The Edward King Series Books 1-3
Page 45
“Get the fuck off me,” Eddie growled.
“Ooh,” the girl retracted playfully. “That’s not very nice.”
The girl patted Eddie on his head and skipped over to Kelly. She crouched down beside her.
Kelly’s face was stuck in an image of pure horror. Her eyes displaying sheer agony, staring rigidly at the knife about to plunge through her.
“Cute, ain’t she?” smiled the girl. “Can see why you picked her.”
Eddie’s eyes narrowed, his face shook, his fists clenched. He wished he could storm forward and rip this girl’s throat out. He wished he could end her pitiful, tormenting appearance once and for all.
“Wow,” the girl shook her head in disbelief. “I can feel the hate coming off you. The anger, the hostility, it’s already there. You are on your way.”
“Let me out of these restraints and we’ll see who’s on our way.”
“Now, now, all in good time.”
The little girl stood and inquisitively surveyed Eddie.
“You do by now realise, surely, that we have won.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yes, protest all you wish. The ritual has been completed, the girl is about to be stabbed, it is complete.”
“No, it isn’t. The suffered has to die. Kelly is getting stabbed in the gut, there’s no way to know she is dead.”
“I know. That’s where you come in.”
The girl skipped over to the sofa and plopped herself down. She picked up a television paper left on the seat beside her, remanents of the normal life Eddie was leading only days ago. She flicked through it playfully, not staying on one page too long.
“My, my, look at all these soap operas,” she smiled, shaking her head in pretend disgust. “All the violence, shooting, cheating. To think, all this goes on in your world, and you need it for entertainment. Honestly, Edward. I think the world will be better off.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to kill Kelly.”
Eddie laughed defiantly, vigorously shaking his head.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Why would I do that?”
“Because, Edward,” she stood and turned serious, “We have already won. The ritual is on its way. And you killing Kelly will be your final task into ascension. And, as fate would have it, it is the only way to save your friends.”
“Save them by killing them?”
“Exactly.”
She walked over to Anna and peeled back the fingers that grasped the knife, peeling it out of her hand. She pushed Anna back and Anna flopped onto the floor without straying from her stiff, stationary position.
The girl marvelled at the knife in her hands.
“I need you to take this knife,” she instructed Eddie. “And stick it in the throat of your girlfriend.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because the ritual is already done. She is going to die.”
The girl approached Eddie and put her hand on Eddie’s shoulder, looking him dead in his fuming eyes.
“If you don’t do it, I will click my fingers and everyone here will fall down dead. Derek. Lacy. Jenny. They will all just drop to the floor and cease breathing. And Kelly here, who is already on her way, will suffer in hell forever.”
She stroked her hand down Eddie’s face and smiled.
“If you do it, however – we will spare your friend’s their imminent death. And we will allow Kelly’s soul to pass on to heaven, where she will avoid an eternity of suffering.”
She placed the knife on Eddie’s lap.
“The choice is yours.”
With a final glistening of her eyes, her body faded and she was gone.
Eddie looked down. The rope, the handcuffs, the ankle restraints – they had all disappeared too. He was free.
He took the knife in his palm. Turned it over in his hands. Looked at the blood of Kelly dripping off it.
His eyes rose. His friends were still immobile, stuck in a moment of terror. Kelly still lay on the floor in horror. His friends still stood staring at him hopelessly.
This was it. Refuse and they all dropped down dead. Kelly would be tortured forever.
Do it and they would be free. Kelly would be given passage to heaven.
But that would mean truly accepting his fate.
Tears trickled down his cheek. He knew what he had to do.
He stood. His knees felt weak, collapsing beneath him, but he stayed strong. Kept his posture up. Took a few definite strides toward the one he would do anything for.
The one he would die for.
The one he would kill for.
He knelt down beside her. Brushing his hand down her face, he shut her eyes and pushed her jaw up to allow her lips to meet. The look of horror was gone. She was peaceful.
One moment and she would be forever peaceful.
He could already feel the change. Feel the power surging through him, feel himself detesting the humanity of the world. Feeling his loyalties shift to that of hell. Of the devil.
Of his father.
He lifted the knife in the air and screamed as he plunged it downward, into the throat of the suffered.
50
Derek recoiled in shock. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He didn’t know how Eddie had freed himself from his restraints, how he had gotten himself to Kelly’s side, but most of all he couldn’t believe what Eddie was doing.
Eddie retracted the knife from Kelly’s throat and a puddle of blood gushed beneath her neck. She looked up at Eddie, her eyes weak.
Her stare focussed on Eddie’s.
Her eyes were lost. Fading as they stared up at the man she had given her heart to as he murdered her. She suffocated for mere moments before she passed out.
The last thing she saw before she died was the face of her killer.
The face of the man she trusted.
Eddie looked up and met Derek’s eyes.
Derek shook his head in disbelief. In disgust.
“How could you…” he cried, his strong façade faltering to fatigue.
“It was the only way,” Eddie replied.
Then he was Eddie no more.
Eddie cried out in pain as his skin stretched over him, ripping. It shedded like snake skin, peeling and floating into ashes, bringing forth a creature unrecognisable from the human Eddie had previously been.
His pupils turned red, his hands turned to claws.
A monster forced its way out, claws of animalistic torture hanging off him, snarling drool dripping from his fangs.
Derek fell back, his heart thumping like a seizing drum, helplessly crying.
Bandile and Jason fell to their knees in honour, bowing their heads.
Jenny and Lacy backed up against the wall, keeping themselves far away.
Eddie King now had dark, blood-red skin, veins prominently pronounced over the entirety of his body, his nails curved and his body lurching over the rest of the room.
Horns grew from his head and curved into an impending shadow.
Behind him appeared another red, horned figure. A figure of similar appearance, but far more aged, far more aware of its existence.
The two creatures stood loyally together. In a clash of lightning, a pounding of thunder and a trickle of flames, they were gone.
Eddie King was gone.
The creature he had become had left the ritual with a final, carnivorous growl.
In the room of loss that remained, Jason’s body faded to white and floated upwards, travelling, ascending on its resolution.
Bandile grabbed Anna and fled the room.
Jenny and Lacy wept. On the floor, clinging to each other, they whimpered and cried, drowned out by the rain beating against the window.
Derek remained on his knees, hopelessly muttering in despair. His eyes fixed on the spot his friend had been. A feeling of emptiness filled his stomach.
If you listened very carefully, you could just about make out the words he wept.
“
I have failed you. I have failed you…”
But even those words faded.
The only element that did not cease was the weather.
In fact, if anything, the rain just grew stronger.
“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”
Corinthians 10:20-21
51
Martin lay inconsolably on the floor of his living room, strewn over the empty wheelchair, empty in the absence of its owner.
His bruises still hurt and the weather was still loud, but this was not the pain that stabbed him the harshest.
All the love he had given Ma, all the help he had given her, it had all turned to nothing. She was gone. And he didn’t even understand why.
“Martin,” came a gentle voice from behind him.
He slowly turned his head around and collapsed in awe.
A bright-white light illuminated the room, flooding from behind a beautiful woman in a pure, white dress. Her long, blond hair glided downwards and her smile captivated him.
As she floated before him, Martin could barely speak.
“Martin, my name is Cassy,” she told him. “And I have come with a message.”
“A message?” Martin repeated, confused.
His head pounded. So much had happened in such a small time, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
What was this woman, and how was she so bright? How was she floating?
“What are you?” he demanded.
“I am an angel, Martin. I understand you may be shocked, but we don’t have much time.”
“Time for what?”
“The whole world rests on your shoulders.”
The whole world? Resting on his shoulders? What?
I’m a school dropout. A friendless bum. A poor excuse for a man with no family and, soon, nowhere to live.
“I am not some brave man, I’m afraid. You have the wrong person.”
“On the contrary, my boy. You are one of the bravest men to ever live. The love you have for your mother beams off you. To have that kind of love in the situation you have been in, it is divine.”
“What?”
“And for that divine reason, the world needs you, Martin.”
He bowed his head and shook it.
“Your mother needs you.”
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this. Not now. It was too much.
“Please, just leave me alone.”
“Martin, I need you to be strong. As strong as you can be. For what I have to tell you is not going to be easy.”
He lifted his head.
“What?” he grunted. “I’m not strong. I’m a loser. I’m worth shit. Go bother someone else.”
The woman smiled.
“Martin, the man who visited you earlier was, in life, my brother. And right now he needs both our help. Right now, he needs everyone’s help.”
Martin sighed and looked around the room, willing her to leave him to grieve.
“And what do you want from me?”
“It’s time for you to step up and fulfil the destiny you have been waiting for your whole life. It’s time to save your mother’s soul, and every other soul in the world.”
“What?”
“Martin, I need you to kill my brother, Edward King.”
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