The eyes within the helmet were intense, boring into his own like daggers of ice. The servant to the Powers shook his head slowly in disgust.
This act of condescension only served to inflame Alastor’s rage all the more. How dare this lowly servant look down upon me? Does he not realize the courage and fortitude my sacrifice has required?
From deep within, Alastor dredged up the final remnants of what remained of his long inactive angelic traits. The fallen angel bellowed his disdain and threw his massive bulk across the cellar floor, scattering his accumulated belongings in his wake. He hefted the battle-ax of fire above his head, ready to cleave his enemy in twain. The flaming ax descended, passing through the coats and sports jackets that hung from the ceiling pipes, and continuing its destructive course into a musty, cardboard box filled with pots and pans.
The fallen angel spun himself around, the burning ax handle still clutched in his blackened grasp. The flaming weapon decimated a box of letters and tax records, sending burning pieces of paper up into the air, then drifting down upon him like burning snow. But despite the savagery of his assault, the weapon had yet to find its mark.
Through the burning refuse Alastor scanned the cellar in search of his adversary, weapon ready to strike yet again. He found the armored man standing before the worktable, his scarlet glove resting atop the box that contained the precious wings.
“How much did it hurt, Alastor?” the invader asked. “How great was the pain to murder what you were?”
Alastor relived the shrieking agony as he hacked his beautiful wings from his back; how he had blacked out after cutting away the first, only to return to consciousness and do away with the other. The pain had been excruciating, and was second only to his betrayal of the Creator.
The sight of the armored creature near his wings stoked the fires of his fury to maddening heights. Barely able to contain his rage, Alastor propelled himself at the figure, a cry like that of a hungry hawk erupting from his open mouth as he moved with a speed contrary to his bulk. He lifted the flaming ax above his head, but unexpectedly the intruder surged forward to meet his attack. The warrior struck quickly, fiercely, and just as fast leaped out of the fallen angel’s path.
Alastor crashed into the long, wooden work-table, practically ripping it from the granite wall. The box fell, and he watched it open, spilling its precious contents as he slowly turned to face his attacker. The armored intruder stood perfectly still, his cold, predator’s gaze watching him.
A terrible numbness had begun to spread from his chest, traveling to all his extremities. Alastor gazed down at his body gone to seed with the sweet indulgences of humanity, and saw the pommel of an ornate knife sticking out from the center of his chest. His strength suddenly leaving him, he watched helplessly as the ax of fire fell from his grasp to evaporate in a flash before it could hit the floor.
“What… what have you done to me?”
The fearsome figure shrugged its shoulders of metal. “Pretty little symbols etched into the metal of the blade,” he said, drawing the same symbols in the air with his finger. “Symbols to take away strength—to make you easier to kill.”
His legs no longer capable of supporting his enormous mass, Alastor pitched forward atop his wings. The aroma of their rot choked his senses, and he was overcome with a crushing sense of loss.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to them through the plastic cover. He felt his body being turned and gazed up into the disturbing visage that straddled him.
“How?…” Alastor slurred, the magicks carved upon the knife blade affecting even his ability to speak.
His attacker reached down, taking hold of the knife that protruded from the center of Alastor’s body.
“How?” the attacker asked, gripping the hilt.
“How did … how did you find me?” Alastor gasped.
The figure standing over him again began to laugh, that horrible sound of a demented child. “Find you?” it repeated, exerting pressure on the blade, cutting down through the flesh and bone of the fallen angel’s chest. He completed his jagged incision, then extracted the blade and replaced it somewhere beneath the layers of his armor. “We did not need to find you,” the Powers’ servant said as it dug the fingers of both hands into the wound. “We knew where you were all along.”
Alastor closed his eyes to his inevitable fate, focusing all his attention on the rapid-fire beating of his heart. It reminded him of the sound of flight, of his beautiful wings as they beat against the air.
And then what Alastor had sacrificed so much to keep was stolen away as the visage of death clad in scarlet tore his still-beating heart from his chest.
CHAPTER ONE
“Can I take your order, sir?” asked the cute girl with the blond ponytail and a smile wide enough to split her face in two.
Aaron Corbet shook himself from his reverie and tried to focus on the menu board behind her. “Uh, yeah, thanks.” he said, attempting to generate interest in yet another fast-food order. His eyes were strained from hours of driving, and the writing on the menu blurred as he tried to read it. “Give me a Whopper-with-cheese value meal, and four large fries to go.”
Aaron hoped the four orders of fries would be enough to satisfy Camael’s strange new craving for the greasy fast food. Just a few days ago the angel had given him a song and dance about how creatures of Heaven didn’t need to eat—but that had been before he sampled some of the golden fried potatoes. Angels addicted to French fries, Aaron thought with a wry shake of his head. Who’da thunk it?
But then again, who could have predicted this crazy turn his life had taken? he thought as he waited for his order to be filled. The angel Camael had become his companion and mentor since Aaron’s realization that he was born a Nephilim. He remembered how insane it had all sounded at first—the hybrid offspring of the mating between a human woman and an angelic being. Aaron thought he was losing his mind. And then people he cared about started dying, and he realized there was much more at stake than just his sanity.
Aaron turned away from the counter and looked out over the dining room. He noticed a couple with a little boy who appeared to be no more than four years old. The child was playing with a blue plastic top that he must have gotten as a prize with his kid’s meal. Aaron immediately thought of Stevie, his foster brother, and a weighty feeling of unease washed over him. He recalled the last time he had seen his little brother. The seven-year-old autistic child was being dragged from their home in the clutches of an angel—a soldier in the service of a murderous host of angels called the Powers. The Powers wanted Aaron dead, for he was not just a Nephilim, he was also supposed to be the chosen one spoken of in an angelic prophecy written over a millennium ago, promising redemption to the fallen angels.
At first it had been an awful lot to swallow, but lately Aaron had begrudgingly come to accept the bizarre twists and turns that life seemed to have in store for him. Camael said that it was all part of his destiny, which had been predetermined long before he was born.
The child had managed to make the top spin and, much to his parents’ amusement, clapped his hands together as the plastic toy careened about the table top.
The prophecy predicted that someone very much like Aaron would be responsible for bringing forgiveness to the angels hiding on Earth since the Great War in Heaven, that he would be the one to reunite the fallen with God. It’s a big job for an eighteen-year old foster kid from Lynn, Massachusetts, but who was he to argue with destiny?
The spinning top flew from the table and the little boy began to scream in panic. Again Aaron was bombarded with painful memories of the recent past, of his foster brother’s cries as he was stolen away. “I think I’ll keep him,” the Powers leader, Verchiel, had said as he handled the little boy like some kind of house pet. Aaron’s blood seethed with the memory. Perhaps he was some kind of savior, but there was nothing he wanted more than to find his brother. Everything else would have to wait until Stevie was safe again.