The Fallen 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Again and again the wings came down, until Shebniel’s creamy white feathers were flecked with blood.
    But the old, blind black man—one of the chosen of the Archangel Gabriel—remained true to his word. He did not tell them what they wanted to know. He did not tell them where he had left the instrument. And he died because of that.
    It never ceased to amaze Geburah that anyone could harbor so much affection for this horrid place that he would be willing to die in order to save it. He gazed down upon the mangled body of the old man, the toy horn, crumpled and bent, lying by his hand.
    His death was meaningless in the greater scheme of things. Tobias had only delayed the inevitable, not prevented it. It was only a matter of time until the horn made its presence known; an object of such power was not meant to be hidden.
    And they would feel it.
    And once it was in their possession, the countdown to the End of Days would commence.

CHAPTER THREE
    A aron could not get back to sleep. He was exhausted, but no matter how hard he tried, those last hours of rest eluded him.
    Images of his foster mother and brother horribly burning replayed in his mind as their words echoed through his thoughts.
    “It’s going to get worse.”
    Beside him, Gabriel snored loudly, deep in the embrace of sleep. And finally Aaron had had enough. Carefully, he peeled back the covers. As quietly as he could, he slid from the mattress and padded to the window, opening it wider.
    He chanced a look over his shoulder and was rewarded with the sight of the Labrador still fast asleep. He needed this time alone.
    Aaron climbed up on the windowsill and willed his wingsto emerge. The black-feathered appendages emerged from under the skin of his back. It used to hurt, but now he felt nothing but the pleasure and excitement of the experience to follow.
    He leaped out into the early dawn stillness, his wings fanning out to their full, glorious span before thrusting him skyward.
    The school that the Nephilim had adopted as their new home grew smaller beneath him. For the Saint Athanasius School and Orphanage
was
their home—their Aerie—where they could live lives as normal as was possible for their kind. The previous Aerie had existed in a housing development, abandoned because of illegal toxic-waste disposal. Nephilim and fallen angels who had managed to escape the Powers hid in Aerie, but after Verchiel’s death and the return of the fallen to Heaven, the remaining Nephilim had come here to the school.
    Aaron pushed himself higher, and higher still, mighty flaps of his wings taking him up into the clouds. This was where he needed to be, to collect his thoughts, to reaffirm his purpose. If there was one thing he could never show the others, it was doubt.
    He was their leader: the Chosen One.
    Aaron was the offspring of Lucifer, at one time the Creator’s most beloved of angels, and being the son of the angel who fell so far from grace made Aaron special. An angelic prophecy said that a child of humanity and the angelic would bring forgivenessto all the angels who had fallen from the grace of God, reuniting them with Heaven.
    The Redeemer
.
    Aaron was that being, and in his hands was the power of redemption.
    It had been his purpose to forgive the angels fallen to earth after the Great War in Heaven—which he had done—but now an even heavier task weighed upon his shoulders.
    Aaron strained his wings, pushing himself higher into the atmosphere, as if to escape these obligations—these burdens. The clouds were pregnant with moisture, and his flesh tingled with the cool touch of pending rain.
    Opening his wings, he slowed his ascent, riding the air currents, looking down upon the world below him.
From here, it looks so small … so manageable
, he thought, gliding above it all.
    Up here, alone with himself, he was just Aaron Corbet, not the Chosen One, not the Redeemer. Up here, he was not the leader of the Nephilim in their war against the forces of evil that