Am I strong enough? he wondered. Or will it drive me crazy as it has others before me?
“I… I can’t,” he stammered. It was becoming more difficult to speak.
“You must,” Camael declared. “If you do not, Gabriel will die and we will share a fate at the hands of Verchiel.”
Aaron was silent. He watched the Orisha chief step away from the celebration and remove two sets of restraints from a satchel hidden in the thick underbrush. “When the Orishas’ poison wears off, you will go nowhere,” the ugly little creature cackled as he moved toward Aaron.
“Do something!” Camael bellowed.
For a moment, Aaron thought about letting the power loose, feeling the electric surge of his true supernatural nature course through his body. He remembered the excruciating pain as his newly developed wings tore through the flesh of his back, unfurling to their full and glorious span. He winced, recalling the severe, burning sensation as ancient angelic symbols appeared upon his skin—signaling his transformation into something far more than human.
He thought about it, but he did nothing—and the Orisha’s restraints snapped coldly closed around his wrists.
Camael sighed. He’d had such great hopes for the boy, but now he was beginning to have doubts.
“And now you, great angel,” the Orisha chieftain said happily as he headed for Camael with the second set of manacles.
“And now me,” Camael growled, and began to climb to his feet.
“More poison! More poison!” the leader screamed in panic, pulling his knife from the sheath around his leg. The other two warriors made a frantic dive for their weapons.
Camael was both bored and immensely annoyed. The angel knew that Aaron had been holding back, fearful of his newly emerged nature, and he had seen this as the perfect opportunity for the boy to tame the power, to wrestle it beneath his control. But as he gazed at the youth, lying upon the ground, having succumbed to the effects of the Orishas’ poison—he realized how wrong he was. He wasn’t ready at all, and Camael began to fear for the fulfillment of the angelic prophecy.
The old shaman was fluttering in the air before Camael, muttering, arms spread wide. The ground beneath the angel’s feet began to churn, and he felt himself pulled into the earth as suddenly as liquid. The other two Orishas charged, their weapons glinting with paralyzing poison. This will not do at all, the angel thought as a new sword of fire ignited in his hand. Camael swung the fiery blade driving back the warriors and with one great flap of his mighty wings, he lifted himself from the ground’s sucking embrace.
With a howl of fury, the chieftain launched himself toward Camael, moving with supernatural speed. But Camael was faster, swinging his sword of fire and cleaving the leader in two.
“Your dream was just that,” he said as the two pieces of the once living thing fell away in flames. “A dream.”
Without his leader, the Orisha with the burned wings seemed to lose his urge to fight. The fluttering beast drew back his arm, threw his spear, and turned to run. Camael slapped the projectile away, then pointed the tip of his sword at the fleeing primitive. A tongue of flame snaked from the end of the burning blade, and in an instant the Orisha warrior was engulfed in heavenly fire. The creature squealed: words of prayer to some long-dead fallen angel that was its creator upon its lips as it was incinerated.
There is one more, Camael thought as he returned to the ground, wings folding upon his back. Sword ready, his birdlike eyes scanned the trees and underbrush for signs of the older Orisha, but the creature was nowhere to be found.
Aaron moaned in the grip of the poison-induced fever, and Camael turned his attention to the Nephilim. His sword dissipated as he moved toward the youth and squatted beside him. He touched the locking mechanism on Aaron’s manacles and watched as the restraints fell smoldering to the ground. “Get up, boy,” he said sternly.
Aaron’s eyes fluttered open. “Camael?” he whispered. “How …?”
“I purged the poison from my system,” he said, grabbing the teen by the front of his shirt and hauling him to his feet. “It’s something you could have done as well, if you’d bothered.”
He swayed drunkenly. “Why … why did you wait so long?”
Camael strode toward Gabriel still trapped beneath the net. “I was waiting for you to act,” the angel answered as he pulled the stakes from the ground.
Gabriel surged up and shook himself free of the net. “Thank you, Camael.” He sniffed at one of the still burning corpses of the Orisha warriors.
“So this … this was some kind of test?” Aaron asked, stumbling toward them on legs still numb with toxin.
Gabriel nuzzled his friend’s hand. “Are you all right? I was very worried about you.”
Aaron absently patted the dog’s head as he waited for Camael’s answer.
“You handled yourself quite bravely against the Powers—but now comes the difficult part,” the angel said. “I wanted to see what you would do.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be ready to deal with Verchiel when the time comes.”
Camael scowled and motioned to the Orisha bodies littering the ground. “These are merely pests in the grand scheme of things, bothersome insects that should have been swatted away easily.”
“I’m still new to this,” Aaron defended himself. “I have a hard time killing. There’s a lot I need to learn before—”
“You do not have time,” Camael interrupted. “Verchiel is like a wounded animal now—he will do everything and anything in his power to see you destroyed.”
“What’s this?” the angel heard Gabriel mutter. He glanced over to see the Lab sniffing at a patch of overturned dirt, his pink nose pressed to the ground, his furry brow wrinkled in concentration.
“I’ll be ready,” Aaron said bravely, distracting Camael from the dog’s curiosity. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I hope you are right, Aaron Corbet,” Camael said with caution. “For there is far more at stake here than just your life.”
He was about to suggest that they continue on to Blithe when the Orisha shaman exploded from the earth in front of the dog, eyes bulging with madness, jagged teeth bared in a grin of savagery.
“You will not keep me from the Safe Place!” it screamed as it lunged at the startled animal.
The shaman grabbed hold of Gabriel’s flank and bit down into the fur-covered flesh of his thigh. The dog yelped in agony, snapping at the creature as it scurried off into the protection of the forest, wiping the dog’s blood from its mouth.
Camael and Aaron ran to their injured comrade.
“He bit me, Aaron,” Gabriel whined pathetically. “That wasn’t very nice. I didn’t even bite him first.”
“He’s got a pretty good bite here,” Aaron said as he examined the bloody puncture wounds near the dog’s hip. “What am I going to do?” Aaron asked, looking to Camael for help.
“That’s an excellent question,” the angel answered, folding his arms across his broad chest. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing’s happening,” Aaron said as he laid his hands on the dog’s bleeding leg.
“Perhaps you’re not trying hard enough,” Camael responded in that condescending tone of voice that made Aaron want to tell him to stick it up his angelic butt.
He was still angry with the angel for putting their lives at risk just to test him—although part of him did understand why Camael had done it. After all, there was quite a bit riding on this whole angelic prophecy thing. If he was in fact the one the prophecy spoke of, and they were both pretty sure that he was, then he had a major responsibility to fulfill for the fallen angels living upon the planet.