Of late, fear had been finding a way of creeping up on me in unlikely places. Like here and now. I rolled off the bed at the sight of my nemesis, my heart beating fast, my adrenaline on an overdrive. I landed clumsily on my knee. While I nursed my knee, I glared up at Abaddon.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” I complained to the Fallen One.
Michael bolted upright and pulled me up. He quickly pushed me to safety. “Stay there,” he ordered.
Unsheathing his sword, the Archangel summoned for back up. Gabriel and Raphael descended on us in an instant, their flaming swords drawn in front of me and crossing each other to keep out our foe. Outside the window, a legion of the Lord’s heavenly hosts had assembled under Abishael’s command, their swords unsheathed and poised for action.
I stayed shamelessly ensconced in my corner. I wasn’t prepared for this fight.
 |
| A legion of the Lord’s heavenly hosts had assembled under Abishael’s command. |
“Well, well,” Michael stated, “have you decided to make a showing after all? What finally motivated this visit, Abaddon? Wait; allow me to hazard a guess. You caught sight of us in space and it absolutely made you seethe with envy and anger that this child of mine was in high spirits for a change? So you’ve decided to visit to see if you can change his mood back.”
“That was so contrived, Archangel,” the Evil One scoffed, “a trip to the stars indeed. Contrived and yet clichéd. I suppose next, you plan to take him on an excursion to the third heaven.”
“Way ahead of you, demon,” Mika smiled.
“Very predictable of you, Archangel,” the demonic one spat back.
He turned to me next and greeted me: “How now, killer? It appears you have omitted lying from your list of glowing credentials.”
“I haven’t lied,” I replied anxiously.
Michael glanced at me with concern.
“But you have,” Abaddon insisted. “Just a few hours ago, when you professed remorse for having wished to die. You belong with me. You know that. Death, and those who choose death, belong to me.”
I threw my fists over my ears. I couldn’t help wincing either. “Why do you say these things?” I cried desperately. “Stop it. Just stop it.”
Had I been alone, I would have unanchored all of my hair from sheer frustration.
Looking triumphant at having spurred me to distress, the Fallen One turned to my teacher: “Hand him over.”
“That’s quite presumptuous of you, Abaddon,” Michael replied. “It is you that need to be handed over – to God for judgment. You have disobeyed and crossed the line. You knew the rules – angels are not yours to recruit into your army. You have transgressed the written law and now, day and night, the Lord’s angels, my brethren, are crying out to Him, beseeching Him to recompense you for your acts of treachery toward one of His own. Your day of reckoning has arrived, for the Lord has given His judgment. You will be delivered to the abyss for an eternity.”
“On the contrary,” Abaddon argued. “Do you take me for a fool? I have not crossed any line. Take a good look at the starling yourself. He’s every bit as human as Joe Q. Public.”
“Correction; and by saying that, you prove yourself to be the vile liar that you are,” Michael snarled. He turned to look at me briefly, making sure that I was paying attention.
As if making his case for me, Michael continued calmly: “Certainly you’re more truthfully a liar than my underling can ever be accused of being. For Mishael has not told a lie a single day of his life. What’s more, Mishael is not a killer of the kind of perverse persuasion you are. I will testify before the Lord that the crime of murder has not been committed by the underling from the time of his creation.
“I demand that you stop confusing the child with your false accusations, and messing with his mind with your fallacious equivocation, for your intention is clearly to instil in him guilt in order to wreak havoc with his conscience and hold him hostage to a false obloquy.
“The blood of the criminals all the angels of the Lord have shed, since Sodom and Gomorrah, is on the heads of your demonic minions, on you and on Satan. Sin was found in them and in all of you who follow Satan, and the blood remains on their heads and on the heads of those of you who follow Satan. Their blood is not on Mishael’s hands, or on those of any of my brethren.
“Mishael serves the Lord Jesus; what the Lord’s holy angels are called to do for the Lord God, and what your demonic minions do for your lord, Satan, are completely at variance. For it is written: ‘The Lord is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works.’
“The Lord Jesus is the embodiment of all that is good, and everything that springs from the wells of the Lord is holy, righteous and pure. Therefore, we who are called by His name, to serve Him and to do His will, are representative of His works which are holy, righteous and pure. On the other hand, evil is all that flows from Satan, for his well contains only the poison of sin.
“Now, as far as Mishael’s identity: you lie if you believe he is solely a human being alone. Behold, you have not only seen, but also fought with, Mishael in his angelic form. Mishael is part human and part angel – a holy angel of the Lord.”
“That’s not in the rule book,” Abaddon cussed peevishly. “Humangels are precluded in the rule book.”
“We prefer to call our underlings Halflings; but that’s where your pitiful attempt at obfuscating the facts fails,” Michael replied. “The rule book is very clear in its stipulations: humans and angels sealed in the Lord are out of bounds to you and your minions now and forever. Mishael has the seal of the Lord.”
Michael was done giving his rhetoric. He hoisted up his sword to Abaddon’s head.
“Not so fast,” Abaddon protested, his outstretched arm deflecting a potentially fatal blow from the sword.
I shifted, feeling slightly more sanguine from being vindicated by Michael, but Gabriel shook his head.
“Comport yourself with caution,” Gabriel warned. “This creature is swift and will snatch you away before you even realize it. But our swords will protect you.”
“I feel I have to do something,” I protested quietly.
“You’re in no condition or state of health to make war with demons and Fallen Ones,” he reminded me. “It’s not fallen on your lot to engage in combat with other angels, and you know this. In any case, the Lord has decreed, for your sake, that this must be Mika’s battle. Now, peace, be still.”
We heard Abaddon present his case.
“Not so fast,” he was saying. “Rules or no, the fact of the matter is that Mishael has pronounced his honest desire when he chose death. He made his choice . . .”
Michael jumped in to demur, cutting him off from continuing. Confidently he rebutted, “Choice? It’s ironical you should know the meaning of the word. Oh, I’m fully aware of the choices you offered him – just after you implacably tormented him with promises of a life time of demonic oppression. And just after you wilfully inflicted unimaginable harm on his person with promises of more of the same if he chose not to follow you. Just before you hacked off his wings. How dare you! And just after you relentlessly pursued him to frighten him with your dark magic – your lying signs and wonders – unless he surrendered his allegiance to you. No, not choice. Coercion and manipulation. And intimidation. But it’s what you do. For your malfeasance and envy toward the human race and, recently, toward Mishael’s generation, are becoming legendary.”
Mika stretched out his hand to me. The swords were dropped. The other elders withdrew to the door.
I put my hand in Mika’s.
My muscles started tensing the nearer I was brought before the demonic angel. Holding my arm and drawing me next to him, Mika continued, “Tell us, Abaddon, tell us how you did it. How did you drive my child to the edge of the cliff? I know without a shadow of doubt that you were responsible.”
A slight smile and Abaddon sneered: “It was easy, Archangel. I only had to whisper the idea in his ear. He was filled with so much guilt and self-loathing for his part in the shedding of human blood that he was ready to end his life. All I did was put the thought in his head. From then on, Meririm, my underling, took over and was on hand to push the youngling over the edge. Any time he gave Meririm the go-ahead . . . and he did. Yes, I drove him to the precipice. It was time to claim his soul. He belonged to me from the moment he willed to die.”
The Fallen One chortled, proclaiming his victory over us.
“How dare you, Abaddon!” an incensed Gabriel fumed beneath his breath. “You don’t get to determine where our child’s soul belongs.”
The strength in my knees flagged. My fists flew to my eyes and I growled with shame at myself. My limbs trembled at the thought of being consigned to the abyss with demons.
Gabriel made his advance, storming toward the Fallen One. He held his sword at arm’s length. Standing in front of Abaddon, he gripped his flaming Cutlass with both his hands and pointed it steadily between the demonic angel’s eyes.
“This is your only warning, Abaddon,” the Archangel commanded, his voice hoarse and deep. “You will not come near Mishael again. You will not lay your hands on Mishael again. You will stay away from my underling. He does not belong to you. He will never belong to you.”
Mika was pulling me back up. I believe he had read my thoughts.
“Be strong, son,” he advised, his left palm firmly clamped on the back of my neck. “You’re not going anywhere with Abaddon, or any of his minions. I’ve told you already: you have repented and, for the Lord Jesus’ sake, for you’ve always belonged to Him, Yah has completely forgiven you of your sins. I give you my word. You are the Lord’s angel. You belong to the Lord.”
He turned toward Abaddon. He seethed, full of wrath, at the Evil One: “You did this, Abaddon; you did this to my son. My son did not choose to die. He would never, if you hadn’t manipulated his thoughts and impaired his judgment. You’re going to have to tread over my dead body to claim my son’s soul. You have done an evil thing to a servant of the Most High God. And now you will rue the day you thought you could get away with committing atrocities against one sealed for the Lord’s sole purpose and protection. That was your biggest mistake: picking on one that is the beloved of the Lord and the elders. Our beloved will be compensated. I guarantee it.
“Once and for all, you will desist from further attempts at building your calumny around Mishael’s agency. It’s enough, Abaddon. I’ve had enough. You’ve gone too far with the mind games you play that torment souls with your guilt – souls that are priceless to the Lord. And it’s not just Mishael’s soul I’m talking about.
“It’s also the souls of the countless number of lives you have destroyed down through human history: the drug users, the abortion survivors, the families riven by sexual immorality and various other addictions. None of them, in their right minds, would have chosen death; you planted the idea in their minds with your sense of guilt, hopelessness and despair. Heaven will no longer abide. For the Lord has decreed: we will do battle here at sunrise and you will meet your end in the confines of Tartarus. Be gone.”
Abaddon let fly an invective and disappeared through a wall.
Michael suddenly turned to me, his eyes narrowing. He laid his hand on my forehead, pressing me down with such force and authority that I fell to my knees.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel exclaimed.
“What I should have done when I had my initial suspicion,” Mika replied, without taking his eyes off me.
“Come out this instant. You spirits of timidity, of guilt, of doubt, leave him now. I command you by the authority of the Lord Jesus, the God of hosts,” he ordered, his voice loud and husky.
My body lunged forward and I was coughing wretchedly. Three hooded spirits emerged from a hazy miasma. They languished momentarily in the air. Then a shriek and they darted for the door. Mika directed his invisible fireballs their way, sending them screeching to Tartarus.
I came round to myself and realizing what had just happened, I asked: “How did you know?”
“With the Lord’s intervention,” Michael replied, picking me up. “He gave me a revelation as Abaddon was leaving.”
I buried my face in my hands. I was, all of a sudden, extremely tired. “Enough, it’s too much,” I whispered.
Mika placed a tender palm on my face, completely hugging it. “Sleep,” he whispered. I instantly slipped out of consciousness.
The following day, I had woken up feeling rested and rejuvenated. For the first time since being accosted by Abaddon, I had been able to enjoy continuous slumber for more than four hours. I had still many hours of accrued sleep debt to repay but there was something else far more important to be concerned about. I remembered what day it was.
But what time is it? I wondered, looking out the window. I had no way of knowing to any certainty because the life in the clock on my nightstand expired while I was slumbering. I knew only from observing the sky that it was daylight. My vision narrowed on the wildlife colony that had collected on the window ledge – three sparrows, a rose finch and a pair of wagtails.
It all came flooding back abruptly to me. I had had a dream while I was sleeping. Or maybe it was a flashback. In it, I was kissed by a demon.
Abaddon. The kiss.
I threw an arm over my eyes. So that was how my body came to be invaded by the three evil spirits. I had felt them when they first inhabited me but, at that time, I hadn’t intuited into the enormity of being their vassalage. Now that I understood, I felt really and truly stupid for having shrugged it off as inconsequential.
Never again. I had learned my lesson.
I turned my attention back to the feathered scavengers greedily pecking on the seeds on my window sill. “How many of you are left on earth?” I asked them. They scattered, flying into the trees and then back to the sill to finish what they had started.
Indeed, most of the creatures of the wild had become extinct, their numbers and habitats all but decimated by the plagues of the Lord’s wrath. Many of the beasts had also been culled for food in the wake of the prevailing famine and food crisis. The mass slaughtering of the wild beasts would subsequently lead to the disruption of nature’s balance and the food chain. Now, with almost all the animals of prey extinct, the surviving predatory animals had gone on a rampage in the towns and suburbs, driven by their survival instincts to forage for food and compete with man for territory. As the Lord had prophesied, during the time of the Great Tribulation, the beasts, both wild and domesticated, would be given permission to destroy a fraction of the world’s human population.
I rose and approached the angel, Jeiel, at the door. He’d been guarding it with his sword drawn.
“Has the battle started?” I asked him. “I must go to Michael. Where is he? You must tell me, please.”
“The battle has been raging since sunrise,” he responded. “It’s now late afternoon.”
“You must take me there,” I begged him. “Please, before it’s all over.”
“I cannot do that. You’re not suited for battle. I’d be putting you in a defenseless position,” Jeiel replied.
I turned from the Guardian Angel in frustration. “You really all have to stop needing to protect me,” I pointed out, oblivious to the irony. “I’m not a child.”
I prostrated myself on the carpet. I have to change, I told myself. But I needed my wings to change, and only Michael had the power to repeal his chastisement and unclip my wings.
Not just Michael.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
My Creator and my God. Of course, I thought.
I shut my eyes and threw my arms over my head, crossing them. “I had let fear take my eyes off you,” I adjured the Lord penitently, sorrowfully. “For this I confess and offer up to you restitution. So now, please perfect me in your love. Restore to me my grace that I may be found worthy to be your minister again. And while I may not have been created for this purpose, allow me to take my place beside Michael at this battle.”
In a flash, I felt my wings restored to me. I felt a familiar quickening as I was being transmogrified into a host of heaven. I was the angel, Mishael, again.
I got up from the floor. I found myself seeing everything around me from an eyrie that was as closely attuned to the divine perspective as had been endowed to me. I whispered my heartfelt statement of gratitude to the Lord God for His intervention and, then, assured Jeiel: “I’m not going to be powerless now.”
Jeiel led the way to the battle field without further delay. While I steered my near-weightless body through space, I silently jubilated in the sound of my voice that had had the old timbre of the angel, Mishael, restored to it.
The warring factions were on the cusp of a détente. I spotted my handler in a deep vale bordered on all sides by the rocky terrains of Petra’s famous mountains. In the thick of the action, Mika was commanding an army of more than ten thousand angels, a large number, I was later told, constituting the armies from heaven that had been dispatched to earth to provide much needed back up (the enemy camp was said to number more than ten thousand as well). The proportions of heaven’s hosts were munificent: their heads, which my eyes were toiling with difficulty to perceive, were shrouded in the clouds. The angels, Uriel and Remiel, were in combat as well. As were the angels, Shimael and Haziel. In the front line all the time, none shrank from meeting head-on the armies of the Fallen Ones commanded by Abaddon.
Michael started down a towpath toward me as soon as I had made my descent into the vale. Winding his arm round my waist, he ascended back toward the sky. We flew toward a clearing beside a rivulet. Then, he asked me what I was doing there.
“I’m not running away any more,” I told the Archangel. “I’m not afraid.”
No, I dare say I wasn’t afraid. Fear, I had learned, was the tool of demons to destroy one’s trust in, and complete love for, God.
“Please, let me fight alongside of you,” I added. “I want to do this. It’s because of me that you’re all here. How can I feel at ease remaining behind when so many are taking a risk for me?”
The Archangel assented with a nod, though his scowl told me something quite different, and went on to remove the armour of mail and helmet he was wearing. He dressed me with his armour and put his helmet on my head. I felt weighted down by the heavy steel but held my tongue in case I should give the General cause to send me home.
“They’re not the best fit,” my General commented, lacing up the coat of mail, which was causing my body to rock about, for he had very strong hands and could be rough in battle, “but they’ll have to do. Just so you know, I don’t want you here. I would prefer you to be safe and sound at home; this is not a place for little ones to be.”
“The Lord has inclined His ear to me,” I explained. “See how He has restored to me my wings. He has permitted me to be here.”
“I do see that you have found favour in the sight of God,” he nodded. He gripped my wrists firmly, holding my rapier upright. He instructed me forbiddingly: “Heed my instructions, Little One: you will stay alive as long as your sword is always pointed north and you keep your eye on the enemy. But you’re going to stay clear of Abaddon himself. This is non-negotiable. If you disobey even one time, you will be discharged. And I will punish you further when this is over. Abaddon’s superior to you in might, in every way. You’ve not been trained to meet him in battle, this or any other. His demise will be by my sword. Do not give me grief by challenging my word in this matter.”
I nodded, feeling like a child who had just been given a harsh dressing-down by his parent. I was crestfallen for Mika didn’t want me here, but I sensibly held my tongue once more. Nevertheless, I was determined to make my General proud today. We re-entered the fray, but not before he had obtained my pact to stay by his side at all times.
On the way, I told him through the mouth opening in the helmet: “I mean no disrespect, Michael, but I wish to stay on in District 11.”
He let out a grunt before giving me a non-committal: “We’ll see.”
Reaching the periphery of the battle front, he halted. I paused with him. Then, his palm reached to my neck. “You do have the form of a true warrior,” he conceded charitably. He adjusted my helmet. “Now look sharp.”
I nodded, my morale boosted.
Almost instantaneously, a mace was being raised to my head. My intuition forewarning me of danger, I heard the mace slash the air before its spikes came into view. I lifted my rapier to repel the instrument, which successfully deflected the opponent’s weapon away from my head. I had averted a possible nasty injury. Mika sprang toward our opponent. He swung his battle axe at the Fallen One, completely disarming him of both his mace and his short sword. Immediately following this, the angel, Haziel, lassoed him with his chain and took him prisoner.
That’s how you do it, Mika complimented me. Good man.
That was my one and only close call. Several of the bottom-rung Fallen Ones proceeded to involve me in a highly combative two-hour engagement but Gabriel and Haziel were constantly by my side. Outnumbering our opponents three to one, we were always in the catbird seat. The enemy combatants were easily disarmed and taken captive with Haziel’s lariat. This said, I scarcely had enough turn at the battle zone to wear out the pommel of my sword. With the elders orbiting me at every turn – I think they planned it somehow – I was inadvertently sidelined as a spectator.
I didn’t complain, however. I had grown weary after my third clash with the enemy forces. Perhaps the elders had also noticed that I was fatigued.
I studied the sky above us: dusk had fallen at a rate of knots. Although the battle was still being waged, it was patent to any casual observer which side was prevailing: scores of Abaddon’s minions were being trussed hand and foot with hefty chains in anticipation of their imprisonment in the bottomless pit. Nor could Abaddon avoid his own imminent end. On the brink of a crushing defeat, he denounced his judgment with his otiose philippic, “this is unconstitutional, this is unconstitutional”, and, “you’ll pay for this, Archangel Michael; you’re going to pay”, while Mika stripped him of his armour before binding him tightly with his chains. Afterward, the General ordered all our foes to be gathered together in one place away from the vale. Amid the combatants, both the victors and the vanquished, a grim-faced Uriel was marching the fallen angel, called Azazel, toward a small dell where the angel, Shimael, was guarding the bound captives. All but Azazel’s leg movements had been constrained by Uriel’s chains.
A loud rumble exploded from heaven which, simultaneously, sent ripples of thunder echoing through the sky. The earth under us juddered with a lot of noise. We drew away from the prisoners who were starting to bawl and wiggle in terror against their bondage. Some of the Lord’s angels dispersed toward the vale, which had just been the focal venue of the battle. Seizing my wrist, Mika sped us toward an arête, along with the rest of his angels. We fell up the arête about the same time the Lord was commanding cracks to appear in the ground beneath our enemies’ feet. The cracks extended into fissures zigzagging the breadth of the ground athwart which split it asunder, turning the dell into a great gulf. Suctions of air spiralled upward from the gulf, sucking into its vacuum Abaddon and all of his helpless followers.
Their terrifying screams rose in octave all around us. I was going to crumple; my humanity did not possess an inordinate amount of tolerance for suffering, mine or others’, to resist falling in a faint. I hastily went down on my knees.
At length, with Abaddon the last to be cast alive into the abyss, the clefts in the ground closed up again. The dreadful noises of our adversaries’ screams were thence silenced. Also silenced, once and for all, was their contempt for the Lord and for all His faithful servants.
A wary Gabriel, his shofar in his hand, came up from the dale. He stepped up to me. Clasping a hand on my neck, he closely examined my eyes: “You’ve been avenged, beloved. But I can see you’re not rejoicing in earnest.”
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t rejoicing in earnest, not for Abaddon’s punishment. Not for any of his minions’ punishment. How could I? I had been told often that those condemned were once upon a time our brothers, too. I might not know a lot about demons but I knew enough about angels. Abaddon’s minions were angels, too. They were sons of God, too.
I looked up at my General. I could just detect a tear in the corner of his left eye. Many others had tears forming in their eyes, too. My own eyes strayed toward the small dell, cynosure of God’s fearsome judgment.
The angel, Uriel, was there on his knee, leaning against his heavy broadsword, which he was gripping with both his hands. He was lost in thought. A striking figure in isolation among the despoliations of war.
Removing my chainmail breastplate and helmet, I handed them to Mika. I swiftly flew toward Uriel, making short work of reaching him. He had removed his armour. The dust of the battle was still on him, the weight of it in his heart. His waist-length hair, dense and unfettered, was sweeping in the wind.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I whispered.
A gentle smile of melancholia overrode the grief on his face. He brushed away the tear on my cheek while sighing heavily: “I lost him a long, long time ago. He knew this day was going to come. I knew it, too. It didn’t make it any easier.”
“You love him, of course,” I suggested.
Uriel nodded: “Aye. I still loved him after all this time. You’re quite right, Little One. But you saw him yourself. You saw the hate in his eyes. It was as if he never knew me. Never knew he had loved me once. Azazel chose this final destination for himself. He chose to cast his lot with Satan. He made his own choice.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
The elder smiled again, putting his hand on top of my head. “It’s not your fault, child,” he clarified. “Their judgment was determined a long time ago. Even if Azazel hadn’t been here to support Abaddon, he’d still have his day of reckoning some time. No matter how much more time he was going to be given, he was never going to repent of his sins. You saw it with your own eyes: while he was being judged, there was still only defiance toward his Maker on his whitewashed face. Thus is the Lord’s judgment true and just. Like I said, beloved, it’s not your fault that some of the Fallen Ones have been judged this day.”
He got up and gave me his hand, adding: “It’s over for now. There are other battles on the way. But I must say: you were very impressive tonight. A real trooper, as the humans would say. Come; it’s time to go home.”
Climbing up to the dale, we heard Gabriel’s shofar being blown. Then, the Lord’s chief messenger pronounced to all of us the conclusion of the battle.
As Uriel said, it was over. Abaddon’s judgment had been in accordance with the Lord’s decree. And, in accordance with the Lord’s prophetic word, he and his minions were condemned to spend eternity in Tartarus, never again free to torment another soul.
