The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels

by Valmore Daniels

  By that time, the Watchers had backtracked and come out another lane from the alley. I heard one of them shout as he spotted us. They gave chase.

  Our scooters were a block away. I didn’t know if I could make it.

  Alders, seeing me fall behind rapidly, turned around, but I waved her on. “Go!” I managed to say. I could feel the blood pounding in my temples.

  She didn’t pay any attention to my order. She fell into step behind me, put her hand on my shoulder blade and propelled me forward. “Come on, old man.”

  Old man! Who was she calling ‘old’? I growled and pushed myself harder.

  Just as we were nearing the parking lot, a bolt of lightning hit the front of the building we were running past. Sparks flew and glass shattered. I could feel the surge of electricity run through my body; the hair on my arm stood straight up. The crack that split the air was so loud, I thought it would burst my eardrums.

  I cried out, stumbling and falling forward. Throwing my hands out to break my fall, I hit the ground hard. Shock ran through my arms and knees, the pain blinding.

  Someone grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me to my feet. Alders.

  “We’re almost there,” she said.

  I don’t know how I managed it, but I got back to my feet despite the screaming agony in my legs, and followed Alders to our scooters.

  I hopped onto mine, disregarding the helmet—there was no time—and started the motor. The moment it fired, I twisted the accelerator on the handlebar, and the scooter shot forward. Alders was already ahead of me, and I followed her lead.

  Just as we got out into the street, my engine died. It wasn’t a regular stall; the entire vehicle seized as all the metal components instantly turned to rust.

  I flew over the handlebars and onto the cement.

  At the last moment, I threw my arms up around my head as a makeshift helmet. It felt as if a giant hand slapped me, and the breath rushed out of my lungs.

  If I’d been going any faster, the impact would have killed me.

  Reeling, disoriented, I could do nothing except wait for the Watchers to close the distance and finish me off. I looked around, hoping Alders had escaped, but I saw her scooter on the ground half a dozen feet away, flattened like a penny that had been squished between a train and railroad track. She was lying on the ground, motionless, but at least she hadn’t been flattened.

  I had no idea how I managed to retain consciousness. Rolling to my side, I waited for my inevitable demise.

  A shadow blocked out the sun as a figure stood over me.

  The Watcher raised a foot…

  …and stomped down.

  A rumble and a roar shook the earth all around me. The cement on the street rippled as a wave radiated out.

  Trying to keep my eyes focused, I looked in the direction of the swell. As the surge neared several approaching Watchers, it rose until the crest of the wave temporarily blocked them all from sight. I saw two of the figures sail into the air, and then a moment later, the remainder of the Watchers scattered to either side of the street.

  I looked up at the figure beside me, and though I immediately recognized him, my slow mind took forever to process the knowledge.

  “Chase,” I croaked out. How was it possible that Kyle Chase was here?

  But he wasn’t paying attention to me.

  Down the street, the lightning thrower made a pitching motion toward us. Moments before it struck, Chase performed a lifting gesture, and a block of earth rose up out of the ground and absorbed the strike.

  A sonic boom accompanied what looked like a ton of dirt that flew in every direction.

  Another one of the Watchers I’d never seen before had been making his way toward us, hugging the buildings on one side of the street as if that would disguise him. It was only when Chase turned in his direction that I saw two other Watchers flanking us from the other side of the street. The first guy had been a distraction.

  As powerful as Chase was, he was no match for seven Watchers.

  I tried to cry out a warning to him, pointing at the two he hadn’t spotted. My voice caught in my throat when I saw an eighth Watcher appear in my periphery.

  Somehow, she’d crept up behind us. What struck me as odd was how young she was; she couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. With black hair done up in spikes and a fake dog collar around her slender throat, she looked like a punk rocker.

  “Behind us,” I croaked out.

  The young girl wasn’t looking at us; she waved her hand in an odd gesture and a bubble of water formed around her just as the two Watchers launched their attack.

  One of them gestured at the girl, and dozens of plant tendrils began to grow out of the road under her feet. They increased in size at a rapid rate, the long fingers wrapping around the ball of water protecting her. Then the stalks began to contract.

  The girl pointed to a fire hydrant, and the top flew off, a high-pressured fountain of water spraying out. Instead of shooting in an arc, the stream took the form of a spear and flew straight at the plant-generating Watcher. He jumped out of the way, but the tip caught him in the leg, and he fell to the ground, rolling as blood spurted out of his wound.

  Chase, concentrating on the Watcher who had been serving as a distraction, made a gesture. The concrete foundation of the building beside the Watcher crumbled. Bricks and glass broke off from the walls and fell on top of the approaching man, burying him in a cloud of debris.

  Beside me, the girl yelled something feral, and the water bubble expanded. The strands surrounding her snapped. Little bits of wet plant flew in all directions.

  Chase turned on one heel, stomped down with his other foot, and a ripple of earth raced out from him toward the Watcher who had been approaching with the plant generator.

  That Watcher jumped straight up, gently arcing backward until he stood atop a four-story building, out of danger from the earthquake.

  The giant mound of earth Chase had erected at the beginning of the fight suddenly flattened, as if a heavy weight had fallen on it. Mike, Anton, and the lightning thrower walked toward us.

  Chase roared in their direction, and the earth under the three of them split open. Mike and Anton managed to jump away, but the lightning thrower lost his balance and fell into the gaping chasm with a high-pitched cry of terror.

  Quickly, Mike gestured into the pit, and the lightning thrower floated back up. He grabbed the Watcher by his leg and pulled him away from the crater.

  With a deafening roar, all the water mains along the sides of the street blew, every fire hydrant burst, and sparks flew from power lines. The girl, who was obviously partners with Chase, motioned at the spraying water. The drops turned to razor-sharp darts, and she directed the hundreds of thousands of them at the Watchers.

  At the same time, Chase planted his feet wide and concentrated. All the buildings along both sides of the street began to vibrate. Dust plumes filled the sky.

  It was obvious the seven Watchers were outmatched by Chase and the girl. Mike yelled out for his men to retreat.

  I was still in a great deal of pain. One of my legs felt like it was broken. Somehow, I managed to push myself up to one elbow and tested my leg. I cried out; yep, broken.

  I flipped over on my stomach and started to crawl toward the still form of Alders.

  That’s when a dark blur cut through the space between us, and then the Watcher Chase had buried with debris earlier materialized beside Alders. He grinned at me, like this was a great game, and scooped her up in his arms.

  Then he shifted out of focus, taking Alders with him. The only sign of them was another dark blur trailing away down the street, fading like fog under the morning sun.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind. Destroy all wrong from the face of the earth and let every evil work come to an end: and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear: and it shall prove a blessi
ng; the works of righteousness and truth shall be planted in truth and joy for evermore.

  –Book of Enoch 10:15-16

  I think I fell unconscious for a while, whether it was from falling hard to the street when my scooter had been disabled, or from the exertion of the chase preceding the crash.

  My entire body was nothing but a giant, throbbing mass of agony radiating out from my leg … and then the pain vanished.

  When I opened my eyes, Kyle Chase and the young girl were standing over me.

  “Are you all right, Frank?” Chase asked.

  “I’ll live,” I said. “I think.”

  He extended his hand. I took it and let him help me to my feet. My leg was fully mended.

  It was only then, from a standing position, that I was able to appraise the damage done to the street.

  “It looks like a war zone.”

  The young girl grinned. “Yeah,” she said, as if she’d just watched the entire sequence in a movie or video game.

  Chase said, “Frank Hollingsworth, this is Serena Rogers. She’s one of us.”

  “I guessed that,” I said, remembering how she’d caused the hydrants and water mains to burst. I looked up and down the block, which was nothing more than ruins. It was a wonder no civilians had been hurt in the melee.

  I glanced at my rusted scooter … and then Alders’ flattened one. “We need to get Alders. That last Watcher took her.”

  “Why’d they take her?” Rogers asked.

  “I presume they’re going to interrogate her. Find out what we, and the rest of the police, know.”

  The faint sounds of sirens in the distance got my attention. “We have to get out of here before the first responders arrive. We don’t have time to answer any awkward questions.”

  Chase said, “We have a car just up the block. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Once we were in the vehicle—a rental, I noted, seeing the agency’s sticker on the bumper—and were certain we were out of reach of any police who’d come to investigate the scene of the showdown, Chase said, “If they took her back to their headquarters, we’re out of luck.”

  “How’s that?” I asked, upset at the thought of abandoning Alders to the Watchers.

  Rogers answered, “We’ve been scoping them out since yesterday afternoon. There were only five Watchers then, but this morning, we counted at least a dozen of them.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked, at the same time registering that my assumption about the reason they’d incited the violence was correct: the blood sacrifice would bring more fallen angels to the world.

  Chase said, “One of her abilities is a kind of enhanced radar for angels. That’s how we knew to come to New York. She detected the Bellator three nights ago, and we headed out right away. We got here yesterday noon.”

  “The others are here, too?” I asked, mentally calculating whether the four fallen angels would be able to stand up to a dozen Watchers; they’d held their own at two to seven odds.

  “Eugene came with us; he’s at the motel where we’re staying, running down the Watcher’s identities. Darcy and Richard took a quick detour to Arizona.”

  “Arizona?”

  “Long story,” Chase said. “If we go back to the motel, we can fill you in.”

  I grimaced. “I can’t just leave Alders with them. They’ll torture her; maybe worse.”

  Despite the initial friction between Alders and me, I’d come to respect her over the past day. She’d gone from a nuisance to a valued colleague in my estimation. Our bond might have developed because we’d both come so close to death together on multiple occasions, or because we shared a connection twenty-five years into our pasts. I’d come to think of her as a partner; someone I could trust with my life. Now, her life was in danger, and I was damned if I was going to fail to get her out of danger.

  “We won’t abandon her; but there’s no way Serena and I can go up against a dozen of them by ourselves—”

  Rogers cleared her throat. “I could take them out.”

  Grimacing, Chase said, “We’re not going to kill them, and you know why.”

  With a resigned sigh, Rogers folded her arms in front of her.

  “Don’t worry,” Chase said, looking over his shoulder at me to show his sincerity, “we’ll do everything we can to get her back.”

  I didn’t like it, and for a moment I wanted to rail against Chase’s words, but I knew, deep down, that I didn’t have any choice; he was right. Even if the two of them were able to hold their own against the host of seven Watchers, the resulting devastation to the building would likely be even more severe than what had happened at the pizzeria block. Anyone caught in the crossfire would have a high chance of becoming collateral damage.

  I took a deep breath to calm myself. “You’re right. We can’t storm the building. I’m not giving up on her, though.”

  “None of us will,” he said.

  I patted Chase on the shoulder. “And in case you think I didn’t notice, I’m grateful for you saving my life again. Say, how’d you know we were in trouble? Were you following us?”

  He grunted. “If we’d seen you, we would’ve stopped you from following the man possessed by Semjaza.”

  I let out a short laugh devoid of any real humor. “The whole point of surveillance is not to be seen. Obviously, Stanley—Sam Lancaster’s cousin, by the way—spotted us tailing him. He laid a trap for us, though we managed to surprise him. He’s dead now.”

  “You put down another Watcher?” Chase asked, surprise registering in his voice. “Careful, you’re going to get a reputation.”

  “Actually, it was quite by accident.” I took a deep breath before saying, “We were duped by an ‘old friend’.”

  “Father Putnam?” Chase asked. When I gave him a questioning look, he said, “Eugene got your message just after we got to New York; he figured it out. We tried your cell number earlier, but got some young punk mouthing off.”

  I reddened at the memory of the mugging. “Yeah,” I said with a note of finality. “Let’s not go there.”

  Rogers, who’d been assessing me during the ride, got the conversation back on track. “I heard all about this Putnam douche, and what he did in Seattle and Chicago. What’d he have to do with you offing a Watcher?”

  “Turns out, he’s up to his old tricks. After the cargo ship, he managed to recruit one of the geneticists who’d been working for Enoch Enterprises.”

  Chase perked up, “Geneticist?”

  “Clarence Brigson.” I spoke in a clipped tone, as if I were briefing another detective. “History of mental illness; originally recruited by Lancaster to help identify people with the genetic trait to host a Watcher.”

  “Anakim,” Rogers said. “That’s what they’re called.” A moment later, she said, “And we call the fallen angel inside us a ‘Grigori’.”

  I nodded at the new information, remembering that Tomko had used that word. “Apparently, Brigson clued in about the nature of the Grigori. Behind their backs, he created a compound that would target the specific gene your bloodline shares. Once it finds the gene, it activates.” I debated whether to describe the gruesome death Stanley had suffered. Guessing that, despite her age, Rogers could probably handle the details, I told them what I’d seen.

  “That fast?” Chase asked, letting out a whistle. “I’d guess he used something similar to sarin. The blackening skin and ruptures sound like Yersinia pestis.”

  Serena scrunched up her face. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the bacteria that causes plague.”

  I gasped. “Plague! You mean, like the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages?”

  “It’s virulent,” Chase said. “In this case, I’d say the strain was more like septicemic plague, though likely a fast-acting form of it.”

  “Putnam said it would only affect”—I used the term Rogers had supplied—“Grigori. But anyone can get infected, couldn’t they?”

  Chase made a noncommittal sound. “De
pends on the design of the compound. If this Brigson character did the chemical engineering himself, and if he’s nothing more than a novice in the field, then…” He nodded. “Yeah, it could spread out beyond the Anakim. Millions could become infected. A pandemic is possible.”

  I looked at my hands. Luckily, I hadn’t gotten the compound on me, but maybe a particle had splashed on me unnoticed. “Could I be infected?”

  Chase said, “It sounds like the delivery system was in liquid form. I suspect it has a rapid evaporation rate, probably to avoid the kind of outbreak the virus is known for. It’s what I’d do if I wanted to limit the spread of the compound. Less risk.”

  Chase and Rogers shared a look, as if just realizing how close they might have come to death, if I’d been infected.

  Rogers said, “Let’s just hope this nut job, Clarence, knows his stuff.”

  I wanted to believe that was the case. “You didn’t get infected when you healed me.” I smelled my hands. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and the only moisture on my skin I attributed to perspiration.

  To get my mind off the image of dying that kind of death, I said, “Putnam lied to us. He said he was a week away from finalizing the compound. Alders and I were playing along until we found out where he was producing the agent. If we’d known it was already completed…” I grimaced.

  “We have to find out how much supply he’s developed,” Chase said. “And destroy it.”

  “That might be problematic,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “The Bellator is going to air his third and final video tonight, and I think this one is going to be the worst.” I quickly explained how we were abducted by his Watchers last night and what we’d overheard.

  I said, “I’m guessing he’ll put a price tag on the mayor’s head, and on anyone who works in the government. Hell, they probably don’t have to offer a reward to get people to go after DMV personnel. Once the city’s infrastructure is completely eroded, and he has his army of Watchers ready, he’s going to step in and ‘save’ the city. The moment he has a foothold, there won’t be any stopping him … except with Putnam’s compound.” A moment later, I added, “I hate to say it, but what choice do we have: unleash a plague on the world, killing thousands, or millions; or handing the world over to the Grigori, who will make billions suffer under their rule?”