Wesley Snipes - Talon of God

He was right. Before today, Lauryn had never even held a sword. She didn’t actually think she was holding it correctly now but it didn’t matter. Just because she wasn’t a fighter didn’t mean she didn’t know what to do. St. Luke’s attempts to lure her over to his side had only made her more sure, because now more than ever, Lauryn knew Talon had been telling the truth. She did have a mission here tonight, and it wasn’t to find an antidote. Everything that had happened over the last few crazy days had led her to this moment: here on her knees with the enemy right in front of her, looking down on her, underestimating her in every way. And the more Lauryn thought about that, the surer she became.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

St. Luke rolled his eyes as she stood up. “Fine,” he said, exasperated. “You want to be foolish? Be my guest. Encouraging doomed acts of delusional hubris is one of my favorite hobbies, so let’s go.” He patted his chest. “Hit me with your best shot. Never mind that Korigan already tried that and failed. He was just an inhumanly strong monster of rage and greed. I’m sure you, the scrawny ER doctor who hasn’t been to the gym a day in her life, will definitely do a better job.”

Lauryn narrowed her eyes, pointedly ignoring him as she rose from the ground and walked past St. Luke toward the center of the bloody lab where the black cube waited.

“Okay, now I’m curious,” St. Luke said, hurrying after her. “I know things look dire, but I hope you’re not considering suicide. It’s the only unforgivable sin, you know.”

Lauryn ignored that, too, keeping her eyes on the watching dark as she moved closer.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

“I wouldn’t go much farther if I were you,” St. Luke warned. “I’ve been a little overzealous tonight, and I’m afraid the boundaries aren’t quite as clear as they used to be. Go much closer, and you won’t come back.”

That’s what Lauryn was counting on. She walked right up to the edge, getting as close as she dared to the line of darkness no light could penetrate. Then, when she was right on the edge, she turned around and held Talon’s sword up hilt first.

“You want it?”

St. Luke scoffed. “Please,” he said, insulted. “You can’t tempt the tempter.”

“Can’t I?” Lauryn said, wiggling the gleaming sword at him. “I still know very little about the SEE, but I know their swords are precious. Holy objects, even, and extremely hard to get. A perfect trophy for your victory, in other words.” She smiled. “You want it, don’t you?”

St. Luke didn’t deny it, and he didn’t take his eyes off the sword. For a moment they both faced off, Lauryn holding out the sword, the bloody man trying not to take it. Then, fast as a striking snake, St. Luke’s hand shot out to wrap around the hilt.

Gotcha.

The moment his grip tightened, Lauryn wrapped her own hand tight around the sword’s cross-guard…

And fell backwards into the wall of dark behind her.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, time slowed to a crawl. This was probably when her life was supposed to be flashing in front of her eyes, Lauryn realized, but she was too busy watching the panic cross St. Luke’s face as he realized what was happening. Lauryn was taking the sword— his trophy—into the Great Beyond with her. Close as she was looking, she could actually see the moment he contemplated letting go, but if there was anything she knew about the devil, it was that he was greedy, and sure enough, St. Luke didn’t go. Instead, he braced against the floor, stopping them both.

“Stupid girl,” he snarled at her, his face warped by the hazy border of the doorway. “Do you think I fear death?” He nodded down at his bullet-riddled chest. “You’re another story, though. You must be feeling it by now, the cold breath on your neck? The icy grip of mortality? It has you now, but it’s still not too late.” He leaned in closer, his face turning bone white in the dark. “Give me the sword, and I’ll save you.”

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

Lauryn looked him dead in the eye. “You never save anyone,” she growled. “And I will never let go.”

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

St. Luke’s lips curled in a snarl of pure rage. “Fine,” he spat, pulling back his leg to kick her the rest of the way in. “Then go ahead and—”

He never got to finish. The moment he lifted his leg to kick her, Lauryn lurched with all her weight. Unbalanced on a single foot, St. Luke’s superior strength didn’t matter. He had no leverage to fight her. After that, it was as simple as falling backwards, dragging St. Luke, who’d never let go of Talon’s sword, into the abyss with her.

When Lauryn opened her eyes again, she was alone.

She blinked in confusion, looking around at the dark. The last thing she remembered was dragging St. Luke into the black cube, but the dark here wasn’t anything like the cold, infinite dark of the abyss she remembered falling into. It was warm and familiar, the orange-lit half-dark of a city night. The rest was different as well: no more terrifying satanic lab or blood or even St. Luke himself. There was only her, standing alone on the snowy street…

In front of her father’s house.

That couldn’t be right. Lauryn turned in a slow circle, glaring at the peaceful, undisturbed snow around her for some sign of the trap this had to be, but there was nothing. Just her childhood neighborhood as she’d loved it best, sleeping beneath a winter blanket on a quiet night, filling her with a deep, restful peace like nothing she’d ever known. Oddly enough, that was the clue that made the rest come together. Even in the deepest, snowiest night, nowhere in Chicago was ever this quiet. In a city of 2.7 million people, there was always someone yelling, something breaking or moving about, and yet the night around her was silent. So silent, actually, that Lauryn couldn’t even hear the puff of her own breath, which could only mean one thing.

She was dead.

This wasn’t a surprise, exactly. She’d known where she was headed the moment she’d decided to take St. Luke with her. But knowing you were going to die and actually being dead were two entirely different animals. Still, it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected. As a doctor, Lauryn had always seen death as the enemy; the ultimate failure to be fought at all costs. Now she had to wonder if she and her fellow ER staff had been in the right all those times they’d wrestled someone back from the brink. If she’d known death would be this peaceful, maybe she wouldn’t have fought it so hard.

Well, right or wrong, there was nothing she could do about it now. She didn’t want to just keep standing here in the street, either. Apparently, snow was cold in the afterlife as well. Her booted feet were already starting to ache, so she stomped them on the pavement, looking around for some kind of sign: a light, pearly gates, anything to tell her what to do next. But other than the unnatural quiet, the street looked exactly as it always did. She was wondering if she was supposed to just start walking when she finally looked up… and nearly fell on her ass in the snow.

There was something enormous in the sky above her, and it was not peaceful or good. It floated in the night like a towering thunderhead, but there was nothing fluffy or soft about the pitch-black battlements or the twisted towers that rose from the thing’s peak like something out of M. C. Escher’s nightmares. The main body was even worse—an ugly, pitted ball of dark volcanic-looking stone that didn’t look structurally sound, much less capable of flight—but what really made Lauryn’s blood run cold was the haze that surrounded it.