Genesis of a Hero (8 page)

They made their way into the room and were met by a group of fifteen angels. Most were burly men who rivaled John in size and stature. Several had scars and all had battle-hardened faces.

“Hey John,” a petite voice sounded from the far back of the room. Stepping around a broad shouldered angel, Jan Hughes waved enthusiastically. She was half as tall as anyone else. An upturned nose and squinty, deep-set eyes gave her a ferret-like appearance, but her smile could lift an ill-mood out of anyone. “Over here,” she continued. “We were getting ready to get started.”

John and Harold shook hands with everyone in the room. They all welcomed Harold enthusiastically with many thanks and claps of congratulations on the back.

“Always glad to have another Justice Minister,” Ed Young said. His deep, booming voice rang with each step he took as though he was singing a hymn with each word.  John had fought by his side on two missions – one of them being when Jan had used voxis to destroy the pack of selvo. The other had been a hairy fight with a burrowing demon called a munda. The fiery creature dug caves through the Earth to allow reidlos to travel unseen. It had been a difficult and dangerous fight in collapsing tunnels. John had prayed a number of times afterward that he never ran across another of Lucifer’s
Earth Eaters
– as the Ministers called them.

“Did you hear the good news?” Jan asked holding out her left hand to reveal a dazzling diamond ring. “Ed finally popped the question.”

“That’s fantastic,” John beamed at both of them. “Congratulations. Have you already went through the marriage ceremony?”

“Next week,” Ed boomed happily. “If you can make it to the Cathedral in Maine, Joshua
Patton is going to marry us. He’s an old friend of my dad’s. A great Preacher.”

“I’ll see if I can make it,” John smiled and took an available chair against the wall. Harold sat beside him as a tall, barrel chested angel gave a report on the multitude of murders and terrors in Spain.
For nearly an hour he went through one murderous tale after another.

“And what of the Nightwalkers,” the angel said after a
n additional twenty minutes spent on the status of the conflicts in Australia. He looked towards John and Harold. “Do we have anything to fear from them?”

“I think so,” John sighed heavily. “We’ve been killing demons left and right but more pop up instantly to take their place. Aaron isn’t convinced it warrants a direct… confrontation, but I’m worried h
e’s too focused on other things.”

“Even the strongest among us can be wrong,” Jan said with a sad nod. “I wouldn’t doubt Aaron often, but from the stories we’ve been hearing; it sounds like we might need to send a task force to try to end the trouble before it gets too big.”

“Amen,” Harold said with a stamping of his feet. “The angels in Los Angeles have been reporting quite a bit of trouble as well.”

“And the groups in Washington and Oregon,” Harold added. “The whole west coast is starting to get pretty dangerous.”

Ed opened his mouth to add to the conversation, but a blaring trumpet split the air. John jumped out of his chair as he realized it was coming from his scepter. His hand engulfed God’s first gift and terror seized him. He caught a brief vision of carnage and chaos. Denise was spinning and striking as beasts scurried through the hazy dream.

“Denise!” John shouted.

“John,” she yelled. “Thank God. We’re being attacked. The meeting was a trap. There are hundreds of demons here. Aaron has called Xavier.”

“Where are you?” John called and stormed from the room. Without hesitation he dove from the second story balcony. His wings spread and he shot through the hallway like a missile. All the Justice Ministers stayed on his heels as they sailed over the stunned statue of Jonah.

“At an abandoned harbor three blocks east of the Cathedral in Boston,” she heaved. Loud roars pounded with her words.

John’s stomach clenched
at the horrific sounds of danger. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he hollered making several people in the Cathedral scatter for cover under his mad flight through the hallway. “For God, we fight.”

“Hurry,” she grunted and the squelching noise of a sword sinking through flesh sounded.

Another burst of speed rocketed him towards the gate to heaven. He barely had time to take in the beautiful arches before flying through them.

The Boston Cathedral.
The Boston Cathedral.

His eyes closed for a fraction of a second as the world whirled in a tornado of colors; then he was plummeting towards the brick walls of a sanctuary. Below him a man with salt and pepper hair bellowed.

“What is going on?” the man asked as John’s feet hit the floor.

“Denise Gibson and Aaron Russell came here for a meeting with some angels from Europe,” John explained in a torrent of words. “She said they met them at an abandoned harbor warehouse but it was a trap. Three blocks east of here. Do you know where it’s at?”

“Yeah,” the man blustered. “That’s what Xavier must have been talking about. He flew through here a few minutes ago too.”

Not caring to get further explanation, John grabbed the angel and began hauling him out of t
he sanctuary. They hit a wood-floored hallway near top speed. A Burning Bush flickered in holy dirt at the northern end of the corridor.

“Take me to the front doors and point me in the right direction,” John growled. Behind him, the whole
group of Justice Ministers were foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the coming battle. For what seemed like a short eternity, the man weaved in and out of startled onlookers at a fast trot.

“That way about a half a mile,” he said pointing to his right after exiting through huge oak doors. A chipped statue of Solomon called for their attention
in the atrium of the Cathedral, but the doors slammed shut before any preaching made it out of the reddish, cherry wood of his mouth.

John immediately jumped and took off in a flurry of wings. He pulled on the Spirit and heard the distinct pop as he disappeared from view. Behind him, he saw the last of the Justice Ministers become invisible. The buffeting air of their wings remained as the only evidence of their mad dash.

Warehouses and gas stations blurred beneath John’s chest as he flew full tilt. His sword was already clenched in his right hand. In his left, he squeezed the warm comforting touch of his scepter. Images of Denise being mauled by the claws of demons tormented him in the short flight.

“Please God,” he prayed. “Don’t let anything happen to Denise and the others. Let me get there in time. I won’t be able to make it
through the world if she’s taken from me. I… love her.” He said it without thinking about it and knew it to be true. A fearful tear threatened to streak from his eyes into the alley below, but he sniffed it away as the sounds of howling demons found his ears.

Without slowing he flew straight at the cinder block wall of the harbor building.
“For God, we fight,” he yelled the angels’ solemn vow at the top of his voice. The Spirit shined bright as the sun as he impacted. An explosion of bricks and concrete and dust showered a hard floor that was already littered with trash and bloody, torn body parts of demons. All the air crushed from John’s lungs as he rolled with a painful grunt. Behind him, the Justice Ministers streamed through the hole he’d just plowed and landed in all of God’s glory. Multiple trumpets shook the unsteady walls of the building. Demons screeched in hate and horror at the multitude of angels.

John shook away the pain
of the collision and searched with the Spirit. Demons of all shapes and sizes were growling and snapping. Claws and fangs and blood dominated an otherwise empty warehouse that was over a hundred yards long and at least fifty wide. At the far end, John found Denise. She was backed into a corner with her sword whipping in a blur. Ten reidlos were flitting in and out of range of her deadly blade. John shot towards her without a care for the demons snatching and swiping at him.

Four selvo fell in piles of putrid flesh when they flew in front of his mad dash. Fire poured from the mouth of a half reptile, half stone monster. The napalm melt
ed a huge hole through the far wall, but John slid beneath the bluish flames. Ed Young landed on the beast’s back a second later and cut it in two with a flashing, Spirit-driven slice of his sword.

To his left, John caught sight of Aaron spinning and flipping. An olive skinned fallen angel stayed right with him. The fallen moved with a liquid grace that streamed him around Aaron’s strikes as though he could see the world in slow motion. The man danced and slid then leapt sideways and buried a black wrought sword into the back of a Justice Minister.
His rotting wings spread in excitement as though cheering the destruction of one of God’s chosen.

“No!” Aaron yelled with true fury
twisting his face. He darted straight at the death promised in the fallen angel’s wicked smile.

John sliced his way through a swarming cloud of
nylla demons. The tiny, horse-like monsters with twitching, barbed tails screamed in their ear-piercing language. Almost a dozen fell to the concrete floor and the rest scattered before John’s wrath. He skidded to a halt with his eyes involuntarily following the fight between Aaron and the fallen. Their swords were moving so fast he could barely keep track of the strikes. The Spirit flared from Aaron and was met by the black contamination of Lucifer. Dark fountains of energy stampeded from the fallen. The short, slender man skipped to his right and took five steps on the crumbling, vertical wall of the warehouse. Aaron matched the move and clipped the head off a charging reidlos without breaking stride.

John swallowed the desire to race after the fallen
to help his leader. Instead he turned back to the mission at hand. Denise was still by herself; now against a handful reidlos and two hellish wolves. Their bristly fur was sharp as porcupine needles. Four inch fangs snapped in delight at the single angel before them. One of them darted forward, but was howling in pain a second later as Denise jabbed into its deformed face with her short sword.

All six of the reidlos
bolted forward at the same time when Denise was sliding back into a defensive stance. Their hairless, black and gray mottled bodies were machines of death and destruction. One of Lucifer’s first creations in the War for Sins - full of muscle and bone and hate for all things living. They were as fast as cheetahs and moved in slithering smoothness like snakes.

Fear clouded Denise’s eyes at the demons’ assault. Her wings and halo were glowing in the divine power of the Spirit. Robes of purest white covered her from neck to feet. In her left hand, a sturdy wooden scepter was pulsing with the protection of Gabriel’
s shield. A stunning sword from God slashed from her right.

Her eyes found John’s storming advance. A delightful howl screamed from the reidlos as she spun away from their attack
in a fake retreat. The distraction was all John needed. In a heartbeat, the demons’ delight turned to terror. He landed amongst them and his sword sang with the Spirit as it beheaded the first in a shower of black, filthy blood. Two more fell before the others reacted. Another blasted sideways in an arc of divine light from his scepter. Denise’s sword thrust into the mouth and out the back of the head of the one closest to her. She swung the attached monster sideways and it slammed into the stunned wolves.

“Glad to see me?” John called as he dispatched the last reidlos.

A smile started to spread across her face, but froze in horror. In the reflection of her eyes, he saw a phantom at his back. Like a lightning bolt, she flicked forward and her three foot sword spun end over end. John felt the wind from the blade, heard the sound of its edge ripping into flesh, then felt the pain of a thousand fangs bury into his upper back. He tried to twist but the force of the blow careened him into a rocky pile of jagged, broken chunks of concrete. Lances of agony splintered throughout his body.

“John!” Denise shouted. Terror lived in the word. He called on the Spirit and smiled thankfully as a bubble of soft light engulfed him.
His face and the entire left side of his body were sandwiched between the blood stained concrete and a mammoth, hairy monster. Guided by God’s divine power, his sword twisted and plunged backwards. Barely a centimeter separated the blade from the fluttering robes that had covered his body during the fight. A tremendous roar split his eardrums when the blade buried through bone and tendon. The spasms of great, wiry muscles twitched against his crumpled wings. Warm liquid that he guessed was either blood or saliva dripped onto the nape of his neck. He shuddered and pushed against the stony floor with all his might. Aided by the Spirit, the monstrous demon rolled off of him with a terrible grunting snarl. John’s sword was buried to the hilt in the middle of a giant, human chest. Haphazard scarring spider-webbed over the white skin. On top of boulder-like shoulders, that made John’s look like a four year old’s, sat a lion’s head. Grotesquely created by Lucifer from the tar pits of hell. The demon’s face was twisted in pain and loathing. A matted, brown mane spread on top of a dead reidlos. Foot wide jaws snapped in death throws. John looked down the beast’s body and followed the shuddering belly of a man to the hind quarters of lion.

“A
sinna demon,” Denise spat. At her feet a barbed tail was oozing black, oily blood - poised to stick a deadly quill into a victim for an instant death of fiery poison. The half lion, half human behemoth took one final huffing breath and lay still.