Apostle Baby Daddy Is A Top Shot

CHAPTER 4, ECHOES OF THE DOMINION

The morning after the Second Sign, Dominion City moved like a man who had seen a ghost but refused to admit it.

Billboards that once sold perfume now streamed images of wings carved in lightning. Street preachers shouted that prophecy had awakened. 

News anchors argued whether Yeshua Yael was a savior or a fraud. He watched it all from a cheap diner on Westbridge Lane, hood drawn low. 

The TV above the counter replayed the rooftop footage for the tenth time. Every loop tightened the coil inside him.

“Every sign will cost you something.” He wondered what the price would be this time.

A waitress poured his coffee without meeting his eyes. “You look familiar,” she murmured.

“I get that a lot.”

“Yeah, you and the guy who blew up that tower last night.” She laughed nervously, moved on to another table.

Yeshua stirred the coffee he wouldn’t drink. The mark under his sleeve pulsed once, faintly, like a heartbeat answering some far-off call.

Across town, Florence stood in her office, staring at the image frozen on her computer screen: Yeshua, framed by lightning. Around him the clouds curved into a halo, too perfect to be coincidence.

Her phone rang. Unknown Number. She hesitated, then answered. “Hello?”

“Florence.” Gideon’s voice. “Pack a bag. The Council is evacuating priority witnesses.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“They won’t give you a choice. The Watcher wasn’t destroyed, only dispersed. It’s rebuilding, through people.”

She felt the chill before he finished the sentence. “Through… people?”

“Hosts. It finds the cracks. Anger, grief, greed, anything hollow enough to hold it.”

She looked down at her trembling hands. “Then everyone in this city is a door.”

“Exactly. And he’s the key.”

Evening shadows pooled long and blue when Yeshua reached the outskirts, the ruins of the old train yard where the first Dominion missionaries had landed generations ago. 

He followed the hum inside his skin until he found the source: a circle scorched into the earth, wide as a house. 

In its center, a figure knelt, body twitching in silent prayer. “Who’s there?” Yeshua called.

The figure lifted its head. “You opened the gate,” it hissed. “Now we walk again.”

Wind howled through the girders. Yeshua raised his arm, light building beneath the sleeve. 

The mark answered before he could think; gold threads snapped outward, forming a ring of fire around them both.

The thing screamed. The ground shook. And somewhere deep beneath the yard, something answered with a roar like the ocean waking up.

The roar rose until metal screamed against metal. Rusted freight cars lifted an inch off their rails before crashing back down. Sparks fell like red rain.

Yeshua planted his feet inside the burning ring. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The figure’s voice came through two mouths at once, one human, one not. “We are legion of memory. You tore the veil, Heir.”

“I closed it!”

“You opened it. The seal broke when mercy met pride.”

A jet of cold wind struck him full in the chest. He stumbled backward; the fire-ring guttered. Pain clawed down his arm as the Dominion mark flared white-hot.

Then light answered from above, a sharp whistle, and a bolt slammed into the ground beside him. 

The possessed body convulsed, pinned beneath a spear of radiant metal. Smoke hissed where the weapon met flesh.

Out of the dark, four figures advanced, long coats whipping in the wind. Each carried a weapon etched with the same winged circle. 

Their leader pulled back her hood, a woman barely thirty, eyes silver-gray and coldly sure. “Identify yourself,” she ordered.

Yeshua straightened, still shaking. “You first.”

“Jessica Ward, Dominion Hunter-Captain. You’re interfering in an exorcism zone.”

“I didn’t see any warning signs.”

“Now you have one.” She yanked the spear free; the host beneath it dissolved into ash that blew away on the wind. “Containment complete. And you?” She studied the glow fading under his sleeve “You’re the anomaly.”

“Name’s Yeshua Yael.”

The hunters looked at one another. Jessica’s jaw tightened. “So the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“That the Heir of the First Pillar walks again.” Her gaze hardened. “You should be dead.”

“Been hearing that a lot lately.”

She motioned to her squad. “Cuff him.”

Light flared at his wrists before any metal touched him. The Dominion mark rejected their chains, melting them to slag. 

The hunters drew back instinctively. Yeshua sighed. “Told you, doesn’t like cages.”

For a heartbeat nobody moved. Then Jessica lowered her weapon slightly. “You’re either our salvation or the reason we’ll need one. Come with us willingly, and maybe we’ll find out which.”

Before he could answer, headlights swung across the yard. A black car screeched to a stop, door flying open. Florence stumbled out, breathless. “Yeshua!”

Every gun turned toward her. He raised a hand. “She’s with me.”

Jessica’s brows knit. “Then she shares your fate.”

Florence reached him, eyes wide with fear. “Gideon told me what this place was. You shouldn’t have come alone.”

“Looks like I didn’t.” He gave a small, humorless smile.

The wind shifted again, carrying a low hum that vibrated through the rails. Jessica heard it first; her expression changed from control to alarm. “Not one host,” she muttered. “Dozens.”

From the far end of the yard, shadows began to rise, one, ten, fifty shapes coalescing from the soot and rain, eyes silver and empty. Jessica shouted, “Form the circle!”

Yeshua glanced at Florence. “Stay behind me.”

She swallowed. “Where else would I go?”

He lifted his glowing arm. “Then let’s make Heaven proud.”