by Adam Ingle
“You do know that I’ll fucking kill you when I get back, right?” said Atreyus to the group as a whole, and then he disappeared.
Marcus looked to the others nervously, but Leviticus was preoccupied and Stephanie just shrugged. Without hesitating any further, Marcus pulled the sling of the MP4 off the lifeless body and threw the gun over his shoulder. He slid the clip out to take a quick ammo check and then tossed the gun so that it hung at his back. Stephanie gave Marcus a curious look as he deftly handled the weapon.
“What? I play a lot of video games,” said Marcus. He put a comforting hand on Leviticus’ shoulder.
“There'll be plenty of time to think about it later,” said Sir Regi as he ambled up beside the body to sniff at it. “We've got to keep moving. St. Peter won't be far behind.”
Leviticus took one last look down at Atreyus’ lifeless body, at the bloom of blood on his chest, and then at Sir Regi. The little Scotty nodded, letting Leviticus know he understood, and the Angel nodded back.
Chapter 8
The Best Laid Plans of Angels and Demons...
Leviticus and his group were just leaving the Las Palomas office and heading to their rooms when Mestoph careened around the resort’s fence. He slid to a halt—or tried to—but unfortunately Sir Regi hadn't seen him coming and managed, in the way only dogs can, to get precisely under his feet, sending the Demon rolling on the ground. Mestoph laughed and panted in exhaustion as he came to a stop on his back. He looked up at Leviticus with a pleased smile. It dropped as he saw the look in the Angel's eyes. Something had gone wrong.
Mestoph did a head count. When he had verified that everyone had made it through the ordeal alive, he pulled himself up off the ground and looked to Leviticus.
“What gives?”
Leviticus didn't answer immediately, so Sir Regi, who had managed to avoid getting tangled up in Mestoph’s fall despite actually causing it, spoke up. “Atreyus got in the way.”
It took a few moments for Mestoph to work out the obvious result. If they had made it through a bout with Atreyus, that could only mean the Demon was dead again. It was another moment before the implications of that sunk in.
“Ohhhh,” he said.
He looked at Marcus and Stephanie. They were obviously waiting for someone to let them in on the secret, but at least they were waiting quietly. They waited until everyone had squeezed into one of the rooms, and then finally Marcus spoke up.
“There are things going on that you haven't been honest and upfront about,” Marcus said.
Stephanie, who was standing should-to-shoulder with him, nodded in agreement. It was obvious that they had at the very least broached the subject with each other while the others were preoccupied with shooting and running.
“I took you guys at your word because Sir Regi trusted you,” said Stephanie. “And I trusted him because he had saved my life. At least my dream life. But since then it's just been too much to swallow. People from the Afterlife, teleporting, getting shot at. Adolf fucking Hitler? I mean, really? Hitler? I get that you say there's some apocalyptic conspiracy going on and that creature in my dream is proof someone is after me, but why are we in Purgatory— which by the way, I totally believe in after seeing this dead little town—making deals with Hitler for some mystery scroll? And now, when we should be popping the fuck out of here, why are we holing up in couple of dingy resort motel rooms?”
Leviticus sighed and Mestoph put up a halting hand, more to tell him not to let it all out than to say he would take care of this. Mestoph cleared his throat and looked down, trying to make it look like what he was about to reveal he did so with a fair amount of reluctance.
“The man shooting at us and the man Leviticus was forced to kill are known to us. They are demons. From Hell,” Mestoph paused to let that sink in. “Which means, obviously, we are Angels.”
He paused again, expecting that to be a bigger revelation than it turned out to be. Neither Marcus nor Stephanie seemed terribly surprised.
“We’re up against a rogue band of demons that are ignoring the Ancient Agreement between Heaven and Hell to let things take their own course. The End is inevitable, but they’re trying to speed it up and wipe out mankind long before your time is up,” said Mestoph
Marcus and Stephanie both looked at Leviticus for confirmation. He nodded his agreement.
“If that's true, what does that have to do with us?” asked Marcus. He looked at Stephanie, and she surprised him by taking his hand.
“We don't really know. The demons seem to think you're important, and we don't know why,” said Mestoph.
Leviticus interjected suddenly, “Come on Mestoph. Let's be honest with them.”
Mestoph gave him a threatening look and started to say something, but Leviticus held up his hand and stared back sternly. Mestoph shook his head and cursed under his breath. He knew Leviticus was not going to back down.
“It's believed by those of us at the upper echelons that as the Apocalypse draws near, as it does now, that a line of Protectors will be born that will protect humanity from outside meddling. At no other time than the End Days is the future more susceptible to tampering. From expediting The End to forcing mankind to draw and cross lines they were never meant to know about. Based on recent movements and intelligence from Hell, we think that line of Protectors starts with you two,” said Leviticus
The look of honesty and sincerity in Leviticus eyes consoled and frightened everyone in the room for drastically different reasons. Mestoph tried his best to fight the overwhelming urge to laugh. He had never known Leviticus to be capable of such convincing and well crafted bullshit. He was truly impressed. Even Sir Regi was swayed by his story, looking at them both with a hint of betrayal, thinking that they had lied to him about the nature and danger of their mission.
“The problem we face now is that we are bound by rules that cannot be broken. When I shot that demon, I lost my Angelic abilities. That means I can't teleport any longer, either on my own or with Mestoph’s help,” said Leviticus. He looked to Mestoph to see what his response would be. St. Peter was on their trail, and they didn't have the luxury to waste days waiting around for Leviticus to catch up by plane or whatever it took to get to the national reserves of northeastern Peru, which is where their next leg of the plan would take them. It was remote enough that whatever disaster they created would cause negligible collateral damage, and it had minimal presence by Heaven, Hell, or Freewill International. There were the minor tribal deities, but Mestoph seriously doubted either God or Satan would really complain about taking out some annoying demigod.
Mestoph looked back at Leviticus, weighing all the possibilities and repercussions as quickly as he could. At last he said, “We'll have to do it here.”
“Are you sure?” asked Leviticus.
“Do what here?” asked Sir Regi.
Mestoph did his best to explain the situation, using as much truth as possible without revealing anything damaging. He explained that the scroll they got from Hitler was a Counter-Omen. Leviticus interrupted to give them the basics on Omens and Prophecies. Mestoph jumped in with some rules he had made up on the fly, stating that Omens and Prophecies can contradict but never negate one another. When they contradict it comes down to the will of the people involved to do what they deem best. He told Marcus and Stephanie that there were already Omens and Prophecies regarding the two of them, so the Demons were doing what they could to get their Omen to win out over the Prophecy. The Counter-Omen they got from Hitler could potentially negate the previous Omen, but would definitely create a conflict between Heaven and Hell. They had hoped to transport Marcus and Stephanie somewhere more remote where they could operate without dragging the rest of humanity into the battle. Unfortunately recent events had made this impossible. Mestoph couldn’t leave Leviticus to fend for himself. In the days to come they would need everyone they could get to keep them safe.
“So we'll have to activate the Counter-Omen here an
d see what happens.” said Mestoph.
Chapter 9
...Oft Go Awry
They all sat around the small motel room in a rough circle. Marcus and Stephanie were sitting against the headboard on one of the twin beds, still holding hands, while Sir Regi had curled up at Marcus’ feet. Leviticus took the Omen from his sash, handed it to Mestoph, and then sat on the corner of the other bed.
Mestoph stood in the middle of the room and looked down at the scroll. This was a pivotal moment in his life. He was about to change the course of history and set things on an irreversible path. His only hesitation came from doing it in such a populated area, relatively speaking. The deserts of Africa were much more conducive to keeping collateral damage to a minimum when summoning down the wrath of Heaven and Hell, but he took solace in the fact that most of the people who would be caught in the middle of this had died once already. Without any more hesitation he dug his thumbnail into the great wax Seal of Satan and pried it away from the parchment. He felt a welling up of power in him and looked around to see if the others could feel it, but they just looked on expectantly. He finally pried the seal all the way off, feeling the tension in the scroll, both physical and spiritual, immediately release. And then there was nothing.
The fragments of the wax seal fell to the floor and the power Mestoph had felt building up immediately fizzled out. He looked around. Was that really it? No thunder? No lightning? Not even a light gust of wind? He walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back to look outside hoping to see a sky of blood and ash, trees aflame, and hear the agonized screams of people running around in chaos. Instead the cloudless sky was clear blue, the sun shining down merrily.
“What the fuck!” Mestoph shouted.
Leviticus sighed with disappointment while Sir Regi, Marcus, and Stephanie looked at each other with confusion. They weren't really sure what they had been expecting, but Mestoph and Leviticus clearly had expected something and it hadn't happened. Mestoph unrolled the Omen and read through it quickly, trying to understand what had happened.
“Are you sure the Omen is right? Maybe Hitler screwed it up?” Leviticus asked, trying to be helpful.
“Of course it's fucking right,” said Mestoph as he threw the Omen at Leviticus.
Leviticus picked up the scroll off the bed and unrolled it. Leviticus arched his brow and began reading slowly; using his finger to make sure he caught every word. Finally he looked up and asked, “Who the Hell is Persephone?”
Mestoph, who had plopped into a chair in the corner and was staring dejectedly at the floor, looked up blankly at Leviticus. He shook his head, not really comprehending the point of the question.
Leviticus looked around, not wanting to read the Omen aloud since it didn't really jive with the story they had fed the others. Instead, he held it up in front of Mestoph and pointed to the relevant word. Mestoph read it and then asked, “Who the fuck is Persephone?”
“The daughter of Demeter and unwilling bride of Hades,” answered Stephanie.
“Who?” asked Mestoph.
“Persephone,” answered Stephanie.
“Well unless you’re a distant relative, we are royally fucked,” said Mestoph as he rolled his eyes.
The wind was picking up drastically, and the man was desperately searching for a place to stay the night and weather the storm. It was dark, and his lantern was fluttering in the stiff gusts. He didn't have much oil left. As it was, it only offered a meager amount of light, more for comfort than for navigating the rocky fields they had been walking through for the last few days. He looked down at the lamb that had been following him. Despite her thick fleece, the weather was getting to her.
She looked up at the shepherd and bleated. He looked down, concerned, and then picked her up and carried her close to him. “Don't worry. It's just a typical early spring storm; it’s the last holdout of winter. They blow out as quickly as they blow in,” said the shepherd.
The lamb didn't seem too comforted as she kept looking around nervously. She had begun to shake, but the shepherd couldn't tell if it was from the sudden cold or from fear. He stroked the lamb’s soft fleece and began singing an old song in a harsh, Germanic sounding language. His voice warbled and lilted as he sang what sounded like a child's bedtime song full of warmth and sweetness.
The shepherd continued to walk through the field, carrying the lamb in one arm like a football and holding the lantern low but in front of him in the other. A bolt of lightning arced in the distance, backlighting what looked like a dilapidated barn. It had been the only thing remotely resembling shelter that they had seen since sunset so he altered his course and set off toward it. The wind picked up even more, thick rain drops began to fall and lightning shot down in jagged branches more and more frequently. He wasn't sure they could make it much further, so the barn was their only hope for the night.
“Don't worry, Persephone, we're going to be alright,” said the shepherd.
“So now what?” asked Sir Regi.
He looked at Leviticus and Mestoph, waiting for an answer. He was beginning to doubt their story about Marcus and Stephanie siring a line of Protectors, but they were still the ones with the plan. Now that he thought about it, he wondered why they hadn't explained about the Protectors to begin with. It was a lot less risky than talking about a plan to get kicked out of Heaven or Hell and using him as an intentional traitor to the cause. No, the more he thought about it, the more the original plan made more sense. Only it hadn't worked; at least not as they had intended.
Finally Mestoph made a decision. “We wait. I felt definite power in the Omen. It worked; it just didn't work the way we expected it to. Something has got to be happening somewhere. We just need to find out where.”
Everyone started talking at once. How would they find something happening somewhere when they had no idea what or any clue where? How long could they hide out and expect to stay hidden? Were they really just going to sit around this motel room until they found what they were looking for, or got desperate, or got killed?
Sir Regi was the first to provide anything productive to the argument.
“How ‘bout a sports bar? They have tons of TVs and we can turn them all to different news channels and wait for something to stand out. Something new and violent. Maybe we'll get lucky and a giant pentagram will appear in the sky over Greece or Rome and then we'll have our sign.”
They argued a little more, but ultimately decided to take at least a part of Sir Regi's plan and put it into motion. For the time being they were safe at the dusty little resort, so it seemed foolish to waste a good hiding place. Not to mention that neither Leviticus nor Mestoph could remember having ever seen a sports bar during their various trips to Truth or Consequences. Instead they raided a consignment shop down the road and picked up a stolen shopping cart full of old TVs that people had dumped over the years on the sidewalk in front of the shop.
With Marcus’ help, they found all the cables, splitters, decoder boxes in nearby rooms, and hooked up a total of six TVs. They had one turned to the local news channel, another turned to CNN, a third hooked to Fox News, a fourth to the PBS station out of Albuquerque where they could get BBC World News and Deutsche Well, a fifth was tuned to Al Jazeera even though it seemed to piss off anyone who watched, and then for shits and giggles, and because Storm Stories gave them a break from yelling at Glenn Beck, they had The Weather Channel on the final one. And then the waiting began.
It started out as kind of a novelty: hanging out in the rooms, taking turns watching TV, and soaking in the hot springs. They ordered pizza and Chinese food at first, but no one had really brought a lot of money with them because they hadn't expected to need it. Mestoph and Leviticus were flat broke. However, as hours turned into days, the smallness and closeness of having four people and a dog, who still insisted on being let out to take care of business, began to take its toll.
Then there was the monotony of the news and weather. The day’s issues w
ere repeated ad nauseam every half hour, yet spun in drastically different directions depending on the channel. What seemed like a straightforward issue could be turned for or against any cause if you said it loud and often enough. And the weather struggled to be interesting even on bad days. No one cared about record highs in the west, droughts in the south, a cold snap in Australia, or severe thunder storms in Iceland. The first-hand accounts of major storms of the last thirty years could all be summed up quite easily:
“I never saw it coming.”
“It sounded like a freight train.”
“I slept right through it.”
It seemed like no matter the freak of nature—whether it was an F5 tornado in Kansas, a mud slide in Peru, or an earthquake in New Zealand—the survivors always said the same things.
Nerves were beginning to fray and patience was quickly running out, so they all began taking turns going out to get food. They let Stephanie go first since she was the only normal person in the group and possessed a debit card to get money out of the ATM at a ridiculously inflated service charge because it was some no-name locals-only bank. They quickly found that there were very few places in T or C that had anything resembling a normal schedule. They were running on recommendations from the clerk at the motel office and the nearby gas station; however, none of them could seem to agree on when anything was open. One restaurant that came highly recommended was only open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Another was only open Friday, Saturday, and for breakfast on Sunday. Others were only open on weekdays or weekends.
Being that it was Wednesday and almost nothing was open, they ended up eating burgers from a local joint called Big A Burger. No one could give a reasonable explanation for the name, not even the employees. The cashier said it was a polite way of saying “big ass burger.” The cook said the A was short for the original owner’s name, Al. Why Al needed to be shortened he couldn't explain. A customer, one of the few veterans to a town who seemed to have absolutely no natives, said that the place used to just be called “A Burger” before they opened a smaller satellite drive-through on the other side of town. The drive through became known as Little A, while the original place became Big A. The two teenaged employees laughed and completely dismissed this version of the etymology. Regardless, the food seemed to hit the spot and was a nice change from the bland, greasy pizza served up by the pie shop near the motel.