by Brian Rella
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s the spell of the Last Breath. Brennan is dead.”
Shock spread over Nic’s face and tears threatened at the corners of his eyes.
“Help me get him up,” Frank said. “We’ve got to get him back to the Temple.”
Frank stood and wobbled. He tried to get the boy to his feet, but Jack was still unconscious and dead weight in his arms. Frank glanced at Nic. He was still on the ground staring at the spot where Jack had lain. “Father Brennan is dead?”
“Nic, I need you,” Frank said. “The spell weakened me. Help me with your brother.”
Nic looked at him blankly and blinked.
“Nic, please. Get up,” he adjusted Jack on his hip and steadied himself. He put one foot in front of the other and started back toward the Temple. He heard Nic rise behind him and felt him come around to the other side of Jack and grab ahold of his other shoulder.
“How do you know he’s dead? What’s going on with Jack?”
“Because…he used the spell of the Last Breath when he died, and…that sent his consciousness out to me and all the other Watchers. It hit me and your brother. Must have hit Jack harder than me, or maybe he just wasn’t ready for it. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get back.”
“But what—”
“No time,” Frank said. “I need to think. Just help me. I’ll explain later.”
Frank shifted more of Jack’s weight onto him and picked up the pace as the effects of the spell continued to wear off. Damn it, Brennan. Not you…
His mind was still processing Brennan’s memories. He had learned so much, yet so many questions remained. Frank had to sort through it all and figure out what to do.
Brennan is…he’s…dead… A new threat, and I still don’t understand the old one. What the hell is happening?
48
TITUS
October 30, 2015
New York, New York
A tremor shook his entire body and he gripped the arm rest of the seat. The memories ripped through his consciousness and his eyes rolled back in his head. He faintly heard the passenger next to him gasp.
“Flight attendant!” the woman next to him shouted. She frantically pressed the call button on her chair. “Help, I think he’s having a seizure!”
Through the tremors of Brennan’s last breath, Titus felt all the passengers’ eyes turn to him. He heard their exclamations and calls for a doctor.
No—not Brennan.
The tremors began to subside and his consciousness was filled with the priest’s memories. He shuddered a few more times and then it was over. His eyes righted themselves, and he saw a half-dozen faces staring at him.
“I…I’m okay,” he said.
“There’ll be an ambulance at the gate. We are beginning to descend,” one of the flight attendants said. Her face was a mask of worry.
“It’s… It’s okay. I’m fine. It happens sometimes…”
Titus tried to gather himself, but his mind was a jumble of his own thoughts and those of Brennan. Brennan is dead. But there are other Watchers here and… Legion. Oh no…
As the plane angled for its descent, Titus sifted through the thoughts and memories of the Watcher, trying to figure out what he would do when he landed.
49
RAND
October 30, 2015
Fort Tuthill, Arizona
“Bravo Company, status?” the speakers blared in the command center under Fort Tuthill. The troops were moving into position.
“Command, this is Bravo Company. We are in position,” the reply came over the speakers.
The wall was ablaze with a tactical view of the Grand Canyon Basin, just south of the Phantom Ranch. Four battalions had been deployed from Camp Navajo and, along with the army, the DED devices.
“Charlie Company, status?”
“Command, Charlie Company is in position.”
Rand stood behind the command console, his team running down the checklist to ensure his forces were in position. He chewed on a cigar nub and a hot sweat broke out under his armpits. The room was on edge as they waited for the girl and her demonic entities to show themselves.
“Sergeant, look at Delta, would you?” Rand said, pointing at the glowing figures bunched together on the wall-sized screen in front of them. “I want Delta to spread out. They’re on top of each other, goddammit. Let’s stay sharp, people, come on.”
Rand bit hard on his cigar and swallowed the tangy tobacco juice. Charlie and Delta companies had been spread out along the Canyon Basin. Over two hundred men and women, armed with conventional weapons and three DED devices. “That’s better. No—bring up Alpha,” he ordered.
The screen changed and the General glanced over his men, positioned up the trail to the rim of the Grand Canyon. Alpha and Bravo companies were in perfect position to attack from above. There was no way those demons were getting past over four hundred men.
Rand gazed over the heads up displays of troops that were broadcasting the scene in real time. He visualized the battlefield and all his men in his mind, and the tactical display that covered the wall of the Operations Center matched his visualization precisely. We’re ready.
“Good. Now make sure those DED devices are fired up. We don’t know when she’ll be coming and we won’t have time to make adjustments on the fly. Fallston, you sure those devices are calibrated properly and ready to attack?”
Dr. Fallston’s eyes narrowed as he slowly turned to meet Rand’s eyes. “The devices are ready, General,” he said. He steepled his hands under his chin and glanced back at the monitor, a sinister grin spreading across his face.
“All right then,” Rand said. “Let’s go, people. It’s game time.”
50
JESSIE
October 31, 2015
Grand Canyon, Arizona
The passage to the outside world approached. Her own heartbeat thudded in her chest and she felt the stir of His blood moving through her. Gone was her trepidation, her fear of the unknown. It had been replaced with the confidence of a Queen whose power came not from those beneath her, but from something divine, otherworldly, and grim. Whatever awaited her beyond this place would be no match. She had Him and He had her, and together they would take back the land of the living. Of these things she had no doubts as she raised her hands and closed her eyes, speaking the spell to open the crevice to the outside world, to fold their minds into each other and become one in thought.
The light from the world poured in and she squinted at it, taking a step forward.
“Wait,” Arraziel growled and stomped forward, pausing just inside the entrance and glancing left and right. She had no idea what time it was, but the light that bathed the ancient walls of the buried passage was not sunlight. Something about it was… unnatural. It was manmade.
Arraziel glanced over his shoulder and opened his mouth to speak. A whining noise gave him pause as it echoed into the cave. A beam of blue light struck Arraziel in the chest, knocking him back into the cave and to the ground.
Another beam struck him and Arraziel roared, a blaze of blue fire erupting from his mouth and nose.
“No!” Jessie called. “Pasmet, Dalkhu, help him!”
Another beam of light struck Arraziel and his unearthly yowls reverberated through the passage, sending rubble crumbling down on them. He squirmed on the ground as the beams of blue light were absorbed by his body. Pasmet screeched and from the black hole of his mouth a green glow formed, and a stream of emerald icy breath shot at the beams. Dalkhu lunged forward and angled his staff to deflect the attack. Jessie ran to the front of the entrance and leaped in front of Arraziel, creating a spiraling energy shield in front of them all.
“Arraziel!” she called, glancing over her shoulder.
He thrashed about on the ground, his arms flailing, his legs beating the ground. His body started to quiver and shake, and his black skin rippled.
“No!” she shouted and faced back to the for
ces outside the entrance to Dalkhu’s tomb and pressed her shield in front of her, pushing back on the deadly blue light and moved forward.
“Look,” Dalkhu growled. Jessie glanced back. Arraziel was enthralled in a shudder. His entire body vibrated in a blurry tremor on the ground sending puffs of dust and silt into the air. His body bulged and swelled, stretching in all directions. He’s growing, not dying.
Jessie glanced at the rest of her army. Their weapon was having a strengthening effect on her Fallen, and her confidence ballooned. The anger seethed from her and every cell in her body resounded with a single thought. Her King moved to the fore of her consciousness and in His voice she commanded her army, “Get them! Kill them all!”
“Wait,” Dalkhu said.
The Shepherd of the Soulless stepped forward to the mouth of the cave behind Jessie’s shield. He tapped his staff on the ground and His eyes gleamed like two red stars. Dalkhu opened his snout and an iridescent red vapor seeped from his mouth, swirling in puffy red clouds in front of him and then moving out to the basin of the Grand Canyon. The red vapor spread like a meandering fog over the soldiers on the ground, seeking their souls. It settled over the canyon basin, the men and women disappearing beneath the red blanket of Dalkhu’s breath.
Gasps filled the canyon as the soldiers inhaled the red vapor and the venomous mist swirled inside of them. The soldiers fell to the ground. Dalkhu inhaled, drawing the red vapor back to him. The mystical fog had become thick and glittering with hundreds of souls from the battalion. The souls of his victims filled him, changing his blackened, dead body before Jessie’s eyes. His skin expanded as his muscles bulged. His mane grew long and silky where it had been shaggy and matted before. A red aura surrounded the Shepherd of the Soulless and he raised his head to the sky, howled, and ran forward.
Above the canyon, gunshots rang out and tanks fired down at Dalkhu, but had no effect. A blue beam angled down from high on the canyon ridge, striking him in the chest and knocking him backward. He writhed on the ground, just as Arraziel had.
The troops positioned in the basin began to rise, coming from the slumber of losing their souls. Their eyes filled with inky darkness, moving wildly in their sockets, like black marbles, and their bodies tensed. There was a moment of confusion among them as the effects of their transformation settled. Then, over two hundred soulless men and women gazed up from the basin at the soldiers positioned at the ridge. Their nostrils flared at the sweet scent of the flesh above them. A calm settled over them for a brief second, and then, like rabid dogs yowling into the night, they began to run up the trail to the ridge, stepping over one another, thrashing to get ahead of the pack. They snarled and gnashed their teeth and swung their arms toward the companies of soldiers stationed up the trail.
From the mouth of the cave, a much larger Arraziel emerged onto the battlefield. He momentarily glanced around at the scene, the soulless men and women running up the trail like a column of frantic, attacking ants. Dalkhu lay on the ground, blue flames licking at his skin. Then Arraziel looked at his own arms and legs and a wicked sneer spread across his ram’s face. He was three times his original size. He leaped forward, now towering over the war machines of man, and began tearing through the abandoned tanks and weapons on the ground. He grabbed a tank by its muzzle and roared, throwing it up to the ridge of the canyon.
An explosion rattled through the air and the beam that was aimed at Dalkhu stopped its firing. Dalkhu began convulsing as the effect of the beam flowed through him.
Pasmet flew out of the cave and into the air. A blue beam from another of the new weapons shot at him from the rim of the Canyon. It missed and Pasmet entombed part of the battalion along the ridge of the canyon in ice.
Look at our army, my princess. No one can stop us now. We shall rule this world…together. Let none of them leave this place alive!
Jessie scowled as she glanced around the battlefield. “Yes, my King.” Her eyes gleamed lavender. The blood of Nalsuu surged within her. The fury and rage that had been locked inside of her like rusted irons was sprung from the amorphous prison of her mind, and she released a vengeance upon her attackers of the kind that the world had not seen in millennia.
Before the battle was over, the blood of hundreds was pooling at her feet as she stalked through the masses, a hardened mask of hatred and venom on her face. If it moved, she crushed it. If it groaned, she strangled it. And by the end of the death match, she was the only soul that remained on the field of battle.
51
JESSIE
October 31, 2015
Grand Canyon, Arizona
As the sun peaked over the horizon, Jessie moved through the remnants of the carnage along the canyon ridge. Full of pride and power, her eyes were weary, but hard. Those that had fled her path of destruction had bought themselves little time as her army sprawled across the outskirts of the canyon seeking them out, stepping on mangled, garishly bloodied bodies, seeking any living soul that remained. A man crawled across the ground, his body singed and broken. He inched forward, one agonizing moan at a time, dragging himself on his belly like a worm. Jessie stopped in front of him. In his hand he held a gun. He tried to raise it and point it at her. His hand shook uncontrollably. Jessie’s face was impassive as he raised his eyes to meet hers. She reached down and took the gun from him. His face dropped to the snow-crusted ground. She grasped his windpipe, tearing a gaping hole in his neck. She stood expressionless over him until he gurgled his last breath.
More of Dalkhu’s victims wandered up from the canyon basin. Their skin had a translucent glow in the gray morning light. Their eyes were black orbs, and they all had an emptiness—a hole they needed to fill—that got them to their feet and drove them forward like a hungry herd in search of food.
The simple thoughts of the soulless soldiers floated in the air to Jessie’s mind. Fill the hole. Stop the hurt. Feed on the flesh. FILL THE HOLE.
There were hundreds of them. They fanned out like a creeping tide on the edge of the desert. Dalkhu stood in front of them, Pasmet soared above them, and Arraziel emerged next to her, draining the soul of a straggling man and tossing him back over the Canyon’s lip like trash.
Jessie glanced around her at the army she had raised. The blood of her King pulsed within her and his thoughts swam with hers. She turned to glance at all of them, all of her soldiers. The morning winds swept through the group, catching her jet-black hair and blowing it behind her.
“Soldiers of the Fallen!” she shouted to them. “Our King awaits for us to free Him from His prison. Nothing shall stand in our way. No human. No Watcher. Nothing! Let us free our King, and take back this world for the Fallen!”
Pasmet landed and bent his neck low so that Jessie could climb onto him. She gripped his neck and glanced over the army before her. Nalsuu’s voice echoed in her mind.
Now, princess, find the Stone of Serr’rah and set me free so that together we can reshape this world in our image.
It will be done, my King.
Pasmet screeched and launched himself into the air. Jessie gazed below at her army moving up the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The wind swirled around her and her eyes narrowed. In the distance she saw the already gathering second wave of soldiers moving toward her. A vile grin poked through her iron mask of hatred. She knew her army would grow as they moved south, claiming more recruits into the Army of the Soulless from the fools that challenged her.
The familiar rumble of jets echoed in the distance and the rapid fire of guns rang out below. She leered at the forces lining up against her army, knowing they were no match for the battle she was bringing to them. Guiding Pasmet low, she commanded him to attack the columns of troops and vehicles approaching the south rim. Pasmet covered a dozen men in an icy death.
As Pasmet turned, she saw Dalkhu, towering above his soulless army. The opposing forces became paralyzed around him, and the Army of the Soulless fed upon them, turning the snow-covered ridge red with their victims’ blood. Dalkhu opene
d his maw and set his iridescent vapor free and it stretched out beyond the immediate incursion and lingered over the approaching masses.
The world was chaos below her, and she felt the stir of her King inside her.
“They will kneel before us, Nalsuu, or they will die,” she hissed.
Yes, my princess. They will.
EPILOGUE
Realm of the Second Death
In the dreamlands, Nalsuu had seen the awakening of a great power, the power of the prophecy of Razmus. It echoed throughout the ether, and touched the outer web of His reach.
So the One has come, and the Watchers attempt to fulfill the prophecy. They will fail.
He had followed the vibration of light through the dreamlands and found the boy who had eluded Him for so long. His dark essence touched the boy’s mind and recoiled at the power He encountered. But still, His brief encounter with the boy had been enough to learn a little about His nemesis, and what He found gave Him hope, for there was something more than raw power in the boy that He had not sensed before. Fear.
In their brief moment of encounter, He saw other things and a plan began to form in His wicked consciousness.
One boy will be no match for an army. But he has help. The Watchers know of me now, and they move against me. Frank Bishop trains him to fulfill the prophecy, but he will fail. He will fail because I know him…and he is weak.
Nalsuu’s heartbeat echoed throughout the Realm of the Second Death. He called to His minions and they came to Him. Imps and demons gathered around Him and bowed before Him en masse, dotting the scorched landscape with their wretched figures of evil and menace.
