becomes more muddied, and mankind drifts farther from God.
Then the past… it will repeat itself again?
The moment the Guardian reenter the wormhole, as they are preparing to do even now. Once more, man’s future will deliver the Devil into man’s Garden of Eden.
Dad… this is all my fault… my selfishness pushed Lilith away, my moment of weakness gave Devlin life.
It’s not your fault. Like me, you were simply a victim of circumstance.
So was Lilith. So were Manny and Evelyn, and the billions who perished back on old Earth. Dad, I have to stop this insanity… I have to end this once and for all!
How?
By defeating Devlin. By saving the Nephilim.
You can’t defeat Devlin alone, and I cannot leave the nexus to help you.
There’s another way I can succeed, but I need your help. Can you distract Lilith… keep her away from me?
I’ll try. But the sentry, it would take both of us to I’ll handle the sentry, you worry about Lilith.
Devlin stands before the lake’s edge, his batlike wings twitching at his sides.
The silvery waters churn, then swirl, pulling in a powerful counterclockwise vortex. Within seconds, the once-placid liquid has become a raging whirlpool, its eye draining, inhaling the contents of the maelstrom to reveal – a massive orifice… the third mouth of the serpent.
‘It’s the portal, the portal into Hell!’
Devlin’s subconscious reaches across dimensions of time and space, tapping into the chaotic energy of the red supergiant, unleashing a monstrous ball of crimson flame, which belches upward from the serpent’s hyperextended jaws. The expulsion of energy causes the shoreline to rumble beneath Devlin’s feet, sending the frightened Nephilim bowing in fear.
The lining of the serpent’s throat radiates an emerald green hue as it slowly morphs into a rotating funnel of energy.
Father and son link minds, summoning Lilith, whose hideous presence reappears along the periphery of the mist.
I love you, Father.
I love you too, son. Now go.
Jacob’s mind slips out of the nexus.
Michael Gabriel turns to face his eternal enemy. It’s you and me now, cousin. My son has given me his strength… and I promise you that none of those who were born in the light, begotten in the light, will ever be yours!
Jacob opens his eyes.
He is lying on his back, the binding roots of the calabash tree having loosened around his neck and limbs. He pulls himself out from under the thick bonds and sits up, transfixed by the unearthly emerald light pouring out of the fifth-dimensional pit.
The porous ground oozes as Devlin’s followers dance and jump along the shoreline.
Rising out of the orifice, dripping globs of silvery ooze, is Devlin’s demonic biped, the one he has fought countless times in the holograph suite, the one who has tortured him in his childhood dreams. Powerful limbs, heavily segmented and smooth, propel its angular, heavily muscled body across the lake’s receding waters.
Devlin greets the sentry his own subconscious mind has created, directing it to the calabash tree. ‘Slay them. Slay them all!’
The silicon demon trudges up onshore, its powerful segmented arms lashing out, its scalpel-like fingers slicing limbs and torsos of the scattering Nephilim.
The ash-coated beings cry out, blue-tinted plasma gushing from their wounds. Panicking, the throng pushes one another aside, desperate to move out of harm’s way.
‘Jake!’ Dominique rushes over, handing him the sword. ‘Are you all right? Where’s Mick?’
‘Guarding the nexus.’ For the first time in fourteen years, he embraces her tightly. ‘I love you, Mom. I’m so sorry. All these years
… I never showed you the love you gave me.’
‘Shh… I love you.’
‘I love you, too.’ Tears stream from his eyes. ‘Stay back… stay close to the tree.’
‘Jake, what are you going to do?’
‘Fulfill my destiny.’
Dominique starts to say something, then gags, the noxious fumes of Devlin’s sentry causing her mucous membranes to sizzle. She cowers behind the alabaster tree, pressing the seal of her nostril hoses tighter.
The demon faces Jacob, its two pupilless eyes blazing burned yellow, staring right through him. The cruel slit seems to smile as if in triumph, allowing a black goo to dribble from its anthropomorphic mouth.
The being’s poison-tipped sickle-shaped claws slice the air, warning Jacob away from the calabash tree. Jacob tightens his grip on the sword.
Suddenly a gray blur-moving at him with unfathomable quickness-as the creature launches its attack.
Jacob ducks-the demon’s razored claws whistling past his scalp, as the Hunahpu warrior rolls forward and whips his sword around and down, slicing through the back of one of the being’s thickly muscled legs.
The creature cries out, swearing in an incomprehensible language.
Jacob regrips the sword in both hands. For over a decade he has fought a holographic simulation of this being within the nexus. Now, every instinct in his body tells him to remain free of the higher dimension.
The demon circles slowly, biding its time. Mustard yellow ooze gushes from its wounded leg as it plans its next bull rush.
Another blur of gray-the being’s bladed fingertips slashing through the carbon-dioxide-heavy air.
Jacob parries the blow with the blade of his sword, then, executing a flawless pirouette, he whirls around and hacks through the being’s left arm, just above the elbow.
The wounded demon howls in its native tongue, cowering off-balance as the Hunahpu launches his own attack, his sword cutting the air in blurring waves of unyielding figure eights, the sizzling double blade hacking through silicon flesh, the mustard yellow pus spraying both combatants as Jacob mercilessly shreds torso and limb.
A flutter of wings, followed by a warning shout from Dominique.
Jacob wheels about and drops, stabbing upward, catching Devlin in the abdomen as the Seraph assails him from above.
Devlin flies off, landing awkwardly several feet from the edge of the glowing pit, clutching his ruptured flank.
‘Jake!’ Dominique points.
Blue-tinged blood is gushing from beneath his body armor along the left side of his rib cage, the sentry’s talons having shredded flesh and muscle.
‘Stay back!’ Jacob sucks deep lungfuls of air from his mouthpiece, trying in vain to fight off the effects of the poison. He is lathered in blood and sweat and yellow phlegm, his muscles trembling.
Eyeing Devlin, Jacob turns to the mutilated sentry groveling by his feet. Bellowing a guttural warrior’s cry, the Hunahpu raises his sword and, with a mighty two-handed downward chop, cuts off the demon’s hideous head.
Devlin snarls by the edge of the pit but does not attack.
The frightened Nephilim continue to inch toward the calabash tree by the thousands.
Jacob drops to his knees, Dominique catching him as he collapses. ‘Jake, no… oh God, please-’ She clutches his dying form to her bosom. ‘Jake, don’t leave me.’
Unable to speak, he points feebly to the trunk of the alabaster tree.
*
Michael Gabriel’s mind is drowning in an abyss of evil, the Abomination’s scarlet eyes dragging him deeper into her icy soul. Her whisper echoes into his consciousness. The battle is over, cousin. I shall drain your life force, then carry First-Mother’s carcass over Hell’s threshold.
An eternity of pent-up emotions explodes from the depths of Mick’s crumbling being, piercing the walls of his
