The day was winding down when Clark uttered a sigh. He got up from his chair.

“Thousands of years ago this happened. Or maybe even longer.” The wizard dusted himself off and stretched his arms and legs. Alejandro remained on the other side of the desk, holding onto the sides with whitened knuckles. He too, sighed. Clark whirled around just then, waving his phone in the air: “Your Prophet lived through all that time, his life unnaturally extended by the monster sealed away inside him. At some point, you’re saying, he began this Order you belong to.” A pause. “What did you say he did again, while training the first batch of you?”

Alejandro answered soberly: “Passing his knowledge to ordinary people. Carefully chosen men with good hearts and pure souls, with whom the Prophet entrusted with the knowledge of the very means by which the Earth was created—and why. He did this so that when, inevitably, the Betrayer takes over his body, there will exist others who can trap him again. Hopefully, they will do so before he brings about Armageddon.”

Clark asked, pointing out: “You said when, not if.”

A nod.

“Because this is a hopeless battle,” the wizard said. It was not a question. “Might take a millennium or more, but there’s no way the Prophet wins.”

Another nod. “By his own admission; he won’t.” Alejandro gulped. “He was not training comrades-in-arms; but rather the very people who would one day have to destroy him. What could be more noble?”

That part, Clark agreed with.

He heaved a deep breath: “So, you’re telling me amongst almost eight billion people, there exists one individual older than all of us, who has walked since the dawn of humanity while battling a world-destroying monster sealed inside himself. An avatar for the prison that the Earth was built for, and who, in the year of Our Lord 2025, reached out personally to me over the phone?”

That was, in essence, what had happened; and it actually didn’t sound so ridiculous when you put it that way (at least, not any more ridiculous than convincing a disgruntled cat to call off his pact with a mice brood—which was made to harass his owners due to feeling unappreciated after the arrival of a new baby in the family).

Clark sighed. “Why didn’t he lock himself away after teaching his first students? Or for that matter, why not submit himself to them, so they won’t have to go looking for him when the time comes?”

Alejandro uttered a little laugh from the table. He said: “Mr. Wizard, do you know what it feels like to be under the possession of some terrible, sentient power?”

Clark started. He jerked back as if he had been struck.

Briefly, he looked down at his own hands.

The fingers were splayed out, and shaking visibly. He immediately hid them behind his back.

Meanwhile, Alejandro continued talking.

“It was all the Prophet could do to select those who will one day be his own assassins, and impart upon them the knowledge necessary to do battle with him when the time came. He did it in the early days of the possession, when he could still overpower the voice of the Betrayer in his head.

“Even then, he knew sacrificing his own body was an imperfect solution, made out of desperation at the perilous hour. He had been corrupted, but for his students he gave away the true secrets of his bloodline. They—we—would not need to contain the demon within ourselves. We are to realize the true vision of the Broken Angel, remaking the prison in its entirety to trap his great foe.

“That was the Prophet’s hope for us, and later, when he began to falter, he left quickly. Had he stayed, he would have become a danger to those very people he trained. For that same reason, he could not bind or do himself harm. The Betrayer would not allow it, for the Fallen One understood that in due time, he would break free of his new prison. Thus, they walked, will fighting against will, a single being pulled constantly in different directions—and have been doing so for the countless years our Order has been chasing him.”

“Until now,” Clark said.

Alejandro stared directly at the wizard, who was looking at his phone. The message remained there.

But was it a plea for help, or something else entirely?

“How long have your Order been hunting him?” Clark wanted to know.

Alejandro shook his head: “Ever since the Prophet left. That is his curse—to be hounded for all time by an army of his own creation. After the first students, no one over the years has seen him in person. But the mission remained the same, and Father Julien has studied all the records. The Order endures to date, and its membership is fluid. Some are descendants of the original fellowship; whereas others are new comrades recruited to the cause. In all that time the Prophet has eluded us; and with you, this is as close as we’ve gotten in a thousand years.”

“The devil truly walks among us,” Clark mused. His eyes widened suddenly, for a revelation has just come upon him. “So, it wasn’t really me you were gunning for in the parking lot!”

A shake of the head.

“Then, it was—”

“—the dog,” Alejandro finished. When Clark just stared, he nodded. “Yep.”

“The red collar?”

“How did you—?”

Alejandro wouldn’t reveal any more. Only that, apparently, after attempting to track down their Prophet over countless generations, their last (and best) clue had been in the color agreed upon by the wizard and the unknown party when they made contact. The Order’s warriors had dutifully followed the lead to Vaugh in Ontario, Canada; and there, when an opportunity presented itself, they took the shot.

“It’s a dog,” Clark said with an upraised eyebrow.

“It is a hellhound,” Alejandro insisted. Then: “When you saved it, we thought you a servant of the Betrayer. How did you do that anyway?”

By then, they were on their way out of the office. They came through the small church to the entrance; and somewhere along the way, they heard a far-off cough from Lin. When Clark pushed open the front door, the stuffy air inside gave way to a fierce chill. They went out into early Toronto evening, and the wizard stuck his hand out to catch snowflakes drizzling to the earth. He didn’t say anything. They went together to the Camaro, and the doors soon slammed shut after them.

The engine started.

Inside, Clark turned towards Alejandro in the driver’s seat.

“I turned back time.” He put the car into reverse, but kept his foot on the brake. “You’ve seen what I can do. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, and it would be unwise to turn away my help. So, I think it will be mutually beneficial if I met with your Father Julien, and the rest of your Order.”

The boy accepted that. Inside the office, they had already come to an agreement. This was merely confirming the appointment which lies ahead.

“I think so, too,” Alejandro admitted. “And we can use all the allies we can get. That has always been the Order’s way. We can’t afford to turn down help. The stakes—” he shuddered, “—are simply too great.”

That settled it! The car backed out of the driveway. As Clark turned onto the street, he pushed his phone towards Alejandro with the GPS app opened. He said: “Take me to your leader.”

~

It was still snowing when they arrived, with scattered grey clouds covering a dark blue sky.

Below it, the Camaro came to a stop in an affluent part of the GTA. A mighty structure loomed over the vehicle. The church was modern and angular, all straight lines collapsed together to form into a bunker shaped palace of worship. It was not tall, but took up much land. In summer, the place would have been surrounded by carefully landscaped greenery; and in winter, a towering set of double doors loomed behind the frozen trees, embedded into the building’s yellow-stone exterior. The parking lot was surprisingly filled at this late hour, when the Camaro pulled into a space between a gleaming white Mercedes coupe and one of the newer models of fancy electric automobiles. The headlights flashed once in the darkness, before shutting off.

The doors opened.

Clark and Alejandro got out.

The air was cold around them, and felt almost brittle to touch. The two men squared their shoulders, turning towards the huge building together. Somewhere behind it, the flicker of street lamps and headlights showed off the wide street leading into the rest of the city. They began walking.

Along the way, they finished off the rest of their drinks.

Dinner had come courtesy of drive-thru at a local burger chain, and before they reached the wide steps at the front of the church, they disposed of the wrappers into a public bin. They paused there briefly to parcel out the last of the fries. Then, with the box going the way of the other garbage, they moved on to the doors.

The building loomed even larger up close. It threw a long shadow, which fell over the two men as they came up the steps. At the top, Alejandro visibly faltered, and Clark turned around. He asked: “What’s wrong?”

The other shook his head.

Clark realized just then Alejandro was close to tears. More than ever before, the stocky young man looked a mere boy in way over his head. His lips quivered noticeably, and his thick shoulders shook as he tried to keep his emotions in check. Small wonder, for he had brought a wizard to the doorstep of his own Holy Order—and to those whom he considered not only his own fellow comrades-in-arms but also family. Who even knows what may come of it? What had seemed like the right decision in Lin’s office took on a whole new look now.

The shadows stretched longer, and the stars dimmed in the sky. Clark stared at the boy, before gently touching him on an arm. He saw him take a deep breath and straighten up. The shivers were gone; and it was as if Alejandro had made peace with his choice. He nodded up at the sky, at nobody in particular, before moving towards the doors.

He put his hand on it. The young man wrapped his fingers around the handle, and a tug brought them inside. Light blossomed everywhere. The building’s interior was very modern, and the whole place looked like it was built not by people, but banks and corporations. From the outside, Clark noticed there were very few windows. Slitted, narrow openings cut deep into the masonry along the walls, looking like loopholes in medieval castles. The inside, however, was brightly lit by artistically hidden lights. Not visible from ground level was a huge skylight running the entire length of the building. In daytime, it would have been a sight, with the sun shining down upon it through colored glass.

Colored glass, decorated with pictures of a hooded figure.

With a dimmed halo was wrapped around his head, and holding his hands before his chest, over the hilt of a brilliant long sword pointed at his feet.

The sword formed a huge cross, and on his back was the faint outline of a broken shield. All this was done up in mesmerizing hues that would have showered the interiors of the church church with a rainbow at high noon; and beneath the Prophet’s visage was several rows of polished wooden pews, with flowers tucked into the brackets between them. The two men walked beneath this sight, where Clark saw, at the end of a wide aisle, a thin speaker’s stand positioned atop an elevate podium that would not have looked out of place at the Academy Awards. On this stand was the same symbol of the sword-cross, with its tip pointed downwards.

The emblem was eye-catching, about as noticeable as the fact that, immediately, they were not alone.

A group of men and women were gathered atop the podium when they came in, with some dressed in normal street wear and others in long, scarlet robes that dragged behind them as they walked. The golden frills and billowing sleeves would have looked absolutely ridiculous outside these walls—like cosplayers headed for a convention as a troupe of fantasy warrior priests. In here, however, nobody was laughing.

The stoic walls closed in around them. Clark stepped onto the aisle. The effect was not lost on their audience, and all turned around at the newcomers. As one, they raised their eyebrows, and their mouths dropped open, agape.

Clark took a step forward. He announced to the vast chamber, listening as each syllable floated outwards on a ringing echo: “I’m—”

That was as far as he got before the membership of the church advanced upon him. Together, they raised their arms. The one in the center was an older man, who had the look of a figure of authority. He was the one who lunged forward with spittle flying from his lips. In a single bound, more agile than you would have thought possible for a man of his years, he came off the podium in a flutter of his unwieldly wardrobe. His hands closed over his chest, one over the other, in a posture identical to that of his Prophet. He brought them down handily towards the floor.

“You!”

He was not holding a sword, and in fact, his hands were clutching at nothing. Clark, however, did not miss the telltale shimmer of air as he struck down, and the metallic crash the tip of his invisible weapon made when it came into contact with the floor.

“Demon!”

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