Apostle Baby Daddy Is A Top Shot

CHAPTER 5, THE ECHOES OF THE DOMINION 2

The wind carried a metallic taste, sharp as blood. Rails groaned beneath invisible weight while silver eyes multiplied in the dark.

Jessica’s hunters moved with drilled precision, forming a wide ring around Yeshua and Florence. 

Radiant symbols blazed under their boots, weaving a lattice of light. Jessica’s voice was steady but urgent. “Keep them outside the seal! No hesitation!”

Yeshua stepped forward until he stood on the circle’s edge. “They’re not demons,” he said quietly. “They’re echoes, souls twisted by what the Watcher touched.”

Jessica shot him a glance. “Then show me how you save echoes.”

The first of the creatures lunged. Its body looked human until it hit the light; then the mask peeled back and something without shape screamed. The barrier shuddered.

Yeshua extended his hand. Golden lines erupted from the sigil on his wrist, weaving through the hunters’ lattice like veins of sunlight. The field stabilized.

For one surreal moment, time slowed. Florence watched him, watched the fear vanish from his face, replaced by purpose. Every word of prayer he had once preached came alive in that blaze.

The air cracked. Light turned into sound, music, almost, and the creatures shrieked, retreating into the dark. But three broke through.

Yeshua met the first with a backhand of raw energy. It vanished in a burst of ash. The second leapt at Florence; she ducked, gasping as Jessica’s spear flashed over her head and pinned it to the ground.

The third, larger, faster, slammed into Yeshua, driving him backward. They crashed against a derailed car, metal folding around them. 

The thing’s breath was ice; its voice, a whisper inside his skull. “You can’t close what Heaven opened.”

Yeshua gritted his teeth. “Watch me.”

He pressed his glowing palm against its chest. The mark flared brighter than before, white-gold, almost blue. A pulse of light tore through the creature and rolled across the yard like thunder.

When the glare faded, nothing moved except falling ash. Jessica lowered her spear, panting. “That blast, what did you just do?”

“I think,” Yeshua said, wiping soot from his face, “I listened.”

Florence knelt beside him. “Your arm.”

The skin around the sigil smoked. Tiny cracks of light ran up toward his shoulder. He clenched his fist until the glow dimmed. “It’s fine.”

Jessica wasn’t convinced. She crouched, examining the faint runes still burning in the dirt. “These aren’t random. They’re coordinates.”

“Coordinates to what?”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Another Heir.”

The word hit like a stone dropped in still water. Florence felt the echo more than heard it. Yeshua stood, heartbeat syncing with the faint rhythm in the ground. 

Somewhere far away, another mark had awakened, and it was calling to his. Jessica rose, already signaling her team. “We find it before the Watcher does.”

Yeshua looked toward the city lights flickering beyond the tracks. “Then we move fast.”

Florence exhaled shakily. “You’re bleeding light again.”

He gave a weary smile. “At least it’s not rain.”

Thunder rolled in answer.

…

The coordinates led them toward the underbelly of the city, where the first subway lines had been built and long since abandoned. 

Rusted gates barred the entrance, painted over with warnings in three languages. Jessica cut through them with a single strike of her spear; the metal hissed and split like butter.

A damp wind breathed out of the tunnel. The air smelled of earth and burnt copper. Florence hesitated at the threshold. “Tell me why we’re following this and not running away from it.”

“Because running never closes a gate,” Yeshua said.

They descended. Their footsteps echoed through dripping dark. Fluorescent mushrooms clung to the walls, shedding a faint green glow. 

Far ahead, the rhythmic hum in Yeshua’s arm grew stronger, pulsing in time with something deeper underground.

After what felt like miles, the passage opened into an old maintenance cavern. Machinery lay in heaps, half-buried by dust and vines. 

In the center, a circle of light floated above the floor, thin, steady, waiting. Jessica held up her hand. “Stay behind me.”

Yeshua stepped around her before she could stop him. “It’s not hostile.”

He moved closer, the mark on his arm answering with a low chime. Within the circle, an image shimmered.

A young woman kneeling in prayer, her skin marked with the same sigil as his, except hers glowed a deep sapphire. She was motionless, caught between presence and absence.

Florence whispered, “Is she alive?”

Yeshua reached out. The instant his fingers brushed the light, a surge hit him like a heartbeat too big for his body. 

Visions flashed, oceans burning, stars falling, a tower made of voices. Then a voice, female, resonant, terrified. “The Second Pillar has fallen. Help me before they find me.”

The image shattered. The light collapsed inward, leaving only dust and silence. Jessica grabbed his shoulder. “Where is she?”

“South,” Yeshua managed. “Somewhere near the borderlands. She’s one of us.”

Florence looked between them. “Us?”

“The Heirs,” he said. “If the Dominion forged seven seals, then seven of us carry their echoes. I just met the second.”

A noise rolled through the tunnels, slow, scraping, deliberate. The hair on Florence’s arms lifted.

From the far corridor came the faint sound of chains dragging. Jessica lifted her weapon. “Company.”

The first figure stepped into the weak glow. It wore a man’s body but not his soul; its eyes were molten silver, its smile too wide.

“The Watcher thanks you,” it said, voice oily and pleasant. “The map needed opening.”

Yeshua’s stomach turned cold. “It used me.”

“Used both of you,” the envoy said. “And now, Heir of Dominion, it invites you to witness the Third Sign.”

It raised a hand. The walls convulsed. Lines of light raced up the tunnel ceiling, splitting rock like glass. 

From deep below, something began to stir, huge, breathing, ancient. Jessica shouted, “Run!”

Yeshua grabbed Florence’s hand and pulled her toward the exit. The envoy’s laughter followed them, echoing off the stone. “You can’t outrun revelation.”

…

The tunnel shook like the bones of a waking beast. Pipes burst; steam and dust filled the air. 

Yeshua ran, half-dragging Florence as Jessica’s squad fired flares to light the way. Each flash painted the world in red and gold.

Behind them, the envoy’s laughter twisted into a shriek. A column of silver flame erupted where it had stood, tearing a hole through the ceiling. 

Stone rained down. One hunter fell, gone before his scream finished. “Move!” Jessica’s voice cracked through the chaos. She swung her spear backward, the tip exploding into white fire that sealed part of the passage. “That’ll slow it. Maybe.”

They burst into an upper service corridor, lungs burning. The tremor hadn’t stopped; it was spreading, rolling beneath the streets above. 

Florence coughed, clutching Yeshua’s arm. “The whole city, ”

“I know.” He pressed a palm to the ground. The mark flared, sending threads of light outward like roots seeking water. 

For a heartbeat, he felt everything, subway rails, power lines, the pulse of a million heartbeats. Beneath it all, a void breathing upward.

“Third Sign.” The words weren’t sound; they were commands. The mark seared his skin, branding the message into his bones.

“Yeshua!” Jessica shouted. “Whatever you’re doing, stop before.”

The world inverted. A boom ripped through the tunnels. Light exploded outward, devouring darkness, roaring up through manholes and subway vents. 

On the surface, people looked up as golden fire burst from the streets, spiraling into the clouds. It didn’t burn, it sang, a low choral hum that vibrated in every ribcage.

From miles away, the Dominion Tower’s broken cross reignited, casting a beam of white through the storm. 

The same symbol flared on every screen, every window. Words scrolled in a language no living mouth had spoken.

THE THIRD SIGN IS COME.

When the light finally faded, silence fell like snow. The tunnels were half-collapsed; dust floated in lazy spirals through shafts of morning. 

Yeshua lay on his back, staring at the faint glow in his palm. Florence knelt beside him, shaking. “You’re still breathing,” she whispered.

He turned his head toward her. “So’s the city.”

Jessica limped over, one arm cradled against her ribs. “Barely. You realize every sensor topside just recorded what happened. There’s no hiding now.”

Yeshua sat up, wincing. “Maybe that’s the point.”

“Meaning?”

“Revelation doesn’t whisper,” he said. “It announces itself.”

Florence looked at the faint light seeping through a crack in the tunnel roof, sunlight, not divine fire. “And what happens when the next sign comes?”

He rose unsteadily. “Then we stop running and start building.”

Jessica studied him, then nodded once. “The Dominion has waited centuries for a leader. Whether you want it or not, you’re it.”

Yeshua glanced toward the broken darkness behind them where the envoy had vanished. “Then we’d better find the others before it does.”

Above, church bells began to ring, unbidden and in perfect unison across the city. Every sound carried the same unspoken promise. The war had started.