Jack's Back ((Ascension: Book 2)) (11 page)

On Angel Wings

Shelly wasn't afraid even though she was flying a couple hundred feet from the ground. The wind was frigid but Lucifer gave off a kind of warmth that pervaded beyond her flesh. He had her grasped just tightly enough that she wasn't afraid of falling, but not so tight as to hurt her.

She felt his chest muscles tense each time his wings flapped, but he wasn't out of breath. He seemed almost serene. Although she'd met some crazy characters over the past month, none intrigued her like this one.

The thing that brought her back to reality was the smell of him. He smelled like gasoline and burnt meat.

She shook the juvenile romantic notions from her head. She was being kidnapped, flown to God knows where, so that the mightiest creature she'd ever laid eyes on could rape the shit out of her.

But those eyes of his kept playing tricks on her sensibilities. His breath was warm and sweet, like kettle corn. His body was warm and hard.

Stop it, she told herself. This guy is evil. This guy will be the main character in the worst chapter of your short, freaky life.

She thought of Jack. A selfless thought came to her: She hoped Jack wouldn't try to save her because Lucifer would kick the shit out of him without breaking a sweat.

As she thought this, she could have sworn she saw the strangest thing: There appeared to be a pig chasing after them through the air. But it was sideways and kind of tilted over, like it was being carried by some unseen force against its will.

She shook her head and closed her eyes tight. When she opened them again, the pig was gone.

Maybe insanity was the only way for her poor brain to process this weirdness.

When she heard a faint, distant squeal, she knew she was losing her marbles.

Waiting for the Pig

Dick-eyes had found them another empty house to shack up in for the time being, so Jack waited patiently for the pig and the bats to return.

He could only assume Dick-eyes had found a way to relay to the pig where they were hiding. Maybe he'd cased the place out beforehand and told the pig. Maybe he'd sent one of the remaining bats after the pig and its brethren to relay the update. He didn't worry about it though. Dick-eyes seemed t
o always come through for him and he trusted him now more than ever.

He flopped down in the recliner. It was an oversized model, but still too small for Jack
's muscular ass. But that didn't stop him from getting comfortable and slipping into a fitful sleep.

He dreamt of war and blood. He dreamt of bones and cries for mercy.

When he woke up, he had a boner that had ripped through the crotch of his pants. He'd never felt more proud of himself in his entire life. He wished he had a camera.

But then he thought of Melanie and his emotions flipped over on end. The love of his life was gone and only his nemesis knew where she was. And his son was with her. He hadn't had long to get to know the boy but he was a sweetheart and Jack had taken an instant liking to him.

He knew his whole reason for breaking out of hell was to reunite with his loved ones, but he was no closer to that dream yet. Lucifer was a dumbass though by putting himself squarely on Jack's radar. Had Lucifer not shown up tonight, Jack might've never found a trail to Melanie and Jessie. Now he had a lead, if only the pig came through for him.

He worried Lucifer would see or hear the pig chasing after him and kill it. He worried the pig would lose the scent. He worried that no one had told the pig where they had decided to hide out so even if it found out where Lucifer was hiding, he wouldn't have anyone to
come back and tell.

He looked down and his boner was gone.

Going to Church

Shelly's fear resurfaced as soon as they started to descend. Lucifer came to earth like a comet and when he landed her teeth chattered and she worried she might have sustained a concussion.

He carried her through the church doors like a newly married groom carrying his wife across the threshold.

The fact that he had brought her to a church surprised her. The fact that he had keys to the church and seemed to regard it as a familiar place surprised her more.

It looked pretty typical. There was a large crucifix against the back wall, right behind a podium. The Christ figure glared out across the empty, expansive congregating area. The windows were stained glass, but they looked new, like they'd been installed as an afterthought, to create
the appropriate image. Instead of the usual bible, the pews were adorned with newly bound copies of the Book of Revelation. On the cover of each was a picture of the planet earth in flames.

But the most striking feature of the church was the podium atop the massive stage. It was clearly designed to
illuminate and aggrandize the speaker. It was only then that Shelly guessed that this was Lucifer's church.

But why would he need a church?

"Why do you have a church?"

"Quiet down girl. The answers to all of your questions are too large for you to wrap your feeble mind around."

"Hey, fuck you."

Lucifer smiled despite himself. "Ok then, I have a church so that I have a pulpit to spread my word."

"What's your word?"

"I am spreading word of the impending apocalypse to all who will hear it."

"The apocalypse is real?'

As Lucifer dropped Shelly to her feet and took her hand he said, "It's a possibility. The Devil will awaken and declare war upon God and earth, or something like that.
That's the prophecy."

"It doesn't sound like you know what you're doing."

"Just because my schemes are elaborate doesn't mean they won't work. I'm a chess master at life, always a hundred moves ahead of everyone else, including God."

As Lucifer brought her into a back hallway and they began to descend a flight of stairs she said, "So are you going to start the apocalypse?"

"I'm not the Devil yet. But if enough people believe it's coming, God will find out and then he will have no choice but to make his next move."

"And what's that?"

"The Rapture."

Shelly shook he
r head. She just knew that the Book of Revelations had been written by a crazed hermit who suffered from fevered dreams or dementia or some other affliction of the mind. It was hard to swallow that he had hit the nail right on the head.

She said, "So when the Rapture comes, then what?"

"Nothing. Then I do nothing at all for a very long time."

"Huh?"

The thing is, most people are good. So when the Rapture comes, most souls go to heaven and only a meager few thousand or million will be left here on earth."

Shelly still didn't get it but she waited for him to elaborate which he did. He seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice, and she had to admit to herself, she kind of enjoyed it too.

"I wouldn't dare take the throne in hell with so few souls on my side. He'd wipe the fucking floor with me. But here's the kicker. After the Rapture, His hands are basically tied until the Devil starts the war. It's the prophecy He laid out. Even He has to adhere to its laws."

"Listen dude, I don't follow you. I don't think your plan's gonna work because it makes no sense."

"You didn't let me finish. Even though there will be just a small percentage of people left on earth after the Rapture takes the righteous ones, I will leave the corrupt souls be so that they can breed and spread into larger and larger numbers. The children of assholes will probably grow up to be assholes too. This may take as long as twenty generations but eventually there'll be enough evil souls on earth that I can take that I'll have a fair shot at toppling the old regime. I just have to be patient."

"Twenty generations is like a thousand years. Can you live that long? Can you wait that long?"

Lucifer eyed her coolly. "I was in hell longer than that. If I could endure the tortures of hell for millennia then I can endure boredom for a very long time."

"Plus that's like a nature versus nurture experiment that could blow up in your face. Just because the parents are evil doesn't mean their offspring will turn out that way."

"And yet I'm confident my plan will work. I've seen it work out that way too many times to doubt it."

Shelly thought, this rape sure isn't going how I thought it would.

Lucifer said, "You now know more about the fate of humanity than anyone else on the planet. I hope you appreciate that."

"Sure."

Lucifer rolled his eyes and led her to an unused girls bathroom in the basement.

She said, "You're raping me in a fucking bathroom? I thought you'd be more original than that, Prince of the angels."

Lucifer wasn't one to be caught off guard but he stammered when she brought up rape and when she referred to him as an angel.

He said, "I would never rape someone. I'm not the bastard you think I am."

With that, he shoved her through the bathroom door and locked it with a deadbolt from the outside.

He yelled through the door, "You're not my type
anyway girl. Keep quiet or I'll show you true fear."

Shelly yelled back, "Fuck off angel boy."

He smirked to himself as he walked back upstairs.

Even though he was using her to lure in rapist angels, he decided right then that he would be damned if he let any of those fuckers actually get to her.
She was his kind of girl.

Waiting and Contemplating

Jack realized he must have dozed off again. He rubbed crusted up drool from his mouth and tried to remember his dreams.

But because his dreams were about hell, they came back to him
as wisps of smoke that just as quickly dispersed.

But he felt a sense of something profound from the dreams
, despite the fact that specifics evaded him: He was not afraid of hell. He realized that it was a truth he'd denied so far during his stay on earth. Not once had he thought far enough ahead to imagine what would happen once his fight with Lucifer was over. He somehow knew he was going to have to return to hell, and yet it didn't bother him. It barely registered in his thoughts.

Dick-eyes was asleep on top of his head. Jack reached up and shook him. The spider quivered and awoke.

Jack whispered, "Are we going back to hell when this is all over?" He felt foolish for asking the question but he suddenly felt like he should know more of the plan, including how it would all end.

Dick-eyes communicated wordlessly that they would have to return, no matter the outcome.

Jack knew that that was the answer, but he wanted verification. He reached up again and gently, affectionately laid a hand on the spider. Dick-eyes trembled with some kind of uncontrolled delight and involuntarily pissed, the warm urine running down Jack's face and neck.

Jack's first instinct was to fling the damn spider against the wall
to kill it, but he resisted. He picked the spider from his dome and gently placed it on the arm of the chair so he could get up and find a towel in the kitchen.

As he mopped the piss from his face, he noticed the black cat standing on the window ledge, watching through the window intently. The thing looked on edge.

Jack said, "I know pal. We'll find her."

He wondered how long it was going to take the pig to show up with directions. He was getting anxious for a
fist fight.

Jack
, the Unwanted Distraction

As Lucifer ascended the church stairs he thought about what he had seen earlier tonight. Jack was most definitely out. Clearly he had been affected by hell, at least physically. It happened to the best of them. There was no way to avoid the insidious influence of the blasted place.

But he knew it was Jack on sight. He'd taken the man's identity and there was just no way to do that without glimpsing the man's soul too. It was the only way to pick up subtleties like mannerisms and physical tics. It was Jack and he was pissed.

But how had he escaped? Was something going on that Lucifer was not privy to? Was that what the Karl Marx ant was trying to tell him behind the garage?

It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things but it was a niggling curiosity that plagued him. Lucifer was the most magnificent creature to ever grace the barren landscape of hell and it had taken him millennia to figure out how to escape, and even then, luck played a big part in that escape.

Jack could not have escaped on his own. He hadn't been there long enough to figure out how to ignore the tortures, let alone how to escape them. Someone or something was at work helping him.

Lucifer's
heart raced when he imagined that maybe God was somehow involved, but that was not even a possibility. God did not play chess, God played Whack-a-Mole.

Could it be a fellow fallen angel
, helping Jack from the inside? No way. They were idiots but not idiotic enough to back the wrong horse. He'd promised them all a place at his side when the war was waged and won and each of them accepted their place eagerly. He trusted them with his life. And he was pretty sure none of them knew how to escape anyway.

It probably had something to do with the death ball he threw away. The timing couldn't be a coincidence. He'd just gotten rid of the ball and all of a sudden, Jack was back.

Maybe there was more to the ritual that had released him than he'd taken into consideration. The specifics had eluded him even as they were playing out, but he'd assumed the ritual had run its course the second he was released. Why would there be more to it than that?

He had to let go of his paranoia, he chided himself. There were much bigger fish to fry than an infant demon with a childish vendetta.