Matt Hilton - Judgement and Wrath

Nothing came back at me, so I continued.

The stairway took me to the door I assumed Dantalion had used to leave the room. Probing for the door with my free hand, I readied the Ka-bar with the other, wedging my fingers into the narrow gap between the door and the frame and exerting the slightest presure. The door swung silently away, and I stepped into the space beyond.

I was in a narrow passage, some sort of vestibule that led deeper into the guts of the building. I listened for any hint that Dantalion waited for me. But there was nothing.

The air was close, like it had been sealed within this corridor for too long. Dust sifted on to my lips, so delicate, but apparent to my heightened senses. Someone had moved through here very recently, kicked up the motes of dust that were only now beginning to settle. I pressed on.

Twenty yards further I came to a second door, this one wooden. I touched it with my fingertips and they came away sticky. Dantalion's blood. He had obviously brushed his injured arm against the door. I smiled to myself. Then I turned quickly on my heels, bringing up the Ka-bar.

It was an old trick. One I was infinitely familiar with. A false trail misled the hunter while the pursued person backtracked, waited until the hunter passed by and then launched an attack at his exposed back.

Dantalion wasn't as clever as he thought he was.

As he burst from a doorway to my right I was ready for him.

He came at me, throwing a punch aimed at what he thought was the nape of my neck. Instead I was facing him and he ran full tilt on to my Ka-bar. Six inches of razor-sharp steel rammed to the hilt into his gut.

I twisted the blade, even as he slapped at me with both hands. His blows were ineffectual, but I felt a scratch from one of his ragged fingernails. He slumped on the blade and I grabbed hold of his windpipe, closing my hand into a tight fist to halt his sour breath exploding over my face.

'Die, you freak.'

He couldn't answer. Not with his windpipe crushed in my fist, but I could have sworn that his shudder was one of humour. What was so damn funny?

I felt a weird rushing in my head.

And I knew.

That was no fingernail. It was a needle. A fucking hypodermic syringe!

Then it was my turn to slump.

He waited in darkness.

Coming here, stumbling twice as he'd sought concealment within the shadows, he'd put down his ungainliness to the human shell that his spirit inhabited. It was Jean-Paul St Pierre who'd stumbled, not the great Dantalion.

It occurred to him that the racing of his heart, and the endorphins flooding through his system, had negated most of his pain, and after this he would be laid up for days, unable to function while his body healed itself. Feeling the ache in his many wounds, he knew he would continue to suffer the agonies of ordinary men until his book was put right. He didn't consider this long; he didn't believe that he would exist in this weak shell of mortality much longer. His mind had been working on a subconscious level, calculating formulae, figuring the numerology of all those that he'd killed, and it had come to a conclusion. The agent he'd recently killed had raised his tally exponentially. He needed only kill Hunter and he would equal the original Dantalion. All his worldly troubles would be behind him.

Dantalion did not fear Hunter now. He was confident in his abilities. He was a professional killer. He was an angel, and even one who'd proven as adept as Hunter was no match for a divine being. He would destroy him.

Hunter had a gun but that did not faze him. There were more ways to kill a man than with bullets. Guile and trickery could defeat even the most powerful enemy.

I'm better than Hunter is, he thought. I've beaten him every other time. Hunter has shot me a number of times and his bullets haven't killed me yet. Why should things be any different this time?

With the syringe with which he'd controlled Bradley Jorgenson and the sodium amatol it held, it would be enough to put Hunter to sleep. It would be a simple task to take his gun from him, then use it to ventilate his head in a number of places.

The thought brought a smile to his lips. He liked shooting people in the head. There was an undeniable finality to it.

It was why he killed his mother that way.

She wanted to join his father. So he'd answered her wish. The single bullet had instantly severed her spine at the point where it met her brain. She died instantly.

He didn't need to keep on shooting her until he had no bullets left, but he knew now that he'd done that out of inexperience. And love. He didn't want to shoot the woman only to find that he'd failed and that she would be a cripple for the rest of her days. So he made sure. No walking away, he told himself. Like he wouldn't walk away from Hunter until he was sure he was dead.

'Now,' he told himself. 'Do it now.'

He attacked. Jabbing with the needle.

He felt the solid thud of Hunter's hand connect with his gut, but it did not deter him.

'Die, you freak.'

Dantalion was not sure who had spoken those words. Hunter, or maybe it was even himself; he could not tell.

Hunter's hand twisted against his abdomen. Dantalion felt a corresponding twisting of his gut. Then red searing pain flared and he realised only then that the man had not simply punched him: he had jammed a knife into his body.

So it was Hunter who'd spoken?

Let him have his little moment, he thought. Let him think he's won.

Dantalion smiled. He felt the man slump and knew that his drug had done its work. And his book had been his salvation. Hunter's blade had pierced his book. It had pushed through the cover and the pages within, exited out the back of it, but with barely an inch of the blade embedded in his flesh, nowhere near his internal organs. It wasn't he who was going to die.

The fingers round his windpipe loosened and Dantalion sucked in air. Hunter was lying against his shoulder, as though seeking support. Dantalion stepped away and the man went to his knees. His fingers were still on the hilt of the knife, but he had no strength to use the weapon. Dantalion reached down and teased away each finger individually.

Hunter grunted.

Dantalion snorted and kicked the man over backwards. Hunter slammed against the door marked with Dantalion's blood, throwing it open to reveal a room much brighter than the dark places they'd already traversed. A raised platform made up the nearest end of the room, then dropped away to ground level. The light was coming from below.

Dantalion looked down at the knife standing out from his body. It hung suspended, held by the wound and the weight of the book caught up in his clothing. Dantalion tugged on the hilt, wincing as he felt the knife pull from his flesh. Warm blood trickled down his abdomen and pooled around his groin. He wasn't overconcerned. Once he finished off Hunter his flesh would mend as he transformed into the higher being he'd always been destined to become.

He pulled out his book and wrenched free the blade.

Military issue Ka-bar, he noted. Man-killer by definition. Useless against angels.

Hunter had rolled on to his side in an effort to get up. Dantalion saw the confused expression on his face and was only sorry that Hunter wasn't fully coherent. He wanted him fully aware when he was killed by his own weapon.

Hunter made it to his hands and knees.

Dantalion stood to his side, lifted the Ka-bar.

Then he saw the gun thrust into the waistband of Hunter's jeans.

The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered.

It was always about the numbers.

He could offer a choice.

'One: knife?' he asked. Then he plucked out the SIG Sauer. 'Two: gun? Which is it going to be, Hunter? How shall I kill you?'