Author's Note: This is a sequel to "New Messiah. You really do need to read it first; otherwise a lot of things won't make sense. I wasn't going to do a sequel but since I had quite a few requests for one, I figured I should try and placate the masses. I don't know if it will live up to the original (sequels seldom do) but I will do my best. Please review; I thrive on those things. I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season…..and while I am wishing, I wish that the guys from CSI would turn up under my Christmas tree this year. Sadly, until my wish comes true, I don't own any of them.
* * *
The Desert
Out in the Nevada desert, under the cover of night, the lone coyote emerges through the clouds of dust. He ambles across the desert with a swagger of confidence that comes with being the king of his domain. The sky is brilliant ebony and the bloodless moon is shining brightly. But there are clouds on the horizon. A storm is moving in. A storm that will bring not only rain, but change. The rain will not wash away the past but it will allow the future to emerge. One may not like what the future has in store but you can't stop the future from coming any more then you can stop the rain from falling. The desert seems so mysterious but it is actually the most honest place there is. There is nowhere to hide out here. There are no secrets here. Everything is out in the open, both in the literal sense and in the figurative one. The coyote continues his journey across the vast expanse of desert. He is on a mission on this evening. He is making his way to the place where it all began. It is the same place where it will all end. A slight breeze dashes through the night air. He pauses, listening intently to what the wind has to say. The wind is laughing again. She is all-knowing and she sees now what is about to unfold before it. The wind has revealed her secrets once before and it is now her turn to sit back and watch others do the unveiling. She relishes to opportunity to witness something so historic. The wind is a tricky character. She embraces both worlds: the good and the evil. Sometimes she is gentle and reveals to us what would not otherwise be known. Other times she is vindictive and leads the innocent into situations that will test the very stamina of their being. But on this night she is neither good nor bad. She is simply present. Her only mission on this night is to bring in to storm clouds. As the clouds obscure the moon from view, the coyote pauses again. It perks its ears, listening to a sound only it can hear. It is not the wind this time, but rather fate. It seems that on this evening, the coyote has a date with destiny. He will not be the only one. An unseen force encourages the coyote to move more quickly towards his destiny. The clouds are growing heavier now. Change is almost upon them. The coyote must act quickly if he wants to succeed in its mission.
As the creature quickens his pace, a hare darts out and sprints across the path. The coyote lets it run without a second glance. On any other night he would have given chase to the hare. But tonight is different. The coyote senses that he is not the most dominant being in the desert tonight. Tonight the coyote is both the hunter and the hunted. He is hunting the answers to questions that haven't even been asked yet. He is being hunted by a presence that wants to make sure nothing destroys its chance at glory. The coyote still possesses strength and power but there are forces at work that could strike down that power with a crushing blow. The coyote presses on, not wanting to tempt those forces into acting against him. He wants to accomplish his mission and go back to his old way of living. For the time being however, he must be a pawn in the game that fate is playing. Once he resigns himself to this fact, he continues onward. It won't be long now. He doesn't even flinch when the first rumble of thunder explodes across the desert.
* * *
Las Vegas, Nevada
The dream came again tonight. The dream comes every night.
"These are the bodies of children"
From the moment those first, horrible words had been spoken he had known it would be a nightmare. What he had not known was that the nightmare would be unending. It would get worse before it would get better. The nightmare was one which he could not awake from. It haunted him every night.
The evil could not be stopped.
Well that was certainly true enough. He had always thought that good would win over evil in the end, but he had lost that belief after the case. Good may be the ideal way to live, but it sure wasn't the best way to win a fight. Evil was much stronger and could corrupt even the most gentle of souls. Evil didn't care who it destroyed and as a result, could sweep through a town of innocence and leave mass heartache in its wake. He had seen the evil; he had looked it right between the eyes. Outside, the heavens opened up and the rain began to fall.
* * *
The Desert
The coyote was fighting against the pounding rain as he struggled to reach his destination. It was getting harder and harder to move as the wind picked up. The coyote would not be deterred. The lightening flashed every now and then, illuminating the desert with its angry light. The rain came down in torrents. It was not the welcome rain that the dry desert craves every once in a while. It was the rain of anger and malice. It came down with the intent of harming those who stood in its way. It rained down change. The rain brought with it a new wave of fear. They just hadn't tasted it yet. Back in Las Vegas, the dream continued to attack his sleeping mind.
* * *
Las Vegas, Nevada
With every crack of thunder the words grew louder in his ears.
"You see, I think that it is living here that is what is what makes people unhappy. This world is cold and unfriendly. Sometimes I am the only one that sees that. Everyone else buys into all the lies that we are fed about the joys of life."
How can someone possess such hatred and bitterness? He knew now that it was the evil that was speaking. The evil took her over. The evil possessed her. It made her do horrible things to her children. It had made her hurt him. As the dream grew stronger, he grew weaker. He knew the ending but couldn't bring himself to finish the story. It was a tale so frightening that he wished he could bury it forever. But when the story has embedded itself in your mind, that is simply not an option. He tried desperately to ruse himself from his dream state, but his mind refused. He was forced to live the memory over again, as he did every night.
"This world is what's evil! People don't want to believe it, but it's true. It's the dreamers that you need to worry about. The dreamers are the ones that are going to be corrupted by this world. This world will take their beautiful dreams and destroy them. It can't be allowed to happen! My boys were dreamers. So are you, I can tell. The world wants to take the dreamers and eliminate them. So I took it upon myself to deprive the world of what it thinks it is allowed to take. I will purge the world of the one thing it really wants: the dreamers. I am the new messiah!"
He cried out loud then as he remembered her next actions. He gasped out, desperate for someone to come save him from the dream. To save him from himself. He could not escape the thoughts that tormented his mind and he ordered himself to awaken. He knew though that he would not awaken until the evil got to relive its actions one last time. As the knife flashed through the air before finding its target, he cried out again. This was how the dream always ended. Miles away, the coyote stopped in his tracks.
* * *
The Desert
So this was it. It was such an unassuming sort of place. No one would ever suspect the sheer evil that encompassed this area. The coyote moved forward with caution. He stood on a rock and looked down. The rain had made a small river that snaked its way across the dirt with surprising strength. The coyote moved down so to get a closer look. The lightening lit up the sky, shedding light onto the scene before him. A howl escaped his throat and pierced through the storm. Back in Vegas, the dreamer awoke with a start.
* * *
Las Vegas, Nevada
He did what he always did when he awakened from the dream: he sat straight up in bed and turned on the lights. His hands probed the site of the injury, as if to confirm that the events had actually occurred. He had been left with a scar, a permanent reminder of his ordeal. He didn't know how he was supposed to move forward when he had a lingering physical reminder of what had happened. He was shaking. It wasn't just from the usual events of the dream. Those he could manage. Something was nagging him this time. The dream was always the same – but tonight there was something different. He tried hard to remember what it was that was that had changed. Then he realized what it was that was tugging at him. Every time before, the attack had occurred in broad daylight. He recalled looking out the kitchen window into the side yard of the house. There had only been sunlight and dust. This time however, it had been dark outside. There had been a storm brewing on the horizon. He struggled to remember the rest of the details. There had been a coyote in this dream. It had stood on a rock in the distance watching him. Its eyes had burned a hole into his soul. The eyes had tried to convey a message to him. The coyote had been standing near something, but he had not been able to make out what it was. But the coyote wanted him to find it. As his brain pulled itself into the waking world, he felt a knot of fear form in the pit of his stomach. He knew what was going to happen. He had an eerie premonition and knew that the nightmare was just about to get bigger. The evil was no longer confined to his mind. The evil had been released. In the wee hours of the morning, with rain pouring down outside his window, Nick Stokes spoke aloud.
"It's coming back".
* * *
The Desert
The coyote watched as the water that was running beneath his paws turned red. There was nowhere to hide now.
It was time.