To human eyes, there was nothing particularly special about last night. Colleen Calhoun is a woman in her mid-thirties whose name is unknown to most of the world, a mother of two who works at a small-town newspaper. But Colleen also volunteers for a women’s shelter three nights a week, and her counsel and comfort have saved many women from despair, thereby snatching them out of the Enemy’s grasp. This is what made her a target for vengeance and put her into Ananiah’s care.
Last night, Colleen was giving her friend Julia a ride to a neighboring city where she would be able to start a new life. Colleen was happy to do it, unaware that the three hours’ drive home in the darkness would put her at great risk. Without any human soul close to her, she would be deeply vulnerable to the Fallen.
Though Ananiah felt certain that the danger would not come until the journey home, she and N’am flew over the car as it made its way out along the highways, and Ophell and I went ahead of them, searching the spring afternoon for any hint of the icy presence of our enemies. That part of the journey went without incident, and it amused us to listen with Ananiah to Colleen and Julia singing along to the radio.
Julia wept with joy when she was given the key to the apartment where she will stay until she is on her feet. She threw her arms around Colleen and thanked her again and again, and Colleen’s heart shone like sunset.
“Ophell, how could this make anyone angry?” I asked as we watched. “How could this drive anyone to violence?”
“Because the Fallen cannot possess any of this warmth or joy ever again,” Ophell answered softly. “It is their envy and despair that becomes wrath, and they lash out at those who are most undeserving.”
“Do you think they know that by so doing they are only putting more pain into the world?”
“If they do, they try to forget it. But I think not. Nothing makes one more heedless of the world than selfishness.”
It was an hour into Colleen’s journey home that we found the enemy. I sensed them first, winging their way down the dark highway towards Colleen’s car. At first it was just a seething knot of frigid ugliness, twisted and hideous against the sweet warmth of the night. I winged back and stopped, shuddering.
“Six of them,” Ophell said, following my sense and stopping beside me.
“Violences only?” Ananiah asked, still a few miles behind us with Colleen.
“I think so.” But Ophell looked at me, and I knew that he wanted me to look again to be sure.
It was difficult to make myself reach out again, and I kept my heart hard and my soul quiet, to be sure that the Fallen could not sense my presence as well. And at first that was all I sensed, six different patterns of hateful thought. But then there was another that was calmer and colder, a thin trail that fell back from their wrath. When I touched that thread, somewhere a sharp gaze shifted, and I nearly fell out of the air as I retreated.
Ophell threw himself in front of me, and I felt the strength of his will shroud me like a cloak. “An Apostate is watching them from a distance,” he reported to the others. “You will need help.”
“Orison and Nodayimani are on their way,” came N’am’s calm reply. “You must both go back now—the enemy draws close.”
I hesitated for an instant, torn. I knew my orders, and I wanted to be as far away from that powerful viciousness that I had sensed, and that had sensed me. But it felt so wrong to feel that wickedness coming toward an innocent and just to get out of its way.
But then Orison called out to me, and I could feel how he and the other Cherubs were ready for the attack, their plan solid in their minds. “Go, Asa’el,” he told me. “Keep watch from above.”
And so Ophell and I returned to heaven, and from there we watched the battle—or at least what we could see of it. At such a distance we could not feel the Fallen’s presence, and so there was no warning for us when Ananiah lifted her weapon and lashed out at the night, casting streams of light. But we could hear the enemies shrieking as they scattered.
“Why is it that angels are blind to the enemy, Ophell?” I asked him. “Does it not make us vulnerable?”
“Sometimes, yes,” Ophell answered. “But one of the Fallen’s greatest weapons is the terror that they can strike in the hearts of others. Angels themselves have some of this trait, especially Guardians—if you were ever to reveal yourself to a human, they would likely react at first with terror. But where with angels this reaction is tempered by our benevolent spirits, there is no such reassurance from the Fallen. Our blindness protects us from the paralyzing fear that they would use against us.”
How strange it was, to see the struggles of our friends against foes we could not even see! It was from Orison that I got the most impressions of the battle, and even those were scattered—the burning pain of a Violence’s grip, the sickening lurch as his weapon sank into a dark soul, the crackle of lightning and the taste of snow and the snapping of branches and the flicker of starfire from the angels’ weapons. The Fallen carried no weapons, but their numbers and their hate made them a match for the four Cherubs, at least for a time.
But then one screamed in pain, and another, and then the last were finished quickly. Our friends lowered their weapons, and Ananiah went flying off after Colleen, whose car had drawn away from the scene of the battle. I have since asked Ananiah what Colleen knew of the battle, and she said that Colleen felt nothing but an inexplicable unease when the fight began, which will soon be forgotten. Sometimes it is true that ignorance defends us.
But Orison and Nodayimani and N’am remained, weapons still in hand. “Well, brother?” Nodayimani called out into the night. “Will you come and test your blade against ours?”
“Blade?” I repeated to Ophell. “Surely weapons made by the Father cannot be held by the Fallen.”
“Do you think the Enemy cannot make weapons, too?” Ophell asked, sending a shiver of terror through me.
I prefer not to dwell on that thought.
We waited in tense silence with the Cherubs, who looked out into the night. But there was no response, and soon Orison shook his head. He and Nodayimani went searching, while N’am caught Ananiah up and guarded Colleen safely home. None of them sensed any trace of the Apostate.
“I believe that they were there,” Orison told me early this morning when they returned to heaven. “But they would have been terribly foolish to challenge three of us.”
“Or terribly prideful,” Nodayimani answered, “which often is the same thing.” She shook her wings and winked at me. “Bravely done, young brother. You have a discerning eye.”
I thanked her, but my voice was subdued, and she turned a discerning gaze of her own on me. “Perhaps you could have found them for us,” she agreed with my thought, startling me, “but you may well have done so by feeling the foul weapon in your own heart. Many of the Apostates like nothing better than to end our warriors well before their time.”
I shivered again.
Orison put his wing around me. “You did well tonight. Be satisfied with that. You have much more work to do in years to come, and we must keep you safe in order to do that work.”
I do not remember what I said, but it must have satisfied them, for they went away then to their rest, and I came here to put my thoughts down. I have many thoughts, and many questions, and many fears, and I think it will be the work of more than one night to unravel them. If this was a victory—and it certainly was—then why do I not feel victorious?