by Matt Drabble
Lucifer waited within the blackness whilst her wounds healed so interminably slowly, she cursed and raged with impatience and lack of control over this human skin and all of its increasingly confusing emotions, the longer she stayed in this form the more that she was tied to a raging cacophony of roller coasting sensations that greatly impeded her mission. Samyaza had greeted her with a delighted contempt, she had removed him from her plans as his temper had been increasingly uncontrollable and yet it was her who had fallen prey to a rampant temper tantrum that had threatened to destroy everything that they had waited for over the centuries of frustration. Azazel was becoming more and more of a puzzle to her, he followed orders easily enough and never voiced an opinion, but it was his seemingly inactive mind that troubled her the most, back in the day Azazel had been condemned by God for his insistence of showing and teaching mankind the art of making swords and shields as well as self beautification that had greatly angered God. However the longer they had spent in this realm the more he had withdrawn into himself with a glazed-over look that even she worried about, Samyaza was easy to decipher as he was constantly angry and frustrated by their slow progress, she knew that Samyaza would fall upon her like a jackal if he sensed any weakness but she had no idea about Azazel’s true intentions. The confrontation with Baine had damaged her greatly and she cursed herself for her arrogance, she had taken the man too lightly and lost control of herself feeling some strange and peculiar rage at his rejection of her physical form, she could not understand her actions that had so greatly jeopardised everything. After her revelations of the Grigori’s intentions she found that they were now back to square one in terms of the Cube, she had been unable to seduce Baine into becoming an ally and now he was a well informed concern to them all. She sat perched within the black pentagram drawn on the apartments expensive hardwood floor, some of the myths were true as far as symbolism were concerned, watching the movies and reading contemporary literature she had often wondered just how many of her kind had sought to undermine mankind by truly terrible forms of popular entertainment. The pentagram was only a symbol and that of star which represented the five wounds of Christ; two wrists, two ankles and the side, good and evil were merely states of mind held within the beholder of the symbol, she used the pentagram to assimilate her true form with the physical restraints of her temporary incarnation in order to restore the flesh and graft the bones. She have to wait until she was fully healed before she could follow Baine and this time she would have to hold her temper until he had retrieved the Cube before she would be able to unleash a ravenous fury and grind his bones to dust, she felt the now familiar tingle of pleasure heating her loins as the thoughts of glorious vengeance passed before her eyes, at least this form held some positive functions that she could indulge as she waited.
Gabriel saw all of this, he had slowly regained his composure with great effort, it was beginning to become increasingly difficult to maintain his serenity. At first this slipping had greatly concerned him, but he had become more and more intrigued at the raging torrent of sensations that swarmed and battered against his protective shell. Perhaps these human emotions could serve a purpose, after all humanity had been destroying itself for centuries, perhaps his cause could use a little spite and fury. He stood back and watched over the metaphorical chessboard, the pawns scurried as he thought they would, the two knights now stood on opposing sides of this game and his royalty rival played her game and made her choices. Gabriel was not a fool, he knew only too well that if he and Lucifer were Kings and Queens, McCullum and Baine were knights and humanity were pawns then God was the board upon which they all stood and the air that all breathed, fortunately for all of them God was AWOL from this world and it did not look like he was coming back any time soon.
CHAPTER VII
NOT SO HAPPY TRAILS
“Say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you”.
Isaiah 35:4
Lester Haines watched the early evening traffic through a spotless window, since the bypass had effectively segregated Port Talbot from the major road and his small guest house from the majority of passing motorists, his business had declined rapidly. His wife Cerys had passed away some twelve years ago now, taken by cancer, all he had left to fill his days was the conversation of passing strangers, he had looked upon his guests as friends but now their dwindling numbers had left his days empty and lonely. He only had one guest today, the man who had checked in this afternoon, the man seemed perfectly average in every way, a non-descript individual whose appearance would normally pass un-noticed save for his eyes which seemed to burn through Lester whenever he had attempted to engage him in any from of extended conversation. Lester sat in his armchair holding his favourite photograph of Cerys, she faced the camera at 27, wearing a light summer dress that had been snapped flapping in mid air as she twirled on a warm summer day and her pretty face lit by a playful smile, he could still see her standing in their modest back garden, her head turned up to meet the hot sunshine, he often thought of her in this perfect pose and his heart broke every time with the weight of his sorrow even after twelve long years. His only guest was holed up in his room that still smelled a little stale despite Lester’s best efforts to air it at short notice with open windows and chemical fresheners. His eyes misted as he cradled the photograph remembering his wife when a noise interrupted his mourning, something had collided nosily with one of large metal bins outside, as his business was so slow now and he still lived alone the bins were normally fairly empty and so they hit the ground with a resounding clang. He stood and wiped his teary eyes on his freshly laundered sleeve, he moved out through his lounge and into the large kitchen area, he looked through the rear windows to the garden, he could not see anything, the back door suddenly began to shake violently against its lock, someone was pulling and pushing with tremendous force in an effort to force entry. Suddenly the door exploded off of his hinges, the sturdy wooden frame splintered as the door fell inward and a large shape filled the doorway. Lester stood transfixed as the shadow entered and stepped into the light, he could not believe his own eyes, Lester had little imagination in his life and what little he did have had been eroded by years of sorrowful loneliness, his brain immediately shut down and refused to process the evidence even as the thing struck a sharp tearing blow across his chest. Lester sat down hard suddenly unable to catch his breath, his shirt felt wet and he looked down unable to quite understand why his blue shirt was now red, as he closed his eyes he was filled with the image of Cerys, she stood just beyond him, hand out stretched reaching to take him home, he died with a smile on his face.
Baine heard the noise as he tried to rest in the small guest house bedroom, he heard no voices only the sound of the back door being forced and the sound of a wet ripping blow followed by a body falling, he rolled from the bed and was up on his feet in an instant, whoever was here was here for him, he slid the book under the bed and edged out of the door to meet his latest aggressor. He had spent the last couple of hours pouring through the pages of his families book, he had found a passage within the pages that spoke of a monk selected by God to carry his word and preach his truth, the monk, David, was obviously a trusted servant of God, the book had one phrase scratched across the page by a hand he instinctively knew to be his fathers, it read, “Kneel only before the true word of God”. He had been pondering this and deciding upon his next move when the noise from below had caught his attention. The landing was narrow and the staircase open, he looked over the banister but could see no-one approaching, as quietly as he could he crept down the stairs carefully avoiding any creaks that would announce his arrival. Whatever awaited him was in the lounge area and it was eager, he could feel that it knew he was here and that any attempt at stealth was already pointless, he marched into the large living room area, he could smell the blood emanating from the kitchen, he did not have to look to know that it came f
rom the landlord. The Reaper panted with anticipation, Baine now saw the thing far more clearly than McCullum’s confrontation in the dark car park.
“Well then chief” Baine greeted the Reaper, “Why don’t we”
The Reaper exploded into sudden savage life, it flew across the room covering the ground in an instant and trampling the small coffee table in the process, it grabbed Baine firmly by his tee-shirt ripping it and drawing blood. Baine staggered backwards under the weight of the snarling Reaper, he used the creatures own momentum as they moved, he grabbed firmly on the things thick scaly forearms, he planted his left leg on the carpet and pivoted, he released his grip and allowed the Reaper to fly past him and crash into the wooden banister smashing them into jagged pieces. Baine leapt onto the things back as fast as could knowing that he was over matched in strength and needed to end this quickly, he wrapped his arm around its face pulled the Reaper’s head up revealing its throat, he moved it over one of the broken spindles, the wood was shattered to a sharp splintered tip whilst the end was still firmly secured in the base. Baine drove the Reaper’s exposed throat onto the spindle, the wood penetrated the scaly flesh and drove up into its head, Baine was not sure just how much of brain the thing actually had but when the splintered spindle protruded through the top of the Reapers head it ceased its struggles and hung limply. Baine moved around onto the stairs to look at the Reapers face in order to make sure, its mouth was open and a foul green substance seeped from its lips staining the carpet, slowly it began to fade away, Baine sat on the step and watched as it became nothing more than a memory. He had only wanted a chance to rest but now he had another body that would mark his trail clearly to the authorities and the others that would follow, he did not know just how they kept finding him but it seemed impossible to just disappear. He walked into the kitchen and looked quizzically at the man lying slumped on the linoleum floor, Lester had a strange look of peace on his face and in that moment Baine envied him greatly.
McCullum was bogged down in a mindless investigation he knew only too well just who he was searching for but he had absolutely no intention of sharing this information with any of his colleagues. DCI Jones was buzzing around with an air of ignorant self-importance, McCullum encouraged him to be the official face of the investigation and handle the public relations side of it standing shoulder to shoulder with Irving in front of the television cameras and the eager reporters. Meanwhile he had the job of running two parallel investigations, one to spin around in circles in order to satisfy Superintendent Irving and one to really track down Baine, as McCullum had been the one to set up the arrest at the castle after Gabriel’s lead he would have had a lot of questions to answer about the identity of the man wanted for the priests grotesque violation and the slaughter at the station, if he had not had the foresight to phone it in anonymously. He still felt shamed by his actions at not fully trusting Gabriel immediately as he had not wanted his name attached to what might have been an embarrassing wild goose chase; he swore a private oath to himself that he would never let his father down again. He led his team around all of the same dead end avenues that he had tried when all he had was a name after the suicide of Arwel Thomas whilst at the same time surreptitiously seeking to intercept any information or leads for himself. The forensic boys had been through the station with a fine toothcomb and despite the public notifications that they had found a hotbed of evidence McCullum knew that in reality they had found nothing, not a hair, not a fingerprint, not a sample anywhere and the CCTV footage had been completely wiped clean. It had been a long and fruitless day, he had pressure on all sides to deliver this man Baine quickly up for justice and he fully intended to do so, only to a much higher power than the city. The day was winding down and many officers had already left for the various drinking holes that they frequented with increasing severity, McCullum had long since held these activities at arms length with distaste but now he could not stomach these pits of depravity and the sinful activities of his peers. A report came across the wire just as he was beginning to call it a night, one Lester Haines had been found dead at his guest house on the outskirts of Port Talbot, the information that caught McCullum’s eye and his breath, the body had been discovered with a large undeterminable raking gash across his abdomen, McCullum’s hand went instinctively to the healed wound on his back “Reaper” he whispered to himself.
Baine was on the move again, he knew that the amount of noise created at the guest house would attract the wrong sort of attention very quickly and he had not wanted to be found in the company of yet another cooling bloody body. After a quick reference stint on the internet with the computer he had found in the landlords lounge, he had taken Lester’s car finding the keys studiously kept on a hanging rail and labelled “CAR”, he silently thanked Lester for his organisation skills that had speeded up his departure, he had searched Lester’s bedroom and found a heavy tweed trilby, he checked his reflection in the wardrobe door mirror and pulled the hat down obscuring his features as heavily as possible and combined it with a large winter overcoat. He did no think that he would pass for Lester under any kind of close scrutiny but it should suffice for the means of driving away from the house in the mans car without attracting any unwanted attention. Fortunately the car keys contained a remote control access device enabling him to identify the car first by activating the central locking by pressing the button whilst looking out of the window for the flashing indicator lights as the car unlocked. A dark blue Honda Jazz parked two cars down the small road flashed invitingly, Baine tugged the hat as low as he dared and when he was sure that the coast was clear he slipped out of the door with his book secured in the stolen purple bag under the large winter coat. Before leaving he closed his eyes and thought of Lester, the way he moved and stood, his slow pace and aching legs in the cold damp weather, he attempted to replicate the older mans limping gate, he made it to the car with the minimal amount of curtain twitching. The cars cabin was spotlessly clean, the car itself was only around four months old and although the new smell was strong Baine could still catch Lester’s faint aroma, he thanked the man again as he found a compact road atlas in the glove compartment along with the sealed owners manual. The map was for checking at a later time, Baine pulled out slowly as everything that he had observed of Lester told him that he would have been a careful driver, he eased down the road and away from yet another crime scene.
Around thirty minutes later he sat parked at the Motorway Services on the M4 at Swansea, the car park was large enough and busy enough for his purposes, he looked for and found a car with a registration plate very similar to Lester’s. He choose a plate that was only a couple of digits different knowing that if he was lucky then the swap would not be noticed for some time at least by the owner, the evening now offered dark cover and he parked next to his target and climbed out. He found a small multi tool in the boot that was part of a well kept kit that Lester had obtained in his well organised manner, he flipped out the small screwdriver attachment and quickly swapped the number plates unobserved, once completed he climbed back into the Honda and took out the road atlas. Marcus had told him to find the Cathedral at St Davids, he quickly found the place, it was located on the far Western Welsh coastline some seventy miles away, Baine checked the fuel gauge finding it almost full he pulled out onto the sodden M4 with his windscreen wipers on full speed and headed towards his destiny.
Superintendent Irving had designed his office with intimidation very much to the forefront of his mind; his desk was large and imposing and elevated him high above any of his visitors as he sat imperiously over his domain. The office was expansive and dark wooden book cases ran floor to ceiling containing impressively sized volumes of law, case studies, psychology and every other possible intellectual subject all unread and designed to daunt and to lend Irving an air of superiority. He was perched behind his oak expanse, reading glasses positioned strategically on his hawk like nose, he had no use for prescription glasses but wore a plain glass lenses as it added t
o his desired appearance, and his stylishly expensive widescreen computer monitor was unveiling all of the developments of the shocking case. Forensic reports of the stations murder scene were disappointingly vague; the autopsy on the slain officers whilst offering no direct evidence of their perpetrator, the style of the wounds and angles did link the deaths to that of the unfortunately beloved priest that had been nailed in a crucifix pose on the cities popular landmark. They had yet to uncover a single witness to either crime, the CCTV footage had been somehow wiped clean in such a way that the tech boys had not been able to recover a single scene of the carnage, he had the Welsh Assembly, Downing Street, the Chief Constable, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister all promising every resource that he could need, but the implications of his failure were very easy to read. It was perceived that he was a career man through and through, he had never married as taking a female companion would have seemed like cheating on his marriage to the force and it was behind this dedication that his superiors believed his Achilles heel lurked. He smiled to himself amidst the trappings of his swift progression through the ranks, his true devotion lie beyond this job and this office, his thoughts were interrupting by the intrusive electronic buzz of the office intercom,