XIV
DAKEN
15 Minutes After the Attack
Medical Ward, Morningstar Keep
Daken exhaled slowly as he watched the enraged faces of the Nephilim through the small door window of reinforced glass. They pounded almost rhythmically against the final barrier between predator and prey. "So," he said softly, "do you think they're here for me or Uriel?"
"Uriel," Meddy answered without hesitation, her gaze never moving from the door.
"Well, you don't have to sound so confident," Daken pouted, attempting to lighten his own impending sense of impotency. "They might want me too."
Meddy crossed her arms, silently analyzing weak points in the potential assailants. "If you think you're so smart, how about you use your head for a second?" She thrust a thumb back in Uriel's general direction. "He started to levitate when we held out a magical tag. You managed to squeal like a boy half your age when I gave you a shot. Which one do you think got their attention?" Turning around to see that Daken had taken advantage of the question to begin hoisting himself out of his bed, she moved over to his side and steadied him. "I know you, Daken. I know you think this is your fight. You're wrong. You can stop fighting this time."
"I'm telling you Meddy, I can take them," Daken grunted, his still bruised and bloodied body forcing itself up against the medical instrument tray. "Give me a shot of adrenaline and I'm good to go." He cursed beneath his breath. "It's not like we've got a lot of options. That door isn't going to hold them off forever."
Meddy turned her attention from scowling at Daken to the savage blows of fists and feet against the infirmary door. "Don't be insane. You're in no condition to fight." She shook her head. "Putting that kind of strain on your system after the beating that you've taken would not only leave you a completely useless fighter, but probably result in permanent bodily damage that I won't ever be able to correct." She drew a silverwood scalpel from within her lab coat and ran her fingers tenderly along its edge. "When the time comes, I'll be the one to face them." Meddy allowed herself a small smirk, even in the face of the overwhelming enemy. "I've spent years learning how to mend bones and heal cuts. Learning how to open wounds and break bodies only takes a moment."
Daken opened his mouth for a smarmy reply, and then closed it. "You're kind of scary, you know that? I mean, in a very good way."
"I think you mean competent," Meddy said, her vision fixed straight ahead as the banging against the door grew louder and the reinforced bolt holding its hinges shut grew weaker. "And yes. I am."
Then, suddenly, the thundering against the door began to slow. The beats grew less powerful and less numerous. Gazing outside through the tiny glass porthole, Daken and Meddy could see the enraged eyes of the Nephilim begin to shift their focus from the interior of the infirmary to something within the hall. The yelps of battle, the swinging of weapons and the shouting of enemies overcome, began to reverberate out from the corridor. One by one, even the few Nephilim lurking just outside the infirmary door's window crumpled to the ground. Finally, as if placing the crescendo on a violent symphony, a hand shot past the glass, grabbed the last standing Nephilim, and then promptly smashed its face through the door's window.
The angry sounds of limbs striking against one another had come to a close. The gnashing of teeth had ceased. All that could be heard through the cracks in the now-shattered porthole was a lighthearted whistle accompanied by a chipper rendition of, "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah."
Meddy exchanged a confused glance with Daken and then slowly made her way over to the door. A sense of overwhelming dread had been replaced with an uncertainty whether she wasn't now hallucinating. "Hello?" she called, moving her left hand to the doorknob and carefully beginning to open the chamber to the outside world. Her right hand remained firmly wrapped around her scalpel. "Is anyone out there?"
"Well, it's about time you invited me in," a dishelved young man in a misfitting Brigade uniform said as he casually slid into the room. "You know, I never realized it before, but fighting Nephilim sure is thirsty work, isn't it?" he noted, placing his hands behind the back of his head as he surveyed the cupboards of medicine for anything that looked like a beverage. "Don't worry, no need to bother. I'll grab something myself."
Daken and Meddy watched the odd would-be Shepherd in stunned silence for a moment as he flitted around the infirmary in search of a drink. They waited, sure their strange savior would introduce himself in some way, but instead found the boy completely oblivious to their presence. Finally, Daken could take it no longer. "Hey, who the hell are you pal?" he barked.
The Shepherd glanced over at Daken, as if surprised at the question itself. Then he chuckled and scratched his neck bashfully. "Oh. Right. You guys." He quickly shuffled over to where Meddy and Daken stood, their eyes never moving from his bizarre visage as he nearly did a little jig to make his way across the floor. He made an overdramatic bow and then extended a hand towards Meddy. "Morningstar Brigade Shepherd Candidate Isaac, at your service."
Isaac didn't look like the other Shepherds-in-training that Meddy and Daken often saw walking around the Keep. He barely looked like he belonged on Eden. Where most members of the Brigade took pride in pristine, strictly maintained uniforms and carefully cropped, combat-ready hair, Isaac looked like he had thrown himself into a pile of laundry and wandered out. He wore an inside-out white shirt bearing the Brigade's golden emblem beneath a grey button-down carelessly thrown over it. His pants were the slick Brigade-issue black, but were torn on his right knee and patched on his left. His hair was a spiked messed of sandy brown and his flashing eyes were a mischievous, heterochromatic hazel and blue. A sharp white set of teeth arched across Isaac's face, his lips always on the edge of a snickering, but light-hearted, curl. Meddy and Daken couldn't tell whether he was laughing with them or laughing at him, but one thing was certain: He liked to keep people guessing.
Meddy eyed the extended hand skeptically. It was covered with blood.
Isaac glanced up and laughed sheepishly as he realized his error. He quickly scanned his surroundings for some kind of towel, but upon failing to find one, he simply shrugged and wiped the crimson palm off on his pantleg. Then he re-extended the hand.
"Chief Medical Officer Medala. Thank you for your assistance, Shepherd Isaac," Meddy said, attempting to maintain a semblance of professionalism while her hand uncomfortably squished against Isaac's.
"Oh, yeah, that? Sure thing," he said with a laugh, glancing back at his handiwork. "Honestly, it was kind of fun. Nothing gets the blood racing like waking up, pounding down a glass of O.J., then decking twenty guys while they scream nonsense at you."
Daken looked the scrappy Isaac up and down. "You really did all that by yourself?" He scowled. "And wait a minute; the order went out for every last Shepherd to move to defend the front gates. Why are you still back here?"
Isaac shrugged. "I slept in. Kill me."
Meddy checked her watch. "It's... it's four in the afternoon."
"Listen, I need my beauty sleep. Do you think I just wake up like this?" he asked, pointing to a head of hair that more closely resembled the damage caused by a localized tornado than by any kind of intentional grooming.
"Yes, actually," Daken shot back. "And if you're just an initiate, where did you get that weapon?" he asked, jabbing a finger at the red-stained dagger that Isaac had been spinning in his hands. "Initiates don't get a weapon until they've completed their training."
"I borrowed it, okay?" Isaac said, still scrounging through the cupboards. "Do you guys seriously not have anything to drink in here? I don't want to drink cough syrup, but I'm not going to act like it's the first time..."
Daken groaned. "You don't just borrow a weapon from a member of the Brigade. Each weapon is completely unique, bound to its wielder in ways that you wouldn't even begin to understand. It's a sacred part of- Would you stop juggling that? Are you actually insane?" he snapped as Isaac began to toss the weapon around in a display of agility as well coordinated as it was irreverent.
"Listen," Isaac whined, taking a seat on a medical stool and starting to spin, "for saving both of your lives, I feel like I'm getting a lot of judgment right now."
"Daken, Meddy!" Jonathan shouted, throwing the door open once again and charging into the room with Kat following close behind. "Are you ok? The main attack was all just a distraction, they're trying to isolate Uriel so they can-"
"Old news, took care of it already," Isaac interrupted, pushing off of the medicinal cabinet to spin his makeshift carnival ride even faster. "You're welcome, by the way. Since apparently no one is interested in thanking me anymore."
Daken sighed heavily. "Jonathan, meet Isaac. He is, unfortunately, the one who managed to rescue us from the approaching Nephilim." Daken motioned with his head towards Jonathan and Kat. "Isaac, this is Jonathan. Shepherd extraordinaire and my trusty sidekick." As the bruised brawler spoke, he walked over and threw an arm around Jonathan. "The box from Sanctuary. Do you still have it?" he whispered quickly.
Jonathan frowned. "I'm not your sidekick. I'm your babysitter." And as he leaned over to (at least outwardly) chide Daken, Jonathan whispered back, "I put it somewhere secure. It's never left us. But it's snapped any lockpick that I've tried and there's not a single key I've got access to at the Keep that has worked. For now, we're just going to have to wait."
Daken cursed beneath his breath, then quickly resumed his part in their external verbal sparring. "Unnecessarily harsh," the Apostle replied, feigning injury despite already being covered head to toe in altogether very real wounds. "And beside him is..." His words trailed off as he tried to place Kat's face to no avail.
"Kat," she offered with a grin. "Alleged criminal and currently deputized member of the Morningstar Brigade. The pleasure's yours."
Meddy crossed her arms. "Jonathan, I'm not thrilled about you bringing the suspects that you're in the middle of interrogating into my infirmary," she said flatly, eying Kat suspiciously.
"I didn't know what we were about to walk into, so I needed all the hands I could get," Jonathan explained quickly. "And considering that she was willing to jump into the fray without a question or even an attempt at escape, that means she's either trustworthy or an adrenaline junkie. And quite frankly, we could use either." He looked over Daken to Uriel's bed. "How's Uriel doing?" The Shepherd paused as he observed the inconstant yet defiant beat of the vitality monitor and breathed a sigh of relief. "He's what they're here for, isn't he?" he said slowly.
Turning to habitually adjust an instrument, Meddy simply shrugged. "Mostly stable, for reasons beyond my comprehension. And yes, Daken and I think you're correct. He's likely what the Nephilim are here to obtain." She picked up a long, thin sheet of paper filled with endless and incomprehensible scrawling. "When the Nephilim get close, his readings spike. It's like some part of him can still tell that he's in danger. The Nephilim could be going anywhere in the Keep, but they stayed here. He's the target."
Kat walked over to Uriel's side and cocked her head as she examined the wad of casting and bandages that lay on the bed beside Daken. "This poor kid? What do they possibly want with him?" Her brow furrowed as she took a closer look. "Huh. He almost looks familiar."
"Well, I'm glad everybody's feeling so chummy, because we're going to need everything we've got for round two," Isaac chirped eagerly, hopping off of his seat and beginning to dizzily stumble across the room. "Especially since they seemed really mad."
Everyone in the room froze. The only sound was the discordant, wild beeping of Uriel's heart monitor. All eyes turned to Isaac as he wobbled back and forth, slowly regaining his balance.
"Isaac," Daken said slowly, a jolt of scarlet rocketing through his arms and legs as he forced himself fully into an upright, combat-ready position, "did you just say there are more of them? That there's a second wave?"
The scruffy pre-Shepherd blinked and looked around uncomfortably at the circle of uncharitable faces. "Did I... did I forget to mention that I sprinted by a big second group of Nephilim on my way here?" he said softly. "They seemed mad about that."
"I've known you less than ten minutes and I'm pretty sure I already hate you," Kat groused, springing into action as she began to move around the room and barricade potential attack paths with whatever she could find. It wasn't training driving her; it was a raw understanding of survival.
The rest of the Shepherds quickly followed suit, moving Uriel's bed into the center of the infirmary as they worked. Once the room was as reinforced with every last piece of ramshackle wire and steel that they could find, the warriors took their respective strategic positions around the area. The defenders stood at uncompromising attention, focused on each and every sound they could detect. Except for Isaac.
"So, I just want to remind everyone real quick that no matter what happens, I saved the infirmary the first time around. And that should balance out any of other lapses of judgment," Isaac whispered loudly enough that he might as well have been speaking at full volume.
"Isaac?" Meddy said softly, a cool edge to her voice. "I'm a doctor, so let me offer you my professional medical opinion: Please shut your mouth."
The tense quiet of anticipation roared into a symphony of crunches, cracks and snarls as Nephilim fists punched through the walls of the infirmary. Rather than again trying their luck at the door, which now bore Isaac's final victim as a grim warning, the Nephilim had begun to tear down the very walls that had provided the makeshift team protection. The taut faces of the Shepherds began to flicker with anxiety as the boundaries that formed their defensive perimeter started to crumble before their eyes. Their ranks tightened as the enemy horde began to surround them, the blank eyes of their adversaries leering at them with maddened hunger. The makeshift band Shepherds stood firm, their bodies making an unwavering circle around Uriel's bed. Their weapons were drawn, their fists were clenched. There was no retreat.
"I bet I take down the most," Kat said, cutting her fear with a shot of brash courage as she glanced from fighter to fighter.
Meddy sighed, already anticipating the injuries she would have to patch up if they made it out of this fight alive. "Let's just try to avoid doing any lasting bodily harm to ourselves instead of racking up a high score, shall we?"
"Just to be clear," Isaac said slowly, leveling his knife's edge against his forearm and locking eyes with the Nephilim, "we're all about to make a spectacular last stand and potentially die for some kid in a full body cast that we've never even met? That's really our big plan?"
"Not some kid," Daken fired back, drawing his tanto and allowing a fresh pulse of dark red power to flush through his veins. "His name is Uriel. And if they're this scared of him? If his very existence is enough for them to throw an army at us just to get a shot at taking him out?" He grit his teeth. "Well, two of you don't know me very well, so let me make one thing clear: I'm petty as hell. If he's a threat to them, I don't care who he is or what it takes. I'm going to make sure he gets the chance to punch these scumbags' teeth in."
Jonathan beamed with pride. "Look toward heaven."
Ferocity coursed through Daken's face as he offered his comrade a confident nod. "Fight like hell."
The team exploded out onto their adversaries in one violent eruption of force and precision. Kat unleashed a brutal opening flurry of body blows and uppercuts onto her unfortunate prey, her body becoming a savage whirlwind of elbows and feet as she mixed in ruthless elbow strikes and unforgiving heel drops. Isaac's gleeful pageant of blade and bone tore through his opponents with the chaotic strikes of a man gone mad, a terrifying display for both friend and foe. Meddy advanced with a series of impossibly exacting cuts into the Nephilim's most vulnerable tissue, her silverwood scalpel unstitching the carefully wound threads of creation with cold calculation. Jonathan approached combat with the broad, powerful swings of an honorable knight; his blows were honest, undeceiving, and, even still, unstoppably fierce. Yet even with these brave comrades, Daken's crimson art stood alone. For every one Nephilim that fell to his allies, Daken dropped two. His injuries seemed to fuel his blows instead of slowing them, with each cut of his skin speeding his blade. His arms were a rose-colored blur as he moved and his knifepoint the unforgiving brush of a macabre painter carving his way along portraits of black-veined flesh. He lost himself in the battle. In the Bloodmoon. In his pain.
But even as their combat raged on, the Nephilim did not slow. Wave after wave poured towards the Shepherds, each defeated swarm simply replaced by a new force emerging from portals of black flames. Strong bodies grew slower. Sharp strikes began to dull. Superiority turned into a fight for survival. Inch by inch, the warriors were pushed back to where Uriel lay at the center of the room. The beeping from the sleeping son's heart monitor blared against the roars of combat until the screen itself shattered. And just as a Nephilim gained the upper hand and swung down at Isaac's head for a devastating blow, Uriel's hand shot out from the cast, stopping the fist in an iron-wrought grip.
"No," Uriel said in a booming, choral voice as he broke free from his bandaged prison. "I'm done letting other people protect me. I'm done watching those who stand up for me get trampled." He pulled the tubes from his arms and broke the remnants of the cast that had once restrained him. He tore off the bloodstained bandages hiding his face to reveal fully healed flesh.
Uriel stepped down from the hospital bed and looked at his defenders. "They don't even know me, and they were willing to give me everything because they thought it was the right thing to do. Now it's my turn." Power not his own flowed through his body, words unknown to him had poured from his lips, and thoughts beyond him filled his mind. But it felt good. "I don't know if you can hear me, Faust," he boomed, "but if you can, I just want you to know two things."
A brilliant flash of burning white light filled the room, blinding every eye. When it faded, none remained except the Shepherds standing in the center of the infirmary and Uriel himself. Ashes were the only evidence the Nephilim left behind.
Uriel's hands tightened into fists. "I want you to know that I'm coming for you. And I want you to know that I'm taking Eli back home. It's why I'm here. It's why I'll fight. To protect my family. That's the promise I made." And with those final words lingering in the air, he fell to his knees.
"Well said, Uriel," Vigilant applauded, seemingly appearing out of thin air by his side. She gently placed a hand on his shoulder and thrust her other palm against the ground. "Never again will the forces of evil have free reign in Morningstar's Keep, or in any of Her cities." A celestial, eight-pointed star seal formed around Vigilant's hand and then began to spread ethereal roots of crystalline-white throughout the keep, their thorns choking the life out of any lingering black sparks or portals they detected. Along each crystalline root was the intricate inscription of divine characters. She took Uriel up in her arms and set him back on his bed. She lifted his battered guardians to their feet and together they all looked directly into the last, slowly dying rift.
The portal's remaining flames flickered into a quickly fading avatar of Faust. The incomplete, warped picture only magnified a dark countenace stained with cool malice. "You have taken your stand, but my advance has only begun. If you're determined to keep me from the boy, then I issue an ultimatum instead. In thirteen days, it will be the winter solstice. On that day, Uriel will face me in battle. Here, on Earth. This fallen world will be the stage of our reckoning. If he is victorious, the Fisher is his." His figure began to erode, its patchwork arms and legs voraciously consumed by crystalline thorns. "If you fail to meet my challenge, if Uriel is not sent, Eli will be executed and I will destroy the barriers between our worlds that hold back the tides of Nephilim on Earth from your land. Eden will be overrun and its people will follow Eli's fate. And then I'll claim him anyways."
Vigilant looked at her forces, then back to the portal as the image fell further into the aether. "You use your little power to stoke fear in the hearts of others." She quietly extended a single finger, firing a burst of white energy into the construct and blowing it into a shower of vanishing ink-black shards. She offered a fiery grin. "Be afraid, Faust. The Morningstar Brigade has begun its march."