The Fallen 4 Read Online Free Page B

anything that might help them.
    Even talking with an angel who had tried to kill her.
    *   *   *
    The visions were killing him.
    Dustin “Dusty” Handy lay on the mattress in the middle of the room the Nephilim had given him, and shook as if he were in the grip of a soaring fever.
    His eyes were tightly closed, but he could see the images of all that was happening out there in the world—nightmares made reality.
    The visions came at him in waves. It was as if every single television channel were being beamed onto one screen in his mind, all at once, and at the highest volume. He’d tried to fight the visions, to get them under control, but he just didn’t think he was strong enough. And when they were at their worst, he knew that to be true.
    Dying was starting to look better and better.
    Sometimes Dusty would take a memory and try to focus on that, to drown out all the other images that cascaded through his mind. He would often think about the blind old man who had given him the responsibility of a special horn.
    The responsibility of the Instrument.
    The Instrument had belonged to the angel Gabriel, and it was to be given only to one strong enough to control its power.The horn was to be blown only when all hope was lost and darkness was about to claim victory, when it was time for the world to die.
    Dusty had tried to fight the urgings of the Instrument that had wanted him to play it, to call down an angel of destruction to end the world’s pain, and he’d been doing really well until…
    Until he wasn’t. Overwhelmed, and unable to resist the Instrument any longer, he’d blown into it, then in the shape of a harmonica, sending the planet that much closer to extinction.
    The Instrument had called down the monstrous angel—the Abomination of Desolation—and the Nephilim had done battle with the horrible result that Dusty had been responsible for summoning.
    The Nephilim had managed to stop the Abomination from performing its sole duty, but not before it had transformed the Instrument into the mother of all swords and plunged it into the earth, severing the world’s connection with Heaven.
    The enormous sword was still there outside the Nephilim’s haven, protruding from the ground like an antenna, broadcasting these visions inside Dusty’s skull.
    Driving him to the brink of madness.
    When he wasn’t thinking about how the world had become so screwed up, Dusty contemplated ending it all. But how he would kill himself was the question.
    He wondered if Kraus had anything stronger than foul-smelling salves in that bag of his, something that could put him out of his misery quickly and painlessly.
    But suicide would have to wait, as there came a knocking at Dusty’s door. Before he could answer, the person on the other side opened the door.
    “Rise and shine, handsome,” Lorelei said as she limped into his room, the rubber tip at the end of her cane thumping on the wooden floor.
    Dusty had just enough strength to lift his head. Since all the business with the Instrument and the visions, he’d been gradually losing his eyesight. Now he could only see blurred shapes and outlines. Soon he would have just the visions inside his head.
    “Is it bad?” she asked.
    Dusty must’ve looked as nasty as he felt. “Yeah,” he managed, head falling back onto the pillow.
    “Well, you’re not doing yourself, or anybody else, any good lying here in the dark. Get your ass up, and we’ll see if we can mix up something in the science lab to help you out.”
    Just the idea of standing was enough to send Dusty’s body into fitful spasms, the visions intensifying to the point where he wanted to scream, but he was too weak to do so.
    “Please,” Dusty managed, wrapping his hands around his head to keep it from exploding. “I want to die.”
    He heard Lorelei grunt at this, and then felt her cane strikehim hard in the groin. Dusty let out another painful cry, distracted suddenly from the torturous images inside his