The War in Heaven (37 page)

Gabriel looked at David incredulously, but said nothing.

“You understand what that means, I assume,” said David to Satan.

Satan nodded.

“You have my word that if you cooperate, if no one gets in our way, I will not harm you. You will be free to continue this war of yours.” David paused. “You almost had me convinced earlier, convinced that you might be able to change. I was wrong.”

Satan didn’t reply. He opened the doors to see the sentry beyond. “You are to clear the corridor at once,” he commanded. “Instruct all you see that there is to be no violence. These beings are leaving.”

The sentry looked into the audience hall briefly, then bowed to his master. “It shall be as you command, my lord.”

They waited at the door for at least two minutes. David eyed the other dignitaries in the room suspiciously, almost expecting them to make a stupid move; they didn’t.

“It’s time,” said David, placing the point of the weapon at Satan’s back.

“Let’s move.”

As David suspected, the corridor was empty. He figured that it was over 100 yards to the ramp leading to the roof. It was the longest 100 yards he could imagine. They began the journey. From side rooms and passages, demons watched their progress. It would only take one to start a bloodbath, a firefight that would surely have only one outcome.

“Do you really have a plan?” asked Gabriel, holding the pistol in two hands.

“Of course,” replied David.

The entire walk to the ramp couldn’t have taken more than two minutes, though it seemed much longer. Another minute and they were on the roof, 50 yards from the edge. The place seemed deserted. They made their way toward the edge.

Yes, David had a plan—but it kept changing. Perhaps they should take Satan with them as a hostage. That would surely have put a crimp in his plans for the conquest of Heaven. If Gabriel had been in better condition, if there were three of them and not two, he might have considered it. As it was, escape was their prime goal. Another minute and they were at the edge of the roof. There was no safety railing, no warning sign, nothing to keep a careless traveler from going over the edge. David peered down to confirm that there was nothing between them and the street. It was time.

“You have nowhere to go but down, boy,” said Satan. “The drop reminds me of one of the cliffs from which the homosexuals of Hell are forced to cast themselves. Are you prepared to take the leap?”

“Yes,” confirmed David. “Let’s just call it a leap of faith.”

“We have company,” noted Gabriel, as several dozen demons stepped onto the roof and began walking in their direction.

“OK then,” said David. “Can you run?”

Gabriel looked at David in surprise. “Run where?”

David pointed to the edge of the roof.

“Human humor has always eluded me,” said Gabriel.

“I ask again, can you run?”

“Yes,” replied Gabriel.

“OK, we have about ten yards to get up some speed. Take my hand and don’t let go. We take the plunge feet first. On the count of three, run as fast as you can. One, two, three!”

David and Gabriel darted toward the precipice as Satan watched in disbelief. Then they were airborne. Barely two seconds later, a cloud of stars appeared in their path. The human and angel vanished into the vapors. By the time Satan reached the roof’s edge, there was no trace of them. His minions burst into the air in pursuit, yet he knew that they might already be a world away.

David and Gabriel plummeted through the cool mists for several seconds. Then they saw the blue glistening waves before them. They hit the water hard, descending into the depths a good 12 or 15 feet before coming back up to the surface.

David still held onto Gabriel’s hand as they broke the surface amid the sounds of flapping gulls and pounding surf. A hundred yards away, the waves broke on a sandbar, and beyond that was a sandy beach.

Gabriel looked around in amazement. “Where are we?”

“The Crystal Sea of the forth level of Heaven,” replied David. “It’s a great place to surf. We hit harder than I thought we would. I’ll do better next time.”

“Next time!” exclaimed Gabriel.

“Never mind, just more of that human humor. We need to get to shore. After all, we might well still be in enemy territory. I hope angels can swim.”

Apparently they could, especially when the tide was with them. Nevertheless, David had to assist his angelic companion, whose wings were more of a hindrance than a help when it came to swimming. Five minutes saw them staggering onto the white sand beaches, under the amazed eyes of a group of tanned surfers.

“You OK, brother?” asked one of them.

“Apparently this place is not as yet in the hands of Satan’s forces,” said Gabriel, gazing at the seven concerned onlookers.

“Maybe demons can’t swim,” suggested David, turning to face the crowd. “We’re OK folks, just cliff jumping.”

“Cliff jumping…what do you mean dude?” asked one of the bronze-skinned surfers.

“Gotta go,” said David, creating another gate. He led Gabriel through and into the mists. A matter of seconds found them before the smoldering remains of Kepler’s forest home. The smile quickly evaporated from David’s face. “What happened?”

“It would appear that Satan’s minions got here before we did,” said Gabriel. David walked toward the ruins that were still very hot.

“Old slewfoot is gonna pay,” said David, anger in his voice.

“We cannot remain here,” cautioned Gabriel. “I doubt that Satan’s forces are far away. We must get to the City of Elesia as quickly as possible.”

David nodded as he opened another corridor in space and time.

They emerged dripping wet in the audience chamber of the angel Moriah. They, in very fact, interrupted a meeting of the war council. Their appearance was a relief as much as a surprise.

Johann rose immediately from the table and rushed over to David, hugging the shivering youth. “Praise God, you’re safe,” he said, nearly in tears. “Your mother was told that you had been captured by Satan.”

“I was,” replied David. “I just turned out to be a bit slipperier than he had anticipated. I even managed to put a healthy scare into him. I believe that few people can make that claim.”

“I am very certain that I owe my continued well-being to the incredible bravery of this young man,” said Gabriel. “He rescued me from Satan’s own audience chamber, and there threatened the Prince of Darkness with his very own existence.”

By now, everyone at the conference table had risen to their feet. What they were being told sounded almost unbelievable.

As David recounted the story of his capture, and the subsequent rescue of an archangel, the group was abuzz with amazement. This was the greatest story of heroism of the war—perhaps any war. Holding the devil himself hostage was, well, incredible.

Still, David’s action was not without its criticism and that criticism came from a most unlikely source. “You had the opportunity to assassinate Satan,” argued Gabriel. “At any point between the audience chamber and the roof it could have been done. Why didn’t you do it?”

David didn’t seem in the least offended by the comment. He pointed the particle rifle at a nearby wall, charged its capacitor, and pulled the trigger—nothing happened.

“The weapon got wet, now it won’t fire?” deduced Gabriel.

“No,” replied David, “it never would have fired, not in the audience chamber, not on the roof. I was in too much of a hurry when I assembled it. I was pretty sure that I’d botched the field coil. When I heard it change that first time in the audience chamber, I knew I had. I didn’t have time to
correct the mistake, how could I? So I went with what I had, and prayed for the best.”

“So, it was a bluff?” asked the angel Marlith. “Afraid so,” replied David.

“You would have made a formidable poker player, or a fine field officer,” noted General Washington, one of the members of the human delegation. “I salute you, sir.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied David, who was now beaming with pride. To have the father of his country offer him such a compliment would be something he would treasure for all of his eternity. Indeed, David had not recognized Washington among the group until now. He appeared so much younger than his picture on the dollar bill.

“But to jump off of a nearly three hundred foot tall building,” said Johann, “not knowing for certain if you would be able to gate out during the fall was a terrible risk.”

“It was an exceptional situation,” said David. “It was the only option that I could see at the time. Anyway, it worked … we’re here.”

“You need to go see your mother right away,” said Johann. “She has been worried sick about you.”

“Yes, sir,” said David, turning to leave.

He didn’t have to go far. Having heard of his miraculous return, his mother met him right beyond the door. She cried tears of joy as they headed down the hallway together.

It was nearly a minute before Gabriel continued. “Satan claims to have captured over fifty million of our people during the past several days. He plans to offer them a choice. If they swear their allegiance to him, he will spare them. They will assume the simple duties of the lowliest of the angels. Some will even assist in tormenting human souls in Hell. Those who refuse will be condemned to some vast furnace he has contrived, a furnace that will
reduce us to little more than a flaming heap of glowing bones. He plans to send the first group there in a matter of days, once his entire army is here.”

The war council looked at each other. Was this just one of Satan’s boasts, or could he make good on this terrible threat?

“Satan claims he will eventually have a force of 160 million,” continued Gabriel. “How many have we gathered here in Elesia?”

“From all of the planes, twenty-seven million,” replied Michael. “We know that there are other angels scattered here and there about the planes. There could easily be fifty or sixty million. But they are not an effective fighting force as it is. We will continue to make efforts to contact them. Still, I fear that Satan’s forces will capture most of them before we can rescue them. They are just too scattered and disorganized. If we could only return those trapped on Earth more rapidly, our numbers here would swell to 100 or 130 million. Then, we might be able to face him on the field of battle.”

“I have had some success in recruiting saints with military experience for this conflict,” said General Washington. “I believe you can count on about a hundred thousand within the next few days. Equipped with those special rifles, they might make a formidable force, despite their numbers.”

The commander in chief of the human military, General Cornelius Decius Galeo, stood to his feet; the council chambers grew silent. “Never in all of my twenty centuries have I heard of a weapon of the sort described by the honorable Doctor Kepler. Its effectiveness and the bravery of those wielding it allowed three hundred thousand angels to be evacuated from Ceranda. You have literally rewritten the book of warfare. If we had a sufficient number of them, human foot soldiers could become the pivotal factor in this war, even if the angelic forces were outnumbered. Can you produce a large number of these weapons, Doctor Kepler?”

Johann shook his head. “My people have produced about two thousand of those rifles to date. To equip an army of the size of the one General Washington speaks of would take a month, at least.”

“We don’t have a month,” objected Gabriel. “Eventually, Satan will completely control all of the planes of Heaven, save this one. By then our captured brethren will no doubt find themselves within a terrible furnace in Hell. And I assure you, the time will come when he breaches the wall that protects us. Perhaps he will force humans to gate his people across. Perhaps he will discover another way, but I doubt that we have a month.”

“Then it’s up to my friend Nikola Tesla,” said Johann. “I have faith that his mission to Hell was not in vain. He will find a way to open the gates to Earth, make clear the path of the angels trapped there.”

“He had best do it soon,” said Marlith. “I fear that soon there may not be a Heaven to send them to…at least not as we know it.”

F
or five hours David sat on a stool working on the telesphere. He was tired, but he just couldn’t give up on this project, too much was riding on it. The small cluttered suite of rooms that had become Johann’s new laboratory in Elesia was a mess. They had pulled out of his old lab quickly, and from the looks of things, none too soon. Several others were doing their best to set up the other equipment. Some of the instruments had required months to calibrate, and so wouldn’t be working again anytime soon.

June was asleep on a comfortable couch nearby. She insisted on being near her son. David didn’t mind in the least.

“Done,” whispered David, placing the new circuitry module into the base of the telesphere. The idea to do this had come to him during his visit with the Father. In very fact, it was God’s guidance that made this thing possible. Now it was time to test the new signal discriminator.

The telesphere began to glow. Abruptly, a sphere of snow appeared before him. There was something in the snow, but he couldn’t quite make it out. Was it a face?