Verchiel slowly turned his attention to a dark corner of the classroom, where a large cage of iron was hanging from the ceiling, its bars etched with arcane markings. It swayed in the turbulence caused by his anger. The stranger taken from the monastery in the Serbian Mountains peered out from between the iron bars, the expression on his gaunt face intense.
“Do you care to hear what I have to say?” he asked, his voice a dry whisper.
“Ah, our prisoner is awake,” Verchiel said. “I thought the injuries inflicted by my soldiers would have kept you down for far longer than this.”
The prisoner clutched the bars of his cage with dirty hands. “I’ve endured worse,” he said. “Sometimes it is the price one must pay.”
Verchiel’s wings closed, retracting beneath the flesh of his bare back. “Indeed,” the angel snarled.
Kraus still cowered upon the floor, head bowed. “You will leave me now,” Verchiel said, dismissing the human healer. “Take your things and go.”
“Yes, my lord,” the blind man said, gathering up the satchel containing his tools of healing and carefully feeling his way to the exit.
“Why do they do it?” the prisoner asked as he watched the healer depart. “What perverse need is satisfied by the degradation we heap upon them? It’s a question I’ve gone round and round with for years.”
“Perhaps we give their mundane lives purpose,” Verchiel responded, advancing toward the cage. “Providing them with something that was lacking when they lived among their own kind.” Verchiel stopped before the hanging cage and gazed into the eyes of his prisoner. “Or maybe they are just not as intelligent as we think,” he said with perverse amusement.
“And that’s reason enough to exploit and abuse them?” the prisoner asked.
“So be it, if it serves a greater good. They are aiding us in carrying out God’s will. They are serving their Creator—as well as ours. Can you not think of a more fulfilling purpose?”
Still dressed in the tattered brown robes of the Serbian monastery, the prisoner sat down with a smile, leaning back against the bars of the cage. “And you seriously have to wonder what it was that struck you down?” He chuckled, making reference to Verchiel’s scars. “Wouldn’t think you were that dense, but then again…”
Verchiel loomed closer, peering through black iron bars. “Please share with me your thoughts,” he whispered. “I’m eager to hear the perceptions of one such as you—the most renowned of the fallen. Yes, please, what is the Lord God thinking these days?”
The prisoner casually reached within his robes and withdrew the mouse. Gently, he touched the top of its pointed head with the tip of his finger as it crawled about on his open palm. “That I couldn’t tell you, Verchiel,” he said, looking up as the tiny creature scuttled up the front of his robe to his shoulder. “It’s been quite some time since the Creator and I last spoke. But looking at your current condition, I’d have to guess that He’s none too happy with you either.”
And then the prisoner smiled—a smile filled with warmth and love, and so stunningly beautiful. How could he not have once been the most favored of God’s children?
Verchiel felt his rage grow, and it took all the self-control he could muster to not reach into the cage and rend his captive limb from limb. “And I am to believe the likes of you”—the Powers’ leader growled reaching out to clutch the bars of the cage—“the Prince of Lies?”
“Touché,” the prisoner said, as the mouse explored the top of his head. “But remember,” he said with a grin, “I have had some experience in these matters.”
CHAPTER THREE
Trudging through the wood, in search of his prey, Mufgar, chieftain of the Deheboryn Orisha, knew that his decision the previous night had been the right one.
With his primitive elemental magicks, Mufgar had coerced the dirt, rock, and stone of the tunnel system in which they traveled to alter its labyrinthian course and open a passageway to the surface. “We will never catch a scent down here,” he had said to his party as the dirt face of a nearby wall became like a thing of liquid, swirling and falling away to reveal a newly fashioned tunnel that ascended to the surface. “It is on the land above where our destiny awaits us.”
Mufgar had thanked the elements for their assistance, leaving an offering of dried fruit before beginning his ascension into the new morning sun. It had been eight hours since he and his tribe had emerged from below, eight hours since any had spoken a word to him.
He sensed their anger, their fear, and their disappointment over the judgment he had passed upon them. He was truly sorry that they questioned his decision, but he knew they would not abandon their duty to their masters. They would hunt the Nephilim as the Powers had ordered, capture him, and earn their freedom. That is how it will be, he thought, remembering the strange vision he’d had while sleeping. A vision of success.
Mufgar raised his hand to stop their progress through the dense wood. He listened carefully to sounds around him, the chirping of various birds, the rustling of the wind through trees heavy with leaves—and something else.
“Is it the Nephilim, Mufgar?” Tehom hissed at his side, raising his spear and looking nervously about the forest.
“No,” the Orisha Chieftain said. He listened again to the sounds way off in the distance, the sounds of machines. What are they called? He searched his brain for the strange-sounding word. Automobiles, he remembered with great satisfaction. “Not the Nephilim,” he whispered, “but vehicles that will bring him to us.”
Mufgar pointed through the woods to somewhere off in the distance. “I saw it in a vision of my own,” he said, deciding to share his experience with his subjects, to give them faith in his leadership. He turned and glared at Shokad. “As I slept, I, too, had a vision. A vision that the Nephilim would come to us—”
The shaman quickly looked away with a scowl upon his ancient features.
“—and he would fall against our might.” Mufgar raised his spear in an attempt to rally his hunters. “And for our bravery, Lord Verchiel bestowed upon us our freedom, and we found the location of the blessed Safe Place.”
The Orishas all bowed their malformed heads, blessing themselves furiously.
It had been the strangest dream, as clear as the day they hunted in now. It was all there for him, all the answers he had sought. The doubts he had been experiencing since the last council all dispelled like smoke in the wind. A holy vision had been bestowed upon him, maybe from the spirits of the great creators themselves, a vision that told him they would be victorious. He could ask for nothing better.
Mufgar turned to the shaman, who lagged behind. The old Orisha squatted down and took a handful of bones and smooth, shiny rocks from a purse at his side.
“You do not trust your chieftain’s sleeping visions, Shokad?” he asked the shaman.
The old creature said nothing as he tossed the bones and stones onto the ground before him. His wings unfurled and fluttered nervously as he began to read the results of his throw.
“Hmmmm,” he grumbled, rubbing his chin as he discerned the signs.
“What do they say, Shokad?” Mufgar asked. “Do the bones and stones speak of victory and freedom?”
The old Orisha was silent as he gathered up his tools of divination and returned them to his purse.
“Speak, shaman,” Mufgar ordered. “Your chief commands you to reveal what you have seen.”
“The bones and stones speak of death,” Shokad said gravely.
Zawar and Tehom gasped beside him. “Death?” Tehom asked in a voice filled with dread.