by Mark Romang
Terror filled Sara’s heart.
Her knees wobbled.
She could barely stand.
Slack-jawed, she held the triggers down on her flamethrower, forgetting all about the seven second fuel burn limit. The demons winged through the spraying flame, still on course for the narrow ledge she and Webb stood on.
Sara’s flamethrower hissed out. But now Webb had his flamethrower going. He blasted two-second bursts into the demon’s chests and faces. The hellish creatures screeched in pain and separated. One scuttled rapidly up the canyon wall toward the chasm opening, and the other flew northward toward Maddix. Downdrafts from their flapping wings kicked up sand and pebbles by Sara’s climbing shoes.
“Cody, Kyle! A demon is escaping the canyon! Do you copy?” Sara cried. “Maddix, a demon is heading your way! Do you copy?”
Chapter 21
Its navigation and anti-collision lights turned off, the MD-500 helicopter slowly circled Perdition Canyon, flying clockwise loops.
Buckled securely to the special operations platform mounted below the door and just above the chopper’s starboard landing skid, Cody Hosmer struggled to keep from wigging out.
He never realized until tonight that heights bothered him. Even though Maddix promised him that he wouldn’t fall from his perch, he still felt like he could topple over at any moment and plunge to his death. Although falling from a helicopter while fighting demons would make for an interesting eulogy, his body splattering on the rocky ground from twelve stories up wasn’t the way he wanted to exit life.
Sweat beaded on his brow despite the chill hanging in the night air. And his thumping heart kept close pace with the helicopter rotors. Cody gripped the flamethrower nozzle tighter. He wondered if Maddix and Sara and Webb had spotted any demons yet.
He and Kyle Miller had taxied back and forth above the canyon opening for over an hour and still hadn’t spotted anything supernatural entering or exiting the chasm. Just a day ago he’d been all gung-ho about fighting the demons. Now he wished the demons wouldn’t show. He kept remembering the night of the deacon’s meeting, when he looked briefly out the church doors and saw the demons mingling amongst the unsuspecting crowd. The sighting haunted him, a heart-stopping image forever burned into his memory. It was a nightmare he kept reliving.
Words couldn’t adequately describe the demons’ grotesque appearances. Horribly disfigured from burns, they looked like they took a bath in battery acid. Charred flesh hung from their powerful limbs and flapped in the wind, creating a stench difficult to endure. But despite their stomach-turning appearance, they were far from harmless.
Cody knew demons patrolled the Earth looking for gullible people to lead astray. They fed on humans whose calloused hearts and minds were far from God. People like his parents, lost souls who lived only to destroy their bodies and minds with booze and drugs.
Cody owed a lot to Andrew Maddix. Besides letting him crash at his apartment, Maddix helped him with schoolwork, taught him martial arts, and most importantly taught him how to read the Bible so the verses came alive with meaning. Maddix was like an older protective brother, always looking out for him. The last thing Cody wanted was to let down Maddix.
This is why he dangled from a helicopter. He believed in God, and he believed in Maddix. And he wanted to make a difference in the world. Maddix often told him to let his light shine bright for all to see. He also told him to be a leader in little things and his life would blossom with opportunities. He was up to giving it a try. He just wished he could eat more than one manna flake.
The manna flakes, so sweet and tasty, were the key to spotting the demons. But Gabriel specifically said not to eat more than one flake per day. No more and no less. He also said there was just enough manna to last for three battles. I have to follow orders, Cody thought. I can’t listen to my stomach. I can’t listen to the voice in my head telling me to eat more manna.
Static suddenly washed into Cody’s helmet. And then he heard Sara’s garbled voice. She sounded tiny and a million miles away. “Cody, Kyle! A demon is escaping the canyon! Do you copy?”
“We copy, Sara,” Cody replied back in a shaky voice. He looked down at the chasm, wishing his night vision goggles would provide more illumination. He couldn’t see any flashes of movement, certainly nothing resembling a demon. All he could see were green rocks and a dark line he knew was the zigzagging canyon opening.
“Do you see anything, Cody?” Kyle miller asked him, his voice anxious sounding.
“Nothing that you could say is supernatural. I’ll keep my eyes peeled, though,” Cody said as he craned his head back toward the north.
But the words hardly escaped his mouth when he saw a large object fly out the canyon. “I see one, Kyle! Turn around and fly north!”
Cody felt the helicopter bank in a clockwise motion and accelerate northward. The sudden maneuver jerked him forward. He gasped as the safety belt restraining him to the platform cut into his stomach. Somehow he kept his eyes trained on the escaping demon. It appeared injured or dazed. It flew in a crazed, haphazard fashion like a bat.
Cody held off firing the flamethrower. It took all his willpower not to fire it. They weren’t close enough yet, and he didn’t want to waste his fuel. God, please don’t let me miss, he prayed.
The distance between the helicopter and the demon closed rapidly. I can do this. I can do this. It’s not much different than playing Halo on Xbox, Cody thought. He noticed the helicopter climb a bit and slow to a taxi hover. Miller was lining him up for a shot. “What are you waiting on, Cody? Fry that butt-ugly thing!” Kyle Miller’s voice fairly screamed into his helmet.
Cody squeezed the two triggers on his M2 flamethrower. A 100 foot long fire plume shot out and grazed the demon. The demon let loose a bloodcurdling scream. The terrible screeching noise echoed off the surrounding monoliths and cut through Cody’s soul like a meat cleaver slicing through flesh, gristle and bone.
The demon flew even more awkwardly now, almost as if it were drunk on cheap wine. It changed directions and headed right for them, still screeching a terrible battle scream.
Cody let loose his own scream. He wanted to fire but couldn’t get his fingers to work. They had stiffened up, literally freezing in place from fear.
The demon flew closer. An intense rage burned in his glowing eyes. He scowled right at Cody, the most twisted form of sadism etched across his mutilated face. Cody knew if he survived this moment he would never ever forget that look. And then the demon produced a curved sword called a scimitar.
Wide-eyed, Cody looked down at his hands. His index fingers were still petrified, stuck just short of the flame gun’s triggers.
He started to hyperventilate. “Cody! Are you okay? Come on, kid, don’t freeze up on me. Blast him!” Kyle Miller said from his pilot’s seat.
Terror-stricken, Cody fought through his fear. I can’t let Maddix down.
But he couldn’t move. Paralysis rendered his hands to nothing more than useless bony knobs.
The demon was only twenty to thirty yards away now. He swung the scimitar in a rhythmic fashion. It was beautiful the way he swung it, almost hypnotic. A deadly ballet performed in the air.
Cody shook his head. He felt like he was going mad. Insanity wrapped around his brain like a hangman’s noose. Now he knew why humans were never allowed to witness the spirit world. It was too dangerous, too terrifying for the feeble human mind to comprehend. With great effort he managed to move his hands backwards a fraction, closer to the triggers. His fingers twitched no more than a millimeter from the triggers. What’s wrong with my fingers? God help me move them!
Over the thundering roar of the helicopter rotors, Cody could hear the scimitar moving air as it swung faster and faster, producing a shrill whistling sound. The distance between the helicopter and the demon condensed to fifteen yards. The demon seemed intent to ram the helicopter and knock it out of the sky.
Cody swallowed hard. A lump the size of a lemon clogged his thr
oat. He didn’t know if a spirit could even budge a heavy 3-D object like a helicopter. He just knew he couldn’t leave it to chance.
With all his remaining strength, Cody willed his cemented fingers to wrap around the triggers. At last he accomplished the feat.
The flamethrower belched and lit up the sky, torching the demon square in the chest with a 1200 degree flame. The demon screeched in agony. A spine-chilling caterwaul filled the starless sky, and the demon, cloaked in flames, dropped like a meteorite back into the slot canyon.
“Sara, Webb, the demon is falling back into the canyon. Maddix, do you copy?” he bellowed, his voice hoarse and tremulous. “I think I wounded it.”
****
Her body quivering and her mind teetering toward shock, Sara rappelled down a fifty-foot waterfall. Her body reacted sluggishly to her commands. Fear stiffened her limbs. The rappel became harder than it needed to be. Lord, help me keep it together. I’m losing it. My sanity is almost gone.
An inner prompting urged her to look up. She saw a large flaming object fall at high speed into the canyon. The wounded demon tumbled past her, screeching all the way down to the canyon floor. Brimstone-scented wind blew across her neck as the demon plummeted by. “Webb, look out!” she shouted. The ex-SEAL waited for her below, acting as her belayer.
Sara heard frantic scuffling noises, followed up with excited cursing. “Are you okay, Webb?” she asked as she applied friction with her brake hand to stop her rappel. Without any fuel in her flamethrower tanks, she only had the crucifix Maddix gave her to fight off the demon. The spare flamethrower was cached farther down the canyon and might as well be hidden in China.
“Webb?” she cried out. She didn’t care much for Webb, but he was all alone down there with that hideous beast. And since she saw no flame coming from Webb’s flamethrower, she assumed it was malfunctioning again. Lord, please protect Webb. Make his flamethrower ignite. Please help us, she pleaded.
Sara dangled from her rope like a spider clinging to gossamer and watched wide-eyed as Webb struggled to light his flamethrower. Flames no longer engulfed the demon. His crash landing into the Virgin River doused the flames. Smoke billowed off his cooling body. He looked angry. He also looked confident as he stalked toward Webb, screeching and growling.
Webb cursed again. “I can’t get the lighter to work now,” he grumbled.
An idea suddenly formed in Sara’s brain. She reached her left hand into her dry bag hanging by her side. She pulled out a handheld signal flare. “Webb, catch this flare. Maybe you can light your flamethrower with it,” she said and tossed the flare down to him.
Webb caught the flare but dropped it. The demon surged forward. Webb bent over and grabbed the flare, and from his bent-over position quickly yanked the pull cord trigger. The 15,000 lumens signal flare sizzled to life and displayed a vivid pinkish-red light.
The bottom of the canyon glowed scarlet like fires from hell. Webb stood up and waved the burning flare around. The demon cowered back. Fire clearly unnerved it.
But then the demon peered up and hunted for the source of Webb’s help. Its glowing, vengeful eyes came to rest on her.
Webb easily lit the flamethrower with the flare and wasted no time driving the demon further back, blasting it twice with one-second bursts from short range. The demon shrieked as the flame torched its otherworldly skin. Still squawking at ear-splitting decibels, it flapped its wings rapidly against the canyon walls to douse the flames. And then the demon took flight. It flew straight up toward her.
Sara instinctively hugged the canyon wall and hid behind the waterfall. She still dangled about thirty feet above the canyon floor. The waterfall was probably six feet wide and provided only a thin veil of cover. Oh, God, don’t let it see me!
Between squawks, and over the din of the waterfall, Sara heard Webb’s flamethrower roar. Flames sprayed upward and pierced the waterfall. An intense heat glanced off her back. Her mouth and shoulders flinched.
Drenched from the waterfall, the flames didn’t ignite her clothes. But they did drive off her attacker. Sara heard the demon winging away. She hung there, too afraid to move, terrified that the demon might return. The waterfall coursed over her. Her whole body shook.
“You can come down now, Sara. It flew away,” Webb called out, his voice no longer confident. He sounded exhausted.
Breathing deeply, Sara pushed weakly off the wall and resumed her rappel. She wanted this night over with. She longed for warm sunlight. She yearned for a normal day interacting with people. Better yet, she wanted to live in a world without demons, only God and Jesus, angels and saints.
With one more kick off the canyon wall, she made it to the bottom. Sighing deeply, she unhooked her harness from the climbing rope. She turned to face Webb, but stepped on a loose rock and stumbled backward. Sara reached out her left hand to steady herself against the canyon wall. But her hand didn’t encounter anything solid. Instead, her hand plunged through a gummy substance and into a void.
Startled, she jerked her hand back. A foul smelling slime coated her hand. Repulsed, Sara hurried over to the Virgin River tributary that snaked through Perdition Canyon and plunged her hand into the icy cold water.
She pulled her hand out of the water, saw that it was mostly clean, and retrieved a flashlight out of her dry bag. Sara tiptoed back to the canyon wall. She flipped up her night-vision goggles and shone the flashlight onto the sandstone where she encountered the slime. Her skin tingled as she methodically worked the light down the jagged rock wall.
The suspense of the moment accelerated her heart. All at once she felt like she’d stepped into a Hollywood movie set. Something was about to jump out at her. She could almost hear the imaginary audience screaming at her to get back, to not take any chances, to run. But she couldn’t help herself. An inner prompting compelled her to investigate.
“Sara? What are you doing?” Webb asked. “We’re wasting time.”
Sara ignored Webb’s query. Her flashlight was almost to the spot where her hand encountered the slimy void. The flashlight beam cut a harsh glare in the blackness. Sara’s breath caught when the slime came into view. Her nose wrinkled at the putrid smell wafting from it.
What is it? She wondered. The slime covered a large cleft in the canyon wall. The cleft ran vertically for about ten feet. At least that was her best guess. And the cleft was about five feet wide. The slime covered the entire cleft. Holding her flashlight steady, Sara examined the sticky substance closer. It was like a protective cover of sorts. Like a cocoon, she could see something hid behind the cinder-gray glop.
Intuition told her to run. But curiosity urged her to keep snooping.
Trembling, Sara extended her flashlight until it touched a corner of the slimy covering. She pushed inward with the flashlight and then swept it downward, as if parting cobwebs. The cocoon separated.
Sara trained the flashlight beam into the cleft and looked around. Her lungs suddenly stopped. Her mouth dropped open. She wanted to scream but thought better of it. A sleeping demon stood inside the vertical cleft.
“Webb, you need to come see this,” she said, her voice barely above an urgent whisper. The flashlight illuminated the demon’s face. Half the face was horribly disfigured. Charred skin blackened from flames dripped pus, while flawless and delicate skin, perfect in every way, covered the other side of the demon’s face. Sara could tell that this demon was once very beautiful, a stunning example of God’s creativeness.
This demon had once lived on God’s holy mountain, in His holy city, and had attended to God alongside the multitude of other angels. Serving God must’ve been so pleasurable back then, so fulfilling. But then the demon made a grave mistake and turned its back on God, choosing to follow Lucifer instead. Now it was a monster, a menace to society, a home wrecker, a destroyer of everything good and wholesome.
Sara felt so small and inconsequential. The demon towered at least four feet over her and was put together like a sprinter. Powerful muscles covered i
ts torso and limbs. Maybe it’s dead, she thought. But then she remembered that angels, even fallen ones are eternal beings. And then almost on cue, a black wisp curled out its nostrils.
And then the worst thing that could happen—happened. The demon’s eyes blinked open. It peered down, right at her.
Sara screamed.
Chapter 22
Sara’s echoing scream penetrated all the way into Maddix’s temporal lobes, burrowing like a mole into his flashback. Inside the cave, he stopped in his tracks. He jerked his head around, away from the angel. “Sara? Are you okay?” Maddix cried into his headset.
He clambered to his feet. Guilt washed over him. He was the leader of this team, and he let everyone down. While the others courageously battled demons, putting their bodies and minds at risk, he’d slept in a fetal position. Maddix hated himself.
He bent down to pick up the Eden sword lying at his feet. That’s when he felt the sting of the arrows. Inhaling sharply, he looked down. His stomach resembled an electrified pincushion. He counted five arrows. Only they were unlike any arrows he’d ever seen. Instead of aluminum or carbon fiber arrow shafts, the shafts were comprised of glowing words.
Maddix pulled at one of the arrows. It came out his flesh easily. The arrow shaft spelled hypocrite. Maddix flung it down. The arrow shattered into embers. The embers winked out almost instantly.
He pulled out another arrow. This one spelled coward. Maddix slammed it to the rocky ground, breaking it. Again, the embers disappeared in an eye blink. One by one he removed each arrow.
As he flung them down in disgust, Maddix became aware that the arrows represented his own hang-ups, doubts, and worries.
The last three arrows spelled pride, apathy, and faithless. Things he struggled with quite often.