At least, they made a show of disapproval. I suspect that the two structures are connected somehow. But I’m a conspiracy nut, and mythology glutton. So that’s naturally where I’m going to gravitate.
“The ritual will take place in St Patrick’s, Fritz. And the new moon eclipse will happen midday… but in Bagdad.”
“Ancient Babylon…”
“Exactly. That means in our time zone, they’ll be conducting the ceremony around three in the morning, maybe four. I’ll have to double check.” I pick up the fallen book, The Babylon Working, and add it to the other five in my satchel.
“You’re taking another book? I thought we were going to return them all.”
I wave my hand over the mess that Shipley’s apartment had become. “I think the professor has other more pressing concerns. Besides, I want to learn about this ritual before the eclipse. There has to be something I can do to stop it.”
“You won’t be able to crossover until the next full moon, Henry. Whatever you end up doing to stop the ritual… you’ll have to do it here, without the Harpe.”
“I know.”
Chapter 22
I’ve never gotten in a fight that had to happen. I could have walked away every time. And every time it would have been the best option—the peaceful solution. Most fights are triggered over petty slights, hurt feelings, or accidents. Most fights are for nothing important.
But they all end bloody. They all end with brokenness in some form or another.
Just walk away. Cast your body into the fight when it matters, is what I say. For most of us, that opportunity will most likely never present itself. Most people my age will never find a fight worth the pain, loss, and effort. And if the moment does ever come, we’re too numb and jaded to recognize its importance, thinking that surely someone else will care enough to do something.
But no one will ever care as much as I do. No one will ever take a stand if I don’t. No one will have the courage to fight the darkness if I don’t. That’s what I now understand.
Geez, I’m starting to sound like my dad.
But he was right, this fight is worth it. The stakes are too high. The Beast is coming and though I’m stuck in a mortal flesh suit, in a physically bound dimension, I feel as though the Great Cause, my calling, is entitled to the action I fear to take. I must cast my body into the fight, for it isn’t my own. I belong to the Great Cause. I belong to Perseus. Or Jesus. Or whoever is directing the divine war against the Beast and his coming.
It’s happened before, countless times. The Annunaki, the ritual, the coming of the Beast. There has always been motion on the enemy’s flank. They’ve always had a “beast” ready to come into the world. But Perseus and his forces have stemmed that evil tide repeatedly for centuries.
Now it’s my turn to participate in the Great Cause. And if I fail, so long as I’ve given every effort, the result will be in Divine hands.
Ordained. Prophesied even.
With two weeks to wait and prepare, and no idea what’s happening behind the veil of the spiritual plane, I must find Shipley. I’m guessing the invitation from the Society of the Nine spooked him. He’s hiding somewhere, no doubt. But even I know that it’s futile to hide from the Algolim. They’re with us always, waiting to pounce from the shadows, feed on our spirits, and torment our minds. The Annunaki surely can’t be hidden from, powerful overlords that they are. So where does the world’s greatest nerd go to hide, I wonder?
Fritz and I are in a holding pattern now, until we either hear from Shipley, or the appointed time for the ritual comes along.
After scouring Shipley’s apartment, we find a small hatch in his bedroom closet leading to the floor above. That’s how they came in, and left, I guess. Shipley too.
“He probably abandoned his apartment when he received that invitation,” I conjecture.
“Yeah. And whoever’s after him must’ve ransacked his place shortly after. Looks like he was in a hurry to leave, too.” Fritz points to a pot of coffee, still warm on the burner.
With nothing more to extrapolate from the scene, we head back to my place. Along the way, Fritz blabs away with questions. But I’m demure mostly, dodging his questions and answering mostly with looks, shrugs, or flat-out silence. There’s no point making a scene and sending up signals to the passing public that I’m one of the crazies now.
Even though I guess I am.
Fritz is a pain in the neck sometimes. I swear, he’s trying to get me to react to him in public. He must enjoy the paranormal joke, practically pulling it on me and those around me all in one swipe. But I don’t play along this time. I keep my head down and focus on the pavement just ahead of me, and in no time, we’re back at my place.
Once inside, I trace the Seal of Perseus on the door, and just for the heck of it, the windows as well. I nervously check my own closet to see if there’s a hatch one could use to sneak in, and am relieved to find none.
The next few days are spent cloistered in my apartment. Just me and Fritz. The anxiety is medicated with games of chess and questions about Fritz’s tenure as a death angel.
“So what happens when you have to reap someone who bears the Seal of Perseus.”
“I have to be careful with those. They belong to Him. There’s a protocol for them.”
“Protocol? That’s a bit of a technical term for an angel of death.”
“Yeah, true. I don’t like that kind of corporate jargon. But I have a set of rules I must follow. Even death angels must follow the rules, Son of Halfmoon,” Fritz says without lifting his eyes from the chessboard. He’s stuck in deep concentration as he considers the chess games before him.
Poor guy. He’s struggling to make his next move. He looks like a tired puppy drowning at sea.
“I do not!” Fritz barks at me.
Stunned, I check myself. But I’m sure I didn’t make the remark aloud. “Did you just hear my thoughts, Fritz?”
“…tired puppy drowning?” He grimaces at me. “Really, Henry?”
“How long have you been able to hear what I’m thinking?”
“Since the beginning, bruh.” A wicked little grin curls to one side of his mouth.
Embarrassed and a little ticked off, I lash back, “And you didn’t have the decency to tell me?! I’d like to know if my best friend has the ability to read my thoughts!”
“Best friend? Really? Man, I’m honored. Really, bruh. That means a lot.”
I realize now that Fritz didn’t need to goad me into reacting in public all this time. Another layer of his sick practical joke is peeled back, and I’m even angrier.
“Jerk.”
Fritz just smiles, then makes his move.
“Check, bruh.”
Freaking irritating little dipstick.
“Heard that.”
Okay, smartass. I’m sorry I called you a dipstick. By the way, if you can read my thoughts right now, how come you haven’t won this chess match yet?
I move my queen, cutting off his attack and putting pressure on his own king.
Check.
Fritz looks long and hard at the board, frustrated at the sudden turning of the tide. While I, on the other hand, have cleared my mind and am simply waiting for him to make his one last move. He doesn’t know it will be his last move.
Unable to read my thoughts, the cheating death angel makes his move… and it’s awful. Total rookie mistake.
When he let’s go of his piece, I think as loudly as possible (if that’s even a thing) Not so easy to win without the angelic hacking, is it… buddy?
Fritz just glares at me as I move my knight into position and think loudly again.
Checkmate.
“You jerk!” Fritz blurts out.
Yeah, Fritz. That’s right. I’m a jerk.
Now we must figure out how to fight a real battle without me being able to crossover. My thoughts turn to the ritual… and the absence of the Harpe.
“Any bright ideas?” I ask aloud.
Fritz knocks his king ove
r in submission. With a look of frustration and wounded pride, my guardian death angel sits back in his chair and ponders our dilemma.
“Yeah. Why fight it? Why not just let it happen?”
“Never! Why would we do that?”
“Just hear me out, bruh. Let the Beast come into the world… then just reap the child,” Fritz says coldly.
“Reap… a baby?”
Fritz nods and raises his eyebrows for approval. “Why not, bruh?”
“Cuz I’m not a murderer, you putz. That’s why. It’s butchery. I’m playing for the good guy team, remember?”
“I thought you were more interested in playing to win, bruh.”
My face feels flushed with anger. “Nobody is reaping a baby, Fritz. Especially not me.”
Fritz shrugs. “Suit yourself. What ideas do you have then, Son of Halfmoon?”
I don't have any right now. But I’ll think of something, knowing that when I do, he’ll instantly be able to hear me do it. As I watch Fritz put the chess pieces back into place on the board, a notion flashes through my mind, and I blurt it out before he can read my thought.
“Why don’t you reap the beast?!”
“Can’t,” he instantly shoots back.
“Why not? You’re a reaper. And you’ve been sent to help me, right? And I’ve been put into pretty bad situation, not being able to crossover and all. But you’re crossed over all the time, in a way, right?”
“First of all, yes. I’m always crossed over. You only see my apparition. I’m there right now. Second,” Fritz moves his first pawn, opening a new game. “I’m bound by my commission to only reap the souls assigned to me. If the name of the Beast doesn’t appear on my blade… I’m not allowed to reap him. Or her. Or it.”
I move my black pawn to block his advance and control the middle of the board. “Angels rebel sometimes, though,” I repost with a subtle coo.
“True. But that’s how this whole mess with the Annunaki and the Nephilim started. You’ve read Enoch… and the Bible, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not that kind of angel, bruh.” Fritz jumps his knight over his line of pawns, and I mirror his move, checking his threat. “I can’t even reap Algolim, bruh. Not unless it’s assigned to my blade.”
Great. That’s hardly reassuring. My guardian death angel can’t even swing his sickle to protect me when the fight commences. At least, not unless he gets some divine commission to reap my assailant. Well, I can’t rely on the chance of that happening. I need to plan to act on my own. I need to be careful.
I finish the game with Fritz in silence, our conversation stifled by the ominous reality of our dire situation. I let him take the victory, carelessly moving my pieces without much consideration for their fates. The satisfaction of the win beaming on his face reminds me that even death angels appreciate the small gestures of friendship.
I pull The Babylon Working from my satchel and explore the text, page by page. Quickly, I realize that the perverse rites and ceremonies in this book are ordered with the intent of ushering in dark angels and summoning the ‘Man of Perdition.’ Shipley did know what the ceremony would entail and had been studying it in detail. So knowledgeable was the old professor, that the enemy requested his expertise to ensure every little detail would be attended to. He’s a master scholar of the occult and the ancient religions. How am I supposed to defeat nine demon lords, a life-long expert, countless Algolim, a fallen angel, and possibly even the Beast himself? And without a guardian death angel?
I don’t know. The odds are stacked so high against me that things feel futile. A sickening sensation rolls in my gut.
I’m going to fail.
Chapter 23
The world seems to move in slow motion on the last day. People moving about their normal lives, consumed with the pursuits of their own happiness, unaware that he’s coming. And when he arrives, if the Scriptures are true, he will bring fire and chaos, flipping their reality upside down. He will plunge the globe into a fatal crisis that will stop every single person’s world from spinning.
It will happen tonight. I should be getting some rest. I’m going to need it. But understandably, I can’t doze off, with the anxiety grinding away in my gut. Tonight is the night I fail the world. Tonight the Beast arrives, most likely for the final act.
The crazy religious tramps in Times Square were right.. The end is near.
Taking inventory of my life is a brief exercise. I’ve accomplished little, nothing actually. All I must show for myself are the few meaningful relationships with my parents and friends. My dad always said he was proud of me. And even after he died, he commissioned me to do a great thing and believed I was up to the task. Sorry, Dad. I’m going to fail at this. But I will try. My mom has spent her life on her knees in prayer, offering supplications to Jesus, her God, that I come to know the Truth. But I serve Perseus, currently, and she would recoil at the thought of me serving what she’d call a false god.
As I ponder these things in Washington Square Park, thoughts of my mom become more frequent. She’s always been the one to reach out to me and offer encouragement, never giving up on me, and rarely having that same love and attention reciprocated. She deserves better.
I pull out my phone and listen to her last voicemail. It’s been weeks since she reached out to me, and I never called her back.
I dial her number and raise the phone to my ear. Which feels odd. I don’t make calls. I text. Text is safe. But Mom deserves better. And I have a deep urge to hear her voice, one last time possibly.
“Oh, hi, Henry! How are you? I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’m… fine, Mom. Just felt bad for taking so long to call you back.”
“Well, that’s okay. Thanks for calling me. Is everything okay? You sound like you’re feeling down.”
The urge is unbearable. I want to tell her that the world is about to descend into the apocalypse. I want to tell her… everything. But she’d never believe me.
“Yeah… uh… I listened to your message. You said you had some weird dream or something? What was that all about?” I try to sound normal, lilting my voice artificially.
I expect Mom to take a few seconds as she tries to recall first the message she left me weeks ago, and then the details of her dream. But it doesn't take her that long. She immediately pumps out the details.
“Oh Henry! It was so real, I honestly feel like God gave me this dream. Okay? So don’t laugh. I know you’re struggling through a lot right now and trying to figure things out.”
You have no idea.
She continues, “Well, at first, the dream was pretty dark. Satan captured me. I was tied up and lying on an altar. And there were these women in long, dark robes standing in a circle around me.”
The hairs on my neck stand on end, and the nauseous fear rips at my stomach. No way. Surely this is just coincidence.
“And I was about to be sacrificed. I don’t know why or anything. It was just part of the dream, you know? Anyway, as they were about to kill me, you appeared out of nowhere and stopped them!”
“Wow. That’s cool, Mom,” I lie, knowing that something similar would be taking place soon… most likely with a different outcome.
“That’s not the part I wanted to tell you about though, son. That’s just the first part of the dream. Like I was saying, you came out of nowhere and saved me. But what was so interesting, is that you had this mark on the back of your neck…”
“Let me guess,” I interrupt, “a circle with an upside down triangle inside? And another circle inside that?”
My mom’s voice doesn’t reply at first, then slowly and in a low tone, she says, “Yes… how did you know that? Oh honey, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. It must be God! Did He give you the same dream?!”
I wish it were just a dream.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, that’s not all, Henry… You had a friend with you in the dream…”
“A guardian angel who
looks like the Grim Reaper?” There’s no way…
“Yes!!!! I can’t believe it! This is such a God thing!!!”
Okay. Whatever she must tell me is obviously worth listening to. I should have returned her freaking call weeks ago! Henry, you’re an Idiot.
Mom and I talk for several more minutes, combing through every detail of the dream. The initial shock of shared revelation wears off, but we still feverishly explore everything she experienced. Finally, she hesitates.
“What’s wrong, Mom? Is there something else you forgot to tell me?” I fear the worst, of course. I fear she witnessed my death, or hers. But I want to know.
“Well, there’s one more thing… but I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressing this on you.”
“You’re not making any sense, Mom. Pressing what on me? Just tell me. It’s okay. I can handle it.”
“That mark that you had on your neck… in my dream…”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“You kept calling it the Seal of Zeus, or the Seal of Pegasus, or something like that, but…”
“The Seal of Perseus,” I interject, now less stunned about the details revealed to her. Clearly, she was given this dream for a reason.
“Yes. That’s what you were calling it. But that’s not what it was. It’s the Sign of the Trinity, Henry.”
“Huh?” Well, that came out of nowhere. I wasn’t expecting her to take the details of a divinely given dream and interlace them with her own faith. But I shouldn’t be surprised. After weeks of holding the dream in her memory, certain things are bound to be clouded, exaggerated, or simply made up. The subconscious mind dilutes and distorts our memories like that all the time… especially when it comes to dreams.
“I know that it sounds like I’m preaching to you again. I’m not, Henry. It was the clearest part of the entire dream. From the time I noticed it on your neck, I knew exactly what it was. I won’t say any more about it, I promise. But I wanted you to know.”
From the outside looking in, you would think the Halfmoon family lives on the fringes of sanity, occasionally catching a quick bus trip to Crazy Town. Let’s take inventory, shall we? First, there’s my dad. He was an artist, which is the first major sign of mental illness in a human. He never stopped pursuing a lifelong career behind the canvas, dragging me and my mom through the gutters of “big dreams, no money.” Yes, he eventually found success, but chances were slim to none, and the risks to his family were of Goliath proportions. Second, there’s Mom, lifelong Evangelical, over-spiritual, Jesus Freak. Now, as she drifts away from middle age and into her sunset years, her mind is slipping. Or perhaps it’s becoming more sensitive to the vibrations of the supernatural. I can’t tell. Now she’s having dreams and interpreting them through the lens of her Christian faith. Then there’s me, Henry Halfmoon. I’ve been haunted by demons, talked with my dead father, crossed over into the spiritual realm twice, slayed demons with a sickle given to me by my best friend, who is an angel of death, but has been an apparition in my daily life, unbeknownst to me until now. Oh yeah, and I’m going to try to stop some ancient ritual meant to bring the Antichrist into the world and will most likely blow it and be responsible for the Apocalypse.
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