Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “You…” A pulse of fear ran away from Talis when she noticed Aaron. “No. You won’t stop me. I am too close. These are my people now. My ship.”

  “The ship is not coming,” yelled Althea. “This woman is lying.” She took a step closer to Talis, pointing. “You cannot make everyone love you. I will not let you. I will not let you hurt anyone else.”

  Fear wafted from the psionics gathered under the dome. Much to her surprise, it came strongest from the adults. Althea drew upon their need, she bowed her head for an instant before thrusting her chest forward. Energy ribbons burst from her back and flared out. Her wings lifted her from the ground, bathing the area in scintillating white light. She let her arms and legs hang limp. The placid, sad look on her face filled Talis with guilt. Archon’s former ‘army’ stared in stunned silence for several seconds; a few gasped. One female voice giggled. Izzy peered out from the side of the group, laughing into the head of her giant rag doll.

  “No more death,” said Althea. “Please stop.”

  Talis’s eyes vibrated with terror. Her mind shut down and her radiance collapsed.

  A sense of every living person within the starport formed in Althea’s thoughts. All at once, an emotional reverberation rang out as they broke free from the woman’s control.

  “No,” wheezed Talis. “You can’t… What are you?”

  “You hit the nail on the head before, bitch,” said Aaron. “Little angel. Day of Reckoning and all that.”

  “Don’t kill her.” Althea glanced over her shoulder at Aaron. “The people are free. Please tell the city police not to shoot anyone.”

  “No. I’m not staying here. I need to get off this planet. Archon had the right idea. I’m taking these people, and I’m leaving one way or the other. I’m tired of hiding. We should be the ones in control, but there are too many of them. Our only choice is to find a new home.”

  “Althea!” yelled Aaron.

  She whirled to face Talis as a gun came out of the woman’s pocket. The arm holding it twisted and whipped upward, flinging the weapon into the air. Althea gazed at the pistol spiraling higher, glinting as it spun, worried it may hurt someone by going off.

  Pain.

  Althea looked down. Talis’s other hand pointed at her. A metal throwing knife stuck into her chest. Bright red blood stained outward over her immaculate white dress. Cold plastisteel inside her twitched with every breath; hot blood filled her air bag. Her wings vanished in the blink of an eye, and she collapsed in an ungainly heap on her knees, grasping the handle sticking out of her.

  “No… no… no…” growled Aaron. He tore his E-90 from its holster and fired, but the blast of azure laser missed Talis’s head by an inch as she dove to the right. “Shit!”

  Before he could fire again, a fiftyish Middle Eastern man jumped up from the crowd and threw himself in the way, a zombie’s emotionless expression on his face.

  “Die,” said Talis, a wash of gold light danced over her eyes, staring at Aaron.

  Aaron grasped two fistfuls of his hair and swooned to his knees, screaming past clenched teeth. Anything more than fifteen feet away faded to black; his brain spun into a loop, about to detonate. Sweat ran in streams down the sides of his head as he fought to hold himself back. He lifted his gaze to meet Althea’s, his eyes full of terror and apology. His shaking hand reached for her. One finger touched the blood dripping onto her thigh.

  The psionics screamed and cried Althea’s name. A few called Talis bad words. Several pulled guns on her. Orange light surrounded Althea as a circular curtain of flames swirled up, walling the child off from the rest of the world. Kate slid to a halt on her knees, holding on to Althea’s shoulders.

  “I got her, get the bitch,” yelled Kate.

  “No.” Aaron roared. “I will… resist.”

  Random crashes and cracking noises erupted around her, fading into a muted haze as the world grew distant.

  A woman’s footsteps ran off. Althea stared at the knife in her chest, feeling woozy and detached from reality. Pain, far different from any she had ever felt pulsed within her. She clasped the end with both hands. Her own blood coated her fingers. She stared at her imminent death, concerned only with how Karina and Father would feel. Dizziness pulled her forward.

  Did I save all the people? Will the ship still crash?

  “Althea?” asked an unfamiliar female voice, melodic and comforting.

  She couldn’t find the strength to lift her head.

  “Althea? It is not your time.” A beautiful blonde woman with ice blue eyes and a dingy jumpsuit the color of sky crouched in front of her. Behind her, a swirling tunnel of silver beckoned. “Althea, look at me.”

  “Mother?” Althea wept. “Am I dead?”

  “Only if you give up. Please don’t give up.”

  “Are you dead?”

  A cold hand squeezed her shoulder. “Karina is worried. She knows you are hurt.”

  Althea’s head snapped up. Her mother had vanished. Alone with Kate, she sprawled on the floor, inside a swirling vortex of fire. Horrible pain lanced her chest. She wailed.

  A loud bang preceded the thump of a body hitting the floor. The smell of ozone overpowered the stink of burning plastic for a few seconds.

  Kate, shaking and crying, grasped the knife and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you can make yourself not bleed.”

  She swooned.

  “Thea!” shouted Kate. “Don’t make me slap you.”

  She looked up, dizzy. “What?”

  “Don’t bleed.”

  Karina’s voice, sobbing, came out of nowhere. Althea blinked and stared at the blade stuck in her chest. Her hands slipped away from it, too weak to move. She shut her eyes and concentrated on her body, commanding her blood-shape to stay inside her. Kate grunted. Althea gurgled at the feeling of the edge sliding out of her. She lost concentration from the pain, screaming.

  “Damn that bitch,” said Aaron. Smoke and the scent of burned cloth choked the air from his throat. He crawled closer, away from the roiling wall of flames and held on to Althea, steadying her. “Kate, try a stim.”

  Althea floated in a haze of pain and confusion, unaware of the source of several clicking sounds to her right. A point stabbed into her chest. She looked down as the shock of cold liquid forced into her flesh dulled the pain. The little device seemed to be attempting to fix her hurt, but the hurt was too much for it. Fatigue evaporated as a second injection sent a shiver down her back.

  “They’re not doing anything,” said Kate, sounding on the verge of panic.

  Aaron exhaled smoke.

  Drool slipped from the corner of Althea’s mouth; she stared at the wound, trying to comprehend what had happened. Mangling her wrist to get out of the handcuff had hurt more than this. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on a small slice in her heart-shape. At her urging, it closed, followed by her air bag. She willed the blood inside the air hollow back into the tubes in which it belonged. Hunger roared in her belly, and the pain subsided.

  Althea took two rapid breaths and concentrated as hard as she could on wanting Karina to know she was okay.

  “Althea?” Kate sounded close to sobbing.

  When the woman shook her, she opened her eyes. Kate pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back and squeezing her with a mother’s desperation. The protective cyclone of flames dissipated, leaving a ring of scorched tile around them. Althea rubbed the spot where the knife had been and cried on Kate’s shoulder.

  Aaron patted Althea on the head and lurched upright. He staggered down the concourse in a drunken lope, a small char mark at the center of his back. “Thanks for the zap.” He shot a look at Anna. “Bitch almost got me. Shitballs, that hurt.”

  “She almost got all of us… if you’d gone off.” Anna started after him, but stopped when Alastair forced his way out of the crowd and ran to her.

  “Mum!” he yelled, bursting into tears. “Izzy said Dad’s dead.”

  Anna looked at Althea with a ‘help me’ expr
ession as the boy flung himself into her. She embraced him out of reflex and looked at the rest of the group. “I’m sorry… Alex—Alastair, he… yes, he died.”

  The boy wailed.

  Kate pulled Althea standing and held her close as they moved up behind Anna. Division 0 tactical officers in gloss black armor tromped up the concourse.

  “Listen to me. It’s over.” Anna approached the refugees, Alastair clinging to her side.

  People muttered and looked around. Many conversations in multiple languages created a din louder than the approaching police officers. Althea looked among them, feeling a sense of relief from some. Others gazed around with fear. A handful got angry. An unusual sense of adoration emanated from among them, near the middle. Althea leaned around Kate to get a better look, squinting. A skinny blonde girl around Karina’s age sprawled on the floor with both arms wrapped around a four-foot tall rag doll. She clutched it to her chest, gazing over its head at Althea with a wide smile. At the instant they made eye contact, the girl sprang to her feet. Pink sneakers emitted soft meows as she ran over and slid to a halt, kneeling in front of her, holding up the doll.

  “I named her Althea,” said the strange girl.

  Althea blinked.

  “I knew you would save us.” The girl clamped her arms around the live Althea, sandwiching the stuffed version between them. “The shadow people told me what you did on the roof.”

  Althea sensed no malice on the young woman and tolerated the physical display of gratitude. Director Carter approached with a line of tactical officers behind her. Althea waved at her, grinning.

  Anna mumbled something to the boy and shot a loud crack of lightning into the ceiling to silence the crowd. Worry and fear wafted from her as the police took up positions around the group of psionics.

  Most of the Division 0 people, Director Carter included, gazed at the lightning bolt while radiating awe, fear, or confusion in varying degrees. Althea glanced at them, unsure why a small lightning bolt caused such reaction. She picked the strongest source of awe and peeked at the surface thoughts of a tall blonde woman who thought of Anna as an ‘electrokinetic,’ but couldn’t understand how she’d generated a bolt that big without something called a conductor.

  Carter halted at Anna’s left. “Miss Morgan. Meredith and Lucy were rather talkative.”

  Relief. Anna took a deep breath. “Please tell me they’re safe.”

  “Yes.” Carter smiled. “They’ve been on the vid with their families. We’re making arrangements to get them home.”

  Anna raised her voice, addressing the crowd. “What Archon has been telling us over the past several years has been somewhat exaggerated. These police here, in the UCF, are not our enemy. They will not send any of you back where you came from… unless you want to go. None of you will be harmed. Please, everyone, just stay calm.”

  Althea smiled.

  Calm she could do.

  70

  Succubus

  Aaron

  The weight of a dying star balanced upon Aaron’s skull. Talis’s suggestion had almost succeeded in setting off his out-of-control brain. Perhaps he had been able to hold it back long enough for Anna to shock him due to the vagary of it. A simple command to ‘die’ seldom did anything more than create confusion—too many variables. Talis’s power was such that his brain started to work out the most efficient way to go about accomplishing death. The ambiguity had allowed him to hold the eruption at bay, long enough for Anna to knock him senseless with a shock to the back. Maybe Talis knew he would resist an imprecise compulsion like that, or perhaps she didn’t care if he ‘went off,’ and only wanted to buy herself time to run.

  His head throbbing, his shoulder burning, Aaron sprinted after the bitch down a long hallway full of offshoots to various terminal gates. She took the first right, setting off a myriad of alarms as she ducked through an abandoned security station into an elevated concourse leading to interplanetary departures. Curved transparent windows lined both sides, making him feel like a hamster running along tubes in a fancy cage. Metal-faced benches offered spots for tourists to sit and watch the shuttles as they jockeyed around the tarmac, took off, or landed.

  RedLink occupied a large section of the terminal, as they handled sixty percent of all flights ferrying people back and forth to Mars. A few side passages branched off to various lunar commuter shuttles. Seven-foot tall holographic posters advertised the joy of colony life, pitching it as ‘the new wild west.’ Wholesome families in space suits posed in front of silvery drop-box buildings with a neat garden and perfect sunset in the background.

  Talis, looking back over her shoulder at Aaron, ran headlong into a pair of Division 6 assault officers emerging from a commuter terminal. They grabbed her by the arms and hauled her off her feet.

  “Calm down, Miss. You’re safe.”

  “No, you twats!” yelled Aaron. “She’s the suspect.”

  Full-face helmets covered in shiny green metallic pivoted to face him. Once they recognized his uniform, their stance changed. Rather than support a terrified woman, they contained a dangerous suspect.

  Too late.

  “Help, he’s trying to kill me!” wailed Talis, sounding like a teen girl. “Kill him.”

  The two men staggered, dizzy for a second. She slipped out of their grasp and hid behind them, pointing at Aaron. “Kill him. Please, kill him before he can hurt me.”

  The men raised their weapons.

  “Oh, bollocks,” muttered Aaron as he skidded to a halt. “Sorry, boys.”

  He seized the pair in a telekinetic grip. A spray of blue muzzle flash erupted from their rifles as he spun them each to the side. The curved glass along the hallway shattered in a creeping line for a few seconds before the men ceased shooting, grunting as they strained to correct their aim. Aaron swung his hands apart, and the assault officers flew away from each other, gliding out the broken windows. Seconds later, they hit the ground one story below.

  Talis’s eyes bugged out of her head.

  He smiled. “Jes’ you an’ me now, luv. I’ve a message from Allie.”

  She whipped around and ran, but got only two steps before he swept her into the air and slammed her flat on her chest, making her bark and wheeze. Aaron drilled her into the ceiling and let her fall again. She grabbed her knee and screamed, rolling onto her back. Aaron brushed his arm to the side, sending her skidding into the wall. Six times, he threw her careening back and forth like a pinball between the poster stands and the walls until she stopped moving with any semblance of coordination.

  Her body slid to a halt at his feet; one blackened eye puffed closed. Blood seeped out of her nose and mouth, as well as from an uncountable number of small cuts where she’d slid over broken glass.

  Her open eye, unfocused, gazed right past him.

  Aaron squatted over her. The sight of the broken woman almost made him feel guilty, but knowing who she was—and what she had done to Allison, to him, to Althea, and to Anna—let him hold his conscience at bay.

  “So, how’d it work?” asked Aaron, forcing his telepathic feelers into her mind.

  Talis coughed.

  “You and Archon. Did he really rewrite you into a groveling wretch, or does that Oscar go to you?”

  He dove into her memories, back to the starship plant, watching the moment when Aaron had almost cornered her. Archon, tired of Aaron’s traipsing about and delaying everything, had shown up to get rid of her for him. They’d stumbled across each other in a dank concrete tunnel, stained green from whatever chemicals had been used to treat starship engine parts. As soon as he realized she was Awakened, his attitude changed. Talis had been thrilled to hear of his plan to leave Earth. He did not need to influence her. Of all the Awakened he had ever encountered, Talis had been the most eager and the most alike in mindset. Leave Earth—something she’d been dreaming about for years. Like him, she felt herself elevated above the ‘mundanes.’ They’d both been wrong. Archon had not been under her control as Anna feared,
and contrary to Aaron’s opinion, she had been able to act afraid of him.

  “You lying bitch,” Aaron slapped her, knocking blood from her teeth. “You weren’t sorry. You were just trying to save your own ass.”

  She gurgled. “She wasn’t the first cop I had to put down. If it makes you feel any better, I really didn’t know she was your wife.”

  Aaron grabbed two fistfuls of her shirt, shaking her. “Would it have mattered if you did?” He flung her to the floor. “You tried to kill Althea.” He slapped her again, knocking her face the other way. “What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s an innocent child!”

  “She’s stronger than me.” Talis coughed up blood. “I couldn’t let her make everyone hate me.”

  “You twisted bitch.” Aaron lifted his E-90 out of its holster. “None of these people ever liked you to begin with. She only reminded them of who they were before you got them all killed. Archon’s dead! The ship is probably going to smash into the city and kill us all. Even if it doesn’t, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Talis shivered, grunting under the telekinetic force holding her to the floor. “W-what are you going to do?”

  Aaron glanced at the silver laser pistol. “This is the gun you forced me to murder my wife with.” He pointed it at her face. “I think it’s only fitting to—”

  Something touched his arm.

  He looked down at the crook of his elbow, at a child’s blood-caked fingernails. Past his sleeve hovered a somber face with two glowing blue eyes. Althea shook her head at him. Blood stained the front of her dress, but the bit of skin visible in the slit fabric looked whole.

  Aaron sighed, glared at Talis, and raised his hand. “…beat you senseless with it.”

  Althea frowned.

  Unbelievable. This kid isn’t fecking human. He paused. Well, mostly.

  He peeled Talis off the ground, forcing her to sit up and look at Althea.

  “Do you understand this? Even after you damn near killed her, she doesn’t want you to die.” Aaron smirked at the ceiling and mumbled, “Of course, she didn’t want Archon to die, either.”