by Karl Morgan
Bill had become an angel and was now surrounded by tens of millions of flying enforcers. The enforcers showed their fangs as they closed in on him. A sense of calm had taken over his mind and he smiled as they approached. He stretched out his arms and the wings of the enforcers disappeared and they plummeted downward.
A new voice spoke in his ear, “I didn’t think angels destroyed life, Brother.”
“Moloch, my brother, it’s good to know you care,” Bill laughed.
“Join me, Brother, and we can rule the cosmos as is our right.”
Bill flapped his wings harder as he approached the city. “Moloch, you are a fool to presume you can take the place of God.”
“No, Brother, it is you who is the fool if you believe this is the real world and not another of my constructs!”
Bill dived down and landed on the Strip. All of the buildings had been devastated by a nuclear explosion, and yet the skeletons of the buildings were crammed full of enforcers. He began to walk toward the Bellagio Hotel. Suddenly, a wave of enforcers overwhelmed him from behind and he was pushed to the pavement under their weight. Bill thought of a plan, and the thought became the word of God. The pile of enforcers shot off of him and into the sky so quickly that their skin and fur ignited. Millions of bleached enforcer bones rained down around him. “How many more of your children must die, Moloch?”
“They mean nothing to me, Brother,” the voice in his head argued.
“I don’t believe you, Brother,” Bill countered. “You will face me soon enough.”
The pavement opened up in front of him and two crosses pushed into the sky. Maggie was nailed to one and Mary to the other. Both women screamed and wept in pain. “And how do you feel about that, Brother dear.”
Bill inhaled and the women’s bodies dissolved and poured into his mouth. “You know you cannot win, Moloch. Face me now!”
A large winged demon and one hundred white enforcers appeared in front of him. “Now is your turn to die,” the demon Moloch said. One by one the white enforcers charged. Each dissolved as it struck his chest. “What is happening, Brother?”
“More than you could ever understand, Moloch,” Bill replied.
While the white enforcers continued to charge, a force of hundreds of billions of other enforcers gathered around to watch what was happening. Ultimately, there was only one white enforcer left, and he looked at Bill and back at his master, unsure what to do next. He had just witnessed the futile sacrifice of ninety-nine versions of himself and yet had gained no advantage. “What are you waiting for, Proctor!” Moloch shouted.
Proctor bowed deeply and replied, “Master surely knows this effort cannot succeed. Why do you relish my sacrifice when it gains you nothing?”
“You dare to defy me!” Moloch screamed, causing the entire force of enforcers to move back slowly. “Attack and die or I will kill you myself with no chance of resurrection!”
“So, your name is Proctor, is it?” Bill asked calmly. Proctor turned his head very slowly to see the angel smiling at him. “How many times have you sacrificed your life for my brother, if I may ask?”
“I don’t think I should be talking to you, sir,” Proctor noted and turned back to Moloch. “Master, while it is true that each time I have died you have resurrected me, I must say each was a dreadful experience. In more than a few cases, I was helpless to stop my demise, and often that was at your hand. Why do you wish me to die again?”
“Proctor, I order you to attack that man! Act now or I swear I will kill you and leave you in your grave!”
“Master, perhaps that would be better for me.” Moloch was incensed. Blood vessels were bulging out of his neck and face and his eyes were red.
Bill chuckled and Proctor turned his head again to find out what was funny. “Mister Angel sir, do you find my imminent death amusing?”
“No, no, no, Proctor, and I apologize for making it seem so,” Bill began. “But you have to know that my brother has no ability to resurrect the dead.”
Proctor shook his head violently from side to side and replied, “You are so wrong, Mister Angel. It has happened to me over and again. How can you blaspheme my master so?”
“Don’t listen to him, Proctor, my darling!” Moloch shouted.
“It’s all so clear now,” Bill began. “Proctor, you have been caught in the same web as the rest of us. I have been in a room with more than one hundred versions of myself. As you can imagine, each of those versions were somewhat less than the original. Now, I look around this gathering and see millions and millions of fragments of you.” He motioned with his arms toward the throngs of beasts surrounding them. “My brother’s generosity is not the source of your continued existence, dear Proctor. Only the Will of God can breathe life into dead flesh, and my brother here does not represent that Will.”
“He’s lying, my beloved,” Moloch moaned.
Proctor looked back to Moloch and then Bill and back again. “But if he could not save me, why I am still alive?”
Bill laughed again and Moloch hissed in rage with battle axes appearing in each hand. “Take that back or die now, Brother!”
Bill had become human again and sat cross-legged on the ground. “The one thing that had been bothering me now makes sense. I mean I could accept that my abilities would be limited if I was split into a few hundred parts. After all, my abilities, while magical and amazing, are still limited.” Proctor walked over and sat next to him, watching his face and listening to every word.
“Proctor, come to me now and all is forgiven!” Moloch shouted.
“Please continue, Mister Angel,” Proctor asked.
Bill smiled and patted Proctor on the head. “Proctor, the one thing I could not believe was how God could be split into a few hundred pieces, like me, and become weak and unable to discover Moloch’s treachery. I even thought a creature like you could be inside God in the real universe, keeping Him from ending this charade. It sounds silly when I say it out loud now, doesn’t it?”
“I do not understand, Mister Angel,” Proctor replied. His face was twisted with confusion. “Mister must remember that Proctor is not a smart creature.”
Moloch charged them with his axes gleaming in the bright sunlight. Proctor braced for the blows but Bill seemed not to notice. He was inches away from slicing them to ribbons when Bill said, “Don’t you see? Proctor, you are the Lord God.” Moloch and the enforcers froze as if time itself had stopped. “Dom, by splitting you into billions if not trillions of pieces, Moloch had rendered you impotent to stop him. For all I know, there may be almost infinite pieces of you spread across the multiverse.”
“Mister Angel, you must know that seems impossible. I am not a smart animal. My race is barbaric and the result of nuclear war. I cannot be the god you speak of!”
Bill smiled and got on his knees. He bent over and pressed his face into the dirt. “Lord, if it be your will, let this charade end now.” He prayed to see Dom Emmanuel again. Without opening his eyes, he reached out for Proctor and found the feet of a man instead. He opened his eyes to see Dom seated where Proctor had been. As he watched, the enforcer army dissolved and shot into Dom’s body. The ground and sky began to crack and Bill could see other Earths through the cracks. The fissures expanded until all of reality around them broke into pieces and began to swirl into a whirlpool of reality.
More and more versions of reality crumbled and began to spin around them. He could see more and more versions of Dom spin around them and drop into the black hole that was forming where Proctor had been sitting. He tried to resist the pull of the black hole but soon found he was pulled inside its event horizon as well.
All was blackness and swirling. Existence had become a whirlpool of inky blackness. Bill was one with God, Satan, Moloch, Mary, and all of existence. He was immersed in darkness but unafraid. All of humanity and all of existence was with him. He could feel his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren with him now. Existence had no form and yet was complete. There was no p
ast, present or future. There was only Oneness. And then the voice of God said, “Let there be light.”
Chapter 19
Sunlight poured through the bedroom window and into Bill’s eyes. He woke and felt Chachis lying against his back. He sat up in bed and rubbed her belly. “Chachis, I had the most amazing dream.” She looked up at him, her eyes glowing bright red, and shook her head slowly from side to side. Then she jumped off the bed and he could hear her heading downstairs. He was surprised to find himself alone in bed this early on a Saturday morning. The smell of bacon frying caught his olfactory nerve and attention, so he put on his slippers and headed for the stairs. As he walked out his bedroom door, he heard familiar voices from the bedroom down the hall, so he walked over and opened the door. His grandchildren Nate and Sarah were playing with toys in the middle of the floor. “Thanks for the new toys, Grandpa!” Sarah said.
He kissed her on the forehead and replied, “It’s our pleasure, sweetie-pie. By the way, I think breakfast is ready.”
“We’ll be right down, Grandpa,” Nate replied.
“Well, don’t take too long. You know how your dad is.” Bill walked over to the top of the staircase and made his way down. He could hear voices in the kitchen and so he headed in that direction. He opened the door and was surprised to see his grandfather, father, son-in-law, J.C. and Jonas sitting at the table in the breakfast nook. Audrey and Sandi were standing nearby in the kitchen finishing the meal. “What?”
Dom jumped from his chair and hurried over to Bill, putting his arms around and hugging him. “Thank you, Grandson. You can’t imagine how much this means to me.”
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“We remember everything, honey,” Audrey said.
The doorbell rang and Bill said, “Hold that thought,” and hurried to answer it. He pulled the door open and Mary stood there smiling at him. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
She threw her arms around him and replied, “No, it was all real.” She kissed his ear. “Thank you for saving us all, my darling brother.”
He took her by the upper arms and said, “This is crazy, Mary. What about the bomb? The city was destroyed. How can any of this be real?””
J.C. approached them from behind and took Bill’s hand and led him out onto the front porch. “Bill, let’s sit on the stoop and chat a bit, okay?” They sat down with J.C. on Bill’s right and Mary on his left. “It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
“J.C., can we please cut to the chase,” Bill argued. “Why is San Diego still here?”
J.C. frowned and replied, “That happened in the construction that Moloch built, not here.”
“Okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense. But what happened to all those other versions of me? Which one am I?”
“All of them, of course,” J.C. smiled.
“But I don’t feel any different than when this whole thing began? And some of the versions of me were accountants or scientists or whatever. Why am I the only one who survived? Well, I don’t mean survived, I mean, ugh, never mind, I don’t know what I mean.”
Mary offered, “Bill, don’t be confused. I think we’re all going through the same thing right now, isn’t that right, J.C.?”
“Yes, it would seem Moloch built his construction over an extended period of time. As each false world was completed, he would fill it with parts of all of us. The change was gradual enough that my father did not even notice until it was too late. The versions of us we see now were always the truth of us. The pieces that existed in the false worlds created their own realities over time until only my father was left here. Then he was split into trillions of those creatures and this reality was empty, sitting and waiting for our return. Here you are a writer, correct?” Bill nodded. “Parts of me can recall realities where your daughter and her family were living in Montana. Here, they live with you while Tom is finding a new job after relocating.”
“So, what do we do now? I suppose we just go back to our regular lives, but you have to know this adventure would make a great book!”
J.C. smiled and said, “And that’s what you were born to do! On the other hand, I’m not sure you can ever just go back to being just Bill Watson, novelist. Your entire family has learned something unique about yourselves that will likely change your future.”
“I thought when this was over, I would just be normal again?” he asked.
The front door opened and Dom Emmanuel stepped outside. “Bill, let’s go for a stroll, okay?” Bill stood and they proceeded down the walk and along the sidewalk as Mary and J.C. stepped back inside. “Son, you can certainly try to be your old self again if you wish, but like J.C., I am not certain that will ever work.”
“But why not; I already did what you and Lou asked me to do.”
Dom sighed and replied, “I suppose your situation is not that different from J.C., except you survived your mission. He knew all along he had a higher purpose, and I believe that to be the case for you and your sister as well.”
“What about my wife and family? What am I supposed to tell them? Sorry, Daddy can’t watch you grow up because he’s an angel now.”
Dom put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and suddenly they were walking down the beach in Maui. Their regular clothes had been replaced by swimming trunks and their shoes by flip-flops. “Bill, you have to realize that your understanding of reality has changed forever.” Bill looked at him quizzically. “Five seconds ago we were walking down the sidewalk by your house and now we’re on a beach thousands of miles away, and you didn’t even flinch.”
“Maybe I can just pretend things are the way they used to be?”
Dom began to laugh and Bill soon joined him. After a few moments, Dom wiped his eyes and replied, “If only we could all forget Moloch’s treachery. Did you know he disappeared?”
“How is it possible that someone could hide from you?”
“You mean how could he hide from me again?” Dom retorted. “He knows that Lou and his siblings want him dead. He almost destroyed all of them and us for his own ego. He even turned parts of me to evil. I honestly don’t know if we will ever find him now. It would have been so much simpler if he just died.” Bill looked at him aghast. “You still don’t get it, do you? If his soul was freed, I could forgive him and he could live again. Now, he is an outcast, and none of us know what he is planning to do next.”
Bill blinked and the two were now standing on the moon. “Are you asking me to hunt him down?”
Dom shook his head and said, “This place is an interesting choice, Bill. But no, chasing Moloch would be a waste of your time. I have a feeling he will lay low for quite some time until he feels it’s safe to try again.”
“So, I can go back to my old life, even though I know some new things about the nature of existence.”
“I think I said that already, Bill. I fully expect you to do that, but I’m not certain it will fulfill you.”
“How do you mean?”
“Bill, you are the man who became a demon and then an angel and saved all of creation, including me. There is nothing Lou, his children or my own can do that could surpass you. Next to me, you are the supreme power in the universe. That hardly sounds like the resume of a fantasy novelist.”
“You think I should help people with my powers. Honestly, I had never considered that.”
Dom touched his hand and the two were seated on Bill’s front stoop again. “The situation with Moloch and his ilk was unique to say the least. But it is not the job of an angel to fix people’s lives for them. Each person chooses the life they lead, whether for good or bad. That is the nature of existence. Our role is to try to guide people in the right direction by giving them hope and righting injustices that they did not bring on themselves.”
“I’m not sure what that means, Dom.”
“It means that we help people who ask for help, but we do not fix the problems people heap upon themselves. Is that clearer?” Bill looked confused and Dom put his arm around his should
ers. “Let’s just figure this out as we go, okay Son?” Bill nodded and put his head on Dom’s shoulder.
After a couple of minutes, Bill asked, “Dom, since Moloch has disappeared, do you think this might still be part of his construction?”
Dom sighed deeply and replied, “I have had that same thought today, and unfortunately, I can’t rule that out.”
###
Thanks so much for reading Demonic. I really hope you enjoyed it and are wondering what will happen next or maybe want to see what other stories I have. In fact, to help you decide, let me offer you a reward:
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The bad news is that Demonic may be the last book in the Modern Prophet series. The good news is that I have three other books due to come out soon. Their tentative titles are: Knights of Winterpast, The Old House, and 2121: Twilight’s Last. As part of my club, you’ll see samples and hear about them first.
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About the Author
Karl J. Morgan
Karl Morgan has a lifelong fascination with stories in the science fiction and fantasy genres, whether it was the Tom Swift novels by Victor Appleton he read as a young boy, or television like Lost in Space and Star Trek, and especially films like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. All of those tales put the protagonist in terrible situations where the odds are against them and, yet, somehow they prevail. The reader/viewer is always left with a sense that something greater than ourselves is watching over us.