Rise of the Fallen (37 page)

It was brief, and at the time Danick and Validus weren’t sure how much the Fallen had learned, but one short decade later it became evident that the breach of information would be devastating in a myriad of ways.

The Fallen orchestrated the most bizarre and accelerated rise to power of an Antichrist that the angels had ever seen. Adolf Hitler was ruthless in accomplishing the will of Apollyon. The entire world of warriors was plunged into another epic battle for the conquest of humanity. General Brandt had no men to spare, and the fierce defense of the lineages by Danick’s legion had cost many warriors their lives. The genius of the devious scheme was a testimony to the brilliant, darkened mind of Apollyon.

Now, in 1943 at the culmination of his heinous scheme, all of Danick’s protected lineages had been targeted and eliminated … All but one.

The guardian Yortan was the protector of the last. He was a massive angel of great power and skill, but even he had his limitations. General Danick, Validus, and the remaining six hundred lineage warriors had all vowed with their lives to protect the child, but against two thousand Fallen it was little more than a suicide mission.

Validus searched for Captain Brish. “Get your men to the left flank. We need to protect that guardian!”

Brish and sixty of his warriors rushed the gates of the Sobibór camp, but they were grossly outnumbered.

Validus looked at Yortan. His massive frame powered a double-edged long sword, cutting through two and three demons with every slice. A constant greenish mist surrounded him as his arm of justice sent Fallen after Fallen to the Abyss.

“Haro, get your men to the right flank. We must breach their line,” Validus ordered his last captain, then turned back to his commander. “General—”

But Danick was not there.

Validus didn’t need to see. He knew what was happening. The gates of Sobibór were being charged, and Danick was leading it. He was heading straight into the fray to help Guardian Yortan protect his charge.

The warriors rallied when they saw their general leading, an angel warrior of six thousand years, the commander who had survived thousands of battles and led them to victory in preparing the way of the Messiah.

Danick and his six hundred valiant angel warriors stormed one of Desgard’s darkest strongholds, the death camp of Sobibór, to save the life of one child.

Both realms erupted in chaos—a battle of swords, guns, and axes. Validus threw himself into the fight, methodically working his way toward Danick.

Fifty yards beyond Yortan, Eva Wiesenthal was walking naked along the long barbed-wire corridor that led to the gas chamber and clinging to Anna, her infant child. Time was running out.

From the north and west of the death camp, forces of the Fallen abandoned their guard and rushed to reinforce the main gate near the railway. In a moment of triumph, Danick, Validus, and Yortan broke through, and two hundred warriors spilled into the camp.

Inside, Validus could see guards and prisoners running every direction. The humans felt the spiritual battle over this dreadful place too, and a revolt was taking place. But Eva and Anna had already disappeared into the gas chamber in the remote sector of the camp.

Once they breached the Fallen’s lines, Yortan and Danick didn’t hesitate to rush upon the inner defenses of sector three. This was where Desgard’s greatest evil was accomplished, and this was where his vilest of demons and beasts were. Thoughtless vessels of pure evil reveling in the hatred, torture, mutilation, and death of innocent people. Some of the Nazi guards hosted dozens of possessors. Two droxan beasts were roaming sector three’s compound, feasting on the fear of the victims and on the hatred of the predators.

Yortan struck first with Danick and the sixty-seven remaining warriors close behind. Validus took three men and went for the first droxan. He had learned from Danick that there was no defense against droxan, only offense. They must be attacked, or they would destroy you. The hard part was finding enough courage to charge headlong into four-inch talons and fangs.

“Four quarters!” Validus shouted above the clashes of battle.

His three warriors immediately split and came at the droxan from each of their respective quarters with Validus charging straight on.

The droxan whipped its tail and caught one warrior across the chest, tearing its serrated spines through his torso. The angel immediately dissolved away. The beast lunged for Validus, and one of the flanking warriors sliced through its side. It screeched and tore wildly at the warrior, giving Validus a split-second opportunity to explode upward with his sword, slicing clear through the droxan’s neck. Body and head dissolved away in a green vapor as they fell to the earth.

Validus sent both of his angels to the aid of three others who were facing the second droxan. He looked for Danick and Yortan but was intercepted by two more Fallen. One made a powerful slice with his sword while the other fired four rounds of a Walther P38 at Validus’s chest.

Validus could not escape both threats at once so he dealt with the faster of the two—the sword. He met the slice with the flat of his blade at the precise position just above the oncoming trajectory of the bullets. With all his strength, he deflected the blade of his enemy downward to intersect three of the four bullets, but the fourth could not be diverted.

The lead tore into his left shoulder, but Validus ignored it. In one swift upward counter, his blade cut through the neck of his immediate opponent. The demon with the gun let his earthly weapon fall from his hand. It evaporated into vapor as he grabbed hold of his sword with both hands, but the delay cost him his life. Validus finished him in a fraction of a second.

Validus redoubled his efforts to reach Danick and Yortan at the gas chamber. The searing pain in his left shoulder was becoming impossible to ignore. He ran toward the death chamber in time to see Yortan facing five Fallen all at once. The diesel engine rumbled to life, its sole purpose to bring death.

Danick recklessly made an attempt to materialize through one of the chamber walls, but before he could pass through, a sword cut through his abdomen, and he fell backward.

Validus rushed to him and pulled him backward away from the immediate fight. “General!”

Danick struggled to stay upright as Validus pulled him away. “Leave me. You must help Yortan. Not much time left!”

Validus looked toward Yortan as the screams and cries of hundreds of
women and children filled his ears. Yortan was near to being overcome against the relentless attacks of the Fallen.

“No!” Yortan shouted as a dark steel blade cut across his shoulder, but his scream was not for himself—it was for Eva Wiesenthal and her young child slowly dying just feet away.

Validus rose up, but fifty more Fallen materialized through sector three’s fence. Another blade pierced Yortan, but he sent two more demons to the Abyss with his last cry of defiance.

“By the blood of the Lamb you are defeated!”

In a monumental final surge of power, Yortan jumped over the heads of the Fallen to the roof of the gas chamber, intending to materialize down to his charge, but three demons met him and pierced him through.

As Yortan slowly dissolved away into the elegance of a bluish vapor, the remaining lineage warriors hesitated, for the sounds of weeping and crying were gone. Carriers and draegers claimed their souls from the gas chamber, and Validus could not watch.

Eva and her child were the last of the lineage of Simeon. Had they chosen the wrong lineage? Was it all for naught?

Validus called for retreat as the machine guns from the towers of the camp rattled their rain of death upon prisoners fleeing toward the forest. Land mines exploded; guards yelled; prisoners ran. Once the Fallen could see the warriors retreating, they diverted to the mayhem on the other side of camp.

Validus went to General Danick and lifted him by his arm, placing it around his shoulder. Beyond the fence of the death camp, Validus laid Danick against a knoll.

“Hang on, sir. I’m going to make sure you get through this.”

General Danick shook his head. “I’ve … failed, Validus.”

“No, General. Fight it. We need you. Stay with us!”

Danick shook his head again. He grabbed Validus’s arm. “You must find …” He wheezed, grimacing in pain. “The one I missed.”

“Together we will find him.”

Danick reached up and grabbed the back of Validus’s neck. “You … are … my … friend …”

Validus felt Danick’s grip soften, then melt away like sand falling through
fingers. An instant later, the mighty General Danick slowly dissolved away into a wistful vapor and floated upward.

Validus lowered his head. Their great leader of six millennia was gone. In the far distant skies of heaven, he knew that one more trumpet sounded at the towers of Mount Simcha, declaring the sorrow of a great loss.

He lifted his eyes toward the pale sky and felt completely alone. He had lost more than a mentor. He had lost a friend and a kindred spirit. Grief overwhelmed him.

Eva Wiesenthal cradled little Anna to her bosom. The horror of the Sobibór extermination camp was beyond imagination, and yet she was living it. She had been separated from Sigmund at the railway, their love cut short by the evil of the Nazi regime. He had screamed and fought against the guards for taking his wife and infant daughter from him. The last image Eva saw of him was of a Nazi soldier smashing his face with the butt of his gun.

There were no words, no emotions to explain her shattered soul. Why was this happening? How could men be so heinous, so monstrously evil? Death lurked everywhere. She had heard the truth of the camps and didn’t believe the German soldiers who told them Sobibór was a transit stop, that soon they would continue on to work camps. No prisoner ever left the camp—ever.

“Undress here. Leave your clothes. You will be taking showers before you are transported. Hurry!”

Eva began to weep. Anna cried too. “Hush, little one. Soon it will be okay. Hush, little angel. Momma will be with you.”

“They’re going to kill us. We have to do something,” a pleading voice said from the corner of the concrete room.

“Quiet!” shouted a German guard. “Hurry up. Your train leaves soon.”

Eva could feel her heart racing. Sorrow, dark and heavy, hung around the two hundred women and children. Many were weeping or praying, but some were numb and emotionless, almost seeming to welcome death and its escape from this unholy nightmare.

“Where are You, God?” Eva whispered through her tears. “Where are Your mighty angels to protect my little Anna?”

“This way. Quickly!” The soldiers led them down a long, narrow path lined with barbed wire and pine branches. “Quickly, into the showers!”

Anna cried louder, which seemed to annoy the German guard barking orders at them. Another guard stood at the door of the shower room, but he did not look at the women or the children.

Eva reached for him. “Please, sir, take my baby. Take my Anna. Please!”

The guard looked at Eva, and the guilt of ten thousand souls filled his eyes. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked like an ashen statue, frozen by the tides of an evil regime that locked him in place.

“Quickly!” shouted the other guard from behind her.

Eva was pushed forward, away from the door guard. She clutched at his sleeve, but he pulled back and turned away.

Eva stepped into the chamber, and the stench of urine and death filled her nostrils. The heavy metal doors shut, momentarily filling the chamber with a hollow echo. Eva felt the rumble of the diesel engines in the cold concrete floor beneath her bare feet. She kissed Anna a dozen times.

“I’m so sorry, my little Anna. I’m so sorry. Momma loves you.”

Anna looked up at Eva and seemed comforted by her soft words. For one moment, in the midst of abject horror, there was a warmth of love between mother and child that not even the vilest of evil men could steal away. Eva caught the moment and held on for every final second that it lasted.

Outside of her fortress of motherly love, she could hear the screams and weeping of hundreds of women and children as the noxious carbon monoxide began to fill the room. Eva knelt down near the far corner of the gas chamber and clung to her final moments with Anna.

She held her breath while gently laying Anna on the floor beneath her. On her elbows and knees, she formed a little pocket to protect Anna from the falling bodies around them. Eva felt them collapse around and on top of her. The weight was nearly unbearable, but her frail body had nowhere to collapse to.

She exhaled the air within her lungs toward Anna’s face, then lifted her head up through the tangle of arms and legs and breathed the poisoned air. She felt the gentle kick of little Anna beneath her, then slowly drifted away from the horror of the chamber.

35
 

Present Day

Validus looked at the dauntless faces of his three warriors. They were seconds away from facing the full fury of Durgank and one of his worst strongholds.

It was time.

He held up one finger … two fingers …