Demonic Designs (To Absolve the Fallen) Read Free Page B

try.”
    Alex looked around.   He saw that there was a door.   In his mind, he saw himself dashing to the door and bolting for the nearest exit from this place.   He didn’t know where he’d go from there, but anywhere was bound to be better than here with this maniac.   The red-head followed Alex’s eyes to the door and adopted a visage of mocking disappointment.   Jeremiah brought the front legs of the chair down on the floor, and it sounded like the crack of an enormous whip.   Alex returned his attention to his captor.  
    “Escape?” Jeremiah asked, as if reading Alex’s mind.   “Why?   You haven’t even given me a chance.   How do you know that you wouldn’t enjoy my company?”
    Alex felt a cold chill run up his spine.   “This is all wrong.”
    “You’re fighting it, Alex.   You’re trying to rationalize yourself out of this, and it’s not going to work.   Allow yourself to experience faith.”  
    And with that, the door slammed shut—seemingly by itself.  
    “What am I?” the boy with red hair inquired.
    Alex started shivering with a realization that seemed to tear apart the essence of his being. “You’re the Devil.”
    Jeremiah laughed, but not with the laugh of a teenager.   This hollow laugh resonated throughout Alex’s body and will.   Alex forced his trembling body to get off the bed and back up against the wall.
      Jeremiah’s eyes had gone steel gray.   “Close enough.   You compare me to Lucifer.   Your scope of comprehension and comparison is sorely limited.”   He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were blue again.   “But we can work on that.   In fact, I am a demon—at least, according to your classifications.   I am not, however, a real threat to you.   I have no intention of harming you.   Unless, that is, I believe you might fall into the wrong hands.   Unfortunately, I cannot allow that.   I can sense your power, even though I’m sure you can’t.  
    “For years, I have been training people like you for a war that has been brewing since before the time of Abraham.   I am a being who thrived in a time before humans had language.   I used to watch over your kind, until I fell.”   He stopped for a moment.   “The Fall was the most physically painful experience of my existence.   It felt as though I was falling for centuries, through time and space.”
    “But you’re just a kid,” Alex observed.
    “Alex, don’t make me take back all of those nice things I said to you.   You saw me change from one shape to another.   What did you expect a demon to look like?   Big horns, sharp teeth, and hoofed feet?   No, I am definitely not a child.   Actually, I’m nearly forty millennia old.”
    “Am I going to die?”
    Jeremiah shrugged as he dropped his cigarette on the floor and ground the cherry to embers with his foot.   “Not for a very long time, I hope.”

    ***
    “I’m telling you I could feel it.”
    “Patheus, if he were here, I would know it.”
    Patheus just pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at her.   “Perhaps,” he stated after a moment of thought, “your overconfidence has caused you to overlook an altogether likely possibility.”
    “And what is that?” she returned with amusement, throwing her long legs up onto his ottoman.   “That he is still alive?   No.   I watched him die; I was there.   I saw the body destroyed.   And, if he were alive, he would certainly come after me before doing much else.”
    “That’s assuming he thinks you’re still alive.   In any event, I have it on good authority that he is alive and needs to be dealt with.   You underestimated him, Eva.   I fought alongside him against Lucifer.   We were surrounded and lost more than half of our numbers before Michael arrived.”   Patheus looked away to a time far gone.   “It was the only time angels had ever died.”
    “I’ve heard this story thousands of times, Patheus.”
    She looked at him with the coldest