Apocalypse Soldier (17 page)

The scorpion skittered toward the ring of waiting soldiers. It selected one of the men and shot toward him. The soldier never flinched as the scorpion crawled up his body and into his open mouth. The soldier accepted the demon, eyes ecstatic as the black scorpion burrowed down his gullet.

One by one, the same horrific scene replayed itself. Nicole continued to choke up scorpions that shot toward their new hosts, who in turn welcomed the parasites with a chilling sense of rapture. As soon as the dark gift had been fully embraced, the soldiers’ eyes blazed a fiery red, signaling the demon had fused with its new host. With each demon that crawled out of her, Nicole’s eyes grew clearer, the evil within her lessening.
 

Talon wanted to avert his gaze but couldn’t. He was morbidly transfixed by the unfolding horror.

By now
five of Amon’s chosen had accepted their possession. Only one final willing host awaited. The black scorpion crawled into Amon’s open fanged mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then Amon began to change.
 

Unlike the other five soldiers, Amon’s acceptance of his demon had a transformative effect. Once inside him, the dark entity reformed his flesh like clay, increasing Amon’s bestial appearance. Muscles rippled and bulged, filling out his black shirt. The fingers sprung real claws while the incisors elongated. The eyes turned ember-like, as if the fire of the pit were burning inside him. The apocalypse soldier was now truly a half-man, half-beast, a red-fleshed monster straight from hell. He threw back his thick neck and let out a triumphant roar that reverberated through the chapel, rattling the structure. The cross with Talon shook against the wall.
 

The darkness had found six new agents on Earth.

Talon finally turned away from the monstrous sight, defeated. His will to keep fighting, to refuse surrender, was beginning to falter.
 

Another set of footsteps drew his semi-conscious attention. A new figure had stepped into the church. His eyes widened in surprised recognition, the new arrival sparking a glimmer of hope. Outlined in the threshold of the chapel’s entrance, chest covered in gore and a cross held high in his hand, was Father Cabrera!

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FATHER CABRERA FACED Nicole, raised cross in hand. Prayers flowed with practiced ease from his lips and blended with the Gregorian chants being streamed through the laptops’ speakers. His heart beat strong and so did his faith.
 

Despite the terrible odds, his belief in God infused every fiber of his being. They would drive out this darkness and save Nicole once more from the evil that had touched her. The ritual was already beginning to have an effect.

And then his surroundings changed in a flash and he was a staring down the flashing muzzle of an AK-47. The world exploded with furious sound as the weapon strobed and he felt a terrible impact in his chest that drove the air out of his lungs. The ground came rushing up and then his body slammed into the dirt. He tasted blood and dimly became aware of the figure looming above him.
 

The soldier. Mark.

But why?

And then there was only darkness.

He didn’t know how long he was out, but when he woke, he was still choking on his own blood. He spat red while his mind reeled and tried to make sense of what had happened. Somehow the demons had turned the tables on him. Tilting his head, he saw the corpses of the monks sprawled around the monastery, and he stifled a cry of frustration. It couldn’t end this way.

He sensed the forces of darkness were working toward a terrible end goal. Part of him wanted to accept defeat, to close his eyes and let the soothing darkness erase all thoughts and take him away to a better place. But then the faces of the dead congregants flickered before his mind’s eye, quickly followed by the monstrous features of the demon soldier. Amon couldn’t be allowed to win. He would avenge the innocents until he could no longer draw breath. The cross in his hand gave him hope. As long as he still had the relic, there might still be a chance.
 

He stifled another cry as he pushed himself to his feet with excruciating effort. His wounds were still bleeding, and he considered it a miracle that he had managed to stand. It galvanized him, confirming that God was with him and guiding him toward the confrontation with the beasts that had dared to invade this holy site. A terrible evil was growing inside the chapel, and he was the only man left standing. Barely.

Slowly, he commenced his long, pain-filled march toward the chapel. The house of worship seemed to be a million miles away. Each step was an exercise in agony, his chest on fire, his lungs barely able to fill with air.
 

Yet he persevered.

What awaited him inside the chapel was a scene from a nightmare and far worse than he could’ve possibly imagined. Amon and his soldiers had formed a ring around Nicole, their eyes burning with a demonic fire. The apocalypse soldier loomed over the supplicants of darkness, a monster perfected by the foul forces inside of him. Worst of all was the sight of the soldier named Mark, now crucified in a terrible mockery of the sacrifice that symbolized Father Cabrera’s faith. Nicole stood among them, and even though six of the entities had found new humans to possess, the original demon from eight years ago had chosen to remain inside Nicole.
 

The soldier weakly looked over. The eyes inside the mask of blood lit up with hope. Seeing the soldier’s strength return, despite his terrible predicament, gave Cabrera more motivation to go on.
 

Remember your training
,
Nicole
, he thought as he turned his gaze on her. The demon was active inside of her but he had also spotted a glimpse of the true Nicole in there. Emboldened by this, he raised the holy relic of the saints and bellowed out with all the force he could muster.

“Demons, I hereby cast you out of this house of God.”
 

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THE MONSTROUS DARKNESS inside of Nicole was evacuating her body. One by one, the dark entities passed through her and sought out their new hosts. The horror seemed never-ending, a cycle repeated until she thought she couldn’t stand it. The violent purging affected her on a near cellular level. Each time she ejected one of the monsters, it was the pain of childbirth amplified to infinity. She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out.
 

But as the ritual wore on, the agony became slightly more bearable, the strain less pronounced. Expelling these monsters was torture on her body but was fortifying to her soul. As each demon departed, she gained more control.

And then it was over. Her body felt stretched and torn even though outwardly there were no visible scars. To her surprise, death didn’t follow the horror. One demon had chosen to stay behind. This entity had old scores to settle. The beast enjoyed her torment too much to let go of her, even though one of the soldiers might make for a stronger physical host.

What the remaining demon didn’t know was that Nicole had trained with Cabrera for the last four years. When she had first showed up at the exorcist’s church, he’d advised her to live a good life and avoid temptation. By denying the demon power, repossession would become more difficult.
 

But Nicole had been looking for something different. She had wanted to be able to face the demon on her own terms if it should return, wanted to control any future possession the way Cabrera had.

At first Cabrera had refused to help her, but she had worn him down. He had finally conceded and given her a crash course in how to perform exorcisms. In essence, an exorcist possessed the possessed, gaining control over the demon so he could cast it out. Through prayer, meditation, and study of the ritual, Nicole could achieve that same degree of control. Cabrera had explained to her that only the most adept exorcists could control a demon from within, but with the proper determination and right degree of focus, it was achievable.
 

She was determined. She was focused.

In a perverse way, she was glad that her old demon had remained inside of her. She’d been looking forward to a rematch for eight years. Today would be her chance.

She could feel herself growing stronger, the whispers inside of her dying down, her own thoughts becoming predominant again. She was back in the driver’s seat. After sharing her body with seven other entities, having one demon inside of her felt almost normal.
I know what you’re up
, the demon hissed inside her mind.
It won’t work.
 

We’ll see about that.

Approaching footsteps pulled her out of her internal dialogue with the creature. She turned toward the man who’d shown her how to fight the darkness, who’d taught her not be afraid to walk among the shadows.
 

Thank God, Father Cabrera’s alive.
 

Then she noticed that his robes were stained with blood and his face was pale and drawn. But he still had returned to the chapel, once again prepared to battle demons.
 

The priest held up the cross and threw down the gauntlet.

“Demons, I hereby cast you out of this house of God.”

The other entities had noticed him too. They shifted their attention toward Father Cabrera. Amon, a true demon now, began to close in on the dying priest. And he was dying, the demon inside Nicole pointed out, the gunshots having struck vital parts of his anatomy. Only his faith made him cling to life somehow and march into one last battle that he couldn’t win. Weakened by his wounds, without spiritual support, outnumbered and outmatched: there was no way he would walk out of here. And Cabrera clearly knew it too. This was the heroic act of a man who had nothing left to lose. Noble and desperate, all at the same time.
 

The cross that Cabrera held in his hand projected true power. What they needed was someone strong enough to wield it against this unholy army of darkness. A man who had battled monsters before.

They needed Mark Talon.
 

If she could gain control over the demon inside of her, she’d be able tap into its power. Power that included the ability to move objects with her mind.

Focusing, she started to siphon the demon’s abilities. She needed to proceed carefully so as not let the entity catch on what she was up to. She’d have to strike fast and hope Talon was up for the challenge. She suspected that he too would want vengeance against the unholy horde.
 

Her mind tore into the demon’s energy, and she focused on the noble soldier nailed to the cross.
 

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SEEING CABRERA ALIVE lifted Talon’s spirit and jarred him out of his semi-conscious state. Gathering his will, Talon pulled against the nails in his hands with all his strength, hoping that through some miracle he could break free. Pain exploded through his fingers and into his arms, and he slumped forward with a frustrated bellow. The nails still wouldn’t budge.
 

With a sense of helplessness boiling inside of him, he watched as Amon approached Cabrera. The priest was barely able to keep the cross steady in his quivering, blood-crusted fingers, his prayers a mere whisper. The damage from the bullets had sapped his life force, and he was too weak to channel the power of the exorcism ritual. He was facing a dragon armed with a dull blade. Amon towered over the broken man of God, amused by Cabrera’s hopeless charge.
 

What the exorcist needed was a miracle.

Talon felt eyes on him. He shifted his gaze and found Nicole looking at him. Not the demon. No, this was Nicole, the woman who’d faced the darkness and walked away from a battle with a monster eight years earlier.

A faint vibration passed through his hands. He could feel himself being pulled forward as some invisible force dislodged the nails from the cross. Encouraged, he yanked his arms with all his might. He couldn’t believe it, but this time the nails were coming free. His biceps bulged, a grimace distorted his features, and the muscles on his shoulders bunched up as he pulled both bloody nails out of the wooden beam.

Free at last, he dropped to the chapel floor, right behind the three soldiers that the darkness had found unworthy. Letting out a roar of triumph that echoed the savagery of Amon’s demonic transformation, Talon attacked.

Before the soldiers could bring up their AK-47s, he was upon them. He looked like a demon himself with the inverted pentagram scar etched on his chest, blood pouring from his stigmata. He spun around and raked the points of the nails, which were still sticking from the back of his hands, across the soldier’s bare throats and faces. It felt like he’d sprung claws of steel. Throats opened and blood sprayed.
 

Seconds later, he towered over the dead and the dying, his hands dripping gore, his eyes half-mad. Amon turned toward Talon and two pairs of eyes, both inhuman in their own way, met from across the chapel. The nails popped out of Talon’s hands, once again helped along by Nicole’s telekinesis, and plunked to the stone floor.
 

“Your savagery won’t be a match for us,” Amon said.

Talon was breathing heavily, sucking in oxygen in immense gulps as he steeled himself for what lay ahead. He knew Amon was right. The three dead men had been mortal. But now he was up against six demons. Seven if he counted Nicole—though she seemed to have a handle on her situation. Adrenaline couldn’t completely mask the surging pain, his throbbing hands on fire. He thanked his maker that the cultists hadn’t nailed his feet to the cross too.