"You see a lot of classified stuff, right?" Hawke said "Government experiments, genetic mutations, military research…"
"A government conspiracy to engineer a dog the size of a truck? Exactly how hard did you hit your head yesterday?"
Which, Hawke decided, wasn't really an answer.
"I don't think it's really a dog; it just reminded me of a dog."
The flames in the campfire were darkening to red and growing low but Briggs' tentative opening of the back hatch had drawn another low and ominous growl, so they were stuck in the helicopter. There was no question that if the animal had wanted to attack them, it could have done so. Hawke hadn't seen much more than the paws and a brief glance of an equally massive head but it could have easily pulled him through the shattered windshield if it had wanted to. It didn't even try. It seemed to be content to sit out there and watch them. As if it was waiting.
Hawke glanced at his watch, angled it several ways and with a sigh finally reached for the flashlight and clicked in on.
As if reading his mind, Briggs asked, "What time did the thing out there depart last night? Or yesterday morning, whichever."
"Some time after five. About two hours from now." He glanced behind him, unable to really see Briggs in the dark. "But he didn't come this close yesterday."
There was silence for about five minutes, each lost in his own thoughts.
"Are you sure it's not a bear?"
Hawke shrugged but in the dark, it didn't convey anywhere near the frustration and disbelief that he felt. Or the pain. His ankle throbbed and it was definitely past the time he should have taken more pain meds.
"Hawke."
He had thought Briggs was just being rhetorical so with a little irritation and a sigh said, "I don't know what it is."
"No," Briggs said sharply. "By the fire."
Hawke leaned to his left, squinting through the low hanging tree branches directly in his line of sight. He could just make out something moving near the fire, something about the height of a full-grown man.
"Is that…"
"Yeah," Briggs said, but he sounded hesitant and a little unsure.
Hawke looked back to his right, towards the animal, which was shifting a little as if moving from side to side but holding position, as if impatient. Or excited.
"He just…." Briggs paused and Hawke turned back towards the person near the fire. "I'm pretty sure he just walked through the fire."
Hawke sent a skeptical look towards where he knew Briggs was sitting. "You sure about that?" Hawke wasn't. They were in the forest far from any of the light pollution shed by large human populations and it was the deep dark he'd learned in the jungle, where you couldn't tell friend from foe except by voice unless you were inches from each other. Briggs was blind in one eye, his glasses had been broken in the crash and he was tired. Hawke wasn't sure at all.
"Look for yourself," came the quiet reply. "He kicked the big log over to the right."
Hawke looked. A man-shaped figure backlit by the dying fire was striding directly towards the helicopter and stopped a few feet from its left side.
"It is time, Archistrategos."
"Time for what?" Hawke demanded. The pain from his ankle and a continuing sense of unease he associated with this stranger made his tone brusque and defensive.
The man's head turned abruptly in Hawke's direction and Hawke felt his – its? – stare as if it was something physical, something that crawled under his skin and up his neck into his brain.
Stay out of this, human
The words were inside his head, sliding around inside the gelatinous texture of his thoughts, sluggish and confused. He heard the back left hatch open and somewhere so far inside that he could barely hear his own voice, he was trying to shout out a warning to stay inside the helicopter.
"Time for what?" Briggs said from outside the helicopter. "What is it that you want?"
"You know that already, Micha'el." It was a deep voice, low and musical in its cadence. "Did you think you could attempt to reclaim that soul from our power and we would not notice?"
Hawke could hear the animal panting as if it was closer now, just off to the right of the helicopter, close enough that he could smell its fetid breath.
"Reclaim…?" Briggs sounded puzzled. "Are you talking about my meeting with Armen Cole?"
"You were attempting to reclaim him, to bring him back to the light." There was a pause and Hawke leaned forward, trying to get a better glance at the man. "I stopped you, I brought you here."
"You stopped us?" Briggs' disbelief was palpable. "You created the squall, the wind shear, the low ceiling? You crashed this helicopter?"
"I am Belial," the man said. "You know my powers as I know yours, Archistrategos and you know that I will not yield what is ours by right and by choice."
Backlit by the fire as he was, it was difficult for Hawke to actually see Belial. He – it? – was a dark shape, nearly the same height as Briggs, and Hawke could make out only occasional glints of light off his torso. He opened his mouth to call a warning to Briggs, to warn him that this wasn't an escapee from a hospital, that this wasn't something to take lightly but there was a sharp pain in his throat and he made no sound at all.
'Belial?" Briggs rolled the name as he spoke it, slowly, thoughtfully. "You say that you stopped me from meeting with Cole, from bringing him back to the Firm. I imagine he thinks I stood him up, so perhaps you've won. What now?"
"We do battle for his soul, as we have done for a millennia." The voice sounded gently amused as if he and Briggs were sharing a private joke, an old joke. "Where is your armor, your sword, Archangel? How will you fight me?"
There was a pause.
"I have no sword or armor," Briggs finally said, a long minute later. "An Archistrategos, a Highest General, issues orders, directs his troops. Words are my weapons."
Damn it, Michael, he isn't what you think, Hawke thought, and he swore, inside, in frustration at his soundlessness, at his uselessness He glanced around inside the cabin looking for someway to communicate, to make Briggs understand.
"Words are a futile weapon in battles such as ours," Belial said. "And they have obviously not served you well. Which of my brother demons took your eye?"
"Moffet," Briggs spat. "And if you consider him to be your brother…"
Hawke aimed the flashlight and clicked it on. Belial jerked his face away from the light and raised a hand, as if it had blinded him and Hawke heard Briggs' sharp inhalation.
It was the stranger from the previous evening and yet it wasn't. He wore the same robes of dark gray but over them he wore an armored breastplate and he was holding a sword in his right hand as if he knew how to use it, as if it was an outgrowth of that arm.
More importantly his face no longer resembled a man in his middle years. His nose was longer, broader, more like a snout than a nose, and the surface of his face was leathery and rough and olive, not as an undertone but the actual shade of the BDUs Hawke wore in Vietnam. In that olive complexion, his eyes, lidless gray things, stared out, lit by occasional sparks that seemed as if they were from a distant fire.
Belial turned back to them, snarling, and extended his sword. As Briggs took a step away, left hand behind his back scrabbling for the door latch, Hawke raised the pistol and fired.
The first bullet sparked off the armor but the second embedded itself in Belial's upper right arm.
He screeched in pain or outrage, and words fell from his mouth, strange sounds that crashed into Hawke's ears, ugly and violent.
The animal roared as if it was responding to Belial's words and they might have been commands that Hawke simply didn't understand. The helicopter shook and rolled to its left, throwing Hawke into the left seat. He opened his mouth and yelled without sound as his ankle caught on the foot pedals and the pain was so sharp and sudden that he blinked back tears. When he opened his eyes again, Briggs was on the ground and the demon's sword was sweeping downward.