The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (moboreader txt) 📕

“It will be fun discovering the full extent of our powers, and your friend will not be able to stand against us once we have ascended. To be honest with you, he doesn’t stand a chance against me now, and that’s the honest truth,” Phillip said. “Now you two can follow us willingly to the basement on your own power, or we can shoot you in the kneecaps and carry you down there ourselves while you cry and moan in pain. Your choice, so which one will it be?”

I was determined to go down in a hail of gun fire before I’d let them hurt her, and as I geared up for a fight. Elizabeth looked at me with soft tears in her eyes.

“Brandon, please let me go.”

“No, Elizabeth, we can’t just go with them. We have to try and...”

“It will be okay,” she said and discreetly slipped something in my hand and firmly clasped my palm around it. As the wicked men her and I once revered as next to God led us to the basement, I could tell she had slipped me the key to the handcuffs.

Chapter Twenty-FourBrandon Farmer

The Holy Anointed Church

THE DOOR TO THE BASEMENT was slammed shut and locked behind me as I walked down the stairs with Phillip’s men in front and behind me. Elizabeth directed some pretty severe threats at Scott who just smiled at her in return as he enjoyed the heartbreak and betrayal he inflicted upon her. We were both witnessing how truly of an evil human being Scott turned out to be, to be able to make someone fall in love with them, only for the sole purpose of luring them to their death.

Lizzie was one of the best people I’d had ever known in my lifetime. I loved her from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, and I would have done anything to win back her affections. And here that guy was willingly throwing it all away because it never really mattered to him. I wanted to lash out at Scott and the rest of those guys, but I decided to play it cool, and let them think I had given up hope of being saved. I prayed that wherever Wrath was, he and his brothers would save us before it was too late.

I got to the bottom of the stairs with the key still firmly pressed against the inner palm of my fist, as I was greeted by the smells of a well-ventilated room instead of the damp musty odors I’d come to expect from such spaces. There were upside down pentagrams painted in red on each of the four white walls, and what appeared to be an altar for sacrificing in the middle of the room. I recognized it was a copy of what they used in the Biblical times. I had seen so many different versions of what people thought they looked like in books and in movies throughout the years. There were four sides to the rectangle-shaped altar with a smooth slab on top.

I was surprised how brightly lit and cleaned the room was as Phillip motioned to his men for me to follow him as they pulled Elizabeth to the other side of the room and forced her to sit in one of the chairs lined against the wall while a man pointed her own gun at her. I recognized him from when I use to attend the church regularly. He had aged some, but I still saw the man I had seen so often in passing. I never knew any of those men in my church-going days because they stayed away from the majority of the church members. They also weren’t the real elders of the church. The men I was in the room with had to be the elders of whatever Satanist stuff Phillip was in to.

“Pretty nice set up down here for being a basement after all, don’t you think?” Phillip asked as he put on a black robe trimmed in gold that one of his men handed him. “I had it specially designed and built by the gentlemen that are here with us today, and the best part is, this room doesn’t exist. Not officially on any blueprints anyway.”

“Yes, it’s a very lovely, sick, and twisted place you have here for you and your devil spawn over there. I’m curious how did you all meet? Did Satan throw a mixer for you guys or something?”

“Typical Brandon, always ready with a joke or a smart-mouthed comment.”

“I aim to please,” I said.

“If you must know, they’re not devil spawn. They are the elders of my church.”

“Elders of the church? No, they’re not. My father and I knew the elders of this church pretty well. They all ordered Bible Study books and things like that from dad at his store. I’ve never seen those guys before, except for that degenerate, Scott, over there.”

“That’s because those men over there are the elders of my true Luciferian church that I founded and grew in these very walls.”

“Luciferian? Don’t you mean Satanists? You know Lucifer fell, and became the devil.”

“That story is a lie, and after tonight you will come to know the truth as I have. Anyway, the best part of those men over there is no one really knows who they are. They are quiet, unassuming, average people that you pass on the street every day, and you pay them no attention because they seem unworthy of your time. But if you only knew how great those men really are, then you would give them the respect they are due.”

“They look like a bunch of middle-aged losers who still live in their parents’ basement if you ask me,” I said as I tried to keep my anger in check.

“What an ugly thing to say. Didn’t your parents teach you that if you can’t say anything nice, that you are not to say anything at all?”

I scanned