Legends (To Absolve the Fallen Book 3)

by Aaron Babbitt

  “The rogue demons Jeremiah has been recruiting,” Abbie whispered to Nagina.

  The other Elder Prophet nodded her head in understanding. “Do you think they’re here to help?” she whispered back.

  Abbie looked back to the scene and beheld one of the demons turn into a cloud of what looked like insects. With a very fluid movement, it swept over the other demon and devoured it.

  “Yes,” Abbie said, “I think they are. Tell the other prophets to get ready to attack. Have them fan out to flank our enemies, but explain to them that there are demons who are trying to help, so we need to be very careful. I’m going out there so that our ‘friends’ may know they’re not alone.”

  “I think I should go with you,” Nagina countered. “It would be much safer if there were two of us.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Abbie retorted, smiling. “I want you out there quickly too. Just give me a moment to see what’s going on. That was just a show of power. We still have a little time, but not much.”

  Nagina conceded and turned to walk back to the other prophets. Abbie stepped up and walked tall into what could soon be a very ugly battle. She saw three demons approaching the cloud of insects. More were getting out of the other buses.

  “Kemuel,” one of them called out, “this is no way to treat your own.”

  “I was trapped by my own for over two hundred years,” a voice that sounded like buzzing and clicking emanated from the swarm. “You should remember that well, Iblis.”

  “Yes,” the more human-looking of the two replied, “I have done things I am not proud of. But you made a foolish decision by galling Metatron, and now you have made another by siding with Jeremiah, who, as I recall, was there right alongside me.”

  “I’m tired of fighting in a war that cannot be won,” the buzzing replied. “You are destined to lose. At least I will die doing what I was made to do.”

  “That you will. You’re outnumbered by almost three-to-one. Yes, I know about your friends in hiding, and I assure you I will deal with them as well.”

  “Iblis, is it?” Abbie called, drawing the attention of every demon around. “I think, in your haste, you have misjudged the numbers here.” She was coming into view of the rest of the demons as she continued, “And Kemuel is right: You are destined to lose.”

  The one Kemuel had called Iblis smiled. “My mistake. Nevertheless, neither will one Elder Prophet change the math that much, nor will she make much of an impact, Dr. Martin.”

  “Probably not,” Abbie said as she dropped the shield that masked the presence of the prophets and sent a mental request for them to come out of hiding but hold their distance.

  Every demon in the area stopped walking toward the swarm for a moment as they realized that they had been surrounded. They began to look around as prophets walked out of the desert from many directions toward them. Abbie had taken a jagged piece of metal from inside her jacket. Iblis eyed it suspiciously.

  “But there are two Elder Prophets,” Abbie continued, “and thirty-one other prophets who would very much like our buses back.”

  Not taking his eyes from Abbie and her dagger, Iblis called to the swarm, “Kemuel, you cannot seriously side with humans over your kind.”

  “Actually,” the buzzing sounded, “I allied with Jeremiah—a demon. As did the others. But I think the important thing is that we are all on the same side: against you.”

  Iblis’s body underwent a transformation that left him about a foot taller with four extra arms. His skin had changed to blood-red hide, and muscles rippled in strange bulges all across his body, moving or pumping in a strange, almost living fashion. Two thin, curved horns extended from the top of his forehead. And a cloak of darkness shrouded him, rolling down his shoulders to the ground like a deathly mist.

  “We didn’t kill you before because we thought there might still be some use in you,” Iblis roared, “but no longer. I only hope Jeremiah lives long enough that I can personally deliver the message that the demons and prophets he had befriended perished in a most gruesome manner.”

  The shroud of darkness sprang forward and enveloped Kemuel.

  “Prophets, attack any demon that comes off those buses!” Abbie screamed. “Stay away from demons attacking other demons.”

  Simultaneously, five demons appeared from behind Kemuel and charged Iblis. As prophets ran, screaming, into the area, using their powers, guns, and even brute strength to assault their foes, Abbie wondered momentarily what she had done. Sending prophets running into this battle meant killing many of them. Brushing the thought away as she had been forced to do so many times before, she accepted that not going into battle certainly meant the killing of all of them.

  One of the demons standing next to Iblis was transforming into a large, terrifying monster itself, probably preparing to beat off the five charging demons. She decided that one would be as good of a target as any. She sent her mind racing toward it. From experience, she knew that it was much easier to capture a demon’s mind as they morphed into their battle forms because their concentration was focused elsewhere. When the demon had finished with the transformation, it was completely her puppet. Of course, it also attacked Iblis, to the complete surprise of Metatron’s commander.

  ***

  Metatron’s battle form drifted lazily toward the pillar of fire. All the other demons fell back to a position they could safely watch from. The aerial demons also moved away, not wanting to get knocked out of the sky by whatever was about to happen. Jeremiah didn’t budge.

  The cloud floated to within a foot of the fire and hovered there for a moment. It was almost as if two giants were bowing prior to a most impressive battle. Then, the cloud moved to envelop the fire, and a wave of force knocked all the demons to the ground, and the aerial demons went spinning upward, out of control.

  The pillar of fire, a little dimmer now, was the only light Jeremiah could see. He knew he’d been engulfed by Metatron and that his power was slowly draining away.

  Jeremiah could hear Metatron’s voice all around him. If you would have asked me a hundred years ago if I’d ever thought this day would come, I would have said, “Absolutely not.” But here we are. I feel like I’m killing a friend.

  “You already did that once,” Jeremiah reminded him. “I can’t see how it should affect you if you did it again.”

  You must realize you will die here. Your prophet friends will die here. I will absorb your power, and utterly eradicate every prophet in Kingstone. I may not be able to kill Alex, but the other prophets will never be safe. You cannot win. What is the point?

  “I’ve done all I can for the prophets. Six rogue demons are in the process of helping them get away. As for me, I know I will die here and that I can’t win. However, I don’t intend to die at your hands, therefore avoiding giving any of my power to you. Indeed, what you lose here today will be much more than you bargained for, friend.”

  Hmm..., Metatron pondered. And why is that? It would appear that this battle is nearly over. I have all but won, and you will soon be no more than a memory and an increase in my own power. You may think you can resist me, but you should know better by now.

  “Not indefinitely,” Jeremiah agreed. “But for long enough.”

  ***

  Each of Iblis’s hands now grasped an opposing demon. Black, wispy tentacles wrapped around his adversaries, seeking to constrict and begin to infect them with a poison that would kill even demons: a poison that burned the very soul. It was an extremely effective weapon against prophets, but demons were a little more difficult. Nevertheless, he was strong, and he’d had to kill demons before. Unfortunate as it was, he’d have to do so once more. His own demons were rushing at the prophets, changing shape as they got closer.

  The prophets, to their credit, acted as though they were ready for the fiends. Nagina at the lead of the charge, commanded everyone to halt as she stopped and changed form, herself. In a second, she had become a grizzly bear the size of a three-quarter ton truck. Standing
on her hind legs, at least fifteen feet tall, she let out a vicious roar that actually froze some of the demons in fear.

  Iblis had proven impressive by taking out the demon Abbie had sent after him remarkably quickly. He had also cast off the other demons who had attacked him with relative ease, though they were now released from the grasp of his insubstantial, poisonous tendrils. One, however, lay on the ground, next to the one she had sent to attack Iblis, motionless and rigid. So she sought out another tool. Scanning the embattled demons, she spotted one that had turned into a thirty-foot python. Smiling, she sent her mind after that one.

  Its mind was slippery; it put up quite a fight, but Abbie was stronger. She picked, pried, and forced her way in. When she gained full control, she sent it slithering off toward Iblis. It moved rapidly and had reached her target in seconds. She ordered the demon to wrap around Iblis and constrict. Her demon lackey responded with lightning speed.

  Coils formed around the unsuspecting Iblis’s legs, then up his body. Iblis’s arms started pounding the snake’s body as it ascended his own and had begun to constrict. For all his might, Iblis’s blows did not seem to be enough to release the reptilian demon.

  It was only when he heard the buzzing that Iblis realized his fatal mistake. As a result of his success against the other demons and this immediate frustration, he had ceased his concentration—even if only for a moment—on the biggest threat. The swarm, far from paralyzed by Iblis’s poisonous grasp, descended upon Metatron’s commander.

  Abbie could not spare the time to watch, though, because she saw Sam’s group of prophets surrounded by six demons, one was mauling a prophet on the ground at that very moment. Sam’s group was separated by some distance from Nagina and the majority of the other prophets. With her shard from the sword of Lucifer in hand, she ran toward the besieged group.

  However, she had made the same mistake that Iblis had. In her haste, she hadn’t been paying attention. She never even saw the demon that hit her before it slammed full-force into her left side, knocking her firmly to the ground and sending her blade flying.

  A hairy, almost canine, head with rows of fangs bore down on her when another figure plowed into it. The beast’s claws scraped Abbie’s skin as it was removed from her, but other than that and having the wind knocked out of her, she was fine.

  She sat up and saw a cloaked figure roll off the demon and stand in one fluid motion. Her eyes widened as a familiar feeling flooded her. She knew without doubt who the man standing before her in the tattered cloak was. Once, they had been the last students of Archimedes, fierce rivals, the best of friends, and even lovers. She almost ran to him before remembering the situation she was in.

  She forced her way into the demon’s mind and froze him to the ground. Raul didn’t miss a beat. The demon’s chest exploded, and she could no longer feel its essence.

  “Raul,” she cried, pointing, “my prophets!”

  The demons surrounding Sam’s group were engaged with the prophets. Sam, himself, was grappling with the biggest. Raul nodded and turned his attention to the skirmish. Abbie also focused her mind on the monsters attacking her people.

  She climbed inside the mind of the one wrestling with Sam. It wasn’t difficult due to its current predicament. She forced its body to go limp. Sam seized his opportunity. Jumping into the air, he delivered a powerful haymaker that pulverized the demon’s skull like smashing a melon. Without even pausing, he turned his attention to a demon that had pinned down, and was ripping flesh from, another prophet.

  Two in the back were blown into the air from explosions beneath them. Abbie caught one that was about to swing on a prophet and turned it on one of its remaining companions. Sam and two of the other prophets ripped the final demon off the prone prophet, pinned it down, and beat it until it didn’t move anymore. The two demons that had been blown into the air fell to the ground with missing or severely wounded legs. As they crawled toward the battle, hundreds of explosions, like so many fireworks, blew chunks of meat from their bodies until they fell to the ground in lifeless heaps. After Abbie’s demon won the contest against the other, she dropped it to the ground, prone, so Sam and those prophets in his group who could still swing their arms could beat this one too. And so they did.

  The healers rushed in to help. They needed to do little to help the prophet who had just been pinned. Sam got to him quickly enough to keep the demon from doing too much damage. The prophet who was being mauled when Abbie and Raul stepped in was already dead.

  In her enormous jaws, Nagina was crunching away at the remains of a demon. Another was smashed under her feet. Her group and the others had teamed up on the remaining three demons. Abbie sent a mental command to one of the demons to attack one of the others. The prophets took advantage of the situation and pounced on the last.

  She stole a glance at the remains of Iblis. Kemuel had now taken human form and was approaching her. There was nothing left of Metatron’s commander or the snake-demon that she had used to capture him except bones. She looked back to the prophets. They stood triumphantly over a demon with a bronze-looking exoskeleton. Nagina rushed in to dismember Abbie’s current puppet.

  ***

  Long enough? Metatron questioned. Long enough for what?

  “That, I’m afraid, will have to be a surprise,” Jeremiah replied.

  Oh, you are clever, aren’t you? What could you possibly be planning? Are there demon hunters on the way? Is Raphael coddling you now, too?

  “You’ll see.”

  Jeremiah could feel Metatron’s mood change. The cloud shifted around him, but he exerted all of his will into holding Metatron in place. The Voice of God seemed to notice the effect and put more effort into moving away. Now, it seemed he no longer wanted to stay here and drain Jeremiah’s life force away.

  “No,” Jeremiah said coldly. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  It was then that Metatron realized that this was not a bluff. Jeremiah was restraining him from leaving, and doing so quite well. As the epiphany dawned on him, Metatron chastised himself for walking into such a trap. Jeremiah had planned all of this and, with little effort, had lured Metatron, and many of his demons, to exactly where he had wanted them.

  The demons that were watching this spectacle jumped back when the death fog of Metatron burst into flame. They could all feel their master’s anger, his frustration, but there was nothing they could do—not that many of them would have wanted to do anything.

  ***

  The other four demons who had come with Kemuel were now walking behind him, but other than those, Abbie sensed no other demons in the immediate area. However, the demons approaching her had both her and Raul’s undivided attention.

  “Do those need to die, too?” he asked nonchalantly.

  She ran over and pulled him to her body in a tight embrace. In the heat of battle, she realized that she hadn’t reacquainted properly. Tears rolled out of her eyes as she thanked God that He had seen fit to return Raul Habsburg to her life.

  “I thought you had died,” she explained between sobs. “I should never have stopped searching, but I’d tried so hard.”

  “I know,” Raul said comfortingly. “I didn’t want you, or anyone, to find me. As long as I have enemies, my friends will never be safe unless I can stay hidden. You should know my tricks. After all, you taught them to me. So these demons, are they all right?”

  Abbie laughed. “Yes. Jeremiah sent them to help us.”

  “You’re quite comfortable using one demon against another,” Raul noted.

  “She is indeed,” Kemuel agreed as he and his four companions approached. “I see that all is well.”

  “Yes,” Abbie concurred, “thanks to all the help that was sent to us,” she added, looking back to Raul.

  “Well, Jeremiah needs us,” Kemuel said shortly and turned to walk away.

  ***

  On Jeremiah’s desk, a timer that had begun with twenty minutes ticked off the last second. It sent a message to a compute
r that controlled detonation devices on six delivery trucks loaded with TNT, diesel fuel, and ammonium nitrate. Jeremiah had parked them in different unimportant locations around his compound, but as close to the mansion as he felt comfortable. He hoped that the demons wouldn’t see them and that no accidental shot from a grenade launcher would ruin his surprise.

  And it had been with a heavy heart that Jeremiah had loaded twenty pounds of C-4 in his foyer, in front of his medieval portrait. The detonating device on the C-4, as well, was linked to the computer that sent the message to the trucks. He had assumed that there wouldn’t be much left of his mansion after the trucks exploded anyway, so there was nothing to lose.

  In Jeremiah’s last moment on Earth, he smiled, knowing his existence again had meaning, even if it was over. He released Metatron, and as the cloud of death tried to float away, Jeremiah beheld, like a sudden sunrise, the dark of night erased by fire.

  ***

  The series of explosions shook the ground and illuminated the night sky. Abbie and Raul just watched in awe. Neither of them knew what to say. Fortunately, Nagina, who had returned to her human form, still had a presence of mind.

  “We need to go,” she reminded Abbie.

  “Yes,” Abbie replied softly, “of course.”

  Turning from the scene she told the prophets to round up the other prophets and mortals from the tunnels and to bring them to the buses. She explained that anyone leaving here would be welcomed in Kingstone and that it would be the wisest move for any prophet.

  The prophets, understanding what they needed to do, separated and sought to carry out Abbie’s order.

  “You should come with us,” Abbie told Raul.

  “I can’t,” he returned with a sigh. “I have my own obligations, and everyone will soon have to suffer through trying times.”

  “Then, will you promise to at least keep in touch?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I will. In any event, one of my brightest and most talented protégés will be joining you in my stead. Would you please look after him?”