Malak looked up at Aaron with eyes that once held the innocence of a special child, but now were filled with something else, something deadly. These eyes told a story of death; they were the eyes of a killer. The revelation was even worse than he’d imagined.
The ax slipped from Aaron’s hands and clattered upon the floor. “Stevie?” he asked in a trembling whisper, giving credence to what should have been impossible. He willed away the sigils and his formidable wings. “It’s me,” he said, touching his chest with a trembling, bloodstained hand. Images of a past that seemed thousands of years ago, of the autistic child as he should have been, flashed through Aaron’s mind. “It’s me—it’s Aaron,” he said, offering the young man his hand.
At first there was nothing that showed even the slightest hint of humanity in the gaze that met Aaron’s. It was like looking into the eyes of a wild animal, but then there came a spark and Malak’s eyes twinkled with recognition.
“Aaron?” Stevie asked in a voice very much like that of a child, and his armored hand took hold of his brother’s.
Every instinct screamed for Aaron to pull away. “Stevie,” he began.
The warrior in red shook his head crazily from side to side, an idiot’s grin spreading across his dull features. “Not Stevie,” he said as Aaron watched him reach into a pocket of air with his free hand and withdraw a fearsome medieval mace. “Malak!” he shouted, and bludgeoned Aaron across the face with its studded head before the Nephilim had an opportunity to react.
Aaron fell to the floor, the world spinning and his every sense scrambled. He shook his head and slowly rose to his knees, the smell of his own blood wafting up into his nostrils. His scalp was bleeding. As his vision cleared, he could see that Verchiel and his soldiers were standing in a circle around them. The room was eerily quiet, the only sound the armored footfalls of Malak’s approach. Aaron summoned another sword of fire.
He gazed into the face of his little brother, his murderous countenance filling the Nephilim with an overwhelming despair. He didn’t want to think about what the Powers had done to the child, did not want to know the horror and pain his little brother had endured. But he felt the guilt of not being there to protect him from harm just the same.
Halfheartedly, he raised his weapon of heavenly flame. “I … I don’t want to do this,” he said.
Malak responded with a horrible smile, and Aaron was reminded of a raccoon with rabies that had once been brought to the veterinary hospital where he used to work. Nothing could be done for the animal, and with a heavy heart, he realized the same was true now.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered as Malak rushed toward him, mace raised to strike. Aaron deflected the blow, but hesitated in his own attack. The warrior swung again, and this time the mace connected with Aaron’s injured shoulder. He cried out and tried to back away, but came up against a living wall of Powers’ soldiers.
“It ends here, Nephilim,” Verchiel barked from across the circle. “It’s time to remove from this world the sickness you represent.” The Powers’ commander looked to the unconscious Vilma, draped over the shoulder of the angel standing beside him, and sneered as he reached out to touch her raven black hair. “Let us hope it can survive the cleansing.”
Aaron’s arm throbbed with every staccato beat of his heart, and he was finding it difficult to hold on to his sword. The niggling idea that perhaps he should have listened to Belphegor played at the corner of his thoughts, but it was too late now for second guesses. He had already failed his brother; he wasn’t about to fail Vilma as well.
Verchiel’s emotionless black eyes fell upon his champion. “Kill the abomination and be done with it,” he ordered.
Malak charged at Aaron, weapon raised, his features twisted in bloodlust. They were about to continue their dance of battle, when the gymnasium was suddenly filled with the sound of a booming voice.
“The Nephilim is under my protection.”
Malak’s attack came to a screeching halt, and the Powers searched for the source of the authoritative proclamation. The angels’ circle broke to reveal the striking figure of Camael standing in the gymnasium doorway, Gabriel attentively at his side.
“And mine too,” said the dog in a throaty growl.
“Then it is only fitting that you all die together,” Verchiel said, a sword igniting in his hand.
Everything became incredibly still, a tension so thick in the air that it seemed to have substance. And then Vilma began to scream, an anguished wail of terror that alluded to the violence that was yet to come.
Still slung over the shoulder of a Powers’ soldier, Vilma Santiago had come noisily awake. Her scream was bloodcurdling, born out of sheer terror, and Aaron’s heart nearly broke in sympathy. But he had little time to consider her fear, for her cry had acted as a kind of starter’s pistol, signaling the beginning of an inevitable conflict.
The Powers were the first to react. With bird-like squawks, they leaped into the air, wings pounding, weapons of fire clenched in their hands. Camael reacted in kind, propelling himself up to confront his attackers above the gym floor.
Malak turned to Aaron, a malicious grin gracing his pale features. He began to lift the mace, but this time, Aaron was faster. He brought forth his wings, and as the mighty appendages unfurled, the body of his right wing caught his attacker, swatting him aside. Through the chaos, Aaron set his sights on Vilma, who was thrashing wildly in the clutches of her angelic keeper. Desperately trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his head and shoulder, he began to make his way toward the girl and her captor, carefully avoiding the burning bodies of angels as they fell from the air, victims of Camael’s battle prowess.
From the corner of his eye, Aaron glimpsed movement and turned just in time to avoid the blade of a broadsword as it attempted to split his skull. He stared into the still-grinning face of Malak. The armored warrior was already bringing the enormous sword around for another strike, but Aaron brought his own blade up to counter the attack before it could cut him in two. Malak stepped in close and drove a metal-clad knee up into the Nephilim’s ribs. Aaron cried out in pain, but responded in kind, throwing an elbow into the bridge of Malak’s nose.
The warrior of the Powers stumbled back, blood gushing from his nostrils. He brought his gloved hand to his nose and stared dumbfounded at the blood, and then Malak began to laugh. He plunged both hands into his magickal arsenal and emerged with two curved blades of Middle Eastern origin. “Pretty,” he said through a spray of blood dripping from his nose. He brandished the unusual weapons and came toward Aaron again, his level of ferociousness seemingly endless.
Suddenly there was a rumbling growl, and a yellow blur moved between Aaron and his attacker. He watched stunned as Malak took the full weight of Gabriel’s pounce and was knocked backward to the gym floor.
“Save Vilma,” the dog barked, slamming the top of his thick skull down into the forehead of the Powers’ assassin.
Across the gym floor littered with angelic dead, Aaron could see Vilma struggling with her captor. The Powers’ angel was holding her wrist in one hand, while in the other was a dagger of flame. Aaron darted forward, but froze as the fearsome visage of Verchiel crossed his path.
“I’ve not forgotten you, animal,” he snarled, the mottled scars on his once flawless features beaming a ruddy red. Like some great prehistoric bird, Verchiel opened his wings to their fullest and advanced. “I rather like the idea of killing you myself,” he said with a predatory grin.
Aaron glanced quickly toward Vilma and back to his newest adversary. Taking a combat stance, he held his heavenly weapon high. “Let’s do it then,” he said, determined that nothing would keep him from the girl.