Legacy of Judas - Book One

by Aragon, Christian

  Malus drew his head back in confusion as the Virtues suddenly made themselves visible. He now found himself standing within the half circle they had formed behind Vic. As she backed away the Virtues closed the circle around Malus who had the audacity to look down at the Virtues about him and laugh a terrible laugh.

  “Victoria, you're the weak link!” With that he drew back his sundered right hand and thrust it directly at Vic. Its many darting points extended out and curved toward Vic. This was when she gave a wholly new command while simultaneously dropping her great secret upon all of her Valkyries and Virtues.

  Journal entry LXXII

  “BOOK OF THE DAMNED,” Vic yells out in English, “ARMOR THY MASTER!” She concluded in fluent Angelic and Demonic. The word Master was in Demonic as presumably Angels use no such word in their prime tongue. With this command, and without any needed cooperation from those of us within, the book reverted to its original state of a spine-binding, flesh pages, my stretched face as front cover, and Leila’s supple belly skin as the back cover. The components of the book; the pages, spine, covers, and the blood keeping it all together, then separated.

  Once separated all the portions of the book sliced through the air towards Vic. The spine and its ribs came to rest as a chest plate with Leila’s belly skin bellow the ribs covering Vic’s own tender midsection. The pages swirl about, contort and wrap upon Vic’s limbs and torso and become rigid with newly extended and edges and points sharper than any known blades. Judas’s blood, flows between all the seams and binds together this new form via a new network of veins and arteries.

  Finally, my face contorts to fit Vic’s face and covered most of her head. The top corners of my face settled near the back of each side of her head, and then flared upward and somewhat forward like a pair of curved horns. Vic’s raven hair flowed out from the top and back between strapping which have extended from my own rough edges. What little of my own silver hair to have survived Judas’s skinning of my skull now draped upon Vic’s hair; contrasting and mingling with her dark strands.

  All of this took place in a fraction of the fraction of a second it took for Malus’s attack to travel.

  Welcome to badassery I didn't even know the book was capable of!

  Journal entry LXXIII

  Well, that cat was finally out of the bag, but it was hardly the end of it as I now had an intimate link with Vic we never had previously. Every thought, every instinctual impulse was at our fingertips to not only carry out but enhance. To top it all off …

  “Your command fai ...” The Book of the Damned was still invisible to all others as Malus’s pikes crashed into my plating and his attack shattered all about. Vic had adjusted her stance and crossed her arms before her to block the blow, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Malus saw the same thing we did as his strike landed; a portion of Vic’s new blood-tattooed armor flashed visible at the moment of impact. The pages and structure of the armor not only withstood the impact of his strike but redirected it and absorbed it through the rest of the armor’s structure. Vic barely felt anything.

  “Valkyries! Tear him down!” More of Vic’s collected souls revealed themselves within the bubble as the Virtues each grabbed Malus to keep him from going anywhere. More of the souls gave him the same treatment they had given the throne as their lightning-fast onslaught splashed Malus all over the damned beneath us. They separated Malus’s arms and in just seconds left little more than a mangled, twisted, black mass barely standing upright before us, and with more holes in it than a kitchen sponge. For the moment, at least, Malus was quiet and still. For good measure the Virtues extended their plasma-like talons and ignited the standing remains of Malus. Moments passed and to be quite frank, once the flames subsided his remains resembled a burnt-out wooden match. The demons all went silent and still in the face of our might, but there's no chance subduing him was going to be this easy. We already knew this.

  Outside the bubble the Thorn were standing anxious and ready, but had learned trying to enter would only cause them severe damage if not destruction. The demons have been trying to get in as well by occasionally throwing weaker demons at the barrier only to watch them get mangled and splattered all about. They've made quite a mess as well as quite a crowd of onlookers. Up to this point we were surprised the Thorn hadn't simply gone through the landscape and come back in through the landscape within the bubble, but that's when it dawned on us they would have to be under command to not interfere.

  “I was thinking the same thing, Azeeza. Look under Malus.” Vic’s voice echoed through the structure of the armor though she said nothing aloud. It was her thoughts she was communicating with as if we had done this a thousand times before.

  From below Malus, and leading just behind him where we hadn’t noticed till this moment, were large, pulsing arteries leading back to the still open hole leading out into the shadow. It would seem he was waiting for us to notice this detail as the pulsing sped up just when we heard the remains of Malus start laughing … at us.

  Without warning long, knuckled spines with barbs reached out from his standing remains and speared the chunks of himself lying about, including his arms. In an instant all these parts and pieces were pulled back to the whole and seamlessly reassembled the previous form. Malus was unfazed and laughing.

  “I am not a demon of this realm, children. I did not live as a mortal only to die and come to this place. I chose this place. I chose ALL of this!” Malus’s words, frightening as they were, answered as many questions as they created. Being in Vic’s mind was giving us far more insight into her thought processes, as well as how far ahead she had thought this through. She still had tricks up her sleeve, but at this point she was worried about the tricks Malus still had. We haven't even seen the Trinities yet. What else was yet to come? This question was quickly answered.

  “Azeeza! What's the outside of Hell like, out in the shadow?” This conversation went much faster than I can readily explain because of our connection to one another.

  “Cold, obviously. I've never actually been out there except during my fall coming here. But knowing what I do about Hell’s construction, it's the backsides of all these fleshen souls splayed open with their raw muscle, nerves and bones exposed to the cold of God’s shadow.”

  “What else, Azeeza? Why does he have arteries running to the outside? Is he feeding on the darkness of the shadow somehow?”

  “No. No I don't believe so.”

  “What about the fleshen souls themselves? Could he be pulling strength or nutrients from them somehow?”

  “The flesh these souls produce is just a tangible illusion. None of the elements, proteins, vitamins, or minerals present in a mortal form are actually present in a fleshen soul. The only thing found throughout is…”

  “Their sin!”

  “Their sin. Yes.”

  “Malus is able to use sin itself.”

  Simultaneously we think back to seeing the ripple caused by Malus traveling tightly against the outside surface. Malus was skimming the open carcasses to soak up as much sin as he could before beginning this confrontation. The arteries must be branching out on the outside surface to collect more sin while he's inside. We needed to sever those arteries!

  “Watch this, children.” Malus is full of himself at this point as he steps over to the wall of our bubble. The arteries are very well exposed at this point, which causes Vic to pause. Malus huddles close to the wall and in a snap produces a wall of his own from his form. At first the Valkyries are able to punch through his structure, but he puts in more effort and suddenly the Valkyries are slowed, and with yet a bit more effort he stops them and they fall to the ground. They're nearly spent and barely able to move after slamming into his barrier. Malus just brought one of our greatest defenses to a dead stop with very little effort.

  “What will it be, Victoria? Sever the arteries leading to the exterior of Hell, or fight?”

  He's toying with us. This is his plan in effect, not ours.

 
“Times up, Victoria. Demons of Hell …” his voice increases not to a yelling tone but an amplification heard throughout the realm over the whaling of the damned, “… The one who brings me the mortal will have your suffering absorbed for one full year by me personally.” That's generous and brilliant as well, unfortunately.

  A flood of demons, in all their suffered grotesqueness, was now coming at us from all directions in multitudes.

  “Thorn! Bring me those angels!” Malus then added to further the chaos of the moment.

  Journal entry LXXIV

  “Vic, this is no time for trying to decide which course is the correct one. We need to fight or withdraw now!”

  “Thank you for the obvious assessment, Azeeza!”

  “REMAINING VALKYRIES! PROTECT OUR FALLEN AND ATTACK THE DEMONS!

  VIRTUES! DON’T YOU HAVE SOME FRUSTRATIONS TO TAKE OUT ON THE THORN?!”

  The remaining Valkyries — considerably more than had been seen or seen action thus far — revealed themselves and went to work both offensively and defensively. Most went on the offensive blasting through demons and incapacitating them. They fought off those who were headed for Vic in an attempt to collect relief from their suffering even if only for a year. Unfortunately we knew any damage dealt to any of these creatures was temporary.

  The Virtues moved like traveling lightning through the red darkness. They were beautiful against the contrasting brutality of Hell as they grappled and struck at incoming Thorn. Despite their speed and seemingly erratic movements, upon closer observation they were seen to be far more graceful, more purposeful than the random chaos lightning brings. These were warriors doing warriors’ work without mercy; perhaps even less so than the Thorn show the damned, if one can imagine. Even the demons, the few stupid enough to get in the way of the Virtues, were shattered into bloody mists without regard by these legionnaires. Diligence quickly picked up on the Thorn being able to not only regenerate or reassemble themselves quickly, but also their focus and tenacity to carry out their commands was completely unrelenting.

  Vic could see her Virtues needed an edge over the Thorn. Malus has reformed his greater self and is bearing down on Vic with blistering speed as Vic dodges and counters with weapons wrought from the armored form of the book. But as impressed as I am with our new capabilities and with so much occurring in the flashes of split seconds, the Legion of Victoria needed to elevate their strategies. The Thorn needed to be slowed, at least. The onslaught of demons wasn’t too great a problem so much as just a very incessant nuisance also needing to be quelled. The Ebony Demons, though rare in Hell at this moment, are a bit more of a challenge because they’re forms include the Thorn. Our numbers and strategy are withstanding, but not advancing. Not Malus nor the demons or Thorn are the targets here. They’re distractions. It was time to refocus and Vic quickly developed an idea.

  Judas knew that because the damned would always regenerate from their torments, only to be tormented again, their blood would always be flowing. So he gave contours to the landscape to help direct the fluids produced by the fleshen bodies towards a basin made up of damned who would forever be drowning in the blood, piss, sweat, and most importantly, the tears of the rest of the damned.

  Judas created very specialized Thorn for The Great Blood Lake, the details of which I’ll forego for now save one: The Thorn of the lake have no eyes. All of their work is by sense of touch and everything which enters their tides is captured and made part of the basin.

  Vic believes the Thorn of the lake may not recognize the terrestrial Thorn and maybe they'll try to add them to the basin as well, but how was she pulling all this information so easily from our connection? She's drawing up thoughts and memories we haven't entertained in at least a couple of millennia.

  With the book protecting Vic she dispatched Evelyn to carry a new objective to Diligence that all the Virtues changed their objective from combat to dispersion of the enemy into the lake. Evelyn then whisked back to Vic as quickly as possible so as not to leave her unprotected from the elements of Hell for longer than necessary. Vic had already slowed significantly without Evelyn and was at this point relying entirely on the protection of the book till Evelyn returned.

  Watching the perfect forms of the Virtues hurdle these great beasts of Hell like Greek and Roman athletes and heroes of old was glorious to behold. True to Vic’s thoughts the Thorn of the lake were pulling the terrestrial Thorn under the surface, though chances are what ensued was more of a fight between the Thorn, while those who weren't drawn under sank like rocks and were unable to get traction until reaching the lake’s floor. At that point they'd start puncturing the lake bed causing more confusion for the Thorn of the lake to wrestle with. Within the blood of the lake the terrestrial Thorn are blinded and have no bearings, which gave the Valkyries and the Virtues opportunity to also hurdle in large numbers of the demons rampaging against them. The Great Blood Lake has become something of a giant stew!

  This was Vic’s chance to lay into the arteries leading from Malus to Hell’s exterior. The pages of the book wrapping Vic’s arms rustled, contorted, and extended themselves out beyond the reaches of her hands. Again they solidified and the leading edges rounded and sharpened giving her, for lack of a better description, battle axes to wield. Without any pause to acknowledge these new features and abilities Vic stepped into her swing of one of the great blades and brought it down as hard and fast as she could with the armor further augmenting her speed and strength. Her strike was to be brutal, but despite her newfound swiftness, the impact would not happen. Just as the blade was within a whisper of the artery the trinity of Trinities finally revealed themselves by erupting through the floor of Hell. The Vincent Trinity came through directly under Vic tossing her back some distance from Malus’s connection to the sin outside. This was Malus’s plan; the Valkyries and Virtues were all occupied with demons and Thorne, leaving Vic exposed to Malus and the Trinities. Protected as Vic was within the shielded embrace of the Book of the Damned, we had no clue how this confrontation would play out.

  “What's our move, Victoria?”

  “I'm thinking!”

  “We know. You can't wait to react! You need to act! NOW!”

  Vic’s foot shifted position as she readied herself to charge headlong into the fight, but before she could push off, we suddenly face-planted into the ground. A flood of impacts had hit us from behind. We were promptly rolled over and greeted by large crowd of demons who had gotten past the Valkyries and hit us like a tidal wave. The oddities and grotesques staring back at us caused pause with Vic as she'd never been so close to any of the common demons before. Just as I felt her fight or flight instinct start to kick in the common demons stepped back and made space.

  Suddenly one of the great quills of the foot belonging to the Vincent Trinity punctured into the fleshy ground right next to our heads. The impact made just enough contact for the right side of my face to flash visible just in time for Malus to see.

  “Hello, Azeeza, Victoria. I have great plans for the two of you.” Malus’s words dampened out because of the surrounding crowd standing over us. Only through the legs of these wretched creatures could we see the flashes of light in the distance of the Valkyries and Virtues fighting more demons. We realized the crowd surrounding us had been waiting in the shadows for this specific moment. They weren’t yet battle weary.

  “Let me give you a small sample of what’s to come, Victoria.” With that the demons closest to Vic did all they could to keep her down. The Vincent Trinity opened the great quills of what would be one of its hands exposing numerous smaller quills of varying sizes and lengths. All but one long quill pointed outward leaving the one pointed at Vic’s head. The Vincent Trinity trailed the long, hypodermic-like quill down Vic’s body and hovered at about mid thigh, and then pierced her leg through her femur and through to fleshen ground beneath us as if the pages of the book, which had protected her so well just moments prior, weren’t even there. Vic held her tongue till the needle-quill
hit bone, and then she screamed at top of her lungs and cried openly. Vic’s scream mixed with the damned under her and surrounding her, and for that moment she was one of them.

  Vic was staring up at Vincent's face threaded into the chest of the Trinity. Vincent was trying so hard to cry, to just let the tears of his agony, fear, and confusion flow, but he could only gather one single tear. It dropped off his cheek, alone in the air of Hell and surrounded by monstrosities, sin, and pain everlasting until it impacted my face, and then finished its descent with a red spark of electricity as it set upon and passed Vic’s lips.

  “Victoria …!” I couldn't finish my thought it happened so fast! A red flash of light and heat suddenly passed through the surrounding crowd at about knee-height. The crowd of demons went suddenly silent, as did Malus. From the outside of the crowd we heard new screams of pain as we looked about through a forest of legs and feet and soon could see splashes of demons’ blood as the beasts fell to the ground. The domino effect kept approaching until even the great quills of the Trinities and the branched legs of Malus himself split and slipped out from under them all. Unfortunately as the Vincent Trinity fell the lone quill it held in Vic’s leg was shoved through even further as the other larger quills closed around Vic’s lower half like a cage.

  Vic struggled in pain as all the creatures surrounding her hit the cursed ground. From above the Vincent Trinity Diligence appeared half covered in the slosh and slop of the demons he’d been dispatching previously. He grabbed the Vincent Trinity from behind and pulled with force so sufficient that when he let go the Trinity carried far enough above us that the cylindrical gravity above us caught the Trinity. The beast fell up and crashed violently into the damned over us.

  Vic slowly stood. We were still considering what just happened as a beautiful red glow became apparent within Vic’s left arm and hand. She brought her hand up and found warm, red streams of light flowing beneath her skin, illuminating within her veins, and tracing from within her chest to her heart. But then we noticed a familiar sensation from her right hand. Almost painful but in a satisfying way. Vic raised her right hand and found a darker, more sinister shade of red swirling about under the skin of her hand and arm, but disappearing into some secret place deep with her.