Armageddon Read Online Free

already been declared dead, and Mallus was helping me to escape from the morgue.”
    THE HIMALAYAS
    The storm raged around the two angels, and Mallus stopped for a moment to get his bearings. They’d already passed through the nearly deserted town of Lukla—the threat of the possible end of the world having dramatically cut into tourism and folks’ desire to risk their lives climbing mountains.
    A raging snowstorm wasn’t helping matters much either.
    Things had changed quite dramatically since Mallus and his companion were last here.
    “Is it Thursday?” Tarshish, the last of the powerful angelic beings known as Malakim, suddenly asked.
    Mallus looked in his direction as the snow swirled about his face. The Malakim had raised his body temperature so thesnow could not collect upon him.
    “I think so, why?” the fallen angel asked.
    “Sloppy joe night,” Tarshish said wistfully, referring to the old-age home where, until recently, he’d been hiding himself away. “I loved sloppy joe night.”
    Mallus sighed. It had been like this for their entire journey, the Malakim reminiscing about what he had left behind when they’d decided to help the Nephilim avert the decimation of the world. For their part, the two had embarked on a mission to retrieve the power of God that had been housed inside the Metatron—a heavenly being they had destroyed while working for the Architects in this very region countless millennia ago.
    Mallus squinted through the white and shifting haze, sensing the presence of other preternaturals nearby. He’d heard rumors that there was a tavern in these mountains for those of an unearthly disposition. It would be just the place to gather their thoughts—and perhaps some information to help them on their mission.
    “Perhaps it will be sloppy joe night wherever we’re going,” Mallus suggested, trudging effortlessly through the accumulating snow to where he sensed the tavern to be.
    “Do you think?” Tarshish asked. “Wouldn’t that be lovely.”
    “I wouldn’t consider sloppy joes lovely,” Mallus said, watching the mysterious tavern gradually take shape before him. If he were human, he would not have been able to see it.
    “Obviously you’ve never had the real deal. I wonder if they’d be made with hamburger,” Tarshish pondered. “Maybe yak? Wonder how that would taste?”
    Mallus ignored his companion’s ramblings as he studied the magickal sigils, warding off evil forces, that had been carved into the wood of the tavern door. A good sign, he thought as he lifted the latch and pushed inside.
    He recognized the smell almost immediately. It was the coppery tang of violence.
    It was the smell of murder.
    Blood was spattered everywhere, as were the remains of the supernatural beings who had been unlucky enough to have stopped in for a drink.
    Nearly twenty large, apelike beasts stopped their feasting and glared at the intruders with glistening, yellow eyes. Their dingy white fur was matted with drying blood and other internal fluids.
    These creatures had many different names—abominable snowmen, bigfoots, skunk apes—but Mallus had always called them yetis.
    “Something tells me it’s not sloppy joe night,” Tarshish commented as the yetis roared their displeasure at the interruption of their meals and bounded across the tavern toward the two fallen angels.
    “On your toes!” Mallus yelled to his companion, running to meet the first of the beastly attackers.
    Though weakened by his fall from Heaven, the angel still had enough divine strength to deal with the likes of these filthy creatures. He pulled back his arm and delivered a punch to a yeti’s leathery face. The blow was solid, landing on the creature’s snout with a loud, satisfying snap. The woolly monster stumbled backward, its own dark blood streaming from its nose.
    “There’s more where that came from,” the former commander of the Morningstar’s army informed the beast, as Mallus readied for the next