by Mark Romang
Cody’s lips trembled. His saturnine eyes glazed over. His mind retreated into a catatonic stupor and he didn’t move.
“Cody! Get away! You have to leave! Go back to my apartment! It’s not safe here!” Maddix yelled.
But Cody didn’t turn and flee like Maddix hoped. He stood his ground and lifted up his cell phone and began to record the supernatural battle taking place inside Zion Baptist Church.
Stuck to the wall like a rider in one of the ubiquitous barrel rides scattered around the country at amusement parks and carnivals, Maddix never felt more helpless. He could do nothing to help his friends or the exorcist. You picked the wrong man, God, to lead a resistance against Lucifer. How can I fight what I cannot see?
The priest held the crucifix in both hands now. He bellowed in an authoritative voice.
“The most High God commands you. God the son commands you. God the Holy Ghost commands you. Christ, God’s word commands you. The sacred sign of the cross commands you…”
In mid-sentence the evil spirits riding the wind flung the little priest across the large room. He slammed into the altar and crumpled to the floor. He lay awkwardly on his back, one leg bent behind him, and one hand still clutching the crucifix and holding it skyward.
And then the front doors to the church crashed open so hard they fell off their hinges and clattered down the front steps. Multiple voices within the terrorizing wind unleashed obscenity-laced tirades. The vulgar screams reached decibels only heard at rock concerts.
Maddix shuddered. The profane screeching vibrated his chest. He closed his eyes; sure the world neared its final moments.
All at once the wind left the sanctuary and fled out the opening where the front doors once hung. A quiet calm settled over the church. Maddix and Sara popped off the wall and thudded onto the floor.
Maddix groaned and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He looked over at Sara. She lay still with her back to him, but he could see her sides rise and fall. He crawled over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sara, are you okay? Please say something.”
She rolled over onto her back and looked up at him. “Are they gone?”
Maddix nodded. “I think so. Are you hurt anywhere?” He watched her shake her head. “I’m sorry I chopped up your hair. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Sara pushed herself up onto her elbows. She smiled weakly. “That’s okay. I’m glad you thought of a solution so quickly.”
Maddix cast a glance over at Kyle Miller and the two deacons. They all stirred and appeared unhurt. He then looked over and saw the priest lying inert on the floor by the altar. “If you’re okay I’m going to check how the priest is doing. He doesn’t look so hot.”
“I’m fine, Pastor Maddix. Go do what you need to do.”
“Please, call me Andrew or Maddix. Take your pick,” he said over his shoulder as he left her and hurried over to the fallen priest.
The exorcist lay flat on his back. His ash-colored eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. He looked as shell-shocked as a private on his first tour into battle. Maddix let out his breath when he saw the priest’s eyes blink. He grabbed the elderly man’s hands. It was like he held skeleton hands, there was so little flesh covering the bones. “Are you okay, Father? Can you speak?”
“My chest hurts. I can’t…breathe…very well,” Declan Cooper gasped.
“We’ll get you some help. Hang tight,” Maddix promised.
The exorcist squeezed his hand tightly. His eyes blazed to life and bore into Maddix. “I can’t guarantee that they won’t come back. I’ve never encountered such dark spirits.”
“Don’t talk, Father. Save your strength. We need to get you to a hospital. I think you may be having a heart attack.”
Maddix felt in his pants for his cell phone. He pulled it out and noticed right away it was turned off. He hit the power button, but the phone wouldn’t turn on. It was dead. Maddix wondered if the dark energy in the wind had somehow damaged the battery. Then he remembered Cody filming the exorcism with his phone. He ran over to the youth. “Cody, I need to use your phone. The priest isn’t doing so well.”
Cody looked at him dully. “What’s that smell? He asked. “It smells like a burning match.”
Maddix sniffed the air, noticing for the first time the distinct smell of…sulfur? It hung heavy in the air. He recalled smelling it this strong during his near-death experience in the Afghanistan cave. A flashback appeared briefly in his mind. The Lake of Fire lapped into a black sky. Brimstone burned his nostrils.
Maddix shook his head, and the flashback retreated to a hiding place in his mind. “Cody, I need your phone.”
The youth handed over his phone. Maddix grabbed it and looked at the phone’s screen. His heart sank. On the screen was YouTube’s uploading page. Cody had already submitted the exorcism. The whole world could now view what just happened in the church.
Maddix sighed and punched in 911. Please, God, keep Father Cooper’s heart beating. I’ll never forgive myself if he dies.
Chapter 7
The Oval Office
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a different sort of struggle took place. A lame duck president and his secretary of state grappled privately over a paradigm shift in foreign policy.
In an office where power and prestige ride the climate-controlled air like dust particles, no one would ever deny that the man sitting behind the famous Resolute Desk influenced every nation on the planet. Yet his supreme clout paled to the supernatural being lounging unseen on one of the two sofas positioned in front of the fireplace.
Untold billions of people unwittingly worshiped him. His influence on Earth spanned six millennia and his dark agenda stretched to the farthest corners of the planet. Most humans referred to him as the devil or Satan. He preferred to go by Lucifer. The name had a melodic ring to it, harmonious like finely-tuned woodwinds and harps.
Lucifer stretched his nine-foot frame across the sofa. His perfectly sculpted head rested on a beige throw pillow. Long, curly golden locks cascaded down the pillow and coiled along the carpet, spilling into the presidential seal.
Although he roamed Earth incessantly, he considered Washington D.C. his home base. America presented his biggest challenge. The largest concentration of Christians lived here. Their unflagging allegiance to God and Jesus enraged him. The believers continually spread the Gospel without letup, sewing it like garden seeds everywhere they could, even to countries whose names they couldn’t pronounce.
So for the past 150 years he positioned his demonic lair right in the beating heart of America—Washington D.C. Around the clock he worked at sabotaging the evangelical movement. His ironclad strategy was nearly foolproof. If he could control the maneuverings of both congressional houses and the Supreme Court, he could dominate the world and turn it into the secular kingdom he so desired.
Lucifer smiled as he listened to the back and forth banter between President Kimble Warner and Secretary of State Nathanial Dixon.
His reading glasses riding low on his nose, President Warner peered up from the speech Dixon gave him moments earlier. “Are you kidding me?! You really expect me to recite this at the G-20 Summit?”
Although he expected some resistance, Dixon feigned confusion. “Is there a problem with the speech, Mr. President?”
“You bet there is. I’ll be impeached if I give this.”
“You won’t be impeached, Mr. President, just ridiculed a bit. But so what? Someone has to tell the truth.”
“But this speech is a pile of crap! And it certainly doesn’t reflect this administration’s beliefs. Besides, the G-20 convenes to discuss world economies, not some hair-brained foreign policy.”
Dixon sighed. “Perhaps the speech needs a little tweaking. What specific passages do you find offensive?”
“All of it stinks, Nate,” Warner said, never one to mince words. “But I’ll read to you the most putrid sections,” he said, as he angrily rattled the paper. “The United States of America no long
er recognizes Israel as a sovereign country.
“America and the world can no longer stand idly by and allow Israel to bully helpless Palestinians and incite the wrath of neighboring Arab nations.
“At this time the Unites States renounces all ties with Israel. We are no longer allies, neither economically or militarily. This administration desires all Arab nations to know that America is a friend of Islam. We invite all nations to join us in imposing harsh sanctions on Israel. These sanctions will stay in place until Israel relinquishes all settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and evacuates them completely.
“Starting immediately, Ramadan is now a national holiday in the United States. Both congressional houses and federal offices will close during the weeks of Ramadan to allow workers to fast. I encourage all private employers to also close during this time.”
President Warner wadded up the speech and threw it toward the fireplace at the north end of the room. “Have you gone mad, Nate? Or have you recently converted to Islam without me knowing it?”
Sensing an impasse, Lucifer rose from the comfortable sofa. He sidled up to the secretary of state and reached out a luminous hand. He caressed the politician’s sandy hair with long supple fingers. “Don’t let him bully you, my pet. Your speech is a work of genius. And soon the whole world will recognize its brilliance,” he said in a voice only Dixon could hear.
Lucifer had long ago given up trying to influence President Warner. The man was too stubborn and too grounded in his political ideology to sway. He couldn’t hear demonic whisperings like Nathanial Dixon could. The secretary of state was like putty in his hands. He could cajole Dixon into doing anything he asked.
Dixon laughed nervously. “No, Mr. President, I haven’t converted to Islam. You know I am an atheist. The concepts of God and Satan and Heaven and hell are just that: silly dreams conjured up by some drunken spiritualist.”
“Then why all the sudden love for Muslims?”
“Sometimes you have to take a different path, Mr. President. If you ask me, we’ve been fighting the war on terror all wrong. Three deadly attacks on US soil in one year point to misguided policies.”
Warner rubbed his eyes. “So you want me to suck up to the terrorists. Is that it?”
Dixon shook his head. “All I’m proposing is to distance ourselves from Israel. We get nothing but grief from this one-sided relationship.”
Warner loosened his tie and collar, exposing a gelatinous neck. “Israel has been our staunchest ally for over sixty years. We can’t throw away their friendship like it’s a piece of trash.”
Dixon leaned in closer to President Warner’s desk. His voice lowered. “Have they ever fought with us in a war? They only pretend to be our friends so they can buy our weapons. This is a relationship we can live without.”
“Nate, you have it all wrong. Radical Islamists attack us because they think we’re infidels, not because we’re friends with Israel,” Warner pointed out. “This is a holy war between Christians and Muslims that will never end.”
“Sir, I’ll guarantee you that we can greatly reduce their hatred and attacks if we cut off Israel. We don’t need the terrorists to like us. We just need them to tolerate us. This is a good faith gesture that can reduce bloodshed on American soil.”
Lucifer planted a kiss on Dixon’s cheek. “Bravo, bravo, my pet. Someday soon it will be you sitting behind the Resolute Desk. But you must continue my work,” he whispered as he massaged the secretary of state’s shoulders. “You cannot allow the enemy to sidetrack you or mislead you.”
Warner sighed heavily. “I’ll need to run this speech by the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense before I even think of giving it. And without question I’ll need to include the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
“They won’t like it any more than you do.”
“Can you really blame them, Nate? This speech is political suicide.”
“Sir, you’re late in your second term. You’ve reached the political summit. Your legacy is already written. What else do you have left to prove? Do this for the American people. They’re the ones we need to worry about. It’s their lives hanging in the balance.”
Lucifer detected an otherworldly presence approaching. Tensing, he turned his majestic head toward the east atrium door and the Rose Garden beyond. A darkness undetectable to the human eye seeped into the Oval Office. Lucifer watched a demon even larger than him drift through the impressively crafted atrium door.
His name was Selachian, and he served as Lucifer’s top general. Selachian had been waging war against Michael and the heavenly armies since before the creation of man. Battle scars carved deep gashes into his metalliferous armor, while pus festered from infected cuts and dribbled down his muscular body wherever the armor didn’t cover. Perched atop each shoulder was an imp—grotesque little creatures resembling gargoyles that Selachian lovingly referred to as his pets. The imps hungrily lapped the pus from their benefactor’s wounds with black tongues.
Selachian bowed low, a respectful gesture that Lucifer demanded and never grew tired of. “Master, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have important news to relay to you,” he said.
“Well, don’t keep me waiting. What is it? Have you finally defeated Michael, or at least wounded him?”
Selachian shook his great head. Fresh scars glistened on his once beautiful face, a face forever charred when he fell from Heaven into Earth’s atmosphere. “The news I have regards an earthly matter. An exorcism took place not long ago in a church in Utah. The exorcist managed to expel all the demons inhabiting the church,” he said. “What makes this noteworthy is that these demons were once archangels,” Selachian added.
A forked tongue escaped Lucifer’s mouth and flicked over his lips. He looked up at his trusted general. Never before had Selachian looked so assailable. His once glorious wings were frayed and nicked, which greatly reduced his flying speed and made him vulnerable in aerial combat. “Why did you place your best fighters into this particular church? And who is the pastor and the exorcist?”
“Surely you haven’t forgotten the ageless prophecy about a man named Andrew Maddix leading a resistance against you,” Selachian prodded gently. “When I received word Maddix was the pastor there I sent your servants into the church to observe. But Maddix detected their presence and arranged for a Catholic priest named Declan Cooper to perform an exorcism.”
Lucifer bristled at the news. His earthly reign was clearly running on borrowed time. He’d been trying to delay the Rapture since the day he plummeted to Earth. And for the past ten human years he’d flooded the churches of Earth with demons in a desperate attempt to stymie the spreading Gospel. “The priest must be dealt with harshly. He is an enemy we must eliminate,” he said firmly, hatred clipping his words.
Selachian nodded. “The priest is recuperating in a Utah hospital room. He suffered a heart attack at the exorcism.”
“Is he going to live?”
“His condition has stabilized. But Nurse Kelsey is one of his attending caregivers. His death could easily be arranged.
Lucifer’s reptilian eyes narrowed under hooded lids. “Yes, it’s been a while since we’ve last used Debra Kelsey. Maybe she’s ready to resume harvesting.”
“I’ll have her contacted immediately. But what do we do about Maddix? He’s the true enemy,” Selachian said.
Lucifer sensed his general’s fear. The ancient prophecy regarding Maddix troubled him as well. “Send in fresh reinforcements and prepare them to storm the church. I want the entire congregation to scatter like leaves.”
Selachian bowed once again. “I will carry out your orders with expediency, Master,” he said, and left the Oval Office the same way he entered, drifting through east atrium door and past the pair of Secret Service agents as if they didn’t even exist.
Chapter 8
Dixie Regional Medical Center
St. George, Utah—three days later
Like most people, Maddix hated hospitals. The doctor
s and nurses bustling up and down the hallways, the hums and pings and beeping noises from monitors and oxygen tanks, and the occasional groans from suffering patients constantly reminded him of his own mortality. He didn’t actually fear death or even dread the eternal aftermath that followed along after it. No, it was the dying process that bothered him. He hated being sick. Weakness was a dirty word in SEAL vernacular.
Standing close to the bed, Maddix held Declan Cooper’s bony left hand. He felt personally responsible for the man being here. It had been his request that brought Cooper to Felicity in the first place. Why didn’t I try to drive out the demons myself? Why is my faith so small? Motivated by fear, he stood on the sidelines while this little old man stood up to the worst Hades had to offer. “I’m glad to see that they moved you out of intensive care, Declan. They must think you’re going to make it,” Maddix said, doing his best to smile.
Cooper returned the smile. “Oh, yes, my cardiologist is hinting that I might be released in another four days or less. But first I get a stent put in tomorrow.” Cooper squeezed Maddix’s hand. “You can stop blaming yourself, Andrew. I’m not leaving this world just yet. God is good and faithful. I can feel him healing me even as we talk.”
“I can see that.” Maddix looked out the window at the distant mountains. The giant rock heaps looked lavender in the twilight and complimented the pinkish sunset. He would give anything to be outside, anywhere but here in this sterile room.
He reluctantly turned his attention back to the exorcist. He never knew what to talk about when visiting a hospital patient. Compassion wasn’t his strong suit. And small talk always fled his lips when he needed it the most.
Tonight there was a purpose to his visit, a heavy question that needed to be asked. But he couldn’t just come out and say it, not after all the priest had been through. “Where is your family? Are they coming down from Oregon soon?” he finally mumbled, still afraid to ask his query.
