Dogs of the Father: A Legion Fanfiction - Episode 1: Little Prophet

Chapter 5

Audrey crept away from the base of the tall, red cliff, over three hundred feet high, where the wounded archangel had lain, unmoving, ever since the night it had rained. She climbed over a pile of rocks, cursing softly as the rhyolite bit into her hands, until she was out of earshot.

"Michael," she whispered into the darkness. "Please? I don't know what else to do for him."

She glanced back at the massive cluster of razor-sharp feathers and muscular flesh which her campfire cast upward onto the canyon wall as if the archangel stood. For three days Gabriel hadn't woken up or moved. But not for an occasional, jagged breath each time she forced liquids down his throat, she would swear he was dead. It was as if even the fever could no longer be bothered to torment him.

"Michael?" She wrung her hands. "Please? He's your brother. You have to help him."

The wind whistled through the creosote bush, carrying the scent of desert rain. Not too far away, a coyote gave a desolate howl. While the cliff-face afforded them some protection from the wind, two sides their camp stood open towards the desert. Each night the coyotes came closer, while just last night, she'd heard blood-curdling screams and then silence.

Was it another survivor? If it was, were they still alive?

She dared not find out. Anyone could become possessed, even an old woman or a child. Even if it was still human, they might kill her or try to steal her supplies. Her only protection was a single flare remaining from the flare gun she'd used to shoot Gabriel in the face the day he'd ripped the roof off the police cruiser. Oh, sure, she had his mace, but it was so heavy she could barely even drag it, much less lift it to wield as a weapon.

"Michael?" she called. "Michael, I know you can hear me!"

She was positive he still watched over her. Just this morning, two-thirds of a case of Dr. Pepper had appeared in the trunk of the police cruiser. She sat down on a boulder and put her forehead into her hands with a weary sigh.

"I want to hate him," she said, "but it's hard to hate something so helpless." She wrapped her arms around herself to fend off the nighttime chill. "Is this how you felt when the Father told you to bow down to us? You couldn't hate us because we were too darn pathetic?"

When the bible spoke of fallen angels, it only spoke of how righteous god had been to cast them down upon the Earth for their defiance and burn in Hell. Nowhere did the bible teach how badly the fallen were made to suffer. She would have felt better if she hadn't been forced to stick around and see.

"I wanted to watch him suffer," Audrey said. "The first day or two, I even kind of enjoyed it. But this this isn't right. I've had enough. Can't you ask god to make it go away?"

The wind died down, leaving her sitting in the stench of her own unbathed skin. After a week living in the desert without running water, her skin felt disgusting and sand had worked its way into every orifice in her body.

If only Michael didn't keep leaving food for her in the police cruiser! Oh, he hid them to trick her into thinking maybe she'd overlooked it the last dozen times she searched the vehicle, denying her the excuse of starvation to abandon the dying angel. She wouldn't leave him, no more than she could have let him kill Charlie's baby. Some rebel she was! For somebody who had spent her whole life thumbing her nose at authority, she sure had a hard time leaving a condemned man to die.

"Are you even listening?" Tears streamed down her cheeks, making a muddy mess of the grit which caked her skin. "I don't know what else to do."

A high-pitched howl split the air. A chorus of voices answered it, all dangerously close to the crude camp where Gabriel lay helpless. Hair rose up on the back of Audrey's neck. She had wandered too far away from the camp. She should never have left him alone!