“You have to go there if . . . ,” Tom began.
“If I want to live,” Aaron finished. He stood.
“Are you coming with us then?” Lori asked hopefully.
“Sure,” Aaron answered. He looked around; something was nagging at the back of his memory. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t retrieve it. “I’m really not sure why we stopped to begin with.”
His mother urged him to follow with a burning hand. “I guess we just got tired is all.”
* * *
Aaron was still in a coma, no better, no worse.
Vilma had returned to her boyfriend’s side with his mother. The two had not spoken since Vilma had learned of A’Dorial and his deteriorating connection to Heaven. She was certain that piece of information was important to their survival, as well as the survival of the world.
Staring down at the young man she loved, she wished him awake. She was sure if he were conscious, he would know what to do.
He’d figure out what all this meant in the greater scheme of things.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Taylor commented, as she took a seat near the foot of Aaron’s bed.
“Just thinking,” Vilma answered. She reached down to Aaron’s hand and touched his fingers. They were colder than usual. Time was running out.
“I think you need to talk to Levi,” Taylor said.
“Levi?” Vilma questioned. “Why?”
“Levi is the leader of the Unforgiven,” Aaron’s mother said. “It would be good for you to learn how he sees the big picture.”
Vilma didn’t reply. She didn’t want to leave Aaron.
“I’ll let you know if anything changes,” Taylor told her. “Go on, I think it will help you.”
Vilma knew that if she were going to help save the Nephilim and the world, she would need to be part of the Unforgiven’s plans.
“Where is Levi?”
“He’s got a workshop on Level Five,” Taylor said. “He’s waiting for you there.”
“He knows I’m coming?”
Taylor nodded. “We’ve been talking. We both feel it’s time for you to learn more about the operation.”
Vilma nodded, then hesitated. “How did you know I’d go?”
Taylor laughed quietly. “You’re not a stupid girl, Vilma Santiago,” she said, taking Aaron’s hand in hers. “My son would never become involved with a stupid girl.”
Vilma took the statement as a compliment, leaving the infirmary and walking to the elevator. It was waiting, doors open, and she got inside and pushed the button for Level 5. The doors slid shut, and the elevator lurched upward.
To say that she wasn’t nervous would be a lie. Although she’d been living with the Unforgiven for several weeks, she was still unsettled by the odd, part-angelic, part-machine creatures.
There was something creepy about them.
The doors opened, and Vilma was greeted by total darkness. She hesitated, but when the elevator doors started to close again, she quickly stepped into the darkened hall.
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” She thought of the quote from Paradise Lost, which she’d read in Mr. Wormstead’s high school literature class. She longed to be a student again, almost laughing as she remembered how complex she’d thought life to be then. Not.
“Hello?” she called out tentatively. “Levi? It’s Vilma.”
Proceeding down the hallway, she conjured a divine flame in the palm of her hand for illumination. At the end of the hall, she raised her fiery hand, looking left, then right, trying to decide which way to go, when she heard it.
Music.
Craning her neck, she determined that it was coming from the left, and followed the sound until she reached an office. She stopped outside for a moment to listen. The music was definitely coming from inside.
She knocked. “Hello? Levi?”
Silence greeted her. According to Taylor, she was expected, so Vilma let herself in, and was immediately immersed in a nearly deafening wave of classical music.
No wonder Levi hadn’t heard her.
The room was larger than it looked, and filled with all manner of technology. There were pieces of computers, stacks of hard drives, and monitors just about everyplace she looked.
Strains of Beethoven’s Ninth played as Vilma carefully picked her way around a barrier of flat-screen monitors. She started to call out Levi’s name again, but quickly fell silent.
Levi, the leader of the Unforgiven, was shirtless and hunched over a worktable. Vilma was struck by how pale his flesh was—and how scarred. His back was covered with thick scars of various sizes and shapes. But her eyes were drawn to the two vertical metal pieces that protruded from just above his shoulder blades.
His wings. The fallen angel was working on his artificial wings.
Levi paused, raised what looked to be a screwdriver, then waved it in the air as if he were conducting a symphony.
Vilma was mesmerized. She’d thought of the Unforgiven as cold, emotionless beings—more like machines than anything else. But now, witnessing this . . .
The side of her foot bumped a pile of computer parts, which fell, knocking over a stack of plastic CD cases.
Levi immediately plucked one of the razor-sharp feathers from the wing on his worktable, raising it above his head defensively.
Vilma froze, fear and embarrassment etched on her face.
“Whoops,” she said.
Levi lowered the feather blade, sliding it back into the configuration of others on the mechanical wing. He reached for something on the wheeled tool cart beside him and pointed a remote at the stereo.
The classical music ceased, plunging the room into deafening silence.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Levi said, without looking at her.
He hefted one of the wings from the table, his powerful muscles flexing as he draped it over his shoulder. The metal wing connected to the protrusion on his back with a loud snap. He attached the second.
“I’m sorry,” Vilma said. “I called out, but when nobody answered . . .”
“That’s perfectly fine,” Levi said, still avoiding her gaze.
He wasn’t wearing his goggles!
“I was lost in my work,” he said as he recovered his shirt and quickly slipped into it. Then he snatched his goggles from the corner of the table and slid them over his eyes. “That’s better,” he said, adjusting the fit.
He reached for the remote again and used it to brighten the lights. “Now we can talk.”
Vilma had squatted and was trying to clean up the mess she’d made. “I’m really sorry for disturbing you—and for making a mess.”
“Your addition to the mess is barely noticeable,” Levi answered. “May I get you a refreshment? Coffee, tea, water?”
“No, thank you,” Vilma said, restacking the CDs. “There, as good as new.” She stood, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.
“So,” she said, cutting to the chase. “Taylor said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Yes.” Levi nodded. He gestured toward a desk chair in the corner. “Please.”
Vilma took the offered chair, and Levi sat awkwardly beside her. The Unforgiven leader seemed as uncomfortable in her presence as she was in his.
But her curiosity about the angelic beings only intensified.
“Your wings,” she said. “What were you doing to them?”
Levi seemed surprised by the question. “Routine maintenance.”
“Cool,” she said, nodding slightly. “Is it hard? Y’know, is it like tuning up a car or something?”
She could feel Levi’s stare through the dark lenses of his goggles.
“Nothing like a car,” he said flatly. “We get much better mileage.”
It took her a moment to realize that he’d cracked a joke. She smiled, surprised.
“Good one.”
“Was it? The Unforgiven aren’t too adept at humor, I’m afraid. The world is very close to its end,” he continu
ed, without pause.
“Whoa,” Vilma responded. “So much for humor.”
“I told you we weren’t very good at that—we’ve spent too long trying to keep the Architects from achieving their goals. It stifles the sense of humor.”
“I guess so,” Vilma said. “So what’s the story with the Unforgiven and these Architects? What’s the connection?”
“The Architects have been here since the beginning of time as we know it. They were the first of God’s angels and have been manipulating world events to reflect what they perceive to be perfection.”
“So a monster around every corner is perfection?”
“They believe that this is the road to perfection.”
“Crazy,” Vilma said.
“Yes, it is,” Levi agreed. “We’ve been battling this crazy for quite some time. We, the Unforgiven, see it as our purpose, our penance for the transgressions we committed against our Holy Father during the Great War in Heaven.”
“So you’re among the fallen,” Vilma said.
“We are fallen, yes,” Levi confirmed. “But we finally understood the love that our Lord God Almighty had for this world, and swore to keep it safe from harm.”
“Safe from the Architects.”
Levi nodded. “They feel that God is mistaken. They believe this world has not yet reached its full potential—its zenith—and intend to guide it there.”
Vilma wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “We’re not doing too well, are we?”
Levi shook his head. “We were holding our own—until the Abomination of Desolation severed the earth’s connection to the divine.”
Vilma made a face. “Yeah, we kinda dropped the ball on that.”
“Heaven’s ties to the world of man were severed, except . . .”
“A’Dorial,” Vilma said.
“Though small, and diminishing, the angel A’Dorial managed to maintain a connection, sending out a cry for help to the power of Heaven when the Abomination threatened.”
“It doesn’t seem as though anybody was listening,” Vilma commented.
“And that is where you’d be wrong,” Levi said. “Responding to the severity of the situation, Heaven did send us a means for restoring the earth’s connection to the divine.”
“What was it?”
“A missing piece . . .”
Vilma waited patiently for Levi to continue.
“We’re not one hundred percent sure, but we believe it was sent as a child. It was to be born into the world as—”
“A baby? You’re talking about a baby,” Vilma said, not believing her ears. Her strict Catholic upbringing was aroused at once, making her think of God’s son, the savior, and how he, too, had been sent to help the world. She had to wonder what kind of child savior would be sent to save the world from threats of a monstrous kind.
“Yes. The baby was born in the presence of some of our human agents, but . . .”
“What happened?”
“The hospital facility was destroyed.”
“And the baby?”
“Missing, although we have evidence that the child still lives.”
“Somebody has the baby?” Vilma asked.
“And is protecting it.”
“But you have no idea who?”
The Unforgiven leader shook his head. “It must be someone who understands the child’s importance.”
“You said this baby is a missing piece—what does that mean?”
“The child is a component of a powerful angelic being known as the Metatron.”
“Sounds like a Japanese robot that turns into a bus,” Vilma said, trying to inject a little humor, and immediately wishing she hadn’t. “Sorry. What is the Metatron?”
“It is the ultimate divine entity. It is God, angel, and human; the culmination of all the Creator’s greatest achievements. The Metatron was to be an extension of God on earth, but the Architects destroyed it. They slaughtered its humanity and dispersed the essence of God and the powers of angels.”
“So the baby is the human part,” Vilma said. “But what about the rest of the Metatron?”
“They continue to exist in the world,” Levi said. “The Unforgiven have been tracking these powers for centuries, waiting for this very opportunity, when all three aspects of the Metatron are in the same place.”
“So the Metatron gets rebuilt,” Vilma said. “What then? Does it provide a way to defeat the Architects?”
“If only it were that easy,” Levi said. “With the Metatron whole, we finally have a way of restoring the Ladder.”
“The Ladder?” Vilma questioned. “What . . . ?”
“The Ladder is a means by which earth can again interact with Heaven.”
“It could undo what the Abomination of Desolation destroyed?” she asked him hopefully.
“It could,” the Unforgiven leader said, but his expression was grave. “But without its reactivation, I fear that the world will be unable to hold on for very much longer.”
* * *
The skin of a hundred children had been stitched together and stretched along a moss-covered wall in one of the chambers inside Satan Darkstar’s unholy cathedral.
Satan reclined upon a throne of human bones, likely supplied by the same children who’d provided the disturbing screen of flesh.
“I tire of waiting,” Satan announced to the generals who stood before him.
Scox rushed to intervene. “What seems to be the problem? The Lord Satan does not have all day.”
General Skeksis, a powerfully built creature of a reptilian nature, stepped forward. “I beg the Dark Master’s pardon,” he said, bowing his scaly head. “It will only be a moment more.”
The general reached out to the insectoid sorcerer who would be responsible for conjuring the visuals, and grabbed one of its many spindly limbs.
“What are we waiting for?” the general growled, nearly ripping the flimsy appendage from its socket.
“Spellz takez timez,” the insectoid buzzed. “Patiencez, generalz.”
Satan squirmed in his seat. “I’m very quickly running out of patience,” he said petulantly.
Sensing the potential for danger, the insectoid pulled his arm from the general’s clutches and continued to weave his spell. The magick user’s voice buzzed like flies upon a rotting corpse as it danced about on its spindly legs. Then it darted forward to scrawl symbols of power on the bottom half of the tautly stretched skin of innocents.
Dark magicks were at work here.
“Enough,” Satan Darkstar proclaimed, rising up from his chair. “I am finished here.”
He was about to leave the room when the screen of skin began to undulate.
Almost as if it were alive.
It was enough to capture Satan’s interest, but only for a moment.
“Here, my master!” General Skeksis pointed a stubby, clawed finger at the screen as images began to gradually appear. “This is what has been done in your name.”
Satan watched scenes of battle: armies of demons, trolls, goblins, and a myriad of other beasts of damnation, battling the human populace.
From the looks of it, the humans never had a chance.
Satan watched with moderate interest as cities across the globe fell into ruin, their armies crushed by legions of beasts.
He was then shown scenes of fearful, desperate humans being rounded up like cattle to be slaughtered.
“Does He see this?” Satan asked.
“Does who see, sir?” Scox asked. “The general? I’m sure the general sees just fine.”
“The Lord God,” Satan roared. “The Lightbringer—does He see what I am doing to those who believe, worship, and pray to Him?”
The images of slaughter continued to play upon the skin of innocence.
At one time, this was all that the Darkstar had hoped for. All those millennia, when he had hidden himself away in the shadows, waiting for a time when he might strike—at last, that time had come.
But with it
came the realization that it was not enough. That he was unsatisfied.
All the darkness, all the innocent blood, did little to quench the Darkstar’s thirst for revenge.
He did not want only the earth, but Heaven as well, and all that it contained. He would not be satisfied until he had it.
“Bring me the Sisters,” Satan Darkstar announced, eyes still focused upon humanity’s demise. They would know how to guide him to make his dreams a reality.
“Bring me the Sisters of Umbra.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cameron remembered Janice as having been a nice kid; quiet, usually dressed all in black, and hair dyed bright colors. Some of the others had said that they believed she had a bit of a crush on him, but he’d never seen it.
And then she’d died.
He really hadn’t thought much about her since she’d been speared by a troll in Russia while attempting to rescue some miners trapped in a tunnel collapse.
He certainly never expected to see her again. And certainly not like this.
Janice spread her arms and opened her batlike wings wide. “What do you think?” she asked. “Pretty bitchin’, right?”
Cameron tensed. His every instinct screamed that he was in danger. But this was Janice—one of his own kind.
At least she used to be.
“I thought . . . ,” he started, not liking the fear in his voice.
“You thought what?” Janice urged. She started toward him, stepping over the bodies of the shape-shifters she had murdered. “That I was dead?”
Cameron gripped his blade of divine flame as she came closer.
“You’re right, I was,” she continued. “But now I’m back, good as new.”
She stopped and lifted her arms again to show him. “See? No holes.”
Janice laughed. It was a cold sound, lacking any humor.
“How?” Cameron was intrigued, even though he knew that her being here with him, talking to him, was wrong.
“He came for me. The Darkstar pulled me from the darkness.”
“The Darkstar,” Cameron repeated.
His former comrade nodded vigorously. “He isn’t our enemy, Cam. I was so afraid while I was dead,” she explained. “I was all alone. Heaven never came. There was nothing, Cam—just a sad, cold oblivion.”
She started toward him again.
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