David’s muscles relaxed. He was in control. “I speak in the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ.”
“No! No! Stop!” Spencer pleaded as he fell to his knees.
Like a drunken man whose body was caught in an invisible centrifuge, Spencer began spinning himself on the floor, pushing his body with his knees. His eyes were wide and his entire face was convulsing with emotions. His torso began to shake and his teeth chattered loudly. Blood poured from his legs as he dug into them and held on tight. “We will not let go! He is ours! We will kill you!”
“Leave his body, in the name of Jesus Christ!” David shouted. “Leave this room, in the name of Jesus Christ!”
Spencer writhed on the floor and froth spat from his mouth as he spoke. “This is not over! Not over! We will find you again! All of us! We will-”
“Leave this place now!”
The sound of fifty wailing voices shot from Spencer’s mouth as he arched his back violently. David shuddered at the sound.
When it was over, Spencer’s body flopped onto the floor and lay motionless. David closed his eyes and rubbed them with his hand. It was over. He opened his eyes again and looked at Tom, Sally and Lazarus. All three were staring at him as though he were an alien.
Sally opened her mouth to say something.
“I’ll explain later,” David said. “Right now we have to figure out how to destroy that device.”
Tom took the device from the floor and looked it over. He handed it to Lazarus and asked in Aramaic, “Can you destroy this?”
Lazarus looked at the device. “I will try.”
The softball-sized contraption looked the size of a tennis ball in Lazarus’s hand. He gripped the sphere tightly, wound up and flung it at the concrete wall, putting every muscle in his body behind it. It whistled through the air like a cannon ball and hit the wall traveling over eighty miles per hour. It shattered into peanut sized shards that rained down across the room.
Seconds after the device was destroyed, the receiving area filled with a brilliant blue flashing light. Boom! The room exploded with illumination as its entire contents flashed out of the present and into the future. Only the soft glow of fluttering sparkles remained afterwards.
David smiled, but then noticed Spencer had yet to move. Legion was gone, but Spencer had not returned. David knelt down next to Spencer and placed his hand on Spencer’s throat. After a moment, he shook his head, clearly disappointed by the results. David looked up, his eyes wet.
Tom sighed. “He’s-?”
David nodded.
“Damnit! Why? Too many people are dying over this! It needs to stop! When will it stop, David?”
David looked at the floor, buying time to find an answer that Tom might accept. He didn’t find one. “I don’t think you want to hear my answer.”
“If you say it has anything to do with Jesus or God’s will…”
“It has everything to do with Jesus.”
“David, Jesus is dead! We saw him die, just like Spencer, and just like Spencer, Jesus is not coming back!”
“Maybe we should go back and find out?”
“No, David. I’m done. All we’ve done is get people killed.”
“Tom, you can’t just-” “Can and will, David. I’m going back for Mary and then I’m-”
Bang! The entrance to the control center exploded open as a slew of guards carrying assault rifles poured into the room like army ants.
“Set your watches!” David whispered, as he grabbed Lazarus’s wrist and began pushing buttons.
The room filled with a series of metallic clicks as the guards readied their weapons and took aim.
“Time to go…” David whispered through clenched teeth.
All four pushed a single button on their watches.
“No!” Jake shouted as he entered the room and saw four flashes of light expanding and growing brighter behind David and the others.
“Shoot them! Kill them all!” Jake screamed, as desperation caused his voice to crack.
David dove behind a computer console. “Get down!”
Tom, Sally and Lazarus hit the floor next to David and covered their faces as shards of debris burst into the air from computer consoles and desks being ripped apart by scads of hot bullets. David looked at his watch and smiled as it disappeared into a brilliant luminosity. They’d done it.
The series of four loud booms could not be heard over the thunder of the gunfire, but the bright flash of light and glowing cloud of particles revealed to Jake that he was too late.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Jake yelled after the lights dissipated.
Jake ran down to where Tom, David and the others had been hiding. No one was there.
“Damnit!” Jake shouted, as he pounded his fist into a computer console. He turned his rage toward the guards. “Where did you idiots learn how to shoot?”
Jake turned away from the stone-faced guards before they could intimidate him as his mind began to sort things out. David, Sally and Tom had escaped him. But at least they were gone. They were out of his way and he could freely proceed as planned. He still had a watch. Jake glanced at Spencer’s dead body and saw the watch still attached to his wrist. Two watches. As long as the good doctors and Director McField stayed in the past, Jake could care less. He smiled at his victory.
Jake turned to the guards, who were waiting for orders, but a strange burning sensation in his lower back gave him pause. The millions of pins and needles quickly spread up his spine and into his brain. He could feel something…hear something…someone… Voices, so many voices, rushed into his mind, like an explosion…crowding in…taking over.
Jake snapped his head toward the nearest guard. “Give me your weapon.”
The guard looked at Jake quizzically, “But sir, they-”
“Now!”
The guard handed Jake the weapon. “What are you going to do, sir?”
Jake punched a few buttons on his watch and turned to the guard, eyes jet black, mouth foaming, “We’re going to kill them! Yes we are! Yes! Yes! Kill them all!”
Tom fell through an endless void. His arms flailed for something to hold on to. His legs kicked for the ground, not knowing when it would come or how hard he would hit. He didn’t remember time travel feeling like this before. He didn’t remember it at all before.
Everything came to a stop and Tom felt his feet touching solid ground, though there was nothing to stand upon, just darkness. But he wasn’t alone. He could feel the breeze created by bodies moving around him, smell their foul breath and hear their slight whispers. Tom spun in every direction. Everywhere he turned looked the same. Up was down and left was right. Nothing made sense.
Then a beacon of light caught his eyes. Like two yellow headlights moving through the darkness on an abandoned street. Then two more, and more, until the vision of headlights disappeared, replaced by hundreds of glowing eyes.
He found himself standing alone in a pillar of light that shone down from an obscured source. He was surrounded by the darkness that had once held him tight. Looking down, Tom saw a stark floor and in his hands…a sword.
The cloud of angry eyes began to whirl around him, goading him, but he stood still and gripped the sword tightly. As the blackness, full of yellow eyes, swirled in on him, he raised the sword in the air, ready to strike. When the first black shadow reached him and the sword came down, he woke.
Tom’s limbs flailed as he fell from the bed. He hit the stone floor hard. “Ugh!” Tom clutched his bandaged ribs. They had been back in ancient Israel for several days now and while Tom’s wounds where healing nicely, his ribs still throbbed from time to time.
“Are you all right?” Mary asked, as she rushed in from the next room and bent down to Tom.
Tom rolled over and looked into Mary’s deep eyes. He smiled. “I’m fine. Just a nightmare.”
“Want to tell me about it?”