Waite on the Antichrist: The Celestial Wars, #6

By John Campbell

An awesome rollercoaster ride packed with a plethora of suspense, a supremely EVIL spirit, and one flawed but irresistible-to-love hero! A defining gamechanger for not only the fiction category but for MULTIPLE genres. In short, if you're an avid reader...you NEED THIS BOOK! —Larry Roy

 

5 out of 5 stars! A true classic is born. This will be a movie one day! —Tank

 

Angels and fallen angels, devils and demons, dwarves and elves, good and bad gods, misunderstood dragons, a super-powered supporting cast of memorable characters, and one flawed but lovable superhero named Harmon Waite—son of the most powerful angel in the universe.

 

He who would be King of the World—One of young Tom Horn's earliest talents is the ability to mesmerize folk. When he takes to the airwaves as a talk radio host, the world turns on his word. Harmon Waite has always been a resourceful hero, but he and his team are up against the wrong enemy this time—And The End is closing in!

 

1.      Waite on the Ripper – a hyper-intense roller-coaster-ride down a dark highway

2.      Waite on the Blind Angel – a dangerous cat-and-mouse-game with a fallen archangel

3.      Waite on the Hero's Journey – an out-of-this-world parachute jump—without the chute

4.      Waite on the Angel of Death – a black-magic-showdown with an entire planet

5.      Waite on the Trail of Terror  – the ride through a house of horrors to die for

6.      Waite on the Antichrist – an end to Harmon's world and the real beginning of

 

The Celestial Wars - The soul-blessed worlds will never be the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Creative Now
• Release date: Jan 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224647118

John Campbell

I love good stories. I remember exactly how I felt when I first read classics like Lord of the Rings, Stranger in a Strange Land, and the Foundation trilogy. I've been writing almost since I started reading. I performed the poems at Sixth Street's Chicago House that eventually became A Week of Years. Then my son came along, and I joined a tech revolution. During two decades at Dell, I accumulated a pocketful of good stories, and Riding on the Coattails of Genius was born. My new series, The Celestial Wars, is set in Austin,  where I've spent the best part of my life. In the first novel, Harmon Waite is a homegrown detective befriended by a pair of Nephilim warriors who help him hunt an ancient evil. Before the twelve novels in this arc are done Waite's realities will be shredded by evils beyond imagination. Get ready for a wild ride down supernatural highways.

Book preview

Chapter one

Chapter One: The Beginning of The End

Everything changed for Tom Horn when he was ten years old. His dangerously—some would say psychotically—religious parents ruled his life up to that point with a freely applied leather strap and plentiful prayers. But at ten, Tom came into his power. It happened while he was half-listening to his mother rant about how sloppily he’d done his chores. Feeling the sick anticipation of what would come next, wishing she’d just shut up and get on with it, he heard his mom stop mid-sentence. There was a horrible gurgling sound, and looking over, he saw that his mother had swallowed her tongue. It was bulging her throat, and the small, angular woman had turned blue.

Realizing he was about to lose her, he knew what he had to do. His mom had been sitting in a chair. He pushed her off and climbed on top. She struggled frantically against his weight as he straddled her waist and pushed her spine against the floor. Her thin lips were parted wide in a silent scream, and luckily his child’s hand would just fit. He jammed his fist in her mouth. Reaching down her throat with his fingers, curling them around the slippery mass as tightly as he could, he pulled her tongue back into place.

His mom hugged and hallelujahed him for saving her. It was only afterward Tom started wondering. He experimented with the neighborhood’s tinier creatures. Dead birds and a stiff-frozen cat gave him a taste for what he could do. By the time his parents became suspicious, Tom was ready to take control. Over the next few years, both learned not obeying their son’s whims meant pain—and plenty of it.

When his father tried to take the strap to him, Tom turned the man’s hand to strike his mother instead. When they cursed him as unholy, their bowels turned to water. Finally, when both parents, knowing they’d birthed a devil, tried to murder him as he slept, they returned to consciousness, the knives they’d brought into his room buried in each other’s shoulders. Tom was sixteen when he realized he could control their perceptions of reality—which changed everything again.

His mom and dad’s worlds devolved into living nightmares while he used them as guinea pigs, figuring out optimal methodologies for enslaving wills. High school had been a bore, but he entered college and found a fertile playground for further experiments. After his parents died, Tom dedicated himself to perfecting his strange mix of powers. Mind control and energy manipulation, teleportation, telekinesis, and telepathy were his to use as he willed, but they all needed perfecting.

Tom Horn turned twenty-one on January 6th, 1993, and decided it was time for the young god he was fast becoming to begin his conquest of the world. He needed to address one situation that had worried him since he was sixteen. Also, Tom deemed testing his powers with a larger-scale experiment in another city a prudent ounce of prevention. He thought the short drive to Victoria should be pleasant and that city would work nicely for his purposes. He took Tilda, his erstwhile girlfriend and ever-inventive playmate—but kept what he intended to himself.

When Tom returned to Austin, he would figure out what to do concerning Waite Investigations’ super-powered inhabitants.

***

Azra was in Austin playing a two-night gig at the Ritz on 6th Street for the first time in years. His first night, Harmon and Molly came to see him perform. They arrived early, and Azra was pleased to see they appeared happy together. Before his stint in front of the microphone, they’d all ambled along Austin’s iconic street, enjoying the signs of ramping nightlife. Dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse included as excellent a bone-in rib eye as Azra could remember tasting.

His second night in Austin had been a bit different. About halfway through his set, he noticed a couple slow dancing. They were barely out of their teens. The young lady was a tall brunette beauty, slim as a rail. The man was taller than the girl, otherwise pretty nondescript. The girl’s aura was a mess, but it was the total lack of an aura around the man that drew his attention. He had to be hiding it the same way the angel hid his own nature. Looking closer, Azra saw a hint of darkness he didn’t like, but he couldn’t reach beneath the youngster’s surface noise.

Focusing on the girl's chaotic, unguarded memories, he read the tragedy of her past. At seven, her stepfather began sexually abusing her. He hadn’t stopped until she was eleven. The damage to her sense of self had been permanent and profound. Between one note and the next, Azra decided the young lady deserved a second chance at a normal life. He sifted through her memories, then transported himself to the first time she’d been raped.

***

Azra was a shadow in one corner of the living room. A young girl lay prone watching TV, her butt up in the air, elbows under her chin. Behind her, an overweight man with a heavy drinker’s rough features sat on the sofa, beer in one hand, regarding her backside with dark, predatory eyes. He seemed to come to a decision, set his beer on the coffee table, and stood. Then the room closed in around him.

The predator found his disembodied self hanging above a blue-lit underground cavern. Child-sized devils were buggering hundreds of thousands of men—one devil for every male. The devil’s phalluses were giant, and there was no pleasure in the anal penetrations he witnessed— only a vast sea of rising and falling screams. Beside him, the man heard a quiet voice say, You will notice no one is asking for mercy. The years wear out even hopeless hopes.

There was no sense of motion when the man turned his head, no nausea or physical sensation, but his eyes were working fine. He could see the incredible scene below and the other man hanging in the air next to him, gazing around sadly. He asked in disbelief, Is this a dream?

No, this is Hell. Specifically, the hell reserved for those who abuse children and the innocent.

Dawning horror on his coarse features, the man shut his eyes tight, then put his hands over his ears. It didn’t help. His arms dropped limply to his sides, and he opened his eyes again, focusing on the other man. Who are you, and why have you brought me here?

The other man answered with a question. What is your name?

Both angry and scared, the man mumbled, Richard Bauer.

Richard Bauer, I am Azrakiel, the Angel of Justice. I have brought you to see your fate.

The man tried to backpedal, but his legs churned empty air, and his voice rose to the edge of a scream. What do you mean? How can you know that?

I know, as surely as you know what you were about to do to that little girl.

Me, I wasn’t going to do anything to Tilda. She’s a sweetie pie. She’s my daughter. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.

The rape of a child is an irredeemable act of desecration. You would have violated her hundreds of times after that first forbidden act. Azrakiel spread his hands, encompassing the chamber. Your path is set.

Bauer shrunk from the ultimate horror of that place and stuttered the truth, But I hadn’t done anything yet. I was just going to love on her some. If that’s so wrong, I won’t do any of the stuff I was thinking about.

Azrakiel stared at the other man, judging him. There was not the slightest chance of forgiveness lurking in his hard eyes as the angel of justice pronounced his sentence. The same as you would have given her no choice, I provide you with none. What was, is no longer true. The future is reset. The lives you would have destroyed are spared.

Richard Bauer only half understood what the angel was saying. He stared mutely down at the scenes below, his eyes drawn to a big man hanging over a rock in limp defeat, being steadily, inevitably raped by a devil half his size. He whimpered, You’re leaving me here, aren’t you?

Azrakiel’s eyes were twin flaming swords. I am an angel, and I serve justice in God’s name. I do not abandon anyone. Azra swallowed his righteous anger, looked around again, then asked the man, Do you wonder why the inhabitants of this particular Hell are all men? Richard mutely shook his head, hope’s bright fireworks dazzling the darkest despair he had ever known.

Azra swayed a hand toward the man’s head as if directing, A slight adjustment to your brain. The broadening of the central path and a few small tweaks—there and there. Richard Bauer, for the balance of your life, you shall perceive the world as a woman does.

The man squeezed his eyes shut tight, feeling his thoughts twist and shift. When he opened them again, he started screaming and could not stop.

***

When Azra returned to the Ritz stage, he concentrated on finishing the song. He could see the girl was gone. Her life had been different since age seven, so that was as it should be. The young man was standing alone on the dance floor. He spun around once in confusion, then his eyes went directly to Azra. The knowledge in those eyes startled the archangel. Azra enjoyed the final notes, then took a break, heading out back for a smoke—and to wait on the young man to come find him.

***

Tom stood before the lone singer and didn’t much like what he saw. There was more to this man than met the eye. He was impressive enough, standing a couple of inches over six feet—lean but with an impression of strength lurking under his well-traveled exterior. More than that, the man concealed his aura, probably the same way Tom hid his, which meant he was no ordinary man.

The problem was, this stranger had somehow stolen his girlfriend from under his nose. Tom cared for Tilda no more than he did any other human, but the girl was his release. More than that, she was an extreme personality. She entertained him. More belligerently than he’d meant to, he asked, Who are you?

Azra. The singer took a slow drag off his cigarette, then raised an eyebrow.

The young man flushed. Courtesy hadn’t been in the cards, but this stranger affected him. It should have been the other way around. My name is Tom Horn. The man who would rule the world bristled, Tell me what the hell you did with Tilda.

Azra took another drag. The command in and underlying his words should have elicited an immediate response, so Tom worried when the stranger replied negligently, What makes you think I’ve done anything with her?

There was something very wrong here. Tom decided on discretion. You were eyeballing her. Then she walked away in the middle of the song. What am I supposed to think?

Azra had touched Tilda’s memories, so he knew Tom Horn was bad news. When the youngster demanded Tilda’s whereabouts, the tug of energies and his quick turnaround in tone bothered the archangel. Once Tom walked away, and it looked like