Ancient Awakening (The Ancient) by Matthew Bryan Laube
*****
The sudden pain of regaining consciousness was a welcome one. Miller was still among the living. All was not yet lost. He hung in the air, carried by the demon. It had him at arm’s length and was inspecting him closely.
“Mr. Miller, I presume.” Miller tried to respond but could only choke. For a moment, he coughed up blood. Then, recovering, he whispered an “Aye” through his blood-stained teeth. He looked the demon-man over. It had apparently not been a good day for it either. Several large chunks were missing from its chest and the left side of its face was a black, mangled mess. Black blood still oozed out of several wounds. Miller pondered why it wasn’t healing.
It was then that Miller noticed how high up they were. Below him lay the city in all its modern glory. He had never seen such an alien landscape. Massive buildings of glass shot up everywhere, vehicles clogged the streets and the sky. He could see giant metal birds drifting in the distance, which he assumed were man-made. Directly below them was an enormous cathedral, all grey stone with green highlights. It stood out as something familiar in all this madness, reminding him of earlier centuries in England and France that had seemed only short weeks earlier. He turned his focus to the demon.
“Aye, I am Joseph Miller. You have heard of me?” He grinned. The demon man did not return the smile. Perhaps it was hard to smile with only half of its face left.
“Oh yes. We last met in France.” It had started to remember then. How soon before it would remember its real name? For a moment, it said nothing, seeming to consider. Finally, it said, “I find it amusing that humans see hell as a place where the evil are punished by demons for their sins. It is ironic I think.” He paused for a second, as if expecting a question. Miller just blinked back at him and said nothing. “You might ask why I find this ironic?”
“Oh, I see,” Miller picked up his cue, baffled by the exchange. “Why do you find it ironic?” This was bizarre. Shouldn’t the creature just kill him and get it over with? Miller was sure this was somehow television’s fault.
“You see, my version of hell would be a kind of immortality, a cycle of constant rebirth, where I was born again and created a family, only to have them brutally murdered by the same man, who would, again and again, come for me and kill me. In time, I would be reborn again and the cycle would repeat itself.”
Miller shrugged. “That does seem to fit the description, yes. Although is that what ironic means? I have always had some trouble with that word.”
“It is ironic, because you are that man. You are my ‘demon,’ my tormentor, and this planet, this is my hell.” He growled the last part.
Miller let out a weak laugh, which hurt horribly. “That is a pretty speech. How long did it take you to come up with that?” The demon man just stared at him. Miller could almost see the anger steaming off of it.
“I suppose this is where you tell me I’ve lost and send me screaming to my death?”
The demon smiled. Apparently he could do so. “Oh no, that’s too easy. You see, I know your face now. Killing you won’t stop you. At least now I know what you look like. Why should I lose that advantage? I will hurt you, but you’ll live.”
Miller was shocked. It was the most intelligent thing that a demon had ever suggested.
“But your friend,” the demon continued, “What was it…Samson? I’m going to suck every last bit of marrow from his bones. You can count on that.”
Miller stiffened. So it was to be his life for Mike’s. That was not acceptable. He had failed too many people already. There had to be something he could do. He looked into the demon man’s ruined face, staring at the one good eye. Why was it taking so long to heal? With his right hand he dug deep into his pocket.
“Lad, that is the single most intelligent plan your kind has come up with in at least a thousand years. I have only one question.”
The demon seemed taken aback by this compliment. “Ask.”
“How good is your sense of smell?” With that Miller ripped the pen from his pocket and jammed it into the demon’s remaining eye, pushing it into the socket so hard that it completely disappeared into the skull. The eye burst and the now blind demon screamed, tossing Miller away into the open sky.
Miller had hoped to say something wittier. Like maybe “The pen is mightier than the sword.” At least he had hoped for a “See you later.” Instead, he just screamed as he fell, the moment of his previous death replaying clearly in his mind.
Death did not come. Instead, he smashed into the angled roof of the large cathedral he had seen just moments before. He bounced once and started to slide down the slope, throwing his hands out, trying to grab onto anything that might slow his fall. He failed, but as he slid past the edge of the roof, his right hand managed to find purchase on a loose tile. His broken collarbone screamed at the impact as his body came to a stop. For a moment, he hung in space, looking at the ground below, still a good fifty feet away. To his terror, the tile was slowly coming loose under his weight.
“Wonderful!” Miller went about shouting as many curses in as many languages as he could recall. Some of them had not been spoken in thousands of years. He was rather proud of his ability to swear, but that did not keep the tile from coming free. Once again he was falling. He hit a windowsill, then crashed through a paned glass window into the church below, hitting the ground with a solid thud. He thought of Samson and hoped he had done enough.
Chapter 19 - The End and the Beginning
Will You Follow Me? – Rob Dougan – Furious Angels