by Meg Collett
But how could he when I didn’t even understand?
Standing in the door of his room that night, I sobbed as quietly as possible. All the hours of being strong and all the convincing words of visions and futures I had preached to myself were fading away under the glow of his nightlight. I didn’t want to leave. I couldn’t leave.
Isaac padded down the hall to where I stood. He put a hand on my back and pulled me close. Together we stood and watched Clark sleep. He was a perfect little boy. He didn’t deserve to live a life without his mother.
When I could bear it no longer, I turned my face into Isaac’s shoulder and let go. Isaac closed Clark’s door with his free arm and held me. His hands ran through my hair and over my back, but none of his comforting soothed the tortured, tattered ends of my nerves.
Hours later, we were sitting down in the hall with our backs against the wall. Isaac’s arms were still around me, and I clung to his side. The tears were gone. I was exhausted.
“Maybe,” I said, my throat dry and cracking over the word. “Maybe, I shouldn’t go yet. It’s all so uncertain. Things could change.”
“Do you really believe that?” Isaac asked. He never judged me for my uncertainty or weakness. We had long ago known I would have to leave one day. But as that day drew closer and closer, he had never once criticized my lack of resolve.
“Maybe.” The word was small and weak against his chest.
“You’ve seen it, my love. She is our only hope,” Isaac said. His fingers drifted through my long hair.
At the mention of her, I stiffened. I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. She was the reason I had to leave my baby.
“But that vision was so short and undeveloped. I’ve only had it once,” I argued. I couldn’t help it.
“But it is the only one where he lives and we all are together again. That alone is worth fighting for.”
Isaac’s words were the truth. I knew it. They are what we had said a million times. But we had built our resolve on shaky ground. That vision was a pipe dream for the future. It relied on so many factors, most of them in her hands. She held not only the fate of the world, the future of the Nephilim race, and my husband’s life, but also the life of my son. It was too many variables for one uncertain vision. It killed me.
“I don’t like putting our son’s life in the hands of the one angel who would rather kill him for his Nephil blood than help him.” I spat the words. I had spent a lifetime hating her just as she had hated my kind.
“She will change by then,” Isaac said. He kept his voice soft and soothing. His hands never stopped rubbing my back. In my fist was his clenched shirt.
“I don’t know that for sure. I can’t see any future clearly where she does the right thing.”
“Maybe it’s not the right thing she needs to do.” I was about to argue, but Isaac went on. “Maybe this future you have seen where she saves the world is uncertain only because no one has any faith in it or her. It always changes because she is always wavering during that time. When she comes to us for help, we should give her strength and support. We should learn to love her because she is our hope, not our end.”
“The fate of our lives and the world should not come down to one angel’s faith in herself.”
“But it does, right?”
Isaac leaned back so I could look him in his eyes. He was waiting for me to answer. He wanted to hear me say it, but I didn’t want to. I couldn’t stand those words, but I forced them from my mouth.
“It does.”
No matter how much I hated my visions, Clark would find her one day. It was the one thing I knew for certain. And on that day, the future could go so many different ways. We had planned my departure, my fake death, in order to guide the future in the one direction we saw hope.
“It might be hard now, but we can love her one day,” Isaac said. He tucked me back under his arm. “When she brings our son home and he is alive, we can find that love for her then even if it seems impossible now. Can you see this as a means to a better end and not as the end?”
“I can try,” I said after a long pause. He was right, of course. My son would think I was dead half his life, but, if I was right, we would all find each other once again.
We sat in silence for a long time after that. Isaac held me while I built my strength back up. It wouldn’t be long until I would get into his car and drive away. When I reached the bridge, I would send the car over the edge and watch it fall down the steep ravine. It would burn and everyone would think I was inside. I would return to the Nephilim and prepare.
I was almost asleep when Isaac asked, “Have you seen any future where she will survive?”
I thought about his question for a long moment. Of course I knew the answer instantly. But I also knew I hated her in that moment. I had hated her my entire life. But I also knew, there was a future where I would love her, where she would be like a daughter to me. I would look into her blue eyes and see the better, stronger parts of myself in her. She would be the one to save us, and in that future, she would have all my faith in her.
So it was hard and almost as impossible as leaving my son to say the word I already knew. I took a deep breath.
“No.”
The Only One
Book Three
End of Days
In the final installment to the popular End of Days series, Heaven still belongs to a mad tyrant, and Michaela is losing her battle to save the dying world.
But the tides are turning.
With Gabriel’s fallen army, Michaela can finally start a war with the holy angels, which means she has to take care of the Watchers once and for all. What Michaela doesn’t realize is that her best friend has his own vengeful plan for the Watchers.
Even amidst a war, Michaela and Gabriel bask in a sliver of happiness. With every touch and kiss, Michaela discovers a new home in Gabriel’s arms.
Yet happiness is ever fleeting, and Michaela learns of a vision that foretells of the greatest sacrifice she’ll ever make for Heaven. But what is sacrifice in the face of tyranny and madness? It’s a lesson Michaela may not live long enough to fully understand.
Contents: The Only One
The Only One Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
About the Author
1
The souls. They clamored for him, calling his name like hungry children. He heard them inside his mind and felt their urgency in the press of the wind. They would not be ignored. It wasn’t a deafening noise, just whispering voices begging for their deliverance. The pull of a soul slipping away from its dying human was like a spool of thread unraveling in his head. He followed the gossamer string until he found the end, and only there would he find a temporary relief.
And there, as the Angel of Death, he delivered the soul from its body. It took its place in hi
s massive, breathing wings. The souls there shifted away, murmuring and welcoming the new soul into its place, where it revealed itself as a long, sleek opalescent feather.
Loki wasn’t meant to harbor these souls. Heavenly carrier angels were supposed to deliver them to Purgatory for judgment. That, of course, was only a fond memory from better times well in the past.
The new weight was a mere flutter of added pressure, but Loki felt it all the same. The souls wore him into an exhaustion so deep it bent his bones and slowed his blood. He was hollowed and hallowed, borne into the ground and arching through the skies.
He was infinite and losing his grasp on himself. He was becoming less and less and more and more with each new soul.
Another thread unraveled in his mind. Another death. Another human to add to the collateral damage of a holy war. Loki closed his eyes and transported himself to that soul, to deliver it into an unknown world where angels fought a civil war and souls hung in the sky like a reluctant rain.
2
Far away from where Loki roamed the Earth collecting dying souls, another death ritual was being performed: a funeral.
Isaac St. James—father, husband, and previous Keeper of the Descendants of Enoch—had died two days ago. Lying in a bed with each hand being held—one by his wife and one by his son—he’d been surrounded by the angels he’d spent his life protecting. His death would have been considered a good one in a time of war if not for the infection that had made his last few moments anguished. Isaac’s final gasping words were of his love for his wife and an apology to his son.
Clark didn’t do well with goodbyes or apologies, even if he’d craved his father’s approval all his life. When he’d finally received it, Clark had clung to his father’s hand and willed the weathered warrior back to life. It hadn’t worked, because eventually everyone ended up in the ground. One way or another, you had a hole pitted in the earth with your name on it. Unavoidable. Inescapable.
Depressing as hell.
Clark pulled himself back to the present. He willed himself to stop thinking about his father’s death, even though the feat seemed impossible as he watched his father’s funeral commence down in the Descendants’ cemetery. The sun had set long ago, but Clark kept his sunglasses on. Not that he’d needed them during the day. The sun was completely hidden now beyond the shaded veil of souls awaiting their judgment. They’d waited a long time, accumulating and overflowing Purgatory’s edges, before Loki had stopped taking the souls skyward and nestled them in his wings.
The bare tree limbs above where Clark hid in the woods scratched as they shifted in the night’s frigid breeze. The moon wasn't visible behind the souls, but it gave off a milky luminance that made the scene in the cemetery look like a dream. Or a nightmare.
His father lay in a glossy wooden casket beside a gaping grave lit by oil lanterns. The Descendants of Enoch, the earthly human protectors of the angels, had gathered in huge numbers for their previous Keeper’s funeral. Only Liam, the new Keeper, and a handful of trusted Descendants still loyal to Michaela knew Isaac had died from an infected bite wound by a hybrid—a half-angel, half-human soul experiment created by Lucifer. Everyone else thought Isaac had died of a heart attack inside the Descendants’ compound. Liam’s lies were good enough to cover Isaac’s secret return to the Descendants, where he would have the proper burial of a Keeper.
Or as proper as it could be. Clark snorted, causing Michaela to glance at him. The shadows from the tree limbs traced jagged lines across her pale face. Iris, his mother, squeezed his hand on the other side of him, her hitching breaths condensing in the air. The Archangels’ powerful presence amplified the stillness of the night and the haunting quietness of the graveyard, prickling goose bumps along his arms. They all stood hidden in the trees, watching from afar as the Descendants lowered Isaac’s casket into the ground.
They couldn’t go any closer or risk being seen. Clark was a Descendant deserter, an accomplice to Michaela’s sins. Michaela was the traitor of Heaven—the liar, the betrayer. Iris was a Nephil meant to be hunted and extinguished. They were all fugitives, yet they were the only ones fighting to save the world.
It is all bullshit, Clark thought. He wanted to stand proud at his father’s funeral, but instead he cowered in the shadows. He was over the running and hiding. The anger built inside of him, making his palms sweat and his head ache. To distract himself, he looked around.
The cemetery was forlorn, eerily quiet on this night. The gravestones looked like the tips of fingers poking up from the ground. Clark pictured hundreds of giant hands just below the crust of Earth, waiting to reach up and grab a person who walked too close. He’d always hated graveyards.
As he watched Isaac’s slow descent into the earth, Clark realized he hadn’t cried yet.
He hadn’t cried when they’d put Sophia in the ground, either. Her slot in the Nephilim’s crypts was tight, even for her small, enshrouded form. Blessed and fragranced white cloth had been wrapped tightly around her body, tight enough for Clark to see the outline of her face. She could have been asleep or merely resting. At any moment, he expected her to take a deep breath and bat away the gauzy material covering her face. She’d laugh and hop down to take his hand. Her skin would be warm and soft. Maybe she’d even kiss him in public for everyone to see. No secrets. No death. But that was just a dream. Sophia was gone.
Her soul remained in her body just like thousands of other Nephilim souls tucked away in the crypts, waiting for the time when their souls could be delivered home to Heaven.
The Archangels, Iris, and Clark had left the next day to deliver Isaac’s body to the Descendants. They’d left behind Iris’s hidden community of Nephilim to stay and guard the few human survivors living in the Nephilim’s underground shelter.
Clark would give anything to go back to the peaceful Amish farm on which the Nephilim had hidden. Things were bad then, but they weren’t awful. Not like now.
Michaela took Clark's other hand as if she sensed his growing despair. If the funeral had been the proper burial of a Keeper, Michaela would have spoken the ancient final words above Isaac’s grave. Instead, she was stuck hiding in the woods and watching as Liam took his place beside the grave.
Liam cleared his throat. “Tonight marks the night of another fallen soul.”
“Tonight,” Michaela whispered, “marks the night of another fallen soul.”
The repeated words tingled in Clark’s ears. From the corner of his eye, he saw silent tears falling down his mother’s cheeks. Isaac would have a proper burial after all. Clark clutched Michaela’s hand, thanking her in the only way he knew.
“It is an ending full of Light,” Michaela spoke, her voice the only thing Clark heard in the stony silence of the woods. Back in the Descendants' cemetery, full of weeping willows and angel statues, the important council members of the order tossed dirt into Isaac’s grave. It tumbled inside and rang off the wood, making Clark cringe every time.
“This ending is merely temporary as the Light brings a new beginning, a new form of life, as Isaac’s soul is delivered to an everlasting resting place where he can stand side by side with the angels he protected.”
But there would be no everlasting resting place for Isaac’s soul until Michaela wrested back control of Heaven.
“Faith in one’s duty is never an easy burden to bear.” Michaela’s voice cracked. Gabriel leaned forward enough to brush his chest against her back as if his mere presence gave her strength. Perhaps it did, because Clark had to look away. The action reminded him of Sophia, a memory cutting through his gut like a serrated knife. “The Keeper of our ancient order bears a tiring weight that is heavy on one’s shoulders. Isaac St. James bore that weight until the very end, where he has finally found relief.”
“The angels thank him,” Liam started, his voice ringing across the cemetery to the woods.
“We thank him,” Michaela said over Liam’s voice, “for protecting us.”
“And the angels will gu
ide….”
“And we will guide him to his peace and rest, protecting his soul as he protected us. For eternity, Isaac will be safe. Welcome home, dear Keeper.”
A tiny, muffled sob escaped Iris’s mouth. Her body curled over like a leaf in autumn, wracked with the sinking weight of her husband’s death. She didn’t wipe at the tears streaming freely down her face.
Back in the cemetery, the grave was nearly full. Michaela wrapped her arm around Clark’s shoulders, and Iris slipped her trembling hand around his waist as if he was the one that needed to be held up. Only then did he realize he swayed like the limbs above them. From behind him, Gabriel rested his arm on Michaela’s back as the other Archangels linked their hands together.
It was a time for grief, but Clark was the only one not thinking about his father. Instead, his thoughts shifted away, rising far above their heads and into the heavens. Somewhere up there sat the angel responsible for this destruction and sadness. Abel of the Aethere choir had started this awfulness by framing Michaela for an attack on Heaven and making a deal with Lucifer. He would die for what he had done, along with his Watcher angels, the henchmen of Heaven.
From now on, Clark’s existence was devoted to making them pay for all they’d cost him.
The unwanted marks on his arms, the Watchers’ secrets, burned with his anger. His entire body fried with the vengeance scorching through his veins.
This was it. This was the end.
The end. The end. The end.
3
The words were spoken, and the grave was filled with a heaping pile of loosely packed dirt. The moon’s miniscule light faded even more behind a bank of dribbling clouds. The cemetery emptied as the Descendants made their way back inside the compound, their progress marked by the bobbing of lanterns and quiet, mournful murmurs.
Michaela stared across the gravestones and crosses. Soon, no one was left but those who stood behind her in the woods, as if Isaac’s funeral had never happened. Done and forgotten. She shivered.