| The Fallen |
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| By: Michael Lay |
| The Fallen |
|---|
| By: Michael Lay |
| Luc St. John was not always the man he is today. Millennia ago he was one of the Grigori. A choir of angels that God had placed on the earth to serve as watchers and guardians of mankind. But some of the Grigori, Luc included, weren't happy with their station in life. And after thousands of years being cut off from Heaven, they found comfort in the arms of mortal women. Those women gave birth to monstrous creatures called the Nephilim, who in turn set themselves up as the rulers of man and spread their evil across the face of the earth. God in his anger, cursed the world with Noah's Flood, killing off almost all of the world's population and most of the Grigori and Nephilim. Those who were left, wandered the earth caught between the two sides of Good and Evil, God and Lucifer. They are hated and hunted by both. The night was strangely cold for late spring. And I didn’t like the way that the chill bit through my clothes. But, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I looked up at the stars as they sparkled in the night sky. They were so much dimmer here than the place I call home. Well, I used to call home. Then I looked down the slope of the hill to the small town below. Hephzibah was the name of the town. Funny, it was also a Native American name for Hell. Guess those Natives knew what they were talking about in this case. I walked down the path to the base of the hill, the whole time wishing that I still had my car with its heater, but I had to leave it behind a few nights before. The Hunters had almost caught up with me this time. You would think that after all this time they would just let me be. It’s not like I bother anyone. I don’t even stay in one place long enough to bother anyone. After a couple of weeks, I’m gone. The one thing I can say that my former employer has, is a long memory. He doesn’t forget when you do him wrong. I had done him about as wrong as someone could. My friends and I had, that is. We had broken all the rules that he set down for us as his employees and now, in his opinion we had to pay. Don’t get me wrong, the Boss isn’t about revenge. He’s an alright guy. But when we broke the rules we owed him a debt, and he wasn’t one to let debts go unsettled. All he wanted was an apology. And I was willing to do that, but the Boss Man had others that worked for him. And they weren’t so happy about the idea of me and my friends being welcomed back into the fold. I reached the bottom of the hill and sighed. It was still a good two miles to the town and I hated walking. The moon was shining bright enough that I could see my way through the trees, but not without straining my eyes. Why was it always so damn dark in this place? Even when the sun was out, it was still grim and gray. Back home on a night like tonight I would have been able to see millions of stars. Here, I’d be lucky if I could count a hundred. There was another obstacle to me going home again. My friends weren’t in an apologetic mood. In fact, they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong. They would point out that our employer had sent us here and forgotten about us. That maybe if he had sent someone to bring us home every once in a while, that none of the problems would have started in the first place. “How can you punish a starving child for stealing food?” they would ask. And I knew they had a point. But they had forgotten that that was the entire reason that we had been chosen in the first place. For our ability to go long periods of time without any contact, and not have our loyalty or sense of duty fail. A long time yes, they would argue, but how long is too long? Apparently about ten thousand years. That’s how long we Grigori had been here before the first of us turned away from the commands of God. We were meant to be Mankind’s watchers. Not allowed to directly interfere, but only permitted to whisper virtue into their ear. After millennia of being cut off from all Heavenly contact, some of our numbers were tempted by the warmth of the Human’s touch and the feel of their breath on our skin. They broke the first rule by showing themselves to the mortals. They broke the rest by actually falling in love, mating with them and giving birth to powerful terrible children, called the Nephilim. So powerful in fact, that it took the flood of Noah before most of them could be wiped out. To others we were even more despicable than those who had been tossed from Heaven during the revolt. They thought that since our actions were hidden, it made us cowards. Ten times worse than the rebels that had stood beside Lucifer as he challenged God’s rule, for they had done it out in the open. Did that make Lucifer and his legions ally with us? No, they looked on us as pretenders. They had to be thrown forcefully from Heaven, where as we had simply been abandoned. We were stuck in the middle of a war, with both sides trying to kill us. And, though I’m not sure which side actually dubbed us with the name, we were no longer the Grigori. We were now called the Fallen. A few Nephilim still survived here and there, but they were more elusive than even I was. Keeping themselves hidden, they would only peek out to wreak any kind of havoc that they could muster. Mortals would assume that they were demons or monsters, of which the world has its share, but they were something else all together. And they were more powerful than either. Some thought that they could even be more powerful than those who parented them. I wasn’t sure, but I was about to find out. Because it was one of the Nephilim, that brought me here. A few days before, I had been caught up in an ambush by a small coven of vampires. The female leader of the group had been set upon my trail by a Nephilim, who was afraid that I might stumble upon his territory and try to take it over. She hadn’t told the rest of her coven and, naturally, the Nephilim didn’t tell them who or what I was. The coven leader had thought that I was nothing more than a human that the Nephilim had wanted out of the way. She figured that I would be an easy meal for her and her family. She found out the hard way that she was wrong. There wasn’t a vampire on the face of the earth who would be stupid enough to try to go toe to toe with a Fallen. It would be something akin to a toddler taking on an angry lion. The coven leader had spilled her guts, both literally and figuratively. She told me about the Nephilim, who had set himself up as a small time cult leader. He was seven feet tall and slender, with long black hair and bright blue eyes. The description didn’t really tell me anything. Most Nephilim were giants in stature, and the blue eyes were a mark of their divine parentage. But it didn’t matter. It was time that this spoiled child and I had a little chat. I pulled my coat close to me to guard against the wind. It’s ironic that I hate the cold so much now. Before I fell, I would spend days on end in the arctic watching the ice floes. But the cold couldn’t touch me then. Then I was wrapped against the cold in Heavenly warmth. Now all I had was this coat. I followed the main street that passed through the center of town. The vampire had told me exactly were I could find the home of the cult, and I was in a hurry to get this done with and be on my way. When I came to the church, I could hear the sound of hymns being sung and the voices of worshipers caught up in religious ecstasy. It had, at one time, been an old Baptist church, but the building had since been taken over by the Nephilim and his followers. I pulled open the doors and stepped into the sanctuary. To either side of the center aisle were ten pews, and each were filled to capacity. Twenty pews in all, with twenty five people per pew. And that didn’t count those who had stood in the aisle when they couldn’t find a seat. This could get messy. The figure behind the pulpit held them all in rapture, while preaching of fire and brimstone. He gnashed his teeth in anger as he screamed of the sin of turning away from his presence. He told them that he was the second coming of the Son of God, and he would lead them into the world to make war against the sinning masses and bring mankind back to the worship of the one true god, him. I recognized him as soon as I saw his face. Though he had grown out his hair and beard to give him a closer appearance to that of the Prince, I knew him. His name was Rhu, but his followers knew him as Brother Joshua. When his eyes met mine, his ranting stopped immediately. At first he looked afraid, but then a wry smile formed on his face. “My children,” he started. “We have among us a visitor.” Every face in the place turned towards me and the zealots went silent, but I didn’t move. I simply stared at Rhu. Rhu kept talking, trying to make sure that he kept control of the situation, “Do you not recognize him, my beloved flock?” He stepped from behind the pulpit and stabbed his finger at me, “It is the devil himself! He has heard of our coming and wants to block our path!” Angry rumblings rolled like waves through the pews. They stared at me, like a pack of angry wolves. Still they wouldn’t attack until the lead wolf told them to. I wasn’t worried about myself. I could lay an army of mortals low. I was more concerned for them. They weren’t responsible for all of this, and if I killed them without being told to by the Prince, I would have committed an unforgivable sin. No angel, not even a Fallen was permitted to directly cause the death of a mortal. “I’m no devil, and you’re no savior,” I said. “You’re just a child, in need of a spanking.” Rhu’s smile didn’t fade, “Do you hear the blasphemer? He would have you believe his lies and turn away from the true path!” His hand pounded down in the pulpit, “What do you say to him?” “Kill him!” his followers called out with one voice. They were getting more and more agitated and with one sign from him, they would pounce. I couldn’t let that happen. I moved as fast as I could up the aisle, faster than any human eye could follow. I grabbed Rhu up, lifting him by the robes he wore, “Tell them to go. This is between you and me.” He looked surprised for a split second, but his smile returned before his followers could see, “Why would I want to do that? They stand with me as soldiers of the Church.” “Do you think they would stand behind you if they saw your true face, Rhu?” I growled at him. “Who do you think they would take as a devil then?” His eyes widened and his face flushed with fear, “You can’t. It’s a sin for you to show your true form to mortals.” “That’s a sin that I’ve already committed once,” I smiled, evilly, “Do you think that I won’t do so again, if it means that I won’t be forced to slay them? And you know that in my true form you can’t survive my attack. Not unless you take yours as well.” Rhu’s face turned to his flock, “Leave my children, I will cast this evil spirit out of our house of worship and back to the fiery furnace of Hell.” He put up a good front, but I could feel his body shaking under his vestments. When they didn’t move immediately, he screamed at them “Get out, damn you!” They moved, grumbling, through the doors. When the last of them had exited, I threw him down from the dais he had been standing on, “Why did you set your pets on me, Boy?" Rhu’s body tumbled through the benches until he landed with a thud and was buried beneath them. I couldn’t see any movement, but I knew that hadn’t been enough to stop him. The floor shook beneath my feet and the pews exploded upward. Rhu stood, in his true form, his fists clenched in anger. His height was now well over eight feet tall, and black horns spouted from his forehead, extending two feet higher and scraping the ceiling of the sanctuary. His skin was now crimson, and body rippled in muscles that had tripled his girth. “You should have let the vampires finish you off Luc, it would have been much easier on you,” he said. "Now, if you want to take over my little kingdom, you're going to have to take it from me." His voice had lost its melodic tone. It had been replaced by one that sounded like two pieces of granite scraping together. “Easier on you, you mean,” I smiled, my own form transforming. My skin turned the darkest ebony, my fingers extended into talons, and bat like wings sprung from my back, just above my shoulder blades. “I didn’t want you're 'kingdom' and I still don’t. I just want my pound of your flesh.” In answer, he lowered his head and charged me like a bull. His speed was astounding and, before I could move, he had pinned me to the wall with a horn under each of my arms. I lifted my knees to smash into his face, sending his head flying back and ripping his horns from the wall. As he rocked backward, I pressed my charge and slashed down his body with my claws. But Rhu recovered quickly. He grabbed my throat and flung me as easily as one might a doll, into a nearby wall. I twisted my body and instead crashed through and out of a stained glass window. Rhu’s followers hadn’t gone far. They waited outside to make sure that their savior was unhurt and to witness his defeat over darkness. When they saw me his accusations were confirmed. To them, I looked to be just what he had said I was, the Devil himself. They cast stones at me, trying to aid their leader in his battle with evil. It didn’t hurt me, but I silently cursed them for their stupidity. Rhu was smart enough not to follow me out. If his true believers saw him like this, his illusion would be shattered. He stood just inside the window that he had tossed me through and laughed. I could see him but his worshipers couldn’t. I threw myself back through the broken window at him, knocking him back into the pews behind him. My arms wrapped around his tremendous form and I lifted with every ounce of my strength. Even in my true form, his weight was almost more than I could raise. Rhu pounded on my back with his hammer-like fists, making the air rush from my lungs. I could feel the bones crack with every blow. The legend was true; His strength was much more than mine. But unlike him, I had been trained in the ways of battle by the Generals of Heaven. I knew I had to do something before he was able to take me down with nothing more than brute force. I pushed back and, when I felt him resist, I quickly shifted my weight to throw him forward. His own momentum carried him forward and through the open window frame that my body had made when he had tossed me through it moments before. He figured out, a moment too late, what I was doing, and couldn’t stop himself from flying through the opening. To keep his followers from seeing what he really was, Rhu transformed back into his human body. They gasped as they saw their leader fall on his face. But it turned to cheering when he picked himself, unsteadily, from the ground. He ignored them and turned back to face me, but I was already moving forward to meet him. I knew that he would never show his true form in front of his flock. That meant as long as I could keep him in front of them, he would have no choice but to fight me in his weakened form. As I flew out of the hole, I wrapped my hands around his throat and lifted him into the air. Rhu screamed with rage and hit me in the face again and again. He was flailing with panic, because he knew what was coming and he knew there was no way to escape his fate. I twisted his head to the side. If he had been in his true form he could have resisted me with his great strength. But in his current shape, he was too weak to stop me. The vertebrae crunched as they shattered and his head hung at an unnatural angle. I dropped him to the ground, not looking back to see the reaction of his followers. I would heal from the pounding that I had taken, but right now I was too weak and too sore to deal with them. I flew into the night and rose above the clouds of pollution that had hidden the stars from me earlier. There still weren’t as many, nor were they as bright as those I knew from home, but it would do until I could get back there. |
| Michael Lay is the author of numerous horror and fantasy short stories, humor essays and poems. He is currently working on transforming some of these stories into full length novels. He details his bodies of work with many of the numerous places he has lived over the years which add a touch of reality to his pieces. Now residing in Broken Arrow, OK, Michael Lay continues to build his works with the loving support of his wife and sons. Visit his MySpace page! |