“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and reached a shaking hand toward the pyre of ash and bone. He quickly pulled it away as his own flesh was singed by the intensity of the heat.
“It’s not your fault,” Gabriel said consolingly. He tried to lick away the hurt from his master’s hand.
The intensity of the screams turned him from his parents’ remains to the battle being waged in the living room. Aaron was amazed by its ferocity.
Zeke buried the nails adorning his baseball bat into the side of an attacker’s head. The angel fell to its knees, twitching and bleeding as Zeke yanked the bat free with a grunt and hit him again before he could recover. Then, satisfied with the death he’d wrought, the fallen angel turned his savage attention to another.
Camael’s movements were a hypnotizing blur. He moved among the Powers, hacking and slashing, his fiery blade passing through their flesh with pernicious ease. It was like watching the beauty of a complex dance, but with deadly results. Aaron could see that he was battling his way toward Verchiel, who simply stood, weapon in hand, waiting patiently as his soldiers fought and died around him.
The grisly scene of violence stirred the presence within Aaron. He could feel it roiling around inside him, so much stronger than before, like having the serpentine bodies of multiple eels beneath his flesh. It was excited by the battle—the sights, sounds, and smells.
And then he saw—no, felt—Verchiel staring at him from across the living room. The angel’s nostrils flared, as if smelling something in the air. He snarled and began to move toward Aaron.
“It wants to come out, Aaron,” Gabriel said by his side. He sniffed him up and down. “It’s inside you and wants to get out.”
Aaron couldn’t take his eyes from the angel stalking methodically across the room.
Gabriel suddenly licked his face and, startled, Aaron glared at the dog.
“What’s inside of you is inside of me,” Gabriel explained. “I can sense your struggle, but you can’t keep it locked up.”
Verchiel was almost upon them.
Slowly Aaron got to his feet, eyes locked on the ominous form of the angel moving inexorably closer. Maybe I should just let him finish me, Aaron thought. It was an option he should have considered before his parents were turned to ash. Perhaps if he had offered his life, sacrificed himself, the Powers’ leader would have spared them.
“Gotta set it free before it’s too late,” he heard Gabriel say from his side, an edge of panic in his voice.
Verchiel stopped before Aaron. “It all comes to an end when you are dead,” he growled. He raised his weapon and as Aaron stared into his lifeless black eyes, he knew that even if he had offered himself up, his family’s gruesome fate would not have changed.
He could feel the heat of Verchiel’s sword upon his face as it came at him. A Louisville Slugger blocked its descent. The fire of the blade flared wildly as it cut through the wooden bat, shaking Aaron from his paralysis.
“Get the hell outta here, kid,” Zeke yelled as he brought the still-smoking half of the bat up and smashed it as hard as he could into Verchiel’s snarling face.
Verchiel was stunned by the fallen angel’s blow, but only for an instant. A line of shiny black blood dribbled from his aquiline nose to stain his lips and perfect teeth.
Aaron and Gabriel threw themselves at Verchiel, the intensity of their anger fooling them into thinking that they could help their friend. But Verchiel’s wings lashed out from his back again, and the sudden torrent of air threw them back.
Verchiel grabbed Zeke by the back of his scrawny neck and hefted him off the ground with inhuman strength. “It wasn’t enough that I took your wings and the lives of your filthy children? Now you want me to end your life as well?”
“Don’t!” Aaron shrieked.
Zeke struggled, the piece of broken bat falling from his hand as he writhed. “You have to live, Aaron,” he croaked, his voice strained with pain.
“So be it,” Verchiel snapped as he ran his blade of fire through Zeke’s back in a sizzling explosion of boiling blood and steam.
Zeke screamed, his head tossed back in a moan of agony and sorrow.
Aaron lunged at Verchiel and grabbed his arm in a powerful grip. “You son of a bitch,” he screamed. “You killed him! You killed my parents, you vicious son of a…”
“Unhand me, filth,” Verchiel said, lashing out with a vicious slap that sent Aaron hurtling across the room.
He landed atop the recliner in the corner of the living room, tipping it over and tumbling to the floor. He fought to remain conscious.
Through eyes blurred with tears, Aaron saw Zeke’s twitching body slide off of Verchiel’s blade and fall to his knees. A cry like the wail of eagles filled the air, and Camael charged across the room swinging his sword with abandon as he cut his way toward Verchiel. The look upon his face was wild—untamed.
Gabriel was suddenly at Aaron’s side, pulling at his clothes. “Get up,” he said between tugs. “You have to set it free. If you don’t, you’re going to die. We’re all going to die.”
Aaron got to his feet and stumbled toward Zeke as Camael and Verchiel battled savagely, their blades blazing hotter, whiter as they clashed. He got to his knees beside the old Grigori and took his hand in his.
“You’ll be all right,” Aaron told him, his eyes locked on the smoldering black hole in the center of the fallen angel’s chest. “I’ll…I’ll help you. Hang on and…”
Zeke squeezed his hand and Aaron pulled his gaze from the wound to look into his old eyes.
“Don’t worry about me, kid,” Zeke said in a whisper. “Nothing you can do except…”
“Except what?” Aaron asked, moving closer to the angel’s mouth. “What can I do? Tell me.”
An explosion sounded from overhead and Aaron instinctively threw his body over Zeke’s to protect him. As he gazed up through a cloud of plaster dust and falling debris he saw that Camael and Verchiel had taken their fight outside—up through the ceiling, through the roof—to battle in the sky. He could hear their shrill cries echoing through the stormy night.
“You have to make it true, Aaron,” Zeke said, pulling the boy’s attention back from the yawning hole above them. “For the sake of all who have fallen…”
Zeke’s grip upon his hand was intense, and Aaron was overcome with an enormous sadness. He could feel it inside him again, the power churning about at the center of his being. But he didn’t want to set it free, for he knew to release it would mean that all he was and all he ever dreamed of becoming would be forever changed.
“You gotta make it happen,” the old-timer pleaded.
The presence flipped and rolled inside Aaron, fighting against the restraints that he’d imposed upon it. And he knew that, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, he could not avoid his destiny any longer.
Slowly, gradually, he let his guard down, and the power surged forward just as it had the day he saved Gabriel. An energy coursed through him, a supernatural force that seemed to charge every cell of his body with throbbing vigor.
Aaron opened his eyes and looked down upon his friend—and the fallen angel was smiling.
“It’s true,” the Grigori whispered. “It’s all true.”
Aaron felt as if he too were on fire, burning from within. The presence radiated from his body in snaking arcs and he was unsure if mere flesh would be able to contain its power—and still it continued to grow.