Rise of the Fallen (26 page)

Present Day

Validus trailed Carter to a bus station, where another incident with a demon was salvaged by a guardian.

Carter then traveled to the forests of northern Minnesota. Evidently the school shooting had really affected him. Validus was perplexed to say the least. The young man was a hero by human standards, yet he was retreating and hiding.

In addition to that, Carter had picked up a vexer-possessor at the bus station. By Carter’s lack of reaction to the vexer-possessor, Validus dispelled the notion that he could see into their realm.

He followed Carter to a lake in the Superior National Forest, where he chose to camp and hide. Validus wondered how long he would stay in hiding and why the vexer-possessor seemed so interested in him. Perhaps the demon was assigned to torment Carter because he had thwarted the attack at the university.

Validus watched the vexer-possessor demon from across the lake. He had seen worse vexers, but even still, Carter was in for a miserable time. It would be a test of the man’s inner strength, especially since he was unprotected by Ruach Elohim, the power of the Spirit of God. Validus had seen no evidence in Carter that he had opened himself up to the vexer-possessor actually entering and taking possession of him, so he was not concerned in that regard.

For three weeks, Validus watched and was fairly impressed with Carter’s resiliency, although from what Validus could see, the vexer had not fully unleashed on him. It was a curious situation.

Validus made a quick trip back to Drayle University to join up with Tren and exchange information. It turned out that Sydney Carlyle was being
watched too. Validus was surprised when Tren told him Carlyle had been arrested and interrogated by the FBI. Evidently she had tried to recover Carter’s vehicle, and the gun in his trunk ignited a fire of activity by the authorities. Now with Carter’s disappearance, both he and Carlyle were high on their suspicion list.

Validus and Tren decided to continue as they were and meet again in another three weeks. Validus returned to the lake in the Boundary Waters just in time to see Carter escape a vexation episode by the vexer.

At the peak of the vexer’s ranting into his spirit, Carter jumped into the water. Validus could not help the smile that crossed his lips as Carter almost taunted the demon by delaying his return to shore. The man had spiritual instinct that usually only the strongest believers had, and Validus was amazed.

After that incident, however, the vexer turned active, tormenting Carter at every opportunity. Spilled food, a fallen shelter, insect bites, and a black bear treeing him were just a few of the demon’s tactics. Validus kept his distance simply because of Carter’s strength of mental and emotional stability. He seemed, for the most part, unfazed by the actions of the vexer.

The days that followed became intriguing. Carter built a makeshift raft and began taking extended trips onto the lake. Each time he did, the vexer left, evidently to report to Durgank. Validus saw a pattern forming. Carter was smart.

One day, Validus watched as Carter took his usual trip onto the lake and the vexer left. But this time, Carter continued across the lake and landed his craft near Validus’s lookout. Validus kept cover behind the trees as he watched Carter do something spectacularly unusual. He dismantled the raft, hid the evidence of its construction, and bolted into the forest at a dead sprint …

As if he were trying to escape from someone.

Validus stayed still, staring at the remains of the raft as the reality of Carter’s actions made its full impact.

“How can this be?” he whispered.

Chills flowed up and down his spine as he considered the magnitude of what Carter’s actions meant. All his suspicions came flooding back. There was only one conclusion—Carter knew when he was both in and out of the presence of the vexer! And with extreme clarity!

Validus had seen both believers and nonbelievers experience a sense of the
presence of angels and demons, but this man—this Drew Carter—premeditated and planned an escape from a vexer.

Would Carter be able to sense Validus’s presence? Was his hunch about Carter’s awareness at Drayle University more than a hunch? Just how far did his ability to sense their presence go?

In that moment of understanding, Validus caught a glimpse of his call to protect Drew Carter.

Then he shook himself from his analysis and took after Carter, keeping a safe distance. As he followed, he continued to be astonished. Carter was actually trying to outrun a vexer.

Validus watched Carter collapse under a tree to catch his breath. In spite of his noble attempt, Validus knew it was a pointless endeavor. No man had ever …
ever
 … escaped from a vexer on his own. Vexers could smell the tracks of their victim in a crowd of a million people. Tracking Carter in the forest would be as easy as following a trail painted in fluorescent colors.

Validus drew his sword. As crafty as Carter appeared, he did not understand the risk he was taking. If the demon was intelligent enough to understand what he was attempting to do, he would become a primary target of not just the vexer but of all the Fallen. An unprotected man becoming a target of the Fallen had little chance.

Validus began tracing his way back to Carter’s camp. He had to intercept the vexer before he became aware of Carter’s plan. He made it to the lake where Carter had dismantled his raft and looked across it to the camp, but movement to his left caught his eye.

The vexer was already coming, and he was not alone. Two warriors were with him.

It was an assassination squad, and the vexer was leading them straight to Carter. Something had changed even without the vexer understanding Carter’s escape attempt. Durgank had made the call on Carter’s life.

Validus plotted an intercept between the three demons and Carter’s last location. He leaped to a tree limb twenty feet in the air and drew his FN Five-Seven.

Through the evolution of weaponry, Validus had translated and mastered many, but there was none that yet compared to the sword of Elohim. A short sword was his next choice, followed by a lightweight handgun.

Only in recent history had propulsion weapons been an option for the warriors. The speed of projectile weapons was simply too slow to be effective in their world. Once guns began reaching bullet velocities near their reaction time, they became a marginal option. Rifles were rarely used because of their size and difficulty to keep translated. The first real options were handguns with the bullet velocity of a rifle.

Considering size, weight, magazine capacity, and availability, Validus’s preference was the Fabrique Nationale Five-Seven, or simply FN Five-Seven. The small caliber was its greatest limiting factor, but with accuracy, it could be very effective. Though he rarely used it, there were times when nothing else would do.

His hands tightened around the knurled grips of both weapons, one of ancient power and the other of modern speed. He had one chance to save Carter’s life and his future. None of the three Fallen could leave this place alive.

They were coming fast. The vexer sprinted forward thirty yards, then stopped and smelled the air, deciphering the evergreen, moss, and maple from that of Carter’s sweat and blood. He altered his course slightly. His next sprint would bring them within ten yards of the tree in which Validus was waiting.

The vexer hesitated, turning his head from side to side. He seemed confused.

Validus put the front sight of his FN on one of the warriors, but the distance was too far—not for accuracy, but for the sound. The demon would have too much time to react to the sound of the concussion and be able to move out of the path of the 5.7 mm-caliber rounds in spite of the weapon’s speed. He needed to be within fifty yards, and they were at least seventy yards away.

“What is it, vexer?” one of the warriors asked, scowling.

The vexer appeared to ignore him.

The warrior growled. “We’ve better things to do than waste our time on your hunches about a boy. Take us to him or we’re returning to command now.”

The vexer turned to look at them. “He’s trying to escape from us. He knows we are here.”

“That’s absurd.” The other warrior stepped toward the vexer.

“I’ve been with him,” the vexer retorted. “There’s something unusual about him.”

“There won’t be in a few minutes. Where is he?”

The vexer pointed. “Two hundred yards that direction.”

Validus didn’t dare wait for a better vantage point now. Once they started moving again, his FN would be useless. Though the vexer was closest, he had to concentrate on the warriors first.

He calculated the most likely direction the closest warrior would jump, offset his sights, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The first concussion exploded through Validus’s ears, followed immediately by a rapid fire of nine more rounds. Before determining the extent of the damage, if any, he leaped from the tree toward the second warrior.

All three demons jerked backward, away from their intended target. One of the warriors was cursing as he limped backward. As Validus landed with sword at the ready, the vexer looked confused, not sure whether to attack or run. But the second warrior had drawn his sword and was already turning his retreat into an attack.

Validus shot twice more with his FN to distract the Fallen warrior, but both rounds were easily deflected. He cast the FN aside, and it dissolved away before it hit the ground.

The two angelic beings engaged in a flurry of steel. The demon was more skilled than Validus had anticipated, and being distracted with trying to keep the other two demons located didn’t help.

“Kill the man, vexer!” the Fallen warrior shouted between clashes.

Validus halted at the words. There was little a vexer could do to actually kill a man other than possess him and drive him to suicide. Vexers simply didn’t have the ability to translate weapons like warriors did, especially weapons that could affect both realms.

He saw the vexer sprint away from the fray and away from Carter.

The momentary distraction nearly cost Validus his life. He brought his sword up at the last fraction of a second to stop a slice arcing toward his throat. The demon sneered, recovered, and countered again. This time Validus saw his opportunity. He parried a thrust, deflecting the grisly blade of the demon just to his left, fully intending to counter with a quick upward slice, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the second wounded warrior attacking from his left rear quarter.

Validus lifted his long sword above his head to stop the vertical cut coming from the wounded demon while simultaneously drawing his short sword to
deflect another cut from the demon before him. Validus then twisted his torso and threw his short sword like a dagger into the chest of the demon to his rear. He recovered in time to deflect a high crosscut from the first demon warrior, then countered with a deep thrust that found its mark, piercing the double-edged sword clear through the demon. Seconds later both of the Fallen dissolved to a greenish vapor and fell into the earth.

Validus hesitated, looking first at Carter and then in the direction the vexer had fled.

He sprinted toward Carter, getting just close enough to verify that he was on the move again. He mentally plotted the man’s course, then made a line toward the vexer’s last position. Had he abandoned Carter and gone to report to Durgank?

Validus couldn’t let that happen. He morphed his wings as quickly as he could and took flight. It was a dangerous move, especially if there were other Fallen nearby, because his reaction time would be ten times that of using the solidness of the earth and its substance.

He quickly scanned the surrounding area, anxious to pinpoint the vexer’s location. The only movement he saw was a large, foraging black bear. He looked to the southern horizon, wondering if the vexer had taken flight to report to Durgank. Nothing.

Validus flew swiftly in a wide arc around Carter, searching for any sign of the vexer. With each moment he was in flight, he became more concerned about being able to protect his charge as well as his own susceptibility to attack.

Just as he was about to drop to the ground and regain the protection of the solid earth, he glanced once more at the only substantial movement within a two-mile radius of Carter. The bear was no longer foraging.

It was running … straight toward Carter. Illumination hit Validus in a dreadful way.

He streaked toward a knoll that would intercept the large black bear nearly a mile out from Carter. Ten feet before he touched down, Validus began morphing his wings back into his body, and he hit the ground running with sword drawn. The bear clambered over a fallen tree trunk, and his first glimpse into its eyes confirmed Validus’s fears.

The vexer had possessed the beast. The vexer was now a possessor and was locked inside the bear until the animal’s death.

It charged onward, and Validus met it with a full-body stroke of his mighty blade. The creature roared in pain but kept moving toward Carter.

There was an inter-realm power that resulted when a vexer-possessor took control of a living-flesh being. Its power transcended that of normal earth, and its vulnerability to the spiritual weapons of the warrior was greatly reduced. Neither beast nor demon could be easily killed from either realm. In some ways, a demon-possessed animal of this nature was worse than a droxan because it was powered by the intellect of a fully functioning demon.

There was only one way for Validus to stop it.

He sprinted ahead of the charging beast, turned, then forced his being and all that he was out of the Upper Realm and translated into the world of men as a flesh-and-blood warrior. Bluish flames licked at his face and arms as the translation completed.

The demon-possessed bear hesitated, eyes glowing red with hatred and evil. It was a duel of bizarre combatants and even more bizarre consequences. The five-hundred-pound animal stood on its hind legs and roared in defiance. Validus charged as the bear fell to its front legs and mimicked the charge.