Aaron bore down on him, rage and pain fueling his strength as he held Verchiel’s wrist in a steely grip, preventing the angel from using his sword. He looked into the monster’s black, bottomless eyes, searching for even the slightest hint that this creature once served a loving God. He saw nothing but his own look of revulsion reflected in the void of Verchiel’s stare.
“Look around you, Nephilim,” the Powers’ commander said, struggling to break Aaron’s grip. “It is not forgiveness that you bring, but death and destruction.”
“No!” Aaron shouted. He reached down and pulled the blood-caked metal shaft from his leg. “I’ll show you death and destruction, you son of a bitch,” he growled through gritted teeth.
A look of utter shock spread over Verchiel’s face as Aaron drove the body of the magickally imbued bolt down into the chest plate of the angel’s armor. The pointed head pierced the armor with ease, continuing on into the angelic flesh beneath. Verchiel wailed, his pain-filled thrashings so violent that Aaron was thrown away from him.
Aaron wasted no time in pressing the advantage. Though the wound in his leg throbbed, he scrambled toward his enemy, a scream of battle on his lips, a sword of heavenly fire ready to strike. He didn’t want to give the monster even the smallest chance to recover. But Verchiel moved quickly, ignoring the shaft of metal in his chest. He summoned his blade and blocked the arc of Aaron’s weapon.
“You’ve actually begun to believe what they say,” Verchiel said, his voice dripping with contempt.
He twisted his body to the side, one of his wings suddenly snapping out, swiping Aaron across the face and knocking him away. The Powers’ commander charged, his fiery blade slicing through the air in search of a kill. Aaron moved just as quickly and felt the heat of Verchiel’s sword as it narrowly missed him.
“You’re as delusional as the monstrosity that sired you,” Verchiel retorted, hissing, his blade melting its way into the blacktop of the street on which they battled. He soared up into the air, his wings spread to their full impressive span. Fluidly he spun around and angled down like a hawk descending upon unsuspecting prey.
Aaron did not shy away, swinging the blade of flame with all his might. “What do you know about my father?” he yelled as their blades connected.
The Nephilim’s sword exploded with the force of the blow and he was thrown back across the street, ears ringing. He scrambled to his feet to find the Powers’ leader untouched by the volatile contact. The black metal bolt still protruded from his chest, a trail of black blood staining his golden armor.
“Your weapon is as fragile as the idea that one such as you could best me in combat,” the angel spat. He raised his fearsome blade of fire. “Bringer of Sorrow shall drink deeply of your blood this day.”
“I did best you in combat, Verchiel,” Aaron angrily retorted. “Did my father as well?”
The angel recoiled as if slapped, and then a cruel smile, oozing with malice, crept across his face. “You don’t know, do you. You are ignorant to the identity of the one who sired you.” And then he began to laugh.
Aaron reacted instinctively, a weapon unlike any he had conjured before taking shape in his hand. It was a baseball bat—a Louisville Slugger formed of heavenly fire. If things hadn’t been so dire at the moment, he would have been amused.
The adversaries swept toward each other. Mere inches apart, Aaron swung his flaming club and swatted aside Verchiel’s blazing weapon. He followed with a blow at the angel’s face, the club connecting with his chin. Knocked off balance, the Powers’ leader fought to stay afloat, his wings wildly flapping. Aaron didn’t give him the chance. He brought the club down upon Verchiel’s head and watched as the angel fell to the street, wings barely softening his fall.
Aaron was beyond anger now; the idea that Verchiel might know the identity of his father spurred him on. He would have this knowledge—this missing piece of the puzzle—even if he had to beat the angel within an inch of his life to get it. He landed in a crouch before Verchiel, who was just climbing to his feet, the so-called Bringer of Sorrow still clutched in his hand. Aaron did not hesitate, swinging the bat of fire savagely down upon the angel’s wrist, forcing him to drop his weapon. The sword fell, evaporating in an implosion of fire, wisps of smoke the only evidence it had ever existed.
“You’ve taken so much from me,” Aaron spat, looming before the angel, weapon at the ready. “It’s time you gave me something in return.”
Verchiel bristled like a cornered animal. “I’ll give you nothing,” he growled, his perfect teeth stained black from his wounded mouth.
Aaron brought the bat of fire down again, driving the Powers’ commander to the street. He wanted to deliver the fatal blow, but restrained himself, keeping at bay the killer’s instinct yowling for vengeance inside him. It wasn’t easy. Here was the monster responsible for the death of his parents, of his little brother, of Zeke and Camael, broken and driven to his knees, and he longed to show the angel the same amount of mercy that had been afforded his loved ones. But not until he received the answer to the question that haunted him.
“It’s over, Verchiel,” he said, a tremble of suppressed rage in his voice. “All the misery and death you’ve been responsible for—it’s come back to bite you on the ass.”
Verchiel glared at the burning club against his armored chest, keeping him pinned to the ground. “The Creator will—”
“The Creator will what?” Aaron screamed. “What will it take for you to realize that you’re on your own?” he asked the Powers’ commander. “God isn’t protecting you!”
An expression of horror gradually crossed Verchiel’s face. And then the angel began to laugh, a high-pitched sound tainted with a hint of insanity. “Very good, Nephilim.” Verchiel giggled, looking up into Aaron’s eyes. “You almost had me. It appears that you have your father’s gift for twisting the truth.”
Aaron couldn’t stand it anymore, his fury overflowing as he lifted the bat and prepared to deliver another blow. “Who is my father!” he demanded.
But the Powers’ commander proved himself more wily than Aaron anticipated, re-igniting his sword of sorrow and abruptly stopping Aaron’s weapon. “You’ll die with the knowledge filling your ears,” Verchiel hissed as he sprang to his feet, a dagger of orange flame in his injured hand. The knife cut a course through the air on its way to the tender flesh of Aaron’s throat. “He is the one who started it all. Without his selfish act none of us would have fallen.”
The knife was coming for him, but Aaron was frozen in place by anticipation.
“Your father is …,” the angel began, but never got the chance to finish.
Tremendous bolts of lightning rained down from a roiling sky, a deluge of destructive force, incinerating everything they touched.
In the midst of combat with a Powers’ soldier, Lehash was thrown backward as a jagged strike of icy blue turned his opponent to a screaming cinder, melting the street with the heat of its touch.
It was like nothing he had ever experienced. Bolts of electrical force snapping down from the sky, striking at anything that moved. No, he corrected himself as he climbed to his feet and picked up his hat. Not anything. The Powers … the lightning was singling out the Powers host. For a brief moment he entertained the concept of divine intervention, that this was the Creator’s way of telling them that they were forgiven, but then in flash of searing white he saw her silhouette atop the rubble that had been the church.
“Lorelei,” Lehash said aloud. He watched her wield the spell of the elements, her head tossed back, arms reaching up to the sky. Tendrils of magickal power leaked from the tips of her fingers, trailing up into the heavens, into the bodies of the low hanging clouds. He had seen her weave the spell of angelic magick before, but never like this.