Apostle Baby Daddy Is A Top Shot

CHAPTER 2, THE FIRST SIGN

The sun returned to Dominion City as though the storm had been a bad dream. But Yeshua knew better. Dreams didn’t leave marks that glowed beneath your skin.

He walked through the streets quietly, a hood drawn over his head. Every face seemed to know his name now.

Every screen replayed the lobby miracle in slow motion. The man who raised another with a touch.

To most, it was entertainment. To others, blasphemy. To Yeshua, it was proof that Heaven had remembered him, and that the remembering came with a price.

Posters flapped against lampposts in the wind. “APOSTLE OR FRAUD?” they read. A reporter shouted after him near the train station, microphone trembling.

“Mr Yael, do you claim divine power?”

He didn’t answer. He just kept walking. At the corner of Moriah Avenue stood the old cathedral, Dominion Cathedral, once his pulpit, now abandoned since the debt collectors took it. 

The stained glass was cracked; vines crept through the stone. But inside, the air still hummed.

He pushed the doors open. They groaned like tired lungs. Dust motes rose, shimmering in a shaft of sunlight that fell on the empty altar. “Back already?” a voice said behind him.

Mother Leah stepped from the shadows, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes were sharp, alive with the kind of faith that saw straight through a man.

“I saw the video,” she said. “So did half the world.”

Yeshua’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Miracles never happen by accident,” she said softly. “Only by appointment.”

He looked up at the broken crucifix above the altar. “Then Heaven’s appointments are cruel.”

“Cruel?” Leah approached, her staff tapping on the cracked tiles. “You’ve been called again. Whatever you lost, Yeshua, perhaps it was to make room for what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?”

She didn’t answer right away. She touched the sigil glowing faintly under his sleeve. “That mark hasn’t been seen since the age of the First Dominion. It means war is stirring again.”

“War?” He almost laughed. “Between who? I’m done fighting.”

Leah’s gaze darkened. “Then pray the Watcher believes that too.”

A gust of cold air swept through the cathedral. The candles flickered. Somewhere deep in the rafters, something whispered, a sound like breath behind stone.

Yeshua froze. “Did you hear that?”

Leah nodded slowly. “The Watcher always hears when a Heir awakens.”

The whisper turned into a low hum. The walls seemed to pulse with it. “Stay back,” Yeshua said, stepping toward the altar.

From the far end of the hall, the air thickened. Shadows bled from the corners, gathering into a shape that moved like smoke but breathed like flesh. Two eyes opened within it, silver, endless.

“So the stone rises again,” the shadow said, voice layered with echo. “Tell me, Heir, will you build or destroy?”

Yeshua’s pulse pounded. “What are you?”

“A memory of what you forgot.”

Light flared from the sigil on his arm. The shadow recoiled, hissing. Mother Leah’s voice rang out, strong and commanding. “Dominion’s heir stands under the covenant! Leave this house!”

The thing laughed. “This house? It’s already mine.”

The stained glass shattered. Wind roared through the nave. Yeshua lifted his arm, instinct guiding him. 

The mark burned brighter, forming a ring of light around his wrist. Words he didn’t know thundered from his throat: “Lux Domini, Exurge!”

Light exploded outward, pure and blinding. The shadow screamed and burst apart, scattering into dust that glimmered and then vanished.

Silence followed, thick, electric, holy. Leah staggered, breathless. “So it’s true,” she whispered. “The Dominion lives again.”

Yeshua lowered his hand, shaking. “If that’s true… why do I feel like I just declared war?”

Leah looked at him gravely. “Because you did.”

…

Wind died as suddenly as it had risen. Dust settled over the cracked pews, leaving only the smell of ozone and candle smoke. 

Yeshua stood motionless, his chest heaving, the golden circle on his forearm fading back into skin.

Mother Leah steadied herself against the altar. “It answered you,” she murmured. “The Dominion never speaks without cost. You’ve bound yourself to it again.”

He swallowed hard. “Then tell me what it wants.”

“It doesn’t want,” she said. “It remembers. Dominion was built to keep the Watcher imprisoned. For it to stir means the seal is weakening.”

He turned toward the doorway. Outside, traffic murmured like a distant sea; life went on, unaware that eternity had just cracked. “I can’t fight that thing, Mother. I’m not that man anymore.”

Leah’s eyes softened. “No one ever is, until the moment demands it. Go home, Yeshua. Rest. The mark will call you when it must.”

He left the cathedral in silence. Every footstep echoed through streets washed clean by morning rain. The city seemed brighter now, too bright.

When he passed a café window, he caught sight of his reflection: the same man, but not the same eyes. There was something ancient looking back.

His phone buzzed again: Unknown Number. “Meet me at the Tower, 8 p.m. We need to talk, Gideon Hale.”

Yeshua’s stomach tightened. Gideon, the Apostle who had once been his brother in ministry and the first to betray him when the scandals began. If Gideon was reaching out now, it wasn’t mercy.

Florence watched the same viral video in her office. The clip looped endlessly on her tablet: Yeshua kneeling, the light, the resurrection. Her coworkers whispered, half in awe, half in fear.

“Fake,” one said.

“Deepfake,” another muttered.

But the part of her that had once prayed beside him knew it was real. She closed the door and pressed her palms to her face. “What did you do, Yeshua?”

Her assistant knocked. “Ma’am? There’s a man waiting downstairs. Says it’s urgent. Name’s Gideon Hale.”

Florence froze. She hadn’t heard that name in years. “Tell him I’m busy.”

“He says it concerns Yeshua.”

That made her look up. “Send him in.”

Moments later, Gideon entered, tall, charismatic, wearing the clerical collar of the Dominion Order. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Florence,” he said warmly. “Still radiant as ever.”

“Spare me the charm, Apostle,” she replied. “What do you want?”

He placed a small, black folder on her desk. “Protection. For you, and for him.”

She hesitated. “From what?”

He leaned closer, voice low. “From the thing that answered him last night. Yeshua’s gift isn’t a blessing. It’s a signal. The Watcher will come for him, and anyone near him.”

Her breath caught. “You expect me to believe you? After what you did to him?”

“I expect you to survive,” Gideon said softly. “Meet me at Dominion Tower tonight if you still care whether he does.”

He left before she could respond. Florence stared at the folder. On its cover, etched in faint silver, was the same winged circle she’d glimpsed glowing on Yeshua’s arm.