Their lives had suddenly become so hard. Gabriel thought longingly of days—Could it have only been just weeks ago? — spent going for long walks, licking cookie crumbs from Stevie’s face, cuddling with the Stanleys as they rubbed his belly.
The sound of a door slamming roused the Lab from his reflection, and he turned his blocky head to see another of Aerie’s citizens leaving his home to join the crowd already on their way to the gathering.
Gabriel felt his hackles begin to rise. Verchiel was coming and he would probably be bringing Stevie along with him. He was no longer the little boy Gabriel so fondly remembered, but something that filled him with fear. Images of his battle with the armored monster at the school gym flooded his thoughts. It hadn’t taken more than a moment for him to realize who he was facing; the scent of the boy—of Stevie—was there in the form of the one called Malak, but the smell was wrong. It had been changed, made foul. Last night Gabriel had struggled with a way in which to express to his master what his senses perceived, but Aaron already knew that Stevie had become Malak. Although Gabriel couldn’t understand exactly what had happened to Stevie, he shared Aaron’s deep shock at the little boy’s transformation.
A sudden, nagging question formed in the Lab’s mind and he stopped walking, waiting for Aaron to notice that he was no longer at his side. Finally Aaron turned.
“What’s up?” the boy asked him.
Gabriel shook his head sadly, his golden brown ears flopping around his long face. “Stevie’s been poisoned. It’s like this place,” he said. “It was nice before, but something bad has happened to it. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
Aaron walked back and laid a gentle hand on the dog’s head. “I get it,” he said.
Citizens passed on their way to the meeting place, but the two friends paid them no mind.
Gabriel licked Aaron’s hand, then looked nervously into his eyes. “It’s Stevie, but it’s not. His smell is all wrong.”
Aaron nodded quickly. “I understand,” he said, a troubled expression on his face as he turned to join the others heading toward the church at the end of the street. “C’mon, we better get going.”
Gabriel followed at his side, struggling with the dark question he did not want to ask. But it was one he knew that Aaron had to confront. “What will you do if he tries to kill you again, Aaron?” Gabriel asked gently.
Aaron did not answer, choosing to remain silent, but the expression upon his master’s face told Gabriel everything he needed to know, and it just made the dog all the sadder.
Lehash stood nervously in Aerie’s old church, where he had never stood before, attempting to communicate with a higher being he had not wanted to speak with for many a millennium.
He studied the crude picture of the savior painted on the altar wall. The child did not look like Aaron Corbet, with its bald head and bulging white eyes, but there was no doubt in the angel’s mind of the boy’s true identity. He had witnessed Aaron’s power with his own eyes, and had been forever changed by it.
Lehash turned the Stetson nervously in his hands. “I… I don’t know what to say,” he stammered, his voice like sandpaper rubbing on wood. “I never imagined the day that I would speak to You again—never mind want to speak to You.”
The fallen angel didn’t care for what he heard in his voice: It sounded weak, scared, but at the moment, that was exactly what he was. “I never imagined You to have so much mercy,” he said to the silence of the church. “To pardon what we did.”
Lehash chuckled, looking about the room, then at the hat in his hands. “I used to feel sorry for the others—that they actually believed that You were going to forgive us. So many times I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and give ‘em a good shake. Don’t you remember what we did? I wanted to scream at them. But I kept my mouth shut.”
Lehash slowly dropped to his knees and focused his gaze on the painting above the altar. “But I was wrong,” he said, his voice filled with a sudden strength. “All these years here and I still don’t know anything more than when I decided to join up with the Morningstar.”
The fallen angel bowed his head and summoned forth wings that had not unfurled since his fall from Heaven. It was painful at first and he gritted his teeth as the atrophied appendages gradually emerged.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry for what I did in the past and what I’m going to do—and if I should die in battle today, I hope You can find it in Your heart to forgive me.”
He had summoned forth his guns of gold and crossed them over his chest, spreading his wings as wide as he could. “But if not, I understand, ‘cause for what I intend to do to Verchiel and his lapdogs, I wouldn’t let me back into Heaven either.”
The church door opened behind him and he quickly stood, wishing away the wings that had not touched the sky since his descent. “I said I didn’t want to be disturbed,” he barked, before realizing that it was Belphegor striding down the center aisle toward him. “Oh, sorry,” Lehash said quickly as he reached for his hat that had dropped to the floor.
“Quite all right,” Belphegor said, looking at the altar painting. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
The constable thought for a moment. He had no idea if the Creator had been listening, but for the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt a certain sense of hope. “Y’know, I think I might have,” he finally answered as he slipped the black Stetson down upon his head.
“That’s good,” Belphegor replied, and said no more.
And the two of them walked together toward the exit, and the gathering that awaited them beyond it.
Lorelei studied her reflection in the cracked, full-length mirror hanging on the back of her closet door. The vertical break in the reflective surface split the image of her, the two sides slightly out of sync with each other. She’d always thought about replacing it, but never seemed to have the time. She found the duality of the reflection depicted there strangely accurate, for since the emergence of her other half, the Nephilim side, struggle had been a constant in her life.
Lorelei ran a brush through her long, snow-white hair and wondered why she was bothering. Have to look good for the slaughter, I guess, she thought sardonically. Since arriving in Aerie she had known this day would come, the day that the Powers would try to kill them all. She shuddered, racked by a sudden chill of unease. She had seen what Verchiel and his kind were capable of, and the thought of facing them in battle filled her with dread.
She tossed her brush onto the bed and looked upon her trembling hands. Lorelei was afraid of what was to come. Part of her—some primitive, selfish part—wanted to run, to hide, but that side cared nothing for the future, for destiny. All that it concerned itself with was its continued survival. Taking some deep breaths, she attempted to calm the scared, animal side—the human nature—a single thought running through her head. I am Nephilim and I have a destiny to fulfill.
Lorelei grabbed her jacket from the bed and slipped it on, flipping out the snow-white hair from beneath her collar. “So what do you think?” she asked her cracked reflection as she adjusted the coat’s fit. “Do you think he’s really the One?” She had no idea, and doubted that the image looking back at her was any more knowledgeable. What she did know was that Aaron was something very special, and that was exactly what Aerie needed to survive this day. She only hoped that she would be strong enough to help him.