The Realm

by A. Q. Owen

  For some reason, the desire to get completely demolished was gone. He didn’t know why, but it was definitely missing. He took a deep breath and then another swig, perhaps thinking that if he powered through it, the desire to get drunk would return, but it didn’t.

  He set the can down on the coffee table and stared at it for another minute. Orion looked out the window again at the spot on the rooftop where he’d seen the watcher, or whatever the guy was. If he was a sniper, he’d have taken the shot a long time ago. It’s what Orion would have done. Hell, it was what he had done more times than he cared to remember.

  That meant they were waiting for something. Another power spike? He didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: he had no intention of sitting around to see what they were up to.

  He grabbed the leather jacket off the back of the couch and slipped into it as he walked to the door. Instinctively, he reached for his keys and then remembered that his car was still at the bar from the other night.

  “Crap.”

  Orion took the keys anyway and shoved them in his pocket. The door closed behind him as he stepped into the hallway, not even bothering to lock it. He didn’t need to. After all, there were people watching his place.

  He chuckled at the thought as he descended the stairs toward the bottom floor. As he rounded the banister on the floor below, he heard something shuffle down at the bottom and risked a look over the railing. A black trench coat fluttered for a moment and disappeared, as if the person wearing it didn’t wish to be seen.

  Orion stopped in his tracks and waited for a moment. There was no sign of the person below, though he knew they were still there. No door had closed. Whoever it was, they were waiting for him, but why? If Koch had wanted to arrest him or whatever it is she did, she could have done it already.

  Orion turned back toward the stairs going up and took a soft step. He repeated the movement again, using the balls of his boots to stay as silent as possible. When he was halfway up the set of stairs, he took another glance over the railing toward the bottom.

  There you are, he thought.

  The man at the bottom was peering up at him from the shaft between staircases. He wore the same black suit as all the other agents Orion had seen earlier that day on the street, and not dissimilar to the attire worn by Myra Koch.

  Realizing he’d made a mistake and been spotted, the man darted out of sight again. This time, though, Orion heard his footsteps clapping on the stairs as the man frantically climbed.

  “Aww, man,” Orion muttered. “I’m way too tired for this.”

  He grabbed the rail and hurled himself forward and up to the next platform. Spinning himself around the banister, he charged ahead to the stairs and ran as hard as he could.

  His legs pumped faster despite feeling like every muscle was nothing but Jell-O. In normal conditions, Orion wasn’t a slow runner. He was no Olympic sprinter, but he could hold his own in a chase. Now, though, after what he’d been through earlier in the day, he was a damned sloth.

  Rounding the next corner, he glanced down and saw that the man chasing him had already reached the second floor, gaining half a flight on Orion and still climbing.

  Panic wasn’t something that Orion was accustomed to, at least not in a long time. Years of training and experience in high-stress missions and scenarios kept that kind of emotion in check. Now, though, he was feeling it worse than the first time he kissed a girl in high school. His heart pounded in his chest, his lungs filled and emptied quickly, somehow unable to get the usual amount of oxygen he needed.

  He made it to the next floor, where the roof access door was located. He’d been up there many times since moving into this place, often to sit in an old camping chair and drink himself into oblivion. More than once, he’d wandered over to the edge and wondered what it would feel like to drop seven stories to the street below. He knew the sudden stop at the end of that flight wouldn’t feel like much, or so he hoped.

  Unfortunately or fortunately, he wasn’t sure which, at the moment he didn’t feel much like dying. Orion barged into the door with his shoulder while driving through the wide button that unlocked the latch. He burst out onto the rooftop and looked around. The first place he checked was the roof across the street. The observer’s view was blocked by the top of the elevator shaft, several huge air conditioning units, and the lip of the wall that rose up about four feet above the rooftop floor. Even if the person watching him changed their position, they wouldn’t have a clear view unless Orion jumped up onto the edge.

  He heard the footsteps echoing from the stairwell below. They were getting closer at an alarming rate. From the sound of it, the agent chasing him was only a floor below, at most.

  No way he could climb the stairs that fast.

  Orion took off again, sprinting across the rooftop, away from the door and to the left. The move also made sure there was no way the spotter across the street could see him and take a shot, if that was the intent. Halfway across the roof, he heard the door burst open and risked a glance over his shoulder. The man in the suit looked to his right and then left, spotting Orion as he neared the other end of the building.

  The agent took off at a superhuman pace, covering yards with every stride. How was this guy so fast?

  Orion felt the drag of full-on panic coursing through him. It wasn’t something he ever thought he’d feel, but there it was, like a sickening stream of thick liquid oozing through his veins, clouding his judgment, drowning him in doubt.

  He reached the edge of the rooftop and looked down. There was a fire escape like the one connected to his back window. It loomed just below him, but that wouldn’t do. The pace of the man behind him was too fast, and he’d catch up two floors down, at most.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. The guy was only seconds away now, wearing a menacing glare on his face, pumping his fists and legs at a furious rate.

  Who was this guy?

  Orion’s next instinct was to fight, but he still needed to rest and recharge. He didn’t even feel like he could take another step, much less punch, kick, and defend. His breaths came in deep, labored gasps, and he knew he’d gone as far as he could. One more look over the edge caused him to consider trying to jump to the next rooftop, but he knew he wouldn’t make it. The gap was too wide, at least in his current condition. On a good day, he could make it easily.

  Then, as the agent was closing in on him, Orion glanced down at the ring on his finger. It pulsed brightly for a moment, displaying a strange orange glow. Suddenly, a flickering flame appeared above it, morphing into a ball of fire. Startled at first, Orion shook his hand like he was trying to shoo away a bee. As he flicked his wrist forward, a tiny fireball shot out from his finger and struck the onrushing man in the face.

  The blow caused the man to slow his pace, staggering to a halt as he wiped the skin on his cheek where a fresh black mark now appeared over a small gash.

  Orion looked down at the ring, overcome with surprise at this point. Did I just throw a fireball?

  The ring pulsed twice as if answering his question.

  The agent looked even more furious now and was clearly in pain from the searing-hot flame that had struck his face.

  He renewed his charge, closing the short gap between them faster than before.

  “Um, ring?” Orion said. “Can do you do the fireball thing again?”

  The ring blinked twice and produced another flame. “Um, bigger?”

  The ball of fire swelled to the size of a baseball, then a softball. “Whoa, enough.”

  The fireball ceased its growth. Time seemed to slow down. Orion noted that the fire didn’t sear his skin. He didn’t even feel the warmth from it. He twisted his head, inspecting the bizarre apparition, then wrapped his fingers around the bottom of the flaming sphere and cupped it in his palm.

  A devilish smirk creased one corner of his lips, and he glanced up at the charging agent. The man was less than twenty feet away now. Two or three more steps and he’d be on Orion,
likely beating the absolute crap out of him.

  The panic that had filled Orion’s mind and body vanished. He reared his arm back as he’d done in his days of playing high school baseball, cocking the fireball over his shoulder.

  Then he rocked his left foot forward, twisted his hips, and flung his hand forward.

  The ball of flame shot out of his hand and sailed through the air, covering the distance between him and the agent in less than a second. The attacker’s eyes went wide the moment he realized there was no way to dodge the fireball. When the sphere struck him in the chest, a thunderous boom echoed over the rooftop. The power behind the blow reversed his momentum and sent him flying backward, while at the same time erupting around the agent’s torso in a furious blast of yellow, orange and white.

  Orion watched the body fly for what must have been forty feet in the other direction before it hit the black roof pitch and skidded to a stop. The agent’s legs slumped to the side, revealing a smoldering heap of scorched flesh, tissue, and bone. For a second, Orion didn’t know if the guy was dead or merely injured. Well, not merely. The burns looked devastating. If he did survive, he’d be in significant pain for a considerable period of time.

  With a deep breath, Orion glanced down at the ring on his finger. The pulse was gone, and it once more looked like an ordinary piece of jewelry. He glanced back up at the unmoving body of his assailant and then took a wary step forward.

  Orion took his time walking across the rooftop, the surface wet from a brief shower that had just come through the area. He twisted his head around, taking a quick inventory of his surroundings to make sure no one had noticed the flash of light from the magical fireball he’d used to kill this…whatever this guy was. No signs of life in the windows across the street caused any concern. There were no sirens. Only the flash of lightning and the rolling thunder from the storm encroaching on the city as it began to spit rain from the heavens.

  When he reached the body, what Orion saw caused him to turn away for a second and grab his mouth. He’d seen death before, been surrounded by it. He’d been covered in blood more times than he could count, sometimes his own, sometimes that of his victims. He’d seen limbs blown off by IEDs and high-caliber bullets. This, however…nothing had prepared him for this.

  From the waist down, the man looked okay save for a singed waistline where the belt wrapped around the brim of his pants. The torso, however, was a different story. A blackened, charred mess of melted flesh displayed a hole the size of the fireball. The cavity went all the way through the man’s back so that Orion could see the rooftop floor beneath him.

  Not only did the fireball cauterize the wounds, but it appeared to have spread into other regions of the body to ensure that there would be no coming back, not that it was necessary. With a burned hole that size, no one could survive. The singe marks created a circle all the way up to the guy’s shoulders and neck. The flames had essentially consumed every vital organ in his chest and abdominal cavity.

  Orion winced at the stench of the burned body. He’d smelled burn wounds before, but this was different. Like someone was cooking meth and hot dogs in the same frying pan. The dead man’s eyes were still open, gazing up into the boiling black sky above. For an instant, Orion thought one of them winced or blinked or twitched, but after a few more seconds he realized he was just imagining things.

  He glanced down at the ring once more. It pulsed again, this time with a red glow. Orion frowned. “What’s the matter?” He felt like an idiot, talking to a piece of jewelry like it was a dog. “Trouble?”

  The ring pulsed twice.

  “Two times means yes,” he said, stating it rather than asking.

  The object repeated the same double glow.

  “Where?”

  One point of the four-sided cross illuminated, and Orion followed the glow across the rooftop to where the observer had been. He couldn’t see the man, but that had to be what the ring was trying to tell him.

  “He’s coming for me, isn’t he?”

  Another two pulses.

  “Great. I need to get out of here.” He started to head to the stairs, but the ring flashed rapidly. “No? Not the stairs?”

  Then it lit up the end of the cross pointing back toward the fire escape. Orion nodded. “Okay. Good call. Not going back out the front door.”

  He turned and trotted back toward the edge, happy to find that his legs had regained at least a portion of their former strength. When he reached the lip of the rooftop, he slung one foot over, straddled it for a moment, and then lowered himself down, fingers slipping a little as gravity dragged his weight toward the grated iron platform. One last look over the edge at the dead man confirmed one very poignant fact in the front of his mind.

  I can use magic.

  16

  Myra sat in the circular stone room with her legs crossed, palms facing the ceiling, eyes closed. There was only one door in and out, made of heavy steel and bolted shut from the inside. It would take a significant explosive or a plasma laser to cut through. Such was her intent to remain undisturbed during her…meditation.

  Six candles surrounded her in a circle as she focused her thoughts, first on breathing, and then on opening her mind to the presence of the one she sought.

  It didn’t take long before she felt his essence fill the room and wrap around her like a chill creeping in on the first morning of autumn.

  “Greetings, my lord,” she said with a slight tip of the head.

  “Myra,” the voice slithered into her ears. “How good of you to meet with me on such…short notice.”

  “I am yours to command, my lord. What is your bidding?”

  A dark cloud seeped into the room through unseen seams and coalesced before her into the shape of an angel. Within seconds, the figure was complete, a perfect replica of Lucifer himself. While he couldn’t physically be present in her dimension, he could make a kind of holographic appearance. To him, it was nothing more than a simple parlor trick, something he’d done since the dawn of time to lead humans astray. To her, it was a miracle.

  “We have a problem.” His voice was calm, but she sensed the disturbance within.

  “A problem, my lord? Surely, this cannot be.” Her head twitched to the side, and she opened her eyes for a moment, taking in his full, wicked glory.

  He arched an eyebrow. “An intruder visited the Realm.”

  Now she was certain she’d heard incorrectly. He’d never been wrong about anything, not that she knew of, but to suggest someone crossed into the dimension of fallen angels…that wasn’t possible. She knew better than to correct him, though, and so instead continued her line of questions.

  “Who?”

  “A human.”

  Again, her instincts said that couldn’t be right.

  Apparently, he read her thoughts through her facial expressions. Fallen angels weren’t permitted to read human minds. Manipulate through temptation, yes. But direct control without permission of the human was expressly forbidden and would result in ushering in the final conflict at Megiddo. Lucifer knew the only thing he had on his side at this point was time, and that resource was running out. He hoped this improbable assault on one of his lieutenants had opened a way to end the conflict once and for all, giving him total control of the heavenly kingdom and unquestioned authority throughout the entire multiverse.

  Myra Koch had been his primary contact in the world of humans since mankind first began using magic out in the open. When it went mainstream, he had seen a chance to open up a new means of testing the will of humans, and of tempting them toward evil. Myra had been an eager young agent, working for the remnants of the old CIA, an agency that had all but been replaced by newer, more upgraded organizations more capable of handling the new world that faced them.

  Bringing Myra into the fold had been simple enough. From the Realm, he’d noted her skills as well as her penchant for getting things done with a ruthless, often brutal efficiency. She’d spared no expense of cruelty to get t
he job done, whether it was on an assassination mission or simply getting information during interrogations. She ignored the rules of engagement with a callousness he’d not seen in a long time.

  One of his favorites was an assignment she’d been on in Singapore. Her target had been an arms dealer. She was given a team of five other assets, agents she didn’t know personally, though that wouldn’t have mattered.

  The weapons deal was supposed to go down on one of the docks at a warehouse. The meeting happened on time, as she knew it would. Then Myra and her team moved in, taking out every single one of the arms dealer’s men. She personally shot him in the head from thirty yards away with a .40-caliber pistol. As the five members of her team moved to secure the cargo, she stepped back into the shadows and pressed a button on her phone. A dozen well-armed, well-trained mercenaries stormed the warehouse, slaughtering her team in less than thirty seconds.

  Then she had taken the weapons, sold them to the dealer’s connection, and then returned to headquarters with the grim news of how her team had been ambushed. Of course, she had destroyed the warehouse with a few well-placed explosives to cover up the evidence. She even went to the trouble of planting a few of the bombs and gun crates in the building before it went up in smoke, in case the agency’s investigators came by to snoop around. And she knew they would.

  Lucifer had quickly recognized that she was the one to lead his new human force on Earth. She’d been the right person for the job to rein in humans—who were becoming too powerful with their magical abilities—and to hone the skills of those who wished to use their newfound talents for more nefarious purposes.

  He’d given her the resources, the technology, and as much insight as possible to aid in getting Dark Cell up and running as quickly as possible. Up to this point, she hadn’t disappointed.

  Every day, good, honest people who were discovering magic were rounded up and summarily executed. Some were sent to work in the camps, which was often a far worse fate.

  Meanwhile, those who were working toward spreading evil were encouraged, trained, and strengthened in their abilities. The original plan was to create a world full of wizards, sorcerers, and witches who would carry out the Dark Prince’s bidding. When that happened, they would be too powerful to overcome, and the children of the Creator would be wiped from the face of the earth.