Raphael rocked on anxious feet as adrenaline soared through his body. His hand tightened around his gun. In the suspended silence, the Fallen met one another’s eyes. They were back. In a place they vowed to never return to. Energy pulsed between them as they gathered in a loose circle. Seven sinners ready to wreak havoc on the godly pretenders.
Bara smirked and readied his flame thrower, signaling that they were ready. That the Brethren’s day of judgment had come.
With a slow nod of Gabriel’s head, they began to walk through the hallway as one brotherhood. Careful walks turned into impulsive jogs, the jogs morphing into flat-out runs. And with every step, Raphael felt the lost screams he had left in this place track him down and join his crusade. Gabriel followed the hallway to where the old dorm used to be. The hallway to the dorm always felt colder than the rest. When goosebumps devoured his skin, Raphael felt thirteen again, staggering back after being stuffed with Father Murray’s cock. The image was almost his undoing. It was only Maria’s face in his mind’s eye that kept him focused. Kept him centered. Raphael’s eyes were wide and assessing as Gabriel opened the door. He heard Gabriel’s quick inhale.
“Move,” Gabriel ordered. Raphael peered over his shoulder. Nine sets of dead eyes stared back at him. Raphael’s stomach began to boil. His limbs shook at the sight of the half-starved, gaunt boys, sunken eyes staring at them from blank, untrusting faces. The boys were them ten years ago. Raphael felt his brothers around him, pulsing with uncontained hatred for the Brethren too. But Raphael couldn’t take his eyes off the boys. Was that what they had looked like when they were here? Sela rushed forward and carried one who had collapsed on the bed, who looked like he couldn’t walk. He had blood staining his white pants at his rear . . . Raphael felt the vibrating surge of fury begin at his feet and travel through his body when the boy’s vacant eyes latched on him as he passed.
“Move!” Gabriel repeated and charged into the room. He dragged each boy to his feet. Each one was a living ghost of the Fallen from the past. He heard his brothers hissing and cursing around him. They must have been thinking the same thing.
“Die,” he heard savagely snarled from the back. It was Diel. “Die. They will all die.” Raphael was paralyzed, watching Gabriel lead the boys to the entrance. The boys ran outside. The minute the last one had fled, Raphael came back into his body and let the fire consume him.
Just as Gabriel closed the door, a gunshot rang out down the hallway. Raphael spun, gun out. But Diel pushed past him, a dark smile covering his face. “Finally,” he growled. Diel charged, a twenty-inch knife in each hand. Raphael caught a glimpse of the red and black Brethren colors the priest wore. It was a flag to a bull. The priest who had fired didn’t even get a chance to re-aim at Diel; Raphael’s brother stabbed a blade straight through his forehead. Diel pulled the blade out of the priest’s head, and the priest’s body dropped to the floor, eyes wide open. Diel hissed in pleasure, then took off.
“Diel!” Gabriel hushed out. But the red mist he treasured descended over Raphael’s eyes, and Gabriel’s hissed orders became a distant hum as he gave himself over to his urge to kill. Blood rushing through his ears, Raphael ran in the direction Diel had gone. He didn’t feel anything. The fire inside him burned through any recognition of anything but the search for Maria and the Brethren. A blanket of gunfire sounded. Bara was beside him in seconds, flame thrower at the ready and a maniacal smile on his face. As they rounded the corner, Raphael fired as a line of priests dressed in black with red dog collars came at them. Diel attacked one after the other in quick succession. Michael followed Diel, stabbing and slitting throats as he went. Sprays of blood spattered Michael’s face—his best friend licked at the crimson-coated knives and the drops that ran onto his lips.
Another group of priests ran at them from the left. Bara turned and laughed as his flame thrower doused them all in fire. The priests screamed, the smell of burned flesh filtering through the stagnant hallways. The screams were a blissful symphony to Raphael’s ears, a salve to some of the gaping wounds that had never healed. Torn fibers in his chest began knitting together as priest after priest hit the ground. Finally, it was them prostrate at the Fallen’s feet.
Uriel ran through to the burning priests, stabbing and crowbarring their knees. Even through the cacophony, the sound of bodies hitting the ground was better than any hymn he’d ever heard sung at church. “Let them die slowly,” Uriel snarled as the priests began to beg for a quick death.