The Calling (41 page)

There was no one here. The place was completely empty, the bottles of Bud Light and cigarette butts gone, taken and marked as evidence by the police. Even the faint smell from before—alcohol and piss—was absent, instead now only the scent of rain and damp earth.
 

I stood there for a long time, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, I turned back around.
 

And watched through the doorway as Gerald Alcott ran toward me through the trees, a rifle in his hands.
 

“Christopher!” he shouted, waving the rifle at me. “You gotta get outta here! Do you hear me? You gotta get. He wants to kill you.”
 

I stepped out into the rain and stood with the house behind me. My hands hadn’t yet left the wound on my stomach. I had no voice at first and just stared back at him. It obviously had been a long time since he last ran, and it appeared as if each step caused him pain. When he reached the top of the trail he slowed his pace, catching his breath as he walked the rest of the short distance.
 

Lightning flickered, and for an instant I thought I saw something around the house. Something that looked like a dozen shadows spread out. Thunder quickly followed the lightning and then I found my voice and asked a very stupid question.
 

“Who?”
 

Gerald stopped at once. Just like last night his face paled, but his eyes widened even more. His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but now he was the one with no voice. Then I realized while his eyes were directed at me, he was staring at something over my shoulder.
 

“Come now, Christopher, you’re smarter than that,” said a voice behind me, a voice so dark it hardly sounded human at all. “Now turn around so we can finish this.”
 

I didn’t recognize him at first. He was tall and wore a long dark robe. His brown flowing hair hid none of his face, which looked almost perfect, handsome, but cold. The only reason I knew it was Samael was because of his bottomless black eyes, which seemed to sear into my very soul. And then I remembered how my great-grandfather had described the demon so long ago. This must be what he’d looked like not just then, but since the beginning of time, before his wings had been ripped away like his chances of redemption.
 

“When is it going to end?” My voice was still hardly my own, and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. “You’ve already got your thirty-four lives. Killing me will make it thirty-five. If you kill Gerald, that’s just one more. And who knows how many there were before now. When are you going to stop? Until a million lives are lost? Until everyone in the world is dead?”
 

“Don’t make yourself out to be a martyr. It’s beneath you. What do you care of life and death when it’s not your own? Thousands of people die every day. That’s the thing—death is inevitable. But does that affect you? Has it ever caused you to lose sleep? Of course it hasn’t, because you are just like every other mortal on this earth. You care only for yourself and no one else.”
 

I staggered again, the pain becoming so much I hardly even felt it anymore. “That’s not true. Joey cared.”
 

“Yes, but mortals like him are few and far between. Besides, look at the result of his caring.” Samael smiled. “When faced with the choice of life and death, mortals always take life. Every one is susceptible to the fear of death. They will do whatever it takes to save them and their own. But to answer your question, no I do not plan to kill everyone in the world. What good would that do? How then would I have any followers?”
 

“Followers? You’re not ...”
 

His smile widened even more, as he saw the understanding pass through my eyes.
 

“Do you know when Lucifer challenged God and was banished from Heaven, when the legions of angels followed him—do you know what I felt that day? Jealousy. I remember watching it happen and feeling an emotion that should never have even existed deep within myself. I could not understand how Lucifer had attempted such a bold act. And at the same time I could not understand why I had not tried it myself. It took centuries, almost a millennium, until I gathered enough courage to do the same thing Lucifer had done to God. Only this time, I challenged the Morning Star himself.”
 

Samael motioned for me to look behind me. I turned.
 

Gerald still stood in the same place in which he’d stopped, the rifle in his hands aimed at the ground. The barrel trembled. He’d decided to take a chance and defy Samael, and now he was so scared he could do nothing more than stand frozen, not even attempt to run away.
 

I wasn’t sure what Samael meant for me to see until the lightning flashed again. Like before, in the instant of brilliant light, I saw shadows. Only now there were more than a dozen. Now there were hundreds of shadows, all gathered before the stone house.
 

But they weren’t just shadows. They were something more, something my mortal eyes could not perceive in the instant the lightning lasted. Would Joey have been able to see them? Perhaps. But it didn’t matter. Even without seeing them completely I knew what they were. Angels who had once tasted the glory of Heaven but who had followed Lucifer down into the depths of Hell.
 

Now they were fallen angels who had followed Samael.
 

They were his legion.
 

“Every day more join my army. They know the future has already been written. That Lucifer is to lose his battle against God. Why follow me then? The answer is quite simple, Christopher. It is because I’m the wild card. I’m the thing God’s omnipotent mind did not see coming. And in the end I will be more powerful than Lucifer ever was. I will challenge God like I should have done in the beginning. And do you know something, Christopher? I will
win
.”
 

Once again that familiar feeling—a pang of ice shooting through my soul—passed through me and I sensed them all. Not hundreds or thousands, but
millions
. In every space stood an angel both fallen from Heaven and Hell, each staring toward this spot, toward their master. Toward their god, and the sacrifice he had planned.
 

“The giant was my first. He was my first true mortal follower. I had no influence over him. One day he just began praying to me. Can you even begin to fathom the power in that? In a mortal being choosing you over God or the Morning Star? You have absolutely no idea how empowering that felt. And then to lose that one follower, the very first, to four boys thinking they were making a difference. Suffice it to say something had to be done. Somehow they had to pay for their sins against me.”
 

I turned back to face him. His eyes were no longer looking at me but rather out at his legion. This was a day of reckoning, a day when he not only proved his power to his followers, but to Satan and to the world. To God.
 

“So then this is all about power.” My voice was so very weak. I staggered some more. “Everything that’s happened. All the people that died because of what my great-grandfather and his friends did. All this is to somehow do what—prove you shouldn’t be fucked with?”
 

“I have been patient. I have waited for others of my kind to follow me, as well as mortals all over this earth. They have all chosen to worship me. Power has nothing to do with it. God has power, but what else?
Everything
. That is what I want. Not just power, but fear and love and hate and understanding. For the longest time I have been known as a being that takes life away. Now I will also be known as a being that gives life.”
 

This entire time he had been slowly approaching me. Now he was less than two feet away. Without warning my legs gave up their fight. I fell to my knees, my jeans soaking in the wet earth. I felt faint, so very faint, like any moment I would close my eyes and never open them again.
 

But Samael reached forward. He placed his hand against my stomach.
 

And like that, the pain began to ease. It began to decrease, becoming less and less, until it was gone.
 

I blinked. Looked up at him.
 

Samael held out his hand. I took it, and he helped me to my feet. I just stood there for a moment, not sure what to say or do. I felt fine. I felt good. I felt
great
.
 

Samael placed his hands on my shoulders, slowly turned me around so I could stare out at Gerald Alcott and the invisible legion of fallen demons surrounding us.
 

“Christopher?” Gerald’s hoarse voice was small. The courage that once resided in his eyes had now been replaced by fear. “What—what’s happening?”
 

Another feeling shot through my soul, this one sharper than ever. There was movement in the trees behind him. Branches and leaves stirred and before I realized what was happening it emerged. Gerald Alcott must have noticed my eyes widen, or sensed what was there himself, because he slowly turned. The rifle fell from his grasp.
 

The thing had been human once. Now dead and decaying, it walked upright on two large legs like it had in life. Ragged pants and shirt covered its huge body, hiding most of its raw skin. Just how long had it been dead? Almost a hundred years, if not longer. How Samael had preserved it this long I had no idea. But the giant still had both its eyes, though they looked milky and useless in its massive skull.
 

“You’ve been wishing to die for years now, Gerald!” Samael shouted behind me. “Now I grant you your wish.”
 

Whether the old man heard him or not I can’t say. His back was to the both of us, and he took a step back, then another, then bent to pick up the rifle he’d dropped. The dead giant moved with a strange sense of ease, covering the ground between the trees and its prey in only seconds. Somehow Gerald managed to aim and fire. The bullet struck the giant in the shoulder, but this did little to slow the beast. It continued until both its large dead hands gripped Gerald Alcott’s neck.
 

Rain fell and lightning flashed and I saw all the shadows near the giant and old man, I saw them all watching what now happened with admiration.
 

Gerald fought his hardest for the few seconds the giant allowed him to live. He was lifted in the air, his boots kicking the space just above the ground. The giant kept him there for only a moment before snapping Gerald’s neck. I hoped the giant would stop there and drop the body, but it didn’t. Instead it continued shaking Gerald, the dead man’s arms and legs flapping with no control, and seconds later there was the sound of ripping skin as the head was separated from its neck.
 

I closed my eyes, forced myself to quit watching, but still I heard Gerald Alcott’s body hit the wet earth. When I opened my eyes again, the giant stood before us. It held Gerald’s head face out, toward me and Samael. The old man’s eyes bulged in terror. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his bottom dentures crooked. Rain fell down his face, like the tears he’d shed last night in his living room.
 

His hands still on my shoulders, Samael whispered into my ear, “Now do you see my power? Besides healing you, that is the one thing I have in common with Lucifer. But I have something else over him too, something that rivals even God.”
 

Staring ahead at Gerald’s dead bursting eyes, I asked him what he meant.
 

“Mercy,” he said. “Mercy is something Lucifer has never been able to show. In fact, it is beyond his ability. But today I will show mercy. Because you should die here, Christopher. You should meet the same fate as Gerald. But instead I have decided to let you live. I have decided to show you mercy.”
 

“How?” I heard myself whisper.
 

“It’s simple, really. The trail to your left, the one leading up to the clearing beside the trailer park—I’ll be waiting up there for you. If you manage to outrun my giant and reach me, and fall to your knees before me, I will show you mercy and spare your life.”
 

He said nothing more and I knew he was gone, that he was now waiting at the top of the trail. Would he really spare my life if I made it to him? I wanted to believe he wouldn’t, that he was lying. But I knew he would. He had already healed me, had taken all that pain and faintness away, so I knew he had the power, and I understood that by showing me mercy he would (in his own mind and in the minds of his legion) elevate himself next to God.
 

At that moment pain roared through my body. I grabbed my stomach, staggering again. I understood that the healing had only been temporary, at least for now, and that if I did as Samael wished it would be permanent. So I stood there on weak legs, gripping my wound, keeping my eyes closed because I knew what would happen when I opened them again.
 

When I did finally open my eyes the giant still stood in front of me, Gerald’s head still in its grasp. As lightning flashed once more the beast dropped it to the ground. For a second it just stood there staring back at me with dark blind eyes. Then it started forward.
 

I turned and ran.

Chapter 40

T
hey say the moment before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes.
 

That isn’t the case for me as I sprint up the trail.
 

The distance isn’t too long but yet it seems like I’ve been running forever. The pain still roars through me but it’s become background. I can hear the giant behind me, I can hear its unsteady breathing and its heavy feet slapping the earth, and I know that if I pause for even a second, if I lose my footing just once, it will tear me apart. That’s its purpose after all, to make me suffer.