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| Petra Infirmary Translated by cJ |
Zealous singing chimed from the exercise yard. Younglings and their handlers were filing into the oval in response to the reveille’s herald. The Halfling, Mishael, was also astir, seemingly awaking to the intrusive cry of the reveille.
Mish had sounded distressed over the intercom. I could detect no other entity in his chamber besides the angel, Abishael’s sentinels and, so, had felt as alarmed by his distress call as he had sounded. Then, as though performing a commonplace routine in his daily morning ritual, the child rolled out of his bed and ambled toward the angel, Jeiel, who was standing by the door. He gave Jeiel a short glassy stare before the Guardian Angel calmly stepped out of his way.
Abaddon, he mumbled three times on his way to the door. With a mechanical wave of his wrist, he opened the door and trod out into the stairwell.
Recognizing the reason for the child’s trancelike gait, Jeiel prudently avoided waking him up. Indeed, Mish was still asleep; his eyes were opened but glazed over.
“He appears to be sleepwalking and in the clutches of a bad dream,” Jeiel informed me, speaking into the intercom by the door. “He’s woken up only a few seconds ago. I’ll trail him to ensure he comes to no harm.”
“Abaddon?” Gabriel queried, joining me at the monitor. He had arrived at Headquarters at the usual time, ten minutes before roll call.
I shook my head: “Go to him straight away. He’s sleepwalking. The angel, Jeiel, has reported finding no one else in the child’s room but, if necessary, stay with him as long as you have to. I’ll inform Haziel to assume your mission in Armenia. You know what to do.”
Gabriel understood, girding his rapier round his waist. He reminded me: “You realize he’s not had a sleepwalking episode for more than two years now? He must be under a tremendous amount of emotional stress.”
He vanished at my nod.
Gabriel wasn’t wrong: it was two years ago that the child was last similarly harassed. His problem with sleepwalking was nothing new. Neither was it a medical anomaly, even for a part angel. I had hoped that this issue of his past would be completely buried, never again to resurface; my expectations had been unrealistic and I was just now realizing that it might never cease being a chronic adversity and a part of all our lives while on earth.
Mish’s earliest record of somnambulism came to the fore during an emotionally demanding time from some of the brethren. He had left his billet sometime before dawn, inveigled by an unknown force to act out his dream sequences while in his REM-sleep state of semi-consciousness. This became a recurrent pattern.
His elder sibling, Ariel, discovered his empty bunk bed when he had shown up to rouse him for yard exercise. Two search parties were assembled in a matter of minutes. When both teams failed to find him anywhere at our garrison, the perimeters of the search and rescue operations, headed by our experts, Uriel and Remiel, were immediately extended to the adjacent woods.
Uriel’s team located him an hour after he was first reported missing. He had sleepwalked toward a tree, inexplicably rootling into a side split in the trunk before falling back into deep sleep in the crevice. While he slept, vague and airy shapes from another dimension swiftly collected around the tree. They were Lucifer’s disciples, at one time known as woodland nymphs – the tree dryads and water naiads – as well as a number of demon-possessed forest creatures, which all were cavorting and capering riotously while they gambled on the likelihood of enticing my son to their camp.
I teleported to the wooded upland just as soon as I had received Uriel’s summons. The wicked sprites separated every which way on my arrival, chased in all directions by several of Uriel’s and Remiel’s warriors; whatever designs they’d had on my son vitiated.
Uriel pointed to the tree in question. It was a very tall cedar.
“He’s in there,” he informed me.
A jackal was sniffing about the roots of the cedar. He had audaciously stepped over his bounds and drawn too close to my son.
“Have you no fear of the Lord your God?” I rebuked the jackal. “That child has the Lord’s seal of protection.”
The beast turned to glower at me with saffron yellow eyes that burned. His jaws were drawn back to expose his fangs; these were so sharp they could slice up an adversary’s flesh with ease. The fiend reared up on his hind legs while he sized up the distance of the runway between us before venturing to hurdle his body at me with force. I denied him the latitude to manoeuvre: I stepped up to him while I simultaneously drew out my broadsword. I swung my sword at his neck. He was immediately decapitated. The body of the beast flopped lifelessly onto the ground and, in that very instant, an evil spirit crawled out of the dead vessel, shrieking vengefully at me.
At my command, two of the Lord’s holy angels seized the demonic spirit by his arms and legs. They bound the disembodied spirit with their chains. Then, with the Lord’s permission, they carried him away to be delivered to the bottomless pit. Above my head, the other evil sprites screeched with fear at the thought of being handed the same fate.
“Not our time, not our time,” they protested resentfully.
The tops of the trees were moving in eddies in the direction of the evil ones’ flight. My child’s cedar tree house sprang up from the midst of these trees. I examined the ample shank in front of me. It was dry and its life was fading. I crouched down on my bent knees and palms to search the base for my son. I found him trapped inside the crevice in the trunk’s side. The crevice was about a foot wide.
“I know he’s supple but this is preposterous,” I opined to Uriel. “How’s this even possible?”
“I’d be interested to hear him explain it, too,” he replied, crouching down beside me.
Mish was hunkering down and contorted on the loamy underpinnings of the shaft’s interconnecting lumber. I called him by his name a few times; my last loud appeal to his senses woke him up with a start. He looked disoriented, fearful even, while he lifted up his head for air. He started slapping anxiously at the solid bark, yelling to be let out as if he had been taken captive against his will.
I swiftly joined him inside the shaft. Assuming a wraithlike form, I squeezed my transcendent body between my child and the sturdy bark. I gripped his willowy wrists, preventing him from further wounding his palms, which were already bleeding from the broken skin.
“Mika,” he exclaimed, as astonished to see me as he had been shaken to find himself in the tree shaft.
“Keep still, son,” I persuaded, “you need to stay still.”
“But how did I get trapped in here?” he cried. “What am I doing here? Why can’t I remember?”
I nuzzled his head under my chin: “I don’t know, but we’re going to get you out of here. You’ll be home soon.”
He glared at me with not just a little concern. “You look deformed, Dad,” he said drowsily.
I shook my head: “It’s not going to harm me, son. Now, please, stay very still.”
Outside, Uriel’s warriors had begun to fell the tree. By the time his strongest man had sawn a bevel on the shaft to split asunder the crevice, the child had receded into his sleeping state. He awoke again while I was gliding toward base, delivering him home in my bosom.
We had never established conclusively the cause of his somnambulism: Mish was only able to remember being influenced by his dream to embark on a pre-dawn foray out of the barracks. Later, a voice came to him with the wind and led him to the woods two kilometres away.
Notwithstanding the mystery of the voice in the wind, several of the elders had suspected that his somnambulism was not supernaturally inspired but a matter of heredity. They had also reasoned from deduction that it was an atavistic occurrence because his older sibling, Ariel, who possessed in common their shared human genome, had had the same limited experience of sleepwalking in his own past. Two subsequent recurrences were witnessed by the angel, Gabriel, who confirmed his fellow-elders’ suspicion that Mishael’s somnambulism was emotional and not spiritual in nature.
As I had written, that was more than two years ago.
The angel, Jeiel, had already surrendered his responsibility to the Commanding General. It was at the latter’s request. Catching up to his partners, Saraqael and Oreniel, he resumed his vigil from an embankment that bounded the paucity of the buildings around the infirmary, most of which accommodated our amenities. Gabriel shadowed his underling, both of them arriving at the edge of the gorge within seconds of each other. It was opportune, for the elder had been able to avert the child’s plans to rappel down the rock face without the benefit of a rope. And not a minute too soon. My son fell back against his mentor with one foot over the steep drop.
Gabriel, what are you doing? I rebuked.
I wanted to see how far he would go, Gabriel clarified.
Well, old friend, that was too close for comfort.
“Whoa, whoa,” Gabriel was whispering into the youngling’s ear. “That was not a good idea.”
The child had been rattled by Gabriel’s voice. He had roused in his elder’s arms and was all at sea to find them at the precipice. He gaped at his mentor, looking horrified at being so close to the edge of the steep incline. Gabriel kept him composed, gradually settling him with calming words while he inched them away from the edge of the cliff.
“Are you all right?” Gabriel asked his underling. The child was catching his breath under a row of Traveller’s Palms. He sat clumped against his mentor’s bosom, his face hidden in the latter’s tunic. Despite the shock of waking up from a bad dream, he hadn’t forgotten to maintain his reticence, which had been a subject of grief for the elders since his commitment to the infirmary.
“You were in a nightmare and you’ve started sleepwalking again,” Gabriel continued, his arms wrapped solicitously round the boy’s shoulders. “Do you want to tell me about it? About why you’re here?”
Gabriel got no answer.
“Talk to me, Little One,” the Archangel persuaded tenderly. “Tell me what’s going on. Is Abaddon responsible? For if our enemy has been oppressing you in any way, you have to let us know. Is he tormenting you in your dreams? Is that it, Mish? Is he responsible for leading you here somehow?”
Silence.
“No, but you’re determined to uphold your votive silence, aren’t you, Mish? You’re bent on going through this all on your own, aren’t you?”
Silence.
Gabriel raised the boy’s face to him. His eyes were shining with tears. The elder continued with a heavy sigh: “I do wish you would rescind this tiresome self-imposed catatonia of yours. How are we to establish what sort of mischief rankles you if you close off every line of communication with us? Come on then; let’s get out of here.”
The angel, Asahel, called on them some time later, appearing through a wall with his assistant, the Halfling, Zach Tobias. The two elders traded greetings in the angelic convention. After that, Gabriel relinquished all responsibility for the child to his contemporary. He retreated to an armchair in the living room.
My son’s examination took all of forty minutes to complete. Except for some anxious nail biting while he waited on tenterhooks for Asahel’s diagnosis, Mish had remained silent and subservient throughout his examination. Later, Asahel dispensed a plastic bottle into Gabriel’s palm.
“He’ll recover,” he informed Gabriel. “There’s Acetaminophen for his fever in this bottle. The sleepwalking might’ve been the result of his fever-induced nightmare; it’s nothing to be alarmed about.”
Gabriel’s head shook. “It’s not natural, is it? Mishael’s an angel.”
“A half-angel,” Asahel maintained, “but that doesn’t give him a waiver on healthy living. Mishka is also a human being, subject to the same sicknesses common to his race. Although not usual, since the Halfling will have to try very hard to be sick but, when he does, he feels the pangs and discomforts more intensely. The malady is worse for him than for the human being because of his acute senses. There’s nothing more we can do for Mishka today, but if the fever persists in the morning, give us a call back. The Lord be with you.”
“I appreciate your coming, both of you; Godspeed,” Gabriel rejoined.
The Medics departed in the same manner they had turned up.
I found myself demurring with them. Dubious about their prognosis, I wasn’t so confident that they had successfully sorted out the child’s confusion; only time would tell if I was right – dealing with Mish’s fevers and nightmares might require extra-physical inquiry.
At my request, Gabriel stayed at the infirmary to sit with up Mish through the night. The fever broke in the next hour and the child’s outlook began to make some positive headway. Detecting an improvement in his mood, Gabriel challenged him to a marathon chess contest, which he cheerfully accepted. After about seven engrossing hours, burdened by his reluctance to partake in any discourse, both he and Gabriel would prove equally peerless at the sport, winning a game apiece. I suspected that Gabriel had felt it was his noblesse oblige to throw the second game to his pupil. It didn’t appear to me that he had tried very hard to win that time.
They were testing each other’s brain power at Scrabble when midnight briskly arrived. It was time for Mish to wind down. He was too tense and alert, however, tossing vehemently on his bed until the sheets were all but twisted round his pelvis and ankles. Frustrated with himself, he kicked away the covers. He leapt out of his bed.
“Perhaps if you relaxed instead of trying too hard, sleep might come naturally to you,” Gabriel appealed in a soft voice. He was more than ably neatening the bed sheets and plumping up the pillows.
Mish glared at him, bemused. He let out a grunt.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” Gabriel smiled. “You’ve already seen that I’m not blunt in the notions department; so, why should this be any surprise? And I’m afraid I only understand the spoken word, not grunts.”
In spite of himself, Mish smiled – it was the breakthrough Gabriel had been seeking. After administering a cherry-based melatonin extract through the NG-tube, he returned the child to his bed. My son slept more readily this time.
I was returning from my mission in Ukraine and Belarus when I heard Gabriel’s telepathic summons. I teleported promptly to the infirmary.
“What’s going on?” I asked the elder, aware that he had been keeping a bedside vigil of the child all night. He was cuddling the latter in his arms.
The latter was flustered, drenched in tiny beads of his perspiration. I started to wax vigilant for his pallor and disquieting groans, barely intelligible from his pillows.
“We have to do something proactive,” the elder urged. “He’s been feverish for the last hour. I’ve only just been able to settle him.”
“Let me have him,” I requested, wondering how my son could have deteriorated over the course of one night.
My son was delivered to my bosom. I soothed and cajoled him while I listened to Gabriel’s account of the fever that had revisited him an hour ago.
“He’s been delirious as a result,” Gabriel added. “I’m inclined to call the Medics back.”
I eyed my companion’s garment, noticing the large wet spot in the middle of his tunic. “That’s not his sweat, is that?” I asked him.
“Partly his sweat, mostly his tears,” he clarified. “As I said, I’ve only just settled him. On top of the fever, he’d been tearful, to be exact, inconsolable. When he wasn’t sobbing, he was groaning in pain, like he’s groaning even now. He’d been calling for you, too, calling for his Daddy. But he’d been mostly somnolent. I’ve never seen him like this. I feel as if he’s being terrorized in his sleep.”
“Have you tried to summon for the angel, Raphael?” I asked next.
His head shook: “He’s going to be engaged in Djibouti with the Halfling, Jeremiel, until tomorrow morning.”
I nodded. I cuddled my son in my chest and examined him closely. I wasn’t convinced that mere fever was responsible for the feckless state of his body.
“The child’s completely broken down,” Gabriel continued. “I can no longer hold my peace. His condition has systemically declined since being committed. He’s fearful most of the time, as if there are things in the room he’s frightened of; he wakes up in tears in the middle of the night, either from a bad dream or from a fever; his moods are volatile: he goes through moments of extreme lethargy and bursts of elevated energy simultaneously. And we’re still wrestling with the issue of his starvation. He’s malnourished and losing too much weight too quickly. Then, there was the aberrant matter of his enuresis two nights ago.”
“I’m aware of that,” I stated, interrupting my colleague. “I was at the monitor; it was the night he’d been fitted with the feeding tube. There might be a medical reason for the incontinence. And the following morning, his sleepwalking recurred.”
“Perhaps adjusting to the feeding tube had something to do with his incontinence,” Gabriel nodded, “but the point I was trying to make was that the child wasn’t concerned he had soiled his clothes and bed that night. The Mishael I used to know would’ve been left abashed. Of course, neither of us wants him to feel ashamed or embarrassed with us but, had he been mortified that night, I’d have felt it was a natural reaction. I wouldn’t have felt disconcerted about it. Look at him now: is this the Mishael that had always taken an interest in cleanliness?”
“His obsession with cleanliness is a talking point in its own right,” I maintained.
“Tell me again what that’s all about?” Gabriel asked. “When did it all begin?”
I scratched my brow bone as I replied: “About the time of his court martial for alleged theft.”
“Ah, we’re circling back to this incident, are we?” Gabriel sighed.
I nodded: “I’d say it was a defining moment for him: his behaviour and habits would, afterward, be shaped by the impact the court martial had on his psyche. As I was about to explain: the Council had just ruled against him. Found guilty of violating company rules, he’d shut himself away to pay penance. His sibling, Ariel, and I had been looking for him; we found him in the common bathroom at the barracks – hunched over the tub which was chock full of his socks. He heard us and began to complain about failing to get his socks to look white again. Since then, at extreme crisis points in his life, he’d obsessed about trying to get his socks as white as if they’d just been bought. It was his way of taking control of an aspect of himself during those crisis points when he felt he was losing control of his life.”
“Is there supposed to be some kind of symbolism to the socks?” Gabriel asked next. “Why the fixation with socks?”
“Perhaps they’re the easiest to soil and hardest to clean,” I explained. “If he can get them really clean, he feels he’ll have wrested back some control of his life.”
“Our child has issues, all right,” Gabriel opined. “Psychiatrists would probably say that his obsession bordered on neurosis.”
I shook my head: “He’s a work in progress. The Lord’s working in his life to perfect him. Whether or not the child overcomes his issue with control in the next few years, we know that when he returns to his home in heaven when all this is over, he’ll be perfect again. In the meantime, we’re here to do the Lord’s will; Mish’s issue with control is the least of our concerns. Besides, heretofore, he’s never let it interfere with his tasks and responsibilities. There’s no doubt that Mishka has a compulsive habit but it’s the sick that need the Lord, remember, not the healthy.”
“Well, the child’s certainly been quite ill for the past hour: the nightmares, the fevers and, now, the bouts of crying for no apparent reason. It isn’t natural. I know this much: he’s not himself,” the elder maintained.
Then, as if to take his cue from his elder, my son let out a subtle cry, which he followed with out of control sobbing.
“Here we go again,” the elder stated. “It’s been like this for a while; the crying and sleep talking have been recrudescent for the last hour.”
I drew my son toward my bosom, letting him sob into my cloak. “Mish,” I whispered, “it’s Dad, son. Shh. I’m here. I’m right here. Shh.”
I felt his skin. He was extremely warm. Then, he was delirious, engaging in a scalding duologue with persons only he could see. I cuddled him while I listened attentively to him. His harangue was disjointed words in dribs and drabs. After that, he was wailing again. Gabriel hushed him tenderly. I tightened my arms round him for he seemed in the grip of terror.
Daddy. He exclaimed. His eyes opened. Filled with terror, he recoiled from me, his arms pushing against my chest.
“Shh, shh, shh, shh,” I hushed him above his tears. “Don’t be frightened. It’s Mika. No one wants to hurt you.”
When no amount of cajoling was able to make a difference to his undue ululation, I laid my palm on his forehead. I whispered a prayer of intercession to the Lord. Gradually, he felt comforted, drifting off to sleep.
“You’re right,” I told Gabriel, keeping my voice low. “He’s not himself. I’m sensing he’s in a profoundly dark place; the syndrome is a deep-seated one. My concern is what’s led him to this place of darkness that’s overwhelming him.”
As soon as the child was in deep sleep, I drew him away. I gently handed him back to his superior. I was having my hunch again – had been having it for the last two days – and I wanted to test it.
But first things first, I thought to myself.
“All right,” I said decisively, getting up. “Let’s deal with his fever first. Remove the feeding tube, will you? And take off the bracelets as well. We’re giving him an ice bath. Let’s see if that can bring down his fever and end the delirium and crying. If that fails we may make a call to Asahel.”
I supervised the drawing of the bath water. I made a requisition for two bags of ice cubes and an oxygen tank to be delivered from Shelumiel’s kitchen. These were dispatched to me within ten minutes of my request.
Supporting his inhalation with the oxygen mask, we submerged the child into the iced water. As to be expected from the subsurface temperatures enveloping him, he began to thresh about, ineffectually resisting the bitter cold that was afflicting him. Gabriel and I took on our human forms before immersing ourselves in the water. My colleague kept his underling very still, his arms wrapped round the latter’s knees while we unmitigably prevented his limbs from flailing about. Scarcely a piece of the floating ice was put to waste.
The threshing stopped. While the Little One was settling and adapting to his watery environment, we waited for the signs of the ice bath’s curative outcomes to superimpose themselves over his ailment. At intervals Gabriel monitored his body temperature with a thermometer. I had resurfaced to monitor his treatment from the side of the tub.
The hours wore on. Everything became definitively quiet, which amplified the child’s respiration through the oxygen mask.
At this time, Gabriel and I entered into a low key conversation about our recent missions for the Lord. I described first my mission in Europe and Australasia with the angels, Remiel and Uzziel. After that he narrated to me his experiences in Asia Minor and Africa with the angels, Raphael and Haziel. We had noticed a common thread that connected the experiences of their urban youth despite the volumes of oceans and continental land masses that separated them: the celebrity voyeurism of a me-only and me-first culture that must now pay the piper for its obsession with youth, fame and consumerism. The piper who came to collect was Antichrist; their dues, the Mark of the Beast.
“We’re at a crucial point in the Lord’s prophetic calendar,” Gabriel had added. “The imposition of the Antichrist’s Mark is proceeding along prophetic lines.”
“It’s awaking the world to the true colours of the Son of Perdition,” I nodded. “The inhabitants of earth have not anticipated this change in their leader’s canon of rule. They’ve been completely duped by his charisma the last three and a half years.”
“This is only the beginning,” Gabriel concurred, “for the earth dwellers are just starting to experience the full extent of Antichrist’s oppressive regime. They’re now learning about his austere food, water and energy rations; soon they’ll find out about the constraints that will be put on their day-to-day activities if they do not bear his name or number on either their right hands or their foreheads. Travelling, commuting, buying, selling, eating, drinking, sleeping – all services, in fact, such as healthcare, notary, education, hospitality, entertainment, sports, transportation and telecommunications – all will require the Mark to transact.”
I nodded.
The analogue clock chimed. It was nearly noon.
“He hasn’t called you Daddy since he was about seven months old,” Gabriel commented next.
“He was still very innocent,” I nodded, smiling. “I miss that about him. I miss being called that. I think he stopped calling me that just after the court martial. Overnight, I was Dad or Mika, not Daddy.”
Gabriel presented an elegiac smile: “He still loves you.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” I smiled. “He’s always been transparent about his feelings.”
The ice finally melted. We were able to restore our underling to dry land. I bundled up my son with a large towel and felt his forehead and skin.
“He’s still in the fever,” I stated, raising him up.
Gabriel nodded while analyzing the reading on the thermometer. “Steady at a hundred and three,” he informed me.
“It’s not unheralded,” I maintained, “given my hunch.”
It was time to put to the test the accuracy of my hunch. I straddled the child on the tiled floor. Resting him upright against my bosom, I pressed my face against his cheek. I quietly listened to him.
Abaddon. No. Leave me alone.
By and by I would hear his pleas murmured several times.
“This is no ordinary fever,” I told Gabriel urgently. “Abaddon’s in pursuit.”
We carried the somnolent child back to his bed. Sitting behind him, I held him near my chest and nestled the back of his head beneath my chin. I clasped his forehead and offered him to the Lord.
It was the only recourse for a half-angel in the throes of demonic oppression. Gabriel followed my lead, offering his ardent and urgent prayers to the Lord as well. Before too long, the child’s temperature started to return to normal. I felt this in tandem with the cooling down of his skin against my flesh.
Certain he was out of danger, I gently laid him down on his bed. I committed him to Gabriel to ensure that he was dry and warm.
I dressed, picked up my sword and stormed out.
“I won’t lose my son to you, Abaddon,” I shouted skyward. “You had no right then to try to rob him of his life, or bereave him of a life of comfort and security. That’s never been up to you, or ever will be. More important, you had no right to test the Lord’s servant above and beyond what had been permitted. With the authority vested in me, I conjure you. Come out wherever you are. We’re going to finish this, right here and now.”
I looked around me but was greeted only by a deadening silence.
“Come on,” I baited the Fallen One again, “don’t be shy. Here’s the gauntlet you’ve been waiting for.”
I unsheathed my sword and thrust it into the ground, piercing it.
“If you’re able to defeat me, you will have the boy,” I continued. “But I’ll vouch for this now: I will engage you in the fiercest battle of your wretched career before I will let you harm even a single hair on our child in order to corrupt him in the same way that you have chosen to fall from your grace.”
I waited. Once more I was met with silence.
“Coward,” I sneered. “Typical.”
I returned to Gabriel. He had changed his underling out of his sodden tunic.
“Did you really expect him to hear you?” Gabriel asked, reaffixing the GPS bracelet around the child’s ankle. I helped to fasten the one for his wrist. He added: “He isn’t omnipresent.”
“It was worth a try,” I clarified. “I thought he might still be lurking about. I’ve had enough of his artifice.”
My colleague nodded: “Once was enough. Abaddon’s taking his torment of this boy too far. I want him found and tried for high treason. He must be held up as an example; otherwise who can vouch that the rest of the Fallen Ones will not start to defy the Lord’s strictures in like manner? What then? Will we be seeing demons soliciting the Halflings either to join them or to fraternize with them? I will not abide.”
“Look after the child,” I requested, rising from the bed. “I have errands to run.”
My ephemeral form forsaken, I drew out my wings. I sallied from their midst, penetrating the clouds that were floating high above the stratosphere. At the speed of thought, I conveyed myself to the third heaven where the triune God was enthroned. Thousands of the Lord’s seraphs and cherubs surrounded the glorious throne of God; they were continually worshipping and ministering to the eternal Godhead.
I boldly approached the Son’s throne. I felt immediately enveloped by the presence of the Bright and Morning Star, whose glory shone more brilliantly than the light of the sun. It compelled me to the floor.
“You, O Lord only, are worthy to be worshiped, and to receive glory, honour and praise,” I began, my nose pressed against the floor. “You created all things and by Your will they exist and were created. Sanctify me, O Lord, that I may approach You.”
“Blessed are you, for I have seen your good deeds among your brothers and I have noted your obedience to My voice,” the Lord said. “Arise, son of God, and speak.”
I rose and beheld the Lord’s face; the scars of His scourges and crucifixion were visible on His arms and feet. I felt at once drawn to my Lord, to the purity of His love. No words needed to be spoken, no gestures demonstrated: His scars alone betokened the ages-old story of His love.
“The Lord, my God,” I began, “the elders seek justice for your servant, the Halfling, Mishael.”
“I am aware of this,” the Word of God answered, “for I have heard their prayers and cries. Abaddon will have his day in My court. I will hand him over to you to be thence defeated in battle and delivered to Tartarus all the rest of his days. Do nothing till I reveal to you the time of his judgment, for vengeance belongs to Me alone. In the meantime, you have a child, Mishael, who needs deliverance. Wait on My Word and I will reveal to you what must be done.”
“Your will be done, O Lord, my God,” I replied. “May Your glory be known throughout heaven and earth forever and ever.”
The Lord imparted to me His blessings and I departed from His presence.
“Where have you been?” Gabriel asked, meeting me on my return from my brief sojourn to heaven.
“To heaven,” I replied, keeping my eye on my underling. “I told you I would. I had also needed the Lord’s counsel.”
“The child hasn’t stirred since you departed,” he informed me and, then, added: “I hope it was to inquire of Abaddon’s whereabouts that you went to see the Lord ahead of the Divine Council assembly tomorrow.”
“No, because the Lord Himself will repay Abaddon,” I replied, after which I proceeded to deliver a summation of the Lord’s commands for us.
“There’s nothing more we can do now but wait on Him,” I added.
“The Lord’s will be done,” Gabriel stated hopefully. “If Abaddon gets his comeuppance tomorrow itself, it couldn’t be soon enough. But what about our child? What did the Lord mean about delivering him? From what does he need deliverance?”
“The Lord did not go into specific details, but I surmise the deliverance will have positive ramifications for the child’s desire to self harm,” I replied.
Gabriel shook his head. “With all due respect, everything I have observed thus far has given me no cause to suspect in the child any desire to self harm. It’s Lucifer’s demons that desire his harm. This includes the issue of his starvation. I no longer believe he’s willed it; I believe he may not be aware he’s starving. Perhaps Lucifer’s demons are what the Lord means to deliver him from.”
“Go on,” I persuaded.
“It’s one conclusion I’ve been able to draw,” he replied, “from what I’ve been observing while watching him on the monitor. Even in his sleep, he appears to be under some kind of demonic stranglehold. Until today, he’s never appeared to be in any peaceful sleep.”
“That’s quite likely because Abaddon had been tormenting him in his slumber,” I opined. “But that’s over now, I believe.”
“I pray you’re right about that,” he said.
“You’re not convinced,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “I don’t trust Abaddon. I never did. He’s a sneaky one and, next to Lucifer, he’s attempted to circumvent the Lord’s rules more often than all the rest of the Fallen Ones combined.”
I was privately agreeing with Gabriel, of course. I had had my suspicion for some time now that the child’s problem was rooted in the occult.
Gabriel scowled: “It remains to be seen if Abaddon will continue to agitate the child, or even if he’s the child’s only oppressor.”
“We can ascertain that from whether or not he has anymore nightmares,” I suggested. “I’ll keep him under close observation tonight.”
Gabriel nodded: “About last time: you’re right, Mika. We are at war with the Enemy. You made the right decision for everyone.”
“Thank you for coming round to it, my old friend. I appreciate it,” I replied.
My colleague rose from his chair: “I don’t think the child will be waking up any time soon, so if it’s just the same with you, I’m going to call on Ariel and his men now. Their return has been delayed for a full day already.”
“I’ll check with you in the morning, then,” I told him. “Godspeed.”
