End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days, #3)

by Susan Ee

I remember how the hellions tortured both Beliel and his wife, and I can see why he hates them. But there might be two sides to this story.

I look around again at the dim basement. There are remnants of shattered pottery, bits of faded cloth, broken metal and wood. Someone used to live here. A family of someones, maybe. A very long time ago.

A loud thunk on the hatch interrupts the quiet. Everyone tenses, turning toward the opening. A flapping hellion crashes and tumbles just outside the open hatch. An angel skids after it in a jumble of white feathers and curses. “Raffe!” I rush up the stairs to him. “Where have you been?”

And then it hits me that maybe he did just arrive. At first, I think what a great coincidence that he landed near me, but of course, I’m not the connection—it’s Beliel. We went through him, so we arrive near him on the other side.

It’s ironic now that Raffe finally has his angel wings back that he’s in the land of demons.

We follow the Watchers away from the hovel just as the screaming of those Consumed whip heads fills the air again. Raffe pulls me into his arms and takes flight.

We glide along the broken street until we turn a corner and come face-to-face with a set of screaming heads. Raffe shifts me so that he’s holding me from behind. Without speaking, I know what he wants me to do. He can’t carry me and fight at the same time. I pull out my sword. Raffe swoops left, and I cut a swath through the Consumed. Their teeth and hair fall to the ground as the blade slices through them.

I’ve never fought on a real team before other than with Raffe, but we all fall into a rhythm that doesn’t require words for us to coordinate.

Teeth gnaw out from the inside of Flyer’s neck, quickly chewing through. A Consumed whip head covered in blood emerges from Flyer’s neck. I look away, wishing I could wipe out what I just saw. From the edge of my vision, I see Cyclone grab a rock and hoist it above his head. Then I hear a wet crunch. Everyone’s shoulders seem to slump at the same time. “You have to get us out of here, Commander,” says Hawk with heavy sadness in his voice. “This isn’t how we were meant to die.”

The Watchers seem a little shell-shocked after seeing Flyer die. It’s like tragedy happens too often yet they still can’t accept it.

I nod. Maybe the hellions were so gleeful in hurting Beliel because torturing the newly Fallen is the only revenge they can get for the destruction of their world. If this keeps up, I’m going to end up like Paige and start talking crazy about having respect for all living things, even for things as hideous as hellions.

Strong arms wrap around my waist, and a boot kicks the severed hand off my ankle, leaving maggots on my leg. I shut my eyes and try not to squeal. “Get the maggots off me!” Raffe brushes them off, but it feels like they’re still crawling on my skin. “So you do scream like a little girl,” says Raffe with some satisfaction in his voice. I open my eyes a second too soon, because I catch him tossing the severed hand into the sand. A forest of hands sprout up from the sand to grab it and tear it to pieces, fighting for the scraps. I scoot away from squirming maggots. Raffe sees my distress and flicks them off the rock.

“You’ve fought off a gang of men twice your size, killed an angel warrior, stood up to an archangel, and wielded an angel sword.” Raffe cocks his head. “But you scream like a little girl when you see a maggot?”

“You’re smarter than you look,” I say to Raffe. “But not as smart as he thinks,” says Howler.

At the word women, the Watchers become awkward and self-conscious. “I have to ask,” says Thermo. “I know the others are wondering this too. Is she your Daughter of Man?” He nods toward me. I glance at Raffe. Am I? Raffe thinks about that for a second before answering. “She is a Daughter of Man. And she is traveling with me. But she’s not my Daughter of Man.” What kind of answer is that? “Oh. So she’s available?” asks Howler. Raffe gives him an icy look.

“Enough.” Raffe doesn’t look amused. “You’re not her type.” The Watchers smile knowingly. “How do you know?” I ask. Raffe turns to me. “Because angels aren’t your type. You hate them, remember?” “But these guys aren’t angels anymore.” Raffe arches his brow at me. “You should be with a nice human boy. One who takes your orders and puts up with your demands. Someone who dedicates his life to keeping you safe and well fed. Someone who can make you happy. Someone you can be proud of.” He waves his hand at the Watchers. “There’s nobody like that in this lot.” I glare at him. “I’ll be sure to pass him by you first before I”—settle for—“choose him.” “You do that. I’ll let him know what’s expected of him.” “Assuming he survives your interrogation,” says Howler. “Big assumption,” says Cyclone. “I’d like to be there to watch,” says Hawk. “Should be interesting.”

“And the children?” There’s no hope in Thermo’s voice when he asks this. Raffe sighs. “You were right. I left to hunt ‘the nephilim monsters’ only to find they were just children. Gabriel said the spawn of an angel and a Daughter of Man would grow into a monster. I didn’t want to kill them while they were still harmless, so I waited. And waited. Generation after generation, to root out the evil that I’d been warned about.”

“I knew it was a lie,” says Cyclone. “Thank you, Archangel,” says a Watcher with a tuft of spotted feathers on his wing. “Thank you for sparing them.” “My orders were to kill the nephilim monsters,” says Raffe. “Gabriel’s words exactly. I found the nephilim. I can’t do anything about it if none of them were monsters. I did my duty.”

“Don’t drop me.” I cling tighter and press myself up against him a little more. “Never.” There’s so much confidence and assurance in his voice. “I have you. You’re as secure as can be.”

We fly in each other’s arms in the rain over a smoldering hell.

The Watchers eye us like they know what we’ve been up to. As soon as we land, I hop off and step away from Raffe. I’m glad it’s so hot that I won’t have to explain why my face is so red.

Cyclone steps forward. “They need a firm hand, Commander.” He looms over the hellions. “Do what we tell you, or you die.” He makes a tearing motion with his hands. A hellion pisses at him, squirting a yellow-green stream of foul-smelling liquid that Cyclone barely avoids. The other hellions seem to snicker. Cyclone leans in, looking like he’s going to strangle them, but Raffe stops him. I step forward. Let’s see how they respond if they’re treated like I would want to be in their place. “Freedom,” I say. The hellions look sideways at me. “Escape.” I crouch down to look at them at their level. They watch me with distrust, but they’re listening. “No more Pit lords. No more masters. Be free.” I do the sliding motion along my sword the way Raffe did earlier. The hellions begin chattering among themselves, as if arguing. “Take us with you.” I point to me and the others. “Be free.” I motion along my sword into the sky again. “With you.” I point to them. More chatter. Then they quiet down. The one in the center nods at us. My eyes open wide. It worked. One by one, the Watchers nod in my direction with respect in their eyes.

“Think long and hard about this,” says Raffe. “We’ve always taken pride in never leaving one of us behind. You can stay here together and I’ll find another way to beat Uriel. Or you can come with us, but one of you must stay behind. Isolation is the worst thing that can happen to an angel. You think it’s bad now? It’ll be a hundred times worse when you’re alone, knowing that all your fellow soldiers made it out and left you here. You’ll become twisted, angry, vindictive, vengeful. You’ll become someone you wouldn’t recognize.”

By the end, Beliel is on his knees, his empty eye sockets shut tight and his teeth clenched. There’s shock, but there’s anguish too, even though he volunteered. They all volunteered. But I’m sure that’s little comfort. Everyone else is making it out of the Pit and leaving him behind. To suffer alone for what will seem like eternity to him. Alone and unwanted. Probably for the first time in his life. I run through the litany of his crimes again as I ride my hellion into the gate that is Beliel.

GOING INTO THE Pit was like falling. Getting out of the Pit is like being dragged through a vat of Vaseline. It’s as if the air itself is trying to push me back. I cling to my hellion as tightly as I can. I don’t even want to think about what happens if I can’t hold on.

Shrinking in the distance is the dark shadow of the new aerie and its outer buildings. Before I can comprehend what I’m seeing, the windows of one of the outer buildings explode in a burst of fire and shattered glass. The angels who had been chasing us stop, watching the fire. Then they circle back to the aerie to defend their home base from whatever is attacking. The truck swerves left, then right, like the driver is drunk. Beside me, I hear a cackling full of genuine joy. My mother is behind the wheel. She has a triumphant grin on her face as she glances over at me.

“You went to the aerie?” My voice wavers a little as I look back and forth between my mom and sister. “You risked your lives to rescue me?” My mother gives me another too-tight hug. My sister twitches the corners of her lips up despite the pain it must cost her to move the stitches on her cheeks. My eyes sting at the thought of the danger they faced to rescue me.

“Paige has three large pets with scorpion stingers who can fly her out at any time,” says my mom. “I told them they’d be in big trouble if anything happened to her.” “Oh.” I look at Raffe with a watery smile. “Even the locusts are afraid of my mother.”

“You’re not in a cult, are you, Mom?” “Of course not.” She looks at me like I just insulted her. “Those people are all nuts. They’ll regret having sold you out. I made sure of that. If Paige eats someone, it’ll be someone outside their cult. It’s the worst punishment they can imagine.”

“I knew I recognized your voice from somewhere.” He coughs. Blood bubbles out of his mouth. “Been a long time. So long I thought it was a torture dream.” How long did he spend down in the Pit, taking the punishment for an entire squad of newly Fallen? “I actually thought . . . I actually thought, once, that there might be hope,” says Beliel. “That you might come back and figure out a way to take me with you too.”

Thermo takes it and drops the flaming cloth onto Beliel’s soaked body. Beliel ignites. His hair fizzles like quick sparklers, lighting up, then disappearing. His shriveled skin and pants light up as the flames spread all over his body. Waves of heat distort the road beyond him and warm my exposed neck and face. The air fills with the smell of burning gasoline mixed with the faint scent of meat beginning to char. Five of the Watchers step forward and grab his burning arms, legs, and shoulders. I move to stop them, but Raffe puts out his arm to block me. “What are they doing?” I ask. “They’re going to burn themselves.” “It’ll be painful. But they’ll heal,” he says. All the Watchers take to the air. Their wings spread and beat in unison against the sunrise. Just as I think that the flaming body between them must be burning them to a crisp, a new set of Watchers relieve them and take over the flaming burden. The others fly, crisscrossing each other like a net far below the body. Bits of burning debris fall, much of it burning out before reaching the other Watchers. The bits that continue to fall, the Watchers catch, one by one. “They won’t let any part of him fall to the ground,” says Raffe in a quiet voice. “His brothers will keep him from falling.” In the distance, the Watchers weave a beautiful dance in the dawn sky beneath Beliel’s shower of fire.

“Your civilization was destroyed, but your people would survive, at least in pockets around the world. The apocalypse was never meant to annihilate an entire race. It was just the big event before Judgment Day. But the direction Uriel is taking everybody in . . .” He shakes his head. “If anyone survives that, I’m not sure you’d recognize them as human anymore.” What did the hellions look like before their invasion?

“You should go,” Raffe says to me. “This is no place for a human.” “What about me being your second for the contest?” “Nobody will remember that once they see the Watchers.” “Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid getting back into the truck with me and my mom?” He almost smiles.

But Pooky Bear made me special. I was more than just a girl with it. I was an angel killer.

We reach the truck, and I slide into the driver’s seat. Raffe looks into my open window as if he has something more to say. The dried fruit the Pit lord gave him swings back and forth below that vulnerable spot between his collar bones as he leans toward me. He gives me a kiss. It’s slow and silky, and it makes me melt all over. He caresses my face, and I tilt my head into his touch. Then he steps away. He opens his beautiful snowy wings and takes off into the air to meet his Watchers.

“Thanks, Mom. For coming to rescue me.” My voice comes out reedy and a little wobbly. I clear my throat. “Not every mom would do that in a world like this.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say again. There’s more to be said. And in a healthy mother-daughter relationship, more probably would be said. But I don’t know how to begin. So I just keep humming that haunting lullaby that she used to sing to us when she was coming out of a particularly bad spell.

THE ROAD IS empty of life. As we drive, I see nothing more than a deserted world of abandoned cars, earthquake-damaged landscape, and fire-gutted buildings. The similarities between our landscape and the Pit are becoming disturbing.

“You need to stay away from any concentration of people. The trial by contest is going to be a blood hunt.”

“Whoever wins the contest wins the trial. If Raphael wins, he’ll be in charge, and everyone who survives the blood hunt will be better off.” My stomach feels like an acid volcano, and I swallow hard to keep it down. “But it’s a long flight to victory,” he says. “A blood hunt includes everyone who wants to join. All of Uriel’s angels will join him. A Watcher can kill three times the game that a regular soldier can, but we’ll still need to go to the most populated area if we have any shot at beating Uriel’s team.”

I shut my eyes. I feel sick. Beliel’s words after he showed me what happened to his wife echo in my head. “I once thought of him as my friend too . . . Now you know what becomes of people who trust him.”

My mother watches me with trusting eyes. I don’t know how much she heard, but she wouldn’t believe anything he said anyway. Even if she worked with him to rescue me, she would never trust him. Maybe I should be more like her.

“What happened?” I ask, bracing myself to hear a horror story of angels and monsters. “Dead people,” she says, crying. “They came shambling in after a bunch of our fighters left for a mission. We just had a skeleton crew to defend the rest of us. Everyone freaked. It was a bloodbath. We thought it was over. But word must have got out that we’ve been attacked and defenseless, because then the gangs came.” People did this? Not monsters, not angels, not Pit lords. People attacking people.

Paige looks down at me from the sky as her locusts circle low above us like vultures. She looks both eager and confused, like she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do. She’s looking to me for answers, but I don’t know what to do either. “Yes!” says my mother as she runs toward Paige, waving her arms in the direction that Martin pointed. “Go, baby girl. It’s lunchtime!”

Everyone steps into a role to help without being told what to do. That sense of organization falls apart, though, as soon as we find Obi. He’s in bad shape. His breathing is shallow, and his hands are freezing. He has a wound in his chest that has soaked his entire shirt in blood.

“We’re your family too.” His breathing slows. His eyelids droop. “We need you.” He puffs out his words between breaths. “Humanity. Needs. You.” His words are barely a whisper now. “Don’t let them die.” Breath. “Please . . .” Breath. “Please don’t let them die

I remember something Obi said to me when I first met him. He said that attacking the angels wasn’t about beating them. It was about winning the hearts and spirits of the people. It was about letting them know there’s still hope. Now that he’s gone, it’s as if the hope went with him.

“We have a chain of command,” says Martin. “Whoever’s below Obi takes over.” “Obi said Penryn should lead,” says a woman who helped carry the injured with me. “I heard him. He said it with his last breath.” “But the second in command—” “We don’t have time for this,” I say. “The angels are coming. At sunset tonight, they’ll hold a hunt that’s a contest for the largest number of human kills.”

The only thing that man had left was a crayon drawing made by a kid he loved. It dawns on me that in that moment, that kid, Paige, and the dying man were part of a spiderweb connection that spelled family. That’s what saved the man from being eaten alive. That’s what reminded Paige to fight for her humanity. I finally understand what Obi was telling me. These people—these vulnerable, bickering, flawed people—are my family too. I want to curse Obi for making me feel this way. It’s been hard enough trying to protect my sister and mother. But I can’t watch my own people splinter off and die and maybe tear each other to pieces while they’re at it.

I take a deep breath. “For you gang members out there—how long do you think you can last on your own? We could use some good street soldiers.” It hits me that I sound like Obi. “We’re all on the same side. What’s the point of you surviving today when tomorrow they’ll just come and wipe you guys out? Why not band together and have a real shot? At the very least, let’s go out with a bang and show them what we’re made of. Come join the fight at the Bay Bridge.” I steel my voice. “Angels, if you’re listening, everyone will know you’re shameful cowards if you go after the helpless ones. There would be no glory in that, and you’ll just embarrass yourselves during the blood hunt. The real fight will be at the East Bay Bridge. Everyone worth fighting will be there, and I promise we’ll have a good show for you. I challenge you to come find us.” I pause, not sure how to end it. “This is Penryn Young, Daughter of Man, Killer of Angels.”