by Tim Marquitz
Unable to help, I simply let them be. They stayed there for several minutes, neither speaking nor breaking the embrace. Unwilling to interrupt, I stood and started to back away when I noticed Rahim looking at me.
“How bad?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t going to like the answer. He, no doubt, hated to admit it even more.
“My spine is shattered,” he said as he took a deep, laborious breath. His face winced with the effort. Page 245
Katon pulled away to make it easier, settling in beside him. “I can’t feel anything below my chest. It’s all dead.”
My heart sank. In my mind, that was worse than death. “We need to get you back to DRAC.” I knew it was the right thing to do, but I wasn’t even sure that’d help.
While the members of DRAC had performed many miracles since their inception, healing on the scale Rahim required wasn’t one of them. Forget all the stories you’ve heard about preachers or wizards healing the crippled and bringing the dead back to life, same as they were before. They aren’t true. Outside of God and the Devil, no one has the level of power or control necessary to truly resurrect the dead or make a crippled man walk again. Magic doesn’t work that way. For all its vaunted reputation, it’s rarely useful for anything more than destruction. While somewhat flexible, conforming to the imagination of its specific wielder, its true nature is brute force. The hammer never cures the anvil.
The soul transfer, the closest thing to a miracle in today’s Godless world, would also be useless to him. As a human, Rahim had no ability to partake of a supernatural being’s soul. While his suffering could be eased by judicious magical rituals and modern medicine, Rahim’s future was in the hands of fate and the surgeons in the employ of DRAC.
He knew this better than any of us.
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“There is still much to do, my friends, but I’m afraid I can do little to help.” Rahim patted Katon on the leg to motivate him, his moist eyes never leaving mine.
“Take me home.”
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History Lessons
Back at DRAC, Katon having escorted the doctors who wheeled Rahim into surgery, Scarlett and I were left alone in the small waiting room. Unable to remain still, she paced the room from one end to the other, her leather pants squeaking faintly with every step. So rattled by how fast we’d fallen apart, I sat with my head in my hands and stared at the carpet. I couldn’t even bring myself to think something sexual about the sound Scarlett was making. That alone was a sure sign of Armageddon coming to pass.
With Abraham held captive by Baalth and Rahim broken, perhaps never to walk again, all that was left of the Council was Rachelle. As powerful and as good a person as she was, she would be little help from this point on. Even if she did sense the next ritual, it would be too late to stop it.
Asmoday had done well for himself. In just a few short days, he’d decimated DRAC, clearing the way for the end of the world. Not bad for an underachiever who had been kicked out of Heaven for being the errand boy who delivered the apple to Eve.
Speaking of misguided angels, I glanced up at Scarlett. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
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She stopped her pacing and looked at me with baleful eyes, nodding.
“How did Asmoday manage to kidnap you?”
Her face twisted weirdly, as if unsure of what expression to make. “He didn’t.” She took a deep breath, letting it out slow. “Gabriel did.”
I leaned back in the chair, whistling. Scarlett had been drug through the wringer ever since the war broke out and she was forced to take sides. It’d been hard on her having to turn her back on her friends, people she’d known since she came into existence, who had chosen to follow the path of Gabriel. Family one moment, enemies a heartbeat later, she never quite grasped the concept of angels not being the good guys. Her heart belonged to the Angelic Choir of old and she just couldn’t understand why it wasn’t that way with all of the angels.
Gabriel’s betrayal had to have been almost as painful to her as God’s disappearance had been. Everything she was, her whole world view, was tied up in the premise that God was on high and he would lead, she would follow. She’d only recently begun to accept the fact things were different these days and they probably would never go back to being the way she remembered. Now, with Gabriel kidnapping her, all that pain had to have come rushing back, the fresh scars torn open and left to bleed.
I felt for her deep down, though I had to admit I Page 249
was glad I was on the other side of all that. Demons and betrayal went hand in hand, it went without saying. It was never a matter of if. It was always a matter of when. It’s so much easier to deal with that kind of crap when you know to expect it. She hadn’t been raised in that environment like I had. This was all new to her. Though I knew it was eating her up inside, on the surface, she seemed to handle it well enough.
“He’s gone insane, you know?”
I’d kinda thought that already. I just nodded, letting her go on.
“Though he didn’t say it directly, I think he believes God will come back if he wipes out the world. He blames the humans for so exhausting God’s patience He was driven to abandon us.” A saw a shiver run through her. “He’s not going to stop until we’re all gone, Frank.”
Hours earlier I might have argued with her, enough of my confidence still alive to make a case for hope. I’d have told her we had a chance of stopping Gabriel and Asmoday and we could still win out. But now, I couldn’t even lie to her, let alone to myself. I sank down in my seat, worn out both mentally and physically. Scarlett saw my resignation and went back to pacing.
It seemed to me as though there was little else to do but sit back and wait for the big bang. It came two seconds later.
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Katon burst into the waiting room, kicking the door off its hinges. It flew across the room and landed in a broken heap of splintered wood against the furthest wall. Furious, his fangs glistening under the fluorescent lighting, he screamed epithets that made even me blush. Had I been brave enough to take my eyes off him and spare Scarlett a glance, I’m sure the color of her face would have matched her name. Rather than do anything to draw his attention to me, I sat back and watched as he gave a row of metal chairs the worst beating of their inanimate lives, thrashing them into tiny pieces and stomping them into the carpeted floor. Even Scarlett took a few steps back, not wanting to get caught up in his tantrum. It was a sight to behold, let me tell you. Once the chairs succumbed to his rage, he whirled to face me. My heart stopped mid beat. I didn’t want to end up like them. I started to sweat.
“I’m going to rip Asmoday’s entrails out through his throat and feast on his treacherous heart.” He stepped in front of me and leaned in to be sure I heard him, his face a wrinkled mess of ferocity. I sat still, like a cornered rabbit, afraid to move for fear he’d take his anger out on me. “I’m going to tear his testicles off and use his seed to write his epitaph. I’ll use his dick as my pen.”
I sensed an opening to remind him I was on his side. “Uh…I’m with you, brother,” I muttered, nodding Page 251
like a bobblehead doll.
My heart started up again when he spun around and put his foot through the wall several feet away. I was more than glad it wasn’t my head. Not satisfied with that small destruction, he began tearing madly at the plasterboard. Clouds of white dust filled the room, settling thick around us. After a few minutes of frenzied tearing, his shoulders slumped and he leaned against what was left of the ravaged wall for support.
“That was our last chance and we blew it.” He turned around and dropped to a seat on the floor, his sad eyes looking up at me. Seems Scarlett and I weren’t the only ones feeling doubt. “Armageddon is coming and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Though unable to cry, Katon’s eyes had no problem expressing his overwhelming sadness. It was heart-rending. Scarlett went to his side and knelt down to comfort him. She was braver than me. His
head drooped as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.
“We have failed,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he said it.
My mind, spurred to life by the adrenaline Katon had stirred up, started clearing the fog of gloom that had stifled its function. I thought back to our encounter with Asmoday as he left to prepare Glorius. Something he’d said rang a bell, but I’d been too distracted, too afraid to recognize it for what it was. It was right there, Page 252
lurking at the hazy edge of the shadows in my head, but I couldn’t remember.
Grumbling to myself, I leaned forward, looking at the embracing pair as I tried to kick-start my brain. My eyes, as they did every opportunity they got, wandered to Scarlett’s boobs. Katon’s head was nestled between them, safe and secure in the sanctuary of her ample bosom. I watched as her chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, his head drifting along with it, eyes closed. Though I knew he was suffering, Rahim terribly injured, the world about to end, his face had settled into a calm mask. However unlikely it was, he seemed at peace.
A light bulb exploded in my head as I thought that last part. At that moment, I realized something I’d always suspected.
Boobs were the answer for everything.
“There may still be a chance,” I whispered, unable to believe even myself we might still be in the fight.
Katon lifted his head to stare up at me. His eyes were narrow and unfocused as though he’d only halfheard what I said. “What was that?”
I took a second to nail down my train of thought before answering, “I think I know where they are.”
Both of them sat up straight, twin towers of rigid surprise. “Where?” They asked the question in unison. I stood up, dredging through the drift of words Page 253
to find the right ones. “Back when Lucifer was still around, he and I spent a lot of time together in the Ninth Plane going over things. Intending me to take up the mantle of the Anti-Christ, he had confided in me.”
Katon and Scarlett hung on every word.
“After the Fall, when things had settled somewhat, God felt remorse for how he’d handled the situation. He couldn’t take it back though because it would make Him look fallible, so He let the war between Heaven and Hell continue, doing nothing to end it.”
“Where is all this going?” Katon asked.
“I’m getting there.” I waved off any further questions. “Thinking it unfair that He was omnipotent and Lucifer wasn’t, the odds forever skewed in His favor, God gifted a sanctuary to my uncle. Within its walls no one, not even God himself, could see or hear what went on.”
Scarlett gasped, probably finding it hard to believe any such place could exist, let alone that God would provide it for the Devil.
Katon, more logical than my cousin, simply wanted facts. “What makes you think Asmoday is there?”
“Something he said before he ran off. He mentioned he’d be waiting in his sanctum of peace. I didn’t catch it then, but once I had a chance to think, and the proper motivation to get my blood flowing, it all clicked. Thanks, Scarlett.”
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Oblivious to why I was thanking her, she just looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“So this sanctum of peace is your uncle’s hideaway?”
“Yes, I believe so. Inscribed upon the wall just inside the sanctuary was a poem God had written. He’d had a thing for engraving, like the Ten Commandments thing and all that, so He’d weaved the spell into the poem and carved it into the wall himself. Lucifer showed it to me the first time I was there. It read: A boon to thee once Morning Star; Where I and eye cast no sight to mar; A sanctum of peace, carved between; Hell and Earth, thy heart unseen.”
Katon repeated the poem in a whisper, seeming to agree with my logic, however fanciful it all seemed.
“How many other people know of this room?”
“Not many. Baalth, Asmoday of course, Duke Forcalor, and maybe another one or two of Lucifer’s top lieutenants from the old days. My uncle kept it to himself save for his closest allies…and me.”
Katon rubbed his jaw. “What makes you think Asmoday would go there now? It’s not much of a hideout if you know about it. He’d have to presume you’d find him there. It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s just it. Asmoday thinks I don’t know about it. Lucifer understood I wasn’t a popular choice for Anti-Christ amongst most of the lieutenants. As such, he was very careful to keep what he shared with Page 255
me, between us.”
“Wouldn’t Baalth realize he’d gone there, making it less attractive to Asmoday?” Scarlett interjected.
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. You didn’t know Uncle like I did. He was a very private man. No one, and I mean no one, entered his chambers without an invitation. You didn’t even cast a glance in their direction without permission. It was second nature in Hell to go out of your way to avoid his quarters. When he left, the lieutenants sealed his chambers out of respect.”
“So you expect us to believe they just walked away from an asset as valuable as this sanctuary, leaving it to rot unused?” Scarlett put her hands on her hips and shook her head. Her earlier excitement had been replaced by doubt.
“That’s the point you’re not getting, its usefulness is limited now. With God gone, it’s mostly just another room. While it still defends against magical eavesdropping, that isn’t a big deal at the level we’re dealing with. All of the lieutenants can shield themselves from even the most talented of psychics with little more than a wave of a hand. To go to the room for such a simple task would be a waste. It’s out of the way and inconvenient.”
“Why would Asmoday go there?”
“Two reasons. The first is because he believes we don’t know it exists. Given that premise, it seriously Page 256
lowers our odds of finding him. Thus, it makes perfect sense for him to go there.” I looked at Scarlett to see if she was following me still. She was, so I continued.
“The second reason is the place is a veritable fortress against magic, even more so now it’s been sealed off. So when all Hell breaks loose, he’s in the safest place to watch it all come down.”
“If this sanctum is so well defended, why didn’t he just perform the rituals there?” Katon, while wanting nothing more than another opportunity to go after Asmoday, was ever the pragmatist. “And saying they’re there now, how do we get inside?”I smiled, having anticipated his questions. “Defensive-minded, Lucifer crafted a magical security system in case his lieutenants ever banded together to overthrow him. This system limits the amount of energy directed into the room from the outside. Though he never could shut the room down entirely, he managed to cap the inflow drastically. As such, Asmoday wouldn’t have been able to draw the power needed to charge Glorius. That forced him to do it elsewhere.
“As for how we get there, I have the key.” I tapped my temple.
Scarlett sighed deeply. “If we have to rely on what’s inside your head that doesn’t relate to porn, we’re screwed.”
I sneered at her. “Fortunately, as far as my mind goes, we only need the coordinates buried inside it. Page 257
Beyond that, all that’s left is to gate to Hell and mete out some much deserved retribution. That would seem right down your alley, oh destroyer of railyards.”
Scarlett grinned, slamming her fist into her palm. She was ready to go. She wanted her sword back and she no doubt wanted to take a couple of heads home with her as well. A nice angel and demon trophy set for the mantle. I was right there with her. Katon, however, his dark eyes glistening with restrained excitement, only shook his head. “While I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, I find us a bit lacking in the follow-through department.” He pointed to me, then Scarlett, then to himself. “We three lack the raw power necessary to take on Asmoday and his pet archangel, not even taking into account what minions he might have with him. So even if you’re right about all this and they are there, we’re woefully outmatched.”
Ever t
he realist, Katon reminded us of what we were looking at.
In my excitement, I had forgotten that disappointing fact. With Rahim down and the rest of DRAC scattered or killed by Asmodays’ fiends, we were on our own. “I’ve an equalizer against Gabriel, but the circumstances have to be right. He has to come after me or I lose the ace up my sleeve.” I shrugged, picturing how things might work out inside my head. All of the endings were grim. “I don’t see we have much of a choice but to do it anyway. What do we have to lose?”
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“The whole of creation,” Scarlett answered in a quiet voice.
“Seems to me that’s already lost,” Katon countered. “If we sit here and do nothing, the world ends. If we try to do something about it and fail, at least we die with our boots on.” An Iron Maiden song sprang to mind. “I’m not done fighting. Are you with me?”
Scarlett took a deep breath and let it out slow.
“I’m in.” Both she and Katon turned to look at me.
“I had plans to watch the CSI marathon on Spike but I guess I can put that off. It’s not like they don’t show the damn program often enough. I’m in too.” A cold chill settled over me as I resigned myself to what would probably be the last fight I’d ever get into. I was gonna miss life. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Given we don’t have a wide range of options, I say we keep it simple. We go after Glorius,” Katon answered without hesitation.
I thought about it for a second. While no doubt simple on the surface, the plan held a few twists I don’t think he realized—or if he did, he was keeping it to himself. You see, were Katon the one to kill Glorius, everything would be good. However, were Scarlett or I the one to reach the angel, there would be another issue to consider. The soul transfer. Due to our nature, the killing blow would transfer all of Glorius’s power to whichever of us did the deed. While I certainly wouldn’t argue the sudden Page 259
