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  God School

  Scott Kinkade

  No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced without the expressed written consent of the copyright holder, except in the context of a review.

  The author has received no endorsements from the people and properties mentioned in the afterword. The author has used their names without their knowledge.

  Cover by Char Marie Adles ([email protected])

  God School

  Copyright © 2014 by Scott Kinkade

  Prologue

  Dane Marsh was heading home after partying at one of the many clubs in Seraphim City on this wonderful planet Narska. Legally speaking, he shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. It was OK, though; he had a reliable fake ID on hand for just such an occasion. Dane Marsh’s parents thought he was studying, but since he got his fake ID, the only thing he’d committed to memory was every concoction on the planet; he also knew his own limitations and often pushed them. He planned to become a bartender after graduating high school next year. It’s the job I was born to do. Let everyone else have their fancy offices in their fancy skyscrapers. My office will be stocked with the finest liquors money can buy. There’s no better future than that.

  He walked down a street that was choked with darkness. On a primal level, it was crawling with terrifying unknowns.

  Being the mischievous—some would say stupid—youth that he was, Dane didn’t give heed to such voices. To him, the greatest danger was of being found out by his parents and getting grounded for like, forever. He’d get no alcohol and probably go into withdrawal. That would be a scary story.

  Without warning though, a raspy voice called out, “Dane Marsh.” His blood was chilled to subzero temperatures by this. That crazy voice didn’t just call my name, I know it didn’t.

  “Who’s there?” He wasn’t sure, but the voice seemed to have come from the alley up ahead.

  “Come…closer.”

  He didn’t understand why, but he was compelled to obey. He entered the dark alley. He searched around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. A weak light above a door provided poor illumination.

  Suddenly, a shadow appeared in front of him. Before he could identify it, it impaled him through the throat with something incredibly sharp. Shock and disbelief overcame him, and he fell to his knees clutching his severed windpipe. Torrents of blood gushed out. He tried to cry out for help, but only a river of crimson emerged.

  As he lie soaked in a pool of his life essence, he thought, Is this how my life ends? The only response to his question was the absolute terror of the situation. The unfairness of it all angered him, but even worse than the anger was the fear of simply ending, of becoming nothing.

  No. There was a response. A sinister voice, different from the first one, said, “That’s ninety-five. Only five more to go. Sorry, kid, but you died for a good cause.”

  * * *

  Brandon Strong arrived too late to save Dane Marsh. He discovered the kid’s cold, lifeless body in the alley. Brandon hadn’t even been close to saving him. Zero Grade had beaten them by a mile.

  How many innocent lives had been taken so far? How many more until they were satisfied? What were they up to that they felt the need to resort to such butchery?

  He sat down against the wall to compose himself. At times like these, he wanted to cry out to some invisible god who had failed to prevent such evil from occurring. The irony of it was not lost on him. No, there was no one to blame but himself for failing to identify the target in time.

  He absolutely had to get to the next one before it was too late. He didn’t know how he would live with himself if he didn’t.

  * * *

  The Seraphim Times

  “Late Night Murder Baffles Police”

  By Sue Staton

  Early yesterday morning, police discovered the body of seventeen-year-old Dane Marsh in the alley behind Regal Dry Cleaners on 17th and Main. His throat had been torn out, apparently by a sharp object. Based on the condition of the body, authorities concluded he had been laying there for at least eight hours.

  Marsh, a student at Seraphim City North High School, had reportedly been walking home from the Dextro nightclub, where friends say he consumed several alcoholic beverages.

  Despite the unusual nature of the crime, this remains the latest in a string of gruesome murders that has the city on edge. Four other victims have turned up in recent months, each with the same cause of death: Loss of blood due to severing of the jugular. Furthermore, each victim has been discovered in a secluded area. Authorities have yet to find witnesses to these crimes.

  Marsh’s family declined our request for an interview. However, an attorney spokesperson released a statement yesterday afternoon. It reads, “The Marsh family has been devastated by this horrific act. They are in mourning for the time being, but also are cooperating fully with the police investigation. They want justice for Dane’s murder, and will do everything in their power to that end.”

  Captain John Warner, the head of the investigation, said at a press conference yesterday, “We are following up on all available leads. The good people of Seraphim City are eager to find whoever is committing these unspeakable acts, and make the city safe again. In all my years in law enforcement, I have seen some horrific crimes, and this ranks up there with the worst of them.”

  In each case so far, nothing has been taken off the bodies of the victims, ruling out robbery as a motive. In addition, the victims seem to have very little in common. Each one has been of a different race and background, and they did not know one another. However, each victim has been under 21 years of age, leading some to wonder whether the perpetrator has a grudge against people in their age group. Police can neither confirm nor deny this.

  Another press conference has been scheduled for tomorrow. This newspaper will continue to cover the story.

  Chapter I

  Myrdon 1 of 3021 NY (Narska Year)

  Ev Bannen stood among the crowd in Millennium Square waiting for New Birth to begin. Seraphim City, the economic center of the crescent-shaped continent of Morovia, was the place to be when it came time to ring in the New Year. And right now, Ev wasn’t about to argue with that. With rocking music, people wearing festive masks, and street vendors dishing out food to the thousands of people in attendance, this was one bitchin’ party.

  The event itself was born out of the millennia-old belief that the current universe was created from the rebirth of a phoenix rising from the ashes of the previous world. Also, no two universes were exactly the same. In fact, Morovians believed each world to be drastically different from the one that came before it. Ev didn’t know about that; frankly speaking, he wasn’t really sure what to believe. Nevertheless, he loved a good party, and so here he was.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. After another minute, the crowd around him began counting down as the van-sized paper machete phoenix atop the Nephilim Building in the center of Millenium Square was gradually lowered on a pole.

  “10.”

  “9.”

  “8.”

  “7.”

  “6.”

  “5.”

  “4.”

  “3.”

  “2.”

  “1.”

  Once the phoenix reached the roof, a sea of cheers roared across the city as the mythical effigy was launched back up to the top of the pole amid an explosion of pyrotechnic flames. The symbolism was now complete.

  Ev took it all in. The first month, Myrdon, had now begun, and the eighteen-year-old looked forward to what the new year had in store.

  * * *

  As he walked back to the hotel, he mentally went over his itinerary for the next day. Attending the New Birth bash wasn’t the official reason h
e had come to Seraphim City. In truth, he had come here to visit Seraphim City University. He had recently graduated from high school, and now he needed to find a college. He was considering a law degree. He wanted to uphold justice throughout Morovia, and he felt that was the best way to do it. He would defend the innocent and punish the guilty.

  While he thought about this, he suddenly realized he was alone on a dark street. That made him nervous; Seraphim City, for all its splendor, had a high crime rate. He feared he might become its next victim.

  He passed an alley. Without warning, a raspy voice whispered, “Ev Bannen.”

  Ev stopped, frozen. Had someone in the alley just called his name? “Is someone there?” he said weakly.

  For a moment there was dead silence. Then, “Ev Bannen.”

  “W-What do you want?”

  “Come...closer.”

  He couldn’t explain why, but he felt compelled to obey the voice. He walked into the alley. Only a dim bulb above a backdoor provided any illumination. He was terrified, but found himself unable to stop.

  When he finally stopped deep into the alley, he detected faint movement in front of him. It looked like a dark swarm of things. He stood transfixed. Every instinct he had told him to run like a maniac, yet he couldn’t get his legs to obey him.

  The swarm soon coalesced into a vaguely human shape. “Vaguely” was definitely the applicable term; the proportions were all wrong. It had huge bulbous arms, toothpick-thin legs and disk-shaped head. Ev couldn’t make out any more than that because of the lack of light, but he didn’t want to.

  It reached out and stroked his face with its oversize hand—or maybe it was a claw. Ev wanted to cry out in terror, even though that wouldn’t have been very manly.

  “Yes,” it wheezed. This is it, he thought. I’m going to die here, before I even have a chance to do anything with my life.

  However, from somewhere above him, a radiant orange glow appeared. The…thing…jumped back, raising a massive hand in front of its face. It was then that Ev got a better look at it. The whole creature was black as midnight, and its skin—assuming that was skin—looked oily, like a snake. But the worst part was the face; it had none. It might as well have been a black hole.

  Ev thought the scene couldn’t get any more surreal. He was wrong. Another figure came out of the air and landed in front of him. It was a man dressed like a college professor, with a dark suit and short cropped hair of a muddy hue.

  “Not fair,” the creature hissed. Ev had no idea how the thing was talking with no mouth.

  The man raised a fist. No, not just a fist—a flaming fist. He swiftly rammed it into the thing’s chest. It let out an earsplitting howl before emitting an orange glow and turning to ash.

  Before tonight, Ev had no idea how much he had taken reality for granted. He realized, now, that it was a precious anchor, keeping you in the world you know, a predictable world full of rules, rules that all living things had to abide by. But this world he now found himself in, it had no rules. Anything could happen, and that was the truly terrifying thing about it.

  The man turned around to face Ev. He looked to be in his forties, with hard features lining his face. Yet there was also compassion there. “Are you all right?”

  All right? No, Ev was far from all right. He had been shaken to his core, and he honestly didn’t know how his bodily fluids had stayed inside him this whole time. In truth, he had experienced the terror of realizing he didn’t know anything about the world he lived in.

  The man gave him a cursory examination. “Good; it didn’t hurt you. If it did, you’d damn sure know it.”

  Finally, Ev managed to form a sentence. “What…what the hell was that?” He stared at the smoking remains.

  The man eyed it with disgust. “A refghast. Low-level monsters. They feed on humans.”

  Ev shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t want to come in here, but I did anyway.”

  “The refghasts emit a hypnotic signal that compels people to obey them,” he explained.

  “But you didn’t obey. You…punched it with a flaming fist!”

  He grinned. “One of the perks of being a god.”

  Ev blinked. He could not possibly have heard that right. “A…god,” he said in disbelief.

  “Yes, Ev. I’m a god.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “No way. That can’t be true. Wait—how do you know my name?”

  The man said, “We’ve been watching you, Ev. We think you have what it takes to become a god yourself.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “The Divine Protector Academy. We train young people like yourself to become divine beings who watch over mankind.”

  Ev had to sit down. “This is too much. I mean, monsters that attack you in the night? Gods? A school for training gods? I must be losing it.”

  But the man assured him, “No, Ev. You’re perfectly sane. It’s just your knowledge that has changed. You’ve been invited to step into the world as it really is.”

  That wasn’t quite how Ev would have put it. “Dragged is more like it. I didn’t ask for this. Can’t I just go back to being blissfully ignorant?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. They’ve targeted you, and they’ll keep coming until they have you.”

  Ev got back to his feet. “Who’s ‘they’? What do they want with me?”

  The main replied, “They are gods like myself, only they’ve fallen low. Very low. They send out their refghasts to harvest humans with latent divine energy.”

  Ev still didn’t know what to think. “Divine energy? What are you talking about?”

  The man looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, and I think I’ve hurt your brain enough for one night. I’m staying in the same hotel as you. I’ll be there for another twenty-four hours. If you want to learn more, come to room 312. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Uh…OK.” Ev started to leave the alley. He turned around and said, “Thanks for saving me, I guess.” He felt he should say that, though he still didn’t really understand what was going on.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m Brandon, by the way. Brandon Strong.

  * * *

  The next day, Ev was walking around Seraphim City University. He saw Central Quad, the student union, the polished granite clock tower in the center of campus, the various departments, and Cherub Stadium, home of the Fighting Angels. An angelic figure wielding boxing gloves and clearly ready to fight was displayed on the wall above the bleachers.

  It was all so very…ordinary. No, perhaps a better term would be a deception. He now knew the world wasn’t as simple and peaceful as this. How could he pretend otherwise?

  He couldn’t, and he knew it. He had seen the truth, and he could never turn his back on it, could never forget the reality of the thing that almost killed him last night. Those refghasts were out there, preying on humans.

  He realized there was only one thing to do. If he truly believed in justice, he had to take Brandon Strong up on his offer. But first, he needed to know if the mysterious man had been telling the truth.

  * * *

  He sat on his metal throne within the dark ruined building, surrounded by debris and other things the humans had abandoned. “You didn’t acquire the target,” he told them. “Why is that?”

  One of the many refghasts in the room shambled forward, its long, stringy legs struggling to hold the body aloft. They were truly pitiful creatures, he thought. “So sorry, Lord Belial,” it rasped. “Our brethkin was attacked by the god before it could take the human’s essence. Against a deity, what could our brethkin do?”

  “I don’t care much for your excuses,” Belial said. He wore a fiery red trench coat with matching pants and shirt, and he had spiked orange hair. “No more of that. Tonight we’re going to get him, understand?” The refghasts wheezed the affirmative. “Good. There’s just one more thing.” He made a fist. The refghast that had tried to make excuses exploded into bright fragments. “The rest of you will fare the
same if you fail tonight.”

  He reclined back in his oversized chair. It was a bit awkward, but he didn’t care. As the boss of these monsters, it was his job to do whatever he wanted. And he loved his job.

  * * *

  Ev knocked on the door. It opened to reveal Brandon Strong. “I knew you’d come, Ev. We gods are pretty good at seeing the future.”

  Ev entered the hotel room. “So you’re…what’s the word…om-ni-scient?”

  Brandon laughed. “No, not really. Some gods can glimpse the future. The rest of us have simply been around long enough to understand humans pretty well. But none of us know exactly what will happen.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Ev said. “Where exactly is this school of yours?”

  “I’ll show you,” Brandon replied. He led Ev to the table by the window. On it was a map of Narska. On the left side of the map was the crescent continent of Morovia. To the right of that lay the Murnau Islands. Much farther to the east lay the Stangea mountain chain which cut the rest of the world off from the continent of Chrichton. Stangea’s sister mountain chain, Rangea, was directly west of Morovia. The two chains each ran north to south from one pole to the other.

  “All right; so where on the map is this god school?” Ev said. There were so many locations to hide such a place. Maybe it was in the Faust Kingdom at the top of the map, or the Tru Republic midway down.

  Brandon pointed to a mountain, located halfway between the Murnau Islands and the Stangea mountain chain, only a little further south of both, called Mt. Oleia. “Here.”

  Ev scrutinized it with suspicion. “Mt. Oleia? Never heard of it.”

  Brandon said, “Nor should you have. It’s not on any map except this one. We use our powers to keep it hidden from the rest of the world, especially the enemy gods. They’d love nothing more than to put us under their thumb.”