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There was a sudden flash of brilliance—and the cavern was filled with an eerie silence as the denizens of Heaven returned to their homes— but not before he heard the whispering voice of the Archangel Gabrielin his ear. "You have your father's eyes."

chapter thirteen

The people of Blithe were vomiting—and Aaron imagined he knew exactly how they must feel. No, hedidn't have some crablike creature living inside his chest, but he had just received the very first pieces ofinformation he had ever learned about his
real
 
father; that the prophecy had something to do with hisfather's sins, and that he had his father's eyes. He thought he might be sick.

Aaron, Camael, and Gabriel moved through the winding passage that led up from Leviathan's lair, to oneof the many chambers that had been excavated out of the rock by the townspeople under the seamonster's thrall.

"Gross,"Gabriel said, and Aaron couldn't have agreed more. The people, who up until Leviathan's demise had been busily clearing away tons of rock and dirt in an attempt to freethe beast, had stopped their work. They had dropped their tools and were bent over in obvious pain—their bodies racked with vomiting and throwing up the horrible things that had crawled inside to control their actions.

"Are they all right?" Aaron asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the repellant sounds of people in the

midst of being sick.

"Their bodies are rejecting Leviathan's invasive spawn," the angel warrior said, rather blase.
"1
 
would

imagine they will be fine—as soon as the dead creatures and their nests are expelled from the body."

The floor of the smaller chamber was puddled with all manner of foulness, and the already decayingremains of the spiderlike things that had taken up residence in their bodies.

Aaron wasn't exactly sure how he felt about what he had learned; it wasn't as if he had been given aphone number or a home address. The identity of the man—
angel
—that had sired him was still acomplete mystery, and one that he really couldn't afford to think about right now. He decided that hewould deal with it later, when things had calmed down—when things were back to normal. He laughedto himself, as if his life could ever be that way again.

"I wonder how long those things have been inside them?" Aaron asked to distract himself as they

proceeded from the smaller cavern, his level of disgust quickly on the rise.

"Most likely since Verchiel wholeheartedly abandoned his holy mission and became obsessed with preventing the prophecy from becoming a reality," Camael said as they walked a runnel that would he hoped take them to the surface.

"So this is something else I can be blamed for?" Aaron asked, feeling the dirt pathway of the tunnel beneath his feet begin to slant upward. They continued to pass the people of Blithe, many of them passed out from the exertion of purging the foreign invaders from their bodies.

"In a way, yes," the angel said. "By ignoring their tasks, the Powers have allowed the forces of chaos to take root in the world, growing in strength unabated. I shudder to think of what other malignant purveyors of wickedness are hiding in the shadows of the world."

"Great," Aaron responded with a heavy sigh. "Wouldn't want to be let off easy or anything. I wonder if I have anything to do with global warming?" he asked, his words dripping sarcasm. "We might want to look into that."

Gabriel ran up ahead of them and had begun to bark excitedly.
 
"We're almost to the surface,"
 
he cried,waiting until they caught up, and then running up ahead. The dog was as sick of being underground asthey were, Aaron imagined, and wanted nothing more than to breathe in some nice fresh air.

They emerged from the tunnel out into themain excavation in the heart of the former boat factory. Aaronnoticed that the heavy digging machinery had been silenced, and the only sound that could be heardthroughout the air of the place was that of retching. Everywhere he looked, somebody was being sick orincapacitated as a result of being sick.

"This is just too much," Aaron said, taking it all in. "Those things must have been living inside just about

everybody in town."

An angled road of dirt had been constructed on the floor of the dig so that trucks and such could bedriven down into the hole, and Aaron and his companions used the packed-earth path to ascend to thelip of the excavation at ground level.

As the three moved toward the door that would take them out of the factory, and walked around theviolently ill, being careful to step over the reeking puddles that contained the decomposing corpses of Leviathan's children, Aaron caught sight of Katie McGovern and went to her. "Katie," he said as heapproached. "Are you all right?" His guess about the filthy man in the cave veterinary clinic had beencorrect, for her former boyfriend Kevin was with her, and they both gazed at him slack-jawed, theirbodies racked with chills. Aaron saw no recognition in Katie's eyes, and he began to feel afraid.

"What's the matter with them?" he asked Camael, who now stood by his side staring at the two as he

was.

"Shock, I'd imagine," the angel said. "Their minds are attempting to adjust to the horrors they have experienced. The human mind is a wondrous invention indeed," he said as he stepped closer to Katie's former fiance. Camael reached out and grabbed the man by the chin, looking deeply into his eyes. "By the morrow they'll have only the vaguest idea that something had happened to them at all," he said, as if attempting to get a glimpse of the inner workings of a human being. "To most, it will become the distant memory of a horrible nightmare." He let Kevin's face go and proceeded to the door. "Such is the coping mechanism of the mortal brain."

Aaron and Gabriel followed the angel out into the early morning dawn. Outside the door, Chief Dexter

leaned against his patrol car. He had thrown up onto the windshield, and it looked as though he wasn't quite finished yet. Aaron quickly looked away. "So they won't remember any of this?" he asked the angel who was now striding toward the parking lot.

Gabriel sniffed around the tires of the parked cars, completely disinterested in their conversation. Therewas valuable sniffing time to be recouped.

"They'll remember, but their minds will shape the event into something that they will be able to accept—no matter how odd or unlikely," Camael answered. "It's how their minds work—how they were designed. And those that do remember thereality of the situation, and dare to speak of it, will be ostracized and labeled as insane."

"Nice," Aaron said, a little taken aback by the angel's cold interpretation of the human psyche. He was silent for the moment, digesting the angelic warrior's words, and decided that he didn't buy it. "If that's how our poor human brains work, than how come I didn't chalk up all this angel crap to eating bad tuna or a high fever due to some rare African virus?"

The angel stopped and turned to stare. "You are Nephilim," Camael said, as if that would be more thanenough of an answer.

"Yeah, but I'm still human, right?" Aaron said, staring at the angel and gazing into his steely gray eyes.

On the outskirts of the parking lot, he waited for the angel to respond. Camael remained silent—but thelack of an answer spoke volumes.

"What are you trying to say?" Aaron asked nervously.

It was then that the angel spoke. "You were sired by an angel. You are no more human than I am."

It felt as though he'd been struck. Even though deep down inside, Aaron already knew this, hearing itcome out of Camael's mouth was like a whack with a two-by-four between the eyes.

I'm not human,he thought, letting the concept rattle around inside his brain. Could his life be any weirder?

He again heard the Archangel Gabriel's final words to him—before the angel had taken the express busto Heaven. The words about his father.

"The Archangel Gabriel said that what I was doing—the prophecy?—was somehow connected to the

sins of my father," Aaron said to his angel companion as they reached the padlocked gate.

"Yes," Camael said as a sword of flame came to life in his hands and he severed the chain with a single slice. "And he also said that you have his eyes." Camael pushed open the gate and strode through onto the road.

Aaron held back, waiting for his dog to finish up sniffing around a patch of weeds.

"Do you know who he is, Camael?" Aaron asked as his dog trotted over to join him. "My father—do

you know who my father is?"

The angel had continued to walk up the road, but he stopped and slowly turned. "I do not, no," he said,shaking his head. "But what I do know is that he must have been an angel of formidable power to have

sired one like you." Camael then promptly turned away, continuing on his journey.

"I think he just paid you a compliment, Aaron,"Gabriel said as he walked alongside him.

Aaron smiled slightly. "I think you might be right there, Gabe."

Berkely Streetwas deathly quiet in the early morning stillness, as was the rest of Blithe. Aaronremoved apair of sweatpants and shirt from the backseat of his car and prepared to put them on over his filthy andripped clothing.

"I think I might have an extra sweatshirt," he said to Camael, gazing at the angel's filthy suit with a

wrinkled nose.

"That will be unnecessary," he said.

And Aaron watched with amazement as the accumulated dirt and grime on his companion's suit fadedaway before his eyes, leaving it as if it had just come from the cleaners. The angel then adjusted his tie,glancing casually in his direction.

"Let me guess," Aaron said as he pulled the sweatshirt down over his head. "I could do that, too, if I just

applied myself."

Camael was about to respond, but Aaron put up a hand to silence him; he didn't have the time or energyfor a dissertation right now. He finished putting on the rest of his clean clothes and checked out hisreflection in the side mirror of his car. It would have to do for now. That was all he needed, for Mrs. Provost to see him looking like he'd been through World War III. It was going to be hard enough toexplain what had happened and how she had come to be locked in the cellar.

Camael studied the quaint house with squinted eyes. "And you say that the old woman attacked you?"

"Yeah," Aaron said as he combed his unruly hair with his fingers. "I knocked her out and put her in the

cellar. I didn't want to take the risk ofher letting the other people in town know I was on to them."

"I'm very hungry after being inside the belly of a monster,"Gabriel declared, and hurriedly headed up the

walk to the front door.
 
"I wonder if she'll have any meat loaf?"

"Not if she's been locked in the basement all night, pal," he said, coming up behind the dog and reaching

for the doorknob.

It was unlocked, and Aaron swung the door wide—and was immediately hit with the smell of somethingcooking, something that made his belly ache and come to the realization that Gabriel wasn't the only onewho was very hungry.

"Mrs. Provost?" he called out, looking around the foyer and the area around it. Strangely enough, it showed no sign of their struggle. They all moved toward the kitchen, toward the wonderful smell of breakfast cooking, Camael backing up the rear.

"Mrs. Provost?" he said again as he came around the door frame and saw the older woman at the stove. She was wearing an apron and was frying up some bacon. The old woman turned momentarily from her cooking to give him a smile. "Morning," she said, reaching up with a white bandaged hand to brush away a stray whisp of white hair from her forehead. "Knew the smell of cooking would get you in here." She

went back to work, carefully favoring the injured hand.

"What happened to your hand?" he asked her, knowing full well that she had burned it on his sword during their scuffle. She was placing some strips of bacon onto a folded paper towel on the stove, and Gabriel went to her, tail wagging. She was careful to finish up what she was doing before petting the animal with her good hand.

"I'm not really sure," she said, rubbing the dog's ears. "Think I took a bit of a spill down the cellar steps last night," she said kind of dreamily, straining to recall what had happened to her. "Must've knocked myself senseless and touched something hot on the furnace."

She peeled some more strips of the breakfast meat out of the package and laid them in the greasy pan. "Even found a way to lock myself inside," she said with a laugh. "Good thing I found a spare skeleton keydown there or I'd still be locked up." The old woman was making sure that the bacon was lined upstraight in the pan. "Probably should go see the doctor to rule out concussion or anything," she added. Gabriel lay down on the floor at her feet, gazing up at her adoringly.

Aaron turned and looked at Camael behind him. The angel had been precisely right. Mrs. Provost'sbrain had done exactly as he described. It had attempted to rationalize the bizarreness of the situation,steering clear of anything that would be too difficult to explain or comprehend.

Mrs. Provost placed her fork down and walked to the refrigerator, all the while under the watchful eyeof hisLabrador . "I was just about to cook up some eggs," she said, pulling on the fridge door to open it. "My father always used to say that a big breakfast could cure what ails you," she said, removing thecarton of fresh white eggs. "Thought today might be a good day to take his advice."