God's Lions - The Dark Ruin (40 page)

But the question on all of their minds was the question of why they were there. What was so important about an old woman and a boy? Did they have something to do with some new archaeological find? Did they know the location of a great treasure buried beneath the ruin? Whatever the reason, the soldiers had done what they had been ordered to do. Now all they could do was wait for a call from their headquarters telling them what they should do next.

Stopping below the raised area, the commander stared at the circle of blackened stone and headed for the stairs leading to the raised floor of the structure, but as soon as his boot touched the bottom step he froze as he saw a misty red haze beginning to form over the bottom of the crater. Trained to spot and avoid traps, the commander slowly began to back away, but it was too late, for unbeknownst to him and his men, they had all just stepped onto a satanic welcome mat that had been laid out for those who had not been warned about this little piece of hell.

Even now the dark angel was watching. Like some kind of twisted celestial fireman, he had waited for thousands of years to extinguish the flame of hope that shone from within the soul of a simple boy who had been born to rule over a world of darkness. But there was still one hurdle that stood before him. Satan would need the boy’s permission. Since the day when Lucifer had been cast from heaven—since that day when he had appeared as a serpent in a garden and first tempted man—the battle for souls had raged for thousands of years between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And in this war between heaven and hell, God had dictated that, in the absence of mortal sin, a person would have to give freely of their soul before Satan could lay claim to it.

But despite his impetuous nature, Satan had learned to be patient. He knew his time was coming, and as mankind entered a state of technological wizardry in the 21
^st
century, millions had begun to shun the idea of a soul living on after death. As mankind progressed intellectually amid wars triggered by religious extremists, many began to turn away from God in the belief that religion itself was behind all of the wars and resulting social ills that continued to plague the world.

Rather than come together in the new millennium and live alongside one another in peace, the enlightened people of the 21
^st
century continued to drift farther apart, and mankind did what it had always done—it turned on itself. Atheism suddenly became fashionable among the intellectual elite, and just like wheat, Satan’s harvest of souls increased year after year—and the coming year promised to be his largest harvest yet. The field was fertile and the day of reckoning was upon the Earth, and only those who believed knew what was coming.

In a gigantic cosmic whirlwind, the signs in the heavens were beginning to align, announcing to the world that mankind’s tribulation was at hand. The time for the Antichrist’s rule was fast approaching, and the Evil One knew that he would have to use all of his powers of deceit—powers he had employed time and time again against a species that flew like moths to a flame, choosing physical pleasure and material gain on Earth over eternal life in heaven. Now was the time for Satan’s ultimate temptation, and failure was not an option. This was the spot where Adrian and his brother Rene had been born into the world, and it would be here that the divine spark that still burned within the physical body of Adrian Acerbi would be extinguished and replaced with something else.

Drawn to the place of his birth, Adrian now willingly allowed his mother to lead him past the soldiers and up onto the paved floor of the ruin. Reaching out, he ran his hand over one of the obsidian-like towers of rock. Through his fingertips he could feel the energy, as if the entire structure was electrified, and with a growing sense of excitement, he spun around as the reddish haze began to flow through the columns. And he heard laughter—laughter all around him. It came from all directions at once, echoing in staccato bursts with a hideous, otherworldly quality that rose in intensity until the laughter turned into a series of elongated shrieks.

With an instinctual sense of dread, the soldiers continued to back away from the Dark Ruin as they readied their weapons for whatever was coming—because there was no doubt in their minds that something was coming. Slowly, as it began to grow dark, the soldiers looked over their heads at an unbelievable sight. An enormous black orb was blotting out the sun, smothering the crater in darkness, and with the darkness came a stiffening breeze that quickly grew into a fierce wind, bending the tall grass to the ground and lifting spinning columns of dust into the air as hot currents swept down into the crater. In a matter of seconds the soldiers were blinded, and as they shielded their eyes from the blowing dust they began to feel tiny pinpricks of pain all over their bodies.

Within seconds, the men were screaming in agony as they dropped their weapons and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Strangely, Adrian and his mother remained unharmed. Nothing seemed to affect them as they stood in the center of the ruin surrounded by a swirling maelstrom. With a sense of detachment, they watched as the soldiers screamed out in pain, their weapons useless as blood began to soak their uniforms from within, until finally they lay still in grotesque, twisted positions that reflected the last moments of their earthly lives.

Looking up into the dark, silvery-streaked sky, Adrian saw flashes of what appeared to be a winged creature circling the crater, its red eyes glowing in the darkness. It would suddenly appear and then disappear in his field of vision, and as he spun around trying to catch a glimpse of the thing once again, a hot wind brushed his face. Beneath his feet, the ancient stone platform had become translucent, and he could see all the way down into the black depths of the earth as flashes of light revealed weathered carvings on the dark pillars that rose all around him. Misshapen, demon-like faces appeared in bas-relief tableaus that wrapped around each column, and at the tops of the columns there were carvings of enormous snakes, their heads twisting inward toward the center of the circle, their forked red tongues flicking outward.

Above the circle, other winged creatures suddenly appeared from the red mist and flew over the platform before disappearing between the columns just as the sound of laughter returned. Falling to his knees, Adrian pressed his hands to his ears and closed his eyes in a vain attempt to hang on to the last vestiges of his humanity.
Maybe if I just close my eyes all of this will stop.

“Adrian!” It was the voice of his mother.

Opening his eyes, Adrian looked up into the terrified face of his mother shrouded in a black mist. She blurred in a rapid back and forth motion, and he could see something peeling away, like a snake shedding its skin, until finally the creature that had been inhabiting her body flew up out of the mist surrounding her, leaving a trail of hideous laughter in its wake.

Taking her by the shoulders, Adrian shook her and looked into her eyes, and then, as if awakening from a dream, his mother’s gaze returned and she grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Adrian!”

“Mother?”

The winged creature returned, swooping down and passing between them, causing Colette to scream as she placed her hands over her face and peered through her fingers. Watching her reaction, Adrian suddenly realized that the thing inside her was now gone and that he was looking into the sweet face of his mother. Looking around, he held her frail body in his arms as if to protect her from the thing he knew was still around and could return at any moment. “Mother ... it’s OK ... you’re safe now!”

“What’s happening, Adrian ... where are we?”

“We’re back in Turkey ... in some kind of old ruin.”

“Turkey! Where’s your father?”

“I don’t know. He left. You weren’t yourself, Mother.”

Colette stared at her young son with wide eyes. “Adrian, listen to me. We need to get out of here. You’re in great danger. Your father and I ...

Collette screamed again when she looked past her son and saw rows of yellow eyes staring out from between the black columns, and sitting in the center of the ruin, a winged creature was moving its leathery body from side to side as it folded its black, red-veined wings and watched them through slits that revealed a pair of blood red eyes. Slowly, the creature rose up and extended its monstrous head to within a few inches of Adrian’s face.
“Say goodbye to your mother, human!”

Adrian shrank back from the sight of what he knew to be a demon. “What do you want?”
But the boy already knew what it wanted.
In a flowing stream of consciousness, vast amounts of knowledge began flowing through his mind, as if he had just awakened from a dream and he suddenly knew everything ... even things that lay in the future.

Looking over at his frightened mother, he forced himself to speak to the creature. “Leave my mother out of this!”

The demon smiled. “If that is what you wish. From this day forward you have no need for earthly attachments. Your kingdom awaits you, so you must open your eyes and accept what is rightfully yours. You have only to say yes to your true father and your mother will remain unharmed. You know what you must do ... you can already feel the power surging through your veins. Say yes now and you will ascend to your earthly throne.”

But Adrian needed no further convincing, for the strength he felt coursing throughout his body was like a powerful, irresistible drug that made him want more. “Where is my father?”

“He is watching.”

Adrian blinked as he stared at the demon, for somehow he knew that the creature was not referring to his earthly father, but to his new dark father that was waiting to embrace him with a love forged from hate.

“Then yes ... I accept. Now, let my mother go!”

Sitting silently between two pillars, the demon looked skyward and shrieked as other winged creatures began to emerge from the swirling darkness, landing all around them in what could only be called a joyous reunion of hell’s most terrifying princes of darkness.

Moving over the translucent floor, lightning-like flashes of white light highlighted the horrific features of the creatures moving silently toward them, but instead of stepping back, Adrian smiled, for he knew without having to be told that he was surrounded by the Seven Princes of Hell who had come to welcome him into their ranks.

The first was
Baal
-
beryth
, master of rituals and pacts, who was followed by
Dumah
, commander of the demons of
Gehenna
,
Meririm
, prince of air,
Rahab
, prince of the oceans,
Sariel
, prince of the moon,
Mephistopholes
, otherwise known as the destroyer, and
Lucifer Rofocale
, Satan’s Prime Minister.

“
Diabolus
!” Colette screamed, using the Greek word for devil as other creatures began to emerge from the darkness, but Adrian was immune to her screams. He smiled as he looked around at all the new arrivals circling them on the transparent black floor. Satan had summoned his most powerful dark angels for this occasion—his Arch Demons. They were rebellious angels who had fallen and maintained their rank as ex-angels within their new roles as Satan’s most valuable soldiers, for this was his time and he had to make sure there would be no interference from God’s heavenly army.

Slowly, as if from memory, Adrian began to recite their names as blood began to flow down from the pillars surrounding them. The first Arch Demon to be named was the one who had first spoken to Adrian,
Agaliarept
, Satan’s grand general over hell, and behind him was
Adramaleck
, the prince of fire, a red-winged creature with black eyes. Then there were the other hideous and twisted creatures with shining yellow eyes. There was
Carniveau
, the demon of possession,
Python
, the prince of evil spirits,
Mammon
, prince of tempters and greed,
Rimmon
, prince of lightning and storms,
Leviathan
, the demoness of chaos,
Proserpine
, the demoness known as the destroyer,
Astarte
, queen of the spirits of the dead,
Naamah
, the demoness of seduction, and finally
Lilith
, Satan’s favorite wife.

In total, they were surrounded by eighteen of Satan’s most powerful dark angels who gazed upon Adrian with a look usually reserved for mothers looking upon the face of a newborn child. It was the look of demon-love, if there was such a thing.

With blood now flowing like a wounded river over the floor beneath them, Adrian began to change. His eyes began to turn black—as black as the obsidian, blood-stained columns rising around him, and as the flashes of light highlighted his features with a strobe-light effect, he began to age, his jet-black hair turning to gray around the temples as he grew physically in size.

Watching the change come over her son, Colette held her hands to her mouth and stepped away from him. Without having to be told, she knew the battle for her son’s soul was now over. She had just witnessed the satanic transformation of a boy into a man—a man with heartless black eyes that reflected the dark soul that now lay within. He was no longer her son but a beast, and the new father who was watching was not the father who had raised him to be a kind and loving man, but was instead the Evil One who had finally come to lay claim to his earthly son.

A sudden rumbling in the earth below made Adrian look up as he began to chant in an otherworldly voice that echoed all around the crater. The blood from the Dark Ruin continued to flow, covering the bodies of the dead soldiers and setting fire to the dry grass. With the smoke and flames rising all around them, Adrian laughed as he extended his hands toward the sky and cursed God, for this was his time on Earth and there would be no saving angels arriving to halt his rise to power over a species that had failed to heed the warnings of a God who had tried to save them.