Malevolent

by David Risen

  He touched the top of her head, her curly hair was as soft as down beneath his fingers.

  “You might want to stop that,” he grunted.

  But she didn’t listen. Instead, the pumping motion of her head increased in vigor.

  Rider’s knees gave way, and his back slammed hard against the pavement.

  That’s when he realized that something was horribly wrong.

  His eyes popped open, and he looked down to find that Aphrodite was now ten times his size. Her giant eyes were pointed up at him seductively as she sucked him into her mouth like a spaghetti noodle.

  “What the fuck are you doin?” he screamed.

  She hummed, and his entire body vibrated. Her giant eyes smiled back at him. His muscles locked as an exquisite orgasm overtook him.

  Aphrodite sucked him waist deep into her mouth.

  Rider rolled over and clawed into the cracks between the chunks of asphalt that comprised the old road.

  Aphrodite sucked so hard that her cheeks bowed in.

  Rider’s fingers slipped and he dragged his fingertips across the asphalt breaking his nails.

  He screamed.

  He looked back at Aphrodite to find that two thirds of his body were now buried in her mouth. He felt the wet back of her throat against the tops of his feet.

  He pressed his hands hard against the corners of her mouth, and his arms trembled with strain as he tried to pull himself free.

  She clamped her teeth. Her upper incisors dug hard into the backs of his shoulders and her lower teeth clamped his ribcage. He felt the bones in his ribcage give. He had no air.

  His hands slipped off the corners of her mouth as she sucked hard again.

  Rider screamed with horror as her mouth closed behind him.

  The Mother of Chaos springs from the open doorway of the ruined church and flings her hands up to the sky. Her fiery aura expands and fire engulfs every tree and blade of foliage in the woods.

  Hades shrieks as white-hot flames engulf him.

  He falls backwards to the ground so hard that the earth beneath him shakes. He rolls frantically back and forth on the ground trying to kill the flames to no avail.

  Mother Chaos’s aura and eyes turn ice blue.

  The raging fire ravaging the woods turns to ice. What little water is left in the ground freezes hard.

  The moisture in the air surrounding the God of Hell turns into a solid crystal of ice freezing him like a statue.

  Mother chaos drops her hands and eyes the spectacle before her with wonder. She feels drained.

  Hades, who is as tall as a two-story house now, stands frozen in crystals of ice with an eternal scream of agony and terror contorting his mammoth face.

  The mother of Chaos furls her brow.

  “You’re weak as a baby,” she says.

  She looks after him a moment longer, and then her blue aura dwindles and dies. At once, Merissa covers her breasts by folding her arms. The ground beneath her bare feet is so cold that it causes a dull ache to ebb through her legs.

  She turns and starts back for the ruined church with the frozen ground crunching beneath her feet.

  That’s when it all goes wrong.

  The ground shakes violently throwing her from her feet. She lands hard on her side knocking the breath from her lungs.

  A thunderous crack so loud that she claps her hands over her ears explodes behind her. She rolls over on her back in time to see the God of hell rise from the broken ruins of his icy prison.

  And now he’s taller than a five-story building.

  She skitters to her feet and slips across the frozen ground toward the gate of the ruined church.

  She’s so exhausted now that she can barely hold up her body even with the surge of adrenaline.

  A rough, massive hand – as big as her torso closes around her body.

  She reaches desperately for the gate and snags it with her hands.

  “Release the gate,” Hades says – his thunderous voice booming through the charred and frozen woods.

  She strains with every ounce of strength she has left to pull free of the Hell God’s iron grip. Her broken collar bone shrieks with white hot pain.

  The aged hinges of the gage creak angrily, and the rotten wood of the fence pops. With a mighty crack, the gate breaks free.

  She drops it and cries out in terror.

  Hades lifts her level with his face and peers back at her with eyes that glow red beyond his dark pupils.

  “You shouldn’t be ashamed, Mother of Chaos. Elemental power has ever only strengthened me, and the fight you put up was mighty despite your grievous disadvantage.”

  “Fuck You,” she shrieks.

  The great corners of Hades’ black beard curve upward in a baleful smile.

  Then his great jaw opens and he expels a hot, putrid breath.

  Merissa beats at his hands with her woefully small fists, but the giant eyes of the ancient God don’t even flicker.

  He stuffs her, head first, into his mouth, and his lips close around her abdomen.

  She claws frantically at his tongue, but her fingernails glide over its wet and slimy surface uselessly.

  She kicks frantically with her legs connecting with his bearded lips, but to no avail.

  With a great sucking motion, her entire body hurls toward the dark cave at the back of his mouth and she dives head first into his throat.

  Aphrodite swallowed and licked her lips.

  She climbed up from the ground, and then shrank again to the normal human size.

  For a moment, her eyes glowed red, and she patted her stomach thoughtfully. Then she turned and looked back down the long, broken road that led back into town. She waved her hands over her body, and once again, she wore a purple and black pants suit.

  “M’Lady,” said a voice of sandpaper and razorblades to her left. She turned and followed the sound.

  “Father Fury has fallen?” Vlad Dracula asked.

  She smiled at him and nodded. “And now I wield the wrath of God. We can escape this place, and put things back to rights in this mortality.”

  Then her eyes bulged with horrid realization. “Is my brother having problems with Mother Chaos?”

  Vlad Dracula bows his long mane of curly, black hair. “When I left him, she buried him in blazing stone and earth. You should see to him at once.”

  The look of trepidation on her face dissolved into a smug look. “For one so powerful, this Mother of Chaos knows so little. Elemental attacks only make my brother stronger.”

  “But she bears the power of God Almighty!”

  Aphrodite huffed. “And so do we all.”

  “M’lady, please,” Vlad Dracula begged.

  She waved. “Let’s go.”

  Vlad Dracula turned and started down the road to the right in the direction of Cassandra’s camp.

  Aphrodite followed him, but before she took two steps, a tremendous stabbing pain in her abdomen caused her to double over and grunt. She clutched her belly.

  Vlad Dracula turned and eyed her with horror.

  “M’lady?”

  Aphrodite grunted as another hard blow landed on her stomach.

  She felt something wet and slimy in her hand.

  She looked down and withdrew her hand from her stomach to find herself holding her own gray intestines covered in dark blood.

  She pointed her terrified eyes back at her brother’s war counselor.

  “Help,” she cries.

  Another heavy blow landed against her stomach. She capsized backwards, and something small and covered in mucus and blood sprang from the chasm.

  She pointed her fearful eyes downward and watched in horror as the figure grew to its full height of over six feet. She couldn’t make out his features for all the blood and slime, but the blazing soul sword of red light snaking around his right arm was unmistakable.

  “How?” she whimpered.

  The first thing that Rider saw was a tall, lanky, and gaunt man with a very European
face wearing a silver breastplate with a royal red cape strapped at the shoulders. The man wore a round skull cap with a gold star of David over his brow with a square ruby ensconced in the center of the star. His long and wavy hair the color of black coffee dangled from beneath the skull cap. A long and straight mustache curled at the corners like an old-timey bad guy in the movies extended out to his cheeks.

  The man’s dark and beady eyes bulged with terror at the look of him, and he snatched a bejeweled sword from the scabbard on his golden belt.

  Father Fury grinned at him.

  He tasted the coppery pallet of Aphrodite’s blood in his mouth.

  He cocked the abysmal spike.

  The European warrior flung his own sword out before him defensively.

  Rider swiped his soul sword after the other man’s lopping the bejeweled blade off at the gilded guard.

  Father Fury grinned back at the man.

  The man’s poisonous dark eyes found the ruins of his sword and peered at the red-hot metal where the blade had been a second before.

  The man dropped the remains of his sword, turned, and bolted down the road.

  Father Fury sliced his own blade after the other man’s back.

  The man grunted as the abysmal spike slashed a jagged chasm in his back, and he dropped to his knees.

  Father Fury cocked his great soul sword over his shoulder once more, squared himself behind the other man’s back, and slashed the blade after the European Warrior’s neck.

  The man’s head flew left from his neck and splatted in the mud on the side of the road, and the bejeweled body slumped forward with his ornate breastplate clanging against the broken asphalt.

  Father Fury admired his work and then he turned left and eyed the gate to the old Mill.

  He leisurely strolled the twenty paces to the gate and then he swiped after the chain binding the fence.

  The heavy metal lock clacked against the pavement as the broken links in the chain blazed red hot.

  A grunting from behind him summoned his attention.

  He turned and peered back down the road.

  About twenty feet further toward downtown Skitts Mountain, Aphrodite dragged herself up the road on her belly with her intestines trailing behind her.

  The skin of her hands and what he could see of her face boiled and blistered like hot water.

  “Where do you think you’re goin’?” Father Fury said.

  Aphrodite fell face forward in the road, and then she rolled over on her back.

  Her discolored face bubbled and boiled on her skull.

  Father Fury closed the distance.

  Once he reached her, her piercing violet-blue eyes met his face contorted in untold anguish.

  “Please finish me before I explode,” she whispered.

  Father Fury smiled broadly and cocked the abysmal spike over his shoulder once more. “My pleasure.”

  Just before striking, he gave her a puzzled look.

  “You do realize that you’ll have a lot to answer for in the Spirit World?”

  Aphrodite nodded frantically. “I’m spent. The souls inside me will soon blow me apart. Please finish me.”

  Father Fury nodded and swung his sword of light through the air cleaving her head off precisely in the middle of her neck.

  At once, her body exploded erupting a cloud of billions of souls toward the heavens.

  Father Fury watched the spectacle with sick satisfaction, realizing as he did that though he’d never met any of the spirits within her, he knew each of them, and some of them were famous.

  Odysseus.

  Alexander the Great.

  Julius Caesar.

  Achilles.

  Once the spectacle dispersed, Father Fury eyed the severed head of what had been the most sensual woman ever to walk the earth, and he shook his head.

  “What a waste.”

  The abysmal spike retracted.

  Blake Rider turned back toward the refinery, stopping long enough to tear the cape from the fallen European warrior and wipe the blood and mucus from his body, then he retrieved his clothes and the physical Abysmal Spike from the side of the road, dressed, and started for the dark, old building.

  Part Five:

  Fury

  “Will you pray with me?”

  Blake Rider blinked into existence so quickly that it takes him a moment to process his surroundings. A moment before, he felt his bones crushing as Aphrodite’s throat closed around him.

  He stands in a domed chamber – dressed in thousands of bite-size, multi-colored tiles – reminiscent of a Turkish mosque.

  The man standing before him is no taller than five feet, eleven inches. His complexion and dark hair color is very Arabian. His thin nose and neck-length beard forked at the chin is consistent with a depiction of the image blazed into a burial shroud known to the masses as the Shroud of Turin.

  Narrow, penetrating eyes.

  A long and gaunt nose.

  Broad shoulders but thin frame.

  Long fingers.

  Glowing puncture wounds in his head in the shape of a dome-style crown.

  A red light high on his right side emanating from the body beneath the spotless, white robes in the shape of a puncture wound.

  Similar wounds in his bare feet and wrists.

  “Ben?” Rider asks.

  The man smiles. He has a gentle and kind way about him – not at all the pointed and authoritarian Christ depicted in the King James rendition of religious text commonly called “The Bible.”

  “Call me Yeshua.”

  Rider squints at him. “Why would I need to pray? You’re standing right here.”

  Yeshua gives him a knowing and disappointed look. “I am not my father nor am I a king on a throne who should be worshiped as a controller of the masses.”

  Rider frowns. “Are you not the son of God?”

  Yeshua nods. “I am a son of God, the elder brother of mortals, the product of immaculate conception, and I am also a son of man. Think of me more in terms of an advocate for my brothers and sisters who are condemned and chained by the ropes of their own bad actions who struggle in vain against the overwhelming burdens placed on them by the flesh.

  “Think of our divine parent or heavenly father as less of a monarch and more of a healer, teacher, and creator as well as hunter, avenger, and destroyer. My job and my service to my younger brothers and sisters is to appeal to our divine creator’s softer side on the behalf of all who would seek to be more than what they are.”

  Rider squints. His heart pounds as he realizes that he is now conducting the single most important interview of his life.

  “And why would man need an advocate like you?”

  Yeshua gives him a sharp but respectful stare. “Because you exist. Noble and righteous as you are, you lay waste to all unripeness of spirit, and as your own life has demonstrated, not all unripeness stems from unrepentant, foul intent. If man changes and is truly sorrowful for the damage and suffering he’s caused and tries to atone, he deserves mercy. The harshness and purity of your spirit coupled with the difficulty of your path affords you little compassion.”

  Rider gives him a look of disbelief. “Am I really that important?”

  Yeshua smiles. “Will you pray with me?”

  The look on Yeshua’s face just now is one of humbleness, and something about it softens Rider.

  He nods. “Pray with the Savior of man? Sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  Yeshua offers him a look of humble relief. “Thank you.”

  Yeshua bows his head, and Rider follows.

  “Great creator of the universe,” he says in a soft voice. “Spirit of light that binds us all and Divine Parent of all that lives in all forms, we ask you for your healing song that penetrates all under your light to mend the brokenness of your children.

  “We ask for your light to grow inside our hearts and focus the gifts that you’ve given us and turn weakness into strength.

  “We ask that
all we do come from a place of love, even when our actions are angry.

  “We ask for the compassion and the wisdom to know the difference between evil and errant iniquity.

  “Let all who have faced the trials of this mortality be nourished spiritually by their struggles, and let none of them forget what they’ve learned from the sorrow they’ve created.

  “We thank you for the power you’ve breathed into us that allows us to do and to be. We thank you for the renewal and the continued renewal of creation beautified and reborn throughout the ages by your golden song of light.

  “We seal this with the energy that binds our beings, with the desire that this creed will become the seeds from which all of our actions grow.”

  Yeshua looks up at Rider and smiles.

  Rider gives him a quizzical look. “No Amen?”

  Yeshua grins. “The word ‘ameyn’ is the most misunderstood word in Aramaic. The true meaning of it cannot be conveyed in your English with one word. My last sentence was your ameyn.”

  Yeshua pats his shoulder. “I like this incarnation of you, Father of wrath and fury. Unlike your predecessors, you’re not without reason. This is cause for hope.”

  Rider squints at him. “I still don’t understand that.”

  Yeshua gives him a sad look. “The life of men is harsh. They’re born. They bleed bitter blood on the blacksmith’s anvil. They suffer the pain of unbearable heat in his hearth only to be clubbed again and again against the cold, black steel. Then, one day, they all rise perfect, and feel shame for the ugliness of their infancy. I’ve lived this, and so have you. It is my deepest and most profound desire to shorten their suffering if I can. This is also the desire of our Father or I would not be.”

  “I want to know more,” Rider says.

  Yeshua gives him a knowing smile. “You know far more than you think, and soon, much of your memory will return. Suffice it to say that your witches were accidentally somewhat correct when calling you ‘The Abysmal Patron.’ Should you prevail, which I hope you have the mercy to refrain, the version of the Great Spirit that will return will be the vengeful one, and that will bring about a time of harsh reckoning for all the children. This is not who the Great Spirit is when he is greatest. Go begin the end of the suffering of all the children in this realm, Father of Wrath and Fury. It’s truly an honor to have served you.”