The woman wrung her hands nervously, staring off in the direction from which Aaron had departed. “He’s gone,” she said, her voice filled with concern. “There was a fight, and then he left us.” Marjorie looked past Lorelei to Camael. “Is he coming back?” she asked pleadingly. “Can you tell me if the Chosen One is coming back?”
Lorelei turned to him as well, as though he might have some special insight into the situation unfolding.
“Let us find Belphegor,” Camael said, ignoring the women’s plaintive questions, and continuing down the street, Gabriel close at his heels.
The citizens of Aerie were abuzz, and as he passed, their eyes caught his, frantic for answers to assuage their fears. A hand shot out to grip his arm and Camael stared into the face of Scholar. He believed his true name to be Tumael, once a member of the host called Principalities. He was wild eyed, as anxious as the others around him.
“Do you know where he’s gone—the boy?” Tumael asked nervously, his grip tight with desperation. “We have to get him back … we … we can’t let him walk away from us, Camael. Do you understand the importance of what I’m saying?”
Camael knew exactly, but until he found out what had happened, he could offer no words of solace. “Belphegor. I need to speak with him.”
The fallen angel pointed toward a house not far from where they stood.
“Come, Gabriel,” Camael said to the dog that waited obediently by his side.
They approached the home, catching sight of Lorelei disappearing into the backyard. As they rounded the corner of the house, they were met by voices raised in panicked fury. Lehash and his daughter were in the midst of a heated argument, arms flailing as they railed against each other. Belphegor was across the yard, removed from the commotion, examining the branches of a young sapling.
“Why don’t you go and talk with Belphegor,” Camael told the Labrador at his side. “Maybe he can tell you where Aaron has gone.”
Tail wagging, Gabriel trotted toward Aerie’s Founder, while Camael turned his attention to the angry constable.
“You,” Lehash growled, raising an accusatory hand as Camael approached. “This is your fault!”
“Lehash, stop,” Lorelei pleaded.
“Would anyone care to tell me what has happened?” Camael asked, carefully watching Lehash’s hands for signs of his golden weaponry.
“Your Nephilim will be the death of us all,” the constable spat, fists clenched in barely suppressed rage. “Filling all their heads with foolishness … we’ll see how much of a messiah they think he is when we have Verchiel’s soldiers breathing down our necks.”
“Dad, please,” Lorelei said, again trying to calm him. She touched the sleeve of his coat, but he pulled away roughly.
“Is that what this is really about, Lehash?” Camael asked. “Your lack of belief?”
Lehash scowled. “Don’t matter what I believe,” he said with a sorrowful shake of his head. He glanced over at Belphegor and Gabriel. “Don’t matter what any of us believes. Verchiel will have what he’s been waiting for—a good whiff of Aerie, and that’s all the son of a bitch will need to destroy us.”
“Where has Aaron gone?”
“To rescue a friend—a female—from Verchiel,” Lehash explained. He smiled, but the expression was void of any humor. “With the scent of where he’s been these last weeks clinging to him like cheap perfume. Should have just handed a map to the Powers, get the slaughter over with all the quicker.”
The fallen angel pushed past, his piece said, Lorelei close behind. Her eyes briefly touched Camael’s. “I’m sorry,” she said, and he wondered if she was apologizing for her father’s behavior, or perhaps giving her condolences for what they believed to be Aerie’s inevitable demise.
Camael joined Belphegor, who was leaning down to pet Gabriel.
“Aaron’s gone to find Vilma,” the dog said, tipping his head back so the old angel would scratch beneath his throat. “She’s the one he talks to on the computer sometimes.”
“I believe that she, too, is a Nephilim.” Belphegor spoke as he obliged the animal’s wants. “Her angelic nature cried out to him as he was exploring his own.” He stopped patting Gabriel, much to the dog’s disappointment, and turned his attention to Camael. “Verchiel has her.” He looked out to the neighborhood beyond the yard. “It’s truly amazing how quickly things change, Camael,” Belphegor said with a wistful smile. “You never really see it coming; it’s just suddenly there, the eye of the speeding locomotive bearing down upon you.”
“You could have stopped him,” Camael said. “Or you could have found me and I would have—”
Again Belphegor smiled sadly. “It doesn’t really matter that he’s gone.” He began to stroll from the yard, Gabriel and Camael following at his side. “Change is coming to Aerie, and whether it be the machinations of prophecy, or just plain fate, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Aerie’s citizens were still milling about the street, their gazes haunted.
“They can sense it as much as you and I,” Belphegor said, gesturing at the crowd.
He stopped in the middle of the street and closed his eyes. With a soft grunt of exertion, his wings sprang from his back, sad-looking things of dingy gray and missing feathers. “Join me for a moment,” he said, motioning for Camael to follow as he launched himself into the air, the wings, surprisingly, having the strength to lift him.
“Wait for me here,” Camael told Gabriel, his own mighty wings sweeping from his back and taking him heavenward.
“Like I have a choice,” he heard the dog mumble as he ascended.
It was early morning, the sun just starting to rise above the horizon, illuminating the dilapidated neighborhood below.
“Take a good long look, Camael,” Belphegor said, gesticulating with a hand to Aerie beneath him as his wings pounded the air. “For soon, it’s all going to change.”
Camael looked below, at the run-down houses, the cracked and untended streets, the high barbed-wire fence that encircled it, and felt the pangs of something he had not experienced since he first left heavenly paradise on a mission of murder. He had not had a home—a true place of belonging—in countless millennia. The troubling thought of losing this one filled him with great sorrow.
And then, hovering above the neighborhood, the former leader of the Powers suddenly knew what was required of him. It was his way of giving thanks to those who had accepted him into their community, despite his loathsome past.
Camael would do everything within his strength to see that Aerie lived on, and may Heaven have pity on any who dared try to keep him from his task.
Aaron had recognized Vilma’s location in the vision almost immediately: the red metal lockers, the cracked plaster walls painted eggshell white, a handmade poster that should have been taken down months ago asking for canned donations for a Thanksgiving food drive. He opened his wings to an empty parking lot, for it was still quite early in the morning, and gazed at Kenneth Curtis High School. A pang of nostalgia spread through him; memories, both good and bad, flooded his thoughts.
As he crossed the lot to the redbrick-and-concrete building, his wings receded and the fearsome marks upon his flesh faded. As an afterthought, he willed himself invisible, not wanting an early riser to see him going into the building, and call the police. He climbed the steps leading to the large, double doors, thinking of how much his life had changed in such a brief amount of time. A little over a month ago he had been a student here, a senior, preparing to graduate and begin the next phase of his life. The next phase happened all right, but not how I would have planned it. He reached the top of the stairs and pulled on one of the doors. It was unlocked and his flesh tingled with the sensation of caution.