by David Risen
Once Rider disappeared, Amelia turned her focus to Lucifer who stood just before the Park Ranger truck giving her a beaten look.
“I know the pain associated with the separation from a loved one. That is part of my curse, and one of the reasons why I’m here. But allow me to share a little neutral insight into your situation.”
Amelia bristled.
“There is no reason for our separation,” she insisted.
Lucifer shook his head and sighed.
“I believe you believe that you love Father Fury, and in some ways, that might be true. But the spiritual dynamic of your relationship isn’t quite what you think.”
Amelia gave him an incredulous look.
“I don’t care what you think.”
Lucifer pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and took a step toward her stuffing his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket.
“Father Fury is merely a surrogate to you. Like me, you’ve also suffered the pain of separation from your true other. Your spirit knows that; your flesh does not understand.”
Amelia scowled at him. “You think you know everything?”
Lucifer took another step toward her and turned his palms up.
“I know more about you than you do. Your spiritual mate’s spiritual name, translated as closely as possible is Father Compassion. He’s still around in the same form that you last saw him – more or less. The sissies know about him but have done everything in their power to keep the two of you separated.”
“What do you want from me?” she snapped.
Lucifer nodded and stuffed his hands back in his jacket pockets.
“You are one of six who has the power to break the curse that binds me, and once you know the whole story, I believe that you’ll agree that this travesty has dragged on long enough.”
She squinted. “What are you talking about?”
“I disagreed with father on his rules for creation, and thus, he created this mock trial in which he stacked the deck heavily in his favor. Then he summarily dismissed my arguments. I objected, and he took my position from me, and re-allocated the woman he created for me to another. We rebelled, and he cursed us.”
Amelia grinned. “Do you hear yourself? You rebelled against your father who created you telling him that he wasn’t running the machine he created properly.”
“I bear witness to many rounds of creation, and in this tier of it, every single time, whoever the adversary is stands with you arguing his own merits in a world completely saturated in sorrow which is the direct result of poor choices, and we always have to end it for the same reasons.
“I believe there’s a better way. I refuse to accept that my brothers and sisters can only achieve higher consciousness through suffering.”
Amelia shuffled her feet.
“And you don’t think God has thought of that?”
Lucifer waved her off and looked away.
Amelia nodded. “Very well, Lucifer. From this point forward, life will present you with yet another test. This is a test of you and for you. It will show you your own arrogance, and you can choose to be something other than the adversary just by being humble and compassionate.”
Lucifer gave her a sad look. “I guess that’s good enough.”
Just saying the words made Amelia feel as though a giant weight lifted from her chest.
Lucifer bunched his lips. “And now we must part ways. Best of luck.”
Lucifer nodded at her.
White-hot pain shot through every inch of her body.
Amelia shrieked.
“Really?” Rider said smirking at the witches standing in a straight line ten feet away from him.
“Abysmal Patron, the woman wearing the white hooded cloak began gravely. “You have upset the tenuous balance that binds the world of mortality. We cannot allow you to continue.”
Rider’s smirk broadened.
“And who said you have a choice?”
The witch in the green cloak dropped her hood and stared at him with bulging eyes.
“That’s the Abysmal Spike,” she said pointing.
Rider looked down at his right arm to find the red sword made of light snaking down his arm and blazing at his side.
“What are you talking about?” the witch in white snapped.
The witch in green turned to face her. “I read up on the Abysmal Patron. In ancient times, our order bound a soul sword to him. It’s called the Abysmal Spike. The physical sword is lost, but the spiritual version is still bound to him. The fact that we can see it means that he’s too powerful for us.”
The witch in white glowered at the woman in green.
“The only place any information on the Abysmal Patron is available is in The Compendium of Maleficent Spirits.”
The witch in green shook her head. “Grand Arch Sorceress Poly Rider appointed me keeper of the forbidden tomes in Rome. I have access to things no one else does.”
The witch in white gave her a look of disbelief.
“Then how does him having a light saber make him unstoppable?”
Rider sneered. “Why don’t you come over here, and I’ll show you.”
The witch in Green ignored him. “It is the spiritual presence of the Abysmal Spike. It means that his spiritual pressure is now equal to his physical presence and as dangerous. It’s not just your life that is in peril but your immortal soul.”
The white witched turned back and stared at Rider.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“You should,” said another voice from the trees off to Rider’s left.
Rider followed the sound with his head.
Lauren Fields-Rider appeared from the shadows. She still wore the same flannel shirt he found her in earlier in the day, and the look on her face as she scanned the witches gathered before the dome was one of disdain.
“My order was for everyone to pull back from the Abysmal Patron. Why did all of you disobey?”
The witch in white took a step toward her.
“The Abysmal Patron seeks to start the apocalypse. It’s our sacred duty to oppose him.”
Lauren shook her head slowly. “We have to follow very strict rules of engagement prescribed by the prophecy itself. Going by what we’ve done so far, we do not have the power to stop him, so we shouldn’t try anymore.”
The white witch turned her palms up. “It’s the end of the world we’re talking about, and he’s evil.”
Lauren shook her head. “Everything that you know about him is wrong. His spirit is one of the highest among the Celestial Kingdom and God himself prescribed his mandate. His spiritual name is Father Fury. Your continued opposition to him at this point violates the sacred balance of the wyrding that binds us all, and it absolutely puts your immortal soul in jeopardy.”
The white witch shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re saying this!”
Lauren frowned. “Walk away. Lucifer is our concern now. We brought him here, and we shouldn’t have.”
The women stared at her for a moment, and then they dispersed.
Once they were out of earshot, she knelt and picked up a stick from the ground and carved a line through the pentacle binding him. Then she stood up straight and eyed Rider.
“If you make it out of there, please take care of our daughter. I’m going to have my hands full with Lucifer.”
Rider nodded.
She turned and started back for the woods, but then she stopped in her tracks and looked back over her right shoulder at him – her eyes glistening with tears.
“You know it wasn’t all fake, right?”
Rider bunched his lips.
When he didn’t respond, she turned and disappeared back into the woods.
Rider looked after her for a moment, and then he turned and looked once again at the giant rotating dome of mist surrounding the ghost town.
The fissure in the dome reached the road.
He took a deep breath, and then he charged it and dove hard into the m
ist.
Part Four:
City of Souls
“DADDY, ARE YOU SCARED OF DYING ALONE?”
The grille of the Freightliner smacks into the side of Rider’s Escalade.
The left side of Rider’s head crashes into the driver’s side window. The safety glass explodes into the ruined grille of the big, navy blue truck.
Time slows to a crawl.
Rider raises his head to find that the Escalade only moves an inch a second. The music wafting from the premium speakers of his sound system is an octave lower and plays at only a quarter of its original rhythm.
Alyssa’s shriek silences as the SUV shrieks sideways down I-85 in super-slow motion.
Rider casually turns his head over his right shoulder.
The initial impact caved the left side of Alyssa’s face, and her jaw dangles open and askew.
She points her bright, blue eyes at him, the right one filling with blood.
“Don’t be afraid to die Daddy,” she says with a slack jaw.
Rider, the left side of his face burning from impact and blood dribbling from the gash in his cheek over the right cheekbone, furls his brow.
“Why?”
“Right now, you’re just a man. When you die ....”
Her face morphs into the mien of Ben Viracocha.
The Escalade tears in half with sudden violent force as if someone has pressed the play button on some cosmic DVD player.
Then blackness.
Rider opens his eyes to find his legs bent and angles never intended. He lies on a traffic sign orange backboard. His pelvis looks caved in on the left side.
A bloody hand reaches between the police and paramedics by the wadded ruins of his white Escalade, but this time what Aurora says is wrong.
“Father,” she cries. “Why have you forsaken me?”
Rider gasps.
He opens his mouth to call to her when the familiar head of Ben Viracocha bends above him and smiles.
He’s traded in the Stetson for a blue cap with a white Caduceus, and he wears green scrubs.
He offers Rider a sad smile. “Sometimes it feels like our Daddies have left us, but Daddies can’t turn their backs on their children.”
His eyes glowed white so brightly that Rider squinted and turned his head away.
“You may not see me or sense me, but I’m with you. Don’t be afraid.”
Cold, wet earth beneath his body.
Dried leaves crumble in his hands as Rider balls them into fists.
He opens his eyes to the blue darkness around him.
The rifle he carried all over the mountain lies on the leaf-covered broken pavement, and further, an old chipped-up curb made of concrete marks the border of the road with only a few flecks of the yellow paint that once covered it visible.
Rider climbs to his feet and looks around.
A giant water tower soars above the dark rooftops off to the distant left. It looks like a giant, metal hamburger on stilts, and the painted canary yellow surface spotted with rust presents the name of the ghost town in plain, black letters.
“SKITTS MTN, TN.”
To his right, the crumbling ruins of an old gas station rises from the weeds with the red signage above the white cinderblock building reading STANDARD. Four, six-foot gas pumps adorned with red crowns stand like soldiers before the building.
The air inside the city isn’t right.
The metallic odor of ozone stings his nostrils, and his breath boils frosty before his face.
Rider turns and gapes down the road and into the shadowy hulks of buildings that once housed the residents and employees of the city. The long road before him climbs straight up to the peak of the mountain.
Tightly packed buildings line both sides of the road.
At the end of the road and near the peak of the mountain, a tall, shadowy hulk of a building juts up from the rocky earth. Its four-story body is at least 200 yards long, and multi-pane windows spaced on every floor at ten foot intervals peer back at Rider – the tall smoke stacks on the top of the building eternally silent.
A sign before the rusted chain link fence around the building framed in the same, red brick that comprises many of the buildings in the town reads “J.W. Stein & Co. Lumber Mill.”
And now Rider understands why they call them ghost towns.
An overriding sense of sadness, loss, and wonder fills the deserted streets.
The sharp scream of a woman just a few feet before him snaps the deathly silence. Rider drops down to his haunches and retrieves his rifle from the ground.
He squints through the shadows and haze in the direction of an old red brick building with the word “Post” painted on the miraculously intact front window.
Rider strains to hear through the buffeting of the unnatural wind that whips around in all directions.
He catches a whiff of a mean, male laugh.
And though he can make out no words, he hears the timbre of a woman’s voice pleading.
Rider furls his thick brow and creeps toward the side of the Post office where he presses his back against the grainy brick wall and cocks his rifle slowly.
Rider sucks a deep breath of frosty air and holds it.
The male voice cackles mischievously.
“So, this is the great Mother of Man? Don’t look so great to me lying on your back begging for your life.”
“Please let me go,” she says. The timbre of her voice is musky, and Rider detects traces of many different accents in her speech.
“I think I’ll devour you, instead.”
Rider’s pushes himself to his feet and pivots around the corner rifle first.
“Is there a problem here?” he growls.
Four men crouch around the woman obscuring his view holding her down on the muddy ground.
The largest man of all – a six foot, shirtless man with a fiery, red beard and a body like Mr. Universe – glowers back at him.
“This’s not your concern, brother.”
Rider sneers. “Five men against one, little woman?”
Mr. Universe rolls his eyes. “A new arrival? And I thought the sisters had given up on their quest to rid the earth of the riffraff. That noisy slingshot is no good to you here.”
Rider tosses his rifle to the ground.
The familiar warmth of the abysmal spike snakes around his arm. His eyes burn.
“I don’t need that thing,” Rider snarks.
One of the men on the ground gasps. “What is he?”
The man with the red hair’s eyes bulge with horror. “You don’t know who she is, brother!”
Rider’s eyes narrow to slits. “She’s a woman and you’re attacking her.”
The hulk with the red hair shudders. “I know the scent of your spirit. You are the soul who captured the elders – my brothers and sisters.”
Rider doesn’t respond.
Mr. Universe looks back at his gaggle of degenerates.
“This is no woman! She works brother against brother and father against son until they conspire to kill one another.”
Rider shrugs. “So, she has baggage. Get lost.”
Mr. Universe nods to his men and then gives Rider a dark look. “This is not over, Fury.”
Rider smirks. “It is if you’re not stupid.”
The men stand and scatter. In three seconds, the night is still once more.
Rider looks down at the woman lying on the ground.
She sits up, and he finds that the men ripped away the top of the yellow dress she wore. She crosses her arms over her apple-size breasts.
Rider frowns. “Are you okay?”
She gives him a confused look as if she has no idea what he means. She stands and a stray shaft of moonlight falls across her face.
Hair the color of coffee with a few stray tresses of sun-bleached blond that falls all the way to her back. Soulful brown eyes the color of caramel. Perfect olive skin. Plump lips.
Very Mediterranean.
“Are you o
kay?” he repeats.
She shakes her head tightly. “What is ‘okay’?”
Rider squints. “Are you hurt?”
“Cold,” she says.
Rider strips off his leather coat and passes it to her, and she slips her arms into the sleeves and covers herself. Then she glances about the small alley behind the Post Office – her eyes bulging with fear.
“We can’t stay here. He’ll return with an army.”
Rider bunches his lips. “I’m not afraid of Braveheart.”
She gives him a complex incredulous look again. “Who?”
Rider gives her a screwed-up look.
She gazes at him for a long moment as if in awe. “Are you really Father Fury?”
Rider shrugs. “I have no idea what that means.”
She gives him a stern look. “It means that the prophecy is true. And we’re both in trouble. The spirits inside this city are evil. We must move.”
“What’s your name?”
She frowns. “There’s no time. We’ll go to the old clothing store and get something new for me to wear, and then, we go to my ward. A magical barrier surrounds it to keep bad ones out.”
Then she turns and starts for Main Street.
Rider looks after her for a moment, and then he grabs his rifle from the ground and follows.
Rider steps through the slanted, rotting doorway of the old clothing store.
The Mediterranean beauty with him closes the door and fast walks to the back of the dark building that smells of aged timbers and begins looking through the old, ragged garments.
“Who were the guys attacking you?” Rider asks.
She glances up at him. “He goes by Hayden. He and his wife, Alora, are two of the most powerful spirits here. They protected me when the sisters brought me here.”
Rider frowns.
“What happened?”
She gives up on the stack of rotten clothes in the back and moves on to the next wooden shelf. She looks at it, props her hands on her hips, sighs, and then looks at him.
“Do you have a torch?”
Rider squints. “There’s a flashlight in the left pocket of my coat.”
