by eden Hudson
Tempie reached one hand out to me. It shook as if she didn’t have the strength to sustain the pose for long.
Her hand started to drop.
I lunged forward and grabbed it.
The second our fingers touched, Temperance Joann and Modesty Blaine McCormick ceased to exist as separate entities. The fury bound us together. We became one in the knowledge of our purpose.
All this time Kathan had been lying to us. He told us that by becoming his familiars, we would be given power like no human had ever known—that when he was commander of legions, he would elevate us to Destroyer—but the enthrallment was just his way of wielding the greatest weapon ever created. It was we who would have elevated Kathan to commander when we became the Destroyer, not the other way around.
We were the weapon. We were the power. We always had been. With or without Kathan, we were the Destroyer of Worlds, the Godkiller.
Angels, NPs, humans—they had done this to us. By degrees, by turns, they had systematically destroyed us. They turned our minds and our bodies against us, used us against each other and against ourselves. They enslaved us, raped us, tortured us, trapped us. They broke us until there was nothing left to break.
The whole time, God sat back and let them do it. He watched us bleed.
As the Destroyer, we knew the truth. We were created not only to destroy this world, but all worlds. Earth, Heaven, Hell. No one and nothing would survive.
Blood must be paid for with blood. Rivers of blood.
Anyone who didn’t die in the first hemorrhage was going to wish they had.
Tough
The Dark Mansion’s front lawn had turned into a siege zone. Every now and then you could see a muzzle flash, but most of the fighting outside seemed to be our people hunkered down behind the fallen angels’ vehicles and piles of debris. That firelight I’d seen was coming from a ball of flame that used to be one of the helicopters.
Once I was on my feet and the shaking had worn down to a low hum, Clare’s girlfriend handed over her rifle.
“I’ve got a backup,” she said when she saw me staring at her. She pulled a pistol-grip sawed-off shotgun out of the holster on her hip. “Here’s where we are—phase one’s inside. You just saw phase two go in. Everyone who couldn’t operate a traditional weapon is dug in out here, covering exits. No one’s seen the sword or the foot soldier you said had it yet. Unless something gives in the next five minutes, I’m calling in phase three.”
I pointed at her, then at the Dark Mansion to ask whether she was going in with the last phase.
She nodded and held up her sawed-off shotgun. “That’s why I brought my little buddy. Much better for close-up work.”
Five minutes until the last phase went in. After that, they could retreat at any second and then it was TBG Time. I needed to find a way to get to Desty and get her out right the hell now.
I looked over the hood of the Hummer. Nothing directly between me and the Dark Mansion but bodies. I tried not to see who they were, but I thought I recognized Tawny Hicks’s clothes and the black hoodie and black jeans that a kid Scout’s age had been wearing.
The mansion’s stone siding had taken a beating—scorch marks, broken tiles, scratches, and a couple lines of blue-white alcohol fire burning out. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail, but not far enough. It hit the ground a few yards from the steps. The glass exploded and blue-white fire spread out in a halo around the impact. It’d been so dry all summer that the scorched grass turned black almost immediately. The fire kept spreading, looking for new fuel.
The bottom half of one of the two arched Hell Windows on the south wall of the mansion was busted out. Through it I saw wings and fur and bodies. I tried to listen past the roaring of the chopper’s flames. Barking, yipping, screeching, yelling, gunshots.
Going in the front wasn’t an option, but phase one and phase two were keeping the fallen angels busy. Maybe I could sneak around the back and bust out a basement window, get in that way.
The nearest corner of the Dark Mansion was the east wing, the one facing the old fence row. With the light from the windows and that Molotov-fire messing up my night vision, I couldn’t make out anything but shadows over there. I thought I saw movement.
I checked the smashed-out Hell Window and the doorless front entry for shooters, then I hugged the rifle to my chest and ran for the east side of the mansion.
The thing I’d seen in the shadows over there started running at me. A body, long orange-red hair, pale skin, and a .45 with mother-of-pearl grips.
Willow? What the hell?
She stopped short when she saw me, raising the .45 into a shooter’s stance before she realized who I was. Just before she put a round in my face, it registered.
“Tough?” She lowered the gun, then took two running steps and pistol-whipped me.
I stumbled back a few steps.
“You jerk!” she yelled. “Let me think I was a part of this and then try to keep out? If Dodge was in on this, too—”
It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a voice anymore. Otherwise, I would’ve yelled at her for leaving her fucking kid with Owen while she ran off to get herself killed like Dodge. I grabbed Will’s arm and dragged her back into the shadows she’d just come out of.
“Where’s Dodge?” she asked. “Has anybody seen Rian or the sword yet? Which phase of the attack are we on? Where do I need to be?”
I really didn’t want her near the serious fighting or any place she might accidentally catch sight of Dodge’s body, so I touched her shoulder, pointed at the ground where we were crouching and slapped myself on the shoulder.
“I don’t…”
I pointed to my eyes, then over my shoulder at my back.
“Watch your back?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Where are you going?”
I pointed along the east wing of the mansion, then hooked my hand around.
“Okay.” She got up and held the .45 pointed at the ground. “Lead on.”
I shook my head, pointed to the ground where she was crouching, and mouthed the word Stay.
She opened her mouth to argue.
Something was moving behind her. Angel wings, black riot gear, rifle. I grabbed Will by the back of the neck and shoved her to the dirt.
No muzzle flash, just a burst of too-quiet shots. The rounds shattered my breastbone and fragmented in my chest.
Maybe it was because the bullets liquefied my heart and blew tunnels through my lungs, or maybe it was because I’d been focused on arguing with Will, not expecting to get shot. Whatever it was, the pain caught me off guard. It hadn’t hurt that bad when the foot soldiers filled me full of lead earlier. This time the pain radiated out from the bullet wounds in waves of hot and cold. My arms were dead weight. The rifle fell out of my hands. I dropped to one knee in the dirt.
“They’re coming around front!” Willow screamed. She scrambled to get to her feet and bring her .45 up to firing position. “Foot soldiers coming ar—”
The foot soldier who had shot me put two in Will’s forehead. Blood, bone fragments, brain, and orange hair exploded out the back of her head and splattered across my face and neck. She dropped, all crumbled in on herself.
I tried to go after the foot soldier, but my legs wouldn’t move. The pain in my chest was getting worse, throbbing until I felt like I was going to puke. My head hung forward. Vamp venom and saliva dribbled out of my mouth onto my jeans. Except the venom didn’t taste right anymore. It tasted like blood.
I heard the thud of heavy boots hitting the ground and wings rustling. I managed to turn my head just enough to see the line of soldiers creeping toward the pasture.
The quiet, flashless shots—they had suppressors. That foot soldier had shot me and Will with a suppressor because he didn’t want to attract attention from up front. They were going to sneak around back of where the barn used to be, surround the humans and couple of NPs still dug in out front, and pick them off from behind. That was why
Willow had been yelling—she’d been trying to warn everybody.
But who knew if anyone had heard her over the noise of everything else going on?
I had to stop the foot soldiers or at the very least attract enough attention for somebody up front to realize what was happening.
I couldn’t yell. I tried to reach for my rifle, but it felt like my arms were made out of ice blocks. They wouldn’t move.
The pounding in my chest was getting worse. Waves of pain washed all the way down my arms to the tips of my fingers now. My vision blurred with every wave, then sharpened back up.
The foot soldier who’d shot Will and me came my way. It took until he pulled out Mikal’s flaming sword for me to realize which dipshit he was.
“Enjoying that Destroyer blood?” Rian asked, a big dumb-fuck grin on his face. “Took it out of your girlfriend’s hide—and trust me, she did not want to give it up easy.” He chuckled. “There were a lot of things she didn’t want to give up easy. It got a little rough.”
You son of a bitch, I’ll rip your dick off and shove it down your throat. But I couldn’t move.
Rian pointed the sword at my chest, steadying the blade on his forearm guard. “Let’s see just how hard to kill you are, boy.”
He stepped forward and thrust the sword at my throat. A simple kill-blow. Nothing fancy. For all his bullshit, Rian wasn’t retarded. When it came time to send somebody to Hell, he made sure he did it right, no messing around.
Little tongues of flame stretched off the sword, reaching for me. My brain started looping the sound of Mikal screaming as they dragged her to Hell.
I’d like to say I faced down death like a badass, with a snarl on my face and grim determination in my eye, but I didn’t. I flinched and shut my eyes like the pussy I am.
An explosion so bright that it lit up the insides of my eyelids ripped me off my knees and threw me through the air. I hit wood and rocks, then skidded across the ground. Vamp venom that smelled like human blood leaked out of my ears.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Everything was brownish-red and black. I blinked, trying to get the colors to make sense.
Then I caught sight of the moon directly overhead, coming out from behind swirling clouds. The sky was bleeding into it, turning the gray-white surface dark red. Bloody lightning flashed. The clouds burned away in a rain of sparks. The world caught on fire around me.
Godkiller
We grabbed the leg of the table that was still wet with our blood and bodily fluids and tossed it at the wall. It splintered.
Our footprints burned into the stairs as we ascended, leaving scorch marks in the wood. We reached for the door. It blew apart at our touch, shards of polished wood embedding themselves in the Dark Mansion’s walls. The carpet melted beneath our feet, and all around us the paint on the walls bubbled and cracked. The hallway ignited like it was made of tinder. Flames spread across the base trim, licked up the walls, and torched the ceiling. Burning chunks of drywall and beams rained down behind us as we stalked the hall of the Permanent Residence wing.
A foot soldier (Fatigues. Ashtaroth.) spun around, pointing his rifle at us. Bullets stung our flesh. We jerked his rifle away. The sling over his shoulder pulled him into our grasp. We grabbed his upper and lower jaws and ripped them apart. His earthly manifestation exploded into a swarm of black flies. The insects dropped out of the air, dead.
Another foot soldier (I don’t know his name, but he’s the one who tortured me. His name is Molech.) tried to run. We used the rifle like a club, struck him down. His skull crunched and he dropped to the floor, his legs still flailing. We tossed (Fatigues Ashtaroth)’s rifle aside—its barrel was melting in our grasp—and stepped onto Molech’s throat. His airway and spine crumbled under our feet and his body burst into another cloud of flies, all dropping dead from the heat.
Something black swooped toward us from above. We grabbed it out of the air. It screeched and beat its wings frantically. Its form flickered back and forth between a human boy and a crow faster and faster until its human skin began to melt. The crow feathers burst into flame. We dropped it. A coyote snarled and attacked us, but our fist snapped its jaw and threw it across the room. It lay on the floor, whimpering.
The foyer was already on fire. The remaining unbroken rafters fell around us as we headed for the South Entrance.
A female alpha ran toward us (Bitch-Alpha.), her tar-covered wings spread wide and dual scimitars flashing around her torso. When we batted her wrist aside, her manifestation exploded into a swarm of black flies. A moment later the pestilence fell out of the air. Her enforcer yelled and rushed at us, his rifle peppering our chest and face with hot lead. At the same time, a young man ran at us from behind. We grabbed the enforcer by his throat and the young man by his face. The young man’s body turned to ash in our hands. The enforcer was still screaming as he burst into a shower of dead insects.
The fighting that had surrounded us dissipated, and the efforts of every soul in the room turned toward us. Bullets, swords, knives, electricity, ice, water, and fire.
We drew it all in and expelled it in a flash of purple-white energy. The Dark Mansion exploded. The closest combatants to us were incinerated. Body parts, weapons, and building materials rained down for miles in every direction.
We stepped across the decimated threshold of the mansion, out into the world we were born to destroy. A thought sent blood-red lightning crackling across the sky, burning away the clouds. Droplets of liquid fire fell onto the summer’s scorched grass.
The moon did its best to hold back the darkness, shining its light down in bright silvers and whites. The moon of the God who had let the angels, the humans, and the other miscreations of this world (rape, ruin, torture, destroy—we were goodness and love and truth and they destroyed us) destroy us.
Yahweh. Elohim. Jehovah. God with us. (You did this. You let this happen.)
Slowly at first, then in a wave, our blood stained the moon and the sky, bathing the world in blacks and reds.
Tough
Someone next to me was choking.
It took me a second to realize hearing that meant my eardrums had repaired themselves. My right one had, anyway. The Destroyer blood-poison Rian had been talking about must’ve been wearing off.
I rolled onto my side. My brain spun inside my skull like a bad hangover. Everything was bathed in red light. My eyes didn’t want to focus.
The choking sound was coming from Scout. She was right next to me. One of her arms swiped at her chest, the hand fluttering around a huge piece of stained-glass like a butterfly that couldn’t decide where to land. Her other arm was trapped behind her back. She wasn’t trying to untwist herself.
I scraped up onto my hands and knees and crawled over to her. The blackened grass disintegrated when I touched it and I pictured a long black swipe of ash stretching out behind me like a blood smear. I crouched down beside Scout.
When she saw me leaning over her, she tried to say something, but all she did was choke some more. Her hand kept fluttering around that piece of glass. I don’t think she realized she was doing it.
She was crying.
I grabbed her fluttering hand and held it still.
She gave me a bare, thin-lipped smile for thanks.
I nodded.
Thunder boomed overhead. Someone was screaming. Others were yelling. I couldn’t understand any of the words. Scout was shaking all over. Underneath the noise of everything else, I could hear her heart. It couldn’t beat all the way. The piece of glass was stuck through it.
“Tough?” Clarion skidded to a stop next to me. “We’ve got to get out of here! Everyone’s got to fall back to the rendezvous point!”
Scout’s eyes went wide and terrified. She was afraid I would leave her.
Don’t think that about me, Scout. I shook my head, hard, and squeezed her hand. Please don’t think I’m that bad.
Clarion started to pull me up, but I shook him off. My arms and le
gs were working well enough now that I could scoop Scout up. She went rigid and tried to scream when I did it, but all that came out of her mouth was a bubbly sound and some blood.
Clarion had somehow held onto his gun in all the craziness. He ran ahead of me and cleared the way to the road as we went. A few other bloody survivors joined us on the way.
This blinding purplish-red glare was coming from where the Dark Mansion had been a few minutes ago. Now there was just that light hanging over a bombed-out shell.
A TBG-7 wouldn’t have caused that kind of destruction. I wasn’t even sure a case full of dynamite could have done that.
A few fallen angels were in our path, but they were staring at that purple-red light, black eyes wide and mouths hanging open. They didn’t try to stop us and Clarion didn’t engage them.
Both of the coyotes’ Broncos were waiting at the mouth of the lane when we got there, gates open. Everybody who couldn’t fly piled in. Clarion touched each one on the shoulder and counted as they went.
I climbed in last, sitting on the tailgate next to Clarion with Scout in my lap. She had died on the way to the road, but I didn’t leave her behind.
PART II: WASHED IN THE BLOOD
Godkiller
Houses, fields, and forest burst into flame as we passed. The concrete parking lot of our target heated, cracked, and turned to slag beneath our feet. Multistoried dorms, class buildings, and a newly erected stadium caved in. People screamed and cried out from the rubble. Alarms went off across the redneck ag college’s campus.
We crossed through the sleepy college town, igniting trees and lawns, ripping buildings from their foundations in our wake.
Leif was pulling out of a parking spot in front of a little bar, a girl younger than we were in his passenger seat. He and his new fucktoy leaned forward to look out the windshield as we approached. The girl’s glittery eyeshadow sparkled in the light of the fire.
