Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Read online

  WRATH OF

  THE FALLEN

  WRATH OF

  THE FALLEN

  The Guild of Deacons, Book 2

  JAMES MACGHIL

  Copyright © 2017 James MacGhil

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0996193529

  ISBN-13: 9780996193528

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017907511

  Stephen Gilmore, Tallahassee, FL

  For Sherrie. My best friend.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  And those who led astray the world will be bound in chains and shut away in the assembly place of their destruction, and all their works will pass from the face of the earth.

  - The Lost Book of Enoch

  PROLOGUE

  They say that time is the great equalizer. The unforgiving universal constant that dictates the terms of our existence. Infinite in nature, yet terrifyingly discrete. Although it flies or crawls, depending on your particular set of circumstances — it never stops. Not even for a damn second.

  Within the proverbial blink of an eye, our present becomes our past, as we inescapably race toward an unknowable future. And if you have half a frigg’n clue, you make the best of every waking moment you have at your disposal because when it’s up — it’s just up. There’s no getting it back.

  Conversely, Einstein said that time was nothing more than an illusion. That no separation existed between the past, the present, and the future. That there was but one, single existence. A concept I used to consider complete and utter bullshit until something rather unexpected happened to alter my perspective.

  I died.

  In the year 1998.

  On my frigg’n birthday.

  Worst birthday ever — for the record.

  But inexplicably, after a short stint in the Heavenly realms — during which fourteen years passed on the Earth — I came back.

  But I digress. More on that in a moment.

  While the concept of time was not quite as rigid for the dead, or pseudo-divine undead as it were, it still possessed the ability to kick you square in the arse.

  For example, seems like an eternity ago when I thwarted the plans of a megalomaniacal fallen angel who was hell bent on destroying life as we know it by unleashing his legions of oversized, angel/human hybrid miscreants on mankind.

  But in all actuality – it was only last week.

  And adding insult to injury, it also seemed that my adversary’s apocalyptic’esque scheme was not exactly thwarted. It was merely postponed.

  Epic letdown on both fronts. Bit of time inspired double whammy, if you will.

  Don’t get me wrong here — I did put a monumental beat down on a veritable shit pot of giant beasties. I even sent their entire frigg’n bizarro world to the north end of oblivion in a smoking torrent of judgment fire.

  But, evidently, there was more.

  A lot more.

  The game was still very much afoot.

  Damn the bad luck.

  It was quiet for a few days though. A few days, that is, before the giants started popping up at various locales around the globe. At first, folks thought it nothing more than a very elaborate hoax as blurry cell phone videos of impossibly large man-like figures started to flood all facets of social media until the entire internet buckled with the traffic.

  Then the conspiracy theories started. ‘Mutated Super Soldier Program Goes Horribly Awry’ was amongst the most popular. Most countries pointed the finger at the United States. The rest blamed the Russians. North Korea tried to take credit, but nobody really took them seriously.

  Bigfoot enthusiasts, however, took the opportunity to make a plea that the giant creatures were agitated sasquatches tired of being the subject of bad reality TV shows and beef jerky commercials.

  The ancient astronaut theorists touted that a ‘Race of Titanic Alien Beings Were Reclaiming the Earth - We Told You This Would Happen!’

  Oddly, the doomsday preppers weren’t surprised at all. Instead, they were pissed that it was giants and not zombies at the root cause of the apparent global meltdown. But they still happily retreated to their elaborate fallout shelters with machetes, sawed-off shotguns, and collector’s edition Night of the Living Dead DVDs. Typical.

  At any rate, it was all a bit of fun — until the giants started breaking shit and eating people. Then it became real. Impossibly real.

  In life, I was a soldier. An elite product of the U.S. military. Upon death, I became something else. No longer human but not quite an angel, I was something conceived of mankind but no longer part of it. Something blessed and cursed with the power of God’s wrath. A warrior of the light that existed in the shadows.

  My name is Dean Robinson, the Seventh Deacon of the Seventh line.

  I am — to maintain the Balance.

  The time of reckoning was upon the race of man.

  Chapter 1

  “Is that all you’ve got?” He growled in a nightmarish, gravelly voice, slowly circling me like a brazen predator toying with a wounded prey.

  I was bleeding. Badly.

  Everything was blurry.

  Muted.

  Dark.

  A deafening buzz of screeching static filled my ears.

  My head pulsed with repeated crushing swells of unknowable pain.

  I couldn’t keep this up.

  The deep gash running across my midsection stung like a raging wildfire as blood trickled down my already sullied jeans and pooled at my feet.

  He was too strong.

  Too fast.

  I had to end it — now.

  There was no other way.

  He’d left me no choice.

  That goddamned son of a bitch left me no choice.

  Mustering all my strength I pushed myself off the ground. Not quite ready to get to my feet, I just sat there on my knees and despondently stared at the ground for a long second. This shouldn’t be happening — but it was.

  “Don’t make me do this!” I barked, burying my emotions as I summoned all my unnatural ability and defiantly stood to face him. “I’m begging you.”

  In response, the mouth of the infernal, fifteen foot monster standing opposite me curled into a harrowing smile proudly displaying row upon row of barbed, blackened teeth. Seething streams of viscous, ashen drool bubbled from the corners of its massive jaw and steadily oozed
down its veiny, sculpted chest like snaking rivers of unnatural lava.

  Fixing me with a poisoned glare, the creature’s unnerving blue eyes danced with a fiery madness as every chiseled, sinewy muscle making up its hulking red frame flexed and bulged from the mocking, guttural laugh that boomed from somewhere deep within its massive throat.

  “The great Dean Robinson,” it taunted, “Begs me.”

  His mind was muddled.

  Broken.

  The man I knew had slipped into the ether.

  Only the beast remained.

  Tightening the grip on the hilt of my otherworldly gladiator sword, the cloak flared about my shoulders sending rippling waves of divine Wrath coursing throughout my being like an electric current.

  “You’re not thinking straight,” I grunted, as my wounds instantly healed themselves and argent metal gauntlets encased my hands in a spectral flash. “Remember who you are.”

  “And who is that?”

  “My friend. You’re my friend.”

  “Friend,” the creature scoffed, as a fine layer of orange flame silhouetted his entire massive physique of scaly blotched skin pulled tautly over a freakish skeletal frame.

  “Stand down, goddamn you!”

  “God has not damned me, my friend. Quite the contrary — It is you who are damned.”

  Holding out one of his impossibly large hands, he then proceeded to mockingly admire the ghastly trio of razor tipped talons jutting out from its clenched fist. Composed of jagged ashen bone and stained deep with streaks of haunting crimson, the grim instruments of eviscerating death forbiddingly gleamed in the moonlight as he loomed over me like an eager executioner waiting to carry out his appointed duty.

  “Now, tell me,” he cunningly growled, frothing at the mouth like a craze-stricken animal, “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “Not everything,” I grumbled, “Not yet.”

  Letting out another barrage of guttural laughter, he said, “Then let us finish the game.”

  “Don’t do this,” I pleaded.

  “I am going to end you now, Dean — but take solace in the fact that the rest of our friends will not be far behind. I promise. They cannot hide from me.”

  As his words hit me like a raging tidal wave, every muscle in my body tensed in anger. Feeling the mental switch flip to the on position, I slowly pulled in a long, deliberate breath.

  Cleared my mind.

  Focused my thoughts.

  Found the Balance — the perfect balance between wrath and clarity.

  As the unfathomable power welled up in the deep recess of my soul and the expected sensation of calmative awareness washed over me, I grumbled, “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

  And it was right about then when shit got real.

  Without so much as another word, his gangly, talon tipped claw swung toward my head in a blur of motion as he launched at me with a grace and precision that should not have been possible for a creature of such mind-blowing size and strength.

  Unfortunately, it no longer mattered.

  He was too far gone.

  I knew what had to be done.

  Right, wrong, or indifferent.

  Floating to my left, and safely out of the arc of the death blow, his over-grown finger nails ripped into the cobblestone street as he let out a harrowing, primal scream in clear frustration that I was no longer standing there. Taking full advantage of the fact he was bent over, my face curled into a dark scowl as I focused all my supernatural strength and thrust my sword squarely into his massive, heaving pectorals only to forcefully rip it down the entire length of his scaly midsection.

  Like the opening of a macabre faucet, a steady stream of black, mucus-like blood spewed from the son of a bitch’s exposed chest cavity like a busted sewer pipe as he grunted and flailed in protest. Leaving my sword lodged in his rib cage for the moment, I then relentlessly pummeled his knee caps with my metal fists until they were nothing more than a bloody pulp.

  Unable to stand upright anymore, he crumbled to the ground as I yanked my sword free and held it to his mighty neck.

  Locking gazes with the unnatural creature, he again began to laugh a horrible, throaty laugh as his eyes erupted into flaming orbs of fiery apocalypse.

  Saying nothing — He just gazed at me with a placid stare.

  Almost like he wanted me to do it.

  To restore what remained of his humanity.

  To quell the madness.

  To end him.

  Once and for all.

  Lowering my head in defeat, I muttered, “I’m sorry, John. I truly am.”

  And then I cut Rooster’s head off.

  Chapter 2

  Twenty-Five Hours Earlier

  Stepping through the arcane portal, I found myself standing in the deep shadows of the familiar alleyway tucked neatly behind Symphony Hall in Boston’s Back Bay.

  It was an unnaturally cold January evening, and the typical collection of city goers scrambled to the nearby T stop while bundled in ridiculous variations of layered over garments. As the gateway snapped shut behind me, I did a quick scan of the area making sure my rather peculiar entry was unobserved.

  Satisfied that I didn’t have any fanfare, I willed my otherworldly cloak into retreat and it melted from existence in a spectral flash. Now looking a bit more like your average Joe, sporting faded Levi’s and a black pea coat, I casually stepped from the quiet darkness of the alley into the flickering onslaught of Massachusetts Avenue in rush hour traffic.

  More than anxious to get out of the weather, I wove unnoticed, like a ghost, through the droves of disgruntled people bustling along the sidewalk.

  Hooking a quick left onto Westland Avenue and nearing my destination, I was pelted square in the face with a howling gust of frigid air that ripped through the surrounding buildings like a pissed off tornado.

  “Awesome,” I grumbled under my breath, as my face instantly stung. “That’s frigg’n perfect.”

  Just as I was about to dart across the street and finally call it a day, the faint clamor of a slurred fifties song I couldn’t quite place stopped me dead in my tracks. Glancing downward at the snow crusted curb, it appeared an unusually jovial street person was trying his very best to ward off the cold with a fifth of whiskey, a badly chewed cigar, and one hell of a spirited tribute to Elvis Presley.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, reaching down to help the rather heavy set, sideburn laden sidewalk songbird to his feet. “Too cold to be out here. Even for the King of Rock and Roll. You need to get inside.”

  “Don’t need your damn help. Thank you. Thank you very much,” he grumbled, batting my hand away as he took a big swig from his paper bag wrapped bottle and belted out the chorus to Jailhouse Rock.

  “I’m not asking,” I muttered. “Get your ass up. You’re going to freeze to death out here in your blue suede shoes.”

  “Alright, alright,” he grumbled, begrudgingly taking my hand and staggering to his feet without making eye contact. “Goddamn do-gooders. Wish you’d mind your own damn business.”

  “Let’s go, Mr. The King,” I grumbled back at him as a solid waft of his liquor drenched cigar breath penetrated my nostrils. “There’s a shelter down the street. You can get some food and hopefully a breath mint or twenty.”

  Now completely on his feet and somewhat coherent, I was fully expecting him to say something else of a snide nature. But instead, he just stood there gawking at me through blood shot, widened eyes. Almost like he was trying to figure out if I was real.

  Or not.

  “Good God almighty,” he gasped. “What the hell … What the hell are you?”

  Interestingly, I seem to have this effect on most normal humans. Even those that hadn’t consumed enough alcohol to drown a small village.

  I’m told it’s because my presence on Earth wasn’t exactly ‘natural’ anymore. Something about the fact that I died, crossed into the heavenly realms, and came back. Subsequently, most folks won’t even acknowledge my prese
nce because I evidently existed on the very edge of their perception.

  However, on the rare occasion that I actually spoke to somebody or made physical contact with them, it typically went one of two ways. The first of which was that they figured me for some kind of benevolent, guardian angel. The second, and much more unfortunate, was that they mistook me for an infernal, really scary—

  “Demon,” he gasped as absolute terror washed over his sullied face and he took a few steps backward dropping his bottle of booze on the frozen sidewalk. “You’re — a demon!”

  And it seemed that Frumpy Elvis was going with scenario number two. Typical.

  “Now that’s just hurtful.”

  “Stay back — Hell spawn!” He yelled, while making his very best attempt to form a cross with his gloved, index fingers. But, as he was piss drunk, it actually looked more like a lazy V. Or a jacked up L.

  “Look, pal, relax. That’s not going to work, okay. I’m not a demon,” I said as calmly as I possibly could. “I’m a Deacon. And despite the fact that I’ve had a really bad frigg’n day, I’m trying to help—”

  “A what?” He blurted out, continuing to backpedal with his eyes literally popping out of his head.

  “Can’t believe I’m about to have this conversation again,” I muttered. “Okay. Even though you won’t remember this in five minutes, it’s like this — I’m a Deacon. One of forty-nine souls blessed and cursed with the power of God’s wrath. Along with a secret society of supernatural sidekicks, I maintain Balance on the Earth by casting divine Judgment on the unspeakable, and often giant, evil miscreants that have been skulking around mankind since the beginning of time. Blah, blah, yadda, yadda. And you’re not even listening …”

  “Get the hell away from me!” He yelled, spinning around in a cloud of cigar smoke and bolting toward the traffic lights of Massachusetts Avenue in the not so far distance. “Demon!”

  “Deacon!” I yelled after him. “And you’re welcome!”