“And, of course, we shouldn’t forget about the demon hunters. They have been killing our scouts for a few nights now. They’ll feel the attack almost as soon as I give the signal, perhaps before. I don’t know how many more around the world are still alive to come to the defense of Kingstone, but we can all be sure that they’re being rallied, as well as thousands of prophets. It may be that, within a few days, the numbers of our foes in Kingstone could double. So we must act soon.
“Tomorrow, the humans will get a chance to fix this themselves. If, by some amazing luck, they can manage to imprison or kill the prophets, I will make other arrangements. If they don’t succeed, we will. In forty-eight hours, all prophets, save Alexander Tanner, should be dead or on their way to becoming that way.
“You may all leave, now, and do what you have been commanded to do.”
A dismissive wave of Metatron’s hand drove the message home to all of those who had gotten lost in his voice. In minutes, everyone was gone except for Metatron and Patheus.
“You and Eva will have a special mission,” Metatron said with a smirk.
Patheus cringed. He’d somehow known from the smirk that the pairing had once more been made. He regretted never acting upon or following through on the many chances he’d had to kill her. Perhaps this time would be different.
“That wasn’t included in the file you gave me, Master,” Patheus noted.
“No, it wasn’t,” Metatron agreed with a nod. “This one is a side project. I’ll need to teach you something to pull it off. Eva has been using this trick for some time now, and it’s a perfect opportunity to share the knowledge with you.”
“What will we be doing?”
“I can’t kill Alex, but we can make him pay for his defiance. If we make him pay enough, he won’t want to fight anymore.” Metatron handed Patheus another file, adding, “I want it done tonight. Morale is the key to this victory.”
***
In silence, the prophets and demon hunters listened as Catherine Harper explained the grim situation. The mayor had insisted on an audience with the group, and they quickly obliged when they heard the words “martial law.”
“I need your help to keep my city safe,” Catherine concluded.
Alex’s mind had been reeling from the earlier news. Elizabeth had declined to join the meeting, saying she wasn’t up to making big decisions at the moment. That left him delving alone into his mind, amidst fears and uncertainty. What kind of father was he going to make? Did he want to marry Liz and do things the right way? Would everyone live long enough to see a better world for a child to grow up in?
For a moment, all eyes shifted to Alex, but Abbie quickly took the lead when it was apparent he would not. Indeed, it looked as though the young prophet wasn’t even paying attention.
She stood and announced, “On behalf of the Elder Prophet Council, I can assure you that we will do everything in our power to stop any attempt of the Attorney General to enforce martial law in Kingstone. Since our last discussion, I have been in contact with friends of mine in governments across the world. I asked that they apply pressure to Washington for these obviously demonically motivated actions.”
“With respect, Dr. Martin,” Mayor Harper interjected, “we are beyond the point that pressure will be effective. They are on our doorstep.”
“I agree,” Alex said a little hoarsely.
“Ah, you’ve decided to join us,” Sophie observed.
“Hey,” Nathan said hotly, pointing an accusing finger at her, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then you could at least think of something intelligent to say.”
Sophie turned, imploringly, to Abbie. “We really have to bring him to every meeting?”
“He treats you better than he does me,” Abbie consoled with a sad laugh. “And somewhere in his madness, I have begun to find an interesting path.”
“Are you in my head again, you old bag?”
“Enough!” Alex snapped at them. Then, realizing what he’d done, his voice softened. “How are we going to fight our enemies when we spend so much time fighting among ourselves? The grudges that you’ve held for so long can come back after the job is done, but there is too much to be done in the meantime.
“Catherine, tell Governor Parks to negotiate a trade with the Attorney General. If he will keep all troops out of Kingstone and promise to leave our town alone, he can have me. The prophets will do whatever they’re told if my safety and freedom are at stake.”
“What will this accomplish?” Abbie demanded, obviously disturbed by the prospect.
“I hope it buys us time. These humans have allied with demons whether they realize it or not, and they pose a very serious threat to a town I have promised to protect. Now, we need to start playing by their rules. If we don’t, people will die.”
Alex would not be dissuaded from the seemingly dangerous and irrational course he’d chosen, and he gave no explanations. After a few minutes, the group was disbanded, each member leaving to attend to his or her part in the big picture. At last, only one other person shared the dining room table with him, and though he was not looking at her, he could feel her eyes studying him.
“Was there something I could do for you, Sophie?” Alex asked, a little disappointed he could not enjoy solitude to piece together everything that had happened today.
“We win,” she declared simply. “Of course, everyone else has known that since I said it ten years ago. I wasn’t supposed to reveal this information, but I have. I can’t see how we win; however, I know we will drive away Metatron’s forces, and he will never again be a threat to prophets. I see a world that looks upon prophets differently than it ever has. They will be united under you.”
Alex turned now to study her. “You said that Elizabeth, Matt, and I would die if we came to Kingstone.”
“Sooner than you should,” Sophie agreed with a slight nod of her head. “Before you ask, I have no details surrounding your demise; I haven’t seen anything. I simply know.”
Alex turned away. “I wasn’t going to ask. I don’t want to know how or when I die. That kind of knowledge would drive someone crazy.”
“Perhaps.” Sophie seemed contemplative, as if the concept intrigued her. “In any event, the future is the future. It may be that you would have died sooner if you hadn’t come to Kingstone. Who knows? My prediction was based on hazy feelings, coupled with divine hints. Admittedly, what I see has become more and more convoluted. Something seems to be interfering with my ability to see the future.”
Alex reestablished eye contact. “What do you think that is?”
“Most likely, it is my imminent death.”
“When?”
“I won’t say,” Sophie replied with a little shake in her voice. “I will say that the world I see has no place for Elder Prophets. This will be the Council’s last major stand. In about twenty-four hours, the last battle of this conflict will begin. In about thirty, the world will be changed forever.”
***
“Just give me something light. I probably shouldn’t drink much tonight, anyway,” Matt explained to the bartender at Kingstone’s local pub, appropriately named Kingstone Tavern, however lacking in originality.
He had tried really hard to quit drinking for Elizabeth, but the will was just not there. After having been in Missouri for two days, he had desperately needed something to take his mind away. The boredom and tension were not the only things driving him to find an escape. Matt had come to the realization that all of his friends might die or were becoming distant. He had no family, and he sure wasn’t planning to talk to his dad.
He waited for his drink, and a strange thought overtook him. Had Jeremiah been his friend? Did he mourn Jeremiah’s death? At least the demon had been one other person Matt could have gone to for advice and some form of companionship, even if it was usually abusive. The Jeremiah who had broken the creep’s hand in the bar so many years ago, who had taught him to fight and fought alongside him, and who had left him
a fortune in his will, was not the same Jeremiah when things were quiet. In a lot of ways, the demon reminded Matt of his father, an almost tolerable man when he was sober.
His drink came, and he nursed it, lost in his thoughts. Memories beginning to torment him once more, he regretted not getting something a little stronger.
As much as he liked Alex, Matt resented him for stealing Liz away. The three of them were supposed to have been a team, but that changed when Elizabeth realized she loved Alex in return. Now, he felt like an outsider just talking to them.
His mind fell on Liz. She was beautiful. He couldn’t really begrudge Alex’s move. If Matt had been into chicks, Alex would have never had the chance. For three years, she’d been the best friend she could be to him. And for three years, they both knew she wanted more. Actually, they’d had more than one conversation about whether or not he could just reverse his decision. It was hard for her to understand that it wasn’t a decision, that it was an unalterable reality. But, when she did, the relationship became much stronger...until about a month ago.
He’d been coming to this place for four days. It was convenient, if lacking in variety. The regulars were sometimes rowdy, but he kept to himself, and they didn’t involve him. There seemed to be a permanent cloud of smoke that hung in the air, and Matt had only ever seen the pool table in use once. As late at night as he came to this bar, most of the patrons were solely interested in drinking long enough to ensure that their wives would be sound asleep by the time they stumbled through the door. For some reason, Matt sensed that tonight wasn’t going to be a normal night at Kingstone Tavern.
It could have been that a couple of guys in a booth adjacent to where he was sitting kept looking over at him. It may have been the tense atmosphere in this usually placid, or sometimes jovial, setting. Whatever the cause for his alarm, it suddenly dawned on him that this might be a good time to go. He pushed the bottle forward, dropped a bill on the bar, nodded at the bartender, and rose to leave.
“Hey!” one of the men in the booth called. “I thought I recognized you.”
Matt didn’t have to turn; he knew who was being addressed. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” He kept walking.
“Nope. You’re that fag that was hitting on me the other night. I told you: If you ever came back in here, I’d beat your ass.”
Matt cocked an eyebrow and turned to face his accuser who was now standing up next to his table. “You’re drunk. We’ve never met.”
“I’m not drunk,” the man contended. And, in truth, he didn’t seem to be intoxicated.
The crowd watched dumbly as the man became angrier. Something wasn’t right about this situation. It was true that Matt had a tendency to do strange things when he was really drunk, but he hadn’t been that drunk in quite some time, certainly not in this place. Despite the lack of supernatural presence in the immediate area, he felt very much like he was being lured into a trap.
“Then, you’re crazy because I’ve never seen you before.”
“You saying you’re straight?”
Matt paused.
“See?” the accuser appealed to the other patrons. “I knew you was that flaming queer from the other night.”
The prophet sighed. He had faced this adversity for a long time. Matt had borne it or walked away too many times. He no longer wished to hide from those who hated without reason, though he knew nothing would be served by fueling this fire.
“You are a stranger to me,” Matt reiterated. “Whatever my sexual preferences--”
“This ain’t no fag club,” a voice protested from Matt’s right.
“Really?” Matt shot back with a laugh. “Then, where are the chicks? Except for your piss-poor selection of alcohol and your lack of attractive men, this looks very much like a gay bar. But I didn’t come here to be trouble. I’ll just leave now, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”
The other man who had been sitting at the booth rose behind his friend, and two big guys at another table, who must have taken some offense to Matt’s comparison, also got up and began walking toward the prophet. Matt only rolled his eyes and turned back to the door.
Stepping outside, into the darkness, he wondered if he should continue trying to talk these bigots out of their unfortunate design. They couldn’t have any idea what they were walking into. Undoubtedly, Matt could kill the four of them without any serious effort—not that he wanted to. The only thing that would accomplish is to create more problems for him and the other prophets in the future. He hoped that, once they saw his speed, they would run from him as quickly as they could. He also considered the possibility that all four of them were drunk and would not conceive of the threat they were under until they were sober again—if such a state ever even happened for this breed of alcoholic.
A feeling of excruciating agony in his back, near the base of his neck, ended as quickly as it had come, and his body collapsed to the ground with a dull thud.
He heard a very pleasant female voice saying, “You boys did exactly what you needed to do. Now, why don’t you four go home and climb into your nice, warm beds. The police might ask you about what happened. Tell them he only got what he deserved for being a damned queer.”
Matt could see a pool of blood forming around his head. Though he didn’t feel any pain, he knew that the blood was his. He had no muscle control from the shoulders down, and the muscles above that did work were very weak.
“Walk them away from here,” a deep voice commanded. “Afterwards, you will keep any other mortal from interfering.”
“Patheus,” Matt gasped, his breathing labored. He couldn’t have yelled for help if he’d wanted to.
“My voice must have made an impression the last time we spoke,” Patheus observed with some mirth. “I suspect even turning your head to see me is a little difficult, if not impossible, in your present condition. I’ve severed your spinal cord between the C3 and C4 vertebrae. You can breathe, comprehend, even speak, but not much more than that. This is simply another classic example of Jeremiah’s failure. He never once tried to account for human fragility. All of his hard work in you was ended in seconds after a pathetically human drama. And, please believe me; I had no part in that. Eva was in charge of creating the diversion.
“My last encounter with you proved that your senses were keen enough to detect demons from an impressive distance, so my master saw fit to teach me his ability to conceal his whereabouts. Expecting nothing more than a drunken brawl out here, you never had any idea that I would be waiting. But you should have known we had unfinished business after how you treated me in our last encounter.”
Patheus knelt next to Matt’s head and placed his hand over the prophet’s throat, but didn’t apply any pressure. The other hand held a bloody dagger. “Anything you wish to say, prophet, before the end?” the demon inquired.
“Fuck you.”
Patheus looked mildly disappointed, but he shrugged and slashed Matthew Hartley’s throat. Not able to struggle in any way, Matt’s vision faded away, and the ever-present pain he’d had throughout his life finally faded with it.
Chapter 8
Matthew Hartley’s death devastated us all. Alex is still haunted by it. Matt’s vision of Alex was so beautiful, so pure, that I find myself drawn to it as well. It is, perhaps, for that reason that I write this book now, amidst the swirling rumors of Alex’s corruption and alleged demonic collusion. Whatever Alex has done in the last fifteen years, I hope that we never forget the sacrifices he’s made to protect us all. He brought prophets from all over the world together to guide humanity into a new era. The notion that he may be working for or with demons is preposterous. And what his opponents never stop to consider is the terrifying possibility that none of us are qualified to judge his actions in the first place.
--Abigail Martin, Through the Eyes of a Martyr
Alex’s dreams had been fretful. Even when he woke—in a cold sweat—the image of Metatron’s face was burned in his mind. The dem
on seemed to be laughing at him, claiming, “Morale is the key to this victory.”
Daylight had started to shine through Alex’s window. Throughout the previous day, it had snowed, so the glare was almost unbearable. He got up to draw the curtains closed when he heard voices and the undeniable sound of crying. Before he even made it to his door to leave his room, he knew the sounds of sobbing belonged to Elizabeth.
With unbelievable timing, a knock on his door preceded him opening it, and Marla stood there with tears in her eyes.
He only looked at her, not wanting to ask.
“Matt’s dead,” she told him between gasps. “His body was mangled last night at the Kingstone Pub. Mayor Harper let us know about fifteen minutes ago. She’d identified the body, and a few locals have been brought in for questioning. The bastards had written on the wall in his blood.
“Matt?” was all Alex could say as he tried to wrap his mind around what he’d heard. Then, after a moment he shook his head and added, “It can’t be. There must be a mistake.”
“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Marla said consolingly as she took the boy into her arms. “But you are right: Someone certainly did make a mistake.”
He could hear the anger in her voice, and he could feel her tremble as she spoke the words, but he couldn’t accept it—none of it. This had to be part of the same nightmare he thought he’d woken from. He had to still be asleep. He, Liz, and Matt were supposed to stand together in the end. Everyone had said it. Matt had a job still to do. He couldn’t be dead.
“It has to be someone else,” Alex muttered. “Catherine’s made a mistake; she’s misidentified the body. Locate him by GPS with his phone. He probably just hasn’t come home yet.”
“Honey, Abbie is at the morgue with the body right now. She’s confirmed that it is Matt. His neck was broken,” she had to pause to choke back the grief, “and his throat was slashed.”
Legends (To Absolve the Fallen Book 3) Page 27
