“Murderer,” Verchiel pronounced, his accusation rumbling through the air.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
No matter how hard she tried, Lorelei could not keep the man from dying.
The attack by the Powers was unrelenting, brutal, and she watched stunned as people who she had come to know as friends were slain before her eyes. Lorelei did what she could, using angelic magicks to repel the attackers, but it wasn’t enough. Citizens were still dying.
She did not know him well, but thought his name was Mike. He too was a Nephilim, and had come to Aerie not long after she’d first arrived. He’d had the look—pale skin, close-cropped hair, an unusual amount of scar tissue around the wrists. Like her, he had been institutionalized as the angelic birthright came to life inside him, turning his day-to-day existence on its ear.
Lorelei had seen him struck down. A Powers’ angel had come swooping down out of the sky and impaled him on the end of a flaming spear before moving on to find murder and mayhem elsewhere. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes as she approached him, a glimmer of hope that this was not the end for him despite the gaping wound in his chest. If only she had the power. Using all her strength, she dragged him from the street, away from the battle that would decide their fate. On a front lawn more dirt than grass, she knelt down beside him and took his hand in hers.
In the past she’d tried to make small talk with Mike. Whenever she saw him out walking or at the group meetings, she always made it a point to smile and say hello. But Mike had kept to himself. She’d heard that he wasn’t adjusting well to his transformation. Right now, it didn’t really matter. Mike was dying and there was nothing she could do to save him. All she could do was be with him when he passed.
We’re not doing very well, she thought as she gave Mike’s hand a gentle squeeze. The dying Nephilim squeezed back weakly. His wound was still smoking, as if burning somewhere deep within, and she placed her other hand over the hole in his chest hoping to smother it.
Her father’s guns boomed somewhere in the distance, and she was certain that another Powers’ angel had met its fate, but it wasn’t enough. Most of the citizens weren’t soldiers, and the Powers had sworn their existences to wiping Aerie’s kind from the world. Lorelei could sense her fellow Nephilim dying, like tiny pieces of herself floating away on the wind.
She returned her attention to Mike and saw that he had passed away. His eyes were wide in death, staring up into the sky toward what she hoped was a better place, a place where he could be at peace. And wasn’t that what they were all fighting for?
She rose and moved to return to the battle. The ground was littered with the corpses of citizens and Powers alike. A Powers’ soldier, one of his wings twisted and bent, came at her from across the street. There was a dagger of flame in one hand and the look of murder in his glistening black eyes. She must have looked like an easy target.
“Hate to disappoint you,” she said before beginning to mutter a spell of defense. She felt the charge of angelic energy building inside her. The angel was almost upon her, but she held her ground. She could smell the stink of his fury oozing from his flesh; it smelled of spice and something akin to burning rubber. It made her want to vomit.
Lorelei was getting tired. Her body was not used to manipulating these kinds of energies for this length of time, and the magicks were slow to respond. The strain was painful as she called forth a blast of crackling energy. Bolts of energy emanated from her fingertips and met in the air to form a ball. The energy rolled across the space between them, striking the Powers’ angel in the face, stopping him in his tracks. The angel screamed pitifully as the flesh on his face turned to ash. He fell to his knees, dead before his body even touched the ground.
Her head swam and the tips of her fingers ached as if frostbitten. She wondered if she’d be able to find the strength to defend herself again, when she felt an uncomfortable tingling in the pit of her stomach and looked past the battles to the church of Aerie. It was Belphegor she sensed, and he was in great pain. But as Lorelei started for the holy place, it exploded in a blast of orange flame and a scorching wind that picked her up and tossed her back. She struggled to her feet and wound her way across the battlefield to the smoking pile of rubble. Not even the destruction of the church could stop their battle.
“Belphegor!” she cried, the heat of the ruins on which she walked burning through the soles of her boots.
It was then that she felt him, a twinge of his once powerful life force calling from nearby. A hand, charred and blackened, beckoned to her from beneath a section of collapsed wall and she went to it. Using all her strength, Lorelei moved the rubble aside, managing to expose Belphegor’s upper body. He was hurt beyond imagining, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how he was still living.
His breathing was a grating rasp, and his eyes—his beautiful, soulful eyes—opened as she laid her hand upon his blackened cheek.
“Belphegor,” she whispered, scalding tears of sadness raining down from her eyes. “What have they done to you?”
The fallen angel closed his eyes again, as if attempting to muster the strength to speak. “I have lost my battle,” he said in a strained whisper, his voice like the rustling of dry leaves. “But the war is far from over.”
“They’re killing us,” she said, bowing her head, feeling the grip of despair upon her.
His charred hand brushed against the side of her head, and she raised her gaze to him. “As long as he still lives,” the Founder stressed, “there is hope.”
She wanted to believe in the savior, in Aaron Corbet, but at the moment it all seemed so unrealistic. Instead Lorelei began to move away more of the debris. “Let’s see about getting you free—”
“Stop,” he commanded, his voice stronger. “It is too late for me,” he said with finality.
She didn’t want to hear that, she didn’t want to hear that he had given up. If he had managed to survive thus far, maybe there was something she could do to help him heal faster. Her thoughts raced with spells of healing. “You can’t die.” She continued to frantically try to free him. “You have to hold on … you have to hold on until the savior forgives you.”
“That is not to be my fate,” Belphegor responded sadly, his head resting on a pillow of rubble.
And though it pained her, something deep down inside told her that it was true.
“My many years of tending these gardens has left my constitution weak.” He shook his head feebly from side to side. “Do not despair for me,” he told her. “For I have lived far longer than even I expected. From the moment Camael spared my life in Eden, I knew that I was living on borrowed time, and swore that when the moment finally did arrive, I would not fight, but would welcome it—for it was due me long ago.”
Belphegor paused, his eyes closing, and for a brief moment she wondered if he had slipped away. But then the old angel sighed, a sound suffused with disappointment. “The only thing that pains me is that I will not survive to see the outcome,” he said.
Lorelei said nothing, and the Founder read her silence.
“You believe all is lost?” he asked, and still she did not respond.
The sounds of battle drifted up to them, Lehash’s guns booming, screams of rage, cries of fear. Lorelei didn’t have to see it to know that they were losing the war, she could feel it in the depths of her soul. She could feel them dying.
“Even with Aaron, we’re not strong enough,” she whispered, nearly overcome with hopelessness.
“So you believe,” Belphegor said. “Do you even understand the true nature of what you are?” he asked, straining upon every word. “The merging of God’s two most fabulous creations into one fantastic form of life.”