The demon knew it had missed a major opportunity as it watched the car speed off into the distance. It half-thought of catching it, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. At least not yet. There would be time for that later.
It twisted up the mangled bumper like a paper clip and threw it on the ground. It hadn’t realized that the woman was in labor until it was too late. Those were the best kind-a two for one. And what could be more innocent than a mother and her newborn. That would have been very good.
But the brat wasn’t born yet, so it had time. That’s one thing it did have-plenty of time. It had eternity.
It looked back at the church, the home of its enemy, the home of those who would destroy it. Something would have to be done about this church. It would send a clear message.
It stepped through the shattered doorway and stopped. The place was empty. That was disappointing. Especially since it’d killed the woman too quickly. It would destroy this place though, so no one could ever return to it.
It stepped forward down the aisle leading to the altar, and it recognized the hated sign, the sign of the cross. It had memories of that sign, when it had last walked the earth. Many of those who had sent it back had carried that sign. It felt wrath and rage burn from within it like a furnace. There was an alcove in the back of the church, with an open door leading to the altar, and glass windows making up the top section of the way on each side. It strode forward and smashed his fist through the middle section of windows. Glass flew everywhere, splintering and shredding into a billion pieces that embedded themselves on the floor, on the walls, and even in the ceiling. The sound was like music to it. The thing that had been its human contact woke up on his neck and looked at it in puzzlement, wondering why the endless burning had ceased. But now the demon Wrath wanted to make it more personal, more hands on, at least for now.
It walked through the glass wall, shattering the waist-high wood and plaster wall and walking right through several rows of pews. It looked at the cross at the back of the altar. That was its prize.
But as the demon stepped forward to pluck its prize, it felt a sudden barrier, weak at first, but definitely there. It stopped and probed ahead with its mind and its powers. There was no life. But power. Definitely power. It let out a deep, throaty grunt that sounded like fires churning from deep inside a volcano.
It stepped forward again, ruining another row of pews. The force was stronger now. It pushed back harder.
The demon growled once again. From deep inside, it relit the fire within itself. Time to put this place to the torch. The fire grew slowly, and the demon’s fires ignited. Its solid, black form turned orange, and became fluid. The human twin on its neck began to scream once again, and the demon laughed. Its body turned into a living volcano of superheated lava. It looked at the cross on the church’s altar and shot its hand forward. A piece of fire flew forward, like a meteor.
It all happened so quickly that an ordinary human eye wouldn’t have seen what happened. But the demon saw. Before it had traveled the fifty feet or so to the altar, the fireball had cooled, become solid, and turned into a rock-solid cube of black ice. The crystal stopped just inches from the cross, stopped dead in its tracks. It hung suspended in the air for several seconds, then dropped to the floor and shattered into a thousand harmless pieces each no larger than a grain of salt.
The demon stood in stunned silence. Even its human attachment stopped screaming, though the fires still burned at him. It felt its rage and wrath burn within itself, heating to a crescendo. Then, the tiny ice crystals reassembled themselves, magically, into a rock solid shape, the ice cold shape of a cross. The demon roared but could not find the strength to move forward. The cross then shot across the room and fastened onto what would have been the demon’s chest. The cherry-red fire turned white in the shape of the cross, and went out, cooling the area around it. Within seconds the demon had returned back to the black volcanic rock it had come in with. Only this time the transition wasn’t of its own choosing.
The cross burned it with the ironic fire of ice, an upside down cross that melted into its very chest like the cross of an ancient crusader, and a poet’s words lingered in its mind. “Some say the world will end in fire, and some say of ice.” The demon had courted fire. This new scenario had caught it by surprise.
It snarled in anger and found that it could not break any more pews. Its body had become cold and lethargic. Its will was even going.
“No!” it screamed. “Hellfire and brimstone will win. But for now the ice will suffice.”
Furious, it walked out of the church. This place was too strong. At least for now. And he had other things to attend to. But he would come back and mess this place up when he became stronger. And each new life made him strong. So now he would go and kill some more. He’d kill children. And he’d take that baby that was just about to be born.