by Chuck Black
Guldomak drew his short sword as though he needed to kill something to keep his anger in check. He glared at the retreating warrior. “Why not?” he asked slowly.
“Because he’s changed,” Poxel said quickly. “He’s … he’s … you just have to see, my lord.”
Validus was now as curious as Guldomak. The other angels in the Hall of Vision abandoned their portals to watch Validus operate his. Some of the angels took to the air so they could see his portal.
“Why don’t you just put it on the dome?” Persimus asked as he turned to see the gathering crowd.
“You remember the last time I did that when we were watching the Fallen. I don’t need any more encounters with either archangel.”
Persimus nodded and refocused on the portal.
Validus followed Guldomak as Poxel and four other Fallen escorted him to the outskirts of Kish, near the camp of the Gordorites. The closer they came, the more Validus felt a knot tightening in his stomach. It was impossible for him to watch the unmitigated evil abound without becoming furious. Such things stayed with him for weeks. Persimus put a hand on Validus’s shoulder.
Fortunately, the posse of Fallen did not enter the camp but instead detoured to the hills just above the encampment. They came upon a cave, and Poxel stopped. He turned to face Guldomak, fear in his eyes.
“He’s in there, sir.”
“Bring him out.” Guldomak drew his sword. The command of Tarsis to spare Tulgard’s life appeared irrelevant. Blood was in Guldomak’s eyes.
Poxel shook his head. He and the three other warriors stepped backward. “I would rather die by your sword.”
“Aack! Weaklings!” Guldomak lunged at Poxel and grabbed his neck. He threw him toward the cave opening. “Bring him to me!”
Poxel stumbled backward just as a deep, guttural growl rumbled from the cave. He clutched at the rocks beside him to keep from falling into its mouth, but it was too late. A bloodcurdling screech erupted from the bowels of the cave, and a black mass lunged from the darkness toward the demon warrior. Rows of six-inch, razor-sharp fangs collapsed around the torso of Poxel. The beast shook him, smashing him against one side of the cave and then the other. Deep-set eyes devoid of all intelligent thought glowed from the darkness.
Guldomak and the other warriors fell backward. Validus and hundreds of angels in heaven did the same, gasping as they beheld a beast of evil capable of unthinkable carnage. As Validus’s hands lifted from the marble, the image froze on Poxel’s terrorized face screaming in the mouth of the hideous creature. Angels in flight drifted downward to the floor in disbelief. They all stood in silence, facing an emotion they had rarely faced before—fear.
“It is the curse of abject evil,” a deep voice thundered across the Hall of Vision.
Michael’s wings beat in careful strokes as he flew from the doorway to the center of the hall. All the angels turned and watched the archangel settle to the glossy marbled floor. He walked among them, gazing intently into the faces of each one he passed.
“Are you surprised? Who here remembers the ministering angel Davenius?” Michael moved slowly between them, as if looking for something in one of them.
“I remember, Archangel,” one of the angels said.
“And I,” said another.
Most of the angels voiced their remembrance. Validus remembered Davenius well. He was admired and respected, for he was a minister of the inner courts of the Holy Mount. His beauty was unmatched, surpassing even Cadriel’s.
Michael stopped before Validus’s portal and pointed at the beast. “That was Davenius before Apollyon called him Tulgard. Once a majestic angel of glory, now a thoughtless and grotesque beast of utter evil. Devolution is the curse of sin for angels. Hades is full of them … degenerates tormenting the souls of wicked men. We call them droxans, and now the Middle Realm must endure them. I once faced a droxan with General Jorill and Commander Danick.” Michael seemed lost in thought for a moment. “If Tarsis can control it, our brothers face an enemy more fierce than a hundred Fallen.”
Michael turned and looked into Validus’s eyes. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Fear of the Lord, my brethren. Not of this! Without the Lord there is darkness of the mind, the soul, the body. This beast is the culmination of complete submission to evil. But greater is our Holy God whom we serve!”
The archangel walked back to the middle of the hall and looked up toward the dome. “The day will soon come when Elohim will call for you to serve as our warrior brothers now serve. Some to guard, some to carry, some to minister, and some to make war. Watch and learn.”
Michael rose up and exited the hall.
Validus turned back to the portal and wiped his hand across the marble. The image of the gruesome beast devouring one of his own disappeared, and no one petitioned against it. They had all seen enough.
Validus and Persimus left the hall and walked the jeweled tiers of the skywalk near the crystal falls. Neither spoke for some time. They stopped and looked out over the golden city to the Crystal Sea. Part of the great wall circling the city spanned across an inlet of the Crystal Sea. Here, twelve grand arched abutments formed the wall that crossed the inlet. Near the shore of the sea, nestled against the base of Mount Simcha and just inside the wall, stood the Hall of Ages, the one place forbidden by Elohim for either angels or demons to enter. It was as grand as the Hall of Vision, but in this hall time did not exist.
“Have you ever wondered what is within?” Validus looked at Persimus.
“Who hasn’t?”
“So grand, so unfathomable—to see the future and the past all at once. It is our tree, isn’t it?” Validus turned back to look at the hall.
“I suppose it is. As far as I know, Gabriel and the spirit of the man Enoch are the only ones who have entered. Then Enoch was carried to Paradise.” Persimus seemed mesmerized by the thought of the Hall of Ages.
“Is that where Gabriel saw the Plan?”
Persimus shrugged. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Both angels laughed. The levity was a much-needed escape from the horror they had just seen in the Hall of Vision. What a strange place the Middle Realm had become, Validus thought, so different from the Upper Realm.
The two realms were separated by a thin veil the angels called the Fringe, a barrier that divided the spiritual from the physical and the physical from the spiritual. Nothing physical from the Middle Realm could pass through the Fringe into the Upper Realm, but that which was spiritual could pass through to the Middle Realm.
Validus had never been through the Fringe. Angels from the Messenger and Carrier Orders passed across it often and told him that such a journey felt peculiar. It was a spherical barrier that existed just below the seven stairways leading down from heaven.
As humanity had multiplied on the earth, Elohim opened more stairways into the Middle Realm. The closest stairway to Zion was just beyond the city gates, the Mediterranean Stairway. Validus could just see the marble columns and rails of the stairway beyond the wall.
“Zilnad said that from the earth the stairways look like holes in the sky.” Validus leaned on the rail spanning the two towers of the skywalk. “Once, he flew out from earth past a stairway and beyond the firmament toward the closest star, but it was too lonely, too cold, and too dark. That’s something the Hall of Vision can’t describe.”
Persimus looked over at Validus. He could tell his mind was elsewhere. “Do you think Cadriel will make it?”
Validus couldn’t help the glow he felt when he considered their friend Cadriel as one of the few warriors who remained to defend earth. He had fought well. What a noble and valiant warrior their beloved friend had become.
Studying Persimus’s eyes, Validus realized that his friend felt something different. Worry creased his brow. Of the original four friends, Persimus was both blessed and cursed with a tender heart.
Validus put a hand on Persimus’s shoulder. “Keep heart,
Persimus. Cadriel is one of the best warriors in all three realms.”
Together Validus and Persimus had watched their brave friend fight in countless battles, his sweat-soaked hair tossing from side to side, accentuating each thrust and cut of his blade against terrible foes. Though an angel of beauty, there was nothing weak about Cadriel. He was as fierce a warrior as Validus had seen. Three hundred thousand warriors had entered the battle for earth, and Cadriel was one of the last eighty-two.
“Would you go to earth if you could?” Persimus asked.
Validus thought of the dire situation his friend and other brothers of the Warrior Order faced on the earth below. “Yes, I would.” Validus took a deep breath. “And you?”
Persimus looked into Validus’s eyes, smiled, then looked out to the lush green hills and valleys of heaven. “I think earth rubs off on them. They sweat, they bleed, they don’t even fly. It seems to me the more they live among men, the more they become like them.”
Validus turned to look at the hills and nodded. He wondered what that felt like. He could not deny being drawn to taste the physical world Elohim had created. There was something alluring about it. He had watched one of the Fallen translate into the form of a man and not translate back, even to his own peril. The Fallen seemed obsessed with the sensations of the physical world, unable to detach until they teetered at the point of devolution.
“But would you go?” Validus asked again.
“I don’t know.” Persimus looked back at Validus. “To face the ruthless swords of the Fallen and confront beasts like we just saw? I just don’t know.”
“I don’t blame you, Persimus. There are so many things I don’t understand. Why does Elohim allow Apollyon to continue … even to the point of the annihilation of His beloved creation? Sin has so contaminated and corrupted all of creation that He is going to destroy it. The world groans in agony of the sin in its veins. Why?”
Persimus shook his head. “I—”
“And what of the mystery of the Plan?” Validus interrupted. “How can even Elohim purify the filthy state of Apollyon’s sin-laden world? How is it possible? The heart of man is desperately wicked. Is he worth saving?”
“I don’t know, my friend. Your quest for justice is strong, but we must trust in Elohim and His ways. We’ve seen the fruit of it, have we not?”
Validus calmed himself. “Yes. Yes, we have. It’s just so hard to understand it all.”
Validus and Persimus walked onward, closer to the falls; then Validus stepped off the skywalk and fell with his wings folded until his speed brought exhilaration to his heart. At the last moment, he spread his wings and skimmed across the rooftops of the city towers and buildings; then he flew upward and turned toward the Crystal Sea. Persimus followed but not with quite as much enthusiasm.
They set down along the shoreline near Validus’s favorite cove. As soon as Persimus landed, Validus turned to him.
“Eighty-two against three thousand.” He knelt down and felt the cool sand beneath his palm. “I can’t help but wonder what will happen.”
“The will of Elohim will happen.” Persimus’s voice was solid and sure.
“And was it Elohim’s will when He created the earth that it should fall to sin and that He should one day destroy it?” Validus had thought it many times but had never dared speak it.
Persimus stepped away from him.
Validus stood and faced him. Persimus’s face was expressionless as a stone, but Validus knew his thoughts. He dared continue.
“Is the will of Elohim always accomplished?”
Silence.
“Is it? I have seen men slaughtered for a trinket of gold. I have seen little girls and boys ravaged by perverted men. I have seen Davenius devolve into a beast of horror. I have seen Elohim’s mightiest and holiest angel become a destroyer of all that is good. Is that truly Elohim’s will?”
Persimus’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “Has Apollyon swayed you, Validus? What are you saying?”
Validus stepped toward his friend, but Persimus held up his hands. Validus stopped. “What I’m saying is that the will of Elohim and the fate of man, or of a battle, or of the entire earth may not be the same. You have looked into the eyes of our holy God. Where in those eyes do you see a will for a man to die and be tormented forever in the fire of Hades, let alone billions of men and women?” Validus turned away. “No, my friend, the fate of General Jorill, Commander Danick, and the rest of our brothers, including Cadriel, is not sure. Our holy God has created within man and within angels a free will that He does not destroy.”
“How can you say such things?” Persimus’s voice almost pleaded.
Validus turned back. “How can you not? Look at what we are facing: the purging of earth, the destruction of over five billion people because of the wicked devices of Apollyon. The outcome of anything is not certain. Except for this—Elohim will never give up on the righteous. And I believe that Noah, by some miracle of our God, will survive, and the mystery of the Plan will happen in spite of the wicked forces of Apollyon. And I don’t want to just watch it happen—I want to be an instrument through which it does. I will glory in the judgment and condemnation of Apollyon on that final day.”
Persimus closed his eyes and the creases of his forehead disappeared. He opened his eyes and let the corners of his lips turn upward. “You are a passionate one, Validus. If I didn’t know—”
A trumpet from one of the guardian towers of Mount Simcha sounded across Zion. Validus and Persimus froze. Eighty-one warriors remaining.
Then a second trumpet joined the first, and the two angels launched with all speed into the air and toward the Hall of Vision.
The Battle of the Purge had begun.
10
CARTER AND THE GUARDIAN
Present Day
Validus continued to search Carter’s bedroom. He found a chart where the young man had recorded his weightlifting goals and each day’s progress. He looked to the corner of the room at a hook where a weightlifting belt might hang.
Validus smiled and quickly exited the rear of the home. He arrived at the gym just as a Mustang pulled out of the parking lot. He followed from a distance, ever watchful of any Fallen activity. The Mustang pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store just as dawn was breaking over the town.
The first glimpse Validus saw of the man was brief. Carter carried himself well and yet without strut. There was a lot to learn about the young man, but Validus would have to wait until he was sure he could do so without jeopardizing Carter’s safety.
Validus watched his new charge enter the grocery store, then circled toward the back of the building, planning to enter discreetly. He couldn’t imagine any Fallen being interested in anything happening at a grocery store at six in the morning, but he chose to play it safe just the same.
He heard faint voices and assumed them to be from workers on their smoke break. Just as he turned the back corner of the building to enter the alley, the words became distinguishable.
“The diviner said Rivercr—”
Validus pulled back, but it was too late. He knew he had been spotted but hoped they hadn’t fully recognized him.
In fractions of a second, he materialized through the cinder block wall into the grocery store, jumped up through the ceiling, and materialized onto the roof He ran across the roof eighty feet and fell through the ceiling again into an aisle near an assistant manager inspecting an end cap display. He looked up and down the aisle, then bolted through the remaining aisles until he was at the far wall and stepped through to the outside.
All clear. One quick dash brought him to a shoe store at the far end of the parking lot. He entered the closed shop and looked back at the grocery store through the windows.
Validus scanned for any Fallen in pursuit. None.
Diviner, he thought. What about Rivercrest could draw the attention of a diviner? Diviners were fallen angels with a limited ability to see future events on earth. When a possessor with t
his ability took over a man or a woman, the influence on the humans around them was profound. Even in the world of angels and demons it was an alluring ability.
“Did they see you?”
Validus spun about, drawing his sword with frightening speed.
The guardian ignored the sword and stepped past him to look out the window. “They suspect something’s up too.” He turned to look at Validus over his shoulder. “Just as we do.”
“Who are you?” Validus held his sword at the ready, just in case.
“My name is Tren, and the young man is my charge.”
Validus raised an eyebrow.
“I saw you following him, and I must say this assignment is getting more intriguing every moment. Why is the commanding warrior of the North American continent following my charge?”
Validus relaxed, setting his sword in his scabbard. “Aren’t you a little far away to be protecting him?”
Tren turned to face Validus squarely. “Aren’t you a little far from headquarters?”
Validus smirked but nodded. “I’m your … assistant.”
Tren stared back in silence as if waiting for the punch line to a joke. After a long pause, he turned and looked back out the window. “Why?”
Validus joined him at the window. They watched as two Fallen approached the grocery store from the east side of the parking lot. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Tren looked over and up at Validus. He shook his head. “I can’t tell you much. I was just assigned a few days ago—or I should say reassigned. Drew Carter was my charge from when he was born, but at the age of reason I was given another. Now after seven years, I’m back with him … which is pretty unusual.”
Validus watched as the two Fallen entered the grocery store. He fingered his sword, wondering if he was going to have to engage on behalf of Carter already.
“I don’t think they’re after him … at least not yet,” Tren said. “They don’t even know why they’re here. It’s a good thing you avoided them. Once they figure out we’re assigned to Drew, they’ll focus on him and my job will get a lot tougher.”
