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My shadowy refuge abandoned, I nosed my way down a narrow corridor. Tiered cubicles lined the two walls along the length of the corridor. Skeletal remains and decomposing bodies were mouldering within these rotting cubicles. I was in a dungeon. About a two-minute walk later, the corridor widened into a labyrinth of chambers: these chambers resembled catacombs in the gothic style, dark and dank. My ears were still receiving the sound waves from the angels’ conversation. Mishael’s voice convinced me to enter the catacomb at the farthest end of the corridor. I ascended the stony steps of a windy staircase before navigating an open passage, which led me straight into the Devil’s bastion.
I stepped into a lighted space. There I found my brothers, knotted in each other’s arms in a tight embrace.
“You see now, don’t you,” the Devil was asking my son, “that I’ve never meant you harm? It was never about you. My quarrel is with Michael, for you are innocent.”
My son became conscious of me.
“Michael,” he cried, wresting back his arms from Lucifer. He sprang back from the Devil.
I took my time to examine his body language. He was visibly embarrassed. I gave him time to join himself to me but he showed no attempt to move toward me.
“Lucifer,” I said at last, unsheathing my sword and edging my way toward him, “so, this is where you’ve chosen to hide yourself. How appropriate that a disreputable prince like you should reign over his kingdom from the remains of a decrepit palace.”
“Michael, my brother,” Lucifer responded. “I’m honoured by your visit.”
“You can dispense with the pseudo-civility, Satan,” I informed him. “I don’t find your affectations charming at all. I’ve come to make one thing clear to you: stay away from my underling, Mishael.”
“Oh, and why is that?” Lucifer asked. “Do you not allow him to choose his own friends?”
“Stop right there, Lucifer,” I replied. “Mishael has nothing to do with you and wants nothing to do with you. He’s my responsibility, not yours, and I’m not obligated to explain to you what goes on between him and me. Besides, I’ve listened to your cunning attempt at exploiting his inexperience in order to beguile him. And you and I know how subtle your deception is. It isn’t just me with whom you have a quarrel. It is also with Mishael. Be honest for a change: the mere sight of him stirs you to myrrh. The very thought that he is beloved of the Lord and his brothers excites only loathing in you.
“Go ahead, Lucifer, I dare you to be truthful: you mean to do Mishael harm, as certainly as blinding him was not the fault of your minions’ lack of self-control. You intended it and you pre-meditated it. You’ve sought my underling’s destruction from the very beginning – and this is by your own admission. For you are conscious that it won’t be much longer before the Lord puts you on a tight leash and, ever since the Lord cast you down from heaven, your sole obsession has been to exact your revenge by leading His holy servants to the Lake of Fire with you.
“Furthermore, you have no intention of seeing me simply repent of fulfilling the duties the Lord has handed to me – indeed, you yearn to see me destroyed, along with Mishael, once and for all. Mishael, come over here. ‘What fellowship has light with darkness?’”
I gave the fledgling my hand.
“Archangel Michael,” Lucifer scorned, “all I’ve done is try to extend my hand of friendship to your underling; but your vituperative refusal to give him a choice is leaving a caustic bile on my tongue. Let the underling speak for himself, then; let our contest for his loyalty commence.”
Lucifer rose from his plague-ravaged throne, looming to his desired stature, which was a fraction more than twelve feet. He raised up his arm, simultaneously hurtling Mish forward and propelling him toward himself. With one arm clasped possessively around the fledgling’s waist, the Devil picked him up as if he were a mere doll.
I augmented my size as well, rising to an even twelve feet to level the playing field. At the same time I raised my arm, swiftly reversing the Devil’s forcible hold on my underling.
While my power held the fledgling in the air, I posed him a question: “Make a stand now, Mishael; choose whom you will serve this day – Lucifer or the Lord Jesus.”
The fledgling strained against the Devil’s power that was, thereafter, surrounding him in a smothering embrace, overwhelming us both. He extended his arms to me, replying without hesitation: “The Lord, I choose to serve the Lord Jesus.”
The Devil was moved to wrath. I heard him rage above the mêlée he was creating, raising both his arms this time. He extended his arms over his head. At his command, strong blusters of wind erupted through several of the tall windows that fronted an archaic courtyard. The wind shattered glass, displacing and disordering everything within the Devil’s abode. Then, it lashed against the fledgling’s legs.
Feeble against the Devil’s gambit, Mish lost his balance. He began to tumble. The force of the wind raged around me, whipping at my face. This notwithstanding, I caught the fledgling before the floor could strike his feet.
We were in the Devil’s full throttle. I felt Lucifer’s energy compelling my arms to release the fledgling. I held on to my underling in defiance of the maelstrom that was rocking and reeling the room, causing his body to gybe about with the speed of the wind. I shielded his slender human frame with my wings, my arms tautening around him. I kept him close to my chest while the blustery airstream and glass splinters hammered at us.
“What kind of wind is this?” Mish yelled with closed eyes, his fingers searching for my cloak. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever come across.”
“He’s creating it,” I explained, gripping his fingers. “Lucifer is the prince of the power of the air. He’s simply showing off his might.”
“I can’t resist it, Mika,” Mish cried. “It’s much too strong.”
The noise of the wind and crashing glass escalated around our ears. “Can you try to change?” I asked my underling above the mayhem.
He only barely heard my question.
“I can’t,” he shouted, almost panicking at his own powerlessness. “I can’t; I’m trying but I can’t. Mika!”
I turned to the Devil: “The Lord rebuke you, Lucifer. Put an end to it, whatever power you’re exerting over my underling.”
The wind blasts appeared to ebb. Distracted, Lucifer smirked with some conceit: “I am powerful indeed; it’s right that you should say so. However, as much as I loathe admitting it, I must accept only credit that belongs to me. I’m not exerting any power over the nipper. Mishael, I will say it again: the reason you’re powerless to transform is the fact that you’re a weakling. That’s your malady; physically you’re weak. Your faith in your God is also weak.”
“No,” Mish replied with a discernible cry in his voice, “I wasn’t always like this. You did this to me. You’re doing it to me still, even now. Deny it all you want, Lucifer, but I don’t believe you. You’ve been subjecting me to your trademark violence, over and over again, and it’s been a long road toward regaining my former strength. But I won’t always be like this. I will be strong again.”
“Yes, indeed, you will,” the Devil laughed. “And we can accelerate the process: take my seed’s place beside me. I will make you stronger and more powerful than you can ever imagine, than even Abaddon was. Or not, and remain the weakling that you are and always will be. Suit yourself.”
Mish’s fingers had rounded themselves into a fist. His brows were coming together in an angry scowl.
I mollified him: “Do not hearken to his words, son. There’s a reason he’s called the Accuser of mankind. Resist the Devil and he will have no hold on you.”
We watched the Devil raise both his arms again. Abiding by his command once more, the might of the gusts that were swirling around us began to intensify. I felt the fledgling’s fingers curled on my girdle to which my scabbard was fastened. His knuckles strained on the girdle, turning white from the tension. He had already shut his eyes against the terrible blasts of air that were pressing his body against mine. And, then, we were sent sliding and spinning across the room.
“I can’t hold on,” Mish hollered fearfully, his eyes squinting at me, his fingers digging into my flesh. “Mika!”
The fury of the supernatural gusts finally interjected into my impulsion to protect my underling. My arms forfeited their tight grip on my son and I felt him flung out of my reach.
“Mika!” he hollered once more over the bedlam.
Defrauded of my protection, Mish was catapulted toward the high ceiling. He became pinioned there just as the Devil’s juggernaut relinquished its impetus that had held us defenseless for the last ten minutes. Right away, I shot up to the ceiling after my son.
An invisible shield fell between my son and me, impeding me from reaching him. I pummelled at the invisible wall in front of me, alternating between using my battle axe and my broadsword. Not a crack was effected.
“Disengage your shield immediately, Lucifer,” I commanded the Devil when I realized that his shield was not about to succumb readily to my might. “This is treachery.”
The Devil chuckled: “Oh, no, this is only the beginning.”
Like a scene from a nightmare, tentacles resembling plant vines snaked out of the splintering cornices and mouldered eaves. The vines began to crisscross themselves around my child. The child wiggled violently against the colossal vines, contending against their violation of his liberty.
“Mika,” he exclaimed, his face turning red. “Help me.”
A complex network of wild liana had crept up to my son, swiftly winding itself around him. This was grotesque, slimy and pulsating with life. I heard Mish begin to garrotte and noticed a tendril looped round his neck.
“I can’t breathe,” he gagged. “Dad . . .”
Monitoring my helpless child, I demanded the Devil: “Release him at once, Satan. If you harm him in any way, I’ll never stop hunting you down wherever you are. I’ll make your existence even more unbearable than it is now. Release my son, I said.”
“Do you choose him, my dear brother?” the Devil asked me, pointing at my imperilled child. There was no affection, simply an inflated send-up, in his endearment. He continued in his mock-reverential tone: “Does the Prince of Israel choose that mongrel over me? A Halfling. An anathema, just like the despised Nephilim. That nipper is a half-breed and a pariah, not a prince like you and me.”
“He’s nothing at all like the Nephilim,” I retorted; this despite regarding his pejorative slur on Mishael unworthy of my reply. I replied for my son’s sake, because he was listening.
I continued: “You commit a categorical error, for Mishael is Jehovah’s creation, a son of God, like you and me, with the difference that he has found favour with the Lord, for his obedience and faithfulness, from the time of his creation. On the other hand, you have sinned continually against Almighty God, and you continue to choose to sin wilfully. Now release him.”
Refusing to hearken to me, Lucifer thrust his scimitar at my head instead. He missed.
I realized that the force shield was down. I raced toward my son. I began to wrest him from the vines that had wrapped their appendages around him. As my fingers closed around the tendrils, one at a time, I brought down my sword on them, hewing, lopping and slashing them in several places. I severed their life at their source and made them impotent. They began to release my son.
I cuddled my son while a few dying limbs were dangling him vertically by his ankles. I tugged him loose. He was vomiting blood long before I laid him down at ground level.
Finally liberated, my precious son clung desperately to me, his arms twined round my neck. His clothes were sopping wet and he was shaking. And, then, he became inconsolable while he gasped for breath.
“Don’t lose me again,” he stuttered between snatches of breath.
Very carefully, I laid him on the floor. I heard Lucifer start to crack up, reminding me of what a mad and miserable miscreant he was. “I could have loaned you a ladder – my bad,” he chortled.
“My bad?” Mish screamed at him, half coughing and half choking on his tears. He tried to push up against my hold. “Are you insane? Are you out of your mind? My bad – this is the best you’ve got? I was expecting an apology. You promised me an apology.”
“Promised?” Lucifer scoffed. “You’ve heard it said, little boy: ‘Promises are made to be broken.’”
The child hid his eyes with his palms. “This has been a terrible mistake,” he whispered forlornly to me. And, then, he tittered at the Devil’s absurdity: “Is he insane? He tries to kill me and that’s all he can come up with – my bad? And where did he learn that anyway? What is he? Some sad refugee from the nineteen-nineties? No one even says that anymore.”
My child proceeded to parrot between his chuckles: ‘Promises are made to be broken’? How very original, Luce. And plant vines? Really? You were going to strangle me with plant vines? You’re nothing but a counterfeiter, Luce. You couldn’t have thought of something more original than plant vines? That’s truly pedestrian. What do you get out of imitating art?”
“Mwahahahaha!” Lucifer guffawed. “You are naïve, aren’t you? Who do you think originated the horror tropes you see in the picture shows? It was I . . . I was the one that inspired the literary tropes stereotypically established in the supernatural genres. I was the very first Patron Saint of the Arts, you see. I was the Prime Exemplar.”
“Of course, you were,” my son sighed, lifting his palms from his eyes. “How idiotic of me not to have known. You . . . it was always, and is always, about you. You are the father of lies. You are the father of every wicked word, every wicked thought, and every wicked deed. You are the father of the seven deadly sins. Aren’t you?”
“You can believe what you want,” Lucifer bellowed. “But know this: I’d rather those than cloying romanticism and melodrama.”
“Why so irritated, Luce?” my son asked. “Did I hit a nerve?”
“Enough out of you,” Lucifer snickered madly once more. “I have no wish to answer to children.”
My son emitted a snarl above Lucifer’s farcical desire to laugh: “I’m not a child.”
And then, under the spectre of the Devil’s madness, my son began chortling again. That appeared short-lived for, in a moment, he was weeping woefully: “What’s wrong with me? Why did I trust him? And why did I come here? He’s right, Mika. I’m a weakling. I’ve been too weak to resist him. Maybe I’ll never be strong again.”
I shushed him, concerned for his display of erratic behaviour: “Take it easy, son. Shh. You’re quite right – the Devil’s ludicrous. He’s uncontrolled. But you’re not like him. You’re the Lord’s angel, a soldier, and you have more self-control than this, so choose to exercise self-control. And you don’t want to let Satan influence you. Don’t give him any traction to influence your mind and emotions.”
I also felt his body; it was trembling with cold. Swathing him with my cloak, I induced him into a mild coma to curtail further consciousness of his anguish. He drifted into the coma while mumbling something about fearing he might be coming unhinged.
My ire raised as never before, I turned toward Lucifer, brandishing my broadsword over my head. I sprang at the Devil when he became distracted by a small wince emanating from my son’s lungs, attacking his thigh with a side swipe of my sword. While he shrieked at my surprise attack, I leapt over him and impaled his shoulder with the same sword, deeply driving it in till I felt something in him rupture. The Devil collapsed onto the floor.
“Consider this the elders’ referendum on the grievous bodily harm you inflicted on our child not long ago,” I informed him.
“Oh, come on,” he mocked, sounding a bit winded while willing his injuries to heal at once. “Look at the half-breed. Is he not stronger and more powerful now than before his injury? You can see for yourself: my pets barely harmed him at all. The Lord has blessed him because of me. I did you both a favour.”
“Silence,” I rejoined. “I will not permit you to trivialize your crimes against the Lord’s holy ones. We’re finished here, Satan. I’m finished with you, and you’re finished with my child, do you understand me?”
I returned to Mish and picked him up. I carried him in my arms. He was in a swoon, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, his lips drained of their usual purplish pink tint.
“The Lord rebuke you, Lucifer,” I warned. “You are never again to touch this child to hurt him in any way. Harm him and you harm the apple of my eye. You harm the object of Gabriel’s fondest affection. You’re wasting your time, Lucifer. Mishael has no desire to worship you. He has no desire to spend eternity in perdition with you. For that matter, none of the Lord’s angels do.”
I turned to leave. “I’m taking you home now,” I whispered in my child’s ear.
“Halt,” Lucifer exclaimed, with a modicum of desperation in his voice. “We’re brothers, Michael, or have you forgotten? You loved me once. You said you loved me, or have you forgotten this also? I was your brother long before that nipper ever came along.”
I turned back to face the Evil One. Although no longer irate, I was despising his actions just the same.
“We’re only brothers technically,” I corrected him. “But I feel no fraternal affection for you. You lost that a long time ago when you chose to lie, and kill, and blaspheme the name of Yahushua. And, you’re not wrong, I did love you. But that was before you rebelled against the Lord, which was a choice you made of your own volition.
“In your madness, you believed you could place your throne above the throne of the Lord God. Now you’re so far gone, Lucifer, you’re unrecognizable to me. When I think of all the destruction you’ve caused with your rebellion, in heaven and on earth, all the pain and suffering you’ve wreaked upon the human race, I can only pity the despicable creature you’ve come to epitomize. I’ve come to abhor the evil you symbolize. You have grieved me, grieved all your brothers. You constantly grieve the Lord with your crimes against the human race.”
“The human race, the Halflings,” Lucifer scoffed, consumed with jealousy, “it’s all you care about. You and the Lord. It’s all you love, have ever loved. It’s always about somebody else: first the humans, now the humangels. You made me the way I am, the Lord made me the way I am. I despise all of you.”
“Don’t you dare, Lucifer,” I replied, “don’t you dare proceed with your defense along these blasphemous lines. Yes, I love the human race. For despite all of human suffering, suffering which you have, in no small way, brought about, the humans have proven they have the temerity and strong will to survive, to preserve their genus, and to make progress. But I loved you, too. We all loved you. We cherished you as much as we had the capacity to cherish anyone, as much as we had the capacity to love one another.
“You were the most beautiful and powerful of the Lord’s Cherubim, and the Lord loved you. You had it all and you were proud of what you had, but you had no gratitude. You couldn’t be grateful to the Lord for all that He had bestowed on you. You were greedy and wanted more. You became mad with greed and you let your pride blind you to the truth of the Lord’s goodness: His justice, mercy and love.
“You were Yah’s covering cherub – you stood that close to God and you received, firsthand, God’s revelation of what was true; but you chose to love lies rather than His truth. You chose to love sin rather than obedience to the Lord your God. And furthermore, you chose the Lake of Fire, which the Lord warned would be created for you; yet you did not repent, and now you are destined for a future there, bound in chains, as you deserve.
“You chose this for yourself, Lucifer. You are what you are for you chose it with complete knowledge of what was true, of what was sin, and of what was the penalty for sin, which is death and the Lake of Fire.”
Mish whimpered, provoking my attention.
“What’s going on, Mika?” he groaned. “Can we go home now? Please, let’s just get out of here. He’s too dangerous. You said you’d never leave me an orphan. You promised me.”
“Forgive me, son,” I apologized to him. “You’re right. I’ve wasted enough time here.”
With my son still in my arms, I started to walk out of the Devil’s haunt once and for all.
“Michael,” Lucifer roared, venting his spleen at me, for he knew his time for menacing the world was short, “don’t you walk away from me. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Michael, do you hear me? Don’t you dare walk away from me. I am the prince of the world. I am the god of the world and I still outrank you. You will honour me with your obeisance.”
“You will never have my obeisance,” I replied sadly, keeping my back to him. This was never a good idea.
I heard Lucifer’s scimitar whistle in the air. Then, I heard the Devil vex ferociously: “You’re going to regret turning your back on me, Archangel.”
I sprang sideways to avoid the sword. It boomeranged; the scimitar whisked the air again, three times, before it finally connected with me, profitably whipping the back of my thigh.
On impact, the scimitar rebounded, landing on the floor beside me. I, then, felt a gash in my heel – where did that come from? My knees quickly buckled from the sting in my heel, preventing our progress out of the Devil’s lair.
With his fulcrum unsecured, Mish slipped from my arms, colliding with the wall beside him. The collision jolted him from his slumber. I heard him give a shrill yelp. Then, as I was pulling up, I realized that my son had been jettisoned from my line of sight.
I picked up the Devil’s scimitar while I looked around me. It scarcely surprised me that he, too, had vanished.
It did occur to me, on the other hand, that for the two angels to be missing, at the same time, was more than a coincidence, and it must portend cataclysmically for Mishael. I willed the slash wounds in my thigh and heel to seal up without delay.
“Mishael,” I called out, feeling completely recovered.
Getting no response, I spoke into his mind.
Mish, where are you?
Mika, help me. I heard.
I followed the trail of his voice that led me out of the citadel. My eyes pored over every inch of the anterior of the courtyard but there was no sign of him.
Mish, pay attention now. I want you to look around you and tell me what you see. I informed him.
I heard his faint reply: Water. I see water everywhere. I’m unable to transform. There are creatures beneath me holding me back. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m drowning. Dad.
I’m coming to you, son. I assured him. Hang in there.
Water. Drowning. I quickly analyzed the situation.
I immediately searched the courtyard for a body of water. My attention was drawn to the lake that encircled the Devil’s fortress.
I reached the lake and dived intuitively into the black water.
Help me. I heard distinctly.
Assured that I was on the right track, I kept my child conversant; it had been necessary, for I was depending on his vocal compass to help me navigate the water’s murk. His thoughts, while sounding louder and clearer all the time, started to register panic from suffocation.
In a dip clogged with algae and weeds, I delineated his body’s outline. He was floating above the water bed, weighed down by several demonic spirits.
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| Water. I see water everywhere. |
“Release him at once. I command you by the authority and power of the Lord Yahushua,” I hollered at the two evil spirits that had their claws around my child’s wrists and the one that was sitting on his chest, his palm clamped on the child’s mouth. The unclean spirits glared at me, hissing. For a second time, I ordered them to depart from the child. This time, they obeyed, screeching with terror at the authority carried in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My child was semi-conscious, his body sagging in my arms. I stood him unsteadily on the watery bed to breathe into his mouth. After that, I commanded him: Change, Mishael. You have to change now. Your life depends on it. Wake up, Mish. This is an order.
Resuscitated, he pried open his eyes. He stared at me, stunned. I kept him from panicking while I breathed into his lungs again.
“You must change now,” I ordered him. “You can do this. Lucifer has no hold on you. Just turn your eyes on the Lord Jesus. He will give you the strength you need to transform. Do it now, Mish; I have faith in you.”
The child nodded, his faith renewed. Before my eyes, his wings spread outward, behind and beside him, and extended upward above our heads. I gripped his arms tightly and we shot out of the lake at lightning speed.
We landed safely on the ground. I watched him regurgitate the residual water from his lungs. I listened to him cough while I felt the skin on his forehead, cheeks and neck. I observed him very closely as his breath returned in small gasps.
“Son,” I began, as soon as his gasps normalized.
He rose from under me. “I’m all right,” he insisted, not letting me continue. “I’m all right.”
I stood back in deference to him.
Wiping his eyes with his palms, my son started cagily across the Devil’s unmanicured territory. He seemed to be in some emotional upheaval yet again, snatching at his hair in disbelief and fighting back his tears.
I was longing to comfort him, but all I could do was shadow him from a respectable distance. I kept an eye on him while he traced the wide arc round the lake toward Lucifer’s front gate, taking what appeared to be tentative steps to remove himself from the Devil’s residence.
Suddenly, and ere I caught on to his intent, he veered from his course. He hastened his steps, lurching back toward the Devil’s derelict palace.
My heart plummeted.
“No, no, no,” I chased after to stop his headlong dash. “Mishael, don’t go back in there.”
The child quickly vanished from sight; he had teleported through a low rising parapet on his way back to the lake. I caught sight of him when he reappeared in front of the bridge but, in the next second, he had dematerialized once more, dashing into a high rising defense bulwark that encircled Satan’s palace. For the next ten seconds, he underwent several permutations of his form, traversing in and out of the four spatial dimensions until he finally conducted himself into the palace, tearing into the stone façade of an oubliette in the Eastern wing.
I tried keeping up with him. All the while I felt always two steps behind, trying to second guess his course. For he had been keeping me from accessing his thoughts.
When at length I found the child, he was in the Devil’s living room. He had one leg on each side of Lucifer’s reclining body. The child crossed his right leg over his captive’s chest and locked his knee under his chin. He began to exert pressure there. Then, with the Devil pinned down and inert under him, he launched into a manic attack, pounding the former’s cheeks with his fists.
“You wanted to kill me,” he sobbed repeatedly, “you wanted to kill me.”
Lucifer chuckled without a qualm of conscience. “That’s right, starling,” he scoffed, egging the child on to pilfer what was left of his self control, “harder. Hit harder. Do it; it’ll make you feel a lot better.”
“You lied to me,” the child cried, hitting his tormentor with renewed fervour. “You had no intention of apologizing to me. You never did. You never were sorry. You’re a liar, Lucifer, a liar!”
“You foolish and callow child,” the Devil mocked gutturally. “I must change, you said; I had to repent of my sin, you said. Pah! Do you really believe you’re the first to want to turn me into something I’m not? Do you really believe none of my brothers have tried? That Michael and Gabriel haven’t tried? That Uriel hasn’t? Did you really think you could do what my brothers had failed, time and again? You, an insignificant dogsbody for your God? How presumptuous and smug you are.”
My child growled with pain at the Devil’s perfidy. He thundered: “I’m going to destroy you, Satan. I’ll destroy you!”
“Stop this at once,” I ordered, projecting my voice over the clamours. “That’s enough. Mishael. I said that’s enough.”
“No,” he replied, raising his fist to begin another round of assault. “It’s not enough. He led a third of our brothers astray. He’s leading the whole world astray. Why’s he allowed to get away with his crimes? Why do you keep letting him get away with his crimes?”
“You don’t understand, son,” I stated tenderly. “You’re very young. There are many things you still don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand?” he cried, relaxing his fist. He turned toward me: “He’s a criminal, Dad. It’s that simple. He must be made to pay.”
“Son,” I began.
My son took a deep breath, choking back tears. Turning back to Lucifer, he whispered in a chilling voice: “Today’s a good day to die.”
Dumbstruck, I watched him grip the Devil’s throat with his left hand. Then, with his other hand, he purposefully pulled out his kris from the top of his boot.
I was stunned.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. Fearing for his life, I exclaimed: “No, no, no, no, no.”
Lucifer chortled for all he was worth.
“Well, well,” he scoffed, “I didn’t think you had it in you to be sneaky.”
My son pointed the tip of his kris at the Devil’s throat, at exactly where the jugular vein would be were Lucifer a human being. “You didn’t think I was going to come unarmed and completely defenseless, did you?” he stated. “I’m not stupid.”
“No one said you were,” the Devil scorned. “Not stupid. Young, yes. Raw, extremely. Even now.”
Mish’s eyes welled up: “I’m not a child.”
The Devil roared with laughter: “Oh, yes, you are. Everyone says so.”
“I despise you,” Mish sobbed, both his voice and his hand shaking perceptibly. “Tell me why I shouldn’t slit your throat right here and now.”
Lucifer broke into a grin. “Do it,” he dared.
A stab of anger entered my heart as Lucifer continued to dare my son, taunting him. I inched my way toward them very cautiously.
“Go on, I dare you to cut me,” Lucifer goaded. “Why do you hesitate?”
I closed in on them both. “The Lord rebuke you, Satan,” I warned. “From this point on, you’re not uttering another word to my son, not without the Lord’s permission.”
I reached my son. I knelt down beside him and held out my palm to him.
“You don’t want to do this, Mish,” I persuaded him gently. “Listen to me. You can’t kill him. He’s immortal, remember? Let me have the kris, all right? We’ll go home now. Let me take you home. It’s been a long day. All right, baby?”
He turned his head and glanced at me in turmoil. Confused, he shook his head: “No. Why shouldn’t he be made to pay? Why can’t I make him pay?”
“Because it’s not been ordained by the Lord,” I replied resolutely.
“Because it’s not up to you. Give me the kris, now, Mishael. It’s over.”
My son broke down completely, letting his hands drop to his sides.
“What have I done?” he sobbed. He covered his eyes with his left palm. “What have I done?”
I held his wrist and prized the kris from his fingers. I promptly dragged him as far away from the Devil as possible.
Bathing the room with his cruel laughter, the Devil rose from the floor. His laughter was all we could hear. Nevertheless, it plainly magnified the heartlessness and bankruptcy that made up his moral fibre.
My child’s sobs started to disperse, caught in his throat. A decisive calm came over him as he deliberated Lucifer’s nerve grating but vacuous laughter; he pondered the Devil’s unpredictability completely unnerved.
If my child had any more reservation concerning the Devil’s intent for his obliteration, this experience must be his turning point.
“Do you find all this seriously amusing?” I asked Satan. “Nonetheless, my son now sees you for what you truly are.”
“Your son,” Satan seethed jealously. “I so tire of hearing this. Have you no shame, Archangel? Much as you would love the idea of playing father figure, Mishael is not your son. He’s no less than an orphan.”
I chuckled, proclaiming: “Have you no shame of your growing catalogue of errors, Devil? Surely Mishael is my son. And this is not in name only. For Mishael has my DNA. My genetic code runs through Mishael’s veins.”
My proclamation provoked the Devil to even greater fury. He howled wretchedly.
“This is not over, Mishael,” he cautioned. “Oh no, it’s far from over for you and your kind. You’ve been warned. Enjoy your little cloying romanticism with your Daddy while you still can. Because I’ll be keeping my eye on you day and night; make no mistake, you will come to me. No one can resist me. No one can resist the enticing lure of money. Money, money, money. Mark my words, Mishael. You will be joined to me . . . I’ll make sure of it.”
His insane laughter suffused the room once more.
“Take me home,” my son pleaded in a nervous whisper, stretching his arms out to me. “I want to go home now.”
I grasped my son’s elbows and drew him toward my chest. Without vacillating further about my decision, I teleported us out of Lucifer’s lair, stiffly alert to the Devil’s face: it was devoid of all details except hate.
Intense unadulterated hate.
“You’ve been spared retribution this day, Lucifer,” I said while our bodies transmuted through the walls, “but your judgment in Almighty God’s hands is nigh. Your day shall come. And I shall be there to witness it.”
The stone walls closed around us, ineradicably blocking out Lucifer’s laughter from our ears.
I laid my son on his bed and quietly tucked him up with layers of towels and blankets. I had just hauled him out of the shower, which he had insisted on having to rid himself of the waste from the Devil’s lake. Like the bard’s tortured lady of the house, he had refused to be persuaded of his soap’s influence on the debris, which he believed had solidified on his hair, body and clothes.
“You don’t understand,” he had cried as he resisted my help. “The lake’s contaminated. The entire world’s waters are contaminated.”
“Not his lake, Little One,” I had assured him. I had turned off the hot water faucet in his bathroom at the same time. “Lucifer’s manmade lake draws its water from the dams of Eretz-Israel. Antichrist supplies his father water from the Negev via the Mekorot network. Remember? His water’s reasonably clean. All right? You’re clean now, son, all right?”
And that was a half hour ago.
Now, while he lay subdued and deep in thought, I towelled him dry. His body trembled and shook, with cold as well as fear, but with no immediate signs of abating.
“It’s all gone wrong,” he whispered. “It’s all out of control. I’m such an idiot.”
He vaulted from the bed just after I had dressed him. He rushed to his armoire.
“Where are they?” he exclaimed, rummaging in the drawers. “Why are there no socks? I have to have clean socks.”
I reached him. I lifted him into my arms and carried him back to his bed. “Don’t do this to yourself, son. It’s enough: you don’t have to have control all the time. Let the Lord have the control. For your own peace of mind, beloved, all right? And you’re clean. You’re completely clean,” I promised him.
Gabriel emerged from the bathroom, another towel draped over his shoulder; he glared broken hearted at Mish – with that same intensity of expression I had observed four hours earlier.
He shook his head: This is exactly what I didn’t want to put him through.
All right, Gabriel, I rejoined. His heart’s broken; all right? He knows the truth now.
“Enough,” Gabriel stated crossly, approaching us. “It’s enough. Do you see now, Mishael? Do you see now why I didn’t want you to go to him? How many times do you want to suffer at his hands before you would see the light?”
“Stop scolding me, Gabriel,” Mish pleaded, his mood becoming intemperate again. His voice had a choir-boy’s treble. “You’re constantly scolding me. And I don’t want either of you to see me like this. Please just go. Leave me alone. I want to be left alone.”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” I told him firmly. I slid under the covers with him. “I’ve told you this in the shower. Don’t ask again.”
His memory of Lucifer stinging him, Mish burst into another flood of tears. He rolled over and curled up in my arms. His limbs quivered in my caress.
“I believed him,” he blurted. “With all my ardour, I believed he could be penitent. I thought I could get closure if I met him and got an apology from him. After that, all I wanted to do was kill him.”
Gabriel dried his hair with the towel. “The only One who can help you get closure is the Lord,” he said tenderly. “Try asking Him; He’ll surprise you. But this matter of needing closure; that’s something we should talk about again when you’re feeling better.”
I soothed him, adding: “That was never the danger – killing the Devil. It was you – you could have been the one killed.”
Indeed, Mish couldn’t have killed Lucifer however hard he might’ve tried. No more than any of us could. For the Devil was immortal, a spirit, and spiritual beings, both holy and evil, could never be killed. The evil ones could be vanquished and sent to Tartarus.
“Exactly,” Gabriel was assenting with me, “it was you who had stood to lose everything. Somehow, with all that you’ve been through, with Abaddon and his minions, and now Lucifer and his Fallen Ones, you’ve forgotten what your life’s purpose is.
“The Lord created you to protect the human race from the Antichrist. The Lord did not create you to engage in warfare with the Evil Ones. Certainly, you haven’t been mandated to vanquish Lucifer. That’s our concern, not yours. Even as an angel, you’re defenseless against the Fallen Ones and the Nephilim. Your powers are limited, inferior even, by comparison, and disobeying the Lord by inviting Satan into your life will simply lend you in harm’s way all the time.”
“I didn’t invite him into my life,” Mish protested in a whisper, his voice quavering. “And when did I disobey the Lord? You hurt me when you say things like that.”
“You know what I mean,” Gabriel chided. “I’m not about to split hairs with you over petty semantics.”
The fledgling threw his fists over his ears. “I can’t do this right now, Gabriel. I can’t.”
“All right,” I silenced them both. I’d had more than I could stomach of the drama that was reaching my strained ears.
“That’s enough, the both of you. Gabriel, we get your point, but your pabulum contains a subtle overreach: Mish has not tempted any of the Evil Ones into his life. And as for you, Mishael, while it may be true that you had not invited Satan into your life, you were in a dithering mood about a possible alliance with him. I want you both to calm down this instant, but especially you, Mishael.”
Always thoughtful about acceding to my wishes, Gabriel relented. “Forgive me,” he said sincerely.
The fledgling shook his head while he mumbled incoherently into my tunic: “You think I’m a fool, don’t you, Gabriel? You both think I’m just a stupid child. And everyone else – they think I’m a flake. I was only trying to do what was right . . . what’s wrong with me?”
His remarks were bolts from the blue for both Gabriel and me.
“I don’t think you’re a fool,” Gabriel replied adamantly. “I’ve never thought you were a fool. None of us thinks this. I do, however, think you’re extremely naïve. If I scold you, it’s just because I’m concerned that your naïveté, coupled with your obstinacy, is putting you in harm’s way. You are still a child! You’re innocent because, at this stage of your development, your experience of the world is that of a child. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. But I don’t think you’re stupid. No one thinks you’re a flake. Where’s all this coming from, beloved? What’s going on?”
He began to caress the child’s forehead.
“He’s unusually warm,” he observed, turning to me. “He may be running a fever.”
I fetched the thermometer from the drawer of the child’s nightstand. It confirmed Gabriel’s observation.
“He’s in a fever all right,” I maintained, “but his entire body’s in a tremor.”
When the child’s aggravation withstood all our attempts to mitigate it, Gabriel went to inspect and modulate the radiator in his room.
I turned to my oldest friend while I listened to the child’s faint grunting: “He’s not shivering because he’s cold. It’s his core that’s shaken. We must summon the healing angel. We must ask the Lord to deliver him from guilt.”
