The Centurion: The Balance of the Soul War

By Sean Patrick Little

In 1943, Jerald C. McIntire is supposed to die in a grenade explosion in the Ardennes forest in World War II. He miraculously survives, but from that point on Jerry no longer needs to eat or sleep, he has no emotions, and he never ages. After several suicide attempts, Jerry discovers he can't die. But how is this possible?

Nearly twenty years after his first brush with death, Jerry learns that he somehow broke the realm of the natural order. Even God Himself isn't sure how it happened, but Jerry is the only man ever born without a soul. The archangel Michael informs him that in the Soul War, good and evil are bound by certain laws and honor checks. Jerry, however, is bound by nothing and can therefore serve as the Master's Centurion-an agent of God bestowed with the name Jericho.

Jericho roams the streets of New York City, keeping order between the agents of Heaven and Hell, the angelus and the demonata. When a rogue deity, an ancient Hittite dragon god, comes to Earth and begins preying on both angels and demons, Jericho must step in to maintain the balance. But he stumbles into a much larger plot-one that threatens to irreparably damage the Balance of the Soul War and end all things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 25, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595876044

Sean Patrick Little

Sean Patrick Little is a former journalist turned high-school English teacher. Raised near Madison, Wisconsin, he now calls Rochester, Minnesota, home. Little is currently at work on the sequel to The Centurion, his first novel.

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Copyright © 2007 by Sean Patrick Little

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-43263-9 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-87604-4 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-43263-8 (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-87604-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

For my mother,

Who introduced me to the fantasy genre …

… And for my father,

Who always believed I could.

Contents

Acknowledgements

The Beginning

New York, New York

The Dwarf

The Nephilim

The Detective

The Angel, the Demon, and the Former

On the Trail of the Beast

The Houngan

Detective Work

The Dark Plans

Voodoo You Do So Well

The Angel Alone

Origins

The Fallen Angel

A Chink in the Armor

The Prince of Hell

Armageddon It

Parting

Babylon

Acknowledgements

I’m fairly certain that no book is ever written without a considerable amount of assistance. I would like to extend my thanks to people who assisted me in the early stages. My readers: Ann Sarazin, Alisha Ryan, Veronika Oz Linins, and my sister, Erin Little. I have to give my good friend Amanda Sarazin a lot of thanks as well. She was my first reader and she kept me working by giving a lot of positive support, demanding to see more of the work, and encouraging me to publish, even if I had to do it by myself. I also must give much thanks to Cheryl Tri, who painstakingly edited this novel for me and caught so many mistakes that I never noticed. Brandon Gimp Schmidt also contributed much to the editing of this novel and even came up with the subtitle. My friend, James McGee, created the art for the cover and his vision and talent as an artist is greatly appreciated.

I would like to thank the teachers (particularly the English teachers) who truly influenced me and/or encouraged me to be better than I was, especially Mr. David Van Natta (thanks a lot, VN), Mr. Mich Wollin, Mr. Timothy Frye, Ms. Peggy Roth, Dr. Emilio Degrazia—who taught me more about fiction writing in one semester than I had learned in twenty-four years of life, Dr. Robert Arm-strong—who made me a stronger writer, Mr. Dan Gronli, Mr. Robert Larson, Dr. Wilfred Tremblay—who encouraged my creativity, Mr. Merlin Casey—the best art teacher ever, and Mrs. Laura Norselien—the best of the best.

I also would like to thank the writers I looked up to for being so great that they made me want to be like them: Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Christopher Moore, Langston Hughes, Margaret Weis, Robert Jordan, and Groucho Marx. Stephen King’s book On Writing, particularly, was an inspiration to getting me off my hang-ups about my ability to write. I need to pass on my thanks to my favorite bands—they all inspired me through their music and lyrics. The best of the best, in my mind, will always be Marillion, Fish, Rush, Mark Mallman, and Type O Negative.

I must thank my father, John Little, for a lifetime of encouragement and support and for being my hero, my mother, Delores Little, for always taking me to the library to get as many books as I could read in a week, encouraging my creativity, and teaching me that the bookstore was probably the best place in the world, and of course, my wonderful wife, Kaija, for putting up with me and being such an excellent mother to our daughter, Annika, who, in turn, is a constant source of inspiration and joy.

And finally, I thank you, the reader, for buying this work and taking the time to read it. In a world with so many fine authors and great literary works, anyone who actually invests himself or herself in something I have done is quite humbling to me. I appreciate that more than words can express.

Many Thanks,

Sean

The Beginning

Ardennes, 1943

It was a simple explosion; a great white light burst into being and silenced everyone in a fifteen-yard radius. The grenade’s impact jarred loose lives from the mortal coil and shuffled them into the Afterworld from which people are perchance to dream. Standing in the sixteenth yard of the explosion was Jerald.

Jerry.

Jerry felt the impact rattle through him, chattering his teeth and burning his flesh. Something seared across his neck, white hot and blistering. His feet left the ground; he remembered a prayer and said it in his mind as fast as his mind would let him say it. He felt shaken, sick, and weak. He did not feel the ground as he landed; he didn’t feel anything. Jerry lay still for the longest time, waiting for death to take him. When death did not come, he caught his breath and pushed himself to his feet.

Bombshells and artillery fire, mortars and grenades, bullets and shouts all filled the air on the battlefield but they were muffled, distant. Bright flashes of fire explosions stuck out starkly against the starless night sky. A wind seemed to pick up and began rushing around the meadows, over the bodies, and through the din of combat. A sphere of light seemed to come from nowhere, silvery and shimmering, with a hint of music behind it, almost choral, and Jerry tried to see from where the music was coming, but he could find no source. It pulsed and hummed a few feet from Willy’s body.

Jer? What the hell happened?

Jerry’s head snapped around and he saw his buddy, Willy Cantrell, standing before him. But, Willy wasn’t Willy. Young, like everybody at the front, blonde, fair and innocent, Willy’s face was ghostly pale, a stark contrast to his usual rosy-cheeked self. Willy was a shade, a shadow, ghostly. Jerry looked down and saw Willy’s body at his feet. Shrapnel had torn open Willy’s face and ripped through his chest. Jerry could see the red-black mass of Willy’s intestines exposed through a gap in the sickly white flesh of his stomach.

Willy looked down and recoiled in horror at his eviscerated form. He became even paler and began weeping. Oh crap, Jerry … I’m dead! I’m dead! He sniffed and shook his head. I can’t believe I’m dead. Willy looked up at Jerry. I can’t believe it. They always say you’ll hear it coming, but I didn’t hear nothing! I didn’t hear nothing, Jer! Willy began drifting away from his former body. Willy looked shocked. I don’t have control of my legs, man! I can’t stop myself!

Where you going? Jerry called out. Don’t leave me, Willy! Come back! Why are you leaving?

Willy didn’t answer. The sphere of light pulsed and swirled, the gentle wind chime music became more pronounced, almost as if it was coming from within the light orb itself. When Willy’s shade got to the light, he seemed to dissolve and started to become part of the light. Willy suddenly stopped sobbing and a look of serenity seemed to come over him. Take care, buddy. I guess I’ll see you. I guess this is the next step. Tell my mom I loved her, okay?

In an instant, he was gone. Jerry looked around the battlefield and saw bright, shimmering globes of golden light appearing like stars across the battlefield, each materializing before his eyes. All over the battlefield shades were moving into their own orbs of light. Like a bizarre funeral procession, everywhere there was a body a shade seemed to separate from it and drift into golden points of light that seemed to burst into existence somewhere near their bodies. Once engulfed in the light, they began to evanesce and eventually faded to nothing. After the shades had gone, the light orbs dwindled away as if they never existed. All sounds of the battle seemed to grow still and quiet in Jerry’s ears and the only noise was his own labored breathing.

What are you doing? a clear, female voice cut through the pristine silence. Startled Jerry turned and saw a young woman sitting cross-legged on a few sandbags near a foxhole. She was looking over a well-weathered, leather-bound journal and jotting notes in it with a beautiful, pearl-handled fountain pen. Her hair was cut short and spiky, almost like a man’s and she wore a cloak-like black wrap that made her blend into the night.

I don’t know, Jerry answered. My friends are dead. They went into those lights.

The woman cocked her head and looked at a page in the notebook. She ran a finger down the page and then tapped it against her perfect, white teeth. She glanced back at Jerry and looked at his body. Why didn’t you go? she suddenly seemed concerned.

Go where? I didn’t know I was supposed to go someplace!

Weren’t you drawn into the light? Didn’t it pull you in like a magnet?

No. I’m just right here. My friends all disappeared in balls of light. I didn’t see any light meant for me.

The woman stood up and squinted at Jerry. Where is your body?

Uh, I’m using it.

No, I meant the body your spirit left. Where did you get up from?

Right where I’m standing.

The woman looked very confused. But, you can see me?

Yes, ma’am.

How many fingers am I holding up? She held up three slender digits. Her fingernails were as black as the clothes she wore.

Three.

Hrmmm …, she sighed. She looked at her journal again. McIntire, Jerald C. Born: Waterloo, Iowa, summer of 1921? Parents: Magda and Connor McIntire?

That would be me, yes, said Jerry. And who might you be?

"Who I am is not important. What is important is that you should be dead. You were supposed to have been killed in that grenade explosion along with seven other men in your platoon during this battle. A grenade was supposed to take your life. Shrapnel was supposed to sever your jugular vein and you were supposed to bleed out quickly."

My jugular vein remains whole, as far as I can tell. Jerry touched the spot on his neck that had blistered and burned. Some wet, sticky blood remained there, but there was no damage, no scar.

Strange. She shrugged and started to walk away. I’ll have to check into this, she said.

Check into what? What do you mean? What am I supposed to do now?

I’m not sure. She scratched her temple with the blunt end of the pen. This has never happened before. Let me go check with some … uh, people … and I’ll get back to you. With that, she turned on her heel and walked purposely into the darkness at the edge of the battlefield, seemingly blending into the black.

Jerry stood there for a few moments. All over the battlefield, shades were leaving bodies and heading toward points of light. He could hear the bombs again and the percussion of artillery and gunshots and the screams of planes overhead. It was different, though. The noise, the war, it all seemed foreign. The explosions were no longer the loud, soul-wrenching pops and bangs they used to be. The sound of a bomb hitting a target didn’t make his stomach lurch. He wasn’t scared any more. There was no more fear in him. Even the bombs exploding near him failed to make him jump. After he stopped being scared, the war didn’t make sense anymore.

So he quit.

Jerry yanked his dog tags from around his neck and cast them aside. He wandered away from the war, making his way south through the countryside of France. He walked for two days in his uniform, not sleeping, not eating. He was neither hungry nor tired. After two days, he came across an old farmhouse where some men’s clothes were drying on a line outside the house. He crept up and stole them, darting behind a low rock wall to strip out of his mud-stained olive drabs and put on the pilfered outfit. He slipped away unnoticed and continued through the hillsides and valleys. After a few days of travel, he discovered he neither needed to eat nor sleep. He could eat if he desired, but sleep was not possible. He would lie on the ground and feign sleep at night, mostly out of habit, but his eyes would want to stay open and his mind never stopped or slowed down. Fatigue never came. His body and mind never faltered.

After a few weeks of stumbling blindly through the countryside, aimed nowhere in particular, he found a dilapidated country chateau where an elderly man lived by himself. Marcel didn’t speak English, and Jerry didn’t speak French, but the man seemed to know he needed help and took him into his home. He gave Jerry some clothes and fed him. In the morning, Jerry helped him with chores. Though neither said anything to solidify it, Jerry simply became Marcel’s roommate, living with the old man for ten years. In time, each man learned enough of the other’s language so that they developed a strange Frenglish language that they used to communicate with each other.

Life with Marcel was good. The old man never questioned his past, only accepting him for what he appeared to be. He asked Marcel about it once and the old man only said, "Everyone has a past. Not everyone is proud of his. I choose to look to the future."

Once they could communicate freely, Jerry found they had a lot in common and they spent many quiet nights listening to the radio and playing chess. Jerry tried to revive some of his old hobbies, like working on cars, but he found that they didn’t make him feel fulfilled anymore. Working on Marcel’s old truck was something he did only when it needed fixing.

When Marcel’s family came to visit, they treated Jerry like family. The feasts were always an affair, the wine was savory, and they all laughed and chatted. Whenever the family got together, Jerry would occasionally think back to his parents back in America. More than likely, they had been told about Jerry’s missing-in-action status and they had been waiting for the inevitable news of his death. After ten years, he hoped they would have moved on. He didn’t feel sad that he might be dead to them. He didn’t feel homesick, and he didn’t even miss them. Jerry had stopped feeling emotions like he did before that night in the Ardennes.

Occasionally Jerry accompanied Marcel to the village for supplies, and sometimes he would catch sight of a shade. He would see a man or a woman drift into a shimmering of golden light and evaporate. It was rare, though. The ghosts would sometimes acknowledge Jerry, as if they knew he could see them. Jerry would look for the strange lady from the battlefield, but he never caught a glimpse of her. In the long nights without sleep, Jerry had reasoned that he was supposed to be dead. However, he wasn’t dead, and he couldn’t fathom why. What purpose did it do to leave him on Earth?

Since that night in the Ardennes, Jerry hadn’t aged a day. His hair still fell out and grew back in, and his skin still flaked off when it was dry, but he never aged. His hair didn’t turn gray; he never got wrinkles. He looked as pasty and baby-faced as he did the day he signed up for the Army straight out of college. Marcel used to tell him he was blessed with agelessness. They celebrated Jerry’s birthday every year, but it seemed a hollow celebration to Jerry. Nothing was changing.

Marcel died one night in Spring. It was a quiet, peaceful death. Jerry sat beside Marcel, tending to him, keeping a cool washcloth on his forehead and holding a last cigarette between Marcel’s lips as the old man weakly inhaled and puffed. When the cigarette was nearly finished, Marcel lay back against his pillows and gave a slight, wheezing cough. He closed his eyes and exhaled, stiffened slightly, and passed on.

The old man’s spirit rose from the corpse and stood up. He gave a wink at Jerry and spoke to him—not in the awkward French/English they spoke, but in pure and flowing French—and Jerry understood every word he said.

It has been a long time my friend, said the Marcel-shade. " You have made the last ten years a pleasure. Thank you for taking away my loneliness. Since my wife died, I had been very lonesome; you seemed like a blessing from the angels. Without you, I doubt I would have made it this long." The sphere of light appeared in the corner of the room. A faint sound of a choir-like hum and tinkling bells could be heard.

"I think God, maybe He has a greater plan for you, eh? Maybe He keeps you young because He knows that He is going to need you in the future. I don’t know. I do know that you are destined for something great, my friend.."

Marcel saluted Jerry and gently drifted toward the shimmering light. He evaporated to nothingness leaving Jerry; alone in the dark Jerry looked around for the strange woman he’d seen in the Ardennes, but she never appeared.

I know you’re there, he spoke aloud to the darkness. I’m still waiting for you. He waited for an answer. An hour passed. Then another hour. The sun began to creep into the horizon.

Why am I still here?

Jerry left the country and meandered into Paris. In a few months, he found that the years with Marcel had been a great language class and he was able to speak French rather fluently. He took a job as a sous-chef in a small bistro near the Champs-Elysees and spent his days working in the kitchen. He spent his nights listening to American radio on a wireless he bought to keep in his modest flat. He had a bed, a desk, a chair, and the wireless. He bought a bike to ride around the city, but once he knew the layout, he rarely felt a need to go anywhere.

Jerry was often envious of the young couples on honeymoon who would flounce around the city starry-eyed and in love, gushing over every little nook and cornice. Jerry felt nothing in his chest. He was never in awe of the architecture or the history. He just was.

After ten years of life in Paris, the emptiness inside started growing and gnawing at him; he felt like it was all consuming, he could only feel the darkness inside himself. After one long, sleepless night, Jerry decided he no longer wanted to live. He should have died in 1943. In a snap decision one night after work, he walked to a bridge near the bistro and calmly jumped over the railing. The Seine swallowed him and sucked him downstream. He purposely let himself be dragged into the undertow; the chilly waters soaked his clothes. Jerry offered no resistance, letting the water drag him under the surface. The alerted shouts of people who saw him jump were quickly borne away by the rushing water in his ears and he let himself succumb wholly to the black waters.

But nothing happened.

He stayed underwater for moments, minutes, maybe an hour. He drank in all the water his lungs could hold. He inhaled water into his sinuses and his lungs. He swallowed water until his stomach felt as if it would burst. He swam down and sunk his fingers into the filthy silt and weeds at the bottom of the river and clung there, waiting for death. It never came.

When he finally gave up, pulling himself onto the banks of the Seine, miles from Paris, spewing the noxious water from his mouth and nose, soaked to the bone, chilled, and reeking of the fish-and-sewage stench of the Seine, he resolved to do it differently the next time.

The next night, he asked to leave work early. Bertrand, the head chef, granted it to him mostly because in ten years of work Jerry had never asked for anything. Not even a break to smoke a cigarette. Jerry left the bistro and headed for the Eiffel Tower. A quick elevator ride later and he was at the top of the tower. He looked for a gap in the safety fencing and quickly, before anyone could stop him, he squeezed through, pushed off, and was falling. The wind rushed through his ears and the ground approached at a sickening rate. Jerry forced himself to fall face-first, landing on his chest and face, his pelvis cracking into the pavement; air sped from his lungs and his stomach. He felt his bones crack and his arms and legs rebounding from the impact like doll parts. His teeth crushed into the pavement and broke. His eyes bulged and his heart compressed. A wave of thick, heady blackness took him.

As suddenly as the dark took him, light flooded back. He was being loaded into the back of a French ambulance. A gendarme was telling the ambulance driver in French, It is nothing short of a miracle. A fall like that should have killed him. He should be dead. I should be talking to the undertaker.

Jerry opened his eyes and saw the Eiffel Tower outlined against the starlit black sky. The lights of Paris danced off the metal work. The flashing blue light of the ambulance made a regular pass across the black metallic structure.

At the hospital, the doctors X-rayed him. They found fractures—not breaks; light tissue damage—not massive internal collapse. Jerry didn’t even have a headache. The doctors called it a miracle. Several nuns and the hospital chaplain stopped by his room to touch him and pray. By the morning, they discharged him with slings on his arms and casts on his legs; Jerry knew he was fine. Even his teeth had grown back.

A block away from the hospital, Jerry ripped the casts off and dejectedly walked to a small pawnshop near his apartment. He paid cash for a snub-nosed revolver similar to the sidearm he carried when he served in Ardennes. He bought a box of bullets. Asking for a single bullet seemed like it would be too obvious.

Jerry walked back to his apartment, closed the door to his room, and locked it. He took off his clothes and sat naked on his bed. If this worked, he wanted to be as little trouble for the coroner as possible. He loaded six bullets into the cylinder of the revolver, snapped it shut, spun it, and without hesitation, he pushed the barrel to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Blackness slowly gave way to light. Jerry found himself lying on the floor; a small pool of dried blood surrounded his head. Spatters of blood were on the comforter next to where he was sitting when he shot himself. Quickly, before he could think, Jerry picked up the gun, rammed the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger again.

When he awoke, his mouth tasted like sulfur and acrid metal and there was more blood on the floor. He grabbed the gun as fast as he could and pointed it at his heart and fired once more.

In the darkness, Jerry felt no time, nor was he conscious, but in the darkness, he always knew it would not last.

There was a pair of expensive black, open-toed leather heels in his eye-line when he awoke. The shoes housed exquisite feet, and those were connected to long, black, stocking-covered legs. The legs crawled northward to a tasteful but exotic skirt and shirt combo (black, of course). The torso angled to a long, pale white neck and angular face. Her hair was different this time—no longer short and spiky; it was longer and swept back into a graceful chignon. The woman from the battlefield was back. She gave Jerry a warm smile.

You really were serious, weren’t you? she said. She poured a glass of something from a brown bottle and held the liquid out to Jerry. He reached out and drank it. The whisky burned away the taste of sulfur and blood in his throat. He held out the glass again and she refilled it.

You have put us in quite a pickle, Mr. McIntire.

Sorry to inconvenience you, said Jerry. Who is ‘us?’

Allow me to introduce myself, the woman said leaning forward, handing Jerry a towel with which to cover his nakedness. I am Death. This, she gestured to a man standing in the corner of the room that Jerry hadn’t noticed before, is Michael.

Death? I thought he’d be a guy, big and tall, with a scythe.

Well, sort of, the woman said. Death himself is a busy entity. I am a part of him. I do some of his work on the earth. He commands me from afar and I carry out his orders. As far as the grim reaper act, that went out with the Black Plague. We can move through the terrestrial plane much more easily if we change with the times.

And what’s the story with the stiff? asked Jerry. Michael smiled and nodded. He was wearing a tan suit that looked expensive and uncomfortable. The collar looked too tight and the tan overcoat looked