by D A Rice
Warrior of Adonai
D.A. Rice
Story copyright to author
Book cover art by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/ FrinaArt
Public Service Announcement:
You may know me as Zakiya Harishima of the Warriors of Adonai. I lied to you all, but I wasn’t the only one. I went out of the Dome to find the truth, to find a cure. I found both and I’m here to tell you now: the legends you know are real.
If you thought they were just horror stories, the kind that were only meant to scare little children, you would not be alone. Nobody expected them to actually be true. It does not matter that we live in a society where demons are not only very real, but used to once be people. We knew the corruption to be a disease, a very real disease that takes hold of people’s hearts and minds and turns them into monsters. Most of them are distinguishable by how they look. They look like demons, with horns growing out of their heads, red eyes, and tough, red skin. If they are hungry, they eat whatever is closest to them, even if the only thing closest to them is themselves. That is how we knew the corruption to spread--through their bite.
The Fallen are the myths that we never see. They were supposed to have been Angels once, and legends blame them for the corruption that make our people into the very monsters we fight. Long ago, Angels of Light and Angels of Darkness went to war over us. According to the legends, the good Angels helped us build our city, taking Angelic metals and blessing them with their light. Using those materials, they created a dome that the monsters shouldn’t have been able to get into. They gave us weapons: the Holy Swords, said to hold the fire of Adonai himself on their blades. They gave us armor: Holy Armor that could not be penetrated by Corrupted jaws.
The Angels made sure we could take care of ourselves, then they disappeared.
Now Zion is falling apart; our walls are rusting, even with the blessings bestowed upon them by the very angels who abandoned us. Our homes are decaying and we are running out of resources needed to survive. The Warriors of Adonai are the only thing that stand between the Corrupted onslaught and our people. Our DNA was said to have been blessed by the same light that strengthened everything around us. We were the best weapons Zion had. But we were deceived. We thought the corruption was only spread one way, that it cultivated monsters in one form.
Beware the monsters you cannot see. The Fallen can get inside your head. I found the answers I needed. I found Gabriel Logan. I found more pain than I thought I could bear, then I found redemption. But I have been imprisoned by my own people. I am not sure how long I will last down here. If you learn nothing else from these words, remember this.
The cure is not what you think.
1
“Z! Watch your back!” I heard him speaking, but I was already moving before Isaac said anything, rolling out of the way of a huge demonic claw about to hook my armor. I wasn’t looking forward to the care I was going to have to give it after this battle. This had been the fourth bolt hole we had found today alone. It was getting harder to find time to clean all my gear and it was in desperate need. It didn’t help that, as a Warrior of Adonai constantly on patrol, I didn’t sleep during the night. Night was when these monsters started pushing their way through the Angelic steel-laden floors in the Dome that was starting to cave from the abuse.
How they had found their way under the city was beyond me, but it had been like this for years now. If I had to guess, I would say that there were caves and tunnels underneath the city that the monsters were getting into and making bigger, more accessible. Bolt holes, sections of floor that had broken down, falling into dark and emptiness below, were popping up like rats’ nests all over. Many sections of Zion had been evacuated and overcrowding was becoming a big issue. We had crews working to improve the floors all over the city, of course, but Angelic steel was hard to come by these days and we used a lot of it repairing our weapons.
It didn’t help that, if one of us got bitten, we had to kill off the warrior, or sometimes civilian, quickly. The corruption worked fast, turning a heart to darkness and violence before turning a human body into a hard-skinned demonic monster. The long, curving horns and giant claws emerged then, with elongated legs and glowing red eyes. Sometimes a person could hide the infection, but it was rare. I had never seen someone evade the disease entirely. Infected people caved to that corruption of their hearts and minds every single time.
We are humanity, and we are covered in filth. We can’t help ourselves. Purity in innocence is a commodity that we just don’t have anymore. Maybe if we did, the Corrupted wouldn’t exist.
I dodged back, avoiding the demon’s upswing before twirling on my heel and swinging low, cutting the demon off at its clawed feet. I could smell the sulfur before I heard the snapping of bone that meant my hit was a success. Isaac wasn’t far behind me, jumping lithely with one foot off my back and swinging up with one of his own swords, aiming at the demon’s face as it fell forward. This was a technique we’d used since we had trained together as children; we knew it well. He was the heavier of us, which meant that usually it was me doing the mid air acrobatics. But in a dire situation, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I rolled out of the way as the demon fell dead beside me, bringing Isaac down with it. He jumped to avoid me and skidded to a halt, twirling the gore off his sword before sheathing it behind his back with his other one. That was the last Corrupted we had to battle before the sun started making its way over the rusting metallic dome walls. The dome of Zion wasn’t completely enclosed; there was a hole at the top that the demons couldn’t get to, and they had tried. Blessed Angelic steel hurt them like hell, causing steam to come off them in waves everywhere it touched them. The demons inevitably lost their grip before crashing back down hundreds of feet below. It was one of many reasons that they were now trying to get at us from below, which I could only assume hurt infinitely less, since it was hidden in darkness.
They seemed to be getting smarter, and that was a problem.
Plucking a torn cloth up from the ground, I wiped down my own sword before sheathing it and taking stock of the situation. Isaac stood a short way off, gloved hands on his hips as his eyes roved, making his own assessments. We had started off with twenty tonight, and I doubted we had that many of us left.
Normally Isaac and I would be fine on our own, but these bolt holes were becoming more like colonies of Corrupted. It was making my mother nervous. My dad had been a great warrior once too, she always told me. He had died in battle, and she feared that one day I would follow in his footsteps. I had no doubt that I would. “What’s the damage, Abadi?” I asked Isaac beside me, voice solemn and low.
He heard me; he always did, “too many, Harishima, as always. I count fifteen of us left that I can see from here. Many of them are wounded but can walk. Three will need to be carried.” He was signaling the rest of the squad as he spoke, giving orders for makeshift accommodations to be made. We had to get back to the Organization capital, back to my mother. She was a scientist, one of the best in the field, but she was also a doctor. She knew human anatomy better than anyone I knew.
She had to know how that anatomy changed with the Corrupted. We would be bringing back as much of the Corrupted as we could today for her scientists. As long as the parts of the demons we brought hadn’t been burned already by the morning light shining off the dome walls, they would make good specimen material.
I sighed deeply, my hands clenching over my knees before relaxing, and stood. “Alright, let’s get as much of this tagged as we can.” I pulled a series of tubes from my belt, handing a few over to Isaac, who took them and picked his way through the debris around us, eyes peeled for any remnants of demon: skin, blood, eyes, claw-like nails, and anything else we could carry. I turned, “Sasha
!” I called to one of my warriors, who bounded over like a cat. I nodded at the hole the demons had fled through, “pick a few of the strongest from the squad and seal this off. I don’t want anything coming back through this hole tonight.” Sasha nodded curtly before bouncing away, yelling out orders as she did. We were in a caved-in section of the floor, right above the bolt hole itself, but below the main floor of the dome. Jumping in with our Holy Armor wasn’t a problem, and we had gadgets we could use to get us back out.
I turned, thumbing off the top of the vial in my hand and joined Isaac in the field, pulling a small dagger from my belt to use as a makeshift scalpel. I cut off pieces of demon and filled the vial with what was left of their blood. “I wonder if this makes a difference,” I said to Isaac beside me as we worked, filling vial after vial with samples.
He glanced at me, not moving from where he was huddled over a demon head, more than likely evaluating if anything was left of its eyes. Science was probably more disturbing than the Corrupted we were trying to study. He shrugged gently, “I think any step towards a cure makes a difference.”
“But what is a cure? Perfection? We all have darkness, Isaac,” I kept my voice light. These were not discussions a leader had with her warriors. Her second? Well, I wasn’t sure if I should, but I did it all the time, anyway. Isaac wasn’t just my second, he was my other half. I was the only family he had, and he was the only family I wanted. I loved my mom, but it was more out of respect than anything else. Warm, fuzzy feelings between us just didn’t exist. She didn’t want me to go off and get myself killed, but the reasons behind that were obscure at best. I was her best chance at corrupted DNA.
Isaac smiled now, “I’m not sure we could ever get rid of the darkness completely, after everything we have had to go through, Z; after everything we have had to do to survive.” He was watching me with a familiar warmth in his eyes before he turned back to his task, shaking off the emotions I could see rolling through him. It was always like this after a battle. Guilt that we could not save everyone, the philosophical debate to take our minds from the pain of it, and picking through hordes of demon carcass.
I heard metal being shoved around behind me with a screech and a clang as Sasha and her team accomplished their task. She was one of the best engineers we had, and I had coerced my mother into placing her on my team as our dedicated engineer. Every squad had one, it was necessary for sealing up bolt holes as best as we could. Why had the Angels left us with such a mess?
“I think that we have gotten as much as we can here,” Isaac stood, offering me his hand. I secured the vial of blood I had filled and took it, letting his strength pull me up. “Our night is over; it’s time for some rest before another begins.”
I smiled at him as he signaled the rest of our team. “So poetic tonight,” I pointed out as our team stood from various positions and tasks, securing the injured onto lead lines so we could pull them up after us. Shots fired out of the hole in procession as the team moved to climb free of our hellish night. Those with samples, like us secured them fast to their armor, making sure not to let them drop.
“Poetic and covered in blood. Time to smell as pretty as my words.” His face turned amused, tugging me closer as he pulled out a grappling gun, shooting it up and out of the hole. His grip on me tightened as the gun jerked in his hand, then pulled us up after it in an arc. I rested my head on his chest, secure in the feel of him, and let him be my strength.
I pulled my long, blonde hair over my shoulder, twirling it once as I let it fall over my light, silky, crimson tunic. It felt good to get all the blood and gore from the night off every inch of my body. The warm water had helped my muscles relax. It also felt good to not be wearing armor. Although it was light, it grew heavier as the night wore on. Fatigue made everything heavy, and fatigue for us was more than just a physical thing.
I also loved that we were one of the luckier domes to have clean water. I was pretty sure that was mostly because of my mom and the Organization that she was head of. She had pulled all of the brilliant minds at her disposal together quickly and kept them by her side. We had never been more efficient than we were under her. She had a knack for it, keeping people in line, unified. It made her cold to a degree, but weakness was not a commodity that we could afford to show. In our world, anyone could be a leader, and everyone was an asset. It might sound clinical, but it was what we had to do to survive. I couldn’t be mad at my mother for keeping us here.
A soft knock at my makeshift door had me pulling my lightly-clad legs up to my chest with a smile as I leaned back against the wall at the head of my bed. Isaac moved the heavy fabric I had placed in the doorway aside, his face visibly relaxing when he saw me. His hair was dark brown, but it looked black with the drops of water that still shown on top of his head. His light brown eyes sparkled as he pulled a chair from where my desk sat closer to my bed and sat down, arms over the back. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing up reports, Harishima?” he teased.
I rolled my eyes, “I delivered the specimens and visited the sick room. The reports can wait until dusk.” He cocked his head at me, his eyes curious and I sighed, my arms loosening from around my knees, “twenty warriors to twelve, Isaac. We cannot afford to keep putting people in so much danger. Wouldn’t it make more sense to send smaller parties for specimens? Ones that allowed our scouting parties the leisure of killing without having to think about where the Corrupted fell?”
Isaac’s hand combed through his hair as he considered my words. “Any loss of life is one we cannot afford,” he said, voice quiet, “some of our best warriors went down tonight. I am honestly at a loss of how to make this better. Many of our people cannot fight. What will happen if we are overwhelmed?”
The back of my head hit the wall as my eyes moved to a spot on the ceiling. “May Adonai save us,” I said softly, and I felt, more than heard, Isaac move from his chair. The bed dipped as he slid onto it beside me. I moved over and then let my head fall onto his shoulder, where he kissed the top of it. His arms draped over his own knees before resting his head on top of mine.
“Rest, Harishima, we can figure everything else out once your mind is refreshed,” his hand found mine, intertwining our fingers, “you cannot save the world if you cannot keep your eyes open.”
I smiled, my eyes already closing of their own volition, “mother wishes to see us in the morning,” I said, suddenly very sleepy. I could feel him chuckle as his hand caressed my cheek and then down the path my hair had taken before dropping into his lap.
“Morning, Z? You really are tired,” he teased softly, chuckling when I stuck out my tongue at him before darkness took me into its embrace.
I don’t have many regrets about the choices I made in the days that followed, but one thing I can say with certainty is that even the small moments should never be taken for granted. If I had known how much pain would follow this night, I would have held Isaac Abadi so much closer and never let him go.
2
The lab that housed the Organization was meticulously clean. No one was allowed inside without clearance or the proper gear. Few exceptions were made. I was one of them; and because I was one of them, so was Isaac. When the second door opened with a puff I stepped into the brightly-lit white reflecting off every surface. I was dressed up for the occasion, black jeans with my brown knee-high fighting boots, a black shirt, leather jacket, belt with my vials around my hips, and sword at my back. I didn’t have on my armor and my hair flew behind me as I walked with purpose, my skin glistening just slightly from the disinfectant we had just walked through. Isaac was dressed similar, but instead of his swords he had daggers hidden within his jacket. He followed behind me with his arms crossed, taking everything in as he always did.
Technically, we didn’t need weapons in the lab. Carrying them near the high-tech gear is a practice that will earn you a scowl in the best of times. I also think it makes the scientists jumpy every time we walk in. However, as long as our clothes were clean and we were d
econtaminated, my mother didn’t care. She knew that I would walk straight in from the field, covered in dirt and blood if anyone felt the need to complain At least this way, I got to take a shower first. I dropped by her room this morning to report with blood still caked on my face and vials locked on my belt. She raised an eyebrow at me before dismissing me with a wave, and I was sure she tried hard not to comment on the stench.
I stopped in front of one of the tables lined strategically around the room, pulling a string of vials smoothly and carefully off my belt. “Newest specimen samples,” I noted, setting them lightly in front of the lab tech there, who raised his dark brow at me in amusement. I shrugged, “they are relatively fresh.”
Dr. Keenan chuckled in front of me. He was around sixty with a dark complexion and even darker curly hair. He was a wise geneticist, and the only one I trusted to take the samples I had brought back directly to the fridge to be stored. He would move them out himself, taking care not to obstruct any of the data they provided. If not for the specialized vials they were in, the specimens would not have lasted this long. My mom always made sure that I had plenty of vials. It was not in her best interest to have her associates complaining about my habit of walking into the lab with gore all over my body.
I was the best resource they had to the Corrupted, but I was also a warrior, and I knew they couldn’t help but think of me as unrefined. I saw the dirty looks they gave me each time I entered their area of the Organization building. I couldn’t care less what they thought of me. There were times I showed up completely dressed in my gear, just to piss them all off at once. There were only a few of these scientists that I could stand. I turned away from the doctor in front of me, scanning the lab before my eyes landed on a woman standing a few feet away. Her back was turned to me as she held up a petri dish towards the light, lab coat pristine, silver hair piled on her head in a meticulous bun. I could feel Isaac behind me, a quiet support.