The World Ends Tonight

by Wood, Rick

  Revelation 3:16

  42

  Martin’s feet skidded in the puddles, dirty water splashing over his shins.

  He didn’t have time to think about that.

  He stormed down the street of Derek’s house, past worried stares of families boarding their houses up. Martin wondered if they even knew what they were protecting their houses from.

  Everyone could feel danger coming. Though not everyone knew how close they were to having their pitiful lives robbed from them.

  He fell over a deeper puddle and stumbled to his feet, ignoring the simmering pain of his hands scraping across the floor as he tried to steady himself. He leapt at the front door, shoving the key into the lock.

  Stomping through the hallway, he briefly considered how annoyed Derek would be at the wet footprints he was leaving – though he imagined that, under the circumstance, Derek would understand.

  He made it to the basement door, swept the bolt across and kicked it open.

  He paused.

  Refocussed.

  He readied his hands, mentally preparing himself to conjure his restraint spell. It was working on the heir – for now – so it would be good enough for Bandile.

  He crept down the stairs, having to place his feet horizontally due to the inconveniently small size of the steps. There were no bannisters to steady him. That, along with the unsteady, cracked nature of the stairs, meant he had to truly concentrate to avoid slipping.

  Focussing hard on making his way to the bottom step – he didn’t want to fall and embarrass himself in front of his prisoner; that would not look good – he leapt into the room and strode toward the chair.

  He froze. His body jolting with a sudden convulsion of terror.

  The chair was empty.

  It displayed a broken rope.

  Bandile Thato was not there.

  Martin looked around himself, searching every corner of the room. This was purely instinctive, and he knew it – if a man the size of Bandile was hiding in the corner of this tiny room, Martin would have noticed by now.

  Diving to his knees he grabbed the rope, searching them for the reason to Bandile’s escape.

  It struck him that this was counterproductive and he needed to search before Bandile got too far, but he still endeavoured to examine the empty restraints – needing to know how the man escaped

  It was denial.

  Bandile was a crucial part to the plan – without him, Eddie’s soul would remain as just a ball of energy.

  Without Bandile, Eddie would not be able to come back, and the heir would win.

  He could not let Derek down.

  He had to find Bandile.

  Just as he bounced to his feet, full of vigour, ready to search every corner and every crevasse of the house and the nearby streets for their prisoner, he found that he did not have to look far.

  Bandile Thato placed a few careful steps down the stairs.

  Martin went to react, then stopped. In Bandile’s rough hand was a revolver, pointing directly at Martin’s head.

  Bandile’s hand didn’t shake. His eyes didn’t flutter. His lip didn’t quiver.

  He was ready to take Martin’s life, and that thought sent fear firing through his mind.

  “Martin,” Bandile acknowledged as he reached the bottom step. He was close enough now that he would not miss.

  He aimed the gun.

  Readied his trigger finger.

  Martin raised a hand.

  “Look, Bandile, I–”

  Bandile pulled the trigger.

  43

  Derek’s eyes opened hazily, overwhelmed by a bright glare. The light faded, revealing a room with a straw floor and an infinite number of stones ascending into darkness.

  He rubbed his eyes, willing them to focus. He squinted, scrunching his face up, pulling away as he waited for his eyes to adjust. Eventually, they did, and he pushed himself to his feet, looking around.

  It was a claustrophobic box. No door. Nothing above. No way out at all.

  “Derek?” came a familiar voice.

  Derek’s head shot around.

  There he stood.

  Eddie.

  The same messy hair. The same bedraggled body. The same unaltered, undeniably warm, friendly face.

  Derek grew immediately defensive, readying himself for a fight, frantically searching over each shoulder for an escape route.

  “Derek, it’s okay, it’s me.”

  Derek paused. He grew confused, not sure what to make of it.

  “I’m not the heir of hell. I’m… Well, I’m not even Eddie, technically.”

  “You’re his soul…” Derek gasped.

  Eddie faintly nodded. He returned Derek’s cautious gaze, unsure how to react. What to say.

  After all, Eddie was part of a creature responsible for a mass genocide. You don’t just walk up to someone and say hi after a thing like that.

  He didn’t expect a warm welcome.

  “Oh my God…” Derek whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s really you…”

  Eddie faintly nodded again.

  After a moment of uncertainty, Derek launched himself forward and wrapped his arms around Eddie in a tight embrace.

  Eddie returned the gesture. Every emotion, every feeling of anger, of loss, of sorrow, poured out into their embrace. All the death, all the lack of hope, all the loss they had suffered, pouring into a few seconds of triumph that Derek had finally broken through.

  Despite everything, Derek couldn’t help but be consumed by an overwhelming sense of warmth toward an old friend.

  “It’s been so long…” Derek observed, pulling away, looking up and down Eddie in astonishment. “Have you been trapped here the whole time?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Where is here? Where are we?”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “Somewhere in hell, I would guess,” Eddie answered. “It’s guarded by Geryon.”

  “Oh, God. The Geryon? One of hell’s guards?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They must really not want you to escape.”

  Eddie looked down, fiddling with his hands, nervously shifting from foot to foot.

  Derek noticed a blue wash placed over the stones, a soft light faintly decorating the wall.

  How strange… he thought. Blue was not a colour hell often used.

  “Listen, Derek, it wasn’t me. All of this, it–”

  “Eddie, I spent so long believing it was – and for that, I apologise.”

  “Thank you. And the exorcism, I watched. I tried to keep the heir still, and… Thank you.”

  They shared another moment of contemplative silence. Derek’s mind filled with a mix of questions and emotions.

  Where were they?

  How were they meant to get out of there?

  And, most pertinently – how would he take Eddie with him?

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” Derek spoke again, unable to get over a wave of doubt that this was real.

  Years of knowing they didn’t stand a chance. Years of feeling like he was training Martin to march into death. Years of wishing he had done things differently.

  The amount of times Derek had laid awake at night wondering, ‘what if?’

  What if he had seen through Bandile Thato’s act?

  What if he had managed to prevent the Devil’s Three?

  What if he had seen this right at the start and told Eddie who and what he was, without being such a coward?

  None of that mattered now.

  Eddie stood a chance. A real, fighting chance of breaking through.

  “So, what now?” Eddie asked. “How are you getting me out?”

  Derek looked around absently, realising that Eddie thought he had all the answers. His wave of relief that the exorcism had worked mixed with an onset of terror at the task at hand. He had a feeling that he had won a battle, and a huge battle at that – one that he should be proud of. But, in truth, it had only worked to get him to where he was
. Now he had to figure out how to get them out of there.

  “I don’t know, Eddie,” Derek honestly replied. “I performed the exorcism to get to you, and now… I don’t know how to get you out.”

  “But if you’re here?”

  “I am here, but I just don’t–”

  “No, Derek, if you’re here – that means you found a way in, so there must be a way out.”

  Derek nodded. It was fair logic.

  Except Derek had no idea how he had gone from standing in that field launching a tirade of prayers at the heir of hell to standing in the prison of Eddie’s soul.

  Eddie’s soul.

  Jenny was right.

  He was there. He had been there all along. And getting to him was the way to win.

  I’ve been such a fool.

  Derek smiled warmly at Eddie.

  “I missed you,” he told his old friend.

  Eddie smiled a tearful smile back. A genuine appreciation combined with such pain and suffering.

  “You too, Derek,” he replied. “You too.”

  “I have no idea how I got here. I’ll be honest with you.”

  Eddie looked around, deep in thought.

  “I could climb these walls before. I went through it and Geryon was there. But, I can’t… They cause too much pain…”

  “Well, how did you manage to climb them before?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  Eddie folded his arms, deep in thought, considering his surroundings.

  “I took over,” Eddie suggested. “I took control of the heir, I… I got angry.”

  “Right,” acknowledged Derek. “That’s a starting point.”

  44

  Martin flinched, shutting his eyes tightly, readying himself for the impact.

  Then nothing.

  He waited, expecting a bullet to fire through his cranium and leave him to drop dead in a heap on the floor.

  But it didn’t.

  He opened his eyes.

  Bandile stared at the gun, perplexed.

  Then Martin realised.

  Bandile had stolen Derek’s gun.

  The one from the drawer in his study.

  The one with the empty chamber.

  Derek, I could kiss you!

  Full of renewed happiness, energy that he had survived what he thought were his last dying moments, he threw his hand out, creating a gold circle with his spinning finger.

  Bandile’s expression abruptly changed. He dropped the gun, turned his face to terror, and bounded up the stairs as fast as he could.

  But it wasn’t fast enough.

  Martin’s restraint spell flew out from his hands, the gold circle wrapping itself around Bandile, tightening until Bandile grimaced with discomfort.

  Bandile looked down, struggled against it, fought, tried to move his arms.

  But he knew from his previous experience that struggling would be futile. This was a supernatural binding, stronger than rope or handcuffs.

  Martin swaggered toward Bandile with an air of cockiness, stopping within inches of his insolent face. Not wanting to show off but, at the same time, immensely chuffed that he managed to get one over this bastard.

  “Well,” he gloated, knowing he needed to rush, but unable to help himself from having his moment. “That backfired.”

  Bandile glared intently.

  “Well, no, it didn’t fire at all…” Martin continued, sniggering – then realised it was too much gloating, and he needed to curtail it. “Let’s go make a human out of a soul, shall we?”

  He walked forward, making Bandile float behind him, out of the basement and toward the front door.

  “You’re all going to die, you know,” Bandile announced.

  “Oh, yeah?” Martin asked, turning back to Bandile with a knowing smirk, still trying to curb his gloating over a brilliant moment of luck.

  “The heir of hell is going to kill all of you. The devil will rise. I bet demons have already scorched the earth. You are all going to suffer an eternity of torment.”

  “You say that…” Martin began, opening the front door, and turning back to the big, muscular man dangling helplessly behind him, “…but I ain’t the one who just shot an empty chamber, am I?”

  He marched out the front door, Bandile following, floating behind.

  Bandile watched as he was taken through the air, squeezed tightly into submission, made to remain helplessly hanging. Watching Martin running in front of him, leading him back to the battle field.

  He saw the heir as they approached. Laying helplessly on the ground.

  It didn’t matter.

  He just had to revert to his old plan.

  Edward King would not return, he was going to see to that.

  45

  20 August 1999

  Four months until millennium night

  A heavy breeze fluttered Eddie’s long coat. His forlorn face fell, solemn with the weight of his grief, his mood matching the grey skies hovering loosely above.

  Cassy King

  Gone But Not Forgotten

  1976 – 1984

  Words engraved on stone, a permanent etching of a sentiment that could never be truly expressed.

  Eddie felt Jenny’s hand slide into his, aware of her wary glance in his direction.

  “She would be so proud of you,” she told him. “Of all you’ve done.”

  “Yeah…” he agreed, his wandering voice trailing off into sombre thoughts.

  A life taken from a child so young – Eddie wished he had gotten to know her. It was a death that caused so many issues. The most prominent being his parents and their drunken, abusive descent into a criminal life that led them to prison, and led Eddie to living with Jenny’s family from the age of sixteen.

  It seemed like the worst decision at the time, but his moving in with a loving family turned out to be a blessing.

  He had visited his parents in prison only once, and that was the last time he had seen them. Just before they stood trial.

  They couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

  “I miss her so much,” Eddie told his best friend. “What’s worse is that I don’t even know where she is.”

  “She’s in heaven.”

  Eddie shook his head. Jenny didn’t know much of the world Eddie was quickly growing accustomed to.

  “No,” he told her. “Derek and I are thinking that there’s more to this death than we know.”

  They shared another moment of silent sadness, of shared comfortable discontent.

  “I just wish I could be reunited with her somehow. That we could be together. Close, like we were as children.”

  “Someday, who knows? If there is a heaven, you could see her again.”

  Eddie bowed his head.

  He highly doubted Cassy had been allowed to pass on to heaven.

  “Derek believes I could find her.”

  “You speak a lot about this Derek and what he thinks, Eddie.”

  “He has shown me that I can do things, incredible things; things I hadn’t even thought possible. And he says things about me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like… that I’m going to become extremely powerful. That I am going to be able to change the face of this earth.”

  Jenny turned toward Eddie and rested a gentle palm on the side of his face. She looked him in the eyes, a genuine caring and affection spread across her smile.

  “You don’t need anyone to tell me how special you are,” she told him. “I knew it from the start.”

  “Jenny…”

  “But Derek is right. You are doing amazing things, and maybe you are destined for something more than the life you ended up with. You’re not the dumb idiot who lived on my sofa anymore, are you?”

  Eddie shook his head. He slid his arms around Jenny, savouring her closeness. Taking in her comfort and her endless kindness.

  Inseparable since the day they met, Jenny had been the constant in his life he could always rely on – and he was so grateful fo
r that.

  “I think it’s faith misplaced,” Eddie spoke honestly. “I mean, I know Derek has faith in me. But aside from being really good at battling people raving on about how they have demons in them, I just, I don’t know…”

  He dropped his head, but Jenny’s hands quickly gripped the underside of his chin and lifted his face to hers.

  “It’s never faith misplaced, Eddie,” she told him. “You changed my life, you changed Derek’s life – and there’s no reason why anyone of us should ever falter in our belief in you.”

  “Look, Jenny, I know you’re my best friend, it’s just–”

  “No!” she interrupted assertively. “Don’t demean what I’m saying. I’m not lying. Listen to me.”

  She looked him deep in his eyes.

  “Faith in Edward King is never faith misplaced. I will keep saying it until you believe it like I do.”

  Eddie smiled.

  He knew they would be friends until the day they died.

  “Faith in Edward King is never faith misplaced.”

  Jenny

  46

  3 April 2003

  The heir’s body hung limply in the air like damp washing hung out to dry.

  Derek’s cross lay on the floor in front of it.

  Martin brought Bandile’s floating body to a halt and turned to Cassy, who sat over a cross without an owner.

  “It’s Derek…” she told him. “He’s been taken to Eddie.”

  Martin looked bemused. He stuttered over words, trying to conjure a sentence that could coherently convey his thoughts. His mind was a perplexed mess of chaos and hysterics, yet his feet were irrationally still.

  Wasn’t Derek meant to bring Eddie to them?

  “What if he doesn’t…” he attempted, before realising he didn’t even know the question he wished to ask.

  Cassy came to his side.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” she decided. “If the heir is submitting, then it must mean progress. Derek will be somewhere. Hopefully with Eddie.”