Legends (To Absolve the Fallen Book 3)

by Aaron Babbitt

  Abbie stared at John for a moment before her visage softened a little. “People have been disagreeing with me a lot lately. Maybe it’s a sign. But there is one more very important person we’ll have to discuss this with.” She glanced at Sara, who was standing right behind the girl.

  “Of course she can stay with me,” Sara answered, beaming. “All I have to offer is a hotel room for the time being. I was kind of thinking about renting a place here though, after everything is over. It’s kind of a cozy little town.”

  “And we’ll need all the help we can get,” Abbie agreed. “You see, Brianna, even after we stop those who seek to hurt us now, there will always be demons in this world, and their influence lives on long after they have been banished to Hell. Our strength has always been our cooperation, trust, and mutual defense. All of which extend to you, as a new member of the family. You need not only look to Sara; any of us will help you if we can.”

  Brianna simply nodded.

  Abbie smiled. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Now, please excuse me, but there is another group of prophets coming in who will also need protection and lodging I must prepare for.”

  John bowed slightly and turned to leave, Sara and Brianna following behind.

  ***

  “They can’t do this,” Catherine Harper protested when Governor Parks had explained the situation. “Martial law is madness. People are going to feel violated, and rightfully so. This is completely unconstitutional.”

  She slammed a fist on her hand-carved oak desk to emphasize her distaste for the situation. Reginald Parks, sitting on the other side, jumped a little from the act, but he could completely understand her reaction. She was in a predicament that he had never known anyone to be in: having to choose between doing the right thing and doing the legal thing.

  The desk, crafted by a citizen of Kingstone thirty years ago, was one of many items in the mayor’s office in City Hall that symbolized the constituents and the history of her community. It had become a bit of a tradition for each mayor to add something to the collection. Mayor Harper was aware that, in the near future, she could very possibly be removed from her office, contributing nothing to it but the legacy of a mayor who was too weak to protect her town from the forces of evil that had chosen it as a battleground.

  “You don’t have to convince me,” Parks replied calmly. “The National Guard is being mobilized. Attorney General O’Riley, with a little more than two hundred FBI agents, landed in Kansas City International Airport forty-five minutes ago. Your time is running short, Catherine. I can only delay them for a little while. I’m not sure that you have any good options at this point, but you should do whatever you can quickly.”

  She nodded wordlessly, walked to the door, and grabbed her coat from the rack as she passed it.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell the police,” she answered cautiously. “If they know, everyone in town will know, and there’ll be chaos. And they couldn’t do anything about this even if I told them what was coming. If the prophets know, they might be able to do something about it.”

  Parks nodded slowly, but he clearly did not think the idea held much merit. “I’m going back to Jefferson City as soon as I leave here. I’d meant to meet these prophets with you, but I will simply not have the time. I’ll demand that the legislature be called to order to discuss this violation of our sovereign rights as a state. Further, I will make sure that Kingstone’s plight is headline material for every respectable news agency in the state. This has gone too far, and it may be that they come for my head, but I’ll do everything in my power to help you all out.”

  “I understand,” was all Catherine said as she walked out the door.

  ***

  A knock at the door stole Elizabeth’s attention away from the monitor of her computer.

  Perturbed, she demanded, “What is it?”

  “I’m used to people asking who I am, instead of what I am, when I knock,” Alex noted from the other side of the door with a hint of amusement in his voice. “May I come in?”

  “Yes,” she answered immediately in a softer tone, a little surprised at the relief she detected in her voice. Right now, Alex was precisely the person she wanted to talk to. “Of course you can come in.”

  She turned back to her computer and typed, “I have to go now.”

  “I understand,” the return message read. Then, “I will continue the work.”

  “One would think you were doing something top secret in here,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Abbie said you’d been at it all day.”

  She could almost not contain her enthusiasm. “He’s powerful now.”

  “He?”

  Smiling, Liz nodded. “I’ve decided my computer is male. We haven’t decided on a name yet, but I’ve always liked ‘Gavin.’”

  Alex walked closer to look at the computer. There were now wires running from it into several external drives. The room was aglow with LEDs and two vibrant screens that were rapidly flashing images. Sometimes, text boxes would appear and disappear like side thoughts.

  “What do you mean ‘powerful?’”

  “I don’t want to give too much away before my tests have been completed, but I would say he is probably faster than any computer on the planet, for starters. There are undoubtedly many out there I have no idea about, but I don’t think they could compete with his level of computation. And there’s no doubt in my mind he’s fully sentient.”

  “Is he confined to your computer, or is he bigger than that?”

  “I don’t know how big he can get, but it’s safe to say his networking is primarily tied to this computer. He’s super-fast on the internet, but most of his activity is local at the moment. My next project is going to be a physical body for him.”

  Alex looked at her in awe. “Like a robot?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Gavin will be able to control it and, with any luck, make all of his own modifications from then on. He’ll be better at it than I am anyway. Growth will be exponential at the point he can design it himself.”

  “Incredible,” was all Alex could think to reply as he stared at the flashing screens. “I thought I should also tell you that Nisus just called to say that they’d landed in Kansas City. They said they were safe, but quickly on their way here.”

  “Really?” Liz asked, excitement lighting her face a little.

  “Yeah,” Alex said, chuckling a little. “It seems that something is really coming together when we need it the most. Abbie said you’ve been sick.”

  “It was probably something I ate,” Liz responded unconvincingly.

  She was lying. He wasn’t searching her mind, but the overwhelming amount of stress that entered it at that moment was so apparent that he couldn’t help but pick it up. He turned slowly to look her in the eyes. Whatever was wrong with her, she knew it was not food poisoning, and she was trying to conceal the truth.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “What? I can’t get a little sick without you freaking out?”

  “If that’s all it was,” Alex replied, “you know I wouldn’t be freaking out. The fact that you are lying to me has me freaking out.”

  “Are you reading my mind, then?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s just that obvious. I don’t need to scan you to know you are keeping something back, something big.”

  “It could be all sorts of things,” she stammered. “I’m sure it’ll just work itself out.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “You have to understand, I thought it was completely impossible.”

  Alex could feel the blood draining from his face as chills suddenly overcame him. “Just say whatever you need to say.”

  “I might be pregnant,” she confessed, searching his eyes for support.

  Momentary shock overcame him, and he was paralyzed by the news. He quickly regained composure though. Seeing that she had begun crying, he wrapped his arms around Liz and pulled her close. Alex wanted to
be comforting and helpful, but his mind couldn’t completely comprehend the situation.

  “Prophets don’t have children,” he countered lamely, repeating information he had heard from so many people and assumed true.

  Actually, he’d been a little sorry that he couldn’t ever have any children of his own. Now, though, the thought of being a father was not at all appealing. He’d stood face-to-face with the most evil entities on the planet, but a child—his child—terrified him.

  “I guess I don’t know for sure,” Elizabeth added, skeptically. “I’ve never been pregnant before...”

  Alex put his hand on her stomach, and closed his eyes. He searched for another mind, not sure if such a thing would even exist in such a short time.

  Suddenly, his eyes popped open as the faint sound of a heartbeat reverberated in his head.

  “I think you’re right,” he said quietly, the reality of the moment sinking in.

  After a few moments of silent contemplation, a knock at the door reminded Alex that another world existed apart from him, Elizabeth, and the child they had created.

  Liz wiped tears from her eyes, cleared her throat, and answered, “Yes?”

  From the other side of the door, Marla’s voice informed them, “A woman is here to see you and Alex. She’s waiting in the dining room with Matt. She has a message from Jeremiah.”

  Alex and Elizabeth exchanged confused looks and, after taking a moment to compose themselves, got up and walked to the door together.

  When they got to the dining room, they saw Marla and Matt already seated with a business woman, typing something into a laptop she had sitting on the table in front of her. She wore a suit and a visage of supreme confidence, despite appearing to only be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her complexion and dark hair implied a Hispanic descent, and Alex could clearly feel her prophetic aura.

  “Alexander Tanner and Elizabeth O’Dell, I presume?” she inquired. When they nodded, she added, “My name is Tamora Rodriguez. Jeremiah asked me to be the executor of his estate in the likely event of his passing. Like each of you, I have spent some time under his tutelage.

  “I apologize that it’s taken me so long to contact you, but it has cost me time and a great many bribes, which Jeremiah had sufficiently planned for in my budget, to cut my way through the red tape and resistance he knew I’d encounter. I have to admit he planned this out very thoroughly, and everything came together exactly as he said it would.”

  She turned the laptop so the prophets and Marla could see it. On the monitor, Jeremiah sat frozen behind his desk with a look that might have been sadness or regret, a look no one at the table was accustomed to seeing the demon wear. Tamora pressed a button on the keyboard, and he came to life.

  “Matt, Elizabeth, and Alex: as cliché as it may be,” Jeremiah began, “if you are seeing this message, it means that I no longer exist on this planet. You probably have mixed feelings regarding my passing,” he added with a mirthless chuckle. “I have not always been the kindest of individuals. Nevertheless, for the last few years, it has been—and continues to be—my duty to protect and guide the three of you.

  “Over the last fifty years, I have constructed an empire that has had only one driving goal: that your mission could be accomplished with whatever ease I could arrange. Finally, my hopes have come as close as they possibly could to fruition. Transfer of everything I own should have already happened by the time you are watching this. The controlling shares of Prometheus Broadcasting, along with all of its subsidiaries, have been evenly distributed to the three of you. Alex, until April, when you turn eighteen, your parents will control your share to avoid any kind of legal issues. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with your ability to possess what is rightfully yours.

  “My liquidated net worth has been estimated around seventy-five billion American dollars, but that’s hardly accurate. So many of my ventures have been illegal or simply unreported that it would be almost impossible to place any kind of real monetary value on what I’ve acquired throughout nearly two thousand years. That number only represents what I have done in the United States in the time I’ve tried to reform. Suffice it to say that there are caches of treasure that, if ever wholly reintroduced into the world economy, would drastically change the price of gold forever. As I am sure such treasure would be considered ill-gotten, and that the three of you would be loath to make use of ‘blood money,’ I won’t belabor this point much further. However, I will assure you that even it is at your disposal if you choose to take advantage of it.

  “Marla, what can I say? You have been the most annoying secretary anyone could hope for, but I have never had any reason to doubt your competence or loyalty. I am hereby releasing you from any obligations I have previously placed on you or that you may think you have. You have done more for me and the prophet community than any other mortal in recent history. You don’t owe us your life. I have arranged for safe passage out of this country as well as a generous bonus for years of hard, faithful service. It is surely less than you deserve, but I have no doubt you and whatever family you choose to have in the future could live off of it for some time. In the end, I’m sure you’ll make the decision you feel is best.

  “I am truly sorry I couldn’t be around to see this struggle’s end. Nevertheless, I do not regret the action I know must be taken. I forbid any of you to ever blame yourselves for what I will do. All things on this world end, and I am no exception. May the will of God see us all through to a happier place.”

  With that, the screen froze, indicating the end of the message. Jeremiah stared at them in solemn resolution until Tamora turned the screen away. No one, not even Tamora, was without tears by the end of Jeremiah’s monologue.

  She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief she’d taken from her breast pocket before handing them each a sealed manila envelope, each addressed by name.

  “Inside, you will find all of the necessary information to access what Jeremiah promised you. He has put me and the staff of my firm on retainer for a very long time to make sure there are no hitches. Of course, my contact information is inside, and I ask that you make use of it immediately if there are any problems. It was Jeremiah’s wish that you take what he had and make it your own. Please do so in whatever means you deem fit. In the event that any of you should die before naming heirs, he arranged for what remained of that person’s share to be transferred to the survivors.”

  The prophets and Marla stared blankly at the envelopes that had been passed to them, each hesitant to even touch Jeremiah’s final gift to them. Tamora silently put her belongings into a briefcase and stood to leave.

  “I am apprised of the situation here in Missouri, at least as much as the news gives us, and I gladly offer my support. I know you all have bigger concerns than legal representation, but please do not hesitate to call if I can be of any service at all.”

  Realizing she had nothing more of consequence to say, and getting no response from the people she spoke to, she simply nodded and walked toward the door.

  ***

  Maps of Kingstone lined the room Metatron had turned into his tactical center in the basement of Patheus’s office building. Pictures of the world’s remaining influential prophets were also scattered about the room. In a few short hours, and after some priority requests from Metatron, himself, a war room had been created. Demons and mortal mercenaries crowded the room, receiving orders from Metatron before they were to set up positions around Kingstone. Everyone had an assignment in a grand plan that only Metatron knew.

  Patheus, as second-in-command, would lead the southern assault. It would be the largest of three separate attacks, the one Metatron would follow. All told, more than five hundred demons, and twice that many mortals, would be sent into Kingstone to eliminate the remaining members of the Elder Prophet Council and anyone else foolish enough to stay.

  Of course, most of the plans being discussed would be moot if the mortals did what they were supposed to do. That, however, seemed
far too easy and unlikely. Mortals were inept, at best. Often, they were completely counterproductive. O’Riley brazenly allowed his whereabouts and intentions to be shared with the public, and now they were watching him. The prophets were unquestionably aware that he had personally come to Kansas City and why. In his ignorance, the Attorney General had probably mistaken this group for another stereotypical, highly-publicized cult. Patheus hoped that mistake would cost O’Riley his life. That could actually be useful.

  “This might be the last time many of us talk before our imminent victory,” Metatron announced in a voice that instantly hushed the crowd. “And if you don’t follow my instructions, it may be the last time you will ever have the chance to hear my voice.

  “Most of you will be part of assaults on the town and whatever prophets you can find, with the exceptions of several important prophets who will require specific attention. Those of you who have been assigned to those prophets have been given a detailed profile on your target as well as the role I expect you to play in his or her demise. No one touches Alexander Tanner or any member of his family. If this message is not heeded, the offender should hope for the swift justice of Raphael because my wrath will be slowly devastating.

  “There will be little activity prior to the battle. After you have set up a defensive perimeter around whatever structure I have assigned you to, let no one in who hasn’t been given access in the files I have given each of you. Assume anyone else who tries to enter is hostile, even other demons. In fact, you should be especially cautious of demon infiltrators. Not all of us have remained loyal to the cause.

  “Do not underestimate any of these prophets. Even the ones who have not been singled out have the power to harm us. And there are some I have not bothered to single out because there is nothing within our arsenal that can stop them. All in all, this will be a much more difficult battle than anything most of you have ever faced. Unless you have personally known the wrath of Heaven at some point, you can’t be prepared for what awaits us in that town.