Rise of the Fallen

by Chuck Black

  Validus plotted an intercept between the three demons and Carter’s last location. He leaped to a tree limb twenty feet in the air and drew his FN Five-Seven.

  Through the evolution of weaponry, Validus had translated and mastered many, but there was none that yet compared to the sword of Elohim. A short sword was his next choice, followed by a lightweight handgun.

  Only in recent history had propulsion weapons been an option for the warriors. The speed of projectile weapons was simply too slow to be effective in their world. Once guns began reaching bullet velocities near their reaction time, they became a marginal option. Rifles were rarely used because of their size and difficulty to keep translated. The first real options were handguns with the bullet velocity of a rifle.

  Considering size, weight, magazine capacity, and availability, Validus’s preference was the Fabrique Nationale Five-Seven, or simply FN Five-Seven. The small caliber was its greatest limiting factor, but with accuracy, it could be very effective. Though he rarely used it, there were times when nothing else would do.

  His hands tightened around the knurled grips of both weapons, one of ancient power and the other of modern speed. He had one chance to save Carter’s life and his future. None of the three Fallen could leave this place alive.

  They were coming fast. The vexer sprinted forward thirty yards, then stopped and smelled the air, deciphering the evergreen, moss, and maple from that of Carter’s sweat and blood. He altered his course slightly. His next sprint would bring them within ten yards of the tree in which Validus was waiting.

  The vexer hesitated, turning his head from side to side. He seemed confused.

  Validus put the front sight of his FN on one of the warriors, but the distance was too far—not for accuracy, but for the sound. The demon would have too much time to react to the sound of the concussion and be able to move out of the path of the 5.7 mm-caliber rounds in spite of the weapon’s speed. He needed to be within fifty yards, and they were at least seventy yards away.

  “What is it, vexer?” one of the warriors asked, scowling.

  The vexer appeared to ignore him.

  The warrior growled. “We’ve better things to do than waste our time on your hunches about a boy. Take us to him or we’re returning to command now.”

  The vexer turned to look at them. “He’s trying to escape from us. He knows we are here.”

  “That’s absurd.” The other warrior stepped toward the vexer.

  “I’ve been with him,” the vexer retorted. “There’s something unusual about him.”

  “There won’t be in a few minutes. Where is he?”

  The vexer pointed. “Two hundred yards that direction.”

  Validus didn’t dare wait for a better vantage point now. Once they started moving again, his FN would be useless. Though the vexer was closest, he had to concentrate on the warriors first.

  He calculated the most likely direction the closest warrior would jump, offset his sights, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The first concussion exploded through Validus’s ears, followed immediately by a rapid fire of nine more rounds. Before determining the extent of the damage, if any, he leaped from the tree toward the second warrior.

  All three demons jerked backward, away from their intended target. One of the warriors was cursing as he limped backward. As Validus landed with sword at the ready, the vexer looked confused, not sure whether to attack or run. But the second warrior had drawn his sword and was already turning his retreat into an attack.

  Validus shot twice more with his FN to distract the Fallen warrior, but both rounds were easily deflected. He cast the FN aside, and it dissolved away before it hit the ground.

  The two angelic beings engaged in a flurry of steel. The demon was more skilled than Validus had anticipated, and being distracted with trying to keep the other two demons located didn’t help.

  “Kill the man, vexer!” the Fallen warrior shouted between clashes.

  Validus halted at the words. There was little a vexer could do to actually kill a man other than possess him and drive him to suicide. Vexers simply didn’t have the ability to translate weapons like warriors did, especially weapons that could affect both realms.

  He saw the vexer sprint away from the fray and away from Carter.

  The momentary distraction nearly cost Validus his life. He brought his sword up at the last fraction of a second to stop a slice arcing toward his throat. The demon sneered, recovered, and countered again. This time Validus saw his opportunity. He parried a thrust, deflecting the grisly blade of the demon just to his left, fully intending to counter with a quick upward slice, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the second wounded warrior attacking from his left rear quarter.

  Validus lifted his long sword above his head to stop the vertical cut coming from the wounded demon while simultaneously drawing his short sword to deflect another cut from the demon before him. Validus then twisted his torso and threw his short sword like a dagger into the chest of the demon to his rear. He recovered in time to deflect a high crosscut from the first demon warrior, then countered with a deep thrust that found its mark, piercing the double-edged sword clear through the demon. Seconds later both of the Fallen dissolved to a greenish vapor and fell into the earth.

  Validus hesitated, looking first at Carter and then in the direction the vexer had fled.

  He sprinted toward Carter, getting just close enough to verify that he was on the move again. He mentally plotted the man’s course, then made a line toward the vexer’s last position. Had he abandoned Carter and gone to report to Durgank?

  Validus couldn’t let that happen. He morphed his wings as quickly as he could and took flight. It was a dangerous move, especially if there were other Fallen nearby, because his reaction time would be ten times that of using the solidness of the earth and its substance.

  He quickly scanned the surrounding area, anxious to pinpoint the vexer’s location. The only movement he saw was a large, foraging black bear. He looked to the southern horizon, wondering if the vexer had taken flight to report to Durgank. Nothing.

  Validus flew swiftly in a wide arc around Carter, searching for any sign of the vexer. With each moment he was in flight, he became more concerned about being able to protect his charge as well as his own susceptibility to attack.

  Just as he was about to drop to the ground and regain the protection of the solid earth, he glanced once more at the only substantial movement within a two-mile radius of Carter. The bear was no longer foraging.

  It was running … straight toward Carter. Illumination hit Validus in a dreadful way.

  He streaked toward a knoll that would intercept the large black bear nearly a mile out from Carter. Ten feet before he touched down, Validus began morphing his wings back into his body, and he hit the ground running with sword drawn. The bear clambered over a fallen tree trunk, and his first glimpse into its eyes confirmed Validus’s fears.

  The vexer had possessed the beast. The vexer was now a possessor and was locked inside the bear until the animal’s death.

  It charged onward, and Validus met it with a full-body stroke of his mighty blade. The creature roared in pain but kept moving toward Carter.

  There was an inter-realm power that resulted when a vexer-possessor took control of a living-flesh being. Its power transcended that of normal earth, and its vulnerability to the spiritual weapons of the warrior was greatly reduced. Neither beast nor demon could be easily killed from either realm. In some ways, a demon-possessed animal of this nature was worse than a droxan because it was powered by the intellect of a fully functioning demon.

  There was only one way for Validus to stop it.

  He sprinted ahead of the charging beast, turned, then forced his being and all that he was out of the Upper Realm and translated into the world of men as a flesh-and-blood warrior. Bluish flames licked at his face and arms as the translation completed.

  The demon-possessed bear hesitated, eyes glowing red with hatred
and evil. It was a duel of bizarre combatants and even more bizarre consequences. The five-hundred-pound animal stood on its hind legs and roared in defiance. Validus charged as the bear fell to its front legs and mimicked the charge.

  At ten feet apart, Validus began a powerful arcing slice with his gleaming sword, but the bear halted just as the tip of the blade passed by, then lunged at Validus’s throat. Validus had faced numerous droxans in centuries past but never a demon-possessed predator, and he had already underestimated the creature. It was no longer an animal of simple response and reactive instincts. It was anticipatory, calculating, and fierce, with a mind.

  In a desperate attempt to dodge instant death, Validus thrust his left forearm at the mouth that would soon close around his throat. Pain, blood, and demon-generated growls permeated the air. Validus dropped his sword as beast and warrior crashed to the earth in an entanglement of fur and flesh.

  He reached for his short sword, but a massive paw with two-inch claws sliced across his hand and lower torso. Validus ignored the pain, angry for having allowed this vexer-possessor to gain such an immediate advantage.

  Enough! he shouted in his mind.

  Validus raised his left forearm, forcing the head of the animal upward. With all his might he exploded a steel fist into the animal’s throat. The bear released his arm, howling in pain. But the reprieve was brief.

  Validus rolled away from the demon-frenzied creature. His hand found the hilt of his short blade just as the beast lunged at him again. This time he executed his thrust perfectly, driving the blade clear through the abdomen. The bear growled through frothing teeth, refusing to accept death easily. Validus withdrew the blade and plunged it into the animal once more, and it fell still and quiet.

  He pushed the carcass away from himself as searing pain from his open wounds screamed through his body. The vexer would immediately flee … Validus had to act quickly.

  He cringed as he forced himself to begin translating back into his realm. There would be even more pain waiting there. The Middle Realm was opaque in everything, including pain.

  In the midst of his translation, a shrill scream pierced his ears as the vexer-possessor extracted himself from the dead bear and immediately took flight.

  Validus screamed against the tide of translation effort and Upper Realm pain as blue flames enveloped him and brought him fully back to the world of angels and demons.

  Now to morph his wings. More energy, more pain.

  He lifted his eyes upward, grateful for the isolation of the wilderness of the forest but also knowing that his window of opportunity to catch the vexer was short. He forced himself to stand and then to fly into the air with the willed strokes of his wings. Above the treetops he spotted the vexer skimming the rolling green vegetation.

  Validus denied himself the luxury of self-sympathy and knew he had to finish this fight. This was the beginning of something significant; he felt it in his spirit.

  “Almighty Elohim … give me the strength!”

  He forced his wings to pound the air harder and faster until he began to gain on the vexer. He climbed higher, above the demon and out of his view.

  When he had enough speed and altitude, Validus tucked his wings and dived downward onto the vexer. The intercept hit him hard, and the impact sent both angel and demon plummeting unfettered by wing or air toward the earth.

  From behind, Validus wrapped his bloodied arm around the vexer’s neck and squeezed with all his remaining strength. The trees offered little resistance, but the solid substance of the earth pounded against their bodies like a hammer as they hit. Validus refused to release his hold until he felt the vexer dissolve to nothingness and disappear from the earth.

  Validus lay still on the pine-needle floor of the forest. Painful hours passed while he waited for the Curing to heal him, but Validus did not move. If Carter was in further jeopardy, the peril would have already happened.

  He watched the streaming sunshine weave in between the bows of evergreen above him. He filled his lungs with the fragrant smells of Elohim’s grand creation, and he wondered at his life and his purpose. The universe, and all the souls within it, was so vast, so complicated and yet so simple. Validus marveled at the mind of God. How could one mind keep track of everything so perfectly?

  And in all of his pondering, Validus contemplated his role and that of Drew Carter. Was it all a distraction from something greater? Wherever his duty to Carter would take him, Validus realized today that it would not be easy. It would not be predictable.

  Something was at stake—something big.

  24

  THE WISDOM OF THE AGED

  2 BC

  “Validus, come!”

  Validus left his watchful guard of the Christ-child and moved next to Danick. He was watching an old man pray, which didn’t appear to be unusual, considering they were at the temple. Validus listened and was taken with the man’s heart and sincerity.

  “Yes sir?” he responded.

  Danick held up his hand as he studied the man. He shook his head in confusion, then looked at Validus. “Do you see it?”

  “I’m not sure—” he began, but then he saw wisps of the blue flames of Ruach Elohim dance about the man’s head and shoulders.

  “His name is Simeon,” Danick whispered.

  Joseph and Mary walked past them, carrying the Christ-child on their way to the temple. The old man immediately broke from his prayer, opened his eyes, and went to them. His eyes glowed with the light of Elohim as he gently took the babe from Mary’s arms. A dozen warriors drew their swords, ready to strike Simeon down, but Danick held up his hand to stay them.

  A shaft of brilliant blue flames shot down from heaven onto Simeon and the Christ-child. Every warrior in the temple shielded their eyes from the brilliance of the glory of Elohim as Simeon began to speak.

  “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

  The angels stood in awe of the man and his prophecy. From their perspective, Simeon’s face glowed with the brilliance of God. He turned and gave the child back to Mary.

  “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against. Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

  Immediately after that, an older woman came and began proclaiming the child the redemption of all who believed.

  Joseph and Mary were amazed at the things these two prophets said. Humbly they proceeded on to the temple to present the newborn child to the Lord and to offer their sacrifice in accordance with the law.

  Danick, Validus, and the warriors followed the Messiah into the temple, but for one moment, Danick turned back and looked at Simeon, his hands lifted high in praise to Elohim.

  The encounter with the man was only a prelude of what was to come in the presence of Messiah, but something else seemed to linger in the general’s eyes.

  25

  CHARGE OF THE DROXAN

  Present Day

  It took Validus a couple of hours to find Carter again. He figured more Fallen would be sent to investigate the missing warriors, but none came, or at least if they did, they didn’t find Carter.

  Validus spent the next few days watching and guarding him out of sight. Carter’s spiritual sensitivity was uncanny, and Validus needed to know just how far his abilities went without being detected himself. It would be difficult to make a determination until Carter reinserted himself back into the populace where there were other warriors and Fallen to interact with.

  He wondered if perhaps Carter was running scared and would stay secluded in the wilderness. He obviously had the skills and training to survive, and if he chose to do so, Validus’s job would become much easier than anticipated. But it soon became clear that was not his char
ge’s intention, as he tracked Carter to a hotel in Chicago.

  On the appointed day, Validus journeyed back to Drayle University and met up with Tren.

  “The Fallen have abandoned her,” Tren said as they watched Sydney Carlyle from the interior balcony of the dorm floor. She was meeting with seven other students for a dorm-floor Bible study. “But the FBI haven’t.”

  “I’m sure they’re tracking her to find Carter,” Validus said. “Now he’s got two armies after him, the Fallen and the FBI. This mission just keeps getting more interesting every day.”

  Tren nodded. “I’m pretty sure that whatever Elohim has in store for Carter, it isn’t supposed to be done from behind bars, unjustly accused of murders he didn’t commit.”

  Validus agreed. “We’ve got to keep him out of the hands of the Fallen, the FBI, and the police.”

  Validus warmed as the Spirit of Elohim swelled within the hearts of the praying students below them. They prayed for their school and for the courage of believers to share the hope of Jesus with other students. They also prayed for the families still dealing with tragic loss as a result of the shooting weeks earlier.

  “She’s strong,” Tren said. He glanced over at Validus. “Ruach Elohim flows through her often.”

  Validus watched the young woman immersed in the glow of Ruach Elohim. It was the mystery of Elohim hidden from the beginning of time and now the unstoppable power to change lives for any who would partake of it. The indwelling caused the Fallen to tremble and the work of God to be accomplished in spite of the darkness of humanity. And Validus had seen the absolute best and worst of humanity.

  Seeing Sydney strangely reminded him of General Danick, only Danick had been better than he was at judging the spirit of a man or a woman. Together they had spent four thousand years making determinations and tracing lineages of the chosen. There was a purity that Elohim always sought in His chosen, a purity that not many had, not even the believers. Validus saw that same purity in Sydney. He contemplated the intersection of the lives of Sydney Carlyle and Drew Carter.