Chapter Fifteen
Duster and a Gun: Reaper
Gregory Blackman
Careful What You Ask
I looked at Gabriel and the Sheriff kneeling beside Billy. I was without hope, both choices led to my damnation, one in the servitude of a master I wanted no part of; and the other with me bleeding out on the floor and an eternity in the furthest depths of Hell.
Gabriel leaned against the altar, his legs crossed and a smug grin stretched across his face. He was enjoying my suffering, and wanted me to know that my downfall was inescapable, like the virgin nailed to the cross.
He was using these poor people for his own sadistic plan. He was working behind the scenes to turn this town into his sick and depraved breeding ground in order to push back the gates of Hell. I didn’t know what his endgame was, but I knew it was something I wanted no part of.
The Sheriff taunted the young boy. He pawed at Billy’s hair with one of his grubby hands while he danced a stiletto around his belly. He frothed at the mouth, blood mixed with saliva dripping down onto Billy’s tattered clothing, with each exaggerated insult
The young Billy Godwin was a victim of forces far beyond him. I could see in his eyes, an intense and acute sense of fear. He trembled in the Sheriff’s clutches, desperately trying to shake himself free.
“So you need my help?” I asked.
“No, reaper,” Gabriel corrected. “I want your help… if you so choose to give it. Make no mistake… my plans will continue on, with or without your assistance.”
“I’ll never work with that degenerate called a Sheriff.”
“Then don’t,” he replied. “You’ll be a much more suitable right hand than him.”
“Wait a minute,” the Sheriff blabbered with eyes wide open. He shot an alarmed look towards Gabriel, but the angel continued on as if he’d never spoken.
“The Sheriff was a necessary evil,” Gabriel said. “Go ahead… it’s not like I’ll need him any longer.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” the Sheriff stammered. “Now wait just a fucking minute!”
My hand trembled under the weight of my gun, but I trusted in the instincts I’d honed and squeezed the trigger. My aim held true and the bullet passed within an inch of Billy’s face to find its target.
Sheriff Madsen’s last look was one of shock as he stared down the bullet that lodged between his eyes. He died unable to comprehend the fate that had befallen him.
Free from the now deceased Sheriff’s grasp, Billy came running towards me, he grabbed hold of me violently, and in my weakened state, nearly knocked me to the floor.
“It’s about humanity being created in God’s image, wasn’t it?” I asked. “You prefer them being in your image.”
“Would that be so wrong?” Gabriel asked. “Why would humanity choose a god that has abandoned them? He’s allowed them to be led to the slaughter and you tell me they would rather choose death over freewill?”
“So you’re a god now.”
“Don’t presume to understand me, reaper,” the angel retorted. “What I’ve done here will be repeated around the world. You talk of freewill, as if it’s some grand ideological victory, that every man, woman and child on this world should be afforded.”
“It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.”
“You’re right,” he replied. “It’s not perfect… but I can be the one to perfect it! Don’t you see, Horace? I was put on this earth for a reason… one which I will continue to uphold long after your bones are dust in the ground. I’ve cleansed these people of their sins… and for that they will worship me.”
“With no freewill, what would be the worth of that worship?” I asked. “Take away a man’s virtues, good or bad, and you take away his very essence. I’m not often in agreement with your God, but I’d say that was something we’d agree on.”
Gabriel stared at me with unbridled rage. I could feel his gaze upon me, fixed and unmoving, as if he was trying to set me ablaze with his mind.
“You’re as strong as what, ten men?” the angel asked after a minute of silence.
“…More or less.”
“I’m as powerful as a thousand men,” he continued, “I’m not just another angel… I’m the angel… and I’m going to lift humanity far above its station and see them through the darkness that’s coming.”
“You and every other conqueror to ever walk the face of the earth,” I said. “The thing about conquerors, though, is that someone always comes along to triumph over them.”
“And you think you’re that person?” Gabriel said contemptuously. “Don’t ever think you can stop me.”
“Maybe I can’t stop you,” I replied, my revolver once again pointed towards Gabriel and his virgin sacrifice. “Maybe I’ll never be able to, but I know someone who can.”
I raised my gun above both the angel and shimmering cross, I could see Gabriel’s eyes widen when he realized what I was attempting, but before he could stop me, I pulled the trigger.”
“What have you done?” Gabriel screamed as dust floated down through a bright ray of sunlight, from the tiniest of holes directly above him. “I would’ve shown you the truth about your past! You’ll continue to be an unknowing pawn in the Devil’s plan! Without me… you’ll be nothing!”
“I’ll take that chance,” I said. “I have to look out for this boy because nobody else, man or angel will.”
The light intensified, energized by the glowing cross until it enveloped the entire church. Then, suddenly, the cross exploded scattering dust and debris across the room. The girl nailed to it crumpled to the ground
“I’ll have your head for this!” Gabriel cried. “You’ll burn in Hell for this!”
He moved with superhuman speed and agility, his body becoming a blur as he sped forward me. He was inescapable.
“Burn!” the angel screamed as his hand gripped my face. His nails dug deep and straight to the bone, carving furrows from my right temple to the side of my chin. “Smolder like the mongrel you are!”
I winced in agony as my wound erupted in a fire unlike any other, blue and ice cold to the touch. I dropped to my knees, bound down by a power beyond my control, and begged, for the first time in my life, for a quick death.
In what I appeared to be my final moment, Gabriel’s fingers recoiled from my face as a blast lifted him. I could barely see from the blood in my eyes, but what I did see, would haunt me for the rest of my days.
He was more helpless than I ever imagined. He flew backwards and high into the air, siphoned of his power and struggling to move. His arms and legs were outstretched, as if the very air around him was pulling him apart.
Gabriel wasn’t a god, even he had his limits in the eyes of his lord who could end wars, cure plagues, or obliterate the denizens of Hell with but a single thought. Yet he chose to abandon his creations and allow them to find their own way in life, whether it be salvation or damnation. Perhaps, that was truly the meaning of freewill. Whatever it was, it was more complex than either the falling angel or I would ever truly understand.
“Help me,” Gabriel cried. “You… you need me, Horace… Horace... Horace!”
He was torn asunder by the power of his lord, bursting into thousands of small embers that were sucked back up through the small hole in the roof my bullet had made.
I crumpled to the ground, a smile stretched across my face and all too sure I was going to die. At least it was with honor and a promise kept
Billy clung on tightly and sobbed uncontrollably. He had seen more than any child should, things I didn’t have to witness until I was older and more mentally prepared.
If it was all so easy for his almighty god, why had he waited to intervene, to suit his higher purpose? It was both awe inspiring and horrific, that a being could wield that much power and choose not to use it to help the plights of man. Not a particularly loving god, if you ask me, and if he was, then he moved in a far too complex pattern than I was able to decipher.
As quickly as
the brilliant light had engulfed the church in its cleansing aura, it subsided and the darkness crept back. When the blinding pain fled my body, I picked myself up and clutched at what I expected to be the charred remains of my face. I was shocked to find my wounds healed with only scars remaining, five in number and stretching down the right side of my face.
He could’ve healed me completely, yet he chose to give me a reminder of the ordeal that would last a lifetime, one more sinister than it first appeared, that his power was supreme and not to be trifled with.
For as much as I wanted to hate the fallen angel, I couldn’t, I might not have agreed with his methods, but I couldn’t find fault in his convictions. The monsters and creatures of the night were growing in number and threatening to take back what they claimed rightly belonged to them—the world of man. The angel’s weren’t on our side, and I just watched the only one I knew burned away.
“Goodbye, my misguided, old friend,” I said, staring up at the ceiling. “You were right about one thing, I don’t have of the answers but I know a demon that does, one that I must find. I guess I have you to thank for that, Gabriel… even in your death the fight will go on, I can assure you of that.”