He’d garnered some good pieces of information from the encounter, however. First, that his father was now employing his royal Cambions on Earth and they were talented fighters with powers of concealment. Secondly, they feared the sky. Thirdly, their blades were deadly and it took around fifteen minutes for any wounds to start clotting. Being injured by one also slowed down his normal healing processes. Even at his peak, Sam doubted his ability to fight off five of them at once.
There was something else about them though. Something that was troubling him. He remembered the way the demon had smiled as it died as if it knew something he didn’t. It was slightly unnerving. His father had told him that he had a surprise for him. Was it the existence of the Cambions themselves? It was too obvious. His father would not reveal his hand that easily. Satan normally played a slightly more subtle game than that.
The sky brightened further, not that it made much of a difference. The thick, dark clouds took care of that, not giving the sun a chance for even a glimmer of light to break through the solid barrier. It was still lighter than it had been though.
Sam decided to stay where he was for now. He doubted whether the Cambions would come back for him, even if they knew exactly where he was. The light would keep them at bay. He was relatively safe — or as safe as he could be — for the moment. The thicket offered him concealment and kept the worst of the light away from him while he healed.
More for comfort than any great need, he reached for his pack, hoping to get a snack and a swig of water before remembering that it was still in the motel room. He’d have to go back for it. It contained other things that he needed, sentimental and otherwise. He couldn’t leave it.
Sighing heavily, he stood, still somewhat shaky, and disentangled himself from the thicket. Wearily, he limped back in the direction of the motel. As he walked, he kept his senses attuned to what was going on around him. He was fairly certain the Cambions were gone but he wasn’t about to take any chances.
Despite his caution, his mind kept returning to one thought as he retraced his path. Aimi. Not just Aimi. Spending the night with her. It seemed like more time had passed than it had since the previous night. Lots had happened in the last few hours. His encounter with his father in the dream world. His battle and pursuit by the Cambions. But his thoughts were still dominated by her face. The feel of her. How she smelt.
He wondered where she was right now and when he’d see her next. Unbidden, he thought about what his father had said about her. How those in Heaven were using her to manipulate him. He didn’t believe it for a second but then again, Gabriel had always been a bit loose with the truth. Perhaps there was something the Archangel wasn’t telling him?
The words of his father came back to him: he’d find out soon enough.
Chapter Seventeen
“ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.”
Sometime during the next night, he passed into Pennsylvania. He’d spent most of the time on the Interstate which seemed to be the easiest way to get around these days. In the first year after the Rapture, it had almost been a death trap. Bandits had preyed upon anyone travelling down them and Sam avoided them at all costs. Now, most survivors had either retreated to the mountains or the wilderness. The lucky ones were at the few operational armed forces bases. The interstates also seemed to resist the worst that the nature could throw at them. The increase in the amount of earthquakes and firestorms had done little to affect their structural integrity. Other, smaller roads hadn’t fared as well. Sam had entered small towns in the recent past that were impassable — almost completely destroyed.
As for the Cambions — well, he’d got lucky there. He hadn’t seen one sign of them which was just as well given that he’d only just started to feel his normal self after the injuries he’d sustained in the last encounter. The moon was helping though. As soon as it had emerged, he’d immediately started feeling better. It also gave him something to look at as he walked. Something about the crimson sphere drew his attention and gave him comfort like nothing else. And there wasn’t much else to see. The sky was otherwise featureless. No stars, just a few dark ominous looking clouds that hinted of rain but never delivered.
He thought about Aimi almost continuously, wondering how long it would be until he saw her again. He also considered the problem of Gabriel. He desperately wanted to talk to her, to get reassurance, to have some of his questions answered. At one point, he was even so brazen as to call her name out loud, but wasn’t terribly surprised when she didn’t immediately materialize.
He’d kept his glamor and his concealment ability wrapped closely about him like a cloak. It was clear that the Cambions could track him physically, even if they couldn’t sense him, so he took care to conceal his tracks. He passed various other demons as he jogged along — some no more than twenty feet away — but they failed to notice his presence. An hour earlier, an Astaroth had even flown over his head, so close he could’ve stabbed it with his sword but it hadn’t even looked down, oblivious to the dangerous temptation below. Sometimes, to amuse himself, he thought of himself in those terms — a dangerous temptation. Like chocolate to an obese person. They wanted him but were likely to get killed in the process.
Fifteen minutes earlier, he’d moved through Wheeling and across the West Virginia River — not that there was much left to see of the once mighty flow of water. It had all but dried up; the remnants an ugly, sluggish, ash-filled goop. No living thing could possibly survive drinking that.
Shortly thereafter, he was in Pennsylvania. Jogging down the car-strewn interstate about twenty miles later, he found himself passing through another town. He located a road sign and cleaned it off enough to read what it said. Washington. He was in Washington, Pennsylvania. First town he’d been through in Pennsylvania. First time in Pennsylvania, actually. During his travels, Sam had visited roughly half the states but none now were terribly different from each other. All mostly deserted, covered in ash, vegetation dead or dying, ravished by earthquake and fire. It became depressingly monotonous after a while. What he’d give for a bit of color for a change.
Now, Sam guessed it must be around 5am. Just outside Washington, still on the interstate. Sam liked this time of the morning. It was often a lull time when everything was quiet. There were fewer demons on the streets and in the air, and even the light swirl of ash ceased for a while.
Into this quiet, something intruded — a light in the sky. Sam’s heart began to beat faster in his chest with the thought that it could be Aimi but as it got closer, Sam felt his excitement ebb away. It was an angel alright, but it wasn’t her. Couldn’t be her. Far too big.
The angel hurtled down towards him. At almost the last moment, it unfurled its folded wings like a sail and landed with graceful precision just in front of Sam. He recognized her immediately.
“Hello, Gabriel.” Perhaps she’d heard him call her name after all but had deliberately waited. It would be a bad look if an Archangel dropped everything to answer a summons from a demon. Probably frowned upon in her angelic circles.
She nodded ever so slightly at him, smiled and folded her wings neatly behind her back. Her glow began to fade almost as soon as she landed. Sam figured it was probably done in a conscious effort not to draw any more attention to herself. Not that it mattered. Demons for miles around would’ve seen it, but given it was almost dawn, they might not investigate. Besides, demons were probably pretty wary of glowing lights in the sky by now. They could only mean one thing.