Redemption (Stand-Alone, Spin-Off to Reaper Series), page 29
The pilot saw the wreckage heading straight for them like some fiery stone launched from an ancient catapult. He shouted in fear, yelling at everyone to hold on as he veered away from the burning wreck, but it was moving too fast and he had reacted too late. The flaming car struck the tail of the helicopter, tearing it completely off. Suddenly the cockpit was full of alarms and flashing red lights as the helicopter began to spin wildly out of control, the pilot struggling fiercely to maintain altitude, the news crew screaming in terror behind him as they plummeted towards the street.
The helicopter crashed on its side on the street and crumpled like aluminum as it began to skid along the road, sparks and debris flying everywhere. Before it could even come to a full stop, Belial dove upon it. The moment he made contact with the helicopter wreckage, the entire thing exploded, flames reaching out in all directions as the screams from within were suddenly silenced.
As the remaining news choppers circled the area from a distance, looking down at the scene of destruction that made the Toronto street look like a war zone, the flaming blue energy that was Belial rose up from the devastation and flew up into the sky, moving away as quickly as he had appeared, speeding directly up the side of Javan’s tower.
Once he reached the top floor, he quickly snaked his way in through an open window and swirled around the inside of Javan’s suite until he had once again taken his human form, grinning wildly, as though he had just experienced a thrilling roller coaster ride at an amusement park. As he reformed, Javan walked into the living room looking grim. He had removed his coat, tie, and shirt, as they had been covered in blood by the time he had regained control of himself with the news crew. His torso was bare and the tattoos over the red feathers that were stitched into his chest were clearly visible over his muscular form. Javan was wiping his hands dry with a towel as he regarded Belial’s malicious grin with distaste. Belial simply leered back at him.
“Thy will be done, my liege,” Belial announced dramatically. “As you commanded, the police will no longer be of concern, and no one else will come anywhere near this place.”
“A great many things concern me right now, Belial,” Javan replied, tossing the towel aside. “The police being the least of them. All my plans, ruined by one teenage girl! Who you seemed incapable of killing, even when you drop an entire building on her head!”
“Oh, I see,” Belial hissed, still grinning. “It’s my fault? Who was it who just murdered people on live television, again? Me? Oh, wait, no! It was you.”
“Everything is ruined,” Javan sighed, turning away from Belial to pace the room. “I have made a mess of things, it’s true. Made oversights. Mistakes. And now my plans for humanity are lost.”
“Not completely, Javan,” Belial grinned. “You know we thought this could happen.”
“Yes, but I had hoped to avoid it.”
“Hope will only get you so far,” Belial replied. “But planning… You planned for this. You know what to do. You know what has to be done.”
“Do I?” Javan asked sadly, staring up at the portrait of Eve’s eyes as they stared back at him with equal sadness.
“Yes!” Belial hissed, stepping closer. “Humanity will never accept your drug for immortality now. They cannot trust you. The only way forward is to enforce change. Free will be damned, humanity no longer has a choice in the matter. The only way to save them is to destroy them. Force the serum upon them, dwindle their numbers en masse. Permit me to absorb the serum and I will make my Demon horde carriers for human evolution. We will be unstoppable, by Heaven and Earth combined. Your decisions keep Heaven from interfering and humans will be powerless against my Demons. This is the only way forward, now! Permit me!”
Javan continued to stare into Eve’s eyes as he thought. He seemed to think for a long time, remaining silent as he weighed his options. Belial glared at the back of Javan’s head, his teeth clenched in anger and anticipation. Finally, Javan spoke.
“I have seen a great many things in my long life,” Javan began. “I have seen tyrants rise and then fall at the feet of those they oppressed. But what makes a tyrant? Is it merely a leader who makes decisions that the people disagree with? Or is it one who forces a way of life upon their subjects? I want to heal the world. Undo the greed and selfishness that I brought into it. By doing so, does that make me a tyrant? Will history see me as a monster? Or as a hero? When people see what I have done for them, will they understand my logic? Or will they condemn me for my actions? I do wonder… If I were not immortal, if I were able to leave this life and pass into the next, where would I go? I know my intentions are good, but those who live such short lives can only see the path I walk and not the destination. Would the same be true of God? Of Elohim? I do wonder…”
Sighing, Javan turned away from Eve’s bright green eyes and faced Belial.
“Do it,” Javan nodded. “The time for change is now. Whether humanity wants it or not.”
26
DETOX
T
he elevator pinged to announce its arrival and then the doors smoothly slid open to reveal Eve, cautiously looking out, trying to stay as flat as possible against the elevator’s interior wall. Just like the lobby downstairs, this floor was apparently equally deserted. Eve had expected to encounter security guards, or lab technicians, doctors, anyone at all. Instead, she was met with a foreboding lack of human presence.
The absence of life only serving to unsettle her further, Eve quickly slipped out of the elevator as the doors began to close again. Holding her breath, Eve listened for the slightest sound of movement. After a few seconds, she slowly exhaled, almost certain that she was alone.
The floor Eve was presently on seemed to be one large science lab, the very one she had been in previously when Belial had injected her with the drug that had robbed her of her wings. The memory of which still caused her blood to boil in fury. The immediate area seemed to be made up of desk and computers, which took up the center of the room, while the walls were lined with cabinets, files, bookcases full of textbooks, and countless other scientific-looking items Eve didn’t know the names of, nor for what they were used.
Around the room, wherever space had not been taken up by shelves and desks, there were doors that led elsewhere. Beside those doors were large glass windows, though they did not show the city outside. They instead seemed to allow the former occupants of this floor to look from one room into another. Eve took a closer look into the nearest window and saw that it revealed the inside of a smaller room that looked disturbingly like an operating room in a hospital, complete with operating table, machinery, and tables full of numerous instruments that looked sharp and invasive. Eve noticed that the operating table was still stained with blood and she briefly wondered what had happened to the patient before she decided that she probably didn’t want to know.
Turning away from the ominous room, Eve focused on the task at hand once more. Gabriel had said that there was machinery in this lab that was responsible for the creation of the immortality serum. He also said that there was a storage room that held what had already been produced. It didn’t take Eve long to find the storage room. It was clearly marked with a label that read 21B. Eve pushed open the door and looked inside.
The room was completely full of storage containers, so much so that Eve could barely squeeze inside with them. The containers were stamped with ‘Davco Pharmaceuticals’ and strings of reference numbers that meant nothing to Eve. Standing before the nearest container, Eve unclasped the lid and opened it to make sure she was in the right place. Sure enough, the container was full to the brim with small bottles of a clear liquid. There had to be hundreds of bottles in this container alone. The entire room must have held tens of thousands of units, all ready to be used on unsuspecting humans who had no idea what this miracle drug would really do to them. A small amount of the human population would become mindless slaves to a heartless human who had stolen immortality, and the rest of the world would die, only to have their souls claimed by a sociopathic Demon who would use them to rebuild his army of monsters.
Eve slammed the lid shut on the container and left the room. She promptly returned after having found the machinery that made the drug. Fortunately, the devices were relatively small, while the larger machines were on wheels, so Eve was able to drag and carry them all into the storage room, where she tossed them recklessly on top of the containers and on the floor. Now all she had to do was find the last thing Gabriel had told her about. The combustible gas.
Where she would find it, though, Eve had no idea. She didn’t even know exactly what it was. Gabriel had only said gas. Not to mention the fact that Eve couldn’t imagine why a pharmaceutical lab would need gas in the first place. She didn’t know much about chemistry, but she was pretty sure gas wasn’t used in making drugs.
As Eve searched, however, she happened to pass by the window that looked into the operating room. As she kept walking by, she suddenly froze in place, a thought itching at the back of her mind. She stepped backwards and stood before the window once more, looking into the room beyond. If the doctors and scientists had experimented on people in that room, or whatever it was that they were doing, could they have used anesthetic? Could that be the gas Gabriel meant?
Peering through the window, Eve looked around the room on the other side of the glass. The room was full of machinery, most of which Eve didn’t know the use for, but suspected it was all unpleasant for the patients. Then, on the far side of the room, Eve saw several large white and blue canisters. They were almost as tall as she was and had hoses running from the nozzles on top to a mask that looked shaped to fit over a human’s mouth and nose. Large words on the side of each canister read, ‘ENTONOX.’
Eve quickly entered the room and approached the canisters for closer inspection. When she was close enough, Eve was able to clearly identify the small symbol that was the global warning for combustible materials. There was also a note printed entirely in capitals, warning that the canisters must not be placed near any open flames or otherwise ignitable sources.
“Sounds about right,” Eve muttered to herself.
The machine that the canisters were hooked up to was, fortunately, on wheels. Eve supposed it was so the doctors could easily move it around the operating room, which suited her just fine. She wheeled it out the door and towards the storage room, where the drug and everything that created it was ready to be destroyed.
Shoving the canisters into the room with the drug proved difficult, as there was so little space in there to begin with, but Eve managed it. Puffing from the effort, Eve then began to turn to nozzles on the canisters, listening as the gentle hiss of escaping gas told her that the canisters were leaking their contents throughout the room. Eve quickly walked out of the storage room, holding her breath, afraid that if she breathed in the fumes she would pass out.
Quickly moving to the far side of the room, Eve pulled the matchbook she had taken from the bar out of her pocket. All she had to do was wait for the gas to fill the room, then she could strike a match and toss it inside. The gas would ignite and the canisters would explode, destroying everything around them. Javan and Belial would be stopped and Heaven and Earth would both be safe. Smiling to herself, Eve struck a match and watched the flame burn brightly on the small stick she held pinched in her fingers.
At that precise moment, though, the elevator pinged to announce its arrival. Eve flinched at the sound and quickly turned her attention in the direction of the elevator, suddenly afraid of who might be coming.
The doors slid open and Belial stepped out into the lab, smiling and smug as he looked around the room. To his satisfaction, he saw that the place was completely empty. All the doctors and scientists that had been stationed here were now out of the picture, having been shown an up-close view of the inside of the incinerators. Belial sauntered into the lab and headed directly for the storage room where he knew the drug was being kept. Javan’s plan for worldwide distribution had been sound, but personally, Belial preferred the backup plan. Spreading immortality like a virus was going to be much faster, not to mention more fun. Belial could already hear the human screams as he and his Demons swooped upon them and infected them with the drug that would either grant them immortality as a part of his hive mind, or else kill them and fuel the power of his growing legion. Belial couldn’t wait to see the look on Elohim’s face when he broke through to Heaven and destroyed everything Elohim had created. It was going to be glorious.
Belial came to the door of the storage room to find it slightly ajar. Not thinking anything of it, Belial grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw on the far side of the room, sitting upon an abandoned desk, a book of matches with a struck match burning merrily as it was held in place by the fold of the matchbook. Frowning in confusion and suspicion, Belial then glanced into the storage room. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw all the machinery and several gas canisters inside. He heard the hissing of escaping gas. Belial put two and two together and quickly turned his attention back to the book of matches, snarling in contempt.
Then the gas reached the open flame.
The very air itself seemed to suddenly burst into flames and the fire shot across the room and swept over Belial as it hurried into the storage room, hungry to devour all of the exposed gas. Hiding inside the operating room, Eve was crouching on the floor under the observation window and covered her head with her arms as the explosion shook the entire building and shattered the glass, fragments raining down upon her. The roar of fire consuming everything it touched was deafening and Eve’s ears were ringing loudly. As the noise died down, though, Eve slowly removed her arms from shielding her head and began to rise to her feet, carefully peering through the open hole in the wall that once held a window.
The inferno blazing from the storage room looked like a solid wall of fire, crackling and smoking. Eve could hear the popping sound of glass bottles breaking as the heat became too much for them, spilling their contents out for the fire to burn away. Belial was nowhere in sight. Eve dared to hope that she had killed him, but knew better. He was still around somewhere. Perhaps the blast had simply weakened him, rendered him unable to take form for the time being. Whatever had happened to him, he was not there.
Eve stepped closer to the doorway that was now emitting an intense heat as the flames licked out and over the walls. Even from halfway across the room, Eve could feel the heat on her exposed face. Smoke was beginning to quickly fill the room and Eve coughed, telling herself she should get out as quickly as she could. She needed to be sure that the serum was destroyed, first. Only then could she leave.
Stepping as close to the blazing doorway as she could without being overcome by heat and smoke, Eve looked into the room, certain she would see every crate and machine ablaze. She was right, the fire had swept over everything. However, what she had not expected to see now caused her to feel cold, a look of horror now spreading across her face.
Belial stood in the center of the storage room, though he no longer looked like Belial. He seemed to be a humanoid blue fire, standing there with his arms spread wide. Eve saw no eyes, saw no face, but she knew Belial saw her. She could almost feel his desire to kill her. As she stared at the blue fire that looked like a man, something strange began to happen. A clear liquid began to rise from the floor and from the containers that had yet to be destroyed. The liquid floated through the air, as though someone had flipped the off switch on gravity. As Eve stared in horror, the serum began to float directly into Belial’s strange fiery form. The serum began to merge with him as he consumed every ounce of it, thousands upon thousands of milligrams of the immortality drug, now becoming a part of him. Eve realized what he was doing, but didn’t know how to stop it from happening. She couldn’t stop him.
Belial was becoming a carrier for the drug.
Eve turned to run, knowing that her only chance of survival was to get away as quickly as possible, but she had taken only two steps when she ran hard into someone. Before she could look at their face, she felt a sharp prick in the side of her neck and knew that she had been injected with something. She began to protest, but she was already growing weary, her eyelids beginning to close and her feet sliding out from under her as Javan held her up in his arms and whispered in her ear.
“Eve… My Angel.”
27
END OF ETERNITY
“J
ust kill her.”
“I will not.”
“You stubborn idiot! She nearly ruined everything! If I had been one minute later in arriving at the lab, all of our efforts would be gone! Our hopes, destroyed! She will not ally herself with you! She. Will. Ruin you!”
“I will not kill her.”
Eve heard voices drifting through a dense fog on her mind. She was barely conscious enough to know the words, but could not understand what they meant. She began to stir as she fought off the darkness, her eyelids fluttering as she forced them to open, despite their best efforts to remain closed.
Commanding her mind to focus on her surroundings, Eve realized that she was flat on her back, resting on a soft surface. As she forced her eyes open just a little more, she found herself staring up at a pair of bright green eyes, which were staring back at her with a look of sincere sadness and regret.
“Father?” Eve whispered groggily.
Blinking away the fog, Eve’s vision cleared a little more and her mind began to work a little faster. She realized that the eyes she was looking at were not her father’s, nor anyone else’s. They were her own, painted into the canvases that hung on Javan’s living room wall. Trying to sit up, Eve found that she had been asleep on Javan’s large sofa. Looking around, she saw that she had been resting with her head on a pillow and a blanket placed carefully over her. Her brow creasing in confusion, she looked up from the sofa and saw Javan and Belial, both standing nearby, staring at her.
