But Nathan was all about the sacrifice, especially since Malachi’s arrival to the order.
Before the angel came, the Sons had just existed, living their dayto-day lives, caring for the father, and waiting for a sign that the sins of the first man and woman would be forgiven.
Many believed that Malachi was that very sign, an agent of Heaven brought to them to help make their reasons for existing a reality. Jon believed that the angel had come to them with a purpose, but wasn’t quite sure if said purpose was to benefit the Sons’ cause, or something more personal. These were his own intimate thoughts, thoughts that hadn’t been uttered to a soul.
Except for Nathan.
Hands on the corner of the cold metal of the stretcher, Jon stopped to gaze down at the sheet-covered form lying there before him. He’d been able to hold himself together, but he felt the grief inside him build to an incalculable level, and there was no amount of strength that could hold it back.
In the currently empty corridor he began to cry. As the tears came, memories washed over him, the two friends throughout the many years their kind were allowed to live. For a brief moment he wished that he were like all the other human beings out there, no longer special—no longer of the special line—for he would likely be close to death now, and wouldn’t have to know this pain much longer.
He was tempted to pull away the sheet, to look upon his friend’s broken remains, but didn’t care to soil his memory of him. He remembered how he had looked in the lab . . . how he had looked before Malachi had . . .
Killed him.
Jon ran the back of his hand over his face, wiping away the tears and snot, wiping away the residuals of his sadness. Steeling himself, he continued to wheel the stretcher down the empty corridor on the way to what would be Nathan’s final place of rest.
Reaching the entrance to the botanical garden, Jon walked around the stretcher to open the door. Always the efficient one, he was already reviewing the supplies that he would need in order to prepare Nathan’s grave. He knew that there were shovels inside, so that would pretty much take care of it: a shovel, and perhaps a nice rock to mark where he lay. Jon reached inside his pocket and removed something that he had brought from his room. It was a leather pouch filled with his collection of marbles that he had accumulated over the years. Nathan had always admired them, and Jon thought that he would bury them with him—a piece of himself to accompany his friend. Jon was about to lose it again, so he sucked it up, preoccupying himself with the thought of where he’d need to dig, and how long it would take him to finish.
The door started to slide open as he walked around the stretcher, but he noticed that the door had opened only three-quarters of the way. Great, he thought, something else for maintenance to look at.
He returned to the door to check whether something was obstructing the track.
The first body was just inside the door, a splayed arm jammed against it preventing the door from sliding completely back.
Jon didn’t know what to think entering the botanical garden, about to ask the man—his name was Rudolf, and Jon had never really liked him all that much—what the matter was as he knelt down beside him, but Jon knew that he was dead before the words could even leave his mouth.
Instantly slipping into emergency mode, Jon stood and headed for a phone just inside the room to the right of the doorway.
This was when he noticed the other bodies all along the path leading into the garden. They appeared broken . . . bloody.
Were those bite marks? he wondered with escalating horror.
He then knew why the other areas of the dome had been so quiet—the residents were all here. Not realizing it, he had begun to walk the path, stepping over the bodies of the people he had known all his life. All dead, all wearing expressions that could best be described as shock . . .
No . . . the look was surprise.
Reaching the clearing, he noticed that the tropical forest was completely quiet; even without his hearing aid, he could hear that the bugs’ and birds’ voices were silenced. Maybe they knew to be silent . . . or maybe they were dead too.
The most bodies were in the clearing, stacked like a huge pile of dirty laundry . . . dirty, bloody laundry. Jon froze, searching the green of the man-made jungle, sensing that he wasn’t alone.
“Show yourself.”
The words left his mouth before he could consider them, and they brought with them a response that he really didn’t care to experience.
There was laughter from the jungle, low and rumbling, more like a growl. He could feel it low in his stomach, as well as hear it. Jon couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from; it seemed to come from all sides . . . from everywhere.
And then there came the fire.
It was like a living thing, leaping out from the concealment of the trees and bushes . . . tongues of flame consuming everything in their path as they made their way toward him.
Jon spun around, running across the body-strewn path on his way to the exit. He imagined the bodies, his friends, reaching up to grab at his legs and feet, not wanting him to get away, not wanting him to survive. He could feel the fire growing in intensity behind him, nipping hungrily at his heels.
He could see the door up ahead, the stretcher holding the body of his friend just outside it. That was his goal, he decided, feeling a tongue of fire lick at the salty wetness of sweat on the back of his neck. He wanted to reach his friend.
If he was to die, he wanted it to be with him.
Jon made it to the exit, passing through the doorway with one final push, jumping onto the stretcher, feeling the body of his friend beneath him as Hell opened its awful mouth to consume them all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The airplane shuddered.
Remy casually glanced out his window expecting to see the beginnings of a storm, but saw only cottony white clouds, so inviting that he was tempted to lay his weary head upon them.
The jet shook again, harder this time, and now he could hear the alarms going off in the cockpit up front. His hand was reaching to unbuckle his seat belt when the plane trembled yet again, so violently that the overhead storage bins flapped open.
“Is everything all right?” Remy called out, holding on to his seat as he made his way up the short aisle toward the cockpit.
The alarms continued on the other side of the door as he rapped on it with his knuckle.
“Is everything . . .”
There was an explosion of air that could only have been the roar of decompression, followed by the shriek of the jet’s fuselage as it tried to maintain its integrity.
The plane began to fall.
Remy was about to kick open the cockpit door when part of the wall to his right was ripped away with the whine of twisting metal, and the screech of the wind as it rushed in to fill the void.
Remy attempted to hold on to something—anything—as his body was wrenched toward the yawning hole.
And through that hole he caught a glimpse—a glimpse of something large and terrible, something that had done this on purpose. Something that had willfully attacked the plane.
Then a rush of air tore at Remy’s clothing as he lost his grip and was sucked into the void. Spinning through the clouds, he caught sight of the plane—one engine and part of a wing gone, the other engine engulfed by orange flame and leaking black, oily smoke. The cockpit was gone, shorn away, along with the pilot.
Over the deafening roar of free fall, he could just about make out a sound, and craned his neck to face the Cherubim Zophiel, large and powerful, and as filled with rage as the last time Remy had seen him.