by Riley Mason
Most of the weapons are automatic, Bash was never really all about the single shot action unless he had no choice. There are a few pump actions but most of them are medium automatic weapons.
“All the bullets were soaked in dead man’s blood doesn’t matter if our target if flesh and blood or supernatural, the bullets will do the work for us either way.”
“The army might be up in the thousands now depending on how well they’ve been hollowing out cemeteries,” I let him know.
“Gabriel’s been a busy man hunting this seal but I’m more than sure he needs you to open it same way as he needed you to turn the wraith,” he says to me.
“He does need me, that’s why this is going to work. I’ll kill myself before I let him get his hands on me and I expect the same if you see me fall under his control, you can’t give me to him. I expect you to put a bullet into me if that happens.”
“I’m in for this cause Arinna,” he tells me, he wants to reassure me and I can see in his eyes that he means the words he says but I have some doubt that he’ll be able to kill me if that’s what this comes too. He doesn’t seem shaken, that’s not the Bash that's branded into my memory.
I’m loading a Tech 9, snapping the long clip into its stomach when I look up at Bash and see that he’s perfectly still. There is a weapon in one hand and a clip in another but he’s standing so perfectly still that he almost resembles a mannequin.
The light above me flicker and stutter and almost immediately I know that neither of the two of us are alone any longer. I turn to see the wicked eyes facing me out of the dark that I haven’t seen in longer then I can recall now. I’ve never seen this set of eyes come to me before, it’s more interested in me coming to her. I assume now with Syllis gone, she’s taken more of an interest in the direction that this war is heading. I don’t know why she won’t just involve herself, she and I both know she would change the outcome faster than I could.
She walks towards me, this Angel of Darkness, the one who controls Lucifer in the afterlife not timidly nor with compassion for why she’s here. She comes to me with familiarity. “You and I are about to have a conversation,” she says to me.
“I thought you were in exile?” I ask her.
“I am,” she tells me and places a hand on my shoulder and we vanish from the armory.
Chapter 107
I look around when the distortions around my eyes clear. We’re back in the cave but somehow it looks bigger to me. It’s as if the rock faces inside of it have had time to stretch and react to the person, the entity that’s been living inside of it assuming any part of her body is actually alive.
She’s standing there, her arms are at her side, she’s calmer than I remember, the solitude must’ve done that to her. The absence of all control and all interactions I can assume played a role. Omni kinetic, omnipresence, omnipotence, all of them being held together in one vessel is so much more than a gift but it's so much heavier than most curses. I look at her with a sense of pity that I’m not really sure she can see and if she can, I’m not really sure that she can understand it.
“The bridge that I sent you has been taken by Gabriel,” she says to me. I can only assume that she’s speaking about Syllis. “They’re going to use him and try and break the third seal in your place, they’ll fail without your blood.”
“So, I’m here under your protection?” I ask. “To make sure that the seal can’t be broken?”
“That seal has more than one way to open. Your blood is the most logical choice but it’s not the only choice. The wraith is getting more powerful and its power needs to be placed in check soon. Soon enough it'll require me to intervene.”
“Then why not intervene now?” I ask it.
“Why are you so quick to ask the being responsible for the underworld and for Lucifer and for all the demons and the spirits that you’ve trained yourself to kill to walk the surface of the planet and place my connection back to them?”
“Because, you know why they’re growing so fast and so quick. Gabriel is using the war that left the Chasers nearly extinct and the demon possessing him gave him the ability to manipulate flesh and blood while his wraith can pull the dead from the rest sites. I can’t run around burning all the cemeteries to make sure they can’t recruit.”
“Gabriel is using what’s been given to him. At the time when the war ended and the gates were shut permanently, it was a way to leave some semblance of our realm in your world. A way to have a body of power acting on its own independent of my control. Its grown since then, the piece that I put into him as well as the piece that I put into you.”
“What do you mean?” panic is stuck in my voice.
“When I know everything about something, it's easier to place trust in any one thing. I respected this one entity, it was one of Lucifer's most hated enemies and when I split him in half, I gifted each of you with a piece of that body. It gave you everything you needed to wage that war on the surface again. It gave the other side a doorway to come back after it was defeated.”
I look at her, the clam in her face, the ease of her eyes, the lack of tension in her voice. “You planned the second coming before the war even ended.”
“I saw this first wars result before the war even had a chance to start. With all futures possible, I chose the one that was most likely and took steps to ensure that the defeat that was inevitable with the full strength of the Chasers running it, I made sure that if the demons were to rise again they would do so with more strength than they did last time.”
“I thought you didn't’ have any interest in this war,” I ask it. I want to kill it, I want it dead but I know that I can’t no matter how smart the move is, how fast my reflexes are, there is no chance that I have in this world to kill it. I don't even know how well that I can control it.
“I don’t but I do have a stake in natural progression. The stronger ones are from below and they’ve set their minds on coming back to the surface to refight a war they feel they unfairly lost. That and Lucifer has been taking power from himself by feeding off the demons that he himself created to serve him. If he gets out, this war will end the way that I’ve seen it end.”
“If you’ve seen it end what can we change?”
“The outcome of this one isn't’ set the way the last one was. There is no clear victor in this. The one who takes the victory is the one willing to sacrifice more of themselves.”
“You mean to die?” I want to know.
“To do what has to be done to win this war,” it corrects me.
“Then what am I here for?” I wonder.
“To hear what I never told you last time when we spoke before the initiation of the last war. There are things coming to an end and things that will be changed forever after this war has a chance to wage itself. Make sure that your history is the one you want repeated and make sure that your willing to die for the cause that your fighting for.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s one last thing that I need to give you,” she says as she touches my shoulder.
We reappear just outside the armory where I assume that Bash is still down in the belly either frozen or assembling the weapons. When I turn, I see what the Angel was speaking off but she’s gone to explain what I want to ask it. Behind me are at least one hundred men and woman. There is enough of my memory intact to know who they are. I can see the paleness in their faces, the blue that's trapped in their eyes. She brought back all the Chasers from the first war and gave me control of them.
I’m standing there in the cold that's falling around me. Breath steams out of my nose as I look at faces that I recognize but I don't know. It's not that they’re disfigured or decomposed, however they died, she put them back together well enough. Aside from their crisp blue eyes sprayed against their pale skin, they look finished, they look how I imagine they looked just before the first war.
They’re standing in almost an armed forces formation. All of them have weapons in their hand
s, a lot of them are blades, some of them are more intricate blades then others. They are spaced out enough for me to walk through them and they don't move at all once I’m stepping through their ranks.
It’s a surreal feeling that washes over me. It’s almost like I’ve stepped outside of myself and I’m watching something happen that's larger than my own comprehension. I want to speak but no real words come to my mind. I look down towards the end of the line and can see that the last men on the row are just as pristine as the ones that are moved up to the front.
Then the shock is faded as the questions start to spring up in my head. There are real concerns with the men and woman that she brought back to me. The ones that she’s giving the illusion are under my control. I don't know which side they really serve, there is no way to be certain of that until I take them into battle. I can’t be sure what side she has a vested interest in. It’s not as if she gave me access to the memory I have of the first conversation that we shared during the first war. The abilities of those around me are far stronger than the ones they give me as scraps. It’s like I’m bottom feeding on the floor, like a dog begging humans for what’s leftover after they eat their dinner.
All of it is one giant riddle wrapped in a labyrinth and it all depends solely on me taking the risk and trying to decide who and what to trust when the species that I’m being asked to trust is an enemy that I’ve known for my entire life. The Angel may have sent me a guardian but at the same time that guardian is gone and she’s the one that monitors the business on the other side. She’s the one that has the control and I don’t know how much of that control she’s trying to adapt to our side of the surface.
I’m still walking through the lines of the masses when I see one, one man standing amidst the pile of men and woman that should be dead, decomposing somewhere in some grave, marked or unmarked, standing there ready for an order that I haven’t given yet. I see at his back, a blade that looks like a long cleaver, square and bent attached to a long handle. I knew this man; his name doesn’t come back to me at once but it does find its way back to me. His name was John Hershal, we called him Blades.
I look at him to study him, all the features on his face, the blue eyes staring into the horizon ahead of me, he has some height, I’m not in his direct line of vision but I also haven’t asked him to look at me. When I do, he complies with what I want.
As he stares at me, I realize that there is no blinking. That his chest isn’t rising and falling like it would if there was fresh air moving through his body. Even his hands are cold and black from the blood pooling there after he died. I have full use of his body, I can ask him to do anything, but he’s just another person killed that I really have no idea who is behind the wheel when push comes to shove.
“Fuck me,” I hear a voice sound off in the background and I turn to see Bash standing there with an M-16 in his hands. “What the hell is all this?” he asks me his voice echoing off the open field that the armory sits on.
“Our army,” I say back to him, my eyes still on Blades, his eyes still right where he moved them when I asked, the same plane and solemn face imprinted on his features. I’m going to ask him to die again for me and he’s going to do it. “They’re here for us.”
Chapter 108
I’m standing in a room that I don’t recognize, not at first at least. After a minute it comes back to me, slow and steady like it’s cautious to come out of my memories. It seems like all my memories are cautions, ever since I let Syllis into my head with no control or attachment to what he was going to move around. Now I have to force them out of me.
There, at least this one is, I can’t be sure of all of them, but I’m glad the ones that are important to me are still there. At least the Angel made sure that her servant served me well enough or at least was able to make it seem like that. In a world where something omnipotent has to go into hiding, it makes me more than uncertain about what their intentions really are for humanity, or if they even care what sides wins a war that will more than likely end all life regardless of the winner.
I’m in Gabriel’s mansion, in one of the sub-basements, there’s five levels down here to add to the four levels that are on top. I haven’t been here in so long that the floorplan almost escapes me. Even when we were together, I had never down here alone and always joined him under his control. During those times it was hard for any memory to really take hold but enough looks familiar that I can manage it.
I’m in a room that looks like it has the height of two floors. It’s dark except for glowing fire that's in a circle at the far end of the room. Aside from the glow that the tips of the flame are casting on the wall I can’t see much else but I walk towards it.
As I get closer, I’m more mindful of the stone path that’s in front of me and what sounds it’s making as I walk. I’m conscious of the cold that’s in the room but I feel almost displaced, as if I’m there or I’m not. It almost feels like the dream did when I was inside of the raven on the tree and watching Bash. It feels almost like that but almost more intense too.
As I get to the place where the fire is burning, I see the rest of what I couldn’t’ see in the distance. The ring of fire is burning about ten feet by ten feet and there are two figures there. One is hovering in the center of the ring of fire. I can see the scars running up and down the arms that are exposed, the hood that is still propped over his head and the eyes that are still glowing in the shadows.
Syllis is floating in the center of this ring. I go to all out to him before I realize that we aren’t the only two that are in here. I can see the wraith is standing there as well. Just outside of the ring that’s burning, looking up at the body that’s floating in the darkness. Its own blue eyes unyielding and curious and suspicious of what’s in front of it. Two deities from the other side that are trying to learn from one another without interaction.
I realize that for the most part, this war that’s coming is putting the real people that are in the center of it at odds with one another. Two armies of the dead fighting with demons at either end and Lucifer and the Angel looking down from their heights watching all of this happen. I wonder for a second who will make it out alive and then realize a horrific truth about all of it. Only Bash and I are alive, that and the mercenaries that Gabriel has assuming that he hasn’t infested them with demon blood or possession, I know for a fact he has been even before the Angel told me that. Bash as well is infected with another spirit and Azrael is still out there. It’s almost as if I’m the only human that’s going to be in this war and I’m not even entirely sure about my own past and what it means to be flesh and blood during a battle of the supernatural.
My eyes shoot open and I’m in a cot in a small bunker off to the side of the armory. It’s a thin canvas sheet propped up on bars and I realize that I’m lying in it fully clothed but I’m freezing. I look around and I can see frost stuck to the old concrete that's the foundation for the bunker.
When I look around I can see Bash still in the other room walking through where I can see, he’s still sorting the weapons. It dawns on me that I don't even remember falling asleep.
I walk out of the room and he looks up at me. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell him.
Climbing back up the metal stairwell and back out through the front door, I can see the full moon spreading light on the field, the dark is still in control of the sky, and the dead Chasers are there still all of them looking forward, all of them in a controlled eagerness that’s waiting for my words to spring into any action at all. “In twenty-four hours we’ll need you, until then stay out of sight,” I tell them.
It happens in a blink, it might’ve been faster. In that command, all of them vanished from my eyes and the field stood still as if it were staring back at me.
Moving back downstairs, I hear a sound playing through my head. I have the strangest sensation that it’s from Syllis. As I get back down the sound is so loud that I’m sure it’s
going to knock me unconscious. I can feel my tongue roll to the back of my throat and my eyes slide backwards. Bash catches me before I fall face down trapped in the seizure that’s attacking my body.
Chapter 109
I come too with Bash holding me at my waist, I can see throw-up on the floor in front of me. It’s laced with red, I cut something on the way up, I can feel the cut all over my throat.
When he can feel I’m conscious again he turns me around and gets me to a seat, I don’t trust my legs right now as much as he doesn’t.
The second I’m seated, he turns and brings me a bottle of water, opened and presses it to my lips. I take a small sip of it and enjoy the sensation that it gives as it washes past the bruising the tearing in my throat.
I close my eyes, take a few short breaths and then open them again. “What happened?” I asked him.
“A trance,” he says back to me.
“What do you mean a trance?’ I ask.
He takes a step back and puts his hands on his hips. The words are hard for him to say, they’re going to be even harder for me to hear. Another time something was in my head working the strings of my body without my memory to know or retain what’s happening.
The look in his eyes sent a shiver running up and down my spine and he pulled out his cell phone. I watched as he scrolled through screens with his thumb and then slid it on the table with the voice recorder playing.
It was my voice, at least some of it was. Some of it didn’t sound like it could fall out of human vocal chords. It sounded more like there were three voices speaking, high strung and high pitched but like a growl at the same time. If I wasn’t surrounded with thick concrete underground, I’m sure that every cop in a five-mile area would be knocking at the door investigating.
The words were clear enough, I didn’t want to hear them but the Chaser translated the screams into something tangible. “It’s the location of the third seal,” I say as I hear the recorder rewind itself and then play the message all over again.