The Fallen

“That’s nice, Aaron,” Gabriel said, looking up at his master, tail still happily wagging. “Isn’t it nice?”

“Yeah, it’s nice. So they’re forgiven, what does that mean?” Aaron asked the angel. “Where did Zeke go?”

Camael again gazed upward. “He has returned home.”

Aaron, too, looked into the sky. There was no longer any sign of the storm that had battered his neighborhood. “You’re telling me that Zeke went back to Heaven.”

“Your people have many colorful names for where he has gone: Paradise, Elysium, Nirvana, the happy hunting ground—Heaven is but one of them,” Camael explained.

Aaron mulled this over. “And I sent him there?”

Camael pointed at Aaron with a long, well-manicured finger. “You are the bridge between the fallen and God.”

“God, huh?” Aaron slipped his hands casually into the back pockets of his jeans. He gazed toward what was left of his home, painfully remembering what had been done to it, to his parents—all in the name of God. He scowled and stormed away. “Y’know what?” he said, walking around the house to the front. “I don’t think so.”

Camael followed. “You can’t run away from this, Aaron,” he said, catching up to him. “It is your destiny. It was written of—”

Aaron spun around, stopping the angel cold. “Thousands of years ago,” he finished. “I know all about it and I’m not too sure how happy I am serving a God who would allow this to happen.” He gestured to the still-smoldering remains of his home. “Not to mention the hundreds—maybe thousands—of others He’s allowed Verchiel to kill in His name.” Aaron was furious, ready to take on the Creator Himself if necessary. “You tell me how I’m supposed to do this.”

The Stanleys’ neighbors had begun to emerge, cautiously making their way from their homes to view the devastation that they believed was caused by a storm.

Aaron gazed at what remained of the only home he’d ever known, both he and the angel watching as the last of the fire burned down to glowing embers.

“I understand your anger,” Camael said.

Climbing the crumbled brick steps to where the front door once stood, Aaron stepped over what was left of the entryway into the rubble of his home. “Do you, Camael? Do you really understand?” He stood where the living room once was—where his parents had died. “Up until a few days ago I didn’t believe in Heaven, angels, or flaming swords—never mind God.” He kicked at a piece of wood that still glowed red. “And now I find out I’m part of some elaborate plan to reunify Heaven, to reunite all of God’s children so they can be one big happy family again.”

He remembered the boring simplicity of movie night with his foster family, and almost began to cry. But he was too angry for tears.

“How am I supposed to do this for Him when He couldn’t even bother to save my family? Can you tell me that, Camael, because I’m really curious.”

The sad wail of sirens could be heard in the distance.

“The Almighty,” Camael began, “the Almighty and His actions or lack thereof…they are part of a much larger scheme. We may not understand it but—”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Aaron interrupted sarcastically. “Is that how you’re going to try and explain this? That it’s all part of some big picture that we’re not privy to?”

There were neighbors in the street in front of the demolished home. There was fear in their eyes. Aaron could practically hear the thoughts ru

“I know how hard this must be to grasp in a moment of tragedy. It is a quandary I, too, have come to ponder in my time upon this world.” The angel walked to an area of collapsed wall and squatted before it. “The Father is aware of everything,” he said, reaching beneath the plaster. “No matter how harsh or random things may appear, He does have a plan.”

Camael pulled something from the rubble and brought it to Aaron. It was a broken frame and undamaged within it was a picture of his entire family. They were all wearing Santa hats, even Gabriel. Aaron took it and gazed at the happy image. He remembered when it was taken two years ago—how appalled he had been to have to wear the stupid hat. He had been even more mortified when the Stanleys had used the picture for their Christmas card that year.

Aaron carefully took the picture from the frame, a remembrance of a life now horribly altered by an ancient destiny.

“Sometimes the bad must precede the good,” Camael said in another attempt to make him comprehend the machinations of the Creator. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” he asked.

Gabriel sniffed about the burned remains of what had been the recliner, sticking his nose beneath its twisted metal skeleton in search of something. Aaron was about to tell the dog to be careful when Gabriel pulled a filthy te

“Look, Aaron!” he said excitedly, his speech distorted by the ball rolling around in his maw. “I’ve found my ball. I thought I’d lost it forever!” The dog eagerly let the ball fall from his mouth. For a brief moment his friend was happy, all the sadness of the past few hours pushed aside.

Aaron didn’t like Camael’s explanation of how things worked, but guessed he had no choice but to accept it. There was method to God’s madness, so to speak.

He looked at the picture of his family one more time, then folded it and slid it into his back pocket.

“I have to find my little brother,” Aaron said, looking to the angel that stood at his side. “Will you help me get him back?”

The fire engines screamed onto Baker Street, lights flashing, sirens howling as if mourning all the sadness they’d borne witness to.

“I will do that,” Camael said with little emotion. Aaron might as well have asked him if he wanted milk or cream in his coffee.

Gabriel brought the ball to Aaron and let it drop at his feet. He wagged his tail as he leaned his head forward and lovingly licked his hand. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll find Stevie. You’ll see, Aaron, everything will be fine.”

And as he gazed around at the smoldering ruins of his home, reflecting upon the shambles his life had become, thinking about the unknown that was the future ahead, Aaron wasn’t so sure that anything would ever be fine again.

EPILOGUE

“Are you sure about this, Aaron?” Principal Costan asked from behind the desk in his office at Ke

It had been two days since the supposedly freak lightning storm took the lives of his foster mother, father, and little brother, and Aaron felt it would be best that he leave school, and the city, as soon as possible.

Aaron nodded as he handed the man the papers he had signed officially withdrawing from Ken Curtis. “I’m sure, sir. I just can’t stay around here anymore. It’s for the best.”

It had been the same at the animal hospital, people asking him if he was certain that this was what he really wanted to do. Of course it wasn’t, but the threat of the Powers had left him little choice.

Mr. Costan took the papers and frowned. “Y’know, it’s none of my business, but ru

“I’m not ru

The disturbing image of Verchiel and his soldiers descending from the sky, fire in their hands, laying waste to the school and everyone inside it, played out in his mind.

“There are just too many memories here,” he said. “I think I’d seriously benefit from a change of scenery.” And the quicker he got on the road, the quicker he could find Stevie, he thought as he watched the man behind the desk across from him.