The God Killers

by David Simpson

  “Monsters!” Florence finally screeched.

  “She’s okay now,” Father Hurley informed her gently.

  “Who are you people? What in Heaven’s name is going on here?” Florence shrilled.

  “We brought her back...the demon is gone,” Father Hurley said.

  “Auntie?” Natalie asked, confused and just barely beginning to open her eyes.

  Han draped Cipher’s jacket over Cipher’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. “We gotta get the hell out of here, buddy.”

  “Agreed,” Cipher replied, barely able to get the words out as he carefully let out a long, painful sigh. Han grabbed his duffle bag with one hand, his equipment hastily tossed in, and braced Cipher with the other as they clumsily began to make their way out of the room, Father Hurley following close behind.

  “Wait!” Natalie called out to them as they made it to the door. Han stopped for a moment and turned as Natalie asked, “Who are you guys?”

  “La Resistance.”

  6

  Caiaphas awoke on his super-king-sized Bakker Magnetics floating bed to a gentle nudge from supple, soft fingertips and steadied himself against the urge to grasp them, yank them out of joint, and break them apart. Usually, that was how he’d respond to being awakened before he had enjoyed a satisfactory ten hours of sleep, but he remembered quickly that he’d given the girls strict orders to awaken him if he received a high-priority message. “Master, you have an important message,” said a feminine voice so sweet, young, and obedient that it tamed even Caiaphas’s sociopathic heart—at least momentarily.

  “Thank you, Mary,” he said as he opened his eyes and Mary handed him his iPhone 6 in a 22K solid gold casing with 136 diamonds in the front bezel and 53 flawless diamonds making up the rear logo. He immediately scowled when he took notice of her see-through negligee. “I told you, no clothes in the penthouse. Ever.”

  “I’m sorry, Master. I was just slightly cold when I got up to get the phone,” Mary responded. She removed the robe, revealing a perfect twenty-four-year-old nude female body.

  “Well that’s not a shock. I keep it slightly cold so you’ll have to touch me for warmth while I sleep. It makes your nipples look better as well. Don’t make me tell you again.” The last sentence was spoken with a black, threatening hatred that made Mary squirm under the microfiber suede bedspread and clasp on Caiaphas’s warm torso. She knew the consequences of defying Caiaphas; she would never risk it.

  Caiaphas opened his message and saw a pixilated student ID photo of Natalie’s face staring back at him. Along with the photo was the text of a phone call from a woman who claimed that her niece had been possessed and was molested by a priest and two young men. “Mary, call the concierge immediately and arrange to have the Reventon out front of the building in five minutes. Tell him if it’s not there, I will cut off his balls and make his family watch him bleed to death.”

  “Yes, Master!” Mary responded as she sprang out from the cover of the microfiber suede and toward the wall phone on the far side of the 2,800 square foot penthouse. Caiaphas also sprang out of the bed and onto the silk Isfahan carpeting of his bedroom. The commotion awoke Mag.

  “What’s going on?” she asked sleepily.

  “Don’t question me. Get up and get yourself ready. I expect you to look perfect when I return.”

  Mag, another beautiful young girl in her early twenties, climbed out from under the comforter and exited the bedroom. Caiaphas, focused on his mission, did not even watch her exquisite female form as she left; he had seen it before, and he would see it again—anytime he wanted to.

  “Master,” whimpered Jezzie, the last of Caiaphas’s current crop of concubines, “will you untie me before you leave? My arms are numb.”

  Caiaphas stopped putting on his Christian Dior silk shirt for a moment and almost smiled as he regarded Jezzie’s naked body, spread-eagle and strapped to the four bedposts so she looked like a beautiful female Christ, her mascara-stained tears running down her face and falling onto her pure torso. That sight almost turned him on. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m not yet convinced that you’ve learned your lesson. Never again do I want to hear that you’ve skipped the gym. That posterior of yours won’t stay like that on its own, and if it ever gets soft, you know what will happen.”

  “I’m so sorry, Master,” Jezzie whimpered.

  The more she whimpered, the more Caiaphas liked it. He decided he’d have some fun with her when he returned home after killing Cipher and ending it once and for all. “Remember, my dear, if you fuck with God, God fucks with you—or at least, His number one man on Earth will.”

  7

  Only a few minutes later, Han smoked a cigarette while he watched Father Hurley hurriedly pack his belongings into an old suitcase and a single backpack. “How long will it take to decode the message?” Han asked Cipher, who was busy on his laptop.

  “The program does it automatically. As soon as this piece of shit computer opens the program, we should be able to listen.”

  “How are you feeling?” Han asked, more fascinated than concerned.

  Cipher’s chest was not seriously burned, but a first-degree burn was a first-degree burn, and he knew it must have been excruciating. “Fucked up,” Cipher answered.

  “That’s what I figured,” Han replied as he put his cigarette out on the surface of the wooden desk on which the laptop sat.

  Father Hurley paused his packing for a moment, sensing the disrespectful gesture, but he bit his tongue as he regarded Han’s smiling face.

  “Hey, you don’t live here anymore. Might as well break the place up a little.”

  “Please don’t procreate,” Father Hurley responded gruffly.

  “What? Why?” Han’s sinister smile grew wider when he saw that he’d gotten under the priest’s skin. It had become his hobby to torment the kindly, wise old man. “I’d make a great dad.”

  “Then I apologize,” Father Hurley said, not at all meaning it but drawing on his hard-won wisdom to avoid being sucked down to Han’s level.

  “Finally, we’re set,” Cipher announced.

  Both Han and Father Hurley snapped to attention and sat next to Cipher.

  “Let’s hear it then,” Father Hurley said.

  Cipher nodded and hit the play button on the descrambled message from Satan. The voice that came through was unsettling. The messages were so scrambled that even after decoding, they still sounded disjointed. The voice was electronic and ghostly, the intonation often uneven, and there was a cold hiss in the background that captured the essence of the otherworldly place from which it came. “Your mission to kill the creature that calls itself God with the Spear of Destiny failed. This is unfortunate, but it was not an unexpected outcome.”

  “Now she tells us,” Han scoffed.

  “It was hoped that the Spear that had punctured the boundary between the mortal plane and the Second Plane would still harbor enough of the Second Plane’s energy to be an effective weapon against our shared adversary. It was not. There is, however, a failsafe—a back-up plan.”

  “We’re not finished yet,” Cipher said, hopefulness beneath the words.

  “There is a new contact that you must extract as soon as possible, for she is now in danger. You have already encountered her. Her name is Natalie Nietsien.”

  “Holy shit,” Han said with a gasp.

  “Natalie…” Father Hurley uttered.

  “I instructed the demon who carried this message to stop Natalie’s heart as it left her body. I gambled that you would go after her to save her from her near death experience.”

  “On purpose?” Han whispered, astonished.

  Cipher grimaced as he placed his hand lightly on his seared chest. He didn’t like having his life gambled with.

  “The only way to attain her help was to make her one of you. She had to have her third eye opened. Father Hurley, Han, Cipher...you must extract Natalie immediately. God’s agents will quickly discover who she is and why I have selected her.
She is the key to killing God once and for all, and only she knows how. Extract her and tell her what you know. She will do the rest.”

  “This is fucked up,” said Han, standing and nervously pulling out another cigarette.

  “Now,” the electronic voice of Satan began, “go now. Go now. GO NOW!” The words repeated, the volume and shrillness, increasing each time. The words eventually became so loud that the three men had to cover their ears to protect them from the searing pain, until eventually the laptop speakers were overwhelmed and went silent.

  “Boys,” Father Hurley began after a stunned silence, “I think we better go get her...now.”

  8

  “Here’s a fresh towel, my dear,” Florence said to her niece as she handed it through the bathroom door.

  Natalie had the hot water running for her shower, and the room was already filled with steam. “Thank you, Auntie,” she replied weakly.

  “I called the bishop this time. The police will be here in less than five minutes, they said, but just take your time in the shower,” Florence said sympathetically.

  “I won’t be too long. Thanks again, Auntie.”

  “My poor, sweet child,” Florence replied, her heart filled with sympathy. It was the first time that Florence had ever spoken with sympathy. Florence had to admit, however, that what she was really feeling was satisfaction and joy. Finally, finally, Father Hurley will get what he deserves. Not only would Florence singlehandedly have him removed from their parish, but also she would have him thrown into jail—hopefully for a long, long time.

  Natalie closed the door and looked at her face in the mirror. She still looked pale, and there were dark circles around her eyes that made her appear like a raccoon. What happened to me? Demonic possession? It couldn’t be. What were those visions that I had while I was unconscious? How could I have dreamt of a man I’ve never met, only to wake up next to him? She felt as though she was still in a nightmare from which she could not awaken.

  Meanwhile, Caiaphas rolled to a stop in his Lamborghini Reventon and parked across the street from 2323 23rd Avenue. He popped the door open and sighed as he prepared to get up from the heat pad built for the lower lumbar of the luxury leather seats; the real world was simply not as pleasurable as the world of Lamborghini. Still, time was a factor, so he refocused himself, stood to his feet, and watched as Officer Roche’s police cruiser screeched around the corner, sirens blaring and lights flashing. “Imbecile,” Caiaphas said to himself.

  Roche pulled to a stop and sprang his rotund carcass out of his car, breathing heavily and sweating an unseemly film. “I just got the word!” Roche called to Caiaphas as he quickly waddled toward his master.

  Caiaphas flashed out his hand in a gesture that seemed impossibly fast and slapped Roche across the face, knocking the fat man back against a nearby van. “You’re going to scare them away, idiot! Get that car away from here and wait until you see them enter the house. Give me five minutes with them and don’t come in a second sooner than that. Understand, fool?”

  “Yes. I-I’m sorry.” Roche stumbled away, still holding the part of his enormous jowl that smarted from the impact, his eyes beginning to water as he held back tears of shame.

  Caiaphas watched the wretched, flabby form of Roche as it retreated to its squad car and quickly pulled away. He took one last look up and down the street to make sure there was still no sign of Cipher and his crew. Once he was satisfied that his cover had not been blown, he adjusted his Calvin Klein charcoal suit jacket with its hand-finished wool and made his way toward the front door of the house. He put his index finger out and pressed the front doorbell, noticing as he did so that slapping Roche had damaged the shine on his manicure. “Imbecile,” he whispered again as Florence’s footsteps grew louder and quickly collected near the door. When she opened it and saw Caiaphas’s angelic smile and masculine and competent features, she immediately trusted him.

  “Hello,” she began, stunned by the captivating beauty of the man in front of her. “Are you with the police?”

  Caiaphas smiled. This was the part where he let his perfectly white teeth and perfectly symmetrical features do the work for him. He took an extra moment; it was barely more than a second, but the pause increased the impact of his hypnotic impression on her, and he knew it. Then he followed up the impression of his perfect face with the impression of his impeccable grammar and grace and the sultry smoothness of his FM radio voice. “I am indeed, but I’m not one of them. I work for the Vatican,” he said, just as he pulled out his Bally leather wallet and flashed his Vatican ID before gracefully returning it to the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “Oh my,” Florence replied, lightly placing her hand on her cheek in a move that many of the woman of her day had perfected in their youths when they wanted to display that they were impressed with a male; she simply couldn’t help herself. “I didn’t expect someone so...well connected.”

  “The Vatican cannot turn a blind eye to demonic possession, now can it? This isn’t something we take lightly. May I come in, my dear?”

  “Of course,” Florence said, stepping aside immediately and eagerly waving Caiaphas inside.

  “Thank you, darling,” Caiaphas replied as he stepped deftly into the old house and made his way briskly and efficiently into the living room.

  “Your name,” Florence began, “Caiaphas. It’s biblical, is it not?”

  Caiaphas smiled; most people didn’t notice that he still used his biblical name. His first name was actually Joseph, but that sounded far too common and pedestrian. Caiaphas, on the other hand, carried weight in the circles that mattered. Florence read the Bible, so she’d heard of him—at least in a manner.

  “That’s right, my dear.”

  “It’s a strange name for a parent to choose,” Florence commented.

  “Indeed.” Caiaphas quickly changed the subject. “My good woman, may I inquire as to where your niece Natalie is at the moment?”

  “Oh yes, of course! She’s in the shower right now. I told her to take her time. The poor dear has been through...well, please pardon my language, but through hell today. It was so awful. Just horrid.”

  “Indeed. I read the reports about the priest and his two accomplices. That must have added insult to injury,” replied Caiaphas, affecting as much sympathy as he could generate. It was difficult to feign emotion; in reality, he had none.

  “Father Hurley! I always knew he was a degenerate. I’m so glad he finally revealed himself as the agent of Satan he truly is!” Florence exclaimed.

  Caiaphas smiled at her comment; this Cretin had no idea how truly right she was. He turned from Florence and looked down the hallway toward the bathroom where Natalie was showering.

  A little boy, who appeared to be half-Asian and half white, was standing there and locked eyes with Caiaphas. Caiaphas recognized immediately that it was a ghost. God was clearly doing His part to torment Natalie on the Third Plane. The little boy looked confused, however, as though he didn’t know whether Caiaphas was a regular human or not.

  Caiaphas glowered at the boy, revealing the hellish redness of his eyes that only those with their third eyes open could see.

  The boy was startled, stepped backward, then phased through the bathroom door.

  Caiaphas smiled an almost imperceptible sadistic smile as he imagined the fright Natalie would have momentarily.

  “Um, Mr. Caiaphas,” Florence began in a pleasant but inquisitive manner, “may I ask you something more about your name?”

  Caiaphas turned on his heels a little too quickly and momentarily frightened Florence. He adjusted his smile, softening it to undo the damage. “Of course.” After all, everything seemed in order; there was no reason that Caiaphas could see not to let the mayhem begin.

  “Well it’s just that…well, it’s a very unusual name, isn’t it?”

  “It’s rare,” replied Caiaphas, trying to hold back the animalistic, sadistic grin that was waiting to reemerge, “but is it so unusual to have a bi
blical name? After all, how many Matthew, Mark, Luke and Johns do we have running around the world? Not to mention Michaels, Davids, Pauls—”

  “That’s very true,” Florence replied, “but, with all due respect, all of those names are people in the Bible who are…well, uh—”

  “Yes, Florence?” Caiaphas prompted her to continue, enjoying the game thoroughly.

  “Well,” she said, smiling, slightly embarrassed, “they are good people, in the Bible at least.”

  Caiaphas opened his mouth in mock astonishment. “Milady, are you suggesting that the Caiaphas from the Bible is not good?”

  Florence smiled in response and shook her head as though the answer were obvious. “Caiaphas allowed Jesus to be murdered instead of saving Him when he had the power to do so. I hardly think he was a good person, and certainly not a good Christian. Is there some reason your parents chose that name? Were they trying to remind you of something? A lesson about man’s fallibility?”

  Caiaphas laughed. It was a long, cold, cruel laugh; Florence knew she was being mocked, though she didn’t understand why. He turned to her, his eyes suddenly as dead and glazed over as that of a corpse, and replied, “My parents did not give me this name. He gave me this name.”

  “Oh,” Florence replied, slightly frightened. “I-I understand. I’m sorry if I insulted you.”

  Caiaphas laughed once again, and it felt good to let it out. Oh, these humans are pathetic. “My dear, you have as much chance of insulting me as would an ant or an inchworm. You’re nothing.”

  “Pardon me?” Florence replied, her heart skipping a beat as adrenaline began to flow.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! Are you beginning to think me a bad man? Like Caiaphas from the Bible? The Christian Bible?”

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect, Mr. Caiaphas. I’m sorry if I offended you, but that is no reason to hurl insults at a lady.”