Blessed by Night

Chapter 197: Heartache

After the men saw that Malachi was serious about retracting any offers of salvation, they tightened their grip on their weapons and rushed at him with as many numbers as ten at a time.

Snarling, he ran through them while on something of a high.

The negative emotions he could feel vibrating with the atmosphere were seeping into his body and filling him with renewed energy.

He felt like he could do so much with these new powers of his that he was almost swept away in their potential.

However, he had to stay focused on the task at hand for the moment and not let himself get lost in his growing bloodlust.

Anna and Joanne were waiting downstairs and he couldn't bear to keep them in cages for even a moment longer.

Using negative energy as a conduit for control, he reached into the shadows at his feet and brought them surging upwards.

Countless dark snakes with glowing red eyes and mouths sprang forward and either devoured the men whole or bit them in half from the waist up.

But while it seemed like Malachi was going to clear away the initial welcoming party within seconds, a problem soon showed up.

Reinforcements were beginning to arrive from all sides, in the form of either armed personnel, tanks, or attack helicopters that were already starting to fire upon Malachi and the constructs he'd created.

"I don't understand…. Why you are all so determined to forfeit your lives like this."

Malachi made a clenching gesture with his fist and ball of the snakes that had been running around on their own until now suddenly came rushing back together.

The mass of serpents grew larger and larger until an enormous wall of serpents rose up and immediately began to attack everything in sight.

With his enemies distracted, Malachi had no issue walking past the chaos and heading straight to the front door.

The doors outside were clearly made from magic ore and were more secure than a bank vault, with only a keypad on the side permitting entry.

But after gathering only a small amount of negative energy within his fist, he punched the doors with so much force that the impenetrable surface was broken down into fine pieces.

Uninterested in the absurdity of what he'd just done, Malachi stepped through the large opening he'd created in the building with a deathly calm and uninterested look on his face.

"Are you really going to make me kill all of you too?"

The small army of personnel trembled and for a moment they almost dropped their weapons out of fear.

But like a bomb only needing a single match to go off, they too only needed just one of them to give them courage.

"O-Open fire!"

Bullets flew through the air wildly before coming to a dead stop mere inches away from his face.

Shaking his head, Malachi redirected the bullets back through the heads of the senders, and their bodies dropped onto the ground twitching mere seconds later.

"I guess that's a yes..."

Continuing his adventure through the prison, Malachi kicked open the doors to the first cell block and came face to face with a white room lined with cells.

Inside, prisoners wore very simple white jumpsuits and sat behind walls of blue plasma that could burn away even blessed skin.

"It's Malachi Saint..!"

"Please, help us..!"

"I-I never believed it when they said you were a monster..! Please don't leave me in here!"

One by one, Malachi was bombarded with sincere pleas to save these people.

Each of the prisoners got as close to the barrier as they could before yelling the most desperate appeals they could think of.

Malachi would get all of these people out, but for right now he was focused on something else.

There was one heartbeat within the room that he could hear beating louder than all of the rest.

It just so happened that this was also the only person he could not hear any pleas to be saved from.

Almost as if the person inside did not really want to believe that he was here.

Mal slowly floated off the ground before flying towards a fairly large cell in the back of the cell block- near the women's side.

When he landed in front of the cell, he found the body of a woman curled up in the corner.

There was a tattoo resembling angel wings across her back that was only barely visible beneath her shirt.

She was very thin, and she was protecting her head by holding it between her knees and covering it with her arms.

"Joanne…"

The woman flinched when she heard her name called, and she hesitantly turned around and Malachi felt his own heart tear in two.

Her head had been shaved, there was a small numeric tattoo on her neck and there were black bags underneath her eyes as if she hadn't been sleeping.

As soon as she saw Malachi, she immediately let a small river of tears fall as if she was tired of holding them back.

Malachi touched the searing plasma wall with one hand and watched as it slowly lost power and vanished.

He hesitantly stepped inside of the cell and dropped to both of his knees in front of her.

More often than not, Joanne had difficulty being touched after everything that she had gone through in the past, and he was still trying to be mindful of that.

No matter how much it hurt him to do so.

"It's really you… right?" She asked hollowly.

Malachi couldn't bring himself to say anything at risk of breaking down, and he simply held out a clawed hand that she hoped she would take.

Begrudgingly, Joanne crawled from the corner and hesitantly poked the center of his palm.

Once she saw that he was real, a dry laugh escaped her lips as she continued to cry.

"Hell of a disappearing act you pulled… You had all of us walking around like zombies for months..."

"I am… so sorry. None of you will ever have to worry about me leaving your side ever again." He said sincerely.

"You always were cheesy like that… You should save those kinds of words for those five."

"You are just as important to me as they are."

"Honestly… how can you say all of that with a straight face when I look like this..?" She said painfully.

"You're just as beautiful now as the day where we first met and you tried to kick my head off. There is nothing that could ever be done to you that would change that."

Joanne didn't say anything, but she let herself crawl into Malachi's arms and rested in his affectionate embrace.

Out of Malachi's desire for Joanne to never know negative emotions, he greedily consumed every drop of anxiety, sadness, and stress within her mind.

Joanne wasn't sure exactly what happened, but all that she knew was that she felt absolutely amazing in his embrace.

She could feel all of her worries leaving her at such an alarming rate that it was almost dizzying.

She hadn't had a full nights sleep since she'd gotten here, but now that she was back in Mal's embrace she felt her fatigue hit her like a Mack truck.

Before either of them knew it, she was snoring awkwardly with her mouth open and her body had gone limp.

"You're just like Anna… The way you guys sleep is so funny." Mal laughed.

"Don't move!"

Malachi's warm and fuzzy mood quickly disappeared as he stood up with Joanne in his arms.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, he gave her a small kiss on the forehead as she rested on his shoulder peacefully.

"I'm glad you're getting some sleep now… I dont really want you to see what I'm about to do to avenge you."

Mal's voice gradually became deeper and more demonic as he became the unholy apparition that so many in this world had come to fear.

This time, none of the firing squad could pull the trigger on their weapons before the nightmare's tails bit through the body armor of all assembled and left them dead in seconds.

Malachi leapt out of the cell with Joanne still nestled against him closely and not showing any signs of waking up soon.

Malachi continued to intrude deeper into the prison, smoldering with rage and regret.

He kicked in another pair of doors to a different block and emerged in what looked like a highly secured solitary wing.

Securing his grasp on Joanne, he ran towards Anna's position with inhuman speed and reappeared in front of a thick lead door.

Taking his razor sharp claws, he cut through all three feet of lead as if it were tissue paper and knocked down the door.

Inside, he found light panels putting out UV light into every corner of the room; ensuring that there were no shadows here.

In the center of the room, Anna was strapped to a medical table a blindfold over her eyes.

Two IV bags were embedded into each of her arms- one to keep her sedated, and the other to supply nutrients and fluids.

It was no wonder why the girls hadn't been able to communicate with her for all of these months.

"We always thought that you would come for her, but we didn't expect you to take so long. Do you like her accommodations?" A voice suddenly asked.