What do fathers want for their sons?

The sky rained blood. Crimson rivers flooded the streets, mixing with mud and stone. Mateo Fernandez didn’t know why this was happening. The only coherent thought in his head was his family. His boys, his wife and grandchildren. Worse than the blood was the sound of the bodies, discarded and dismembered, splattering across asphalt. The storm screamed above and the only response one could have was to scream back. Looking close enough, the heavy storm clouds that blotted out the sun were not clouds at all. The clouds were made of them.

He ran. He ran for so long. Screaming ceased, crying was silenced, instead only the deafening chitter of a hundred thousand man-sized bugs could be heard. He stumbled to the ground, slipping on entrails, falling into a blood pit. All around him the beasts rose, the earth breaking apart. Their eyes gleamed white in the midnight light, their exoskeletons slick with gore and filth.

Then she came.

The lightning struck down and an angel descended. Four eyes of divine fury judged the invaders and brought salvation. She stood over Mateo, body alight with heavenly power, as inhuman as the monsters she’d slain. Her gaze turned to him.

The old man jarred awake, startling his son.

“You okay?” David said, eyes wide.

Mateo looked around in a panic. A memory. A nightmare. Something in between. He was not in the middle of an Egyptian town, stuck on that bloody day of 1984. No, right now he was on a flight to New York City. A private charter with his only remaining child. Child, that was a laugh. Mateo cursed to himself. David was a full-grown man.

Mateo and his son were, as could be expected, mirrors of the other. Both were more bone than man, though Mateo knew he bore the wrath of age. Still, he took pride in his full head of hair, greyed as it was, compared to his all too bald boy. He was all too happy to have no witnesses to that episode besides the sympathetic gaze of David.

“Fine. Focus on flying,” he said. His breathing was still quick, his chest tight. “The same old nightmares.”

“The good ole times are here again,” David said, putting on a sing-song voice.

David hummed. A nasty habit of his, one he picked up in the last few years. Needlessly catchy, Mateo often found himself with whatever bit of music stuck in his head. This sounded jazzy but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Better than his obsession with Styx.

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Mateo truthfully didn’t mind. After a minute, the humming stopped.

“So, what’s Mr. Smith dragging you out here for this time?”

Mateo looked away. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, but that’s why I came,” he said. “All I do is worry about you. That’s my job.”

“You’ll make your darling wife a very unhappy woman that way,” Mateo said.

“I’m sure my parental deference is the least of her concerns. I put that woman through hell,” David laughed softly to himself. “Why she stuck with me I will never understand.”

Mateo stared at the sky around them. David was wild in his younger days, this was undeniable. Then that day came and the whole world changed. Before that day Mateo was a love-struck husband, a father of three, a grandfather of five, and a career photographer. By sunset he had only David and his youngest grandchild left. His son was missing for days, trapped in the wreckage of his car after an accident due to everything going on. That he was alive at all was a miracle.

David was never the same after. Who was? Who could be? Mateo closed his eyes.

“She loves you.”

“She never was the best judge of character.”

Mateo sighed. He didn’t need to look to see the grin on David’s face. A bemused expression of some kind was omnipresent. He asked his son once what was there to smile about all the time. All he would say was ‘things could be worse’.

“Rosa didn’t mind watching Alex?”

“Of course not,” David said. “Rosie loves her like a daughter. She’d like it if you both were around more.”

“David,” Mateo’s voice grew tense.

He waved his hand in response. “It’s fine. We understand. You’re not getting any younger though, old man.”

Mateo relaxed in his chair as best he could. The plane provided for them wasn’t the cheapest he’d seen, but it wasn’t a luxury craft either.

“Mr. Smith is dangerous.”

Mateo looked at his son. The words hung in the air, but the man gave no indication that he had spoken them, staring straight ahead. Mateo leaned his head back.

“I know,” he said. “What else can I do? He’s the only lead we have.”

David shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. We might want to find the truth but that doesn’t mean that he will be where we get it.”

“I don’t expect him to be,” Mateo scoffed. “I use his resources to look into what I want to. Don’t forget that. Your father is no fool.”

“So you say.”

The two retired from the conversation. The flight continued, the duo approaching the air strip. In the silence the humming resumed. This one Mateo knew.

“Can’t somebody tell me,” he spoke with the melody. “What is the soul of a man…”

“I read the bible often, I’ve learned to read it right,” David joined in.

“As far as I understand,” the two sang in unison. “It ain’t nothing but a burning light. Ain’t nothing but a burning light.”

“Blind Willie Johnson, I knew I raised you right boy!”

David grinned. “One of the greats.”

Mateo watched as they pulled in for the landing. Apprehension swelled in him anew. After they finished taxying, he turned to his son.

“We’re here to find something. Someone,” he amended.

“What could be so important to drag us out to this hellscape?”

Mateo licked his lips, trying to find the words. If it was true, it was huge. It was monumental. It was dangerous.

“Mr. Smith believes one of them have been spotted here,” he said.

David glanced at his father. “Them?” Understanding hit him. “You mean…”

Mateo nodded. His mouth felt so dry, memories of the storm that washed away the locusts nine years ago returning.

“A Warborn Angel.”