Verchiel was laughing, a grating sound, like the cawing of some carrion bird.

Aaron hacked downward with all his might, but Malak stepped aside, bringing his armored foot down upon the blade, trapping it against the floor as he lashed out with his ax. Aaron felt the bite of the razor-sharp blade as it cut through the fabric of his shirt and the skin beneath. He jumped back, leaving his pinned sword to disperse in a flash. Slowly he lowered his hand to his stomach, then brought it up to his face. His fingertips were stained the color of his attacker’s armor.

The sight of his own blood and the unsettling sound of Verchiel’s laughter served only to inflame his rage. He felt the power of the Nephilim inside him and it coursed through his muscles—through the entire fiber of his being. If he were to survive this conflict, he had to trust the warrior’s nature he had inherited. He had to defeat this armored foe, but still he could not get past the implication of Verchiel’s words.

Has something plucked a chord of familiarity?

Malak came at him again, battle-ax at the ready, and Aaron sprang forward to meet the attack. He dove low, connecting with the warrior’s armor-plated legs, and they crashed to the floor in a thrashing pile. Malak held on to his ax and tried to use it to drive his opponent from atop him, but Aaron kept close, rendering the weapon useless. The power of the Nephilim shrieked a cry of battle, and Aaron found himself caught up in a wave of might that flooded his body, his every sense. This must be what Camael was talking about, the unification of the human and the angelic. It was wonderful, and for the first time since learning of his angelic heritage, Aaron Corbet felt truly complete.

He fought to his feet and wrenched the battle-ax from Malak’s grasp.

“This is over,” he growled, looming over the armored warrior, ax in hand, glaring at Verchiel and his followers around the gym. The sigils upon his body pulsed with a life all their own, and he spread his wings to their full span. What a sight I must be, he thought, inundated by feelings of perfection.

“Yes, you are right,” Verchiel agreed with a casual nod. “I tire of these games. Malak, show your face.”

Aaron almost screamed for the warrior to stop, not wanting to see what he already suspected. Malak reached up and yanked the scarlet helmet from his head.

“Do you see who you have been fighting, Nephilim?” Verchiel asked, moving closer with his angelic throng.

“No,” Aaron cried, unable to tear his gaze away from the familiar features of the young man lying before him. He did not know this person, but then again, he did. “You son of bitch, what have you done?”

“With the magick of the Archons, we have transformed what by human standards was considered limited in its usefulness, into a precision weapon.”

Malak looked up at Aaron with eyes that once held the innocence of a special child, but now were filled with something else, something deadly. These eyes told a story of death; they were the eyes of a killer. The revelation was even worse than he’d imagined.

The ax slipped from Aaron’s hands and clattered upon the floor. “Stevie?” he asked in a trembling whisper, giving credence to what should have been impossible. He willed away the sigils and his formidable wings. “It’s me,” he said, touching his chest with a trembling, bloodstained hand. Images of a past that seemed thousands of years ago, of the autistic child as he should have been, flashed through Aaron’s mind. “It’s me—it’s Aaron,” he said, offering the young man his hand.

At first there was nothing that showed even the slightest hint of humanity in the gaze that met Aaron’s. It was like looking into the eyes of a wild animal, but then there came a spark and Malak’s eyes twinkled with recognition.

“Aaron?” Stevie asked in a voice very much like that of a child, and his armored hand took hold of his brother’s.

Every instinct screamed for Aaron to pull away. “Stevie,” he began.

The warrior in red shook his head crazily from side to side, an idiot’s grin spreading across his dull features. “Not Stevie,” he said as Aaron watched him reach into a pocket of air with his free hand and withdraw a fearsome medieval mace. “Malak!” he shouted, and bludgeoned Aaron across the face with its studded head before the Nephilim had an opportunity to react.

Aaron fell to the floor, the world spinning and his every sense scrambled. He shook his head and slowly rose to his knees, the smell of his own blood wafting up into his nostrils. His scalp was bleeding. As his vision cleared, he could see that Verchiel and his soldiers were standing in a circle around them. The room was eerily quiet, the only sound the armored footfalls of Malak’s approach. Aaron summoned another sword of fire.

He gazed into the face of his little brother, his murderous countenance filling the Nephilim with an overwhelming despair. He didn’t want to think about what the Powers had done to the child, did not want to know the horror and pain his little brother had endured. But he felt the guilt of not being there to protect him from harm just the same.

Halfheartedly, he raised his weapon of heavenly flame. “I … I don’t want to do this,” he said.

Malak responded with a horrible smile, and Aaron was reminded of a raccoon with rabies that had once been brought to the veterinary hospital where he used to work. Nothing could be done for the animal, and with a heavy heart, he realized the same was true now.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered as Malak rushed toward him, mace raised to strike. Aaron deflected the blow, but hesitated in his own attack. The warrior swung again, and this time the mace connected with Aaron’s injured shoulder. He cried out and tried to back away, but came up against a living wall of Powers’ soldiers.

“It ends here, Nephilim,” Verchiel barked from across the circle. “It’s time to remove from this world the sickness you represent.” The Powers’ commander looked to the unconscious Vilma, draped over the shoulder of the angel standing beside him, and sneered as he reached out to touch her raven black hair. “Let us hope it can survive the cleansing.”

Aaron’s arm throbbed with every staccato beat of his heart, and he was finding it difficult to hold on to his sword. The niggling idea that perhaps he should have listened to Belphegor played at the corner of his thoughts, but it was too late now for second guesses. He had already failed his brother; he wasn’t about to fail Vilma as well.

Verchiel’s emotionless black eyes fell upon his champion. “Kill the abomination and be done with it,” he ordered.

Malak charged at Aaron, weapon raised, his features twisted in bloodlust. They were about to continue their dance of battle, when the gymnasium was suddenly filled with the sound of a booming voice.

“The Nephilim is under my protection.”

Malak’s attack came to a screeching halt, and the Powers searched for the source of the authoritative proclamation. The angels’ circle broke to reveal the striking figure of Camael standing in the gymnasium doorway, Gabriel attentively at his side.

“And mine too,” said the dog in a throaty growl.

“Then it is only fitting that you all die together,” Verchiel said, a sword igniting in his hand.

Everything became incredibly still, a tension so thick in the air that it seemed to have substance. And then Vilma began to scream, an anguished wail of terror that alluded to the violence that was yet to come.

Still slung over the shoulder of a Powers’ soldier, Vilma Santiago had come noisily awake. Her scream was bloodcurdling, born out of sheer terror, and Aaron’s heart nearly broke in sympathy. But he had little time to consider her fear, for her cry had acted as a kind of starter’s pistol, signaling the beginning of an inevitable conflict.