by Sean Deville
“End it,” Damien insisted, but Legion merely shook his head. To his right one of the apartments had been previously broken into, the boards put up by the local council ripped free, the door kicked in. That was what Legion needed, a nice quiet place to acquaint himself with his kin. There was no resistance when the foot on Craig’s uninjured leg was grabbed.
Legion pulled him into the darkness of the abandoned property.
“You are a sickness,” Legion announced, dumping the man in the middle of the first room he found. Craig tried to crawl away, turning onto his front, but the feeble attempt at flight was thwarted by two slashes, one to each Achilles tendon.
Craig didn’t scream that time, instead his breath seemed to fall out of him as the pain became too much for any human to comprehend. “Please, have mercy,” was all Craig could utter. Words were the one defence he had left.
They wouldn’t do him any good.
“You must hurry,” Damien insisted.
“Why?” Legion said to the room. “You would deny me my true joy.”
“I can feel her. I can feel the child.” When Damien retreated to give Legion control, his perception of those he chased was often heightened. That’s what he felt now, an urge gyrating in his mind. The child, Emily, was safe from him. He had no wish to harm her, instead Damien knew he had to somehow protect her.
“Craig,” Legion spoke to the sobbing man at his feet, “it looks like this is your lucky day.”
“I still don’t understand what I’ve done.”
“No, but likely you soon will. When you see our father, give him my utmost regards.”
27.
Jerusalem, Israel
Barak the “blessed”. That was what his mother called him. She was dead now, long in the ground, killed by the disease that had torn the life out of her. She was therefore not around to be a guiding light in his formative years, leaving him with a father who cursed God and loved only the alcohol that began to own him.
Although Barak was never physically abused, he was left with a gaping void in his life, craving the affection that every young man needs. It was perhaps unfortunate that he chose to fill that void by choosing the more extreme fringes his religion offered.
He was young but naïve, an ideal recruit for those who wished to push an agenda. It was thus easy for him to become radicalised, his father not caring that his son was spending more and more time away from home. After all, Barak was old enough that it was time for him to live his life, so that the father could wallow in his own self-pity.
It was this radicalisation that eventually saw Barak standing outside the Dome of the Rock with three fellow believers. They were each armed with Uzi 9mm machine pistols, as well as having more than enough grenades to do the job in the backpacks they carried.
The Dome of the Rock is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. It is also important to Judaism as the space occupied by the Dome of the Rock is believed by many to be the future site of the Third Temple. It is said that the construction of the Third Temple will mark the era when the Jewish Messiah walks upon the Earth.
There has been consistent pressure from more radical branches of Judaism to rebuild the Third Temple. The problem is, it is uncertain where it should be built, some religious scholars believing that the exact site will be determined when the Messiah returns. The Third Temple must be in exactly the same spot as the previous temples that were destroyed long ago.
Many believe that the Dome of the Rock occupies the spot where the Third Temple should be. When religions begin to compete in beliefs and ideology, there will always be some who will take things too far.
That was what Barak accepted, preached to him by his radical orthodox teachers. It is not difficult to brainwash a young mind to believe what you want them to believe if you know what you are doing. As people were finding all across the globe, it is so easy to warp the ideas of any of the world’s religions, especially if those doing the warping hid the black eyes and the blacker hearts. It is a misguided mind that thinks only Islam is capable of spawning violent ideology.
Barak had never killed before and he was nervous. He felt it was the right thing to do, and yet his gut was churning, rebelling against the act he was about to perpetrate. No doubt the three others with him felt the same, but Barak didn’t want to be the one to show weakness first. If one of his brothers had suddenly stopped and expressed doubts about what was about to happen, there was a good chance that many lives could have been spared. But the four men were driven by ideology and peer pressure.
The mosque, so sacred to millions of Muslims, is off limits to those outside the religion, but not today. Today it was to be the scene of a massacre, with over two thousand people in attendance for prayer.
Barak was the first to walk towards the mosque, pulling his Uzi from its concealment. He would also be the first of the four to kill, his bullets ripping through the helpless Muslim worshippers. His brothers would follow, grenades flung into the sacred space. Nobody should be attacked so ruthlessly, but Barak did it anyway.
By the end of the massacre, Barak was also the last of the four to die, killed outside the mosque by police who sped to the scene. This wasn’t what Israel wanted. The Middle East was already on fire, and this was the last thing that was needed.
Deep in the Pit, Satan gave a little chuckle at how easy mankind was to trick and set against each other. Another seal holding firm the gates of Hell just got that little bit weaker. Even if the Antichrist failed in what was coming, the Fallen and their master knew that humanity would end themselves sooner or later. Still, there was far too much fun in deliberately destroying a thing to pass up the opportunity.
Humanity had no chance in a war against Satan if they were too busy fighting amongst themselves.
28.
London, UK
If those hunting for him had brought the Metropolitan Police into the chase, things might have been different. As it was, Lucien was able to make an escape from the jackals trying to encircle him.
There is a little used way of travelling across a city such as London. This was not the sort of travel your average commuter was known to utilise, but would be something in the forefront of the thoughts of anyone trained in survival.
Initially, his priority had been to disappear from the view of his pursuers. With the chaos of the evacuation, he was able to move away from the body of the station along one of the roads that serviced it. People flooded the road, but the more distance he managed, the thinner the crowds. Still, with the all-pervasive surveillance infrastructure Lucien was certain he was no longer safe from, he knew he had to get off the streets.
The rail track was a dangerous place for the unwary, and close to Waterloo Station it was protected from unwarranted intrusion by high walls that the average person would not be able to scale unaided.
Lucien was not the average person.
Again, this had all been planned in his mind beforehand. He knew of several spots that would allow him to climb over the barrier wall to access the tracks, all in momentary dead zones not covered by cameras. When he eventually did his great feat, the only people there to watch him were three youths who had looked on in astonishment. At the top of the wall, Lucien had briefly looked down at them and executed a playful salute before dropping down on the other side.
Kids, remember, don’t try this at home.
He hadn’t been the first person to make that climb, he was sure. The track-facing side of the wall had been strewn with graffiti that nobody had deemed worthy of removal. With access to the tracks, he’d had a relatively unhindered route around the capital. It was inconvenient and dangerous, but so long as he avoided the trains and wasn’t spotted by their drivers, he knew those watching for him would likely lose his trail.
It had been at that moment when, enjoying a brief moment of quiet and safety, he’d followed emergency protocol, sending off a coded message on his smart phone. Only a computer read that message, and several miles away a terraced hou
se that the locals paid little notice to had begun to fill with gas. The subsequent explosion ripped a hole in a quiet residential street, injuring three people. Casualties in a war they didn’t know was being fought.
With that essential completed, Lucien had shattered the phone beneath his boot before pulling the ruck sack off his shoulder. From it he’d pulled an orange fluorescent vest. This would be his camouflage, blending in to what people expected to see. Once, in a lesson on concealment and camouflage, Father had joked that sometimes it was best to stand out rather than lurk in the shadows.
“Be what people expect to see.”
Whilst he did his best to avoid being seen throughout his journey across the tracks, those human eyes who did witness him thought nothing of another rail worker walking the tracks.
Unfortunately, there were vast parts of London that weren’t serviced by the rail network. The tube lines were different, but even he couldn’t risk them. Their traffic was too frequent and the risk of discovery too high. Also, a good portion of the network was underground and heavily monitored.
Basically a death trap.
He finally left the tracks several hours later and well to the west at Barnes Bridge. He’d put distance and time between his pursuers. By then a light drizzle had begun to fall, which had been ideal for the next part of his plan. That and the failing light would give him the cover he needed.
Having fulfilled its purpose, he ripped off the high visibility vest and replaced it with a rain poncho from his backpack. With the hood up and his head bowed, there was no way his face would be spotted by the all-pervasive intrusion into everyday privacy. Once he’d crossed the Thames, he’d also been fortunate to find a bike that he’d borrowed. The bike’s owner had made the mistake of securing an expensive mountain bike to a lamp post with a tubular lock.
You didn’t need to be a lock picking master to break one of those.
The bike and the poncho had meant that none of Lucien’s biometrics would be recognised by the software that was supposed to be protecting him. This meant that Rashid’s software was never triggered. Despite being on the run from one of the world’s most all-pervasive security states, Lucien made his escape and headed for the one refuge he knew would likely be safe.
Father Creed’s church.
29.
Unknown Location
Veronica was surprised when she woke up. She could still remember the blows and the searing pain as the knife had been thrust into her, the terrifying memory of her neck being opened up forefront in her thoughts.
How the hell was she still alive?
The air around her felt clean, a crisp chill caressing her nostrils. There was something on the edges of it though, an odour that was alien to her. The inhale irritated her throat, a cough threatening, only to never materialise. It wasn’t just her breathing either, her whole flesh seemed to be filled with itches and tiny torments that niggled at her.
A white ceiling met her eyes, and she moved her head to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. White walls in a room with no windows or furniture other than the bed she was in. The door to the room was partly open which was reassuring. An open door told her she wasn’t a prisoner.
From outside that door she could hear voices.
A thin sheet covered her body and she pulled it aside to find herself naked. There were no signs of the injuries she had sustained at the hands of that bitch, her pawing hand finding no bandages or lacerations in her neck.
How could this be?
Was she in some sort of hospital room? She saw no monitoring equipment, but the sterility suggested a medical facility, which would make sense considering what had been done to her. The feel of the knife plunging into her jugular flashed into her mind, Veronica’s hand shooting up to her neck. A gasp escaped her lips. The memory had been associated with very real pain. Withdrawing her hand, she held it up shaking before her face, the fingers mercilessly free of blood.
Somebody walked past her room, the figure briefly visible.
“Hello?” Veronica shouted. Had the person heard her? Slipping her legs over the side of the bed, she gingerly stood, wrapping the thin sheet around her. The floor was cold, and despite the visual evidence, it felt wet as if it had been coated in a thin jelly. The sheet as well, looked clean but it felt dank, as if it had been left in a dark and damp basement.
Nothing felt right here. Nothing felt comfortable.
Above her the lights flickered. The disruption was accompanied by a sound, a harsh clanging that resonated all around her. It wasn’t loud enough to cause her physical pain, but it was of sufficient volume that you couldn’t ignore it. Briefly the lights in her room went out. Still partly illuminated by the corridor, she felt more than saw the room shift around her.
When the lights came back on, the room had shrunk, the bed having disappeared. The moisture on the floor, as invisible as it was, became older, the sheet now giving off a foul odour. Her makeshift garment still looked fresh and clean, but it felt rank, so much so that Veronica chose to let it fall to the floor and expose her nakedness.
As unbelievable as it seemed, the discarded fabric began to twist and gyrate when it hit the floor. It slithered off into the corner of the room where it began to fold in on itself.
The lights winked out again. When their light returned, the room had shrunk even more, the sheet no longer present. The light was different now, harsher, leaving shadows where none should be possible. The pristine whiteness of the walls was also gone, a deep black mould spreading across every surface.
Veronica knew she couldn’t stay in this room. Despite the madness of the situation, she had no choice but to take her naked self into the corridor.
The corridor was a complete contrast to the room she had left. The floor was dry and warm, a pleasant breeze circulating. The corridor was pure white and long, stretching off into the distance in both directions. She turned her head each way, unsure of which way to turn. There were hundreds of doors along both walls, some open, but most closed. Veronica turned to look back into her room, but the door she used had been replaced by a blank sterile wall.
“What the…?” How was that possible? How could a door disappear like that?
“What do you think?” Veronica jumped in fright, her nerves already on edge. There was a woman next to her, naked as Veronica was. Veronica stepped away, the wrongness of the woman evident. The distortions in the stranger’s features were subtle, but devastating to any normal concept of beauty. The eyes were too wide apart, the nose too broad and flat. Even the teeth seemed a fraction too long. And the more Veronica looked at her, the more the stranger seemed to insult what the human form was supposed to be about. The hips were too wide, the knees too high.
“Where am I?” Veronica begged. The breeze around her had lost its pleasantness now, a strong stench of rot percolating everything.
“You know where you are,” the stranger offered. “You’ve always known.” A memory clawed its way into Veronica’s mind, an image of untold agony inflicted. Veronica fell to her knees, vomit demanding to be free. But nothing came, merely dry heaves that felt like a dozen razor blades churning through her chest.
“This can’t be,” Veronica managed through tears. The light seemed to be brighter, burning into her eyes.
“Are you ready for some more fun?” the stranger enquired. She was kneeling too now, her hairline shifting and meandering, the facial features in subtle flux as they warped from one abomination to the other.
“What are you?” Veronica could barely comprehend what she was looking at.
“You ask me that every time,” the stranger chuckled. “You will remember soon enough.” Veronica scrambled to her feet, terror claiming her. She’d never felt anything like it, so all-consuming and monstrous was the sensation. Without another word, Veronica took off, her feet slapping on the polished floor.
“Where are you going?” the stranger demanded. Veronica didn’t answer, she didn’t look back. Instead she ran, her soles protesting t
he abuse they were receiving.
The problem with running was that the corridor seemed to be endless. The doors were all uniform, hiding their secrets. At times the floor became slippery and Veronica nearly lost her footing. But still she ran, despite the futility, despite the dawning awareness that she had run down this corridor hundreds of times before.
You know where you are, the little voice in her mind warned.
“No, it isn’t true,” she screamed through her tears and her desperation.
You know exactly where you are, the voice said again. Her right foot came down, only this time the floor wasn’t warm, it had turned, in an instant, bitterly cold. Momentum propelled her on, but the skin of her foot stuck to the surface, ripping off and exposing the muscle beneath. Then the left foot landed, and this time the floor was scorching, the meat of her foot cooking on impact.
The agony caused Veronica to lose her balance and she slammed to the floor, cold and heat torturing her flesh. She screamed and writhed as the body of the stranger towered above her.
“Why?” was all Veronica could beg through her agony.
“You have proven yourself worthy of the torment you honour this place with,” the stranger said. “Your sins are returned to you a thousand-fold. A second on earth is the same as a decade here. But you know this for I have told you this countless times.” Everything around Veronica went black, her whole body consumed by numbness. When the light finally met her eyes again, she was no longer on the corridor floor. She found herself strapped down to a surgical bed, her arms pulled painfully over her head, legs spread wide in merciless stirrups.
Towering over her, two women stood, dressed in white latex nurse’s outfits. Their mouths were hidden by masks, but Veronica knew they both sported leering smiles.
