Velvet Redemption

Lilandra led me through the night sky. I had no idea where we were going. We flew in silence for a little while. Then, I said, “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Kicking my ass,” I said.

“Anytime. I’ve seen enough angels who panicked just like you did the moment they thought they’d made a crucial error in judgement. I knew how to handle you,” Lilandra said.

“You gave angels that same speech you gave me?”

“Not quite. I’ve changed it up through time, but I’ve kicked enough ass back into shape to know what to say on the fly,” Lilandra said.

I sighed, and she continued, “Justin. You think you made a mistake saving Joshua, but that just isn’t the case. Neither of your choices would have been incorrect. The mistake is thinking there was no right option.”

Confused, I asked, “But either way, someone died. There were no good options, right?”

“Wrong. Either choice you made, someone lived. You either saved a nation or your last living friend. You’re just looking at it wrong,” Lilandra said.

I didn’t expect a demon to be so positive about something, but I suppose that wasn’t fair. She did used to be an angel. Still, if being brought back to life as some sort of spirit warrior had taught me anything, it was that my previous concept of angels and demons was very wrong.

As we came down out of the clouds, I saw that the moon was still high in the sky. It was a full moon tonight, and the desert below us looked like a sea of blue sand. It was all lovely, the sand, the occasional cacti, and . . . a ghost town?

“Any particular reason you brought me to this place?”

“War is here,” Lilandra said as we landed on the outskirts of the town.

I looked around as a chilly wind blew some sand into my face.

A long row of buildings stood before me, all leading to a town square. From an aerial viewpoint, the town was a giant cross. The street I was looking down was the long piece of the cross.

Confused, I asked, “How do we know he is here?”

“Because I told her I would be,” War’s voice said, echoing through the town. It was a similar effect to Pestilence’s voice outside the great pyramid.

“And why would you do that?”

“Well, to be blunt, Lucifer and I have some serious plans to put into action. We’d prefer it if you weren’t around to mess them up,” War’s voice said.

Then, he revealed himself, a figure walking in the town square.

“Where is Lucifer, anyway? Heaven? I hear he’s causing quite a racket up there,” I said, trying to pull some information from War.

Maybe he was the kind of villain that would like to monologue.

“Will it honestly do you any good to know? I’m about to kill you. Just die and let me move on to escalating the rest of the planet into World War III,” War said.

He actually sounded kind of exasperated, as if dealing with me was just some sort of bummer. If World War III was his dessert, then I was the broccoli he had to finish before he could enjoy his treat.

In that regard, he almost seemed sort of immature. Pestilence and Famine both seemed to have set goals with their destruction and killing. Pestilence reclaimed his old throne and absorbed modern-day Egypt into a massive plague.

Famine rounded up hundreds of demons to possess African villagers, then fed off their starvation to make himself stronger. He ultimately planned to swallow all of Africa.

War was a different kind of monster. He didn’t plan to rule the world. War just wanted as many people to die in battle as possible. He just wanted to enjoy his sick and twisted fantasies.

I wasn’t sure if that made him better or worse than Pestilence and Famine, but I did know he had to die. It had to end here. Lucifer and Michael could wait. This last horseman of the apocalypse had to be slaughtered immediately.

My determination was shaken a little by the sounds of dozens of howling wolves. They sounded like they were all around the town. I couldn’t tell, but some may have been inside the town.

Their howl sounded familiar, like when I first found Velvet.

“Dega? No. . . I killed him,” I muttered.

“I guess I failed to mentioned Dega had friends. Most demons do, contrary to popular belief,” Lilandra said.

“I do hope you don’t mind me inviting a few friends to our party,” War’s voice echoed through the empty town.

In front of me was a direct path to War. Several old wooden buildings, most two stories tall with broken windows and rusty nails sticking out of the walls, were like a line of lights to show an airplane where to land in the dark.

Without looking I asked Lilandra, “Can you handle a few demons possessing wolf bodies?”

“Yeah yeah. I’ll fight off the smaller bad guys so you can have fun with the big guy. When we fight Lucifer, though, you will not keep me away from the main action,” Lilandra said.

“You ever think that I keep you out of the fights with the big guys because I don’t want to see you die? What happens to my soul if you die?”

“Your spirit form destabilizes similarly to right before you found Velvet,” Lilandra said calmly.

“Just don’t die fighting those wolves,” I muttered.

“Shut up, and go kill the last horseman,” Lilandra said, summoning her wooden sword.

I drew Velvet and started walking into town. I could vaguely sense a few wolves in the abandoned buildings. They weren’t my main targets, but they would end up dead by hand nonetheless. There was no leaving here until this town was empty once more.

“I’m surprised you decided to try this hero thing again with such a horrid failure coming out of the last time we met,” War taunted.

One of the wolves leapt through an open upper-story window to my left.

As it moved down toward me, I called down a bolt of lightning from above. I heard a small yip of pain before the wolf’s body caught fire and disintegrated into nothing from intersecting with the bolt.

I drew power from the lightning as it struck me, ready to use it against War the moment he drew his firearm.

The only clue I got as to when he would draw was a small reflection of moonlight that came from his weapon as he yanked it from its holster with an ungodly speed.

I can’t stop the war created from my decision, but I can stop the guy who wants to make it worse, I thought, throwing a bolt of lightning at the gun as it fired.

The lightning ate the bullet that came out of his gun, and I knew right then that this battle would be one of speed and precision. Before I had massively powerful opponents that I had to smash with all my might. Now, I had a precise opponent that, although not the strongest, was equally skilled in his own way. If he was half the marksman I expected, I was going to have a Hell of a time deflecting and dodging his shots.

I vanished from normal sight as I flew left and right zigging and zagging to make his shots as difficult as possible. I did this while still making my way toward him. Simply charging him in a straight line would have been the most foolish mistake to make.

He fired off a few shots that came closer than I expect them to, and then he jumped toward the top of the closest building. Diving into the bottom story of that building, I cut my way up through second story and then the very roof itself to come up right in front of War.

This caught him by surprise. He didn’t know exactly where I would pop up. I got in a good slash across his chest as I flew up into the air. He growled and jumped back down to the ground shooting a few more shots up at me.

I deflected two of the shots, but one grazed my left shoulder. Being shot was something I wasn’t terribly familiar with. Lilandra hadn’t forced me to experience that pain since most of the weapons we trained with were invented before gunpowder.

The shock caused me to fall back through the building I just rose from, but I used this to my advantage and delayed my exit from the building. I waited because he didn’t know which of the two windows on the front of the building I’d exit from.

My patience cost me as another wolf came at me from the darkness grabbing my sword arm in his jaws.

“Dega died by this ha-”

I wasn’t going to give the demon the satisfaction of finishing that sentence and turning it into a threat. I had bigger fish to fry.

As if on cue, the word “fry” in my mind sparked me roasting the wolf with electricity from my own body. It howled in agony, and I gave away my position in the shadows as War fired off another round of shots. I used the wolf’s corpse as a shield and cut my way out of the back of the building.

My left shoulder was throbbing and bleeding, as was my right arm just below the elbow.

Do I go over the building and attack him from the air?

No. . ., I thought and moved over another couple buildings.

Ducking low, I cut through the walls of a building directly facing War. He didn’t have enough time to fire accurate shots before I was upon him.

For someone who enjoyed wars, he sure did suck at fighting battles. I went to work slicing from multiple directions, and though he deflected most of them with his gun, he still took cuts to both arms and another to the chest.

He started to growl as he lost more blood.

“So this is how the former hero fights,” he said, trying to disrupt me.

I wasn’t going to have it. I landed a kick straight to his chest and sent him flying into what I assumed was a saloon. And instead of waiting for him to come back out, I charged in after him.

Unfortunately for myself, two wolves forced me right back out, protecting their ally. Each one had one of my arms in their jaw as their momentum pushed me back and onto

the dusty ground beyond the stairs of the saloon.

Out of the busted swinging doors lept a bloodied up and insane-looking War. He jumped right onto my chest and had a hand on my neck while his gun was buried in my forehead.

“Okay, jackass! You had your fun, but this ends now!”

He was exacerbated. Clearly, this horseman hadn’t done his share of combat. He was just used to making others fight on his behalf. I had pushed him to the end in this duel.

He cocked his gun and yelled, “Time’s up, hero!”

“No wonder Lucifer didn’t summon you as often as Pestilence and Famine,” I said, chuckling.

His voice, getting more unsteady by the moment yelled, “What is that supposed to mean? I’m the one that killed you, not them!”

“You had to have a master plan to put up a fight. How long did it take you to think up that really smart bomb plan? All five years I was training? Your brothers were clearly much more productive with their time, and they were much more effective at kicking my ass,” I said, laughing.

“That’s enough. Lucifer is going to be pretty pleased when he gets back and sees you dead,” War said, tightening his grip on my neck.

“You poor bastard. You’re about to learn why neither of your brothers engaged in extremely close quarters combat with me,” I said, summoning all my aura for one massive burst attack.

My spike of energy could be seen for a few miles out. I poured most everything I had into electrocuting the three bastards on top of me, and they felt it. The wolves died fairly quick, but War, being a horseman of the apocalypse, held out a little longer. His holding out was accompanied by wails of pain and the gnashing of his teeth. Still, he did hang in there for at least 15 seconds before kicking the bucket.

Thanks to all the pain I was causing, he wasn’t even able to twitch his finger slightly and pull the trigger of his gun.

The smell of burnt flesh greeted me as I got up slowly. War’s body dissolved to ash first, leaving his head for last. I crushed it under my left foot.

“Bastard,” I muttered.

Lilandra flew over and landed next to me. Her wings were ruffled, and she had a few bite marks on her left arm, but overall she seemed in better shape than me.

“Not as much of a challenge as Pestilence or Famine?”

“Compared to them, this guy was about as useful to Lucifer as a wet match in a damp cave,” I said.

I hobbled over to the steps outside the saloon and sat down to catch my breath. Shocking myself was never fun, but it was too effective a strategy to ignore with War.

We waited there for an hour before my girlfriend appeared with Daniel. I smiled when I saw her. She had that effect on me now.

Her long black hair blew in the night desert wind as she and Daniel walked over. His hair blew in the wind as well, but I didn’t care about what it was doing.

Death looked over my wounds which I assured her were no big deal.

Lilandra rolled her eyes and asked, “Well? What did you two learn?”

Daniel spoke first saying, “It’s not good, Lilandra. We might officially be fucked now.”

I looked at Death and asked, “What is he talking about?”

“Lucifer did attack Heaven, Justin. Or rather, some of his strongest demons attacked the front gate. He snuck in while Michael’s angels were distracted and escaped with a hostage,” Death said.

I didn’t understand how this was bad news for us. Why did a hostage matter?

Lilandra asked, “Who did he take?”

“Micah,” Daniel said, looking grim.

Lilandra added up the equation faster than I did.

Confused, I asked, “Is that name supposed to mean something? Is he important?”

Death spoke up, “Micah is Heaven’s blacksmith. He forged my scythe and your blade, as well as, Michael’s second sword.”

“So. . . he got tired of waiting to get his hands on Velvet and decided to have his own blade designed?”

“It would appear so,” Daniel said.

Nobody spoke for a few minutes as all this information sunk in, and I asked, “But he can’t make Micah forge a blade, right? The angel will refuse to do it?”

“Lucifer invented the art of torture, Justin. He can make anyone do anything with enough time. Micah is no exception,” Daniel said.

I asked, “How long will it take him?”

“If he uses a time stone like we did for training, it won’t matter. He may have his new sword now,” Lilandra said.

Death, Daniel, and Lilandra all looked pretty depressed with the situation. It certainly did seem like Lucifer was one step closer to starting this war with Michael and destroying the Earth.

Still, I didn’t feel like all was lost. I’d overcome great obstacles to defeat Lucifer, and a new blade wasn’t going to stop me.

“Well, he should still be in a weakened state, right? Wasn’t the whole point of me killing the horsemen he summoned to weaken him?”

“That doesn’t matter now that he has a sword as powerful as Michael’s and Velvet. He may be weaker, yes, but he has a weapon that can stand up to Velvet. Our advantage is gone,” Lilandra said.

I scowled.

“Who cares? Has lack of advantage stopped me this entire time? No. I killed every horseman of the apocalypse without any advantage whatsoever,” I said.

Lilandra, Death, and Daniel all raised an eyebrow at me.

“Okay. . .clearly I had one advantage, and that was you guys. Still, what I’m saying is, we can stop Lucifer. I have you guys, and I have Velvet. We’ll rest up for a day, then, we’ll storm the gates of Hell and kick Lucifer’s ass,” I said.

Scoffing, Daniel asked, “Oh, is that all?”

“That’s all,” I said, returning his sarcasm.

We all looked a little worse for wear, but I knew that these guys would get me to Lucifer tomorrow and help me kill him.

My one worry wasn’t these guys. . . it was the sword on my back. I could sense it ever so slightly in the back of my mind, but I knew that Velvet didn’t care about Lucifer’s blade. It just wanted to fight Michael’s sword. I worried about the outcome in a fight with Lucifer, in which, Velvet wasn’t 100% on my side.