Exousia - The Patron Saints of the Damned -Book II
Prologue - The Challenge

Prologue

The Challenge

By the time of Ammon’s Challenge, the Earth had changed since the days I’d wandered upon it. Spirits, monsters, and the old races had been forcefully pushed from existence by natural selection. For how could the products of divine imaginations have hoped to compete with the plants and animals adapted only for survival. Only well-hidden traces of the old world remained—the ones who hid in plain sight, those in dark crevices where they could never be found, and my own apprentice who was caught somewhere in between.

–Dufaii “On Heaven’s Champion Volume III”

-O-

Exousia walked along traintracks in dawn hour of a crisp Alabama autumn, following a light trail of blood. By all appearances, she seemed to be just a teenager in tattered clothes. Not a being whose soul was now part demon … and part god. This was for the better; she knew the attention she might attract in a small country town already. As she emerged from the forest, she kept her head down and followed the tracks until she reached a red brick trainstation. The trainstation was at the edge of a small antiquing town; it was unused and had been remodeled as a minor exhibit. The building marked what little history had not been forgotten by the people. The world of humans had long since left their past behind them.

For the first time in a long while, Exousia caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the trainstation windows. She noted the messy state of hier wiry chin-length brown hair. It was caught in tangles that had caught a twig that now dangled below her ear. Her eyes had not only brown irises but also nearly imperceptible black lines that went from the whites of her eyes, through the irises, and into the pupils. There were also slightly dark circles under them, like she hadn’t slept in a while. Her face was smudged in dirt and ash. The grime almost hid the long scar that ran from her temple to her jaw, and it further darkened her grim expression. She brushed the leaf in her hair away and kept going.

Exousia put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie to protect them from the chilly morning wind. Fortunately, she had dressed in anticipation for the fall weather. Her hoodie, covered with scorch marks, was made of a green cloth that had worn and faded with time. There were numerous stitches to cover tears in the fabric, and it had a brass-colored zipper in the front. She wore this over a gray tee, blue jeans, and brown leather sandals with heavy rubber tread made for hiking.

Like a series of dull hums in an otherwise quiet room, she sensed some of the people of the town nearby. There was a couple jogging nearby, their energies bouncing in unison; an elderly man on his porch with a cup of coffee that slowly fed warmth into his aura; and a pharmacy clerk whose energy made a particularly abrasive noise as she exited her car to begin a dreaded day at work. These sorts of things were easy for Exousia to read, they were common enough that she no longer needed to even see these humans directly to know that they posed little threat so long as they themselves did not feel threatened.

Still, Exousia had been taught that the surest way to attract attention was to worry about being seen. So, she walked with a quiet air of purpose that made people less likely to notice her. She walked casually past the trainstation and the man drinking coffee on the front porch of the neighboring building. Feeling the old man’s attention, she turned in front of the pharmacy so that the old man’s eyes caught those of the pharmacist. The two humans waved at one another and exchanged unspoken pleasantries, while Exousia continued on her way.

With the same senses that let Exousia detect the feel the life thrum of the humans before she saw them, she now sensed her target so that she no longer needed the trail of blood she’d followed along the train tracks. This energy she now followed was sharp, rapid, chaotic, like a dozen animals trapped in a room, all biting and clawing. It led her until she found herself in front of a police station with the light of the early morning sunrise reflected off the glass.

Exousia had to pause and cup her hands to the glass to see in. Inside, there was nothing but a waiting room, a front office desk, and a woman attending it with sleepy eyes and a coffee cup in hand.

It seemed that the humans inside were unaware of the monster that was in there with them. That meant that they also didn’t know that Exousia was the one who had wounded it. She couldn’t afford for it to track her down and surprise her again … she feared she might not survive another attack.

Exousia nearly walked in—but stopped—when she saw a bulletin board beside the door. She glanced over the few posters neatly stapled to the glass-encased cork-board and saw three of interest. The first was a public notice of the new town curfew for pedestrians, except for on designated well-lit streets that were highlighted in a poorly rendered map. The second poster was an advisory to beware suspicious activity, to avoid hitchhikers, and to travel in pairs due to a recent increase in missing persons. The last poster was least noticeable among the other advisories. The print read: “Wanted – Any information leading to the capture of the Woodcutter.” It was accompanied by a phone-number in small print and the promise of a reward.

Closing her eyes, Exousia reached through his own life force and drew upon a power within herself. The energy she searched for was like a small pocket of oil, lost in the lake of other energy that comprised her being. After years of practice, she had a mental map of this lake and was quickly able to replace that demon energy which she’d used so many times before. Finally, as if she’d been reaching in the dark, she felt what she’d been searching for.

The surface of her skin immediately reacted with a tingling sensation and then became numb as her silhouette transitioned from physical existence to the ethereal plane. She opened her eyes to see her reflected features become blurred and shadowy. This inhuman magic would not make her invisible, but it would make it so that neither people nor cameras could focus in on her features. She then opened the glass door of the police-station and stepped into the air-conditioned lobby. She resisted her body’s impulse to shiver from the cold as she faced the woman at the front desk.

The woman widened her eyes in surprise and then made a sour expression. She took off her glasses, polished them with the fabric of her floral print dress, and then looked at Exousia again. Finally, she rubbed her eyes, grumbled something under her breath, and said, “May I help you, ma’am?” She seemed to replace the use of this last word, in regard to the teen, distasteful.

“A man is here, not one of your officers,” Exousia said before she caught a whiff of the air. To her, the stench of infection was heavy on the air, though other humans might have missed it. There was a feeling too … a heat like fever. Living flesh trying to fight off death by burning it, just as a body fought a virus. Exousia shook her head, and then said, “He’s in the back of this building.”

“Excuse me!” the woman said, looking her up and down with something between a smile and a scowl. The expression said she might have been amused, were she not so astounded by the audacity. “You are not going in there. Stanley!”

Exousia lifted her leg in front of her with a swift motion and planted her heel in the wooden desk with inhuman strength. This sent the desk sliding into the woman with a terrible impact. Bones cracked and her torso collapsed motionlessly over the furniture.

Exousia walked toward the door that was behind the front desk. But as she reached for the handle, she saw it move. She moved swiftly to the side of the door.

It was opened by a large male officer in a tan uniform and sports sunglasses. The man’s gun was drawn and aimed in front of him.

Exousia lunged, grabbed his wrist, and used the momentum of her movement to power her palm into the man’s elbow—creating an audible snap. She then pulled that fist backward to elbow the man in the temple, knocking slamming his skull against the door frame. The officer crumpled to the floor.

Exousia stepped over the man and toward the morgue, following the smell of a feverish wound down to the far end of a short hall. This was no longer the only smell, however. Now, the metallic smell of blood was emanating through the air. A certain foreboding feeling came upon her, but it was not the kind she expected. Exousia had hunted humans and monsters alike, both of which became far more dangerous when wounded and cornered. Whether they scurried for to replace something to defend themselves with or to try and hide, they made lots of noise and their minds buzzed violently like a mad hornet nest. But this target had become calmer, more still. Like the target knew that its energy from before had been loud … and had now quieted it in wait to spring a trap.

As Exousia walked, she reached into her pocket and removed a black utility knife. She readied the longest blade, made of what would appear to most as black steel. She held it in a backward grip a she stopped in front of an unmarked metal door. She took a breath and opened it.

Inside, was a small room with featureless gray walls and a large mirror that was probably one-way glass. This had to be the interrogation room. Unlike the rest of the police station, which was lit with fluorescent lights, the only light here came from a crude-looking red candle flickering in the center of a metal table. No wax yet trickled down the sides, so it had only just been lit. On either side of the candle, there were two distinct circles markings made with what looked like either chalk or trails of salt. Within one of the circles were two rats, both with their heads missing and blood oozing from the bodies. This was the source of the smell.

Within the other circle, there was another small animal. It was a small brown bird sitting still with its eyes and mouth wide open, as if it were trying to scream but too scared to do so. When it saw, Exousia, its head turned towards him frantically and it tried to take flight. But its wings flittered uselessly, and it seemed unable to stand..

A tall man with long arms and legs stepped out from the shadows of the corner of the room, almost invisible for how still he had become. He wore his long hair and beard in a series of black and gray dreadlocks. He was clothed in a mix of synthetic colors and animal skins. The clothing on his chest was slashed to ribbons, revealing a thin but muscular body underneath that only bore the slightest trace of ever having been scratched.

One could have never guessed that Exousia’s knife had left him holding in his innards with his hands only a few hours earlier. The tall man smiled grandly, revealing pristine teeth that reflected the candle’s glow.

Upon seeing him, Exousia’s demeanor changed. This was no longer just a target that she had to hunt down at any cost. This was a grave threat … one that was not intimidated by her. She was about to sprint towards the table to grab the wounded bird when she heard a heavy crash coming from the door to the main lobby she had just passed through. She looked at the table and saw the two headless rats now standing on their hind legs.

The door to the interrogation room turned makeshift morgue was slammed open and the two humans she’d just encountered piled through. One was the woman with cracked ribs, and the other was the police officer with his broken arm dangling limply at his side. Their eyes shimmered yellow, glossed over with mindless expressions. Barely visible except for a brief glimmer from the candlelight, was an ethereal golden string coming from each of their chests and running to the table in a wisplike fashion. Like single strands of luminescent spider web. But when they saw Exousia, they bared their teeth like snarling dogs and dove at her face first.

Exousia dove in the opposite direction, and then rolled to maximize her distance. She landed on the side of the room and looked around for something to defend herself. All she saw was a metal chair. She picked it up and lifted it over hier head just as the two milky-eyed humans made it back onto their feet to repeat their attack.

When they lunged, Exousia spun her body to maximize the arch of her attack and struck the much bulkier police officer in his side, audibly breaking several more bones. His body collided with hers and the two of them were sent rolling. Buying herself a moment, Exousia returned hier attention to the table where the bird had been.

But the tall man was standing over it now, having chosen to take his bird instead of running out the door. With a thick Cajun accent, he said, “For a child that has hunted so many monsters, your ability to recognize a trap when you see it is dreadfully poor. I’d fear the ferocious violence you’d have to be capable of to make up for your shortcomings, except for a certain spiritual benefactor that revealed your weakness.” He held up a silver blade.

Exousia cocked her head, confused. Who had told this shaman that her weakness was silver? Though she was on amicable terms with some werewolves and vampires, she herself was certainly not one.

“But the honor of killing you goes to the spirit who promised to pay handsomely for it,” The shaman said. He lifted the bird to his open mouth and used his teeth to wrench its head from its shoulders. With blood trickling down his chin, he then threw his head back and let out an unnatural scream. It reverberated off the walls and fill the air so that it drowned out even the sound of the giant glass mirror shattering.

Exousia’s eyes widened; she had to keep from covering her ears and falling to the ground. Instead, she lunged forward, slapped away the knife that was pointed at her, and grabbed the shaman’s vibrating throat. With a violent jerk Exousia ripped a handful of flesh from the shaman’s neck, turning the supernatural bird-spell scream into a bloody gurgle.

The shaman fell to his knees, covering his throat. In his last moment, he looked at the useless knife he’d been given and then up at his killer, knowing he’d been tricked. He collapsed to the ground. His puppets, the woman and the police officer who were hobbling back to defend their master, also fell. But the scream, his final spell at the expense of that small bird’s life, was still at work.

A rolling rumble like thunder began in the far distance, outside the police station. It gained moment, as it approached with speed unknown of most supernatural forces. The presence struck the front door of the building, with explosive and destructive force. Then, a shadow entered the interrogation room and collided with the shaman’s body. The impact caused the corpse to seize violently. His head lifted, and his hazel bloodshot eyes opened. They looked glassy and confused for just a moment. But then this expression was overtaken as oily blackness spilled from his pupils and replaced all other color in his eyes.

The shaman opened his mouth to speak, but only managed to gurgle through his ruptured throat. Viscous globules of blood just oozed from the hole in his neck. So, instead, it looked Exousia in the eyes.

Exousia heard a voice in her mind, though her ears heard nothing.

“It’s time.” This was not the voice of the shaman. This somber tone belonged to a demon named Ammon … one whom she knew … who had once even been one of his teachers. Ammon continued to speak through his pupper, “You’ve made yourself ready to contest me. Now, I formally challenge you.”

“That’s why you sent the shaman … to replace me,” Exousia said, and lowered her gaze as she realized the nature of the trap that had been set for her. She had thought that her former teacher had sent the shaman to attack her in a fit of madness, one of his increasingly frequent violent episodes. However, Ammon had hired the shaman in a calculated effort to issue his challenge from the safety of a possessed corpse.

All this came as something of a surprise to Exousia, though she knew she should have expected it. After a moment, she shook her head, looked up, and asked, “Describe the Challenge you have prepared.”

“We will test the humans—young ones whose souls are far from darkness and corruption. As the Creator’s champion, you must prove that they can withstand the corrupting influence of my kind if they really wish to. You will guide to safety and protect them, while I push them to their limits. You may not kill the humans to prevent their corruption. A violation will mean forfeiture of this contest.”

“You will abide by the laws of the Balance in the Challenge?” Exousia asked. She asked because she understood that not even the purest of hearts could withstand the direct psychic control of a demon–possession or mind control as what had happened with this shaman.

Because of the terms of the Balanace–an accord between Heaven and Hell to ensure that only a small percentage of humans could be harvested for the latter through fair hunts–demons only used their telepathic powers to plant thoughts and ideas into humans and only take those whose hearts were corrupted through their own willful rejection of the basic goodness of their humanity. Of course, the Challenge was a new deal all of its own, a contest to determine whether Ammon would get his opportunity to kill the Creator and establish a new Balance.

So, Exouisa needed verbal confirmation that these rules would still apply at least for now.

“I will.” Ammon replied with a grave tone. The way that he said it was firm, as if to imply that he had no need to resort to cheap tricks. “If I communicate with the humans, it will be only that. They will have to decide whether they want to listen.”

Exousia gritted her teeth, still not liking the odds she was faced with. She had little faith in the strength or the integrity of humans, and how could she have more than that? In her opinion, it only took one look at the parasitic nature of human society to understand that it was barbarism based the right of the powerful to take advantage of those at their mercy. What was worse was that this right was then zeolously defended by the least of those. Humans were either predators or sycophantic prey, and there were few exceptions. And the systems by which they lived were nothing more than gears in a machine, a culinary mechanism that prepared souls for demon consumption.

However, as the chosen Champion of Heaven, it was Exousia’s duty to fight on behalf of the humans and the justice within the Creator’s laws and world. This was the case whether she believed in what she was meant to fight for or not. She had been chosen by the Creator. If Ammon won this challenge against her, earned his right to fight the Creator, and killed the divine being, war between Heaven and Hell was assured. And with Hell divided between allegiances, there was no way demons could win a war against twice as many angels. Especially not in the weakened state that dwelling in the eternal abyss had left the demons in.

Thus, whether Exousia despised Heaven or not, it was her job to keep Ammon from his war until Hell was united. Before, that had meant hiding and stalling the Challenge for as long as possible; now that Ammon had found her, it meant winning. There was nothing unfair about the Challenge that Ammon had designed for their contest. That meant there were no grounds for refusal.

So, Exousia stood as tall as she could at her relatively low stature, and looked at her nemesis with cold determination. She nodded and said, “I accept.”

“Just like that, you simply accept this foolish game! Don’t you realize it doesn’t have to happen like this?” Ammon shouted. His face contorted in a rage that was not characteristic of the teacher that Exousia had once known. When Ammon had finished, he blinked a few times and looked around with a confused expression. His shoulders slumped. “These humans don’t deserve this, what we’ve done to them so that we could survive. I don’t want to bring them harm … nor to my kind … and especially not to you.”

Exousia could tell that her former teacher was struggling to maintain his sanity against the madness that had infected him in the years long before her birth. The illness that had become progressively and exponentially worse just during her own lifetime. She shook her head grimly and replied, “It doesn’t matter what either of us want. If you win this challenge and the allegiance of the rest of your kind, all demons will be punished in a way that makes their current prison look like paradise.”

“But-” Ammon said, a small spark igniting in the shaman’s black eyes for an instant before it was gone. Whatever thought he’d had was snatched away by the disease. The sickness left the demon looking around the room as if he’d momentarily forgotten where he was and what he had been saying. It took him a moment to regain some degree of visible recollection. Then, he said, “I know that there is a way to win against the Creator and that this is the only way to make that happen. I just … know. But the madness makes everything so cloudy.”

Exousia didn’t know how to reply. She did her best to continue standing tall and keep her face and aura from betraying any hint of emotion. There were feelings rushing around inside of her: empathy, fear, pity, and probably other emotions underlying the ones she immediately felt. But she knew that she could not afford to give the demon any hint of weakness that could be used in the battle to come.

Ammon looked at her with and said with a very tired psychic tone, “You’re right. It falls upon me to do this. And if I’m wrong and the madness truly has taken over … it then falls on you to save demon-kind from me and someday replace a way to free them. The Challenge will begin in the woods … the ones that were your home.” Then, he was silent. The blackness in the shaman’s eyes gradually began to melt away like thick wax, draining slowly back into his pupils. The shaman’s head fell back onto the metal table heavily with the demon’s presence gone. Unlike his summoning, this was quiet, like a candle flickering out.

However, there was still some kind of life remaining in the shaman’s corpse, chaotic like it had been when the man had lured Exousia to the police station.

Exousia knelt over the body and placed her bloody hand over the shaman’s throat. It was much warmer than a living human’s regular body temperature. This was the same healing process that had saved him when his stomach had been cut open during their earlier battle. If left alone, the shaman would soon breathe again. The question then was whether he should be allowed to return to life.

Exousia didn’t know enough about the shaman to say. Obviously, his service had been bought by Ammon for the trap. Now that the shaman’s task was done, he wasn’t likely to persist as a threat. And Exousia was not in the business of monster hunting, destroying all traces of the old world or even those she came into brief conflict with. But she knew through experience that Ammon had a tendency to send a certain type of monster her way. In a way, it was as if his lesson had never truly ended.

Exousia began to search through the shaman’s blood-encrusted pockets. She found a felt bag, about the size of a purse, hand-stitched from various animal hides, and bound with a leather cord. When she did, she felt a static discharge. She proceeded to slowly remove the bag, set it upon the stone floor, and then let her hand hover over it.

The bag was moving, containing an animal that squirmed with the energy of what she guessed to be a reptile. Its spirit, however, moved with much more tremendous power. She could feel the tossing, twisting, writhing energy inside. Whatever was in the bag was the source of the power of regeneration. This was no common magical artifact.

Exousia placed both hands on the bag, closed her eyes, and allowed a part of herself to be drawn into the power. It beckoned her; it wanted her to take it for her own. She sifted through the siren calls, ignoring them until she felt the core within. Human spirits … bound within the animal writhing in the bag. With no language to communicate their pain, they raged with pure emotion and power, unrestricted by coherent thoughts or mental constructs. Among them, barely making a whisper among the torrents of energy, was the spirit of the small animal. It … wasn’t even in control of its own body. That had been given to the twisted amalgamation of spirits.

Exousia withdrew. She took the bag and placed it into the large front pocket of her green hoodie. Now that she knew the source of the shaman’s power, deciding the fate of the monster before her became a simple matter.

Using her inhuman strength, Exousia dragged the shaman by an ankle out of the interrogation room. She brought the reanimating corpse into a supply closet that had been left half-open. There, Exousia found a bulk-sized bottle of antibacterial disinfectant in gel form. She lifted the bottle, unscrewed the top, and began to slosh the gel up and down over the body.

Exousia reached into one of the many pockets sewn into the inside of his green jacket and pulled out a flint and steel. She lifted them together to create a spark that ignited and spread with a small blue flame across the shaman’s body. The fire flickered and crackled as it burned corpse and soon spread to nearby office supplies. The smells of human flesh, fire, and disinfectant filled the room.

Exousia used her powers to keep her form obscured as she returned to the train tracks. She saw several onlookers who scattered and reached frantically for their phones as soon as she left the building. She wasn’t certain if they suspected her of something, if their inability to really see her was frightening to them, or if they were most concerned with the smoke. However, none of them followed or made any attempt to stop her. So, within a few minutes, she was on the traintracks and headed back into the forest. Behind her, sirens from emergency response vehicles blared.

Exousia continued to walk without much concern for what was happening behind her. What concerned her now was what lay ahead, past the forest and farmlands. She stopped about a mile out, where the plants and undergrowth began to thicken on either side of the traintracks. This was where she’d left her wooden staff stuck in the gravel beside the rails. Though it might have been useful in the battle against the shaman, there was no way she could have avoided attention if she’d carried it into town.

The staff was taller than she was, made of the spiraling root of a juniper tree. She’d sanded it and used a mixture of oils to harden and preserve it. Even so, it had definitely seen wear—from the smooth place where she held it to the notches from using it as a weapon. She had attached a leather cord to two points along the wood so that he could carry it on her back. In a practiced gesture, she threw it over his shoulder and continued on.

As Exousia walked, the sirens gradually became so far away that she could no longer hear them. The air warmed a bit and the wind blew only slightly. After an hour like this, she stopped and opened the felt bag.

There was a coral snake inside, red stripes touching yellow bands. The snake, tormented and confused by the spirits raging inside of it, did not even have the ability to slither normally.

Exousia pinched the creature behind the head and let the bag fall to the ground. Then, she reached into her jean pocket with her free hand, pulled out her black knife, and used her teeth to open the smaller blade.

The snake writhed as she held it, whipping its tail around and wrapping around her arm.

Exousia bit her lower lip and drew a deep breath as she brought the knife close. It was sharp … sharper than any tool of its kind. She’d made it that way for exactly what She was about to do. Exousia turned the snake upside-down and made a precise cut through the uppermost layer of the snake’s underside. The cutting through the soft but tough belly scales made an unpleasant sound. It also caused the animal to writhe and wheeze nasally with pain, as did the spirits of humans within. They were feeling all of this.

However, Exousia did not stop. She cut through the animal’s muscles, and around its arteries, organs, and bones—straight to its still-beating heart. Though anyone else who saw the creature would have only seen a tiny heart, Exousia saw something more. She saw a small, ethereal, glowing pocket of energy that was embedded in the beating red organ.

The glow was dimming and became darker with every second that the animal’s life-force left it. If the animal died in this state, it and all the spirits inside would be bound together in the afterlife. There was no telling where this sort of combined chimera spirit would replace itself, or what it would do once it was no longer bound to its body or the earthly realm. It might become lost in the universe, alone for the rest of eternity.

For Exousia, there was no taking that chance, no matter how much temporary pain she inflicted upon the spirits inside. Moving quickly, she cut the small pocket to separate and release each of the raging spirits within it, as well as the spirit of the snake. They became confused wisps of steam, no longer bound together in rage and madness. They darted away from one another and then flew in confused twirling patterns for a brief few moments of what must have been surprising peace and relief. Before dissipating into the cool air. Each would be free to pass naturally from the mortal plane. Soon, all of them were gone, and only the animal’s corpse remained.

With a tired sigh, Exousia left the snake’s body far enough from the traintracks to not endanger any scavengers. She laid it neatly on the ground and allowed all the sadness, remorse, and anger, to well up inside of her.

For Exousia, it felt like a marker. Forcing herself to do this was all she could do to give significance to the tragedy and cruelty of what these spirits were forced to endure at her hand. It was also the only vengeance and retribution she could take against a universe and Creator that allowed them to experience such suffering.

Then, after that moment of release, Exousia willed herself to stop. She buried those emotions deep within. They would become yet another source—another spiritual doorway—by which she would be able to access the strength she needed for the challenge ahead.