Tribulation (11 page)

They hardly
exchanged words after that. Then, one morning, she awoke with a
fever. Intuitively, Sam knew that it was bad.

“What’s wrong?”
he asked.

Grace shook her
head weakly. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Nothing good.” She
lifted her t-shirt to show him. Dark swollen lumps were clearly
visible in her armpits. Not only that, but similar signs were
apparent on her neck. Red, inflamed flea bites covered her
torso.

Grace watched
his face. Sam had never had much of a poker face. Clearly, she
could see his concern.

“They’re on my
groin, too,” she said. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“You’ll be
fine,” he said, trying to conceal the dread he felt in his heart,
knowing that she wasn’t going to be fine at all. If Grace didn’t
get help, she was going to die.

“I think I know
what this is,” she said. “I saw a documentary once where people
died with the same symptoms. You see, I know how you get this
disease. You get it from fleas – fleas that live on rats. The same
rats we’ve been eating.”

Sam waited,
completely mute, dreading what she would say next.

“It’s a disease
we haven’t really seen since the Middle Ages,” she continued. “They
called it the bubonic plague. It’s commonly called the black
plague.”

Sam was lost
for words. Of course he’d heard of the black plague and knew it was
deadly. But didn’t modern medicine eradicate it?

“Is there a
cure?” he managed to ask.

Grace smiled,
her mouth quivering. “Sure is. An antibiotic will sort it out in no
time at all. We’ll just roll up to our local drug store and buy
some over the counter.” She tried to laugh but suddenly spluttered
and coughed. She covered her mouth with her hand. When she moved it
away, it was speckled with blood.

“We’ll find
one,” said Sam, trying to sound confident. All he had to do was
find a drug store then. Easier said than done.

A day later and
she was worse. She complained of chills and started bleeding out of
her ears. She suffered from terrible muscle cramps. He did what he
could for her but knew she was dying. After all she’d been through,
after what he’d been through to save her, it seemed it wouldn’t be
enough. He cursed the unfairness of it all.

Another day
passed. Her fever worsened. Her lips, nose, fingers and toes
started to turn black. Even Sam knew what this was – the onset of
gangrene. She didn’t have long. She couldn’t travel any longer and
he made her as comfortable as he could on a makeshift mattress in
the backroom of a service station. He thought about calling Yeth,
knowing that the Hellhound could quench his own fires if the need
arose - but he was unsure how Grace would take riding on the back
of a demon, even in her barely conscious, feverish state.

Just when he
thought it was all over for her, a miracle happened. He heard
voices outside and cautiously moved to investigate, ensuring that
his hood was up, concealing his telltale horns.

In the
forecourt of the service station were a group of men in fatigues.
Army fatigues. Soldiers.

“Hi there,” he
said quietly, moving slowly so as to not startle them.

There was
hurried movement as several automatic weapons were suddenly leveled
in his direction. These soldiers were obviously not taking any
chances.

“Who are you?”
demanded one of them – an officer by the looks.

“Just a
survivor. My name’s Sam. I need your help. My friend is sick.”

The officer
looked Sam up and down, appraising, taking in the swords at his hip
and back.

“Lots of people
are sick,” he said curtly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Her,” Sam
corrected. “I think she has the plague.”

The officer
didn’t display any surprise. He nodded once. “Wayne – get the
medical kit and go see to her.”

One of the
soldiers grabbed his backpack and entered the station. Sam and the
officer followed.

“What’s he
going to do?” Sam asked.

“We’ve seen
this a lot. Easily treatable. We’ve got antibiotics.”

Inside, Wayne
knelt down next to Grace. He dispensed some pills while Sam helped
her sit up. Using his canteen, Wayne gave her a few sips of
precious water.

Sam breathed
out heavily, the worry of the last few days suddenly lessened ever
so slightly. “So what happens now?” he asked eventually.

The officer
shrugged. “It should work. It’ll take a couple of days before the
antibiotics kick in. In the meantime, you guys can come with us.
We’ve got a truck.”

“To where?” Sam
hadn’t really thought about it. Of course, these soldiers must have
come from some military base.

“We’re a long
range squad from Kansas. The CO sent us out looking for people like
you.”

“Had much
luck?” Sam asked.

The officer
looked sour. “None. You’re the first people we’ve seen since we
came out on this patrol. Alive, that is. Let’s hope the other
squads have more success. You’re lucky we came with antibiotics
though. The plague has been breaking out all over the place and our
supplies are getting a bit low.”

“Thank you,”
said Sam, feeling suddenly moved.

The officer
shrugged. “Hey, just doing my job. Glad we could help.”

They loaded
Grace into the back of the truck, Sam making her as comfortable as
he could. Two days travel saw a huge improvement in Grace’s
condition. It also saw them back at the base. Thankfully, Grace
made a full recovery – physically at least.

From there, the
two of them traveled from base to base, state to state until
arriving in Ohio, making a semi-permanent home at the army base
they found there. Grace had fully recovered her strength but had
lost something in the process. Things between them were never the
same again. Every time he saw her after some mission, the gap
between them continued to widen, almost to the point where they
could no longer talk. It pained him but there was little he could
do about it. Grace had suffered terrible mental and physical
torture in Hell. It had changed her forever.

He deliberately
stayed away from the base for longer and longer periods, just to
avoid coming back and seeing what she had become. She never spoke
of her experience and he never asked. Some things were best
forgotten. But other things could never be.

Heaven and Earth

Three and a half years
into the Tribulation

“
Man's days are
determined; you have decreed the number of his months and

have set limits he
cannot exceed.”
Job 14:5

Greetings from
Hell

“
For such people are
not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth
talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.”
Romans: 18

H
ad the thing just spoken? It couldn’t be … but Sam
was sure it had just told him that it brought greetings from his
father.

So stunned was
Sam that he relaxed his grip on the Lemure’s hair. Immediately,
with one swift, savage movement, the Lemure yanked its head
forward. The razor sharp blade lying against its neck easily sliced
through demon flesh, almost severing the head completely.

Sam held the
body until he was sure it was quite dead, still in a state of
shook. Finally, he let the body topple to the ground, still
struggling to absorb the words he had just heard uttered.

“Your father
sends his greetings.”

What the Hell
was that supposed to mean?

The last time
he’d seen his father had been three years ago, in Hell. Sure, he
got that feeling that someone was watching him from time to time
and he mostly assumed it was his father because, let’s face it, who
else was it likely to be? And then there were the dreams of his
mother. He wasn’t so naïve to think that the dreams were only a
product of his overactive subconscious. His father was playing his
usual games. Occasionally, he thought he caught glimpses of the
sharply dressed, debonair demon who was Satan, ruler of Hell, his
father, the father of lies. But when he looked again or tried to
move closer, whatever it was had disappeared. So why now? Why would
his father send his greetings now? Sam knew with absolute certainty
that Satan was up to something. He never did anything without it
serving some purpose, or having some intrinsic value or calculated
risk. But what was it?

It was only
then that Sam realized that the Lemure was still lying at his feet.
It hadn’t disintegrated into a pile of ash like all Lemure did.
Some greater demons, Sam knew, had more resistance to iron than
others but when struck a killing blow, all dissolved into dust
eventually. Lemure weren’t greater demons though. In fact, they
were the least of their kind, were highly susceptible to iron and
always, always became powder upon death.

Not this
Lemure, apparently.

Sam crouched
down next to the body. A dark fluid was leaking out of the
horrendous neck wound. That wasn’t right – Lemure didn’t bleed.
Then he noticed the other differences – minor ones that weren’t
immediately apparent. The arms weren’t as long as normal Lemure;
the horns at elbow and knees were absent. The skin of the creature
was, for lack of a better word, more human looking. It was still
yellow with an unhealthy pallor, but still, much healthier and
anthropomorphic than regular Lemure.

So – it wasn’t
a Lemure then. At least not a pure Lemure. It was part Lemure and
part something else. And then it struck Sam – struck him so hard
that he staggered backwards.

This Lemure was
like him – it was part demon and part human. This creature at his
feet, this demonic thing, was more kin to him than any other living
creature other than his father, his presumably-dead twin brother
and possibly other demon Princes and Princesses in Hell. The
thought made him feel vaguely nauseous.

His father was
sending him a message – not just with words. This creature was a
message in itself. What was his father trying to tell him? That the
world was destined to be inherited by half human, half-demon
hybrids? Cambions. That was the name for his kind. Not a word used
lightly. In fact, the word was often associated with the worst
forms of evil and whispered hurriedly amongst those who knew of
their existence.

Sam’s brother
had proven to Sam that he was not the only Cambion, but now it
seemed that there were more. He shuddered to think what the
consequences would be of breeding an Astaroth or a Horned demon
with a human. What about Succubi? Surely these would be deadly
foes. Game changers, in fact. Did his father really think he could
change the outcome of the final battle? Was this what he was trying
to tell Sam: that his half-breed kind was the future? Sam didn’t
know and a part of him no longer cared. At the end of the
Tribulation, in just over three years’ time, Christ would return at
the head of an army and throw the anti-Christ and Satan into a
bottomless pit for a thousand years. Sam’s brother and father.
Essentially, his only blood relatives.

Where would Sam
fit into all this? He didn’t know. No-one had told him. Would he be
banished to the deepest parts of Hell along with his blood family
or would he get to be reunited with Aimi and his foster-father,
Hikari? He wished he knew. In the meantime, however, he still had a
job to do - one that he was unlikely to stop doing, despite that
fact that no one, on either Earth or in Heaven, seemed to
appreciate it.

He sucked in a
deep, sulfur-tinged breath and let it out with a huge sigh. This
half-breed creature in front of him was a problem for another day.
He’d think about it later. Right now, he still had some humans to
deal with. Whether they would be saved or punished, he would soon
find out.

There were
still about two hours ‘til dawn when Sam finally made his move.
He’d watched the humans from a nearby rooftop for a few hours,
noting their numbers, their weapons and when they changed the
guard. He’d observed them before, of course, but Hikari had told
him never to assume. Things might have changed since the previous
evening. Depressingly, they hadn’t. Demons, mostly Lemure but also
the hulking Horned Demon, prowled the streets in numbers. Above
him, Sam had noted the huge flying presence of at least five
Astaroth. Tellingly, the demons completely ignored the humans on
guard outside the two-storied warehouse. Without a doubt, those
humans were in league with the demons. If that hadn’t been proof
enough, then what he had observed an hour ago certainly was.

Three other
humans had appeared on the street below Sam dragging two others
between them. The contrast between the captors and their captives
was stark. The three captors were grown men, well fed, glossy and
bloated, dressed in expensive if dirty hunting gear. All three
carried weapons: two had hunting rifles while the third was armed
with a sawn-off shotgun.