I remember my dad often told me, when I was bad that "Son, two wrongs don't make a right." He was so right. It is important to make sure that when someone does something evil that we do all we can to bring them to justice. Yet, at times it hard to know if we are fighting for justice or for retribution. Attorney General Harold Bolder is on the run. He knows what the president has done and he wants justice, but on his own terms. read and watch a transformation of this good man into an evil force himself because he tries to use good to accomplish vengeance. This chapter from my novel in progress, Re-Constitution is profound and will speak to your insides and make you wonder you stand before the face of your maker. - Steven Clark BradleyDark Justice in the Cave of Treasures
Chapter 27
Washington D. C.
January 13, 2013, 11:02 p.m.
The racing cars and sights and sounds collided in the downtown area of the nation’s capital. The bright lights above on the buildings and the streets that illuminated the night were nothing like what lurked below ground. Down there, it was dark and wet and infested with vermin of every kind, with the most deadly killers of all being of the human persuasion.
Make shift living quarters were erected everywhere Down the narrow, long tunnels, lights strewn along the way lights were burning and small fires added a bit of extra light and heat to keep one’s blood circulating without freezing solid during the frigid cold night. Normally, the underground city crawled day and night beneath Washington D. C. It bustled with drug users and sellers and prostitutes who had finished their night’s duty or who were about to go do theirs. Tonight, though they had all been there, someone or something, human or otherwise had scared them all away. Tonight, for the first time in a hundred years, the main tunnel that ran right below the center of the US Capital was silent.
No one had even really even noticed it, earlier in the evening. Someone strange had descended into their frozen underground dwelling, and they had all been so busy shooting up, having sex or just trying to stay alive that no one even noticed until there he was. Some uninvited guest in a hoodie and a large coat just walked into their little community and no one knew who he was. His head and eyes were pointed downward looking right at the ground as he walked.
The man walked past several of the makeshift living areas before someone saw that he was there. He kept walking. He felt nauseous and somehow empty, like something inside him was dying. He felt like his insides were darkening, like a great curse had come upon him. He pulled the hood as far over his darkened head as he could. I just need a place to sit down a while. The man thought. He walked past two more dirty, stinky sleeping areas and five men walked out in front of him.
“Hello stranger.” One of them said to the man. Another man walked up behind him and hit him with a bat in the back of the man’s knees; they buckled under him and he tumbled to the ground. “Sorry, friend, but we don’t want to hurt you or nothing, but we just cannot be too careful, you know? Where you from?” The man said nothing and just stayed on his knees and looked downward. His mind was racing and he felt something coursing through his body and it made him want to stand up and tear them all limb from limb.
The homeless man looked down at the uninvited guest who was still on his knees. “Look, we asked you a question. Where ya from stranger?” The man grabbed the stranger by his hood and pulled his face up, and screamed. This stranger wanderer, who had invaded these homeless people’s only secure place to live, looked at the man and his eyes glowed bright red and his face looked repulsively dark around his eyes and mouth and he growled. The invader rose to his feet and grabbed the man by is coat and raised him a foot off the ground. The man’s friends pounded on the stranger’s body, but he just stood there and felt nothing.
The stranger looked at the homeless man he had in his hands and hoisted into the air and spoke to him. His voice was hoarse and snarly. The homeless man urinated in his pants and was terrified. The stranger looked into the man’s eyes with his own shining bright red ones. “Get your people out of here. I can’t…” The stranger doubled over in pain and the homeless man fell to the floor. “I can’t … I don’t want to hurt anyone, but can’t be sure … just go! All of you get out of here!” The other men in the homeless community ran over to kick the man to death, but the leader shouted at them. “Wait, he’s not trying to hurt us. He’s trying not to. He told us to get out, so let’s do what the man says.” The homeless man looked at Bolder’s changing face. “As ugly as you are, I know I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Harold Bolder stood up straight and shouted. “Get out!” The tunnel shook and car sirens blared up above ground. Cement and bricks fell from the ceiling and a strong raging wind rose up out of nowhere and sent everything in the tunnel everywhere. Bolder took hold of the man in front of him and pulled him up to his face. “I told you to get out.” Bolder pulled his arm back to probably kill the homeless man with one blow. “Now, it’s time to die.” Bolder said with his raspy voice and red eyes. Just as Bolder brought his fist forward to hit the old homeless man with all his might, Anahel appeared and held Bolder’s arm back. Bolder looked at Anahel, dropped his cocked arm and tears ran down his cheeks. “What’s happening to me?” He dropped the homeless man to the ground and the man took off running.
“Harold, it is because you have used the Tree of life’s power to negative and evil intents. We have not known what would become of you. Everyone knows what Thomas Arthur is, and even the Master sees your reasoning and understands that you want to rid the world his godlessness. Yet, the Tree of Life is not for evil or settling a score, and you have incurred bad consequences for yourself. You should not use life to cause death.”
Bolder looked around the now totally destroyed underground tunnel. No one was there. “Anahel, I have these powerful urges to just kill someone and to tear them apart. Where do those evil ideas come from?”
Anahel looked at Bolder and felt gloomy. Bolder’s visage was now marred and dark. Around each of his eyes was a ring of darkness that looked like he had glued his shadow to his face. It gave of a look of death. Bolder had grown a beard over the past days and the way it formed around his now blackened lips gave him the appearance of a demon himself. Indeed, I fear he is halfway one already. Anahel thought and felt sad remorse. He loved this man like his brother; like I loved so many of my brethren who followed evil.
“Harold, these thoughts come from you. I cannot imagine having never been and one no longer being. So, my brother, I have been around for a very long time. I have seen the greats of your former race fall to four great pitfalls in general, with a few more, may I say more creative idiots, along the way.
The first great enticement in the heart of Adam’s seed is to envy and to let jealousy run rampant in one’s soul; I have never figured out what a soul is, but I know it is what makes you who you are. Jealousy, in its rightful place, is a sure sign of love. It is when it transforms into covetousness and envy that it becomes the greatest lure to evil that is the root of every crime amongst the race of humans.
The second great destroyer of the mighty who have fallen is greed; a force that consumes its host so gradually that the one being devoured by greed begins to enjoy being eaten alive by it. That’s how I see it, as an outsider from the travails of being human.” Anahel stopped speaking and looked gently into Bolder’s face. “It is worth noting, Harold, that once again, greed, along with covetousness and envy, is the offspring of jealousy and feeds right into the third great hazard that has slain the most potent, apathetic indifference.”
Anahel grabbed Bolder’s shoulder and smiled and had a twinkle of whit in his eyes. “You know like I have heard it asked, what do you think is the biggest problem in the world, apathy or ignorance?” Bolder slightly smiled and looked up at Anahel and said, “I don’t know and I don’t care?” Anahel looked excited. “Yes, yes, that’s right!” he shouted and laughed. The he looked at Bolder seriously, “You’ve heard it before?” Bolder thought for a few moments. “Oh, only a few times.” Anahel smiled and looked pleased. “A few hundred times? I stopped counting a while back.” Bolder’s face suddenly looked brighter and of fuller color as he and Anahel both looked seriously at each other and then burst out laughing.
The three great evils I have just described to you, though residing in the heart of every human, are not what drive you. You are not motivated by jealousy. You love to give power away. You are in no way influenced by money or things. I saw what you put in that envelope in the hidden pocket in the back of your coat. You probably don’t know the meaning of apathy and have never been so in your life. It is the last one of the great dangers to you that threatens to push you over the cliff; revenge. The Master has executed revenge from the day of the great war for Mount Elyon, where my Master cast down so many of my kind. Only my Master has the right to execute vengeance, and He wants to execute it for you and through you, but he is unable to, because your motivations are vexed.
Harold, you are no longer as limited as you were before you ate of the Tree of Life. You are shifting, and you have changed into this dark ominous thing because you are trying to use light to create darkness and life with the intent to kill. I want to help you Harold. I want to protect you, but you must face these things for yourself. You have only one choice and you will know what it is after you have faced your test here. I know your heart and God knows your motivations. He has a message for you; a lesson and you must either learn it or reject it. The choice is yours.”
Bolder looked downward. “I have to live this myself, don’t I?” Bolder asked Anahel. When he looked back up, Anahel was gone. “That was a yes, I take it.”
Washington D. C.
January 13, 2013, 11:14 p.m.
Bolder walked over to the tunnel wall directly in front of him. The dim light in the tunnel suddenly spiked and his eyes felt almost blinded. Bolder quickly covered his eyes and when he lowered his hand and opened his eyes, he suddenly found himself in a cave. He saw a series of primitive drawings scrawled on the wall. The drawings seem tell a story … like ancient hieroglyphics. Bolder carefully reached out and touched the drawings. Then, it occurred to him that the light inside the cave seemed to be coming from nowhere.
Harold Bolder reached out to touch the wall and then hesitated. His hand was shaking and he felt a certain force flow out of the rock and it produced a tingling sensation on his fingertips. He pulled his hand back and looked around the cave. Though he had not noticed before, probably out of shock, amazement or sheer exhaustion, he saw that the cave was massive. It seemed like it had been carved right out of the stone.
He turned and walked around the site. He could see the carved out stones that had been placed in an organized fashion, obviously ages ago. On the cave floor, next to a large flat stone that had clearly been used as a table, Bolder saw a hollowed out stone that resembled a cup and flat slate stone plates scattered around the area. One of the plates had a primitive drawing on it as well. It showed two boys, one slightly taller than the other. One was tending to a field of vegetables. The other boy was slaughtering a lamb and draining the blood into a vessel of some kind. Bolder placed the plate on the table.
He picked up another stone plate and it too had a drawing carved into it. This one showed both boys offering their sacrifice to God and holding their hands high into the air. The taller boy’s offering was his fruit from his field of labor. The smaller boy offered the body of a slaughtered lamb. He poured the blood over the body and into a primitive alter. Bolder picked up the plate with the image of the taller boy and held it close to his face. He saw something behind the boy. It was a bit obscured but he was sure he could make out the image of an angel. The wings were there, he was sure of it. Its face was grimacing and looked evil and cunning. Then a word filled Bolder’s mind. He spoke the word quietly to himself that he had heard in his brain. “Kassadya?”
When he had mumbled the word, the light in the cave flickered and the cave shook slightly and dust and small stones fell to the cave floor. Bolder bent down and picked up another one of the flat stone plates. It showed the images of the two boys again. The smaller boy was smiling and raising his hands into the air while the image of the taller one had his head drooped downward with a look of sadness and anger drawn across his face. Bolder took the next plate, and when his eyes met the drawing, he had a sharp pain fill his hand which crawled up his arm and into his head, forcing his head to snap backward. His eyes closed and saw it all happening before him.
General Bolder looked and saw two young boys. One of them was younger than the other and busy feeding his sheep and herding them out into a large field. The other one was tending his garden and hitting the ground with a sharp tool in hard, aggressive, angry strokes. He kept glancing up at the other boy and stared at him. Bolder’ eyes were fixed on the scene that appeared before his eyes.
His eyes widened when he saw an image appear behind the older boy. It was tall, massive, like the devilish figure he had seen on the plate. It was charred and black and had leathery wings with claw-like tips on its wings. Smoke rose up off its body and its eyes seemed to bleed hatred and death. It looked down at the older boy and watched him. The boy was oblivious to its presence. After a few moments it bent down and began whispering into the older boy’s ear as he dug in the earth.
“God hates you, boy!” The boy’s strokes at the ground increased with speed and aggression, and then he stopped and he looked up, as though he heard a voice, but saw nothing. He went back to his work, striking the ground hard in anger as the evil Watcher
“There is no satisfying such a hateful person as this one you call God.” Kassadya whispered in the boy’s ear. “Your brother seems to please God so much though. Look at him over there. He is happy…smiling…peaceful. Did God not accept his offering? Did He not reject yours?” The boy looked up and over at his younger brother. His face grew angrier, to the point of rage.
“What are you waiting for?” Kassadya screamed out with the evil Watcher about an inch from the older boy’s face. Then he whispered in the boy’s ear. “Are you going to let your little brother rob you, boy? Did he work harder than you? Did he toil as you have or did you not put much more effort into your offering to this ungrateful creator?” The boy had not even flinched when Kassadya screamed in his face, but the quiet whisper got his attention instantly. The boy looked straight up into the sky and raised his fist into the air. The beast behind him grinned and began to laugh.
“How easy they are! With no effort at all.” the Watcher thought.
“Look at your hand.” The watcher told the boy. “You need to take that thing in your hand and show your brother that you won’t tolerate such disrespect! Are you not the eldest? Should he not bow down to you?” The boy looked at the sharp tool he had been using to break open the ground. “Take that thing and strike him down!” The Watcher enticed the boy. “Show him you are the leader of the clan! Show this God that you demand your rights!”
Suddenly, Bolder saw the taller boy turn, with the tool in hand, and walk slowly toward his younger brother. The older brother’s murderous thoughts were interrupted with memories of their childhood. “But, I love my brother!” he told himself rather unconvincingly and remembering playing outside the cave of learning the life that their father had been given since the Great Fall. He stopped walking and lowered the tool in his hand to his side. Then the beast appeared again and whispered in the older boy’s ear. “He’ll grow up and take it all away from you! He’s not your brother! He’s your enemy! Your mother loves him far more than she does you. He’s smarter! God loves him more than he loves you!” Kassadya loudly declared. The boy raised his head and stared at his brother. His softened expression stiffened again and anger crossed his face.
“He’s blessed and you’re cursed!” the beast whispered to him again. The boy raised the tool again up to his eyes. “He has to die or you’ll have no future!” Kassadya taunted him. The boy started walking again towards his brother. He hid the tool behind his back. “You have a right to defend yourself!” the Watcher challenged jealous heart of this child who had never tried to question himself. “He reminds me of the Master.” Kassadya reflected. The boy walked faster.
“He’s plotting against you! He’s a thief, a liar, a…” The boy took off running towards his younger brother. The younger brother looked at his older one and smiled at first and then saw his brother’s face with an expression he had never seen before.
Confused by the rage he felt, the older boy couldn’t quite figure out why he was so angry at his little brother. The aggressive child was now poised to do something he had never contemplated before. It was true that God had rejected his presentation, but the child knew the way to correct his wrong. God had Himself told the boy what was required to make his way clear. He simply felt cheated, abandoned.
Suddenly, General Bolder saw Kassadya appear and Bolder saw the Watcher’s clawed left hand thrust into the child’s head, rearranging the young brain inside. When the angry child got to where his younger brother was standing, he stopped and stared at the boy he had grown up with, the one he had lived with his whole life until that very moment. “Why have you lied to me?” he asked his younger brother.
“Lie, what does that mean? I have always been with you. What is mine is yours as well! Come, let’s sit and eat of the lamb I offered to God today.” The words enraged his older brother. “See, he’s mocking you!” the evil Watcher, Kassadya taunted the older boy with the demon’s hand shoved right into the older boy’s head and manipulating his reactions and changing them from love to jealousy, to debate over rather he should kill his brother or repent before God. “He is belittling you! Have some pride, boy! Take that tool from behind your back and slay the little bastard!”
“I don’t want your filthy meat!” the older boy told his little brother. You are mocking me!” the older brother declared. “I don’t want anything from you!” He gripped the tool and his little brother looked very perplexed and did not understand why his older brother seemed so vexed at him. “My brother, I love you. I would never mock you!”
“He’s a liar!” the Watcher insisted. “He’s going to destroy you! Take that tool and strike him down!” The boy hesitated. Crouching down behind the enraged boy, the Watcher from the depths of Hell rose up and Kassadya roared inside the older brother’s head, “Do It Now!”
Suddenly, with one swipe of his hand, the older brother swung the tool. His younger brother cried out, “Cain, NO!” just before the tool entered his skull. The smaller boy fell to the ground and blood was gushing from his head and blended with the lamb’s blood that the smaller brother only hours earlier had sacrificed to their Creator. The Watcher laughed out loud, and the boy seemed to hear it and looked around and then finally looked down at the sight of his younger brother, the brother he had always loved was lying dead on the corrupted Earth. He bent down and cried out and took his brother into his arms. “What have I done? I have to hide him, shall I lie, what should I say?
As he screamed out in great sadness and fear, he took stones and brush and piled it all on top of his little brother’s dead body. Then, he heard it and fell deadly silent. It was that same voice that had rejected his offering earlier in the day. It’s sounded like a great monster ready to devour him, though every other time he heard it, in the past, had always made him happy. This time he heard a voice like bursting thunder as large as the sky call out his name.
“Cain, what have you done?”
Cain did not respond but continued hitting the sun-hardened earth with his shovel and wondered what was about to become of him.
“Cain, where is your brother Able?”
“Am I my brother’s keeper that I should know his in and outs, when he rises and when he sleeps?”
“Cain, your brother’s blood cries out constantly before my holy throne. Henceforth, you shall wear a mark, for you have let jealous and angry run amuck, but forgiveness is crouching at your door. All those who find you shall wish to kill you; yet, no one shall lay a hand on you to harm you. ”
****
The image before General Bolder’s bewildered and enlightened eyes disappeared and he heard that word again that he had uttered earlier. “Kassadya!”
That voice again rang out from nowhere, and filled his ears. He then understood that the word ‘Kassadya’ was no common word. It was a name and it was something evil inhabited that name. He knew it was present somehow right there with him, waiting, plotting to be set free, unleashed upon the world. Bolder, felt befuddled and terrified. He knew that he had stumbled upon something malevolent, ready to open the pit of hell.
Bolder took the plate with Kassadya’s image on it. When Bolder’s flesh touched it, there was nothing. Perhaps he had imagined the sensation, but he knew he had not imagined the visions that had already materialized before his eyes, when he held the plates in his hand. Bolder recalled that same sensation that had radiated through his fingers, up through his arm and into his mind when he picked up the plates. All of a sudden, his head recoiled backward and his eyes closed rigidly shut and the images, unknown and known, flew past his closed eyes like a movie had stopped playing on the back of his closed eyelids. Bolder raised his head and he saw the same old underground tunnel that he had descended into, only now, completely ransacked and destroyed. Bolder remembered how the boys Master had patiently spoke with him. Henceforth, you shall wear a mark. Bolder took out his cell phone and clicked on the app that was a mirror. He looked at his face. It looked deathly dark and his eyes were bright orange and glowing. He knew he had cursed himself. Forgiveness is crouching at your door. Harold Bolder came face to face with utter ruin of his soul. He had used God’s glory to cause revenge. He knew what he had to do.
Bolder fell to the dirty floor of the tunnel and his darkened eyes filled with tears. “Oh God, use me for good. Take out the bitterness and the hatred and revenge and use me as your tool! Use me for justice and to right a great wrong. I give you my hatred, my anger my thoughts of murder. I will fight your fight and will seek your face.”
Bolder had changed. He had no fear; he felt strong and knew what he had to do and he had no guilt. Bolder wiped his eyes and peered through the dim light that still shown after he had made a mess of the slightly organized dump. He reached into a hidden pocket in the back of his coat and pulled out a large envelop. He opened it and took out one hundred thousand dollars. He wrote a note that asked them all to forgive him for destroying their home and hoped the money would help them live better and warmer; he signed it, Dark Justice.
Bolder put the money in the middle of the tunnel, on top of his note. He walked up the metal stairs and passed the man he had lifted off the ground. He walked up to him quickly and the man turned to run. Bolder grabbed him and turned him around. He brushed some dirt off the man’s back. “I’m very sorry for disturbing you all tonight.”
“Yeah, right; you think you only a disturbance? You scared us all to death. Hell, we almost called the cops and we hate the cops. What’s wrong with you, anyway? What happened to your face? Is it contagious?”
Bolder smiled and reached into his pocket and took out a wad of bills. “I think you’re the leader down there. When you go back, you’ll see something I left to make your lives better. Hope that makes us even.” Bolder took his hand and put ten one-hundred dollar bills in his palm. “Take care of yourself.”
“I know you; you’re … you’re …”
“I am Dark Justice.”
