God's Gone AWOL

[9] Judeo-Christian Hellfire

BOOM!

The earth-shattering explosion sounded right beside Atticus' ear. One moment, a sturdy brick building stood high and proud above the rest of the street; the next moment, it was nothing more than a flaming pile of rubble. What had once been a home, a workplace, or a monument to human civilization was all reduced to nothing. Wood, stone, metal, all of it was sent flying in an instant, spilling and crumbling in every direction as the hollow shell caved in on itself.

Amidst the danger and debris, Atticus only needed to raise a protective arm and his entire body was incased in a white shield of divine energy. Everything that would have otherwise been thrown against him was deflected off instantly. However, he could only block the flying rubble. He couldn't block the dark clouds of smoke, which stung his eyes and burned his throat so much that it was unbearable. Nor could he dispel the endless waves of burning heat, wafting from the inferno left behind in the wake of the bombings. And he definitely couldn't shield the tremors of anxiety rushing through every fibre of his being.

Once the dust cleared, Atticus continued forward. Night had already descended over the streets of London, and he had spent the past few hours trying his best to get everyone to safety; from the humans in the bomb shelters to the scuttling rats in the sewers. But in the end, he didn't have enough time to rescue everyone before the Nazi bomber planes swooped overhead. Soon, all of central London blazed in a horrifying hellfire of flames, smoke, and shrapnel and he couldn't afford to spend any more of his time. He had to find Bentley before something worse did.

Now in this state of suffocating chaos, the air was filled with an entire symphony of terrible sounds. The harrowing howls of the air-raid syrens hadn't stopped since that first hair-raising moment in the earlier evening. And now they were only further enhanced by the dreadful wail of emergency vehicles, bravely rushing to extinguish any flames before the inferno became even more uncontrollable than it already was. And of course, beneath it all was the steady drumbeat from the constant rain of explosions. It was all painful to the ear, and even more so to the heart.

The sky always gave humans hope: religiously, scientifically and philosophically. But when that heaven of infinite promise suddenly turned against them, transforming into a furious instrument of ruthless evil, the terror of the unknown world above became all the more potent in the hearts of mortals.

Atticus kept running through the center of it all. Even as he watched buildings collapse before him, he barely blinked. If he was in harm's way, he simply blasted everything aside. Amidst the fire, the fury and the chaos, he was an unstoppable force, pressing forward in his own desperation. He wasn't going to stop until he found the person he was looking for.

It was hardly his first time caught up in the horrors of humanity's battlefields. Over the course of the past five-thousand some odd years, he had seen it all. He had witnessed the Siege of Baghdad, watched over Earth during all fourteen years of the Tai Ping Rebellion, he had even walked along the trenches of World War I. The frightening reality of human conflict was something he was well accustomed to. But this was the first time he ever felt truly anxious on the battlefield.

Because he couldn't find her. No matter where he looked, Bentley was nowhere to be found.

Finally, after searching for the greater part of an hour, Atticus caught a set of voices —ones that weren't the sobs of despair, nor the shouts of fear. These voices were different. They were lighter, more elegant, despite their unpleasant words. They spoke with the use of a human language, but the way they shaped the words was so unimaginably perfect that not even the creators of the language itself would be able to speak with more fluency. Of course, these were the voices of the divine.

"You dare appear at a time like this?" someone was saying, "Are you seriously taking advantage of this bombing to cause trouble for Heaven?"

Although the voice itself was graceful, the tone was furious. Atticus immediately rushed forward, quickly climbing over some rubble to find the source of the shouting. However, the moment it came into view, Atticus froze and did not dare approach. Instead, he ducked behind the corner of a building and peeked out, revealing only one catlike eye shrouded in the smokey gloom.