The Savior Rises

by Christopher C. Payne

  “That smells incredible,” he muttered as he walked into the kitchen and got a whiff of the breakfast feast.

  “Thanks,” Stefani said. She really didn’t want to get too close to this guy, or thing, or whatever he was. Not until she better understood what was happening.

  Dennis sensed her understandable reluctance. She’d been through a lot yesterday, and it would take her some time to embrace a world she had never known existed.

  “Let’s eat,” he said. “I’ll explain everything.”

  And, with that, Dennis told the story. Stefani was more open to what Dennis might have to say at this point. After seeing two killer dogs and watching Dennis morph into a flying dragon, she felt he might not be as crazy as she had originally thought.

  A long time ago there were many creatures occupying this planet. Some were humans, but they only played a small role. Some of these animals became extinct, like dinosaurs, for example. Some remained, but faded into the background. Gargoyles fell into this category. It was like we became transparent. We’ve been around as long as man, but we’ve chosen to stay hidden behind a curtain. Things are more peaceful that way.

  While our history lessons mirror yours, we’ve included details that form a larger societal perspective. These records have been kept hidden from the masses. We didn’t want to expose ourselves to humans and scare them needlessly. .

  From the beginning, there have always been two clans of gargoyles. The Litwana, which I am a part of, and the Ibanesa, our rivals. For thousands of years we were at war, killing ourselves off, similar to what humans were doing. Germany’s government, for example, was for a long time led by my kind, and both World Wars were actually started by gargoyles in human form. Adolf Hitler, who’s only goal was world conquest, was the leader of the Ibanesa tribe at the time. He was a hate-filled atrocity that did more damage than most humans will ever know. Many Roman emperors, Napoleon, etc., they were all gargoyles. I could go on and on.

  After our kind shrank to a mere handful, it was finally decided our species’ very survival depended on a truce. Neither clan is more than 1,000 strong now. Reproducing is a different process than what you find in humans. I shouldn’t say different – let’s just say there are added steps.

  So my father, the leader of the Litwana clan, struck a bargain with Roland, the leader of the Ibanesa clan. Then, there was peace. But, Greg changed all of this.

  Greg is my older brother, and he also struck a pact with Roland. Greg wanted to rule our clan, but my father was too strong. Greg chose not to wait for the natural order of thing;, and upon striking a deal with Roland, he made an attempt on my father’s life.

  The attempt was thwarted, and Greg was captured. But, my father could not bring himself to execute his first born son. Instead, he forced him to live among humans, hiding there as if he were one of them. My father forbade Greg from ever taking his gargoyle form again. As you will begin to understand, this is much harder to do than you might think.

  Before he left, Greg stole something, something of great value, from my father. It is a necklace. The necklace holds a ring, and that ring has held our clan and our way of life together for centuries. We call it the birth ring. It is a ring that awaits the Chosen One. It is prophesized the Chosen One will unite our people or destroy us all, wiping our kind from the face of this planet. Nobody fully understands what will happen, but this ring is the key.

  I believe you are a part of this story, you hold the answer to finding the ring. You might even be holding the ring yourself and not know it. It is only with this ring that we can keep our species alive. If Roland finds it before we do, he will surely kill us off one by one, and the balance of the world will then be in flux.

  We have no doubt once Roland finishes with us, he will look to rule the humans. While his numbers are few, they are a very powerful group. The survival of the world rests upon our finding this ring and restoring the order of things.

  There are many more details I need to tell you, but I’m afraid we can’t stay in one place for very long. Gargoyles emit a unique aroma, and Greg has animals that are trained to track that smell. We need to keep moving and do whatever we can to find the ring and to keep you safe.

  Stefani stared at Dennis while he laid this groundwork of insanity. All she could really think about was how to escape and get as far away from this lunatic as she possibly could. The next thing he would tell her was how vampires and werewolves were real, and she was a flesh-eating alien. Had it really only been 24 hours ago that she led the normal life of an everyday stripper?

  Mostly from second nature, she started cleaning up the dishes. While it wasn’t necessarily their house, she still wanted to put things away. Dennis helped in the process and, while he finished loading the dishwasher, she excused herself to the bathroom. Once there, she hit the jackpot. She grabbed a handful of sleeping pills, headed back to the kitchen, and dropped them in his unfinished glass of juice.

  She didn’t have time to crush them up, but hopefully they would dissolve enough to give her a head start once she made a break for it. She was not only questioning his story, but also what she might have seen yesterday. Maybe this guy had drugged her. Maybe she’d been on acid and had no idea what she saw. Things like this just didn’t exist.

  “Are you going to finish your juice?” she asked nonchalantly, handing him the half-empty glass.

  “Sure,” he said, gulping the remainder in a couple of quick shots.

  As he quickly downed the drink, she tried to remember how many pills she had piled in there. She didn’t want to kill him. Her goal was to knock him out, head back to her apartment, pack her things, and leave town. Maybe she would head to Mexico for a few weeks. She could even pay her rent in advance in case she decided to return. Maybe by then this nut job would have moved on to other things.

  He did keep telling her all they had to do was see her through to her 21st birthday. Maybe he planned on buying her a drink, but that was just stupid. He knew she was a stripper. She had been drinking since she was 18, even though she never drank that much. Damn, most of her younger colleagues were all drug addicts. It was a wonder she stayed as well balanced as she did.

  Her entire childhood had been filled with self-defense classes and gym workouts that kept her from abusing any form of alcohol or drugs. She just never had the desire to throw down like her friends did. People used to make fun of her because she wasn’t a party girl. What a worthless few years of life. High school kids should be shut off from society to avoid the insanity of those tumultuous years.

  “Hey, are you in there,” Dennis said. “You seem lost in your own thoughts. I don’t mean to interrupt, but we should really head out soon.”

  “Fine,” she responded. “Let me find my stuff, and then we can leave.”

  She grabbed the few items she had, packed them in her bag, and they both headed out the front door, closing it the best they could behind them. Dennis didn’t even seem to notice he stumbled over the front step, doing everything he could not to fall down.

  “Just wait here, and I’ll get us a cab,” she told him.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he sat down on the sidewalk next to the fence that surrounded the townhouse complex lawn.

  It took Stefani a few minutes to find a taxi; and by the time she had one stopped, Dennis was fast asleep lying flat on the sidewalk. He was out for the count. She pushed him over to the edge a little bit, so he wasn’t lying right in the middle of the concrete walkway, got in the cab, and left.

  Good riddance to the freak. She was happy to be done with him and didn’t want anything more to do with any of this craziness. All she wanted now was to grab her stuff and say goodbye for a few weeks. There is nothing more relaxing than heading to Mexico with no plans other than basking in the sun and getting a massage. She had a lot of lost time to make up for, and the idea of drinking was sounding better and better.

  The taxi ride only took 15 minutes, and she handed the driver a hefty tip as she jumped out of the
back seat.

  “Thanks,” he yelled, as she bounded up the steps, not even looking back in his direction.

  Nobody should be home now, she thought to herself, so it should be pretty easy getting in and out without too much interaction. She didn’t have any energy left to deal with anything or anyone.

  As she pushed her key in, she thought it was odd the door was not locked. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody had forgotten the deadbolt, but of all days, why today? She didn’t want to feel any more unnerved than she already did.

  She closed the door behind her and made sure she heard the snap of the lock as it latched firmly in place, then headed down the hall to her room. As she passed the living room, she dropped her bag and almost fell down as her knees buckled and her legs turned limp.

  “Good morning, Stefani. It’s been a while. Can you please come in and sit down?”

  Stefani instantly felt 10 years old again as she stared into the eyes of the man who murdered her mother.

  Are We All Going to Die?

  “I am so sorry, I am so sorry,” Stefani repeated over and over again.

  Her two roommates sat on the couch. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and they both had what look like socks shoved in their mouths. Tape was wrapped all the way around their heads. Black mascara ran down their faces, and their eyes were puffy from apparent crying. One had a bruise on her cheek that was already swollen at least a couple of inches. It looked like she’d been hit.

  There were three men standing in the room in addition to the one speaking. It was a very small living room, and everything was already cramped. The confinement was almost too much for Stefani to handle, and she started breathing heavily. She clutched her mouth and gasped for air when she focused on the presumed leader’s face.

  He had familiar blonde-white hair and a long scar stretching from his forehead all the way down past his chin. It etched across his features like a beacon and, at that point, she lost her ability to stand. As she fell, he reached out and grabbed her. He helped her to the only other chair in the tiny room.

  “Please, sit down,” he said. “My name is Greg, and I’m sorry we startled you. We were spending some time with your friends, and I’m very pleased you joined us. I was beginning to think we might have to get more influential. They really didn’t seem to know where you were. They didn’t even know you were a stripper.”

  With that he began to laugh.

  “If you hurt them, I will kill you,” she said softly. “You’ll suffer far worse than you can imagine.”

  The hatred of years’ worth of torment filled her voice. This man-- this killer-- had robbed her of everything in life she had once loved. She had never wanted another human being dead as much as she wanted this thing sitting in her living room, right in front of her.

  He laughed again.

  “Please, let’s not resort to violence just yet. Let’s try and commence our dealings the civil way. I really only want a minute of your time; and, if you cooperate, I do promise your friends will be left alone. All will go back to normal for them.”

  Stefani’s entire life had been focused on one thing – training. She didn’t attend dances; she didn’t join any clubs; she didn’t participate in sports. She focused all her energy on self-defense classes and working out. She reached far beyond the basics because her one purpose in life was to meet the man now sitting in her living room. There’s a funny thing about having only one goal in life -- when you achieve it, what’s left?

  Her two friends sat on the couch with two guys standing over them, slightly to the right in front of the window. Their apartment was on the third floor overlooking the bustling street below. The third guy stood in the doorway that led into the kitchen. The leader, Greg, was standing very close to her.

  Greg – this was Dennis’s brother. He was the guy who had killed her mother, haunted her dreams, destroyed her childhood and any chance of happiness. He was a gargoyle. Stefani started to believe every word Dennis had said.

  “All we want is the ring and …”

  Greg rattled on. It seemed he loved to talk. Everyone wanted that damn ring.

  Stefani’s right arm shot straight up, hitting Greg under his jaw. The impact launched him two feet in the air, and he hit his head on the ceiling above him. She used the entire force of her body as her legs pushed from the ground and her arm flew upward. She turned in a circle, lifted her left leg, and pushed it out as hard as she could, connecting with one of the guys standing in front of the window. She watched him crash through and drop quickly to the ground below.

  The guy in the doorway finally reacted, but she had already picked up a vase. As he moved forward, she smashed it down on his head with both hands. Blood squirted from his forehead as shards of glass sprayed across the room. He fell limply to the floor. She turned again, her right hand forming a fist, and she pushed it forward, flattening the third man’s throat as he advanced toward her.

  He went down, gagging as he choked on his own crushed Adam’s apple. His hands flailed in all directions as he tried to breathe. Blood erupted from his mouth like a miniature volcano.

  Greg stood upright, clapping, smiling at her.

  “Bravo, my little girl. That was quite a show. I see you have skills. Were I a normal man, I might even be afraid. You seem to have dispatched my men quicker than I would have thought possible. Granted, they do not have the same blood that runs through your veins. You really are a very special girl, indeed.”

  Stefani jumped forward, ramming her fist directly at Greg. But this time, he caught it in his hand, held it in the air for a minute, and then began to squeeze. He just stood there, clenching his fingers until Stefani heard herself scream out in pain. Her hand was crushed. This guy was stronger than any man she’d ever known.

  “You see, young lady, I also have special blood flowing through my veins. While you might be a notch above the common individual, you really are nothing compared to me. If I chose to kill you, it would take me seconds.”

  “What do you want from me?” she screamed. “Why are you doing this? Why did you kill my mother?”

  She couldn’t hold back the tears. She grabbed her right wrist with her left hand, crying as the pain shot through her body. Her hand had to be a bloody stump at this point.

  Sirens began wailing from the street below. Somebody must have noticed the first attacker’s swan dive to the sidewalk and called the police. Maybe they would be of some help. Maybe she should have listened to Dennis. Maybe, maybe, if she had any idea what the hell was happening in her life, she could make rational decisions.

  “Dear Stefani, I want the ring. I do not have much time, and I cannot be here when the police arrive. There will be a time when I will rule this world. But for now, I still have to be discreet. There are powers that even I must appease at this stage of our little game. Give me the ring, and you will live. Fail to do so and your roommates die. You have five seconds to decide.”

  “One.”

  In all the years Stefani had been in training, the one constant was: Do not give up. There is always a way out of any situation. You just have to remain calm, focused, clear your mind, and a solution will come to you.

  “Two.”

  Direct your mind away from the pain, she told herself. Her hand throbbed, but she had to block that out. Set your feelings aside. Her mother, her roommates, Dennis – she wiped everything away. She reminded herself of the instructions she internalized through hours and hours of practice.

  “Three.”

  Plates were on the coffee table. Her roommates must have been eating dinner. It looked like pasta of some kind, possibly garlic bread as well. A half-full glass of red wine sat next to one of the plates. Isolated, now neglected, sharing the same aloneness Stefani felt herself. The other glass had fallen on the floor, leaving red stains in its path. A fork teetered on the edge of the table about to fall to the floor below.

  “Four.”

  Stefani squatted on her knees and looked up at Greg. He
held her right hand in his vice grip, squeezing it, keeping her immobile. She still had use of her left hand, though, and she used it to reach underneath her captive arm and pick up the fork. There is always a way.

  “Five. Time is up, sweetie.”

  Gripping the fork in her left hand, she thrust it straight up with all of her might, connecting with Greg’s crotch. She felt the fork push through his clothes and imbed itself in his body as blood quickly began to fill his pants. If it weren’t such an odd color, it might have looked like he wet himself.

  He immediately loosened his grip on her hand, and it dropped like a lead balloon, falling to the floor.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—impossible, it isn’t possible!” he screamed.

  He grabbed himself with both hands, and his knees buckled.

  Stefani really had one last chance. She realized this thing wasn’t human, and she had no idea how fast he would recover. She flexed her mangled fingers as best she possible could. She shoved her left hand between his legs and grabbed his crotch, and with her right hand, she grabbed him by the hair on his head.

  She picked him up in one flowing movement and launched him out the window like a paper airplane.

  “How is that for special blood, you freaking loser?” she yelled as he sailed over her head to the street below.

  She heard the crash as he landed on the police car. It sounded like a wrecking ball taking its first swing at a building scheduled for demolition. The two cops who had just arrived looked up. She heard one of them say, “What the heck?”

  “I will kill you next time, Stefani! There will be no more mercy. Enjoy the fleeting moments you have. The life you lead is very close to ending.”

  With that he was gone. It was like he vanished into thin air. Poof.

  Stefani stumbled back from the window, almost falling over the coffee table still sitting, unmoved, in the middle of the room. Her roommates were no longer crying. They just stared at her as if she were some kind of freak. Maybe she was. She had always hidden her special abilities, her special strength. The hardest thing she faced during all of her training was remembering when to pull back and not show anyone the true extent of her capabilities. She went into the kitchen, got a pair of scissors, and cut the two girls’ gags and restraints. Neither one of them said anything. Without a word, they hugged each other and cried anew. At that moment, the police arrived, beating on their door. They yelled at the girls to let them in.