"Goodnight, father O'Brian!" A girl's playful voice reverberated off of the high arched ceiling of the church, echoing off the pillars and stone walls, splitting the silence. Near the front of the cathedral, a middle-aged priest looked up from his prayer, slightly startled, as the young school girl waved from the door. The 30-something priest chuckled, crossed himself, and breathed a nearly silent amen before getting to his feet with a slight grunt, and returning the wave with a smile.

"Goodnight, my child. Go with God." He watched as the girl's face split with a huge, toothy smile, and she skipped out the door of the church into the setting sun. Father Evan O'Brian was used to spending time every day with the 16 year old Sarah, who dedicated every day after school to helping out around the old cathedral, or doing charity work with Father O'Brian. It was quite obvious that the young girl was infatuated the older man, but he knew that it was a harmless childhood crush, and that the girl had a good and pure heart.

He smiled as he thought of Sarah, the daughter figure he never had, and happily went about finishing his daily duties. An hour later, with everything in order, he grabbed his leather jacket, and hurried out the back door of the church. The Manhattan air felt chilly and crisp on his skin as he stepped out into the back alley. Shrugging off the cold, he slipped his jacket on, and frowned as he looked down at his slight pot belly to zip it up. The worn leather sighed as it conformed to his body, a soothing sound that Evan had come to love over the years -- but not as much as he loved what came next.

Behind some garbage cans sat a long lump covered by a grey tarp. Gripping the cloth, Evan yanked it away to reveal his pride and joy, and the only thing remaining from his marriage: his 1996 Harley Davidson Sportster XL1200S. After stowing away the tarp, he swung his leg over the hog, and fit the helmet snugly around his dark brown curls. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out two fingerless gloves which he slipped down onto his weathered hands. Revving up the engine, the priest tore out of the alleyway towards the street.

It was about a block away that he heard it. While Evan was idling at a red traffic light, enjoying the steady rumble of the engine, a sharp cry from the alleyway split through the hustle and bustle of the night-time street. The voice was high, youthful, feminine, and full of alarm. It was a voice that he could place, and that knowledge caused an earth-shaking fear to grip at his heart. Driving out into traffic to do a u-turn, Father O'Brian drove down the sidewalk, causing people to hurry out of the way, and turned sharply into the alley that the scream came from only moments ago.

"No, n- No! Please, let me go!" Sarah. Five-foot-five, long auburn locks, baby blue eyes, the cutest little school uniform, and in the hands of three rather ugly, mean-looking men. The smallest one, with weaselly little eyes and big ears, looked up as the motorcycle pulled down deep into the alleyway, where they stood.

"'Ey, Danny, looks like we got company." The weasel nudged the biggest man, who looked about 6'3'', was built like a tank, and now had Sarah held tightly against a dumpster with one arm. The big guy glanced over his shoulder at Father O'Brian, who had now turned off his motorcycle and removed his helmet, and yelled, quite simply.

"Get outta 'ere, old man." He was large, and he was intimidating, and he had back-up; but Evan Patrick O'Brian served in the marines, Evan Patrick O'Brian had been shot at, Evan Patrick O'Brian was a man of God, and Evan Patrick O'Brian did not like being called "old man". Evan cracked his neck, and swung himself off of his motorcycle.

"Listen -- Danny, right? Listen, Danny. You don't really want to do this, do you?" Evan unzipped his leather jacket, revealing his black shirt and white collar. The weasel and the third man, a very lanky teenager wearing a bandana, looked like they were trying to stifle their amusement. "Especially in front of a soldier of God." At this, the two men burst out into laughter, while Danny seemed to be just getting more irritated. Sarah, however, looked up hopefully at the sound of his voice.

"F-Father O'Brian?" The trembling fear in her voice made Evan sick to his stomach.

"That's right, Sarah. Don't you worry, my child, everything's going to be okay."

"Oh, yeah. Everything's gonna be real okay when I'm done with you, honey." Danny's grating voice dripped with unsaid promises of atrocities as he looked at the girl. His two lackeys laughed insidiously at the look on Sarah's face, and Danny glanced back over his shoulder to see Evan still standing there, now cracking his knuckles. "Whaaat? You're still here, God-boy? Charlie, Biggs, take care of this joker!" The weasel man grinned menacingly and brandished a switchblade from his belt as both he and the bandana'd kid both advanced on Evan.

This was exactly what the priest had been waiting for. Within a second, Evan had closed the distance between himself and the two men. He knocked aside Weasel's stabbing arm, and slammed his shoulder into the man with full force, sending the goon flying backwards to the ground. Turning from his rush towards a shocked bandana, Father O'Brian brought the back of his hand up sharply, knocking the teenager hard in the side of his face. Evan was smiling at how good it felt to relive his military days with tussle like this when it all went downhill.

"Father O'Brian, LOOK OUT!" It was already too late, though. In the heat of the moment, Evan hadn't noticed that Weasel didn't take the tumble so hard, he hadn't noticed that the man had already gotten up, he hadn't noticed when the man came up behind him, but he certainly noticed when he felt the cold steel enter through his back, piercing his right lung. The first thought that went through his mind was how unlike this was to the bullet he took in the shoulder during Dessert Storm, the second thought was that he was going to die here in this dirty alley way, and his last living thought -- as the thugs tossed his limp body onto his own motorcycle before turning back to their feminine prize -- was:

"Sarah..."

Then the darkness came.

He waited eons in that all-consuming darkness.

And then, in the distance, a light.


"No, my Father. No! I'm not done yet! Sarah! SARAH!"

The light grew closer, brighter...

"Have unfinished business, do we?"

The light became nearly all-encompassing...

"Yes! I must go back! I must save Sarah!"

The light began to fade away...

"I can arrange that, you know. For only a... minor fee."

Soon, the light was a distant speck, fading fast...

"... Yes. Yes! Anything... I'll do anything."

And then, with that, it was gone.

"Servitude. Eternal servitude. This is the price you pay to save the girl: endless servitude as my spirit of vengeance. You send the souls of the wicked to me, before they get a chance to repent. Are we agreed?"

"... Yes."

And, amongst them, a Ghost Rider will rise.

A burning feeling racked through Evan's suddenly revived body. Spreading from the scar on his left shoulder where a shard of bullet still rested, it soon encompassed his whole body -- though his left arm was worst. Once he regained his vision, he looked at his left arm, that was now only bone, covered in a blazing flame that had mysteriously only burned away the left arm of his shirt and jacket. He first saw it when he stared at a puddle beside the bike on which he was slumped: a blazing skull where his head used to be. The pain quickly faded away, leaving only rage. Pure, unbridled rage.

He picked himself up off of his bike, and turned to look down the alley where the thugs still had young Sarah still pinned against the dumpster, as if no time at all had passed. Weasel, bandana, and Danny. Looking at them, he felt their sin surrounding them, like an aura. These men, these men who killed him, were truly the wicked.

"And the wicked must be punished."

The voice was quiet, it was calm, it was only in his head, but -- most of all -- it was right.

"The wicked must be punished." His voice was not the same as before. It was rough, it was unpleasant, and it sounded like the cries of a thousand demons at once. Reaching to his left shoulder, seemingly out of instinct, he caught hold of one of the licks of hellfire, and pulled it outwards with a snap, suddenly forming a long bike chain out of the blaze. Weasel's attention broke from Sarah long enough to snap his head around towards the bike.

"Mm, whatcha say?" The last words of a wicked man. Evan swung his left arm, and sent the chain lashing towards the throat of the Weasel, where it wrapped around several times, beginning to choke the man. His chokes got the attention of both bandana and Danny, the leader. A small squeak escaped the Weasel's mouth as they all looked upon the Ghost Rider for the first time, and the Rider pulled the chain tight, effortlessly snapping the Weasel's scrawny neck.

"... What the fu-"Danny and bandana, still mostly shocked from what they just witnessed, dropped Sarah to the ground. Evan noticed, as he retrieved his chain with a yank, that she scrambled to hide behind the dumpster. Strolling slowly towards the dumbfounded men, Evan involuntarily let out a chuckle, and spoke with a heavy, enraged voice that was not his.

"You have both been accused as the wicked. You have been judged guilty. Prepare for retribution." Evan was standing right in front of the bandana-wearing teenager, who, he noted with disgust, had apparently lost control over his bowels. He looked back up at the young man disapprovingly. "Pathetic."

"Yiff!" The thug's first, and last, word of the conversation could be better described as a sharp exhaling of breath, as a flaming fist of bone hit him square in his stomach, propelling him back against the solid brick wall. His head hit the stone with a sickening crunch, and he left a trail of crimson as he slid down to the trash cans beneath. The Ghost Rider watched as the thug's soul, his life, faded away.

"Naturally." Evan's voice came this time, not the Rider's. He turned towards Danny, only to find that the leader of the group was turning to escape. "Oh, I think not." A strong, bony hand came down hard upon Danny's shoulder, grasping him in a grip he could not hope to break. All he managed to do was squeak as O'Brian turned him back around, and pinned him up against the dumpster.

"His eyes... your eyes..."

"My eyes..." Evan echoed the voice in his head, clutching the collar of the large man tighter. "Look into my eyes." Hesitantly, the big thug raised his frightened eyes to look deeply into the skull of the Rider, only to see his own soul in the blazes within. His tainted soul. His wicked soul. Danny's body quivered in the grasp of the Rider, seizuring as he was wracked with every pain he ever inflicted upon the innocent. Finally, as it came to his last victim, Sarah, he felt his life burn away, as his tainted soul crumbled to ashes.

Tossing aside the lifeless corpse to join his lackeys in the garbage heap, Evan strolled back to his hog. As soon as his hands touched the handlebars, the bike went through a transition similar to his own. The wheels burst into balls of flame, and hellfire spurted from the newly twisted tailpipe. The engine revved like the barking of hellhounds, and the front of the bike spread to form something like a ram. Sitting atop his demonic chariot, he rolled down the alley, to where Sarah sit huddled into a ball behind the dumpster.

"... I've done a bad thing, Sarah." Evan's voice came, harsh and grating. "I've.. I've done a horrible thing, and I don't think I can fix it."

"... Father O'Brian?"

"Just listen, Sarah." He interjected over her timid question, wanting to cry, but knowing no tears would fall from his eyeless sockets. "I want you to go home, Sarah. I want you to go home, and I want you to forget everything you've seen here tonight. I want you to be good for your mom. I want you to grow up right, the way you have been, and I want you to lead a good, full, God-fearing life, Sarah. I want you to do this for me, for the sacrifice I made for you." Looking back on his bike, he saw his helmet. Seeing no need for it now, he took it off the seat and tossed it to the girl. "Promise me you'll do this, Sarah."

"... Father O'Bria-"

"Promise me, Sarah."

"... I promise." She was crying now. In the years that he'd known Sarah, the years that he spent every day after school with her, he never saw her cry. Now, more than anything in the world, he wished he needn't have had to. The girl looked down at the helmet in her hands, then stared back up at Evan's flaming skull with her baby blue eyes. "... Father O'Brian?"

"Yes, Sarah?"

"I love you."

"... I know."

"Enough, we ride."

And the Rider took off into the darkness, leaving a slowly dissipating line of hellfire in his wake, and leaving little Sarah sitting there, sobbing against the helmet that she clung to her breast.