The Fallen 4 (30 page)

“We should get out of here,” Vilma said, and the weakened structure groaned under the strain of the fire.

She was about to take them both into her wings, when she was blindsided by an explosion of desperation inside her brain.

A scream for help.

“It’s Lorelei,” Cameron said as his body shook, feeling the same panicked cry.

Vilma was stunned by the intensity of Lorelei’s message, her hand reflexively wiping away the warm trickle of blood dripping from her nose.

What is it now?

*   *   *

Gabriel could smell the stink of the multitude of creatures that had burrowed the tunnel he was now crawling through. He imagined them all digging and chewing their way through the layers of rock and dirt on their way to…

Where?

He figured he would eventually find out.

The loose stones beneath his feet suddenly gave way as the decline increased, and he found himself sliding down the tunnel, spilling out onto the rocky floor of an underground chamber.

Getting his feet beneath him, the dog was assailed by the smell of death… lots and lots of death.

Gabriel quickly called upon his angelic side, making his fur glow as if he’d been set afire. The warm and comforting light from his body illuminated the grisly findings in the chamber. Animals in various stages of decay lay everywhere; bones and tufts of hair stuck up from the rock and dirt of the floor, and he couldn’t imagine stepping anywhere where he wasn’t walking upon something that had once been alive.

He imagined these poor, manipulated creatures, controlled by the Fear Engine and carelessly discarded when no longer of use.

There was movement in the shadows. Another chamber was to the right. Gabriel immediately started forward, quelling the glow from his body so as not to alert his prey. He reached the opening and peered inside, his eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom.

The animals that had made up the twisted mass of the monster created to protect the engine had merged once more. The monster squeaked, growled, and chirped in multiple animal tongues as it worked to lift something buried deep within the corner of the chamber.

Gabriel couldn’t see what it was within the loose dirt and rock. It could have been a machine, he guessed, but if so, why
did it look to be made of skin and metal? The dog was confused, but then again, what should he have expected from a mechanism crafted by the forces that wanted to plunge the world into total darkness?

Gabriel slunk further into the chamber and began to growl.

The monster stopped what it was doing and spun around with multiple emanations of displeasure from its body mass.

“Must protect the machine,”
the creature said in various animal languages.

“I can’t allow you to do that,”
Gabriel spoke, hoping that whatever was functioning as its brain would understand.
“The machine is dangerous and must be destroyed.”

The creature’s body tensed as it prepared to defend its charge, but Gabriel was ready as well.

The Fear Engine began to throb and pulse, a beat passing through its pale wet skin. The monster responded to that, casually glancing over to the machine, as if communicating with it, before coming at Gabriel.

Gabriel thought he was prepared, but as the beast of beasts lunged toward him, its body broke apart into the multiple life-forms that gave it shape, and he knew how wrong he’d been. The dog didn’t know what to attack first as the mass of snarling teeth and claws swarmed at him. Summoning his newfound angelic power once more, Gabriel did his best, snatching up the attacking beasts in his fiery jaws, setting them alight in his fury, before attacking the next.

But there were just too many, and it seemed that even more beasts were being summoned by the monstrous engine, as wave after wave of animals flowed upon him, weighing him down with their filthy mass. But they did not bite him, or rip at his flesh. All they did was pin him down. Gabriel had no idea what they were doing, until he felt the tickling sensation of something unearthly attempting to burrow its way inside his brain.

To convince him to become part of the monstrous mass that was the engine’s protector.

Gabriel tried to fight it, but found himself swept up in the flow of bodies as they again took on a humanoid shape. The animals around him bit into Gabriel, attaching themselves to his body, like tendons to muscles, as he was made part of the obscenity’s lower body. It was amazing, yet terrifying, being connected to all the different forms of life that made up this mockery of a human body. Gabriel’s thoughts were no longer his own. The Fear Engine and the other animals chattered in a cacophony of sound inside his skull.

Gabriel felt that he was drowning. He was losing himself to the Fear Engine. He tried everything in his power to remain an individual, but the engine’s power and all the voices exploding inside his skull were far too much for him. He was becoming part of the monstrous servant.

And he felt himself begin to slip farther and farther away.

“I need you here.… I need you back here this instant!”

Just as he thought he was lost forever, another voice forced its way into Gabriel’s mind. It was strong, desperate, and demanded that it be heard.

It was all that Gabriel needed to regain some semblance of control.

He knew the voice belonged to his friend Lorelei, and he had never heard her filled with such panic… with such fear.

The engine attempted to make him part of the body again, but Gabriel remained free—and intended to stay that way.

He started to thrash within the confines of the body. The animals fought, biting down even harder into his flesh, into his tail. Holding on to him.

The pain helped Gabriel to think more clearly, and he was able to call upon the power that was now a part of him. And as the Engine fought to keep him within its clutches, Gabriel released his angelic fury in an explosion of ravenous fire.

The animals squealed and shrieked as their bodies were incinerated, the entity that they had been part of crumbling to fiery pieces. Gabriel landed upon the floor, surrounded by burning animals, some running about frantically before eventually succumbing to death.

The engine continued to thrum with life, but its control over the animals was lost. They ran, afire with the flames of the divine, to what they believed would be their savior. The Fear Engine was quickly covered in burning animals, the fires from their bodies igniting the soft, fleshy parts of the living machine.

Gabriel listened to it scream as the machine’s psychic claws attempted to reach into his brain, trying to coerce him to come to its aid.

But Gabriel managed to resist, watching as the fires of divinity ravaged the evil contraption until its plaintive cries were silenced.

Quickly approaching the burning remains, Gabriel checked to be sure that the engine was no longer alive, before calling upon the power of the angels, yet again, to transport him back to the school, and to the aid of a desperate friend.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

K
raus stood before the flat-screen television, flipping past channel after channel of hissing static before finally finding one that was still broadcasting.

Something bad was going on out there, something even worse than before.

The newscasters appeared terrified as they relayed their stories of cities all over the globe experiencing attacks by monsters that seemed to appear from nowhere.

The way the word seemed to roll from their lips—“monsters”—made him briefly consider his sanity. But then he thought of the world he’d lived in before the darkness had fallen, a world where he’d served the needs of Heaven’s angels.

Kraus could barely remember a time when the world had seemed at all normal.

The TV showed some grainy footage of a city. Was it
Chicago? He couldn’t understand what the broadcasters were saying in the live signal. He wanted to turn off the sound so he wouldn’t hear the screams that drowned out the broadcasters, but he couldn’t figure out what button to push on the remote.

Buildings were burning and the streets were filled with armored things that seemed to attack with abandon, and it didn’t appear that there was much anybody could do to keep the monsters back.

This is what the Nephilim are for
, he thought, feeling sick to his stomach as the scene went to static. The program returned to the studio with the two anchors, who looked as though they wanted to burst into tears.

Kraus began to wonder if something had happened to his friends. He knew that they had gone off on a mission of great importance. Had they failed somehow?

Panic set in, and he wished with all his heart that there was something—anything—he could do to help them. But he knew his function was to wait for their return and be ready to heal them so that they might continue the fight against—

Kraus felt it through the floor, and in the very air itself—a strange disturbance that rattled the school property, and him, to the very core.

The television went black, as did the lights. Something had happened to their generator. Kraus looked about the darkened room. For the briefest of moments he considered that Aaron
and the others might have returned from their mission, but he knew better.

Something was very wrong.

Kraus left the room, maneuvering through the darkness in search of Lorelei and Dusty, senses finely tuned by his former years of blindness.

But first a quick stop at the maintenance closet where the Nephilim stored many of the swords, knives, and axes that they had collected from the dead beasts who had invaded the school grounds when the last of the Powers angels and the Abomination of Desolation had attacked.

Kraus thought he might be needing a weapon.

Just in case.

*   *   *

Aaron watched as an old woman shambled over to the card table with a tray of three steaming coffee mugs.

“It’s instant,” Tarshish said, helping himself to a mug. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Aaron didn’t really want any coffee right then, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. “Thanks,” he told the old woman, but she didn’t respond.

“What’s up with them?” Aaron asked in a whisper as the woman walked off with the empty tray.

Tarshish shrugged before taking a sip of his steaming drink.

“That one’s Betty,” he said. “She’s been gone the longest of all of them.”

“Gone?” Aaron asked.

“Dead.”

“She’s dead?” Aaron questioned incredulously, turning in his chair to look at the others, who sat in front of the blank television screen. “They’re all dead?”

“Yeah,” Tarshish answered, setting his mug down. “I didn’t have the heart to let them go. It’s amazing how attached I’ve gotten to them.”

Aaron was horrified.

“The power of God released from the Metatron,” Mallus interjected, quickly changing the subject. “We need to find it.”

“Finding it will be the easy part,” Tarshish added.

Aaron took a sip of the instant coffee and made a face. It was horrible. Making good coffee wasn’t the dead old lady’s strongest skill. Imagine that.

“Why?” Aaron asked, pushing his mug closer to the puzzle border.

“The power of the Metatron couldn’t exist alone in the world,” Mallus explained, his own steaming mug in hand. “It had to find a host.”

“Hosts,” Tarshish corrected.

Mallus nodded, taking a slug of the coffee before speaking again. “That power remembered what it had been… what it had been part of,” he explained. “Part of a special trinity that had composed the Metatron.”

“So it found three hosts?” Aaron asked.

“It certainly did,” Tarshish answered. “And it was corrupted in the process.”

Mallus sighed as he set his mug down. “The power of God, meant to help humanity, has been used for less than righteous purposes all these years.”

Tarshish’s old eyes fixed Aaron and Mallus in a serious stare. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he warned. “We’re all going to need to be at the top of our game if we’re even going to come close to taking back the power of the Metatron.”

Aaron understood the gravity of the situation, but could not help but stare at the sickeningly skinny Tarshish, sitting in his wheelchair.

“What?” the Malakim asked.

“Are
you
up to the task?” Aaron questioned, scrutinizing the Malakim.

Tarshish laughed, a short bark that sounded loose and wet. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said, reaching up and pulling down the lower lid of his left eye. A blinding ray of light sneaked out from beneath the weathered skin. “This is just a suit I wear when I’m taking it easy.”

“Cool,” Aaron said, satisfied with the Malakim’s answer.

Mallus had begun to speak again, when the Nephilim suddenly experienced a sensation akin to somebody setting off a bomb of pure sound inside his skull.

“I need you here.… I need you back here this instant!”

It caught Aaron off guard, and he startled, his sudden
movement flipping his chair over and landing him unceremoniously on the floor.

“What is it?” Mallus asked urgently.

Aaron scrambled to his feet, too stunned to be embarrassed. “It’s Lorelei. She’s back at the school,” he explained. He could feel his nose bleeding, and wiped the blood from his nostrils with the back of his hand. “I’ve got to get back.”

Mallus and Tarshish shared a look.

“Aaron, time is of the essence. If we—”

“I know,” Aaron interrupted, still feeling his friend’s lingering terror. “But this is an emergency.”

“The whole freakin’ planet is experiencing an emergency,” Tarshish exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, flexing the muscles in his back and calling forth his wings. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Mallus protested, but Aaron wasn’t listening. He wrapped his wings about himself and pictured the school. His friend needed him.… His friend was in danger.

And nothing was going to keep him away.

*   *   *

“Well, I guess that’s that,” Tarshish said, leaning forward to pick up another piece to his puzzle.

Mallus noticed that the puzzle’s picture had changed again, this time showing what appeared to be some sort of ancient temple sitting atop a stony mountain that jutted from a bluish-green ocean.