Apostle Baby Daddy Is A Top Shot

CHAPTER 7, THE GATHERING STORM 2

The light pulsed once, then fractured the floor. A thunderous crack split the nave; marble buckled and gave way to a shaft of blinding radiance that poured upward from the depths below.

The guards staggered back. One fell to his knees, sobbing. Leah’s staff clattered to the floor, its carvings blazing with symbols that hadn’t glowed since the first Dominion age.

“Beneath the altar,” she breathed. “It was never just stone.”

The radiance thinned, revealing a spiral staircase descending into the earth, each step carved with runes older than any tongue still spoken. 

A whisper slid through the air, too soft for the soldiers but clear to Yeshua alone. “Come down, Heir. The Covenant waits.”

He moved toward the stairs. Jessica grabbed his sleeve. “You don’t know what’s down there.”

“I think I do,” he said. “And it’s calling me.”

Florence stepped beside him. “Then you’re not going alone.”

Leah nodded once, eyes shining with something between pride and dread. “Go, both of you. The rest of us will hold the council’s fear at bay.”

The stairwell spiraled deep beneath the cathedral. Walls of translucent stone glowed with trapped light, showing faint silhouettes, angels or memories. 

The air was warm and humming, alive with voices that weren’t quite sound. Florence ran her fingers along one of the carvings. “They’re moving,” she whispered.

“They’re remembering,” Yeshua said. “These stones were written by faith itself.”

At the bottom waited a chamber as wide as the cathedral above, its ceiling lost in shadow. 

In the center stood a pedestal of glass, and inside it a fragment of crystal, cracked but still burning with inner fire.  

The Dominion Sigil hovered above it, turning slowly. Florence’s breath caught. “Is that?”

“The Heart of Dominion,” Yeshua murmured. “The first covenant’s seal.”

He stepped closer. The mark on his arm pulsed in time with the crystal’s light. Each beat sent ripples of warmth through the chamber. 

Voices rose, hundreds, maybe thousands, chanting in harmony with his heartbeat. Florence pressed her hands to her ears. “I can hear them!”

“They’re not words,” he said. “They’re prayers.”

He reached out. The moment his fingers brushed the crystal, the light shattered into seven distinct streams, each shooting away into the dark. 

One struck the far wall and etched a symbol of flame; another carved water, another wind. When the last vanished, the crystal dimmed, leaving only its reflection burning inside Yeshua’s eyes.

A single phrase lingered in the air, bright as thunder: “THE FOURTH SIGN HAS BEEN UNSEALED.”

Florence stumbled back. “You did it again.”

“No,” he whispered. “It did it through me.”

The floor trembled. Somewhere far above, the cathedral bells resumed, slow, deliberate, tolling four times before falling silent.

Jessica’s voice crackled over the comm-bead at her collar. “Whatever you triggered, Yael, the entire grid just surged. Power outages citywide. And, ” static swallowed her words “, something’s coming from the sky.”

Yeshua looked upward, through layers of stone and faith. “Then the storm isn’t gathering,” he said. “It’s already here.”

Florence caught his hand. “Then what do we do?”

He turned toward the spiral stair, face calm, eyes burning with reflected fire. “We climb.”

…

They climbed in silence, each step ringing like a clock counting down. Halfway up, the tremor began.

A slow, rhythmic vibration that shook dust from the walls. The carved angels in the stone seemed to watch them pass.

When they reached the nave, the cathedral was unrecognizable. Every candle burned blue; every window shone from within as though sunlight had been trapped behind the glass. 

Outside, thunder rolled in steady intervals, five seconds apart, too precise to be natural.

Jessica met them at the altar, armor scorched, spear sparking with residual light. “The sky’s not just storming,” she said. “It’s speaking.”

They followed her to the doors. Above Dominion City hung a spiral of black clouds streaked with gold veins. 

Lightning crawled across it like writing. Each strike formed a letter, and each letter lingered long enough for every witness on the ground to read.

Florence whispered the words as they appeared: “BEHOLD THE FOURTH SIGN.”

The letters dissolved into rain. A low hum rolled through the air, no thunder this time, but a voice too vast to locate.

“Heir of Dominion,” it said. “The Covenant stirs because you remembered. Now remember why.”

People in the streets dropped to their knees. Drones fell from the sky. The city’s screens blinked white and showed the same image: Yeshua, standing on the cathedral steps, face lifted toward the storm.

Jessica hissed through her teeth. “It’s broadcasting you again.”

“I’m not doing it,” Yeshua said. The mark beneath his sleeve flared in answer.

Florence grabbed his hand. “Then stop it!”

“I can’t. It’s not me anymore, it’s Dominion itself.”

Another bolt struck the tower across the river, carving the winged circle into its façade. The crowd screamed; then silence swallowed the noise, as if the world were holding its breath.

The storm’s voice softened. “Seven Heirs for seven seals. The first four awaken. The last three sleep beneath the sea.”

Leah stepped onto the balcony beside them, her shawl snapping in the wind. “That prophecy hasn’t been spoken in a thousand years,” she said. “It ends with the fall of Dominion itself.”

Yeshua looked at her. “Then maybe we change how it ends.”

The voice laughed, gentle, mocking. “Can clay rewrite the hands that formed it?”

Lightning slammed into the cathedral courtyard, gouging a crater in the stones. When the glare faded, a figure stood there, tall, robed in black, eyes silver as the storm.

Jessica raised her spear. “The envoy again.”

Florence felt her heart seize. “No. It’s different.”

Yeshua stepped forward, rain streaming down his face. “Watcher.”

The figure inclined its head. “Heir.”

They stared at each other across the broken courtyard, thunder pacing like a caged beast around them.

“Four signs,” the Watcher said. “Three to come. But every door you open was once a prison.”

Yeshua’s voice was low. “Then I’ll free the world, even if it means freeing you.”

“We agree on the goal,” the Watcher murmured. “Not the method.”

It raised its hand. The storm tightened into a single column of light descending toward them.

The column struck like judgment. It didn’t explode; it sang. Every bell in the city answered, every light went white. 

The ground beneath the cathedral melted into radiance. Florence covered her eyes, but the glow bled through her fingers.

Yeshua stood inside it, motionless, the storm wrapping around him like a living crown. 

The Watcher’s voice filled the air, no longer echoing, but clear, intimate, as if whispered directly into every soul. “Show me what faith is, Heir.”

The light thickened, pressing against him from all sides. Heat clawed at his skin, searing veins into fire. 

For a moment he felt his body dissolve into light and shadow, every memory laid bare. 

Florence’s laughter, her betrayal, his fall, his plea in the rain. The night Heaven remembered him. He screamed without sound, then, silence.

A pulse burst outward, blinding, and the column shattered into thousands of feathers made of light. 

They drifted down, vanishing before they touched the ground. The Watcher staggered, a fissure of darkness splitting its chest where light had entered. “You shouldn’t have survived that,” it said quietly.

Yeshua’s voice came from within the fading glow. “Maybe I didn’t.”

When the brilliance died, he stood there, bleeding light, eyes burning gold. The mark on his arm had spread across his chest like wings carved into flesh.

Leah fell to her knees. “The Covenant has sealed itself to him.”

Florence reached for him, half in awe, half in terror. “Yeshua, what did you do?”

He looked at his hands, no longer shaking. “It asked what faith is.” He met the Watcher’s gaze. “I showed it obedience.”

The Watcher smiled faintly, almost sadly. “Then the fifth seal will break sooner than I thought.” It began to dissolve into mist. “You’ve chosen war.”

“Maybe,” Yeshua said, “or maybe I chose freedom.”

“Freedom is war,” the Watcher murmured, fading completely. “See you when the Fifth Sign rises.”

The storm collapsed. Clouds pulled back into the night like curtains drawn away from a stage. 

The rain stopped. The air smelled of iron and ozone and new beginnings. Jessica stepped forward slowly. “We just watched a god bleed.”

Leah rose, her face pale. “Not a god. A warning.”

Florence looked at Yeshua, her voice small. “And you?”

He turned toward the horizon, where dawn was cutting through the remnants of cloud. “A witness,” he said. “Nothing more.”

But the golden veins under his skin told another story. That morning, the world awoke to headlines written in every language: FOUR SIGNS CONFIRMED. THE HEIR WALKS AMONG US.

Churches overflowed. Governments panicked. Pilgrims flooded the streets, carrying candles and questions. Dominion City became the heart of a prophecy none of them understood.

High above it all, Yeshua stood on the cathedral’s balcony. The rising sun turned his outline into a silhouette of fire. Florence joined him, silent.

He said, almost to himself, “When Heaven remembers, the earth trembles.”

She looked up at him. “Then what happens when Heaven acts?”

Yeshua didn’t answer. Far out over the sea, thunder rumbled once, soft, deliberate.

The Fifth Sign was stirring.