The Fallen 4 (34 page)

With a cry of rage he reached for the Darkstar. The Darkstar tried to evade him, but Aaron was too fast, grabbing hold of the freezing cold metal of the Darkstar’s armor, willing the fire of Heaven into his hands.

“Do you feel it?” Aaron asked through gritted teeth.

The Darkstar did not reply, and Aaron held on, letting the fire flow. The fire attacked the armor, the force of Heaven battling its dark opposite.

The Darkstar’s armor began to crack, ragged holes appearing in his shell. His struggles intensified, but Aaron held on, tainting the Darkstar’s shield with the fires of divinity.

An armored fist savagely struck his face, and Aaron’s mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. Another blow landed on his head, and Aaron himself began to slip from consciousness, but he managed to pull himself from the brink, remembering that this was the one who had killed Lorelei.

Fists engorged with the fire of God, Aaron struck again and again against the black armor. Burning fissures spider-webbed across the ebony surface of his foe’s bodily protection.

“Do you feel it now?” Aaron asked the Darkstar, striking wherever the armor appeared weakest.

The Darkstar flapped his black wings wildly in an effort to get away, but Aaron stuck to him like a tick. Aaron knew that this would be his only chance to take his enemy down.

Aaron’s eyes locked upon those glaring out at him from behind the black helmet.

Was that fear he saw there?

Aaron experienced a sudden surge of strength, as if somehow feeding upon his enemy’s uncertainty, and lashed out with his burning fists, connecting once, twice, three times with the Darkstar’s covered face. The helmet cracked and started to smolder in places, and Aaron continued to strike at it, eager to reveal the monster behind it.

The Darkstar grabbed hold of Aaron’s throat with sudden, deadly speed and began to squeeze.

“A taste of your own medicine,” he growled from behind his broken mask.

Aaron fought to breathe as a cloud of numbing shadow engulfed his face and head. It was like being wrapped in a nightmare. The black fire did not burn as it flowed up into his nose and squirmed between his lips and down his throat. But it stole the heat from his body.

As the fire of Heaven burned away the sin of evil,
this
fire consumed the life-giving warmth of love and hope.

It ate the soul.

Thoughts of the end of all life filled Aaron’s mind, and he began to wonder what exactly he was fighting for. It seemed so pointless. The harder he fought—the harder the Nephilim all fought—the further they seemed from victory.

The darkness was winning. Maybe this was the time to finally admit the truth: The Nephilim couldn’t fight the coming tide.

Maybe it would be easier to let the darkness win.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

The darkness inside him squirmed against the divine fire. The black tried to suffocate the glow of Heaven, but the divine fire would not have it.

The darkness tried to show the fire all the death and misery that had come as a result of its struggle, but the holy fire would not be swayed. This was but the price to keep the light of the divine burning.

To keep the forces of darkness at bay.

The darkness surged in a last-ditch effort to envelope the light, but the light of life spurned these advances. It shone brighter and brighter still, burning the creeping shadow from its domain.

Aaron’s cold and nearly lifeless body began to glow like the sun. The fire of God rushed through his veins and out his pores, encircling his body in an aura of divine brilliance.

Aaron watched as the Darkstar spiraled from the sky. He could see that his enemy’s armor had been practically eaten away. Left behind was a pale, naked man shivering upon the ground.

Descending like an emissary of the sun, Aaron approached his fallen foe, who knelt, face buried in his hands, shivering.

“Please,” the Darkstar said softly.

The thought of this thing asking for mercy refueled Aaron’s anger. He brought forth a sword.

“Please, Aaron,” the Darkstar begged pathetically, and Aaron readied his burning blade to strike.

The Darkstar slowly turned his frightened gaze to him, and Aaron froze as he looked upon his opponent’s face, the face of the one who threatened to bring darkness to the world.

The face of the one who had taken his friend’s life.

The face of the Morningstar, his father.

*   *   *

Vilma clutched the hilt of her sword of fire and descended toward the fearsome dragon.

This is how it’s supposed to be. This is why I’m here, why I’m Nephilim.

The dragon had panic in its large yellow eyes, and looked as though it were going to attempt escape. But Cameron flew down past the spew of burning venom to slice at one of the dragon’s leathery wings, taking away its ability to fly.

Melissa targeted the areas underneath its thick armorlike scales, beneath its chin, and around the primordial animal’s eyes, where its flesh was unprotected.

In a way Vilma felt sorry for the great beast. It had probably never dealt with Nephilim before.

But then she saw her opportunity. If she remembered Lorelei’s lessons correctly, the weakest spot on a dragon was the inside of its cavernous mouth. The flesh was soft, and through it was the best access to the beast’s tender brain.

Seemed simple enough.

Yeah, right.

Melissa and Cameron circled the now grounded beast; it fluttered its injured wing, gazing in rage at the rips and tears caused by the Nephilim’s weapons. It opened its mouth to spit death at its attackers.

Those two are something to behold
, Vilma thought as the two Nephilim flew about the dragon’s head, building its anger and causing its caution to slip.

That was what Vilma needed to make her approach. She paced her attack, eyes locked upon her target.

Waiting.

Melissa zipped past the beast’s face and sliced one of its eyes.

The dragon tossed back its head in a cry that propelled a plume of fire at least twenty feet into the air.

Vilma drew her wings to her body and dropped like a stone toward the monstrous animal. She knew, through Lorelei’s teaching, that the dragon needed some time for the flammable venom to collect within the glands inside its cavernous mouth.

The dragon continued to rage. As the fire began to diminish, Vilma made her move, flying into the dragon’s open mouth.

Vilma didn’t want to be inside the beast any longer than she needed to be. It stank like death and gasoline within the monster’s maw. At the back of its mouth, just behind its rows of yellow, razor-sharp teeth, she watched as two balloons of flesh filled with the volatile poison.

The tongue upon which she stood flexed and writhed beneath her feet as the great reptile registered that something was inside its mouth. A bellow of surprise came flowing up from the back of the dragon’s throat, stinking of powerful stomach acids. The scent of its last feast passed across Vilma in a fetid breeze. She knew she needed to act, and get the job done before…

The swollen venom sacks began to quiver, preparing to empty. Vilma took her sword of fire, blade pointing toward the roof of the dragon’s mouth, and thrust with all her might through the thick cartilage and up into the monster’s brain.

Vilma immediately felt the dragon convulse. Its mouth
began to open in a final death scream, and she sprang across the fleshy tongue and flew out from between its wailing jaws, a stream of igniting venom following her out into the open.

Outflying the fire, she spun in the air and watched as the dragon collapsed in a twitching heap upon the school grounds. She heard Melissa’s and Cameron’s cries of victory, and was giving them the thumbs-up when she caught sight of something not far from where she hovered.

Flying closer, she saw Aaron and what appeared to be Lucifer. Lucifer’s arms were outstretched, as if pleading with her boyfriend.

Begging for help.

She watched as Aaron approached, his weapon disappearing.

Then something distracted her, something that chilled her to the very bone. All around the edge of the forest crouched monsters of every conceivable size and shape.

As if waiting for something to happen.

The words were pouring from her mouth before she even realized she was speaking.

“Aaron, watch out—something isn’t right!”

No truer words had ever been spoken.

*   *   *

His father was begging him for help.… How could Aaron not go to him?

Aaron stepped toward the Morningstar, wishing his sword away as his brain was overrun with a million questions:
Where
have you been? What happened to you? Why did you kill Lorelei?

Lucifer beckoned, and Aaron began to kneel.

“Aaron,” his father began, his head bowed weakly. But something in his voice made the hairs on the back of Aaron’s neck stand at attention.

The Morningstar raised his face to look at Aaron, and smiled, his eyes filled entirely with darkness. That was when the Nephilim noticed the shadows. They flowed all around them and covered his father’s body.

Forming new armor.

Every instinct screamed as Aaron’s wings unfurled from his back.

From somewhere above he heard Vilma’s cry, and was glad to know that she was safe.

“Aaron, watch out—”

He sprang from the ground as his father—clad again in glistening black armor—came at him, a sword of ebony fire in his hand.

“Something isn’t right,” was the last thing that Aaron heard as his father’s sword struck him. He tried to bring about his own weapon, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Aaron watched in horrified fascination as the black blade pierced the flesh of his stomach. The cold was all-encompassing, freezing every aspect of his being as he gazed between the sword protruding from his body and the grinning face of the one who wielded it.

“A savior no more,” said a voice that did not belong to his father, and the blade drove deeper.

Aaron could do nothing as the numbness spread through him. He slid from the sword blade to fall upon the ground. In his mind a voice screamed at him to get up—to fight—but no matter how hard he tried, his body would not answer.

Aaron felt himself slipping away, sinking deeper and deeper into the cold darkness, as he realized the truth of what had finally happened.

The battle was over.… They had lost.

And darkness took him by the hand and led him down into oblivion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

V
ilma felt a part of herself die.

She’d yelled to warn Aaron, but Lucifer had been too fast.

All she could do was watch as the blade was thrust into his body. Vilma screamed, hoping that it was all a horrible nightmare and that the louder she screamed, the quicker she would wake up.

But she wasn’t asleep. It was all really happening.

And there was nothing that she could do.

“Like hell,” she wailed, an anger the likes of which she had never known burning through her body. At that moment her human side completely gave way to the angelic—the warrior inside her.

Empowered by the wrath of God, Vilma descended upon the scene, a spear of divine fire taking shape in her hand.

Below, the armored Lucifer raised his weapon of shadow again, preparing to bring it down upon the helpless Aaron’s skull.

Vilma let her spear fly, and the flaming javelin imbedded itself in the ground between Lucifer and Aaron.

Lucifer started to back away just as the spear exploded, setting a line of fire in the earth before him.

Vilma landed in a crouch beside the man she loved.

“Aaron,” she called, praying for some kind of response, but he was silent. The blood that stained his lower body made her swoon.

“Oh, my God, Aaron.”

“He isn’t listening,” came a voice from behind the wall of divine fire. Vilma glanced up to see Lucifer’s armored figure striding through the lapping flames toward her. “You can call for Him all you want, but He will not answer. God has left this place. He’s left this place to me.”

Hands beneath Aaron’s arms, Vilma attempted to drag him away. This could not be Lucifer but something somehow wearing his form. And he was coming closer, with a legion of monsters at his back.

He stopped, smiling as he looked at the fire that surrounded them, the stink of death hanging heavy in the air.

“Surrender to me now, and I promise to make your end swift,” the imposter said.

“You can go to Hell,” she spat.

“Too late,” he replied. “Already there.”

Their adversary spread his wings and flew at her. Vilma barely had enough time to call upon her own weapon as she prepared to defend herself and Aaron.

There suddenly came a spray of foul-smelling liquid, and a thick viscous fluid rained down upon the armored figure and his monstrous soldiers. Vilma jumped back, grabbing Aaron beneath his arms and pulling him away as well. She looked skyward to see Melissa and Cameron flying overhead, dumping liquid from two fleshy sacks onto their foes.

Vilma suspected that she knew what they had done, and that suspicion was verified when the liquid exploded into flames. Melissa and Cameron had removed the dragon’s venom sacks and spilled their incendiary contents onto the Nephilim’s enemies. Not only did the imposter burn, but so did the monsters that had been awaiting their opportunity to pounce.

Vilma dragged Aaron away from the volatile dragon fire. Melissa was the first to land to help her, followed by Cameron.

“Is he all right?” Melissa desperately wanted to know, bending over beside the unconscious Aaron. “Vilma? He doesn’t look so good. We should—”

Vilma had to think quickly. With Aaron incapacitated, she had to take the reins.

“We don’t have any time,” she interrupted, glancing toward the wall of flames and the silhouettes that thrashed within them. “You need to get out of here.”

There was a crackle of energy beside them, and Vilma spun toward it with a knife of fire at the ready. Cameron and Melissa were ready to fight as well.