The Sign of Raphael (Rough Draft Novella)

Chapter 4

The whole scene seemed like chaos to Todd, who felt like an alien in a land of shrines and temples. The new world he had been thrust into was almost too much for him, and he gathered what he could in a stupor. Everything had changed in an instant. His friends felt distant to him in his mind, something now replaced by a higher calling. He ignored the thought, and after returning from his mental wandering he returned to work. He had barely opened the duffel bag he found in the bedroom and shoved a couple pairs of shirts into it when Anthony came back, his backpack packed to the brim with various texts and a few tools. "We have to go. Now." The sound of a car outside punctuated his remark, and Todd followed Anthony as he ran to the living room.

"Get out the back door, I'll be out in a second."

Running out into the overgrown grass of the backyard Todd found himself face-to-face with a grotesquely familiar figure. "The Raphaelite is inside, get him! What are you waiting for?" Todd stood paralyzed, realizing that he was once supposed to be part of the assault. Anthony rushed out the door, interrupting the conversation. He ran to the side of Todd, causing the demon to follow him. The demon charged at his victim, tearing through the knee-high plants and brandishing flaming claws with which to impale his victim. Anthony let himself fall into the grass as he brandished a pistol at the demon, and fired. The shot did almost nothing to the demon, but it stopped with a roar of laughter.
"Did you think that would hurt me? Your puny human weapons? You should pray to your gun if you have such faith in it, Raphaelite." It advanced toward Anthony, looking into the grass for its quarry.

"You've removed your ward, sneaking around like a coward, but I'll find you and when I do you'll be vulnerable. And I will crush you like an insect, a bug. Impotent, weak, mortal. I will enjoy ending you." Todd fled through the gate in the back of the yard, ignored by the demon who was more enthralled with chasing his target. As soon as he was clear, he sank down by the gate, leaning back against the cinder blocks and trying to catch his breath. An outlandish scream came from the yard, and the man instinctively covered his ears and dropped to his knees as a large explosion ballooned from the house. A figure barreled over the fence and crashed to the ground next to Todd as an orange flash lit up nearby buildings. A car alarm began to ring in the distance, a precursor to the sirens that would follow.

"We have to get out of here." Anthony grabbed the shocked man by the arm and led him to a waiting car, which unlocked with a short chirp.

"You blew up the house? Like, really, seriously blew up the-" Todd forgot to close his mouth, shocked by the speed at which the scene had unfolded.

"I didn't have time to clean it," Anthony interjected "they could have traced me."

"The fire will destroy it all?"

"I don't know, but at this point all I care about is getting them off our trail-" the man paused for a moment as he looked over his shoulder "at least long enough for us to escape. They'll track us eventually, but we're not using this car long."

"How are we going to get out of the city?" The roadblocks served to keep citizens from escaping the metropolitan area, even if they were, on paper, meant to protect the local wildlife.

"We've got our ways set up, we wound up searching the sewers for occult activity and we've mapped them all, as well as the access tunnels. We found one that leads to an exit just outside one of the roadblocks. If we leave right at curfew we'll avoid detection while the guards change, and we'll be able to make it to the vehicle I have stashed out there just in case."

"Wait, what?"

"I live like a secret agent. Hell, I am a secret agent. You don't see Raphaelites wearing badges or anything like that. I just blew up my house, are you really surprised that I have plans to get out of the city when stuff like this happens?"

"Well-" Todd stammered as he went to reply "I guess it isn't all that surprising." He hoped that his companion's plan would work. He had no envy for the poor souls who got caught trying to leave town without the government's approval.

The tunnels were for the most part abandoned; infrastructure maintenance was low on the budget, and sections of them had even fallen into disuse entirely.

"You don't have to come with me if you don't want to, Todd. You could do whatever you want."

"I'd like to join you. I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else ever again."

Anthony detected some menace and rage in Todd's voice. He would make a good Raphaelite if he could get that in control. He opened up the sewer access grate, and dropped into the long-dry tunnel. This part of town had been entirely wiped out, and fallen off the grid entirely. A flashlight lit up the tunnel nicely, and though the air was foul and stale they had no concerns as they went through the tunnels. A rat scurried along, and Todd hoped that he had not set himself up to catch some horrible disease while down in the sewers. He no longer felt as enthusiastic as he had in the hour after his exorcism, and by the time they reached the grate blocking their egress he had almost reconsidered his plans. It was too late to back out now.