The stench of his own burning sickened Camael. His wings frantically beat the air to maintain his distance from his adversary as he brought his sword up and severed the whip’s embrace. “Why can you not face the reality of the prophecy?” he rasped. “The harder you try to stop it, the more it seems to fight to become true.”
Camael dove backward, down into the densest smoke. He could no longer hear the clang of the fire alarm, but the water raining down from the sprinklers felt comforting upon his wounded throat. He touched down upon the wooden floor and willed himself to heal faster. There was so little time. The human authorities were certainly on their way; the battle would need to be brought promptly to a close, for Verchiel would think nothing of ending innocent lives in the pursuit of his goals.
Searching the wafting smoke above him for signs of his adversary, Camael thought of Aaron, of Aerie, of all he had saved from Verchiel’s murderous throngs. Has it been enough? The unspeakable acts he had once perpetrated in the name of God as leader of the Powers filled him with self-loathing, and he wondered if he could ever forgive himself. Will killing Verchiel and allowing the prophecy to be fulfilled finally be enough? He stepped over bodies of angels burned black by his ferocity, continuing to scan the smoke-choked room for signs of movement.
“Have I told you my plan for this world, Camael?” asked Verchiel from somewhere nearby.
Camael tensed, sword ready. He tried to attune his senses to the environment, but the fire alarm and the fall of the sprinkler’s artificial rain interfered with their acuity.
“I see a world of obedience.” Verchiel’s voice seemed to be shifting positions within the smoke. “A world where my word is law.”
Camael’s eyes scanned the billowing smoke. “Don’t you mean God’s word?”
The smoke to his right suddenly parted to reveal the formidable sight of his former second in command, a spear of orange fire in his grasp. “You heard me right the first time,” Verchiel said, and let the weapon fly.
Camael reared back and brought his sword of fire to bear. He blocked the spear with the burning blade, but as it disintegrated in a flash of light, he felt another presence behind him. Still moving, he tossed his sword from right hand to left, spinning around to confront this new assailant.
Camael’s blade struck armor the color of a blood-soaked battlefield and shattered. Magick, he thought, momentarily taken aback. He was about to formulate another weapon when he was struck from behind. A sword entered his body through his back; the white-hot blade exiting just below his ribcage in a geyser of steaming blood before being brutally pulled back.
Camael turned, a ferocious roar born of pain and rage escaping his lips. How could I have been so reckless as to forget the hunter? he thought, bringing his new sword of flame up to bite back at the coward who had struck from behind.
Verchiel blocked his swipe with the sword he had pulled from the angel’s back.
“Do you know what I think, Camael?” Verchiel asked in a voice that dripped with madness.
Camael gasped as another blade, this one made of iron, was plunged into his back, and he felt himself grow suddenly weaker, the magicks infused within the knife sapping away his strength. He heard the armored warrior breathe heavily behind him, as if aroused by this craven act of savagery.
“I believe that the Creator has lost His mind,” Verchiel said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Driven mad by the infectious disease of this virulent prophecy.”
He stepped closer as Camael fell to his knees. The bleeding angel tried to stand, to carry on with the fight, but the metal blade had made that impossible.
“It has touched His mind in such a way that He actually believes what is happening here is right. How else can you explain it?” the demented angel asked. “God has become infected, as you were infected, and so many other pathetic beings that we so mercifully dispatched over the centuries.”
Camael could taste his own blood and suspected that his time was at an end. He had always known that it would come to this; that his final battle would be against the one that had so twisted the will of God. “Will you attempt to mercifully dispatch the Creator as well?” he asked, disturbed by how weak his voice sounded.
The Powers’ leader seemed horrified by this query. “You speak blasphemy,” he proclaimed. “When my job is done, I will return to Heaven and see to the affairs of both Heaven and Earth until our Lord and Master is well enough to see to the ministrations of the universe on His own.”
Camael could not hold back his laughter, although it wracked his body with painful spasms. “Do you hear yourself?” he asked through bloody coughs that flecked his bearded chin with gore. “You presume to know the grand schemes of He who created all things—He who created us.” He averted his gaze, no longer able to look upon the foul creature before him. “If Lucifer could hear you now, he would embrace you as a like-minded brother,” Camael added with a disgusted shake of his head.
“How dare you speak his name to me,” Verchiel raged, falling down upon his own knees and grabbing Camael’s face. “Everything I do, I do for the glory of His name. When this is done, and things have returned to the way they once were, I shall sit by His side, and all shall know that my actions were just.”
Camael stared into Verchiel’s dark eyes, falling into the depths of their insanity. “Things will never be as they were,” he whispered, shaking Verchiel’s hand from his face. “And they will call you monster.”
Verchiel jumped to his feet, his scarred features twisted in fury. “Then monster I shall be,” he shrieked as he raised his flaming sword and brought it down toward Camael’s head.
Camael had been saving his strength, a small pocket of might that he hoped would enable him to return to Aerie. He reached behind himself, finding the knife that still protruded from his flesh. His hand closed around the hilt and he yanked the offending object from his back, bringing it around and up to meet the sword’s deadly arc. Verchiel’s weapon shattered on contact with the mystical metal, and the Powers’ commander cried out, stumbling back as burning shrapnel showered his exposed flesh.
Camael unfurled his wings, thrusting them outward, hurling the scarlet-armored warrior away from him. His body screamed in protest, blood filling his mouth, but he did not let it deter him.
“You cannot hope to escape me, traitor!” Verchiel screamed, the mottled flesh of his face decorated with fresh burns. “You’re already dead!”
Camael enfolded himself in the comforting embrace of his wings and willed himself away from the school, with Verchiel’s furious words echoing through the recesses of his mind.
“Not quite yet,” said the warrior on his way to the place hidden from him for so long, the place he now called home.
Verchiel stood in the gymnasium at Kenneth Curtis High School surrounded by the burning bodies of his soldiers. “We’re close,” he said to his fallen comrades, now nothing more than smoking heaps of ash.
Malak had retrieved his helmet and stood by his master’s side, his face bruised and spattered with blood. The alarm bell continued to toll and the sprinklers rained down upon them. The wails of fire trucks could be heard from outside, and Malak howled softly in response to the sirens’ cries. Verchiel turned to him and the warrior abruptly stopped.
“You’ve failed me,” Verchiel told him, and the warrior cowered in the shadow of his disappointment.
“There is something in him, this Nephilim, that was not there in the others that I have hunted,” Malak said in an attempt to explain his failure. He shook his head slowly, as if attempting to understand the perception himself. “A fire burns inside this one—a will to live.” Malak looked up into the eyes of his master. “A purpose.”