“The sword of the messenger,” something bellowed from within the darkness of the cave, and then it leaned toward him, revealing itself, its tubular body so large, it was barely able to move. “I would have thought it impossible for one such as you to wield a weapon so mighty.”
Though his body continued to protest, Aaron held the blade tighter as the black-scaled monster loomed above him. He studied the details of the creature that could only be Leviathan. Its body was covered in fine, interconnecting scales, like chain mail, and it swayed snakelike above him. Repulsed, Aaron could see things living beneath its body armament, familiar spidery things that would have liked nothing better than to crawl down the throats of every living thing upon the planet.
It lashed out at him with a tentacle as thick as a tree trunk, and Aaron scrabbled quickly over the cave floor. It was like the deafening crack of the world’s largest bullwhip, the fleshy appendage fragmenting the rock where he once had stood.
Leviathan shifted its great size within the cavern to follow Aaron’s progress, the top of its head rubbing against the ceiling as it attempted to maneuver its enormous mass in the confining space. “Where are you going, Nephilim?” it asked in its horrible, thunderous voice. “You cannot escape me. Surrender to the inevitable.”
Some of the black-shelled spider things fell from the monster’s body and eagerly scuttled across the cave floor to get at him. The blade of the messenger—as Leviathan had called it—made short work of the crawling things.
As he dispatched the spawn of the monster, something began to bother him. Since awakening within the digestive sack of the monster, he had not felt the presence of his angelic power. As he destroyed more of Leviathan’s pets, he tried to remember when last he had felt the force, always so eager to be unleashed. It had been back in the tunnels, when he had been attacked by Katie McGovern and the residents of Blithe. It had screamed to be free and he had rebuked it, pushing it away as he had done since that first battle with the angel Verchiel.
Leviathan squirmed its bulk closer. Had the great monster somehow sucked it away? Aaron wondered as another of the Leviathan’s tentacles reached down to ensnare him in its grasp. He swung at the muscular appendage, and it recoiled from the blade, hovering in the air before him like a cobra waiting for its opportunity to strike.
“Where are you?” he whispered to the presence that should have stirred inside him. “I really could use your help around now,” Aaron said, alert as the monster’s tentacle again attacked. There was no answer, and Aaron felt a wave of despair wash over him as he threw his diminishing strength into fighting the plentiful appendages that reached for him. He brought the blade down and watched as it dug deep into the black, muscular flesh of the beast.
“Yarrrrggghhhh,” Leviathan roared as it violently pulled the injured limb away—and with it, the sword of the messenger. Aaron watched dumbfounded as the tentacle thrashed, dislodging the annoyance—sending it hurling across the cave, far from his reach, where it disappeared in a blinding flash. Panic set in. Without any contact with the angelic nature, is it still possible for me to defend myself? he wondered frantically.
He pressed his back to the cave wall and attempted to conjure a weapon of his own creation. Aaron breathed a sigh of relief as a blade of fire, puny in comparison with the splendor of the sword of the messenger, began to form in his hand. At least that power had not been taken from him.
Leviathan wasted no time and again attacked. The behemoth twisted within the confines of the cave, bringing its enormous mass down toward Aaron. The sword of flame sprang fully to life in his grasp, and he was raising the blade to defend himself against this latest onslaught, when his attention fell upon the many, fleshy sacks that hung obscenely from the front of the descending beast.
Aaron froze as he stared into the contents of the sea beast’s numerous stomachs: the missing Camael, his poor Gabriel—one of the ugly little creatures that had attacked them on their way to Blithe—and so many others, all trapped within the bellies of the beast. The horror of it all was almost too much for him to stand.
“The sight of me—of my magnificence—it fills you with wonder,” Leviathan said, reaching down to claim Aaron as its own.
Its writhing body shifted, and a rain of tentacles fell from above to ensnare him. Aaron slashed at the relentless onslaught, the fiery weapon severing many of the limbs. The beast shrieked in pain, but still it attacked.
And as he fought, Aaron could not help but return his gaze to a mysterious being he saw floating within one of the digestive sacks. He knew—somehow, instinctively?—that this was an angel, but that same something also told him that this was an angel of enormous prestige and power. An archangel. Through the opaque skin and milky fluid he could see the ornate armor that hung from the emaciated body of the heavenly being.
“Look upon those that fell before my might, Nephilim,” gurgled the monster, assaulting his ears and mind. “He was the Archangel Gabriel—the messenger of God, an extension of the Creator’s Word—and he was vanquished as easily as the others.”
Aaron’s mind was suddenly filled with images of the monster’s battle with God’s messenger. He saw the winged warrior descend from the heavens, his golden armor glistening beautifully in the dimness of the primordial world. The angel dove beneath the churning waves to confront his quarry, wielding the awesome sword of light.
The battle that Aaron bore witness to could only be described as epic in proportion: a force of the purest light against unfathomable darkness—two opposing powers coming together in a conflict that quite literally rocked the world. The ocean waters around them boiled and churned, kicking up rock, dirt, and silt. Great undersea mountains quaked and crumbled, then the ocean floor split apart, a yawning chasm appearing beneath the opponents, still lost in the midst of conflict. And they tumbled into the gaping abyss, swallowed up by the cataclysmic fury unleashed by their struggle.
The vision came to an abrupt end with the disturbing and final sight of Leviathan engulfing the diminished angel Gabriel within its cavernous mouth. The messenger of God struggled pathetically as he was gradually drawn down the gullet of the beast—immured within one of the behemoth’s many stomachs; eternal food for the beast, trapped in a cave, far beneath the sea.
Leviathan laughed within Aaron’s mind, a low, gurgling sound, filled with a perverse confidence. Not even a messenger from God Himself could defeat the monster, Aaron thought as he continued his battle with the writhing tentacles. What chance do I have? he wondered, his efforts against the behemoth beginning to slow. He knew this was what the monster wanted, but he couldn’t shake the sense that his struggles against the beast were not going to be enough.
Leviathan’s attack was relentless, and it wasn’t long before one of the tentacles ensnared the wrist that held his weapon of fire. He tried to pull away, to somehow use the flaming blade against the slimy black limb, but it was to no effect. There was a sudden sharp snap and blinding pain as his wrist was broken. Aaron cried out in shock, watching the sword fall from his grasp, evaporating in the cold, damp air of the cave before it could even touch the ground.
Aaron struggled in the monster’s grasp as tentacles wrapped themselves around his arms, his legs, and waist, constricting almost all movement. He found himself lifted from the ground and born aloft.
Drawn upward to the monster’s mouth.
Chapter Eleven
LEVIATHAN’S MUSCULAR tendrils hauled him closer. Aaron tried to squirm from their strangling grasp, but the monster’s hold upon him was too strong. The sea beast attacked his mind as well, weakening his resolve, taking away his desire to fight back. The spider-things living beneath the behemoth’s armored scales chittered and hissed as Aaron’s body was drawn steadily upward.
He was almost to Leviathan’s mouth, a yawning chasm of razor-sharp teeth, when he heard another voice in his head. It was soft at first, a soothing whisper, like the sound of the wind moving through the trees on a cool fall night. He focused on th
is new, not unpleasant, tickle and struggled to stay conscious.
He opened his eyes and found himself gazing into one of the many opaque sacks hanging from the gigantic beast—the one that held God’s messenger. The Archangel Gabriel’s eyes opened, and Aaron knew it was his presence within his mind.
“I have long awaited your arrival,” whispered a voice that sounded like the most beautiful of stringed instruments.
The voice of the monster was suddenly silenced, drowned out by the enlivening sounds of a cosmic symphony—and despite his dire predicament, Aaron reached out to communicate with this latest entity in his teeming mind.
“How is that possible?” Aaron asked “How could you know that I would be here—that I would come?”
Aaron could sense Leviathan’s growing annoyance. Something was blocking its access into his mind, and the monster did not care for that in the least.
“I knew that my torment would not last an eternity,” said the angel Gabriel, the celestial music inside his head building to a near deafening crescendo. “That my successor would eventually come and complete the task assigned to me,” the angel’s voice crooned.
Aaron didn’t completely grasp the meaning of the Archangel’s words. “Successor?” he questioned. “I don’t understand.”
The angel’s eyes again began to close. “There is no time for misunderstanding,” the angelic being whispered, the sound of his voice growing steadily weaker. “You are as I was,” he said. “A messenger of God.”
“Wait!” Aaron screamed aloud as he was dragged away from the digestive sacks and up toward the monster’s face. He squirmed in the tentacles’ clutches, the broken bones in his wrist grinding together painfully as he tried again to establish contact with the Archangel. “What do you mean?” he shouted. “I still don’t understand!”
A tentacle, its thickness that of a tree trunk, reached down from above the struggling youth and snatched him away from the lesser appendages, drawing him upward.
Aaron found himself hanging upside down by the leg in front of Leviathan’s monstrous countenance. The bulging eyes on either side of its head studied him with great interest; its enormous circular mouth puckered and spat as it spoke. “What is there to understand?” asked the horrific sea deity, its voice like the last gasp of a drowning man echoing inside his head. “Your struggles are futile. Surrender to my supremacy and know that it was your life essence, and those of your companions, that finally enabled me to procure my freedom.”
Somehow, Leviathan had not heard the angel Gabriel’s words. The monster did not hear the angelic warrior proclaim him as a messenger of God, and Aaron began to wonder if it all wasn’t some kind of perverse trick on the part of the sea beast—to give him the slightest glimmer of hope and rip it savagely away.
He was brought closer to the gaping hole of a mouth, and Aaron saw himself pathetically reflected in the glassy surface of its bulbous, fish like eyes, dangling upside down, waiting to be dropped into the cavernous mouth of the ancient, undersea behemoth. Messenger of God my ass, I don’t have a chance in hell, Aaron thought as he prepared to be consumed.
“That is what it wants you to believe,” said the barely audible voice of the Archangel Gabriel. “That is how it has defeated us all, by making us believe that which is not true.”
Aaron squirmed, the angel’s words chasing away the monster’s infusion of self-doubt.
“When will you realize the futility of your actions?” Leviathan asked, giving him a violent shake. “Why do you fight when you cannot win, little Nephilim? The time for struggle is past. Now it is time to surrender.”
Aaron found the words streaming from his mouth before even realizing what he was going to say.
“I will not surrender to you,” Aaron said, a powerful anger building up inside him. He began to thrash, attempting to free himself from the ancient beast.
Leviathan laughed, tightening its grip upon his leg and lowering him toward its yawning mouth. “Courage even in the face of the inevitable,” it gurgled. “Perhaps it shall make your life stuff all the more sweet.”
The stink that wafted up from the monster’s gullet was enough to render a body unconscious, and Aaron tried desperately to hold his breath. The flesh of the sea monster’s tentacle was slimy beneath his clawing fingers, and he could not get a good enough grip upon the skin to render any damage. He felt the appendage’s hold upon him loosen, and prepared for the fall into oblivion—when the angel Gabriel spoke again.
“I give again to you, my weapon of choice. Take it now as you took it the first time you struggled within the grasp of nightmare. I give to you Bringer of Light—use it well, messenger of God.”
Aaron felt the blade of the messenger, Bringer of Light, appear in his hand, and the sharp, grinding pain from his broken wrist immediately eased as the bones miraculously knitted themselves back together.
“What is this?” Leviathan growled, its enormous eyes attempting to focus on him and the weapon that sprang to brilliant life in his grasp.
Aaron felt invigorated. The shroud of despair that had held him in its grasp dissipated like the morning fog in the presence of the rising sun. He swung his body out and swiped his blade across one of the fishlike eyes that ogled him. Bringer of Light cut across the wet surface of the bulging orb, slicing open the gelatinous organ. Leviathan screamed in a mixture of agony and rage—and Aaron was released from its hold.
The monster continued to shriek in pain, its gigantic mass thrashing in the close quarters of the undersea cave. Aaron landed precariously atop the cluster of sacks hanging from the front of the raging Leviathan. He tried to grab hold, to keep from being thrown from the swaying stomachs. His body slid across the rubbery surface of the digestive organs, sounding much like it did when rubbing a hand upon an inflated balloon. Aaron sunk his fingernails into the fleshy surface and held on.
The sea monster was bucking, bellowing its rage throughout its cave domain, its injured eye swollen closed, weeping streams of thick yellow fluid that resembled egg yoke.
“You shall suffer for that, Nephilim!” it screamed as it bent its body in an attempt to locate him with its remaining sensory organ. “I shall make your internment within my hungry stomach last an eternity. You shall be my favorite meal, and I will savor the taste of you for a very long time!”
Aaron began to slip, his purchase upon the tumorous sacks insecure. His face pressed against the surface of one of the opaque membranes, and he again found himself peering into the wane face of the Archangel Gabriel, floating within the digestive fluids of the behemoth.
“Messenger,” a voice probed weakly within his brain, “free me.” And the angel opened his eyes, their intensity inspiring him to act.
Aaron pulled back his arm with a yell and brought it forward, hacking at where the digestive sacks connected to Leviathan’s chest. The heavenly blade passed through the connective tissue with ease, and the dangling organs fell from the monster’s body like ripened fruit from the tree.
Leviathan continued to bellow, throwing its body against its stone prison, causing parts of walls and ceiling to crumble, raining rubble down onto the cave floor.
Aaron let himself fall. He had done his best, cutting away as many of the stomach prisons as possible, but there were just too many and he could not reach them all. Landing atop a pile of the fleshy sacks, he began to cut into the fluid-filled organs, attempting to free those trapped within before the beast overcame its fury.
Thick, milky liquids drained from opened casings, coating the ground in a layer of foul-smelling digestive juices. Leviathan moaned woefully, its great, serpentine mass leaning against the undersea cave’s wall, seemingly thrown into a kind of shock—perhaps as a result of being cut off from its food source, Aaron guessed wildly, but he knew deep down that the beast would not remain docile for long. It was only a matter of time before its anger would fuel it to strike back at the one who hurt it so.
“You have hurt the beast,” a voice said from behind him.
Aaron turned to see the emaciated form of the angel Gabriel. His once glorious armor was now the color of a dirty penny, hanging large upon his dripping, skeletal frame. The Archangel swayed, barely conscious, in a puddle of viscous fluid. “Now you must finish the task we failed to complete.” He gestured with a skeletal hand to the other sacks, and those still lying within. Bracelets that were probably once worn tight upon thick, muscular wrists jangled loosely, threatening to slip off. “In the name of the Creator, slay the beast Leviathan.”
Aaron came toward him. “I … I can’t do that,” he said. He offered Gabriel the sword. “Here,” he said. “You do it.”
The angel fell to his knees upon the fluid-saturated ground. “That is not possible,” Gabriel wheezed. “To do battle with the monster would only quicken my inevitable demise.”
Aaron returned to the digestive sacks. “Maybe one of the others could help you,” he suggested, fitfully gazing down at the still forms of the other angelic beings that had been held captive in the bellies of the fearsome monster. Many had curled into the fetal position, trapped within a world of Leviathan’s making.
“Most are in as dire condition as I am,” Gabriel wheezed in response.
Aaron knelt down beside two sacks, which contained his dog and Camael. “Will they be all right?” he asked, laying a trembling hand upon the Labrador’s side, feeling for a heartbeat or any sign of life.
“They have not been prisoners of the beast for long,” the Archangel said. “They will survive—if Leviathan does not reclaim them.”
The monster stirred, a low, tremulous moan echoing throughout the underwater cavern.
Aaron stood, Bringer of Light still clutched tightly in his hand. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do—you want me to kill that?”
Gabriel tilted his head to one side. “Do you have any idea the extent of power within you?” the angel retorted.
Leviathan Page 14