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The Age of Apollyon Trilogy (The Age of Apollyon, Black Sun, Scorn)

Page 49

by Mark Carver


  Patric struggling to maintain consciousness. Then he felt something, something inside his head.

  A buzzing sound.

  He glanced up at the supernaturally beautiful woman hovering above St. Nero’s Square.

  It was her.

  Murmurs of surprise began rippling through the crowd and voices could be heard above the din.

  “It’s the Holy Mother!”

  “The Blessed Virgin!”

  “She has come down from heaven!”

  Julian was equally amazed at what he saw, and he fell down on his knees. The Christians in the crowd did the same, as did hundreds of Satanists.

  The woman’s eyes gazed down fiercely upon them but she remained silent. Instead, she simply pointed towards Julian with a finger made of light.

  Everyone gasped.

  ****

  Father DeMarco could hardly see what was going on until several large men in front of him inexplicably knelt down on the ground. He frowned with surprise.

  “What…?”

  Then he looked up, his vision now unobscured.

  Scores of demons circled the square. Black ooze dripped from their gruesome fangs and their eyes smoldered with the fires of hell.

  And in the middle, hovering above a man kneeling on the ground, was the woman in black, hideous and loathsome. Her grotesque face resembled that of a rotting corpse, though her eyes glowed like embers. She was pointing towards the kneeling figure, and the entire crowd seemed to be awestruck with reverence.

  Then he knew what was happening.

  ****

  Julian could feel the strength of God himself scorching through his veins. He looked down at his hands. They were glowing.

  Slowly, powerfully, he rose to his feet and looked out at the cowering masses.

  This was the hour of judgment.

  He opened his mouth to speak.

  But another voice rang out.

  “Stop!”

  Julian stood still, baffled at the interruption. For a moment, no one moved. Then a small man dressed as a priest tumbled into the middle of the square.

  Father DeMarco picked himself up from the ground and straightened his robes.

  “Stop this deception!” he cried, advancing towards the man with the guns. “You are not God’s anointed one. You stand here by the power of Satan!”

  Patric was gasping for breath on the cross, but he paused when he heard the priest’s voice. He looked down and tried to focus on the man’s face.

  “Father?” he rasped.

  “Patric!” Father DeMarco cried. “Oh my son! What have they done?”

  “Who are you, old man?” Julian demanded, furious at this intrusion.

  Father DeMarco pointing a finger right at Julian’s face. “I am Father Stefano Dimitri DeMarco of St. Simon’s Monastery in Susa. I declare you to be a charlatan and a liar, for you are not of God!”

  Julian didn’t know what to say. For a moment, he was paralyzed. He looked up. The angelic woman had disappeared. He turned back to the priest and opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  The crowd was riveted. No one moved a muscle. Even those far back that could hardly see anything were frozen.

  Julian stared into the old priest’s eyes, and his heart burned with anger. He knew he was ordained by God.

  A soft voice spoke to his heart.

  Show them.

  Julian inhaled deeply through his nose, then pointed towards the sky with his gun.

  “You who doubt, behold! I am Julian Rossa Monte, and God has granted me authority over the elements!”

  At that moment, there was a great clap of thunder, and the clouds in the sky rolled back like a scroll, as if they were burned away by an invisible fire. The sun shown brightly through the hole in the sky. Julian held his weapon high above his head, and he stared at the priest with victory in his eyes.

  “Now!” he declared, feeling his body brimming with power. “I command the sun to remove its light from the earth!”

  Like a candle burning down to its last bit of fuel, the sun grew darker and darker. The world slowly fell into darkness, and the crowd screamed with terror.

  Then, like an eye winking shut, the sun vanished.

  Father DeMarco fell to the ground. He felt like a rope was twisting around his neck, strangling him.

  Tears streamed down Patric’s cheeks. The agonizing buzzing sound still rattled his skull, but he could no longer see anything. His heart was bursting with anguish and sorrow, and he cried out with the last of his strength.

  “God! Save me! Please!”

  He felt the cross quiver, and he gasped as it suddenly fell backwards. He braced himself for a crash, but instead, he felt himself floating. He was being carried.

  The world was still dark, and he couldn’t see what was happening. But he could hear it. Screams of hatred and fury and pain. The sounds of rabid, animal violence. The sounds of people dying.

  Then he realized that his eyes were squeezed shut. He opened them cautiously, even reluctantly. He saw the sun. It was still dim but it was growing brighter with each passing moment.

  One thought cleaved through the pain.

  I have just witnessed a miracle.

  The ropes binding his arms gave way,and the nerves awakened in a frenzy. He roared with pain and he blacked out for a few seconds. Then he felt his hands burst into flames, and he awoke again, still screaming violently.

  He realized that he was sitting up. He looked around and saw several strange faces peering at him. Two people were bandaging his hands, though the white cloth became soaked with blood almost instantly.

  Patric sat there in a daze. Then a small thought, warm and soothing, pushed its way to the front of his mind.

  I’m going to live…

  He looked up at the sun, which was now blazing at full strength.

  “Thank You!” he wept.

  Through his tears, he looked out across the square.

  It was a battlefield. Christians and Satanists were clawing, stabbing, pummeling and stomping each other without mercy. Eyes were torn from their sockets, mouths were ripped open, fingers were bitten off. The sickening smack of flesh and bone being thrown to the ground filled the air.

  Then Patric saw Father DeMarco. The priest was lying on the ground a few meters away from the pile of wood that had almost been Patric’s funeral pyre. Patric shrugged past his rescuers and crawled along the ground towards the old man.

  “Father!” he cried out.

  Father DeMarco raised his head from the ground and saw Patric crawling towards him. He stretched out a trembling hand, but he couldn’t move. He was finished. There was nothing left.

  “Father!”

  Patric reached the old man and embraced him with his bloody, bandaged hands. Father DeMarco looked up at his battered face, and his heart broke.

  “Oh my son, forgive me!” he wailed, collapsing into tears in Patric’s arms.

  Patric stroked the old man’s head and cried with him.

  ****

  Julian stood like a conqueror on the platform where Patric’s cross had once stood.

  “Destroy the heathens!” he shouted at the scene of chaos and violence below him. “No mercy for the wicked!”

  A loud crash rang out from the north side of the square, and Julian looked up to see a large truck smash through the wrought iron gates and barrel through the crowd. Bodies were hurled left and right and some fell beneath the wheels. The vehicle bounded into the middle of the square and screeched to a stop. Several men stood up in the back. One of them had a large bandage across his nose.

  Julian watched the men lift heavy wooden boxes and throw them out of the back of the truck. They shattered when they hit the ground. Dozens of machetes spilled out into the sun. Hordes of Christians surged forward and scooped the weapons into their hands, then charged back into the crowd. The steel blades gleamed as they sliced through the air, shredding flesh and shattering bones. Blood sprayed like mist as body after body fell to
the ground to be trampled.

  Another crash sounded from the east gate as a second truck bounced through the crowd and spilled its weapons for the righteous to wield. Several Satanists also seized machetes but they were heavily outmatched by the Christians, who began driving them towards the edges of the square.

  Julian closed his eyes. The screams of death and chaos were like music. He looked up and saw the Blessed Mother smiling down upon him.

  He jumped down and grabbed the microphone on the ground.

  “Children of Heaven!” he shouted across the square. “To the temple! Let us purge this evil once and for all!”

  In one bloodstained wave, the Christian hordes turned and ran towards the Templum Satanam. Behind them lay hundreds of dead and wounded. The entire square was red with blood. The Satanists who were lucky enough to survive fled out into the streets.

  Julian cast a glance behind him at Patric and Father DeMarco lying huddled on the ground. The priest’s eyes met his own, and they said only one thing.

  Shame…

  Julian bared his teeth in anger, then joined the bloodthirsty mob. The rushing wave passed, and Patric and Father DeMarco were alone with the dead and dying.

  ****

  Mistress Jalevaya watched the entire scene transpire from a small window overlooking the square. Her heart wept but she knew there was no other way. The Great Lord had spoken, and this was his will.

  As the Christian mob began to overpower their adversaries, she turned to her comrades who were also watching the carnage.

  “It’s time,” she said.

  The others looked at her with grim, sorrowful faces, but no one spoke. They all turned away from the windows and skulked down a dark corridor towards the doorway to a secret passage that would let them slip out of Vatican City undetected.

  “Will Master Ko meet us at the rendezvous?” one of the elders asked.

  Mistress Jalevaya nodded. Her thoughts flitted for a moment to Master Kwambala, his lifeless body lying trampled out there in the square. She didn’t feel even a twinge of sorrow. She was glad he was dead. She had always hated him.

  Everyone in the group flinched as they heard crashes echoing from the sanctuary. The Christian mob had stormed the temple and was likely destroying everything in sight. Mistress Jalevaya allowed herself a moment or two of sorrow. After all, this had been their home for a decade, and it was a symbol of Satan’s dominion over the earth. Even though the Christian horde had been allowed to defeat their Satanist enemies, it was still hard to surrender such a grand symbol of victory.

  The sounds of violence grew louder, and several members of the Circle began murmuring prayers for protection. Mistress Jalevaya smirked at her comrades’ weakness. She knew they were in the hands of their Great Lord, and he was not to be beseeched like some grandfather.

  They reached a seemingly empty room, but Mistress Jalevaya motioned with her eyes for a few of the men to move aside a tall, ancient bureau. The heavy wood grated on the stone floor, revealing a small, dark door. Mistress Jalevaya fished inside her robes and drew out a key that looked like it had been forged in the Middle Ages.

  She held the key for a moment, knowing that once they were through this door, they would never come back. Exhaling a decisive breath, she pushed the key into the lock and turned it.

  Nothing happened.

  She frowned, withdrew the key, and placed it in the lock once more. Again, nothing.

  “What’s going on?” Master Winston demanded fearfully. The halls behind them echoed with angry shouting and the sounds of shattering glass.

  Mistress Jalevaya tried the key again, trying to ignore her runaway heartbeat.

  It was no use. The key wouldn’t work.

  Her face ashen white, she turned to her comrades. The terror in her eyes said everything.

  The door to the room burst open and a flurry of righteous anger surged towards the elders.

  Vatican City was being cleansed.

  Of everything.

  ****

  Julian walked slowly through the ruins of the sanctuary, his eyes passing over the shattered Satanic icons, the shredded tapestries, the pulverized shrines. Several bodies of low-level clergy members lay bleeding in corners and across the pews, many of them cut down by bullets from his own weapons.

  He turned his eyes upwards to the massive iron sculpture of the Great Dragon that snarled down upon the earth. It was just an inert piece of metal now. Julian raised one of his guns and fired a shot. The bullet impacted right between the eyes of the dragon, and the entire statue reverberated like a bell. Julian smirked as he continued walking down the aisle.

  The temple echoed with voices and violence. The doors behind him had been barricaded, though Julian knew that no police or armed forces could oppose him. He was the hammer of righteousness, smiting the heathen pestilence into oblivion.

  A strange serenity crept over him as he walked through what had been the most awe-inspiring church in the world. He had visited the Vatican many times as a child and young man, and it had made him sick when it fell into the hands of Satan. Now, strolling through the aisles streaked with blood and filled with debris, he imagined that this must have been how Jesus felt when he drove the defilers out of the temple.

  He began to sing as he made his way to the Sala Reglia. He placed his hands on the doors, then paused. He remembered gazing in worshipful reverence at Michelangelo’s divine masterpiece, and he was afraid to see what the vermin had done to it.

  Well, whatever it was, it was all over now. Vatican City belonged to the Lord God once again, and any heathen remnants that remained were as sterile as the marble tiles that he walked upon.

  He pushed open the door and gasped.

  The scenes of blasphemy and debauchery that coated the walls filled him with disgust. Tears streaked down his face as he looked upon horror after horror. He moved through the deserted room like a ghost, his heart breaking. The world’s greatest artistic masterpiece, destroyed and replaced with this abomination...

  He turned his attention to the far wall of the chamber. There was only one light illuminating that side of the room, but it was enough to reveal what was there in front of him.

  A great golden pentagram hovered in the air above St. Peter’s throne.

  Julian scowled.

  The bastard made the Sistine Chapel his throne room.

  As he approached the chair, his heart began to race. His fingers trembled and his feet seemed to be wading through sand.

  This was it. The seat of Christendom.

  And you are the only one worthy to sit upon it.

  Julian glanced around. He was sure he had heard the voice with his own ears. He turned and looked again at the throne. It beckoned him.

  Swallowing his hesitation, he ascended the steps and stood before the empty throne.

  The air seemed to buzz with silence.

  A great commotion sounded outside of the chapel, and the doors blew open. The victorious mob poured into the room, exhilarated and spattered with blood.

  Instantly, the shouting stopped, and everyone was still.

  Beneath the fearsome golden pentagram, Julian Rossa Monte sat motionless on the throne of St. Peter. His hands still clutched the silver pistols, and his eyes remained fixed on a point far in the distance.

  In one motion, everyone dropped their weapons and knelt down upon the floor, bowing their heads in reverence.

  As if awakening from a trance, Julian looked down upon the crowd kneeling before him. Fire surged through his veins. He felt like a king.

  No. Greater than a king.

  The hand of God.

  ****

  As silent as midnight, the soldiers crept through the darkness, their assault rifles held firmly in front of their faces. The world glowed green in their night vision goggles as they scurried through the trees towards the smoking compound.

  The man on point held up his fist and the squadron froze. The stench of death was heavy in the air, and the soldier knew they
were too late. He made several gestures with his hand and the team moved forward as a unit.

  They approached the perimeter and instinctively spread out in defensive positions. Communicating only through hand motions, several soldiers moved into position for a forced entry.

  The team leader nodded his head and a boot crashed into the door. It splintered into fragments and the soldiers poured into the compound. The air quivered with dozens of laser sights flitting left and right, but no shots were fired. They crept through the smoldering ruins, searching for signs of life but finding only charred corpses.

  After several minutes of searching, one man turned to the team leader and spoke in a whisper.

  “We’re too late, sir. All this went down hours ago.”

  The team leader stretched his jaw and exhaled slowly.

  “Fan out. Check for anyone still alive, friend or foe. Do not engage unless fired upon.”

  The soldiers nodded and disappeared into the darkness. The team leader motioned for three men to follow him and he led the way down a long, narrow corridor.

  Their boots crunched on shattered glass and spent shells. They all knew this had been a fierce battle, and it was apparent who had prevailed.

  The team leader refused to give in to hopelessness. He clenched his teeth and tried to breathe lightly as they navigated through the rubble and debris.

  One of the soldiers gasped.

  “I heard something!” he whispered.

  The team leader motioned for everyone to halt. They remained as still as possible, listening intently.

  A moan floated down the hall like the wail of a mournful ghost.

  “Go!” the team leader commanded.

  Weapons poised to fire without hesitation, the team dashed through the corridor as quickly as they could, finally arriving at the remains of some kind of office. Overturned computer terminals and broken screens were scattered throughout the room, along with the remains of several pieces of furniture.

  The soldiers’ laser beams sliced through the smoke and dust, but they saw no one. Then a groan of pain came from behind a bullet-riddled desk.

  The team sprang into action, with one man covering the door, one man scanning the room, while the team leader and another soldier hurried towards the sound. Guns at the ready, they shoved the heavy desk aside and looked down.

 

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