Tom Piccirilli - A Lower Deep

Jebediah's familiar, his second self, dead as long as Danielle, slowly appeared before me in a maelstrom of eddying shadows and light. Dark jagged bolts of skipping energy erupted from the earth. He looked so much like Jebediah, and Self, and me, all of us there in his small dead face coming to life. He looked at me and smiled.

Peck in the Crown wandered free and looked toward Jebediah. Both of their mouths worked silently as they stumbled toward each other with open arms and embraced among us.

Marcus unwound from his position sucking air loudly and slumped onto his side, completely drained from aiding me. Dad shuffled over and peered at the stirring shadows. Something was wrong. Even though I'd ended it the spell of resurrection continued on its own.

There was another presence here, grabbing on to my will and forcing itself back onto the earth. For a moment I prayed it was Danielle, and then I was absolutely terrified that it might be her.

And from those swollen, swirling shadows of light and anguish came another.

He had eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet were of fine brass, his hair white as wool. He felt as empty and ethereal as the broken promises of heaven. I touched his hand, smooth and cold.

My mind throbbed with a rising scream that eventually made it to my mouth. Whoever had pulled the strings today-Jebediah, Elijah, Satan, or someone else-had not counted on the will of God. Now would begin the apocalypse. A third of humanity would immediately die, the oceans boiling and turning to blood, a plague of locusts loosed on mankind as starvation and war and pestilence ran through the nurseries and yards. As the stars fell from the night. sky the true Dragon would rise from the depths and begin a reign of torment, misery, and depravity that would last a thousand years.

I couldn't let it happen.

Betty's butcher knife still lay nearby in the dust. Self or I or Dad or all of us shrieked until our throats cracked.

I picked up the knife and stabbed forward into the light.

Sorrowful, sympathetic eyes gazed at me as hot blood sprayed across my hands. "Forgive me!" I howled.

Blazing eyes, dying but not forgiving. It was done.

The wind blew again, rising and falling.

Jebediah wept and Peck in the Crown sobbed with him. He looked back at me over his shoulder, his face still wet with tears. "How can you be sure that what you've done is right?"

"I'll be back for Danielle's body."

"That doesn't matter now."

"It's all that matters to me."

He couldn't hide his shock. "What if this was to be the time of judgment, and your meddling has doomed the world? How can you be certain that God himself isn't seething at this? Raging and gathering all the wrath and forces of heaven to be turned against you now?"

"You just remember what I said."

Crushed and bitten-through grasshoppers lay strewn across the Plain of Esdraelon. The monolithic child of Armon now lay in broken pieces that looked no different from the rest of the ruins and sacrificial altars of Megiddo.

No one else spoke to me. Jebediah and the rest of the coven simply walked off without a word. Marcus glanced at me as if he had a great deal to say, but in the end he trudged off without saying it.

Self climbed my father's costume and worked on his chest. It took a lot of touching up but eventually he got Dad's torso back in good enough shape that nothing was hanging out.

And the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?

The blood of the man named Yashua had dried on my hands.

Self asked, Now what?

We got back into the Jaguar and sat there for a while until the moon began to rise. It was no longer a wolf's moon but now shone cold and harsh and brilliant. Dad sat contentedly in the passenger seat with his hands in his lap, twitching from time to time. I left the window down and let the breeze wash over us, bringing me back again to those days on the beach before-before-

I started the Jag and let it out, the engine going from a purr to a dull roar. I didn't know what to do next or where we were going.

It was Easter Sunday.

My father turned his dead white face to me and said, "Woo woo."