The Fallen 4 (26 page)

Verchiel joined Melissa for a closer look at what she had uncovered. At first glance it appeared to be some sort of machine, pulsing as if alive, but closer inspection revealed that its mass was covered in a sickly, gray flesh.

They had found their Fear Engine.

“What do we do?” Melissa asked, not taking her eyes from the loathsome sight.

“Isn’t it obvious, girl?” Verchiel asked as he stretched his wings and leaped into the air, a sword appearing in his hand. “We kill it.”

*   *   *

Cameron remembered the squeaking sound Ryan’s sneakers had made on the church’s hardwood floor behind him. He remembered slowly turning to see what the unpleasant kid was doing, just as the hammer connected with the side of his head.

He hadn’t even had a chance to recover before the kid had hit him again, knocking him out cold.

But now Cameron was coming around. His head pounded so badly that he was afraid to open his eyes, positive that the top of his skull had been ripped away and someone had shoved knives into his exposed brain.

Always the glutton for punishment, Cameron opened his eyes anyway. He couldn’t comprehend what he saw. Everything was upside down.

In a panic Cameron tried to move, but found that his hands and feet were bound. Remembering that he wasn’t alone, he turned his head despite the nearly blinding pain, to find Vilma hanging upside down beside him from an inverted wooden cross. She appeared to be unconscious.

“The poop head’s awake,” Ryan’s unmistakable voice said.

Cameron turned his head toward the sound, still trying to make sense of things.

The church parishioners stood in the pews as if waiting for the ritual of mass to begin. Jinny and Ryan had the best seats in the house, in the front row.

Suddenly a face appeared before Cameron. It was the old
priest. Donnally leaned in close to examine him.

“As a matter of fact he is,” Donnally said, smiling cheerily before moving on to peer at Vilma. “Let’s see if we can wake your little lady friend too so that we can get started.”

Cameron watched the old man gently tap Vilma’s cheek. She let out a moan, her face twisting in pain as she moved her head. Cameron guessed that her head probably felt as good as his did.

“There she is,” the old priest said, throwing his hands into the air with delight. The parishioners in the pews laughed politely, some clapping softly as the priest strode to the pulpit. Gripping the sides of the lectern, the elderly man readied to address his flock.

“It is a special day, brothers and sisters,” he began.

While his captor was otherwise occupied, Cameron strained against his bonds, and found that his wrists had been wrapped with strips of heavy electrical tape.

Glancing over to Vilma, Cameron saw that she had a weird
What the hell is going on
expression upon her face.

He knew exactly how she felt.

“Our god has seen fit to bless two of our youngest with exceptional luck this day,” Donnally announced, pausing as Jinny and Ryan stood up from their pew to turn toward the congregation. Everyone applauded while the two children soaked up the adoration.

“They were sent out to the streets to bring us back supplies so that we could continue our worship, and they have returned
with the greatest gifts we could imagine… sacrifices to the power that has kept us safe during these dark, changing times.”

Cameron felt his blood run cold, as Donnally left the lectern and approached them.

“You two have been delivered to us, to continue to keep us safe,” he declared, arms spread before them. “Know that your sacrifice will not be in vain, and that you died so that others could live.”

Cameron’s eyes followed the priest as he walked back across the altar, toward something in the far corner covered with a white sheet of silk. Cameron strained his neck to watch the old man, whose hands were clasped before him. The priest bowed and muttered beneath his breath before the covered object.

Was this the holy object that they prayed to? The god that they were willing to sacrifice innocent lives to?

Finished with his prayers, the old man reached for the white cloth with both hands.

“Behold our god,” he proclaimed at the top of his lungs.

“Behold our god!” the parishioners repeated as Donnally tore away the covering.

Cameron didn’t really know what he was looking at. At first he thought it was some kind of boxy machine, but then he saw that parts of it seemed to be made of pale, wet skin. The form expanded and contracted, as if breathing, as it squatted in the shadow of the altar.

“Vilma, do you see this?” Cameron whispered. He quickly
glanced over to see that she too was craning her neck to catch a peek.

“I see it,” she answered. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you’re thinking ‘Fear Engine,’ I’d say you’re probably right,” he commented.

Donnally turned from the throbbing mechanism, hate filling his eyes.

“Silence!” he screamed, his words echoing through the hall. “Show some respect to the holy god that you’re about to give up your lives to.”

And with those words Cameron heard movement in the church. The wooden pews squeaked as the parishioners left their seats. They had formed a line and were approaching the steps to the altar, all carrying knives.

“Come forth, brothers and sisters,” Father Donnally urged. He, too, produced a knife from within the folds of his robes. “Partake of the sacrifice, and we shall all reap the benefit of our god’s thanks.”

Cameron looked to Vilma.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” he said to her.

“More than enough,” she agreed.

That was all he needed to hear. Cameron summoned the power of the Nephilim. His mighty wings exploded from his back, flexing against his bonds and the inverted cross to which he was tied. The wood groaned and snapped into pieces, and Cameron fell to the floor.

Vilma did the same, her own wings making short work of her restraints.

“You’re good?” Cameron asked, ripping the tape from his wrists and ankles.

“Good,” Vilma said, doing the same. “But we might want to move quickly,” she said, eyeing the crowd that had frozen at the sight of what they had revealed themselves to be.

“Oh, these are special sacrifices, indeed!” the priest cheered as the hideous device pulsed and writhed behind him. “Praise be!” He rushed at Cameron, knife poised to strike.

“Praise be!” the parishioners echoed, brandishing their daggers, eager to sacrifice the Nephilim to their terrible god.

*   *   *

Gabriel leaped away as the fist composed of the compacted bodies of birds, rabbits, rats, and raccoons shattered the concrete floor before him.

“Protect the machine!”
the animal voices all said in unison.

The monster was on the move again, its misshapen head covered in multiple sets of different-size eyes searching for Gabriel.

Gabriel circled the horrible creature, wanting to get to the Fear Engine but knowing he couldn’t until he dealt with this monstrosity.

The terror struck at him again, wielding the sledgehammer-like force of its fist and nearly making contact. A piece of concrete flew up from the floor and hit Gabriel’s face, and he yelped.

Gabriel’s sudden cry of pain brought forth a weird high-pitched sound that must have been a twisted kind of laughter.

Gabriel wasn’t in the least bit amused.

“Protect the machine,”
the monster repeated.

“Yes,”
Gabriel said, crouching, waiting for the monster’s next strike.
“I’ve heard all about that.”

The monster rushed at him on thick legs composed of cats, dogs, and raccoons. It groped for him, and Gabriel attempted to dart beneath its arm, but he wasn’t fast enough. The creature’s hand wrapped around his back leg.

The monster made that obscene amused sound again, as Gabriel was yanked up into the air. The Labrador angled his body toward the disgusting hand that held him and bit down upon one of its thick fingers with all his might.

The power of the Nephilim coursed through the dog, his yellow fur throwing sparks, his very bite filled with the fire of the divine. Gabriel felt the energy of Heaven rush through him. There was an awful shriek, and suddenly he was falling to the concrete floor.

Gabriel recovered himself almost immediately and watched the scene before him with a curious eye. The monster’s hand smoldered with divine fire, and the animals that composed it broke apart and fell to the floor.

“Where is the machine?”
Gabriel barked. He bared his fangs, which crackled with preternatural fire.
“You know I can hurt you. I won’t ask a second time.”

The monster considered this threat, still gazing with many eyes at where its hand had once been.

“Protect,”
the animal voices grumbled.
“Protect the machine.”

And with the last pronouncement the great beast turned upon its stocky legs and began to run away.

Gabriel yelped in surprise but quickly recovered his wits and chased the abomination across the empty space.

The monster stopped in front of a crumbling wall, and as Gabriel watched, its body dissolved into the multiple animals that constituted it. The Lab reached the wall just as the last of the animals, a mangy raccoon, escaped. Frustrated, Gabriel lunged forward and snatched the fleeing animal by the scruff of its neck. It screeched and hissed as Gabriel pulled it from its freedom, and shook it, savagely snapping its neck. He dropped the dead animal to the floor, watching it twitch before it finally succumbed to death.

Gabriel stuck his snout through a crack in the wall and took in the scents behind it. He could smell the animals that had formed the body of the monster. But there was something else too, something that he couldn’t identify. Presuming that it was the engine, he did not hesitate. Gabriel squirmed through the opening, feeling the ground beneath his paws suddenly arc downward.

Into the hungry darkness of the earth.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A
aron stepped over the debris as he approached Mallus and an older man in a wheelchair.

“Who were those people out there?” he asked, ruffling his ebony wings angrily, a sword burning in his hand.

“Old friends that left me a long time ago,” the old man spoke. “Didn’t have the heart to let them lie down, I guess.”

Aaron wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “So they’re dead, but… ,” he began.

“I kept them around to watch the place,” the old man said. “Like guard dogs, only older.”

Aaron looked at Mallus, shocked by the man’s words.

“This is Tarshish, Aaron,” Mallus said. “The last of the Malakim.”

“A Malakim,” Aaron repeated. “But I thought the Powers—”

“Yeah, the Powers,” Tarshish said with a snarl. “I saw what
they were up to with my brothers, and I kept out of sight.”

“You let the Powers kill your brothers?” Aaron asked him.

“No love lost with my siblings,” the Malakim said. “They got what was coming to them.”

“Nice,” Aaron said with a slight shake of his head. He turned to Mallus. “Is he why we’re here?”

“He’s part of it,” Mallus said.

“What have you been telling him?” the Malakim asked.

“Only that I made a huge mistake and that I’m asking him to help me correct it.”

“Correct it?” Tarshish asked, his withered old face twisting in confusion. “How the hell is he going to do that?”

“Look at him,” Mallus told the wheelchair-bound angelic being. “The unification of humanity and the angelic… of humanity and the Son of the Morning.”

Tarshish stared. “Huh,” he said.

“Would someone care to tell me what’s going on?” Aaron demanded.

Mallus ignored him, speaking only to Tarshish. “We killed the Metatron’s human aspect, releasing the power of God into the ether,” he said.

“Oh, it went somewhere,” the Malakim said knowingly. “Right into the service of the Architects.”

“We could get that power back,” Mallus continued. “We could place it within a host that could handle all its power.”

Tarshish was staring at Aaron again. “Him?”

Mallus nodded. “With a new Metatron—”

“Enough!” Aaron roared, his wings of solid black splaying out behind him. “What are you two talking about?”

Mallus looked to Aaron. “If there was something that you could do to stop all of this evil,” the fallen angel said, gesturing with a swirl of his hand to the world outside, “would you do it?”

“What are your feelings about becoming one with God?” Tarshish asked Aaron.

Aaron was shocked, frozen by the proposition.

And then the Malakim began to laugh.

The frigid winds tore at Tarshish as if to say,
You do not belong in this place
, but Tarshish of the Malakim went wherever he cared to.

Or, as in this case, where he was told.

Hearing of the Architects’ existence in the whispers of the angels who’d fallen during the Great War with Heaven, Tarshish had sought out the mysterious group of divine creatures. It was only when he had given up his search for the elusive godly beings that the Architects had sought him out.

They’d taken him to a place they had claimed as their own—a place between here and there—and Tarshish had stood in awe of them, the first to come from the sweat of He Who Is the Creator of All.

At first, in arrogance, Tarshish had viewed the Architects as equals to his own angelic might, but he’d soon come to realize that they were so much more.

So, so much more.

The Architects had a vision for the world God had created, and for the life He had entrusted with His greatest gift. But for the planet and everything that lived upon it to live up to its potential—and the Architects’ potential—there would need to be those with like minds.

Agents that would serve them. Agents dedicated to the cause of shaping the world to its fullest possibility.

They had asked Tarshish if he would be one of their Agents, if he would partake of their cause, and he had been alone for so very long before this.