Chapter Seventeen: Vox Clamantis In Deserto
“That bronze relic should be in a museum, not in the hands of the most beautiful girl I've ever seen,” said the voice as Sera turned around. The voice was frighteningly familiar, and it made her heart ache and throb. “I'm sure there's a much more suitable weapon for you somewhere around here.”
“Gabriel!” Sera leaped down the steps and into his arms that waited outstretched. Her hands ran along his arms and his back, and along his neck and cheeks. He held her close, and kissed her passionately and forcefully, and with the love of a long time in waiting. As they separated only slightly, she didn't want to let him go, instead held tighter to him.
“Ah, I haven't been called that for a very, very long time,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. Apparently, he had aged a few years.
“What do you mean?”
“I've been going by Daniel, and until you called me that name just now, I thought it was my only name. I remember now though, so it is only fitting.”
“Daniel?” a look of shock and hurt once more bloomed on her face as she pulled away from his embrace.
“Yes, I know what you're thinking, but don't. I once was one of Jack's generals, but that's been behind me for a very long time.”
“How is this possible? How did you come back?”
“I came back the long way around, through the passage of time. I met Jack and he Healed me, brought me back from wherever I had been. The last thing I remember was entering this room, here, and then I was somewhere else entirely.”
“So you were Healed, but . . . Jack?” she asked incredulous, but then she saw his eyes, eyes that had once been a deep brown were now a pale violet going grey near the pupil. She might have gasped, had she not been nearly exhausted by the battle. Her heel ached incredibly, and as she stood, it only exacerbated the pain. “I think I need to sit down.”
“Yes.” He helped her to sit on the steps where she collapsed without hesitating a moment.. The last thing she could remember was the howling of coyotes in the distant hills.
When she came to, the sun was once again bright. Daytime brought with it soreness, but that was welcome when compared to the sheer exhaustion that had consumed her. Gabriel sat nearby; a fire he had built in the center of the room was fueled by what looked to be the remnants of a desk of some sort, and the flames burned low and were close to going out.
“You're very beautiful, especially when you sleep so soundly.”
She blushed a deep red, but otherwise ignored the comment. “Didn't you sleep?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Not really . . .”
“You should have.”
“I've had plenty of rest, but you need to get ready. Prepare yourself, we've days and days of hard travel ahead of us.” He tossed two full water skins at her feet.
“Traveling to where?” she asked.
“As far as we have to go. We have to gather our species from the far corners of the earth.”
Sera got to her feet. Her heel wasn't hurting as bad as it had the night previous, but it was a little sore, just like the rest of her body. She felt as if she just needed to limber up a little, and get her muscles loosened. “Why are we gathering men together? We don't need an army to fight the destrachan.”
“Who said anything about an army? I've been preparing for this day for a very long time, and so have the nations of the world. You are going to unite our kind so that the rebuilding can start, finally, and without the same devastating influences as we had the first or second, or whatever time around this is. You can live forever, Sera. I've seen it in a vision, and the possibility is so real that we can finally live in peace.”
“Our people are scattered to the winds, Gabriel. How can we hope to bring them together? We don't all speak the same languages.”
“I've spent the last centuries learning as many as I could, I can help you with that.”
“But what if it starts all over again? What if they refuse to see the same future? Our fight seems hopeless.” She reached out and took his hand in her own; it felt rough and calloused, and it seemed fittingly used to hard labor.
“Vox clamantis in deserto. Like a voice crying in the desert. They will have no choice but to listen to you when you bring their brothers and cousins from across the seas. Come now, Sera, we have to go.” He was pulling her towards the stairway, down to the ground floor of Jack's temple, away from the fallen bronze blade and the room where her final showdown had taken place. Walking past the arcane relics of a civilization long since gone, and soon to be replaced.
It is finished, she thought, it is done. “And what of the oceans? How can we cross those?” Past the portraits of people long dead, and the brass and the offices.
“We will build boats, and sail across the waves. We have all the time in the world to accomplish what we need to accomplish.” The front doors were closed, and the air was still and warm. The sunlight and fresh air of freedom waited beyond the oaken seal and she knew it would be sweeter than any breath she had ever experienced.
“Let's leave this place, and never return to mark it on a map, or as a memorial to anything. Let it fall like so many buildings and cities and fortresses fell before Jack.”
“A dark thought on such a bright day, Sera.”
“I know.” Her heart was beating faster, anticipating something horrible, just beyond this final portal.
“I brought you a gift, Sera. A fitting replacement for your knife.” From his shoulder, he unlooped a thick leather cord, and pulled it down, holding it with both hands outstretched, kneeling. It was a curved wooden sheath, with a handle wrapped in beautiful black leather. The would was stained, but the white grain lines showed through the dark lacquer even blacker than the leather. It smelled like hard well-oiled steel, and it had a satisfying heft to it: perfectly balanced. “Crafted by one of the finest Japanese sword-smiths in the world.”
She drew the blade out of its case, and the snicket it made as it drew against the wood was almost orgiastic. It was made for killing, and it made her shudder from what she might have to use it for. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she had the sense of time rolling like a stone down a hill, gaining momentum. “It's not over, is it?”
Gabriel shook his head, his violet eyes glowing with an inner light. “I know I said we might be able to rebuild our people, but we have to end Jack's presence here on this planet once and for all. Only then will mankind be free of his corruption.”
Sera closed her eyes and breathed in a deep breath, pushing the doors open and outward. She felt the sun beat down on her face, and it was a pleasant feeling, and she could feel the blade in her hand pulsing with its own life and connected to her symbiotically, pulsing in time with her heart.
“I would follow you into a never ending battle, Sera, and do it gladly, if you would have me?” Her eyes fluttered open as she turned to him, and those violet eyes tinged with grey were fiery, and full of love and passion, and she could not refuse him, so she said nothing at all. Instead, she gazed out over the hills and plains and to the mountains. The world around her was alive and full of vibrant color. The mountains were a mural of reds and greens and oranges, and the hills and plains were gold and flaxen, rich and reflecting. The sun in the sky was white against a cerulean backdrop, with tiny wisps of horsetail clouds floating lazily on the wind, which rustled through the grass and brought scents of loamy earth and lively grains to her nose. It was a scene of perfection.
She saw none of that, heard none of the sounds of beasts roaring and birds singing, or insects buzzing. None of these tiny indications that she had done something great even registered in her mind.
All she heard was the hum of a great and horrific glimmer, and all she saw was the horde of destrachan from across the world that had gathered in this place, the last of their kind, and an army the likes of which the world hadn't seen in two hundred years. She blinked, trying to wish them away like a nightmare, but they weren't figments of her imagination.
“I called them here, Sera, just as you wanted.”
She looked confused, then a little disheartened, and finally nonchalant. In a hushed tone she asked, “Is this all of them?”
Gabriel nodded and turned his gaze to the throbbing mob of hundreds of thousands of the horrible once-men and shades. They were on the verge of breaking free of his control, it seemed, and without commands, they were prone to attacking the nearest living, uninfected humans. Them. The destrachan covered the countryside, taking their places on every hill that was visible on the horizon, and spreading across the plains like a herd of buffalo or cattle. The smells of decay and purulent flesh carried on the wind back to the two lovers on the front steps of Jack's temple, and had it been possible, Sera might have vomited from anxiety. That wasn't her way, wasn't the way of the hunter, though, and she held back the bile and the terror with practiced ease. She looped the katana's curved sheath onto her shoulder, and held the blade out in front of her.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
The plains of desolations, where the hosts of Heaven and Hell battled across the eternities had come to earth, and she wouldn't have been surprised at all if the sun turned red and dripped blood from the sky, or if four moons suddenly began spinning around it, or if the whole world burst into flames to complete the vision, but that was unimportant, now. Gabriel, the last general of Jack's demonic army, the lover of Sera, the archangel, ran forward to meet the coming mass with his hair blowing in the wind and his blade drawn. His voice carried the ululating cry of a feral animal, and Sera followed close behind.
Strangely, the only thought that came to her mind was a color, one that had marked four men, three of which she had killed. Violet. It wouldn't have surprised her in the least if her own eyes had taken that color as well, and as she neared the last of the destrachan, or at least the last million of them, she felt the golden threads around her feeding her, throbbing with exultant power.
Sera, guardian of the wastes, the breaker of oaths, the betrayer of men. Sera, Sorachim, the destroyer of worlds and lover of Gabriel—the greatest Seraphim to wield the flaming sword of the Almighty. Sword glinting silver and white in the sunlight, white aura crackling about her body like lightning, golden threads whipping around her like the feathered wings of an angel, Sera entered the FRAY.
Copyright 2006