Marcus got out of his car and strolled toward the front door. The landscaping around the home was impeccable. Lush grass, rich brown bark that looked like it had been laid yesterday, three large Japanese maples, and perfectly sculpted rhododendron bushes.
Even in the fading evening light, the colors made a stunning framework for the diminutive pond in the center of the yard. Apparently Reece wasn’t down to his last dime.
A sign halfway to the front door said Around Back. When he reached the backyard the aroma of smoke filled his nostrils. A long gravel path—at least a hundred yards long—slalomed through the grass, ending at a fire pit that reminded him of the one at Well Spring. Of course it would. Reece probably based his fire pit on the one in Colorado.
Dana sat on the wooden bench surrounding the pit. Reece paced on the grass on the other side of it. When Reece saw him, the big man raised his arm and motioned him closer.
“Your home is spectacular.” Marcus slid onto the circular bench across from Dana.
“Thank you.” Reece glanced at his massive maple tree–lined backyard. “It’s my slice of paradise.”
“Our gathering spot won’t be inside?”
“Nah. I never waste a sunny day or a cloudless night. They’re too rare around here.” Reece stopped pacing and sat down, but his knees continued to bounce and his hands gripped the edge of the wooden bench. Concern was etched into his craggy face.
“I’m glad you both came.” He glanced at Dana. “The Spirit told me Brandon will be attacked tonight during his concert. And I’d rather not attempt to fight this battle alone.” Reece massaged his fist with his other hand. “I need you two.”
“Attacked? How?”
Reece shook his head at Marcus. “I’m not sure.”
“Have you been given any clue as to what the assault will look like?” Marcus asked.
Reece stood and grabbed his ax and split kindling while he talked. “No. But I know we’re needed and that’s enough. So we’re going to go to him right now. Stand next to him this evening.”
“I thought he was in concert tonight.” Dana frowned.
“Yes.” Reece moved back to the bench and drummed his fingers on the redwood.
“A concert in Dallas that is four and a half hours away by plane.”
“That’s correct.”
“So you mean we’re going to pray the concert goes well, that he’ll be protected, that God would do what he wants to do with the people there, etc.?”
“Not exactly.” Reece leaned in and held his hands over the fire. “I mean, if you’re willing, we’ll travel there by unconventional means.” “Here we go again.” Dana folded her hands across her stomach. Reece rose again and paced, his face contorted as if he were trying to remember a long-forgotten code. “Our bodies are going to stay here. But our spirits will be onstage with Brandon.”
Marcus flopped back in his chair. “My first thought is insane. My second is I’ve seen enough now to cast my hands in the air and say, ‘Lead on.’”
Reece turned to Dana.
“Same.”
Marcus glanced at his watch. “When do we go in?”
“Right now.”
“Anything we need to know first?” Dana asked.
“Yes.” Reece grabbed two pieces of maple and tossed them on the fire. “This is going to be strange for the two of you because it will feel like we’re physically onstage with Brandon. We won’t be. As I said, our spirits will be there but our bodies will be right here. I don’t know if Brandon will be able to hear us. I don’t even know if he’ll see us.”
“Have you done this kind of thing before?” Dana asked.
“Yes, but it’s been awhile.”
“Do you mind defining ‘awhile’?”
“Just follow my lead and we’ll be fine. But if either of you would like to stay here, just say the word.”
Dana and Marcus shook their heads.
“You’ll probably feel a rush and then we should be onstage. The Spirit will take us when he’s ready. We might sit here for six minutes or six hours, but I think it will be right away.”
“Six hours? That would be a pretty long concert.”
“God is outside of time.”
Dana glanced at Marcus. “Like you talked about at Well Spring.”
He nodded.
She rubbed her knees. “So when we are in the Spirit, he can take us forward or backward wherever and whenever he wants to.”
“Exactly,” Reece said. “Quantum physics and the Bible is something I want to talk to all of you about more—and, Marcus, I think it will take your teaching at the University of Washington in a new direction—but at the moment we don’t have the time, no pun intended.”
“That, I would enjoy taking part in. And I liked the pun, intended or not.” Marcus smiled.
“Now close your eyes and focus on the Spirit.”
Serenity settled on Marcus, mixed with a rush of adrenaline. His hands shook lightly in rhythm with waves of peace. It was intoxicating.
“Okay, here we go.” Reece’s voice sounded distant. “Take us in, Lord. With your strength, your power, your freedom.”
The warmth of the fire swirled around him and the air seemed to grow thicker as if an extra molecule had been added to the O2 surrounding them. It was the same sensation as when Marcus had dreamt of being underwater and being able to breathe. Then a sound like a thousand thundering waterfalls crashed against his ears.
A second later Marcus stood on a stage, music filling the arena in front of him. Brandon stood ten feet to his left, Dana and Reece beside him on his right. Unbelievable.
Marcus felt his arm. It was impossible to believe he wasn’t standing onstage in the flesh. He shook the thought from his mind. No time—or inclination—to consider the physics of what was happening or how many supposed irrefutable laws of nature were being broken at the moment.
Reece pointed at the audience and Marcus turned to see what their leader’s gaze was fixed on. At first he saw nothing unusual. A full house, people on their feet, swaying to the music—some with arms raised, some singing, some standing still with eyes closed.
Wait. Something moved down the bodies of the audience, thin lines slithering from their chests to their stomachs to their legs, like vines from a time-lapse movie, growing inches longer every second. What was happening? Then Marcus realized what he was seeing and gasped.
Brandon stared in fascination and horror as thin, pale green vines emerged from the chests of hundreds in the audience. The vines ran down the people’s stomachs and legs like liquid, then snaked along the floor into the aisles.
He glanced to his right and left. The tentacles from each aisle now slithered to the area in front of the seats and merged into one massive green vine that pulsed like it had a heartbeat. A moment later the front of the vine crept over the edge of the stage and a repulsive smell seeped into his nostrils. Rotting meat would be perfume compared to the stench. Brandon’s feet felt welded to the floor and his breathing came in spurts.
“Can you see this?” Brandon turned to Anthony.
His bass player grinned. “Yeah, baby, it’s awesome. We haven’t had a crowd reaction like this for a while. They love us.”
“I mean the vines!”
“Vines?” Anthony strutted over to him. “What do you mean, vines?”
Brandon stumbled back a step and pointed at the aisles and the edge of the stage where the front of the vine inched toward him.
“Yeah. Sure. And I can see Tarzan and Jane swinging off of them.” He grinned. “What are you talking about?”
Spirit of God, I need you and your power here right now.
The vine stopped for a moment, then started to slither toward him again—more slowly—but it continued to creep forward. Brandon staggered another step backward as the vine, now as thick as a telephone pole, oozed toward him.
Marcus tried to keep his breathing steady. “I’m skirting the edge here. Talk to me, Reece.”
“Let’s ta
ke this thing out.” Reece turned to face the vine, fury on his face.
“With what?” Marcus said.
“Look at what you hold.”
Marcus looked down to see a four-foot ax in his hands. Its weight was substantial, but he knew he had the strength to wield it.
“I’m with Marcus,” Dana shouted. “This is freaking me out. That thing seems full of power, and not the good kind.”
“Steady, Dana. Look at the blade of your ax. That’s real power.”
A razor-thin beam of light ran along the edge of her blade. Marcus glanced at his. Same thing.
Dana grinned at Reece and lifted the ax above her head. “Ready.”
“Marcus?”
“Let’s go.”
Brandon took two more steps back and glanced to his right and left. He had to move! But where? Then a flash of light to his right and Reece, Dana, and Marcus stood in front of him, between him and the vine, with some sort of axes in their hands. How could they be here?
In perfect unison the three swung their axes in a long arc down on the vine. Each of their blades bit into it and the vine shuddered. They raised their axes and swung again. This time their blades penetrated the surface of the vine and a dark, thick liquid spewed out. Two more blows and they hacked through the main vine, but the battle wasn’t over.
From each side of the hacked-off vine, a new growth appeared, almost as thick as the original vine. They moved toward Brandon, faster this time, the two offshoots flanking him on his left and right. Another grew in a long circle around the stage and crept forward, directly in back of him. The vine on the left snaked over to Anthony and circled his foot, then ran up onto his foot and up his leg, up his torso toward his heart. Move!
Brandon leapt toward him and reached for the vine to tear it off his friend’s chest. But his hand went right through the vine as if it were vapor, and in the next moment his hand felt like it had been dipped in dry ice. The vine circled Anthony’s chest once, then disappeared through his shirt into the center of his heart.
Anthony didn’t react, his fingers flowing over the frets of his bass, but the smile on his face grew wide. He turned and nodded at Brandon in rhythm with the music. “They love us, Brandon!”
How was he supposed to help fight this thing? He turned to Reece and the others. Reece shouted something to Marcus. He saw Reece’s lips move but he couldn’t hear the sound. Marcus leapt back and in two strides was behind Brandon, attacking the vine that had circled around behind him.
While Dana hacked away at the vine to his right, Reece pounced on the vine to his left that had entered Brandon’s bass player. Reece turned and lasered his eyes on Brandon, opened his mouth, and shouted. Again Brandon couldn’t hear Reece’s words, but he could read the big man’s lips as clear as if the words had been bellowed at 120 decibels.
“Sing. Now!” Reece turned and brought his blade down on the vine again with the speed of light. “Sing!”
Brandon turned to his band and slid his hand across his throat and the music came to a halt. He had no words to explain to his band or the audience why they’d stopped the song, so he didn’t try. “I think God wants us all to sing this next song. Everyone in this room together. Let go. Surrender. Sing to him. Not to me. Not to the band. Him. Focus on God.”
Brandon sang like he hadn’t sung in forever. Not to the audience. Not for the band. Not for himself. He gazed at the sky and sang to the Spirit. There was no one else in the arena, and as the song filled the air, a sense of freedom flooded him.
A light exploded that was brighter and purer than any stage light he’d ever seen. There was no source for it and it seemed to move and shift as if it was thicker in the middle of the arena, then thicker on the sides, and soon the whole place shook as if the light would burst through the walls and rocket out through the entire city. The light swept over the stage, burying the vine like a giant wave.
The vine turned brown, then black, then gray as the light fell on it, then to dust, then it faded from sight. A moment later Reece, Marcus, and Dana vanished as well, but the light remained and only grew in intensity.
When the song ended, Brandon didn’t cue his band as to what song would be next. He simply launched into “Untamed,” another song he hadn’t touched in years, trusting the band would follow his lead. They did and for a half hour there was no speaking, only the music and the light and God’s presence like he’d never known.
Brandon closed his eyes, bowed his head, and prayed for the men and women in the audience. For their restoration, for their eyes to be opened, that they would be set free.
After a few minutes he opened his eyes and turned to Anthony. “Do you want to close?”
“Me?”
“Yes. Sing the final song.”
“Which song?”
“One of yours.”
His bass player stared at him with a stunned expression. “Are you serious?”
“Sing it from the deep part of your heart. Not for them. Not for you. For him.”
His bass player shook his head and laughed.
“What?” Brandon asked.
“I . . . uh . . . this means the world.”
“Then sing it as if the whole world is listening.”
Anthony embraced him, then adjusted his microphone and played. After they finished the second encore, Brandon flipped off the wireless on his guitar and trotted offstage. Kevin was waiting for him at the bottom of the stage steps.
“Welcome back to earth.”
“What does that mean?” Brandon unclipped his guitar strap and looked at three roadies who stood nearby. One of them was Toby. Brandon strode over to him and handed him the guitar. “Thanks for taking good care of her. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Toby cradled the guitar and smiled.
Kevin followed Brandon as he walked around the back of the stage. “I mean it in a good way. I haven’t felt the presence of God like that at a Brandon Scott concert in a long time.”
“You don’t know the eighth of it.”
“I think the expression is you don’t know the half of it.”
Brandon stopped behind the curtains separating them from the arena. “Believe me, in this case it’s an eighth. Maybe a sixteenth.”
“So what happened?”
“God showed up. So did Satan. And my eyes were opened just like Reece predicted they would be.”
“You’re starting to see things in the Spirit.”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Brandon grinned.
“Where are you going now?”
“Where I should have been going for the past three years.” He pulled open the curtain and pointed toward the crowd still milling near the front of the stage. “To go be with them.”
THIRTY-SIX
HAD IT REALLY HAPPENED? THAT NIGHT AT ELEVEN forty-five Brandon sat alone in the corner of his Dallas hotel room, the only light coming from the small lamp on the desk in front of the mirror, the night flashing through his head, part of him wanting to come down from the rush of what had happened, part of him wanting to live in it forever. Part of him freaked out by what he’d seen and wanting to pretend it hadn’t happened, part of him astonished at the power of God.
His cell phone rang and he picked it up, willing it to be Reece. He glanced at the caller ID. Yes. Brandon turned on his Bluetooth, slipped it over his ear, and answered.
“How are you?”
“Freaked. Thrilled. Mind blown. Stunned by what the Spirit did, and feeling everything else you can imagine.”
“That was a wild ride.”
“Actually, I’m a lot freaked.” Brandon sat again and tapped his foot on the carpet triple time as the images of the vine filled his mind. “That . . . that . . . that thing . . .”
“Relax, bud.”
“I am relaxed.”
“Good. Talk to me.”
Brandon scratched his head through his thick blond hair. “When you said my eyes would be opened, I didn’t think you meant I was going to see so vivi
dly.”
“So you could see the vines?”
“Uh, yeah, I could see the vines.”
“Could you see us?”
“Like the best holographs I’ve ever seen. Only better.”
“Amazing,” Reece said, more to himself than to Brandon. “So when I turned and yelled at you, you heard me?”
“I didn’t hear you, but it wasn’t hard to read your lips,” Brandon said. “This night will be a turning point for me. I feel like I’m back and farther down the road than I’ve ever been.”
Reece went silent.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’d love to say it’s over for you. But it’s not.”
“You mean the vine? You destroyed it.”
“That one. Yes. But there will be others. At every concert.”
“What are you saying? That vine has attacked me before?”
“Many, many times. Just because you haven’t been able to see it before now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“I think I’m going to barf. That thing has shot into me like it did into Anthony?”
“Think, Brandon, what was your bass player’s reaction when it entered into him?”
Brandon replayed the scene in his mind and it made him sweat. “Pleasure. He liked it.”
“Yes. Have you asked yourself why?”
“Not until now.”
“It’s a critical question.”
“It gave him something. But it was evil.”
“Think about where the vine started. Where did that vine come from?” Reece said.
“The people.”
“Yes. Man was made to worship. And the enemy will twist that desire till the object of their adoration slides away from God and lands on someone they can more easily taste, touch, and feel. And there is a part of all of us that is hungry for that sort of admiration.”
Brandon swallowed. So true. He’d often feasted from that table.
“You have to know who you are, Brandon. The enemy will constantly try to make you forget, which leads to the need for adoration and the praise of man.”
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