by Brian Fuller
Vexus streamed from his hands, but Helo couldn’t see who it was aimed for. One of the girls was fleeing into the woods. Good!
Helo popped to his feet. Avadan might be as tough as a brick wall, but his stupid wagon wasn’t. With a mental apology to the horses, Helo flared his Strength and heaved, sending the wagon onto its side with a crunch. He hoped no one else was inside. The horses stumbled over each other, thrashing about, dragging the wagon. One kicked Ramis, and he fell hard.
Avadan had dropped into the snow next to the other girl he was converting into a Sheid. She looked about halfway there, eyes like obsidian. Avadan frowned and picked himself up. No snow clung to clothing conjured from Vexus. The only victory: Avadan looked pissed. Really pissed.
“How dare you wreck the set of my performance,” he said, rage propelling his voice through the forest. “And the poor animals!”
Like he cared about the horses. Helo yanked his katana out of its scabbard and quickly Blessed it as Avadan stalked toward him
“You did me great service when you slew Cain,” Avadan said. “But perhaps your usefulness is at an end.”
A shot from somewhere to Helo’s left took Avadan in the head, momentarily warping his image. Shujaa or Andromeda had shaken off the desecration! Helo Strength jumped and brought the blessed katana down on Avadan’s stupid top hat. It cleaved through it and into the head, Avadan’s visage warping. The blade stopped halfway through his face. Helo kept the pressure on and Hallowed the ground. Then Avadan kicked him away. Helo kept the hallow going. Another shot took Avadan in the head, warping it again.
Avadan nodded toward the soccer-player Sheid, and it tore off into the woods. Nimbly, Avadan retreated and stood on top of the toppled carriage. Helo extinguished the hallow and was getting ready to jump again when Avadan blasted him with Sheid fire from both hands. Helo angled out of the way of the first, but the second burned a line three-quarters of the way across his belly, severing his spine and vaporizing a good chunk of his torso. Helo collapsed into the snow.
“That’s better,” Avadan said. “Now let me finish.” The tendril of darkness shot out of his hand and drilled into the girl’s chest. Helpless, Helo watched as she transformed from human to Sheid, morphing into a perfect replica of Aclima.
“Miss her?” Avadan taunted. “What did you do with her, burn her?”
He still didn’t know! This was one victory Helo was more than happy to throw in Avadan’s face. “Your mother is in heaven now, Avadan. She turned. She won’t miss your sorry face. You’ll have to have someone else change your diaper in hell.”
Now he really was pissed. He shook with anger, the visage of the driver dissolving, the face and form of Avadan returning. He strode over like an angry coach ready to chew out his star player for fumbling the ball on fourth and goal.
“You lie!” he spat. “You lie!”
“Jumelia didn’t want to believe it either,” he said. “But it’s true. I won. She’s free.”
Avadan worked his jaw as if searching for some epithet that would suit his anger. The first Sheid returned and stood by the newly formed one.
Finally, Avadan’s face settled into a wicked mask of controlled hatred. “Well, I’ve got work to do.” He faced the Shedim. “Burn all their hearts and dump them in the river.” He turned back to Helo. “As for you, tell my mother when you see her that I will find some way to drag her feet back to the flames that are licking my father’s. Even angels can fall. And she will fall. I will find a way. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go find a little girl. Three Shedim will get this work done faster.”
Avadan strutted away.
“Leave her alone!” Helo yelled.
Avadan laughed. “Oh, yes. I’ll stop just because you asked.”
“Go to hell, Avadan,” Helo said.
Avadan shrugged. “I’ll bring it here. How about I make your rest a little more comfortable?”
Avadan raised a palm, and Sheid fire spewed at Helo’s face. A second later Helo found himself in the White Room with nothing but light surrounding him. His mind raced. There had to be a way to beat the brute! Helo wanted a wall to pound on. He’d be dead before he ever found a solution. When Helo had found the AAO camped out in the woods, he thought the organization was nearly finished, but today was the day. After Avadan’s traveling surprises, the Ash Angel Organization would be no more.
Then he could see again. Faramir leaned over him, his eyes darting around as if looking for threats. Melody Hallowed space around them. She was Hallowing!
Helo snapped to his feet. “New Bestowal?”
Melody nodded, face set with the effort required to push a hallow out into the desecrated murk. Helo was rarely glad to see Faramir, but this was one of the times. He hadn’t considered that Faramir’s position in the tent helped him escape the initial torching blast that had crippled everyone in the clearing. Maybe there were others.
The Shedim and Avadan were nowhere to be seen, but all the nearby Ash Angels sported smoking holes in their chests where their hearts should have been. Weapon fire in the distance hinted at resistance from other Ash Angels, but the desecration and Shedim would see them all dead. And fast. He tried raising Shujaa and Andromeda on comms, but nothing.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Helo said. “I’m going to heal Sparks and Finny, then we’ll see if we can find Shujaa and Andromeda.”
“What about Mars?” Faramir asked.
Mars lay insensate on the ground. Magdelene and Ebenezer were still missing, hopefully escaped.
“I’ll get him, too.”
He hurried over to where Sparks and Finny lay squirming in the snow, fighting the brutal thoughts raking through their minds. When Melody’s hallowing circle enveloped them, they calmed. Helo healed them, regrowing their hearts and sealing the burn wounds. He pulsed a little Inspire into them. Glorious Presence would be better, but it would alert Avadan.
“Let’s go,” he said. Under no circumstances did he want to face Avadan again, not while everyone was mentally banged up. They went to Mars.
“Sparks,” Helo said, “just drag him for now.”
Sparks grabbed the Grand Archus’s wrist, and they fled the clearing, heading in the direction of where Helo thought Andromeda and Shujaa had set up their sniper’s nest. A burst of screaming and gunfire erupted from somewhere behind them. The last of the resistance. They had to hurry.
“You guys think you can handle it if Melody drops the hallow?” he asked.
They nodded, but their faces told a different story. She extinguished it, and they all crammed their eyes shut. For a few moments they wavered, but all of them, even Faramir, fought it off, and they trudged forward.
Shujaa and Andromeda weren’t hard to find. The Sheid had burned out their hearts and turned them and their weapons into pretzels. Their heads were mashed in too.
Helo turned to his team. “Melody, you Hallow again. When you do, I’ll heal Andromeda. Faramir, take Shujaa. Sparks, you think you can get Mars?”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes blinking. “Got it.”
With a lot of divine healing and an infusion of Inspire, everyone was on their feet. Helo knew Melody couldn’t keep the hallow up forever.
Mars shook his head. “I have never been torched like that. And I’ve been torched a lot.”
“Where to?” Helo asked. “The camp is lost.”
“The Foundry,” he said. “I sent Magdelene and Ebenezer in that direction when we saw Avadan coming. Helo, Melody—that book, Micah’s book. There are things in there you need to know.”
“We can talk later,” Helo said. “Let’s move.”
They hadn’t walked fifty yards when it hit him. Scarlet was back there somewhere in the mess. He couldn’t leave her there. He just couldn’t. And Lear, his Ash Angel father. He hadn’t seen him at all during Avadan’s little show.
“Look, all of you, press on,” he said. “I’ve got to go back to the camp and get someone.”
“Who?” Melody said
before anyone else could.
“Scarlet,” he said, Melody’s face turning a little sour.
“Your ex-wife?” Sparks said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Lear, too. Keep going. I’ll catch up.”
Melody grabbed his arm. “Helo, don’t.”
“Sorry. Hallow the ground if you need to. Get moving.”
As he bolted back toward the camp, he could feel Melody’s eyes boring into his spine. She didn’t like Scarlet, and he didn’t need her to, but hopefully she could understand. Well, he didn’t understand. He didn’t love her anymore, but he still cared. He couldn’t leave her in the snow to be thrown into a river by Shedim. It felt wrong.
He skirted the edge of camp, coming up behind the tents Sicarius Nox was using. He slipped inside Faramir’s tent and peered out through the tent flaps. Avadan and the Shedim were nowhere he could see, though the hopeless feeling that swirled around Avadan like corpse flies still ran its claws along his soul.
The better question: Where was Scarlet? He racked his brain, trying to remember what group she’d been assigned to, but came up with nothing. While everyone called themselves a part of the Michaels division these days, she wasn’t a frontline soldier. He hadn’t even talked to her enough to know where her tent was. Peering through the tent flap, all he could see was mangled bodies on the ground with holes in their chests, the work of the Shedim. They would return to drag the Ash Angels to the river anytime now.
He wasn’t hearing gunfire or any signs of resistance. Maybe the black desecration had overtaken everyone. He shook his head. There was nothing to do but search everywhere. With a last listen to see if he could hear any activity, he jogged outside and went from one insensate Ash Angel to another, flipping some over with his foot. Some cried. Some were curled up in the fetal position. Others said no over and over again. Most just suffered in silence. If only he could save them all!
Then he felt it—the presence of a Sheid getting closer. The overturned wagon lay nearby, and he dove into it and pulled himself against the wall. The inside smelled of wheel grease and dirt. Discarded fruit-snack wrappers littered the wall he sat on. Nice. So Avadan kidnapped the kids, ruined their lives, and somehow had the magnanimity to feed his captives fruit snacks.
He could feel both Shedim now, the one in front of him on the other side of the wagon’s ceiling and the one to his left. Then the strength of their taint faded and he peeked outside. Each Sheid—the soccer player and Aclima—held two Ash Angels slung over its shoulders and was weaving through the woods in the direction of the river.
He waited until they were good and gone before he resumed his search, going from face to agonized face. No Scarlet. No Lear. A few minutes later, he had to hide inside a vacated tent while the Shedim claimed more victims for the water and rushed away into the woods. After they had left again, he finally found her. Scarlet lay underneath an old oak with a BBG at her side, eyes twitching. The hole in her chest went all the way through to the ground.
He hefted her over his shoulder and took off running, the snow shaking off her body and running down his shirt. He cast about hoping to find Lear but with no luck. His Ash Angel father would have to make his own way.
When Helo got to the clearing, the feeling of Avadan’s hopeless aura swelled in strength. Had he found the girl? Helo gritted his teeth, guilt running over him. If his destiny was to take down Avadan, he’d failed badly.
While he knew his Virtus reserves wouldn’t hold out indefinitely, he used small bursts of Speed, kicking up snow, to get distance from Camp Zion. He caught up to his weary-faced team, Melody having fared the best. The desecration was taking its toll.
“You got her,” Melody said, tone somewhere between surprise and disappointment.
“Yeah,” he said. “Didn’t see Lear. The Shedim are hauling all the Ash Angels to the river.”
Mars swore under his breath. They had nothing with which to launch a counterattack against Avadan. One more torch—even from a Sheid—would doom most of them.
Melody’s eyes widened, and he knew why. He could feel the greasy taint of a Sheid slipping over him.
“Now they’re coming for us,” Helo said. He was going to say that they could hide, but one look behind him told him hiding was pointless, the clear trail of snowy footprints leading backward would tell the Shedim right where they were.
“Run,” Helo said.
Chapter 29
Mystery
Helo kept to the rear of the clump of fleeing Ash Angels as they churned through the snow, Scarlet’s body flopping as he hauled her away. Everyone stuck to the hallowing circle Melody kept alive. Her brow was furrowed with the effort. How long could she last? Even if they survived, how could the Ash Angels ever get the upper hand in Avadan’s new super desecration? And the mega torch would cripple even the most seasoned soldier. It had almost taken him down, even with his Angel Born gifts.
Then they caught a break.
Abruptly, the snow and the dark desecration ended, the forest returning instantly to rain-soaked and leafy green.
“Thank God,” Melody said, eyes heavenward. She extinguished her hallow.
Helo had never been happier to see mud, but the Sheid was closing in, and closing in fast.
“Let’s get as far away from this desecration as we can,” Helo said. “Anyone got a sanctified weapon?” No one did. Everyone had BBGs. Only Melody still had her BBR. “Melody and I are the only ones who can drop it. Keep it occupied so we can get close.”
They jogged into the woods, putting distance between them and the crippling black carpet of desecration. The Sheid’s Speed-borne feet slapped out a squishy rhythm in the forest. But there were two. In a blur they arrived, both Shedim at once—the soccer player and Aclima. They didn’t slow. Helo dropped Scarlet’s body and Hallowed, but not before the Aclima Sheid unloaded a red torching blast. The other tried a desecration.
Regular torching? Piece of cake. Melody stood firm, as did Mars, Shujaa, Andromeda, and Sparks. Finny and Faramir fought it. They all fired their BBGs, bullets nothing more than a distraction. Helo made sure he was front and center, and the soccer player stepped away from the hallow and let loose with one of his fiery tentacles right at Helo’s face. Helo dropped the hallow and Strength jumped straight forward, going low like a linebacker underneath the tentacle. With a Strength-fueled punch, he drilled into the Sheid’s gut.
But it felt wrong. The darkness didn’t so much explode as separate. The form of the soccer player pulled away from the little girl and then turned into something like dark smoke that faded into thin air instead of absorbing back into him. The girl lay flat on her back, eyes closed. Her chest moved. She was alive!
He spun. The second Sheid had jumped onto a low-hanging tree branch, and a tentacle whipped Mars and Sparks clean in half. Melody’s left arm was gone. Andromeda, Finny, and Shujaa unloaded on the Sheid with their BBGs, all to no avail save the same bendy visage warping he’d seen happen to Avadan. These were not normal Shedim.
Helo let loose with Angel Fire, the Sheid writhing. Melody Strength jumped at the same time, driving her good arm into the Sheid’s belly. Jeremy was separated from the Vexus. Helo ran forward in time to catch him as he plummeted from the tree. Melody crashed into a dead log behind him. Helo stood still and extended his awareness. He couldn’t feel any more Shedim, and thankfully, he couldn’t feel Avadan’s aura of hopelessness, either.
Melody walked up to him, eyes wide. “They’re alive!”
Helo took her hand and healed her, her arm re-forming on her body. “Alive, yes. It’s their minds I’m worried about.”
Faramir had reunited the severed halves of Mars and Sparks by the time he got there. For a moment, everyone stared at the two kids in Helo’s and Melody’s arms. Jeremy wore a Denver Broncos T-shirt, shredded jeans, and muddy sneakers. The Hispanic girl Melody carried wore flip-flops, red shorts, and a white tank top. She had an island look about her, her dark hair braided close to her head and decorated with beads.
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“Keep moving,” Helo said. “Shujaa, grab Scarlet.”
Mars looked lost. “How did Avadan do this? How did he figure all of this out? No Dread has done anything like this. Not ever.”
“He is the Darth Vader to our Luke,” Faramir said. “The Joker to our Batman.”
Mars glared at him.
Faramir swallowed. “What I’m saying is that Micah was our researcher; Avadan was theirs. Micah wanted to share his findings. I think Avadan kept his hidden away for his own evil plans. I mean, he’s almost a comic-book villain with all his lairs and crazy getups.”
“He wants to be noticed,” Melody said. “A lot of entertainers get into the business because they need recognition and attention.”
“Was that why you were an entertainer?” Faramir asked.
“No,” she said. “I just like to sing.”
“What he wants isn’t the problem right now,” Andromeda said. “He just created Shedim faster than you can order a hamburger at a drive-through.”
“On the plus side,” Faramir said, “it appears the conversion can be reversed. You see, he infused a living heart with Vexus, but he didn’t eat it. I think that means it’s not permanent.”
Finny rubbed the Hispanic girl’s cheek with his finger, eyes on her face. “That is a blessing. But these kids—if they do wake up, they’ll probably be in therapy the rest of their lives. And without sanctified weapons, everyone but Helo and Melody won’t have a good way to defeat them.”
“The Angel Borns will protect us,” Shujaa said.
“Yeah, us,” Andromeda said. “But what about everybody else?”
Mars rubbed his chin. “We’ve got to get more Ash Angels here to fight before Avadan takes his evil circus international. Sparks, can you help me convince the AAO over in Europe to lend a hand?”
“Sure thing,” he said. “Not sure how much they’re going to believe about Avadan. But I know some people who like a good hunt. And this is the best hunt in town.”