Last of the Mighty (15 page)

It was plain to see where Devil Kitty got her looks. The full-grown cougar-thing at the bottom of the stairs had the same under-bite, jutting fangs, boiled flesh, tangled fur, and fearless demeanor as her cub. She was the size of a mountain lion, but built closer to the ground. Wider, thicker, more muscled, and deformed in a way that put her back end at an angle.

She snarled at me, and I instinctively removed the Roman whip from my pocket. Didn't know if it'd do anything, but it was all I had.

At the top of the stairs, I could hear Knife running at me.

Keira shouted, “No! Stop! Don't shoot!”

I'd take my chances with the cat.

Then it occurred to me. Didn't I want to get shot? Something as dangerous as a gun would surely draw my dad in to intervene. Phaeus would be close behind.

I pushed my will to survive aside and turned to face Knife and his gun. I closed my eyes and gave him an easy target.

A gunshot.

My body jerked.

The wood of a stair rail splintered.

BLAM! Another shot.

The searing heat of a bullet ripped into my thigh.

The force of the shell spun me around and I cracked my head against the wall before crumpling to the floor. Only then did the pain explode. Like the bullet was a grenade and finally detonated, spewing shrapnel up to my chest, down to my toes.

I peered up to the top of the stairs. The blurry Latino was pointing the gun at my face.

Where was my dad? Why hadn't he come?

Had Azazel lied to me? Maybe Phaeus wasn't after my dad and me at all. I'd taken a bullet for nothing. Was going to be shot to death for nothing. Total fail.

Behind the gang-banger, a shadow—hazy and large—grew taller on the wall. Someone was creeping up on him. Gadriel had come after all.

My vision cleared and the face of the man behind Knife came into focus.

Not Gadriel.

Amos.

Double fail. Now it was going to cost Amos his life as well.

The Latino stepped toward me. “Time to say adios, gigante.” He grinned and pushed the gun closer to my face.

“Ho!” A shout. From Amos.

Knife froze in the crosswalk.

Amos's big knuckles plowed into him like a truck, smashing the Latino in the temple.

Knife's ear hit the top of his shoulder and bounced back up. There was a gruesome pop of his neck breaking. He tumbled down the stairs, limp, and landed on top of me, his head slack, ear gushing blood. His eyes were open, but his life had closed.

There was a scratchy grumble from below. The deformed panther stalked slowly up the stairs, her beady, black eyes deadly.

Devil Cat leapt.

“Og!” screamed Amos.

Gun blast number three. I'd torn the gun from Knife's fist.

A red flower opened on the panther's breast.

In mid-flight.

Its forelegs relaxed. Its eyelids drooped and its head wilted.

With a heavy whump, the cat's frame crashed to the stairs and slid down a few treads before settling next to the dead Latino.

Amos kicked the panther-thing aside, hoisted me up and over his shoulder, and hauled me downstairs.

A crowd of girls gathered in the hall, hands covering mouths as their eyes found the lifeless gang-banger and mutant cat.

One pair of eyes found mine. Keira's.

Her smile was apologetic, her face penitent. She was genuinely ashamed, sorry, for what she'd put me through.

I held up a hand to let her know I was okay. That it was okay.

She did the same, gratitude glowing in her fingertips.

****

“Angel with them violet eyes tol' me where to find ya,” Amos said while loading me into the front seat of his Falcon wagon. “Came t' me in m' sleep.”

“His name's Gadriel.” My eyelids grew heavy. “He's a Watcher.”

Amos studied me with one of those you-serious? stares. He closed my door, rounded the car, and settled behind the wheel.

“He's my dad.” My tongue was going numb.

A yeah-sure-kid smile crossed Amos's face, assigning my delirium to blood loss. He started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“I'm a Nephilim, Amos,” I slurred…then passed out.

Hours later, I came to, woozy, out of it. A nurse said I was in the hospital. That they'd dug a bullet out of my leg and sewed me up. That the muscle damage was severe.

Amos arrived at my bedside, cup of vending machine coffee in hand. He told me I'd have to stay till tomorrow. Said he was going to stay with me.

I ensured Amos I wasn't going to die and suggested he go home and get some sleep. Eventually—way too eventually—he agreed.

I thanked him for coming.

For saving my life.

For everything.

Drunk with painkillers, I swiftly fell back into slumber.

But not before busting out the Bat Signal and summoning my dad.

I couldn't believe it when my father actually showed up in dreamland. What was it with him and hospitals?

“Test me,” was the first thing he said. He was wearing the same sleeveless tunic as when I'd seen him last. “Always test me.”

Somehow, he'd passed. How, I didn't know. Didn't care. I was just happy to see him and know he was still one of the good guys.

I know I was supposed to be all mondo peeved at him. I mean, doesn't every magazine, movie, and TV show on earth tell us we should be enraged at our absentee fathers? I wasn't. Probably that whole angel thing. Ever try being all narked with a cheerful, all-loving angel of God? It's a lot of work. Even when I tried not to like him, I could never pull it off for more than a few seconds.

“Now, my son…” He grinned at the words.

Son. He'd never called me that before. I was the son of an angel. Crazy.

We were standing on what might have been a cloud. Ten tall, brightly burning candles made a circle around us.

“Augustine, time is—”

“Dad,” I interrupted.

That word had been building in my throat since the minute I'd found out Gadriel was my father. For years, I'd longed to feel that word on my tongue, to hear it drift out of my mouth. I'd gone all this time listening to every kid I'd ever known say it to his father. Now it was my chance. Maybe my last.

The word settled in Gadriel's ear and instantly eased the small amount of tension from his face. He, too, had been yearning for it.

He replied with a warm embrace, a fatherly hug that withered too fast.

“Og.” He put me at arm's length, hands on my shoulders. “I apologize, but—”

The sizzle of a candle flame sputtering, dimming, then going out grabbed our eyes.

“The enemy nears.”

I nodded. The defenses Gadriel had constructed wouldn't last long.

A second and third candle failed.

Gadriel held up a finger, stopping me before I could speak. In my head he said,
“
Azazel speaks truth. Phaeus hunts us.”

He'd read my thoughts and answered my question before I'd even asked.

A cold wind grew colder. The fourth and fifth candles snuffed out.

“
If anyone was made to triumph over Phaeus
,” Gadriel kept on with his Jedi mind trick, “
it is you, my good son. The last of the Mighty
, a holy soldier of God
.”

“
But why hasn't Phaeus fallen? It doesn't make sense
.”

The wind picked up again, knocking out six and seven.

“
N
or do I understand it
. Yet that should not deter us from doing our utmost. To do our best in every circumstance
, and to trust God with the outcome is all any of us can do
.”

Trust in God? After all that had happened? I hoped I could.

A massive gust whipped through us, nearly blowing us off our cloud. The eighth and ninth candles went black. The white beneath us broke off in pieces. Chunks of sky fell like meteors, our feet clinging to a diminishing island of white.

Only one candle left.

“
Time is short
.” Gadriel's Jedi voice cut through the destruction. “
Heal thy
self, train
, and approach The Symphony with great caution
.
”

In the distance, diabolic wails. Coming closer.

“
And at all costs, Augustine, do not allow Phaeus to gain knowledge of your plan
.”

A tornado of demonic shrieks and clamoring voices burst upon us. They swirled around my dad and me like a tightening fist.

Candle ten dwindled, flickered, barely hanging on.

“
And never, ever forget, my good son, that you are a holy soldier of God
.”

The volume of the whirling voices around us was deafening now. Their foul weight pushed in on us, entrapping us and putting out the last candle.

What was left of our white cloud floor disintegrated and we fell. Heavy winds whisked us to safety while my dad's whispers continued in my head.

“
You are a holy soldier, my Augustine, God's holy soldier
.”

****

When I woke the next morning, I was as concerned about the three missed texts from Merryn as I was about last night's visit with my father. Not to mention the intense throbbing in my leg.

In text number one, four hours ago, Merryn wished me a good morning.

It sucked that I wasn't able to reply. Last night, we'd held hands, hugged, kissed, and all that awesome stuff for the first time. You know how dicey the next day can be. My non-response told her that last night wasn't important to me. She probably thought I was thinking it had all been a mistake and now I wanted to forget any of it ever happened.

Text number two asked why I wasn't at school.

Since I didn't respond to that one either, triple all feelings of heartbreak and agony that came along with the above paragraph and apply it here.

I was sure Merryn hated me.

In text number three, Merryn asked if I was okay.

She was the coolest. She so knew me. Any other girl would've gone wack at my insensitive non-responding. Not Merryn. She knew if I were able, I would've gotten back to her.

Finally, I texted her back, apologized for not answering her texts, for how totally sucktacular that was. Told her what a great time I'd had last night. That I'd been shot. Was in the hospital.

Half an hour later, she was in my hospital room, along with Uncle Will and Aunt Laurel.

Disaster avoided. I wondered how many relationships had been busted up over the inability of a guy to text back his girl.

I told them I'd gotten jumped by a gang and when I fought back, they shot me. Not a total lie. I'd tell Merryn the whole truth later.

After lunch, the hospital released me. We all drove home together.

“I'll come by tonight,” said Merryn, and she kissed me.

On the lips.

For just a bit longer than expected.

Aunt Laurel did a double-take. She must've worked the late shift last night because she obviously hadn't been filled in on her daughter's recent romantic developments.

Uncle Will explained, “Og and Merryn are boyfriend/girlfriend now.”

And that made it official.

Merryn and I were a couple.

The confirmation alone made the hole in my leg worth it.

For the next few weeks, I heeded my dad's advice. I healed, trained, and used caution whenever I dove into The Committee. Merryn, my girlfriend, visited every day while I lay in bed, bringing us tons of In-N-Out secret menu items. When I could finally stand without too much pain, I told Amos we needed to pay our respects to the Ducks. Part of my plan. The gathering of Pit-worthy weapons. One of them was bound to work on Phaeus. Even if the angel hadn't fallen yet, my intent was to rip him open with the Roman whip, the Fourth Nail, and every other holy relic I could get my hands on. Amos and I visited the crushed CIA and NAACP over a dozen times to dig for gold. He even let me drive his old Falcon a few times.

He wasn't freaked about me being a Nephilim. Amos had gotten another message from Gadriel, assuring him that we hadn't become Satan's helpers.

I spent a fantastic Thanksgiving with Merryn, Amos, Uncle Will, and Aunt Laurel. Went to Winter Formal. Had my sixteenth birthday and “yadee, yadee, yadee,” as Azazel would say.

Everything was so calm. Especially The Committee, which scared me.

Yet my month of peace was merely the deep breath before the plunge.

Trouble was coming. I felt it in my bones.

****

By mid-December, I still had a bad limp. My thigh was only at about sixty percent. Amos and I were sparring regularly with the stuff we kept bringing back from the wreckage on the mountain. I'd found a private practice hideaway that was kind of like the Bat Cave. To keep us hidden from spying demons. Didn't want the enemy knowing what kind of heat we were packing. Element of surprise and all.

Our secret little fight club was located at a nearby beach, at the end of a pier on the middle deck of an old, broken down concrete ship. It used to be a World War I tanker, but after the war, somebody bought it and towed it here. Beached the two-hundred-foot monster in the shallows and turned it into a party boat with a casino, dance floor, and arcade. Went belly up in the eighties.

The State eventually purchased the old tanker, deciding to keep it as a monument of times gone by. With no plans to preserve or even maintain the cement whale, they let it fall into ruin. Kept it around for people to admire and take pictures of. The elements soon transformed the upper deck into a war zone of rusted bolts, crumbling concrete, and ragged potholes. The State Park people hired the lowest bidder to erect a fence at the end of the pier to prevent folks from boarding the S.S. Concrete and hurting themselves.

But the lowest bidder's efforts weren't nearly enough to keep Amos and me out. After sneaking past the park ranger on duty, it was easy to get by the fence and make the ship our undercover lair.

The ship's middle deck was in surprisingly good condition. We moved a couple blackjack tables, some slot machines, and a long, heavy craps table that still had dice and chips in the felt playing area and put them against the wall. The carpet was damp so we cut up what we could, tossed the wet pieces in a back room, and voila!—we had a forty-by-ninety-foot hideout where we could beef up our combat skills.

“Choose yer poison,” said Amos as he presented tonight's duo of apocalyptic arms of the Christian persuasion.

“Whattaya think this is?” I asked, and picked up the animal skull. “Remains of Jesus's horse?”

“I'm guessin' it belonged t' Samson.”

I nodded, familiar with the story of Samson slaying a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

“And that?” I pointed to the curved ram's horn in Amos's other hand.

“Shofar.”

Oh. Yeah. Shofar.

After my questioning face couldn't get an answer, I said it out loud, “What's a shofar?”

Amos put the small end of the animal horn to his lips and blew into it. A low trumpeting sound came out of the wide opening at the horn's other end. “From Jericho,” he said.

Never realized the trumpets that brought down the walls of Jericho were actually ram's horns.

I took the jawbone and faced off against Amos.

He crouched into a fighting position, gripped the horn like a club, and began circling me, looking for an opening.

I played defense, not moving too much, my leg unable to take all my weight. Rotating in a tight ring, I successfully used the jawbone to deflect the incoming ram horn time and again.

A part of me should have been afraid that the shofar might be authentic, pierce my skin, and send away the angel part of me. But I wasn't. Since I didn't have a demon side, only a holy angel side, there was no fear of my angel half being cast into Pit. Besides, I was trying to do as my father had advised and trust God.

“C'mon,” Amos said, “hit me with it. Le's see wha' that—”

“Are you aware…” A voice, from nowhere.

I whirled around, heart speeding, expecting to see the beast, giant, Watcher, or Nephilim who was to be Phaeus's next test.

“That trespassing is a criminal offense?”

I'd never been so happy to see an angry park ranger.

Ranger Rick adjusted his holster, made sure we saw the gun at his hip. He gaped at the ram's horn and skull, puzzled. “Care to explain what's going on here?”

“Nothing…really,” I said, putting my palms up to let him know we intended no harm. “Just…messin' around.” What else was I going to say?

Ranger Rick nodded and removed the handcuffs from his belt.

“It's cool.” I pushed my hands higher. “We're leavin', ‘kay? No harm, no—”

“No one”—a voice from the back room—“is leaving.”

Marching into view…

Was Shemja-za.