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It has been the duty of Eli’s family to hunt down and destroy the demons that plague the earth for more than two millennia. The sins of his forefathers have trapped the family in limbo between heaven and hell since the dawn of time. If he falls in battle against a demon, his soul is theirs to claim. When he is victorious, one more debt is repaid and he is one step closer to freeing the family name from that cursed obligation acquired so long ago.
They look like normal everyday people your neighbor, the clerk at the mini-mart, they Mayor of your town. Only Eli, and those of his blood can see them for what they really are. Creatures so vile that your worst nightmare could not conjure their true appearance. The sight of these demons no longer surprise him and he is well prepared for battle. However, no one could have been prepared for what he was about to face.
The Glock 20 in his shoulder holster as well as the pm9 strapped to his ankle are both loaded with bullets made and blessed at the Vatican. The two daggers concealed in his waist are forged from steel, laced in pure silver and cooled in holy water, blessed by Pope Paul John II himself. None of those could protect him from the hell he was about to face.
The night had already claimed the sky as his Dodge 1500 navigated through the traffic in Sacramento. He tried, in vain at times, to get from the parking lot the called interstate 5 to the 99 Freeway. The letter she had wrote seven years ago, kept for five before mailing, and only found him two weeks ago stayed folded neatly in my breast jacket pocket. "Letter" is being generous. It simply said "Dear Eli, I need and want nothing from you but you have the right to know...You have a daughter".
He spent that Friday night in a cheap no-tell hotel in the outskirts of Merced before making the twenty mile drive to the small town he used to call home. It was nine in the morning when he turned off of Robertson Boulevard onto Fifth street and parked. He locked the truck and headed out across the park towards the play area where he was sure to find them. As he passed the only building in the park, the restrooms, he heard the hiss. His blood ran cold, instinctively he reached for his Glock. As he turned, he caught just a glimpse of it.....nearly bald leathery brown skin and at least two rows of flesh tearing bones that would have to pass for teeth.
It was a fleeting glimpse. Before he could draw his weapon; the spot where half a second earlier stood a demon, now stood a beautiful little girl. Long, brown hair tied back with a yellow ribbon. A light sun dress billowed in the breeze. Clean white sandals that said she had not yet made it to the playground. Her eyes, he couldn't see her eyes...
"Hello Eli". His gaze lifted to find the one woman he had ever truly loved. "This is Julie," She said. "Julie, This is my old friend, Eli".
As Julie walked over to Eli, arms opened to receive the hug that all seven-year-olds know they are going to receive, he bent down to hug her back. In a voice that stopped his heart from beating, He heard the cold menacing cackle of an ancient demon say "Hello, Daddy".
The sundress fell to the ground. The new, white sandals shredded as the little girl morphed into a leathery embodiment of evil the I knew only too well. Thank God Sarah Beth can't see this. He thought to himself..
Beth stared in horror, she could not believe what she was seeing. That is her baby, her daughter....at least it was. What the hell is going on? It all flooded back to her; the doctors saying she had miscarried, feeling the baby move three days later, parents refusing to allow their children to have a second play date, having to homeschool her because the teachers were too afraid. The dead pets both Julianne's and the neighbors. A part of her always knew something wasn’t right with her daughter but that THING was not her daughter. It couldn't be.
She looked around her. A police car was stopped in the middle of Robertson Boulevard. The officer was looking right at them, not blinking. All the cars on Robertson were stopped. No, not stopped... frozen. She looked at the young boy on the swings, stopped in mid-air, his mouth made no sound where just a moment earlier he had been begging his father to push higher. She looked back at Eli and that thing. “Your daughter”. A voice in her head reminded her.
He turned my body sideways to make a smaller target while drawing his Glock. His right hand burned as a claw scraped along it. The demon slapped the gun from his grip. It moved in close but screamed an unholy scream and fell back with two slices from its mid section up to its shoulders. It stared, anger and frustration building as it saw the two daggers in Eli’s hands.
It took one step towards him and leaped head over heels, slamming him in the back of the head and sending him flying, face first, into the grass twenty feet from where he had stood. As he landed, his vision starting to darken around the edges. He cursed out loud. Letting one of these things get behind you is the fastest way to end up burning in hell for all of eternity. He flipped over to his back, he could make out the blurry form of the demon as it leaped up and tried to bring down it full force on top of him.. This is it. I failed. He thought to himself.
His body had other ideas. He brought his legs up and caught the creature right in the mid section. He kicked as hard as he could. It swung its mighty arms as its body was rejected. Its claw caught his leg. Blood, skin and denim flew as the creature landed on its back. Its form became almost liquid as its legs,body and head became one mass and then reformed already standing, It charged!
Its frustration was hindering its tactics. It charged blindly at him, failing to see that Eli had pulled his pm9 from what was left of his right leg. He had emptied half his clip into the demon before it realized it had lost the battle. He emptied the rest clip to make damn sure it knew.
Deep in the depths of hell, D'rqeth screamed as his most trusted soldier fell in battle against the human Eli. He had underestimated the young man, a mistake he would not make again. On his command, five new soldiers arrived on the surface.
At that moment, all over California, the bodies of five people that had just died, reanimated. On interstate 210 near Pasadena, two 30-something men stepped from the mangled metal that had been a jeep cj7 just moments before and looked at each other. Their bodies showing no signs of injury as they lifted into the air and began to fly North. In the small mountain town of Sonora, a ninteen year old woman stood up and walked through the counter and the man that had just shot her in the head because she could not open the cash register fast enough. She looked back at her human body still on the floor. She held no anger at the man that had killed her, nor did she have any fear. She had a mission. In Oakland, two gang members lay in street after a shootout with police. The two no longer cared about money or the two kilos of cocaine in the car that they abandoned on 7th Street near the port of Oakland. They had but one thought. Find and kill the human named Eli.
The sky turned a gloomy twilight; shadows stretched out in twisted, grotesque, barely recognizable forms from every tree. Coming from all directions at once, they latched onto the slumped remains of the demon. As soon as the shadow fingers grasped the limbs the of it and began to drag it back to hell; its eyes opened and it screamed.
Eli had heard the screams many times in his life. He knew every trick, every charade, every deplorable tactic the demons used. Beth had not and was not prepared when her eyes saw the creature being pulled down through the earth, but her ears (and her heart) heard Julie scream "Mommmmmmmmy......help me please!"
Her heart shattered and in that moment she felt something she had never felt before. Hatred, hatred for the man she once would have died for. Her brain tried to make sense of what had just happened. Her heart already knew.
"He murdered her".
"He saved your life".
"He killed your daughter".
"He destroyed a monster".
Beth collapsed to the ground.
As the ancient disappeared into the ground. the sun was bright. birds chirped. The little boy on the swing squealed with delight as his father pushed him even higher. Officer Keith O'brien saw Eli carrying the limp Beth towards Sixth street. He accelerated towards Fifth street. The left turn light was green, no need for lights or sirens as he turned left on Kings Avenue. As he pulled his cruiser to the curb at the veterans memorial park, he radioed into dispatch. "503 to dispatch".
"Go ahead 503".
"I will be code 7 at the park".
"Sure is a nice day for it, enjoy your lunch 503".
Officer O'brien walked across the street and sat down at a picnic table. He saw a maroon dodge ram turning left onto Robertson Boulevard and as soon as it had turned, it disappeared from his sight as well as his memory. Eli turned the truck South on Highway 99 and headed for the city of Fresno.
Less than two hours later, Eli emerged from the shower wearing only his blue Wrangler jeans, a white towel draped around his shoulders, his black hair was still wet and fell two inches past the towel. Beth fluttered her eyes open and watched him finish drying his long hair. She studied his body intensely; he hadn’t changed that much in the near decade since she had last seen him with nothing but jeans on. Shoulders were still broad, muscles still well defined. His hair was much longer and now he had the scars. His back looked like a road map with all the red lines and dark scars. “What had happened to him?” She said to herself. "Eli? What the hell just happened?" She surprised herself when she heard the panic in her voice.
Eli stood up straight, took a deep breath and turned to face her. “Hell is exactly what had just happened.” He thought to himself. He saw the confusion in her eyes and decided he had better start from the beginning. He knew it would sound crazy, and he wasn't exactly sure how to put it into words. He sat beside her on the bed and began the story; he told her word for word what the priest had told him all those years ago. He told her of his ancestors’ deal with the devil, how every male child since had been forced into the role of soldier. How each of his victories would pay a debt and free a soul of one soldier that had fallen before him.
When he had finished, he looked at her, expecting to see disbelief. Instead he saw recognition. As crazy as it all would have sounded to anyone else, it made sense to Beth. She sat up and looked Eli in the eye and began her own story: The pregnancy. How she cried and was full of despair when the doctor said she had miscarried. She had laid in the hospital for three days when her doctor told her they would have to do a "procedure" to remove the fetus since it had not discharged. Then, she felt the baby move. The doctors said "This isn't possible. Beth, it’s been brain dead for days. Even if it is somehow animated it won’t be healthy, let us abort it". That night a new doctor came to talk to Beth. He told her that the baby had normal brain function and would be healthy if she brought it to term. The next morning, Beth checked out of the hospital AMA (against medical advice) and went home. Five months later she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. A girl she named Julianne.
The flash of comprehension hit Eli like a freight train. He started to tell Beth that the ancient one had taken possession of the fetus. That's why she could see the demons. First time that someone not the blood of Eli’s ancestors could. There was a knock at the door as they spoke.
Beth spun around on the bed with a speed that rivaled Eli's; in the flash of an eye, she had cleared the bed and entered into a fighting stance. Her slim body turned ninety degrees from the door to make an even smaller target. She was ready to unleash a fury on anyone, or anything, on the other side of that door. Eli smiled. She had continued her martial arts training. “Good, she is going to need it if she is coming with me”. Eli said to himself.
"Relax", Eli said to Beth. "I have been expecting him, I called for him while you were resting". Eli opened the door. A priest stood at the threshold and handed Eli a black suitcase. His eyes widened when he saw Beth. He turned to Eli with a look of confusion and raised a finger of indignation and started to speak. With more than a slight tone of contempt Eli said, "Give Pope Frank my love," and slammed the door shut. Beth had never seen Eli disrespect a man of the cloth before. However, she did know when to not ask questions. Eli laid the suitcase on the adjoining bed and opened it. Beth saw an exact duplicate set of Eli's weapons. She looked at him. Eli looked back and said, "It's not safe for you anymore. You need to come with me, and you need to be armed for a war".
Beth and Eli spent the next nine hours in the foothills east of Fresno target shooting. Eli knew she didn't need that much in the way of accuracy but he wanted to work on her reflexes. Beth had practiced three different martial arts disciplines. Her reflexes were excellent and she was starting to get perturbed with Eli when he finally relented and said "Okay, I think you are ready". He led the way back the truck. As Beth walked behind him Eli felt uneasy...Something isn't right, he thought.
Beth had enough of the trigger engaged that the laser scope had a red dot on the back of Eli's head. He killed your daughter, the voice said. He saved my life!, her mind argued. Pull the trigger! the voice screamed. Eli turned to face Beth. Her Glock was holstered, but he still didn't feel right. He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in, Eli worried for the first time if he had made a mistake in bringing her. Did I make a fatal mistake in arming her? he thought to himself.
"Where are we going?" Beth asked as Eli got on the highway.
"Arizona, I have family there." Eli replied.
They ate dinner in Bakersfield and debated on taking the interstate out of Los Angeles or taking the old Highway 58 and go through Las Vegas. The mention of Las Vegas brought them both back to the memory of the promise they had made to each other to elope to Las Vegas on the night of Beth's eighteenth birthday. Neither of them would mention it, but they both smiled at the same memory and in unison said "VEGAS BABY!". They both laughed. It was a strange feeling for Eli and for a moment, he tried to remember the last time he laughed out loud. He couldn't recall it.
A moonless sky stretched out before them as they headed out across the desert. It had been at least an hour since Eli had seen another car. Beth was turned away from him staring out the passenger window when Eli got that uneasy feeling. His right hand slid slowly but deftly towards his holstered Glock. Through his peripheral vision, he saw Beth's arm moving slowly towards her own Glock.
“Here it comes”, Eli said to himself.
Then, as if some unseen referee said "fight", Beth and Eli both drew their weapons. The Dodge screeched to a stop on that isolated stretch of highway as the cab exploded with gunfire.
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