The Elder Prophets (To Absolve the Fallen Book 2) Read online

  They did as they were instructed. Yuri inserted a dropper into the vial, pulled some of the liquid inside, and put a drop into each hand in front of him.

  The two girls giggled in anticipation. Yuri admired their beauty and wondered how well the drug would enhance sexual stimulation. Realizing that his experiment was a bit one-sided, and that he, himself, would not be affected by the drug, he looked, once again, to the crowd. In the back stood one of his assistants, Filipp. He was a shy boy of about sixteen. Perfect.

  “Filipp,” Yuri said with a summoning gesture, “come here.”

  Filipp nervously walked to the front of the room. He looked at the two girls, then quickly looked to his feet.

  “Hold out your hand, Filipp,” Yuri commanded.

  “Sir?”

  Yuri smiled. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they, Filipp?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy admitted blushingly.

  Yuri leaned close to whisper in the boy’s ear. “How would you like to help me find out how long it takes for each of them to have an orgasm?”

  Filipp’s eyes went wide.

  Yuri was not deterred by the boy’s fear. “Have you ever been with a woman, Filipp?”

  “No, sir,” the boy whispered.

  “Well,” Yuri responded, “you’re about to be with two. All you have to do is hold out your hand, so I can put a drop of this in it.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think...I’ll call it Rapture,” Yuri answered with a grin. Preempting Filipp’s next question, Yuri added, “It increases passion, sensuality, and stamina.”

  Filipp didn’t look like he understood, but he nodded his head, nonetheless. Then, he realized that something wasn’t accounted for. “What about you?”

  “Me?” Yuri said. “Would my presence make you uncomfortable?”

  Filipp stammered for an answer.

  “Don’t be intimidated,” Yuri said to allay the boy’s fears. “Besides, four would be much more fun than three. How about it?”

  Filipp thought for a moment, looked over at the two girls, who were becoming impatient, looked at Yuri, and held out his hand.

  Yuri smiled broadly. He put two drops in Filipp’s hand out of gratitude and curiosity.

  “Everyone else,” Yuri ordered civilly but without emotion, “leave.”

  ***

  “Aren’t you concerned about them?” Matt asked.

  Jeremiah, who was peering out the window, thinking about what he would do next, turned to Matt and looked perplexed. “What?”

  “Liz and Alex,” Matt prompted angrily. “What are you going to do about them?”

  Jeremiah seemed to consider this and then replied, “Nothing.”

  Matt looked shocked. “Nothing? Isn’t there some danger?”

  “I don’t think so,” replied the demon. “This happened before. You and Alex turned out fine. In any event, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.”

  “Yeah. Well, that was an accident, and Abbie had to work to bring me back. What if Liz doesn’t just come out of this? What if Alex doesn’t?”

  “It had to happen, Matt. Now, let me concentrate.”

  “No!” Matt yelled at him. “We’re not your puppets.”

  Jeremiah sighed, rolled down the window, and lit a cigarette. “You’re right. You aren’t my puppets. You’re God’s puppets. This serves as an important growing experience for both Elizabeth and Alex, a step that they needed to take.”

  “Why?”

  “It should bring them closer together.”

  “Oh,” Matt said sarcastically, “so you’re playing matchmaker, now?”

  “Did I say that, Matt? When did I ever strike you as the kind of person who cares about romantic relationships? In the first place, Liz and Alex need to be closer so that they can work together better. Secondly—and this might sting a little—Alex is not sexually interested in you. That isn’t something you can change. If it so happens that Alex and Elizabeth become romantically involved, I expect you to leave them to it. For God’s sake, be happy for them. As stupid as I think romance to be notwithstanding, you are going to have to let Alex do what he feels most comfortable with. He loves Elizabeth, you love him, and she loves you. This has become annoying to say the very least. The more you obsess over what you can’t have, the more it’s going to eat away at you. For once, take my word on something.”

  “I don’t need love advice from you, demon,” Matt spat at him.

  Jeremiah’s face lost all emotion. “Okay, human. You prophets are bent on reminding me of my past, as if it invalidates my methods. You use the word ‘demon’ to set us apart. I’ll help you better understand the term and the difference between us. I’ll tell you a story.

  “About three hundred years ago, I ran across a prophet, named Juan. He was of no particular consequence to me, except that he was in my general area, and I hadn’t killed a prophet in weeks. It seemed that Juan was lovesick, like you are, except that he loved a woman.

  “I gathered as much information about Juan as I could before I decided to make a move. I captured his betrothed, and I left a note for him, telling him that he was to meet me ten miles away at a nobleman’s house. With the letter, I left one of his fiancée’s pinky fingers. I also warned him that, if he didn’t make haste, the only way he would ever see his love again was a piece at a time.

  “Every mile, he would find another finger. By the time he arrived at the aforementioned location, he was in tears. He had gathered up every finger, and he held them in front of him in cupped hands. He stood outside the house and cried to be let in so that he may see the woman. And, of course, we obliged.

  “Once inside, I had him detained. He was tied to a chair so that he could view her. I’d cauterized her wounds, but she was still screeching obnoxiously. Juan told me that he would give me anything if only I would let her go free. I told him that he had nothing worthy to offer. He screamed about injustice and about evil, and I patiently waited for him to finish.

  “When he had, I chopped off both of her legs. I wouldn’t let her die from the shock of the whole ordeal, though she almost did. I had the lovebirds taken to the nearest lake, where a group of clergymen were already waiting for me. I’d persuaded them to find Juan guilty of witchcraft, which wasn’t difficult, given the amazing things he had been seen doing. Of course, the woman was all too easy to accuse. Her very anatomy betrayed her.

  “We drowned the woman first. I argued that, if God wanted her to live, she would float, despite her lack of legs. She tried, too. You should have seen how she flailed her fingerless arms. All the while, Juan yelled for the townspeople to help her, to save her from evil men and demons. Of course, the townspeople wanted a show and were not particularly interested in the ravings of a witch. In fact, they accused him of consorting with demons. I love irony.

  “Before she drowned, Juan’s love screamed that the whole situation was his fault and that her death would be on his head. I suppose it broke his heart. I walked over and whispered in his ear that I had done him a favor by killing her first. I claimed that, now, he knew how faithful she really was. With a laugh, I ordered him to be manacled. He didn’t fight. He no longer cared. With a heave, he was cast into that lake. I imagine the manacles are still at the bottom somewhere.”

  Jeremiah flicked his cigarette out the window before continuing. “I am a demon, Matt. I’ve done things that I am not proud of. And I continue to do things that you don’t agree with. In the future, though, when you throw out the word ‘demon’ to anger me, it would be wise of you to remember what I did when I wasn’t angry, when I was only bored. When I was angry, I did things that made even other demons cringe.”

  Matt had nothing to say. He looked to the road, and there was silence in the van for nearly an hour.

  ***

  Alex saw that he was in a room. It looked to be a bedroom. It was plain. The walls were white, and the only things in the room were a television and a bed. On the bed lay a girl. She looked to have been about fif
teen years old. Alex realized that Elizabeth had changed very little from the time he now saw her to the present.

  She lay on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest. She’d been crying recently. Though the tears had either dried up or been wiped away, Alex could tell from her puffy eyes that something was wrong, and he felt miserable that, though he was privy to people’s problems, he could do nothing to change those problems or comfort the people. The only option given him was to watch.

  A knock on the door startled Elizabeth. She sat up and wiped her eyes. “Who is it?”

  “Liz, it’s Dad,” came a voice from the other side.

  She got up and ran to the door. She opened it and threw her arms around the man.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  “Martina and her friends were making fun of me.”

  “Did you tell Debby?”

  Elizabeth looked away. “I did, but she told me to stop being such a baby.”

  Andrew O’Dell sighed and got down on one knee. “Liz, I know that things are difficult for you right now, but you need to get along with your sister.”

  “Stepsister,” Elizabeth corrected.

  “Right,” her dad agreed tiredly. “Look, I work all day, and when I come home, I always have to listen to a fight. Martina is having to adjust, too. We’re all going to have to work together on this. I only get two weekends a month with you, and I want whatever time we get to be happy.”

  “You’re never here,” Elizabeth protested. “They hate me, Dad. They don’t want me to be around.”

  Andrew stood up. “Liz, don’t be dramatic.”

  “I’m not being dramatic,” she yelled at him.

  “I have to work,” Andrew replied sternly. “I have to pay for a family, and I have to pay child support for you. Nothing can be done about that.”

  “If you were here--”

  He interrupted her. “I don’t need to be here. Debby’s here. She can take care of any problems you kids are having.”

  “She doesn’t listen to me,” Elizabeth argued. “She doesn’t even talk to me if she doesn’t have to. She always gives me this evil look whenever I ask for something. Daddy, please...”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes went wide. “No, I’m not. Even grandma sees it. Ask her.”

  “Please don’t play my mother against my wife, Liz. I don’t appreciate it.”

  Elizabeth started crying again. “I’m just saying that I’m not the only one who sees it.”

  “What do you want me to do, Liz? What can I do?”

  “Violet’s going to be here tomorrow, and you won’t even be around,” Elizabeth explained between sobs.

  “What does Debby’s mother have to do with this?”

  “She’s evil, Dad. When she and Debby get together they talk about you and me. They say that I’m an ungrateful little brat. Violet calls me ugly and stupid.”

  “Look,” Andrew said patiently, “I’ll talk to Debby, Martina, and Violet. Then, we can sit down as a family and discuss this. Do you have any problems with Amber I should know about?”

  “I think she’s stealing my things,” Elizabeth confided. She had controlled her crying.

  Her dad rolled his eyes and massaged his temples. “What things?”

  “I had ten dollars in my purse the other day--”

  “And you think she stole it?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth answered quickly. “We were both looking at this magazine with a cute guy on the cover. We both wanted it, but she didn’t have any money, and I was going to wait to get it until I got back home because she would probably steal it anyway. Now, I’m missing my money, and she’s got the magazine.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t spend it or misplace it?”

  “I haven’t even been in my wallet since then. I don’t have any reason to. Debby won’t take me anywhere. She won’t even take me when she takes Amber and Martina somewhere.”

  Andrew reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here’s ten dollars. Keep it somewhere safe, somewhere you’ll remember.”

  “I didn’t lose it,” she declared adamantly, pushing his hand away, “and I don’t want your money. I want Amber to stop stealing mine. I told Debby about it, but she said that she thinks I just lost it. She said it served me right for waving it around in Amber’s face. But I didn’t do that.”

  “Okay. Enough,” her dad ordered. “I don’t want to hear any more about this. I don’t want to hear about Debby. I don’t want to hear about Martina. I don’t want to hear about Amber. And I don’t want to hear about Violet. We’re going to act like a family. That’s important. Do you understand? A family.”

  Elizabeth’s eye’s narrowed. “Sure. I understand. One more thing, Dad. Someone who I can’t talk about said that you weren’t coming to my birthday party next week because you had to go to a birthday party for some girl who goes to your church. Is that true?”

  “Debby needs me to help her with this party. She’s throwing it for a five-year-old girl whose mother works fifty and sometimes sixty hours a week.”

  Elizabeth’s voice became venomous. “That’s awfully nice of her, Dad, but this is my sixteenth birthday. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  He put his head in his hands, and, when it came out, Andrew O’Dell looked very serious. “I don’t like it when people make me choose between people that I love. If someone makes me choose, I’m going to choose against them.”

  Elizabeth looked shocked. “Well, you’ve already chosen against me, Dad. I’m going to call Mom and ask her to come pick me up.”

  “Liz--”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.” With that said, she closed the door and went back to lie on her bed.

  Alex shook his head, and he could no longer see Elizabeth or her room.

  ***

  Five hours after Filipp had been given the drug, Yuri sat, naked, looking over the three dead bodies on the enormous white bed. He knew that he had been commanded to do something, but he was so disappointed. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. And, in retrospect, it was his own fault. He probably shouldn’t have given Filipp two drops.

  Everything was going fine. The girls didn’t pay much attention to Filipp right at first, but Yuri moved the action in that direction. Before long, clothes were being strewn across the room, and all four of them were entangled. Yuri took some pleasure in educating Filipp in the finer points of foreplay. But it seemed that the girls simply didn’t want to have sex with Filipp, and Yuri, who didn’t mind the attention but needed to know the effects of the drug, was forced to make them.

  Creating drugs was not Yuri’s only strength. He drove a passionate feeling, associated with Filipp, into the two girls. It wasn’t specific; he couldn’t do anything like that. But it, along with the drug, was enough to cause the girls to turn and pounce on Filipp.

  The purpose of the drug was to transmit strong emotions from one partner to the other. In this case, there were three participators, and Yuri had doubled the potency of Filipp’s dose. That, Yuri decided, probably accounted for what happened next.

  Filipp screamed. Yuri, naturally, thought the boy was just experiencing the throes of sexual ecstasy. Filipp began strangling one of the girls. The other girl probably came to the same conclusion that Yuri did; asphyxiation sometimes happens when people get carried away. The one getting strangled tends to care a little, but it’s all in good fun. When she stopped flopping around, Yuri and the other girl became suspicious.

  Filipp turned on the other girl, panting and sweating heavily. He most certainly did not look like himself. When he grabbed her arm, she screamed. Some of it was definitely out of fear of Filipp, but Yuri noticed something interesting. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell limp next to the boy. Yuri could feel a strong emotional response emanating from her that should not have belonged to someone in that situation. Filipp was transmitting his malicious emotions to her. The
drug was working, but it was too strong.

  Then, Filipp seized up and fell down on the bed. The girl he had recently attacked came to within seconds. The other was obviously dead. Yuri placed two fingers on Filipp’s neck. He, too, was dead.

  He sighed. The remaining girl was hyperventilating and crying.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  “What did you feel?” Yuri asked. He walked over and ran his hands through her hair to soothe her.

  “I-I could feel h-him,” she stuttered. “S-so angry.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Yuri said, “but I’m not too happy, myself, at the moment.”

  Yuri reached into the drawer next to the bed, found a gun, and shot her in the head. He could easily dispose of two bodies and deny this teenage girl’s story, but it was just more convenient to dispose of three bodies instead.

  His rage and disappointment not only from the degree of failure of his experiment, but also at the lost opportunity for a wild night of sex sent him into a dream-like state. He couldn’t seem to focus his thoughts. When the phone rang, he wasn’t sure if it was just in his head. He picked up the phone and answered anyway. The voice on the other end sounded familiar. Within a second, he realized to whom he was speaking.

  “Yuri?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “You need to go to the United States to fight on my behalf. In Las Vegas, Nevada, there is a mansion owned by a demon. The demon’s name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah is training a prophet, named Alex. Alex is a threat to my plans.”

  “Should I kill him, master?”

  “No. You are not strong enough to kill him, but you can work against him.”

  “Then, you would have me go to Las Vegas?”

  His master chuckled. “No, Yuri. I think we will handle this in a different way. You will go to Kingstone, Missouri. I think we may be able to make a bigger difference there.”

  “What of this Jeremiah?”

  “Don’t be concerned with him. When it’s time, he’ll be dealt with.”