The Fallen 4

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “Exactly,” Baby Roger said. The child stroked his chubby chins of baby fat with an equally chubby hand. “We’ll just have to wait until—”

  Roger’s face suddenly twisted in a grimace of pain, and he began to wail like the damned.

  “What’s the matter now?” Jeremy asked. He was reaching the end of his rope with all this bizarreness.

  Baby Roger stuck one of his tiny fingers inside his drooling mouth and started to probe around.

  “Damnation,” he exclaimed. “I’m cutting a tooth!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Verchiel would rather not have remembered this scene, but recent conditions made it difficult not to.

  The battlefields were covered with the bodies of those who had fallen in combat, some hacked and bloody, others burned, their simmering flesh sending clouds of oily black smoke to hover like storm clouds above the yellow fields.

  Verchiel stared down at a brother, turned enemy. The blade of his burning sword was buried deep within the angel’s twitching breast. His foe still lived, but it was only a matter of time before the fire that coursed through his dying form turned his beating heart to ash. Verchiel placed a golden boot upon his enemy’s chest plate and leaned back to pull the blade from his heart. He watched the life go out of his brethren’s eyes.

  “Was it worth it?” Verchiel asked as the dead angel’s flesh began to bubble and blacken, burning from within. He did not know how many he had slain since the war had begun, but he’d asked the same question of every one who’d fallen beneath his ferocious onslaught.

  Another angel in service to the Morningstar’s cause dropped down from the smoke-filled air, a blazing mace cutting a fiery swath through the sky. A shield of concentrated flame came to life upon Verchiel’s arm, absorbing the impact of his adversary’s strike.

  The two leaped into the air to continue their battle. Verchiel lashed out with his own weapon of flame, slicing into one of his opponent’s feathery wings and sending him spiraling to the ground below.

  He watched as his foe landed, then he dropped down like a hungry hawk to finish his prey.

  The war had made Verchiel cruel. As the enemy angel attempted to rise, Verchiel lashed out with his blade, cutting away part of the angel’s wing. The angel cried out pitifully, falling back to the ground that was already saturated with blood. Seeing the ground damp and smelling that nauseating coppery odor just inflamed Verchiel’s anger. He continued to hack at his foe, until the angel struggled no more, lying still—dead—upon the ground.

  “Was it worth it?” asked a voice from someplace very close.

  Verchiel spun around, his wings spread wide, eager to fight once more.

  A spear of fire, thrown from the cover of oily black smoke, plunged into his chest, carried him backward, and pinned him to one of Heaven’s delicate trees. The bark was now spotted and black. The blood that had been spilled was poisoning its once beautiful growth.

  The spear burned him. Verchiel could feel his flesh starting to wither as an inferno began to rage on the inside. With a scream of agony he grabbed the shaft with both hands and fought to remove it.

  A familiar figure emerged from the smoke of the battlefield.

  Mallus stood before him, the flesh of his smooth, pale face speckled with the blood of the righteous who’d been struck down by Lucifer’s madness.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Mallus observed as Verchiel continued to struggle.

  “You mock me,” Verchiel growled, already feeling himself burning from the inside out.

  “Mockery, Verchiel?” Mallus asked. “I’ve but asked you a question. Was it worth it?”

  “You use my words against me,” Verchiel said, the smell of his own burning flesh filling his nostrils.

  Mallus watched him burn for a moment, then reached out and pulled the spear free.

  Verchiel gasped and dropped to his knees. Every ounce of strength he had left was struggling to quell the divine fire burning within him.

  “I simply asked you a question, brother,” Mallus said. “It came to me as I watched you on the battlefield, murdering the heavenly family with such cold ruthlessness.” Mallus paused, a snarl appearing upon his handsome features. “Was it worth it, Verchiel?” he asked again. “To become a monster?”

  A sword of fire came alive in Mallus’s grasp, and Verchiel knew that he did not have the strength to fight back. It was taking everything that he had to hold the fire inside him in check.

  Verchiel struggled to his feet and the two angels stood opposing each other, eyes locked. Mallus’s sword continued to burn, the fire crackling and snapping in anticipation of its next murderous act.

  Finally Verchiel could stand it no more.

  “Kill me,” he demanded. “Kill me now.”

  But Mallus did not. Instead he turned his back upon Verchiel and walked away. “That would be too easy,” he called back as he became lost in the smoke of the battlefield. “For me, and for you. We both need to see the future we have wrought.”

  * * *

  Verchiel stirred angrily from the assault of memory, sensing that he was no longer alone.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Aaron wants us to come,” Gabriel said.

  Verchiel rose from where he crouched upon the altar, to look upon the animal with disdain. “Where?” he asked with a sneer.

  “The infirmary,” Gabriel answered, averting his gaze from the angel’s stare. “He wants us all there.”

  “And he sends a dog as his messenger?” Verchiel asked. “If I were the sensitive type, I would be offended.”

  Verchiel bore down upon the dog. He would have been lying if he’d said that he didn’t get a certain perverse pleasure from this dog whose entire makeup had been rewritten by the emerging power of the Nephilim, Aaron Corbet.

  What a waste.

  “Aaron didn’t mean to offend you,” Gabriel spoke, eyes still on the ground. “He just told me to come get you.”

  “And you have,” Verchiel said.

  “Yes,” Gabriel agreed.

  “So why are you still here? You have done what your master asked of you.”

  Gabriel turned to leave, his ears flat and his tail curled between his legs. “Sorry,” he said in passing.

  “You are at that,” Verchiel sniped. “You and the boy who pretends to lead this loathsome band of miscreants, who think they are going to save the world.” Verchiel chuckled. “If it weren’t so pathetic, it would be amusing.”

  He recoiled as the dog crouched, low and menacing, before him. Sparks of divine fire popped and snapped from the dog’s raised hackles.

  “Aaron is a leader, and those he leads are great warriors, whether or not you have the eyes to see it. You’ve been asked by our leader to attend a gathering. Come or not. It’s entirely up to you.”

  And with those final words Gabriel trotted toward the door at the end of the aisle.

  Leaving Verchiel to wonder if perhaps the animal had been changed far more than anyone realized.

  THE MARIANA TRENCH

  36,201 FEET BENEATH THE PACIFIC OCEAN

  This had always been his favorite of the churches erected to worship him.

  Built in the earliest days of the earth’s existence, it had been a towering structure, rising up into the sunlight, reaching for Heaven. But that had been before the great oceanic upheaval that had swallowed the island and the church that had been built upon it.

  He who now called himself Satan had always mourned the loss of the impressive structure, for none of his other worshippers had ever been able to capture the glory of this temple.

  The high priests and their followers who had prayed here could barely be considered human, but they had understood the power that he wielded, and had prayed that he would grant them supremacy over the newly emerging race that would soon be known as humanity.

  Satan had so regretted disappointing his faithful, but it had not been the time to challenge the God that was still eager to define the world.
And so he had allowed his followers and his church to be pulled down deep below the depths. For he was patient, and he knew that his time would eventually come.

  Or at least, that was what he used to believe.

  Satan was unfamiliar with the emotions that now caused his life fluids to roil, by-products of this newly acquired corporeal form, but he understood that it was rage.

  Rage caused by the Community’s rejection of his leadership.

  He had hoped that remembering another time, another faithful group, would calm his fury, but the memory only served to inflame his fury all the more.

  The Darkstar lashed out at his surroundings. Divine fire tainted by his own corrosive darkness leaped from his hands to decimate the ancient stone, causing pillars to tumble and shatter upon the church floor.

  Do they not realize who they are rejecting?

  A great stone idol carved in his countenance was the next object to experience the Devil’s wrath. Satan rose upon wings of black and flew at full speed toward the idol. His armored form crashed into the statue with such force that it reduced the statue to dust.

  Satan crouched upon the altar, which had grown thick with green algae over the years. He eyed his surroundings, deciding what would next feel the touch of his anger.

  “Such a beautiful place of worship,” said a voice as dry as dust.

  “A shame to see it treated in such a manner,” said another.

  “Whatever did it do to deserve this?” another wondered aloud.

  Satan knew those voices. “Show yourselves, hags,” he demanded. He scanned the shadows of the vast temple.

  The Three Sisters of Umbra slowly hobbled from their place of concealment.

  “Such anger,” said one, shaking a long clawed finger at him.

  “Is this the way to vent such fury?” asked the second.

  “What real purpose does this destruction serve?” questioned the third Sister.

  Satan launched himself into the air, almost hitting the curved ceiling of the domed roof before landing before them.

  “How dare you question me?” he growled, fist clenched before him.

  “We mean no disrespect, oh king,” one of the Sisters said as she bowed her hooded head, clawed hands folded before her.

  “We sensed your anger from afar and came to see if we could assist you,” said another, equally repentant in tone.

  “Perhaps if we were made privy to what causes you such ire,” suggested the last of the three.

  The Darkstar turned his back upon them and strode away.

  “Things do not go as I designed them,” he began, not really sure why he was confiding in them, but finding it strangely comforting. “Those who should worship my prodigious countenance have instead decided to try to destroy me.”

  He stopped, clasping his hands behind his back, taking in the grandeur of the ancient temple built to his former glory.

  “They do not realize what I am, who I am, and what I can do,” Satan continued. “They have forgotten the power that spawned their like. They believe that they have always been here, waiting in the shadows for the world to be ready for them.” He turned to face the Sisters. “They do not recognize who has prepared the world for them.”

  The Sisters leaned together, their hooded heads close as if silently communicating.

  “What words of advice do you have for me?” he asked.

  “Those of the Community are stubborn,” said the first Sister.

  “They do not take kindly to the new, even though it is very old,” said the second.

  “They must be shown your power, your supremacy,” the third said.

  “Well, I killed many of them quite recently,” he said.

  The Sisters considered this.

  “A strong start to making your point,” the first praised.

  “You showed them your strength,” the second added.

  Satan stretched his wings of shadow.

  “I want to kill them all,” he said with a snarl. “Each and every one of them.”

  One of the Sisters shambled toward him, clawed hand emerging from within the folds of her robes as she held up her finger. “But now you must show them your restraint.”

  Another lumbered forward to join her Sister. “You must show them that you are stronger than their petty insecurities.”

  The third joined the others. “Show them who you truly are.”

  Satan did not care for their advice, finding it all too obvious.

  “They know who and what I am. How could they not?”

  The Sisters of Umbra huddled together once more. He felt his annoyance grow.

  Finally a Sister said, “You will have a chance to prove your supremacy.”

  “It will come in time,” said a second, with a slow, assured nod.

  “But until then you must look the part,” said the third.

  This made Satan laugh. He spread his armored arms and presented himself to the three hags.

  “Do I not look like a king? Do I not look as lovely as any god?”

  “You blind our poor old eyes with your majesty, Star of the Dark,” one said, raising her hands to cover the front of her hood, as if his form were too much to look upon.

  “But the Community, they are a materialistic lot,” said another.

  “Measuring worth in material gain, gold, land, bone, blood, and meat,” added the third. “How do you show them you are king?”

  “By not killing each and every one of them,” Satan snarled.

  “Yes, yes, that shows mercy. But how do you impress them?” a Sister asked.

  “How do you show them your godly stature?” asked another.

  He pondered about that for a moment but had no answer. “Enlighten me,” he ordered.

  The Sisters turned the darkness of their hoods to one another before setting their glowing stares on him.

  “A dwelling,” suggested one of the three. “A dwelling to demonstrate your magnificence.”

  “A dwelling crafted to honor you as a god,” said another.

  “Now, where could such a structure be found?” asked the third, extending a clawed finger inquisitively.

  Satan looked about the great church. In spite of the damage his earlier rage had caused, it was still quite a sight to behold.

  “This church,” he stated. “You believe that this church will impress the Community enough that they’ll follow me… worship me?”

  “In time, yes,” they all agreed as one.

  “But it cannot remain deep beneath the ocean waves,” said a Sister.

  “It must be visible for all to see, human and inhuman alike,” said another of the Sisters.

  “It must be raised.” The third Sister held her spindly arms toward the ceiling.

  “Raise it up!” exclaimed the three together, their arms up. “Raise it up!”

  And Satan, the Darkstar, agreed that that was what he would do.

  Yes, he would raise it up.

  * * *

  Lucifer Morningstar felt the weighty penance of God’s anger writhe within his chest.

  All the rage, pain, and sorrow of Lucifer’s actions, and of those who had stood with him against Heaven, had been collected by the Lord God into a seething, crying, screaming miasma of emotion.

  And He had placed it inside the Morningstar so that he might remember what he had done, and suffer for it.

  Lucifer Morningstar had then been cast down, his body thrown from the heavens to earth so that he might learn from his grievous mistake.

  The Morningstar experienced it all again, deep within the prison of his subconscious mind. Even after the crushing defeat at the hands of God’s legions, even after having what could best be described as Hell placed inside him, Lucifer had still been too stubborn—too vain—to admit that he had been wrong.

  In those early days of exile, Lucifer had viewed himself only as the loser of a war, and would have taken up arms again in an instant if he and his armies had not been so thoroughly routed.

  He lo
athed humanity and all that they stood for. How could such foul creatures have so captured the love of the Almighty?

  That question had seethed within his mind as he had wandered the world of man for countless ages.

  And he still had not been able to understand it.

  Until she had come into his life.

  Lucifer watched as the landscape of his subconscious memories shifted and changed. All the places he had been in his seemingly eternal exile morphed before his eyes.

  He knew where his visions would stop, and found himself both dreading and anticipating what he was about to relive. The air was lush with the aroma of freshly cut grass. And it was all there, just as he remembered. The park crowded with people on their lunch hours, some sunning themselves during the first real warm day of the season, others walking their dogs.

  Lucifer saw himself as he had been that day, a wanderer. He had been sitting beneath a tree, and he distinctly remembered feeling a sensation akin to serenity.

  And as if in reward for opening himself to a peaceful calm, a golden-haired dog approached him and dropped a stick at his feet.

  “Brandy,” Lucifer said aloud, watching the scene from his memory play out. “The dog’s name was Brandy.”

  He’d attempted to ignore the animal, but she had insisted, barking for him to pick up the stick and throw it for her. Lucifer had almost spoken harshly to the dog, but he didn’t want to spoil his moment of placidity. Besides, what would it hurt?

  So he picked up the stick, wet with the dog’s saliva, and tossed it as far as he could. He watched as Brandy bounded off in pursuit. He marveled at the beauty of her design, at her interaction with the world around her.

  The retriever quickly snatched up the stick from the grass and was heading back toward Lucifer, when she stopped to interact with a human.

  A woman.

  And Lucifer found himself enjoying the beauty of her design as well.

  The dog bounded away from the woman and raced back to him, the stick clamped tightly in her jaws.

  The woman followed, and Lucifer recalled the strange feeling of his heart fluttering.

  “I’m sorry. Is she bothering you?” the woman asked him.