“So, Michael involved him, and others in a second rebellion.” Felon flexed his arms. Some strength was left in them. One of his hands went to his throat. It was torn and numb. The deck shifted underfoot. “Gabriel had no idea you were involved.”
“No.” Lucifer smiled like a cat. “As Angel of Death, his powers could be quite useful.”
“But you never truly conspired with any of them. All pawns. Even Michael…” Felon looked up at the buildings. The yacht was inching forward. The street was white with corpses.
“Of course.” As Lucifer chuckled his feathers rattled. “You don’t think I would be fool enough to challenge God in open combat and expect to win? He created the universe!” A look of disdain twisted his features—tightened into a churlish pout. “And I was his favorite and they hated me for it. Those fools gladly turned against me when I was no longer in his favor. It was a pleasure to bring them down.”
Felon sighed. “And Michael’s death?”
“I always wanted to kill him.” The Devil smiled. “It was just convenient that Gabriel took things into his own hands.”
“Now?” Felon spat—his hatred was boiling to the surface again.
“Now, we await the end of the world.” He smiled, looked thoughtful. “Not by my hand, no. My tin soldiers are quite efficient once they’re wound up.” Lucifer looked along the length of the boat. “Ah, that’s better!”
Felon realized that the boat had been moving imperceptibly—whether by the Swimmers’ actions or by the Devil’s. It was inching its way along the flesh-choked Street of Walls. Fallen had dominion over the earth, perhaps the water too.
“I want to see this.” Lucifer gestured to him. “Come along.” He walked the length of the deck toward the bow. Felon staggered after and joined him at the forward rail. Water splashed. Hissing came up from dead mouths.
“Humanity’s final night. At least the humanity you know.” Lucifer snarled self-satisfied. “The world of human slaves is about to be born.” He chuckled. “Even now, missiles have launched. They’ll destroy the City. The Prime is an all or nothing kind of guy and he hoped to reach his shelter in time.” Lucifer sighed. “He had the foresight to target the centers of the competing primes the world over. They have already detected his launches, and have fired their retaliatory strikes. It is the end.”
Felon felt nothing. The yacht inched its way out of the jumble of collapsed and broken-down buildings. The Swimmers crowded around it. Their weight heaved it toward the open. The City of Light slowly came into view. Its lights formed a cloud of pale orange haze around the buildings. In the sky beyond it, burning white and red comets conflicted. Explosions echoed and thunder rocked the water as supersonic aircraft made attack runs. In the center of the City, lights burned over the surface of Archangel Tower.
“I’ll step out when the show starts.” Lucifer chuckled.
“Why?” Felon’s hands gripped the rail.
“You don’t care.” Lucifer’s self-satisfied state would not let him resist. He laughed. “The Scroll of the Lamb must not be opened.”
“Revelations.” Lucifer smiled as Felon said it.
“Exactly. Angelic or not, my brothers understood that Judgment Day would summon the Judge! He would take their Principalities from them and make them common. So imagine my predicament. How will I be judged?” Lucifer’s wings quivered. “I didn’t want to find out.”
“In the City?” Felon gestured across the water.
“Yes, the Scroll will be destroyed with my brethren.” Lucifer laughed with finality watching the City. “They do not expect the attack. Suicidal thoughts do not occur to immortals.”
“Humanity has it coming,” Felon said and staggered toward Lucifer leaving a bloody trail.
A heavy bullet pierced the assassin’s hand continuing an upward trajectory through Lucifer’s back. Felon couldn’t drop in time. Two more rounds punched him in the shoulder. As he fell to the deck bullets hit Lucifer as he turned.
A machine gun howled. The Fallen’s wings were ripped to tatters. Bestial, snarling—his head suddenly like a wolf’s; Lucifer roared at the gunfire. But the bullets chopped him up. Felon’s cheek was pressed against the deck. Blood poured over his shoulder and pooled under his chin. He’d landed with his head facing away from the gunman. Lucifer screamed like the damned. He raised his wings to fly but one pinion was cut from him in a concentrated blast. A final cry and Lucifer dropped on the deck.
Felon lay very still as heavy boots approached. From a half-open eye he saw the barrel of an autoshotgun hover near his face, he grabbed it with his good hand pushed it away, rolled and kicked upward—both feet in its owner’s belly.
Felon was surprised to see Wurn fall over the ship’s rail. The Swimmers tore him to bloody gobbets.
The assassin staggered to his feet. His chest and back were slick with blood. He coughed, blood spilled out. Felon kicked Lucifer over. The Devil’s lips moved—vapors of Ardor steamed off his features. His body drooped, the skin and muscle sagging on the bone but did not evaporate. He was dying, and he had nowhere to go.
Felon dragged him to the sloped front wall of the yacht’s cabin. They left a sticky trail of scarlet. The assassin slumped against the glass, slid to the deck with his arms tight around Lucifer’s chest. They watched.
92 – The Last Lesson
Whistles moved to the mangled back wall of the bus like she was sleepwalking. The gun was out in front of her, it was empty but she kept clicking the trigger at the open space. A low moan started in her that brought more tears from Dawn, and the other forever kids echoed her sadness.
Finally, Mr. Jay pulled himself to his feet and moved to her. He reached out and grabbed the empty gun.
“Reload it,” he said, flipping the revolver open. “And keep fighting.”
“That was Max,” Whistles started and then a girlish squeak came out of her, and a low groan. She turned her face to Mr. Jay. “We never told anybody but he’s my little brother.” And she buried her face in Mr. Jay’s chest.
“Remember him as a boy and a hero—and a little brother,” Mr. Jay whispered, and held her tight, swaying. The bus had developed a rocking unsteady pace. “He bought us time.” He turned to the many sorrowful gazes around and said: “Let’s not waste what he gave us.”
Suddenly a roar thundered overhead and a tremendous light sent bending shadows coursing through the bus. The brilliance shrieked toward the front of the convoy. Then, a blast and horrific crumpling noise! The bus slammed into the vehicles ahead—tires screamed on asphalt, glass shattered. The kids pitched forward as the bus shuddered to a halt.
Dawn had bit her tongue and came up spitting blood. Other kids were cursing or crying, holding wounded limbs.
“A jetfighter!” one girl screamed.
“Almost hit us,” yelled a boy.
Mr. Jay hurried to the front of the bus. Marcus was nursing a bloody nose, but he opened the doors for the magician. Dawn ran forward and slipped through before they closed behind him.
Outside on the ground, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The lead bus was on fire. Many forever kids and drivers were out helping—pulling people from the burning vehicle. Beyond it, she saw that whatever had hurtled in from the sky had hit the ramp to the elevated highway and exploded, collapsing most of the structure. There were flames everywhere, and destruction was spread out in all direction.
The driver, Dahlia, ran back to Mr. Jay. He raised an eyebrow.
Dahlia shook her head and almost wept. “Driver and six kids. Lost.”
“Get the survivors on the other buses,” Mr. Jay said nodding. “Keep moving.” He looked up at the ruined highway. “We’ll go overland.”
Mr. Jay cursed and then jumped when Dawn grabbed his hand. Anger flashed in his eyes when he saw her.
“Get on the bus!” he growled, before turning to Dahlia. “The elevated highway follows the old one. It’ll be grown over but it’s there. Tell the others.”
He knelt by Dawn. “Stick with
the other kids!” He shook his head when he saw her lower lip slip out. “Crying won’t always help, and I might not always be around.”
They hurried back onto their bus and waited while kids from the damaged vehicle loaded. The convoy got underway again in minutes, slowly at first as the lead trucks picked their way through brush and overgrown pavement. They finally started making speed as the land flattened out.
Dawn watched the battle to the west and was amazed. It seemed to be rolling closer to them—or spreading out like a grass fire. Even Mr. Jay noticed it and wondered. Apocalypse was growing.
Jets roared overhead and were gone. Then the buses themselves fell strangely silent. And everybody felt a weird quiet. An unnatural calm descended. Everything slowed down. Dawn felt the tension turn sour in her stomach.
“Oh God, NO!” Mr. Jay screamed, and held his walking stick high. “Shut your eyes!” And his walking stick burned white.
There was a flash. Dawn had put her hands up to cover her eyes, and she clearly saw her finger bones. She thought she heard someone scream, and realized it was her. There was another flash of light more powerful than the first—and another. Silence and dry heat pressed in on her. She wanted to scream. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Mr. Jay was shouting. His voice sounded broken as he chanted old words. And then Dawn realized she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not because she could only see white.
And then the sound hit the bus. A horrific roar clamored in, splintered the air with heat. Shook them all off their seats, bellowing it buffeted them on the floor. It heaved the vehicle skyward and almost pitched it over. For a second, Dawn thought it was a Hellhound. But there was too much heat and too much light. And the bus bounced, and all the kids were thrown up to the ceiling. Dawn pressed her hands over her ears as the thunder cracked and roared.
Then it was still bright, and the bus stopped having that sideways sliding feeling, and there was no more roaring. Distantly, like she’d gone partly deaf, Dawn could hear the rumble of the engine and grunt of gears shifting—vibrations came up through the floor.
She opened her eyes and saw Mr. Jay across from her. He still held the walking stick over his head, but it was bent. It drooped down to either side of his fist like a piece of licorice. His lips still mumbled unfamiliar words and his eyes were half-closed. Then they opened, and he looked at her. Sorrow mixed with joy on his face as he reached out and pulled her into his embrace.
“Oh Dawn! I’m so sorry,” he cried, but pulled away from her smiling. Then his eyes saw something past her shoulder and his expression changed to horror.
Dawn turned to look. The City was burning. All its many levels had dropped or folded down. The steel and concrete was mangled—cinders and flames billowed off the mammoth pile toward a massive mushroom cloud that ripped a hole through the thick overcast. The land around the city was burning, trees, grass and all. And in the flames on the ground Dawn saw shapes of things on fire. Things like trucks and buildings, and things like people and bigger things—writhing in the inferno.
She felt Mr. Jay’s arms go rigid as four flaming shapes steamed out of the holocaust. Just fire and coals at first, they soon resolved, took the shapes of men on horseback.
Mr. Jay turned her in his embrace. She didn’t like his look. Behind him she saw the other forever children had gathered, were hanging over the seats watching as the buses drove as fast and as far as possible.
“Don’t go!” Dawn screamed, feeling suddenly that she was about to lose him.
“I’m sorry Dawn.” He hugged her and then got to his knees—hands stroking her hair.
Then they all heard the pounding horse’s hooves. Galloping fast, the clink and jangle of harness, the constant throaty breath of a horse running full out. Dawn saw the other forever kids’ eyes go round with fear.
“He forgets himself,” Mr. Jay said and Dawn looked back. Against the orange fires of the dead city, there rode a pale man on a pale horse. Both were like skeletons in shape, what flesh they had was stringy muscle stretched over yellow bones. And the face of the rider was pale without skin, and his eye sockets were empty, and his exposed teeth gnashed with unspeakable hunger.
The rider carried a twisted weapon with handles on it, and a long blade. He slashed outward as he got closer. The blade clanged against the bus’s mangled body.
“I love you Dawn,” Mr. Jay kissed both her cheeks and then her forehead. “I will always love you.”
“Don’t go, Mr. Jay,” Dawn pleaded, her chest tight.
“You’ll be fine with friends,” the magician brushed tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “You have it in you.” Mr. Jay set a palm against Dawn’s chest, smiling. Then he turned his face, placed his hands on the other kids, and caressing them softly he said, “You all have it in you.” He smiled at Dawn then and did a crazy roll of his eyes before shaking his head. “You can never tell when the cup will come to you. But you’ll know when it’s time to drink.”
He watched the skeletal monster riding closer. It swung its weapon and the blade slashed the fender. The whole bus shook. Mr. Jay leapt out. He grabbed the rider’s arms and swung a leg over the beast’s neck. The horseman’s eyes burned like coals. The magician slammed his forehead into the monster’s face and they struggled. Mr. Jay’s eyes blazed with white fire. The charging beast screamed and veered away into the burning plains. They were soon lost against the flaming landscape. Dawn and the children wept for the magician.
But Dawn wept the most.
93 – Élan
His eyes grated with sand and pain as he pried them open. Lapping water was the only sound that made it through the hollow roaring in his ears. His skin was alive with army ants, tearing, stinging his flesh. The air was hot, scalding. The assassin’s body was a blister of pain. Upon opening his eyes, warm fluid spewed from his left—it was dead, blind—the right showed blurred shapes around a neon green scar. He could just make out the singed remains of Lucifer’s skull. The black hair was burned away to the line of Felon’s chest, before cascading into the space between them. The Fallen’s legs were twisted convulsions of melted flesh and bone. Quickly, Felon looked away from his own forearms where they crossed over Lucifer’s breast. The skin was blackened and burned, yellow fat liquefied, oozed from cracks.
He looked across the gray gap of water. Boiled bodies floated and bobbed. Steam curled upward, smelling of pork. The buildings of the Sunken City that had stood as obstacles had been crushed by the shock waves—little remained. The ocean had swallowed their memory. The Demon’s yacht had been destroyed. The assassin was crushed against a three-yard section of scorched deck. The rest of the boat had disintegrated when the atomic tsunami rammed it into the collapsing debris of the flooded streets. It slammed against a gargantuan pile of rubble and was still.
Across from him, Archangel Tower’s upper stories were gone—the remains of the building, a burning stump, rained debris into the inferno of the City streets. The Level’s had collapsed in the nuclear blasts and burned now, white hot in their deepest reaches. All over the world a similar madness had burned the human race. He had only seen some few factions at work. There were others from below, and others from above that had fought out this final convulsion in the blood of history. He knew that the air would rain the ashes of bones.
The assassin tried to draw a breath, but drew in his own body fluids. No more breaths. That was it. His vision was fading. His heart beat heavy in his ears. The end. Felon tried to conjure something warm from his life to leave with, but he could only curse. Pain kept him nailed to the torturous present. He had pain.
Some would survive, but that was fine.
It was an old world with plenty for all now.
Roaring, teeming humanity was gone. It was over. It was the end.
And it was good.
The fiery Apocalypse had torn a hole in the overcast above the ruins. Sunrise fell across the cloud in diagonal orange bands. The assassin welcomed the darkness as his vision faded
.
94 – First-mother
Dawn was having trouble with her sewing. Not the actual mechanics of it, she’d been sewing for so many years now she could do it with her eyes closed—once she got going. Once she could thread the damned needle. A memory of Mr. Jay suddenly warmed her. He’d grumbled many times about his failing eyesight, spitting and cursing good-naturedly every time he had to put his glasses on to read up close. The faces he made!
“Jay!” she scolded, looking over her work, catching a glimpse of her grandson rolling off the old giant’s massive ribcage. “You be careful now. Arthur’s not a hill made of sand and twigs!” She shook her head.
The circus giant winked gleefully at her, giggled and kicked his legs up as the boy climbed onto him again. The six-year-old howled like a warrior, brandishing a kill-flower he had made out of sticks. He charged into Arthur’s arms. Dawn’s warning would go unheeded again.
“Lord!” she hissed, a smile appearing on her face as the thread finally slipped through the eye. Under her breath she said, “Foolish old and young you men.”
A pang settled on her heart a moment but was soothed by young Jay’s laughter. Her Jeremy had been just such a fool. Then a blush struck her features. “A romantic fool,” she chuckled, remembering their early courtship and eventual union. They’d had five kids together before the radiation sickness killed him. Arthur and the other workers had warned the people to stay clear of the lands to the south, and the salvage party had. One worker, an old fellow named Marcus, said the wind might have been playing inland that day. Must have carried dust or worse. And there were places that hadn’t been looked at yet, or mapped, where some of the foreign bombs might have fallen.
But Jeremy and the rest of the salvage party had got the radiation poison bad, and they died none too gently—some of them with their skin peeling off like a leper’s.
Dawn’s heart sank momentarily before being cheered out of the darkness by the boy and the giant. They were singing now, where they lay in the grass with the sun beaming down.
The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two Page 48