The Morningstar screamed up at the crystalline tower, shaking his armored fist and demanding that He who sits on high come down to face him. And with wings beating air ripe with the smells of bloodshed, he began to ascend. The skies grew dark, thick with roiling clouds of gunmetal gray, and thunder rumbled ominously, causing the very environment to tremble. But the Morningstar continued to rise, flying steadily upward, sword of fire brandished in his grip, unhindered by the threat of storm.
Aaron could feel it before it actually happened, as if the air itself had become charged with electricity. He wanted to warn the beautiful soldier, but it was too late. A bolt of lightning resembling a long, gnarled finger, reached down from the gray, endless clouds and touched the warrior of Heaven. There was a flash of blinding light, and the Morningstar tumbled, burning, from the sky.
Stay down, Aaron whispered as he watched the figure twitch and then force himself to rise.
The Morningstar swayed upon legs charred black, and another blade of fire appeared in his hand. Again he looked up at the glass tower and raised his sword in defiance. “How?” he shrieked pitifully through a mouth now nothing more than a blackened hole. “How can you love them more than us?”
With wings still afire, he leaped back into the air, but his ascent was slower than before. The heavens growled with menace, as if displeased by his defiance, and birdlike shrieks filled the world. Aaron watched as the soldiers of the opposing army attacked the Morningstar, grabbing at his injured form, pulling him back to the ground, where they pitilessly set upon him with their weapons of fire.
He could feel the Morningstar’s pain, every jab, every stab of the soldiers’ searing blades, as if the attacks were being perpetrated upon him. Aaron fell to the ground, his eyes transfixed upon the violence before him, the blood of vanquished angels seeping through the knees of his pants.
Numbness had invaded his body, and he fought to stay conscious—to stay alive. But the darkness had him again in its grasp, and it pulled him below to a place where he could die in peace, the very same place that the angelic essence had resided before it had come awake on his eighteenth birthday. This was where he would slip from life, allowing the angelic power total mastery of his fragile human shell.
For a brief moment Aaron was convinced that this was the right thing for him to do. In this deep place of shadow there was no worry, no irritating mysteries of angelic powers, there was only comforting peace. Escape from the responsibilities heaped upon him by ancient prophecy.
“Aaron! He’s hurting me!”
Aaron’s tranquility was suddenly shattered by a cry for help, a desperate plea that echoed in the darkness. He tried to ignore it, but there was something about the voice that stirred within him a desire to live.
“Where are you, Aaron? He’ll keep hurting me unless you come.”
“Vilma,” Aaron whispered within the constricting cocoon of shadow, and opened his eyes to a vision of the girl he believed he loved in the clutches of Verchiel. It was but a flash of sight, but it was enough to stir him from the comforting embrace of his impending death.
“Please! Aaron!”
The angelic essence fought to keep him submerged in the depths of oblivion, but Vilma needed him, Stevie and the fallen needed him, and he felt ashamed that he had even considered giving in. The closer he got to awareness, the more he felt the painful effects the poison had wrought upon his body, and he was reminded of, and inspired by, the Morningstar, burned black by the finger of God, but still he fought on.
Aaron came awake on his knees, now in the kitchen of Belphegor’s home, his body wracked with bone-snapping convulsions. He pitched forward and vomited up the poison. Slowly he raised his head, wiping the remains of the revolting fluid that dribbled down his chin, to see Belphegor leaning forward on a wooden chair, offering him a white paper napkin.
“What did you see?” the angel asked, a gleam of excitement in his ancient eyes.
“Vilma.” Aaron struggled to stand.
“Who?”
“I have to go to her,” Aaron said, the familiar feeling of dread he’d been carrying since his life so dramatically changed replacing the nausea in his stomach.
“He has her. Verchiel has her.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Vilma?” Belphegor asked, confused. “Who, may I ask, is Vilma?”
Aaron swayed upon legs that seemed to be made of rubber, grabbing hold of the kitchen doorframe to steady himself. “She’s my girl…” He paused, rethinking his answer. “She’s somebody from my old life, someone very important to me—and Verchiel has her.” Images of the screaming girl flashed across his vision. He could hear her calling out to him.
“He is attempting to get to you through your friends,” Belphegor commented matter-of-factly. “Typical behavior for one such as he.”
Aaron didn’t understand. Somehow Vilma had reached out and touched his mind.
But how?
“What did you see when you went inside, Aaron?” Belphegor questioned. “You must tell me everything—”
Aaron raised a hand to interrupt him. “She was inside my head.” He stared hard at Belphegor. “How is that possible, unless?…”
Belphegor slowly nodded, sensing that Aaron already suspected the answer. “Unless she is as you are,” he finished.
It hit Aaron like a physical blow and he fell back against the doorframe, sliding to the floor as his knees gave out. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered in amazement. He remembered every moment, however brief, he had shared with her. There was no doubt of the attraction, but evidently the reason went far beyond raging hormones. They were of the same kind.
Nephilim.
“Just when I think I’ve seen it all,” he said with an exasperated shake of his head.
Belphegor left the table and moved to Aaron’s side. He seemed impatient, anxious. “Never mind your friend,” he said. “What did you see, Aaron?”
“I don’t have time for this,” Aaron said, climbing to his feet. “She needs me.”
Belphegor reached out and grabbed hold of his arm in a powerful grip. “I need to know what you saw,” he stressed. “The people of Aerie need to know what you saw.”
Aaron shook off the old angel’s grasp. “I saw an angel—and he was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen,” he said, not without a little embarrassment, especially as he caught the look on Belphegor’s face. “It’s not sexual or anything,” he explained. “It was just the way he carried himself. I could feel the devotion of his army in the air. I could feel how much they loved him.”
“You … you saw the Morningstar?” Belphegor stammered, as if he were afraid of something.
Aaron nodded, a bit taken aback by the old angel’s reaction. “And there was a battle,” he said, the violent, disturbing imagery forever burned into his psyche. “It was horrible,” he added. “And incredibly sad.”
Belphegor stared off into space, thoughtfully stroking his chin.
“What does it mean, Belphegor?” Aaron asked cautiously. “What does all of this have to do with me?”
The old fallen slowly refocused his gaze on Aaron. “The pain and the sadness, the death and the violence—I believe that is the power from which you were born.”
Aaron shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“But you will,” Belphegor said with authority. “We shall go to Scholar, and together we’ll delve deeper into the mystery of your origin—”