NB: The Search (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 21: Gladius Dei

The car is silent.  We’re taking Maggie’s aunt to the hospital.  Maggie’s face is pale.  She’s focusing on the road in front of us.

I don’t know what to say.  The car is dark.  It’s night.  And I killed someone.  I was so cold, I didn’t even think of it as murder.

I think I’m finally starting to understand the light and it terrifies me.  The light is death.  And now I’m death too.

I’m sitting in the back seat with Maggie’s aunt.

“We’re going to be there soon,” I say.  I take her hand and try to comfort her.

She looks into my eyes.  “Are you Gladius Dei?” she asks.

I don’t understand what she means.  “Am I what?”

“The Sword of God.  Are you the Sword?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t even know what it is.”

She looks at me.  “I know it’s you,” she whispers.

“What am I?” I ask, afraid to know the answer.

As we drive her to the hospital, Eleanor tells me the story of Gladius Dei.

A small religious sect in the north of what is now France broke off from the Catholic Church in the fourteenth century.  Like the Catholics, they believed that God was the creator of all things.  He created a paradise, Heaven, inhabited by a host of angels.  Then one day, the most powerful of the angels, Lucifer, rebelled and tried to outshine God himself.  There was a war and the rebel angels were cast out of Heaven and sentenced to eternity in Hell.  But that isn’t where the story ended for those that believed in the Sword.

The existence of Hell made the universe imperfect, so God amassed his army for a final battle.  The army was to be led by the greatest general in all of God’s forces, an angel that had earned himself the name Gladius Dei, the Sword of God.     

Satan had learned of God’s plan and had devised his own devious tactic.  While God’s forces went to conquer Hell, Satan would lead his forces to the gates of Heaven, leaving just a small contingent in Hell to distract the angel army.  When God’s army returned from the battle, they would find Satan sitting atop Heaven’s throne.

 Satan’s plan may very well have worked, but a fatal flaw was made by both God and Satan.  To lead the contingent in Hell, Satan needed his most trusted of followers, one that would stand its ground in the face of insurmountable forces and hold together the forces in Hell long enough for Satan’s army to conquer Heaven.  Satan left his own spawn to lead the resistance in Hell.

What neither God nor Satan knew was that during the Great War, Gladius Dei and Satan’s spawn had had many encounters, and had developed a bond.  They loved each other.  So, the Sword led God’s army down into the depths of Hell where he found his lover waiting with his own army.  The two great beings stood and faced each other, both knowing that if they gave the first order to attack, it would be mean oblivion for the person they loved.

Satan waited for news of the start of battle before he was to begin his own violent campaign, but that news never came, for the Sword knew he couldn’t kill his love, and so he retreated back to the gates of Heaven.  With God’s army back behind their fortifications, Satan knew his army couldn’t win, and so they returned to Hell where they entrenched themselves so deep that not even God’s army could defeat them.  And so the epic stalemate was born between the light and the dark.  But it was more than just a draw, the Sword had done something unimaginable.

The Sword had created the ultimate contradiction.  He had both defied God and saved Heaven.  He created a space in the universe that was neither good nor evil.  It’s in that space from which our world was born.

I don’t know how much of the story is true, but, in my heart, one thing is clear to me.  I am Gladius Dei, the Sword of God, and Damien is the spawn of Satan.