The War in Heaven (Eternal Warriors Book 1)

by Vox Day

  Ignoring her mind’s complaints about the illogic of it all, Jami started shouting too, waving her arms and screaming so hard she thought she would sear her throat.

  “Chris, knock it off!”

  “Christopher, it’s us! It’s me, it’s Holli!”

  “Chris, pull up!”

  It was useless, Jami thought. Even if it was their brother, Chris couldn’t possibly hear their cries. She wondered, too, if it would make any difference if he did. How far into the Shadow had he gone, and what had they done to him? Was he still even truly her brother anymore?

  The point of the lance was only twenty feet away and the terrible stink of the dragon was overpowering when the snarl suddenly disappeared from the rider’s face. His eyes went wide with horror and he screamed an urgent command as the golden lance magically disappeared. The huge beast roared in protest, but obeyed, spreading its wings as it swept to the left, and one snapping head missed the girls by only a few feet.

  The force of its passage was tremendous and hurled both of the girls to the ground. Their fall was a blessing in disguise, though, for the huge beast lashed out with one clawed foot that would have torn them to pieces if they had not been lying flat on their backs. Jami watched, breathless, as the terrible warrior who was her brother forced the great beast away from the city, towards the east and into the rising sun.

  Still flat on her back, Jami looked over at Holli, who was already sitting up and trying to run her fingers through her disheveled white curls.

  “That wasn’t really Christopher, was it?”

  “Yeah, it was.” Holli looked haunted and sad. “There’s something really, like, wrong with him.”

  “He looked, I don’t know, different or something.” She shook her head. “How did you know it was him?”

  “I don’t know,” Holli shrugged. “When he was yelling, you know, when he was coming at us?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I just thought to myself, you know, that looks just like Christopher when he’s playing those games. When he’s really into it, you know, yelling and all. Once I thought that, I kind of looked closer, and I was, like, wow, it really is him! Weird, huh?”

  Jami sat up and hugged her.

  “Too weird. But I’m glad you noticed,” she said, laughing with relief. When she looked up, she saw that their angels had gathered in a circle around them.

  “Glory to the Most High!” Khasar said triumphantly. “Praise His holy Name! Our prayers have been answered.” He cleared his throat and grinned at Jami. “In rather dramatic fashion, I might add. It was, perhaps, a little close for my liking.”

  “Our God is mighty,” Lokhael declared. “Leviathan is overcome, and who could have foreseen it!”

  “Who’s Leviathan?” Holli asked as the archangel lifted her up and gently placed her on Jhofor’s leonine back. “That dragon-thing?”

  “It’s a long story,” Khasar said as he too transformed back into a lion. “But yes, that was Leviathan.”

  “So where did Chris find a pet like that?”

  “I told you, it’s a long story. You must come with us now.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “What about Father Havtah and the people in the city?” Jami asked as she climbed behind Khasar’s shoulders. She looked back and saw that a group of unarmored men and women holding spears were forming a small, pathetic line in a desperate attempt to fill in the gap left by the destroyed gate. “Don’t they need help? That army is totally going to wipe them out if you don’t do something!”

  Khasar only laughed, surprisingly unconcerned despite the blowing horns and ominous movement that was beginning to take place amidst the ranks of Matraya’s army.

  “Have you learned nothing, daughter of the King?” The cheerful tone of Lokhael’s voice took the sting out of his words. “What happens today in this place will happen as the Lord wills it.”

  “Praise the King of Heaven, for there is none like Him!” Jhofor added.

  Jami looked at Holli, who shrugged as if to remind her that some things were simply beyond their understanding. The Lady’s vision had miraculously come to pass, and if God would bother to save the two of them, then surely he would want to do something for the faithful people of Chasah too.

  “All right,” she said finally, hoping that the angels’ trust was not misplaced. “I guess… I guess after everything… I guess I’ve got to believe you.”

  The two Archons roared their approval and Lokhael drew his sword, pointing it at the sky. Jami watched, transfixed, as the ground fell suddenly away, fading into a misty haze as they rose towards Heaven. But despite her words, she watched anxiously as the enemy army began its deadly march towards Chasah, like a column of ants swarming towards an unwatched picnic basket.

  Christopher’s mind was still reeling from his surprise encounter with his sisters. Leviathan’s silent voice was raining curses down upon his mind, furiously demanding a return to the battlefield, but Christopher barely noticed. For the first time in the three months since he’d come to Ahura Azdha, he felt something that reminded him of his hateful former life. He was feeling embarrassed.

  With a shudder, he blinked and caused his fearsome battle horns to disappear. Boy oh boy, he thought, would Jami give him a hard time about them. He could just hear her voice now, calling him a cheesy Conan wannabee, and in response, his oversized muscles shrank to slightly less-heroic proportions. He shook his head. What in the Shining Name of Adonai Lucere were his sisters doing on Ahura Azdha? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t possible!

  He commanded a nearby cloud to scry the battlefield, and it obeyed him immediately. He saw the army of Anakhim marching unopposed towards the defenseless city, accompanied by the usual cloud of petty demons. He did not see his sisters, though, not on the ground where he had seen them last, nor anywhere among the people of the city or its defenders. They were gone as if they had never existed, and he smiled grimly when he realized that he’d been had. It was the only answer. Some angel with a talent for visions had read his mind and made him see the one thing that would stop him from attacking.

  Now that he knew that his sisters hadn’t been real, the cowardly part of his mind urged him to stop thinking about them, but he ruthlessly suppressed it as he forced himself to confront his feelings. No, if he was brutally honest, what he had felt for a moment was not embarrassment exactly, but shame. Seeing Holli and Jami forced him too recall the young girl at Hamath, who could not have been any older than his sisters. He could still see her, slender and pretty, black eyes wide with terror as he dropped from the clouds above her. He had not spared her, though, any more than he had spared the rest of the city for its refusal to join in what Kaym called Illumination. He winced at the thought, glad that Holli had only been an image, for he would not have liked her to hear about what he had done.

  Since his own Illumination, he hadn’t really thought about the consequences of his actions, he’d simply been too intoxicated by the heady realization of his own power, and the knowledge that he was practically a god. Now the Gates of Heaven were broken, Leviathan was free, and soon all Ahura Azdha as well as Heaven itself would belong to the Dawn Prince and the whole universe would bow before its new King. Yes, there were consequences to everything, and he was going to have to start thinking about them.

  But not now. He idly pointed his finger at a nearby copse of trees topping a ridge and effortlessly unleashed a bolt of lightning, scorching the ground and blasting five trees into splinters. Yes, he thought, the Dawn Prince did know how to reward a loyal servant. He forced Leviathan to circle the ridge and surveyed the damage with satisfaction. His power had grown considerably since Hamath, swelled by the sacrifice of twelve thousand lives, to the point that even Matraya-Mahalidael now showed him respect. It was good to be favored by the gods, but it was even better to become a god yourself.

  Something pricked his collarbone as he turned his head and startled him. It was only his gold key, th
ough, which had now become almost useless to him. It had broken the Gate, taken out the Cherub, and banished Verchiel for him, but now, with Jehuel’s sword and his own swelling power, he knew he was strong enough to overcome a hundred archons singlehanded. Even without Leviathan.

  “Ouch!”

  “What’s the matter now,” Leviathan grumbled. He was still bitter about missing the battle at Chasah.

  “This stupid thing burned me!”

  Outraged, he glared at the little key in his palm. It was glowing now, getting hotter by the moment. Christopher could banish the pain, of course, but not the sense of betrayal. He had been through a lot with this little key, and now it was turning on him!

  “Knock it off!” he commanded, but still it glowed defiantly, so hot now that the metal felt as if it were melting in his hand.

  “Well, forget you then! It’s not like I need you anymore!”

  He drew his arm back and cast it from him, watching as it tumbled down towards the ground until it disappeared from sight. He spat a curse after it, and the dark spirit leaped eagerly from his lips, arching downward like an arrow as it hurried to bury the key a thousand feet beneath the earth. Christopher knew what a dangerous weapon it could be, and even though he was pretty sure it couldn’t do him much harm, he had no desire to test his theory.

  He felt suddenly free, as if an oppressive weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The thought of his sisters no longer bothered him, and he grinned savagely as he wished his deadly horns back into place and added a third, curving up from behind his skull, for good measure.

  Leviathan, sensing his change of mood, turned its left head around to look at him. The yellow eyes were darkly hopeful, yearning for more chaos and bloodshed.

  “Where to, O master mine?”

  “Asrael’s Host is shattered and if Mahalidael can’t take that city with its doors blasted off, I’ll come back and eat his soul myself. I think it’s time to return to Heaven, don’t you? I want to be there for the final action. It’s not often you get to see a new King of All Creation crowned.” He grinned to himself. “And it would be nice to see Melusine.” He hadn’t seen her since Kaym took her back to Heaven with him forty days ago.

  “What about the girls, the twain who haunted thee so?”

  “I don’t think they were actually there. It was just a vision one of the defenders cast upon my mind, a glamour or something. I looked for them and they’re not there anymore. It’s time to return to Heaven.”

  “Then shall we storm Paradise, master!”

  Leviathan roared and hurled himself towards the distant stars, as Christopher howled with joy at the feeling of power pulsing within him. He called out to the Anakhim, summoning six thousand of them to serve as an honor guard. Followed by the legion of ur-mortals, Christopher hurtled triumphantly through the empty darkness of space, flying towards the conquered realm of Heaven.

  Chapter 21

  River of Fire

  John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:

  —Luke 3:16

  Jami climbed off Khasar’s back and joined Holli by the side of a large marble pool as the Archons shifted back into their angelic form. Together, they watched Lokhael as he glanced about the grassy courtyard that surrounded the pool. It looked like he was expecting someone, so Jami, her curiosity aroused, walked up to him.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Someone very important.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Yes.”

  Jami waited, but Lokhael didn’t say anything. She rolled her eyes.

  “Okay, then, will you?”

  “No.”

  Jami growled under her breath and returned to Holli’s side. Stupid angels. They were worse than her English teacher! But if she’d learned anything from them, it was that understanding sometimes took time, and it wasn’t always important to get your answers right away.

  “So, is this, like, Heaven?” she heard Holli asking Khasar.

  “It is indeed.”

  “Really? Wow!” Holli exclaimed, but then she frowned. “I don’t know, it’s not all that, like, impressive. I guess I was expecting more than blue sky and green grass, you know? I mean, the Lunstads have a bigger pool than this one. But it’s nice to see blue over your head instead of all that ugly yellow.”

  “And there’s some nice flowers over there,” Jami pointed out.

  “Yeah, and those carvings in the sides of the pool are kinda cool, but they’re too, like, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or something.”

  There was a sudden rustling of feathers, and Jami turned around to see Khasar, Jhofor, and Lokhael dropping to their knees before a man in white robes. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but rather plain in appearance, with an unremarkable, dark-tanned face and the calloused hands of a working man. He had no wings, nor did he give off a radiant glow like the angels before him. As far as she could tell, he was just a man, nothing more.

  Then the man looked at her, and Jami started, for his eyes were alarmingly, intensely red. They were not blood-shot, it was the irises themselves that were unmistakably red. It unsettled her, and for one frightening moment she wondered if the angels she’d come to trust were really on her side.

  She grew even more worried when the strange man nodded to Lokhael, Khasar, and Jhofor, and the three angels abruptly disappeared. Alone with the girls now, he spread his hands and smiled at them. It was a genuine smile, warm and friendly, and Jami relaxed a little.

  “You are welcome here, Jami. You are welcome here, Holli.”

  His voice was surprisingly soft, a mellow baritone that was rich and pleasing to the ear. His hair was long and brown, and just a little bit unkempt.

  “Thanks, um, sir,” Jami said. “You seem to know who we are. Who are you?”

  “Who do you say I am?”

  Jami shrugged. How should she know?

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  “Well, the angels were bowing to you,” Holli observed. “So I think you must be, like, a king or something. Only, you don’t look very much like a king.”

  “Holli!” Jami blurted out, appalled, hoping the man with the red eyes didn’t take offense at her sister’s words.

  But the man only chuckled softly, not insulted at all.

  “What is lovely on the outside may conceal a monster within,” he said. “And a common face may hide a royal heart. But I am indeed a king. I am the Son of the King of Heaven, and on the world you recently left, I am known as Kherev Elohai.”

  “Okay. Kherev Elohai,” Holli tested the sound of it out loud. “I think I can remember that. But would Kherev be all right? Just for short, that is.”

  “If you call me Kherev, Holli, I will know to listen,” he promised solemnly. He smiled at Jami. “But you seem doubtful, Jami.”

  “Yeah, you’re saying you’re, like, the Son of the King of Heaven, right? So are you saying you’re the Son of God?”

  “I am.”

  Jami snorted. “And you think we’re just going to believe you? Okay, if you are, like, God, then how come you let that Matraya guy wipe out the Lady? And why did Chris turn into a monster? And look at your eyes, I mean, you say monsters can look nice, but they can be ugly too. Maybe you just tricked Lokhael and Khasar into leaving us here with you!”

  “Jami!” Holli protested. “He’s not a monster, he’s good inside. I can feel it. You’re wrong.”

  “Then let him prove it!”

  Kherev didn’t reply, instead he reached out and placed one large hand on each girl’s shoulder. Jami shrank from his touch, but his grip was strong and he did not let her to pull away. He drew them to him, turned them gently around, and began to walk with his arms around them, towards a path that led away from the pool.

  “I understand your anger, Jami, and your lack of faith as well. Let me tell you a story a
bout My Father’s kingdom, and perhaps you will understand Me better.”

  Jami struggled against the forceful arm around her, but Kherev held her tightly. She had no choice but to accompany him as he led them through the courtyard towards a small wooded path.

  “The kingdom of Heaven is like a man who planted good wheat in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat grew up, then the weeds appeared too. The man’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you plant good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

  “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

  “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

  “’No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling up the weeds, you may pull up the wheat with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

  “You’re the man,” Holli said confidently. “Are we the wheat or are we the weeds?”

  “The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.”

  “That makes sense,” Holli said, nodding her head. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  Jami didn’t say anything. She had a bad feeling about this. Her life suddenly looked, in retrospect, alarmingly weed-like.

  “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. I will send out My angels, and they will weed out of My kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into a fiery furnace. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”