by Robert Ryan
The room was enormous, far bigger than any of the others. At the base of the far wall, several hundred yards away, was a small shadowy shape, indistinguishable from this distance.
A stream flowed in a straight line along the center of the stone floor. Zeke followed its course and saw that it appeared to begin near the distant shape. He looked behind him to see if he could tell where it ended.
It flowed into the sea of fire, a tributary to the molten heart of Hell.
“Come,” said Satan. “Behold the man who began the end.”
He pushed off with his enormous legs, his wings whooshed loudly one time, and they were there. Satan released Zeke. Tensing himself against the ultimate evil, he looked up.
An ancient, gnarled olive tree grew from the solid rock. From one of its lowest branches, an entity of fire in the shape of a man hung at the end of a rope.
But he was not dead. His eyes were open.
Copious rivulets of tears ran down his cheeks. His face was crumpled into a mask of abject shame that was almost unendurable to see. When the once-human thing that hung there saw Zeke staring at him, he hid his face behind his hands. Tears spurted through his fingers, ran down his body to the floor, and trickled into the stream that ended at his feet.
Zeke looked warily at Satan and waited for him to supply the familiar name. Smiling his gloating, repugnant smile, he did so.
“Judas Iscariot.”
Zeke sagged, nearly collapsing. Satan noted it with pleasure and continued his assault.
“Suicide did not end his misery. It only began it.”
Zeke fought back a flood of emotion. Satan saw it and went on with heightened enthusiasm.
“Sometimes, some of the others come down here to spit on him. They hold him responsible for killing their ‘Savior’.” The Devil very exaggeratedly moved his huge claws to indicate the quotation marks. “He has not stopped crying for two thousand years. This ground was dry when I first brought him here.”
Zeke had seen enough. He felt as if his soul were on the brink of being lost forever, even if he did make it out alive.
It was time. He needed to get to the weapons in his backpack. Now.
He put a hand over his eyes, as if to shield them from what he was seeing, and used slumping, defeated body language to heighten the impression that he could take no more.
Satan plucked him up and scrutinized him. An ominous rumbling came from the bestial throat. The contemptuous sound made Zeke think he might just be crushed. Instead the gigantic wings began to flap.
Moments later they were back. Satan released Zeke beside his pack and resumed his place on the throne, twenty yards away. Zeke nonchalantly began to open the pack.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m dying of thirst. I need some water before I can talk.”
The pack was open, its contents exposed. Satan was unconcerned.
“Do not do anything foolish, young man. I am invincible. I have absorbed the energy of all the souls in my army since the beginning of my war with Him. Against all of that power, your atom bombs are like lightning bugs.”
“All right,” Zeke said calmly. “But how about these?”
He rocketed one of the footballs at Satan’s chest. A hand came up to block it and the missile exploded against his palm. Satan looked at his hand in stunned surprise, shaking it as if he’d been stung by a bee. While he was distracted Zeke threw three more. All exploded on Satan’s torso.
The Devil let out a deafening roar and shot up from his seat, brushing at the liquid like someone on fire trying to put out the flames.
Three more grenades knocked him back a faltering step. Two more drove him farther back. He roared again and gathered himself to charge.
Zeke reached for more grenades but the crucifixes caught his attention. Lightning he hadn’t noticed before was exploding inside them. The streaking light churned violently through the entire pile, as though the crucifixes had come to life and were arming themselves for battle.
Satan took an unsteady step, then another, cutting the distance between them in half. Zeke threw a crucifix. It whizzed end over end and it stuck in Satan’s shoulder. He stopped and looked at in shock, pain etched on his face.
Lightning bursts exploded inside the crucifix. The relic must be injecting its power into him, like venom from a snake.
Satan yanked the crucifix out and flung it aside, advancing again.
Zeke threw another but it bounced off.
A huge hand began to close over him, but he jammed a crucifix into the scaly palm. Satan yanked his hand back, lightning flashing inside the silver relic. Zeke grabbed two more and dashed to a gigantic foot, plunging one of the crucifixes into it. Satan roared and pulled the foot up, almost losing his balance.
Zeke sprinted over and impaled the other foot. The Demon staggered and almost fell. He regrouped quickly, and although his gait was unsteady, he was close behind as Zeke returned to his pack for more weapons. He reached into the pack as Satan’s uninjured hand came down to grab him. Just before the hand closed Zeke jammed a crucifix into the web between the thumb and forefinger. Satan roared as foul liquid shot out and the hand jerked open, springing Zeke loose. He landed on his side and his head banged against the stone floor. Scrambling to his feet, he shook it off.
Satan stared in disbelief at his hands and feet. All had crucifixes in them, flashing lightning. Zeke snatched up his pack, keeping an eye on the Archenemy while putting more distance between them. Twenty, thirty, forty yards.
One by one Satan yanked out the crucifixes. With each removal he became stronger. When he had flung the last aside, he drew himself up to his full height and gazed down at Zeke, burning intensity streaming from the demonic red eyes. His voice was a jagged bolt of whispered rage.
“You must die.”
He advanced with careful, deliberate steps.
Zeke unzipped a pouch. He pulled out the pistol, thumbed the safety, and pulled the trigger. Satan spasmed as the burst of silver bullets hit him. Seconds later the 33-round magazine was empty. Above Satan’s nerve-shattering roar, Zeke heard another sound.
The whoosh of wings. Coming from his right.
The winged demon that had attacked earlier was swooping toward him. Zeke ducked and felt a talon go through his hair. He inserted a fresh magazine as the beast circled for another assault. Going down on one knee, he held the gun in both hands and squeezed off a short burst.
The demon twitched as the bullets hit. It flew erratically past, one wing flopping uselessly by its side. It tried to gain altitude but failed, plummeting into the sea of fire with a screeching wail of pain. Frantically flapping its good wing, it succeeded only in going in circles while its body remained immersed in the liquid flame.
Burning souls streaked toward it like sharks coming in for the kill. The demon put up a fierce resistance, but the enraged mob overpowered it until they all disappeared beneath the surface. Seconds later the fiery sea above them started churning violently. Finally the angry swarm resurfaced and hurled the creature up onto shore.
Only a bleached white skeleton was left.
The cannibalistic horde ignored the carcass and began gathering near the shore, eager to watch the battle between their Master and this still-living human. Only their faces were visible above the flaming swells.
A sea of faces.
Zeke looked from them to the skeleton lying on the ground.
Skulls.
Faces.
Help us.
The sound of movement behind him yanked Zeke’s head around.
Satan was advancing again. Zeke emptied the magazine, staggering him but not taking him down.
This time he didn’t roar but spoke in a surprisingly calm voice. “Your bullets can slow me down, but they cannot kill me. I am not a werewolf. A million werewolves would not have my power. And they cannot do this.”
The wounds began to heal themselves. A moment later it was as if they had never been there. Incredibly, he started forw
ard again.
What was happening? Was the Devil more powerful than God?
Zeke jammed in a fresh magazine, but before he brought the gun up to fire, the crucifixes in his pack again caught his attention.
About a dozen were left. Lightning continued to explode inside them. They’d been his most effective weapon. He engaged the safety, jammed the pistol into his waistband, and began throwing the crucifixes again. With each throw he backed up, taking the pack with him, trying to keep distance between himself and Satan.
A phalanx of demonic minions was massing around their leader like an escort. At least a dozen scampered and skittered about. More kept joining the grotesque tribe from unseen places in the chamber. Hopping, slithering, gliding in on wings, the flock of monsters grew. Misshapen hunchbacks with melted faces, horned serpents with tongues flicking, simian mutants with dripping fangs—a kaleidoscope of evil bobbed through the flickering light.
About three dozen now. As their number increased they became bolder. Some darted forth to taunt him.
A hideously malformed hunchback charged.
Zeke yanked the pistol from his waistband and got off one round. The creature toppled over and rolled past. Zeke took a quick look to see if he was dead. He was.
Satan and his army were still advancing.
Something jumped onto Zeke’s back.
Thin, wart-covered arms closed around his chest and began to squeeze with startling strength. Quickly realizing that this thing could easily crush him, Zeke reached over his shoulder and pressed the gun against the creature’s head. He pulled the trigger.
The blast sent it flying. Zeke turned to see an alien dwarflike thing lying on its back, badly wounded but struggling mightily to get up, its eyes riveted on Zeke with a burning lust to kill. It heaved itself onto all fours and began to scrabble forward. Another round destroyed its face. It fell over dead.
Other demons had spread out and were circling around him.
Too many. Maybe if I can stop their leader it will stop them.
Satan was much closer now. Twenty yards away.
Zeke fired the remaining crucifixes at him in rapid succession. Some bounced off, but most stuck. He threw the last one. It lodged in Satan’s forehead.
At least ten crucifixes now impaled the hulking frame. Jagged threads of white light shot out in all directions from the base of each. As they coursed all over his body, Zeke quickly recognized a pattern.
The filaments of light were seeking out the other crucifixes, forming a web, a network. The overall web brightened each time it connected to another crucifix, as though each one was a transformer boosting power to the network.
Satan stood staring in astonishment at what was happening to his body, apparently powerless to stop it. His minions had dropped behind, a quivering mass of uncertainty, their resolve apparently weakening as their Master’s strength waned.
The web of light had connected all the crucifixes except the one on his forehead. From the base of a crucifix lodged in Satan’s neck, a thread of light shot out and traveled upward in a straight line, over his mouth and nose, between his eyes, until it reached the last crucifix. With that final connection made, the web began to change.
Each thin thread of light began to broaden, filling in all the empty spaces in between. Becoming a solid mass, it spread across Satan’s body until he was completely immobilized, encased in bright white light.
Zeke remembered the camcorder. With Satan at least temporarily neutralized, now was the time to get some footage. He pulled the camera from its compartment in the pack, flipped open the LCD screen to view a larger image of the scene, and began recording. He shot a full minute of Satan standing frozen in his cocoon of light before a change began to take place. Zeke kept recording.
The light encasing him began to slide off, like a snake shedding its skin. The glowing cocoon maintained Satan’s shape. When the shedding was complete, the molt stood beside him as though it were his twin made of light. The appearance of Satan himself had not changed, except that the fierceness, the hatred was gone. He stared vacantly into space through eyes no longer red. The two figures, twins of light and darkness, stood unmoving beside each other for a long moment. Finally a transfiguration began taking place over both.
The scales and furrows of Satan’s reptilian hide began to disappear as his body became completely smooth. His skin got lighter and lighter, his claws and talons retracted, his entire physique became increasingly human. Wings sprouted on his back. When the transformation was complete, Zeke was looking at a perfectly formed being of the purest white light. He instantly recognized it as the manifestation he’d seen earlier, when Satan had shown the forms he’d taken through the ages.
Satan was Lucifer again.
While all this was going on, Satan’s ethereal twin had been undergoing its own metamorphosis, changing from an entity of light to a physical being, also human in appearance.
When it had fully materialized, Zeke stared in utter amazement.
CHAPTER 70
He had kept His word.
It was the Jesus from the mural at the Shrine. Lucifer’s equal in size, He stood facing him, the same disturbing eyes that had followed Zeke in the church now boring into His misbegotten older brother. Jesus placed his hand on top of the Devil’s head and held it there. One by one, the crucifixes fell from his body and clattered to the rocky floor. All the wounds disappeared. Perfectly healed, Lucifer looked from Jesus to himself and appeared confused as he considered his new existence.
Zeke stared through the viewfinder of the camcorder in awe. He knew he was looking at the two original forces Satan had described, but still he needed confirmation.
“You are recording,” Jesus said. “Good. We will use technology to our advantage. It is time for confusion and strife to end.”
“Are you…?”
“Yes, Son of man. I am He. Get a close-up of my face.”
Zeke zoomed in. The face of Scary Jesus changed. The stubble of beard disappeared and his face became completely smooth. His scowl dissolved into an expression that radiated pure kindness and love. He spoke to the camera in a voice of transcendent kindness.
“I am called many things. God. Jesus. The Messiah. Allah. Yahweh. Jehovah. The Creator. The Supreme Being. The name does not matter. I created Jesus, as Lucifer has said, as an experiment. A way to save mankind, rather than destroy it as I had done before. My Son brought his followers a new faith, which brought them to a better life, but He did not bring salvation. I have made mistakes, Ezekiel. My biggest has been to give humans free will. I have had a long time since then, to watch and reflect. It became clear that, given free will, humans were no match for this one.”
Lucifer made a slight bow. With the crucifixes no longer in him, his Satanic self seemed to be taking over again. God eyed him intensely for a moment before going on.
“Your will has never been truly free. It is influenced by the Lucifer particle. To cope with the evil that it brings, you have formed too many religions, which has led to deadly conflict. I have stood by for too long to see if you can come together, but you cannot. Killing in my name must stop. All religions must join hands and become one. Are you still recording?”
“Yes.”
“Make no mistake, Ezekiel. I am the Father, and you are a son unto me, as are all those who believe. I say to all who see this: You must come together. Ezekiel is my messenger, and that will be his message. Trust in him, as you do in me. Relinquish all your names for me. All, I say. And accept the only Truth:
“There is only one Creator, and I am He. All paths that seek God lead to me. There is no separate God for each religion, no one correct God. There is no Weather God, no Baal, no Ice God. Through the ages, in seeking to understand your world, you have exercised your free will to create thousands of gods, gods to worship for every aspect of your existence. Gods for love, for beauty, for thunder, for trees, for sex, gods of the dead.” He held out an arm to indicate Satan. “Gods of Chaos. Gods of Evil.”
Lucifer doffed an imaginary cap. His pride was returning. He had edged closer. The Creator halted his progress with a stare before going on. “Are you getting all this, Ezekiel?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then hear me now: The divine spirit that is in all things comes from me alone. Seek not a thousand gods. Seek only The One. I am the Soul of the Universe. The Origin. The Creator.”
Shimmering rays streaming from his eyes lit every corner of Zeke’s soul. In a comforting, resonant voice that softly filled the chamber, He elaborated, emphasizing every word for the camera, clearly wanting to be absolutely certain that this time, unlike throughout history, He would not be misunderstood.
“I have no name except those you have given me. As sacred as each one is to its followers, they only divide you. Set them all aside save one, for I know you must have some way to call me. Call me the Creator.”
All feeling and thought instantly left Zeke as, of its own volition, his soul offered itself up to Him for safekeeping. Continuing to look through the viewfinder, he said, “Forgive me Father. Creator. When the holy relics did not save me, I thought You had…I thought I had been…”
“Forsaken?”
“Yes.”
“You could not fully understand, Ezekiel, and I could not explain it to you. I heard your prayer in the Shrine, but a private discussion was not enough. You needed proof that I was real. That Lucifer was real. I gave you a sign, but even that was not enough. The world needed proof.
“The relics you had were never going to defeat Lucifer. It was your faith in them that would save you. Would save you all. This was a test of that faith. Before this moment could come about, I needed to be convinced that the human race was worth saving. You have come to know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah very well, Ezekiel. You know that I offered to spare them if Abraham could find ten righteous people there. He could not find ten, and so I destroyed them.”
Again He motioned toward his first begotten son. His Archenemy. “He won that round.”
Lucifer held up a fist, like a boxer who had just been declared champion. God—it would take time to get used to calling him the Creator—again fixed him with a stare.