The demons had taken up the chase by now, but they were not going to get far without natural eyes. The clientele inside the Weary Traveler suited their special needs. The nightly patrons were just the sort of dregs and addicts who made it easy for the demons to move right in, control their weak minds, and inhabit their bodies.
The heavy wooden door burst open, and a motley crew of demon-controlled bar patrons spilled out into the street. This lot would not clamor on the rooftops with bumbling pirates. They took the swifter route through the streets. Now they had natural eyes with which to see Shaddai’s Deliverer.
There was an old woman in her eighties. She had lived a hard life addicted to Pharmakia and could barely walk these days. But under the control of these dark forces, particularly the demon leading the brigade, she was more spry than a ten year old on chocolate.
The next was a man in his fifties. He had served in a previous war, losing an arm for his service. A hooked hand now resided in its place. Hook hand had lost his wife to a bout of plague sweeping through Tilley nearly ten years ago. These days he was a regular patron at the Weary Traveler, mostly because they allowed him to purchase his drink on credit for a few days at a time.
The last was a young man who swept and mopped the inn. He was also responsible for removing the rowdies. Being a man of considerable size, he would bounce them out on their heads into the street whenever the barkeep gave him leave. Being a bit of a street bully growing up, the bouncer enjoyed this part of his job the most.
Three demons had been near the docks when the wounded pirate captain had shown up earlier screaming his head off about his broken arm and the young man who had done it. When the captain’s arm had been set into a splint onboard his ship, by the resident surgeon, the same three demons had been listening.
The pirate captain had sworn his revenge on the young man in the green cloak and the ruddy youth traveling with him. When the captain had organized his men to go back to the Weary Traveler inn, three demons had followed them. They waited to see exactly who the youths were and where they could be found. Now, the pirates had flushed out the prey. Three demons sped down the dark streets of Tilley inhabiting the only three people who had not fled the inn when the pirates had returned.
Five blocks away from the Weary Traveler Inn, Ethan and Gideon paused, attempting to find a safe way down to the streets, or a way to circle back to the stables and their horses. The noisy pursuit of the pirates had faded by now as the boys had nimbly outmaneuvered them several rooftops back. The city sounded alive below them. People made their way to taverns where they could spend what little money they had on drink and frivolity.
“There’s an alley on this side with some crates and hay bales, Gideon. Do you think we could make the drop here?”
Gideon walked over to where Ethan was standing on the edge of the roof. Under the cast of an oil burning street lamp, they saw what appeared to be a delivery yard for a seed and feed business. Bales of hay and stacks of seed bags lay just beneath them. A wagon sat parked on the opposite side. The drop from here was more than twenty feet.
Then Gideon spotted something that might help them. Against the wall, on the opposite side of the alley, lay a tall ladder on its side. Other farm equipment and tools were stacked nearby or hung on the wall by hooks. But there was no way for them to reach the ladder.
“What happened to you exactly when you disappeared back at the camp?” Gideon asked.
“I’m not quite sure. I wasn’t trying to make it happen,” Ethan said. “I suppose I must have entered into the realm of demons or something. The demons could see me. The weird thing was that my appearance changed too.”
“Really, how so?” Gideon asked.
“I was wearing this armor that resembled mercury all over my body. And I was carrying a sword. The blade was as brilliant as the sun to look upon and it hung by my side without any connection to my body. Every time I’ve seen the demons, they’ve been carrying similar weapons.”
Gideon looked back at the ladder and pointed. “Do you suppose you might be able to pass through the spiritual realm and get to that ladder?”
Ethan judged the distance. He could not, the way he was. As for the spiritual, he simply did not know. “I’m still not sure how I entered that state.” Ethan looked hard at the ladder lying there against the wall. If they started back across the rooftops then they might run into the pirates. Surely, they had not given up their search. He knew he had to make this power work for him, somehow. Then, almost as if a switch turned on, Ethan disappeared.
Just as before, the world took on a more vivid state for Ethan. He saw more, heard more, and felt with more clarity than he ever could in his natural state. Once again, he found himself in the quicksilver armor with the brilliant shining sword at his side.
Ethan felt power surging through his spiritual body as though he were a waterwheel fed by a raging river. He saw Gideon smile when Ethan disappeared. He tried to speak to Gideon, but the warrior-priest did not hear him, just as he had suspected.
Ethan ran to the edge of the roof, leaping away without fear. He sailed out over the courtyard much farther than he would have been able to manage naturally. He somersaulted, six flips through the air, coming down on his feet. It was an exhilarating feeling.
Ethan returned to his natural state as he ran toward the ladder. He had been able to turn off this realm shift with a thought. Can it really be that easy to shift from one realm to the other? he wondered.
“That was perfect, Ethan!” Gideon shouted from the rooftop.
Ethan grabbed the ladder from its place, rotating it around, over his head, in order to maneuver it past the wagon it had been kept behind. He looked for Gideon on the roof so he could bring the ladder to rest near him. Ethan watched in horror as an old woman came up behind Gideon. But she was not a normal old woman. She was controlled by a demon. Ethan saw the creature’s form like a shadow moving within her body.
“Gideon!”
The warrior-priest spun on the old woman, instinctively unleashing a vicious roundhouse kick, knocking her to the ground. The old woman turned a sadistic, toothy grin on him, rising to her feet again.
Ethan was already half way across the courtyard with the ladder, maneuvering it vertically as he ran. The old woman growled with an unnatural voice and lunged at Gideon. He turned, leaping out of her reach-off the roof-toward the approaching ladder. Ethan saw the move and tried to compensate.
The ladder nearly tore free from Ethan’s hands when Gideon caught the top rung, swinging his legs around to land two rungs below the top. Gideon quickly descended using the side rails to slide down the ladder. He was half way down when the old woman leaped away from the building, copying Gideon’s move.
When she landed on the ladder top, it became too much weight for Ethan to hold. As the ladder tipped backwards, he used Gideon’s weight at the middle and the woman’s weight at the top in order to bring it down even faster. The top end of the ladder, with the old woman, slammed into the parked wagon as Gideon dropped to the ground. The old demon-controlled woman smashed right through the bottom of the wagon with a horrendous explosion of wood.
“HELP, HELP! Two men are killing a woman!” Hook-hand shouted as he ran into the crowded street in front of the Old Panther Pub. A great many men had congregated there tonight and they were outraged by what they heard.
“What’s that?” someone cried.
“This way, two young men killing a lady!” Hook-hand shouted again.
“Come on!” The men began to follow. The crowd turned into a mob quickly. Men with guns, knives, and torches followed Hook-hand through the streets. Within moments, the young bouncer appeared ahead of them, running back toward the crowd. “Hurry, Hurry! They’re trying to escape! They’re behind the Seed and Feed!”
It happened to escape everyone’s notice that these two men looked rather feral. They smiled as they ran ahead of the crowd. But the most significant characteristic, concerning Hook-hand and Bouncer, was something none of them could have seen. They were possessed by demons.