All I wanted was to save the world, but instead, everything I touched ignited with destruction and death. I had been led around the world by the naïve hope that allies would come to my aid—that I could unite the world under my banner of righteousness. I was cocky and brash, certain that I was the most powerful creature on Earth, the top of the food chain with plenty of time to play games with my prey. I failed to realize that Samael had leveled the playing field with America's nuclear weapons. While I had been off playing games, he was thoroughly destroying the world around me. In a way, my foolishness was actually helping him destroy humanity. Death. My name is death, I thought grimly while looking at the stiff corpse of the copilot.
Out of the darkness, there came a deep rumble, and then two British jets flew low and slow overhead. Probably the ones scrambled to intercept us, now witnesses to our crash. I knew troops would arrive soon to investigate the incident, so I either had to get my brain straight and formulate a plan, or lie down and curl up into the fetus position. Lying down was a very tempting proposition, but before I could find a suitable bed, I was awash in bright light.
"Hey you there, are you okay?" I turned around, and silhouetted in the headlights of a vehicle I saw a man approaching. "Are you okay?" he asked again after I didn't respond.
He came up next to me just as my eyes returned to human in appearance. Well into his seventies, the old man looked me up and down with his flashlight, his face full of concern. Satisfied that I wasn't bleeding to death, he turned his attention onto the carnage strewn across the forest's floor.
"You survived this?" he asked, a soft French accent highlighting his voice.
"Yeah," I said quietly.
"Anyone else?"
"All dead."
"I'm sorry. I heard the crash from the church and came as fast as I could. More help will undoubtedly be here soon. You should sit and rest. You must be in shock."
"Actually, I have to go."
"Go? Son, I am sure they'll want to talk to you," he said.
"You don't understand. We escaped from France after they bombed, and if they find me they'll arrest me," I said, massaging the story with hopes of gaining sympathy. He shined his flashlight on my face and peered close.
"My, my…I thought you looked familiar. You were the one on TV that was sworn in as the new president, right?"
"Yes."
"Michael, that's your name, and you're an angel like that one in the States, if what they say is true?"
"It's true." I couldn't get a grasp on whether he was friend or foe.
"Fascinating. So much I could learn from you." He paused in thought and then continued, "As a servant of the Lord it is my duty to watch out for His soldiers in the field, and as a son of France it pisses me off what they did. Come on Angel Michael, I'll take you to the church."
"Thank you." I followed him back to his aged Land Rover and climbed into the worn passenger seat.
"She might look ten years past the grave, but there's not a dirt road in all of England that can stop her," he said, fighting the gear shifter. With a lurch, the vehicle stumbled forward and into an arcing turn that took us away from the wreckage.
"You know my name. What's yours?" I asked as we exited the field with a jolt and bounced onto a rocky and rutted pathway.
"Henri Bellanger. I'm the local pastor."
"I really appreciate this, Pastor Bellanger."
"Call me Henri."
We drove on in silence, unable to hold a meaningful conversation due to the noise created by the Land Rover's straining engine while traversing the boulders and deep holes of what I realized was not a road, but a dried-out creek bed. I sincerely valued the pastor showing up, because it forced me to stop and think. If he hadn't, I was certain that I would have been on my way to Heathrow and cause the deaths of a plane full of passengers. My plan had been to hijack an airliner and force it to America where I could confront Samael, but with the death of the helicopter-pilot-just-turned-grandpa, all of that changed. Now I could see that I was struggling in a lake of quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper with each twist, all the while pulling in anyone who reached out a hand to help. The sacrificing of a few lives to save many was a very human concept, but I am not human. If I didn't start thinking like the god I had once been, then humanity was doomed.
"Hold on," Henri said.
He turned the wheel hard to the right, forcing the Land Rover to bite into the dried hill that was once the bank of the creek. The vehicle crawled up it, relentlessly shoveling dirt and stones out the back with its churning tires. We pulled over the top of the rise and into a smooth, grassy field. At the far end, I could see the church, which more resembled a one-room schoolhouse from the 1800s than a modern day Catholic place of worship. Lights in the windows emitted a warm, welcoming glow that offered an illusion of safety. The vehicle rolled across the field and came to a stumbling halt in front of the wooden structure. Henri turned the engine off and, behind the chirping of crickets, I already heard sirens approaching from a distance.
"Once they put two and two together, they're likely to come here searching for me," I said after we got out of the Land Rover.
"And until then, we have time for a cup of tea. Come."
I stepped into the church behind him and waited while he locked the door. The smell of antiquity hung heavy in the air, with aged wood and years of candle smoke overlapping an earthly aroma brought on by decades of English rain. The interior looked as small as the exterior, with just ten wooden pews facing a small podium behind which hung a depiction of Jesus Christ on the cross.
"Come, this way," Henri said, guiding me to an open door directly off the main room.
The wood floor creaked loudly as I walked, and I hoped that I wasn't too heavy for it. As far as I knew, my weight maintained itself without conscious effort, but I was beginning to doubt everything that I knew, which I guess some would say constituted a crisis of confidence. I suffered more than a crisis; it was a full-blown cataclysm. I made it safely through the door and into an office cluttered with shelves that overflowed with books and reams of yellowing paper.
"Excuse the mess," he said. "It is a reflection of my mind. Please, have a seat." He lifted several books off a padded-wooden chair, and I noticed that the top title pertained to the coming antichrist.
"Where are your parishioners?" I asked, sitting down. He flicked on an electric teapot and started preparing two cups.
"They haven't been around for awhile. There used to be about twenty of them, locals mainly, but they started their own group recently." The water in the pot began to boil. "I hope Earl Grey is okay; it's all I have."
"Sure. Why did they start their own group?" He poured the hot water, handed me a cup, and then took his own to a chair behind a small desk. He put his cup on the desk to steep and then gingerly sat down facing me.
"The body isn't what it used to be," he said. "My followers joined that new cult, Ralphism, or something…"
"Raphaelian?"
"Yes, that's it. I didn't want it in my church, so they left."
"To me that seems a wise idea on your part." I took a sip of tea, relishing the normalcy of it. "But what was your reasoning against it?"
"At first I was open to it since their leader actually seemed to have God-given powers, especially the power to heal, but then I saw his healings on the television and I changed my mind."
"Why?"
"The way I saw it, the whole crowd was crazy in religious rapture and then he would bury these fang-like teeth into sick people's necks and suck on them until they could barely walk. Sure, they were healed afterwards, but God does not need to bite people to accomplish that, and surely, He does not drink their blood. I have never read anywhere in the bible that angels bite people. Do you bite people, Michael?"
Put on the spot, I found myself briefly lost for words. After considerable pause, during which he watched me intently, I said, "The people he bit will die soon from the venom he carries. We're not angels."
"I didn't think so." I expected confusion and even anger, but his simple response surprised me. "Tell me, what do you believe you are then?"
"I don't have time to go into the entire story, but the short version is that we're an alien race that arrived to Earth thousands of years ago. Some of us help humans, while others, well; they want to rule over humans."
"How many of your kind are left?"
"Just a few, and…" I paused, wondering if Ra counted anymore.
"And?" he asked.
"And one who seems to have lost his body, and perhaps his mind."
"In a bad way?"
"No. I think he loves humans very much. So much so that he has come to believe that he is God." I recalled how Ra thought humans were calling him God, and he had obviously even considered introducing himself as such before deciding it sounded arrogant.
"And you don't believe him when he says that?"
"Let's just say it's farfetched."
"Many consider the mere concept of God farfetched." He picked his cup up, sipped the hot fluid gingerly, and then licked his top lip. "Earthly pleasures are divine. I can tell that you also love humans."
"I do, but I am a poor excuse of a savior it appears."
He sat the cup down and said, "What makes you think that?"
"Everything I do seems to go wrong, and honestly, I don't want the responsibility. I just want a normal life with a wonderful wife and my fantastic daughter."
"Then you are exactly the kind of champion God would choose. A person who craves such responsibility is a dictator in disguise."
"You are most likely right, but it can be hard to find the passion to pursue the bad guy around the world when you don't feel passionate about it. Do you know what I mean?"
"Your passion is love. You did not pursue him because you wanted to. You have been pursuing him because he threatened your family, your country, and now the world. May I ask you a question?"
"Absolutely, but you already seem to know all the answers."
"Why do you think you pursue him?" he asked.
"Well, it's like you said, because he threatened those I love."
"No, this time I mean why must you go to him instead of allowing him to come to you? Is he as strong as you?"
"Much weaker actually," I said.
"Does a spider chase the fly all over the forest, or does it sit and wait from a position of strength?"
"I've never thought of it that way."
"May I suggest that you relax and let nature take its course? God will lead you to your destiny."
"Henri, I've never been very religious. I know about as much as you…" I stopped because a bright searchlight flooded through the window. "Damn, they're here already." I stood, prepared to confront the soldiers and protect the old pastor.
"Relax, Michael. They are not the fly that you seek." His ancient looking blue eyes twinkled with humor. "But with God's help, they just might be part of your spider web. Understand?"
I nodded with one ear listening to him, and the other picking up scuffling sounds outside. Just as I glanced into the church proper, the main doors crashed open.
"If anyone is in here, come out with your hands up!" a soldier yelled. I looked back at Henri.
"Do not worry about me. Go," Henri said.
"Thank you. I'll visit and we can talk in-depth when this is over."
"I would enjoy that."
I stepped out of his office, hands held high, and slowly walked to the door.
"One coming out. Don't shoot!" I shouted, not wanting a stray bullet to hit Henri should things go wrong.
Brilliant white light poured through the open doorway, blinding my sensitive eyes as to what I was walking into. I stepped outside the church and stopped, hands still raised.
"Shit, it's him; the number one most wanted. They say he's the devil," an edgy voice said.
"On the ground now!" a different voice ordered.
Complying, I eased myself to the moist grass, belly down. Someone jumped on top of me snapping handcuffs to my wrists and searching the pockets of the blue jumpsuit I still wore.
"No weapons," the man said to his superior. The soldiers all sounded American, which I determined meant that Great Britain was now an occupied country.
"Pull him up." The soldier tried to pull me up, but found it difficult, so I assisted by levitating myself upright.
"Jesus…no more of that! Understand?" the officer-in-charge said to me.
"I was just trying to help," I replied. "Listen, the old man inside is the pastor of this church. Don't hurt him. I forced my way in."
"Who the fuck are you talking about?" He held his forearm over his eyes to stave off the glare. "Lower these goddamn lights. I can't see a thing." Several portable floodlights went off and finally I could see. Before me stood a clean-cut, buff, and very bold specimen of a soldier.
"The one inside the church," I answered.
"Buddy, if you call that a church then my dick is the goddamn Washington Monument," he snickered. "You're the only rodent we scraped out of that hole."
I turned around, causing the soldier next to me to tense. "I just want to see," I said.
Incredibly, where the small schoolhouse-like church had been standing, there was now only the burnt-out shell of a building. A blackened door hanging by a single hinge on a lone charred beam was the only intact aspect along the front wall. There were no warm and inviting lights, no polished pews, and no sign of Henri Bellanger. Next to the dilapidated structure sat the rusted and half-sunken body of an ancient Land Rover that couldn't have run for decades. Fifty feet away, soldiers combed over the wreckage of the helicopter. I realized with wonderment that I hadn't gone anywhere—everything had been an illusion.
"Ra," I murmured.
"Hey, Lieutenant, check this out." A soldier investigating the scene walked towards us carrying two cups. "They're still steaming. Seems he was enjoying himself some tea. How do you think he heated it?"
"God knows what such a creature is capable of," the officer said. He turned to me. "Will you be giving us any trouble?"
"No," I replied softly, still dazed by the trickery I had suffered. Did Henri, or Ra, want me to be captured? I recalled his words: But with God's help, they just might be part of your spider web. Understand?
"Good. Let's get him to the base, gentlemen."
"Lieutenant!" A pubescent-looking boy in uniform yelled as he ran towards us from a Humvee. He stumbled to a stop in front of the officer and spoke rapidly. "I just got off the radio with HQ telling them who we caught. They said to bring him directly to Buckingham Palace!"
"That's an hour more we have to keep him secured." The lieutenant looked frustrated.
"They said do the best we can, and reminded me that weapons won't work on him."
"That was nice of them. Why do they want him at the fucking palace? He's a damn prisoner of war."
"Because he's flying in."
"He? Who the fuck is he, soldier?"
"Raphael."
"Shit, wonderful. Let's bundle him up then and get him home." The officer-in-charge spat on the ground and then looked at me in disgust. "You better not become a big-ass problem for me. Got it?"
"Yes, sir. I'll go peacefully," I said, feeling happier now that good fortune had fallen into my lap. I wouldn't have to go to America after all.
They walked me to the Humvee and sat me in the backseat. The door slammed shut and the caravan drove away into the night, carrying me closer to destiny. Romantics are in love with thoughts of destiny, but more often than not, destiny is a place where dreams and hopes are brutally smashed upon a rocky shore—a painful lesson that I was about to learn.
Chapter 40
The trip to the Queen's not-so-humble abode was uneventful, but upon arrival, I discovered that the world had changed drastically. Our small convoy pulled up to the main entrance of the palace where a circus of people lined the sidewalk and spilled onto the street.
As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, a soldier
waiting in a cordoned off area opened my door. "Get out," he said. In his crimson faux-leather uniform, he appeared to be a poor imitation of a deceased pop star. The black beret covering his head did little to offset the effect.
"Certainly, Mr. Jackson," I said. "What's up with the outfit?" I stepped out and he grabbed me roughly by the elbow while several of his cohorts leveled what looked like virus-loaded rifles at me.
"You would be wise to show respect. We are Raphael's special force, the Royal Blood Guard, and we will kill you on the spot should you try anything."
"The Royal Blood Guard?" I tried hard not to laugh, but a small chuckle escaped. "I should tell you guys that his name is not Raphael, it's Samael…you know, Satan? Remember that whack job who called himself Son of Sam? He knew who Samael…"
"Shut up. Walk."
"Someone forgot their meds," I mumbled, deciding to suppress the arrogance that comes with immortality, and comply. I didn't wanting to spook my ultimate target.
A red carpet led from the vehicle to the entrance of the palace, and just as on an awards night in Tinseltown, both sides hummed with reporters snapping pictures and holding out microphones. Apparently, I had become a big fish in the world.
"Is it true you're Lucifer?" a crazed-eyed reporter shouted, BBC adorning his microphone.
"Michael, will you repent?" an anchor from Fox News asked.
"Did you turn yourself in, hoping for King Raphael's mercy?" another cried, CNN imprinted boldly on her mike. My mind snapped to her words—did she say king?
"Burn in Hell, Satan!" a thin, middle-eastern looking man a few feet up the rope blurted. His arm hurtled forward as if he was throwing a baseball, but I saw that it was a well-worn brown shoe. I ducked and it hit one of my escorts. Mechanically, the offended guard lowered his rifle and held it with one hand while pulling his sidearm out of its holster. He walked to the rope separating us from onlookers. Without a word, he raised the pistol and fired a shot into the shoe thrower's head. Nearby onlookers jumped back as the man fell unceremoniously to the ground.
Venom of the Gods Page 26
