A Hundred Words for Hate (27 page)

The Cherubim fled the realm of Heaven to the stars, hoping to escape the insanity, but it clung like burning oil, eating away at him and his most holy purpose. Soon, the sentry knew, there would be little left; only the fury and destruction that followed in his wake would define him.

But in the world of God’s man, there came a change.

He could hear it far in the back of his mind, something that spoke to memories that had been buried so deep beneath layers of smoldering ash.

He did not understand what it spoke of, but felt the emotion that it roused in him, and knew that if he found this source, this irritating cacophony of visions, sounds, and smells, and destroyed it, that maybe . . . maybe he would remember what it was all about.

There were countless millennia of searching, most of the time the source of what he hunted having grown eerily silent, leaving him with only the jabbering insanity that had come to personify him.

The Cherubim haunted the Earth, searching . . . hunting . . . for the thing that would clear his mind, and free him from the slavery of madness.

He’d even worn the guise of one of God’s humans, hoping that perhaps whatever it was that he stalked could be tricked into emerging into the light so that he might see.

And eventually he did in fact see, and slowly, little by little, it was returned to him.

Zophiel recalled the dire threat to Eden, Heaven, and all the Heavenly hosts, as well as the one who was responsible.

Just in time to die.

Remiel felt the death of Zophiel as if it were his own, the fire of Heaven that burned hot and powerful at the center of his being suddenly burning so brightly . . . so furiously . . . and then it was gone, leaving behind a cold, creeping darkness that eventually became . . .

Nothing.

The shock of oblivion was enough for Remy to take his humanity back, to suppress his angelic nature enough to resume control, but it wasn’t an easy task.

The Seraphim was enraged by the thought of something that dared to threaten his Lord God, His Kingdom, and the Garden that He loved.

Remy placated the angry creature that lived inside him, promising him he would be set free to deal with the offenders in the only way that the Seraphim knew how.

Through the rite of combat.

The Seraphim knew that this was a battle that would test him, that there was a chance that he would not survive—that he could be vanquished by the Shaitan—but that was something the divine being always knew was a possibility.

And it made him yearn for the taste of violence all the more.

“All those years with the Sons of Adam,” Remy said, holding the blade tight, lifting it to eye level. “It wasn’t Malachi at all.”

“What?” Jon asked, moving closer, but stopping just before the pile of ash that had once been the Cherubim Zophiel.

“It was a Shaitan,” Remy explained.

“Shaitan,” Jon repeated. “And what exactly is that?”

“Something that shouldn’t even exist,” Remy said, his eyes drawn to the beauty of the blade that he held. He could feel it bonding with him, and he with it.

The Seraphim was very happy about this, a hum like some sort of prehistoric cat’s purr vibrating at his core.

“The Shaitan were an idea—a concept—when the Lord God and Malachi were creating the beings that would serve Him.”

“The first angels?” Jon suggested, attempting to understand what Remy was saying.

“No, something far darker,” Remy said. “Rumor has it that they were going to be made from the cold darkness that existed before God brought forth His divine light. But the Lord didn’t trust the darkness, choosing instead to fashion His messengers from a portion of His own inner glow.”

Remy paused, considering what he now knew.

“They were never supposed to exist,” he said. “They were never created.”

“Well, at least one of them was,” Jon reminded him.

“Yeah,” Remy said, remembering what he had seen from Zophiel’s memory of Eden: that Malachi had left something in the Garden. He saw the rich, fertile soil as if he were there, sensing that something very wrong had been planted there.

Something that was growing . . . maturing.

“At least one . . . for now.”

“For now,” Jon repeated. “Are you suggesting that there might be more of these things . . . these Shaitan?”

“I believe as Zophiel did,” Remy said. “That Eden . . . and eventually Heaven itself, could be in great danger.”

Jon looked at him with eyes desperate for answers, the events unfolding traveling far outside what he was capable of comprehending.

The Seraphim knew what had to be done, and this time Remy did not seek to argue, or squelch his bourgeoning emotion.

If the Garden and Heaven itself were threatened, there could be only one response.

“We need to go to Eden and destroy the threat,” Remy said, gripping the sword all the tighter.

“Do we have a chance?” Jon asked nervously. “Do you think you can take on Malachi and the Shaitan?”

Remy did not answer his question, letting the silence of the moment say all that was necessary.

Izabelle Swan pulled her bare feet up underneath her and took a long swig from her third beer of the hour, and continued the conversation with her parents.

“How was I to know he was your friend?” Izzy said to her father as she held the photo of the nightclub in one hand, the bottle of beer in the other. “Alls you said was to watch out for an angel that wanted to do Mama harm, and that’s exactly what I was doin’.”

She took another drink from the bottle, feeling emotions swirl around inside her that she hadn’t felt in many, many years.

Izzy barely knew her parents, having been just a little girl when they left, but there was still some sort of connection. She felt them out there in the world somewhere, and wondered if there would ever be a day when . . .

Her anger flared, and she set her beer firmly down on the floor beside her, grabbing the wrinkled paper bag and shoving the photograph back inside.

Those were foolish thoughts. She used to have them when she was a little girl growing up alone. They hadn’t seemed quite so foolish then. Izzy had always hoped that they would come back for her, that they’d all be together someday.

Protecting one another against anything, and everything, that might try to harm them.

But a lot of years had gone by, and that hope had become pretty silly, and she had to wonder how she could even think about it with a straight face.

Must’ve been the beer
, she thought, wrinkling the top of the paper bag closed and preparing to hide the photos away again.

She got up from her chair, heading toward her bedroom, when she felt it.

It was like somebody had taken a dull screwdriver to her soul, plunging it in and giving it a good twist. Izzy gasped, the paper bag of photos falling to the wood floor beneath her feet.

She stood perfectly still, waiting for the intense pain to pass, when her mind became filled with visions of green.

Visions of the Garden.

She’d been having dreams lately about this place, but never as vivid as this. Not only could she see it inside her head, but she could smell the heavy dampness, the rich soil.

But also the smell of rot.

And she could feel something growing . . . stirring. Something that didn’t belong. The perverse sensations stirred her elemental power, and the magick churned inside her.

Outside the wind picked up, and she could hear the rumble of a forming storm.

And Izzy could sense that she was no longer alone.

A snarl played upon her full lips as she let her magick flow, arcing power jumping from the tips of her fingers, eager to be unleashed.

It had been quite some time since she’d used her powers this frequently, and she had to admit it felt really good.

She had no idea what she would find outside her home, but it didn’t stop her from striding across the floor, taking hold of the knob, and throwing the door open.

“All right, then,” she said, the pain in her chest—the pain of the Garden—making her all the more angry. “Who wants to play?”

She noticed the man called Jon first. He was leaning against the railing of the porch clutching at his chest—feeling Eden’s pain as well.

The angel was standing stiffly behind him, a nasty-looking sword that burned with an eerie, supernatural flame in his hand.

And then she noticed the swamp below her home, and the many rowboats and motorboats that bobbed there upon the water. The Sisters had come as well, drawn to this place . . . to her. And she knew that they could feel it as well. Feel the Garden . . . feel
her
pain.

“No playing,” Remy said to her. “Just some serious business.”

The magick was begging to be released, but she pulled it back inside her, where it squirmed unhappily.

“What the hell do you two want now?” she asked, fearing the answer. Knowing the answer.

“Your help,” Jon said. “Do you feel it? It’s almost here . . . just beyond the pale.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Izzy lied, starting to turn back to her home as the angel spoke.

“We have to go to the Garden,” he said. “You know it . . . and they know it too.” He motioned with his hand to the Sisters who had gathered around her home.

“Fine,” she spat. “Go. It don’t have nothing to do with me.”

“But it does,” Remy said. “Your mother will be there, and she could be in great danger.”

Izzy had turned her back to him, not wanting him to see how his words affected her.

“She probably doesn’t even remember who I am,” she said, those silly feelings coming back to haunt her.

“Then maybe it’s time to remind her by helping to save Eden, and quite possibly Heaven itself.”

She turned back around to face them.

“Knew I should have killed you both when I had the chance.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
he Garden was arriving.

Through space and time she surged, sensing a world thriving with life just beyond the veil, and pulling herself toward it.

Eden had been lost for so very long, moving from place to place—world to world—searching for what would make her complete again.

It had been so long since she was last whole.

Since she had last held her children.

This place—this world—sang as it approached; kindred sprits, they were, for both had been shaped by the Almighty.

But the closer she came, the more pain the Garden experienced. The illness at her core was growing, becoming more dangerous as the world of God’s man drew near.

She did not wish to endanger the world, but Eden had grown weak as she traversed a multitude of realities, and she did not know if she had the strength to move on.

The Garden reached out to the world, searching for a place where she could be, where none who lived upon her would be harmed. The planet Earth welcomed Eden, and guided her to an inhospitable place—an area mostly devoid of life.

A place where she had a chance to be saved.

For the Garden could sense beings of great strength walking upon the Earth, beings of unimaginable power.

Beings that could save . . .

Or destroy her.

The North Pole

Gregson Paul pulled himself tighter into a ball inside his sleeping bag and listened to the freezing winds howl hungrily outside his tent.

As he had done since joining this expedition, he shivered to the point that his bones nearly broke, and wondered about when he had turned into the world’s biggest fucking idiot.

He guessed, as he had guessed before, that it was when he first saw Marjorie Halt in her cutoff jeans shorts.

The tent undulated, battered by the relentless current of air. It wanted him to come out; it wanted to show him how fucking idiots were treated when they volunteered for a scientific expedition to the North Pole to provide the most accurate survey of the thickness of the Arctic ice.

There were three others in the expedition, lying alongside him, wrapped in their sleeping bags as well. There was Terrance Long, the expedition’s environmental scientist; and project leader Daniel Hiratsu, engineer in charge of the various pieces of high-tech equipment that they were using to survey the polar ice’s thickness; and then there was Marjorie, grad student and ecological savior. She wanted to be the one who told the world about how the Arctic ice caps were melting due to global warming, and he had hung upon every word that left her beautiful mouth on that hot—very hot—summer’s day at the University of Michigan, as they lounged in the grass out in front of the student center.

By the time she had finished talking he wanted to tell the world about the melting ice caps too, and anything else she might suggest . . . and possibly to see what lay beneath those ridiculously short but awesome cutoffs.

There were no cutoff shorts now—maybe beneath the layers of special thermal clothing that they were wearing, but he wouldn’t know. Marjorie had very little interest in him in that way.

She was as cold as the ice they were measuring.

When it was time to rise, they would be on day one hundred and twelve in their mission to reach the Pole. According to Professor Long, they and the ground radar unit that they were using to penetrate and take readings of the ice depth every eight inches would likely reach their destination today, and their mission would pretty much be complete.

Curled up and shivering inside their tent as the below-zero windchill mercilessly assaulted their shelter from outside, Gregson began to dream of another place, a warm place with thick, tropical growth.

A primitive jungle older than recorded history.

Gregson awakened with a yelp, the heady, humid stink of the jungle lingering in his nostrils. He could see that the others still slept, huddled against one another within their cramped confines. Listening to the relentless winds outside, he was about to lie back down, to perhaps escape again to the dream of that wonderful and warm tropical place, when he smelled it.