But as their gazes connected he saw something else there. Something more than fear, coming from the very depths of her soul. She seemed to understand-to know-what was being asked of him.
“Do it, Sebastian! Now!”
Tightening his grip on the sword, Batty moved toward them, but something within him still resisted.
She was a human being.
Flesh and blood.
Who was he to decide who should live and die? Who was he to decide the fate of the world?
He wasn’t a god. Not even close. There were times he barely felt like a man.
“Do it!” Michael shouted, sensing his hesitation.
Batty looked again at that hovering dagger, at the fury in Belial’s eyes. He felt her trying again to push her way into his brain, but again he resisted. He was no longer drawn to her. Could deflect anything she threw at him.
Strengthening his resolve, he raised the sword, knowing that the decision he’d made could change the world forever. Then he closed his eyes, letting his vision guide him, swinging the sword home, feeling it cut into flesh, slicing through bone.
And when he opened them again, he saw Belial’s pretty Brazilian head tumble across the rooftop and roll over the side.
53
As Belial’s headless corpse flopped to the ground behind her, the girl staggered forward and burst into tears.
Batty dropped the sword and grabbed for her, pulling her into his arms. And as she sobbed against his chest, he felt Rebecca smiling inside him.
But it wasn’t over yet.
All around them, the battle still raged, Callahan fighting off the last of the drudges as Michael and Beelzebub continued trading blows. Then the moon began to darken, turning a deeper shade of red, as the ground beneath them trembled and rolled.
Batty wondered if this was it.
Had he made a mistake in keeping her alive?
Were the gates of the Abaddon about to open, once and for all?
But then the girl began to tremble violently in his arms and to Batty’s surprise, she pushed away from him. Stepping several feet back, she looked up at him without even a hint of fear or confusion in her eyes.
Something had changed about her.
There was a maturity in her gaze. An awareness. She was no longer the young girl he’d seen trapped in Belial’s grip.
Then her body began to shimmy and shake, her naked flesh falling away, as if she were shedding a cocoon, and a bigger, bolder, more radiant being rose from within, her wings unfurling, opening, spanning fifty feet or more.
She was, quite possibly, the most beautiful creature Sebastian LaLaurie had ever seen. And as she levitated several feet above the ground, she smiled at him.
“You made the right decision, Sebastian. God sent me to watch over you. Over all of you. I am your second chance.”
“But I don’t understand,” Batty croaked. “I was supposed to kill you.”
The angel shook her head. “No, Sebastian. It was the third choice that mattered. The hidden choice. The one not shown in the prophecy that demonstrated your humanity to God and told him there was still hope for humankind. The one that came from reason and emotion, with no promises attached to it. It was the right choice, Sebastian. The only choice.”
Free will, Batty thought. That’s what it ultimately came down to. And what so many people thought of as weakness-the ability to empathize, to care, the thing that seemed so absent in the world of late-was really man’s strength. His lifeblood.
The angel flicked a wrist and the sword at Batty’s feet suddenly leapt through the air and landed in her hand.
Then she was moving, gliding, sweeping the blade in wide arc, a wave of energy rolling out across the rooftop, drudges disintegrating in its wake, dark angels dropping their skins where they stood, their vaporous life-forms fleeing in terror.
With a roar of rage, Beelzebub broke from Michael’s grasp and flung an arm out, firing his own ball of energy straight toward the warrior angel’s chest. But she deflected it with the blade, hurling it right back at him, the impact slamming him to the ground.
He landed in a heap at the edge of the rooftop, his body twisted, broken beyond repair. Looking up at her in stunned disbelief, his eyes went blank-
– and he was gone.
And as the last of the demons abandoned their skins and fled into the darkness, the angel waved her sword once more. Thunder rumbled, and all throughout the city, the fiery crevices of hell sputtered and died, sealing up before Batty’s eyes.
Then the angel looked at him and touched her heart.
“Go with God, Sebastian . . .”
And before Batty could say a word, she let her wings carry her into the sky, taking her upward toward the heavens. As she disappeared from view, a ray of golden light broke through the darkness above and swept across the landscape, restoring everything in its path.
It looked to Batty as if someone were running the film in reverse, buildings rising from the rubble to their former glory as the city was restored.
And all around him, the favela began to shift and change-battered aluminum shacks turning into houses; trees and grass sprouting and growing, flowers blooming, as the moon faded away and the sky turned a brilliant, cloudless blue.
Batty looked at Callahan and Michael, all of them standing there, frozen in place, covered in fine black dust, their weapons limp in their hands, their mouths agape-
– as they stared in awe at the world around them.
54
It was almost as if it had never happened.
As if the clock had been turned back a few hours, leaving the city to blithely go about its business. Traffic in the streets, schoolchildren on buses, drive-time radio stations playing the latest hits from Sao Paulo and around the globe.
But it had also changed somehow.
They all felt it as they stood there in the center of the city. They couldn’t know for certain, of course, but it seemed as if a giant pressure valve had been opened, releasing all the tension from the world.
Replacing it with hope.
They had walked here from the favela, dazed and exhausted, the three of them looking as if they’d emerged from a coal mine. And as they paused to take it all in, Michael said, “You do realize this isn’t the end of it.”
Callahan gestured to their newly restored surroundings. “Looks pretty definitive to me.”
“Don’t let any of this fool you,” Michael said. “It’s a second chance, nothing more. A shot at redemption, not a return to Paradise. There are no guarantees for humankind. There are no guarantees for any of us.”
Batty nodded, a familiar line of poetry coming to mind. “Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.”
Callahan looked at him. “Milton?”
“Paradise Lost. Seems appropriate, don’t you think?” He turned to Michael. “This isn’t the last we’ve seen of Belial, is it?”
“If I know my sister, she and Beelzebub are already licking their wounds and planning their next move.” He paused. “But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t the same world our father created. We’ve entered a new age now. And the enemies of humankind aren’t limited to a handful of disgruntled angels. There are forces out there-human and otherwise-waiting, watching, looking for weaknesses to exploit. And if this second chance is to mean anything, we’ll have to remain vigilant, always alert.”
“We?” Callahan said.
“Custodes Sacri’s job is far from done.”