The Fallen 4 (12 page)

The chamber became choked with the smell of blood, and offal, and fluids of every conceivable consistency, and Scox
could only watch as the Community was cut down.

Then Satan left the stage, swooping down to slay those that sought to escape his justice. They died as all the others had, quickly, painfully, choking on their life fluids.

Armor stained with the lives of those he had wished to lead, Satan walked amongst the fallen, seeking out those who still clung to life, and making certain that they clung no more.

As he drove the end of his glorious black blade through the throat of a struggling frost giant, Satan turned his gaze toward the stage.

To where Scox knelt in a pool of blood.

The imp’s eyes locked with his masters, but he remained silent, waiting for his lord to be the first to speak.

“Well,” Satan said as he looked back at the carnage that he had caused. “That certainly could have gone better.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

J
eremy dreamed of Vilma.

Her lovely dark hair, her bronze-colored skin, her wings of fawn dappled with flecks of white and black.

They flew together, high in the air above a fantastic city of golden spires. She teased him, attempting to evade him with some pretty brilliant aerial acrobatics, but he was a determined soul and matched her maneuverability.

But he didn’t want it this way. Jeremy didn’t want to catch Vilma. He wanted Vilma to willingly come to him. He wanted her to know how right they were together. He wanted both of them to want the same thing.

She dove down to the city skyline, weaving in and out between the towers that seemed to be made from gold infused with the power of the sun. Jeremy considered letting her go about her business. Then he saw her chance a look, to see if he
was still there. Vilma smiled that smile that drove him mad, and Jeremy flapped his wings all the harder to catch up with her.

With a smile like that cast in his direction, he would never give up the chase.

The wind rushed in his ears as his wings flapped harder and faster. Vilma was almost in reach. He soared above her, looking down at her delicate yet powerful wings, the glorious musculature of her back that allowed the appendages of flight to move with such flawless efficiency. His eyes continued their journey over the beauty of her details, the long, muscular legs that—

The tower needle seemed to appear from out of nowhere, but he knew he just hadn’t been paying attention.

Almost striking the antennae, Jeremy narrowly averted the potentially deadly situation, but found himself spiraling toward the ground. Though barely able to control his descent, he managed to get some air beneath his wings just before he would have crashed through a rooftop. It wasn’t graceful, but it beat breaking a leg or wing.

For a moment he lay there on the roof, stunned, reviewing what had just happened, and how Aaron would have berated him for not keeping his head in the game. Jeremy remembered Vilma’s muscles flexing and releasing beneath her skin of golden brown, the delicate line of her back, and the way her bottom…

He closed his eyes and smiled, holding on to the memory with both hands. His head was in the game all right.

Sitting upright, he checked himself to be sure he’d survived
the awkward landing unscathed. He had. Getting to his feet with a moan, Jeremy glanced up to see an image of absolute beauty flying toward him at a decent clip.

He considered diving out of the way but decided to hold his ground. What did the Americans call it? Playing chicken.

Yeah, that was it. Playing chicken.

He’d play the game to see who would blink first.

She hit him like a runaway train, driving them both back along the roof in a tumble of arms and legs. Vilma lay atop him, looking down into his eyes, and Jeremy was startled by her intensity.

He struggled to say something, but could only concentrate on the feeling of her weight pressing against him. Vilma’s wings fanned ever so slowly on either side of them.

Vilma looked as though she were about to make a smartass comment that he should look where he was going.

But instead her face darted down to his, her lips hungrily seeking out his own. He’d thought the kiss he had stolen from her on the school grounds had felt amazing, but now he knew how wrong he’d been. This kiss was electrifying.

Jeremy kissed her back, his arms circling her delicate yet muscular body as his hands ran along her back, and onto her wings.

It was as he’d always imagined it would be. He had an overwhelming feeling that this was right, and from her reaction to him, he knew she felt the same way.

They were supposed to be together.

*   *   *

Jeremy wasn’t sure at first what woke him. The feeling of Vilma’s lips pressed to his slowly began to diminish, and he tried desperately to hold on to the memory of them for just a little bit longer.

He was disappointed that it was only a dream. But what a dream! His body was slick with sweat, and he could still feel his heart beating triple time behind his ribs. He’d dreamed of Vilma often but never with this intensity.

But the telly in the other room blared as if it were in the room with him.

“The bloody hell,” Jeremy grumbled, throwing his feet over the side of the mattress and heading toward the door. They’d had a right difficult time getting the exceptionally crabby Baby Roger to go down for the night, and if he should be awakened, there would most certainly be hell to pay.

Throwing open the door, Jeremy was assaulted by how loud the television was actually playing. Cursing his mother for her lack of common sense, never mind for awakening him from the most spectacular dream he’d ever experienced, he prepared some choice words for old Irene. As he reached the end of the short hallway and entered the small but cozy living room, he stopped. The telly channels were switching, but there was nobody in the room.

“Mum?” Jeremy called out, his eyes going to the overstuffed chair where she usually sat, but the seat was empty.

Like some sort of zombie he lumbered forward into the
living space, coming up against the back of the equally overstuffed sofa and looking over the side.

Nestled in the corner of the couch, back propped up against two pillows, sat Baby Roger. He was holding the television remote in two chubby hands and pressing the buttons, watching as the programs ticked past.

“Oh, my,” was all Jeremy could say as he watched the infant, almost convinced that this was yet another dream.

Until Roger noticed him standing there.

The baby looked at Jeremy with large and strangely intelligent eyes.

“Would you be so kind as to get me a bottle, Jeremy?” Baby Roger asked before turning back to the television. “I’m absolutely famished… and I think I may have soiled myself.”

Jeremy was numb with shock, capable of only staring in disbelief.

Baby Roger glanced at him briefly, smiling a toothless grin and waving a chubby hand. “Jeremy, I have my needs.”

The Nephilim broke the paralysis that had held him in place, stiffly turning away from the baby and lurching toward his mother’s bedroom, screaming for her as he had as a wee child when the bogeyman had come for him in the night.

*   *   *

Aaron stood silently in the doorway, watching Lorelei struggle.

She leaned against one of the lab tables, rubbing her left palm, which was now twisted like a claw. Her expression told
him that she was in great pain, and he felt that sorry, helpless feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew that he was at least partially responsible for her declining health and that there was no way he could make her better.

The spells she cast, the spells that ravaged her body, were essential for their survival, and the survival of the world.

He stepped a little bit farther into the room and cleared his throat.

Lorelei immediately turned to him, a smile on her face as if everything were perfectly fine. But Aaron knew otherwise.

“I didn’t see you at supper, so I brought you a sandwich,” he said, placing the paper plate he’d been carrying on the table in front of her.

“Thanks.” She pulled the plate toward her with her injured hand. “Did you make it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Ham and cheese with a little mustard.… That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Perfect.” She picked up one half of the sandwich and took a bite. “I used to be a mayo girl, but since I started playing with Archon magick, my taste buds have gone the spicier route.” She chewed for a bit, wiping the excess mustard from the corners of her mouth. “I wonder why that is.”

“I don’t know,” Aaron said with a shrug. “Maybe the Archons like mustard.”

Lorelei laughed. “Yeah, maybe it is something as simple as that.”

Aaron looked around the lab. “No Dusty?” he asked.

Lorelei broke off a piece of crust and fed Milton, who was sniffing around her plate.

“The boy’s exhausted,” she replied, taking another bite. “That was his first real try at magick, and it certainly took a lot out of him. I told him he should get some rest, that he would probably be needed again soon.”

Aaron pulled one of the metal stools from beneath the table and sat down beside Lorelei. “So this is good for you, right?” he asked.

“What—the sandwich? It’s great.”

Aaron laughed, but the seriousness of his question quickly drove the laughter away. “No, this business with Dusty being able to work the magick. This allows you to take it a little slower, right?”

Lorelei started on the second half of her sandwich. “That all depends,” she said, peeling away some crust and popping it into her mouth. “We’ve got a lot going on here, and now with two of us being able to do the spells—”

“You’ve already done some serious damage to yourself, and it’s only going to get worse,” Aaron interrupted her. They had talked about this many times before, and every time Lorelei would agree with him, tell him that she planned to slow down, but she never did.

And she continued to die by inches.

“I know you’re concerned, but you don’t have to be,” she
told him around a mouthful of ham and bread. “This is what I signed up for, what I’m here to do, with you guys.”

“But I don’t want you to—”

“Every day you and the others are out risking your lives to make the world better, like it used to be,” she continued, ignoring him. “Any one of you could have an off day or night and not make it back here. Those are the risks
you
take to be what you are.”

She popped the last bite of sandwich into her mouth and chewed well before speaking again. “And these are the risks that
I
take.”

Aaron was going to argue, but he knew it would do little good. If there was one thing he had learned about Lorelei, it was that the word “stubborn” was far too soft to describe her.

He nodded, begrudgingly accepting what she had to say.

“So,” he said, changing the subject. “What do you think of my plan to be proactive instead of reactive?”

“I think it’s as good a plan as any,” she told him. “We need to make some headway somehow, and that sounds like it might be the way.”

As she spoke, he noticed a tray of bloody doves on the counter behind her.

She followed his gaze. “I took a little psychic walk not too long after our meeting,” she began to explain. “I wanted to see if I could find some of the larger nests of beasties in the world, and I realized that many of these threats showed no signs of even being on the planet.”

She held up a finger before he could start to question.

“Until they were,” she added.

“They weren’t here, until they were,” Aaron repeated, confused.

Lorelei nodded. “Exactly.”

“I don’t understand. Are you saying that they’re coming from someplace else?”

“Not all of them. There are always those random creatures hiding at the bottom of a mine shaft, or swimming in the deepest parts of the ocean, but the majority of these creatures are opening passages from another place to come here and raise some hell.”

“And then they go back to wherever?” Aaron asked.

“Most likely.”

“So what do you suggest? Can we find and close these passages?”

Lorelei leaned forward on her cane as she thought for a moment. Milton jumped from the lab table onto her arm and climbed back up to his place upon her shoulder.

“They’d probably just figure out how to open them again,” Lorelei said.

“Then we’ll have to stop them when they try to cross over,” Aaron stated.

“Yeah, I think that’s the best,” she said.

“When they open these passages, we’ll be waiting,” he said. “And we’ll see how much they like somebody going into their space.”

“Raising some hell on the other side,” Lorelei said with a smile.

“We’ll give those beasties a real reason to be afraid of us,” Aaron added.

He started to get down off the stool, remembering that there was someplace he needed to be.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” he told her. “We’ll split into teams so we can cover more area.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lorelei replied with a smile.

Aaron started for the door, but then paused. “Anything on Jeremy or my father?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “But now that I have Dusty to help, there are a few locating spells that I want to try.”

Aaron was good with that answer. He felt in his gut that they hadn’t been deserted by either of the two, and he wanted to do everything in his power to see that the two men were found.

“And, Lorelei?”

She looked at him.

“Try to get some rest.”

The Archon magick user smiled her sly smile as she answered, “Aaron, you of all people know there’s no real rest for the wicked.”

*   *   *

Vilma had taken a shower, hoping that the hot water and soap would somehow wash her dream from her mind. But she met with little success.

She couldn’t get the kiss she’d shared with Jeremy in her
dream out of her head. That would teach her to slow down for a minute. She hadn’t even known she was falling asleep.

The dream had been strange. Jeremy had pursued her as they flew over some strange, almost futuristic city. She remembered feeling excitement as she flew—and as he got closer to catching her.