, the other angel screams at me, the veins bulging in his neck and his complexion the color of a tomato. I know exactly what he’s going to do, and sure enough, he does it: kicking off from the ground and flying at me, both hands reaching forward to seize me by the neck. He doesn’t even notice that I’ve channeled all my energy into one fist, so it’s glowing white hot like a blow torch. I let his body slam into mine and drive my fist through his chest.

  His hands go limp against my face as the light in his eyes begins to fade. I lower his body to the ground and wipe my fist on my pants, trying hard not to see the blood covering it because of the sadness it stirs up in my chest. His body is just starting to light up when I’m tackled hard from behind and slammed into the marble floor. My head bounces off the ground, and stars pop in front of my eyes.

  I spin over as my attacker settles in to pummel me: it’s the angel I put to sleep with the roundhouse kick. He’s awake now and just as furious as his fallen brother.

  “You traitorous scum!” he spits at me. “You are supposed to use your God-given abilities to protect Heaven and Earth, yet you use them to murder angels.”

  “And you’re supposed to protect Heaven, not destroy it,” I fire back. “I know you want the angels who followed Gregori to pay, but where does it end?”

  “For you, it ends right here,” he replies, wrapping his hands around my neck.

  I hammer on his arms, trying to break his grip, but it’s no use. His hands are like a vice clamped around my throat, expelling the oxygen from my body. I switch tactics and try to summon a cleansing flame. It’s no use. The fiery fist I used to kill the last angel sapped me of my powers temporarily. This is not good.

  I struggle and squirm in an attempt to break free as darkness begins to overtake my vision. I see the angel wide-eyed and with a deranged smile through the tiny bit of vision I have left. It’s like looking through a paper towel tube at him.

  Which is what makes it so surprising when the next feeling I experience is his body slumping onto mine. I waste no time forcing his hands from my neck and inhaling deeply. My bruised windpipe radiates pain as the cold air rushes down and fills my lungs. I lie there and breathe for a moment.

  Knowing another angel could be bearing down on me right now, I go to push the angel’s body off me. That’s when I notice the half-dollar-sized hole in his forehead. I rack my brain to determine what kind of weapon could have caused that damage as I roll the angel off me and bring myself to a standing position.

  It almost looked like a stone had passed through there. A stone fired from a sling.

  But that’s…

  “Impossible,” I say to the person who fired it.

  Jet black hair, steely blue eyes, and skin so pale it almost glows. Lilith stands before me, a smirk on her face and a sling clutched in her right hand.

  “The sling I saw in my vision,” I tell her. “It wasn’t David’s.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It was mine,” she finishes. “How do you think Adam and I ate?”

  Amazing. I would’ve bet everything I own that I’d never see Lilith again after we exited the wasteland where she’d been exiled. But here she is, in the flesh, saving my life. I’ve been hit with some wild surprises these last few days.

  This one might be the wildest.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her. “I thought you’d be long gone.”

  She nods as if to say, that wouldn’t have been a bad option.

  “I told you: I want to clear my name,” she replies. “If your cause is as righteous as I believe it to be, then I want to be on the side that helped make it happen.”

  “You’re trying to get back in God’s good graces,” I assert.

  She snorts and shakes her head.

  “I’m not doing this for God’s approval,” she says. “I’m doing this for me.”

  Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad she’s here. I’d be dead for good if it weren’t for her and that sling. I glance up over her shoulder and see two angels zooming toward us, looks of rage painted across both their faces.

  “Fight’s coming our way,” I tell her. “You ready?”

  “If you knew the things I’ve killed up here, you wouldn’t have to ask,” she answers.

  I still don’t trust her, but damn it, Lilith is growing on me. If nothing else, she saved my life, so I owe it to her to have her back with God or the angels or whoever else comes asking about her. I don’t know what she did, but I know what she’s doing now: uppercutting an angel in the jaw so hard it sends him toppling.

  Blood streaming from his mouth, he spits out a few teeth and screams, “Our father locked you away! And now you impede our path, a living abomination!”

  “I had to break free just to kick your ass, sweetie,” she taunts him.

  The other angel is on me now, and he’s brandishing an angel blade. He swipes left and right, then jabs it toward my chest. I block all three attacks with small cleansing flames, and as he brings the blade down in a swiping motion
, I step back to dodge it and blast the weapon out of his hand with a more forceful cleansing flame.

  The blade clatters along the floor over to where Lilith stands. I kick the angel in the chest and send him toppling over backward. With my attacker incapacitated, I look back at Lilith, who bends to pick up the weapon, her eyes wide.

  “Ohhhhh,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to use one of these.”

  She looks down at the sling in her other hand, then back up at me.

  “Here you go, kid,” she says, tossing me the sling. “You know how to use it?”

  “In my vision, this fired balls of light,” I tell her, my question embedded.

  “Channel your angelic energy to the sling, just like you do your fists,” she answers. “When you start to spin it, if you’re doing it right, the ball will appear there.”

  Now’s the time to test what Lilith is saying. My assailant is back on his feet and walking toward me like the Terminator, cold fury etched into his expression. I begin to spin the sling, routing my angelic energy past my hand and into the weapon itself. I back up to buy myself more time and keep my eyes fixed on the angel, who quickens his pace now that he’s seen the sling.

  I feel the energy flowing, but I’m too scared to take my eyes off the angel. In my peripheral vision, though, I see a streak of white forming a faint circle. I plant my feet. The sling is at full speed, whooshing through the air next to me. I flick my wrist forward right as the angel extends his hands to grab me. I can see the whites of his stone-gray eyes right as the ball of light passes through his chest.

  I step to the side. The angel falls face first to the ground, dead.

  My gaze finds Lilith right as she pulls the angel blade from her opponent’s chest. For a moment, he’s suspended there on his knees, mouth agape and eyes wide. He clutches at the wound in his chest, blood running down the back of his hand. Lilith walks toward him, runs her hand through his hair, and kisses his forehead.