Free Armageddon by Thomas E. Sniegoski

him.
    Has Dusty gone crazy? Gabriel wondered.
    Then Dusty let out a horrible shriek, and his wounds began spurting blood. The advancing creatures fell with the dead on the floor, their furry bodies bleeding.
    Gabriel couldn’t understand what it was he was seeing.
    More of the beasts swarmed Dusty, and again, he let out a yell.
    More of them went down, while others tried to escape Dusty’s reach.
    Gabriel poked a dying creature with his paw. A jagged piece of dark metal stuck out from its fur, just above the creature’s tooth-filled mouth.
    A jagged piece of metal.
    Suddenly, that piece of metal began to move, to vibrate, and it shot from the creature’s body, boomeranging back into Dusty’s flesh.
    Is this even possible? the dog questioned, but realized that such a thought was completely foolish given this new, horrible world.
    Gabriel picked his way to Dusty amid hundreds of dead and bleeding creatures, trying not to step on the furry bodies. Dusty had dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.
    “Woof,” Gabriel said to Dusty, who did not have the ability to speak any language as the Nephilim did.
    Dusty lifted his head slowly. The cuts on his face and body were already beginning to heal. “It’s all right now, boy,” he said, a strange smile forming on his bloodstained face. “I’ve figured it all out.”
    Dusty reached out to pet Gabriel’s head, but the Labrador stepped away, avoiding his touch. Moments ago, the young man had been so sick that he could barely move. What happened?
    Dusty laughed again, looking toward his hand as he flexed his fingers.
    “I know what I am now,” he said with a firm nod to Gabriel.
    “I am the sword, and the sword is me.”

CHAPTER SIX
    V ilma brought Aaron’s limp hand to her mouth and kissed it.
    She watched him, imagining how she would react if his eyes suddenly opened.
    “I miss you so much,” she said, as much to him as to herself.
    She was alone with Aaron. Taylor had been called away by one of the Unforgiven for a reason they chose not to share.
    Which was perfectly all right with Vilma. A lot of Taylor’s stories were disturbing, like when she’d explained where she’d been for the last twenty years.
    Vilma couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to go to the hospital to have a baby, then wake up inside a morgue drawer. She recalled Taylor’s explanation of how Mallus, using angel magick, had made the doctors, and hospital staff, believe that she was dead. And the idea of never seeing one’s newbornchild, even if it meant saving said child, was just something that she could barely comprehend. It must have been beyond terrible.
    “I know you don’t know she’s here yet, but when I found out who she was, I was pretty pissed,” Vilma told her unconscious boyfriend. “I didn’t think there was any excuse good enough, but now, after hearing why she stayed away . . .
    “I wonder how I would have reacted,” Vilma said, recalling the haunted look in Taylor’s eyes as she told her story. “What must it have been like to learn that the man you’ve loved, the father of your child, was actually Lucifer?”
    She thought about all the challenges she’d faced since meeting Aaron and learning that she, too, was Nephilim. It made it that much easier to accept Aaron’s mother.
    “I really think you’ll like her,” Vilma said to him. “She comes across as a little cold and distant, but I think that probably has something to do with living with the Unforgiven.” She made a face. “Those guys give me the creeps.”
    Mallus had turned Taylor over to the Unforgiven to save her from the dangers of evil forces willing to use her against the angel whose heart she had captured. For her own safety, the safety of her son, and the safety of the world, Taylor Corbet had remained hidden. With the Unforgiven, she worked to keep the world from falling to the mysterious Architects.
    It was an uphill battle.
    Vilma stared at the mechanical healing ring attached