The Chronicles of Logan DeRais: The One That Bleeds

Inside the fortress, past the waterfall, Laura and I walked past many damned souls, too weak to be soldiers, lying on the ground all around our path. It was a horrible site to see: Blood leaking from their very pores, some lacking arms or legs, even children lying in the filth of the street without family, friends, or anyone to care for them. These three hundred-some damned soul, crippled until we found a more powerful healer, were no help to our cause, but no hindrance either. Every soul we had subtracted from the feeding pits where Lucifer’s army gathered its strength, and this was crucial to our plan. We would starve them out, then lay siege to his fortress. This was how we would conquer Lucifer’s kingdom.

As we traversed the city behind the waterfall, the damned began to gather around us, touching us. Just trying to lay a hand on myself or Laura. They thought we were good luck, according to Christina, and touching us would help make them stronger. We eventually reached the city limits; a large, steel wall blocked in the headquarters and training grounds of our army. I walked up to the wall, and placed a hand on it. A series of quick pains in my hand occurred, and the words, “Welcome General Warren,” were emitted from the wall as an opening appeared for me to walk through. Laura did the same, and we entered the heart of our operation. Calls all around us rang out as people welcomed us back. They just washed over me at this point. I had heard them so many times. It was always a big event when a team came back home, especially if they were successful, and they always received a warm welcome back by half of Zion, our city. Zion was named after a city in the Bible. Well, we didn’t exactly have a bible...more like a few burnt pages. See, Lucifer didn’t exactly allow bibles, or crosses, or anything holy. Long before my time, he had discovered that priests and other being s of great and god-given power had been smuggling bibles into Hell. There was a great burning that night of every book in Hell. Lucifer looked into every single being’s mind, living and dead, to discover who had the holy books. Then, he killed them all, and took the bibles, placing them in a great hole. They were all lit on fire, and incinerated. Later, in the absolute dead of night, a group of Knights of the Harrowing stole down into the pit, under the guise of daemons searching for plasm to harvest, and ferreted through the awful remains of the holy books. They were able to recover fifteen badly burnt pages that were still readable. They were brought back to the temple of the Knights of the Harrowing, and kept save inside a magikal vault of the utmost power. Over time, various daemons had made their way to the temple, and tried to take possession of the pages, but none prevailed. Lucifer knew of them, but he could take no direct action against them because of the potency of the wards over the temple. They had been set by the ancient sage, Azatlan, the greatest mage in all of Hell and earth. Then, the raid came. In the dead of night, we were awakened to the sound of battle. At that point, I had joined the Knights of the Harrowing, and was apprenticed to Azatlan himself. The daemons were launching an assault on us, in an attempt to take the pages by force. We drove them back after a two month long siege. Unfortunately, in the process, Azatlan was killed by the Watcher, Kakabael. On that night, Lucifer took possession of all but three of our pages, and burnt them before our eyes. I was one of the only Knights who escaped. With me was one of my comrades, Jakob, and our leader, Michael. The three of us were the most powerful Knights in the order. We each went our own separate ways, and began our own Order. Mine was destroyed by the vampires. I do not know the fate of my comrades. Anyway, that was where Zion had received its name. Joshua, one of the lieutenants, chose a city from page number two, and that was the name we took for our hidden fortress. Zion. I liked it the name. For some reason, it sounded right.

Laura and I made our way patiently through the crowd, shaking a few hands, letting everyone touch us somewhere, and accepting a couple of gifts from some of the damned. A mail shirt, blessed by a priest. A basket with food in it. A small glowing dagger. I would rather the givers saved these gifts for themselves, in time of need, but it was true that we would probably need them much more than they would. Finally, we reached the point where they could not follow. We both turned, waving goodbye to the adults and few children that were in our army, then opened the door to the inner sanctum and went through. We were greeted again by happy faces and clapping. All of the leaders were there waiting for us. Aốdfin, the Jabberwock; Christina, who was neither smiling nor clapping; Joshua, who was in the persona of Death and wore black robes and took the appearance of a skeleton; Vic, who was one of the last Titans, a race of extremely intelligent hulks; And Supreme Commander Mason DeRais. The rest of my companions who I had introduced you to before, Irene, Kara, and Argon, were there. There was one other being who was high up: His name was Chalbys Anguїs. He never surfaced from his cave. Rumor was that he was an undead sorcerer, constantly concentrating on spells to try to keep Zion undiscovered.

Supreme Commander Mason stepped forward. I knew from Christina that Mason had once been a Fallen Angel. Well, he still was, but after Lucifer had captured him, he had been stripped of his wings by constant torture by the dark lord. He reached out a hand, and grasped mine.

“Very well cone, General Warren. Very well done. Thanks to you, our ranks have increased by one hundred strong,”

“Thank you sir,” I said, shaking his hand. He took me with his arm over his shoulder, and turned me away from the rest of the group.

“What’s going on, sir?” I asked him. The commander was not one for much physical contact. It had something to do with his time imprisoned by Lucifer. He was very very jumpy all the time, and disliked being touched.

“We’ve had a new development,” Mason said quietly, “I want you to keep this quiet from everyone. Do you understand me? What you are about to hear does not leave this conversation. You can’t tell anyone about it, especially not Lieutenant Regina,”

I saluted him, “You can count on me, sir,”

He smiled, “Good. I had hoped so,”

We walked towards the cave that served as his cell. Once we were seated inside, he made several passes with his hands at the door. It glowed bright blue for a minute, then returned to normal.

“Cone of silence,” he supplied me, “No one will overhear us now, besides Vic, if he’s listening. We don’t need to worry about him, though. I think he already knows, at any rate,”

“So,” I began, “What do you have for me, Commander?”

“Its...” he began, then trailed off. I leaned in, eager to hear what he had to say.

“It's about the Prophecy,”

I felt my breathing quicken in spite of myself. The Prophecy...everyone knew of it. The shaman of the Damned had made it eons ago. An angel would come to Hell, and he would destroy Lucifer and take over his kingdom.

“But I thought...I thought the chosen one had been killed?”

“Yes,” Mason replied, “That’s the problem,”

“Hmmm...”I supplied intelligently.

“There has been an update, however,” he said, excited.

“In his research, Chalbys Anguїs has discovered something. Ancient magik previously unknown to us. When an angel as powerful as the Chosen One is killed, he is not completely destroyed. His essence does not leave Hell, to take residence in the Twilight Realm. He was fighting for a cause, and as long as one being in Hell believes in it, he will always return from the dead. The time that it takes varies, depending on how many followers he had at his time of demise. When Lucifer murdered him, he was travelling with a group of five: Vic, Christina, myself, Aốdfin, and Joshua. After a month of research, Chalbys Anguїs has discovered the date of the Chosen One’s revival,” he said.

I waited anxiously, hanging on Mason’s next word.

“He will return in exactly one week. The magik places him at a random place within Hell. This is your assignment, General Warren. Find the Chosen One. Find him before anything else does,”

I stared at him in disbelieve, “You want...me? You want me to do this?”

He nodded.

“Why?” I asked in amazement, “I’m just a general. This is a job for Christina, or Vic, or someone else!”
“don’t you want to do it?” he asked quizzically.

“No, I want to do it! It’s just a great honor. I never thought...wow. I’m going to meet the Chosen One,”

“Not only are you going to meet him,” said Mason, clapping his hands on my shoulders, “You’re going to save his live. The Chosen One will be helpless and alone when he is first revived. He will have less power than a newborn baby. You must protect him,”

“Whoa...” I started to say, then straightened up.

“Thank you Sir. I am honored to do this for you. For our cause,”

“Good,” he said, “Now remember, you can’t tell anyone else. Especially not Crepescula Regina!” he said again.

I began to get suspicious, “What’s wrong with Lieutenant Regina?” I asked.

He groaned, “Warren...Ah...I don’t think I should tell you this,”

I immediately got defensive. “What’s wrong? Tell me, goddamnit,” I demanded.

“Oh, alright Warren,” he gave in, “Just...just stay calm, all right? I know about this thing going on between you and Christina, so this might be a little hard to hear,”

“Just say it, damn you,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I knew what was coming, and all I could do was hope I was wrong.

“Before the Chosen One was killed, he and Christina were together,”