A Devil's Best Friend

My name is Rhodes Jean Atkinson. Who am I? Just a six-foot-tall, good-looking and muscular young Black man of Haitian heritage from Massachusetts who recently moved to Virginia to attend college. It's an event which changed my life forever. I come from a very distinct lineage of black men and black women gifted with supernatural powers. All of us come from the African fatherland. We are spread all over the world. Many of us live in the Republic of Haiti and some of us live in the United States of America. I discovered my birthright and the powers and responsibilities it came with when I was nineteen years old. I discovered that I had superhuman strength. I was a six-foot, 210-pound man who could lift up to 3000 pounds, without breaking sweat. I also healed quickly from injuries that would kill a normal person. As for speed, I never managed anything superior to what a conditioned athlete could. I guess my speed is normal. I keep this to myself, and only my family knows about it.

The Patriarch of the family, my esteemed father, decided that college would do me some good. I'm only the third person in my family to go to college. My brother Lawrence Atkinson recently graduated from the Air Force Academy. He's currently serving his country as a Aeronautical Technologies expert in Iraq. What you won't read about anywhere is how this tall, handsome young black man with college degrees up the yin yang also possessed supernatural powers. I have superhuman strength and the ability to regenerate. My brother Lawrence is capable of flight. He can simply take off into the air like a bird. Just like those cartoon superheroes on television. He can fly at supersonic speed. It's not his only ability. He also possesses superhumanly keen eyesight and hearing. I wish I had a power like that. Oh, well. The supernatural well is an unpredictable mistress.

My sister Joanne Atkinson graduated from Spellman College and she currently works as a firefighter in Atlanta. This college-educated gorgeous black woman also has supernatural talents of her own. She is invulnerable. Nothing can hurt her. Not bullets, knives or flames. She also can't be crushed, smashed or bruised. Invulnerability. What a power! What I wouldn't give to have such a power! Joanne focuses more on her career and living life as a normal person than on her supernatural heritage. She encouraged me to attend college and make something out of myself, as did dad and Lawrence. Our parents never had the chance to go to college. My father James is a fireman in ATL and my mother Cecil has been out of the picture longer than I care to remember. She walked out on the family a long time ago. No one knows where she is, or cares. My siblings and I were raised by our stern and loving single father. He's a good man. We worship him.

Presently, I'm living in the men's dormitories at Saint Guillaume University in Virginia. It's a prestigious school. One that has been around since the early 1800s. it was founded by Jeremy Saint, a French priest, writer and educator. It's also a catholic school with a deeply religious and spiritual heritage. Most of the students are people of faith. That's cool with me because I am a Roman Catholic by birth and upbringing. The school has only one campus, located in rural Virginia. It has a student body of ten thousand students. Saint Guillaume University is a really diverse place. It's also evenly split between male and female students, which is really cool. College campuses across America are increasingly female. Schools with a relatively even number of male and female students tend to stand out these days.

The school offers forty six majors, and focuses mainly on undergraduate education. I came here to get my education, and that's my main focus.

Athletics is important to me, though. I've always been a sportsman. That's why I joined the Saint Guillaume University varsity Football team earlier this year. The Football team is brand new. It's the first time in his centuries-old history that the school sponsors college Football. If you ask me, it's about time. The school currently offers Men's Intercollegiate Archery, Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Bowling, Crew, Cross Country, Fencing, Football, Golf, Gymnastics, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Rifle, Rugby, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis, Track, Volleyball and Wrestling. For women, they offer Intercollegiate Archery, Badminton, Basketball, Bowling, Crew, Cross Country, Fencing, Field Hockey, Golf, Gymnastics, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Rifle, Rugby, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track, Volleyball and Wrestling. The school also sponsored sports clubs such as Men's Cycling, Sumo Wrestling and Boxing. They also sponsored Women's Cycling, Ultimate and Boxing. An impressive Department of Athletics, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, I was starting to seriously like living on campus. Playing Division One College Football was great. My lifelong dream. I also didn't feel out of place in Virginia. I mean, out of the school's ten thousand students, there were eleven hundred black males and twelve hundred black females. Not bad. We made up a decent number of the school's student population. I was majoring in Criminal Justice. I wanted to become a policeman someday. I can see myself joining the Virginia State Police. Being a civil servant runs in my family. Dad is a veteran fireman. Sister is a firefighter. Brother is a soldier. Me, I'm going to be the family's first policeman. That's what drove me all the way to cold and dreary Virginia in terms of higher education. I was doing well in all my classes. The football team was doing quite well in its first season. We defeated eleven out of twelve opponents, so that's not bad at all. I got along with the other players. All of us were young men from diverse backgrounds fulfilling a lifelong dream of playing college football. We conducted ourselves well on campus and did well in our classes. Contrary to what is often said about college football players, we're not a bunch of egomaniacs who think they're above the rules. We're just people, like everybody else. We simply happen to play the most masculine, demanding and popular sport on the entire continent of North America. No pressure whatsoever, folks.

Fortunately, I found something which took my mind off these matters. I met this handsome young man named Morris. He's real easy on the eyes. Six feet tall, lean and muscular, with light brown hair, bone-white skin and pale green eyes. He's a handsome devil. Literally. When Morris first approached me, I thought he was a charming lad. He was a lot more than that. He was a powerful entity who was showing interest in yours truly. How was I supposed to know that an otherworldly entity such as himself was showing interest in me? Being of supernatural stock myself, I knew that the world was more complicated than it seemed. There were all kinds of creatures out there. I mean, last week, I faced a group of women who somehow acquired the ability to control fire.

Myra O'Shea, Tina Greek and Lorelei Brando. Three college women with access to archaic witchcraft somehow acquired control of the element of fire. These female fire starters proved to be quite a challenge for law enforcement. They were robbing banks and leaving no witnesses or traces behind by incinerating everything before leaving. What a cruel trio! I'm happy to say that I put them out of commission. At first, I tried to fight them physically. Being stronger than most men came in handy. The three witches quickly found out they were no match for my strength. However, their supernatural flames did pose a threat to me and they used it to their advantage. I had to change tactics. Being a fast healer really came in handy as I battled these super-powered evil women. I had to literally walk through fire before taking them out. Brain over brawn was my new tactic. I turned their powers against them by getting them to fight one another. Ah, discord was such a cool weapon. It really helped that these three women didn't like each other to begin with and were bound by greed and power lust rather than loyalty. All three of them are currently in a state mental institution, having maimed each other with their fire powers.

Yeah, college life wasn't so boring after all. Before facing the three witches, I took on a shape-shifting demon named Roth. He could make himself look like anyone, man or woman. His modus operandi was to seduce people, and then steal their life forces. The more life force he stole, the more powerful he became. Once he acquired ten thousand life forces, his physical form would become indestructible and be able to travel to the bottom of the sea, to find a magical gem which would enable him to open the doorway to another dimension, where his demonic army awaited. He wanted to bring a legion of demons to earth in order to conquer it. Well, not on my watch, mister!

The demon king known as Roth posed as many people. First, he made himself look like Professor James Kendall, a stiff criminologist. In this guise, he seduced students Emily Rhesus and Juliette Landis. Then, he assumed the guise of Juliette Landis, whom he killed, and stole the life force of her boyfriend, basketball stud Kurt O'Leary. I arrived just as the demonic Roth assumed the guise of feminist professor Hillary Samson, whom he had previously slain. Disguised as Hillary Samson, the demon killed the professor's lover, gay and lesbian group president Emmanuelle Berkeley. Once the demon had stolen Berkeley's life force, two things happened. First, the demon was forever trapped in the physical form of the least liked woman on campus. Second, the demon became indestructible. He had superhuman strength and speed, along with invulnerability. He could control the elements of nature and also control the minds of human beings. The demon king left campus and drove toward the sea, drawn to the mystical gem which lay in the depths. I knew he'd find it. So I confronted him. I battled the demon king who wore the form of the woman the entire campus disliked the most. It was a fierce battle.

The demon king who wore the face of Hillary Samson was the single greatest threat humanity would ever face. And it was up to me to stop him. The fact that the demon looked like a woman didn't deter me. I've met many dangerous women in my day. They're not to be underestimated. So, I geared myself up for the fight. Roth came at me, laughing with Hillary's face. The female fury was powerful, but so was I. We fought and traded blows. I punched Hillary in the face, knocking her backwards. She roared in pain, then lashed out with her claws. Raked my face. I healed quickly, and I knew the scars would be gone in seconds. So I fought on. Roth sneered at me, demonic eyes glowing red in the middle-aged woman's face.

I launched myself at my enemy. Roth laughed, and lightning struck out of those demonic hands. I fell, stricken. The demon stood over me, laughing with the visage of the most despised woman at my college campus. I was hurt, but healing quickly. I summoned my strength from deep within, and grabbed the demon's foot. I yanked, and the demon fell. I leapt on top of Roth, and pummeled him, or her, or whatever in hell I was dealing with. I smashed the demon's face with my fists. Hillary screamed, or was it Roth? I didn't care. I struck the demon until it lay still. Then, I watched as it vanished, utterly.

I returned to campus, bruised and hurting, but alive. It's amazing how the world works. I had just battled a demon from hell and stopped it from destroying the world. Yet no one knew or cared. Vampires, demons, witches and monsters of all types roamed the world, disguised one way or another to pass as ordinary people. My father fought against these creatures in his time. He taught my older brother and sister the way. Apparently, I seem to the Chosen One. A magnet for all the freaks out there. All kinds of evils who mean mankind harm. Oh, well. Whatever. I went back to my dorm, and showered. We had an upcoming football game next Friday and training was going to be tough. Coach thought we really had a chance to make it to the division finals. Wouldn't that be something? A first-year college football team winning its division title. Yeah, the stuff of legends. It was up to me and the other men on the team to help make it a reality.

So, you can imagine how I had plenty on my plate before he came along to complicate things. By he, I mean the tall, not so dark but definitely handsome entity who called himself Morris. With my enhanced perception of the supernatural, I could see that he was more than he appeared to be. He had the stink of hell on him. He smiled, and formally introduced himself. That's when I knew nothing in this little life of mine would ever be the same again. You see, my battles against the forces of evil to defend man's world had attracted the attention of the big shot himself. He who is known by many names. The Adversary. The Prince of Lies. The Lord of Darkness. The Light Bearer. Son of the Morning. Prince of the Air. Or simply Lucifer or Satan. First of the Fallen Angels. Second in Power only to God Himself. The Crown Prince of Hell. He smiled at me, then told me he'd been watching me. I stood there, trying to stay cool and nonchalant. I inquired what he wanted. Lucifer smiled.

Then, he told me he wanted me to join him. To be his right hand man. I blinked. What in hell? No pun intended. Still smiling, he told me that I had some time to think about it. Then he vanished, utterly. Try as I might, I couldn't quite believe it. But the stink of brimstone in my dorm attested to comings and goings the supernatural visitor. I sat on my bed, and held my head in my hands. What in hell had I gotten myself into?