Who We All Fear: Chapter 3 – Swords of the Holy

Chapter 3 – Swords of the Holy

Jordyn runs from me and to the safety of a dark building full of his friends, however, they are all already dead. He is shocked at this at first until he shakes off his fear, calls their names to make sure they’re actually dead, and then starts taking their weapons from their bodies.

“Jordyn,” I say, making him scramble to his feet and drop his weapons. He points two pistols around the room, looking for the slightest movement. “It’s too late for your friends, but not for you.”

“Shut up!” Jordyn says while shooting in every direction before continuing down the hallway.

While fleeing, Jordyn trips over bodies in the dark, all of which are ripped to pieces.

“Stop running from me.”

“Leave me alone!” he says while firing behind him and shooting with guns that he finds on the floor.

Cornering himself in a room at the end of a hallway, Jordyn keeps his eyes on the only way into the room with his pistols pointed at it. The thin, pale man uncontrollably shakes in fear and is impatient about something happening while not wanting anything to happen at the same time.

“Jordyn,” I say directly in his left ear.

He jumps and starts shooting at the darkness next to him but stops soon after when he sees who he has shot. It’s his father, Cohan, who is a faithful servant of mine.

“Jordyn,” Cohan says. “I still…love you…my son. No matter what you do. I always will.”

Cohan who was shot in the throat and the chest many times by Jordyn still manages to speak because of my power. He falls to the floor, making his son drop his empty pistols, and hold his dying body.

“Dad…dad, I’m sorry…” Jordyn says with tears in his eyes. “Why did you have to follow me? I said to keep out of my business, but you had to follow me, didn’t you? Make sure that I wasn’t getting into any trouble. If you didn’t follow me, my friends wouldn’t have forced me to shoot you. If you didn’t care about me, you wouldn’t have had to die…What am I saying blaming you for anything? This is all my fault. I’m the good-for-nothing son who doesn’t deserve to live anymore.”

“No, son,” I say through Cohan. “You can still redeem yourself. It’s like I always say. It’s not over until you’re dead.”

Jordyn struggles with himself until he throws aside his despair and says, “Okay…okay, dad. I’ll pick myself up and redeem myself. What do I have to do?”

“Follow me,” I say.

“You…you’re the invisible man who killed my friends and everyone here after I shot my dad. Who are you?”

“You may call me Sanctus.”

“You’re…I always said my dad had God by his side. It’s why he never could be in a bad mood even when we were poor and my mom died. What business do you have with scum like me?”

“The intercession of your parents and the grand fulfillment of your purpose in life. Wrap your father’s body, put him in your car, and come back to burn this building to the ground.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do it. Do it for my dad.”

Jordyn does what I say and watches the burning of the building from a distance. Inside it, all the bodies of criminals and the drugs and porn in the basement that they sold and traded in burn to ashes. I then tell Jordyn to bury his father in the spot next to his mother and he does.

“All right. Now what?” Jordyn asks.

“Go to Ishbel and give her this,” I say as I teleport an expensive necklace to Jordyn’s hands.

“A necklace? What does it mean to her?”

“Everything.”

Doing as I say again, Jordyn goes to a prostitution house in the red-light district of Meridian. He asks for Ishbel at the front desk and is told to wait at the bar for her.

Ishbel comes down, scantily dressed in shorts, a crop top, a crop top hoodie, and thigh-high boots, and asks, “What is it this time, Jordyn? I told you that I’m not taking any clients for a while and I’m not interested in the dope your friends are selling.”

“This isn’t about business,” Jordyn says as he takes the necklace I gave him out of his pocket. “Does this mean anything to you?”

Snatching it from his hands, Ishbel inspects the necklace, especially the markings on it with her aunt’s initials on it.

“Where did you get this and how?”

“It’s a complicated explanation, but would you believe me if I said God gave it to me?”

“Actually, I would. I’ve been praying to get some way out of this life but didn’t expect it to be this. My…boss had this. It was what I gave him to enter it and the price to get it was my way out.”

“And you should get out, now,” I say.

“Who said-”

Jordyn takes Ishbel out of the house just as it explodes. They watch as people come running out of it, burning alive before dying. Not even the superhuman guards and prostitutes survive.

“Talk about being struck by the hand of God,” Jordyn says.

“If that’s true, why would He choose to save me of all people? I’m just common street scum,” Ishbel says.

“I am too and I just killed my dad who was a living saint. Let’s get out of here.”

As Jordyn and Ishbel are driving away, I say, “Pull up to this empty lot.” Both are scared by my sudden words and do as I say. I then instruct them to, “Find Jerod.”

“You serious?” Ishbel asks.

“If we’re told to find him, then it’s what we have to do. Who is he?” Jordyn says.

“A superhuman hitman who poses as a priest.”

“Huh. That does make this sound ridiculous, but since this entire situation is, I don’t see why we shouldn’t. What do we need to do when we find him?”

“Make the sign of the cross over him, tell him he’s already been forgiven and to come with you,” I say.

“Okay, we’ll do it.”

“Are you crazy? What makes you think two street urchins can tell what a cold-hearted hitman what to do?”

“Well, what makes you think God would have mercy on us out of everyone else He’s brought judgment on? Why should we question Him now?”

“Tch, I guess you’re right. Let me do the talking to get us in.”

“What does a prostitute know about talking to priests?”

“More than you know,” Ishbel says while rubbing her neck.

Ishbel tells Jordyn where to go. She takes him to a monastery where Jerod stays when he’s in Meridian and asks one of the priests inside for him.

“I’m sorry, miss, but he isn’t here today,” the priest says.

“But I’m sure you know where he is,” Ishbel.

“I’m afraid that I don’t. He doesn’t always tell us where he goes.”

“Bullshit. You know exactly where he goes and what he does. Tell me where he is!”

“Ishbel,” Jordyn says as he puts his hand on her shoulder.

She pushes his hand off and then says, “I know exactly who these sick freaks are and I have proof of it.” Ishbel rubs her neck again, takes out her aunt’s necklace, and pushes a button to reveal a small USB stick in the cross pendant. “This has video proof of the priests and nuns that visited the prostitution houses around here. My aunt threatened to expose this if they didn’t change, but I took it from her and sold her out so I could live as a rich prostitute. She may be dead or worse, and now that I’ve had a change of heart, I’ll finish what she started if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”

“Okay, okay. Jerod is downstairs, praying, and studying in his room,” the priest says. As we walk passed him, he asks, “Will you still expose us? Your aunt was such a nice, faithful, and peaceful woman who-”

“Shut up. I’ll consider what I do with the information later.”

While walking downstairs, Jordyn says, “I’m sorry about your aunt. Now I know why that necklace is so important to you.”

“It’s more than important. It’s everything to me. If your dad was your living saint, then my aunt was mine. She was a faithful woman who loved helping her parish and saved my life before I was born because my mother wanted to abort me. This necklace she gave me was a gift she gave me as a sign that she believed I would become a better person and I used it against her.”

“But you did change.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I’m surprised those priests didn’t try anything to get that USB from us.”

“It’s because Jerod can easily kill us and we’re heading right for him.”

“Well, I’m hoping for the best.”

“Keep doing that because I’m pretty sure we’re going to die,” Ishbel says while rubbing her neck. “The only good sign is that he hasn’t met us out here. The man has superhuman hearing, can jump really high, and literally pulls guns out of his body.”

“He sounds like a swell guy.” At Jerod’s door, the two pause outside of it before Jordyn breathes in and out, grabs the knob, and says, “Here goes nothing.”

As Jordyn walks into the room, he walks into Jerod whose been facing the entrance of his room, waiting for them. The tall, muscular, bald priest walks out of his room and makes Jordyn and Ishbel quickly take a few steps back.

“You’re the two who have been asking about me. Why?” Jerod asks in a plain and yet intimidating way because of his deep voice and firm face.

Jordyn swallows, makes the sign of the cross at Jerod, and then says, “You are already forgiven. Come with me.”

“Who are you to say that to me? No one commands me to do anything,” Jerod says.

Taking control of Jordyn, I make Jerod’s feet fall and get stuck in the floor with the invisible use of my power, and then say, “Kneel and cease this childish behavior! You are not your master. You’ve prostituted your services of blood and metal for men who paid your price no matter who they told you to kill and now is the time of repentance that you think it is. Follow me and those that I’ve chosen to be your friends or be damned.”

Jerod falls prostrate on the floor, putting dents on the floor with the force of his knees and head, and says, “My Lord! I will do as you say. I repent, I repent, I repent of not listening to you before. The old me is dead and the new one will live!”

Ishbel, Jordyn, and the priests in the monastery who were listening are shocked by what Jerod has said.

“Wow. I didn’t know you had that in you,” Ishbel says.

“I didn’t either and I don’t think that was me,” Jordyn frankly admits.

“Followers of my God, lead me to where He desires,” Jerod says.

“Okay, uh. Let’s get out of here.”

Jerod walks upstairs with Jordyn and Ishbel to the amazement of the other priests. Seeing as how their greatest asset has left them and wanting to protect themselves from jail time, they start firing on the three. Jerod shields his new friends with his massive body, takes two shotguns out of his bare arms that contain an arsenal of weapons, and kills every priest who comes at them.

When it’s clear that no other corrupt priest remains, Jerod makes a short bow, and then says, “My apologies, Lord. I’ll clean up your place of worship after the mission you have sent me on has been accomplished.”

Outside of the monastery, Jordyn asks Jerod, “What’s this time of repentance that you know about?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The Lord has been bringing judgment to Meridian because of its many sins. The deaths of the Dessous and Soleil crime families and the exposing of the crimes of the Limpiar Hero Association are proof of this,” he says.

“And this made you change from being a scumbag to an actual priest?” Ishbel asks.

“I was always a priest, a shameful one yes, but after coming to me in a dream and burning me with the riches I’ve obtained, I’ve repented and am born anew. Ishbel, I am sorry for the tortuous things I’ve done to you. Please, forgive me.”

Ishbel rubs her neck and says, “Whatever. You killing those scummy priests is penance enough for me, but we should also find my aunt, assuming that’s what God wants us to do.”

“You will in the mission I have for you. For now, I need you three to help cleanse this city of filth. Find Allona and allow me to talk to her through you,” I say.

All three have a problem with this since they’ve each wronged her in some way due to their previous line of work being a rival to theirs.

“I will help you. The building will be set on fire and her workers will turn on her,” I say to alleviate their concerns a bit.

“Why should we complain when we’re given this opportunity to redeem ourselves?” Jerod points out. “If we die, we deserve it. If we fail, it won’t be held against us for trying.”

“I hate to admit it, but the big guy is right. I just can’t believe I still have reservations about doing what I’m told despite what has happened in these past few short hours,” Jordyn says.

“Tch, you guys are right. Are you both ready?” Ishbel asks.

“As ready as I can be.”

“God has already given us each other and His aid. There’s nothing more we could need,” Jerod says.

Jerod leads them to where Allona is and all three are given dirty looks by the people in the apartment building turned criminal hideout and told to leave. The rats and cockroaches spark a fire in the building, distracting the criminals while Jerod draws his shotguns from his arms, and gives pistols to Jordyn and a submachine gun to Ishbel. Jerod acts like a moving cover for his two new friends, tearing through the criminals as they make their way up the floors of the apartment, searching room after room for Allona. They go up to the second floor where Ishbel’s head is blown to pieces by a stray shot. I instantly bring her back to life and give her powers to sprout vines with blade-like thorns covering them. Ishbel’s head is reformed as her vines spread throughout the second floor to kill their enemies.

“That was amazing,” Jordyn comments.

“Yeah, but I don’t want it to happen again. It wasn’t a pleasant experience,” Ishbel says who is just as shocked as Jordyn and Jerod are.

The three then move through the rooms, cleaning them of any remaining criminals and freeing the captives there who flee the building. On the third floor, there are many reluctant allies of Allona who are fighting each other. They were meeting here earlier and past events had raised tensions to the point where Allona felt the need to exchange ideas and goods in person so that everything could be smoothed over, however, I have allowed the worries of these people to overtake them so that they could start fighting and killing one another. Despite not being the primary target on this floor, the three still struggle to move because of all the bullets flying around. Being separated from his friends in the now-collapsing apartment and seeing them in trouble, Jordyn says a quick prayer for help and receives it.

I enhance his senses, the speed at which he moves, and grant him the ability to conjure ammo for his pistols from nothing. He shoots with extreme precision and carves his way through the criminals as if he were an angel of death floating through the wind. No one can manage to hit him nor can they stand his assault even if they’re wearing body armor or are superhuman. It only takes Jordyn a few minutes to clear the entire floor by himself, which impresses the other two and himself.

“It looks like we’re all developing powers, thanks be to God,” Jordyn says as he crosses himself.

“Let’s keep going. This building is starting to come apart,” Ishbel says as she rushes up the stairs.

On the fourth floor, the three find the remainder of the people who turned on Allona who have cornered her and her true allies in her office. The few who remain loyal to her protect her office with her in it while the majority against her are closing in.

“I’ll make this quick,” Jerod says.

He takes out two light machine guns from his back and uses them to cut through the room, killing all in seconds. Even the superhumans with skin thicker than steel are unable to endure the shots from his guns and are cut to pieces.

Jordyn whistles and says, “Nice job.”

With no other obstacle in their way, the three enter Allona’s office to find her fighting assassins who have entered through the broken windows. She uses her pistol and enhanced strength to quickly kill them. The final assassin she kills by breaking his neck with her hand before throwing him against the wall. Her white dress suit, pants, and black boots are all dirtied with blood, something that she doesn’t seem to mind as she wipes her bloodied hands on her pants.

“Which of you no-name scum want to face me next?” Allona says as she loads her pistol and readies herself to fight. “Do you think you can kill me? I’m the queen of the Meridian underworld.”

“Allow me to speak to and fight her. It’s the only way you’ll win this,” I say.

The three look at each other and agree. I control all three at the same time who are fighting better than they usually do. Jordyn and Jerod keep Allona on her toes by shooting around her while Ishbel’s vines try to entangle her. Eventually, I catch Allona in Ishbel’s vines.

I walk up to her with Ishbel and say through her, “Everything you’ve built up is in ruins. Your allies, the Dessous and Soleil families are dead and your most valuable superhuman allies in Limpiar are put to shame.”

“No! I’ve endured worse than this! I can rebuild it!” Allona argues.

“You’ve endured nothing like this, and no, your family’s wealth and childhood loved ones being killed in a hero versus villain fight doesn’t count.”

“How do you know so much about me? Who are you?”

“Someone who’s been with you since the start. I know there’s good in you and you can repent from all the evil you’ve done.”

“No! The evil I’ve done is to get back what I deserve and to get back at the people who destroyed my life!”

Allona uses her strength to break free of the vines despite how much they cut into her skin. She throws Ishbel out of the room and into the fire outside of it. Jordyn goes to rescue her while Jerod keeps fighting Allona, whose strength I use to injure and then keep down.

“Cease this struggle! The building will come down in minutes and you will be destroyed along with it,” I say through Jerod.

“You. You’re possessing these people, aren’t you?” Allona asks.

“I speak through them and turn them into the true versions of themselves.”

“You won’t do that to me! I’m fine with the way I am!”

“One was a drug dealer, another was a prostitute, and this one was a hitman. I can change anyone, no matter how far gone they are. Remember what your family said. Remember how they fought against crime and risked their lives to rid it from the city.”

“They couldn’t do anything. In fact, the city is worse now than it was before.”

“Who’s fault do you think that is?”

“Shut up!”

Allona manages to shoot Jerod several times to make him back off. She then punches him several times until he flies into the wall, breaking it. Jordyn helps Ishbel into the room and seeing as how he’s the only one who can still fight, he sets Ishbel aside who helps Jerod patch his wounds. In a fierce exchange of bullets, Jordyn and Allona fight each other with a few shots skimming Jordyn’s skin and many hitting Allona in non-lethal areas, but because she’s given herself enhancers, she doesn’t go down. Most of their shots collide in midair while I try my final attempt to change her.

“Lasting happiness can’t be found in this life nor is it the goal of it. You can’t permanently change the city, make people happy, and protect your loved ones through evil actions, but you can at least do your best so it doesn’t become worse because of you,” I say through Jordyn.

“Stop telling me what my parents said!” Allona says before managing to shoot Jordyn in the chest and throat.

The two are then separated by the burning building as the roof collapses leaving, Allona stuck in a corner and Jordyn in the center of the room on his knees and hands around his neck. All the fight has left his body and he thinks he is about to die.

Along with his father Cohan, we say, “It’s not over until you’re dead, Jordyn. Get up and save Allona from the fire. You won’t be hurt by the flames.”

I start to heal Jordyn’s wounds as my and his father’s words give him the strength to get up.

“If my dad can do it, then so can I!” he says with a healed throat. “My dad believed I could change until his dying breath and I won’t let him down!”

Jordyn runs through the fire and picks up Allona. Along with Ishbel and Jerod, they escape the building just as it collapses behind them. Allona looks at the three people who saved her and walks through the fire without even being burned by it with disbelief in her eyes.

“Who are you people? Why save me?” Allona asks.

“We’re just scum. Would you believe us if we said that God told us to save you?” Jordyn says.

“That was the voice I was hearing talking to me, wasn’t it? I…guess I believe it. I just don’t know why.”

“It’s because you’re worth dying for,” I say through Jerod along with a relative of Allona.

She starts to cry after recognizing the voice.

“My…uncle said the same thing after saving me from a fire, the day my loved ones died. I think I…heard his voice in yours, priest.”

“It’s possible that he spoke through me meaning that he’s been praying and watching over you since he passed away.”

“It is his intercession along with those who loved you that saved your soul. Otherwise, you would’ve died earlier without a chance to change,” I say through Ishbel who then says, “My aunt is probably doing the same for me. It’s why I changed. What’s your choice, Allona?”

“Since you people are scum and I’m no different, I might as well join you to fulfill my family’s dying wishes. It’s not like I have anything or anyone else left.”

Now that these three are together, I command them to take up residency in the monastery that Jerod is from.

While they are getting settled in, Jerod asks, “What should I do with the bodies of these priests?”

“Bury them or burn them to ash. Their souls are damned and the sight of them repulses me,” I say.

“I shall bury them. They were priests and deserve a proper burial.”

Jerod’s choice is wise and merciful. Meanwhile, Jordyn, Ishbel, and Allona are sitting in the adoration chapel, relaxing after such a long night. They all thank me and stay with me for a little over an hour without knowing it, thanks to the peace of my presence. The repentance and penance done today by these sinners are pleasing to me and cover a multitude of their sins and those in the city. Together, they will bring others like them to their group while punishing others.

Their group will embody my mercy and justice and bring real change to Meridian. After this long week, the anger of my justice is beginning to subside, and now, there are a few things I need to do before I cease my scourging of the city. I need to find one person, in particular, to whom I will give special power, so they can embody the justice this city needs and lasting peace through it.