The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1), Matthew Newson [8 ebook reader .txt] 📗

friends. Any friend of Gods is a friend of mine. Now, please stay here until it’s finished, and you’ll be safe. Brandon, it was a real pleasure getting to know and work with you,” Wrath said as he stuck out his hand which I took in friendship.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“And don’t worry,” Wrath continued. “I’m sure our paths will cross again someday.”

“I hope so, and I hope you won’t be trying to kill me when they do.”

Wrath smiled at me and then at Elizabeth before he jumped off the roof and met his brothers who waited for him in the church parking lot. They all turned into pillars of red fire and took off into the night sky and hovered over the church as they rained down balls of fire upon it, until the church was no more.

Chapter Twenty-SixBrandon Farmer

The City of Black Castle

Three Years Later

I SAT AT MY DESK ON the third anniversary of Ron’s death and my first meeting with Wrath.

My life had taken a dramatic detour on that day.

I had witnessed Wrath kill those who had gone past the point of no return due to their sin, and rain down destruction through fire with his brothers on the old Holy Anointed Church. Even though he was the embodiment of God’s Wrath, and tried to kill me for my sins, I had grown to consider him a friend after all we had been through. The fact that I had not seen him in town or heard about his exploits on the local news was a good thing, but I found myself missing him a few days after he and his brothers disappeared, and just about every day after that.

Sometimes I imagined running into him on the streets or him showing up at my house for a cup of coffee and a quick chat, but that had never happened.

That poor excuse of a church was lit up like a Christmas tree while it burned that night, but not everything had been destroyed in the fire. Apparently, I was right about Phillip having a safe placed behind a painting in his office. At the time I figured it contained the money from the offering, important documents, and other stuff like that. When the authorities eventually opened it, they found inside all sorts of evidence of his dealings with the Amaras and a list of people he and his unholy elders had sacrificed in the basement. I will never understand why Phillip decided to keep things like that, other than he had become so evil he really believed he would never be caught.

I still remember when the reporters were finally able to get inside what was left of the basement, and all the stories they ran on what they thought Phillip was up to. Not even Lizzie and I knew all what Phillip and his men were in to, or what they all had done.

Lizzie told the precinct that her investigation showed that the Amaras blamed me for the one targeting them, and that I really didn’t know what Ron was up to, which greatly helped me. The other thing it did was end Lizzie’s detective career like it had mine when people found out about Scott. He was Lizzie’s fiancé, and one of the members of Phillip’s inner circle, and many of the other officers had a hard time believing she didn’t know anything about what Scott had been a part of. They weren’t quite as terrible to her as they were to me, but I think it was bad enough for her to leave before things started to get to that point.

The Holy Anointed Church remained as a functional crime scene for months as the local and federal investigations ensued, and people came from all over to see the place after word hit the major networks. Everyone wanted to see the sight of a Satanists cult, and the police had to chase a few people away trying to evoke the devil there, or something like that. It got so bad when people were trying to steal whatever little pieces of debris they could from the sight, that the city had to station twenty-four-hour security to keep people out.

Then one day things started to calm down out of nowhere, and people went about their lives as usual. Everyone seemed to avoid the old church grounds like it was radioactive, but not me. I felt compelled to drive to the burned out remains and park a safe distance away and remember better times with my dad as I struggled to accept, he hadn’t always been the man I had known. A few days after the church burned down, I summoned the courage to visit my father’s grave. At first, I stood there not saying a word and just stared at his head stone as a flurry of emotions churned inside of me. When I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I yelled at the top of my lungs at the grave marker at the betrayal I felt inside that my father had once been a part of such a terrible organization.

When I had finally worn myself out physically and emotionally that day, I began to realize and accept that my father wasn’t perfect. He was a man who made mistakes just like I had, but he had spent the rest of his life in constant pursuit of atoning for what he had done. I understood why a relationship with God was so important to my father, because God had saved him and made him into a man all could look to and respect. Knowing where my father had been and where he ended only made me love him more, and after that day I never had a hard time visiting the graves of my parents again. I also decided not to share with anyone about my father’s past, not even with Lizzie. I figured he never shared it with me because he wanted