The Children of Arnborg: The Prophecy

Chapter Five

Judge Grant's Sedan came to a screeching halt on the gravel entrance. He did not wait for the engine to die, dashing out of the front seat, inhaler in hand, drawing on it like a cocaine addict. He scrambled up the stairs of the church, gasping for air as he ran through the archway, stumbling toward the oversized crucifix at the head of the aisle.

The bitch flung a Bible at me. Doesn't matter, he thought. Probably burned her hand on the damned thing and found a way to hide it!

"Father!" he yelled. "Father! Dammit, I need a priest! Anybody!" Only his echoes answered him, and then... silence. Not even the flickering candles made a sound to quiet his rising fear. His heartbeat decided to take up the mantle booming into his ear and, it seemed, into the darkness that lay around him so loud he swore it echoed off the dome.

"Okay! Okay!" he panted. He dropped himself before the altar, his eyes frantically roaming every inch of the cross. The inhaler slipped from his feverish grip, clattering onto the floor and into the deathly silence of the church. He started. His hand knocked against the altar, sending several candles crashing onto the floor.

"God!" he screamed, darting his head downward toward the commotion, watching the flames sputter, writhe for life and then die, softly, into the darkness. In the remaining candle light, he could see his sweat on the altar. "Oh God! Oh God!" he sobbed.

"Yes. God, indeed," a man's voice echoed out from a hidden crevice of the darkness. "It's funny that He is never around when you need Him. Isn't it?"

"Who is it!" Grant screamed into the emptiness. "Which one of you? Joshua? Dammit, I gave you every thing I could! Everything!" he cried.

"Not everything, Thomas. Not everything." Joshua flew out at Grant, swift and deadly, his nails piercing Grant's throat so that the bright red blood spurted onto the altar, drenching the cold, tiny bodies of light that were still burning.

"Josh... shua..." Grant groaned. "Please..."

"Shh... No whining during the evening meal, my friend," Joshua chided. He looked up at the towering crucifix and smiled. "Indeed. Christ, forgive me," he whispered in mock apology and held Grant's limp body up to the effigy over his head.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," he sang, jerking Grant's body back and forth in the sign of the cross accordingly. "Amen," he laughed out. "Rebecca, my darling! Dinner is ready."

Grant saw Rebecca Morde emerge from the darkness, her hard, white body dancing toward him. His eyes widened realizing that the figure was no longer human. "How?" he moaned.

"Now, that's a stupid question, don't you think, Tommy?" Joshua jeered. "Miracles. That's what we are, my friend. And this..." — his hand swept across Rebecca's frame — "is her reward."

Rebecca hovered over Grant. "You let my killer go free!" she charged.

"You're not dead..." Grant groaned.

"Well, the jury's still out on that one, isn't it?" she chuckled, baring her fangs.

The veins of Grant's eyes tightened and cracked across his widened orbs as Rebecca sank her teeth into his neck drawing the liquid and his life into her body. She moved her skirt away and spread herself atop his organ, writhing on the moaning body beneath her, the entire abomination committed under the silent, bleeding body of Christ on His cross above them.

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