“He might not be able to stop you when you have a gun on him, but my brothers and I can,” Wrath said to a clearly shocked and somewhat horrified Phillip.
Everyone looked around the room to see that Phillip’s men were surrounded by men who wore red armor that looked straight out of the Roman Empire. Each had a sword on their hip, and an assortment of knives strapped all about their bodies. A look of raw intensity was etched on their faces, and all who looked upon them knew they wanted a fight.
“So, you and your brothers finally showed yourselves, but didn’t learn anything from when we met on the rooftop? You are not as powerful as we are.” Phillip shouted.
“Wrath, I did everything I could to stop Phillip and his men from killing Elizabeth and destroying the city. Please, you and your brothers do not need to decimate the city. There has to be at least one good person left somewhere that doesn’t deserve to be destroyed with the wicked.”
Wrath turned his head slightly as he kept an eye on Phillip. “You’re right, Brandon, and two of them are standing behind me. God saw everything you did here tonight, and he is proud of you. You were willing to go straight into the lion’s den with no backup to try and save every person of this city at the cost of your own life. Your actions have moved his heart, so it’s not the city that will be dying tonight.”
“We’re not going down without a fight,” Phillip yelled as he started chanting again, and then the rest of his men followed suit. Wrath’s brothers became enraged at the sound of their words, and their eyes lit up and glowed red like fire. They drew their swords and chopped down Phillip’s warlocks before any of them knew what hit them, and then they turned their attention to Phillip, who looked more than terrified.
Wrath took in a deep breath and seemed to savor the moment. “You were saying about stopping us? Because, from where I stand all your men are dead, and there’s no one, not even Lucifer himself coming to save you now. Which by the way is the devil that is talked about in the Bible, which you never believed in, but that didn’t mean the Bible was fake.”
“This can’t be happening,” Phillip barked.
“But it is happening, Phillip. All the death and destruction you have wrought upon this city and its inhabitants... All so you could have power. The only real power comes from God. You should know that since you heard it many times over throughout your life.”
“It was the gift of immortality,” Phillip said as he pointed the gun at Wrath while his brothers stared on and didn’t move a muscle.
“You have craved power ever since you were a little boy, and that all-consuming selfish desire kept you from experiencing God’s power and his presence,” Wrath said as he pulled a knife with a yellow blade from under his jacket. Just like the one he used on Ron the night that Wrath and I met.
Phillip started firing the gun wildly as Wrath slowly made his way toward Phillip.
“Stay back you freak. I mean it, you don’t scare me!”
Wrath’s voice intensified with every step he took toward Phillip. “Your lust for Satan’s power and only his power has corrupted you, so now you will feel the power of God’s wrath.” Wrath smacked the empty gun from Phillip’s hand and buried the knife into his stomach and stepped back.
“I told you I was going to kill you before I left this city,” Wrath said as he looked upon Phillip.
A small amount of blood trickled out of Phillip’s mouth as he looked down at the knife in his stomach.
“This makes you nothing more than a murderer by what you have done to me today.”
“But it doesn’t. Your name and the names of your dead friends got added to my list the night I told you I was going to kill you before I left the city. You warred against God your whole life, and the time had come for you and your friends to reap his wrath upon yourselves.”
Phillip lowered his head and hunched over as he held his stomach and took short weak gasps for air. He looked up once more at Wrath and me and then cried out in horrendous pain as he violently burst out into flames before our very eyes. He howled in pain for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity before he collapsed on the floor in a blazing pile of death.
“Why did he catch fire like that, Wrath?” I asked mortified by the sight of Phillip’s still burning body.
“That knife I buried into his stomach was made of sulfur that reacted with the evilness of his soul and caused him to break out into flames. Does that make sense to you?”
“You know what, buddy? It makes perfect sense after meeting you.”
Wrath turned, came to me and Elizabeth, loosened the restraints, and laid his hand on her forehead. Her eyes opened and she sat up like nothing was wrong. She took one look at the bodies and men in armor before she started to panic.
“What is going on, Brandon?”
“It’s okay now, Elizabeth. This is Wrath, and he and his brothers saved us.”
“Did they kill Scott too?”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but they did.”
“Good,” she said with tears at the edges of her eyes. “After everything he’s done, he deserved to die for what he did. He played me, Brandon.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“And then he was going to kill me for whatever this sick and twisted thing he was a part of here,” she said with a mix of hurt and pain.
“I’m sorry again, Lizzie. I tried to stop all of this before you got here. Please believe me that I had no idea that Scott was a part of this, and I didn’t know that Phillip was in on this until a few hours ago.”
She nodded silently as she looked at the floor, and then up at Wrath. “So, it really was a guy in a red suit.” Elizabeth said as she stared at Wrath.
“Indeed, it was, my lady, and I wouldn’t worry about explaining all of this, because it is being taken care of. Now if you two would be so kind as to follow me. We need to get out of here quickly, because my brothers and I need to rain down fire and brimstone upon this God forsaken place.”
“But this is a church, you can’t do that. Aren’t you from God?” I protested.
“Look around, Brandon, does any of this look like a church to you? Phillip said it himself that he never believed in God and used this building to conduct his evil activities. This place is accursed in the eyes of God. The innocent blood he shed on these grounds cries out to God day and night for justice, and so they shall have it when this place is reduced to an ash heap. You should be thanking God it’s just this place that gets destroyed tonight, and not the rest of the city.”
I was relieved to hear that the city was saved, but still saddened that the church I had so many fond memories with dad was about to be destroyed. I could tell by the determined look on Wrath and his brothers’ faces as they surrounded us that there was nothing I could do to stop that from happening. I nodded in approval.
Wrath led Elizabeth and I out of the church, and he walked us to the roof of the building across the street.
“You can watch safely from here as that den of evil is destroyed.”
“Good,” Elizabeth said.
“Isn’t the destruction of the church going to get pinned on me as well? It’s not like Elizabeth and I can say it was you and your brothers.”
“I told you it was taken care of, but if you must know, then I will tell you. When that building burns to the ground the fire fighters will find the cause to be faulty wiring in one of the offices. As well as evidence of Phillip and his elder’s evil deeds, and all the killings will be blamed on them where it belongs. As well as all the other unsolved murders they committed there. The city needs to see Phillip for who he was, and not make a martyr out of him.”
“But weren’t there good Christian people that went to church there, and had no idea of what Phillip was up to? He had my dad and I fooled for the longest time.”
“There were many good Christian people that went there, and they will need someone to look to now,” Wrath said as he stared directly at me.
“Are you talking about me becoming a p
astor, because there’s no way I could do that.”
“You have all the qualifications to be one in a roundabout way. You care strongly for others, so much so that you are willing to risk your own personal safety to help them. You have been lost and wandering through life ever since you were fired from being a detective. You know that door is forever closed, and nothing you can do will ever open it again, and deep down inside you have always known that. God has seen the burning question in your heart to know what the next thing in your life is. Well, my friend, God is saying that it is being a pastor, and besides, you’re in desperate need of a career change.”
“He’s right,” Elizabeth seconded.
“Give it some time, and start praying again, and God will show you what I’m talking about. Now, I must be going, my friend.”
“Wait, we are friends?”
“Yes. We are friends. Any friend of Gods is a friend of mine. Now, please stay here until it’s finished, and you’ll be safe. Brandon, it was a real pleasure getting to know and work with you,” Wrath said as he stuck out his hand which I took in friendship.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“And don’t worry,” Wrath continued. “I’m sure our paths will cross again someday.”
“I hope so, and I hope you won’t be trying to kill me when they do.”
Wrath smiled at me and then at Elizabeth before he jumped off the roof and met his brothers who waited for him in the church parking lot. They all turned into pillars of red fire and took off into the night sky and hovered over the church as they rained down balls of fire upon it, until the church was no more.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brandon Farmer
The City of Black Castle
Three Years Later
I SAT AT MY DESK ON the third anniversary of Ron’s death and my first meeting with Wrath.
My life had taken a dramatic detour on that day.
I had witnessed Wrath kill those who had gone past the point of no return due to their sin, and rain down destruction through fire with his brothers on the old Holy Anointed Church. Even though he was the embodiment of God’s Wrath, and tried to kill me for my sins, I had grown to consider him a friend after all we had been through. The fact that I had not seen him in town or heard about his exploits on the local news was a good thing, but I found myself missing him a few days after he and his brothers disappeared, and just about every day after that.
Sometimes I imagined running into him on the streets or him showing up at my house for a cup of coffee and a quick chat, but that had never happened.
That poor excuse of a church was lit up like a Christmas tree while it burned that night, but not everything had been destroyed in the fire. Apparently, I was right about Phillip having a safe placed behind a painting in his office. At the time I figured it contained the money from the offering, important documents, and other stuff like that. When the authorities eventually opened it, they found inside all sorts of evidence of his dealings with the Amaras and a list of people he and his unholy elders had sacrificed in the basement. I will never understand why Phillip decided to keep things like that, other than he had become so evil he really believed he would never be caught.
I still remember when the reporters were finally able to get inside what was left of the basement, and all the stories they ran on what they thought Phillip was up to. Not even Lizzie and I knew all what Phillip and his men were in to, or what they all had done.
Lizzie told the precinct that her investigation showed that the Amaras blamed me for the one targeting them, and that I really didn’t know what Ron was up to, which greatly helped me. The other thing it did was end Lizzie’s detective career like it had mine when people found out about Scott. He was Lizzie’s fiancé, and one of the members of Phillip’s inner circle, and many of the other officers had a hard time believing she didn’t know anything about what Scott had been a part of. They weren’t quite as terrible to her as they were to me, but I think it was bad enough for her to leave before things started to get to that point.
The Holy Anointed Church remained as a functional crime scene for months as the local and federal investigations ensued, and people came from all over to see the place after word hit the major networks. Everyone wanted to see the sight of a Satanists cult, and the police had to chase a few people away trying to evoke the devil there, or something like that. It got so bad when people were trying to steal whatever little pieces of debris they could from the sight, that the city had to station twenty-four-hour security to keep people out.
Then one day things started to calm down out of nowhere, and people went about their lives as usual. Everyone seemed to avoid the old church grounds like it was radioactive, but not me. I felt compelled to drive to the burned out remains and park a safe distance away and remember better times with my dad as I struggled to accept, he hadn’t always been the man I had known. A few days after the church burned down, I summoned the courage to visit my father’s grave. At first, I stood there not saying a word and just stared at his head stone as a flurry of emotions churned inside of me. When I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I yelled at the top of my lungs at the grave marker at the betrayal I felt inside that my father had once been a part of such a terrible organization.
When I had finally worn myself out physically and emotionally that day, I began to realize and accept that my father wasn’t perfect. He was a man who made mistakes just like I had, but he had spent the rest of his life in constant pursuit of atoning for what he had done. I understood why a relationship with God was so important to my father, because God had saved him and made him into a man all could look to and respect. Knowing where my father had been and where he ended only made me love him more, and after that day I never had a hard time visiting the graves of my parents again. I also decided not to share with anyone about my father’s past, not even with Lizzie. I figured he never shared it with me because he wanted to be free from his past demons, much like I wanted to be free from mine. My father had done so much for me when he was alive, and I wouldn’t let his legacy be marred by who he used to be.
Another revelation from that night I was also unable to shake was Wrath’s parting words to me removed from my mind about becoming a pastor. I had prayed many times from dusk to dawn by that burned-up mess, asking God to show me what he wanted me to do with my life. I had gotten so desperate for an answer that I even started reading and studying my Bible again, but with a focused intensity I hadn’t had in years past. I had no idea where to begin or how to become a pastor, and I never felt compelled to go back to school. Just about the only thing that kept coming to me was to clean up the grounds of the old church, and make the area look decent and respectable again.
I got the city to hire me at a reduced rate to demo the remaining structures and clear the grounds. I used what was left of my savings to rent equipment and hire operators until I was trained to use the heavy machinery myself and pay for the disposal fees for the debris we removed. The city ended up paying me well for the job I did. Some of the officials had legally voted to pay more since they were all happy to be rid of that embarrassing sight. Apart from the extra money the city paid me, most of the time while I worked at the old church site, I had others pull into the parking lot that were driving by and offer to pay me to come do work for them on their properties—which I gladly accepted, and worked very hard to complete the work on time, on budget, and up to the owner’s standards. Word started to travel fast about my company, and I never thought that it would help in cleaning up my spotted reputation with many in the city as well as it did. I even got hired by my former brothers in blue to do some work for them, which seemed to mend things between us.
I’m still amazed that my construction company was birthed in the burnt-out pit that had brought so much shame upon our town, and my company had grown in leaps and bounds that first year. I had more work than I could keep up with, but I kept preparing myself for the day that I would become a pastor. I figured that
someone would come to me and ask me to pastor their church, but God had another idea, and when he told me, I listened. So, by the end of my second year in business, I had saved enough to buy the land that the old Holy Anointed Church sat on.
As soon as I had signed the contract, and the property was in my name, I prayed over the land for God to bless it and remove any curse that might be on it from Phillip. Then I went to work building a new church. As soon as the construction had been completed, I opened the doors on the following Sunday morning, and to my surprise, I preached my first sermon to a full congregation. The best part was that I had been doing so for the last seven months. I kept my construction company going, so I wouldn’t need to take a salary from the church, so all the offering money could go to mission work and various other church and community needs.
“Thank you for everything, Jesus,” I said as the door to my office opened.
“Sorry babe, I’m not Jesus. Are you praying right now? Do you need me to come back?” Lizzie asked as she walked into the room.
“No, it’s fine. Come on in.”
Lizzie and I talked that night on the roof as the Holy Anointed Church burned in front of us. I told her I was sorry for everything. I was sorry about what Scott had done to her, and how I had completely let her down in the past. I told her how much I still loved her, but I understood if she didn’t want to talk to me again after everything that had happened between us. I didn’t know where we were supposed to go from there, but that I would always be there for her. She didn’t say much at all that night as a steady stream of tears ran down her cheeks, and I put my arms around her in one last hug. We parted ways, and I never expected to see her again. I had thought about calling so many times, but I always decided not to, and to just let it be. Then one day while I was working at the old church site, she came to see me. She had brought food, and asked if I was hungry, and if I wanted to have lunch with her. She looked as beautiful as ever, and of course I couldn’t resist.
The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) Page 24
