of which Simeon had never seen broke the surface, grabbing hold of the powerful angel and dragging him down.
Simeon stepped carefully back.
The thin, white-skinned creatures, their flesh adorned with strange, tattoolike markings, were brutal in their assault, clawed hands ripping bleeding furrows in the angel’s exposed flesh. Satquiel cried out, and a sword of flame appeared in his hand. He hacked at the creatures, but for every creature he cut down, four more seemed to take its place.
The angel’s wings flapped powerfully, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt. The creatures grabbed at the flailing appendages, spidery fingers breaking with their pounding intensity. But eventually the wings were slowed enough that the grappling hands took hold. Handfuls of feathers were torn away, pulled down beneath the ground before the eager hands returned for more.
Satquiel’s body burned with the fires of Heaven, but it didn’t seem enough. The creatures continued to reach for the soldier of Heaven, ripping at his flesh, dragging him down.
Closer to the churning earth of a poisoned Eden.
Satquiel’s eyes locked on Simeon’s, and the forever man saw the panic there. A part of him wanted to help, but another, stronger part was fascinated, preferring instead to watch how this would all turn out.
The archangel lost his sword, the burning blade tugged below the surface with a sizzling hiss. His wings were torn apart, little more than useless pieces of trembling cartilage and bone. Both arms disappeared as Satquiel continued his descent beneath the churning dirt. Soon only his head and shoulders remained aboveground, but still he continued to struggle. The creatures hungrily tore at his face, the once statuesque features now ragged and stained with blood.
“Help . . . me,” Satquiel managed as a clawed hand tore away a portion of his cheek.
Simeon did not answer. He simply stood and watched as the archangel’s head gradually sank beneath the writhing ground at the base of the Tree of Knowledge.
Mind racing, the forever man searched his memory for a hint of what these creatures might be, but he found nothing that he could recall. He continued to watch the earth, which had returned to a state of calm, only to be startled as it began to roil again, a large section of blighted soil moving toward him like a wave about to break upon the shore.
Simeon scrambled to his feet as the ground close to him started to churn, the hungry faces of the unknown beasts baring their razor-sharp teeth, rising out of the dirt as skeletal arms reached for him.
Simeon attempted to flee, but the beasts were faster than he was, digging away at the Garden’s floor, causing it to give way beneath his steps. The forever man fell to his knees and began to crawl, but the monsters grabbed at his legs, their claws puncturing his flesh, which healed almost immediately, only to be punctured again in their attempts to hold him.
Simeon had flipped over onto his back and was being dragged back toward the grove as he began to recite a spell of protection. His hands had begun to glow with an ethereal light, and he was about to unleash his unholy power upon the things in the ground, when . . .
From across the grove on the opposite side, he saw them.
“In the nick of time,” the forever man muttered happily.
And Simeon began to smile.
• • •
The Archangel Michael’s mind burned with the knowledge provided by the Gardeners of Eden. Foul creatures called the Shaitan, precursors to the creation of angels, hidden in the ground beneath the Tree of Knowledge.
Outrageous.
He had known that the Garden had been severed from the Kingdom of Heaven during the Great War, but he’d never known the true reason it had been cast adrift. The Shaitan were that reason, for these shape-shifting creatures were extremely dangerous and had only the destruction of Heaven on their foul minds.
Michael and his soldiers had listened to the Gardeners’ words carefully before heading toward the Tree of Knowledge to deal with the infestation.
The Gardeners had explained that Eden was dying, poisoned from the inside by the malignant life-forms created by the Lord God’s top designer, Malachi. The Shaitan had been rejected by God, but Malachi had ignored their Lord’s wishes and had allowed the abominations to live.
Now it was up to Michael and his archangels to finally purge Eden of these foul creations before Eden was rejoined with the Kingdom of Heaven.
And that was when the commander of the archangels had the most