Its challenge died on its hairy lips as the bullets blasted huge holes in the back of its head. A death rattle gurgled deep in its throat and it tumbled from its perch, falling face first into a heap at the base of the barn wall. I smiled wide as it hit. There was something satisfying about the way it laid there, its tongue lolling out of its open mouth, its ass up in the air. It was as if the lack of decency it showed in life was reflected in its death. I felt it fitting.
I pushed aside my armchair psychology and returned to the barn. I dug out another cartridge and cursed as I realized I only had one more left. I slammed it in, hoping I wouldn’t need more than that. With a snarl, I leapt through the same hole I’d exited just moments before, wondering what awaited me on the other side. I landed in a crouch, scanning the scene. I arrived just in time to see Scarlett and Katon dispatch the last of the fiends. Scarlett rode one into the ground, her tiny fists a blur of motion outlined by streams of yellowish blood and bile. The creature crumbled beneath her onslaught.
Katon danced inside of the other’s reach and drove his blade deep into its lungs, his arm wrapped tight around the fiend’s neck. I could see the fury in his eyes, his face etched with deep lines of murderous rage as he twisted the blade.
Malis lay in moist pieces across the floor like a fleshy puzzle. Not all the king’s horses or all the king’s men would be putting this Humpty Dumpty back together again. His head, separated from the rest had rolled into a corner where its eyeless sockets stared up at the ceiling. His arms and legs were scattered about, ripped viciously apart at each individual joint. His bloody, battered torso sat in the center of the room, its ribs caved in.
I wasn’t sure which of the two had done it, but
I was buying them both a beer once all this was over. They’d earned it.
I took stock of all the bodies, making sure all of Asmoday’s minions were accounted for, holstered my gun, and raced to Rahim’s side. Katon and Scarlett got there less than a second later.
To my surprise, he was still alive.
He looked up at us as we gathered around him, his eyes reflecting the pain I knew he’d never voice. At seeing him, Katon knelt down and buried his face into the old wizard’s chest. Weakly, Rahim draped his arm over Katon’s head and pulled him in tighter. He squeezed his eyes shut as a single tear slipped from the corner and ran down his cheek. A quiet sob slipped from Scarlett as she turned away from the pair, hiding her face. For all the rage and violence that festered inside her, she would forever be an agent of the Lord. Her heart would forever be vulnerable to tragedy.
Unable to help, I simply let them be. They stayed there for several minutes, neither speaking nor breaking the embrace. Unwilling to interrupt, I stood and started to back away when I noticed Rahim looking at me.
“How bad?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t going to like the answer. He, no doubt, hated to admit it even more.
“My spine is shattered,” he said as he took a deep, laborious breath. His face winced with the effort.
Katon pulled away to make it easier, settling in beside him. “I can’t feel anything below my chest. It’s all dead.”
My heart sank. In my mind, that was worse than death. “We need to get you back to DRAC.” I knew it was the right thing to do, but I wasn’t even sure that’d help.
While the members of DRAC had performed many miracles since their inception, healing on the scale Rahim required wasn’t one of them. Forget all the stories you’ve heard about preachers or wizards healing the crippled and bringing the dead back to life, same as they were before. They aren’t true. Outside of God and the Devil, no one has the level of power or control necessary to truly resurrect the dead or make a crippled man walk again. Magic doesn’t work that way. For all its vaunted reputation, it’s rarely useful for anything more than destruction. While somewhat flexible, conforming to the imagination of its specific wielder, its true nature is brute force. The hammer never cures the anvil.
The soul transfer, the closest thing to a miracle in today’s Godless world, would also be useless to him. As a human, Rahim had no ability to partake of a supernatural being’s soul. While his suffering could be eased by judicious magical rituals and modern medicine, Rahim’s future was in the hands of fate and the surgeons in the employ of DRAC.
He knew this better than any of us.
“There is still much to do, my friends, but I’m afraid I can do little to help.” Rahim patted Katon on the leg to motivate him, his moist eyes never leaving mine.
“Take me home.”
Page 247
History Lessons
Back at DRAC, Katon having escorted the doctors who wheeled Rahim into surgery, Scarlett and I were left alone in the small waiting room. Unable to remain still, she paced the room from one end to the other, her leather pants squeaking faintly with every step. So rattled by how fast we’d fallen apart, I sat with my head in my hands and stared at the carpet. I couldn’t even bring myself to think something sexual about the sound Scarlett was making. That alone was a sure sign of Armageddon coming to pass.
With Abraham held captive by Baalth and Rahim broken, perhaps never to walk again, all that was left of the Council was Rachelle. As powerful and as good a person as she was, she would be little help from this point on. Even if she did sense the next ritual, it would be too late to stop it.
Asmoday had done well for himself. In just a few short days, he’d decimated DRAC, clearing the way for the end of the world. Not bad for an underachiever who had been kicked out of Heaven for being the errand boy who delivered the apple to Eve.
Speaking of misguided angels, I glanced up at Scarlett. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
She stopped her pacing and looked at me with baleful eyes, nodding.
“How did Asmoday manage to kidnap you?”
Her face twisted weirdly, as if unsure of what expression to make. “He didn’t.” She took a deep breath, letting it out slow. “Gabriel did.”
I leaned back in the chair, whistling. Scarlett had been drug through the wringer ever since the war broke out and she was forced to take sides. It’d been hard on her having to turn her back on her friends, people she’d known since she came into existence, who had chosen to follow the path of Gabriel. Family one moment, enemies a heartbeat later, she never quite grasped the concept of angels not being the good guys. Her heart belonged to the Angelic Choir of old and she just couldn’t understand why it wasn’t that way with all of the angels.
Gabriel’s betrayal had to have been almost as painful to her as God’s disappearance had been. Everything she was, her whole world view, was tied up in the premise that God was on high and he would lead, she would follow. She’d only recently begun to accept the fact things were different these days and they probably would never go back to being the way she remembered. Now, with Gabriel kidnapping her, all that pain had to have come rushing back, the fresh scars torn open and left to bleed.
I felt for her deep down, though I had to admit I Page 249 was glad I was on the other side of all that. Demons and betrayal went hand in hand, it went without saying. It was never a matter of if. It was always a matter of when. It’s so much easier to deal with that kind of crap when you know to expect it. She hadn’t been raised in that environment like I had. This was all new to her. Though I knew it was eating her up inside, on the surface, she seemed to handle it well enough.