by A. Q. Owen
“Were what?”
The young woman raised a remote and clicked it. A screen came to life on the wall, displaying what she had pulled up on her laptop. A video of a man in military fatigues flashed to life.
Myra watched as he blasted his way through rows of enemies, then when he was out of ammunition he began killing them with his knife. When that was lost, he used his bare hands. His martial arts skills were far above average, even for a highly trained military man. There was something else, though—something that gave him an unfair advantage over his enemies.
Cunningham was moving faster than a normal human. It was subtle, almost unnoticeable, but Myra saw it. She had a trained eye for that sort of thing. Whether he realized it or not, Blake Cunningham was tapping into the power. Her guess was he didn’t know it, at least not then. This recent turn of events, however, caused her to consider the possibility that he knew something.
She watched him snap a man’s neck, dropping him to the ground in a heap with the others. Then he looked around, buildings blazing in the backdrop, pouring rivers of roiling black smoke into the sky. He’d taken out an entire platoon of enemy soldiers. Whoever this Blake Cunningham was would have to be treated with extreme caution. A man like that could wipe out half of her unit in minutes. Sure, they were better than most, but this man…he was a different animal. The way he moved, the way he cut through the enemy with such precision, such absolute callous brutality. No, this man was a killer through and through.
“Thank you,” Myra said.
The younger woman turned off the video feed, and the wall went blank again.
The director crossed her arms and processed the information. “This man, Blake Cunningham, is a loose cannon. From the looks of this video file—and I assume his dossier—he must be extremely dangerous and must be treated with the greatest of caution. Make sure all our field assets are aware of this.” Her eyes panned the room and caught the nods of every head at the table. “He has nothing to lose and, therefore, could be reckless. He lost his daughter. His wife left him. Bad run of luck?” She turned and paced back to the end of the table where she’d started. “Oh well, Mr. Cunningham, your luck is about to get a lot worse.”
7
Steve pushed open the old wooden door. It creaked, echoing the shrill sound of ungreased hinges down through the corridor.
Orion winced but didn’t say anything, instead following his host through the doorway and into a dark room.
Steve hurriedly closed the door, plunging them both into darkness. After a second, a set of automatic LEDs along the floor and ceiling lit up the sparse dormitory cell. It was dim, but the lights served their purpose.
“What is this?” Orion asked, his question generated by half confusion, half anger.
“This?” Steve looked around. “This is just an old monk’s cell. We don’t use it anymore since I’m pretty much the only one here most of the time. I have an assistant, but he doesn’t stay here overnight.”
“Must be a little creepy being in this old building all alone at night.”
Steve rolled his shoulders. “There’s nothing creepy about being in the house of the Almighty.”
“I guess.”
“Well, except one thing.”
“One thing?”
Steve walked over to a small stone fireplace and grabbed a sconce on the wall next to it. A section of the wall cracked open and slid inward, providing enough space for the men to slip through.
“A secret passage?” Orion asked, impressed.
“I installed it myself…after.”
Orion’s right eyebrow arched with suspicion. “After what?”
“It’s best if I show you, then tell you.”
“Show me? Show me what?”
Steve had already slipped through the opening into the narrow corridor beyond.
Orion sighed. This was starting to get even more irritating.
He followed Steve into the secret passage, and the second he was on the other side the hidden door slid closed, grinding on the floor as it moved. It sealed shut with a thud. Steve was already gone, having disappeared down a spiral staircase lit with old lightbulbs hanging from the wall every ten feet or so.
“This is creepy,” Orion said, “no matter whose house it is.”
He made his way down, taking the steps slowly—one at a time. Spiral staircase. Hidden doors. Secret passage. What in the world has Steve gotten himself into? What have I gotten myself into?
“This passage,” Steve said from somewhere around the bend, “was already here. As you can tell, it’s very old.”
“I thought you said you made it.”
“No. Just the door. Before I built that, the opening was blocked by an old wooden shelf. It had deteriorated over time. So, I figured out how to replace it.”
Steve stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, waiting for his guest to arrive. Orion appeared just a few seconds later.
“This is what I had to show you.” Steve extended his arm toward the far wall.
The room was fairly small, about ten feet wide and maybe twenty feet long. There were no furnishings, no decorations. Yet what loomed at the other end captured Orion’s attention, held it tight, and didn’t let go.
The anomaly cast an eerie reddish glow across the room.
“What is that?” Orion asked, barely able to get the words out of his mouth.
Steve took a step toward the other end of the room.
Set into the wall, a red portal was cut into the stone. The colors swirled and twisted like some kind of magical soup.
“That,” Steve said, “is a doorway.”
“A doorway?”
Steve nodded. “I’ve heard rumors, whisperings in the shadows, about several of these things popping up in various places around the planet. I can’t be certain, but it all seemed to start happening right after the Newton’s Gate Incident.”
“Newton’s Gate,” Orion whispered.
“This wasn’t here until the Incident. It can’t be a coincidence. Whatever those people did over at Zasser…it had some kind of ripple effect in the quantum fabric of the universe.”
Orion stared straight ahead at the red portal; its swirling light mesmerized him. “What’s in there…or through there?”
“The Realm.”
Orion whirled around, a scowl stretched across his face. “The realm? What the hell does that even mean?”
Steve pulled back his cassock, revealing a sword hanging at his side. The elegant weapon’s curved blade shimmered in the light. Its razor-sharp edge hummed as the cloak brushed across the flat face. The steel handle was designed with an inlaid layer of a shinier metal, possibly titanium, though Orion wasn’t sure.
“Have you been carrying that around this whole time?”
“No,” Steve said with a shake of his head. “I mean, yes, since you got here. But no, I don’t normally carry it around.” The way he said it left room for doubt.
“Because I kind of think maybe you do.”
“Okay, I do,” Steve confessed with a laugh. “But this thing is so friggin’ cool.”
He waved it around in a wild, uncoordinated fashion that caused Orion to step back for a second to make sure he wasn’t accidentally cut by the thing.
“Okay, take it easy there, Zorro.” Orion put up both hands to calm down the suddenly zealous priest. “Where did you get that thing?”
A frown crossed Steve’s face, and he cocked his head to the side, trying to assess if his guest was being serious. “Really? I told you. The old man gave it to me.”
“Riiight. The old man. How could I forget?”
Steve blinked rapidly. “You…you don’t believe me?” He sounded dejected all of a sudden.
“I mean…I thought you were drunk or just….”
“Crazy?”
“No. Not crazy.”
“Then what, Orion?”
Orion drew a deep breath and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
> The priest’s face boiled red. “You don’t understand, do you?” He took a step toward Orion, who in turn took a step back.
“No. I don’t. I really don’t understand any of this.” He glanced over his shoulder at the swirling red portal.
“It should be clear to you by now. The old man. The sword. Your middle name. He told me I would find the hunter, Orion. You’re the hunter. This weapon is yours.”
He held the saber out with an extended arm.
“I don’t recall ever owning a sword.”
“Silence!”
A chill shot through Orion’s body as Steve’s voice boomed through the confined space with the power of a thousand ancient warriors. Orion froze in place, finding himself almost paralyzed.
“The old man told me you wouldn’t believe me,” Steve snarled, holding the point of the blade toward Orion’s chest. “He said you would resist the truth. Well, I’m here to show you the truth.”
Steve flipped the weapon around with a flick of the wrist. He caught the flat of the blade with his palm without cutting his fingers on the sharp edge. The handle was inches from Orion’s chest.
“Take it,” the priest said, lowering his voice. “Take it and see who you really are.”
Orion stared down at the handle. Uncertainty swelled in his gut. He looked up into Steve’s eyes, but all he found was a set of vapid, lifeless orbs staring back in a death-like intensity.
“Take it,” Steve repeated. His lips didn’t move. It was almost as if his voice simply entered Orion’s mind.
Still unsure, Orion swallowed hard and raised his right hand. As it drew near the handle, the ring on his finger began to grow warmer. He started to pull away, but he couldn’t. Some kind of magnetic power drew his hand closer to the handle.
“What is this? What’s happening to me?” Uncertainty turned to full panic.
Steve released the tip of the saber, and Orion was shocked to see the weapon remain in the air, floating in front of him.
His hand was being pulled closer to the handle, no matter how hard he tried to keep it at his side.
“There’s no use in fighting it,” Steve said. His lips were moving again like a normal person. “This is your destiny.”
“Destiny? What destiny?”
“For too long, the devil has had free rein in this world. He’s tortured humanity for millennia while we sat helplessly by and watched, wishing we could stop the pain, the disease, the wars, all of it. Your daughter. My wife. Every horrible thing that has ever happened comes from one source, the true origin of evil.”
“Look, buddy, I know you’re angry about your wife and all that.”
Steve’s eyes remained steady, locked on his guest despite his head turning side to side. “Don’t try to deny it.” His eyes flashed to Orion’s hand as it inched toward the sword’s handle. “You want this more than anything.”
“Want what?”
“Revenge. Justice. The end of all evil. Don’t you remember?”
Parts of their prior day’s conversation ran through Orion’s mind, but it was all a little hazy. He’d been drunk after all, to the point of blacking out and not being able to bring back everything that happened. Those kinds of binges were becoming more and more common for him in recent weeks and months. It seemed the further he got from the day his daughter died, the worse things became, the harsher the reality grew, and the more painful the stabbing in his heart.
“Steve? What is going on? Are you using some kind of magic to do this to my hand?”
His fingers were nearly touching the handle’s grip now.
Steve’s head turned evenly again from one side to the other. “No. This is something else, Orion. It is divine. A gift from the Almighty. His time has not yet come to return, to take us home. But he has given us this, a weapon of incredible power to take the fight back to the legions of hell’s fallen angels, to wage a terrible and devastating war against Lucifer. He must pay for what he’s done to us. And you are the one who has been chosen to mete out humanity’s justice.”
Orion’s hand shook so hard his torso gyrated as he fought with every ounce of strength he could muster to keep from taking the weapon.
“Steve. Stop this. I’m not some…demon slayer. That…isn’t possible.” He clenched his jaw, summoning the last ounces of energy he could to keep away from the magical saber hovering before him.
“There’s no stopping it. You are the hunter. Embrace your destiny. Take the weapon. And make the devil pay for what he’s done.”
Orion’s palm slapped against the smooth handle. The second his fingers wrapped around it, he felt a cold energy snap through his body. Then, as suddenly as it hit him, the sensation turned warm, almost soothing. His body trembled for several seconds. Then everything in him relaxed, every muscle and tendon calming as though being injected by some kind of drug.
He turned his hand with the sword in it and stared at the shiny steel blade. His eyes blinked slowly, as if in a haze.
“I…I feel warm.” Orion heard his voice as if it was coming from someone else.
Steve nodded. “Yes. That’s the power of the ring and the sword. When they are together, you will be able to do incredible things. With them, you will be stronger than any human. The ring will protect you in the Realm. It will make you nearly immortal.”
“Nearly?”
“There is one way the fallen ones can take your life inside the Realm.”
“And that is?”
“They must take your head.”
Orion processed everything, though it was still not making any sense. “And here, in this plane?”
“You are mortal. Stronger than most humans or supernaturals in this world. But you can be killed here just like before.”
“I…I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what to do.”
Steve stepped closer. His cassock fluttered in the air as he moved through it. “Do what you know. You’re a killer. I know your background, your training. I’ve seen your dossier.”
Orion frowned. “How is—”
“Clergy can get away with almost anything.”
That was an unsettling statement. “I still don’t understand. Any of this.”
“On the other side of that portal, you will find a place much like Earth. It will look the same in almost every way.”
“Almost?”
“Yes, except there are no people and it is bathed in darkness. The fallen ones do not live in light. They can’t stand it. Were they to reveal themselves fully to it, they would die.”
That was interesting but flawed. “What about demon possessions here in this world? The stories I’ve heard, the stuff from the Bible, if they die when they come here, how are they able to do any of that?”
“They can enter this dimension through a conduit. That ring will keep you from becoming their conduit. And it will guide you back to this place. On the other side, in the Realm, you will see this church just as you have here. No matter how far into the abyss you may travel, a pillar of light will lead you to this place that can be seen anywhere in the Realm, but only you will be able to see it.”
Orion shook his head. “I don’t know. This all seems so crazy. So unreal.”
“You don’t know?” Steve asked. “Don’t you want to end the suffering of millions? Don’t you want payback for what they did to you, to all of us?”
“I mean…sure, but—”
Steve surged forward and slammed both hands into Orion’s chest. Orion stumbled backward from the unexpected force of the blow. He felt his heel catch on the stone floor. His balance left him, and he flew through the air and into the swirling red portal.
In an instant, Steve, the secret room, everything…was gone.
8
Orion couldn’t see anything. For several seconds, he wondered if he’d gone blind. Had the portal caused some sort of radiation damage to his eyes? He rubbed them, and soon they started to adjust.
He saw the reddish glow from the portal twenty feet away a
nd scrambled to his feet. His eyelids blinked rapidly as he tried to get his bearings.
“Where the hell am I?” he muttered. Then it hit him. If Steve was right, maybe that was a poor choice of words.
Something thundered in the distance and shook the building. Dust cascaded from the ceiling and danced in the portal’s red aura.
Orion twitched his head to the left and then the right, looking around to make sure he was alone. The room was identical to the one in the church, save for the fact there were no lights. Sconces hung from the wall with desiccated candles fitted into the sockets. The primitive fixtures appeared as if they hadn’t been used in centuries.
Cautiously, Orion inched his way over to one of the candles and nearly touched the wax. His intention was to take the candle and hopefully find a way to light it, perhaps upstairs or in Steve’s…alternate office. He guessed it would be there. Steve said this dimension was just like the one he came from on Earth.
Orion’s head swirled with the thoughts. He shook his head and started to go back to the portal. Wherever he was, whatever this was, he didn’t want to be here. Maybe he was still dreaming. That had to be it. That was the only logical explanation. He was asleep in his room and would wake up to the same miserable life he’d woken up to for the last several months since…
He shuddered at the thought and pushed the pain rising in his chest back down to the depths.
Then he noticed the saber lying on the floor. The shiny steel shimmered in the red glow. Orion frowned at the object and bent down to pick it up. It gave him an idea.
He held out his hand and placed the sharp edge against his palm. If this was a dream, he knew of an easy way to find out. He ran the edge along his skin and winced at the sudden, stinging pain. It only took a few seconds before the dark crimson blood started oozing from the wound.
“Dammit!” he shouted and clutched the wounded hand for a second. He pressed the appendage into his shirt to stem the bleeding.
Then it hit him. This wasn’t a dream.