Apocalypse Rising (20 page)

“No,” I whisper, “the church is sanctified, but there is something more. The Power has been used, and there is something else that I can’t identify.”

“Any idea where we should go?” she asks.

“Last time I was here, Father Gabriel said that Lilly was sleeping in the basement,” I say. “Let’s start there.”

We separate and search the chapel, but I expect the entrance will be near the office and the classrooms in the back. I step up to the door that leads to Father Gabriel's office. I consider checking the office for signs of Lilly, but my gut tells me she is here, and the priest's office is the least likely place to find her. I turn my back to the door and walk to the other. Accantha meets me there.

"You open the door, and I'll rush in low," she says. "They may be expecting you, but I doubt they're expecting me."

We get in position and Accantha nods. I turn the handle and push the door open. She crouches low and runs into the hall beyond the door. There is a loud grunt and the sound of a body hitting the floor. I step through the door and find the elf warrior woman standing over the unconscious form of a young man dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. A gun lies on the floor nearby and Accantha holds the point of her sword to the man's throat.

I raise an eyebrow and she says, "He was armed, so I disabled him. Would you like me to kill him as well?" She would do it in half a heartbeat if I nodded, and I am tempted to do just that. Perhaps my time as a human still hangs close to me, but I do not relish killing the man. Does he deserve death? Perhaps, but that does not mean I need to kill him.

"No," I growl, "we may need him later. Bind his hands and feet." I walk through the hall checking each door. Most are locked but give way beneath my careful application of the Power. Classrooms and prayer rooms are all that I find until I come to a door at the far end of the hall. It is locked like the others, but it refuses to give way when I attempt to force it. “This is the one,” I say as Accantha comes closer.

“So what are we waiting for?” she asks.

“I would prefer an invitation, but I don’t think that will be coming any time soon,” I say, “so I am going to have to force my way in.” I drag my finger along my sword’s blade until the flesh opens and the blood wells up on the tip of my finger. “You may want to cover your eyes. There is a lot of magic beyond the door, and I will have to use a little magic of my own to grant us access.”

Accantha pulls a strip of cloth from her pocket and ties it around her head. "Don't go rushing off without me," she says. "I can't watch your back if you leave me sitting up here with my eyes closed." She backs against the wall across from the door and assumes a fighting stance with her sword held in both hands before her.

"I won't leave you here alone," I say, "but I may not be able to slow down once I get moving. This is going to take a couple of minutes, so be patient. When you hear the door break, I will be heading in. I cannot determine what we'll find on the other side, but there is a lot of magic at work, so steel yourself against the distraction before you head down." I do not wait to see if she understands. She will follow me in. If she is able to resist the fascination of the magic she may well tip the balance in my favor, but if she succumbs I cannot afford to spend time worrying about her. I would feel sorrow at her loss, and guilt for bringing her with me, but the time for that is later.

I squeeze my finger and use the fresh blood to mark the door with the ancient language of the angels. They hold no meaning to man, their translation lost to eternity, but they hold power within their shape. Once I have finished, I take a step back and focus my will upon the symbols. To my eyes they glow, and flashes of electricity leap from one to another until the Power, directed by my will, connects the symbols in a pattern. I let the energy build until there is enough to shatter the door and the spell that keeps it locked. The door explodes away from me as I touch the focal point at the center of my spell.

Pieces of wood smash down the stairway, knocking a man out with a crash as he lands at the bottom. He is unconscious, not dead, but he will not stay that way for long if he does not get some help. By the looks of him, there are a number of broken bones and some of the splinters protruding from him are in deep enough to hit organs. On any other day I may have stopped to help him, but today is not that day.

I leave the stairwell with my sword held before me and enter a large room that reeks of dark magic. There are no windows and no electric lights, but the space is littered with candles. The flicker of miniature fire masks the features of the men standing around the edges of the room, but their discomfort is palpable. I would be pleased, but none of them are looking at me.

The six men in the room keep their eyes locked on the figure sitting at the center of a circle of power. Evil radiates from it and .assaults my senses, making it hard to look at the person sitting there.

“Justin, is that you?” Lilly says. Her voice sounds like it is coming to me through an echo chamber, but I recognize it despite the distortion. I try to focus on her, but my gaze slides off of her as if she were sculpted of ice.

“Yes,” I say, “it’s me.”

“You sound different,” she says. “Did you finally hit puberty? Your voice has gotten deeper.”

I laugh and say, “I have gone through a change since I last saw you.” I try to use the Power to look past whatever spell is keeping her from my sight, but the results are the same. “Are you okay?”

Her voice is strained when she says, “I seem to be blind, Justin, but I can still see things somehow. It is kind of confusing.”

Light flares from my sword as anger overtakes me. Righteous fury surges through me as I turn toward the men on the far side of the circle. “What right did you have to do this to her?” I yell.

A man wearing a heavy cloak walks around the circle until he is facing me from thirty-feet away. He pulls back the hood and says, “We did not do this, Angel. You did.” Father Gabriel looks me in the eye and does not flinch. “You left her here. All we did was try to protect her from you. Our only fault is in failing at that.”

“No,” I say, “I told you to send her home, to get her as far away from me as possible. I did not tell you to bind her and steal her sight.” I try to look at her once more. “She is an innocent. She had a chance for a new life.”

“You are wrong,” Father Gabriel says. “She is a sinner, and her chance for redemption was lost when she was touched by your power; perhaps she was lost before then. Yes, I think she was doomed the moment she met you.” I step toward the priest, murder on my mind, but he raises his hand. “Killing me will not return her sight, nor will it free her, but it will prove that you are the monster that myth portrays you as.”

“But if I kill you, that is a whole other issue,” Accantha says as she steps out from behind me. She waves her sword at the men on the far end of the circle, but stops when it is pointing at Father Gabriel. “Can we hurry up and save your girlfriend, Justin? This place is giving me a headache.”

“I’m glad you could join us, Accantha,” I say with a smile. “It seems, Father Gabriel, that I need not be the monster today. Accantha, please subdue the humans on the far end of the room, and keep them alive if you can. I need to have a talk with the priest.”

“With pleasure, Justin,” she says. “What about the girl?”

“Leave her in the circle for now,” I say. “I need to look at it before I disassemble it.”

“You’ve got it.” Accantha runs ahead, dodging past Father Gabriel before he can react. The other men see the elf woman charging toward them, but fail to react until she is upon the first man in line.

To be fair, with her diminutive stature, few would find her threatening until they saw her in action. The humans should have been more concerned when they saw her put away her sword and smile before she tackled the first of them. She kicks and punches the man repeatedly on their way to the ground. When his body hits the floor she hops off, stands before the next, and says, “I hope the rest of you will at least try to put up a fight.” Some of the men pull knives or pipes, one of them pulls a gun, and Accantha never stops smiling.

The sound of her battle with the others is a discordant backdrop to my slow walk toward Father Gabriel. “Tell me, priest, why would you need to protect her from me?”

He backs away from me, trying to maintain the distance between us. “You are Death. Who would be safe anywhere near you?” he asks. “You had already corrupted her with your power. How long would it be until she assisted you in your work?”

“Never,” I say, “I sent her away.”

“You sent her away and you didn’t even know who you were or what your touch would do to her. You have been a walking hazard for thousands of years, but we’ve rarely been in a position to do anything about it.” Father Gabriel stops backing up and does not yield when I step close enough for him to feel my breath upon the top of his head.

“Why save her?” I ask. “She was a runaway junkie, worth nothing to anyone but her family.”

"I can hear you," Lilly says. I ignore the hurt in her voice. Now is not the time to be soft or to placate her feelings.

“And you,” says Father Gabriel.

“And me,” I say.

“And that is why,” says the priest. “We wanted to keep her from you until your destiny had been fulfilled.”

“My destiny,” I whisper.

“Yes, you are Death, prophesized by John in the Holy Bible, created when the universe was new,” he says. “The people I represent want to see you succeed at what you were made to do.”

“They want the Apocalypse?” I asked.

“They want the end of days, the great reckoning, the Apocalypse, all of it, so that they can finally rest,” he says. “Tell me, what do you know of the Immortalis?”

I search my memory quickly, not bothering to search the deep recesses of my mind. I know he will tell me and I would rather keep my thoughts on the present. “Not much, but to be honest, my memory is a bit hazy.”

Father Gabriel takes a step back so that he can look at my face. “The Immortalis were the forbearers of man and Angel both. They were God’s greatest creation, but there was a problem with them. He gave them will as he did man, but they would not listen to him. They were the disobedient children before Lucifer even considered the idea. He sent them to earth in the days when dinosaurs still roamed. He cast them aside, used what he had learned and planned for the creation of the second races.”

What he says refreshes my memories of the Immortalis. They are the only creatures that do not fall under my purview. The Father never directly answered my questions on the matter, but it is said that they were alternately blessed and cursed to live eternally. "So what do they want with me?" I ask. "Even I cannot grant them death."

"No, but if the world ends they will be granted an end to existence, which is as close to death as they can hope for," the priest says. "They simply want you to speed up the matter, and your presence here on the physical plane suggests that the time is near. My job is to keep you from being distracted, and to help you on your way."

I laugh and say, "You failed in that. Ever since I regained my memories I have been distracted and that girl," I say as I point toward Lilly with my free hand, "has been the focus of my distraction."

Accantha staggers up to me, blood dripping down her, and she says, "Most of them are still alive, though it may take a while for them to regain consciousness." She looks at the priest, spits a stream of bloody saliva at his feet, and asks, "And what are we going to do with him?" For all of the awe I may inspire, the sight of the bloodied elf woman strikes him far more deeply.

“Are you okay, Accantha?” I ask.

“Nothing a little rest can’t heal,” she says. “One of them shot me. He’s dead now. I hate guns.” She points her blood-covered sword at Father Gabriel. “So?” she asks.

“We’re going to let him go,” I say before I turn my stare upon the priest. I lock eyes with him and feed the power into my gaze. I touch his soul and burn my intentions upon it, so that he will never forget what will happen if we cross paths again. “Go back to your masters, priest, and tell them that the end of days will happen on God’s time, not theirs. If you or they ever harm a friend of mine again, I will make it my personal mission to make sure that their eternal lives are spent in as much pain as possible. Now go!” I yell and force his eyes away from mine with the thrust of my will.

He runs past us and stops at the stairs. "You will regret this, Justin!" he shouts." This could have been easy for both of us and no one would have been hurt, but I'll make sure you suffer for this." He runs up the stairs and out of the building. I smile as I hear the far away slam of the church doors.

“You enjoyed that a little too much,” Accantha says. "Do you think it was a good idea to let him go?"

"Maybe not, but now they'll know that we're not to be trifled with," I say.

“Would you stop being so melodramatic,” Lilly yells from the chair in the center of the room. “Now can someone please get me out of here?"

I take a closer look at Accantha and see that most of the blood is not her own. She has two or three knife wounds and I am sure there are a number of bruises hidden amongst the blood and dirt, but the one injury that stands out is a gaping flesh wound in the front of her left thigh. I am not very knowledgeable about elfish physiology, but if it is anything like a human's she is lucky the shot was not an inch lower or she might have bled out while I spoke with Father Gabriel.