by Tim Hawken
“I love you,” I whispered into her ear. “I’m going to get the animals that did this to us; I’m going to take them to Hell with me. You will be at rest soon enough, my darling. Our life together is over, but we’ll be together again soon, I promise.”
I stood up and shifted my perception to view the elements, focusing on fire. The red lights swirled around me. I gathered them all up, massing an inferno in the room, throwing fire into the curtains and against the walls and floor. I focused back to reality and witnessed what I had done. My apartment burned around me, the fire cleansing it of all the sin that had been committed there. Wrapping myself in cool air, I watched as Lotte’s body was engulfed in flames, burning away her earthly remains. I turned and walked from the blazing building without looking back, one thing now on my mind: find Gideon.
ten
I ROAMED THE STREETS AIMLESSLY for hours on end, not really heading anywhere. I didn’t go more than a few blocks away from where my apartment had burnt to the ground. Fire engines and police cars flooded the street. I watched from a safe distance as people swarmed in and out of the charred remains of where I used to live. My life there was now dead, but my memories of Charlotte and my knowledge that she was waiting, suffering in limbo burned deep inside.
I had to somehow find Gideon in whatever hole he was hiding. I had no idea where to start, no clues about where to look. I began by scanning the immediate neighborhood’s churches. I walked down Filbert Street to The Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, then down Stockton Street. I thought maybe a man like him would be at a church, but then surely no respectable house of God would accept an over-zealous fanatic like Gideon. He would have his own private place of worship where his followers, The Brethren, went to him. Where?
I went down towards the Harbor where I used to sit with Lotte, watching the seals bathe in the sunshine. North Beach is the heartbeat of San Francisco; its culture and history always inspired me. The streets were packed with people, going about their daily business. Some people sat eating at cafés, while others browsed through clothing stores, looking for something new to wear on the weekend. It all seemed so pointless now I knew there was more to existence. I wanted to scream at them, tell them the truth, but I knew they’d just think I was another crackpot on the sidewalk.
I walked to Pier 39, racking my brain, trying to figure out how I could track down my prey.
I breathed in deeply. The crisp, spring air sent a familiar sharp sting of cold into my throat. I loved how it felt. The tangy salt air of the real world revitalized me. I concentrated on how it felt to have oxygen enter my lungs and exit noisily through my nose. My stomach moaned painfully as I became aware of my mortal shell. All fluids had exited my body when I died. I was empty. My head started to spin. I needed food.
Ravenous, I ran across the road to the oceanfront, where one of my favorite Italian restaurants sat. I ate a huge plate of vegetarian pasta. It tasted amazing. I hadn’t eaten at all in Hell, as there was no need. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. The simple, physical sensations of life on earth stood out now as incredible. The contrast between life and death was startling. A zing of pepper on my tongue tingled every nerve in my body. I had never enjoyed the sensation of eating so much. However, it did nothing to quell my insatiable hunger. I needed meat. I needed blood.
I ordered two large steaks, extra rare. They came out with roasted vegetables, which I swept from the plate. I picked up the pieces of meat with my hands. Gnawing and gulping the flesh, I swallowed it down as fast as I could. I licked the pink blood of the steaks from my fingers after each gluttonous bite. I savored its metallic taste. By the time I’d finished, every diner in the place was staring at me, stunned by my vampire-like behavior. Now full, I became conscious of my actions. I got up and left immediately. I didn’t need to be drawing any attention to myself after just burning down my apartment with Lotte’s body inside.
With the disturbing appetite satisfied, my mind turned back to the real hunger inside my soul: the hunger for revenge. I searched my mind for answers about where I could find Gideon, but still I was blank. I was getting nowhere. I had to do something. Go back to the beginning, I thought.
I walked back towards my apartment and came upon a newsstand. My mind clicked into gear with a possibility. I bought every newspaper on the shelf and then went out into the street to find a quiet place to read them. Finding a good spot, I scanned all of the papers for any mention of a new cult, brain-washing followers gullible enough to join. There was nothing. I read every paper I could get my hands on from front to back. Each one was the same; the world was fucked -- terrorism, climate change, swine flu, but no mention of Gideon or his brethren. By now it was almost dawn. I sat leafing through old papers on a bench at the front of an abandoned church. Its doors were boarded up with a large yellow and black sign out the front that said: ‘Condemned Building UNSAFE’. I sat there hoping Gideon would just walk past. Then it struck me. I didn’t need to find him. I would make him find me.
As soon as they were open, I went to the headquarters of every newspaper in town and took out the same full-page ad in every one. It read:
To Gideon and The Brethren.
Michael is alive. God will be angry.
You can find him at the church closest to where he last lay.
Only Gideon, or someone present at my murder, would have any idea what the ad meant, or which church I was talking about. There were hundreds of churches in San Francisco, if not thousands, and the fact that this church was condemned meant the only people coming inside would be my enemies.
I had one day at least to prepare myself, since the ad wouldn’t run until the next morning. I went out and bought some netting and steel wire, some lead weights, video cable, a camera and a small television. Once I had my supplies, I stashed them in the church grounds and waited for night to fall. As soon as the sun set, I went to work. I cut a peephole at the door of the church and rigged the video camera to the T.V. I placed it up in the ceiling where I could sit in the rafters, watching and waiting for Gideon and his followers to arrive. I then rigged up a snare with my netting and weights, ready to entangle anyone who walked through the front doors of the church. I wanted to use an earthly trap before I fell back on my elemental powers. No point in giving away the advantage of surprise unnecessarily.
There was one other entrance to the church, which was through the Vicar’s demolished living quarters. I made sure this way was well and truly blocked, so the only way in was through the front doors. The scene of Gideon and our final showdown was set. Forming a cushion of air from the elements for myself, I perched up in the darkest corner of the high church ceiling in front of my crude surveillance system and waited.
I sat and fumed, imagining the revenge I was to reap on Gideon and anyone stupid enough to follow him into the church. My chest constricted and my stomach twisted with the nervous night of waiting. It was like someone was using my insides as a stress ball. During the whole night, every peep and creak in the church jerked me to attention, but I grew dead tired, not having rested since I had been reborn nearly forty-eight hours before. I slowly began to fall into a fitful, troubled sleep. I dreamt that Gideon entered the church with an army of followers who tore the house of God apart before consigning it to flames. I burned alive still sleeping on my rafters, not waking because I’d become so used to the stifling heat in Hell. My skin melted and dripped from my bones to the floor where it eventually evaporated. I had no body left. I then lay screaming in Hell, not in pain but in devastation that I had no vessel to be resurrected into. I could never be reborn to even the score with Gideon.
I jolted awake. It was midday at least. Sunshine poured through the windows, casting dusty-grey beams of light around the congregation floor. I looked down below me and surveyed the church in the light. There were cracked and broken floorboards everywhere, some had been pulled up and scattered to every corner of the church. A vandal had broken all the pews inside and piled them like a large pyre underneath wh
ere Jesus still hung crucified on his cross, a bloody crown of thorns perched on his head. There was a large, upside-down pentacle, the star of Satan, spray-painted in red over his chest, presumably by the same person that had broken the furniture. It had always struck me as odd how Christians worshipped this image of Jesus, yet the second of the Ten Commandments was not to create images of God’s likeness. Moses had decreed in the name of God that, “You shall not make yourself an image, whether in the form of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath the earth.” According to the Holy Trinity, Jesus was God, as was the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -- not just His Son. So why were they allowed to reproduce his likeness, to worship en masse? It was one of the many contradictions that puzzled me about the modern church.
I looked at Jesus hanging there with the star of Satan on his chest and thought of Gideon. How could Jesus’ supposed message of love and forgiveness get so twisted by the human mind? It was time I made Gideon pay for his sins. There would be no forgiveness for him in the hell I was sending him to. It was time for my revenge.
The shadows in the room grew longer and darker as the day progressed, with no sign of Gideon or his followers. My eyes began to ache from watching the T.V. screen which sat inches from my face. People walked by on the street, paying no attention to the church, no idea what lay inside. I decided that Gideon would not dare enter the church in broad daylight. He would wait until nightfall, if he were to come at all. I grew frustrated, itching for him to come. I needed him to come. Soon the sun set, but still no sign of my prey. Maybe he didn’t see the ad; maybe he was too scared to enter the church. Maybe he knew what I was up to.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said, talking to myself, going delirious. “Of course he doesn’t know your plan, how can he? He might be suspicious, but curiosity will get the better of him.”
I settled myself by imagining all the terrible things I was going to do to him. I grew patient and silent once more, and the evening wore on. Just when I had given up hope of anyone coming that night, I saw a flicker of movement on the monitor. I looked intently and saw the dark shape of a single, hooded figure approaching the door at a slow, creeping walk. Gideon!
eleven
THE FIGURE OF GIDEON STOPPED and looked behind him out to the street, checking that no one was following him. His face was shrouded in a white hood. He walked past the camera without looking up and cracked open the front door, peering inside tentatively. I waited patiently. I had waited this long, what was a few more minutes? I needed him to walk all the way inside for me to spring my trap. He inched inside and crept through the church, looking from side to side, waiting for an attack. When it didn’t come he walked slowly across the room, searching the pitch-black shadows inside, probably for my unconscious body. After what seemed like an eternity, he stood right in the centre of my web.
I sprang my trap into action, tumbling the heavy lead-weights to the floor. The wire cable tied to the weights pulled tight, and the net wrapped up and tangled around him. He struggled and flailed in my snare as I laughed in victory. His high-pitched, girl-like screams rang around the church. He hung trapped in my netting, high off the ground, wailing like a caged animal. I cut the cable and let him fall, crashing to the ground. Leaping from my hiding place, I floated on air softly to the ground. I rushed to where he lay groaning and ripped the hood back from his face, to reveal a semi-conscious teenage girl.
“What?” I roared in frustration. The girl had dirt all over her face and was dressed in ragged clothes, a homeless urchin child. She moaned as her eyes slid open at my primal growls of rage. She looked up at me, questioningly.
“The man outside said he’d pay me ten dollars if I found his necklace in here,” she groaned. “Do you have it? What happened? I think my legs are broken.” My heart sunk to my boots; it was a trap!
I raised my head towards the front door and a pair of dark legs blocked my vision. I looked up to see Gideon swinging a blazing white sword of fire toward my face.
I dove to the side as Gideon’s scorching blade sizzled past my head. I rolled away as he approached me. The homeless girl screamed behind him in terror. He turned and silenced her with a well-aimed kick to the temple. She fell to the ground either dead or unconscious, I wasn’t sure which. By now I was on my feet and ready.
“So,” Gideon hissed through clenched teeth. “You’ve come back to kill me? You fool! If you do, I’ll just go to Heaven into the arms of God.”
“You’ll come to Hell with me, you devil,” I shouted and hurled a ball of air into his stomach, knocking him clean off his feet and crashing through some of the broken floorboards behind him. The flame of his sword died as he dropped it, clattering to the floor. I walked slowly toward him as he lay crumpled on the ground. I savored the moment. My first victory was close at hand.
“You were stupid to come alone,” I snarled at him. “You underestimate my powers, you vile creature. I have the power of Satan in me.”
I gathered a large fireball between my hands, ready to send his stinking soul down to Hell where I could torture him, wringing God’s secret from him between screams.
I raised the fire above my head and screamed, “For Charlotte!” as I prepared to hurl it at Gideon. I was at full stretch when I was struck heavily from behind. I hit the ground with a thud, quenching the ball of flame before it could burn up into my body. Doubled over in pain, I could feel blood seeping out of a wound in the back of my head, gushing over my shoulders and neck. I rolled onto my back and looked up through starry vision, to see a large, bearded man dressed in white. He was holding a baseball bat caked in blood and hair. He smiled as he looked down at me. I could see he was missing most of his teeth.
“I got him, Gideon,” he said in a simpleton’s voice. “I smashed him good.”
I lay still on the ground gathering my wits. The sound of shuffling feet indicated more people entering the church. It appeared Gideon wasn’t silly enough to come alone after all. He had brought his Brethren.
Reaching slowly behind my head I felt my skull. The skin was split badly, but the bone was intact. I wasn’t seriously injured from the blow, but was losing lots of blood. I would need to close the wound. Pulling elements of fire to my fingers I cauterized the gash, stemming the flow of blood. I let out a grunt of pain as the flesh sizzled together.
Feigning serious injury I looked around the room, assessing the situation. I counted how many enemies had come to die. There were twelve gathered around me in a half circle, all staring down waiting for orders from their master. Most were men, but there were two women as well. All were dressed in white. The one that had hit me stood in the middle, holding his bat ready in case I moved. If I’d wanted to, I could have killed him where he stood, but I chose to wait. Gideon walked into the circle and stood over me, a line of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. It felt good to know I’d hurt him.
“Here we are again,” he said. “You lying helpless on the ground and me in control. Your parlor tricks are no match for the power of God.”
My hatred seethed inside as I watched him; I would soon wipe that smug smile from his face.
“Pick him up,” Gideon ordered. Three of his stinking followers leant in to grab me. Without moving off the ground, I whipped up the elements of air underneath their feet and lifted them off the ground, flipping them upside down and raising them slowly in the air. The others gasped in shock and retreated backward, but Gideon held firm, not taking his eyes off me. I could hear the three wailing in fear as I sent them higher in the air until they were pinned against the ceiling. I held them, looking into Gideon’s eyes, and then let them drop. Their screams, which filled the church as they fell, cut short as soon as they crashed down onto the floor, splintering the boards beneath them, dead. The others in the room cried out, but Gideon held up his arms to silence them.
“Do not fear this demon,” he said soothingly. “If your body dies today you will go to Heaven as I have
promised.”
“Give me God’s secret and I will show mercy on your flock of sheep, Gideon.” I replied flatly. “If you don’t, I will crush them before your eyes.”
“You are the one who shall be crushed,” he snarled. “I will send you back down to Hell where you belong. Now finish him!” he shouted and waved his arm forward. The Brethren advanced. I laughed at how helpless they were, it was somewhat pathetic. I felt a fleeting moment of pity for them. The feeling passed quickly.
Shifting my perception to view the elements at hand, I set to destroy them all, one by one. I built a wall of air around myself so none of them could get close enough to touch me. Then began the bloodbath.
The man with the bat came first. I rained boulders from nothingness onto his thick head, crushing him beneath their weight so he lay pinned, bleeding to death on the ground. Three more climbed over him and I froze them in their tracks, holding them with air. I then gathered the element of water above them and poured a deluge down their throats, drowning them. Their stomachs bloated and expanded under the pressure of the flood entering their bodies. Suddenly, all three burst apart like over-filled water balloons, showering blood and skin all over the church. I laughed in victory, looking at Gideon. He didn’t move, he just watched as I continued to annihilate his followers.
One of the women screamed as she ran at me from the left. I threw a jet of fire into her and she crackled into flames, screeching as she burned alive. Finally, she fell to her knees silently and dropped dead on her face. I quenched the fire around her so the church would not catch ablaze. Another came forward and I forced helium elements inside his body through the pores of his skin. I expanded the helium, and then set it alight. He evaporated in a hiss of steam. The last three I rounded up with a barrier of air as they sobbed and begged for mercy. I looked each of them in the eyes and saw pure fear. I felt sorry for them. They had been led astray by Gideon and had received nothing but empty promises.
