Lorelei slowly lifted her head, her blank, exhausted stare suddenly focusing on Aaron. “He’s gone,” she whispered. “He never got a chance to see it all come together.” Tears streamed from her eyes, leaving trails down her dirt-covered face. “Belphegor’s dead.”
Aaron’s body began to tremble. It was a feeling he had experienced before and he knew what it meant. “Where is he?” he asked, a sense of urgency to his tone. “Where’s Belphegor’s body?”
Lorelei feebly pointed to what remained of the church behind them. “He’s there,” she said. “In the rubble of the church. He died trying to defend it from Verchiel.”
As before, Aaron felt the power building at the center of his being and he spread his wings to fly, soaring over the heads of the surviving citizens, and then above the ruin that had once been their place of worship. He had to act quickly before the opportunity passed.
The Founder’s body lay half buried beneath the debris of the church, and Aaron touched down to kneel before his lifeless form. As he leaned closer to the fallen angel’s corpse his suspicions were verified. Belphegor’s angelic essence was faint, but it still lived.
The power swelled inside Aaron, flowing up and out of his center to pool in his hand. “You are forgiven,” he said to Belphegor, and laid his hand upon the fallen angel’s brow. There was a blinding flash, like a thousand and one photographs being taken at once, and a creature of the purest white light emerged from the rubble of the church to hover above him.
Aaron sensed the presence of the citizens nearby as they struggled to climb the debris, and heard their collective gasp as they looked upon what he had done.
“It’s time to go home, Belphegor,” he told the being of light.
And the angel, once again in its purest form, looked up to the heavens, toward what had been denied it for countless millennia. The heavenly creature then spread its gossamer wings of radiance, and in a silent flash, was gone.
Aaron knelt upon the rubble, awash in the relief of Belphegor’s release. But this time, he felt no satisfaction, as if he had not yet completed the task at hand. And then he understood, for it was true that he had not yet finished his work.
He stood, turning to those around him. “Gather the remains of those fallen in battle,” he stated firmly. “All of them, Powers’ soldiers included.
“I have work to do.”
EPILOGUE
Aaron had marked his brother’s grave with a rosebush. It was taken from one of Belphegor’s many gardens scattered about the property that was Aerie, and it appeared to be doing quite well within its new patch of earth.
A warm presummer wind ruffled his hair, and he could barely smell the stink of devastation it carried. After three days the aroma of burning buildings and charred flesh had finally begun to fade. He had been surprised that no one in the outside world took notice of the destruction that plagued the abandoned neighborhood, but when dealing with angels and the magicks they wielded, nothing should have surprised him.
He knelt in the damp, freshly turned soil to inspect the red buds. An insect that he could not identify—some kind of green-shelled beetle—alighted on one of the rosebush’s leaves and looked as though it might be ready for a little snack. In the language of the beetle, he asked it to please find somewhere else to dine, and to pass the word to his fellow bugs that this particular bush was off limits. The bug obliged with an irritated buzz and a flutter of its wings.
Aaron looked up from his brother’s grave to see Lehash and Lorelei crossing the yard toward him.
“Did you check it for bugs?” Lorelei asked him, gesturing with her chin toward the rosebush.
“The bugs and I have an understanding,” he answered as he stood, leaning over to wipe the damp earth from his knees. “But I’m keeping my eyes open.”
Lehash removed his Stetson and combed his fingers through his white hair. “And speaking of keeping an eye out,” he said, placing the hat back atop his head, “we got our feelers out to see if anyone’s caught sight of our wayward Powers’ commander.”
Aaron looked back to the grave, imagining that he could see beneath the earth to his brother buried there. It turned his stomach to think that he was the one who put him there. Yet again he saw the blade of his sword slicing toward Stevie’s-Malak‘s-neck, and a savage chill coursed down his spine.
“Anything?” Aaron asked.
Lehash shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Are you sure that Verchiel wasn’t killed—that one of Lorelei’s lightning strikes didn’t turn his sorry carcass to ash?”
Gabriel’s sudden burst of barking distracted them and they looked to the far corner of the yard. Vilma was holding a tennis ball, pretending to throw it, whipping the Labrador into an excited frenzy.
“How’s she doing?” Lorelei asked.
Aaron watched as she threw the ball and Gabriel eagerly bounded across the sparse grass in pursuit.
“She’s doing all right,” he said. The dog had snatched the ball up and was returning for another round. Besides eating, there was nothing Gabriel enjoyed more than a game of fetch. “I think it’s going to take her some time to adjust, but I think she’s going to be okay.”
They were silent, watching the dog as he tirelessly chased the tennis ball and dropped the slobbered toy at Vilma’s feet. She laughed out loud at the dog’s antics and Aaron couldn’t imagine a nicer sound. He remembered how lucky she was—how lucky he was—that Vilma had survived the ordeal with Verchiel.
“He’s still out there,” Aaron suddenly said. “I can feel him, biding his time.” He shook his head slowly. “But I’m not going to give him the opportunity. I’ve got some questions, so this time I’m taking the fight to him.”
There was a wooden picnic table in the yard, and the trio headed over to sit in the spring sunshine, a little breather from the violence that seemed to be an integral part of their lives lately.
“What kind of questions, Aaron?” Lorelei asked, pulling her snow-white hair back on her head and using an elastic band from her pocket to tie it in place.
They sat on the wooden benches, Lehash and Lorelei across from Aaron. Since the invasion of Aerie and Lorelei’s attack on the Powers, father and daughter seemed much closer, as if Lehash were developing a whole new respect for Nephilim.
“Belphegor told me that he had some information about the source of my powers—and Verchiel was going to tell me who my father was before the lightning strikes started to fall.”
“Sorry about that,” Lorelei said sheepishly.
Lehash chuckled. “Hell, boy, you don’t need to track down Verchiel to tell you that,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I know all about the one that sired you. Scholar worked it out.”
Gabriel was happily barking in the distance, but all Aaron could hear was the thrumming of his own heart.
“It makes perfect sense when you think of it,” Lehash said, casually scratching his chin. “It’s all about absolution.”
Aaron stood. “Tell me,” he demanded.
“Maybe you should sit down for this,” Lorelei suggested.
“Is there anybody besides me who doesn’t know who my father is?” Aaron asked, annoyed. He fixed Lehash in a steely gaze. “No more games. Tell me, who my father—”
“Lucifer.”
Aaron felt as if the world had fallen away beneath him and he had to sit down. “What… what are you saying?” he stammered.