by Donovan Neal
Vantress contorted his face in shock and disgust.
Eridu smiled then spoke. “You are right to hesitate angel of the Lord. For the blood of this child speaks, and it cries out in the spirit as a sweet offering to be taken by our kind. I know that you smell it too. The incense that all of their kind gives whether in prayer or anguish. But alas fear not. For I shall see her carcass splayed as I splayed the mind and body of her father and brother over the asphalt. You desire this female? To save this house? MY HOUSE? A house that I have furnished and decored over these many years? A house I have labored to make as a memorial of my own suffering. If you think you might dislodge me from my home. MY HOME!” Eridu sneered in a defiant rage. “Then come and take her!”
Vantress immediately vaulted himself toward his adversary. His sword unsheathed to strike a blow upon the head of Eridu. But Eridu parried his blade and fell backward, using Vantress’ own momentum to flip him away sending the angel tumbling across the ground. Eridu then moved to close and take advantage of his foe.
Elizabeth looked at the knife. The instrument of pains release that had so many times those within her family had turned to. A false god who seemed to possess the ability to undo so much hurt and pain.
“Jesus loves you!” Vantress yelled into the spirit. He rose to his feet to meet Eridu whose blade sliced through the air to slit his throat.
Vantress raised his sword to meet the crimson blade. Flashes of light, and blood spattered into Vantress’s face: the blood of Elizabeth. He wiped the fluid from his face and shouted into the spirit.
“Jesus loves you!” Vantress’s screamed: hoping against hope that her mind would be released from the shackles of Eridu’s lies.
Eridu then kicked Vantress in the chest sending the angel careening yet intangible through walls.
Elizabeth paused, considering the course of her action she thought she might take.
Maybe this is not the right thing to do.
Eridu noted Elizabeth’s pause to follow through with taking her own life and was incensed. Launching himself hard after Vantress.
“Silence! Dog of El.” Eridu replied. “For what is Yeshua but a sacrifice past? For who can forgive her? Hast she even begun to recant her allegiance to us? No.”
Eridu then whispered into the spirit a suggestion that he hoped might take hold to the damsel’s fragile mind.
“Imagine what it will do to Lauren if you confessed? No… it is better to leave this life than to reveal the truth of what has happened.”
Elizabeth's eyes moved from looking at the blade as her will now directed her hands and reached its cold metal grip. Slowly she picked it up.
Eridu smiled, “See Vantress! See the control that the Horde has over these. Their progeny will service us for all time. Her blood is mine to command!” And he then spoke into the realm of the spirit for Elizabeth to hear.
“For if God loved you, why then did he let you be assaulted? Where was the God of love then? What profit doth a dead God on a cross supply thee?”
Elizabeth frowned and pressed the switch on the handle. Instantly the internal springs mechanism followed the laws man had set in place, and the four-inch blade unsheathed from its housing with a “click”
Vantress pushed against Eridu’s blade that pressed hard against him. Panted and with his foot lifted Eridu into the air and sent him flying over him. Eridu crashed outside of the damsel’s house realizing that his weight was used against him. He smiled then spoke. “Your efforts are futile angel. For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And this child’s blood, the entirety of her family’s blood is mine.”
Vantress breathed in great gulps of air. He shifted himself to stand between Elizabeth and Eridu. “Her blood is protected by mine own. You must stop the source of my own before you shall ever have her.”
Eridu chuckled. “From the moment you barred my path angel of God…your life was forfeit and your blood my plan to have.”
Vantress and Eridu stormed towards one another. Two angelic rivals that battled against one another in the realm of the spirit. Immortal adversaries whose notice of the world war that raged around them was of no concern. For here in the bedroom of a 16 year old child. Was a microcosm of the battle that filled the heavenlies. On one side an angel who would stand to fight for the cause of El and man. The other an angelic adversary who would promote the cause of Satan; with humanity caught between two unseen and warring armies.
✽✽✽
“Lizzy?”
Elizabeth was startled from her thoughts and had not heard her mother come into the house. “Up here mom.”
Elizabeth’s foster mother opened the bedroom door. “Elizabeth I got a call at work from school where the principle told me you left campus today. He said you saw someone taken, failed to report it and more importantly that you have failed to declare the human pledge of allegiance. Is this true?”
Elizabeth turned her foster mother’s words over in her mind. “Mom I need to get out of here. Can you help me?”
“Lizzy I don’t like what you’re saying. You didn’t answer my question young lady this is serious. Principle McFarland said he was required by law to inform the authorities. Do you know how seriou…”
A knock came at the door.
Both women turned and the voice of an officer came through loud and clear. “This is the sheriff’s department. Ms. Sanders please open the door.”
Sarah Sanders turned to Elizabeth and whispered. “Go out the back window down the side of the house. Here take this.”
Elizabeth opened her hand to receive a Chase debit card.
“I’ll try to buy you some time.” She kissed her on the cheek and yelled towards the door. “Coming!”
She opened the front door and two muscular sheriff’s officers were standing at her door. “Good afternoon: Ms. Sanders I take it?”
“Yes.” She replied. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you mam, but we received a call about a disturbance at school and a possible Chancellor Code violation. Can you tell us if your daughter is home? We will need to speak to her.”
“I’m sorry officer but I also just received the call from the school and made my way home to talk to her myself. You caught me as I’ve just got home. I haven’t had the chance to see if she’s even home yet.”
The officers looked past her and replied, “Do you mind if we come in? It’s imperative we speak to her so we can sort this mess out.”
Elizabeth heard the officers downstairs and tiptoed as quietly as possible across the upper level walkway to the spare bedroom.
Ms. Sanders opened the door wider and allowed the men to enter her home. “Can I offer you gentlemen some water or lemonade?”
No mam, we want to question the girl and be on our way we don’t want to intrude any more than necessary.”
“Let me see if she’s here.” Ms. Sanders then turned her head and yelled to the upper floor of her house. “Lizzy are you upstairs?”
No reply.
Ms. Sanders then looked at both officers and hunched her shoulders. “Let me go and take a look she might be in her bedroom asleep. You know how teenagers are.”
Ms. Sanders went upstairs and entered her own bedroom. She motioned for Elizabeth to tiptoe towards the spare bedroom. Ms. Sanders then made sure she closed the door behind her loud enough for the men to hear and came back downstairs.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen; she seems to have not come home from school. Would you like me to call you when she arrives?”
A deputy reached into his pocket and gave her a business card. “Yes mam. Again we just need to question her. This might be nothing. Thank you for time and we are sorry to disturb you.”
Both men walked towards the door when the sound of a creaking floorboard was heard from upstairs.
Both men then looked upstairs then looked at Ms. Sanders.
“Mam stay here.” A deputy then ran upstairs and entered the main bedroom. Seeing nothing he quickly dash
ed into the second and saw it was a girl’s room but no one was present. He then ran down the hall and noted the door was closed. He shook the doorknob to open it and it wouldn’t budge. He yelled downstairs to his partner. “Jim we gotta runner check out back!”
Immediately the downstairs deputy quickly left Ms. Sanders and ran outside sprinting towards the back of the house. The deputy upstairs then gave the locked bedroom door a shove with his shoulder and it tore the door jamb off and he bolted inside making his way towards an open window. He spied Elizabeth running north through the back yard towards another house.
He turned his head and squawked his walkie talkie, “This is officer Kingwood, unit 7 we have a white female, approximately 17 years of age running North West on Loch Rd. Unit 7 in pursuit.”
The sheriff’s deputy ran downstairs past Ms. Sanders and tore into his squad car. He peeled out the driveway and speed in the direction he had sent his partner and seen the woman run.
Elizabeth was running full sprint moving like a gazelle as she sprinted across the road to escape into the woods. Tree limbs protruded from maples and fencing blocked her way into a shooting range. She jumped the fence and bolted across dirt driveways.
“Stop!” yelled the officer.
She could hear the sheriff’s deputy running behind her.
Damn he’s fast!
She did her best to race around the building and heard behind her the breaking of chain-link fence. A squad car rolled up to block her path and rocks from the dirt drive flew up in her face.
She slid over the hood of the car and the sheriff sprinted from his vehicle and caught up with her. He tackled her and the other deputy caught up with them both and Elizabeth Foley knew her evasion was over as they wrestled her into submission. Her attempt to escape her depression, her choices, her hurts had finally caught up with her in the form of these two men. Who held her as they handcuffed her and tucked her head as they placed her into a county squad car.
As the two deputies caught their breath and radioed in their position, Elizabeth thought about her situation, and knew she was about to receive a reckoning.
A reckoning that had now come due. And soon she knew she would have to make another life altering choice.
An eternal choice.
✽✽✽
Leto Alexander awoke to the cries of screaming. Wails, laments and tortured anguish filled his ears.
It was an overwhelming sound.
It was the harrowing cries of men and women that sought relief by death but could not seek solace in death for they were already dead.
The pungent smell of urine and feces assaulted his nose, and he involuntarily heaved in disgust. A hellish perfume that was combined with the smell of brimstone, blood, and vomit.
He turned over and phlegm and blood spilled from his mouth unto the rocky and ashen floor. He wiped his mouth and his eyes adjusted to see through dimly lit flickers of flame what only his ears and nose had made clear.
He was in Hell.
He raised himself from the ground, and the ground turned soft and eyes opened up around him to stare at him. Eyes that tracked him in the dark.
Eyes that studied him.
Standing he looked to his left and right. Blackness met him and the grunts and yelps of a singular weakened “help me.” was heard.
“Please,” the female voice said. “Help me.”
“Where are you?” He asked.
“Follow my voice... over here… please… it hurts so much.”
Leto groped through the dark and he coughed for the air was acrid with smoke. He covered his mouth and waved fumes from before him. The hovering ash made his eyes to tear, and he struggled to breathe.
“Here…” the voice said.
Leto could see the outline of a figure.
He moved closer and as he did what he saw horrified him.
The woman was embedded within a wall. Her upper body was visible, and she was naked. Tendrils extended from her neck and her shoulders into a mucous like wall. A substance covered her lower torso. And she was slowly being absorbed. Her face was gaunt, and he breasts as those of an aged woman of many years. Wrinkles lined the entirety of her body and her face.
Leto touched the woman’s face, and she lowered her cheek to experience the intimacy of human touch.
“It has been centuries since I have been able to touch another. Thank you for that.”
A small light flickered from her. She grimaced in pain and Leto followed the light as it moved through arteries and veins before disappearing into the soft mucous wall.
“What can I do?” Leto said. He then pulled at the veins that had attached themselves into her and she immediately cried out in pain when he did.
“ARGHHHH!!!! Please stop!!”
Leto stopped and took a step back. “I am sorry.” He said. I do not know how to extract you. Tell me. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
The woman gritted her teeth and replied, “I cannot be removed. There is only one who controls the creature. Only one who controls Hell. And it is the angel Charon, and he will never allow my release.”
Slowly her face shriveled as another bluish ball of light left her body and followed the veiny tract into the walls of their surroundings. The wall then moved to envelope her slightly the more. Screams and the groans of those who were also in the cavern could be heard in the background.
“You are human?” the woman asked.
Leto nodded.
“Then I do not understand why Hell does not consume you? Are you a follower of Christ?”
Leto scoffed, “No. I have come to find Charon and stop El’s cruelty once and for all.”
The woman grimaced again as light was taken from her body.
Her neck strained as she struggled to talk. “The daemons will find you before you ever find Charon. Escape if you can. But to the angel of Death do not go near!”
Her eyes suddenly widened as if she was in a trance and she looked hither and thither. Her eyes then closed and when she opened them again they were gone replaced with fiery plumes of red flame.
Eyes that stared into Leto’s face.
“There you are human. Theeere you are… know you will not escape us. The woman is nothing but the remaining rags of pleasure we have discarded ages ago. Ripe in her youth. Look how we have savored her to nothing! But we can smell you human. And we will find you. We are coming.”
The wall then accelerated its absorption of the woman and the woman’s eyes returned to normal. Tendrils folded themselves around her upper torso like large anacondas. She screamed and Leto rushed to pull apart the two foot wide strands that enfolded her. Leto watched as mucous began to envelope the top of her hair. The woman moved her shoulders in a titanic effort to break free. The mucus then covered her forehead then slowly began to swallow over her eyes.
“AAAAAHHHHH!!! Do not let them take me please!! AGGGHHHHHH!”
Her mouth was now covered in mucus, her cries for help turned into gurgling sound as she choked on the volumes of mucus that entered her throat. Her voice literally drowned into mere muffles as the wall took her and she disappeared into the stench emanating flesh of Hell.
Leto gripped her hand, holding on to her in vain to keep her from being consumed; pulling against the forces that engulfed her. Hoping against hope he could yank her free. But her hand disappeared into the wall and his grip unwound as he could feel her fingers release his own and pulled to parts unknown. Her muffled screams could be heard emanating through the walls. The echo of which came from floor and ceiling and from left and right.
Screams that were indistinguishable from the ambient noise that was the ever present moaning voice of Hell.
Leto breathed in the ashen air and resolved himself to find the angel of death and set himself to walk deeper into the wailing darkness.
✽✽✽
Ashtaroth burst into the United Nations chambers
He found his lord hovering near the world seal and bowed before him.
; “My Lord be not angry with your servant. But the world now is in mourning. The young dragon’s body now rests in Brussels in a glass sarcophagus. Please, master. Tell me this was not for nothing. That our hopes and dreams have not been dashed yet again? For what purpose does the death of the young master serve? You have allowed this creature to be taught our ways. I personally have at your command instructed him by way of scrolls the secrets of our kind. You have given him your name, yea even you blood you have gifted him. Blood that even I as Elohim do not possess. Something given by you to a human… no a human hybrid.
You are my lord. My friend. With what plan do you have Lucifer? Give me an understanding to know that Marduk’s talk was in vain!”
Lucifer did not turn to face Ashtaroth. He sighed then began to speak very slowly that Ashtaroth could hear.
“Do you not know what the scriptures say? That it is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. Have you come to me a king that you would make an inquiry so? Would you seek to understand the apocalypse of kings?”
Lucifer turned to face Ashtaroth, and a tear was in his eye. “Very well then. I will excuse this breach in protocol on your part. I will excuse it because I do call you friend. You who have been first to bow, to follow, and yea to believe. Thus I will tell you what I have told no one else.
Though I have love for the boy. Understand that he is a host and no more: an experiment. While you know I have melded his blood with my own and why you also know I have taken even the fruit which contained the DNA imprint of Adam before he fell. What I have not told you is that the boy has three strands of DNA. The original from El, my own, and that of his fallen precursor. Thus the withering does live within him.
Ashtaroth stepped back on disbelief. “Three stands?” How is the thing possible?
Lucifer turned to face Ashtaroth and allowed his fingers to caress slightly the smooth pieces of the God-stone he possessed.