Out of the Shadows (37 page)

The entirety of the ceiling ignited into a hellish inferno as the stained glass windows shattered, hundreds of colorful shards raining down into the sanctuary. Trevor knew that his third painting had just come true. Pillars of fire spat from the concrete spires outside the church, and a horrendous crack rang out, followed seconds later by the cacophonous echoes of the bells from the tower crashing to the ground.

As flaming chunks of the rafters fell from the heavens, Luke charged ferociously toward Micah, who was distracted by the cathedral’s destruction. As he reached out to tackle the angel, Trevor kicked a chunk of debris across the floor into his path. He tripped and soared past, crashing into the blazing pyre.

Atrocious howls of agony echoed through the air as Luke caught fire, his clothing disintegrating and the mortal skin melting from the bones of his stolen host. Less than a minute later, the body went quiet and lay on the wooden debris, unmoving.

Trevor felt his limbs begin to tremble, the adrenaline rush subsiding. He struggled to breathe steadily, and he felt overwhelmed with emotion. “We did it,” he panted incredulously. “It’s over.”

Micah came up behind him and grasped his shoulder for stability. Trevor reached back, clasping his friend’s hand in his own. When the angel grunted and his hand clenched tightly on Trevor’s shoulder, he spun around to see what was the matter.

Micah’s eyes were wide, and a thin trail of blood escaped his mouth. The tip of the blade protruded from his chest, and thick rivers of blood poured to the ground as the knife receded once more. The guardian slumped to the ground, revealing the assailant.

Bishop Andrews stood, gory knife in hand, grinning evilly at the bewildered Trevor.

He dropped to his knees, mumbling incoherently in the face of this trauma. He clutched Micah’s body tightly in his arms, trying foolishly to put pressure on the knife wound. “No, no, no, no, no! Micah,
please no!”

He knew that the bishop was gone now, and only Luke remained within that familiar shell of piety.

“Micah!” Trevor spoke urgently, watching the essence of life spilling from his friend’s horrible wound. “Micah, what should I do?! Tell me what to do for you!”

Through his torturous pain, Micah attempted to smile proudly at his pupil. “There is nothing you can do for me,” he answered slowly. “You must do it… for
them
.”

Trevor’s vision clouded with the stinging tears of inevitable loss, and he felt his bottom lip begin to tremble. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ve told you everything you need to know.”

“But I still don’t know!” Trevor cried now, not wanting to say goodbye to this newfound friend.

Micah coughed, and blood fell from the side of his mouth. “Think.” With each passing second, the color drained from his once lively skin. “Remember my words.”

Trevor shook his head, his fists clutching Micah’s t-shirt tightly. “Please don’t go.”

“You just have to believe, Trevor,” he smiled weakly.

“I
do
believe! I never stopped believing!” he finally admitted, more to himself than to Micah.

“I don’t mean in Him,” he muttered weakly.
“In yourself.”
Micah took hold of Trevor’s hand and, struggling, raised it to his chest.

Trevor remained still, and he felt the precious beats of his heart, just as he had the night before on the bridge when Micah had asked what drove his passions. It wasn’t until this moment that the true answer to that question became clear to him. He closed his eyes and allowed his heart to fill him with strength. When he opened them, he stared down at a lifeless body with dull eyes and pale skin.

As he solemnly stood, he felt Micah’s essence drift farther away from him. He heard the words from the pier echo through his mind.
He cannot directly kill you as long as your guardian lives
, he had said. Now, the “mark” was gone. He would fight with Luke, and one of them would die.

“That was quite touching,” Luke said, eerily inhabiting the body of the bishop.

A smoldering fury began to bubble in Trevor’s gut, and through clenched teeth, he seethed, “You broke the rules.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “He was a weak guardian,” he goaded, attempting to force an irrational rise out of Trevor. “And with everyone headed to the bridge, there’s no one nearby for him to possess,” Luke grinned. “Which means he’s gone.
For good
.”

Trevor stood, his back to Luke, his fists clenched, furious blood coursing through his veins. The air around him rumbled, like some unseen force were angered by the callous events in the sanctuary. “I’m sorry, Luke. But you’re wrong.”

“About what?” he spat, unconvinced.

“There
is
someone nearby.”

Luke laughed. “And who would that be?”

Trevor spun to face the demon, fire-filled eyes piercing into him.
“Me.”

In that instant, the heavens were flung open upon Trevor’s newfound vigor, and he felt an angelic force surge through his body, uplifting his sorrows and feeding his strength, not overtaking him but working
with
him. Micah’s presence had returned, and Trevor knew they were now one.

Luke had broken the rules by killing Micah. Now, all bets were off.

Trevor felt larger, stronger, and more aware, like he was hovering lightly off the ground even though his feet were firmly planted. He watched the intense rage radiate from Luke as he snarled, his skin splitting open and his shoulders elongating. Bones cracked and cartilage reshaped itself as he transformed from his mortal shell into his immortal demonic form, black and hideous, beady glowing eyes, talons for fingers.

They charged toward one another, and when their bodies collided, a blast of energy burst through the church, sending debris soaring through the air. Trevor punched and ducked as Luke clawed and hissed. They leapt around the sanctuary as more chunks of the roof began to collapse upon them. Luke managed to grasp Trevor and fling him across the room, colliding into one of the concrete pillars, breaking it in half.

Trevor rebounded and soared through the air, his fist landing solidly in the side of Luke’s face. He felt the skull give way to a horrible
squash
, but as he removed his hand, Luke’s crushed face quickly reformed. Their fists of fury pummeled one another, but Trevor quickly realized that physical damage could not hurt this demon.

He ducked from a long row of wooden pews that Luke had uprooted and thrown across the sanctuary. Trevor climbed over the destroyed benches, scrambling to get back to the front of the church. As he passed the flame-weakened pyre, he heard it groan as it leaned to the side, snapping and falling over. He needed time to think!

Think
, Micah had said.
Remember my words
.

The Demon Luke scrambled up a nearby pillar like a vicious scorpion, leaping through the air to close the distance between them. Trevor snatched a long chunk of sharp, broken, wood from the ground and raised it in front of him just in time for Luke to land on it, impaling himself through the chest and knocking them both to the ground. Trevor rose and backed away, observing the damage that had been done, but Luke only struggled briefly when standing, and he proceeded to pull the spike from his torso, unharmed.

“
You
cannot kill me!” Luke growled, his twisted voice completely inhuman.

His fist collided with Trevor’s face, knocking him to the side. Another punch, and another, and another. Trevor’s pain was intense, and he collapsed to his knees, tired and broken. Luke swiftly kicked his prone body and then picked him up, tossing him through the air. Trevor flew across the sanctuary, crashing painfully into a row of pews. Hymnal and Bible pages scattered into the air from the collision, slowly fluttering back to the ground.

Trevor lay motionless in the center aisle, feeling the debris rain down from above. He was weary and weak, and he was making no progress. Even if he had the endurance to sustain the fight, the cathedral would likely collapse around them soon. He heard the demon’s loud stomps crashing toward him to finish the job, but Trevor had no fight left. It was over.

A page from the Bible fluttered through the surrounding mess and came to rest inches from his face. He ignored it, feeling his eyes grow heavy, wanting to shut them for good. Sunlight from the shattered windows scattered eerie beams through the smoky sanctuary, and one streaked across the Bible page in front of him.

Just as he had resigned and had begun shutting his eyes, a word at the top of the page caught his eye.

Luke
.

He strained to focus on the discarded page. The sunbeam seemed to be highlighting a particular verse:
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.”
Trevor struggled to raise his head, trying to see what might be special about the passage. It was verse twenty-four. He looked at the top of the sheet of paper and saw that it was from chapter eleven. The Book of Luke, chapter eleven, verse twenty-four.

Luke, 11:24.

His mind immediately raced back to the morning, when he had examined his horrific paintings, and the final painting – a white mass entangling itself in black bloody spikes with an intense golden beam illuminating them – had the numbers “11:24” scratched into the acrylic.

Remember my words
, Micah’s voice haunted him.

His mind raced through all of his life’s events in the blink of an eye; he saw his family, and Patti, and Mr. Miyoto, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and his first kiss, and his precious cat, and Micah sitting by the pier with him earlier that day. He played through their entire conversation, Luke mere meters away now. His time had come.

Everyone must face judgment when the time comes
, he heard Micah’s words ring through his ears.

He was in the air again, stuck in Luke’s clutches. A guttural sound of unbridled joy escaped the demon, a terrifying supernatural laugh that sent ripples of evil reverberating through the sanctuary. Luke threw him once more, this time toward the front of the church.

Trevor collapsed onto the stairs leading up to the pulpit, where the organ pipes lined the semi-circled wall. He looked up at the cathedral’s giant crucifix gazing down at him, the soft expression of the Lord putting him at ease.

Everyone must face judgment when the time comes
.

He remembered his painting. The white, the black, the beam of golden light. They were intertwined with one another.

Everyone must face judgment…

As he stared at the face of Jesus Christ on the cross at the front of the church, an epiphany struck him. He knew what must be done.

He stared at the collapsed debris of the pyre, the fallen cross protruding dangerously into the air behind it. There was only one way to take down this abomination.

As Luke scrambled on all fours to attack, Trevor dodged to the side and scurried up what was left of the ashy broken pyre, now only a few flames licking the base where the gasoline had been. He glanced at the spike behind him from the demon cross and felt his heart leap into his throat. Luke turned to face him now, ready to dash up the small wooden hill and take down his prey.

As the beast charged, Trevor’s mind left the church and went back to the previous night. He stands on the Golden Gate Bridge once more. He looks down at the blackness below, knowing that the water exists but cannot be seen. He imagines the intense pain from the collision followed by the chill that would overtake him from the freezing water. There’s nothing between life and death except his hands holding onto the railing behind him.

His hands…

His focus back in the cathedral now, he looked down at his hands and thought of the conversation he’d had with Micah. He now knew that he would not get to do the things with his hands he had someday hoped to do. Their final act loomed on the horizon. Those hands that had flipped burgers at the diner, that had held the cold steel from the bridge railing, that had shook Micah’s hand for the first time, that had held his dying friend moments ago…

Even as Luke tore his way up the side of the pyre and leapt toward Trevor, his fierce claws ready to bite into flesh, Trevor remained staring at his hands. He turned them over, examining them thoroughly, and he smiled, pleased with the journey on which they had taken him.

Grinning with insatiable bloodlust, Luke’s talons penetrated Trevor’s torso, and as the pain wracked through his body, he flung his weak arms around Luke’s neck, pulling them closer together.

The demon’s grin faded as he became confused, trying to pull away but unable to do so. “What are you doing?” the monster growled.

A thin trail of blood ran from the corner of Trevor’s mouth as he uttered, “What was it you said about Micah?” He grunted weakly through the pain. “With everyone headed to the bridge,” he repeated the words, “there’s no one nearby for you to possess. Which means you’re gone.” Trevor pulled him even closer, digging the talons farther through his own body.
“For good!”