“They’ll put you in Tartarus,” Francis told him. He had seen the prison, and had often been threatened with a cell there by the Thrones. He wasn’t certain which would be worse: death or time spent in the Hell prison.
“They will,” Malachi said, seemingly resigned to the idea.
“And that’s all right with you?”
“It’s how it is supposed to be,” the renegade angel said.
And suddenly there was a sound like the loudest thunder, and the air behind them began to tremble and bend as a passage was opened from the other side. The Thrones were again upon the world of God’s man.
Four of the flaming, eye-covered orbs floated from the opening out into the church, lining up in a row behind Francis.
“Thought you might be interested,” he said, pistol still pointed at the angel called Malachi.
“We are,” the Thrones answered as one.
Malachi stood with his hands crossed before him, eyes upon the Thrones.
“Didn’t know if you wanted this one dead or—”
“No,” the Thrones hissed. “This one must be made to suffer,” they said as one.
The four floated around Francis and encircled the renegade.
“What have you been doing?” they asked the elder angel directly, their voices eager. “Share with us, and your penance will be less . . . harsh.”
“It’s as if you believe I’ve been up to no good,” Malachi said, and chuckled.
“Tell us,” the flaming orbs covered in bulging eyes demanded.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Tentacles of fire shot out from the bodies of the Thrones, enwrapping the elder angel in their fiery grasp.
The angel was burning, but he did not scream.
“What do you think he did?” Francis asked, disturbed by the sight of Malachi’s flesh bubbling—melting—as the Thrones’ fiery appendages continued to entwine and caress.
The Thrones ignored the question, converging on the elder as his body began to tremble from the agony he was experiencing.
But still he did not cry out.
Francis had seen a lot of terrible things in his long life, and this had to be right up there with the worst. The Thrones must have had a serious mad-on for this guy for them to be paying this much attention to him.
Malachi had dropped to his knees, head drooping to his chest. His hair was on fire now, his blackened scalp starting to show the seared bone of his skull.
Francis still pointed his weapon, feeling his trigger finger begin to itch. He was tempted to fire, to put one shot in the angel’s head to end his torment. Nobody deserved this.
“Keep it up and there won’t be anything left for Tartarus,” he called out.
The Thrones’ multiple sets of eyes darted quickly to him, bulging at his insolence. He half expected to feel those tentacles wrapping around him at any second.
“The fallen Guardian is correct,” the Thrones said, withdrawing their hold on Malachi as he crouched there, smoldering from their touch.
The air behind them began to vibrate and blur as a passage for their departure was summoned. Francis could see the forbidding shape of the icy prison fortress, Tartarus, behind them, stepping back as the acute smell of brimstone and despair wafted out from the opening.
The Thrones again took hold of the charred and still-smoking angel, dragging him toward the passage and a fate more horrible than an eternity of death.
Malachi’s head bobbed as he was pulled through the pulsing rip in the fabric of time and space, slowly lifting his chin to look at him just as he passed over the threshold from the realm of Earth, into Hell.
“It’s how it is supposed to be,” Malachi said through cracked and blistered lips, seemingly accepting his fate.
Then the doorway began to waver, the passage to Hell’s prison closing up behind them.
Hell
Malachi admired the glint of his blade.
The information he had been seeking for so very long, extracted from the brain of the fallen Guardian, dangled wetly from its tip.
“Hello, lovely,” he purred.
How long had he waited for this moment? The elder truly couldn’t say. The time spent confined within an icy cell in Tartarus had seemed like an eternity. But he’d had his transgressions to keep him company, and his plans for the future of the universe, while he patiently waited for the inevitable to occur.
The fruit of the Tree had shown him a possible future; he just needed to have the patience to wait for it to happen.
“Eliza,” Francis hissed from the stone table below him.
Malachi glanced down at the former Guardian, whose gaze was locked upon the drop of hidden knowledge hanging from the edge of the scalpel.
“Oh, yes,” the elder agreed. “It’s all about the lovely Eliza . . . without whom I would never be able to enter the Garden.”
Francis struggled to speak. “Hidden . . .”
“Yes . . . yes, she was, but now she is found,” Malachi said happily. “I would thank you for keeping this for me, but I seriously doubt you’d accept my gratitude.”
He watched as Francis’s mouth moved fitfully as it attempted to shape more words.
“What is it?” Malachi asked. “Are you going to prove me wrong?”
“K-kill you,” Francis managed, eyes blazing with a repressed rage.
“You would try, wouldn’t you,” Malachi told him. “The only hope for the future and you would see it dead.” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s how we have come to this,” Malachi proclaimed. He motioned toward the passage from the cave. The howls and rumbles of Hell were all the louder.
“The Morningstar is free, and here we are at the precipice of war once more . . . all of creation hanging in the balance. It’s time for a level head to prevail.”
Malachi held the scalpel up to his face and studied the thread of knowledge, careful not to let it fall. His servant in the world beyond needed it. With a quick jab, he plunged the razor-sharp instrument, and the retrieved information resting on the tip, through the flesh of his forehead and on into his skull.
Malachi gasped aloud as he felt the scalpel blade—and the prized knowledge—enter his mind in a heated rush that was not too far from pleasurable.
“There,” the elder said, yanking the surgical tool from his head with nary a drop of blood. “He should have everything he needs.”
He returned his attention to Francis.
“And we are that much closer to success.”
The former Guardian glared up at him weakly, hate shooting from his eyes. Malachi hadn’t expect him to understand. Francis was part of the old ways, averse to change, even though it was all for the better.
Malachi leaned closer, the dim light of the cave reflecting off the scalpel in his hand. He could see Francis tense, but instead of cutting his flesh, Malachi cut through the leather straps that bound the fallen angel.
Malachi stepped back, watching as Francis slowly—painfully—sat up.
“I—I don’t understand,” Francis squeaked, his voice dry.
“Of course you don’t,” Malachi told him. “You’re really not supposed to.”
Francis carefully slid his bare legs over the side of the stone platform, letting his feet dangle.
“What now?” he asked, far too weak to do much of anything else.
“Now, that’s the proper attitude,” Malachi said with a nod and a grin. “There is actually one more thing you must do for me.”
Mulvehill wasn’t at all familiar with the back roads of Brockton, but that didn’t prevent him from driving like a bat out of hell.
He thought about asking the old woman where they were, but doubted that she was in any mental state to tell him.
Christ, I’m barely in the mental state to drive.
The road was empty, and that was good. He hated to think his speed would hurt anyone. He risked a quick glance at Fernita, buckled into the passenger seat next to him. She appeared to be in a kind of catatonia, staring ahead through the windshield, mouth slightly agape. He considered asking her whether everything was all right, but figured he already knew the answer to that.