From Heaven To Earth (The Faith of the Fallen) (24 page)

Verill crashed through the forest, carelessly uprooting trees that had
stood undisturbed for decades. The half-demon thundered about killing Shrazz
and how the angel was his. Riell had planned on prodding Drean with her mind to
wake him up, but with Verill’s constant howling she could not concentrate.

“Verill!” she shrieked over him.

Verill was taken aback.

“Scream again, you die,” he said.

“Be quiet. We’re almost there. If you can manage that.”

“Quiet? Yes. When we there?”

“Soon.”

“Ok. You kill. I watch.”

“What?”

“You kill Shrazz. I watch!” He chortled to himself, tried to stay quiet
and blew snot everywhere.

“I won’t do it.”

“You kill or he dies.” He balled up a fist and pumped it toward where Drean’s
head poked above his other hand.

“Ok. Ok.”

He laughed and raised his fist, and smiled when he saw Riell look over
her shoulder at him, troubled and skeptical.

“Stay here,” she said.

She knew the playground was a short distance away.

“Ten minutes,” Verill said. “You not back? He die.”

Riell nodded and turned from him.

He tapped her.

“What?”

He laid down and reached into his stomach, and it sank in like a pool of
liquid. He groaned and pulled something out of it, stood up and presented the
dripping bundle to Riell. When she did not take it he dropped it at her feet.

“Get arrows. Fallen blood. Poison. Kill Shrazz fast.”

Riell glared at him and used shadow tendrils to pull apart the black ooze
soaked leather that held the quiver of arrows. She hesitated.

“Take them. Kill. Or angel and you die now.”

She fastened them to her back, made them invisible and left him.

She invoked invisibility herself when he was out of sight, and created
two shadowpuppets. She inspected them to make sure they looked exactly like her
with her battle wounds, the dried blood and dirt that stained her face like war
paint.

My hair really looks that disgusting right now?

She shook her hair out, put it in a bun and wiped her hand over the
puppet’s heads. They became amorphous and morphed into her again, with their
hair in buns.

“Better I guess.”

She kept them there until she could see Shrazz standing above a crater.
She got a little closer when he slipped down in it.

Gerald looks really beaten up.

She went back into the forest, and climbed into a tall tree until she was
high enough to be out of sight. Riell closed her eyes and could see through the
eyes of her clones after focusing.

Shrazz took a deep breath to begin the process that would meld Gerald’s
Inner with his body.

“The power!” he breathed. Shrazz stood up and lifted Gerald upward by the
neck. He took long, deep breaths. He meant to enjoy every bit of the
domination’s energy.

As Gerald’s Inner grew dangerously low, previously healed wounds
reopened: gouges on his arms, his back and his chest. His skin paled, and his
muscles shrank away leaving him emaciated.

Shrazz’s muscles pulsated and bulged with new growth. Shrazz’s face
elongated like an alligator’s, and lumps rose from his shoulders. Horns pushed
from them. A long tail extended from his backside. Shrazz’s crimson skin hardened
and scaled over. His hands and feet became bulbous like a bird of prey’s and
lengthy talons extended from them.

Shrazz cried from agonizing transformation but laughed all the while.
Soon he would be who he was meant to be: an instrument of creation and a savior
for his kind. He had never felt more fulfilled in his life.

“Shrazz!” Riell spoke though her clone at the top of the crater.

“Riell, look at what I’ve become! With all this power I could bring gods
to their knees!” He tried to grin at her.

Fear shook Riell then, for Shrazz’s face only looked sinister. She was
thankful that Verill had sent her to deal with him. She had to somehow bring
him back to himself or subdue him. She feared what would happen otherwise. At
least it would end with her and not with another if it came to that. That
thought roused her.

“Look at yourself! You’re not who you were. You’re power hungry and now
your intentions are reflected by your appearance.” She tried to hold her tongue
but decided that he had to know what she was thinking. “You’re a beast,” she
finished.

Shrazz growled and bared his teeth at the clone.

“You know nothing. What I’m sacrificing I do to save our way of life.”
Shrazz faced Gerald again to take another breath.

“Stop, don’t you have enough already?” Riell made her clone run up and
make a grab at Gerald.

Shrazz punched it swiftly in the stomach when it neared him.

Riell gripped her stomach when all of the air in her lungs left her, but
she was able to stay connected to the clone.

Shrazz chuckled at its feeble attempts to save the angel and kicked it
away from him.

“You asshole. You stupid asshole.” Riell coughed, and tried to get air
back in her lungs.

Shrazz breathed in a little more of Gerald’s energy, shuddered and swayed
back and forth as if it had become noxious to him.

“Just let him go. There’s no need to kill him.” Riell’s clone coughed its
words out.

“I need to drain him dry.” Shrazz paid Riell no heed. “I’ll fill my
stomach with what’s left.”

“No!” Riell’s longbow materialized in the clone’s left hand, she pulled
back the drawstring. “Let him go.” She put emphasis on each word, stood up and
aimed.

He half glanced at her and took another small breath, closed his eyes,
and fell backward like he was going to pass out.

I don’t know if I can do this.
Riell thought.

“You wouldn’t attack me.” He steadied himself and prepared to take
another breath. “Not after all we’ve been through and definitely not after
everything I’ve become.”

“No...” Riell’s copy started.

“Like I said.” Shrazz chuckled and drained Gerald’s energy again.

At this the real Riell took a deep breath of her own and readied her
longbow.

“What I do now is because of what you have become.” Riell’s copy released
the drawstring.

Shrazz hissed and tossed Gerald down into the crater. He inhaled deeply,
his chest swelled from the intake. His exhale was a billow of blue flame.

Riell’s shadowpuppet gasped and put her arms up to shield herself from
the flames, which engulfed her entirely even though she was some distance away.

Her clone lay on her back charred by the blast.

“You see, you are nothing. An insignificant.” The body of the clone faded
and disappeared.

Shrazz did a double-take.

Blood ran down from his neck, a black arrow materialized from the wound.
He choked.

“I’m so sorry, Shrazz,” came a sob from behind him.

Shrazz whirled around to see the real Riell against a tree. Her cheeks
were wet. Shrazz felt weary, he tried to take a step forward and fell on his
face.

Poison... Two-faced bitch.
Shrazz spoke to Riell telepathically,
his thoughts broken and fading.

I can’t let you drain anymore of his energy. I can’t imagine what
would happen if I let you,
Riell thought back at him.

No,
you
will die.

Shrazz’s right hand pulsed with heat. He threw a fireball from it at
Riell, who dodged the poorly thrown attack easily.

“Stop this!” she yelled at him. “I don’t want to have to do this, Shrazz!
Not after Dejanto earlier! Please I beg of you!”

Shrazz sunk to his knees, and then stood back up. His eyes burned with
determination.

Die.

Shrazz tossed more fireballs, missed her and set fire to the forest.

Terror welled up in Riell as the flames spread around her. London burned
in its stead. She was frozen: numb from the fire. Shrazz had ignited the fire
in London accidentally. He had been her savior then, with nurturing warmth she
fell in love with. It had been easy to forgive him for that.

She snapped out of her reverie and saw him. She could see he was only
sadistic now. It had consumed him, and she knew he could now fulfill his dream
of being a torch of violence. He could set worlds ablaze: indelibly scarring
them and their helpless populations. It was unacceptable.

“I love you, Shrazz and I always will,” she pulled her drawstring back
again, “but I can’t let you bring any harm to anyone else.”

Riell loosed several more arrows. They struck Shrazz’s head and knocked
him backward. Shrazz’s connection with Riell’s mind faded as his body convulsed
and lay still. Riell walked over to it and stroked his head.

She closed her eyes and willed the other shadowpuppet to reveal itself to
Verill.

Her shadowpuppet told Verill that Shrazz was dead and that she would lead
him to him to prove it. Riell tried to gauge how much time she had to return to
Verill herself as a groan issued from the crater behind Shrazz’s body. She
could see the forest’s blaze was spreading. She prayed Feit’s charlatans would
put the flames out as she did not have the energy to do so.

“Gerald, are you alive?!” Riell slid down to him.

“Yeah, I’m alive. Don’t know how long that will last though...” He
coughed and wheezed.

“Let me help you out of there.” Riell threw Gerald over her shoulder and
took him from the crater.

“Whoa! What the hell is that?!” His eyes were fixed on the body of Shrazz.
“That’s not...”

“Yeah, it’s Shrazz,” Riell said.

He saw the arrows protruding from Shrazz’s body.

“Damn, did you take him out?”

“Yeah he wouldn’t put you down. He was going to kill you, and then he
tried to kill me,” she said.

“Well,” Gerald coughed, his voice hoarse, “thanks for the save...” He
passed out.

“Gerald!” She laid him down and put her ear close to his mouth. “Shit.
He’s not breathing.”

She looked back at Shrazz again and cried. She hated what he had made her
do. If Verill had killed him his death would have been honorless. It was best
this way. Shrazz would have wanted it to be her.

She nodded and rubbed her eyes.

“You always said I was a beautiful fighter,” she said and realized Gerald
was still not breathing. She performed CPR on him until she heard heavy
footfalls above her. She closed her eyes, moved her consciousness to the
shadowpuppet, made it yell Gerald’s name and run ahead and out of sight of
Verill. The shadowpuppet slid down into the crater to its master and
disappeared before Verill arrived. Riell kept performing CPR. He breathed but
did not wake.

Verill laughed at Shrazz’s dead body, jumped down to it and punched it.

“He ate bad angel. He beast. I have good angel! Good angel!”

He laughed.

Riell notched an arrow into her bow and leveled it at Verill.

“Put Drean down. Now.”

Verill turned to her and grunted. “You fire? He die. You die. I? I no
die.”

One of his fingers from his free hand lengthened and stretched into his
chest. His chest rippled and his scales and flesh beneath it moved aside: a
hole that Riell could see through. His finger poked through the hole and his
digit retracted like it was spring loaded. The hole in his chest closed
simultaneously.

At that moment she realized how helpless she really was, un-summoned her
bow and threw the quiver in front of her.

“Kill me now. Just do it.”

Verill laughed. “No. You ransom for Curtain. You ransom. Or he die. We
go. I lead.”

He walked back into the forest. The charlatans had doused most of the
fire.

“I need to bury Shrazz, and we can’t leave Gerald.”

“Leave bad angel. He dead. Shrazz dead too.”

“I have to bury him.” Riell tried not to cry.

Verill walked past Riell, trilled his lips and covered her face in
saliva.

“I bury. Silly girl.” He watched her, kicked Gerald into the crater and
kicked mounds of dirt behind him with his feet.

“They buried. Go.”

Riell cursed silently, walked behind him and glanced back at Gerald. He
was partially covered by dirt. She could not tell if he was still breathing.

Drean awoke with a scream and squirmed.

“Quiet, angel. Quiet or both die. You. Riell. Die.”

He didn’t stop.

“Drean, stop he’ll kill us both!” Riell said.

He stopped moving and looked around frantically like he was lost.

“We’re in The Park still,” Riell said.

“He’s, he’s here,” Drean said.

“Who?”

“The one who killed God.”

Verill stopped and turned around. “God dead? God-killer here? Where,
angel?”

He set Drean down. He pointed at the crater.

“Stay here. You leave? I know!” Verill ran to the crater and his excited
shouts of “God-killer” filled The Park.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Drean said.

“Good. We need to get Gerald and get out of here if what you said is
true. I’m too weak to fight. How are you feeling?”

“Not well enough to fight. That poison sapped my strength from me. Let’s
try to save Gerald while Verill is distracted.”

They crept closer to the crater. Riell flew up into a tree to get a
better look and pulled Drean up with her.

“No talking or thinking now. I feel him.”

Riell nodded.

Drean pointed in the direction of Shrazz’s grave. Park lights blinked out
one by one in that area. Verill’s head became a mass of eyes. He walked past
the crater to investigate the forest beyond.

The temperature dropped drastically. Riell and Drean shivered in silence
and peered into the shadows.

Whispers and moans came from the forest. Drean jerked his head around to
see if it was Riell, but she looked as confused as he did. As the whispering
grew closer they could see dim white lights drifting from the forest.

Riell glanced at Drean with alarmed eyes. Drean motioned for her to stay
calm. He was able to see what the light came from. He tapped Riell on the
shoulder and mouthed out: