The World Ends Tonight

by Wood, Rick

  “And if they have to kill them, then they are going to hell, right? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not just that, dear child – they would be condemned.”

  Cassy closed her eyes in frustration, willing herself to be calm as she realised what Gabrielle was saying.

  “If they were to kill, they would no longer be worthy of heaven. And any exorcism would prove redundant.”

  Gabrielle gave a sympathetic smile and a sympathetic nod, which only infuriated Cassy further.

  “You are all pathetic, you know that?” Cassy spat. “You called me to be an angel to make a difference in this war. But… You. God. The whole legion of angels – you don’t do shit!”

  “Cassy, I understand you are hurting, but I compel you to watch your tongue, or He may deem you as being blasphemous.”

  Cassy laughed. She couldn’t help it. She choked on her mocking laughter, in utter disbelief. Her whole belief system, the angel she had become, what she had been made to represent – it all came crumbling down around her.

  “Unbelievable. They are fighting in your name, fighting your war for you, and you would condemn them to hell?”

  “With a heavy heart.”

  “To hell with your heavy heart, Gabrielle.”

  “This conversation is over,” Gabrielle decided, turning her back on Cassy and walking back into her sanctuary.

  “So that’s it, huh?” Cassy cried out. “They are in a situation, you don’t want to help, so that’s earth done. The whole world wiped out. Because heaven can’t be bothered to help them!”

  Gabrielle paused, turning around gracefully and, even though she always retained her air of calmness, a slight air of frustration began to creep through.

  “The human race has lasted longer than most.”

  Cassy shook her head and turned away, marching away from the gates of heaven.

  “Where are you going?” Gabrielle requested.

  “To help them!” Cassy responded, spinning back around before resuming her walk away.

  “If you interfere, if you allow these actions, if you condone an act of murder – you will be forever condemned from heaven, Cassy, I hope you realise that.”

  Cassy continued walking away, ignoring Gabrielle’s pleading.

  “When heaven’s gates reopen, you may have retained your wings, but you will no longer be allowed entry.”

  Cassy paused. Turning around slowly, she decided this would be her last attempt at reasoning with the unreasonable.

  “I think I understand, you know,” she spoke slowly and quietly, but with a toxic edge. “God can’t involve himself in ungodly acts because He needs His pawns to do it. That way He can keep His hands clean, keep Himself holy. It’s always people sacrificing their pledges to Him, He never kills that sacrifice himself.”

  “Cassy–”

  “If he doesn’t have the gumption, I will. And I will save Martin and Derek from either fate. And you will look on and say that you tried to help me. Then, by the same reasoning, I will look up and say that I also attempted to help you.”

  Cassy walked away.

  Gabrielle said nothing.

  She stood there, watching God’s faithful servant disappear into the distance.

  It didn’t matter whether Gabrielle agreed with Cassy or not.

  It mattered that Gabrielle carried out His actions.

  His demands.

  However difficult that was.

  However much she may oppose it; she was an angel, she was His soldier.

  She was to take orders.

  Cassy rebelled, but she could not.

  Still, she found it hard to return into the secluded harmony behind those gates of heaven.

  Knowing the gates would be firmly shut soon, she struggled to find her legs striding inside.

  Instead, she found herself poised on the outside, struggling with the movement, Cassy’s words bouncing repeatedly around her thoughts.

  25

  Bandile’s knife hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. Martin watched it, poised for battle, but conflicted by the words Derek had urgently bestowed on him.

  He had to ask himself – could he take a human life? Was he prepared to make that sacrifice?

  So far he had killed demons, entities made of pure evil, which had not worn down his conscience whatsoever. But killing three people to save his and Derek’s life…

  Was he prepared to do it?

  Yes.

  Could he?

  …

  Derek’s eyes widened in what felt like slow motion. Bandile’s knife came thundering down with a steady uncertainty that made Martin’s heart beat fast.

  Martin was pinned down by one of them. Seconds earlier and he would have conjured fire ready to set each of them alight, to burn them to ashes within seconds. Now, he was restrained, and unable to concentrate astutely enough to re-conjure the elements, unable to move his arms in such a way that they would answer.

  The question that ripped across his mind was – could he live with himself knowing that he could have prevented Derek’s and his death?

  Fate had not been in their favour so far.

  Then, before the question could be answered, a sudden bright light encapsulated the room. Martin instinctively flinched away, hiding his face, shielding himself from the salvo of light.

  As the light died down he opened his eyes.

  Cassy.

  With her elegant demeanour and a bright-white backlight beaming from the edge of her skin, she stood over them with a look of determination, thwacking the man holding the knife in the air to the floor.

  Martin felt himself free of restraints, the man pinning him down having instinctively loosened his grip to shield himself from the light long enough for Martin to burst to his feet.

  He circled his hands, flickering embers of fire, readying his attack. He would not be caught again.

  Cassy raised her hand.

  “No!” she commanded.

  “What?” Martin reacted defiantly, enraged that both she and Derek had instructed him not to defend himself. He was eager to fight, and not at all ready to give in.

  “Don’t,” she commanded, a look of begging in her eyes. “You can’t. Nothing will work if you take a human life.”

  “We have no choice!”

  “No, Martin, I have no choice. I am saving you from yourself.”

  Before Martin could object any further, she had taken the knife off the bearded man and plunged it into his throat.

  He collapsed into a shaking heap on the floor, clutching onto his bleeding neck, blood pouring through the cracks of his hands. He wriggled and thrashed, bashing the furniture of the room with his feet, but knew it would do nothing as he reached his violent end.

  Martin watched as the man’s life fell through his fingers.

  He watched, knowing he could not have done that.

  Knowing that causing this pain was not something he could have brought himself to do to another human.

  The scrawny tattooed man behind him went to attack but Cassy got to him first, sticking the knife into his gut, then across his throat.

  Blood splattered over her translucent heavenly white gown, staining the image of the angelic.

  In the instant the man died, her bright-white light faded.

  The large black man readied his grand knife, facing Cassy, ready for a fight.

  Cassy rose her knife into the air.

  “No!” Derek demanded, standing, holding an arm out to Cassy.

  “No Derek, it has to be me that does this.”

  “No, we cannot kill him!” Derek pleaded. “We need him.”

  “What for?”

  “His name is Bandile Thato. He is a devil worshipper.”

  Cassy realised what Derek’s plan was and dropped her knife to her side.

  Bandile dove his knife toward her, but Martin leapt to his feet, turning his finger into a definite rotation. Within seconds he had conjured a restraint spell and thrown the gold circ
le around Bandile. It tightened around his chest and rose him into the air, his legs dangling pathetically. Bandile struggled against his incarceration, but the supernatural binding was too secure for a human to fight.

  Martin pumped his fist in the air, celebrating that he had successfully implemented the restraint spell. Questions still arose as to whether it was strong enough to hold the antichrist, but there were no questions as to whether it would be strong enough to bind a human for as long as they wanted.

  Bandile was theirs. Captive and helpless.

  Derek stepped forward, looking Bandile up and down. Bandile’s lip curled upwards in an aggressive snarl, his head shaking slowly.

  “Hello, old friend,” Derek spoke.

  Bandile’s snarl grew, a rebellious insolence wiping across his livid features.

  “You’re going to do us a favour.”

  26

  Bandile’s eyes fluttered like the wings of a moth, adjusting to the dimness of the light. A distant dripping plagued his ears with an incessancy he could do nothing about. His clothes stank like damp, as did the room, and the footsteps of his captors echoed throughout.

  His vision finally came into focus. He looked around himself, peering at his surroundings, trying to make an assumption as to where he was.

  It was Derek’s basement. He was sure of it.

  He went to move. He couldn’t. He looked down.

  Rope circled his chest, spiralling tightly around him multiple times.

  Derek and the boy stood before him. Both with their arms folded, feet shoulder-width apart, their faces displaying resolute glares.

  Bandile couldn’t help but snigger.

  Derek was a well-spoken professor, and this other one was a pathetic little kid. And there they were, trying to look tough, like some ridiculous mock-up action men. The imbeciles were anything but intimidating, and he couldn’t help but enjoy the hilarity, despite his evident incarceration.

  “You two are fucking pitiful,” he chuckled.

  He turned to his right and saw a woman stood before him. He knew from the white dress and the radiant skin that she was an angel, except… the dress was blood-splattered. Her illumination had faded. She was…

  She was being denied heaven.

  Because she had killed his cult members. His poor excuse for assailants.

  He threw his head back and guffawed.

  “You lost your entry to the Promise Land!” he cackled mockingly. “Because you killed Dexter and Bagsy!”

  He threw his head to the side, continually belting forcibly distinct jitters of laughter, shouting his guffaws with menacing intensity.

  “They were pathetic!” he cackled. “You could have gotten a fucking rat to kill them! And you sacrificed everything…”

  He continued to laugh, wailing uproariously. He could feel rope tight against his chest, his ankles restrained to the bottom of his chair, and handcuffs clamped securely around his wrists. He wasn’t getting out of this situation, so the only thing he could do was heartily incense them with his interminable hysterics.

  “Laugh all you want,” Derek attempted to interject. “We have you restrained. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “And what are you going to do to me? Huh?” Bandile taunted them. “Kill me?”

  Derek glanced at Cassy and they exchanged a look. Bandile could tell that they had a plan. He could also tell from how Martin was left out of the look that he was seen as the inexperienced one of the trio.

  In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised Bandile if Martin had been left out of the loop entirely.

  “You guys are idiots,” Bandile continued. “You fall for everything. And what, you think this little squirt stands a chance against the heir of hell?”

  “I’m not going to kill the heir of hell,” Martin announced.

  “Oh, yeah?” Bandile continued.

  “No,” Derek took over. “Edward King is.”

  Bandile fell silent.

  Had he heard them correctly?

  Edward King was going to kill the heir of hell?

  But…

  Edward King is the heir of hell.

  “What are you on about?” he demanded.

  “You are going to do something for us,” Derek continued. “Something to help kill the heir of hell.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “We are going to exorcise the soul of Edward King out of the heir of hell so it can kill the antichrist,” Derek continued, ignoring Bandile’s irrelevant question. “Only there is an issue.”

  Bandile grinned. He knew where this was going.

  “A soul can’t take human form, can it?” he pointed out. “And it is an ungodly act. Heaven won’t turn something as beautiful as a soul into something as weak and mortal as a human body. It goes against heaven to return life to a body where there was none. So many reasons they won’t do it… so you need a devil worshipper to do it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that is where I come in, my old friend.” Bandile smiled widely, watching Derek grimace from his reference to him as an old friend.

  “Yes. And you are going to do this.”

  “Tell me why I would do this, Derek. Please.”

  Derek sighed and took a few steps toward Bandile, focussing the man he once trusted dead in the eyes.

  “If you repent,” Derek explained. “Ask forgiveness, then prove this by bringing back the man who can defeat the antichrist, that would be your path to heaven. And it would be your only path to heaven.”

  “Why would I–” Bandile began to object, then stopped.

  A thought hit him.

  He couldn’t care less about a path to heaven. He wanted a throne in hell. It was the only way, the only path after the horrific actions he had taken.

  But maybe this was that path.

  If he led them to believe that he was going to do this for them… then didn’t… meaning they would be full of hope, then left helpless for the antichrist to kill them…

  They may just be stupid enough to believe that he wouldn’t be deceptive. That he would want this path to heaven.

  Derek Lansdale had already proven that he was a gullible man.

  “Okay,” Bandile confirmed. “I will do this.”

  Derek nodded.

  “Good.” Derek glanced at the other two. “Until that time comes.”

  He nodded and turned, ascending the stairs. Martin and Cassy followed, turning the light off.

  Bandile was left in darkness, feeling something soft scurry past his ankles.

  27

  Moisture hung in the air in that way it always does in church; loose damp that clings to your clothes. The vast, open room loomed overhead with its great architecture, reverberating all footsteps and rebounding voices against its stone walls.

  But there were no voices.

  And Cassy didn’t create heavy footsteps. An attribute of being an angel was that gliding feet took gentle steps.

  She made her way to the front of the church and paused.

  The tall crucifix stood over her. A symbol of comfort giving her nothing but rage.

  So, this is where people came to pray. To ask for forgiveness from a God who doesn’t listen and for help from angels that never come.

  For Cassy, it wasn’t an issue of whether humans should believe in their God. It was a question of whether humans would want to.

  Why worship a God that doesn’t listen?

  A God who chooses to hide those he deems good enough to survive, and lets those he deems unworthy perish.

  A God who has buildings devoted to him, but doesn’t listen to the people who built them.

  A God who gave them the world with painful death. Illnesses. A world where animals have to kill animals to survive.

  She was one of his disciples, but even so, she was disillusioned with the concept of faith.

  Now she had been banished from heaven. She was an angel without a home, without a purpose. She had an angel’s life in a human’s body and it was
all for nothing.

  Thanks to the God they fought in the name of.

  But she wasn’t here for God.

  She wasn’t here to ask for his help.

  She dropped to her knees and bowed her head, closing her eyes. A moment of solitude, thinking about he who matters most.

  “Eddie,” she whispered, so faintly only she could hear it. “Please, listen to me.”

  She tightened her closed eyes. Tears punched the backs of her eyelids, endeavouring to get out, but she refused. She was here to help, not cry.

  “Eddie, we need you. Please just hear me.”

  She lifted her head, opening her eyes. Tears blurred her vision.

  “Eddie, you must–”

  “You don’t call, you don’t write…” came a familiar voice singing out bouncily behind her. “The only time you want to talk to me is in a lousy bleedin’ church.”

  Cassy gasped.

  Her hands stiffened. Her arms grew rigid, her breath stuck in her throat.

  It couldn’t be…

  “What’s the matter, sis’? Aren’t you gonna say hi?”

  Cassy stood, sweaty-palmed, shaking legs. She slowly turned, dreading the sight she was about to see.

  There he sat.

  On a bench, three rows back. A sharp black suit and a cocky smile that didn’t suit Eddie at all. He looked like her brother. He had the same pitch of voice. The same hair, the same face. But his mannerisms were different. The tone of his voice was more sadistically playful. The glint in his eye was neither happy nor charming, but arrogant and conceited.

  He had the face of her brother, but she knew that was only to torment her further.

  “I’m an angel, you can’t hurt me,” she spoke, assuring herself more than him. Despite the sentiment of what she said, her lip still quivered and her voice still shook.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes. You can’t.”

  “I can’t physically hurt you, is that what you’re saying?"

  “Exactly,” she spoke, feeling a weak confidence in her fevered chest.

  “But that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”

  Cassy shook her head. He couldn’t hurt her, she knew it. There was an agreement.

  Then the sad realisation hit her.