Demonic Designs (To Absolve the Fallen) (4 page)

“You’ve been around for billions of years?
 
I thought you said that you had been around for tens of thousands.”

Jeremiah lit a cigarette.
 
“You wanted to know.
 
Now, let me finish my story.”

“Okay,” Alex agreed, as he sat back on the bed.

“I’ve been around for a little over thirty-seven thousand years.
 
Actually, you could say the human soul and I have something in common--our birthdays.
 
All humans gained free passage to ascension when they died.
 
It didn’t matter what they did; it didn’t matter whether or not they even believed in God; it didn’t matter if they loved or hated Him.
 
The only defining characteristic they had to have was a certain strand of amino acids—a soul, so to speak.
 
With that, they could get into Heaven.
 

“Many angels were very confused, to say the least.
 
This point is what most of
us
refer to as the beginning.
 
It was at this point that Lucifer fell, but he wasn’t the only one.
 
As you may recall from Sunday school, one third of Heaven’s angels fell with Lucifer, but it had nothing to do with him leading them.
 
They had no intention of following ‘the Morning Star’ over God; at least, not until after the Fall.
 
No angel in his right mind would side with another angel over the Creator—one of the many flaws in humanity’s mythologies.”

“Why didn’t Lucifer want us to get into Heaven?”

Jeremiah considered the question.
 
“I’m not sure that he didn’t want you to get into Heaven.
 
It isn’t insubordination that gets an angel cast from grace.
 
How can one fight the plan of an omnipotent being?
 
If an angel ceases to have faith, or if the faith falters for long enough, the angel will fall.
 
Something about the exalting of humans over other animals didn’t make sense to Lucifer and the others.
 
They doubted, and they fell.
 
That’s all there was to it.”

Alex’s head was spinning.
 
“Then, there never was a war in Heaven.
 
They, or you, fell and that was it.”

“No, there was a war—not in Heaven, though.
 
And I had not been created quite yet.
 
In fact, it was at this point that God brought another angel into the equation.
 
It seemed apparent that someone needed to watch over the growth of the human soul.
 
Ergo...me.”

“So when did you lose your faith?”

Jeremiah smiled.
 
“Well, I was given charge of a young boy, not too different than yourself.
 
He was bright, charismatic, and above all innocent.
 
I was informed that I--”
 
He stopped abruptly and looked toward the door.
 
“Stand away from the door.”

“What?”

Jeremiah stood up, and he roared.
 
“Now!”

Alex had no choice but to follow the order.
 
The door to the room flew open.
 
Four people, heavily armed, rushed in, and Jeremiah burst into flames.

Before Alex could react, there was a pillar of fire between him and the gunmen.
 
The others stopped as they entered the room; they must have also been alarmed by the presence of someone on fire, waiting patiently for all of them to file in.
 
They didn’t raise their guns.
 
They, like Alex, could only stare.

Alex was in shock from the whole ordeal.
 
He didn’t know whether or not to try to extinguish Jeremiah or let him burn.
 
He put his hand up slowly in Jeremiah’s direction, and he could feel no heat.
 
His hand went into the fire, and it didn’t burn.
 
The demon seemed to take notice of neither the fire enshrouding him nor the presence of Alex’s hand.

Peering around the column of fire, Alex saw another frightening figure enter the room.
 
It looked like it may have been human once, but now it was completely desiccated and hairless.
 
The withered frame was disconcerting.
 
But, more than that, its reddish-brown skin was bubbling, leaving holes in the skin that would reveal patches of muscle before filling in once more.

Alex interpreted the look on this walking corpse’s face as one of surprise, though none of the expressions this thing was making looked recognizably human.
 
It did, however, halt for a moment to take in the situation.

“Jeremiah,” it hissed, “I was led to believe that you were dead.
 
I guess it doesn’t really matter.
 
You’re outnumbered.
 
There’s no viable escape.
 
Your allies,” he said, pointing to the ceiling, “have not come to your defense.
 
Give us the boy without incident; there’s no need for us to quarrel, brother.”

Jeremiah walked up to the speaker; his hand shot out of the fire and retracted so quickly that Alex barely even made out any kind of movement.
 
He didn’t know that anything had happened until the head of the bubbling guy exploded in a mist of red and gray.
 
The body fell to the ground, and shortly thereafter it was consumed by flame.

That action must have shocked the other three out of their confusion and terror.
 
They leveled their guns at the fire.
 
A kick sent one of the foes into the far wall.
 
Flaming hands grabbed the other two weapons and aimed each towards the adjacent hired gun.
 
When the men fired, they only succeeded in debilitating the other.
 
Then, both guns were in the hands of Jeremiah.
 
By this point, the man who had been kicked was getting up, but a bullet in the head put him back down again.
 
All of this happened so quickly that Alex could only comprehend it later when he reflected on what he had seen.

Jeremiah waved his hand, and the dead man burst into flame.
 
Then, the fire around Jeremiah died down, revealing, once more, a human figure.
 
He no longer looked like that pale, red-headed young kid that he was before.
 
Now, his hair was jet black, and his skin was bronzed.
 
He stood a little taller and looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties.

He turned to Alex.
 
His eyes were that steel gray that Alex had seen before.
 
“You should step outside for a moment,” he said.
 
“I need to talk to these two.”

Alex moved toward the door, watching the two surviving intruders very closely.
 
He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he knew he needed to get out of there before he vomited all over the floor.
 
He ran out of the room thinking of nothing but escape.
 
The would-be assassins didn’t take their eyes off of Jeremiah.
 
As soon as Alex exited the room, he could feel a force closing the door behind him.
 
From there, he could see another door, this one with moonlight shining through a window in it.
 
He twisted the knob and flung the door open just in time to lose what was in his stomach, mostly bile, all over what looked to be a front porch.
 
He noticed, absentmindedly, that most of his mess was going through a hole in the porch where planks had once been.
 
Strangely, it was a slight consolation to him that the mess he’d made would be hidden.
 
Then, the screams began.
 

Looking into the fields around the house, Alex thought about running.
 
Perhaps, he could make it back to some civilization and call the police.
 
Or maybe there were more men with guns lurking not far away.
 
And what if Jeremiah caught him?

After what felt like twenty minutes, there was only silence.
 
Prior to that, Alex couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than for those screams to stop, and when they did, he just put his head into his lap and cried.
 
He cried out of anger and frustration because of his helplessness in this situation.
 
He cried out of fear.
 
But, most of all, he cried because he felt utterly broken down, and crying seemed like the only reasonable thing to do.

***

Matt looked around at the four other men at the table.
 
At a mere twenty-one, he was the youngest person there by at least fifteen years, yet everyone eyed him with suspicion and fear.
 
His reputation preceded him, and no one wanted to anger his boss.

“This could be very lucrative for you gentlemen,” Matt pressed them.
 
“Jeremiah has a lot of money to pass out to folks who can get what he needs.
 
And we are in constant need of hired guns, which is where the four of you come in.
 
You know, better than anyone, where I can find some good mercenaries who don’t mind a little extra pay to keep their mouths shut.
 
So, want to help me out?”

“What are you trying to do, kid,” one of the men, an older one with a Brooklyn accent asked, “invade a country?
 
This is the second time this month that you’ve come to us, looking for ex-military guys.”

Matt’s eyes narrowed.
 
“Yet, all I’ve gotten recently have been overweight, stupid, petty thugs.
 
I don’t need mafia hit men.
 
I need Green Berets and SEALs.
 
You
can
deliver and have.
 
What’s with the resistance?”

The other guy answered with a shrug of his shoulders, “The supply is too little, the demand too great.
 
What, do you think that soldiers come home from duty and get right back into killing people?”

“I command more than two hundred such men,” Matt affirmed.
 
“That is exactly what I think.
 
Obviously, not all of them have the desire to return to battle, but some of them do it so long that they don’t know anything else.
 
They may as well work for us.
 
And what’s more, you’ll get tremendous profit from the deal.”

Another man from the table cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter before he responded to Matt, “We don’t just work for you and your boss.
 
We have opportunities that could prove to be much more ‘lucrative’ than what you have to offer.”

It was then that Matt’s head began to tingle.
 
The situation had become clear to him.
 
He had been lured into a trap.
 
These men had sold him out to a demon, which was probably the better business they were talking about.

Matt got up from his chair abruptly and backed toward the nearest exit.
 
The four men looked at each other and also made to get up.
 
They were reaching for their guns, but Matt was faster.
 
He had drawn two guns and fired four precise shots, one into each man’s forehead, before they had completely stood up.

He looked regretfully at the bodies slumped over the chairs and table and sighed.
 
“I guess further business with you gentlemen is completely out of the question now.”

Wasting no more time, he ran to the exit.
 
Within seconds of that, he reached the stairwell he’d come up to get to the floor where the meeting would be held.
 
There were about fifteen steps between each landing, but there was no time to calculate the distance.
 

He grabbed the handrail and jumped over.
 
His footing wasn’t steady when he hit the next level of stairs, and he tumbled to the next landing.
 
Rolling down the stairs hurt like hell, but he knew he couldn’t think about the bruises that were already forming.
 
He stood up, and confident that he hadn’t broken any bones yet, grabbed the hand rail and propelled himself over once more.

This time, he landed solidly.
 
The tingling in his head was stronger.
 
His enemy was closer.
 
Two more times, he jumped over the railing before making it to the bottom.
 
The last time, something broke in his right foot, and he fell again, tumbling down six more steps to the ground floor.