“No,” Aaron said emphatically. “You don’t understand. Vilma is in trouble and I have to go to her.” Aaron moved past the old angel, his resolve lending new strength to his legs. “I can’t afford to waste any more time.”
He had pulled open the kitchen door and was ready to step outside when Belphegor again grabbed him.
“We’re close, Aaron,” he said.
There was a tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before, a veiled excitement hinting that the angel knew more than he was letting on. It almost drew Aaron back, but then he remembered Vilma’s face—her beautiful face, twisted in pain and fear—and he knew he had no choice.
He shrugged Belphegor’s hand away and started down the stairs. “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll come back just as soon as—”
Lehash stood in the street just outside the yard. A long, thin cigar dangled at the corner of his mouth, the smoke trailing from its tip forming a misty halo around his head. “Is there a problem, boy?” he asked in a grave voice, the cigar bobbing up and down like a conductor’s baton as he spoke.
Aaron shook his head, fully feeling the menace that radiated from the Aerie constable. “Not yet,” he answered, trying to keep the fear from his voice.
Belphegor came up behind him. “It’s all right, Lehash,” he said reassuringly. “Come back inside, Aaron. We’ll talk.”
“I’m going,” Aaron said defiantly, and began to push past them.
Lehash came forward, and Aaron saw the shimmer of fire in his hands that signaled the arrival of his golden weapons. “I’d listen to the boss if I was you,” he said with a threatening hiss, blocking Aaron’s path.
“It could be a trap, Aaron,” Belphegor cautioned behind him. “Verchiel could be using your friend to strike, not only at you, but at us, at Aerie. I’m sorry, but we can’t let you go, there’s far too much at stake.”
Lehash brandished his guns menacingly. “You heard ‘im,” he said, motioning for Aaron to return to the house. “Get back in there before things get serious.”
“They already have,” Aaron said, feeling the power come alive within him. It was like the world’s biggest head rush, and he braced himself, not even trying to hold back its coming.
A crowd of citizens had started to gather, coming out of their decrepit homes as if drawn by the potential for violence. Aaron could see their nervous glances, hear their whispering.
“I knew he’d be trouble.” “Him? He’s not the One—I can’t believe anyone could be so foolish as to think that.” “Lehash will put him in his place.”
The sigils emerged on Aaron’s flesh, and he let his wings of solid black unfold. He heard gasps from the gathered, and even Lehash seemed genuinely taken aback as Aaron stepped past the constable and into the street. The citizens were in awe. He could see it in their eyes—or maybe it was something else they were seeing, he decided, as he heard the sharp click of twin gun hammers being pulled back from behind.
Aaron reacted purely on instinct; there was no inner struggle, no attempt to keep the power at bay, he simply let it flow through him, guiding its might with a tempered hand. He spun around to face his potential foe, a feral snarl upon his lips. With a thunderous clap of sound, one of the gunslinger’s pistols belched fire made solid, and it hurtled across the short expanse to burrow beneath the soft flesh of the Nephilim’s shoulder.
Aaron fell backward, a scream upon his lips as he hit the street, his mighty wings cushioning the fall. The pain was bad, and his left side was growing numb as he lay gazing up at the early morning sky. Aaron knew that he should get up—for Stevie’s sake, for Vilma’s—but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to do so.
The citizens’ murmurs sounded to him like a swarm of bees roused to anger by a threat to their hive. Lehash stood over him, smoking pistol still in his grasp. There was cruelty in his steely gaze, a look that said so much more than words.
“Look at you,” he said in a whisper meant only for Aaron’s ears. “Can’t even save yourself, never mind us.” The gunslinger stared down his arm, down the length of his golden weapon. “How dare you fill their hearts with hope and then rip it away. Haven’t we suffered enough without the likes of you?” Lehash came closer. “I should kill you now.”
Aaron lay still, his gaze locked on the barrel of the pistol that hovered above him ominously like a black, unblinking eye. Lehash’s finger twitched upon the trigger, and the Nephilim’s mind was assaulted with the brutal images of war. He again saw the Morningstar walking among his troops, laying his hand upon them, giving something of himself to each and every one. And he witnessed them in battle, fighting for their master’s cause—dying for their master’s cause—and he was filled with their purpose, with their power and strength.
The sigils on his body suddenly burned as if painted with acid, and Aaron sprang up from the street, a cry of rage from somewhere deep inside escaping his lips. The gunslinger fired, but this time the bullet did not find its target. Aaron lashed out with one of his wings, swatting the weapon from the constable’s grasp. “No more guns,” he commanded, grabbing the fallen angel’s wrist and violently twisting his arm so that he dropped the second of the golden guns.
Aaron looked into the constable’s eyes and saw that something new had taken the place of steely cruelty. He saw the beginnings of fear, but he did not want that. Effortlessly he hurled Lehash away. All he wanted was to save the people he loved.
Lehash landed in the street about six feet away, scattering citizens that had gathered there. A hush had fallen over the crowd, and they watched him in pregnant silence. Belphegor came forward to help Lehash as sparks danced in the constable’s hands. Aaron tensed, a weapon of his own ready to surge to life.
“No,” Belphegor commanded in a powerful voice.
Lehash stared at his superior, confusion on his grizzled face.
“Let him go.”
Lehash’s eyes went wide in shock. “You can’t do this,” he sputtered. “He’ll bring Verchiel and his bloodthirsty rabble down on our heads for sure!”
Belphegor raised a hand and closed his eyes. “You heard me, let the boy go.”
From across the street Aaron met Belphegor’s eyes and a jolt like electricity passed through his body.
“If you’re going to go,” Belphegor said, “then go now.”
Aaron found it difficult to look away from the angel’s intense gaze. Am I doing the right thing? he fretted. Doubt crept into his thoughts, but then images of Vilma and the still-missing Stevie filled his mind, and it didn’t matter anymore if it was right or wrong. He had to go. “I’ll come back,” he said as he spread his wings.
“I hope you do,” Belphegor replied, a scowling Lehash at his side.
Aaron took one final look about Aerie and saw Camael, Gabriel, and Lorelei heading toward him. He wanted to tell them what he was doing—what he had to do—but he didn’t want to stop, unsure if he would have the courage to recommence if he did. They would have to understand.
The image of his destination fresh inside his head, Aaron folded his wings about himself and was gone.
“Maybe he didn’t see us,” Gabriel said forlornly.
But Camael knew differently. He had looked into the boy’s eyes before he departed.
The fallen angel had known that it was only a matter of time before the violence in his life again reared its ugly head and his brief respite would end. It had been pleasurable while it lasted.
“What’s going on?” Lorelei was asking an older woman whom Camael recognized as Marjorie. He had saved her from one of Verchiel’s hunting parties sometime in the 1950s, and she still bore a red, ragged scar upon her cheek to commemorate the Powers’ ruthless attack.