Wesley Snipes - Talon of God

By the time he finished, Lauryn could only nod. The angel nodded back and took off, shooting into the sky with a single flap of his burning wings. It was only then, when he was gone and the shock of his light had faded, that Lauryn realized everyone on the beach, including Talon, was staring at her.

“That was an angel,” her father whispered, his voice trembling. “An angel spoke to you!”

“Yeah,” Lauryn said awkwardly, unsure how else to answer. “I told you I talked to one earlier…”

She faded off with a wince. The moment she’d admitted the truth, her father had fallen to his knees in the water. “My child is blessed!” he cried, grabbing her hand.

“Dad!” she yelled, face burning, especially when the others started doing it, too. “No, stop!” she cried, putting up her hands. “I’m not, that is—we don’t have time for this!”

That was a truth Lauryn wished she didn’t have to point out, but it least it got their attention. Up on the ledge, the demon-possessed people were massing on the road like predators waiting for their chance to strike. When the people in the water started kneeling, several of them must have seen their chance. By the time Lauryn yelled out, they were already down on the beach, loping across the sand toward the people in the water. It should have been a terrifying sight, but it was what Lauryn had come here to do, and after the creatures, the possessed humans didn’t look so bad anymore. Either way, she was ready. She just hoped the others were, too.

“Do what I do,” she said, moving to grab the first monster as it hit the deeper water and slowed down. “Now!”

She grabbed the transformed person—a midsized demon with long grasping fingers and a drooling mouth that made her want to retch—around the neck, using its own momentum to take them both down. The moment it was in the water, she dunked its head, tipping the creature backwards like she’d seen the priests do for river baptisms.

“You are cleaned,” she said, voice shaking as she fought to hold it down. “Come back to us!”

That was definitely not the canonical prayer for an exorcism, but it didn’t seem to matter. The faith behind them was what did, because the moment she spoke the words, the monster stopped thrashing. Between the dark and the muddy water, it was impossible to see what was happening, but Lauryn could feel the body shrinking and changing in her hands. When it was over, a woman broke the surface with a gasp, her bloodshot eyes wide and horrified and her mouth open in a silent scream. For a moment, she stood there frozen, and then she collapsed, falling into Lauryn with a relieved sob.

“Oh, thank you ,” she cried. “It’s over. Thank you!”

“You can thank me by doing to others what I did to you,” Lauryn said, setting the woman gently on her feet in the lake.

For a moment, the woman stared at her in absolute confusion. An expression that only got worse when she looked around and saw others doing what Lauryn had done, catching the possessed demons as they charged and dunking them in the water. There was definitely some divine help going on, because even the oldest, frailest men and women were having no trouble forcing the biggest of demons into the water, washing them clean with a prayer. And when they rose again, they were human. And terrified, especially when they looked up and saw the battle raging in the sky between the fire-winged angels and the black-winged hellspawn.

“Do not be afraid!” Talon yelled, holding a particularly large demon under the water until he turned back into a man. “Help or move out of the way, but do not panic. Fear is the devil’s rope, and he will tie you down if you let him.”

Lauryn wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say in this situation, but it seemed to do the job. Once they got over their initial shock, several of the transformed people moved to start helping others. Good thing, too, because Talon had also been right about the possessed being drawn to them like predators to sheep. In the few minutes since they’d started, the crowd of possessed people had turned into a tide, and the longer they stayed in the water, the bigger it grew. Hundreds, thousands, Lauryn couldn’t even begin to count, but as minutes turned into hours, their numbers grew and grew until the lake was full of people helping others.

The demons on the other side began to turn away.

“They’re running,” Lauryn said, panting with exertion.

“Because the enemy is a coward,” Talon replied, wiping the lake water off his face. “He always runs the moment he loses the advantage. Look up and see for yourself.”

Lauryn gasped. She’d been so busy trying to keep pace with the tide of demon-possessed humans charging after them into the lake, she hadn’t had a moment to check on the battle with actual demons raging above their heads. When she did, though, her heart leaped.

In the time they’d been washing the corruption St. Luke had placed into the citizens of Chicago, dawn had broken, and the demon’s charge had broken with it. The horrifying castle was still visible, but it was fading as Lauryn watched, its twisted towers and toothlike battlements melting like frost in the morning light. As it diminished, the few winged demons that hadn’t yet been cut out of the sky began fleeing back to its shadow, their horrifying bodies winking out as they fled back to the hell they’d come from. By the time the actual sun broke over the lake’s edge, the castle was gone completely, leaving the sky blue and clear and cold in the winter light.

“It is done.”

The booming words made Lauryn jump, and she looked up to see Akarra standing on the water in front of her, his stern face split by a grin of triumph. “You have done well in the task you were set, Lauryn Jefferson,” he said proudly, putting out his hand. “I’ll take your sword now.”

“What?” Lauryn said, clutching her sword. “But… but I thought it was mine.”

“It is,” the angel said. “That is a holy sword forged of your own clear soul. But such weapons are not for laypeople. If you wish to go back to your old life as you said, you must return it to our keeping.”

That had been what Lauryn had said. But now…

“What if I don’t want to go back?”

The angel looked at her in surprise. Lauryn was pretty shocked, too. This whole time, all she’d wanted was to get away from the crazy and get back to her normal life working the job she’d studied so hard to get. Now, though, after everything that had happened, life at the hospital felt like a distant memory. She never wanted to stop being a doctor, but there was also no way she could just forget leading the charge and being a warrior.

No way she could forget this .

“What if…” She swallowed, clenching her fists as she gazed up at the angel. “What if I wanted to stay?”

“Then you must pay with your life,” the angel said solemnly. “As that one has.” His burning eyes slid toward Talon. “The path of righteousness is straight and narrow, but the path of a Soldier of El Elyon is a razor’s edge. It can be yours if you wish to walk it, but it will cost everything you have, and once you begin, the only escape is death.”

That was a pretty tall order. Even Talon looked a bit uncomfortable. “It’s not an easy calling,” he said quietly.

“Neither was med school, and I got through that just fine,” Lauryn pointed out, gripping her golden sword tight. “Look, the whole reason I became a doctor in the first place was to help people. Tonight, I helped save all Chicago! I might be pretty new to this faith stuff, but I’d have to be delusional to miss a sign like that.” And the more Lauryn thought about that, the more certain she became. The rightness she’d felt earlier was still there, burning in her stomach like nothing had since the moment she’d first known she wanted to be a doctor. Now, as then, she knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was what she was meant to do, what she wanted to do, and Lauryn had never had a problem going after what she wanted.