Redemption of the Dead (35 page)

Nathaniel rose high over the city, one
girl in each arm.

“Thank . . . thank you . . .” Tracy
said.

“You’re
welcome,” the angel said, his voice authoritative but
oh-so-soothing with gentleness and comfort.

“I’m so glad
you came,” Billie said. “Thanks for saving us.” She took a deep
breath, then said, “Joe . . .”

The very mention of his name made the
tears flow and Tracy looked away.

“I know,” the angel said gently. “I’m
sorry.”

“Is he okay?” Billie asked.

“It’s not for me to judge.”

“Why couldn’t you get here in time?”
Tracy said, looking his way. “He died because you weren’t
here!”

“The battle was in motion even before
you saw these creatures for what they were, before the dark one
emerged.”

“Quiet!” she snapped.

“Tracy!” Billie shouted. She shook her
head slowly. “Don’t.” Her tone said she was dead
serious.

“Tracy, all is not lost. Please be
strong and please trust God to work this for good.”

How dare he?
Her heart
beat in furious rage. “You want to start talking like that after
what happened? Look!” She pointed down.

Below the
dark chasm became a giant pit around which angels and demons fought
toe-to-toe in a whirlwind of golden light, fire and black
smoke.

She glanced
back at Nathaniel and to Billie beyond. Billie’s face was stern.
Nathaniel’s—it was hard to read him. His jaw was set firm, but his
fiery eyes contained gentleness.

A fowl
hollow screech filled the area and in a dark cyclone from below
came the devil, his wings spread wide, flying at blinding speed
toward them, Michael hot on his tail. Nathaniel turned on the air
and bolted away while the devil gave chase.

“Come back!”
he
shouted.

“Set me down,” Tracy said. “You can’t
use your sword otherwise.”

Nathaniel
squeezed her all the tighter and kept on. Behind them, the devil’s
hot breath burned at their feet, its heat quickly rising past their
soles and up their legs until he had caught up and was right over
them. With a feral growl he grabbed Billie straight out of
Nathaniel’s hands. Nathaniel arced up and snatched her back; Billie
screamed and said something about her arm. Michael caught up,
grabbed the devil and drove his sword into the evil one’s wing,
puncturing a hole.

The devil turned over and focused on
Michael again, their swords clashing.

Nathaniel arced down toward the
ground, getting distance.

“Put us down so you can get him,”
Billie said.

“No, we have
something else to do. Michael will contain him. It was what he was
created for. At the appropriate time, Lucifer will answer to One
far greater and will pay dearly for his transgressions.”

Below the amount of angels versus the
amount of demons seemed to have increased.

We’re winning,
Tracy
thought.
Wait, what is he
doing?
“Hey!” she
shouted.

“We will now set things right,”
Nathaniel said.

“I don’t like it,” Billie said and
Tracy knew why. They were flying directly toward the enormous chasm
in the ground.

They crossed
the opening and were quickly engulfed in darkness except for the
angel’s glow.

“Are you crazy?” Tracy said. “Where
are you taking us?”

The angel didn’t reply.

* * * *

34

In Hell

T
he rush of
wind as they sped deeper and deeper
into the bowels of the earth grew warmer with each passing moment.
Sweat had already begun to break out across Billie’s skin, the wind
from their fast descent not enough to cool her.

“You’re
taking us down to—” she started, but couldn’t bring herself to
finish the question.

“We must
complete our mission. Mine was to set you on the right path, gather
that which was sent out. Yours was to right your wrong,” Nathaniel
said.

Billie
glanced behind herself. The entrance of the hole was nowhere in
sight. In front of them, the hole was growing narrower with each
moment. Soon they were rapidly descending down a rocky tube no more
than a dozen feet in diameter and even that was growing smaller by
the second

“Um . . . Nathaniel?” Billie
said.

The tunnel
grew even thinner and Nathaniel changed position, switching his
descent to feet first, Billie’s stomach doing a flip from the
change. She thought she heard Tracy yelp. In the ambient glow of
the angel’s light, the dark stony ground below rushed up to meet
them as the walls grew impossibly close. If Billie reached out to
touch them, they’d take her arm off. She hugged Nathaniel tight and
saw Tracy do the same.

The walls of
the tunnel closed in right around them and soon cast wide as they
emerged in a massive, vacuous cavern.

The heat was severe and Billie turned
her head, seeing what she knew she’d see: the Lake of Fire off in
the distance. The haunting screams of the damned rose and filled
her ears.

They touched down on the hot stone
floor.

“Where are we?” Tracy asked, her body
hunched over, probably from the oppressive atmosphere of this
place.

Billie felt it, too. “The last place
anyone would want to be.”

“You mean?”

She slowly
nodded.

The howls of
the damned sent her on edge. The angel beside her was
calm.

“
Before we go on,” he said, “we must cross the
Lake. Do not look into the fire
because what you will see will be very hard to forget.”

“Why are we here?” Billie
asked.

“We are
outside of Time in the eternal realm. You and I have been here
before and so we must come to find the portal and set things
right.” He turned to her. “Do you have the crystals?”

She showed
him the bracelet. “I do. What are they?”

“They belong to this.” Nathaniel reached into his golden
robe and produced a pocket watch.
The
pocket watch, the
one which determined the time of Armageddon. “When the watch did
not reset, I kept it in my care. After pulling Joe from this place
and we were under attack while the demons flooded the Earth, I
dispersed the watch’s contents—the crystals—and they landed in each
of the places you visited. During the year since they were cast
away, they acted like beacons and drew together forces for good to
assemble and begin work on defending the Earth. It would have
worked had Lucifer not manifested. I, however, have been too
engaged in battle to retrieve them myself. We must return where we
first met.” He held out his hand. “Give me the stone.”

Billie
touched the crystal-filled stone, gave it a tug, and removed it
from the bracelet. She handed it to him without reserve, frankly
glad to be rid of the thing. Nathaniel opened the pocket watch,
pressed a tiny lever and opened its face. Beneath was an intricate
array of diamonds and indentations of different shapes that matched
the crystals. He placed the stone on top of the diamond bed, and in
a flash of golden light, the stone went clear, the crystals now in
each of their respective cradles. He replaced the watch face,
closed its cover and put it back in his robe.

Billie glanced around. “Did it
work?”

“It will,” he said.

“Did what work?” Tracy
asked.

Nathaniel continued, “It must be
returned to its appropriate point on the Timeline. We must be very
precise.”

In the distance, a bright red glow in
the shape of a large oval lit up.

“We’ve
already taken too much time.” Nathaniel picked up both girls and
sped off in the direction of the Lake of Fire.

* * * *

Tracy held
tight as Nathaniel flew them through the chasm of Hell. Demons were
already on their tail, chasing after them. She produced her gun and
fired off a couple of shots.

“It is a waste,” Nathaniel said.
“Natural weapons do not defeat a supernatural foe.”

Now he tells me.
She
put the gun back in its holster and saw the Lake of Fire come up
beneath them. She knew he said not to look. Billie had her face
buried in the angel’s golden robe. Curiosity getting the better of
her, Tracy looked down. Millions of skeletons rose up above the
flames, calling out to her and the angel as they flew overhead,
begging to be rescued. Their bones were dry and cracked, ash-gray,
their faces skulls, yet each distinct as if a reflection of the
human being they once were. Their cries echoed from below and
reverberated inside Tracy’s soul. She pulled her gaze from the lake
and saw the disappointment in Nathaniel’s eyes when she looked at
him.

“Sorry,” she said.

He cast his eyes forward and kept
flying.

Swarms of demons were nearly upon them
before they suddenly switched course and headed downward toward a
man . . . Joe!

“No!” she screamed.
He’s here! He’s in Hell!

The demons closed in around Joe,
hiding him from view.

“Do something!” she
shouted.

“I will,” he said, “but not
yet.”

“What do you mean ‘not
yet’?”

“We must use
the accessway they’ve created.” He flew them toward that glowing
red object which was quickly coming into focus. It looked like a
gateway of some sort. “I must vanish. Hold tight. I am here.” His
light extinguished and all went pitch black except for the glow
coming off the lake and the gateway.

She felt a
hard squeeze around her middle as if Nathaniel’s way of reassuring
her of his presence. It helped. A little. They swooped in low and
began to fly so fast she couldn’t breathe. As the last of the
demons went through the portal, so did they . . . then flew past
them at such speed she began hammering on Nathaniel, trying to tell
him to slow down. Her stomach felt like it was in her feet and she
couldn’t get an ounce of air, couldn’t even squeal. She couldn’t
see Billie. She couldn’t see anything.

Until light shone above.

* * * *

Billie
screamed when a giant illuminated skull flashed in front her
against a charcoal-gray sky. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed,
whispers on the wind.

The Storm of Skulls.

“How are we
back in the storm? I thought we were just in Hell?” Billie
asked.

Nathaniel relit his glorious presence. “We were. The portal
as it started triggered the Storm. It happened when the demons
first rose. It happened again thus enabling your return and when
they changed their plans. It’s happening now because we were just
outside of Time and are now entering what would be considered
the
first
Storm. We must arrive ahead of the chopper that
brought you, Joe and August.”

“Joe?” Tracy said.

“How do we know where they are?”
Billie asked.

“It’s too difficult to say. We are
between worlds, in the Storm.”

Skulls
flashed against the charcoal clouds; whispers in Aramaic haunted
the air.

“Who is that? Who’s talking?” Billie
asked.

“It’s a
manifestation of the workings of the portal. It’s speaking into the
air, creating a path. This Storm is all over the Earth right now,
but only in certain places and in certain quantities. Large groups
of people are in the middle of it right now down below, where in
other parts only a single person is immersed in it, ignorant of its
occurrence. These are they, like you, who the Storm touched and
thus made you immune to the effects of the rain.”

As
interesting as that was, Billie just wanted to get out of here and
land at that stupid bank and—then what? Meet herself? Nathaniel
said that was impossible, that she couldn’t interact with herself
on the same plane of existence.

Thunder crashed and lightning pierced
the sky. Nathaniel aimed for one of the thunderbolts and in a
blinding burst of light, the sky went blue and they were high in
the air.

The angel
shot down and the three landed in the back lane behind the bank.
Quickly, Nathaniel transformed, but not to the old man that he was
when she first met him, but the young man from the forest, the one
that wore a gray turtleneck and jeans.

“You and
your friends will emerge in a moment. We must hurry,” he said and
led them to the front of the bank. “Billie, you will stay with me.
Tracy, you are the one now who must take this watch and wait until
you give it to me, but I will be different. I will appear old.
White velvet hat, white overcoat. He will know what to do when you
give it to him.”

He handed Tracy the watch.

“I thought I was the one that was
supposed to fix this,” Billie said.

“You have.”