by N. P. Martin
"That’s enough of that," Frank said, suddenly switching the radio to a different station that was currently playing Highway To Hell.
"Really, Frank?" I said. "Highway To Hell?"
Frank cracked a smile as he shrugged. "I’d say it’s fitting, wouldn’t you?"
I looked at Eva from the back seat and we both shook our heads. As inappropriate as it was, the music and Frank’s easy going attitude did release some of the tension in the car. This wasn’t the first time Frank had rushed toward what might be certain death, so no doubt turning the music on was deliberate, and a tried and true way of taking one’s mind off impending doom, at least a little bit.
When we reached the city in record time, helped by the fact that nine out of ten cars were traveling in the opposite direction, we found the place to be in chaos. Naturally, people were panicking and running scared because they had no idea what was happening. The sky was like nothing anyone had ever seen before, especially as it blocked out the daylight completely, bringing with it gale force winds and driving rain. Many people had simply abandoned their cars in the middle of the road, either to get a better look at what was happening above them, or to simply run off in a panic, leaving other motorists with the impossible job of navigating around them. If there wasn't a need for carrying the small arsenal in our possession, then motorbikes would've been the ideal mode of transport; and indeed, it seemed that many commuters with said options were making the most of this difference.With so much disruption everywhere, it soon became impossible for Frank to drive us any further. "We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot," he said as he pulled the car into a side street and parked it there.
We exited the car to the constant noise of the storm and gusting winds making light work of various objects not firmly tied down. People’s panicked screams also punctuated the air.
Christ, I thought. He’s really doing it.
The bastard was in the process of ending the fucking world! Which he said he would do, but to actually witness it all happening first hand, turned things from a bad dream into a full-blown nightmare.
Greenmount Cemetery was about a mile and a half away. The three of us started running immediately, pushing our way through the throngs of people that lined the streets. The degree of differing expressions on most people’s faces ran the fall gamut from joyous euphoria to bewilderment to utter fearful panic and hysteria as they gazed up at the alien-looking sky. Those who didn’t have their heads tilted up inevitably came to stare at me, Frank and Eva as the three of us ran along armed to the teeth, and dressed like we were in some fantasy action movie. No one tried to stop us, though…lucky for them.
As we neared the cemetery, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that somehow, it had ended up my responsibility to stop Abigor, and to stop the world from becoming the new Hell. Christ, not too long ago, I was no more than a slacker with a drug habit. Now I felt like the Spartan from that movie 300, who had just one chance to defeat his enemy. It all came down to a single spear throw. That’s how it felt to me: like I had just one last shot to kill Abigor. The Spartan missed his shot. I hoped I didn’t miss mine as well.
When we finally got to the cemetery gates, there was a crowd of people there, none of whom looked too afraid or surprised by what was happening. There was maybe two dozen of them, and I sensed the grace in them all.
They must be the other Watchers, I thought. The one’s Frank and Eva contacted.
There was no time for niceties as Frank got their attention. "All right, listen up!" he shouted over the noise of the maelstrom overhead. "The plan is to get Leia here close enough to Abigor that she can take her shot with the Demon Blade. If you come across any Nephilim, put them down, but try not to kill them."
The crowd of Watchers were all staring at me, probably asking themselves how someone as young and inexperienced as me held the fate of the world in her hands. If I could’ve answered that question, I would have said, "Beats the shit out of me."
Which would be the absolute truth.
40
I have to say, it was exhilarating walking into that cemetery alongside a couple of dozen other Watchers, every one of them prepared to die if it meant stopping Abigor. Not that this last aspect was exhilarating, more worrisome. No one was under any illusions. Everyone knew there'd probably be less who walked out of the cemetery than those walking in, unless of course the slightly weird brunette girl with the sword could somehow slay one of the most formidable demons to ever walk the earth. Despite my lineage, the good standing reputation of my mother, and Frank’s endorsement, I still got the impression that the rest of the Watchers thought the whole thing a joke. A few even pulled Frank and Eva aside to voice their concern, insisting that no way should something so monumentally important be left up to an inexperienced eighteen-year-old. Frank, bless him, explained what I had to do to earn the dubious honor of being the one going up against Abigor, though this did nothing to abate the hard stares coming my way, and in some cases only exacerbated them.
Not that any of that really mattered. The only thing that mattered as I walked through those heavy iron gates was that I had a job to do, which was to take down Abigor and save Josh.
Up ahead, the first of Abigor’s minions, if you wanted to call them that—both demonized Nephilim and pure demons—came running at us through the heavy rain, just as a massive thunder clap sounded overhead. It felt as though some otherworldly being clapped had their hands to sound the start of the Greenmount Cemetery war between the Light and the Dark; the human mortal dimension being the victor's prize.
As Frank yelled for everyone to get ready, I quickly unwrapped the Demon Blade and tossed the cloth. The second my hands touched its grip, the simmering darkness immediately began to boil and pump its way through my body, once again reducing any contact with my grace until I could barely feel it anymore. As my vision changed and I became much more aware of movement, I allowed the darkness to take near total control. My hunger for violence increased ten-fold, and as far as the darkness within me was concerned, everyone around me was a target for that violence. It was only down to the fact that I still had some small semblance of control deep inside of me, that I was able to resist turning the Demon Blade on my fellow Watchers.
When I charged forward along with everyone else, I made sure to maintain that semblance of control, for I knew I would need it if I came across Josh, which I fully expected to.
For the most part, though, I let the darkness reign.
The first of Abigor’s minions that I came across happened to be a pure demon in the body of young man who had probably been in college not too long ago. Underneath the fleshsuit, I could see clearly the dark energy of the demon’s real form. As he came upon me brandishing a large knife, his face registered surprise when he saw me, and he slowed right down. To him I was a fellow demon, or at least another demonized Nephilim, which no doubt he wasn’t expecting. I didn’t slow my pace at all, though, and smiled as I continued running at him as I held the now extended Demon Blade with both hands. Before the demon even knew what hit him, I swung the sword as hard as I could at his abdomen, the sword leaving a glorious red streak of light behind it, as it cleaved the demon in two, spilling the guts of his fleshsuit over the grass.
From that pile of guts, the shadowy spirit of the demon hung in the air for a second, its glowing orbs glaring at me. Then the demon’s spirit just seemed to dissipate in the air, as if it was being washed away by the pouring rain. Intuitively, I knew the demon was dead, and its spirit would never be coming back.
A smile crossed my face, not only because killing the demon was immensely satisfying to the dark power in the driver’s seat, but also because I now knew the Demon Blade would be enough to kill Abigor.
As I stood for a moment and looked around me, I saw my fellow Watchers clashing with dozens of Abigor’s minions, their blood mixing with the rain in the resultant battles. I had never felt so alive in my life as I bore witness to the frenzied violence happening around me
.
This is what a battlefield is like, I thought. This is where I belong.
With adrenaline and exhilaration flowing through me with my new demonic powers and the power of the Demon Blade, I told myself it was only the darkness in me that lusted after the violence, and basked in the bloodshed. But somewhere deep inside, the real part of me was also enjoying it, so much so that my grace couldn’t help but be drawn out, only to mingle with the darkness already flowing through me. Now it was beginning to feel like my power was being magnified, as light and dark combined. Perhaps it was grace trying to wrestle back control, but it didn’t feel as if the darker power was calling the shots anymore. My lust for violence was now being tempered by a need for restraint, which was just as well, because a demonized Nephilim girl not much older than myself, was now charging at me with what appeared to be a spear in her hand.
The girl’s eyes were as black as mine probably were as she aimed the spear at my head, her face full of raw aggression and hatred. My first instinct was to deflect the spear with the Demon Blade and then counter with a cut to the girl’s abdomen, which would’ve surely killed her. I saw the whole sequence play out in my head as the girl’s spear came toward me, and it would’ve been easy to turn the sequence into a reality.
Lucky for the girl, the influence of my grace made me drop the counter strike after I deflected her attack. The girl was Nephilim, and I had no wish to kill one of my own, even though the darker power in me wouldn’t have minded at all.
"You’re Josh’s bitch sister." She had long blonde hair and wore military fatigues. "I was hoping to meet you."
"Well," I said as I walked around her, the Demon Blade in my right hand. "Now you have."
"Unlucky for you bitch!"
The girl lunged at me with the spear again, and I quickly sidestepped her attack, bringing the Demon Blade down on top of the spear, breaking the shaft in half. As I stepped back, the girl continued her attack with what was left of the spear, swinging it at me as she tried to slash me with the long steel head, grunting with effort as she did so. I managed to avoid most of her swipes until one of them caught me across the chest, slicing my clothes and then my flesh, cutting at least a quarter inch deep. Yelping in pain, I stepped back and quickly glanced down at the seeping wound in my chest. The girl continued circling me with a now joyous expression on her face, swinging the broken spear in one hand. Clearly she was enjoying this stand off, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have time for it either, and no doubt Abigor had told the girl and her fellow soldiers to keep the Watchers at bay—to kill them—so he could get on with opening the Hell Gate.
Well, fuck that, I thought, just before pushing my hand out before me to focus the power I was gathering in myself, which I have to say, was all dark.
Focusing on the girl’s right leg, I suddenly made a tight and very deliberate fist. The result of this action was that the girl’s femur snapped, as surely as a sledgehammer blow would’ve snapped it. She screamed as she toppled over and fell to the ground. "Fucking bitch!"
"You’ll thank me later," I said, already turning away from her as I sensed more demons in the vicinity. Indeed, when I turned around, one of the demons appeared right in front of me as if he’d teleported there, which he likely had. Before I could react, the demon lashed out, raking my stomach with his claws as they razored the flesh there. Instinctively, I swung the Demon Blade in retaliation, but just as the blade neared the demon’s neck, he teleported again, and the next thing I felt was his fist in my back, driving me forward almost to my knees. Cursing, I swung the Demon Blade blindly behind me, but once again he'd disappeared, leaving me to again swing at nothing but air. I turned in every direction for a moment as I waited on him appearing again. When he did appear, it was right in front of me, but this time my sword was perfectly positioned to strike, and I stabbed it through the demon’s stomach before he could get a chance to do anything else. He looked at me in shock for a moment as I kept the blade embedded in him. When I retracted it, his fleshsuit fell to the ground as his real form was exposed. The dark entity hung in the air for a second before it dissipated just like the other one’d I’d killed.
After that, things got really crazy. The center of the cemetery seemed to have turned into a cacophonous war-zone, as Watchers, demons and demonized Nephilim, all fought furiously on the rain-soaked battlefield. As I made my way through this throng of violence, I fought with whoever tried to stop me, incapacitating the Nephilim by breaking their bones, and outright killing the demons with the Demon Blade. Things got so heated that everyone’s bloodlust went sky high. More than once, I had to stop myself from using the Demon Blade on my fellow Watchers who I inevitably clashed with, though I ended up injuring a few when I unthinkingly used my telekinetic power on them, something I didn’t regret at the time, but which I knew I would later.
Abigor was at the back end of the cemetery, and he was currently standing between two large tombstones. Both his arms were held out before him as he loudly spoke in the evil-sounding Hellion. Before him, a large part of the ground was beginning to quake and move as if some great force were tearing it up from within. Then a part of that ground suddenly fell away, taking a few tombstones with it, as a familiar looking muted red light burst up from the ground.
The light of Hell.
"So good of you to join us."
Josh suddenly appeared from behind a mausoleum, walking toward me with a wolfish grin on his face. We stared at each other for the longest of moments, both of us knowing since the warehouse that it would inevitably to come to this—a violent clash of opposites.
"It’s not too late, Josh!" I shouted over the noise of the wind and the battle still raging behind me. "You don’t have to do this!"
"Oh, but I do." His gaze shifted slightly, and I realized he was looking at three demons racing toward me on my left. As if to prove a point to him, I rushed at the oncoming demons, reaching them in the blink of an eye, decapitating two and running through the belly of the third.
Then I stood there looking defiantly at Josh, and for just a second, I saw his confidence drop, replaced by a glimmer of unmistakable fear.
"I’m in awe of how you’ve changed," he said as he began to move toward me. "You even went so far as to demonize yourself. Seriously, Sis, I’m impressed."
The darkness in me just wanted to attack him, to slay him with the Demon Blade just as I did to the other demons.
But Josh isn’t a demon, he’s my brother.
The thought was enough for me to hold myself back from attacking, to retain a semblance of control. I then walked toward him, stopping a few feet away.
"Please, Josh. I know you, and you don’t want this." I glanced over at Abigor, who was about twenty feet away. He was so engrossed in opening the Hell Gate, I’m not even sure if he had noticed me yet. "We can stop him…together."
Josh stared at me with eyes that were not completely black, and which reflected the kernel of doubt I had just put in his head. For a moment, I thought I had gotten through to him, but then he shook his head and his demon eyes reappeared.
"This is happening whether you want it to or not, Sis." He took a step closer, and my hand automatically gripped the Demon Blade tighter. "It would be better if you could join us. Save yourself the agony."
My emotions tried to rear up when I realized there was no persuading him, but the darkness flowing through me made sure those emotions stayed down. Which is probably just as well, because I may have cried right then.
Instead, I used my mind to direct my power at Josh, taking him by surprise and knocking him back several feet through the air until he slammed into a tombstone that cracked under the impact. Given the power I had just hit him with, I didn’t expect him to react so quickly, which he unfortunately did, using his own telekinetic power to hit back at me.
I felt the force of his power hit me, but the second it did, my own power reacted by stopping his, and then pushing back. Soon the two of us were facing one another, our respective powers loc
ked together in a battle for supremacy. The force was so great that I feared every one of my bones would break under the pressure.
A smile appeared on Josh’s face as he started to move toward me, his power clearly stronger than mine. "You know what I’m going to do, Sis?" he said. "I’m going to do to you what you did to those other Nephilim. I’m going to break your legs, and probably your arms; then I’m going to leave you here so you can helplessly watch the world end."
My head shook in sadness as I looked desperately at him, only one question dominating my mind. "When did it all go so wrong, Josh?"
Josh reeled back slightly, the question clearly jarring him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean when did you start to hate me so much?" I took a step forward, my eyes never leaving his. "Was it when we were kids, or when Dad was killed? Was it after all those times you’d defended me in the foster homes? Was it when I turned to drugs, and I wasn’t around as much? Or have you always hated me, Josh? Is that it, have you always hated me?"
He seemed taken aback by the emotion in my voice, and wrong-footed by the bluntness of my questions. His dark eyes portrayed the mix of doubt and confusion pulling at him from within. "I…maybe I just fucking hate myself, you ever think of that?"
"I don’t get it. Why?"
Josh gritted his teeth as if the darkness in him wasn’t happy at him dropping his mask of hate for even a moment. "Because I couldn’t save them, that’s why."
"Save them? Save who…Mom and Dad?"
"Yes!" he snapped. "I stayed in my fucking room while Dad was getting killed!"
I shook my head in disbelief. "But we were only kids, Josh. You couldn’t have done anything…"
He shook his head and closed his eyes for a second. "It doesn’t matter anyway. The more I hate, the more power the darkness gives me, and that’s all that matters. You aren’t the only junky in the family, Sis."
