by S. L. Duncan
Dirt and rock were blown away from the ground where Septis stood still grasping Gabe. Winds swirling with debris spun around them like the eye of a hurricane. Its vibrations shattered boulders of rubble on the ground, reducing them to sand.
The feeling built into a crescendo that Gabe could no longer sustain. He felt the earth quake under Septis’s feet, and as the light field began to quiver under its own power, Gabe saw the ring glow and knew his abilities were being augmented by the ring. A flare of blinding white ignited around them.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
The explosion separated Gabe from Septis and threw Gabe into the air. He landed hard on the concrete stairs by the compound gate. The blast carried Septis until he crashed against a building on the street below. The impact took down part of the roof and a wall.
Gabe rolled to his knees, overwhelmed by the pain in his arm and weakened from the release of energy. Exhaustion overcame his body, stripping away the fight inside. He’d hoped the ring did its job and that Septis had been killed by the blast.
However, as he watched the street below, the fallen wall pushed aside. Septis rose from the remains of the building, his clothes tattered. As he stood, Gabe could no longer see any reservation in his enemy’s expression. Instead, Gabe was met by the hardened stare of a killer. Septis tore away his shredded shirt, revealing the full extent of the intricate scars on his body.
Gabe glanced at the ring, hoping it would do something, but the stone was once again cold, lifeless. Without help from the ring, Gabe knew he could do no more. He felt defeated, a failure, as he looked to the temple garden where Micah lay unconscious. Nearby, his dad was trying to crawl toward him, but Gabe knew his father could not protect him now.
Gabe watched as shadows flowed from the dark crannies of the surrounding buildings and found their master. They became alive and slithered over the ground like serpents toward the demon, leaping into the air, gnashing and striking out in anger, and Gabe now understood, like Carlyle had by the River Wear, that his last moment was upon him.
As Septis approached, he raised his arm, directing his dark creatures at their target. They raced forward, honing in like a pack of wild dogs let loose for the kill, their dark forms leaping from the flood of darkness that spilled forth over the ground, their excited hisses growing closer and closer to Gabe.
He dragged his mangled body to the bottom of the stairs, away from the view of his father, so as to spare him from having to witness the death of his only son.
The shadows followed. Hundreds of red eyes smoldered in the blackness, and the shadows resumed their animal forms that stretched and grew, clawing over one another to be the first to the prize.
At once they were upon Gabe. He watched as they rose into the air, blotting out the night sky, a wave of darkness that crashed down and engulfed his body.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Shadows surrounded Gabe, enveloping him in a sort of spinning cocoon that forced the air out, creating a vacuum. He fought for a breath and felt as though he were drowning as his lungs began to collapse. Red eyes flashed by, and beastly heads opened their smoke-formed mouths to chatter their teeth, hissing in the storm.
A tasty morsel . . .
It looks delicious . . .
Bones to gnaw on . . .
The sphere of formless creatures lifted Gabe from the ground, and he let himself go limp as they held his body, beating against it, clawing and tugging at his legs and arms, as if he were being positioned.
The pain in his broken arm became unbearable as it was struck and manipulated, and he felt his consciousness slipping away. His eyes fluttered, and he started to pass out, but instead of fighting, Gabe welcomed the peace of the coming sleep. Images of the broken and disfigured soldiers in the street filled his head, and he accepted his fate as the same. He let go of all remaining hope and prayed he would die quickly.
He closed his eyes, and the world fell into a black silence. Time slowed, the shadow creatures’ presence no longer felt. His mind drifted from the violence, somehow removed from his body. A familiar voice echoed in his mind.
“Why do you still not have faith in yourself, Gabriel? Even now?” Coren asked.
“I do have faith. I just can’t win,” he answered in thought.
“No, what you call faith is nothing more than acceptance. Faith requires true belief, and you have yet to truly believe in anything. Including yourself. Now you are defeated, and all is lost.”
“You’ve made a mistake. I can’t match the demon’s strength. He’s too strong.”
“If that is what you choose to believe, then you are correct. Know that I, too, had a choice. I chose to bestow upon you the ring because I have faith that with it your enemy can be vanquished. Should you choose to believe and have faith in the power within and not just accept your world as it is, you may discover greatness beyond your ordinary dreams. But the choice is still yours to make. It always has been.”
Searing pain in his arm shook him awake. He opened his eyes to see the walls of the shadow storm compacting around him, closing in for the final assault. In the blur of the passing shapes he caught glimpses of the street below flashing by between breaks in the sphere’s shadow wall. Septis stood, manipulating his creatures with outstretched hands, leading his wretched symphony like a conductor.
Gabe could see that he was now being held several feet from the ground, arms outstretched, his body hung in a cruciform ready for the final strike. He turned toward the compound and saw in the gaps of the swarming beasts flashes of his father. The look of anguish stole Gabe’s breath. His dad had raised him as a child of discipline. Taught to try his hardest at school and everything he wanted to do. Now he was a young man, his father’s son. Asked to do the impossible. The unimaginable.
Yet his father still pushed him to do well in this, as he would something as trivial as a soccer game or a history test. He still pushed him to succeed, believing that in all Gabe ever set his mind and heart to, he was capable. A father’s unconditional faith.
That is faith. Gabe realized he felt the same way about his dad. Even when Gabe doubted his father’s intentions, he understood and believed that his father, with every breath he took, would always be at his side and would always love him. That, too, was faith.
Faith. Love.
His dad believed Gabe was special. Faith that he was not ordinary but different. Chosen. An archangel. And Gabe believed in his father. They shared a love that his father would not betray if he didn’t truly believe Gabe could accomplish what had been asked of him. He knew because of his faith in his son that Gabe could stop the enemy.
He began to see himself through his father’s eyes. It became real. True. And in himself, Gabe found his father’s strength inspired by his love and faith. A purpose set into motion.
His purpose.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
From a distance, Septis held control over the shadow sphere that engulfed his hostage, his hands reaching out before him, as if holding the thing itself, palms moving to come together. Responding to his will, the sphere tightened around Gabriel Adam, spinning faster as it compressed. Across its surface, shadow beasts swarmed in a fury of anticipation, caught in a feeding frenzy. Claws and toothy snouts leapt from its depths only to dive back into the middle, awaiting the order to begin their feast.
Still recovering from the blast that had separated him from the boy, Septis struggled to maintain control. Such a surge could only be contributed to Solomon’s Ring, but Gabriel had not yet mastered the weapon. This pleased Septis, and the reward he stood to gain filled his imagination. He would crush his enemy, tear him apart, and let his pets feed. From the archangel’s corpse Septis would seize the ring for himself, and he would reign over all in this realm. No one, not even Mastema, would hold position above him.
Septis felt in the winds a new dawn approaching. With the death of Fortitudo Dei, he would right all the injustice done to his kind. The humans and their cancerous hold over Earth would be broke
n, and the pathway to the realm of creation would be shut forever.
The anticipation of the moment caused him to falter. He watched, and for a moment, he thought the sphere seemed to expand. Septis redoubled his efforts, pushing aside thoughts of glory to finish the deed. With all his strength, he tried to collapse the shadows around the boy and at last squeeze the life from him. Responding to the command, his creatures dove inward, forming a tight, smooth surface in the sphere, the shadows tightening, spinning faster.
But the sphere resisted manipulation. He fought to maintain control, but through his disbelief, Septis knew it was slipping away. The sphere had grown, and as it continued to do so, the integrity of its surface started to fail. From inside the center, he saw a flash of white light, and something screeched in pain, but the cry was not human.
On the surface, the shapes of his creatures formed again. They clawed at the sky and the ground as the ball spun, this time to escape.
“What is this?”
His answer came quickly. Shafts of light pierced the shadows of the sphere. One by one, they burst out from within to the sounds of his dying pets. The ground shook under Septis’s feet until the sphere could no longer contain what was inside, and he knew now that he had failed.
The eruption struck with an inescapable force. A blinding starburst expanded out from the sphere and devoured the shadow creatures, tearing them apart like shrapnel as the light cut through their forms, extinguishing red eyes.
Septis could only watch as his fears were realized in the boy’s newly discovered power. He fed off the ring, its glow pulsing from his outstretched hand, his body electrifying the air into a crackling display of energy. The boy seemed to hang, suspended above the stairs where the epicenter of the explosion had occurred, his back arched to the night sky above. Light took on a fluid form and reached out from his back like the wings of a great bird of prey. They unfolded, and Septis felt the excruciating warmth cast from their terrible magnificence. Once spread to their fullest, they began to dissipate into the air around as the boy descended to the ground. Pieces of light fell away like feathers shed from the wings until they had vanished entirely.
Anger lit within Septis like a torch. He would not concede without a fight.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Gabe breathed in as though his lungs had never known air. His heart beat as if for the first time. The ring in his hand pulsed with a pleasant calm that radiated into his body, masking the pain in his broken arm. He lifted his right arm to Septis, the jewel of the ring pointed at the demon. Gabe knew what to do.
Septis seemed to know as well. He began to change, his body undergoing a metamorphosis. His remaining clothes and human skin stripped away as flesh and bone grew, building new mass and shape. In an instant, he nearly tripled his original size. Hands elongated, transforming into claws. Talons tore through expensive shoes. Wings, skin-like and tethered to exposed bone, ripped from his back. Yellow eyes shone from a beastly head. Teeth filled his mouth as his jaw stretched, adjusting to its new length, until finally his new form was complete.
He looked like a deformed dragon made from human parts, turned inside out, pitiful and grotesque with an exposed bony structure built like an armored exoskeleton. Oozing muscle tissue stretched between the exposed ribs and vertebrae of an elongated neck adorned with a row of spiked scales on each side of the spine. Each fist-sized plate hooked from the beast’s winding back to a point like rows of teeth in a shark’s mouth.
Septis’s ghastly form crouched on the ground, monstrous, breathing heavily and ready to strike.
“Do you think this is the end, boy?” Septis growled. “Do you think this is over?”
“It is for you,” Gabe said.
Septis lashed out, his serpentine neck craning to an impossible length, attacking with an open mouth of razor-sharp teeth. “This realm is ours. We have rights.”
Gabe didn’t move. The ring glowed and seized the demon in midair.
“You are bound, Septis. You are no more.”
The ring opened up, and from the jewel ropes of light were thrown at the demon, lassoing his arms and legs. His body ignited into flame where the ropes wrapped around the beast. Septis fought against the tangle of light, and Gabe felt his struggle jerk at the lines like a fish caught in a net.
More ropes of light flung out from the ring, covering and binding the wings and jaws together. Gabe could see them constrict, pulling tight, and the demon’s bones cracked. Septis roared in agony as his body folded in on itself, his bones breaking down, yellow eyes disappearing into the threads of light, his body now a pyre of flame.
The ropes of light at last engulfed the demon in a mass of glowing twine. It then imploded, crushing its prisoner to nothing as if Septis had been dissolved by the ring’s power.
On Gabe’s hand, Solomon’s Ring seemed to open a whirlpool of spinning light that extended beyond his arm’s reach. Ropes of light retreated into the jewel, swallowing whatever remained of the demon. Once again, the heirloom grew dark on his finger.
The enemy was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
With the ring’s power fading, the warmth left Gabe’s body. He staggered, suddenly filled with an oppressing exhaustion. Pain returned to his arm so great that he felt he might become sick on the street. His legs struggled to support his weight, and he knew ligaments in his knee had been torn.
He wasted little time thinking about the enemy’s demise and turned toward the compound. Dawn was breaking on the horizon. As the sun’s first light shone through, the full extent of the devastation was revealed in horrifying detail. Dead soldiers and refugees lay in the streets, their remains clawed open and chewed upon. But Gabe’s concern was for the living. His father and Micah.
Gabe limped to where his father had fallen but could not find him.
“Gabriel!” his dad shouted from where the temple once stood. Gabe could see his father on the ground by the mangled red gate of the garden. He was waving frantically.
Relying on what little strength he had left, Gabe tried to ignore the searing cold of the pain in his broken parts and limped to his father’s side. During the fight his dad had somehow managed to crawl over to Micah, and now he was attempting to comfort her.
Gabe looked at her, and the sight stole his breath. Tears welled in his eyes. The end was near. With each passing second, Micah’s life slipped away. Gabe fell and looked into her half-opened eyes, but they were vacant and unresponsive. He brushed his fingers through her hair, moving the strands from her perfect face. Breathing came in shallow gasps, her skin cold to the touch.
Despite her state, Gabe thought she looked peaceful. He wondered if she even realized what was happening to her. He held her hand, massaging her fingers as tears trickled down his face.
His father reached for Gabe’s shoulder. “It’s okay. She’ll be at peace soon. She’ll be with God,” he said.
Gabe found no comfort in the words. He didn’t care about her being with God. He wanted her to be here with him.
Nearby, Afarôt emerged, digging himself out from under a pile of wreckage. He stood and brushed his clothes off. His shirt had been torn and a large bloodstain covered his hip, but he moved without favoring the leg, giving Gabe the impression he had not been injured.
“Afarôt, quickly!” his father said, his voice hoarse.
Seeing the broken girl, Afarôt ran to them. When he reached Micah, he shoved Gabe out of the way and kneeled beside her. He put a hand on her sternum and then one across her forehead.
“Barely,” he said. Afarôt closed his eyes. His palms glowed like they did at the entrance to the tabernacle. Warmth radiated off his body and into Micah. The pools of blood gathered under her skin faded.
Gabe moved back from the growing heat as Micah was covered in a haze of light. Her body shuddered, and her back arched from the ground. Gabe thought of the electric paddles in hospitals used to revive a patient’s heart. He could only watch and listen as Afarôt’s power flowed into h
er, amazed by the sounds coming from beneath her skin. It was as if he could hear bones and tendons mending inside her legs and torso. “What are you doing to her?”
Afarôt smiled and in his heavy Ethiopian accent whispered, “I am not called Healer of God for nothing.”
Her breathing got deeper and deeper. Gabe stared in disbelief as her dilated pupils shrank, revealing the brown in her eyes. She coughed. Her eyes fluttered for a moment. Finally, they opened, looking full of life.
Gabe’s emotions overflowed, and he began to sob uncontrollably.
Micah looked at him, and a smile blossomed on her lips. “What happened?” she asked in a weak voice.
“I thought we’d lost you,” Gabe said.
“Luckily we did not.” Afarôt removed his hands and bent over her, beaming. “It seems Gabriel has managed to best the enemy.”
She turned to Gabe, and her eyes seemed to sparkle in the soft light of dawn. “I never lost faith that you would.”
Gabe laughed through the pain in his arm and wiped his eyes. “You could have told me that sooner. Between you and my father, I think I was the last to know.”
Afarôt turned his attention to Gabe’s dad, laying hands on the injured leg, the light haze glowing over his body.
“My skin is tingling,” his father said. He couldn’t suppress his smile as he watched. “It feels like warm water but inside my muscles and bones.”
Gabe was next. Afarôt sat beside him and looked at his arm, shaking his head as he did so and said, “Such an injury might have been your undoing. You have shown uncanny strength. Fortitudo Dei indeed. We all are very proud. But perhaps we should consider a less heroic method of dispensing with demons in the future should the enemy be inspired to try again. Perhaps some training, yes?”
