The others watched on, but Brother Ezekiel closed his eyes, letting the Lord speak through him. His body flexed from top to bottom, and he sensed every injury in that moment. From the base of his toes to the tips of his fingers. He could feel his essence and knew how to keep his body functional.
“Let us begin,” he said, opening his eyes. “Now!”
One. Ezekiel launched forth, his legs closing the distance and staff ready for use. The Inquisitors tightened their hold around their weapons, slowly taking aim.
Two. His enemies did not shoot. Not while the Chosen Ones were directly behind. To lay direct harm to either Liam or Evelyn was heresy, even with these stakes so high. God would never allow such sacrilegious violence against his vessel’s parents.
Three. It was at this moment that two facts became apparent for Aaron and his cohorts. The first was that they had chosen poorly in their strategy of using firearms to bring Ezekiel down, given the crossfire risk. The second fact was that their enemy moved faster than expected, and they could not react in time.
Discovering these facts did little to prevent what was to come.
Four. With a flip to the lower end of the staff for added reach, a single wide swing was all Ezekiel needed to cleave through two of the Inquisitors. The polished wood tore through their softened skulls. His grip slipped to the midsection, and momentum aided in his next attack, knocking the unholy rifle from Aaron’s hands before he could open fire.
Five. Still bearing their firearms, the remaining Inquisitors saw an opportunity created. Their barrels had followed Ezekiel’s entire trajectory, and now that Liam and Evelyn were no longer directly to his flank, they no longer concerned themselves with collateral damage. But Ezekiel had planned for this as well, and when the gunfire came, he shifted Aaron in the way. Allied bullets pelted his lithe form, and Ezekiel pivoted into a finale, quickly drawing his pistol. A pair of shots concluded this vile business. The Inquisitors dropped in a puff of black mist that burst from their skulls.
Ezekiel turned back and breathed deep, the Lord’s strength fleeting from his limbs in a flash. Liam and Evelyn gaped.
“Go!” Ezekiel ordered, but that was all he had time to say.
Aaron had not taken the headshot as he first assumed! Ezekiel’s body shuddered as a magazine emptied into his flesh.
But Ezekiel floundered into Aaron before he could land a killing blow. The two grappled against each other. More blows came into his side, and his arms seized as Aaron dug his nails into exposed nerves. Ezekiel was thankfully the larger adversary and could use the power of his legs to his advantage. One twist of his knees, and his Brother became locked in place. Aaron stared on, his eyes widened as the hold tightened. He reached again for that unholy rifle to save him.
Ezekiel watched this motion with disdain. With the power of the Lord at his back, he delivered a headbutt, God’s strength fortifying his own.
Aaron did not even have time to gasp as a larger skull caved into his own. Gore splattered against Ezekiel’s rotted cheeks, the taste of his Brother’s grey matter now clinging to his lips.
But then when Ezekiel looked back up, another rifle barrel pointed directly at his face, a black-colored silhouette raging behind. He tried to move, but found that his limbs had been spent on that final attack.
“Enough with this madness, Ezekiel!” Brother Jericho hissed. “You are not to move again!”
Ezekiel blinked through blurred vision and realized that more reinforcements had arrived. Another troupe of ten was closing the distance, their forms framed in black, with Jericho leading the charge. And his muscles had finally failed him. He wheezed.
But it seemed that Liam and Evelyn had heeded his call and shut the steel door behind, even ramming a metal rod so that none could pursue. Ezekiel grinned, knowing it would take much time before this barrier was breached again.
The Inquisitors reached the door while Brother Jericho barked orders, desperate to overcome this obstacle.
“So it seems that your heresy ends here, Ezekiel,” he said.
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Ezekiel coughed up blood. “Kill me if you must, Brothers. It changes nothing.”
“Do not call us your Brother!” Jericho roared, eyes burning below his scarred brow. “You are no longer under the Lord’s grace.”
“That is not for you to decide or anyone else. God loves all without equal, just as we must always do for each other.” He looked to the rest. “It is you who must repent, Brothers. This path that the Father has brought us down is not one that will ever bring us to salvation. Look at how much death and violence it has wrought.”
Jericho sneered. “Sin has corrupted your mind, Ezekiel. How can you say that the Lord forsakes us when we have accomplished so much?”
“And what have we accomplished, Brother Jericho?”
“We have swollen our ranks by a magnitude once deemed impossible. We have overthrown the Unholy City and made it into one beloved by God. We have destroyed so many heretics, and soon, we will end this Armageddon and Behold the Lord’s greatness. Why, our Brothers have never been stronger than now!”
He clenched his fists, his maroon eyes on fire. “All of this was accomplished by thrusting aside those arbitrary rules you insisted upon. By the mere act of claiming heretical weapons as our own, our strength became compounded, and this treacherous world bent to the Lord’s strength in a few short months alone!”
“This is a false kingdom built upon a bedrock of Sin, Brother Jericho. It does not matter how large our congregation becomes or how many heretics we defeat. If we abandon that which made us pure, it accounts for nothing.”
He grit his teeth. “I used to respect you, Ezekiel. But I see now that you are weaker than I believed, and would never be able to bring glory to the Lord. Were we to have followed your ways, the Head Huntress would have exterminated us during the first sortie. You clearly know nothing of God or what it means to lead Inquisitions against Sin.” He narrowed his eye into the rifle’s ironsight, ready to kill.
“If that is all you have learned about being an Inquisitor, then I must apologize to you, Jericho. I failed as your Brother to instill one simple truth.”
He raised an eyebrow, amused. “And what is that?”
Brother Ezekiel stared straight into his eye.
“God’s true warriors need no weapons.”
It all happened in a flash. Strength returned to Ezekiel’s limbs, and he flew straight up, as if raised by the Lord Himself. He clenched his fist and dove forth.
Jericho and the others opened fire at once, but it did not matter. Brother Ezekiel was no longer in control of his body. The Lord blessed his movements as he weaved in and out of the combat, smiting these misguided soldiers left and right.
It was not without error. Ezekiel lost a forearm against one brandishing a sword, and a shotgun blast exploded the last fibers in a knee. But Ezekiel’s frame merely pivoted to compensate. Like a ray of light cutting through a storm, he carried on with torn bones as his blades. The Inquisitors dropped, their pathetic weapons useless against God’s true power.
Soon, only Jericho remained. He switched to melee before the end, swinging a machete that could cleave an ordinary man in two. But even this tool was not enough to stop the power coursing through Brother Ezekiel at this moment. As the machete sliced into his neck, God pushed him forth with all His might. The two bodies became one as momentum carried them over the iron-wrought railings. They fell below.
Ezekiel gasped as he struck the ground, his strength once again extinguished. He glanced to his side. Jericho stared up, his jaw dropped and eyes empty. Grey matter leaked from his cracked skull where he struck the ground.
Ezekiel grunted, unable to do anything else.
Thank you, my Lord. Regardless of what came next, Ezekiel had been given a chance to repent for his Sins. After all the violence and hatred he had committed, the Lord had not forgotten him nor turned His love elsewhere. He had done what he could to save another in need. Yes, that would be enough to let him rest easy.
The blurred vision tightened into a tunnel the longer he lay in place… A bright light flashed ahead… He did not have much time himself… Of this, he was certain.
The light grew ever brighter. Voices began to echo out.
“Holy shit,” one said. “Did one of our crews get here first?”
“Think they did this to themselves,” another replied. So distant.
“Well, well,” a third said, this one female. “Looks like we find our guardian angel.”
A face appeared in front of his own. The mouth was obscured beneath a veil of burgundy cloth, but the eyes pierced deep into his soul from within a pale sea. Violet, like the flowers that bloomed when the virgin Mary was told of her immaculate conception.
“Looks like we’re too late,” the woman said.
Ezekiel did not understand these words, but as the world dimmed further and this pale-faced wraith hovered in front, he remembered another line from the Holy Word, now amended to accommodate this new vision.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, he recalled.
Her name was Death.