“You are killing them.”
“Hmm, oh. Apologies.” Asmodeus lowered his arms so both women’s feet rested on the ground and seemed to release his grip enough so they could breathe. “Better?”
Kellan said nothing, and Asmodeus continued.
“It is simple, Kellan Thorne. Release your power to me and I will leave your friends in peace. Refuse and I will kill them. Then I will kill the cowering young one behind you. Then I will kill everyone who ever met or loved you. Then I will wait until someone new draws close to you and will kill them too. Ad in finitem” He smiled again. “Certainly the other way is preferable.”
“I’ll do it—just let them go!”
Shannon struggled in Asmodeus’ grip. “No, Kellan. You’ll die. Raphael told us you cannot survive without the power once it has bonded to you.”
Asmodeus continued mockingly, “Raphael. Such a child. Always obeying. I had almost hoped he would face me here but, of course, such intercession is not permitted. Heaven forbid he do anything of the kind.”
The Archdemon continued in a serious and more thoughtful tone. “Still, the soul-born one is right. You will die when you release the power to me. I may be fallen but, like my heavenly brothers, I never lie.” He smiled again. “Of course they do not lie because they cannot. I do not lie, because I do not need to lie.”
Asmodeus sighed, seemingly bored with the entire exchange. “Enough. I have waited millennia. Now, Sentinel of Order. Release your power to me or they die.”
“I already said I would, but I want to hear you swear by your one true name that they will be free once I do.”
“This is not a negotiation. This is unconditional surrender. You do not get to make demands of me. You are an amusement. A talking ape that my father decided to gift with some semblance of thought.”
Kellan ground his teeth. “Well, this talking ape has something you want and if you are not willing to swear by your name, then I cannot believe you. If I cannot believe you, then it doesn’t matter what I do, because you will kill those I love regardless. So do it. Burn it all, Asmodeus. But know you will never, ever, gain the power I hold.”
The two locked eyes for a long moment and then the Archdemon tilted his head back and laughed. “You certainly are not anything like Micah. Under different circumstances, I could have made use of you. Very well. I accede to your request.”
He released Meghan. Kellan saw her tense as if to resume their efforts, but waved her down. The Archdemon turned his gaze to Shannon and with his free hand softly caressed her cheek.
“It would have been delightful to make use of you as well, but alas, I will settle for leaving you this gentle reminder of our brief time together.” Shannon continued to struggle in his grasp as Kellan watched the skin seem to slough off Asmodeus’ right hand to reveal dark brown scales. His fingers ended in long sharpened blood red nails that he now used to slowly trace circles around her left eye. Shannon froze and the Archdemon laughed. “No more struggling? What? Are you afraid I might slip and gouge out one of those beautiful eyes?” He turned back to Kellan. “What do you think Sen-ti-nel of Order.” He spoke the words slowly and each syllable dripped with disdain. “Shall I blind her for you so she’ll never look on another man once you are dust? I will do that for you—as a final mercy”
Kellan said nothing and lowered his gaze to the floor in apparent submission.
Asmodeus snorted derisively, “You are a worm. Not even worthy of that mercy, so I will leave her both eyes with which to gaze on a different symbol of remembrance.” Before Kellan could react he had slid a razor sharp nail across Shannon’s cheek and traced out an enochian symbol which began to run with her blood.
“Stop!” yelled Kellan, “Or you will have nothing from me. You agreed to leave them be.”
“And so I will, after you have given me what was promised.” The Archdemon released Shannon and she staggered, falling to one knee. She looked to Kellan imploringly as her hands reached for fresh daggers, but he gave her a definitive and curt shake of the head. She slumped, ignoring the blood that ran freely down her face and made no further moves. Asmodeus stepped forward and looked down at Kellan. “You wanted my name, well, there you have it. I carved it in her flesh so she can remember me.”
“I’ll hear it from your own lips, freely given,” Kellan growled.
Asmodeus bent down, his face mere inches from Kellan’s own. “You realize, I know what you are trying to do. You think if you know my true name it will provide some advantage, but I am not some human wizard, Kellan Thorne. I am Asmodeus. Right hand of Lucifer himself. You cannot comprehend my name, let alone retain it. So be it though.” Asmodeus spoke his true name, given to him at the dawn of creation. It seemed as if it would never end and, like with Raphael, Kellan saw all of the potential and love with which the name had been crafted. He felt tears come, unbidden, as Asmodeus finished. Tears born of all the love with which Angel had been created and of all the pride with which the demon had fallen.
Kellan gestured and a portal rotated into existence. Before Asmodeus could react, he stepped through and turned back around to face the portal. In the distance large statues stared sightlessly out to sea, silent sentinels themselves, now witnessing the culmination of an age old struggle.
“What is this?” the Archdemon asked across this distance.
“If I am to die, then I want do so far from my friends and in the place I first came to as a Sentinel.”
Asmodeus shook his head slightly in amusement, but strode quickly forward and leaped towards the portal.
“Now!” Kellan said to himself as Lamia’s long ago whispered words cascaded through his mind. His eyes blazed to life and Kellan layered a second portal onto the first, then leaped though with Asmodeus only half a step behind.
Chapter 10
A PRINCE OF CHAOS
Kellan emerged through the portal hitting the ground hard as he rolled to absorb the impact and looked backward in time to see Asmodeus leap through a moment later, eyes ablaze with streamers of red energy playing about him like crimson lightning. Immediately noticing that their destination had changed, his beautiful features contorted with a rage and hatred Kellan had never experienced as the fallen Archangel turned in time to see the portal silently wink out.
Kellan could feel the energy that Asmodeus had channeled reach a crescendo as he whipped back around, throwing both hands forward, causing a twisting rope of interlocking elemental forces to crash into the young Sentinel’s hastily erected shield. Kellan felt it begin to buckle beneath the onslaught as his mind lifted Micah’s words to the fore: “In this place, you can do the miraculous—if you only have the will.”
Kellan ground his teeth as traditional prayers to Saint’s Jude, Gregory, Philomena, and Rita, flashed unbidden and unwelcome across his mind. He closed his eyes, let the shield vanish, and felt the combined energies of Asmodeus’ attack strike him. No longer distracted by maintaining his shield, Kellan felt his world narrow into one focused thought as he reached deep into the well of his power, draining it in a single act of will. Kellan did not think what he was trying to do would work—he knew it would. All doubts banished as the young Sentinel fundamentally altered the physical laws around him. The world warped outward like an expanding bubble with Kellan at its center and he watched as Asmodeus’ massive energy current reversed course like an electrical switch with its polarity changed. The Archdemon’s eyes widened in surprise, and he screamed in pain and frustration as the full force of his attack slammed into him, driving him upwards and off the precipice where he and Kellan had exited the portal.
Kellan panted, wiping blood from his face, and groaned as he struggled to stand, steadying himself by grabbing an arm of the massive stone throne. He let go, wobbled, and nearly fell into the throne itself but managed to maintain his footing, then slowly walked to the mountain top edge and peered over. Just as his line of sight cleared the edge, Kellan felt a rush of air strike him, causing him to fall back a step as something
blurred in front of him. Kellan looked up and involuntarily sucked in air.
Massive black wings moved rhythmically as Asmodeus stared down with murder in his eyes. Gone was the beautiful guise of moments before. It had been replaced by what Kellan’s mind confirmed to be a common description of the fallen archangel through the ages. His face was all hard angles from a heavy brow that caused his eyes to be deep hollows in which fiery coals could be seen, to a pointed chin that seemed to have three boney clefts. His skin was uniformly brown, with boney protrusions prominent from both his shoulders and forehead. Long black hair was parted in the middle and swept down behind each curving horn to cascade across his broad shoulders. From his chest downward, he looked much like a heavily muscled man, save for the additional spikes protruding from both knees and the complete absence of any sex organs.
“What trick did Raphael teach you?” Asmodeus spat as the hot air continued to strike at Kellan from his beating wings. “How did you turn my power back upon me? Answer, and I will grant you the mercy of a quick death.”
Despite feeling so terrified that his bowels threatened to let loose, Kellan laughed. “Did you seriously just say that?” As he tried to continue, Kellan’s laugh turned into a cough and he tasted blood. Something was definitely broken inside and was not in a hurry to heal itself. Kellan took another shallow breath. “You sound more like the villain from an Ed Wood movie than a prince of hell. I’m not going to tell you shit. In fact, you can just fuck off and—”
Without warning Asmodeus pitched in mid air, angling down toward Kellan as a massive scepter with a glowing red gem appeared in his right hand. He rushed Kellan, moving so fast his eyes couldn’t track the Archdemon properly. The young Sentinel moved just by instinct, sword coalescing in his hand a split second before the scepter came down. There was a deafening clang as the two weapons glanced off one another in a shower of sparks. Asmodeus’ inertia carried the blow forward and he struck the plain stone bench, causing it to crack in two even as Kellan spun completely around whipping his own sword at Asmodeus’ now exposed back.
The tip of the sword raked against the exposed flesh, drawing a thin red line across the Archdemon’s neck even as his forward motion diminished the depth of the cut. Drops of dark red blood spilled from the wound to strike the stoney ground, where it hissed and puffed away.
Asmodeus whirled on Kellan while reaching his free hand back along the wound. He stared at his blood covered fingers with a look that Kellan couldn’t immediately place—until those dark red eyes again locked on his.
Hatred—to be sure. But he had seen that all along. No, there was something new now. Kellan’s own eyes widened in recognition. Fear. Uncomprehending fear was the emotion Kellan now saw in the ancient face that had once warred against heaven itself.
With a primal yell, Asmodeus gestured and a portal opened between the two, just to Kellan’s left but the young Sentinel was already moving, sword rotating in his right hand, even as the Archdemon tried to leap through. The portal puffed away into tiny motes of light just as Asmodeus crossed its threshold. He stumbled as Kellan drove his sword downward with all the force he could muster. Asmodeus bent his head back and howled in pain as Kellan’s brightly glowing weapon cleaved both wings cleanly from his back. Like the blood before it, the black wings hissed as they struck the ground and puffed away.
Asmodeus summoned another portal but it, too, vanished at his touch and he turned on Kellan with an expression of complete disbelief.
“What is this place!”
Kellan paused and cocked his head. “I guess you’ve never been here. Maybe Lucifer should have warned you. This, my fine wingless demon, is the workroom of creation.”
“Impossible! Impossible! I cannot be here. You cannot bring me here.”
“I didn’t bring you here, I just made a portal. You came of your own free will.”
“I did no such thing! There are rules to creation, you insignificant whelp. There are consequences. Release me now from this accursed place.”
Kellan leaned against the shattered bench as he felt his wounds knitting, and the river of his power begin to swell to a level higher than any he had felt before. A distant part of his mind pondered whether that was due to this place or the strain he had been putting on himself.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me you didn’t run through that portal after me?”
“That portal,” Asmodeus growled, “was simply to a grassy island; it was not to here!”
“Oh, quite true, but I made another one and fused it to the first. You actually went through two portals in rapid succession.” Kellan beamed. “Pretty clever, huh, especially for a talking, hairless ape?” He watched as realization dawned on the fallen Angel.
“I. Will. Kill You!” he roared. Kellan felt a charge in the air and looked up as the dark clouds roiled above. A flash of bright blue lighting flew down and Kellan drew deep from the river of his power, eyes blazing and runes streaking down his arms as he lifted one hand to catch the lightning. In his mind’s eye, Kellan pulled apart the the lighting at the atomic level, photon from electron. He channeled it down his right arm through his body and out his left where it coalesced as a gleaming ball of pure electrical energy that Kellan held between his two outstretched hands.
Again he reached inward and pulled forth power, but the river did not diminish. Rather, its banks grew higher even as the river’s breadth increased. The ball of lighting fragmented to become dozens of rotating spheres of luminescent energy.
Asmodeus charged toward Kellan, hurling all manner of elemental attacks but as each came close, one white sphere detached itself and intercepted the projectile, causing the air to warp with heat that buffeted a glowing shield Kellan held about himself. No more than twenty feet separated Asmodeus from Kellan when the fallen Angel reached upward with both hands, forming words Kellan could not hear and thrust them toward the young Sentinel.
Nothing happened. Asmodeus gestured again. Nothing. He stared at Kellan dark eyes wild with anger and rising panic. A third time. Nothing.
Kellan stared at the two remaining white spheres as they rotated between his hands. He felt the anger well up within him as he stared at Asmodeus, recalling all that Lamia had told him. “This is the bosom of creation! You have no power here but what you brought with you and that is now gone. This is my place. My will rules here.” Kellan whipped out his hands, causing the last two spheres to fly outward and strike Asmodeus in the chest with a blinding flash of light, throwing him fifty feet into the air, leaving him sprawled and dazed in the massive throne.
Kellan narrowed his eyes, teeth set, as he walked toward the Archdemon, sword again forming in his hand.
“Stop,” Asmodeus said while trying to rise from the throne, only to collapse back. “You cannot do this. I am an Archangel.”
“You are a demon who has killed legions and tempted legions upon legions more. You tried to kill me, which I could forgive. But you meant to kill those I love and those whom I protect—that I will not forgive.”
“You cannot kill me. I am balance. I am necessary to God’s plan.”
Kellan had spanned the distance between them and glared down at the fallen Angel with sword upraised. “Then God’s plan has a problem.”
“Brothers!”, screamed Asmodeus, “I invoke our pact. I summon you!”
Kellan had begun his downward swing when he heard a voice like a thunderclap. “STOP!”
Altering his blow at the last moment, Kellan cleaved a large piece from the Throne and looked toward the sound of the voice. Before him stood both Michael and Raphael. Raphael looked pained and worried while Michael, brandishing his massive flaming sword, looked only slightly less angry than did Asmodeus short moments ago.
“You may not harm him, Sentinel,” boomed Michael.
Kellan lowered his sword, feeling its tip bite into the solid stone. “Who asked you, Michael? But, for my own edification, why the fuck not? Look at him. He’s literally sitting in the throne made by Luc
ifer himself after your war, and you intercede on his behalf!”
“He is an Angelic Prince and cannot be destroyed by one such as you. It should not even be possible, but you have tricked him into coming to this place.”
Kellan laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, I tricked him into coming here to kill me so he wouldn’t stay where we were and kill my friends.” The young Sentinel turned to Raphael. “Are you buying into this shit, Raphael? This asshole set the whole thing into motion. He created Maurius. He’s promised to kill everyone I’ve ever loved or who will ever love me.”
Raphael looked pained. “They are both correct, Kellan. You may not kill Asmodeus. His power, the energy of chaos within him, is necessary for creation to exist even as the energy of order within us,” he gestured to Michael, “is necessary.”
Kellan glared at Raphael. “What are you going to do Raphael? Stop me?”
“If I must. And if I must, you will die to my unending sadness. We will harness your power in this place and instill it in another.”
Kellan paused, considering. “Can you do that?”
“I do not know, Kellan Thorne. I beg you. Do not put it to the test.”
“Yeah, well, I’m betting you and your big brother over there can’t do shit about it.” Kellan again raised his sword and made to strike.
Raphael leaped for the young Sentinel with arms reaching to block the blow, even as Michael hurled his massive sword directly at Kellan who, for his part, simply smiled and rested his sword on his shoulder, waiting. Michael’s sword arrived first, coming within a foot of Kellan before veering off inexplicably at an acute angle to clatter against the stone. Raphael, too, came close but was then hurled backward, crashing into Michael as if propelled by an unseen force.
Kellan stared at them both, shaking his head slowly. “Freewill, bitches! You gave me this power of your own freewill and of my own freewill I took it up. I sit outside the sight and intersession of God Himself. Do you think you have the power to interfere with my free access of that power?”
Sentinels of Creation: A Power Renewed Page 27