Armageddon Bound by Tim Marquitz

Author:Tim Marquitz [Tim Marquitz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781615720002
Publisher: Damnation Books, LLC
Published: 2009-09-15T06:00:00+00:00

I took stock of all the bodies, making sure all of Asmoday’s minions were accounted for, holstered my gun, and raced to Rahim’s side. Katon and Scarlett got there less than a second later.

To my surprise, he was still alive.

He looked up at us as we gathered around him, his eyes reflecting the pain I knew he’d never voice. At seeing him, Katon knelt down and buried his face into the old wizard’s chest. Weakly, Rahim draped his arm over Katon’s head and pulled him in tighter. He squeezed his eyes shut as a single tear slipped from the corner and ran down his cheek. A quiet sob slipped from Scarlett as she turned away from the pair, hiding her face. For all the rage and violence that festered inside her, she would forever be an agent of the Lord. Her heart would forever be vulnerable to tragedy.

Unable to help, I simply let them be. They stayed there for several minutes, neither speaking nor breaking the embrace. Unwilling to interrupt, I stood and started to back away when I noticed Rahim looking at me.

“How bad?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t going to like the answer. He, no doubt, hated to admit it even more.

“My spine is shattered,” he said as he took a deep, laborious breath. His face winced with the effort. Page 245

Katon pulled away to make it easier, settling in beside him. “I can’t feel anything below my chest. It’s all dead.”

My heart sank. In my mind, that was worse than death. “We need to get you back to DRAC.” I knew it was the right thing to do, but I wasn’t even sure that’d help.

While the members of DRAC had performed many miracles since their inception, healing on the scale Rahim required wasn’t one of them. Forget all the stories you’ve heard about preachers or wizards healing the crippled and bringing the dead back to life, same as they were before. They aren’t true. Outside of God and the Devil, no one has the level of power or control necessary to truly resurrect the dead or make a crippled man walk again. Magic doesn’t work that way. For all its vaunted reputation, it’s rarely useful for anything more than destruction. While somewhat flexible, conforming to the imagination of its specific wielder, its true nature is brute force. The hammer never cures the anvil.

The soul transfer, the closest thing to a miracle in today’s Godless world, would also be useless to him. As a human, Rahim had no ability to partake of a supernatural being’s soul. While his suffering could be eased by judicious magical rituals and modern medicine, Rahim’s future was in the hands of fate and the surgeons in the employ of DRAC.

He knew this better than any of us.

Page 246

“There is still much to do, my friends, but I’m afraid I can do little to help.” Rahim patted Katon on the leg to motivate him, his moist eyes never leaving mine.

“Take me home.”

Page

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