Why they all had turned so loathsome, he didn’t understand. But they had and they knew it; they were ugly, raging souls. Without the light, they were nothing but dreadful, deadly cores.
Balaam considered the angel, staring at her mat of hair. She had once been a striking woman with blue eyes and dark hair and a face so fine and beautiful she could get anything she wanted with just a wink and a smile (which had been one of her problems, Balaam thought with a smirk). But now she was nothing but a loathsome, lying mess. She had no beauty. She was not happy. There was no light in her eyes. The only thing that she wanted was to make others share her pain, to cast her darkness on them, making them as unhappy and miserable as they could possibly be.
As Balaam’s mind raced, his lips cracked into a thin smile. He didn’t have a sense of humor—that had been lost years ago—but he had a bitter sense of irony that was sharp as a pin. And the irony was so obvious it simply could not be ignored. “We rebelled against the Father,” he cried in desolation to himself. “We fought against the Father! We fought against his Christ! We did everything in our power to take the kingdom from them. And they would have given it to us anyway! They were willing to share!”
Everything the Father had, every kingdom and power, every pleasure and joy, every good thing in life had been offered to them. Everything they had fought for, the Father had offered anyway. He would have given them everything. But that wasn’t enough.
The Great Master and his angels wanted it all for themselves. Greedy, selfish spirits, they wanted to take it from him and give nothing back.
Balaam shook his head and shivered at the ironic truth.
Then the mortals in the bunker began to stand and shake hands. The meeting was drawing to a close; the men were getting ready to go.
As the men gathered in a circle to say their final good-byes, Balaam heard a low chuckle, an evil, empty sneer. “Go, my sweet angels!” the Dark Master laughed. “Go! I command you! Follow your hate and your wrath!”
The words cut inside Balaam like a knife to his soul. “Vessels of wrath, the Father called us,” he cried to himself. He shuddered, almost reeling, weeping in despair. “I am a vessel of wrath. That is all I am now. If the mortals really knew how I felt, if they could feel what I feel and see the darkness inside my chest, they would run and hide in terror from the pain in my soul. They would never listen to me. They would run from my lies.”
But the mortals didn’t understand that. They couldn’t see into his soul. So they still listened to him, always believing his lies. They would never understand him—until they had joined him in hell.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Washington, D.C.
Ammon Brighton walked out onto the porch and saw his twin brother sitting on the front steps in the dark. Ammon stood there a few seconds. Luke looked up and grunted wearily but didn’t say anything. He had turned off the porch lights, and the lights of the city hung over them like a soft, fuzzy bowl. There were rain clouds in the air, flat layers of low clouds that reflected the bright city lights, causing a hazy, white glow. Their old Victorian house was built at the end of a narrow brick street lined with huge oak and sycamore trees growing in old cement planters, and the soft wind blew now through the enormous branches. Some creaked as they moved, and their leaves fluttered lightly, creating a soft, rustling sound.
Ammon stared at the clouds. “Think it will rain?” he asked.
“Supposed to,” Luke answered as he lifted his eyes to the wet sky.
“Going to be cool tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Luke spit. “You know what the temperature was in Baghdad today?”
Ammon shook his head. “No. But it should be cooling down by now.”
“Hundred and seven. Will drop to forty-nine in the desert tonight.”
“SWA’s a lousy place to be, ain’t it, bro.” SWA, pronounced “swah,” short for southwest Asia, was only one of the dozens of military acronyms the brothers had picked up from their father. It was the military designation, and a more accurate geographical description for what most people called the Middle East.
“Got a short email from Sam,” Luke continued as he stared into the dark. “He said he’s done some very cool missions the past couple weeks. Said he met a girl. Said it broke his heart, she was so beautiful, seeing how she lives and all.”
“Hmm,” Ammon hummed. “That’s kind of funny. Doesn’t sound like him. Think he’s falling in love?”
“Who knows. It’s a strange world. Maybe he’ll come home with a wife.”
The brothers stared at each other and started to laugh. Yeah, right! they were both thinking.
After a minute they settled down and were quiet. “You couldn’t sleep?” Ammon finally asked.
“I woke up a little after two. I’ve been kind of . . . you know, waiting for Dad.”
Ammon glanced at the driveway. His dad’s car was there, but that didn’t tell him anything since he was always chauffeured. “You check his bedroom?” he asked.
“Yeah. Mom’s in bed alone.”
Ammon nodded. He went into the house, walked to the fridge for a couple of sodas, over to the pantry for a bag of chips and some salsa, then back outside to the porch. Sitting down, he heard three soft chimes and glanced through the glass and oak door to the old grandfather’s clock that sat on the marble floor. Three o’clock in the morning. A pretty good time to eat.
He pushed one of the sodas toward his brother. Luke nodded thanks, popped it open, and grabbed a handful of chips. Dipping into the salsa, he grunted and stood, disappeared into the house, and returned with a miniature bottle of Tijuana Fire Sauce. The bottle was lime green, with a Spanish label featuring warning signs with a skull and crossbones. He took the bowl of salsa and, like a chemist mixing a dangerous mixture, let the drops fall slowly. “How many?” he asked, counting each drop by the light of the street lamp.
Ammon felt his stomach. “It’s pretty late. I would like to sleep at least a couple hours. Better keep it to five.”
Luke huffed. “O ye of little gastrointestinal capability. I scoff at your five.” He counted ten drops, added one more for good measure, then began to stir the Tijuana Fire Sauce into the salsa with his finger.
“Nice,” Ammon said, nodding at Luke’s index finger that was dipped in his sauce.
Luke hunched his shoulders, pulled out his finger, and stuck it in his mouth. “Don’t worry, brother, this stuff is more powerful than alcohol. They used to use it to clean the open wounds of rebel soldiers during the Civil War. There isn’t a germ alive that can survive contact with this Tijuana Green.”
Ammon scooted over, took a chip, dipped it, and shoved it in his mouth. “Not bad,” he mumbled through his mouthful of food.
“Want another couple drops?” Luke asked.
The delayed reaction of the peppers, or the dynamite, or whatever was in the sauce, began to kick in. Ammon started sweating, his mouth on fire, and he grabbed a mouthful of chips, knowing he had to suffocate the flames with something dry; the soda would only wash the burn down his throat. Luke, having destroyed most of his taste buds already, watched him and laughed, then dipped another chip.
“Good,” Ammon said after his mouth had cooled down.
Luke laughed. “You can’t fake it with me, bro.”
“No, really. I would have stopped at eight drops, but this is okay. Just kind of caught me off guard is all.”
Luke laughed again.
Looking at the two brothers, one wouldn’t have known they were twins. Ammon, blond and tall, cut his hair short and combed it back in short tassels. Luke was shorter but thicker, his arms dark and tan. Luke acted fast. Ammon acted slow. Luke was always looking for something exciting. And he loved having friends around. In fact, it almost seemed he hated being alone. Ammon, on the other hand, sometimes had to lock his bedroom door and just sit by himself. He just had to get away, even if only for a few minutes.
Luke stared at the driveway, then leaned forward and looked down the empty st
reet.
Ammon watched him, reading his mind. “You know, buddy, Dad must not be coming home tonight. Mom didn’t even wait up for him, so you know what that means. I’m sure he called and said he got stuck at some meeting or ended up having to fly off somewhere.”
Luke nodded as he sipped on his soda.
Ammon thought of his father. He used to think it was so cool, the fact that his father worked for the president. The first time the White House sent a military helicopter to land in the intersection at the end of their street to pick up his dad for some emergency meeting, it had nearly blown his mind. He remembered watching from the corner, the police escorts stopping traffic to let the chopper land, his dad ducking under the blades and then turning around to wave good-bye. He had nearly dropped dead with pride. How could anyone compete with that!
But the glamour of his father working for the White House had worn off a long time ago. His dad was gone so much now. He worked all the time. And even when he was home, he was still far away. How many times had Ammon been talking to him, only to see that far-off look in his eye?
His dad tried to compensate—he really tried. But he was crushed with responsibility and it was very hard.
Ammon stared up. It was just starting to rain, more a mist than anything serious, and he watched the sidewalk grow wet. “Dad’s got it tough right now,” he said.
“Yeah,” Luke answered. There wasn’t much more to say.
“It’s hard on Mom too. She wants to help him, but she can’t. And it’s hard on her, being alone all the time . . . ”
Ammon stared at his brother in the darkness, knowing it was hard on him too. Luke needed their father more than Ammon did. It had always been that way, even when they were young.
When they were little boys, Luke would wake up in the night and want to sleep with his mom and dad. They let him for a night or two, but soon had quite enough of that. “You’ve got to stay in your own bed,” his mother had explained. “No more sleeping with Mommy and Daddy. You’re a big boy now, Luke. You need to sleep in your own bed.”
Next night, Luke had tried slipping into bed with them again. No good. They brought him back. He claimed to have had a nightmare. His mom had handed him his favorite stuffed toy, turned on the night-light, and told him to stay in his bed. Ten nights in a row he had tried to slip in bed with his mom and dad. Ammon had watched, enjoying the marathon contest of wills, though he never said anything. After it became obvious they were not going to give in, Luke had taken to slipping into the hall in the middle of the night, curling up by their door with his blanket, and sleeping there. That went on for a long time.
Ammon didn’t think his parents ever knew.
The older twin smiled at the memory, but it made him kind of sad. Sitting there on the front porch in the middle of the night, he realized that some things hadn’t changed. The front porch, the hall near their bedroom door, it was pretty much the same: Luke was missing his dad.
Luke took a final drink of his soda. “I read something today. Really ticked me off,” he said.
“What’s that?” Ammon asked.
The clouds broke, a thin line of clear sky showing above the streetlight before falling behind the low clouds again. Luke kicked his legs out, extending them to the bottom stair. “Okay, there’s this agency in Pakistan,” he began. “They work with refugees, orphans, that sort of thing. They’re trying to get food to this refugee camp. Have to haul it out there in these old, beat-up trucks, the only vehicles the Pakistani government will let them use. Yesterday, after a couple aid workers had taken a load of food to the camp, the bread and water ran out before everyone had a chance to get some. I guess a riot broke out. Here you have all these starving, dying people. No food. No water. So what do they do? They riot. Attack the relief trucks. Both of the aid workers were killed. One of them was trampled, the other one was dragged from under the truck and beaten to death.
“Now, I don’t know, Ammon, call me stupid, but I just don’t get it. Those aid workers were there to help them. It wasn’t their fault that they ran out of food. Yet the refugees went so crazy, they trampled and beat them to death . . . ”
Ammon stared at his empty soda can. “I guess people have to be pretty desperate for them to act that way,” he said.
“Desperate or crazy.”
“I don’t think you can say they were crazy. Have you ever been really hungry, Luke? I mean really, seriously hungry? The most we do is miss a couple meals on fast Sunday, and even then we cheat, but you’d think we hadn’t eaten in weeks. We skip two meals and think we’re dying, while lots of people in the world, maybe most of the people in the world, skip one or two meals every day.”
“Yeah, well, I still wonder what those people are thinking sometimes.”
“Have you ever been so thirsty that you thought you might die? Have you ever been so dehydrated that you couldn’t even sweat or spit or swallow because your tongue was so thick? Have you ever slept out in the desert with only the clothes on your back? Have you ever looked at a tiny cloth sack and knew it contained everything that you owned? Absolutely everything! You had nothing else! Have you ever been so scared for your family’s safety that you would have done anything?
“Think about this, Luke. I’ll paint a picture for you. You’re a young father. You used to live in a small village that was taken over by the resurgent Taliban and now you’ve been chased from your home in Afghanistan because of another war. The same thing happened to your father. Same thing happened to your grandfather before. Your wife was killed by Taliban rebels because she dared to appear in public showing part of her hair. You flee with nothing but a bundle and your little girl. You sleep in the desert for three days until you get to the refugee camp. When you get there, there’s no food and no water. Your little girl is going to die unless you get some for her. She’s crying. She’s begging. Then she doesn’t cry anymore. She just kind of lies there. Sometimes she’ll reach for your hand. She squeezes your fingers, but she doesn’t focus her eyes on you anymore. She’s dying and she knows it. She needs water now! The trucks show up, but there’s not enough, and neither of you get anything. You’re wild-eyed crazy with hunger. And you love your little girl. You would die to protect her. That’s not an American thing, a white thing, a Christian thing, or anything else—that’s a human thing. A father thing. You would die to protect her. But they have run out of food. She’s dying. She needs water, or she won’t live through the night.
“Think about that, dude, and maybe it will make it a little easier to understand what happened over there.”
Luke scrunched his face. “That’s a pretty horrible picture.”
“It takes place every day.”
“I know. And it helps to remember the whole story. But it doesn’t explain everything.”
Silence returned for a moment. “I guess there are some things we may never understand,” Ammon said.
Luke crossed his feet. “There’s a lot I don’t understand.”
“Me too,” Ammon said. “But let me tell you something important, Luke. I’ve been watching over your shoulder, and I know more about you than you may think. I mean, come on, dude, why am I out here with you tonight? You can’t sleep, and I feel that. You get a cold, I do too. I know your moods. I know what you’re thinking. I sometimes think I know you even better than you know yourself.
“And I want to tell you something I’ve been meaning to tell you for the past couple days. You have a great destiny, Luke, a great mission, a reason you’re here. Think about it, bro—do you think it was the outcome of mischievous luck or blind fate that brought you to this time, to this world, to this place! It couldn’t be! There had to be a reason. I think we used to understand it, but we’ve forgotten what it was.
“But why do you think you were born here, to this time and place? Why did Mom and Dad join the Church? To bring us to this place. You have a destiny and a mission, a reason you were saved for these days. And you can control it. You have the power to decide your fate.
“But just as you can seek out and complete your mission, you can screw it up, too.
“That cute little girl who likes to hang on your arm? She isn’t right for you, brother, and you know it. Play with fire, and it burns you; any fool knows that’s true. And the first step in falling is choosing the wrong friends. I don’t care how cute or good-looking or rich or cool they might seem, this young thing and her buddies, they are poison for you.
“I know that. You know that. Now stand up! Be a man!”
Ammon stopped and glanced at his brother, but Luke didn’t say anything. Ammon turned and stared forward, looking into the dark night. “Don’t you dare screw this up, Luke,” he threatened, “or I’ll kill you, my friend.”
* * *
For the next couple of days, Luke spent a lot of time in his bedroom and driving around in his car. He was sullen and moody, and he seemed to glare a lot. But more than once, Ammon caught him on his knees by his bed in the middle of the night.
On the third day, he woke up in a very good mood. He came downstairs, kissed his mother, and made breakfast for them all.
Later that night he called her. “Alicia, I really like you,” he said in a determined voice. “I’ve been happier since I met you than I have ever been. You’ve been good to me. You’ve been good for me in a lot of important ways. I would do almost anything to keep seeing you, but I can’t. It’s not right. I’ve got something I’ve got to do now, something very important that you can’t understand. I’m sorry, babe, I really am, but we’ve got to back off.”
She cried. She protested. She called him names and said he’d lied. She begged more than once, then started crying again. She said she loved him, but it seemed that he loved his church more than her.
He said she was right.
They talked on the phone until almost one in the morning. Luke held firm, though he was in tears by then. When they finally hung up, he was frazzled and frustrated. But he was not confused.
The Great and Terrible Page 78
