Aerie

“I’ve saved many lives in my time on this world,” Camael reflected. “But I don’t believe it will ever balance the scales against the lives I took as leader of the Powers.”

“How can you be sure, Camael?” Aaron asked in an attempt to keep his friend with him, to keep him focused. He gestured at the circle around them. “Most of them wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

Camael looked at him with eyes that had grown tired, eyes that had seen so much. “Deep down I knew that it was wrong, but still I kept on with the killing, for I believed that it was what He wanted of me. How sad that it took the writings of a human seer to force me to come to my senses.” He laughed and dark blood spilled from his mouth to stain his silver goatee. “Imagine that,” he said with a weary smile. “It took a lowly human to show me the error of my ways.”

Aaron chuckled sadly. “Yeah, imagine that.”

The angel warrior’s body was suddenly wracked with spasms of coughing that threatened to shake away what little life there still was in his dying frame. Time, as it always seemed to be, was ru

“Is he going to die?” one of the citizens, a girl probably only a few years older than Aaron, asked. There were tears in her eyes, and in the eyes of all present. He could not bring himself to answer, even though the inevitable seemed obvious.

“That is the burning question of the day,”

Camael answered, looking at Aaron. “Will I die here on the street of the place I sought so long to find?” He pulled Aaron closer as he asked the question, the source of the strength that had allowed him to return to Aerie. “Or might I actually be forgiven?” the angel asked wistfully. “Only you have the answer.”

Aaron could sense that his friend’s time was short. “Shall we find out?” he asked Camael, reaching down into the center of his being to find the gift of redemption. It was there, waiting for him as he imagined it would be. He called forth the heavenly essence, drawing upon it, feeling its might rise up and flow down his arm into one of his hands. The facility to redeem danced upon his fingertips, and Aaron looked compassionately to the angel that had shown him the road to his destiny. He wrestled with feelings of intense emotion: sadness, for he would not be seeing his friend again, and great happiness, for Camael would be going home.

Camael began to pray, his weary eyes tightly closed. “Have mercy upon me, O God. With the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my offenses.”

Aaron brought his hand closer, the power contained within glowing like a small sun.

“Cleanse me from my sins. For I acknowledge my offenses, and they are ever before me.”

Aaron felt the energy of his special gift swell and begin to flow from him. This was it. “You are forgiven,” Aaron declared as his hand eerily slipped beneath the flesh of the angel’s breast.

Camael gasped, his body arching as Aaron let go of the force collecting in his fingertips, releasing the power of redemption inside him. The angel’s flesh began to fume. The skin grew brittle and fractured as the human shell that he had been wearing since his personal fall from grace began to flake away. Camael writhed upon the ground, like a snake sloughing off its skin, as the glory of what he once had been was revealed.

There came a jubilant cry of release, followed by a dazzling flash of brilliance, and Aaron instinctively turned away, the flash of the angel’s rebirth blinding to the earthly eye. Aaron listened to the gasps and cries of awe from those that had gathered around them, and he turned his gaze back to the latest recipient of his heavenly gift.

Awesome, was all Aaron could think of as he watched the beautiful, fearsome creature floating on wings seemingly made from feathers of gossamer and sunlight. Camael’s hair moved about his head like a halo of fire. His flesh was nearly translucent and he was adorned in armor that could easily have been forged from the rays of the sun. The angel noticed him then, and Aaron finally understood the enormity of his responsibility. As he gazed at the magnificent entity before him, he knew it was his right and his alone. He was the One, and this was his burden and his joy.

“It must have been something,” Aaron said to the transformed Camael, thinking of a time in Heaven before the strife … and wondering how it would be now when his friend returned.

“Maybe it will be something again,” Camael said in a voice like the surge of ocean waves upon a beach, and turned his attention to the open sky above.

Aaron prepared himself for the being’s ascension, but the angel seemed to hesitate, as if something was preventing him from moving on. “What’s wrong, Camael?” he asked him.

“I… I do not wish to leave you with the burden of this responsibility,” Camael said, longingly returning his gaze to the sky above him.

“I’ll be fine,” Aaron reassured him. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

The two again exchanged looks, and Aaron could see that the angel was torn.

“Go, Camael,” he said in a powerful voice that he hoped brimmed with authority. “Your job is done; it’s time for you to go home.”

With those words, Camael spread wide his wings and began his ascent to a world beyond this one. His wings of light and fire stirred the air, filling it with the gentle sounds of the wind. Aaron could not help but think that it sounded like the voices of small children singing.

“Say good-bye to Gabriel,” the angel said. “I do believe I’ll miss him.”

“He has that effect,” Aaron replied, and watched the glimmer of a smile cross the angel’s blissful features.

Then Camael turned his full attention to the yawning space above him, raised his arms to the sky, and in a flash of light that seemed to warm Aaron to the depths of his soul, the angel that was his friend was gone.

Aaron stumbled back, the beauty of Camael’s ascent still dancing before his eyes. He was on his own now, but he knew what needed to be done.

The Nephilim turned to face Belphegor and Lehash and was astonished to see that the citizens were kneeling on the street behind them, heads bowed in reverence. “What’s all this?” he asked.

“They know the truth now,” Belphegor said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Son of bitch,” Lehash growled as he pulled the worn Stetson from his head. “You are the One.”

Aaron walked toward Lorelei’s house, wondering about Vilma’s condition and how Gabriel would take the news of Camael’s passing. At first meeting, the angel and the dog hadn’t really gotten along, but recently, a strange, begrudging friendship seemed to have developed between the two.

He chanced a casual glance over his shoulder to see if he was still being followed, and sure enough, a sizeable number of Aerie’s population trailed a respectful distance behind. Lehash, in the lead, politely tipped his hat. Aaron knew they were there because they believed he was something special—something many of them had been waiting for most of their lives—but the adoration made him uncomfortable. He wished they would admire him from their own homes.

He headed up the walk and climbed the few steps to the front door. As he pulled open the screen, he noted that the crowd had stopped at the street, watching him from a distance.

“I’ll be right here if you need anything,” the constable confirmed, taking up a guardian’s stance at the begi

Aaron waved and stepped into the small hallway inside Lorelei’s house. To the right was the living room. Vilma was lying on the overstuffed couch. She was asleep, her limp hand resting on Gabriel’s side as he sat near her on the floor, resting his chin on the edge of the sofa. Lorelei sat at the edge of the rickety coffee table, applying tape to a bandage on Vilma’s exposed stomach.

“Hey,” Aaron said as he came into the room. “How’s she doing?”