“No, listen! There was something strange right, about File 302?”
“Well, I suppose -”
“Suppose this, forces of the darkside can’t enter Blackwood Tower. What’s so special about Hurain that something that powerful could enter and try and take him by force?”
“There are rules that govern the darkside -”
“Forget the darkside!” Zac snapped, missing his turn. “Shit!” He cursed, speeding across lanes. Pulling off a dangerous left turn, he zipped back up the boulevard, narrowly missing being clipped by a delivery van.
“Is everything alright?” Reno asked concernedly.
Zac took one hand off the bars in order to flip the bird at another passing motorist. “Yeah, I’m fine. Not good, but whatever. Now, who compiled file 302...and what connection does it have to Daniel Hurain?”
Reno was silent for a time, then he finally spoke. “A man who used to work in the Armory, you’ve seen him in the photographs in the lobby corridor. He compiled the record after his friend, Yuji Javan died under mysterious circumstances. Javan was Hurain’s previous adopted parent.”
***
Once in the Volvo S80, Evelyn switched over to the GPS tracker. The computer latched onto the chip she’d had embedded into the locket immediately. He was moving, swiftly, faster than her car could navigate through the crowded streets of early morning New York. Briefly, she entertained the thought of calling on reinforcements, then shook the thought away.
Doing so would affirm Reno’s opinion that she couldn’t handle anything on her own. Taking her eyes off the road, she glanced over to the sheathed katana leaning against the passenger’s seat. Valeria... the sword had been forged by Ono Yoshimitsu, signed with the famed artist’s hand. It had been designed as an art piece, relished for its maker’s skill; but she had changed it, reforged the long blade with a relic bought in a seedy Moroccan cafe.
Valeria, the forgotten saint.
“Whoever you were, Valeria, thank you.” Evelyn whispered, she wasn’t sure of what came next, if she was even strong enough to face his daemons. Yet, I am rushing heedlessly to the end therein lies my death. She smiled mirthlessly to herself and turned onto the broad shoulder of the bridge leading out of Manhattan.
GPS had locked onto her projected destination as a crumbling cemetery hours out of the city. The graves were mostly forgotten, vandalized in a deserted section of wilderness far off the main road. Evelyn watched the miles disappear beneath the tires of the S80, taking on ice and the vestiges of cleared snow around sharp turns, almost flawlessly.
Lost in her thoughts, the drive was almost restful to her anxieties soothed by the mirror of dark sky and glint of clouds. The road roughened turning off the main highway, the glare of headlights faded on the silver bumper. Jostled several miles in, she finally threw the brakes on and pulled to a stop below a dead tree that leaned heavily onto the roadway. Disembarking, she took in the scrub and trees left to go to seed. The GPS had given the location beyond the impasse as well as his eventual stop; memorizing the path, she strapped the katana over her shoulder, securing the Magnum inside her coat.
From the Volvo’s trunk, she lifted out a separate sheet of metal emblazoned in bold red with ancient sigils. Tucking it beneath her arm, she set off at a brisk pace, worried for what she’d find. Skeletal trees thinned from the wending path, frostbitten grasses flattened beneath her heels. Broken statues began appearing in the faded moonlight, armless women on chipped pedestals, headless busts and fragments of infant lambs crumbled into desolation and time.
Beneath the shelter of a weeping woman, Evelyn laid her burden down, leaving a battery-operated lantern burning beside it. Things wouldn’t end with them simply walking away, she was certain of it. There had to be a reckoning. A resolution to the questions that plagued her mind.
She went through the long-vanished iron gates that led into the heart of the cemetery, the mausoleum. There, he stood in a patch of waning light, staring at a niche in the wall. “What’re you doing here? Why’d you leave so suddenly without telling us anything?” She glared at him reproachfully.
Daniel hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t turned from the crumbling reliquary of the past.
“Wherever I’ve gone, people have suffered.”
Evelyn didn’t know what he was talking about. Nothing made sense. The boy in the photos...the drawings...was it him? Nothing seemed as clear cut as he believed it was. She chose her next words with care. “You aren’t the cause. War is...and cruelty. Don’t you see that?”
Daniel shook his head, backing away from her. “You don’t know what I know. The things ...my people have suffered,” he slapped his chest for emphasis. “I was there. I was there as a face in the crowd. A baby in the arms of a dying mother in Hiroshima, a child playing inside a barbed wire fence of an interment camp...a student in Tiananmen Square fired upon by police.”
Japan, California and China.
Vietnam.
Korea.
Thailand and the wreck of typhoons battering the Philippine shores.
“In the places with the thickest amounts of death, you will find me for I am one of the damned.”
“A nephilim.” The words slipped from her cold lips. The chill wind blew her blond hair loosely about her face, tangling. “A descendant of one of the fallen.” She had suspected it from the moment the Archangel had descended into the ward-protected floors of the Tower. Nothing should’ve been able to breach the witchcraft woven into the very framework of the building itself.
But, the impossible had happened and she’d fought to stay the persecutor’s hand.
“He’s coming for me.”
Evelyn gauged the distance between them. The wind was picking up, buffeting her long coat in scallops, lifting her hair in a golden aureole. She reached for the Magnum, the tips of her leather-clad fingers scraped the rubberized grip. She could hear a pounding in the wind, the pound of many things descending - and took a running leap, tackling Daniel to the ground. Something darted overhead, massive, alien-like. Black feathers covered an androgynous muscled body, thousands of lidless eyes covered its massive wingspan. The monstrous being alighted on the ground drawing a large sickle from straps of flayed human skin.
“Uriel, the guardian of Tartarus.” Evelyn whispered, awed. She’d seen drawings of the avenging angels, but had never accepted their existence until now. “You can’t face him,” Daniel protested as she got to her feet. “You’re just a human!” He tried to restrain her but she pushed him away.
With her face to the wind, a storm arose from the north. Cold that cut to the bone pierced her leather and Dragon scale vest. “Being human doesn’t matter,” she said smiling. “It’s what you fight for, that does.” She sensed the lack of hesitance in the angelic being, the quality of mercy was long-fled. She would be shone no mercy, this daughter of Eve.
“Once I engage him, I want you to run, run as fast and as hard as you can for the weeping statue beyond the trees.”
“But-”
She wouldn’t listen to his arguments. There wasn’t time for that. Evelyn drew the Magnum from its hidden holster, setting off at a swift run. Their conversation had taken a few seconds yet it could’ve lasted an infinity. Her legs carried her far across the asphalt, tensing in the knees for the next move. The angelic warrior swept in at a right curve, changing the air currents to suit his chosen weapon. Evelyn felt the air pushing against her, slowing her body as she vaulted off the sickle edge. Twisting in midair with the agility of a gymnast, she landed on her feet, pivoting around with her upper body.
The sickle had regained its momentum, spinning about on its axis to meet with the glowing titanium handgun side. Evelyn’s arm shook, under pressure from a force greater than she’d ever known. She allowed a slight grim smile to curl her lips. It was true that she might not get out of this fight alive, but the danger made every moment of life all that more precious.
She pulled off, her heels skated, sending greasy pebbles o
f scree flying. Her finger curled on the trigger, releasing one shot. The bullet pinged off empty stone. She ducked out of reflex, her breath catching in her throat. So fast. The blade edge bit into her, razing a line of fire across her back. Evelyn swallowed her brief scream, weaving in and away from the killing blow.
The thick line of her blood glistened on the charred edge of the curved sickle.
Evelyn reigned in the fleeting shocks of pain jolting her body. Daniel had disappeared; it was easier to breathe then. Relieved, she clasped the Magnum in one hand, the other skimming the currents of the air. Four rounds spun in the barrel, blessed rounds shipped airmail from the sanctity of Lourdes, France.
“Give up.” The guardian of Tartarus growled.
Surprised, she dropped into a defensive position. “Tell me what wrong he’s done? Why do you hunt him?”
“Because he exists.”
“Everything has a right to exist! It’s the choices we make that decide our fate!” She challenged furiously, evading the next blow. Fragments of stone flew from the crater made where she’d been standing. Evelyn snarled and struck out, her parry pitting her slender frame against unmovable iron. The Angel cast her aside, hurling her into a falling monument. Striking sideways, she cried aloud at the fresh waves of burning pain. Slumping down to the ground, she curled automatically into a fetal position, shuddering violently.
I must get up...
Uriel sent her one last dismissive look and turned, his mighty form striding away.
If I don’t get up...
She inhaled sharply, noisily. Everything hurt so much. Her eyes closed, images passed beneath her mind’s eye. She thought most of Quinn, remorseful. If I get up now, I’ll never watch Quinn grow to become one of us. If I don’t - I’ll lose him forever - Tears sprang to her eyes, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself up from the heap. Valeria waited steps away. The hilt came to hand with a cutting swiftness that whisked her fears away. “Everyone deserves a chance to live!” She shouted, bringing the sword down in a curved arc. The moment the blade touched the guardian of Tartarus, the sacred weapon imploded in a hail of iron shards.
Jacob wrestled the Angel of the Lord - fate will destroy him - The Angel touched Jacob’s hip and his hip was displaced from its socket - The largest, the tip with its pristine edge pierced her shoulder, but this time she was ready for it and weaved around, her good arm completed the sword dance with deadly elegance.
Jacob prevailed and God granted him his desire.
The final blow spliced through a shower of earth.
The Archangel was gone.
Evelyn’s hand shook, then she looked ahead, breathing hard. With the retrieved Magnum slipped through the waistband of her slacks, she ran up the path, occasionally gasping in the cold air. Daniel was waiting on the metal platform, his eyes darting to her right hand braced against her upper left arm. Free-flowing blood had slicked the leather a glossy black in the fading night.
“I’ll live.” Remained her only comment on the hike back to the S80, after he secured his scarf around the wound.
The car consumed road and miles.
Daniel seemed afraid to break the silence.
What now? Wherever will we go? She doubted it was over. Taking her eyes off the country road, she punched the radio buttons on the dash, missing the Jeep’s advanced controls on the wheel. Sound crackled over the built-in Bose speakers, relaxing slightly, she looked back to the stretch illuminated by the daylight headlamps.
The first words came over in a voice neither male nor female.
“Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortális, miserére nobis.”
She turned to the dash, startled.
“Ev-” Daniel began, warningly, fright in his face.
But, it was too late.
Chapter 16: Hell Revealed
“There are stories,” Reno said, turning the pages of the faded scrapbook.
“Stories?” Zac echoed; he’d parked down the quiet street, several houses down from the old Javan residence. The ethnic neighborhood had gone to seed with time, graffiti littered cracked sidewalks while a few lights burned behind iron-barred windows. For backup, Reno had called in the Greenwich police; Garret and Parkin cruised the streets slowly, their headlights never distant.
“Stories of the fall, of the aeons past when the Creator’s firstborn walked among men,” Reno paused to study a drawing of a winged male figure captivating a group of antediluvian humans. “They took wives among human women and begot children.”
Zac’s breath hung in the air, still, white. He aimed the Colt around, then pushed one side of the creaking gate open, stepping inside the overgrown yard. “The women bore monstrous children, giants among the puny humans, and God sent the great flood to destroy all human life, sparing Noah and his family.”
“They were said to be evil in their ways.” Reno compared the dossier he had compiled on Hurain weeks ago to the clippings found scattered in the lounge. “I see nothing here to connect the dots.” He turned the page to the letter Hurain had included to the dean with his acceptance essay. “A man of medicine helps humanity, I want to be that man.”
Zac checked the interior of the small, boarded-up house, surprising a vagrant huddled beneath a filthy blanket in the corner of the tiny kitchen. “Nothing here,” he said grimly, exiting back into the yard. “What’s the next address?”
Paper rustled on the audio interlink. “I’ll send you the address via non-linear filter.”
“Got’cha.” Zac returned to the Vespa, swinging his leg over. Intently, he studied the digital map sent to his phone. He grimaced and looked around, “a cemetery?”
“We have the record in our files. It’s old, very old. 302’s recorder felt it was pertinent enough to include it scribbled on the back of a drawing. Seems there was a sighting there in the late 19th century of a winged beast flying over one of the tombs.”
On the other end of the line, Zac suppressed his shudder. Why me? “Sounds like an urban legend,” he said with effort, starting up the engine. He didn’t miss Reno’s quiet sarcasm. “Most people believe Angels and Daemons are.”
***
The car had flipped three times, each impact hammering the doors into unrecognizable masses of crushed metal and plastic. When the safest car in the world finally came to a shuddering stop, it resided like a twisted hulk on the side of the roadway. Through it all, Daniel had kept his eyes open. He was no stranger to tragedy nor pain.
Pain receded - bleeding flesh healed; with effort, he turned to his female companion, his composure shattering. Eve was slumped over the steering wheel, her arms hung down, fingers straight, unbent. Her loose hair had fallen in bunches, plastered to the sides of her face streaked crimson with gore.
“Eve?”
No response.
Afraid, he reached out to touch her shoulder, feeling a slight motion beneath his probing fingers. She was alive! Quickly working his belt free, Daniel crawled out the passenger’s side window, now a gaping toothless portal. Glass littered the roadway, the smashed fender of the Volvo had been pitched off farther down the road. Daniel glanced around and saw none of the heavenly host. It was quiet out, a few stars sprinkled the northern sky.
He went to her side, bending metal and rubber to pull her free.
Laboring with her in his arms, Daniel weaved slightly ungainly off the roadside into the high grasses off the guardrail side. There, he dropped down, leaning her upper body against his chest. She was so thin, so frail in bloodstained clothes. Her face and chest had sustained the most damage, pierced in several places by shards of glass from the windshield.
He smoothed strands of her hair back. She had lost a lot of blood, without aid she would bleed to death. Slowly, surely. Daniel felt the sob rising in his throat; human lives were so fragile, so easily wasted. He had watched them die for nearly a millennia of existence, their lives like brief bursts of light in the darkness. None had touched him as she had.
I’ve p
retended for so long to be something I wasn’t - never a daemon, nor a creature of light, but something in between, something human with a life. “The only thing I ever wanted was to know the warmth of love and family!” He cried to the unconscious woman. “For so long I made myself forget the pain of an eternal existence!”
Her breaths were shallower.
“No longer.”
Daniel looked toward the eastern sky and shed his cloak of humanity.
***
Evelyn’s dreams were of wet flesh sliding together, bloody, dying. She awakened alone, her head thudding distantly, the sound of thousands of wings beating in her eardrums. “Dan...Daniel?” She called groggily, sitting up. The back of her head ached and she felt sweaty in the cumbersome shreds of the leather coat.
“Daniel!” She called stronger, sliding the coat from her body. Stiffly, she rose, finding the Magnum in the grasses a few feet away. Reloading from her waist pouch, she wandered through the high grass crisp with winter’s chill silvering the green into a frosted white. Returning to the roadside, she glanced over the wreck of the Volvo S80, patting her pants pocket for her cell. Gone.
Keeping the Magnum close, she walked across the road, hopping over the guardrail into low brambles. She went some distance while calling his name before she came upon the frosted field. Daniel stood alone as before in the center of the blasted field. Evelyn ran forward, her senses primed for the slightest fluctuation in astral energy.
“We have to keep going!” She pulled on his arm urgently. “Who knows when they’re going to come back?” Draping her good arm around his shoulders, she succeeded in force-marching a few steps. He stopped her from taking the next step, asking in a quiet voice.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“No, why should I be?” She turned to look at him fully, “there are worse in this world than you.”
“Eve.” He might’ve whispered her name.
I’ve already decided to protect you, isn’t that enough? She was ready to slap him silly about any notions of role reversal, when she heard the second most beautiful sound in the world other than the roar of a working car.