Anton
“Abraxas! Agent Martin, I don’t even know how to address you anymore,” I say with a smile. I open up my jacket and point to the distinct lack of bullet-holes. “Did you forget who we are?" I heft my sword to my shoulder.“I'm not like you,” Martin/Abraxas says.
“I was a man that is now a machine. You were a machine that is now a man. How much difference is there?" The machine doesn't understand the formulation of my words. "This won't end like you want," I whisper, holding his cold gaze. I step close. "You know you can’t beat me.” My sword begins to smoke.
“I can slow you down,” he whispers, holding his own sword in front of me. “You’re going to have to kill me.” He takes a step forwards. “Really kill me. I won’t let you leave here until I’m gone.”
I smile bitterly. “Did Martin ever know the truth?"
"What truth would that be?" they ask. If there is anything left of John Martin, it is cocking the eyebrow in confusion right now.
"I did time for you, Abraxas! Twenty minutes in a transport van? That's at least as bad as an afternoon in Social Services." We circle each other, tight as springs. "Did Martin know you killed that girl in Florida?”
“The girl called me an angel. The boy thought he was commanding us."
"That story is so much bigger than ours," I say, sticking the tip of my sword in the warped wood. It twists and smokes, burning away from the unearthly metal.
"Are we angels?"
I shake my head. “Don’t throw your existence away for this, not after all the time we spent together.” I sit behind my sword, crossing my legs. “Do you remember when we fought back the Chaos, side-by-side. Do you remember what it was like to stand over those vanquished cities?”
“You would burn Heaven to the ground if you didn't get to play king."
“That is probably true,” I hiss. “That’s all behind us.”
Abraxas laughs. I didn't know there was emotion in there. "I knew there was a reason for this. I knew couldn't all be thrown to chance," he says. "We're the hurricane in the junkyard. You and I are angels. The world must be clean, and I will start with that girl."
I jump to my feet, wrenching the sword out of the floor and lunge. A black flame bursts from the blade as it crashes into his own sword, which ignites in red on contact. I cut three times, not connecting, but knocking Abraxas the length of the aisle before he can recover and mount a defense. Enraged, I shriek, “This will not end how you want!” We lock blades and I push him toward the vestibule. “I never lose, Abraxas, never!”
Abraxas sets himself against me, but I kick him in the gut, sending him crashing through the doors of the vestibule and tumbling to the floor. Sword in my hand, we're not so evenly matched any longer. “We have been called to service, Eleazar," Abraxas says. "If you will not aide me, you are no less an enemy." He crouches and ducks when I charge in attempt to spear him.
I whirl to face him as he rips a long counter off the wall and throws it at me. I cut it down and the wood ignites. I jump at him again. His blade deflects me, knocking me on my back and igniting the carpet and a chair. I roll and swing wide at his legs and he jumps to avoid. I hit him in the gut with my shoulder as I leap up, keeping him from getting his balance. He goes through the cinder-block wall into the sanctuary, and toppling a pew. I claw through the rubble, toppling more debris on him. “The human body is weak, Abraxas.” Martin's feet are in the air before I can come down on him with my sword. Abraxas kicks me over him, crashing me through the next pew. Fires have started on all the wood we've touched. He is up in a moment, chopping at my prone body, but I block inches from my nose.
Pushing him back, I struggle to my feet, keeping our eyes locked. Abraxas backs away to see what I will do next. I charge and we lock hilts again, our faces so close between the blades that if one of us could get the leverage to scissor, the wound would surely decapitate us “Give up, Abraxas. Give up now, and even Martin can walk away from this.”
“I have you scared, don’t I, Eleazar?” Fire and black smoke are making it difficult to see him, but for the blood-red flame rolling on his sword. He smiles. “You know that I’m right, and that if you don’t get to that boy soon, this game ends.” He pushes back against me, but I don’t give any ground.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I say. “Who will believe him if he does go to the media? The girl's job is already done." I extend my neck between the blades and let the unearthly flame lick my throat. I kiss Abraxas on the tip of his crooked nose.
He loses his footing on a piece of flaming pew and tumbles back against the broken cinder block wall. I chop overhand and snap my body like a whip, narrowly severing his arm at the shoulder before he dodges. I recover and swing up after him, cutting easily through the wall. I duck when he swings for my head and he falls back from my return. The tip of my blade misses his chest by inches. He crouches in a defensive stance, sword before him, ready to parry.
“The time has come for this to end,” I snap, and wave my hand. The force sends him flying across the room, landing him in the pews across the aisle, and embedding his sword in the wall behind him. Two plastic trees a few feet away melt to water. I leap and try to impale him, but he rolls to the side. As I come down on him again, he grabs a broken candelabra post and prop it up like a spear, burying the post in my gut. I didn’t see that coming.
I drop my sword and the black flame goes out. With both hands I clench the four-foot length of metal protruding all the way through my lower back. “That’s not good,” I whisper, trying to pull it out. Abraxas pushes, sending waves of pain through my body as he fights his way to his feet. Throwing all his weight into me, he jams the exposed end of the post into the wall behind me. “Fuck!" I wail, still fighting against the stake that prevents me from moving.
Abraxas is incapable of feeling, so it must be Agent Martin that takes great pleasure of holding the pole in both hands. His touch is delicate, like a lover, and each tremble sends waves of pain rolling through my body. That must be the collapsed lung. Real bad. I don’t remember if I’ve ever felt pain like the pain I’m going to feel. Abraxas shoves the post up and I wail in agony. “Does that hurt?” Abraxas says with a laugh, backing away to examine his work.
Focus. I wrench myself free from the wall, still impaled on the candelabra base. Putting one labored foot in front of the other, slow and deliberate I walk. Abraxas is backing away. “It doesn’t end like this,” I hiss, falling to my knees, and then down on my face. My eyes flutter and close.
He stands over me, looking down solemnly. “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispers. “I didn’t want this either.”
The force of my will brings my sword to my hand, and I roll, swinging at up at him in a clumsy chop that he easily avoids. I get to my feet as the candelabra base melts away. “Come on now,” I say, knocking him to the ground with another wave of my hand.
He struggles, but I keep him pinned to the ground with my thought. He tries to summon his sword to him, but I see it blocked in my head, and the sword flies into the burning ruin of the vestibule. I picture Abraxas flung fifteen feet in the air through the burning rafters, and he is. He crashes down and I leap the five feet that separates us, and bring my sword down in a golf swing to his ribs, slicing Martin to the spine.
He cries out and wrenches himself off the blade, spilling boiled blood on the church floor. I follow a few steps as he still crawls for his weapon. The sword skitters out of the flames, vibrating and lurching toward him a few feet at a time. I straddle Abraxas, raise my sword over my head and plunge the fiery blade through his spine.
The Martin/Abraxas conglomerate wails and arches his back. His jacket and the floor burst into immediate fire, which spreads quickly. Already most of the pews and exposed beams are burning, and the vestibule looks nearly solid with a churning black mass. Much of my suit has been burned away as well. Martin goes limp and falls on his face. I pull my sword out of his back and the black flame extinguishes. No longer necessary, the sword fades away.
Too much to do, too much to do. That poor boy thinks he can hide from me. If his every move wasn't obvious, I could still smell him further than he could possibly run.
Abraxas wraps an arm around my leg as I pass. I stop and stare down at the bloody mess as it starts to crawl up my leg. The instant urge is to kick him away and crush his skull under my boot, but I steel against it. For being as injured as he is, he is moving quickly. He even has some use in those legs. He gets himself to my chest in a matter of seconds, his eyes never leaving mine. There is a determination in his eyes that only and angel could muster.
The serrated dagger he would have used on Becki is still tucked in my belt. I draw it now and hold it before him. "The torturers always showed the victims the tools that would be used. For most, this was enough to make them talk. I put the blade into his ribs push my will through him. Abraxas screams out and writhes against me, spilling more blood on my clothes. His struggles grow weaker and weaker, until the entire essence is gone. My eyes don’t break from his dead, empty orbs until I wrench the dagger from his chest, wipe it off on my jacket and step over him.
In the vestibule, I search for Abraxas's sword. The flames do hurt as my skin burns away, but I hardly notice. It will take some time before Abraxas burns to an ash so fine he cannot be restored. I am in pain as I search the fire for the weapon, but the pain will go away and the wounds will heal. The prize is too great. It has impaled a mahogany crucifix on the wall. I'm nearly skeletonized and my organs are a cooked mess by the time I wrench it free and smash through the doors to the open air. The ceiling collapses as I exit. The moon is full and I can see stars here. My muscle and skin rebuild in the time it takes me to reach the car. In the trunk I have only my spare suit remaining, along with a silk sheet to wrap the sword.
With Abraxas gone, my mission is complete. I have only a few loose ends to tie.
Go to Chapter 64
No comments:
Post a Comment