Страница 48 из 54
Sickened by the sight of Remiel of the holy host Seraphim.
Sickened by the sight of himself.
"Is this where it began?" Remiel asked.
Remy stepped back, but the heel of his shoe caught on the chest plate of an angel killed in battle, and he fell to the ground.
"I'm not you anymore," he stated, crawling backward to get away.
The angel stared down at the dead lying about his feet. "Is that what you tell yourself? Does it take away the pain of what you were… of what you are?"
Remy didn't want to hear this; he didn't want to be in this place again. He got to his feet and tried to walk away. A gentle breeze blew across the plain, carrying the sweet scent of Heaven's blossoming trees and flowers, tainted with the hint of death.
"You can't change what you are, Remiel," the warrior angel called after him.
Remy stopped, the words like an arrow shot into his back.
"You are of the host Seraphim, a soldier of the Almighty, and you have a sacred duty."
Remy turned to find his warrior self directly behind him.
"I'm not part of this anymore," he told the angel. "I gave it up… I left it behind for something else."
Remiel laughed. It was a sad laugh, heavy with sorrow.
"And now that it is threatened, as was Heaven. Will you walk away from that as well, or will you fight for what you have loved?"
"What I do love," Remy whispered, surprised as the words left his mouth. Staccato images of the life he'd led upon the earth flashed through his mind; the painful and sometimes wonderful steps he had taken on the long path of learning to be human.
Ending with Madeline and Marlowe.
Suddenly, he felt their strength flowing through him, and he knew what had he had to do.
"You terrify me," he said to himself.
Remiel nodded. "You were a thing to be feared."
They were silent for a moment, standing on the corpse-strewn battlefield.
"Will you embrace your true nature and become that force again?" Remiel asked. "Or will you let it all die?"
Remy closed his eyes, seeing the faces of those he loved there in the darkness.
Is there even a question?
It was difficult, if not downright impossible, to fight two opponents with the use of only one hand.
But it didn't keep Francis from trying.
Bleeding stump still pressed against his chest, he eyed the two Seraphim, sword held firmly in the other hand.
"So what made you go along with your boss's crazy plan?" he asked, through gritted teeth, fighting against the throbbing pain in his wrist. "I mean, Seraphim, always so straight and serious. What makes you suddenly decide to go against God?"
The normally expressionless faces of the pair began to show signs of wear — a slight twitch around the eyes of one; the begi
"You seemed smarter than that," Francis continued, aiming his tarnished blade at one and then the other. "You'd think that after the business with the Morningstar…"
He'd struck a nerve.
Haniel was the first to attack, wings opened to their full extent as he leapt into the air. Francis stumbled back, keeping one eye on the soaring warrior and the other on Haniel's partner.
And as if on cue, Zophiel lunged from the ground, crackling blade aiming for the Guardian's chest. Francis swatted the Seraphim's blade aside with his own, and flicked blood from his still-bleeding stump into the face of his angelic attacker.
The angel screamed, stumbling back as if he'd had acid thrown into his eyes. It wasn't acid, but the next best thing.
The blood of a fallen angel.
Haniel swooped down from the sky with a roar. Francis barely avoided being cleaved in two as the arc of the Seraphim's blade bit a chunk from the shoulder of his already injured arm. Francis dropped to his knees, his head begi
Haniel touched down, going to the aid of his brother, helping him to wipe the noxious blood from his eyes.
"Well, isn't that sweet," Francis chided, jamming his bloody stump into the ground, the jolt of excruciating pain keeping him from falling forward, unconscious.
The Seraphim cursed in a language older than creation, and they started toward him again.
Something rumbled and flashed in the fog-enshrouded sky above his head, and on reflex Francis turned his eyes to the Heavens. At first he saw nothing, only the roiling clouds and whipping rain, but then he saw it, an area of the sky above him, growing steadily brighter.
Something was coming.
He looked back to the Seraphim, almost upon him now. They had smiles on their twisted faces. They thought they had him.
He didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise.
"Heads up," the fallen Guardian said, as the Seraphim ignored his warning, raising their weapons to hack him to bits.
The Angel of Death knew that it was wrong.
As he knelt upon the sand, holding the last sacred scroll, the cold, wet dampness seeping through the knees of his jeans, he knew that it had all gone terribly, terribly wrong.
It had been an experiment, a flight of fancy to help him better understand the Creator's favorites. How was he to know it would come to something like this?
Israfil had merged with Jon Stall, and everything that the college professor had been became a part of him. How exciting it was to feel things the way humans did — to be so deliciously fragile.
He held the parchment in his hands, his thumb tracing the uneven surface of the waxen seal. So fragile, he thought.
They were beautiful creatures, filled with so much love and feeling, and yet capable of such savagery. It was as if God had taken every characteristic imaginable and rolled them into one complex life form.
It's obvious that humans are what He was working up to, Israfil mused, barely noticing the wind and heavy rain that fell upon his kneeling form.
Thunder rumbled, and he chanced a quick glance behind him. Through the thick, roiling mists he caught a glimpse of them, the beings created by the Lord of Lords to end it all. He could sense their impatience. Never had they been so fully awakened.
All he had to do was break the last seal.
In a way, it would be a blessing for the world and its inhabitants, he told himself. There was just so much chaos and suffering here. He'd never realized that until he had become a part of Jon, and Jon a part of him.
His eyes strayed to Casey, lying on her side, eyes wide open, her soul crying to be released. If he listened — truly listened — he could hear others like her, millions of souls begging to be free.
I should do it for her — for Casey, he thought.
Nathanuel believed they were being merciful by extinguishing their grievous lives, taking away their despair, for they could not do it themselves.
All he had to do was break the last seal.
At first, Israfil believed it to be just another sound created by the raging storm, but when he heard it again, it captured his attention, distracting him from his tortured thoughts.
The sound… the word, was soft yet firm in its conviction, and there was no mistaking where it had come from.
Casey continued to stare at him, her eyes wide from the intensity of her trauma. A dark line of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth to be absorbed by the sand beneath her face. And though her mouth barely moved, he heard the word slip from it again.
"Doon't."
He tore his gaze from the woman he had loved, sensing that he was no longer alone, to look upon the frightening visage of Nathanuel as he drifted down from the turbulent sky.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked, touching down in a crouch, voice dripping with impatience. "The time has never been more right."