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The Beast watched gleefully on that sad Good Friday, watched with grim satisfaction as the Son of God died.

And so was a little boy who witnessed the grieving mother, her tears and pain beyond description, her sorrow etching deeply on his own soul. He promised himself and God that he would vanquish the evil that killed her son. “I will never let this happen again,” the boy said to the woman, and she touched his face with her hand and said, “And so it shall be.”

The boy gave the Beast the sign of death, the acknowledgment that Roman soldiers gave to an enemy in battle. The Beast accepted the challenge and thus began the struggle between good and evil, the Light and the dark, that would last unto the present day.

This story, or fable, is at the heart of A Prayer of Vengeance by John Stafford.

The first of a four-book series opens in 1976 and takes the epic struggle of good versus evil at face value. It tells the story of a teenage boy in the 20th Century, a linear descendant of that boy. He witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and inherited vast powers to fight the Darkness in his hometown of Beavercreek, Ohio. 

Readers expecting a soft-edged Sunday sermon approach to the eternal battle between good and evil will not find it here. Instead, the book begins with as vile a depiction imaginable of a young girl’s rape, disfigurement, and death by Ray and his buddies, the embodiment of the Darkness living on earth. 

Enter Brady, the counterpoint to Ray.

Brady enters the scene as an all-American high school teenager the students and faculty all but worship. Everyone wants him as a friend. The high school coach wants him for his football team. Yet Brady is in training for something else that he dare not tell another living soul.

It takes a while before Brady reveals his unique powers. When he calls the Light, he elevates above the earth with arms spread in a Christ-like manner and protects those who need protecting. Brady heals the sick and the wounded by allowing their injuries to flow into him, onto him. 

When his high school friends plan a long-standing prank, painting a nearby train bridge with the school’s colors before a big football game, Brady understands the danger awaiting them from unanticipated trains and assumes the critical role in getting the bridge painted. When a train inevitably shows up, Brady brings forth the Light and protects a classmate from certain death. No one there remembers afterward precisely what happened. Such is Brady’s power to do good and yet defend himself and those he loves from his enormous powers.

Brady learned to call the Light at age five.

At 13, he was additionally schooled by his grandfather, who taught him the prayer of vengeance, recited when the Light was called forth. Once he called on the Light, the Darkness, the Beast’s presence followed. Brady would then absorb the damage done by the Darkness, and the victim’s healing would take place.

Once the reader understands Brady’s unique powers and accepts this more muscular version of Catholicism, the inevitable wars between Darkness and light ramp up; even as more people disappear at the hands of Ray and his predators, more people are attracted to Brady and become part of his circle of guardians. The ultimate goal? To destroy the Darkness once and for all. 

Catholic horror describes A Call of Vengeance just right.

Catholic readers are in for a polemic as well as a religious-themed supernatural thriller. The author clearly intends it to be such. Non-Catholic readers will find a large cast of characters, several of which are clearly set up for sequels by the end of the book.

This book is clearly not for everyone. The atrocities in the first chapter alone may keep readers from proceeding further. Yet, those whose reading interests embrace the supernatural in its many forms will find A Prayer of Vengeance a bracing reading adventure.