Evil Eternal (22 page)

Several seconds later, a slightly dazed Shane crawled back onto the stage, yanking the trident free from the steaming innards of the bat-demon.

“Behind you!”

Shane turned in time to stop the wounded, approaching bat in its tracks. He’d learned a valuable lesson with the sow-demon and was wary of what tricks the bat may have up its sleeve. For all he knew, it would spew poison arrows from its eyes. However, the way it started to slowly back away told him that maybe the whole flying thing was its only gimmick. Weighing the trident in his hand, he started to advance.

The demon reached down and pulled an unconscious woman from the floor, shielding itself from the trident. Her blue dress slid off one shoulder, exposing her breast. She was middle-aged, country-club attractive, with auburn curls that spilled over her shoulder. Now it was Shane’s turn to stop.

“I didn’t think so,” it hissed.

Its wounded wings fell off with a loud tearing, only to be replaced by new ones. It was getting ready to take flight. He reared back to launch the trident but his arm would not follow through.

What if I hit her instead?

The bat started to lift off, still holding tightly to the woman. As it carried her into the air, sharp fangs punctured her neck, elongating with each flap of its wings. The woman stirred, turned to see the demon impaling her and screamed.

Shane’s arm jerked backwards as the trident was pulled from his grasp. Father Michael hurled it with a grunt, skewering woman and beast, pinning them to a pillar. They both struggled against the steel prongs, the woman retching with pain as the fangs grew so long, they erupted from the bottom of her rib cage. In a staggering flash, the demon was no more and only the body of the now lifeless woman hung from its shaft.

“I can’t believe you did that!” Shane wheeled around on the priest.

“Oh, believe it. Your little hero is capable of far, far worse. I should know.”

Cain floated onto the stage, Aimee still limp in his arms. He had been hidden among the steel posts up above, watching the carnage with glee.

Shane locked gazes with Father Michael, trying to find an answer within their ivory wormholes.

“I don’t know who’s filled the hereafter with more souls over the years, Father Michael or me. I
can
tell you that we’re both very, very good at what we do.” Aimee came to and made a strangled gasp. “Kind of makes you feel like a stooge in a game you could never comprehend, doesn’t it, Shane Baxter? Maybe you’ve been duped all along. Maybe there are no sides. Maybe
we
are the evil and
you and your kind
scattered all about here are the only good.”

Father Michael turned to tackle Cain but the demon lord grabbed hold of Aimee’s neck and motioned that he would snap it. Aimee’s mind clawed its way through the haze and fully awakened to see Cain’s face beneath the mask of the mayor. She turned and saw the immobile figures of Father Michael and Shane and screamed from an unknowable place buried deep within her, “Not again! Liam!”

The loud report of gunfire filled the hall as a band of snipers that had regrouped on the roof took aim at them.

Shane cried out and dropped to his knees as a bullet shattered his shoulder.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Blood pumped out of the wound in Shane’s shoulder and splattered Father Michael’s side. Bullets zipped through the air and pinged off the ground around them. Cain casually stepped back and out of their range with the ease of a man moving out of the rain and underneath shelter. Father Michael scooped Shane’s unconscious body into his arms as hot lead pierced the priest’s back and arm. He jumped clear across the stage, depositing Shane safely behind it. Blood continued to flow and Shane grew deathly pale. Keeping one eye on Cain, he knelt down and placed a hand over Shane’s shoulder.

“In the name of Jesus and the miracle of his birth, dead and resurrection,” he chanted. It wouldn’t heal the boy’s injury but it would prevent him from being completely exsanguinated.

They were both a bloody mess. Their clothes had been reduced to shredded rags and they stunk of infernal offal and cordite.

Cain remained in the shadows, watching them.

“Well, aren’t you going to stop them?” he called out to the priest.

Father Michael rose to his full height despite the flesh, muscle and bone damage that had been inflicted on his body. His eyes burned white-hot with a hate that would have driven a mortal man mad with violent desire. He was a veritable pincushion and now he had the internal chaos inflicted by the gunshots to contend with. He looked at the convention floor and saw four hundred people on the verge of coming out of their stupors. Their bodies shivered, heads began to crane on stiff necks and eyelids fluttered.

Cain sighed. “If you won’t, I will. Boys,” he shouted up to the shattered roof, “could you do me a little favor and…”

Cain shot up into the air like a rocket, with Aimee screaming in the crook of his arm. As he rose, he began to spin like a top caught in a hurricane. As he reached the lip of the opening in the roof, his outstretched spinning arm made quick work of decapitating the snipers. Father Michael watched as a dozen heads, some still twitching with life, others frozen in a death mask of shock, bounced around him. The spinning stopped and Cain gently touched back down.

“Now, where were we?”

“Oh my God, please help me!” Aimee had breached the surface of awareness and was on the verge of hysteria. She tried to break free but Cain’s grip was too much. She looked at the tall, pale, battered figure of Father Michael and realized who he was. It was the priest that Shane had introduced her to last week. “Father Michael, please!”

But hadn’t she called him something else just a moment ago? What exactly was it? She was no longer sure of anything except her own impending death if she didn’t get away soon.

“Put her down,” Father Michael commanded. A lesser man or even demon would have cowered at the raw brutality of his voice.

Cain sneered. “OK, since you’re being so nice about it.” He feinted letting her go, loosening his grip just enough to give her hope. When she tried to move, he dug even harder into her flesh, a deep chuckle in his throat. Aimee’s chest heaved as she fought to keep herself from hyperventilating.

“There, there, I won’t hurt you,” Cain cooed in her ear. She quivered in his arms.

“Okay, I lied. Maybe I will hurt you, but just a little.” A needlelike bone sprouted from his index finger and he jabbed the tip into Aimee’s arm. She yelped in pain.

Cain’s head snapped around to face Father Michael. He wore an executioner’s grin as the bone grew longer, burying itself deeper in Aimee’s arm.

“You know as well as I, my old, old companion, that you’ve run out of time. Word of what happened here is going to spread like a plague and the world will know that I truly exist. There isn’t a rug big enough to sweep this under, Michael. Or should I say, Liam?”

“I’m not here to be your janitor,” Father Michael spat.

Cain bent over Aimee’s face and licked her with a forked tongue. “A little salty from the terror sweat, but still tasty.”

“Enough!” Father Michael shouted. He had taken two steps toward the demon lord when Cain closed his eyes and waived his arm in a wide arc, causing a hazy ripple effect in the air around him. Cain and Aimee’s image shimmered behind the swirling gauze as a fist-sized black hole opened up at the center of the eddying atmosphere.

Father Michael’s ears pricked as he detected the silent wailing of billions of tortured souls emanating from the vortex. The feculent odor of burning tires, spoiled eggs and necrotizing flesh exuded from the portal.

“Remember the days when we both had armies to do all the dirty work?” Cain said. “And no matter what nasty tricks we each pulled, you and your chaste little kind were safe in the knowledge that word of the truth wouldn’t spread beyond the battlefield and your precarious world order was safe from harm. Those were heady times.” The rip in the air grew wider and the distant songs of lament grew closer. “And, alas, those were
your
times. Whenever we went to war, you won. It was getting downright depressing, being forced to lick your boot every century or so. But we both know that most great accomplishments are the result of tireless perseverance, ofttimes fraught with failure after failure. The key is to never give up, and thanks to your insipid God, I’ve got nothing but time and an endless supply of hatred. Besides, this world is so fucking screwed up, it’s barely worth your effort to rush to its rescue.”

Father Michael mentally ticked off his remaining weapons. All of his daggers were scattered around the room and his trident was firmly embedded in a pillar. He had given Shane the pouch of conflagration embers, not that it would have helped him in this situation. Doing so would only kill Aimee in the process and he was not willing to risk it if there was even a remote chance that she was somehow kissed with the essence of his centuries-lost Ailis. Cain watched him closely as the rip in space and time expanded. If it became too large, there was no telling what would emerge, not to mention how much would be sucked into its vile depths for eternity.

“Do I detect a hint of hesitance in that awful, albino face? Well, if that isn’t just the cherry in the virgin. Could it be because of this girl? This simpering sack of skin and organs?”

Aimee stepped on Cain’s foot with all her might, only to find it swallowed up by morphing flesh and bone and held in place. “Father, do something,” she cried. An endless stream of tears ran down her cheeks. Father Michael could see in her eyes that she was losing hope.

He was failing her.

Again.

“The world…or the girl? I know who she is, Liam.” He jabbed the jagged bone deeper into Aimee’s arm, eliciting a fresh snarl of pain. “The real question is, do I really care? I think you know the answer to that one, God boy. I do have to admit, this is far better than the first time. That boy of yours kept getting in the way of my fun.”

Father Michael fought to keep his emotions under control—human sensitivities that came bubbling up from the grave of his long-dead heart. Emotions equaled instability and he could not afford to indulge in them. Not now. Avoiding Aimee’s imploring gaze, he considered his options.

There was only one way to get Cain, close the hole and even have a remote chance of saving Aimee’s life. He would have to move unflinchingly fast. He was betting Cain had designed his strategy over the trial and error of wars past. By studying their many confrontations and end results, he had most certainly come up with a mental diagram of Father Michael’s strengths, weaknesses, habits and creativity in times of extreme crisis. Theirs was a centuries-long dance and each was accustomed to the other’s steps.

Father Michael smiled. It started out as the tiniest of twitches at the corners of his mouth and continued to stretch until it was a true, terrible grin.

He watched as uncertainty registered in Cain’s crimson eyes. There was a slight change in his posture, something in his stance that said a seed of doubt had been planted.

For Father Michael never smiled.

“Why do we fight?” the priest bellowed.

Cain tightened his grip on Aimee. She had given up her futile struggling.

“Maybe all of our contests of the past have been a test,” he continued. “A test that, though you say I have been the victor, I have actually failed. Is not death and destruction the way of the wicked? If I am a creature of God, what is my path to follow?”

The baying just beyond the gates of hell intensified. Undulating, vague, gray shapes began to form as the spirits of the netherworld sought purchase in the present.

“Tell me, Cain,
my
old friend, what is my path?”

Cain replied, “Your path is the one of the lapdog, sniffing on the ground for your master, being told to heel, to fetch,” he paused, then added with delicious intent, “to beg.”

Father Michael’s body shook with a humorless chuckle. “If I am the lapdog, then you are the pawn. Just as a dog doesn’t fully understand his master’s thoughts, dreams and desires, so does the pawn remain ignorant of the greater cause that binds him. You’ve been used, Cain. You’re nothing but a means to an end, and you’re too blind with hate to realize your impotence.”

Cain’s upper lips curled above his teeth and he bellowed. Bright, red sparks flew from his eyes that dripped with blood. In his rage, he spit every tooth in his mouth at Father Michael. They whined through the air like enameled bullets. The priest ducked and they whizzed past,
thunking
into the walls. It was taking all of Cain’s energy to maintain the opening. The lame attack was the best he could muster.

“Your Ailis was a whore!” Cain screeched. “Do you want to know why I chose your home? Because I came across her in the field and offered her money to fuck me. The harlot was quick to spread her filthy legs. I rode her like a dog then killed her and your worthless son and bathed in their blood. This one’s no better. Once a whore, always a whore.”

“Love,” Father Michael continued as if he hadn’t heard a word of Cain’s diatribe. His smile hadn’t wavered. “Love is the path I must follow.” He took several steps towards Cain and Aimee. The demon tightened his grip on her. “And I intend to pass this test, Cain, even if it means I have to love you to death.”