Lightbringer - The Patron Saints of the Damned III
Chapter 1 - Hell on Earth



Three Months Later

Megan Michaels sat at her wooden desk, in her darkened bedroom. It was noon, but her curtains were drawn shut. Not long ago, she had been a teen full of rightful angst and a plan for a better life far from home. But Megan had changed in the tragedy that befell her brother and the kids she’d all her life caring for. Her once neat, straight chestnut hair was now tied in an unkempt mess of a ponytail. Her room, once neat and orderly, smelled of old coffee and was littered with clothes. Megan opened her laptop at her desk strewn with food wrappers and dirty dishes. For an instant, she saw her own reflection on the briefly black screen. She thought she looked aged by several years, though she was still only eighteen. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, there were wrinkles that she hadn’t noticed before, and she looked as tired as she felt. This wasn’t the only change, however.

Megan’s previously thin body was leaner than it had been, due to a mix of malnutrition and rigorous exercise. It was difficult for her to force herself to eat, she did put as little effort in it as in her cleaning. But she at least needed some calories to keep up with her recent exercise habits. Every morning, she was up by four and running five miles. At noon, she went out to a firing range; the ammunition, a .50 magnum, and ammunition had eaten a large chunk of her life savings. Every evening, she went to a boxing class that had turned her somewhat athletic form into something that even looked more dangerous.

The irony had occurred to Megan that, had she wanted to, she could have made herself look stunning by other people’s standards. Except for the neglect in her physical appearance that came because of how entirely pointless other’s perceptions felt. She had no desire to look good for the world, no desire to dress up for the cameras who wanted pictures and videos of the sad little girl who had been kidnapped by the famous serial killer. And the more ragged her appearance became, the less of an interest anybody showed. This gave her the isolation she needed to prepare for what was to come … whatever horrible war Exousia had died trying to prevent.

Oddly enough, however, Megan wasn’t afraid of the future. As bad as the woods had been, what she’d really learned was that coming home was far worse. At least in the woods, her feelings had felt … valid. Even those mystical things which were beyond them abided by some set of rules. They were fighting for real outcomes, in a battle that had meant something. Here, everyone acted like she was crazy. The words she heard repeatedly were PTSD and Stockholm’s Syndrome. Megan knew they were wrong … except for sometimes, when doubt would creep in. What if her brain was somehow damaged by all the trauma; what if she really had just fallen in love with her tormentor?

No … Exousia had protected them as best she could.

Megan clicked on the internet icon on her laptop and checked her email. This was the first time she’d done so since before the woods, when she’d been applying for schools. The overwhelming number of messages were from all the colleges that had accepted her, with scholarships. There were even a few inviting her personally to apply–usually those with prominent psych programs. It was … everything that she’d once wanted, her key to escaping Alabama and making a real life for herself. Maybe she would accept, at least until war came to the human realm. Or would it seem as artificial as the world back home she had returned to? Either way, Megan would still be in the world where her brother was dead, half their friends gone with him, one in a coma from poison, and the rest under severe psychiatric evaluation.

There was a knock at her bedroom door.

“Dear, may I come in?” her mother asked, from outside her room, and then entered anyway. She sat on the bed, bit her lower lip, and seemed to look for something to say. Somehow, she seemed somehow like a stranger … like an acquaintance from another life. She was wearing her uniform—a blue vest over a white button-up, and black slacks. Her brown hair was also tied in a pony-tail, albeit a much neater one. “How are you?”

Megan shook her head and said that she was fine. It was short … and vague … and untrue. The truth was that she still felt resentment towards her parents, especially now that they were soaking up all the attention from what had happened. They’d been sent gifts, letters, food, and even money. And they had just basked in the attention–shedding tears and lamenting the crumbling of a family that they’d never truly been. The only reason Megan hadn’t lashed out directly at them was that … it just didn’t matter.

“I just wanted to check on you.” Her mother shifted her weight to one leg and then the other. “I know you miss Brennan … but you just have to stay positive! I know it’s hard, but you have your health and your life. I mean, for pete’s sake, you escaped a serial killer. Once you’re able to move on, the world will be your oyster.”

“Mhm,” Megan muttered, still not looking away and not allowing herself to show her anger.

A moment of silence passed between them.

“Speaking of which,” Megan’s mother said. “Have you gone to visit your brother?”

Megan scowled at her and replied, “Why would I need to? You’ve taken enough pictures of the grave to post a new one every day. Can’t imagine the grave has changed that much since, unless all the thoughts and prayers have brought him back.”

Her mother’s eyes began to well with tears. “You don’t know how difficult-” she started to say.

“How difficult it is to lose the child you raised?” Megan asked, glaring at the woman with cold fury. “I know what it feels like a lot better than you do.”

“Megan!” the woman shouted. Then she calmed, walked behind her daughter, and began to clumsily braid her hair. “I understand your anger. Things like that can really mess up your head. Make you think your loved ones are trying to hurt you. That your kidnapper-”

“Exousia didn’t kidnap us,” Megan muttered with contempt. “And I know what I saw, even though nobody believes me.”

There was another moment of very uncomfortable silence before her mother began to try to braid her hair again. It took everything in Megan’s power not to turn around and slap her wrists so that she would stop. Adopting a pleasant tone, her mother said, “So … there’s a new store in Madison that called my store about you. They want to hire you and train you immediately for management, with you having such a cool head and all. I thought that since you haven’t been able to go back to school, that-”

“I’ve got scholarship offers at a dozen universities,” Megan said, barely above a whisper. “I’ll be gone for the spring semester.”

“You … you have another year of high school left.” Her mother asked, her voice cracking a little bit. “After that, you could even take a year or two off to work at the store, get experience, save up money. There are lots of people who are much more successful in college after they’re in their thirties, especially with the economy and-”

“I already have all the highschool credits I need,” Megan replied. “I’m not getting stuck at a dead-end job, in this god-forsaken state, for the rest of my life. I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back.”

Her mother was stunned to silence. She stood and walked out of the room—dropping the ball of hair.

Megan lowered her head to the desk and tried not to shake from anger; she wasn’t successful. The emotional build-up was becoming too much, and she wondered how much longer it could hold. Already, she felt like either bursting out in tears or else destroying everything she could lay her hand on. So, she stood, walked to her closet, opened it, and reached for a red article of clothing that she had hidden under other laundry. It was the red hoodie jacket that her father had given her before the woods … or maybe he hadn’t. No, it had made its way to her through someone or something else, something that had brought her to those woods for a purpose.

Megan put her arms through the sleeves of the jacket and remembered the strength she’d somehow found inside of herself. She still felt angry, she felt afraid, and she felt far more other emotions than she could process. But the trembling stopped. So, she went to her closet, retrieved her oversized handgun, and put it in her front pocket like she had a lifetime ago. Then, she walked out the door.

-O-

Dufaii stood still as frosty morning air moved around him. Once again, he had returned to the cursed magnolia tree at the heart of the woods … the one where he’d once promised Exousia that he would never leave her again. Of course … he’s failed in that promise. Though there was little chance of snow, Dufaii could see his breath in the southern winter air. He didn’t know where to go … whether to return to Hell and get backup for his revenge against the Creator, or to just attack directly as the assassin he was. Either option would require him to leave this one place where he still felt close to her.

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Then he noticed a presence in the dead woods. It was a familiar, human presence.

Dufaii made himself dim and took flight. He stayed low, over the canopy, until he saw a figure in a red hood. It was the girl from the Challenge, the one that Exousia had instructed him to bring to safety. She carried a gas-can, a weapon in her pocket, and wrathful energy towards the tree. Once she reached it, she paused and looked out over the adjacent field. Was she looking for something or was she just waiting … trying to gain some sort of clarity after everything that had happened?

Dufaii shook his head, realizing that he was projecting his own emotions. Next, he’d be wondering if she too felt the unquenchable flames of guilt and shame eating away at her soul. No … he was the only one feeling that … and the only one who should. He’d abandoned his daughter … let her die for demons he probably no longer even knew.

-O-

Megan stared out at the field where David and Ted had died. She’d gone around the holes, though that had made the journey significantly longer than it should have been, all to avoid seeing the real life counterparts to the nightmarish images in her imaginations. She half-expected to see their bodies strung up or mutilated. The police had searched but … there’d been no trace of them, as if their bodies had vanished from existence altogether. It was a cruelty, and yet it was one of the few pieces of evidence she held onto to keep from being convinced by others that she was crazy. These woods … they were evidence too. Even now, she felt deadness in the air. Perhaps this should have frightened her. However, in much the same way that the wind felt less harsh once it had already numbed the skin, this place had numbed her heart. There was little that this place could do to hurt her now. It was a scar … damaged nerves on broken flesh.

Megan opened the gas-can that she had filled on her way to the woods and began to dump it around the tree. She didn’t know why she was doing it, since it had been a place of protection from the monsters. But it seemed like … the only thing there was left for her to do. There was no monster left to fight, nobody left to save, and no brother that needed to be taken care of. There was only this action, and then she would have done all there was that she could have.

“Kill that tree, and you will have no safe place from our kind in the days to come,” said a dark figure from several feet away. He was a tall creature that looked sort of like an older man in a gray robe. His skin was dark, almost ashen, as were his wings. But his eyes … they were as black as the creatures from before … and even Exousia at a few moments. His robes hung loosely over what seemed to be thick leather armor over his torso, and a sword hung at his side. Behind him were thin, towering appendages that had to have been folded wings. The figure stood at the same border of lifelessness around the tree that the wolves had stopped at.

Megan jumped, her heart raced. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her handgun, and aimed it at the creature. “Are you one of the ones who did this?”

The figure did not move, nor did it regard her with an expression of surprise or interest. “You know me, human. I made you leave this place when you went back for her.”

Megan felt her body begin to shake and her heart beat faster. She remembered … the wolf that had brought her and the other to the road before it stopped traffic. Her voice cracked as she said, “Where are the other ones like you? The ones that killed Exousia and Brennan and Ted and David.”

“You … want to destroy them?” the figure asked, almost as if it were a rhetorical question. Then he shook his head. “That weapon of yours … it maximizes surface damage, You learned something your first time here. It would be enough to incapacitate them for a short while. However, your quest for revenge is ass impossible as it is pointless.”

“They – they can’t be killed?” Megan asked, her grip on the gun becoming looser.

“You are welcome to try,” the figure said, and gestured at his body as if presenting a target.

Surprising even herself, Megan took aim and pulled the trigger. For a moment she heard only ringing and watched as the bullet caused the figure to fall and roll into the dirt. The shot had blasted a hole in his robes, impacting around his shoulder and left a large bleeding wound.

However, the figure stood slowly to his feet and turned to face her again. “As I said, capable of momentary incapacitation.” He grunted and winced as he rolled his shoulder a few times. It seemed like he even had full range of motion with it!

“Then how do I kill them?” Megan shouted. It occurred to her that she could shoot him in the head like he’d said … and then find a way to chain him up. And then what? Interrogate him? Torture him?

“It would be a waste of your time,” the figure said as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Even if you managed to inflict enough pain on a being who lived in torment for centuries, break into the realm of demons, and accessed the secrets of killing our kind.”

“I don’t care!” Megan said, her voice coming out like a growl this time. “Even if I can’t stop the war, I want to hurt the one who did this to me. I want to make him suffer.”

The figure scoffed and turned his back yet again. He unfolded his wings as unceremoniously as such a majestic sight could be done. But then, he paused and said, “That demon wanted no part in what he did.”

“Then who was it?” Megan asked. It surprised her how quickly she was able to let go of her hatred of that white wolf. That soldier with the blonde hair and the black armor. It was as if the rage inside of her was glad that there was someone else, someone more significant for her to hurt.

The figure studied her for a moment before he replied, “Your kind often refer to them as God.”

This broke the feelings of strength and confidence that Megan had felt, as the conversation went from the tangible to something new. Her mind had difficulty processing the idea that God was a real thing. Sure, she’d prayed when she was little, and still had some sort of general belief. But hoping to see loved ones in an afterlife was a lot different than learning that a divine being was the one directly responsible for all the pain she’d endured. For killing her brother, David, Ted, Marshal, Exousia, and so many others that she didn’t know.

“Would you take revenge against God and their servants?” the figure asked, his eyes serious. “Would you side with the damned that killed all those you love, so that we could destroy the being who directly ordered for all of it to happen?”

“I … I thought I couldn’t even kill one of you,” Megan said, finding it difficult to breathe. But this made her fear the idea that he would change his mind. So, she tightened her jaw. “So what could I do to hurt god?”

The figure stroked his beard, furrowing his brow in what seemed like heavy thought. “As a human … you could get access to Heaven where I could not. You … might even be able to find her.”

“God? Megan asked.

Dufaii shook his head and replied, “Exousia.”

Megan felt her body begin to shake. “She’s still alive?”

“No,” the figure replied. “But as an uncorrupted soul, she would have ascended to the Creator once she passed. If we find her, we may be able to find a way to free her soul from the tethered state that all souls end up in when they ascend. If we can’t, then we can at least communicate with an ally on the inside! She would be able to feed us all the information our allies need to get vengeance and freedom from Heaven. Exousia could still be the key to winning this war!”

For the first time in a long time, Megan felt genuine fear. Not because she understood that she would be working with a demon and not even of the idea of who she would be fighting. She was scared because she already knew her answer. This was her one shot at a life that meant something in the face of the truth that had torn her every sense of normalcy to shreds … and that significance terrified her. Without hesitation, she replied. “I’m in.”

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