“The butterfly effect?” I asked.
“More like the hurricane effect. You happen to have a little more influence on the weather than most.”
“Do I even really have a choice?” I—we—asked. “I mean, do I actually have the power to destroy you?”
He shook His head.
“But the translation—”
“It was a good translation.” He smiled. “Bailey’s got a true gift for language.”
“The translation called me the Godkiller.”
“Earthly language is so rarely immediate. It can describe ideas and label things, but the name isn’t the thing. That’s the problem. You’ve considered the concept several times—especially since coming to Halo.”
(Lying with the truth. I know you’re not a murderer, Tough. If you can supply me with another word which means that Colter Whitney hates an entire race, I’ll be happy to amend my statement. I don’t have to betray anyone.)
“The history of the Nephilim that Bailey translated the Godkiller prophecy from was written in unborn hopes. You know what that’s like. You’ve hoped for things you knew would never happen. You prayed for them every night, wanted them so badly that your heart hurt, spent every second wishing for and doing everything in your power to make them happen. That’s the thing about hope. It’s not bound by reality. And sometimes it’s twisted by selfish desires or hatred.”
“Kathan,” we said.
“And others of his kind. They wanted so badly for you to be a means of revenge against Me that they went so far as fooling themselves with their own baseless hopes for your nature. Kathan is a good liar. So good that he eventually convinced himself.”
“But these powers…”
“The Destroyer is real and you have become that Destroyer. But you’re also —. You have a choice. You can choose to destroy the world and end all life on Earth. There are no truly sinless living beings, so you would technically be fulfilling your purpose of wiping out evil, but…”
“But Tough,” we said.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Tough
My shotgun ran dry about twenty yards from what used to be the Dark Mansion’s huge front steps, so I flipped it around and held the barrel like a baseball bat. Jim was doing a great job of keeping an eye on the sky, swinging his chainsaw at anything with wings that got too close.
We’d made it ten more yards when a fallen angel swooped at us. He was being careful to stay out of Jim’s reach.
Flamethrower-girl flicked her lighter. There was the whoosh of aerosol. A cloud of fire lit up the night. Fire clung to the angel’s skin. He hit the dirt and rolled, trying to put it out, but the tar on his feathers went up next.
The other kid from Scout’s class hollered, “Hells yeah!”
A foot soldier hovering over the circled vehicles put a bullet in the kid’s mouth. The kid went down choking on pieces of his own tongue and teeth.
Shit. For a second there, I’d almost forgotten that we couldn’t win this fight.
I let the vamp speed go crazy and got out in front of my team. I wanted to draw fire away from them. If I was good for anything now, it was bullet-catching.
Then I saw Kathan, standing there at the center of the vehicles, on whatever was left of the Dark Mansion’s first floor. His eyes were so black that they glowed in the red-brown light. He looked right into my face and he smiled and opened his mouth. Even without the vamp senses, I would’ve heard him. His voice drilled down into my brain.
“Don’t waste your ammunition on the vampire,” he ordered. “Aim for creatures with heartbeats only.”
Like a firing squad, the fallen angels all shot at the same time.
Behind me, I heard Jim’s chainsaw drop out of gear and idle off as it hit the ground. Tawny Hicks screeched. Bullets whined past me on all sides. Aerosol sprayed, but never got lit.
I didn’t have to look back. I knew. My team was dead.
Mikal had called it. You are a disease, Tough. You ruin everything you touch. You will be the reason we win the last battle.
Kathan grinned like he could hear what I was thinking.
“They’re all going to die,” he yelled. “Even the extra manpower you’ve got sneaking in through the back pasture. Oh, yeah. I know about them. I’ve fought wars you will never conceive of, boy. There isn’t a maneuver that I haven’t seen. Hell, I invented most of them!”
Angels—way more than I would’ve guessed could fit inside that circle of vehicles—poured out through the cracks and flew over smashed-in roofs. I swung the empty shotgun at them, but they ignored me.
Coyotes and crows met the fallen angels in the air and on the ground. Snarling, cawing, yelping, gunshots.
I spotted Rian. The first reaction I had was to throw the shotgun at his fat head. It hit and spun off. He didn’t come after me, just gave me a grin and grabbed a crow out of the air. There was a wet ripping sound as Rian tore its wings off.
I sprinted toward Rian, ready to break his neck, but the second I got within arm’s reach he snapped his wings open. The hit knocked me off my feet.
Rian let the crow drop and spun around to face me. I ran at him again. Without the vamp senses, I wouldn’t have even seen him move. One second he was standing over a wingless, croaking crow, the next he was throwing everything into a punch that almost tore my jaw off.
While I was still trying to recover, Rian whipped out his revolver and shot me in the chest, three times, right through the heart. It stopped me cold.
Pain radiated out in waves, making
