“I’m here because I need to be,” Remy said. “I’m his weakness. . . . The matter of the Shaitan should be faced with a cold, divine efficiency.”
Madeline laughed, a delicate hand going up to her mouth to stifle the sound of her merriment.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s just that that was really funny.”
Remy almost smiled, loving the sound of her laugh, even if it was at his own expense.
“Are you that big of a dummy?” Madeline asked.
Remy was a bit taken aback by the question.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“I asked if you were stupid.”
“No, I don’t think that—”
“The Seraphim has gone into battle incomplete,” Madeline stated.
“You’re wrong; the Seraphim is out there . . . complete, all fiery rage and righteous indignation,” Remy explained.
“Then what are you?” she wanted to know.
“I’m what isn’t needed right now,” he said. “Which is why I’m here.”
“Which is why you’re wrong,” Madeline corrected. “You’re his humanity . . . not some useless thing that was picked up at a yard sale a few years back. Whether he likes it or not, the Seraphim has evolved . . . his human aspect is just as important as his angelic one.”
Remy didn’t know how to respond to that one.
“He’s missing something,” Madeline explained. “Like going into battle without his armor . . . without his sword.”
The darkness began to swirl behind her, growing lighter as forms began taking shape—as images of a world appeared.
New York at night . . . Chicago . . . Japan . . . Australia . . . the Boston skyline.
Remy felt his mood lighten at the sight of his adopted home.
“This isn’t what he’s fighting for,” Madeline pointed out.
The backdrop quickly changed, melding to scenes of the past. Remy saw when their relationship was young—he and Madeline walking on a beach at Cape Cod, their love uncontrollable in its growth. It would grow so big . . . so powerful.
“This isn’t what he’s fighting for.”
The disheveled image of Steven Mulvehill appeared, and for some reason the sight of the man . . . his friend . . . it hurt, made him want to reach out and . . .
Marlowe running at the Boston Common, his black fur shiny in the afternoon sun as he chased a tennis ball thrown by . . .
Linda Somerset dressed in a heavy winter jacket and jeans, clapping her hands for Marlowe to return the ball to her. Remy smiled. She would probably have a long wait. Marlowe was a ball hog, preferring to tease, running around with the prize clutched proudly in his mouth before . . .
“This isn’t what he’s fighting for.”
The following scene made him gasp, not real but torn from the imagination.
The Earth was in ruin, infernos burning that permanently blackened the sky. The Shaitan swarmed upon the world like locusts, dismantling everything that He—the Lord God—was responsible for.
“Up there, in the Garden,” Madeline said, pointing off in the distance behind them. “He fights for his Creator, and the Kingdom of Light. . . .”
Remy saw the Garden and the battle going on within it. The Seraphim was covered in the flesh of the Shaitan, being crushed . . . suffocated. . . .
“And there’s so much more to fight for, Remy,” Madeline said. “Don’t you think?”
So much more, he thought as the images of the world, of people, places, and things, fired past in staccato blasts.
Madeline came to him, putting her arms around him and drawing him close.
“Glad you agree with me,” she said with her most seductive smile as she brought her lips to his. And they kissed.
And it was like he had been awakened from a very long slumber, like the sun rising powerfully in the sky to chase the darkness away.
So much more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Remiel had failed the Creator.
He could feel the corrosive, supernatural energies flowing from the Shaitan digesting what remained of his armor, and starting to work upon his flesh.
And there was nothing he could do.
The angel considered crying out to his Lord God, but he was too ashamed. If this was to be his fate, he would accept it. He had met a foe more powerful than he.
This realization seemed to fuel the angel’s anger, and he struggled fitfully in the Shaitan’s grip, but the darkness at the center of the creature’s being was like nothing he had ever experienced before.
It was so cold, and it was drawing the light from him.
Soon there was only shadow, and Remiel was flying in the endless night, not toward the sky, but down . . . down to where the light would never reach.
Down to where he’d cease to be, swallowed up by the endless night.
At first he believed it a trick of his failing system, flashes of light heralding his approaching death, but then he realized that something was with him.
There were shapes in the flashes, and he came to know that they were of his human persona and its deceased wife.
Come to gloat? the angel of Heaven wondered, as he drifted closer.
The woman was smiling, and he didn’t know why. For soon they would be no more . . . their life forces consumed by a horror with the potential to level the Kingdom of Heaven. He wanted to ask her why she smiled, but he was too weak, already wavering on the precipice of oblivion.
And then she reached out, taking his wrist and bringing his hand toward the other, toward the hand of the human self that had dominated his form.
“I doubt I can make the two of you kiss and make up,” the woman said, as she joined their hands. “So a handshake will have to do.”
Malachi was loath to admit it, but at the moment, he was quite in awe of his creation.
Despite the angel’s divine power, Taranushi had managed to immobilize the Seraphim, completely envelop its body, and was now in the process of consuming him.
This was a design to fear, and maybe the Almighty had been right in His decision not to create the Shaitan.
But that was neither here nor there. If Malachi wanted to save reality, he had to move quickly, before the rest of the Shaitan were born. He started back into the jungle’s thickness when he heard the sound of crying. Glancing across the clearing, he saw the old woman, Eliza Swan, kneeling just before the Tree as Adam’s corpse continued to be fed upon by the emerging Shaitan. She was weeping, mourning his death, but at least he had gotten his wish: to die in the Garden.
Malachi was going to leave, but thought better of it. The woman, this descendant of Eve, might prove useful in escaping the Garden.
Quickly, he made his way around the withered Tree, emerging from the jungle at the woman’s back.
“Do not mourn for him, human,” Malachi said. “For he has achieved his heart’s desire, to return to the Garden from which he was banished.”
She turned her head to him, her face awash with tears.
“You killed him,” she spat. “This poor old soul, and you killed him like a dog.”
“You are incorrect, woman,” Malachi said as he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, pulling her back toward the jungle. “I did no such thing.”
He chanced a quick look back at the Tree of Knowledge, and what unfolded beneath it. Taranushi was still covering the Seraphim, moaning aloud. At first Malachi thought them moans of pleasure as the spawn of darkness fed upon the angel’s light.
But then the moans turned distinctly to screams of agony.
Taranushi had only imagined how wonderful an angel of Heaven—a Seraphim—would taste.
He had thought about it for centuries, and longer, as he searched the world for the keys to Eden. Now the power of Heaven’s warrior host flowed into him as his body continued to spread across that of the Seraphim, expanding and contracting, using powerful muscles to crush his victim, and allow the delectable juices to flow.
To think th
at there was an entire legion of these beings to feast upon was enough to drive him mad with pleasure.
Taranushi groaned in satisfaction as the angel struggled within him. He wanted to tell the Heavenly being to cease its efforts, that it was only prolonging the inevitable, but the truth was, he enjoyed the feeling, the power that he had over this arrogant messenger of God.
The sensation of supremacy.
The Seraphim’s movements grew weaker, and Taranushi felt his own digestive fluids increase in flow. The beast was tempted to release the angel, so he could rip the flesh from its bones and stuff the bloody pieces of Heavenly meat into his mouth as the Seraphim slowly passed from life, but this form of consumption would more than suffice.
The first twinge startled the Shaitan, but that moment quickly turned to excitement as he realized that the Seraphim still had some fight in him.
More life to feed his insatiable appetite.
The Shaitan constricted his muscles all the tighter, giving his prey little space to move.
“Fight, pretty angel,” he cooed, stretching his head above the undulating mass of black, marked flesh that was his body. “It will just make your meat all the sweeter.”
The monster began to laugh, but his amusement turned to concern as he realized that the Seraphim’s movements were growing stronger.
Concentrating with all his might, the Shaitan tightened his body’s pliant muscles, just as a clenched fist savagely punched through the mass of its body, and into the air.
“Yeeeeeeeeeearrrgh!” Taranushi cried out.
His flesh flowed over the arm and drew the limb back down into his body. But another fist forced its way through, followed by the flexing of a mighty wing.
The Shaitan was in trouble, and he doubled his efforts to put his prey down, but to little avail. It was as if the Seraphim had been given a second opportunity at life.
An intervention on behalf of the divine, he almost considered, before pushing the disturbing thought away.
And that was when he began to feel the heat. The angel had attempted the same trick before, radiating the fire of its divinity, but the darkness inside Taranushi had been enough to suffocate that flame.
Now, however, hands burning white with fire hotter than the heart of a star tore through Taranushi’s flesh, the meat of the Shaitan’s body sizzling as his juices were cooked from within.
The Seraphim tore himself out from the prison of flesh, body glowing white-hot, and tossed his head back in a savage scream that informed the universe he still lived.
Taranushi recoiled, flowing away from the intense heat of the angel’s form. He was hurt, his body damaged in ways that it had never been before. Gazing down at the wounds, he considered escape, giving himself time to heal before resuming the struggle.
But the ground beneath his feet pulsed with life.
The life of his kind, and he knew there wasn’t much time before they were born, and unleashed from the Garden unto the world.
There was no choice.
The angel stood naked before him, the fluids from his captivity smoldering upon his superheated flesh. Slowly he flapped his wings, shaking off the burning residue.
Taranushi let the rage come, ignoring his pain to once more challenge the soldier of Heaven.
“Time to die, messenger,” the spawn of darkness said as he lunged for his prey.
For the fate of his kind.
There was a balance within the Seraphim now.
Before there had always been a sense of struggle, of holding back.
But now that was gone.
He had been about to die when the change had come upon him, but two opposing forces joined together to form one.
Dispelling the darkness with light.
Dispelling the darkness with holy fire.
* * *
Seraphim and Shaitan came together at the base of the Tree of Knowledge, two bodies colliding with such force and strength that the Garden trembled with the intensity of it.
They both knew that this was the moment their fates would be decided.
They smashed into the base of the Tree, tearing away huge pieces of bark, revealing the pale, oozing flesh beneath.
The Shaitan was up to his old tricks at once, his body like water, attempting to engulf his foe. But this time the Seraphim was ready. He refused to allow the malleable beast to take hold. Instead, he made his hands burn with the heat of the righteous.
The Shaitan drew back, roaring his displeasure. He shifted part of his mass into a muscular tentacle and lashed out with all his might, swatting the angel away, the intensity of the blow picking him up from the ground and launching him through the air.
Sensing an opportunity, the Shaitan slithered across the ground in pursuit of his prey.
Remiel climbed slowly to his feet, attempting to stave off the encroaching unconsciousness. He could hear the monster approaching, its breathing excited and eager, probably imagining that victory was at hand.
The Seraphim decided to let it continue to think that way, for he had found his own opportunity.
Unwittingly, the Shaitan had knocked him within inches of his weapon. He had lost Zophiel’s sword when the struggle had first intensified, but now he looked upon it, protruding from the ground, covered in winding vines and thick leaves that were constantly burning, only to regrow twice as large, and twice as thick, only to burn all over again. To the normal eye it appeared as a small tree, but to the Seraphim . . . to Remiel, it was so much more.
The blade of Eden’s sentry was crying out to him, screaming into his mind to take it up and destroy the foes of the Garden and Heaven.
Almost, he thought, the sounds of the eager Shaitan nearly upon him.
Closer.
Closer . . .
The damnable thing was almost there; he could smell the evil sweating from its pores, hear the sound of its flesh as it abandoned its shape, becoming molten, preparing to envelop him.
Remiel reached for the sword, tugging the burning blade from a scabbard of thick vines and leaves, and spun to meet his attacker with a cry of fury. Their eyes met as Zophiel’s blade hissed through the humid air on its designated course.
The Shaitan attempted to bend its body around the sword, but the blade forged in the fires of Heaven would have none of that. It was starving for the blood of its enemy.
Gouts of black, foul-smelling blood spurted into the air as the blade cut through the twisted thing’s rubbery skin. The Shaitan cried out in pain, and dropped to the ground, slithering back from its foe.
Remiel spread his wings wide and flew after the monster, relentlessly hacking at its thick, trunklike body, each blow cutting spurting gashes in the thing’s ever-shifting flesh. The Shaitan managed to reach the Tree of Knowledge, winding itself around the trunk like a serpent, and up toward the expanse of withered branches. Huge, leathery wings began to take shape from its body, beating the air, as it attempted escape.
Remiel shot up into the air, intercepting the beast as it exploded through the diseased, fruit-covered branches. He slashed one of the monster’s new wings, crippling it. It began to fall, and the Seraphim joined it, holding on, pushing the monstrosity down through the Tree’s branches to the hard ground below.
Remiel landed atop the thrashing Shaitan, raising his fiery sword and plunging it into the monster, pinning it to the ground. Screams filled the air . . . the Shaitan’s, as well as those of its fetal brethren still gestating and waiting in the soil beneath.
The Shaitan’s movements grew frantic as it attempted to right itself. Its blood flowed into the ground, exciting the young beastlings that waited below and enticing them toward the surface.
The earth began to seethe and Remiel quickly stepped back. The Shaitan struggled to be free of the sword, but it held fast, pinning the monster to the churning earth.
And then it began to scream.
The baby Shaitan were emerging, pale skinned and hungry, crawling up from the darkness into the murky light of the Garden. The
y shrieked angrily at the light, the sudden illumination hurting their sensitive eyes, but it did not stop them from their purpose.
To feed.
The blood of their brother had created a feeding frenzy—the blood of their brother rich with the taste of Seraphim.
It was a horrific sight to behold, and the unfortunate Shaitan survived much longer than Remiel would have imagined possible.
He was not sure how long it was before his foe was completely consumed, but the Seraphim realized that, little by little, the babies were starting to notice his presence. Those that had fed sniffed the air, zeroing in on his scent, and began to claw their way toward him across the overturned earth, dragging malformed limbs in their wake.
Hungry for their next meal.
And Remiel did not know if he had the strength left to defeat them.
The old black woman struggled in his grasp as Malachi peered through the thick jungle foliage at the battle raging before him.
This Seraphim, he thought, watching as the angel Remiel finally dispatched the Shaitan. There is something different about him now, something that wasn’t part of his original design. Something new is present.
Something deadly.
The Shaitan’s death screams spurred him to action. He began to drag the woman away, but she fought him.
“I know that one,” Eliza Swan cried. “That’s my Remy,” she said, voice trembling with emotion. “That’s my Remy Chandler.”
Malachi savagely pulled her away. All he needed was for her to draw the attention of the Seraphim—especially that Seraphim.
The ground still moved beneath each footfall, trees swayed, and plants reached weakly to snag them as they passed. The Garden was dying, but she still tried to stop those she believed had harmed her. He wondered how long she had before all the life left her.
A wall of thick vegetation blocked the opening to his cave, but the scalpel of light was more than sufficient to gain him entrance. The vines squeaked in death, and wilted away as the blade cut through their tubular bodies to expose the gaping cave mouth.
A Hundred Words for Hate rc-4 Page 26