“I’ve done nothing wrong!”shouted the anti-Christ.“Listen to me!I’ve done nothing wrong!”But then he hissed when the first shot fired, swiping past and scraping his knee, enough to burst open the joint, make his ankle twist.The shattered leg tipped his whole body forward.“Agh!”he cried but caught himself, both hands still on the pistol, injured leg bent over the ground while the other held him up firmly.“Fuck you!”His voice grew throatier, guttural.“Fuck you all you fucking bastards!You’re the criminals!Corrupt motherfuckers!”But he focused all his pain on his knee, and then he shook it and, instantly, even quicker than an angel could heal, something only like Jesus had done with a touch of his hand, the bones jerked back into place.
Some soldiers noticed the healing, but many didn’t, standing and sitting too far away; for most, it was too late before they did.
The first thing to tear from Tadeo was something like a spider limb, enormous and partly feathered, out from his left rib.The appendage stretched impossibly fast toward an armored truck, then swung at it like one might swat a fly.Like the car was weightless — the limb rammed it against another car, then another, crushing them against each other with all the soldiers still inside.A choir of screams sounded in between the metallic screeching, the panicked gun shots.But talons jutted out of the limb’s front end to dig into the first truck it’d grabbed.
And then, firmly, Tadeo took hold to launch it up into the air, toward the helicopter that’d been calculatingly pulling back as a sniper perched there took their shot.It hit the anti-Christ, staggered him back as the bullet drove through his chin and throat.But, at once, the helicopter was also struck, the crushed vehicle sending it spiraling backward, then down.As this occurred, another half-winged appendage tore out from Tadeo’s opposite side, and more — then all of his body was swelling and morphing into pure limbs and mouths and eyes.A giant, a beast.
“Turn the car around, you stupid fuck!”a soldier shouted at a driver as the monster of the anti-Christ moved into a pounce, then a sprint toward the half a dozen trucks left.“Idiot!”The others began shooting, firing and firing away at the beast who took each bullet without stopping his chase.
And as the helicopter crashed nearby in a burst of fire, Tadeo reached a truck, took it with two great, god-like hands to bend into a crescent, listening to the gurgled yells and crunching bodies of those trapped inside, before other hands grabbed at a scrambling army, trying to jump off their car.He pulled them into the shredder of his sharp-toothed mouth, ground them to red dust.Once they were rubble in his mouth, Tadeo spat them at the tires of the trucks that’d turned around, that were hurrying away, whose soldiers no longer bothered with shooting.They ran; they were all running.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’He killed bad people only.Tasting blood, he reminded himself of what they’d wanted to do and what soldiers could do.
Until the pain was too much.Everything, everywhere, began to howl in such stinging pain that Tadeo let out a cry, and his monstrous body stumbled around, losing limbs with each step.Gurgles of blood gushed out from a beastly stomach, out his largest mouth.Choking up, Tadeo felt his hands, no longer carrying talons, rise to his face as if to shield his agony from God.Ripples of agony continued to course through him, like waves, like he was an ocean of misery, and after he’d reached the wall of missing posters, he was on human feet again.His face was bare, and he was mostly naked, the shreds of his clothes on the ground.Thankfully, his hat was still in one piece, tossed to the side.
It was enough for him to catch a sharp, hoarse breath, to feel his heart begin to beat once more.
“Fuck,” Tadeo whined, shivers violating every part of him.“Jesus.God.”Then, “Father—” Then, “Dad…” Hurriedly, he went for his abandoned pistol on the ground, then his cloth bag by the pillar to yank out his spare shirt and pants.Trembling fingers buttoned his top and pants before Tadeo took his hat, lifted it to his hair, leaving bloody fingerprints on the rim.
But then there was one last shot — Tadeo felt it sink in through his back, tear through his spine perfectly, split apart his tissues, and burst his pounding heart open to cut itself out through his sternum.His mouth filled with the bloody taste of silver again.And, like before, he didn’t fall.He’d been taught never to fall, to die standing if he must.So Tadeo merely staggered, strings and clumps of red and pink falling out of him — his own heart — before he turned his head, slowly, shaking and shaking in a crescendo before its note cut off abruptly.
Half hidden behind an overturned truck, there was a soldier still standing with a small handgun, surely a backup, pointed straight at Tadeo.If he squinted, the anti-Christ might’ve noticed smoke still trailing from the pistol, but instead, he only noted this soldier’s bared teeth, his furrowed brow, and his yell as he shot another bullet.This one hit Tadeo in the chest again and sent him crashing against the pillar of the overpass, almost into the wall of missing people.
“Get the fuck,” snarled the anti-Christ, “out of here!”He lifted his pistol, firing once, missing when the soldier sidestepped and aimed again.This time, the soldier didn’t get a hit; Tadeo jumped behind the column, pressing his back against it and hissing as he felt his heart stitch itself back together.“Get out of here!”he shouted again.“Tell your commanders what happened!Tell them this is what happens when you treat me like a criminal!”
“Go fuck yourself!”A throaty voice yelled back.“What are you?!”And Tadeo flinched when a piece of concrete chipped off by his head, his chest rising and falling, lungs inflating even if that only made more blood pour down from his chest.Spots of black bloomed everywhere across his vision; he was exhausted; he was healing too much at once.“Face me, son of a bitch!”
“I told you to leave and tell the others what happened here!”shouted the anti-Christ, and he managed to peer behind him, see that the stranger had stopped hiding, was approaching the overpass hesitantly, his gun’s aim not wavering even a centimeter.
“Fuck off?—”
Tadeo stepped out, and the stranger managed to shoot first — the bullet grazed the anti-Christ’s head, tearing right through his ear — but Tadeo’s shot was so immediate that they both fell back and yelled in unison.Crimson splattered against the concrete the anti-Christ landed against, his left hearing submerged instantly in blood, and his neck warming as it spilled.But the stranger was yelling in agony much louder, leaning against the toppled car he’d emerged from behind of.Redness spluttered out of a mangled hand that, seconds ago, had been holding a gun now on the ground.
‘I should kill him,’ Tadeo thought as he panted, desperate for the taste of air and not blood; his heart was only a quarter re-made.
“Fuck you.Fuck you and your fucking mother,” the soldier was groaning as he slumped, seemingly in surrender.
“I told you,” the anti-Christ murmured too quietly, “to leave.”‘But now you missed your chance because maybe I can use you instead.’
CHAPTER11
“Raphael, you must believe me.”
“Michael, I don’t think you’re lying, but listen to yourself.It sounds like even you don’t know what you saw.”
“I know that it was him.I know that much.”
“But that’s not what I saw or what anyone else saw.”
The angel Gabriel didn’t look back as the voices of Raphael and Michael continued to rise in fright; the chief prince’s voice tinged frantic, while Raphael’s trembled in unease.Meanwhile, the messenger archangel was staring at Uriel, slumped to sit on the ground against a stone wall, his head dipped forward, his body no longer so tortured but some blood still over his dark skin, dried, appearing almost like paint.“Brother,” Gabriel was calling softly, lowering onto a crouch to touch the old prince’s hand, brushing the wrists that had been chained together so recently.“Are you alright, Uriel?”Metatron had been the one who’d bound his arms, who’d brought Uriel before God to be tortured.
There was an empty gloss in Uriel’s eyes; staring into them meant seeing your own face reflected by the orange-fire of his irises — like seeing oneself burning in Hell.
Some time ago, Gabriel had asked Mary, ‘Where are you going?Are you returning to our Father?’He’d been seated at a table, fiddling with a piece of bread he’d lost appetite for.He hadn’t been staring at her, but he’d felt her presence at the doorway.‘Mary?’There was no reply.‘Are you going to your Son and your Father and your husband and your God?’Silence.‘Do you ever hate me, Mary?’Even if she did, where could she run?There is God or there is fire.
“You must believe me…” the chief archangel was imploring with a choking, strangled voice.“You must believe me.”
“Speak to God, Michael.”
