part two of four of the heaven breaker series
Back when things were still normal, Odell would be fishing at this time of the night. With the moon being his only source of light, he would heave his line over to the pitch-black darkness of the lake and wait there.
Sometimes, he’d wait for hours before even the first bite. He didn’t really mind. He had all the time in the world.
He learned how to fish from his father, who learned from his father before him. It was a family tradition, a rite of passage to be able to catch a fish with his own merit and bring it back as a prized meal. Those were simpler times.
The last time he caught a fish was back in 1985. He was fifteen.
It was now 2022. Not even all the time in the world could bring him rest.
His father was gone, so was his father’s father. He lost both of them to a forest fire in the eastern cape of South Africa. It was a moment in his life he tried his best not to remember. Mainly because it was a memory he did not have. Odell was not there.
No, he was too busy fishing.
His recollection of their deaths was more imagination than reality. More fiction than fact. More disturbing and more distraught. His own construction of the sequence of events that consumed and took his father’s and his grandfather’s lives was his and his alone.
Something no one can take away from him, no matter how hard they tried. No matter how hard he wanted them to.
It was dark now, save for the moonlight that breathed life into the deserted city streets. An earlier eruption had caused problems with the country’s power grid, so widespread blackouts rolled erratically.
He had been waiting for hours. He would not be waiting for longer. He had his questions, and he would have his answers. If not now, then never.
His sniper rifle rested on the rough and dusted concrete ledge of the building rooftop. Odell felt the cold gust of wind pierce beneath his studded leather jacket and padded vest. He hadn’t expected it to be chilly in the Philippines. The home of his final two targets.
Well, now just down to his final one.
From the whistling of the air sang a familiar tune, subtle and faint. A string of violins. It ascended and ascended and ascended.
Odell peered into his scope, the same scope he’d used for all the others. Then there, rising rapidly at the side of a glass-paned building, the same building he hung the other one from, a single sliver of black hair reflected the light of the moon.
BANG!
The recoil pressured Odell’s chest, slightly pushing him back.
His shot had landed, he knew. Precisely where he wanted it to go. Non-lethal, I hope.
And there, from a seemingly mundane part of the sky, an angel appeared. No longer able to muster its innate invisibility, the angel careened. He whirled in the air like a lost bird, almost colliding with the nearby building walls and windows.
Then after a short while, the angel began to fall.
He fell partially and haltingly, descending in jumps and starts, maneuvering his way through the concrete and glass structures that surrounded him.
At some points he would rise again, only to fall even faster.
Odell tracked the angel’s flight path and did his best approximation to where he would be landing. He grabbed his rifle and ran downwards. Quickly, he ran down the dark and empty stairwell and out into the desolate streets.
When Odell reached the field of the crash, he saw the angel struggling to stand. The angel had his hand on a stone bench, and his knees were scraped and giving. Beside, a small girl held the angel’s shoulder, where blood seeped from a deep and ghastly wound.
The angel’s eyes met Odell’s.
“You,” growled the angel, his voice seizing Odell’s soul. His eyes glowed with unrelenting fury. Odell felt as if a grand hand gripped his heart so tightly that he could not even breathe. “I can smell the blood on your hands.”
But quickly enough, the hand let his heart go, and Odell regained his balance. He hoped for a conversation with the angel, to get the answers he’s been deprived of. But it seems it would not be as simple as asking. He’d been naïve to think the last survivor of his kind would be so generous to the author of his kind’s genocide.
The angel faced the small girl. “Get out of here, child,” he commanded. “I will deal with this man in a swift manner.”
“You can try,” smiled Odell. “Though all I want is to talk.” But the angel dashed straight for him. Odell tried to position his rifle in time, to no avail.
“Silence!” the angel shouted, shoving Odell’s gun to the ground and clutching his collar, carrying him upwards with ravenous force. Odell thought for a second that this might be it. That this is the angel that would kill him, but he knew that angels couldn’t do that.
Not even if they had willed it so.
Odell’s back crashed against panes of glass; the building windows behind him shattered. He felt the glass shards graze just over his skin, his padded vest taking the bulk of the punishment.
The angel dragged Odell until they reached the building’s peak, where he dropped Odell unceremoniously onto the rooftop.
“What is your game?” The angel landed urgently; he favored his right shoulder as he walked. “Who sent you?”
Odell coughed blood on his palm. The angel had done him damage, and he felt it through the throbbing pain that lingered on his back. Still, he stood, dusting his jacket off. Stray glass shards from his clothes fell on the concrete floor.
“I have no game. All I want are answers.”
The angel scowled. “Then why? Why do you litter the Earth with angel blood?!” He drew a longsword, its blade shining an elegant platinum. It reflected the moon with a shaded vengeance.
Though daunting the sight, Odell did not yield.
“Answer me,” urged the angel.
Odell chuckled, albeit a bit nervously. “I know you can’t hurt me. Divine law and all that.”
The angel tilted his head upward, his eyes cold and unappreciative. This one is different, thought Odell. He is alarmed, cautious. Uncharitable and hostile. Desperate? Maybe. Dangerous, no doubt.
“You think you scare me? I have sent away too many of your kind to be frightened,” said Odell, a bluff. “All I want is to talk. I know your brothers call you San. The last angel. Can I call you San too?”
“You know nothing, and you are not my brother to call me anything.” The angel emitted a repelling glow, and every single fiber of his being started to glisten. “I am Sandalphon.” A larger more ghostly version of the angel beamed from Sandalphon’s body. A spitting image that glimmered in white and gold.
A divine projection. Odell had only seen it once before. With the archangel Michael during their battle in the snow. Sandalphon’s projection grew taller and larger, surpassing the height of the building. It extended more and more, until its head reached the sky above, dispersing the light of the moon.
Sandalphon spoke with the voice of mountains, “I AM THE HERALD OF PRAYERS, THE CARRIER OF BURDEN. I AM BOTH THE WHISPERS ON THE WALL AND THE WALL. I AM THE GREAT PROTECTOR.” Then the projection retreated into Sandalphon’s body. “You are correct. I cannot kill you. But I can hurt you until you wish for death.”
The angel charged at Odell, sword in hand. Odell drew his own weapon, a golden dagger, from his inner jacket pocket and moved it to block the attack.
But Sandalphon was far too strong. The strike launched Odell three feet into the air, and he skidded on the concrete upon landing. His ribs banged against the ledge.
“You’re strong, I’ll give you that,” said Odell, struggling to stand.
Sandalphon scoffed. “You know not of strength.” He rushed again, but this time, Odell was prepared.
He swung under to evade the attack. Sandalphon staggered. A momentary opportunity. Odell twirled his dagger and moved to pierce its edge on the angel’s side. But Sandalphon was quick too, moving his sword to block.
The angel was almost unreadable, his eyes now of pure light. He moved bloodlessly, thirsty for the sting of metal on flesh. He swung and Odell moved away, only with the distance of a hair did Odell escape the angel’s slashes. Sandalphon’s fingers weaved through his sword’s hilt, as if the blade weighed nothing. It took all of Odell’s effort just to dodge.
But even then, roving swings skimmed on Odell’s vest, ripping its fabric. Every strike drew closer to lethality. Every time, Sandalphon pushed Odell back, nearer and nearer the ledge.
The wind was upon them, the cold, biting, brutish wind of a deserted city’s air.
Sandalphon thrusted his sword, and Odell managed to sidestep its path. Odell retaliated, pushing with his dagger. But his weapon was too short for this battle. Sandalphon evaded and elbowed his arm away in time for yet another attack.
Odell rolled away, backing from the angel’s rage before the sword could slice him.
Yet, in a moment of chance, the moon grew over enthusiastic. Its light reflected on the platinum blade, creating — a blindspot!
“Argh!” grunted Sandalphon. Blood trickled from his fingers, where a small cut lay.
“Get off of me a bit, will you?” Odell panted, catching his breath. The dance they did was far too exhausting. “Will you just give me a moment?”
Sandalphon lunged, but he was slowed by the two wounds he carried. This gave enough time for Odell to draw his stashed pistol.
Sandalphon stopped.
“My bullets… laced with the metal used in the nails of the crucifixion,” said Odell. He had but two of them, but that wasn’t a detail he’d disclose so easily. “Let’s talk.”
Sandalphon did not answer. Odell thought that a ‘yes’.
“What happened in Bohemian Grove?” asked Odell.
Sandalphon groaned. “I know not of Bohemian Grove.”
“Who is the Morning?”
Sandalphon blinked. “That name… you play with fire, human. Why do you ask this of me?”
“He is my benefactor, my advocate,” answered Odell. “I’m just the bounty hunter.”
“He?” said Sandalphon, his brow a bit furled. “You shed angel blood on human streets for a bounty?”
Odell paced; his gun still pointed straight to the angel’s heart. “No. I shed angel blood so human blood would not. The war, Mr. Morning said, can be stopped before it has even begun.”
“Your Mr. Morning capers with a precarious gamble.” Sandalphon smirked. “Perhaps that is his rebellion.”
“What is this war?” asked Odell.
“An inevitability.”
“How many will it kill?”
“None,” said Sandalphon. “And all at the same time.”
They stood there in silence for a moment, quietly observing each other. None moved.
“Why?” beckoned Odell.
“Heaven does not answer questions of ‘why’. And neither do I.” Then Sandalphon charged, wings spread and blade forward.
BANG!
Sandalphon halted in his tracks.
The bullet coursed straight through his chest. A hole rimmed with gold remained. And blood… blood stained his shirt. The angel’s wings faltered.
Then Sandalphon fell.
Odell holstered his pistol, no longer having need of it. He walked to where the angel slumped. He crouched there.
Sandalphon coughed, wheezing a short breath. He was not for long, they both knew. Odell placed his hand on the wound on the angel’s chest, dousing his fingers with his victim’s blood. He has never taken joy in this. Joy was not the reason he did this for, he reminded himself.
Odell spoke, “I didn’t want this, last angel.”
The angel let the silence linger. Odell had no clue what the angel thought or felt. How does an immortal being face death? Do the years unfold before their eyes? The thousands upon thousands of years?
These are questions Odell thought irrelevant. Death was not a learning experience for others to improve on. Death was a tragedy. It always has been.
Sandalphon smiled. “Perhaps this is it. This is my time. Perhaps it is our time. That we have outlived our usefulness.” He coughed again, blood gushing from his mouth. “You call me last angel. You are wrong. Your mission is incomplete. There is still another.”
“Another?” asked Odell. “Another brother?”
“No. Of brothers, I have none left. You’ve sought to that. But our sister.” Sandalphon managed to strain a chuckle. “She is the most rebellious one of us all.”
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