Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

There was no Ben by the time events were occurring on the streets of Mosta and in the village. Not in any real sense and he supposed there never had been. Ben would have been an illusion, a name given to him of someone else’s life. There was no other identity, not at that point – he was, in fact, completely mindless.

He remembered all that had happened with a detached sense of someone who has witnessed all the events, but dispassionately not participated in them. The voice heard in dream kept calling to him and when his fingers closed across the still-warm metal of the orb, it only intensified stronger and he continued to dream his mindless dream.

His dream voice had summoned him to the field immediately from the bedroom, meaning in the early hours of the morning he stood completely nude in a field lit only by starlight. He could not, logically, return to the place he had left his clothes without the risk of waking the man in the bed. And so, logically, he would simply leave them there. It was a cold night but even cold nights in Malta would barely give an ice cube hypothermia.

He would be able to make it to his destination – and so he set off on foot. There was no need to follow roads, the bright eternal lights of the nearby town would guide his way, as would the cold starlight. The warmth from the orb told him this was right and where he reached an obstacle he would be guided around. He knew, instinctively, that the orb would tell him if anything needed to change.

Several hours later as the summer sun began to just peek below the horizon and allow the early rays of a summer’s daylight into the world – turning the deep navy blue of the night into a lighter sapphire – he came across a man. A farmhand, sleeping rough beneath the stars wrapped in a sleeping bag. The orb told him he was about the same height as he, about the same build – and was no one of importance.

The man groggily began to wake, the last thing he saw the nude being with the softly glowing ball for a hand. He must have figured it some kind of dream, he would after some weeks of recovery tell people he thought it was an alien – though could not even when pushed explain how and why said alien would need to hit him on the head and take his clothes and boots. Even in Malta, poorly told alien probe jokes would dog this poor farmhand for the rest of his life.

That was all in the future, that morning Ben, or the vessel that used to be Ben, clothed himself and found walking in boots far more comfortable. The orb helped him to continue forward, his mindless dream whispering that he was far closer – and would attract far less attention now as he reached the outskirts of the town.

He didn’t need further direction, he knew where he was headed. Through the slickened streets and over hastily built pavements, into the built-up areas and past shuttered up shops. Even as the sun began to creep into the sky relatively few shops were beginning to open. High up some shutters were thrown open, the occupants of the apartments waking for the morning to see a young, scruffy-looking gentleman out for a very early walk. Some of them would give him a nod, some of them wouldn’t even notice he had anything in his hand. None of them knew what was coming.

The bus driver, who would later capture pictures of the coming event on his phone – and for a long time not be believed – saw the figure that morning. He may have been one of the only ones – other than the poor farm hand – who saw the glowing orb in the man’s hands. He remarked that the look in his eyes was the blankest he’d ever seen and the chill which shook through his body took two morning coffees to dispel. Until the world went crazy and then – well – no amount of coffee could help him to handle that.

The figure continued, all the others around him were irrelevant. He slowly but surely made his way to the centre, as close to the centre as he could. Finally, after hours of walking and as the sun was beginning to slowly light the front façade, he came to it. The Rotunda.

The colour of pale peach it stood apart from the other buildings around – most notably because it was the only building that was round. Two towers stood on either side of a greek-temple-style front. All now bathed in the soft yellow light or morning, bringing the sweet peach to ripeness. The church was irrelevant, it was only a shell over what he truly wanted – but it would be a shame. It was a very lovely building.

He walked across the square which was only just beginning to come to life. No one had yet come to open the church and that was good – too many people meant more things in the way of his destination. He struck the huge oaken door with one brutal rock hand. Whatever feeble locks they had were obliterated and the heavy doors swung open with ease.

He stepped through the door and into the main rotunda itself. Rows and rows of chairs were set up facing the back of the perfectly circular building where someone had quite unceremoniously decided to shove an altar. Rather destroying the purpose of a circular building, to be honest. The softly brown and white tiled designs of the floor and the walls combined in a series of geometric patterns that tricked the eye into an optical illusion.

Once again it brought him back to the thought that the entire building was somehow an illusion.

In the epicentre, directly below the sunlight streaming through the demon’s hole high above at the peak of the dome, the tiles showed a rudimentary flower. A focal point.

He closed his eyes, feeling for it, the power of the orb flowing through him – accentuating the gifts of the body. He breathed in and brought with an almighty crack his fist into the centre of the flower.

The floor held for a second then rippled. The shockwave tore through the tiles, knocked all the seating aside and brought the polished floor to ruin to reveal the truth underneath. The world had been waiting, confused and unsure. This place had turned into myth beyond memory – but now it would become something else. A beacon, a symbol that times were changing.

He entered into the Temple, he made his way through the corridors and pathways as though from memory. It was from memory, just not his – it was from the orb. It flowed through him, it drew him surely and irrevocably to the centre, to the core of things.

Once he placed the orb into the beating heart of the Temple, he was truly gone. The man who was once upon a time Ben was obliterated from existence.

Something else had arrived.