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When it was finally able to emerge from its underground prison, Verchiel and the Powers would need tobe dealt with. And they would feel the ferocity of Leviathan's wrath and know its insatiable hunger.

The picture of a small child—the Nephilim's sibling—flashed within the monster's mind. It was theboy-child it had used to bring the Nephilim here to Blithe. But the Nephilim saw through the ruse, andattempted to free himself—unsuccessfully.

Leviathan would do everything in its power to keep the half-breed as his own. The life-force within himwas strong, intoxicating, and it would serve the behemoth well in its eventual dominion of the world.

It could sense that the Nephilim was thinking of the child again—the child in the clutches of Verchiel. This agitated the Nephilim, made him struggle all the more, interrupting the pleasures of the digestiveprocess. Leviathan was annoyed, and again forced his way into the angelic being's thoughts. It wouldneed to assure the youth that any hope of rescuing his brother from the clutches of the Powers was futile.

"Give up," said Leviathan to the Nephilim. "Your struggles are all for naught."

The great beast painfully recoiled, the mental activity of the angelic being frantically struggling within oneof his many bellies, causing renewed discomfort.

In the youth's mind there was a thought, an image of a blinding light, a light so bright that it could pierceeven the most infinite of stygian depths. And the light, that horrible, searing light, had begun to take shape,becoming something that filled the ancient deity with a feeling of dread.

The light in the Nephilim's mind had become a weapon, a weapon Leviathan had not seen since thefateful battle that had trapped it in the underground cavern.

The light had become a sword—the sword of God's messenger.

Aaron was drowning.

He tried with all his might to fight it, to keep the foul liquid from inside his body, but there was a voice, acalm, soothing voice that attempted to convince him that this was the wrong thing to do, that the fightwould only prolong his pain.

Then the silky smooth tones inside his head, which promised him the end to his suffering if he would onlygive up, told him that his little brother was dead, that the angel Verchiel had destroyed the child soonafter he was taken, that the fight was all for nothing.

And there was the overpowering sorrow of this knowledge, combined with the weighty sadness he hadalready been carrying: the death of his parents, being forced to flee the life he'd built for himself—to leave Vilma—it was all too painful. He had almost started to believe that it was best for him to submit, to allowthe milky solution to fill his mouth and flow into his lungs.

But then the sword was there—the mysterious weapon seemingly forged from the rays of the sun,piercing the darkness of his innermost misery, burning away the shroud of sorrow and despair thatenveloped him to reveal the truth.

The truth.

Aaron screamed within the membranous sack, expelling the foul liquids that had managed to find theirway into his body. The sword was in his hand, as it had been that night in his dream, glowing like the newdawn, revealing the true nature of the nightmare that had taken him captive. He drew back the sword oflight and cleaved his way through the fleshy, elastic wall of his prison. In his mind he heard a scream—theshriek of a monster in pain.

The fluid immediately began to drain from the open cut in the digestive organ, and he was able tobreathe. The stench of the air within the sack was foul, but it was what his aching lungs cravednonetheless. He gulped greedily at the fetid atmosphere, like a man dying of thirst, coughing up remnantsof the invasive liquid.

The fleshy chamber, in which he was still imprisoned, began to buck and sway, bellows of rage and painthundering around him.

He had to get out, to escape the grabbing, organic confines, and he threw himself at the gash he had cutinto it. It was what he imagined birth to be—squeezing his head through the slice—which had,miraculously, already begun to heal. Aaron tumbled from the wound, falling a great distance, beforelanding upon a floor of solid rock with a jarring thud. Stars exploded before his eyes, and for a momenthe thought he might lose consciousness, but he shook it off, scrambling to stand, the weapon of light stillin hand.

He looked around and saw that he was in a vast, underground cavern. The place was eerily quiet exceptfor the distant thrum of the pounding surf. Thick patches of a luminescent fungus grew on the walls,throwing a sparse and eerie green light about the sprawling cave.

The blow came from behind. His mind likened it to the approach of a freight train, hitting him with suchforce that he was thrown through the air to land against a far wall. His head was ringing, and the bones ofhis back and legs screamed their protest as he struggled to regain his footing. He was bleeding from adozen places, but still managed to hold on to the sword of light and brandished it as he fought to stand

erect.

"The sword of the messenger," something bellowed from within the darkness of the cave, and then it leaned toward him, revealing itself, its tubular body so large, it was barely able to move. "Iwould have thought it impossible for one such as you to wield a weapon so mighty."

Though his body continued to protest, Aaron held the blade tighter as the black-scaled monster loomedabove him. He studied the details of the creature that could only be Leviathan. Its body was covered infine, interconnecting scales, like chain mail, and it swayed snakelike above him. Repulsed, Aaron couldsee things living beneath its body armament, familiar spidery things that would have liked nothing betterthan to crawl down the throats of every living thing upon the planet.

It lashed out at him with a tentacle as thick as a tree trunk, and Aaron scrabbled quickly over the cavefloor. It was like the deafening crack of the world's largest bullwhip, the fleshy appendage fragmenting therock where he once had stood.

Leviathan shifted its great size within the cavern to follow Aaron's progress, the top of its head rubbingagainst the ceiling as it attempted to maneuver its enormous mass in the confining space. "Where are yougoing, Nephilim?" it asked in its horrible, thunderous voice. "You cannot escape me. Surrender to theinevitable."

Some of the black-shelled spider things fell from the monster's body and eagerly scuttled across the cavefloor to get at him. The blade of the messenger—as Leviathan had called it— made short work of thecrawling things.

As he dispatched the spawn of the monster, something began to bother him. Since awakening within thedigestive sack of the monster, he had not felt the presence of his angelic power. As he destroyed more of

Leviathan's pets, he tried to remember when last he had felt the force, always so eager to be unleashed.

It had been back in the tunnels, when he had been attackedby Katie McGovern and the residents of

Blithe. It had screamed to be free and he had rebuked it, pushing it away as he had done since that firstbattle with the angel Verchiel.

Leviathan squirmed its bulk closer. Had the great monster somehow sucked it away? Aaron wonderedas another of the Leviathan's tentacles reached down to ensnare him in its grasp. He swung at themuscular appendage, and it recoiled from the blade, hovering in the air before him like a cobra waiting forits opportunity to strike.

"Where are you?" he whispered to the presence that should have stirred inside him. "I really could use your help around now," Aaron said, alert as the monster's tentacle again attacked. There was no answer, and Aaron felt a wave of despair wash over him as he threw his diminishing strength into fighting the plentiful appendages that reached for him. He brought the blade down and watched as it dug deep into the black, muscular flesh of the beast.

"Yarrrrggghhhh," Leviathan roared as it violently pulled the injured limb away—and with it, the sword of the messenger. Aaron watched dumbfounded as the tentacle thrashed, dislodging the annoyance—sending it hurling across the cave, far from his reach, where it disappeared in a blinding flash. Panic set in.
Without
any contact with the angelic nature, is it still possible
for me to defend myself?
 
he wondered frantically.

He pressed his back to the cave wall and attempted to conjure a weapon of his own creation. Aaronbreathed a sigh of relief as a blade of fire, puny in comparison with the splendor of the sword of the

messenger, began to form in his hand. At least that power had not been taken from him.

Leviathan wasted no time and again attacked. The behemoth twisted within the confines of the cave,bringing its enormous mass down toward Aaron. The sword of flame sprang fully to life in his grasp, andhe was raising the blade to defend himself against this latest onslaught, when his attention fell upon themany, fleshy sacks that hung obscenely from the front of the descending beast.

Aaron froze as he stared into the contents of the sea beast's numerous stomachs: the missing Camael, hispoor Gabriel—one of the ugly little creatures that had attacked them on their way to Blithe—and somany others, all trapped within the bellies of the beast. The horror of it all was almost too much for him tostand.

"The sight of me—of my magnificence—it fills you with wonder," Leviathan said, reaching down to claim

Aaron as its own.

Its writhing body shifted, and a rain of tentacles fell from above to ensnare him. Aaron slashed at therelentless onslaught, the fiery weapon severing many of the limbs. The beast shrieked in pain, but still itattacked.

And as he fought, Aaron could not help but return his gaze to a mysterious being he saw floating withinone of the digestive sacks. He knew—somehow,
instinctively?
 
—that this was an angel, but that samesomething also told him that this was an angel of enormous prestige and power.
An archangel.
 
Throughthe opaque skin and milky fluid he could see the ornate armor that hung from the emaciated body of theheavenly being.

"Look upon those that fell before my might, Nephilim," gurgled the monster, assaulting his ears and mind. "He was the Archangel Gabriel—the messenger of God, an extension of the Creator's Word—and he was vanquished as easily as the others."

Aaron's mind was suddenly filled with images of the monster's battle with God's messenger. He saw thewinged warrior descend from the heavens, his golden armor glistening beautifully in the dimness of theprimordial world. The angel dove beneath the churning waves to confront his quarry, wielding theawesome sword of light.

The battle that Aaron bore witness to could only be described as epic in proportion: a force of thepurest light against unfathomable darkness—two opposing powers coming together in a conflict that quiteliterally rocked the world. The ocean waters around them boiled and churned, kicking up rock, dirt, andsilt. Greatundersea mountains quaked and crumbled, then the ocean floor split apart, a yawning chasmappearing beneath the opponents, still lost in the midst of conflict. And they tumbled into the gapingabyss, swallowed up by the cataclysmic fury unleashed by their struggle.

The vision came to an abrupt end with the disturbing and final sight of Leviathan engulfing the diminishedangel Gabriel within its cavernous mouth. The messenger of God struggled pathetically as he wasgradually drawn down the gullet of the beast—immured within one of the behemoth's many stomachs;eternal food for the beast, trapped in a cave, far beneath the sea.

Leviathan laughed within Aaron's mind, a low, gurgling sound, filled with a perverse confidence.
Noteven a messenger from God Himself could defeat the monster,
 
Aaron thought as he continued hisbattle with the writhing tentacles.
What chance do 1 have?
 
he wondered, his efforts against thebehemoth beginning to slow. He knew this was what the monster wanted, but he couldn't shake the sensethat his struggles against the beast were not going to be enough.

Leviathan's attack was relentless, and it wasn't long before one of the tentacles ensnared the wrist thatheld his weapon of fire. He tried to pull away, to somehow use the flaming blade against the slimy blacklimb, but it was to noeffect. There was a sudden sharp snap and blinding pain as his wrist was broken. Aaron cried out in shock, watching the sword fall from his grasp, evaporating in the cold, damp air of thecave before it could even touch the ground.

Aaron struggled in the monster's grasp as tentacles wrapped themselves around his arms, his legs, andwaist, constricting almost all movement. He found himself lifted from the ground and born aloft.

Drawn upward to the monster's mouth.

chapter eleven

Leviathan's muscular tendrils hauled him closer. Aaron tried to squirm from their strangling grasp, but themonster's hold upon him was too strong. The sea beast attacked his mind as well, weakening his resolve,taking away his desire to fight back. The spider-things living beneath the behemoth's armored scaleschittered and hissed as Aaron's body was drawn steadily upward.

He was almost to Leviathan's mouth, a yawning chasm of razor-sharp teeth, when he heard anothervoice in his head. It was soft at first, a soothing whisper, like the sound of the wind moving through thetrees on a cool fall night. He focused on this new, not unpleasant, tickle and struggled to stay conscious.

He opened his eyes and found himself gazing into one of the many opaque sacks hangingfrom thegigantic beast—the one that held God's messenger. The Archangel Gabriel's eyes opened, and Aaronknew it was
his
 
presence within his mind.