“What’s wrong with him?” Aaron asked. He had never seen Stevie this agitated.
“Theycom!” the child screamed over and over again. “Theycom! Theycom! Theycom!” His eyes rolled to the back of his head, foamy saliva bubbled from the corners of his mouth.
“He’s been like this for half an hour,” Tom said, panic in his voice. He stroked his son’s sweat-dampened hair. “We don’t know what he’s trying to say!”
“Theycom! Theycom! Theycom!” Stevie bellowed as he struggled to be free of his mother’s arms.
“I…I think we should call nine-one-one,” Lori stammered. There were tears in her eyes when she looked at Aaron and her husband for support.
Tom rubbed a tremulous hand across his face. “I don’t know…I just don’t know. Maybe if we wait a little longer…”
Aaron turned from his parents to find Gabriel no longer pacing, but standing perfectly still. The dog looked up at the ceiling and sniffed the air. He began to growl.
“Gabriel? What’s wrong, boy? What do you smell?”
A crack of thunder shook the home from roof to foundation. The lights flickered briefly, and then the power quit altogether, plunging the room into darkness.
“Theycom! Theycom!” the child continued to scream inconsolably at the top of his lungs.
“Something bad,” Gabriel said with a menacing edge to his bark. “That’s what Stevie is trying to say. Something bad is coming.”
CHAPTER TEN
There was another rumble of thunder and the windows in the living room rattled ominously. Aaron began to experience the same overpowering sense of panic he had felt in the guidance office when coming face-to-face with Camael.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, gazing up at the ceiling. “We…we should get Stevie to the hospital right away.”
Gabriel’s words echoed through Aaron’s head. “Something bad is coming.”
“I don’t know, Aaron,” Lori said. “He seems to be calming down.” She looked at her child; there was uncertainty and fear in her eyes.
Stevie’s struggles were indeed waning. He had screamed himself hoarse but still tried to squeak out his warning.
Tom leaned down and kissed the boy’s head. “I’ve never seen him like this before, maybe Aaron’s right. Maybe we should take him—just in case.”
“Good, we’ll take my car,” Aaron said quickly as he and Gabriel moved into the darkened kitchen.
“He doesn’t have any socks on,” he heard his mother say behind him. “Let me go upstairs and get his sneakers and socks. I should probably bring his coat, too, just in case…”
“We don’t have time for that, Mom,” Aaron barked. His panic was intensifying. “We have to get out of here right now.”
Every fiber of his being screamed for him to get away, to leave everything and run as fast as he could into the night. It took every ounce of his self-control not to leave his parents and little brother behind. Nothing would make him do that, in spite of what his senses were telling him. After so many tumultuous years in the foster care system, the Stanleys were the only people, the only family, who’d stuck it out with him, showering him with love, and more importantly, acceptance…
His foster dad came up from behind. “Take it easy, pal. He’ll be okay. There’s no reason to get crazy with your mother. I’ll get his shoes and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
“No time,” Gabriel said suddenly, staring at the kitchen door.
Clack!
They all jumped at the sudden sound as the deadbolt on the kitchen door slid sideways as if moved by some invisible force.
“What the hell is that?” Tom asked, trying to get around his son.
“Go,” Aaron said forcefully. “Take Mom and Stevie and go out the front door.”
The door began to slowly open with the high-pitched whine that Tom had been threatening to put oil to since the summer, and three men entered on a powerful gust of wind. Aaron’s senses were blaring and he winced in pain from their razor-sharp intensity. He knew what these men were. Not men at all.
Angels.
He was enthralled by the way they moved. They didn’t so much walk into the house as glide, as though on wheels or a conveyor belt.
“What is this?” Tom Stanley hollered, pushing Aaron out of the way. “Get the hell out of my house before I beat the livin’—”
It happened quickly. Tom advanced, fists clenched, intent on defending his home and family. Fire suddenly leaped from an invader’s hands and his father stumbled back, covering his eyes as he fell to the linoleum floor.
Aaron couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was just like his dream. The three invaders were holding swords. Swords made of fire.
“Call the police!” his father shouted as he struggled to stand.
Aaron ran to help him. “Get up! You have to get Mom and Stevie out of here.”
One of the invaders stalked slowly toward them, his face eerily illuminated by the light of his weapon. There was something unnerving about the way he looked—the way they looked. They were deathly pale, almost luminescent in their whiteness, and their features were perfectly symmetrical—too perfect. Aaron felt as though he were looking at mannequins come to life.
“Do we frighten you, monkey?” the invader asked in a voice like nails running down a blackboard. “Does our presence make you tremble?”
“Get away from them!” Lori screamed from the doorway to the living room.
In her arms she held the limp and nearly catatonic Stevie, his eyes large and glassy, like saucers. Gabriel stood by them, tensed, preventing her from entering the kitchen.
Aaron got his father to his feet and pushed him back toward the living room. The stranger raised his flaming sword above his head. Wings dappled with spots of brown dramatically unfolded from his back. Aaron and his father froze, awestruck by the sight of something they once believed to be purely of fiction—of myth.
The angel prepared to strike them down. “We are the Powers—the harbingers of your doom. Look upon us in awe!”
The blade of fire began its descent, and Aaron stepped in front of his father to take the hit. Suddenly there was a flurry of movement and a yellow-white blur passed over him with an unearthly grace, landing in front of the sword-wielding attacker and snarling ferociously.
Gabriel.
“No!” Aaron screamed as he watched his beloved friend lunge at the supernatural invader.
The dog’s jaws clamped down upon the wrist of the angel’s sword hand with a wet crunch, like the sound of celery being crushed between eager teeth. The sound made Aaron wince with imagined pain.
The sword of fire tumbled from the angel’s grasp to dissipate in a flash before it could touch the floor—and the creature began to scream. The sound was like nothing Aaron had ever heard before, part crow caw, part whale song, part the screech of brakes.
“What is happening?” Lori cried aloud, clutching her moaning child to her.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Tom shouted as he lunged toward his family and wrapped his arms protectively about them.
Gabriel dangled from the angel’s wrist, growling and thrashing, as if trying to sever the hand from the arm. The angel seemed stunned by the savagery of the animal’s attack. The other two, who had remained uninvolved in the background, now stepped forward to assess their comrade’s situation.
“It hurts, my brothers!” wailed the Powers soldier as he frantically tried to shake Gabriel loose. “The animal is not as it should be—it has been changed!”
The angel flailed his arm wildly and Gabriel finally released his grip, falling to the floor.
“Gabriel, come! Now!” Aaron yelled.
The Lab stayed where he had landed, in a crouch, baring his fangs and snarling at the angels. A thick black blood, like motor oil, streamed from the injured angel’s wounds to form glistening puddles on the yellow-check flooring.