Thornfalcon (The ARC Legacy Book 1)

by Matthew W. Harrill

  “Yes. These are often places of unexplainable events. They become shrines to something bigger, places of worship taken over by formality. The ceremony replaces what can't be explained. A church represents the human spirit's connection with this. It gives a focus. Your mother believes the same.”

  “She saw a church in Hell, atop the Tartarus portal.”

  “Or did she just think she did? Was it a visual expression of the connection between her mind and the reality she was presented with?”

  “Are you saying I could be imagining this?”

  Io stopped at a casket, placing his hands on the stone. “I am saying most people dream and, in doing so, escape reality. For you, reality is the dream, and you need to wake up.” He frowned. “This is incorrect.”

  “Who's in there?”

  “I'm meant to believe this is the tomb of Leviathan, but I feel the essence of Beelzebub. He is not here, though he is very close by. We need to get out. This whole construct is a trap.”

  “What do you mean? It's just a catacomb.”

  Io pushed her toward the stairs. “To a mortal perhaps. There is an energy at play here almost beyond my own comprehension. Get out, Sammy, while you still can.”

  Samantha began to climb the stairs. “While I — isn't this for you?”

  “No, it is not. Whoever did this has constructed an intricate and elaborate trap for a being far more powerful than an angel.”

  “What's more powerful than an angel?” Samantha asked.

  “I intend for you to live to find out,” Io said. “Wait here.”

  He pushed past her, up the stairway, and out of her sight.

  She paused only for a couple of seconds before following. Her flashlight seemed feeble against the darkness, coupled with her own uncertainty. “You're not leaving me down here alone Io. Io?”

  Samantha took the stairs two at a time as she sought to catch Io. The door was ajar in the wake of Io's passage. To her right, Io stood on the dais, unmoving. His hand thrust back at her, his whole arm trembling as he fought an invisible force. A warning.

  Samantha took stock of the situation, concentrating. She couldn't summon the will to augment her eyesight, but she felt an uncommon tingling, perhaps prescience, she wondered. A shimmer in which Io was caught spreading across the whole church formed in front of her. She stepped sideways, around the edge of the flicker. A scuff behind the altar caught her attention. She was not alone.

  “Welcome,” Porter Rockwell purred. “Nice to see you once again, Sammy.”

  She turned. “Aunt Clare?”

  Rockwell held her aunt, gagged and bound, by a fistful of hair, his hand twisting with malice. No emotion showed on his face, those cold eyes bringing back memories of the warehouse in Port Moresby. Clare moaned through her gag.

  “She's really not well,” he said, a contented smile spreading across his face as if his sole purpose was to cause both of them misery. “I had to pull this little contraption off her. Made this really annoying beep.” Rockwell threw a small gadget with tubing attached past Io. It landed at her feet with a crack of plastic.

  “Aunt Clare's insulin pump?” Samantha said, bending down to retrieve it, not taking her eyes off of Rockwell. “You bastard. I'll—”

  “Do nothing. You move and I'll give your aunt to my friend over here.” Rockwell remained staring at her as a figure moved onto the dais from an alcove. Bald, reeking of violence, the polar opposite to Rockwell, Christopher Lanier hulked over everybody in the church. “Bet you never thought you'd see me again, eh missy,” he said, his strong South African accent as clipped and cutting as she remembered it.

  “Well I reckon a hail of bullets would be too easy a death for you, though I could always hope it was that easy.”

  “You little bitch,” Lanier spat, surging forward.

  “Stop,” Rockwell barked.

  Lanier obeyed, his mouth locked in a grimace. The skin of his head moved from beneath. Something was being contained.

  Samantha concentrated, trying to examine the shimmering. “Not just an angel trap,” she assumed aloud. “If your pet can't cross the boundary then it holds demons too.”

  Lanier baulked at the word 'pet' but made no further movement.

  “Look about you, Samantha,” Rockwell said. “This is no place of worship.” Outside, the sky was darkening. Flashes of light filled the stained-glass windows and Samantha focused on the details. The window nearest her featured a horned figure bound with circles of light around its wrists and ankles, sitting amidst a cloud of bodiless heads, all of them screaming. On another, a flame-haired monstrosity with eyes of madness and curved fangs clawed at the bars that trapped it.

  “But this is not new,” Samantha began. “Benjamin Ferrey constructed this church—”

  “Without the slightest idea of what he was bringing into creation. The ultimate trap, a prison for a beings so powerful nothing else can hold them.”

  Did they know about her too? Were Io's suspicions widespread? Surely the creature holding her sister hostage told them. Samantha willed herself to remain calm.

  “And here he is,” Rockwell announced, “bound in a prison from which he cannot escape, surrounded on all four sides by evil, carrying the means to end you all. Look around you, Samantha. This is not a place of sanctuary. This is no portal. This is a trap to take his essence. Yet thanks to you we no longer need it. Say goodbye to your tame angel, girl. He's outlived his usefulness.”

  “But the portal. Beelzebub.”

  “Not here, but close enough that the Phaethon doesn't degrade when I rip it from Ioviel's charred corpse.”

  Samantha turned away, concentrating. The map. Where was it? Her head throbbed as she sought the spark within, still just out of reach. Behind her, she felt a glow from the barrier and turned, catching only a glimpse.

  “I won't let you,” she said.

  “Then by all means, step beside your companion. Pull him from where he stands, and you can both walk away.”

  Samantha stood her ground, closing her fists and taking in a deep breath of the musty church air between her teeth.

  “No? I didn't think so. Your father may rule absolute in Hell, little girl, but it is just one realm. He has no sway over what we do now. As much as Tartarus is a lock, it is not the only lock. There are bypasses.”

  “You won't get to Zerachiel,” Samantha growled.

  “And by your own words, you condemn him,” Rockwell spat back. “We didn't know the name of the Last Commandment. Now we do.” He shoved Clare into the ungentle embrace of Lanier and turned to retrieve a cloth-wrapped bundle from the altar. Folding the material back he lifted a large knife and held it, admiring it as light glinted from the obsidian blade's countless lines. “It was a trial to retrieve this from under your father's nose. Yet, He does not see all. Hell is full of His enemies. Do you know this blade, girl?”

  “Can't say I've had the pleasure,” Samantha replied. The blade sang to her from across the room, resonating with a glowing red hue. She realised the blade was responsible for her sensing the trap. Now that she was cognizant of the source, Samantha was able to put the trap into focus.

  I can see the trap, Io. How do I get you out?

  You don't. Get out of here. Your sister is on the hill nearby. This whole church is the map, the needle in a compass, pointing straight to her. Save her. Save us all, Sammy.

  No, Io. Don't give up!

  “This blade is connected to your family, on a cellular level. It's tasted your mother, your father, your sister. I can feel it hunger for more. It knows you're here. You and your aunt.”

  “The Well of Souls,” Samantha realised aloud.

  “You do know it.”

  “That blade created monsters.”

  “Yes, when used by amateurs like Asmodeus and Belphegor. Creating an army of self-destructive nightmares, that's all they did. They were so blinded by their petty ambition they never stopped to wonder why this blade existed in the first place.”

  “
It's a part of the key to Tartarus,” she said.

  Rockwell sneered as he said, “To all sorts of locks. The souls stored in here give this weapon exponential power. Your family's blood is special, holy even. You've been linked with this blade since long before you were born. Some might call it destiny.”

  Lanier held Clare rigid as Rockwell freed her arm and held it straight. The blade began to hum, the frequency revealing the trap as a dome over the dais. Rockwell began to carve.

  “No!” Samantha screamed.

  Clare screamed too, the knife slicing through her flesh as though it were insubstantial. Blood spattered to the floor as Rockwell continued the grisly task. “Perfect,” he said as he stepped away, admiring his work.

  On Clare's arm a six-pointed star had been carved. Clare stared in terror as the blood pouring down her arm dripped off her fingers.

  “Aunt Clare, it'll be fine,” Samantha tried to reassure her aunt.

  “Oh no, it really won't,” Rockwell countered.

  Lanier took a step forward to the edge of the trap, pushing Clare ahead of him. “First her, then the angel, then you,” Lanier said through a rictus grin. He forced Clare's arm into the trap, her screams now all the louder. Stepping back, he left Clare suspended by the force, the star carved into her forearm glowing as it made contact with the trap.

  For a second nothing happened, then Samantha flew backward, propelled by the force unleashed within the trap. Landing on her back she rolled into one of the pews, the wood of the leg catching her back and making her gasp. “Io.” Climbing to her knees, she shielded her eyes. Lightning pulsed into Io from the four pillars at each corner of the trap. Beams of red intersected them from the stained glass windows. The trap was revealed.

  Io was a mere shape in the middle, his back arched, head thrown back, arms wide. His wings materialised as he hovered six inches above the floor, suspended in the energy. At his core, the Phaethon Stone throbbed on Io's chest, in sync with the lightning pulsing through the trap, but brighter than all. Its radiance filled the church with an ethereal glow beyond which everything was hidden. Samantha could no longer see Clare or the two demons.

  Helpless she watched as Io began to smoulder, the sweet stench of burning flesh assaulting her nostrils.

  “What do I do?” she said aloud, to be answered only with the crackle of the lightning.

  Use your power, Io urged.

  How? Io I can't and you're dying.

  Think back to the beginning. Hurry. If my host is obliterated they have nobody to stop them. Everything ends.

  Fretting, Samantha paced in a small circle. “Back to the beginning.“ She began to envisage a book, a spell written on the page, and her disbelief that such things were even possible. Yet when she carved the sigil and it worked, she believed.

  Samantha grabbed a crayon from a basket of half-finished children's drawings and began to draw on the floor. The pattern she knew from memory; if Lucas had done one thing right it was to obsess over her learning the summoning spell. As complicated as the intricate patterns were, she was done in moments. Only one more ingredient: Blood. The Helltech blade was at her waist. She unsheathed the weapon and ran it along the heel of her palm. Droplets of blood welled from the cut and Samantha squeezed her hand into a fist. The blood dripped free of her hand, falling to the pattern on the floor.

  “No!” Rockwell's terrified voice yelled from beyond the barrier.

  Call to him, Io urged.

  The pattern began to glow. Samantha knelt close to the glowing portal and screamed into it, “Father!”

  From far below, in the depths of a place so vast and beyond her comprehension it was impossible to imagine the connection as anything other than magical, a roar answered.

  The glowing portal erupted into a red shaft of light, throwing Samantha backward almost as far as the trap had done. She skidded to a halt, curling into a ball to protect herself, and then jumped up.

  The beam ripped up through the roof of the church, leaving a gaping hole. Falling masonry hit one of the pillars emitting lightning, and the trap faltered, the lightning blinking out as the construct collapsed. Birds poured in through the hole in the roof, winging their way in a tight circle around the edge of the trap, squawking and shrieking as they did so. Io dropped to his knees, wings closing about him in a protective shield. The birds swirled down about him, landing in a pattern. A glyph.

  “What have you done?” Rockwell wailed.

  “She's summoned an angel,” said Io's voice from beneath trembling wings. The birds waited, nervous and agitated, yet compelled to remain. “Our fight is not yet done.”

  “That's not Karael's glyph.” Samantha replied. “That's not the Thornfalcon.”

  “It represents the truth,” Io said, still covered. “It is what she will become. They answer to you, Sammy, not to me. Summon the fallen one. Let us see an end to this.”

  Samantha closed her eyes, letting her consciousness reach out. Karael.

  The wait did not take long. With a scream the roof shattered as a bloody and torn Karael plummeted headfirst toward Io, sword seeking his throat.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Io was immobile, unmoving as his enemy dropped an arrow—straight onto the broken trap.

  Samantha closed her eyes. Not like this, she thought.

  The clang of metal on metal filled the church, a noise so rapturous Samantha had to look. She stifled a cheer. Io stood, a step away from his previous position, his blade held out to one side blocking the thrust Karael aimed at Io's head.

  “You can stop this, my brother. All is not lost. There is still time to undo what was done.”

  Karael grimaced, using brute force to battle Io. The body once filled with life by Lucas had not healed from the recent battle in the reactor core. Flesh hung in tatters from his face. Part of his jawbone was visible. Burns streaked his arms where veins were crisped under his skin. His wings, the only part not of Lucas, hung in tatters from his back, feathers slick with black blood.

  “Time to undo it all, you say? Time to bring back our brothers? Time to send these back to the hole they crawled out from under?” Karael pointed at Rockwell and Lanier.

  There was no sign from her aunt.

  “Time perhaps to bring back the mortal who sits on the Throne of Hell and pretends to be one of us?”

  “He is one of us,” Io countered. “He passed the trials. He sacrificed himself with a pure heart and Father raised him up just as he fell. The blood chose him.”

  “Their blood?” Karael thrust one charred hand out at Samantha. “A diluted strain of a degenerate race?”

  “That is not so, brother.” Io's voice was calm, in control. “The Line of David runs pure and uncorrupted, culminating in his two ultimate progeny.”

  Karael began to laugh, a gurgling noise that resulted in a fountain of black blood spilling down his front. “So pure and uncorrupted one of them stands on the hill nearby waiting for you to open the gateway back to Heaven?” Karael disengaged, swinging his sword overhead.

  Io parried once more. “They will never make it.”

  “Neither will you. I see it in your eyes, brother. The anguish of coming so close just to have your strength sapped away by the trap. You think you aren't exactly where Crustallos wants you to be? You're stalling. The Ten are all but extinct and one weak angel isn't going to halt an army.”

  Karael moved to strike once again with his sword but Io twisted to counter his attack. Instead of continuing, Karael twisted and grabbed Io, taking himself and Io through the wall of the church.

  The building began to crumble around them. Samantha watched as Io regained his feet. The sky was now dark; flickers of lightning lent a malevolent aspect to the scene. Beyond the tussling angels stood innumerable bodies, unmoving, shadows almost as dark as the sky above. Io passed close to one. A bolt of lightning jumped from the dark being. Io screamed.

  “The twelve tribes of Israel!” Karael shouted. “All for you, brother. This portal will send e
veryone home. It's time to end Father's mistakes.”

  “Not as long as I draw breath,” Io roared, launching into the sky.

  With a scream of rage, Karael followed him, the dark spirits rising into the air behind him. The church quaked in the aftermath of the angels' ascension; the noise of clashing swords echoed throughout the sky. Lightning flashed every time they came together. The clouds boiled the countless spirits surrounding the angels as they fought.

  In the gloom of the church there was a nearby movement. Porter Rockwell and Christopher Lanier emerged from the deeper recess to stand atop the defunct trap. Outside, the shadows of men turned, rising in the wake of the angels' violent ascent. Rockwell raised a hand. Those that had not risen aloft, stopped and turned.

  “There's no way out, girl,” Rockwell purred. “They surround us. One hundred and forty four thousand life-sucking soul magnets. Touch just one of them and they will drain your life away. They are the anti-beings. Accursed and hungry.”

  “And for sale to the highest bidder,” Samantha shot back. “I've heard the tales of them following the demon Iuvart in Egypt. They're puppets under someone's control. Perhaps even yours.”

  Samantha sensed a movement in the shadows. It was Clare crawling slowly along the base of the wall, avoiding the attention from the demons. She was injured. Her arm cut and her ribs broken by the way she winced. Her own body rallied against her with no source of insulin. Samantha knew Clare wouldn't last long, but she kept her eyes on Rockwell.

  He remained still, unconcerned. “It's a shame you weren't the one caught in the trap. Stektes is more than Ioviel's match. With Karael keeping him distracted you've all but sealed the fate of this world. I'd have liked to watch the tribes chase you until you fell. Still, it falls to me to take pleasure in doing what they can't.” Rockwell crossed the seal on the middle of the dais, closing on her. Lanier hulked at his side.

  They wouldn't get to Clare, Samantha decided. Calming her mind she sought the feeling of elation that came with the portal opening. The red beam of her father had long since winked out with the church's destruction yet it granted her a legacy, the means to find her power.