The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession (11 page)

“You must spend at least one night here, sir,” Demetrius said.

“Oh, imposs—”

“You look so tired! And you have to be!”

“But I must get back. The stateside people need the plane, and I need them.”

Laslos and Demetrius wore heavy sweaters under thick jackets, but Rayford didn’t warm up until Laslos had a fire roaring. Laslos then busied himself in the kitchen, from which Rayford soon smelled strong tea and looked forward to it as he would have a desert spring.

Meanwhile, in a small, woodsy room illuminated only by the fire, Rayford sat in a deep, ancient chair that seemed to envelop him. The young pastor sat across from him, half his face in the dancing light, the other half disappearing into the darkness.

“We were praying for you, Mr. Steele, at the very moment you called Lukas’s wife. We thought you might need asylum. Forgive my impudence, sir, as you are clearly my elder—”

“Is it that obvious?”

Demetrius seemed to allow himself only the briefest polite smile. “I would love to have you tell me all about Tsion Ben-Judah, but we don’t have time for socializing. You may stay here as long as you wish, but I also want to offer you my services.”

“Your services?” Rayford was taken aback, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he and Demetrius had immediately connected.

“At the risk of sounding forward or self-possessed,” Demetrius said, intertwining his fingers in his lap, “God has blessed and gifted me. My superiors tell me this is not unusual for those of us who are likely part of the 144,000.1 have loved the Scriptures since long before I was aware that Jesus fit all the prophecies of the Coming One. It seemed all my energies were invested in learning the things of God. I had been merely bemused by the idea that the Gentiles, specifically Christians, thought they had a corner on our theology.

Then the Rapture occurred, and I was not only forced to study Jesus in a different light, but I was also irresistibly drawn to him.”

Pastor Demeter shifted in his chair and turned to gaze at the fire. The fatigue that had racked Rayford, which he now realized would force him to at least nap before trying to return to the States, seemed a nuisance he would deal with later. Demetrius seemed so earnest, so genuine, that Rayford had to hear him out. Laslos came in with steaming mugs of tea, then returned to the kitchen to sit with his, though both men invited him to stay. It was as if he knew Rayford needed this time alone with the man of God.

“My primary gift is evangelism,” Demetrius said.

“I say that without ego, for when I use the word gift, I mean just that. My gift before becoming a believer was probably sarcasm or condescension or pride in intellect. I realize now, of course, that the intellect was also a gift, a gift I did not know how to exercise to its fullest until I had a reason.”

Rayford was grateful he could just sit and listen for A while, but he was also amazed he was able to stay awake. The fire, the chair, the situation, the hour, the week he had had all conspired to leave him in a ball of unconsciousness. But unlike in the car, he was not even aware of the temptation to nod off.

“What we who have been called find fascinating,” Demetrius continued, “is that God has seemed to streamline everything now. I’m sure you’ve found this in your own life. For me the sense of adventure in learning of God was magnified so that my every waking moment was happily spent studying his Word. And when I was then thrust into a place of service, giftings that might have taken decades to develop before were now bestowed as if overnight. I had had my nose in the Scriptures and commentaries for so long, there was no way I could have honed the skills the Lord seemed to pour out upon me. And I have found this true of my colleagues as well. None of us dare take an iota of credit, because these are clearly gifts from God. We can do nothing less than gleefully exercise them.”

“Such as?” Rayford said.

“Primarily evangelism, as I said. It seems most everyone we talk with personally is persuaded that Jesus is the Christ. And under our preaching, thousands have come to faith. I trust you understand I say this solely to give glory to Jehovah God.”

Rayford quickly waved him off. “Of course.”

“We have also been given unusual teaching and pastoring skills. It is as if God has given us the Midas touch, and not just us Greeks.”

Rayford was lost in thought and nearly missed the humor. He just wanted to hear more.

“But most fascinating to me, Mr. Steele, is a helpful, useful gift I would not have thought to ask for, let alone imagine was either necessary or available. It is discernment, not to be confused with a gift of knowledgesomething I have witnessed in some colleagues but do not have myself. Frankly, I am not envious.

The specific things God tells them about the people under their charge would weigh on me and wear me down. But discernment … now, that has proven most helpful to me and to those I counsel.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Demetrius leaned forward and set his mug on the floor. He rested elbows on knees and stared into Rayford’s face. “I don’t want to alarm you or make you think this is some kind of a parlor trick. I am not guessing, and I am not claiming that any of this is a skill I have honed or mastered. God has merely given me the ability to discern the needs of people and the extent of their sincerity in facing up to them.”

Rayford felt as if the man could look right through him, and he was tempted to ask questions no one could answer unless God told them. But this was no game.

“I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that you are a man who at this very moment is broken before God. Despite the news, I have no idea whether you shot Nicolae Carpathia or tried to. I don’t know if you were there or had the weapon in question or if the Global C Community is framing you because they know your allegiances. But I discern your brokenness, and it is because you have sinned.”

Rayford nodded, deeply moved, unable to speak.

“We are all sinners, of course, battling our old natures every day. But yours was a sin of pride and selfishness. It was not a sin of omission but of willful commission. It was not a onetime occurrence but a pattern of behavior, of rebellion. It was an attitude that resulted in actions you regret, actions you acknowledge as sin, practices you have confessed to God and have repented of.”

Rayford’s jaw was tight, his neck stiff. He could not even nod.

“I am not here to chastise you or to test you to see if what I discern is correct, because in these last days God has poured out his gifts and eliminated the need for patience with us frail humans. In essence, he has forsaken requiring desert experiences for us and simply works through us to do his will.

“I sense a need to tell you that your deep feelings of having returned to him are accurate. He would have you not wallow in regret but rejoice in his forgiveness. He wants you to know and believe beyond doubt that your sins and iniquities he will remember no more. He has separated you from the guilt of your sins as far as the east is from the west. Go and sin no more. Go and do his bidding in the short season left to you.”

As if knowing what was coming, Demetrius reached for Rayford’s cup, allowing Rayford to leave the comfort of his chair and kneel on the wood floor. Great sobs burst from him, and he sensed he was in the presence of God, as he had been in the plane when it seemed the Lord had finally gotten his attention. But to add this gift of forgiveness, expressed by a chosen agent, was beyond what Rayford could have dreamed for.

Fear melted away. Fatigue was put in abeyance. Unrest about the future, about his role, about what to do-all gone. “Thank you, God” was all he could say, and he said it over and over.

When finally he rose, Rayford turned to embrace a man who an hour before had been a stranger and now seemed a messenger of God. He might never see him again, but he felt a kinship that could only be explained by God.

Lukas still waited in the tiny kitchen as Rayford spilled to Demetrius the whole story of how his anger had blossomed into a murderous rage that took him to the brink of murder and may have even given him a hand in it.

Demetrius nodded and seemed to shift and treat ill Rayford as a colleague rather than a parishioner. “And what is God telling you to do now?”

“Rest and go,” Rayford said, feeling rightly decisive for the first time in months. For once he didn’t feel the need to talk himself into decisions and then continue to sell himself on them, carefully avoiding seeking God’s will.

“I need to sleep until dawn and then get back in the game. As soon as I can get through by phone, I need to be sure Buck and Leah are safe and go get them, if necessary.”

Laslos joined them and said, “Give me that information. I will stand watch until dawn, and I can try the phones every half hour while you are sleeping.”

Demetrius interrupted Rayford’s thanks by pointing him to a thick fabric couch and a scratchy blanket. “It is all we have to offer,” he said. “Kick your shoes off and get out of that shirt.”

When Rayford sat on the couch in only undershirt and trousers, Demetrius motioned that he should lie down.

The pastor covered him with the blanket and prayed, “Father, we need a physical miracle. Give this man a double portion of rest for the hours available, and may this meager bed be transformed into a healing agent.”

Without so much as a pillow, Rayford felt himself drifting from consciousness.

He was warm, the couch was soft but supportive, the stiff blanket like a downy comforter. As his breathing became rhythmic and deep, his last conscious thought was different from what it had been for so long. Rather than the dread fear that came with life as an international fugitive, he rested in the knowledge that he was a child of the King, a saved, for112 given, precious, beloved son safe in the hollow of his Father’s hand.

Buck and Chaim sat in an abandoned, earthquakeravaged dwelling in the middle of a formerly happening Israeli neighborhood where crowded bars and nightclubs once rocked till dawn. With no power or water or even shelter safe enough for vagrants, the area now hosted only an enterprising journalist and a national hero.

“Please douse that light, Cameron,” Chaim said.

“Who will see us?”

“No one, but it’s irritating. I’ve had a long day.”

“I imagine you have,” Buck said. “But I want to see this walking, breathing miracle. You look healthier than I’ve ever seen you.”

They sat on a crumbling concrete wall with remnants of a shattered beam protruding from it. Buck didn’t know how the old man felt, but he himself had to keep moving for a modicum of comfort.

“I am the healthiest I have been in years,” Chaim exulted, his accent thick as ever. “I have been working out every day.”

“While your house staff feared you were near death.”

“If they only knew what I was doing in my workshop before dawn.”

“I think I know, Chaim.”

“Thinking and knowing are different things. Had you looked deep into the closet, you would have seen the ancient stationary bicycle and the dumbbells that put me in the fighting trim I am in today. I laboriously moved my chair through the house so they could hear the whine of it if they happened to be up that early.

Then I locked myself in there for at least ninety minutes. Jumping jacks and push-ups to warm up, the dumbbells for toning, the bike for a hard workout. Then it was back inside the blanket, into the chair, and back to my quarters for a shower. They thought I was remarkably self-reliant for an old man suffering from a debilitating stroke.”

Buck was not amused when Chaim stiffened his arm, turned one side of his mouth down, and faked impaired speech with guttural rasping.

“I fooled even you, did I not?”

“Even me,” Buck said, looking away.

“Are you offended?”

“Of course I am. Why would you feel the need to do that to your staff and to me?”

“Oh, Cameron, I could not involve you in my scheme.”

“I’m involved, Chaim. I saw what killed Carpathia.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, I didn’t. All that commotion, that trauma. I couldn’t move. I heard the gunshot, saw the man fall, the lectern shatter, the backdrop sail away. I froze with fear, unable to propel my chair. My back was to the disturbance, and no one was coming to my aid. I shall have to chastise Jacov for his failure to do his duty. I was counting on him to come to me. My other clothes were in the back of the van, and I had a reserva114 tion at a small inn under an alias. We can still use it if you can get me there.”

“In your pajamas?”

“I have a blanket in the tree. I wrapped it around myself, even my head, as I ran to the taxis. I had not expected to have to do that, Cameron, but I was prepared for all exigencies.”

“Not all.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ll try to get you to your hotel, Chaim, and I may even have to hide out there with you myself for a while. But I have bad news that I will tell you only when we are there. And only after you tell me everything about what happened on the platform.”

Chaim stood and reached for the flashlight, using it to find his way to a man-size hole in the wall. He leaned against the opening and switched off the light.

“I will never tell anyone what happened,” he said.

“I am in this alone.”

“I didn’t see it happen, Chaim, but I saw the wound and what caused it. You know I couldn’t have been the only one.”

Chaim sighed wearily. “The eye is not trustworthy, my young friend. You don’t know what you saw. You can’t tell me how far away you were or how what you saw fits into the whole picture. The gunshot was a surprise to me. That your comrade was even there was also a shock, and him as a suspect now!”

“I find none of this amusing, Chaim, and soon enough you won’t either.”

Buck heard the old man settle to the ground. “I did not expect that much chaos.

I hoped, of course. That was my only chance of getting away from there with everyone else. When Jacov did not arrive-because of the panic caused by the gunshot, I assume-I leaned on that control stick and headed for the back of the platform, clutching my blanket like a cape. I rolled out of the chair at the last instant, and it went flying. I wish it had landed on one of the regional potentates, who were by then limping away. I tossed my blanket over the side, then rolled onto my belly and threw my feet over, locking them around the support beam. I shinnied down that structure like a youngster, Cameron, and I won’t even try to hide my pride. I have scrapes on my inner thighs that may take some time to heal, but it was worth it.”