Instead, he decided to do neither. He rolled forward, between the legs of mighty demon. At the apex of the roll, he thrust upwards with both swords, blindly striking where he hoped the demon was. As he moved, he channelled his ki — his inner energy — and let out a shout so great it momentarily drowned out the shrieking of the Lemure.
With a faint feeling of surprise, he felt both swords strike home, the impact almost tearing the swords from his grasp. He rolled to his feet and pivoted. The Astaroth was still standing where it was when he attacked, motionless. The Lemure were moving as if wading through a thick, viscous fluid. Then, without warning, time resumed its normal pace and the Astaroth toppled to the ground like a felled tree.
Above him, Sam heard the two remaining Astaroth roar in outrage. If he was human, Sam was sure that his eardrums would have split with the sheer power of the noise. The Lemure surged forward. Sam braced himself as best he could. If he was going to die, he was going to take as many of these demonic bastards with him as he could.
Just as the first of the Lemure reached him, the sky burst asunder with an intense golden light and a clap of thunder. The Lemure halted their charge, stunned by the sudden onset of brilliance. It was so bright that Sam had to shield his eyes, so accustomed had he become to the dark.
When he could see again, blinking dark spots out of his eyes, something else had joined the Astaroth in the sky. A winged figure, human sized and glowing with an internal radiance, streaked towards one of the Astaroth. Its arm was extended, clutching something that blazed with fiery light. Although Sam could hardly make it out, he knew it must be a sword.
With another flash of lightning and a murderous boom of thunder, the winged figure collided with the Astaroth and skewered it upon its sword. The huge demon let out an ear-splitting cry as it tumbled to the ground. Before it hit its body reduced to ash, fluttering down on the frozen bodies of the Lemure. The winged figure hung in the sky above them as if daring them to attack.
The one remaining Astaroth, intent on an attack run at the intruder, suddenly swerved in mid air as if having second thoughts about taking on so formidable an opponent. With huge down beats of its wings, it turned and fled back in the direction of Jacob’s Ladder. This was a signal for the Lemure. As one, they seemed to lose all interest in Sam and fighting in general. Wailing and screeching into the darkness, they scurried away.
Sam was left standing alone in the red-tinged gloom. The winged figure dropped to the ground before him, its glow fading.
It — she, Sam corrected himself for it was clearly female as the curves of her silver- clad armoured body attested — appeared as a strikingly beautiful woman. Long golden hair, somehow radiant even in the sick glow of the moon, flowed down her back. Feathery wings arched above her shoulders, their pale luminescence immune to the moon’s light. Sam was no expert in such things, but she appeared to be around his age. A long slim sword, fire licking from its blade, was clutched in one of her delicate hands.
“Hello, Samael,” she said, her voice like rustling silk. Sam was speechless. How did such a creature even know his name? He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. What to say? He had never been good at talking to girls — apart from Aimi of course — and now was no different. His tongue felt swollen. He managed to swallow and finally found his voice.
“The family …?” he said.
“Are gone,” replied the Angel, for surely that was what she was. An angel sent from heaven. “Taken by the Lemure. Even as we speak, they are being prepared for their journey to hell. You cannot help them now.”
“But surely we have to try?” he managed to croak. His heart was beginning to calm from its mad, adrenaline-filled rush, and his thoughts were clearing. “Together, the two of us could overpower the Lemure and the remaining Astaroth.”
The Angel smiled gently at him and shook her head as she sheathed the flaming sword into an ornate scabbard at her waist. “No, Samael. They are gone. In any case, they did not deserve the salvation you offered. But come, I’m here to aid you on the journey which now you must make. Follow me.”
Confident that Sam was following, she strode off towards the west and the looming Rockies. Sam remained motionless, torn between heading back towards Jacob’s Ladder and hastening after this angelic figure.
The Angel paused and looked over her shoulder, her wings folding obediently to one side so that Sam could clearly see her face. “You coming?”
With a backward glance towards his home town, Sam moved reluctantly to her side. She nodded as if expecting no less and resumed walking at a brisk pace. He noticed that she was as tall as him.
He was still not sure what to say. Conversation had never been his strong point, but he did remember his manners. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She smiled at him again. “I’ve been called by many names by many people. The name I possess now, and which I am most comfortable is probably one that is familiar to you. For the last few thousands of years, mankind has called me Gabriel.”
Gabriel. God’s messenger. One of his trusted and most powerful Angels.
Sam nodded. Nothing lately had made any sense so why should this be any different?
Sam followed Gabriel west towards the Rockies, pausing just once for one backward glance at his home town, obscured by darkness. The town that had been his whole life. The town he had never once left.
Something told him that he would never see it again.
4
FOR HIS SINS
9 YEARS EARLIER
“Behold, the day of the LORD comes,
Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger,
To lay the land desolate;
And He will destroy its sinners from it.”
Isaiah 13:9
It was mid winter, below freezing, the wind blowing in off the Rockies cold enough to freeze an unprotected human to death in minutes. Snow covered the red rock like a layer of frosting, providing uncertain footing for anyone foolish enough to be out in it.
Sam didn’t notice. He ran with his shirt off, heart pounding as he ate up the miles. The cold didn’t seem to affect him as it did others. He felt the chill and the icy bite of the wind but only like a human would notice a mosquito bite — slightly annoying but essentially harmless. Much like his cap. Hikari made sure he wore it. His master wasn’t stupid. He knew Sam liked to run with his sweatshirt off and so made sure the boy at least wore his cap. Sam fought a constant battle with it. Annoyingly, it wanted to fly off his head with the slightest breeze.
It got dark early in winter. He liked this time of year — he could begin his evening regime earlier and there were far less people around. The solitude appealed to him as much as the cold terrain. Hikari had only just started letting him venture further out at nights and he welcomed the new found freedom.
He ran on. Devil’s Garden was just ahead. He passed underneath Pine Tree Arch, his moon-shadow racing ahead of him and disappearing just before he entered the welcome darkness beneath it. He followed the path, his pace steady, easily avoiding any uneven patches, his shinai clutched firmly in one hand. Passing through another arch he left the path, heading for one of his training areas.
He leapt from rock to rock, his nine year old body displaying an agility and strength both surprising and unnatural in one so young. He crossed over another arch and then down into a rocky gully. This training area — one of many — was one of his favourites. He and Hikari had just finished it a few nights earlier and already, he’d used it more than any of the others. It was a simple enough affair: a series of bamboo poles buried in the ground at different levels designed to simulate a variety of attack angles. He liked it because of the privacy afforded by the gully, but also because the walls enabled him to leap off at adrenaline-pumping heights.
He was almost there when suddenly he froze. A sound. Something wasn’t right. He listened carefully, cocking an ear like a dog. Voices carried aloft on the wind. Young voices. Boys in all likelihood. He dropped into stealth mode
as Hikari had taught him, inching his way along one step at a time, choosing his footing carefully and letting his weight settle before he moved again.
There was a rocky out-crop ahead of him, partially illuminated by moonlight but mostly in deep shadow. He crept towards it, silent as death. Beyond it, the voices were louder. The boys had found his training ground. He crouched in the shadow of the outcropping and listened, feeling the sweat starting to cool on his naked torso. By the sounds of them, there were three. He didn’t recognise the voices but that was hardly surprising — he had very little contact with any of the other boys in Jacob’s Ladder.
Judging from the tone of their voices, they were young. Probably his age or slightly older. He had become very adept at assessing such things. Whenever he got the chance, he watched humans, fascinated by everything about them, following their movements, listening to them. Apart from Hikari and Aimi, it was all the human interaction he normally got.
The boys were talking, moving about his training ground as they did so. He heard their sneakers crunch on the snow. It was unusual for boys this young to be out as late as this — especially in winter. The terrain around Jacob’s Ladder was unforgiving at this time of year and more so in Devil’s Garden. One slip in the snowy conditions could lead to serious injury or even death.
The cold was potentially deadly, too. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Visibility was poor, the moon a poor substitute for daylight. Conceivably, the boys could be lost. Even if they weren’t, it was still an hour’s walk back to town.
Sam considered these factors and then adjusted his cap, ready to step out and offer to guide the boys back to the path at the very least. And then he stopped. Something in the boy’s conversation had finally registered. His name.
“Who?” one of the boys was saying.
“You know, Sam — the kid that lives with Aimi and her father,” said a second voice.
“Oh, him,” said the third, snorting. “He’s a retard.”
“Probably,” replied the second voice, laughing. “You hardly ever see him and when you do, he’s wearing that stupid sweatshirt with the hood always pulled up. It’s always the same one, too. Doesn’t he have any others?”
The others laughed. Sam felt something shrink inside. He didn’t really care what he looked like, but clearly it was important to these boys and so maybe he should take more notice. It was things like this — other than his heritage — that made him different. Maybe if he wasn’t so unusual, these boys would be friends with him.
There was something about their tone too that was starting to upset him. They were laughing at him and he didn’t like it.
“Yeah,” said the third voice, “and why doesn’t he go to school? He must be retarded. Maybe he goes to a special school for retards.”
All three laughed again, and a tight core of anger began to unfold its wings in Sam’s stomach.
“So what makes you think this is his?” asked the first voice.
“Who else?” said the second. “It’s either his or that Japanese guy’s. No-one else in town plays around with this sort of stuff.”
“We’d better get back,” said the first voice. “I told Mom we’d be back before dark. We’re gonna be late.”
“Wait,” said the third voice. “Let’s leave him a surprise.”
“What do you mean?” asked the first voice.
“Let’s knock over some of his poles.”
Sam surged to his feet at this suggestion, his knuckles turning white around the shaft of the shinai. Anger coursed through him, burst into flight, anger that yearned to be satisfied with violence. His whole body trembled with it. Something whispered inside him then — a voice he wasn’t entirely sure was his own but one he claimed regardless. Whose voice could it be but his own? The voice would only be satisfied with bloodshed — with the blood of these boys.
Kill them. Kill them now. No-one will know. No-one need ever know. Kill them out here amongst the rocks and the cold and the snow and the darkness and their bodies will never be found. Not ever. You won’t get caught. You can do it. You want to do it. DO IT!
Sam felt his body begin to move towards the boys, eager to satisfy the voice inside his head. He watched the arm clutching the shinai raise up of its own volition. He felt violence start to boil in his veins, all too keen to be unleashed.
A rock under the heel of one sneaker shifted. The scraping noise was easily heard in the still night air of the gully. In that one moment, it was like a spell had broken. The incredible rage he felt suddenly drained away like water as if it hadn’t existed, to be replaced with a kind of numbness.
He shook his head to clear it, confused. Sure, it was like him to get angry, but not to the extent of really wanting to kill others. And he had felt like killing them. Really wanted to. He could still almost taste that desire. It was like someone else or even an unknown part of him had for one moment been in control of his mind and body. Strange.
He cursed silently. He had let his anger triumph once again — something that both he and Hikari had been working hard to suppress. It was too late though; the damage had been done and he swore again, aloud this time.
There was silence in the gully. Then: “What was that?” asked the third voice.
“I don’t know,” confessed the second voice, and Sam’s keen hearing detected uneasiness in it. The boy was scared.
“Let’s go,” said the first voice again. “We’re gonna be in enough trouble as it is.”
The other two made grumbling noises but Sam could tell that they’d lost the urge for vandalism. He heard them move towards him. He edged his body back even further into the darkness so that he became just another patch of darker shadow. They passed by him, so close that if he wished, he could have reached out and touched them. He didn’t though. His temper was still not under control and he didn’t trust himself.
They moved out of the gully, following the path that Sam took into it. Probably more by good luck than any great outdoor skill. Sam followed them, taking care not to make any noise, treating it as an exercise set by Hikari. His rage subsided as he watched them clumsily navigate the rocks along the path.
He recognized them now, of course. Three boys he had seen around Jacob’s Ladder. Not spoken to though.
That would never do, he thought bitterly. They might discover what he was and then, of course, all hell would break loose. In the darkness, his mouth quirked into a smile at his own joke.
Eventually, they made it back to the main path. Sam, to his surprise, was slightly relieved. If the boys had got lost, he would’ve felt compelled to help them. And in his current state of mind, helping them was the last thing he felt like doing.
He shadowed them all the way back to Jacob’s Ladder, listening to their easy banter with faint stirrings of jealousy. Part of him wanted to join in with the conversation, despite what the boys had said earlier. Aimi was his friend but Sam realized that what he really wanted — what he would love to have — was some male friends.
He made sure they got home safely, smiling when he heard the sounds of adult voices chastising the late arrivals. He never had that problem. Then again, they had friends to commiserate with. Perhaps one day, he might have some friends of his own.
Dream on, he told himself.
Wrapping the darkness around him like a cloak, he headed for home.
The fire was lit when he got home. A welcome blast of warm air washed over him as he entered through the back door. Aimi was setting the table for dinner. She looked up when she heard the door open and favoured him with a smile. Some of the misery drained from him and he smiled back, dropping his shinai into the brass stand by the door.
No words were exchanged, but she knew his moods by now. He was not much given to talking at the best of times and tonight certainly hadn’t been one of those. Even at the age of six, Aimi possessed far more wisdom and poise than girls twice her age. He watched as she fussed around the table, setting out chopsticks and napkins. Hikari was no-where to
be seen, so Sam took himself off to the bathroom to clean up before supper.
Drying his hands, he heard the sounds of two adult male voices talking in the hall. One was Hikari. The other sounded familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. In the bathroom mirror, he quickly adjusted his cap. This was a special occasion. They rarely had guests. He was torn between nervousness and curiosity.
When he walked back into the dining room, he found their guest seated at the table. Sam stopped and just stared, still several yards from the table, uncertain what to do. Socialising was not something he was practised in or comfortable with.
The man was large and dressed in a black suit with a white collar. A priest. Sam had seen him around the town before but had never spoken to him. The priest had even been on their porch, talking with Hikari. Feeling like a criminal, Sam had watched and listened to them many times but had never been invited to join their conversations. This was the first time the man had ever set foot in the house.
Something wasn’t right.
Hikari was helping Aimi in the adjoining kitchen. Both entered carrying bowls of steaming miso soup. Hikari set the soup down and gently touched Sam’s arm. It was a gesture that Hikari had used many times with both him and Aimi. It said ‘Welcome home. I’ve missed you. There is nothing to fear here.’
Immediately, Sam relaxed slightly, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. If Hikari said this man was safe, then safe he was. Hikari steered him towards the table. Sam was almost as tall as his master and he knew he was much stronger, but the hand on his arm propelled him forward with irresistible power.
The priest rose as the introductions were made.
“Father Rainey, this is my ward, Sam.” Hikari was all smiles. Clearly, he thought this an auspicious occasion. Father Rainey, on the other hand, did not look so enthusiastic.
Rapture r-1 Page 5
