Philip Simpson - Tribulation

Had the thing just spoken? It couldn’t be… but Sam was sure it had just told him that it brought greetings from his father.

So stunned was Sam that he relaxed his grip on the Lemure’s hair. Immediately, with one swift, savage movement, the Lemure yanked its head forward. The razor sharp blade lying against its neck easily sliced through demon flesh, almost severing the head completely.

Sam held the body until he was sure it was quite dead, still in a state of shook. Finally, he let the body topple to the ground, still struggling to absorb the words he had just heard uttered.

“Your father sends his greetings.”

What the Hell was that supposed to mean?

The last time he’d seen his father had been three years ago, in Hell. Sure, he got that feeling that someone was watching him from time to time and he mostly assumed it was his father because, let’s face it, who else was it likely to be? And then there were the dreams of his mother. He wasn’t so naive to think that the dreams were only a product of his overactive subconscious. His father was playing his usual games. Occasionally, he thought he caught glimpses of the sharply dressed, debonair demon who was Satan, ruler of Hell, his father, the father of lies. But when he looked again or tried to move closer, whatever it was had disappeared. So why now? Why would his father send his greetings now? Sam knew with absolute certainty that Satan was up to something. He never did anything without it serving some purpose, or having some intrinsic value or calculated risk. But what was it?

It was only then that Sam realized that the Lemure was still lying at his feet. It hadn’t disintegrated into a pile of ash like all Lemure did. Some greater demons, Sam knew, had more resistance to iron than others but when struck a killing blow, all dissolved into dust eventually. Lemure weren’t greater demons though. In fact, they were the least of their kind, were highly susceptible to iron and always, always became powder upon death.

Not this Lemure, apparently.

Sam crouched down next to the body. A dark fluid was leaking out of the horrendous neck wound. That wasn’t right — Lemure didn’t bleed. Then he noticed the other differences — minor ones that weren’t immediately apparent. The arms weren’t as long as normal Lemure; the horns at elbow and knees were absent. The skin of the creature was, for lack of a better word, more human looking. It was still yellow with an unhealthy pallor, but still, much healthier and anthropomorphic than regular Lemure.

So — it wasn’t a Lemure then. At least not a pure Lemure. It was part Lemure and part something else. And then it struck Sam — struck him so hard that he staggered backwards.

This Lemure was like him — it was part demon and part human. This creature at his feet, this demonic thing, was more kin to him than any other living creature other than his father, his presumably-dead twin brother and possibly other demon Princes and Princesses in Hell. The thought made him feel vaguely nauseous.

His father was sending him a message — not just with words. This creature was a message in itself. What was his father trying to tell him? That the world was destined to be inherited by half human, half-demon hybrids? Cambions. That was the name for his kind. Not a word used lightly. In fact, the word was often associated with the worst forms of evil and whispered hurriedly amongst those who knew of their existence.

Sam’s brother had proven to Sam that he was not the only Cambion, but now it seemed that there were more. He shuddered to think what the consequences would be of breeding an Astaroth or a Horned demon with a human. What about Succubi? Surely these would be deadly foes. Game changers, in fact. Did his father really think he could change the outcome of the final battle? Was this what he was trying to tell Sam: that his half-breed kind was the future? Sam didn’t know and a part of him no longer cared. At the end of the Tribulation, in just over three years’ time, Christ would return at the head of an army and throw the anti-Christ and Satan into a bottomless pit for a thousand years. Sam’s brother and father. Essentially, his only blood relatives.

Where would Sam fit into all this? He didn’t know. No-one had told him. Would he be banished to the deepest parts of Hell along with his blood family or would he get to be reunited with Aimi and his foster-father, Hikari? He wished he knew. In the meantime, however, he still had a job to do — one that he was unlikely to stop doing, despite that fact that no one, on either Earth or in Heaven, seemed to appreciate it.

He sucked in a deep, sulfur-tinged breath and let it out with a huge sigh. This half-breed creature in front of him was a problem for another day. He’d think about it later. Right now, he still had some humans to deal with. Whether they would be saved or punished, he would soon find out.

There were still about two hours ‘til dawn when Sam finally made his move. He’d watched the humans from a nearby rooftop for a few hours, noting their numbers, their weapons and when they changed the guard. He’d observed them before, of course, but Hikari had told him never to assume. Things might have changed since the previous evening. Depressingly, they hadn’t. Demons, mostly Lemure but also the hulking Horned Demon, prowled the streets in numbers. Above him, Sam had noted the huge flying presence of at least five Astaroth. Tellingly, the demons completely ignored the humans on guard outside the two-storied warehouse. Without a doubt, those humans were in league with the demons. If that hadn’t been proof enough, then what he had observed an hour ago certainly was.

Three other humans had appeared on the street below Sam dragging two others between them. The contrast between the captors and their captives was stark. The three captors were grown men, well fed, glossy and bloated, dressed in expensive if dirty hunting gear. All three carried weapons: two had hunting rifles while the third was armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

Their two captives were an altogether different story. One male and one female. Probably both in their teens. They were skinny and undernourished, clad in scraps of clothing and smeared head to toe in dirty ash. They were also patently terrified, the whites of their eyes clearly visible to Sam from his vantage point above. Still struggling, the two teenagers had been dragged into the warehouse. The three men emerged some minutes later to smoke with the two guards, their crass laughter drifting up to Sam’s ears. If what he hadn’t seen earlier wasn’t enough to confirm his suspicions, then what he saw next erased any doubts he might have had. As one of the men raised a cigarette to his lips, the sleeve of his jacket slid up to reveal his wrist. Even from that distance, Sam knew what it was: a tattoo of a stylized outline of a horned face. He couldn’t see the details but he knew what was tattooed inside the face. The name Abaddon and the number 666. The name of his father. The mark of the beast. There could be no doubt. They were in league with Satan.

The three men had gone back inside at least half an hour earlier, leaving only the two guards outside. Sam hadn’t seen anymore movement either inside or out. The amount of demons around was also decreasing as dawn approached. It was a sleepy time of night, when human and demon consciousness was at a low ebb. Sam could sense it, and knew that the time had come.

With cat-like stealth, he moved to the edge of the building he was perched upon. The gap between his building and the warehouse of the humans yawned in front of him. The distance was at least fifteen feet — too far for a normal human. In fact, almost too far for Sam. It was at the very limit of his leaping abilities but he thought he could probably do it. He’d have to do it; it was either this or go in the front entrance, waking every single human in the building and bringing every demon in the vicinity running, flying and stomping down upon him.