Jack's Back ((Ascension: Book 2)) (7 page)

Surprise!

Lucifer was on the stage inside his church speaking to two of his high ranking followers when it happened. A highly trained team of military personnel burst through the front and rear doors.

His followers got down on the ground, like it was a stick-up but Lucifer just glared at the hostile men and women in uniform
defiantly.

They kept their distance, fanning out along the walls, and then a stocky middle aged man walked in. That was the leader. That was the man to contend with.

He looked around, as though expecting an ambush from every side, and when none came, he strode forward with renewed confidence.

The man smiled a cruel, sadistic type of smile and then he said, "Remember me, don't you? You didn't think I'd ever find you, did you? Well here I am, and it's time for you to pay for what you've done
you piece of shit."

Lucifer raised his eyebrows and said in a measured tone, "I don't believe we've met. My name is Luke and this is my church.
I consider this trespassing and I'll thank you to take your men and leave here at once before I'm forced to call the authorities."

"Fuck you Jack. I know who you are. I know where you live. I have men going for the bitch and the boy as we speak."

Lucifer realized for the first time that Jack's past had caught up with him. These men were from the facility Jack had escaped from.

These men would
try to kill him, that was certain just from the murderous look the stocky man gave him.

"Who are you sir?"

"I'm General David Marks, as you well know, and I'm here to provide some military justice. Make your peace with your maker you fake assed preacher because you're about to pay for what you've done."

Uninvited Guests

Melanie heard the shots and rushed to the window. One of Luke's followers was on the ground and he wasn't moving. She heard another report from the opposite direction. Whoever was coming had no doubt just taken out the second lookout.

She ran to Jessie's room and tugged him out of bed by the arm.

She led him to the basement door and said, "It's happening right now buddy. We've gone through this. Everything's going to be ok. You get in the crawl space and after enough time has gone by and the coast i
s clear, you take off running. Wave down a car and go right to the police."

She wasn't sure the police would be able to protect him from military justice but it was worth a shot. She could only assume these armed men would go after Luke next and with her and Luke out of the picture, Jessie had no one to go to. It was his only option
, albeit a crappy one.

But she had some guns under the bed that might
open up some more possibilities.

She closed the door behind the child. There wasn't a hint of fright
to his features. If only she could be half as brave, she'd get through this.

She ran for the stairs and took them two at a time, just as the front door was smashed inwards
and a male voice yelled, "Everyone get on the fucking ground."

Now she regretted not
keeping the guns more accessible, but what could she do? She had an eleven year old boy in the house and boys love guns.

She pulled the small
briefcase sized case out, fiddled with the three digit combination, flipped it open and ran a clip home in each of the twin pistols. The act of loading her weapons brought back old memories.

She was a good shot and she was calm under pressure. These bastards might kill her, but they'd have a big fucking fight on their hands. She was no wallflower. Just because she played Suzy homemaker didn't mean she couldn't perforate a jerk.

She ran from the bedroom and took up position at the top of the stairs. She trained her gun on a spot on the floor below. Anything that made it into that vicinity was getting shot.

Fucked

General Marks smirked. He moved further into the church to better see
Luke's (his new alias) expression. He had the man dead to rights, and he wanted to see him squirm, up close and personal.

But despite the fact that he was facing imminent doom,
he had a serene, almost pleased look on his face.

That just made the General irate.

The General stopped ten feet before the little stage his nemesis was standing on and said, "Look at my face. Look at what those demon creatures did to me. You were involved in releasing them and you're going to feel the pain I felt, and then some."

Lu
cifer looked the general up and down, but said nothing.

To emphasize his point, the general pulled
a pistol out and shot one of the cowering followers in the back of the head. The man flopped to the ground, dead. The echo from the shot dissipated in a couple seconds.

The other crouching
follower let out a little squeal and then he started to weep, but Lucifer was altogether unmoved by it.

The general
wasn't really being a sadist. He'd have to kill all the witnesses and dispose of their bodies anyway so he was just making it work to his advantage; to scare the piss out of Luke.

He had three men outside the doors to make sure no one else came in, to minimize the casualties. But he could do whatever he pleased to these folks. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time
, and orders were orders.

Lu
cifer just shook his head sadly at the General. That only served to anger the General further.

General Marks
said, "Fuck the charades," and aimed his gun at Lucifer.

Lu
cifer winked at him and smirked so the general shot him in his smug little face.

To the general, the relea
se he got from it was akin to a long overdue, pent up orgasm. This moment had been a long time coming. He'd had endless dreams of this moment and now it had come to pass. Now he could move on.

But
Luke wasn't hit. The general missed him from ten feet out. He was a good shot, so maybe his pistol was gummed up.

It didn't matter though.
He pointed a finger at Luke, and every gun in the room went off. The gunfire slowed after five or ten seconds.

The air stunk of gunpowder now and little wisps of smoke wafted throughout the
cavernous church.

But
Luke was still standing there. His clothes were in tatters but there was no blood on them.

When the general saw that he was unfazed, he
panicked. Despite all he'd seen in life, his brain still wasn't conditioned to process the impossible. He stumbled backwards by a step.

One of his men whispered, "What the fuck?"

Then Luke spoke. "I told you that you had the wrong guy sir. But you tried to hurt me, so now we have beef."

With that,
Luke got down on one knee and pushed his hands into the floor. It didn't appear as though he'd broken the floor boards. His hands and forearms simply sunk in like the floor was made of mud.

General Marks
could see Luke concentrating, and his shoulders heaving just a bit.

Then
Luke looked up. He looked around the room, taking it all in.

The general heard a scream and when he turned to the source, he saw that one of his men had erupted into flames. Then another scream from the opposite side of the room came to him.
Another man was aflame. All around him, men and women were burning. The shadows in the church flickered and danced as his men died in abject agony.

The general turned on his heels and ran for the
front doors. He'd never considered himself a coward, but there was nothing to be done in a situation this surreal. His training hadn't covered anything like this. Before he reached them, three columns of flame rose from the ground right in front of him.

He halted in his tracks. He turned about, disoriented. All of his men were lit up like matchsticks. Some were flailing around, while others were writhing on the ground.
The screams were becoming strangled and weak.

Why weren't his sentries outside coming in to help? Hadn't they heard their teammates dying?

When the screams died off, Luke pulled his arms out of the floor. His shirt sleeves were missing from the elbows down and his skin was red raw. Smoke or maybe steam rose from his bare arms.

He stepped from the stage and the general screamed.

Luke laughed as though he was having the time of his life. He walked right up to the general and stopped a foot in front of him.

The general got down on his knees and begged for mercy. He was weeping like a baby.

Luke said, "This is pathetic."

Then he placed a hand on top of the general's head.

Instantly the general felt a sense of calm wash over him. He realized it like an epiphany: He had gone after the wrong guy. This wasn't the Jack that he knew. This was some kind of God.

The touch took away all feelings of hopelessness, regret, guilt, greed, sadness, and all the other emotions that had plagued the general over the past year. He gave himself wholly to his new God.

Mopping up

Lucifer wiped his hands on his pants leg as he walked from the splattery remains of the general.

Everyone
inside the church was dead; well, almost everyone. He walked back up to the stage and loomed over his last remaining follower. The guy was quaking. From where he stood he could clearly see that he'd pissed himself too.

He couldn't have any witnesses to what had just happened and he wasn't sure how much the guy had seen. He reached down and put his hand on his followers head. The man instantly relaxed, right before he went
pop
.

But his work was still not done. There were men outside the church and there were men going for Melanie and Jessie and they all had to be stopped.

But first, to get rid of the evidence. He plunged his forearms into the ground once more and beckoned the flames. He sent them to every dead body and let them burn as brightly and ferociously as was needed to turn the bones into dust and then ash.

When he was done, he forced the fires away.

He slowly took a single step from the church and was shot in the chest point blank for his troubles. He grabbed the rifle, and then the arm that held it, and dragged the shooter inside the church to dispose of him in private.

The guy kept firing until Lucifer placed his hand on top of his head. Then the man slumped to his knees, a big dopey grin on his face.

Lucifer
popped
him and waited for his buddies to come snooping around.

He knelt and dug
his arms into the ground again, summoning the fires, but forcing them to stand their ground until they were needed.

The first guard pointed his gun through the doorway and opened fire. Lucifer pretended to slump forward, dead, to lure him and his companion inside. It worked.

The man and his teammate, a woman, crept into the building and closed the church doors behind them.

The woman screamed at the sights and smells of death and the man said, "What the fuck is this?"

Lucifer gave them fire.

Quick Draw

Melanie had taken two
men out already but now she was fucked because the rest now knew where she was.

She didn't know exactly how many armed men and women were down there,
but there were a few, at least, and only one of her. They had the advantage but she still maintained the higher ground.

The sounds of footsteps and whispers were peculiarly absent for a full minute. Then she heard a scuffle and saw a young man and woman dragging Jessie
past her field of vision. The child didn't appear hurt but it was difficult to tell from so far away.

How had the bastards found him? Did Jessie make a noise? No, they probably checked the crawl space because it was the most likely hiding place. She felt like an idiot for not thinking this all the way through.

The woman bellowed, "We have the boy. Come out unarmed."

The threat was implied: They'd shoot him if she refused.

But then again, she was pretty sure they'd shoot them both anyway. But she had no choice but to comply.

She placed both of her pistols at her feet and said, "Weapons are down. I'm coming downstairs."

She put her hands behind her head as she descended.

The woman had Jessie lofted in the air in a choke hold, more to act as a meat shield than to keep him from escaping.

The man approached and patted her down roughly.

"All clear," he said.

The woman shoved Jessie into Melanie and trained her gun between them.

The woman said to Melanie, "You know why we're here. We don't want to make this any harder on you than it has to be."

Melanie nodded. She knew this day might come. She just wasn't ready to die right then. She tried to make peace but she couldn't.

The man said in a soft, reassuring voice, "Please kneel."

Melanie looked at Jessie and nodded. There were tears in his eyes.

She knelt first, hoping he'd follow her lead. This could all be over quickly and with little heartache if everyone did their part.

Jessie glared at the man and said, "No."

The armed man said, "Come on kid," then he looked at Melanie and said, "Please ask him to join you."

Melanie's voice was croaky as she said, "Please Jessie. This will be over in a second. There's nothing to fear."

Jessie had the man locked in a defiant stare. "I'm not afraid. I'm sad."

Jessie's features hardened so subtly Melanie almost missed it. She tried to get him to look into her eyes, but his gaze was far away and unfathomable.

She said, "Jessie. Please."

Finally Jessie's eyes came back into focus. He looked at Melanie and smiled so sweetly she thought her heart would evaporate.

He said, "Stand up Melanie. They're gone."

Melanie opened her mouth to plead with him some more when his words sank in and she stopped herself.

She looked
towards the man but he was no longer there, and neither was his female comrade. Melanie looked back at Jessie, then back at the empty space where their future assassins once stood only seconds earlier.

She didn't know if she was dreaming or going insane. Had she imagined the whole thing?

Jessie reiterated, "Stand up."

Melanie stood on wobbly legs. She looked around just to be sure and then she started to sob uncontrollably. Jessie hugged her midsection until her wracked fits of anguish subsided.

She finally asked, "What happened?"

"I think they had second thoughts about killing a kid and an
innocent, unarmed woman so they left."

"I didn't see or hear them leave."

"I did."

Melanie shook her head until the thoughts aligned.
But it did no good. Reality was not conforming to her perceptions.

She suspected Jessie had a hand in those two soldiers vanishing, but she couldn't prove it and for some reason she was afraid to ask him
just in case he told her the truth.

She took his hand and they both walked out the front door together. She had to find Luke. Soldiers would be coming for him too
, if they hadn't done so already.