Alan Price and the Statue of Zeus (The Nephilim Chronicles Book 3) (3 page)

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Alan was back in front of the temple housing the Statue of Zeus. Right away he knew he was dreaming. He was looking down on the area as though flying. The sun only just beginning to bring light into the world bathing the landscape in grey shadows of the departing darkness.

A woman, perhaps in her late teen years or early twenties, was running down the path towards the temple. She gasped for air as beads of sweat fell down her forehead and back. The sheer terror in her eyes made Alan want to reach out and save her from the evil causing her to run with such fervor.

Shouts from someone chasing her focused Alan’s attention to the figure of a scarred man howling with glee as he chased his prey. The man’s eyes were completely black. Two ebony orbs were placed above a crooked nose and a tongue that flicked in and out of his lips like a viper. “Come back,” the man hissed. “I just want to torment you for a bit.”

Alan tried to wake himself from the nightmare but the claws of sleep drew him in deeper. The events unfolding below Alan were so real; he wondered whether this was a dream at all or some kind of vision into events currently unfolding.

What Alan assumed was a demon continued to chase the girl. All while yelling promises of torture. The girl ran on, her hair flying wildly behind her like a flag flapping in a strong storm. Alan felt his heart drop to his stomach as he realized where she was running.

The temple was only a mile away but just inside its pillars another figure waited, hunched in the shadows. A woman with dark eyes watched the unsuspecting young girl run towards her. At once Alan realized this wasn’t a simple chase; it was a trap. The girl below him had no hope of escaping her captors.

Alan tried to scream a warning however nothing happened. He cried to her to stop. To change directions, that she was running right where they wanted her, nothing came out of his mouth. Alan could think and see as if he were awake but moving or speaking were beyond his ability.

Alan’s eyes snapped open as he caught the backend of his warning, “Stop!”

Raphael hunched over him, for one of the few times something other than remorse in his eyes. “Alan, are you all right? You were screaming in your sleep.”

Alan took a moment to reorient himself. The nightmare had seemed so real. Alan swallowed hard as he looked out the window. The same hint of sun whispering back the night, the very same shade of the sky that was in his dream greeted his eyes. Alan knew his dream couldn’t have been real, although if there was even the slightest possibility…

Alan jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” Raphael asked.

Alan called on his wings that shot out from either side of his back in a brilliant blue hum of pent up energy. “I’m going to the Statue. I think someone there needs me.”

Raphael said more but his words were lost in the rush of Alan’s wings. While traveling to Raphael’s home Alan was forced to walk. Now free to test his speed, Alan darted through the sky faster than ever before.

Within seconds he was back at the temple housing the Statue. To his horror, his nightmare wasn’t a dream at all. It was a look into the events happening that precise moment.

Alan had only an instant to take in the events below. The young girl, who had been running in his dream, was being held down by the woman who waited for her in the shadows. The man with the dark eyes and snake-like tongue was just catching up to the two women wrestling on the dirt ground.

Alan drew his wings straight back behind him and hurtled to the ground like a falling star. The impact he made when he reached the road sent a shockwave out in every direction. The two women were separated as they were buffeted by the impact, the dark-eyed man was thrown back completely.

Alan wasted no time in rushing to the girl’s side. He offered his left hand to her as he got his first up-close look. Sunken eyes looked back at him through a terrified glance. Dark makeup covered her face and a row of piercings ran up her left ear. She didn’t move to take Alan’s hand and instead rolled over to her side and vomited on the dirt ground.

“Hey, she was ours first,” a soft male voice oozed behind him. Alan turned to see both the man and woman back on their feet.

“She doesn’t belong to anyone,” Alan said. He took a stand in front of the girl blocking her from her assailants.

“Yes, she does,” the man said taking a step forward. “We saw her first.”

Alan raised his hand, palm facing the advancing maniac. “Take another step and I guarantee you’ll regret it.”

The man snickered and looked as though he was going to continue to advance if it weren’t for his female companion who reached out and put a clawed hand on his shoulder. “Wait, Trubic, don’t you see the blue wings. He’s not an angel. He’s a Horseman.”

Alan couldn’t tell if the man was looking him up and down or not due to his pitch-black eyes but he figured he was being measured. Trubic’s tongue ran across his cracked lips as he weighed his odds. “He’s one Horseman, Sata. One. We can take him.”

Sata looked at her companion as if he were mad.

“Please,” Alan turned just enough to see the girl behind him while still keeping a wary eye on the two demons in front of him. The girl wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Please don’t let them take me.”

“No one is taking you,” Alan said. He wished he could do more for her in that moment but all instincts told him that the demon named Trubic would not leave without a physical prompt.

“Last chance,” the male demon said, “Hand her over and go about your way.”

Alan squared his shoulders and faced the demon again. His blue wings splayed out on either side of him humming with the anticipation of battle. Heat ran through Alan’s body as a primal instinct welcomed physical conflict with open arms. Deep down Alan knew he should push further for a peaceful resolution but instead of words of ease, excited fury broke from his lips. “If you want her, then come and get her.”

Trubic took in a large breath and advanced. Something lime green spewed from the demon’s mouth. Before Alan could tell what the projectile was, he shielded himself with his left wing. Hissing like the sound of acid eating through metal made its way to Alan’s ears yet there was no pain.

Alan lowered his wing. The energy crackling over his wings evaporated the strange venom Trubic spewed at him before it could even make contact with his wing. Trubic looked at Alan with wide ebony eyes. Alan grinned, “My turn.”

Speed was clearly not one of the demon’s abilities. Before the member of the Fallen race could react, Alan sent a right fist that made a loud cracking sound when it made contact with the demon’s jaw. Trubic stumbled back however Alan wasn’t done with him yet. Alan rushed forward grabbing Trubic’s head with both his hands. In one violent motion he pulled down while sending his right knee crashing into Trubic’s skull. The demon fell.

It felt intoxicating. The feeling of battle consumed Alan forcing him on when he knew he should have stopped. Alan jumped on Trubic’s limp form. Alan’s right hand grabbed Trubic’s head and sent it slamming again and again into the hard ground below.

“Stop! Please stop, he’s had enough,” Trubic’s companion Sata pleaded.

Alan looked up through eyes veiled with anger. He left the unconscious form below him and advanced on the standing demon.

“No,” she cowered, taking a step back and raising both hands in an attempt to placate her assailant. “No, I’m sorry. I surrender.”

Her words were lost as the Horseman of War yearned to fulfill the reason he was created. Alan ignored the woman’s screams. Something else was controlling his body. An addiction for violence he had never known spurred him on. In seconds Alan wrapped his hands around Sata’s throat and lifted her off the ground. She screamed and struggled, trying to choke out words Alan had no interest in hearing.

Alan held her there suspended above the ground watching her wide eyes tear with pain and fear.

“Enough,” a familiar voice said behind him. A friendly but firm hand rested on his right shoulder. “You’ve won. Let it go.”

The voice was so powerful it broke Alan’s trance-like state. Alan dropped the woman to the floor where she gasped for breath. Alan turned to see Raphael standing behind him. The old Archangel looked at him through worried eyes. “Are you with me, Alan?”

For the length of a heartbeat Alan wanted to strike Raphael. War’s rage still pumped through his veins like water on full blast through a hose. The moment passed and Alan released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Yes, I’m with you.”

Raphael nodded and it wasn’t until then that he released his hold on Alan’s shoulder. “When you woke from your dream,” Raphael said, “I knew where you must be going. I knew what the dream meant.”

Alan blinked still feeling the aftereffects of his high. His eyes traveled past Trubic’s unmoving body to the young woman shuddering on the ground. She finished vomiting and now sat with her knees pulled into her chest. Two thin tattooed arms wrapped around her body as she trembled. Fear filled her eyes as she stared at them.

“What did the dream mean?” Alan asked Raphael, still not lifting his eyes from the girl.

“You share a link with the other Horsemen. You won’t always be able to feel them but when their need is the greatest, they call out to one another,” Raphael said.

It took a moment to realize what Alan was hearing. He broke his gaze from the girl and looked at Raphael. “You can’t be serious. You mean …”

“Yes,” Raphael’s voice filled in the silence as both men stared at the girl. “Another Horseman has been chosen.”

The land they traveled was uninhabited due to Gabriel’s separation of the human and supernatural realms. No other demon or angel crossed their path. Soon Michael found himself welcoming the sights of animals. Birds or small mammals scampering across their road were the only break from the quiet that spread out in every direction.

It was due to this unearthly stillness that Michael picked up on the motion approaching from behind them. It wasn’t the flap of wings that met his ears. That meant it was a member of the Fallen. Stripped of their wings after their defeat in heaven, they were left to find alternate means of quick transportation. “Seraphim,” Michael said to the Death Angel that stalked in front of him.

Seraphim stopped her forward progress and looked over her shoulder with an annoyed expression. The disdain disappeared from her face as soon as Michael made a motion from his ear to the sky.

The two stood in silence for a moment before they both could not only hear but also see a figure flying towards them. Whoever it was flew low and steady. After a second of watching, Michael could recognize the lone silhouette. There was no mistaking the woman his to whom his heart had belonged for centuries.

Ardat soon landed by Michael’s side. A flirtatious grin ran across her lips as she ignored Seraphim and focused on her love. “Did you miss me?”

Michael couldn’t help his own grin despite their situation. “Always.”

Seraphim’s words cut through their moment like a sharp blade through paper. “Why have you come, Ardat? What is it that you require? You were supposed to accompany Alan to the Statue.”

Michael witnessed a flash of anger travel across Ardat’s eyes. He braced himself for her response. Instead of wrath, he was surprised to hear Ardat’s level report. “Alan and I have been to the Statue. It has been remade as well as the Temple of Artemis, and I suspect the other Wonders. Raphael made an appearance.”

Michael took in a breath and held it at the mention of his mentor. The Archangel hardly stepped a foot from his home on the coast. Since the Greek wars and after renouncing his allegiance to the Light, Raphael had become a hermit. Michael still remembered the moment, the disbelief that followed in the wake of the Archangel’s action.

“And?” Seraphim pushed.

“And,” Ardat repeated with a raised eyebrow, “Raphael is as much a ray of sunshine as he has been since he stepped down from his title. He’s refused to help us as I anticipated. Alan is safe with him. I could be of no more use there.”

Michael moved to speak his mind but instead was cut off by the tirade of indignation spewing from Seraphim’s mouth. “That was not your order. You were instructed to stay with the Horseman.”

Venom seeped its way into Ardat’s words as she took a step towards Seraphim. “Even if I did report to you, my job was done. You forget, Death Angel, not all of us bow to your title.”

Seraphim’s hand fell to the blade that rested on her hip. Michael took that as his cue to step in between the women before they killed each other and carried out Gabriel’s plan for him. “Peace, both of you. Ardat was right in leaving if she could not be of any further use.” Ardat looked past Michael and gave Seraphim a smirk. “And,” Michael continued, “Seraphim was right in saying Alan should not be left on his own. Gabriel has tried once to seize him, he may try again.”

Seraphim took no joy in Michael’s light chastisement of Ardat. Her hand still clutched her sheathed blade.

“Well, if Seraphim is so worried about Alan, let her go to him and see that he is safe,” Ardat’s lips twitched and Michael new the words to come would not bode well for the stressed situation. “After all, Seraphim must feel some kind of responsibility to the man who allowed her to fly again. The mighty leader of the Death Angels may even have feelings for the Horseman of War.”

Michael readied himself to bring the argument to an end. To his surprise Seraphim only nodded. The Death Angel ignored Ardat completely and addressed Michael in a calm, even tone. “I will go to the Temple and inform them of our progress as well as consult with my Death Angels. Then I will ensure our Horseman is safe. You may stay here with this piece of filth that betrayed your love and spat on your emotions for centuries.”

Without another word, Seraphim’s wings sprouted from her back—one black, the other metal-grey. She hovered in the air for a moment just above Michael and Ardat’s heads, sure to stay low to the ground so that Kyle and Triana would not notice her and then left the same way Ardat had come.

“Well, I think that went well, don’t you?” Ardat asked with a hint of laughter in her voice.

Michael shook his head as a weight dropped from his shoulders. “I was sure I was going to have to tear you two apart. Ardat, please for my sake, would it kill you to be cordial with our comrades. We are all on the same side.”

Ardat walked to Michael and wrapped him in her arms. “I don’t know. It might kill me. Besides we should be happy, we’re almost there.”

Michael turned his body to press against Ardat’s as he draped his arms around her. Whenever they touched, Michael felt whole again. A tingling sensation threatened to send goosebumps to the surface of his skin as he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. “What do you mean?”

Ardat opened her eyes after their kiss with a smile. “I mean, if Kyle and Triana stay on this course, we’ll have found Gabriel. The path ends in a few miles at the Black Sea. Unless they grow fins, their destination must be somewhere on the coast.”