This isn’t the end at all, Edna thought. This is just the beginning.
Heaven was watching once more.
* * *
Charlie didn’t know how much longer he could last, how much longer any of them could last within the shelter.
Water was growing scarce, as was their food.
Since they’d put Loretta’s body outside the door . . . Charlie fought back tears for the love of his life. Since they’d put her lifeless body outside the door, they’d heard things moving and sniffing around.
It had been days since anyone had dared venture out for food.
Charlie opened his eyes to pitch darkness. The generator had run out of gas a little over a week before. They had a few candles, which they used sparingly, when they could no longer bear the absence of light.
This was one of those times.
The old man got to his knees, gently feeling across the concrete floor for the makeshift table, created from an empty MRE box. He found the candle and reached inside his pocket for the gold lighter his wife had given him on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He’d stopped smoking not long after that because of a cancer scare, but he still carried the lighter. One never knew when one might be in need of a little light.
Charlie brought the candle close as he flicked the flame to life. Now he could see the others. They all were fast asleep, and he couldn’t blame them. It was the best escape.
He turned his gaze to the dancing flame, taking comfort in the flickering light.
The flame suddenly began to increase in size, and he just about had a heart attack as he saw Loretta’s face there, in the fire. Charlie thought he might be going crazy, but Tyrone, Scott, Doris, and Maggie had all woken up and gathered around him.
Loretta smiled, and then she began to speak.
She told them that they were safe.
That Heaven was watching once more.
* * *
Aaron awoke to the warmth of the sun on his face.
He opened his eyes to find his dog staring down at him.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hello, Aaron,” the dog answered.
Aaron sat up, in the grass of the Lynn Common, and studied Gabriel’s face very carefully. “You’re not Gabriel, are you?”
“Perceptive as usual,” a now unfamiliar voice spoke through his best friend.
“Who . . . ?” Aaron began.
“Walk with me.” The dog started to stroll across the freshly mowed lawn.
Aaron got to his feet and jogged a few steps to catch up. “So who are you?” he asked again.
The dog looked at him briefly, before looking away.
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“Is it really necessary?” the dog asked.
Aaron shrugged. “I would like to know who’s possessing my dog—and who I’m talking to.”
“Let’s just say I’m someone who’s been watching you for a long time, and I owe you quite a bit of thanks.”
Aaron stopped as the dog did.
“You’ve helped to save a world that I love very much.”
“You’re God,” Aaron said slowly, as understanding washed over him.
“If that’s what you wish to know me as. I answer to many names.”
“Why are you talking to me through my dog?”
“I’ve always had a special fondness for canines,” God said, with a slight tilt of the Labrador’s head. “Or didn’t you notice what dog spelled backward is?”
“Seriously?” was all Aaron could manage, not really sure what to think about this being who inhabited his dog.
“When you changed Gabriel, you made him the perfect receptacle for my spirit,” God explained. “The perfect host for me to use in delivering my message to you.”
They climbed the steps to the Common’s bandstand, a large domed gazebo with peeling white paint, where local bands and orchestras often played during the summer.
“I want to thank you for what you and your brothers and sisters have done for this world,” God said. The dog’s snout turned into the breeze.
Aaron shrugged. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, it wasn’t like I really had much of a choice. I was kind of thrown into the deep end of the pool—we all were really. It was either swim or drown.”
“But you decided to swim.”
“Yeah,” Aaron agreed.
“And I thank you for that,” God said.
“All right.”
“You sound annoyed,” God observed.
Aaron shrugged again, looking out through the open bandstand at the lush green of the Lynn Common before him. He hadn’t seen it look this nice—ever.
“Why did you let so much horrible stuff happen?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Cut right to the chase. Good for you.”
“You’re God. You’re supposed to be loving and kind and look out for the good people.” Aaron turned back to his dog, holding his gaze with an icy intensity. “But a lot of good people have died.”
The dog sighed. “And for that I am sorry. . . .”
“But?” Aaron prompted.
“But there was no other way.”
“So all those innocent people, my foster parents, the other Nephilim—Janice, Kirk, William, Russell, and Samantha—and Lorelei, they were all a part of some bigger plan?”
“They were,” God said simply.
“So they were all just some sort of collateral damage.”
Gabriel’s blocky yellow head nodded ever so slowly.
“What kind of loving God are you?” Aaron blurted out angrily.
“A loving God that does not interfere with the lives of His creations.”
“Even though angels and devils and all kinds of other crazies were taking shots at us?” Aaron asked incredulously. “Next you’ll be telling me that this was all some sort of test.”
“I had to be certain that you and your world were ready,” God said.
“Ready? Ready for what?”
“Ready for what comes next.”
Aaron remained silent, waiting for God to elaborate.
“Humanity has always been my favorite creation,” the dog said after a moment, and Aaron could have sworn that he was smiling. “Despite their obvious failures—their arrogance, their indifference toward their fellow man, and their penchant for violence—humanity has the capability to rise above their imperfections.”
The dog paused.
“I have seen that capability in you and the other Nephilim, Aaron Corbet. The Nephilim are what humanity strives to be: the perfect combination of human and divine.”
“Not too long ago we were considered abominations,” Aaron said, thinking of the Powers angels that had hunted his kind to near extinction.
“Evolution takes many surprising shapes,” God said. “Sometimes perfection isn’t quite so obvious, and then of course, there’s the matter of jealousy.”
The dog lay down in a patch of sunlight and closed his eyes, sighing noisily. “It’s time for this world to be Paradise,” he said softly.
“But isn’t that what the Architects were trying to do?” Aaron asked. “To make the world closer to Heaven’s image?”
“I didn’t object to what the Architects were trying to do, it was how they were going about it.” The dog shivered as if cold. “All that darkness. It never should have been allowed to get so out of hand.”
“But it did,” Aaron stated flatly. “And you let it.”
“You’re right,” God answered. “Because that is how you and your brothers and sisters came into your own.”
Aaron felt himself growing angry. “I really don’t like where any of this is going,” he said. He gripped the wooden handrail of the bandstand, watching as a father and his small son played Frisbee in the distance.
“What’s that old saying? To make an omelet, one must first break a few eggs,” God said.
“Eggs,” Aaron snapped, trying to keep
the anger from his voice—he was talking with God, after all. “Is that all we are to you?”
He turned an accusing gaze on the dog as he waited for an answer.
“You people, humanity,” the dog said quietly, his eyes still closed in the warmth of the sun. “Most of the time you have me so wrong. I don’t want to be an object of absolute reverence, or someone to be feared. I’m your Creator. I love you all and just want you to be good to one another.”
“And when we’re not?” Aaron asked.
Gabriel’s dark, soulful eyes opened, reflecting the light of the sun.
“That’s when evil happens,” God said. “That’s when events spiral out of control, and I look down upon the world, wanting to intervene, knowing that I shouldn’t, but . . .”
“But you did,” Aaron said thoughtfully. “You sent the child—you sent Enoch.”
“The Architects had been a problem for some time, and I’d been carefully planting the seeds to fix it. Enoch was that last seed.”
Aaron found himself drawn to the dog, and squatted down before him.
“You say you don’t like to get involved, but . . .”
“But sometimes, in order for things to be the way they have to be, I do.”
“And are they?” Aaron asked. “Are things the way they need to be?”
The dog lifted his head to look at the sky. Aaron followed his gaze, surprised to see storm clouds in the distance.
“We’re getting there,” God said. “We’re getting there.”
* * *
The Nephilim attacked, violence raining down from a sky now filled with an unearthly light that could only be classified as . . .
Divine.
Vilma rose to her feet, ready to help these welcome, yet unexpected additions to their cause. She had no idea who these Nephilim with Melissa and Cameron were, but they fought the Architect with such ferocity that they actually appeared to be doing some damage.
The Architect drove them back with blasts of concentrated force from his outstretched hands, but these new Nephilim were wild and came back at their foe with twice the aggression.
* * *
Vilma called upon her wings and a sword of fire, charging forward to join the fray with a rush of confidence, narrowly avoiding the energies that streamed from the Architect’s splayed fingers.
She wished that the poor soul behind her had been as lucky.
The unknown Nephilim cried out, before his body turned to dust and was carried away on the dank desert winds.
For a moment they all knew fear, recoiling from the Architect, but their terror was only temporary, burned away by the anger they felt for their foe.
Whoever these Nephilim are, Vilma thought, turning to fly in for what she hoped would be a killing strike, they are a force to be reckoned with, and I’m honored to be fighting beside them.
Nephilim exploded to dust around her, but she was moving too quickly to pull back now. As if reading her mind, Melissa and Cameron moved to either side of the godlike being, attempting to distract him long enough for her to—
She suddenly spread her wings to their fullest, cupping the air around her and slowing her progress, allowing her to hover in the air before her foe as she swung her mighty blade of fire.
The Architect finally noticed her, extending his arm to block her blow. But it was too late. Her sword sliced cleanly through his pale flesh at the wrist. Without a moment’s hesitation, she drew back and plunged the crackling blade into the Architect’s chest. The sudden explosion of energies slammed Vilma into the desert sand.
Cautiously, she lifted her head. The blast had leveled the battlefield around the temple and knocked the Nephilim from the sky.
The Architect knelt in the sand, scorched black all around him, Vilma’s blade sparking and sputtering where it protruded from his chest.
“Oh you wicked, wicked things,” he bellowed inside their heads.
Vilma cried out in pain, as did the others.
The Architect rose. His severed hand had grown back, and he used it to withdraw Vilma’s sputtering blade from his chest, absorbing its energy.
“If only you knew the glories that I had planned for you.”
And as his words echoed inside the minds of the Nephilim, a double set of enormous, multicolored wings grew from his back, wings covered with ever-widening eyes.
“But that’s all over now,” the Architect said with absolute revulsion as he extended his pale arms and began to wave them in the air. “It’s time that I take it all back, you ungrateful wretches.”
Vilma almost got out a warning for everyone to run, when the pain seized her. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before, as if each of her internal workings was being torn out one at a time. She was paralyzed as the divine power that made her Nephilim was pulled from her body—from all the Nephilim—by the angry Architect.
The Unforgiven opened fire, but their weapons proved little more than an annoyance for the angel. The Architect simply raised a hand, setting loose a wave of energy that caused the Unforgiven’s weaponry to overload and explode. The air was filled with twisted fireworks and the cries of fallen angels injured by flying shrapnel.
The Architect returned his attention to the Nephilim, their divine power flowing across the desert to swirl about him.
Vilma struggled to remain conscious, while willing Melissa and Cameron to be strong, to somehow find the strength to fight this, for if they were to stop fighting . . .
She dug her fingers into the sand and used all that she had left to rise. As she looked around her, she saw the others were attempting to do the same.
“Inspiring to the end,” the voice of the Architect bellowed inside their heads. He pulled his arms to his body, closing his long, spindly fingers into fists, his wings slowly fanning the air.
All of the Nephilim screamed as the Architect attempted to pull the last of their divine fire from their bodies.
This is what death feels like, Vilma thought. This is the end.
At first, she believed the vision was a manifestation of her pain, a glowing mote of energy dancing across her line of sight. But then she watched as, with a roar and a guttural growl, that glowing ball of fire struck the Architect, sending him stumbling backward to the blackened sand.
Stunned, Vilma saw the divinely altered Labrador retriever tear into the Architect, ripping away one of his wings with a ferocious snarl.
The Architect’s psychic screams exploded in her mind, and she watched in horror as Gabriel was tossed violently away.
The dog slid across the ground, quickly jumping to his feet and shaking off the sand in a shower of divine sparks. Then he got low to the ground, baring his teeth and growling.
The Architect rose up, his wings torn and leaking heavenly energies, and Vilma feared for Gabriel’s safety.
At least she did, until she heard the voice.
“Don’t even think about hurting my dog,” Aaron Corbet warned, as the Architect spun toward this latest challenge to his supremacy.
Just before all Hell broke loose.
* * *
God had sent him back, and none too soon, from what Aaron could see.
He wasn’t quite sure who he was dealing with, but he had his suspicions.
“Let me guess,” Aaron said, standing there, adorned in armor of his own design. “An Architect?”
“The only,” the robed figure announced, attacking Aaron suddenly with snaking tendrils of snapping fire that sprang from the tips of his long fingers.
Instinctively, Aaron reacted. He captured them in one hand, before they could do any damage.
At least that was what he thought he was doing.
Aaron immediately felt his strength begin to wane. Releasing the writhing filaments, he recoiled as they again attempted to entwine him. He summoned a sword of fire and slashed at the tentacles.
“The great Aaron Corbet,” the Architect taunted. “So many of my plans for the future were built around your existence.”
“Fascinating,” the Architect said, studying the animal. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. . . .
“You did this,” he accused Aaron. “You changed this lowly beast into something . . . better.”
Aaron tensed, formulating his plan of attack.
“This is was what we—what I—was attempting to do,” the Architect said wistfully. “I wanted to make this world better.”
Aaron started toward his enemy, but Gabriel cried out.
“No closer or your canine companion dies all the quicker,” the Architect warned.
Aaron froze, feeling completely helpless, as he watched Gabriel’s struggles grow weaker in the Architect’s grasp.
“If you hurt him . . .”
“When,” the Architect confirmed. “There is no doubt that I will hurt him, the question is when.”
Aaron glared.
“To prolong the life of your animal, will you give me your divinity?” the angelic being asked.
Aaron forced himself to contain his anger, the slow fanning of his wings the only sign of the rage burning within him.
“Will you, as their leader, command them to surrender the spark of Heaven that still exists within their souls?” the Architect asked, gesturing to Vilma and the other Nephilim, some of whom he knew, and some he did not.
Tendrils of energy wrapped around the dog, draining away his divine energies.
“Say yes, Aaron Corbet,” the Architect hissed. “And there might still be hope for this world.”
The attack came from the most unexpected place.
Taylor Corbet sprang up from the desert sand, clutching something metal that glinted sharply in the light of the newly emerged sun.
It was one of the Unforgiven’s wings.
She swung the feathered blades with all her might, and the tips of the razor-sharp feathers buried themselves deep within the upper body of the godlike being with a satisfying thunk.
For the briefest of moments, the world went deathly still.
“Oh, you nasty little germ,” the Architect’s voice exploded in their minds.
The surprise of the attack had loosened the Architect’s grip on Gabriel, and the dog shot from his grasp in an explosion of divine fire and burning embers. At the same time, Aaron lunged forward, cocooning his fists in the fires of Heaven and putting all his strength behind a punch to the Architect’s single eye.
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