The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (5 page)

Stoneworthy felt the pang of his ancient
guilt rearing up to check his pride.
Faith
had done the
work. He reached out to stroke the office wall. The Tower had been
built. Through great sacrifice and determination, it slowly rose
above the midnight world of the Change. But that, like his
transgression, was all so long ago. Even this lofty accomplishment
could not overshadow his guilt. His conscience would not let him
forget that. Yet he had been given a new mission and though he did
not feel worthy, being chosen he would make himself so. He was so
deeply stained that he relished all opportunities for ablution.

He could still smell the cinnamon in the air.
The windowed doors that led to his balcony were open. Wind toyed
with the filmy drapes that hung over them. A dim orange glow from
sunset sky illuminated the carpet. The adrenaline began to leave
his system.

He rejoiced. That God had sent a being of
such power to visit him and for a sinner like himself to be
entrusted with such a task. This new mission promised things far
more important than the gathering of the Holy or the building of
the Tower.
To redeem a fallen Angel
.

7 - St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

Felon sneered at the idea that romance had
survived the Change. At the conclusion of the last Millennium,
Valentine’s Day had degenerated into another commercial undertaking
at a time when the true fabric of human relationships had frayed to
a thin veil of separation, confusion and suspicion. He growled at
the thought of it.

The assassin pulled up to the curb in his
stolen car. The Davedi Club was located in a narrow three-story
building. It had been spared the indignity of being used as a
support column for Level Four that formed a heavy darkness
overhead. The Club’s front entrance was of antique design. Its
large rectangular window was painted black, with a clear circle
framing a neon sign that spoke the club’s name. Beside it was a
heavy steel door.

The assassin paused to light a cigarette,
rolled the smoke around his tongue, and then spat it out. Felon had
a fully automatic M-16 to do the job. He would carry it into the
building slung across his back concealed under his black overcoat.
The weapon had a heavy smell of oil and old gunpowder. It was an
antique by military standards, but Felon found the new M-99’s to be
slower to load, and prone to jamming. When you throw ninety bullets
in a volley, the chances for a misfire were many and like most
things created after the Change, the M-99 was flawed. Felon
disdained such overkill anyway. It encouraged sloppiness and
waste.

His M-16 was built somewhere overseas, a
knockoff produced by the Kalashnikov people using the original
pre-Change designs. He’d bought it on the black market twenty years
before and maintained it with rebuilt and salvaged parts. It could
be set for semi or full automatic. The choice allowed the assassin
an option that might save his life—and it gave him adaptability. He
thrust four full magazines into the pockets of his ammo vest and
hauled himself from the car. Polka music filtered out of the
building as he pulled his coat over his weapons. He snarled
convulsively, glaring at the building. The Davedi Club was holding
their annual Valentine’s Day Dance.

Felon could sense the people inside. Their
crowded presence was like a pressure in the air. He snatched the
cigarette from his lips, flicked it to the ground and pulverized it
with a twist of his foot. The assassin climbed the single stair and
pulled the door open. The close atmosphere of the room enveloped
him immediately—stillness filled the space. A crowd of people faced
away from him; their focus on a stage and an ancient-looking man
with an accordion who stood there. He stood smiling between a black
guitarist and an older Asian woman with a clarinet. Applause flew
up into the dusty air. The ceiling was two stories above their
heads. Most of the second floor had been cut away to form a walkway
and balcony over the dance floor. Cheers rang out, laughter
followed, and the crowd closed to form many tight circles of
revelers. The principle color of the décor was red, and the
clothing was a dazzling array of scarlet silk. Faces in the crowd
were twisted into mad humor and inebriated joy. The air stank of
perfume and alcohol.

“Thank you,” chortled the old man with the
accordion. “I thank you, and the Beer Barrel Trio thanks you.”
Again, applause. Felon made his way along the right side of the
room past a man of middle-aged appearance snoring uncomfortably in
a wooden chair.

“We have always enjoyed playing at the Davedi
Club. And we would never miss the Valentine’s Dance. The air is
full of love. The people are full of love. I am full of love!” The
crowd responded with a profusion of kissing and laughter. “We make
this annual dance the cornerstone of our performing year. I am not
getting any younger, as my wife can tell you.” Chuckles echoed
through the audience. “But I am made young by this wondrous
occasion. The love is what makes us young forever. And we know at
least that Love will not change! As always we would like to perform
the music that moves us all along the current of life, the dance
that inspires romance in us all. We give you now the melody that
commands the passion in our hearts and the sky above us.” He
turned, nodded to his companions, the lights faded to twilight blue
and the small band moved into a cramped rendition of “Moon River.”
The old man croaked the words out.

Felon studied a huge cloud of purple helium
balloons that crowded over the stage and dance floor. If the
Cherubs were feeding, the assassin knew that would be the perfect
blind for them. Raw human emotion would be radiating upward like
heat. It was natural that their kind would be attracted to a
Valentine’s Day dance. They flocked to them like fat flies to shit,
feeding off the veiled lust of the dancers; but even Cherubs had
rules and followed the covenant of Angels and so could not directly
intervene in human affairs, or be in close visual proximity. Among
Angels, they went most often in their true physical forms,
primarily because of their connection with sensuality, lust and
love. Cherubs were historically and mythically thought to be
responsible for love, love at first sight, and rekindled love.
Felon thought of them as parasites, feeding off an emotion they
could not produce themselves.

Felon hated Cherubs the most. He found their
rotund little forms and their predilection for romantic love and
mischief a perversion. They were the naughty children of some two
thousand years. He hated the way they looked, their
disproportionate wings flickering obscenely over raw dough
buttocks. Felon knew their sweet cinnamon smell, and their idle,
eternal child voices—caricatures, really. They were the least
impressive Angels, gaining their powers from idle sentimentality
and romanticism. He was disgusted by the ugly ambiguity they
formed, feeding on the irrational human desire to justify lust. And
these sexually barren, golden locked, flying Cupie dolls were
nothing more than a pedophile’s dream—they had little to do with
love, or the sexuality it thinly disguised.

He slid the M-16 on its strap until it hung
under his arm and then gave it a reassuring pat through his coat.
Felon squinted into the darkness watching the balloons. There was a
steady column of heat rising from the dancers that caused the mass
of rubber to undulate, so Felon waited for any telling motion. A
man reeking of scotch brushed into him. Felon’s arm did not yield
and his stance did not sway. The man, a pre-Change fifty, scowled
beneath iron gray eyebrows.

“Damn it...” He rubbed his chest where
Felon’s elbow had scraped a furrow in it. “Watch your...”

Felon tore his gaze momentarily from the
balloons. He glared into the stranger’s bleary eyes. Something in
the look penetrated the man’s drunken haze. His lips trembled and
held still. He turned to stagger away.

Then Felon caught a motion out of his right
eye. It was a wing, a small, down-covered wing with round-tipped
feathers. He whipped open his coat and pulled the M-16 up with both
hands, firing into the cloud of balloons. They started breaking
with the burping roar of his gun. He fired until the gun was empty,
then pulled the magazine out, and jammed another home. The assassin
opened up again—the blue tongue of death licked upward.

The crowd moved in a screaming wave away from
the sound and flame of violence. He raked the cloud of balloons.
They vanished in violent banging echoes, revealing a pair of fat
but amazingly fast forms. Two Cherubs flew free of the flying
debris. The leader wore a white silk robe and the other flew naked.
The Angel in the rear showed streaks of blood on his dimpled skin,
and his wings beat more slowly than the other’s.

Felon let up on the trigger, and concentrated
his fire at the first Angel that was fast approaching a second
story window. Five bullets punched holes in the soft chest, and it
hurtled downward with a flutter of wings and robe. He watched it
fall as he swung the barrel of the gun on the second Cherub. Its
wings flapped hysterically—its golden head clicked from side to
side looking for escape, but Felon severed its left wing with a
burst of lead. Screaming musically, it landed hard in the center of
the dance floor.

The assassin spun to where the other Cherub
had dropped. The white robed creature had staggered to its feet,
and was limping quickly toward the rear of the hall. Felon miscued
his fire and line of sight—bullets removed the back of its head,
and the front of the sleeping man’s. He spun again. A pair of men
had frozen at the door like terrified rabbits. Everyone else was
gone. A motion of his gun barrel broke them from their paralysis
and sent them running.

Felon pulled out the second magazine, and
jammed a third into the body of the M-16 as he approached the
Cherub on the dance floor. A pool of blood had formed around
it—dark red like human blood but with the peculiar property of
evaporating slowly at room temperature. Keeping his weapon trained
on the dying Angel, Felon drew a cigarette out of his pocket and
lit it. He looked down on the Cherub, thrilled by the risk he was
taking.

Its chubby buttocks jiggled against its
attempt to rise; its fat belly was slick with blood. The stump of
its wing pumped a hot red jet.

“You’re dying today,” Felon said, watching
the Angel as adrenaline thrilled along his nerves. These creatures
had Powers. Still, he had the trigger pulled three-quarters back,
and he could quickly terminate any spell the Angel tried to utter.
Besides, this was part of the contract—earned him a big bonus. At
the sound of his voice, the Cherub ceased struggling. With enormous
effort, it flipped itself over, and then lay still—its fat chest
smeared with crimson rising tortuously. The short arms and legs
were splayed at all angles.

“Why?” it asked in a voice of bells and
chimes.

“Cleerfindel?” Felon hissed a cloud of gray
smoke. He remembered the image his client had shown him.

“I am.” Its dazzling blue eyes met Felon’s
dark orbs. Fear crossed its features. “I cannot see you...”

“A Demon hired me to kill you. You caused the
woman he loved to love another—a human. He killed them both and has
hated you ever since.” Felon took another drag from his cigarette
and threw it away. He lowered the mouth of the gun to Cleerfindel’s
head.

“I do not remember...who? I do not control
love... that is the heart.” Cleerfindel tried to raise himself on
an elbow. Felon pushed him back with the gun. “The Demon lies!”

“
You
lie. Azokal is his name. He
wanted you to know that as you died.”

“Azokal...” Cleerfindel’s voice was fading.
“Ah, Azokal.”

Felon felt the killing power rising up in him
again.

“How human... I cannot see you?” Blood
trickled from the corner of its mouth.

“Azokal spits on you.” Felon raised the gun,
the sentence fulfilling his contract.

“Human, no.” A ragged gasp shook the
Cherub—its eyes went wide with terror. “
Yahweh
!”

Felon fired at the Cherub’s body until the
gun smoked and burned in his hands. He left Cleerfindel in a
dissolving pile of gore and checked the greasy smear that was all
that remained of the other Angel. Felon walked out of the building
and traveled three blocks before taking a public stairway down to
Level Two where he caught a cab on the Skyway.

8 – The Entertainers

Mr. Jay lit a candle so they could prepare.
It was early. Dawn watched him from her snug tangle of blankets. He
hummed cheerfully to himself before turning to her.

“Get up sleepy!” he said, his teeth sparkling
in the candlelight. “If you’re waiting for the sun to rise I might
as well go without you.” He laughed. “It doesn’t come up in the
City of Light.” His face became quizzical as he hovered close.
“Which has to make you wonder why they call it that.” Mr. Jay
kissed her forehead where she lay by the cubbyhole.

He walked to the table humming and started
making breakfast. Dawn rubbed sleep from her eyes and crawled to
her feet. Her belly grumbled.

“Maybe they mean the food!” she said,
suddenly ravenous. “I’ve never felt so thin and airy and
light
.”

“That’s because,” Mr. Jay said over his
shoulder, “you didn’t eat your supper, or much of it.”

“I’m sick of fish.” She pulled her socks on,
and looked in a pack for her shoes. Since the Change, animal flesh
did not stay dead, so people ate various exotic mixtures and pastes
of plankton and fish.

“Imagine how the fish feel!” Mr. Jay laughed
and scooped some sort of mucky substance into a bowl. “Oatmeal this
morning.” He pointed to the pack beside her. “Sugar, please.”

Dawn dug into the pack and grabbed a plastic
container. She carried it over to Mr. Jay while she kicked and
wedged and shoved her foot into her right shoe.