At the time, he was not yet the leader of the Powers. That honor belonged to the great angel Camael. But Camael had heard the prophetic murmurings that were spreading across this land: It was said that the spawn of human and angel—the Nephilim—would be revered in Heaven, and would bring about an age of forgiveness in which the fallen angels of the Great War would be granted absolution, and be allowed to return home.
This was utter blasphemy. It had been the Powers’ purpose to hunt down those who had stood against God, and punish them for their sins.
The idea of the fallen angels’ feet again touching the hallowed soil of the kingdom was enough to drive the Powers to silence the one who was prophesying this heresy.
Verchiel remembered how the Powers dropped from the sky, their shrieks of rage filling the night as they sought the one who spoke the poisonous words. He found it strange that the villagers attempted to thwart the Powers. Those humans who would normally bow down before their glory actually attempted to keep them from their task.
Camael and the others had held the village occupants at bay with weapons of fire as the citizenry attacked them with stones and farming implements.
Verchiel recalled how distasteful he’d found the whole affair, and was certain that if he had been in charge, any who’d attempted to lay hands upon their righteous personages would have met their fate far sooner.
But Camael had always had far more patience with the talking monkeys.
Focused on his task, Verchiel eventually found the prophet in a hut made of straw and mud, and in all his fiery countenance Verchiel demanded that the blind man explain his blasphemous lies.
Verchiel felt as if he were back there again as he relived this memory, feeling the rage as he’d experienced it.
“You,” Verchiel had said, the burning sword that he clutched in his hand illuminating the darkened quarters of the hut.
The prophet just turned his milky white orbs toward him, and smiled his pathetic toothless grin from his seat cross-legged on the dirt floor.
Verchiel’s fury was only intensified by the fact that the old man did not fear him.
“You will show me the proper respect,” Verchiel demanded, bringing his sword of fire closer to the man’s face.
Unfazed, the old man showed that he had a cup, and he shook the contents by his ear, listening to the rattle of what was contained within. He then emptied the cup, the yellow bones and teeth spilling out onto the dirt before him.
Verchiel was transfixed by the bones, and attempted to glean their meaning. But it was not for him to discern.
The prophet gazed down with unseeing eyes, somehow reading what the yellowed bones told him.
“The future diverges on many paths,” the old man said, moving his hands in the air above the bones. “But one thing remains the same no matter how often the bones are thrown.”
Verchiel knew what the man would say, and stepped closer.
“Even when your life hangs in the balance?” Verchiel asked, smiling cruelly at the man, even though the prophet could not see.
“My life has already ended,” the prophet informed him, reaching down in a single swipe to pick up the bones again and place them back inside the cup. “The bones told me as much, just as they foretold your coming.”
“So you knew Heaven would come for you… for the blasphemy that you spread.”
“Heaven has not come for me,” the prophet said, rattling his cup again and letting the bones fall. “This is how Heaven speaks to me.”
Verchiel laughed cruelly. “Heaven… speaks to you?”
Squatting down, the Powers angel looked more closely at the yellowed remains of human and animal bones and asked, “And what does Heaven tell you now?”
“It tells me that a Chosen One, a savior of the Nephilim, will bring absolution to the fallen, no matter how hard you try to destroy them.”
Verchiel then stood, his wings spreading out from his armored body in a threatening stance. He reached out, grabbed the neck of the old man, and hauled him from the floor, scattering his special bones.
“And what other messages have the bones delivered to you?” he demanded with a savage snarl.
In Verchiel’s grip the old man struggled to speak. Still, the words came. “That this Chosen One will bring about the end of you and yours.”
Verchiel was repulsed by the prophetic words, and savagely hurled the body of the old man to the ground, where he lay momentarily stunned.
It was then that Verchiel enacted his sentence upon the man—and the entire village that would harbor and protect such a pestilence upon the world—calling forth the power of Heaven that lived inside him, allowing his body to burn brighter and brighter until it burned like the sun.
That was where Verchiel wished the memory would end.
But there was more.
Through the fire, Verchiel witnessed the old man gazing at the bones he had thrown. As the prophet burned, he turned to point at a large slab of rock that the hungry fire had unearthed.
There were images painted on that flat piece of stone. And those images told the story of the Nephilim, and how there would be a Chosen One amongst them.
A Redeemer.
And through the fire, Verchiel watched the old man, his body aflame, pick up his brushes and continue to paint his visions.
The prophecy that he foretold continuing on even longer than Verchiel remembered.
* * *
Verchiel emerged from his memory and was surrounded by fire.
In his ruminations he had unknowingly called upon the divine power of Heaven, and had set the chapel altar ablaze. But what concerned Verchiel was not the fire that ate at the ancient wood and plaster of what had once been a place of worship.
It was the vision that haunted him.
How is this possible?
“What’s going on?” screamed a female voice, and Verchiel turned from the burning altar to see the Nephilim Vilma Santiago, accompanied by the dog, charging down the aisle toward him.
“Verchiel!” she screamed. “What in the name of God are you doing?”
He couldn’t explain, and didn’t want to. That was all he needed, for her to know of his sudden lapse in memory.
Or would it be considered an addendum?
Vilma did not wait for him to respond, darting to a far corner of the church to grab a tarp that had once covered a leaking portion of the church’s roof. She dragged it to the altar, where she threw the heavy cloth upon some of the flames, suffocating them. She stamped upon the smoldering cloth before picking the tarp up again, and was preparing to attack another section, when he’d seen enough.
Verchiel held out a hand.
“I’ll handle this,” he said, turning his attention to the wall behind the altar where the flames had seared the ancient paint and set the plaster alight.
He summoned his wings and began to beat the air. The sudden rush of wind temporarily fed the blaze. Then, hand extended, Verchiel called the fire of Heaven back into his body. It did not want to listen at first, preferring to feed upon the aged wooden structure, but Verchiel was not to be ignored, and the fire had no choice but to comply.
The fire leaped at him from the walls and burning debris, swirling around him in one last moment of freedom before it was absorbed back into his divine form.
“That is that,” he said, turning his attention back to the girl as the last of the flame swirled on the tip of his finger, and then was gone.
In a rush of anger Vilma threw the tarp at him.
“What is wrong with you?” she bellowed, and the dog barked its own language of displeasure.
Verchiel ignited a sword of flame, and the tarp fell before the musty fabric could touch him.
“Do not test me, girl,” he warned.
“Test you?” she screeched. “You almost set this place on fire, and you’re telling me not to test you? How would you have explained what we’re doing here to the fire department when they showed up? Tell me that.”
&nbs
p; “I wouldn’t have,” he said, wishing away the burning blade. “I do not talk to their kind. I may have fallen, but I am still far above the likes of them.”
“Aaron was completely right about you,” she said, turning to leave. “C’mon, Gabriel.”
“And what did your precious Aaron… your Nephilim savior have to say this time?” Inside Verchiel’s mind he saw the painting and the story that seemed to go on and on.
Vilma turned back to the angel, hands upon her hips defiantly.
“That you’re still an asshole,” she stated. “Even though you’ve most likely been sent here to help us… to redeem yourself… you’re still a total jerk.”
Then she and the dog strode away.
“And is that why you came in here? To tell me that?”
Verchiel remembered this girl before the angelic essence inside her had awakened. She’d been a timid bird who he thought might die from fright after learning about his kind, but now, since becoming Nephilim…
He hated to admit it, but she was a spectacular specimen.
Vilma stopped, considering how she would proceed.
“No,” she replied. “I actually came to ask for your advice.”
“My advice?” Verchiel said with a laugh. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
“Things are bad out there,” she said, pointing to the church wall and beyond it. “And they’re getting worse. We’re dealing with things the best we can… the only way we know how.”
“Yes?”
“Well, maybe there’s a better way,” she proposed. “We’re new at this and really don’t know about fighting an enemy that seems to grow in strength and number every day.”
“So you’re seeking my expertise,” Verchiel declared. He stepped down from the altar and walked toward the girl.
“If I didn’t have to speak to you, I wouldn’t,” she said with defiance. “Your voice makes my skin crawl—knowing what you and your Powers did to innocent people for a very long time.”
“They weren’t people, and they certainly weren’t innocent.”
“Whatever,” Vilma said dismissively. “But even though I find you repulsive, I respect the fact that you’re a warrior of Heaven, that this was what you were created to do… to fight.”
Verchiel glared at the girl, stunned by her audacity. In another time he would have severed her pretty head from her neck.
“And since you’re here with us, living with us, I thought you might share your expertise.”
He considered what she was saying, and could not help but laugh.
“You’re asking for my help?” he asked, trying to muffle his unexpected explosion of mirth.
He could see her look of absolute disgust as she again turned to leave.
“Never mind,” she said. “I knew it was a stupid idea.”
She was almost to the door, and he was about to let her go, when he decided to speak.
“You do what you have to do.”
“Excuse me?” Vilma asked.
“He said, ‘You do what you have to do,’” Gabriel repeated.
“I heard what he said. I just don’t understand what it means.”
“What do you think it means?” Verchiel asked. “You come in here, to speak to me—your mortal enemy—asking how to win the war you’re fighting.”
She crossed her arms, listening.
Verchiel began to pace before the charred altar.
“And I tell you the secret, which is no secret,” the angel stated flatly. “Your enemy is out there. An enemy that wishes to kill you and everything you hold dear. To deal with that you must do anything that you have to do in order to be victorious.” Verchiel paused, making sure that his words were sinking in. “Or you, and all that you know and love, will die.”
Vilma thought for a moment before opening her mouth.
“That’s it?” she asked. “Fight or die? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Could it be any simpler?” Verchiel asked before turning his back and walking to the dark shadows within the abandoned church.
He was done talking to the female Nephilim.
For now.
CHAPTER THREE
Aaron had fallen so far into sleep that he didn’t know he was dreaming.
He imagined a world where he’d graduated from high school, attended college, and gotten a good job. A world where he and Vilma were engaged to be married, and that his adoptive parents—Tom and Lori—had given them a substantial down payment for a house as an engagement gift. Life was better than he could ever have hoped.
But then something happened.
One evening darkness came earlier than it should have, and the sun never rose again. That perfect world began to fade away. No matter how hard Aaron tried to hold on to it—no matter how he screamed and raged and begged—nothing could stop the shadows from taking it all away from him.
The dream was replaced by a nightmare.
But the nightmare was a reality.
Aaron opened his eyes to find his vision blurred by tears.
Gabriel lay beside him on the mattress, the dog’s dark brown, soulful eyes staring at him. “You were crying,” he said.
“Yeah,” Aaron agreed, pulling his hand from beneath the covers to wipe away the residual tears.
“Sad dreams?” Gabriel asked.
Aaron rolled onto his side to face his dog.
“I dreamed of stuff that could have been if…” He paused for a moment, remembering how real it felt. “I went to college, Vilma and I were getting a house, Tom and Lori…”
“Were Tom and Lori still alive?” Gabriel asked. His tail suddenly sprang to life, thumping upon the bed.
“They were,” Aaron said, smiling with their memory. “And Stevie.”
“And me?” Gabriel asked. “I was there too, right?”
“Of course you were,” Aaron assured him. “What kind of a perfect life would it be without you in it?”
“True,” Gabriel agreed.
Aaron laughed. “Everything felt so perfect. It was all I could ever have asked for.”
“But it wasn’t real,” Gabriel said softly, resting his muzzle on the pillow beside his master.
“No, it wasn’t,” Aaron said sadly.
“Reality is mean.”
“Yeah, it can be.” Aaron flopped onto his back, throwing his arm across his eyes, feeling sadder than he had in quite some time.
“I can help you,” Gabriel said after a few moments.
Aaron lifted his arm to look at his dog.
“I can help you,” he said again, scooting closer and nudging his blocky head beneath Aaron’s hand.
Aaron hesitated, but then stroked the fine yellow fur atop the Labrador’s head. Slowly Aaron realized that this was exactly what he had to do—what he needed to do.
For petting Gabriel would take away the lingering pain of his dreams.
* * *
Melissa tried to rest but couldn’t.
She lay in her bed, eyes closed, trying to will herself to sleep. But it just wasn’t happening.
Rather than stare at the cracked plaster ceiling, she got up to go for a walk, and found herself at the back of the school, where the remains of a greenhouse stood near the makeshift graves of her friends.
Melissa seemed to be the only one of them who felt compelled to visit the dead. But it had been some time since even she had come. The wildflowers she’d left on the graves had either withered or blown away.
“Hey, guys,” she said, doing her best to remember each of the fallen Nephilim.
She wasn’t sure if all of them would have considered her a friend or not, but she liked to think of them that way because of the experiences that they had shared.
Janice’s grave was first. Melissa remembered the quiet black-haired girl with fondness, how they’d bonded over a love for really bad horror movies.
“Hey, you,” Melissa said, kneeling in the dirt, imagining her friend’s cheerful face. “How’s it going?” She picked up some
dried flowers and tossed them aside. “Things have been pretty nuts here, as you can imagine, but we’re doing okay.”
She paused, eyes wandering to the other graves.
“I’m still alive anyway.”
Melissa didn’t want to exclude the others, so she stood to address them all. “We really miss you guys,” she said, remembering Kirk, William, Samantha, and Russell, and how brave they’d been when their end had come. “We could really use your help now.”
She felt stupid for a moment, certain that her friends would rather be above the ground. Then she remembered the world in which she now lived, and seriously wondered who had the best deal.
From inside the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt, Melissa removed a handful of pretty colored rocks that she’d found on a remote beach in New Zealand. She and Vilma had dispatched a nest of sea serpents there that had been preying on local fishermen. Having grown up in Kansas, the stones were unlike anything Melissa had ever seen before. She’d kept them as a keepsake. She knew the graves of her friends needed to remain unmarked, just in case anybody in the outside community should stumble upon the property.
But these stones could be their markers.
Melissa looked through the colorful rocks, polished shiny and smooth by the ocean waves, and selected one for each grave, the colors she chose representing something she remembered about each of her friends.
Yellow for Kirk because it was the color of his hair. Blue for William because of his piercing stare. Black for Janice because of her nail polish…
When she was done, Melissa stood back to admire her work.
“Much nicer than dried-up old flowers,” she told them, and wondered what color stone would be placed upon her grave when she was gone. She figured she would be lucky to even have a grave, guessing that she’d likely end up in the belly of some sort of monster.
She’d thought of it as a joke, but suddenly realized that there might be some truth there. The reality of their situation, and the world in which they now lived, weighed heavily upon her.
A tingle ran down her spine, and Melissa felt as though she were being watched. She turned to see that she was right. Cameron stood behind her, his wings out, sword of fire clutched tightly in his hand.
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