I slowed my kicking, just trying to keep us close to Ellie. And breathe. I needed to breathe.
“Now,” Ellie said, a little calmer now that the situation was more in hand, “we just have one more thing to worry about!”
Through my gasping ragged breaths I managed to ask her, “What now?”
She pointed up. About a hundred demons were circling above us in the night sky.
“Great.”
Cape Town, South Africa, present day
Kreios watched unmoved. The man and his Brother inside were scared, they knew that everything they did from this moment on was in vain. They ran in circles, maddened by his proximity to them, their minds driven to tatters in the drawing out of the moment by the angel standing, waiting at the doorstep. For here now was real authority, and their rebellion had found its end.
But Kreios would wait for the signal as he had waited for Joshua at Ai.
Then the two inside stopped their madness and faced him, cowering, finally bowing down and begging as they had been destined to do. For they had been devoted to destruction. Untouchable by any but the angel of death. When Kreios touched them they would find an end—and a truly terrible beginning; one they both knew and dreaded. Kreios was not the Judge, he merely went before Him to prepare the way.
The moment drew near, he could feel it.
Nwaba could feel something too. Ordinarily his master Lucifer, the prince of the power of the air, owned the very skies. But something was changing. Something familiar drew near in the air, but he could not isolate it and identify it. Who would dare to challenge Lucifer’s principality?
But he knew the answer to that question. At least he thought he did, because still, specifics eluded him. It was a true authority, which meant the artifice of his own was soon to pass away. Oh, how he hated to be reminded that the favor he enjoyed was merely temporal. And it was favor, curse it all. He hated all of it.
He flew on, toward his citadel.
False Bay was a bubbling cauldron of activity that centered on three huddled individuals treading water. Demons circled above, swooping down upon them, trying to make a play for snatching them out and carrying them off. They descended as near the water as they dared, being as mortally afraid of it as any angel under the sun might have been. Some pumped their wings furiously as they tried to hover, some swooped and dove in massive arcs, aiming for the helplessly swamped daughters of El, and the Alexander, the traitor. All they needed to do was finish, snatch them up and be gone.
But this was only one component of peril. The Great White shark, terror of the sea, was circling as well, and in numbers not found in any other body of water on the planet. Smelling fear, smelling prey, they closed in.
“Just watch,” She had said.
Well…I’m waiting. I was exasperated. I looked heavenward into a midnight blue sky, peppered with points of starlight and afflicted by evil beasts that wished only to end us. El…help! We were spent, surrounded, and my Michael needed help.
I heard an unholy shriek from behind me. I turned quickly. In the light cast out into the bay by the millions of city lights, I saw a demon struggling to stay airborne. Then another Hellish scream resounded from another direction, and I turned in time to see one of the horde splash down, struggling violently in the sea. There was a frenzy that accompanied it, and I couldn’t make sense of what was happening at first.
Then Ellie said something, awe in her tone: “Airel, look! Watch.” She pointed into the darkness.
Lit in silhouette by the lights on shore, we watched in amazement as an enormous Great White shark breached, rocketing out of the water, its terrible mouth clamping onto the hovering body of one of the demonic horde. This one didn’t have time to do much but vomit forth a pathetic yelp before it foundered in the sea, sinking to its death.
I gasped but was otherwise totally speechless. The sharks were all around us. Contrary to what I had thought, though, they weren’t a danger to us. They were like our vanguard. I wept for joy as our brave cohorts began to defend us.
CHAPTER II
Cape Town, South Africa, present day
KREIOS SMILED. THERE WAS the signal; he could feel it. El was on the move.
He stepped forward toward the doors and extended a finger. The glass