“I first met her in Japan. Like my wife, she was American and had also been sent to Kyoto as a missionary exchange student by her church. She would sit in the back of my church and listen to the minister give his sermon in Japanese. I only found out later that at that point, her Japanese was very limited. I think she just liked sitting there and soaking up the peacefulness.
“Our church was very small — I believe our congregation was less than 100 — but the church itself was a thing of beauty. It had been built in the late 1800’s and people would come from all over the country just to see the workmanship of its stained-glass windows. You know what a stained-glass window is?”
Sam nodded. Although of course he’d never been into Jacob’s Ladders’ church, he’d seen it from a distance and noticed the beautiful colours of its windows.
“I used to sit there for hours myself, alone with my thoughts. It really was a very peaceful place. Anyway, I’d see her on the way out and she would smile and nod at everyone as they left the church. She had a lovely smile — very genuine, instantly likeable.
Gradually we got to know each other. My English was much better than her Japanese so communication wasn’t too difficult. Our minister, who knew that I was a teacher, suggested that I teach her Japanese. I agreed willingly.
She would come over to my small house for three hour long sessions each week. She was an excellent student — much like yourself. She learnt quickly. Very soon, we were able to converse fluently in Japanese.
We became good friends. One Christmas, my wife and I presented her with a silver cross which she refused to ever take off. She and my wife got on extremely well — they were very similar in many ways. She was exceedingly devout and we had long, rambling conversations about the nature of the church, the Bible and so forth. What became clear to me over time was that she had probably the purest soul of anyone I had ever encountered. Which is why what happened next came as a shock.”
Sam, who had up to this point been listening with rapt attention, was suddenly on his feet, his heart hammering.
Hikari made soothing motions at him. “Come. Sit back down. You need to hear this.”
Reluctantly, Sam slowly lowered himself back onto the bed. A part of him didn’t want to hear any more, but the rest of him desired this knowledge so much that it hurt.
“A man appeared one day, dressed all in black. At the time, I took him for a priest. He was waiting for your mother outside the church grounds after the evening service. I never heard what he said to her that day — I arrived at her side too late. What I can tell you is that there was something about him that I immediately disliked. Disliked and distrusted. I couldn’t put my finger on it but he just felt wrong somehow.
“Your mother didn’t notice. She seemed to be completely under his spell, for that, in hindsight, is what it was. He had charmed her somehow, probably using the dark arts.
“After that moment, I didn’t see your mother much. When I did see her, she was a different person. The light had gone out in her eyes. She rarely smiled anymore. Eventually, she moved out of the church accommodation that had been provided for her and even our minister didn’t seem to know where she’d gone. I made enquiries and found that she was living in a part of Kyoto where most people were scared to go after dark. I tracked her down one night and decided to follow her as she left her apartment.
“I followed her to an ancient cemetery, long disused and now overgrown and neglected. I was very careful not to be seen and in any case, it was a very dark night. The clouds obscured the moon and there were no street lights in this part of Kyoto.
“She walked into the centre of the cemetery, her motions stiff and puppet-like as if she were in some sort of trance. A group of cloaked and hooded figures waited for her, surrounding what appeared to be a stone altar. The stone altar itself was lit by candles and I could clearly see a fresh red stain slowly dribbling from its side.
“The dark figures parted for her in silence. Without pause, your mother climbed up onto the altar and lay down. The figures then gathered around her and began chanting. I knew what they were doing because, even then, I had been researching the demonic arts, dividing my time between the dojo and my studies.
A mist began to form. The chanting increased in volume and urgency. Something — a vague blood-red shape of vapour — began forming above her body. I knew what it was then and cried out before I could stop myself. Almost instantly, I was seized from behind by four opponents. I shook two of them off and crippled them with blows but then more and more began to pile on top of me. They bound me, hand and foot, and dragged me into the circle.
“Then they forced me to watch.” Hikari paused as if lost in the moment.
Sam realized that he had forgotten to breathe. He took a hasty breath as Hikari continued his tale.
“The vapour began to take on a more solid aspect and a shape coalesced. It was a demon, of course, and a mighty one at that. I could sense its power, and I screamed at your mother to wake. She glanced back at me with a look so evil that it sent a shiver down my spine. One of the acolytes knocked me a blow that sent my senses swimming and everything after that is a hazy blur.
“The last thing I remember before passing out is the demonic shape embracing your mother. The demon, to roars of ecstatic approval from the acolytes, departed, taking your mother with him. I managed to let out another weak groan and then I was struck from behind again.
“When I awoke, it was morning. The acolytes had gone and there was no sign of either the demon or your mother. To this day, I do not know why they let me live. I managed to wriggle free of my bonds and investigated the altar as best I could in my weakened state. I found remains of candles and a pentagram drawn in chalk. When I touched the red stain, I found that it was blood.”
Hikari took a deep breath, filled with pain and remorse. “I wish I could have stopped them. I sometimes think that I did not do all I could to save her.”
Sam’s heart ached with anguish but he managed to put his small arm around his master’s shoulders. Hikari hugged him back and they held each other for a few moments.
“And you’ve never seen my … my mother again?” said Sam eventually, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
Hikari got up and began pacing the small room. “I saw her a few months later. She passed me by in the street and I almost missed her, but something made me turn when she was only a few feet from me. She was obviously pregnant. Her hair had been done differently from how she normally kept it and she wore heavy makeup — something which she had never used before.
I ran up to her and grabbed her arm. She looked at me in a way that I will always remember. Her glance was blank but beneath it, I knew that her true self still fought for freedom. She pretended not to know me, shook off my hand and continued on her way. I attempted to follow her but it was almost as if she used some arcane means to elude me.
“I moved to Utah shortly after that. What I had seen convinced me that I had to make plans more rapidly than I had thought. I had allies here and resources. Besides, my wife wanted to move back here after so long in Japan.
“We’d been here a few months when, one night — it was near midnight — there was a knock at the door. I remember having a feeling of tremendous foreboding but despite my wife’s pleas not to answer the door, I did so anyway. I took the precaution, however, of being armed, and crept down the stairs with my katana in my hand.
“When I opened the door, there was a cloaked figure standing there holding a cloth wrapped bundle. When the figure saw the sword, she lowered her hood. It was your mother.”
Sam gasped. To think that his mother actually came to this house was a welcome revelation. She felt somehow closer to him.
Hikari gazed at him as if he sensed his thoughts. “It was good to see your mother again at last, almost as I remembered her. She had aged though. Her hair was greying at the temples and there were new lines on her face. She handed me the bundle and told me: ‘Look after him. Guard him well. We wil
l need his strength in the coming battle.’She then placed something in my hand and closed my fingers over it. I tried to get her to come into the house but she only shook her head sadly. I could tell that she was very afraid. She said that they were looking for her and that she had to hurry.
“I unwrapped the bundle and found your tiny face swaddled within. ‘What will be his name?’ I asked. ‘Samael,’ she replied.”
Sam froze at the name. Something in his body responded to it at a subconscious level and deep down he knew it was his proper name. Sam was a name that he had always worn like a comfortable coat given to him by a stranger — something he liked but that didn’t truly belong to him. Samael rang true. It was the first time he had heard Hikari use it. “Samael,” he repeated.
Hikari nodded slowly.
“Like you, I recognized the name. It is the name of a powerful demon — a fallen angel. Some believe he is the Angel of Death. Names — especially amongst demons — are powerful. Protect your name. Never let those who you do not trust learn the truth of it.
I have never lied to you, Sam. From the moment you were old enough to understand, I told you what you were. Please understand, I shortened your name not to deny you your heritage or conceal the truth from you, but to protect you from those who would bring evil upon you.”
Hikari sat on the bed again and placed his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “Although it is your true name, it does not represent your true nature. While you are half demon, you are also half human and have your mother’s goodness inside you. Fight against the demonic side; never let it dominate you.” He pointed to Sam’s chest. “When in doubt, listen to your heart and let it guide you.”
“What did she give you?” Sam asked.
“It was the cross I had given her,” said Hikari with a weary sigh. “She obviously thought she was not worthy of it anymore.”
“And what about my mother?” asked Sam, looking into Hikari’s eyes. “What happened to her?”
Hikari returned the look without flinching and then sighed again and looked away.
“There is no easy way to say this. Your mother is dead, Sam.”
It was well after midnight. Sam was out past the boundaries of their backyard practising his swordplay, his back to Jacob’s Ladder and the slumbering townspeople. Red soil and rock interspersed by small clumps of green shrubbery stretched as far as the eye could see. Sam’s eye in any case. It was an overcast night. Most humans would see very little in this light. Sam could see perfectly well.
A set of bamboo poles were embedded in the red soil of a small depression. He struck them rhythmically with two-handed blows of his training sword. It was a shinai — a practise weapon made up of four bamboo poles bound together with leather wrappings.
He struck the bamboo pole harder and harder. His hands started to hurt. Even though his palms had hardened with the training regime set by Hikari, he could feel blisters forming. He ignored the pain and continued. Before him, he imagined that the poles were his enemies. Demons, the cultist followers that worshiped them — it didn’t matter. He just wished to strike them down. Anger burned like coals in his stomach.
Most of all, he imagined that they were the ones that killed his mother. He struck even harder and felt wetness in his palms. They were bleeding, but he didn’t care. He cried out with the next strike and both the shinai and the bamboo target shattered. He didn’t stop. With one fluid movement, he picked up another shinai from the ground and began his assault on another pole.
He struck again and again, pouring his rage and frustration out on the inanimate objects, and catching sight of himself in his sword. His irises, once black, had now turned blood red.
Breathless and exhausted, he collapsed to the ground, his palms leaving moist patches of darker red on the soil. He wished he could cry but he could not. Instead he screamed, over and over. When he could scream no more he wrapped his arms around his knees and began rocking back and forth.
He heard a noise behind him and could tell by the careful tread that it was Hikari. If he’d wanted to, his master could have crept up on him without his knowledge. His master intended for him to hear — probably fearful of alarming him.
He felt the arms of his master wrap themselves around him and hold him tight. “It’s alright,” said Hikari, rocking the five year old boy gently. “It’s going to be alright.”
Sam clung to his master just as tightly. Hikari was wrong though. It was not going to be alright. His mother was dead and he would never see her. Nothing would ever be alright again.
3
DEVIL’S GARDEN
5 WEEKS SINCE THE RAPTURE
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”
2 Thessalonians 2:3
Sam awoke from a dream of dark shadowy figures and a feeling of dread to find — somewhat surprisingly — that he was alive, huddled into a foetal position in a bed of ash. He sat up quickly, spitting and grimacing, pulling embers out of his mouth.
A quick inventory. He had no broken bones which was downright amazing given the distance he fell from the Astaroth’s claws. It seemed that the ash had cushioned his fall. The wounds and various scrapes from the Lemure’s claws were already improving. He had always healed quickly — one of the benefits of his demonic heritage.
His katana was still clutched in his left hand. The wakizashi was gone, but after a quick panicked search amongst the ash, he found it buried nearby and breathed out a long sigh of relief. Without his weapons, he would not last another night.
Still crouching, he looked around carefully, taking a deeper interest in his surroundings as Hikari had taught him. He was in a depression so deep it was almost a crater. The falling powder had filled it up, making a convenient landing pad for him. It was daylight, or at least what passed for daylight now. Dark clouds scudded across the sky as if they were in a hurry to be somewhere else. The heavy cloud cover refused to allow any trace of sunlight through. Of course, there was no sign of the Astaroth or any other demon. Daylight did not suit them.
Sam stood up and sheathed both weapons, sending a flurry of soot in all directions. He brushed it off his clothes and absently adjusted his hood to hide his horns as he took in his surroundings. Above the crater rim to the south he could just see Jacob’s Ladder Airport, and the thought of the food court caused his stomach to rumble. He was ravenous.
Sam took out his small cooker and attached the gas cylinder, igniting it with a lighter that he kept in a zipped pocket on his sweatshirt. He pulled out a small pot and selected a can of beans from his dwindling supply which he opened with his pocket knife.
While he waited for the beans to heat, he moved silently to the edge of the depression and gazed down at the airport. Jacob’s Ladder airport was a small domestic airport, catering to the skiers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts who once frequented the area. A small terminal, silent and grey, sat to the left of the runway.
Two small planes were standing on the runway, doors open but seemingly abandoned. Judging by their coating of ash, they had not moved for some time. He could just make out the tail of another plane down the far end of the runway. It looked like it attempted to take off but had failed and crashed into the safety barrier. Sam couldn’t be sure, but from this distance, it appeared to be blackened with fire.
The image reminded him of the events following the massive volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Chile some years earlier. Flights around the world had been disrupted because of the dangers of flying in ash clouds. It seemed that these planes had been affected in a similar way. Perhaps the two on the runway had simply refused to start? Maybe a pilot had managed to get the third going which then choked just before take-off, hurtling the doomed plane into the crash barrier …
There were no signs of life anywhere; no movement at all other than the gentle flutter of dust. There weren’t any bodies visible either but this wasn’t surp
rising — the demons were thorough. Either that, or the bodies were shrouded in ash.
Sam shrugged and turned back to his cooker. The beans were hot but he scooped them into his mouth with his fingers, oblivious to the heat. Ash had fallen into the mix but he didn’t care and ate every last morsel. He licked the juice from the bottom of the pot, still hungry but unwilling to deplete his already sparse supplies. There was more buried in the Devil’s Garden but that food would have to sustain him during his trek over the Rockies.
He took out his water bottle and had a swig. Hardly satisfying, but enough to moisten his tongue. Using a cloth to wipe out the pot — water was too precious to waste on cleaning — Sam put everything carefully back into his pack. He settled it comfortably around his shoulders, did a quick weapon check and then strode over the edge of the crater towards the terminal.
From one of his few visits to the place, he recalled that the airport contained vending machines. Vending machines meant snacks. He wasn’t hopeful — they’d probably been cleared out like most of the shops and houses in Jacob’s Ladder — but it was worth a shot. As he trudged towards it, he reflected that the Astaroth had done him a favour, albeit a small one and mistakenly given. It had moved him closer to his initial goal of Devil’s Garden — only by a couple of miles, but a couple of miles was better than nothing.
Perhaps he could subdue an Astaroth and harness it, using it to transport himself over the Rockies? Flying would be preferable to walking. Instantly Sam realized his stupidity. If last night was anything to go by, he doubted whether he’d be able to defeat an Astaroth in combat, let alone subdue it to an extent that he could ride it.
Not for the first time did he question his refusal to drive on this journey. Hikari had never taught him to drive and the need never arose; not once in his almost eighteen years had he left Jacob’s Ladder or its surrounds. But he was sure he could learn. How hard could it be? Pretty much all the other teenagers in Jacob’s Ladder were doing it. Or had been doing it. He’d even gone so far as to try out one of the abandoned cars parked on the side of Main Street. The owner had clearly been taken by the Rapture — their clothes were still gathered in a pile on the driver’s side and the keys were still in the ignition. The controls seemed simple enough and he’d got the hang of it pretty quickly. Put it into drive, go forward; reverse, go backwards. The handbrake had flummoxed him for a while but he had eventually worked it out.
Rapture r-1 Page 3