Malevolent

by David Risen

  “The man of whom you speak perished by way of cardiac arrest in 1975.”

  Amelia’s face darkened.

  “Who are you?”

  The Dr. Tanner impersonator paced right with a pensive expression on his face just as the real Dr. Tanner did during his Socratic discussions just before delivering his philosophical punchline.

  He paused and chuckled as Dr. Tanner – the ham – always did when a student said something he considered quaint.

  “Even with all your newfound power and all your evidence to the contrary, you still have no belief. You think that God is nothing but glittery, purple smoke that people use to control each other.”

  Amelia sighed with frustration.

  “I’m getting very tired of these long-winded boogeymen who love to hear themselves talk.”

  He turned toward her with his hands stuffed in the tweed pockets of his slacks and offered her a baleful smile.

  “To answer your question, I have many names – which one depends on the perspective of my host. In your culture, some have called me Gabriel, some think I’m merely a ghost, but for our purposes, you can call me Belial.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “An angel, really?”

  “Angel – Demon,” he shrugged, “same thing.”

  She glared at him. “Did you come all the way out here to give me your resume?”

  Belial cocked a bushy eyebrow.

  “You pose no immediate threat to me, and it’s important that your spirit understands the reason for our hostilities here.”

  She sighed.

  “Blah, Blah, Blah...out of balance. Blah, blah, blah...end of the world. I’ve got it. Do you intend to stand there holding your junk, or are you going to do something?”

  He laughed, but the sound of it broke off suddenly, and his face settled into a stark expression.

  “My job is to monitor and defend the tenuous balance between creation and destruction. Many thousands of your years ago, my brothers and sisters and I created what you call The Sisters of Divinity, and in exchange for their complete mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual devotion, we empowered them to protect mortality from very real spiritual threats of which you are a part.”

  Amelia gave him a cynical look.

  “You’re one of the self-righteous nuts who wrote the book, huh? How nice for you.”

  He wagged his head.

  “No, not self-righteous. If the Great Spirit – our father – awakens, the dream is over. My brothers and sisters lose our powers and all of us – mortal and celestial alike face unhappy judgement. We have managed both The Spirit World and Mortality successfully for thousands of your years. We do not need a Great Spirit to condemn and condescend.”

  She gave him a knowing look.

  “You are all the Stewards who have run the Kingdom in the absence of the king. The king foretells his return via a messenger, and you try to stage a coup-détet.”

  He turned his palms up.

  “Call it what you like. It doesn’t matter. You are the Conciliator Matron. Even if you had the power to lay me down, you wouldn’t know how to use it. I only have to defeat one of you to stop your little rebellion.”

  Amelia held up a finger.

  “So, to summarize, you’ve grown corrupt and power hungry, and you’re trying to stop Daddy from returning and giving you a spanking, and you want to beat up on me because you think I’m the weakest, but you still haven’t done anything other than talk me to death.”

  He grinned maliciously.

  “I’m graciously offering my over-matched adversary an opportunity to surrender before hostilities commence. Come with me now into the Spirit World where you will be respun, and I promise you a remarkable lack of pain from both your passing and your rebirth.”

  Amelia turned away from him and began walking in the direction that she came.

  “You’re interfering in matters that don’t concern you.”

  Amelia stopped walking.

  She found herself facing the clearing where Dr. Tanner leaned against the trunk of a tree with his arms folded.

  “Did I fail to mention that your only way out of these woods is through me?

  Amelia rolled her eyes.

  “The only way I have a quarrel with you is if you stand in the way of my imposing justice on these terrible women.”

  And what is justice, exactly, but someone’s imposition of a penalty for perceived wrongdoing? And since we’re talking about perceptions, here, that means that it is subjective, so what gives you the right to impose upon others your partial and limited view?”

  Amelia dropped her head.

  “Get out of my way, or I will move you.”

  He stretched his arms up to the sky and smiled broadly.

  “Give me everything you’ve got, baby.”

  Amelia glared at him and two tracks of flames shot after him from the ground and enveloped him.

  He shrieked like a stuck pick and writhed as the flames licked and withered his skin.

  Then, he simply stood erect, walked through the fire, and brushed his shoulders.

  Amelia pointed to the sky.

  Lightning bolts struck him from the ground and sky.

  He convulsed and foamed at the mouth from the electricity pouring through him. Blood streamed from his eyes like tears.

  Then, he simply opened his eyes, looked straight at her, and walked out of the field of electricity.

  She balled her fist.

  A bubble filled with water surrounded him. He grasped his nose and thrashed against the water. Then his eyes opened in a look of terrible surprise, and his body fell limp.

  “Demon, huh?” she said.

  Belial looked up, grinned at her, produced a long sewing needle from his pants pocket and popped the bubble.

  Amelia felt her cheeks growing hot. Her heart felt as though it was going to jump out of her chest.

  He started toward her.

  She threw her hand up, and the demon’s body turned to stone in mid-stride.

  She stared at it for a long moment waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Just as she turned away and started back through the woods after Rider, the stone razed into chunks and fell at the demon’s feet.

  He continued his trek toward her.

  She concentrated hard on him.

  He stopped abruptly growing pale.

  The lymph nodes on the back of his neck swelled to baseball-size sacks of puss. He grasped his chest and fell to his knees.

  “Bubonic Plague? Really?”

  But then, he straightened up, plugged his left nostril with his thumb, and blew.

  An unending stream of puss and mucus poured from his nose. His lymph nodes shrank.

  He stood and cracked his neck.

  “Elemental magic doesn’t work on one who is not made of the elements. Are you finished, now?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  He flashed a malicious grin.

  “My turn.”

  Before she could react, the ground beneath her feet cracked open and she plunged.

  She threw her hands up and clawed at the rocks in the wall of the fissure.

  Her right hand caught something solid, and her entire body jolted as she snapped to a halt.

  She looked down, and more than a mile below her, the orange glow of magma flowing like a river grinned back from miles below.

  She looked up and clawed at the wall with her free hand. Her right hand trembled as the strength in it waned.

  Belial looked down into the chasm.

  “Not dead yet?” he called, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Perhaps you need a bit more inspiration.”

  He flung his hands through the air, and thick, jagged splinters of wood hurled after her.

  One grazed the side of her face opening a gash in her cheek. Another speared into her left shoulder, and yet another tore through the back of her right hand and planted into the stone she held.

  Amelia released her grip and plu
mmeted toward the magma.

  Rider’s hateful glare remained fixed on Lauren.

  Another woman appeared from the woods carrying a folded, black sheet as if it were a sacred, religious emblem. She marched straight over to Lauren who made an arcane, crisscrossing motion over it and said something he couldn’t hear.

  “So, we’re all just gonna sit out here and do our laundry? Is that it?” Rider barked.

  Lauren looked up at him as the woman carrying the blanket took it to one of the women who had been checking on Aurora in the back of the Avenger – the pale one with dirty, blond hair.

  The woman with the blanket began unfolding it in a strange, ritualistic fashion – much like the reverse of the flag folding ceremony in military funerals.

  “First Counselor Marianne?”

  Another woman wearing a brown ceremonial cloak with the hood reclined revealing a mane of raven hair and a pale but shapely face stepped into his field of vision and stopped just short of her.

  Lauren gave Rider a humorless grin.

  “Prepare Subject Darien A for his ceremony.”

  Emo witch pumped her head, and stepped out of his view.

  “This again?” Rider snarked. “Who am I going to be this time – Shirley Jailhouse the dike editorial writer?”

  Lauren shook her head.

  “Your mother was correct about one thing. With everything that’s going on, you are too dangerous, but we can’t have you popping up again in a few years. We’ll imprison you just like the Abysmal Matron.”

  “What’s your fucking problem with me?”

  She shrugged. The gesture was glib – emotionless.

  “I’ve never felt one way or another about you, Rider. It was always just a job.”

  “At least whores get paid for it!”

  She nodded.

  “You know what they say,” she retorted calmly. “Sticks and stones may break my bones....”

  “Arch Sorceress, the little girl, she’s awake.”

  Lauren covered her mouth, and her eyes welled up.

  “Bring her to me.”

  Amelia clawed and scratched at the walls of the chasm as she fell – to no avail.

  A thin film of sweat broke out on her forehead from the heat of the magma.

  She cast fearful eyes downward to see the lake of fire drawing ever closer.

  Anger overtook her.

  She flailed her arms and feet straight down and screamed – not out of fear but rage.

  Suddenly, she felt air growing ever cooler rushing around her face.

  She opened her eyes just as she catapulted past Belial knocking him off his feet, and she shot through the woods.

  “Terrific,” she heard him say behind her. “I love a good game of hide and seek.”

  The wicked emo bitch cut off Rider’s favorite red knit shirt.

  She knelt, removed his suede hiking boots and socks, and then, she fumbled with the button on his jeans.

  Rider felt raped.

  He wanted to kill this Marianne chick.

  She stripped his jeans and boxers down to his ankles in one, violent jerking motion.

  Rider smirked.

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and take care of me one last time while you’re down there? I’m sure your Madame over there won’t care.”

  Sister Emo didn’t even look at him.

  “What’re they doing to Daddy?” Rider heard Aurora say.

  Rider’s head followed the voice, and he saw Lauren stooped before her.

  “Daddy is a very dangerous man. If we don’t stop him, he’ll hurt you,” Lauren said.

  Rider snarled.

  “Go get help! They’re trying to kill me!”

  “My Daddy would never hurt me,” Aurora insisted.

  Lauren shook her head.

  “He won’t mean to, but he will.”

  Aurora looked across the clearing at him, and Rider felt exposed. Aurora sprinted toward him.

  Behind her, Lauren rose shaking her head.

  “Get her and take her back to the car,” she ordered.

  Twenty feet away from him, Sister Olive Skin scooped her up by the waist.

  She bawled and reached after him kicking and screaming as they carted her off toward the woods.

  A bloody hand reaching for him from the broken back seat of his Envoy.

  Something broke inside Rider – something very old, feral, and violent uncoiled.

  This will not happen again.

  His fear dissipated leaving only iron resolve.

  Belial hurt Amelia much worse than she originally thought. The shaft of wood that pierced her left shoulder went all the way through. The gash in the side of her face laid open her skin, and a loose flap hung from her cheek. Her right hand looked like hamburger meat, and somewhere along the line, something perforated the artery in her left thigh.

  Her head swam from blood loss. She was growing cold.

  She lay in a bed of leaves in the bottom of a gulley.

  She didn’t know how far away her adversary was, but now she heard him moving through the woods calling out to her.

  She didn’t have the strength to move, and the demon was correct in his observations that she didn’t have the slightest idea how to put him down.

  “Amelia,” he called like a kid who was completely enjoying a game. “I can smell your blood.”

  She heard leaves crunching as Dr. Tanner’s signature brown penny loafers battered their way through the over-grown foliage.

  The crunching stopped at the crest of the gulley and the demon sighed.

  “It seems we have a little time left before you lay down your mortal coil, so I’d like to leave you with a few parting thoughts about my father.

  “He’s a mean kid who makes and breaks all of his toys for no other reason than his own amusement.

  “Accounts of this are peppered throughout the doctrines of all religions, but none is more obvious than the one you will find in your own Book of Job.”

  He laughed.

  “Yes, you heard me correctly – The Book of Job that you can find in any Bible, The Koran, or The Tora. It is an account of an event that happens to be true.

  “There was once a mortal named Job – a wealthy and prosperous man who lived many thousands of years ago.

  “Job was the sort of soul who if you dropped him in a maze with a thousand iniquitous ways to escape, but only one virtuous way that would cause him great suffering, he would choose the virtuous way.

  “Well, dear old Daddy or the Great Spirit or God, if you prefer, wanted to teach my brother, an errant, rebellious soul seething with hatred and bitterness over humanity and any other thing that father created, a lesson. You call him Lucifer.

  “At any rate, Father and Lucifer created hell on earth for this poor man. He lost everything.

  “His sons.

  “His wealth.

  “His wife.

  “He even contracted an infectious disease that turned him into a social pariah, and he did all this to prove a point to a spirit who cannot ever be taught anything about the virtues of mortality.

  “I believe in mortality, unlike my brother, and unlike father, I care what happens to the spirits in my charge.

  “Creation, though it was thrown together hastily by self-serving hands, is a flawless design with infinite potential.

  “The growth potential of my brothers and sisters pales in comparison to that of mortals. Here, you can turn yourself into a Divine Spirit with literally infinite power by merely learning and being virtuous.

  “Embedded and grounded in these meat suits, you damn or exalt yourself by your actions and the intentions of them.

  “It’s my goal as Steward of these realms to give my brother and sister mortals as many chances as they need to find exaltation.

  “If the bell rings on Father’s alarm clock now, he’ll bring judgement to tens of millions including my celestial brothers and sisters who don’t see eye to eye with him.

  “What is the nobles
t choice? You decide. And I wasn’t kidding about the power of mortals. For mortality, it’s all about cultivating and exercising virtue. Virtue purifies and focuses the power of the spirit. If a mortal or Celestial Spirit gathers enough virtue, he can command any angel.”

  That’s when a solution dawned on Amelia.

  She couldn’t harm the arch demon because he was not mortal, but she could command him.

  She rose slowly from the brush and climbed drunkenly to the top of the gulley.

  Somehow, she managed to rise through the thicket so quietly that Belial – wearing his Dr. Tanner Halloween Costume – didn’t even hear her square herself before him.

  “Belial,” she growled.

  He spun around – his eyes bulging with terrible surprise.

  “You will leave the realm of mortality now, and you will never return, or I will tear your spirit to ribbons.”

  “NO,” he begged.

  But even as he did so, his skin began to crack – emitting multiple colored lights. The pieces of him fell to the ground like shards of glass. A phantom wind swept the shards up into the sky like embers from a fire.

  Amelia sighed with relief, turned and started in the direction of the dirt road.

  Rider transformed into something older and much bigger – full of sorrow like a parent about to dish out harsh discipline on a favorite child.

  Electricity coursed through his body as if he were a powerline.

  He pulled away from the tree.

  Sister Emo gasped, fell backwards, and crab crawled away from him.

  Sparks of red electricity originating in his right shoulder snaked down his arm forming a sword made of red light.

  He closed his fingers around it and stalked toward the road.

  “Stop him!” one of the sisters cried.

  The witch holding his daughter sprinted away from him prattling in Italian.

  The only witch who didn’t seem terrified was Lauren Fields-Rider.

  She swung her hands through the air as if she were conducting an orchestra, and as she did so, ancient trees ripped up from the ground by the roots. One after the other, she hurled them at him.

  But Rider, who would not recall a second of this later, watched them all fly toward him in slow motion, and as they reached him, he simply brushed them out of the way with his left hand as easily as someone would push a curtain aside to look out the window.