chapter 11
THE LAKE OF FIRE
Walter kept his eyes open, hoping to see the switch from one world to the next. Hades had been an exciting place to visit, but he definitely didn’t want to live there. The column of fire spun violently, whipping hot air across his cheeks. Within seconds, it faded, then vanished, leaving a dim, dreary sky with a blanket of clouds hanging overhead.
“Whoa!”
Walter spun toward the cry. Flailing her arms, Karen teetered backwards over the stairwell hole. He snatched her waistband and yanked her away, shouting, “Not again, you don’t!”
When she regained her balance, he helped her stand upright. “You okay?”
“Whew!” Karen laid a hand on her forehead. “That was the worst déjà vu I’ve ever had! I don’t want to fall down any more bottomless pits!”
Gabriel flew to her other side. He fanned out his wings and stretched one around her. “This is cooler than iced cucumbers,” he said. “I’m solid again!”
Karen leaned away, startled. “Oh! Hi! I’m Karen.”
“I know.” As Gabriel patted her shoulder with a wing he extended a hand toward Walter. “Glad to meet you.”
“Same here.” Walter shook his hand but glanced around, counting the dimensional travelers. “Where’s Ashley?”
Gabriel took his turn surveying their crew. “And Roxil.”
Sapphira leaned over the hole, placing her bare foot in one of several huge footprints leading away from the edge. A cold drizzle added to the shallow puddle forming inside the print. “I don’t see them anywhere. Could they have materialized right over the hole and fallen in?”
“Oh, no!” Karen leaned over the opening and shouted, “Ashley! Can you hear me? Roxil?”
Walter dropped to his knees and peered down, his hands clutching the muddy edge of the hole. “I see some stairs, but they’re receding. I think I can jump to them if I hurry.”
“No!” Karen shouted. “You won’t be able to get back up!”
Grabbing the edge of the hole, he lowered himself into it. “I’ll figure out that part later.” He let go of the rim and plummeted. Bending his knees, he landed on the stairwell and tumbled down the steps, bumping his knees and elbows until he could brace his body against the curving wall and slow his momentum.
When he finally came to a stop, he sat up in the darkened spiral corridor, every part of his body throbbing. “Okay, that wasn’t cool,” he mumbled.
A loud crunching noise sounded from above, getting closer by the second. Jumping to his feet, he whipped Excalibur from its scabbard and flashed on its beam. The stairway was collapsing!
He spun around and dashed down the stairs, skipping three at a time. With each slap of his shoes against stone, the sound of crashing steps followed only inches behind, like a growling lion nipping at his heels. Finally, the step he landed on gave way, and he plummeted into blackness.
Still clinging to Excalibur, he jerked his head back and forth, searching for something to grab, but only chunks of debris fell within the sword’s glow. For some reason, he felt no fear. He had gone through dimensional portals before, and this vertical plunge gave him the same tingly sensation, though this episode seemed to stretch out much longer than any of the others.
Picking up speed with every second, he fell on and on, much farther than he and Ashley had descended down the stairwell. Wherever the bottom was, it would be deeper than the level of Hades they had visited … if there was a bottom at all.
After another minute or so, a strong breeze, hot, dry, and stale, buoyed his body, slowing his descent. He pointed Excalibur downward, trying to find the source of the wind. A dark red light mixed with the sword’s glow to reveal a huge man standing underneath him. As he drifted closer, the breeze steadily weakened until it finally shut off. With the loss of the support, he plummeted once again, falling right into the giant’s outstretched arms.
Although the man grunted, he absorbed the impact with only a slight sag of his cradling arms.
“Let me go!” Walter shouted, thrashing his body, but the giant held firm, gripping Walter’s wrist in his enormous hand and immobilizing Excalibur.
The giant shushed him with a commanding whisper. “Be quiet, son of man!”
Walter immediately calmed his body. Something about this man’s voice forced instant obedience, like a father’s urgent appeal that would save the life of a child.
The giant lowered Walter to the ground and, softening his tone, released Walter’s wrist. “We must maintain silence. There are dangerous creatures here, and I do not wish to alert them to our presence.”
“Sounds good to me,” Walter whispered, moving the sword closer to get a better view of this huge man who was easily as tall as the Nephilim in the mobility room. The maroon-tinted light seemed to adorn his head in a scarlet hood, making his features indistinct. “I’m looking for a teenaged girl, a little older than me, about my height. I think she fell down the same hole, maybe a minute before I did. Have you seen her?” He considered mentioning Roxil, as well, but thought better of it for the moment.
The man shook his head. “I have only been here a few hours. I saw the shining sword as you descended, so I created your air cushion. I hope that I sufficiently eased your landing. I fear that my breath was exhausted a little too soon.”
“Thank you. It was enough. I’ve had worse landings.” Now sweating, Walter unzipped his jacket and searched for the source of heat. Hanging low in the rusty sky, a dark red sun shot out snaking tongues of fire from its perimeter and coated the blackness in a dim, bloody wash. Still, it was enough to illuminate a huge black ocean perhaps a hundred yards away. Far out in the surf, red spots of light floated, bobbing and weaving like ships’ beacons on a rough sea.
The giant leaned down and laid a hand on Walter’s shoulder. “I am very glad to see you, son of man, though you are not quite what I expected.”
Walter had to push up to keep from sagging under the weight of the heavy hand. As he guided Excalibur closer to the man’s head again, the glow washed over his collar-length hair and scraggly beard, but most of his face was still veiled by scarlet shadows. “Well,” Walter replied, keeping his voice low, “I’m not sure what you expected, but you’re not exactly who I was hoping to find, either.”
The man set a hand on his bushy brow, shielding his eyes. “I apologize for my rudeness. Since you are so young, I assumed you were not skillful with your sword, but I was probably assuming too much.”
“I’m okay with it.” Walter ran a finger along the blade’s engraved design. “Do you need me to do something?”
“I am searching for a way of escape, but there are unfriendly forces here, so it is too dangerous to roam freely. With you and your sword, we can travel more boldly. I am big and strong, but I do not think I can fight more than two of them at once.”
“Them?”
The man curled his finger. “Come. I will show you.”
“Wait.” Walter stretched his fingers tightly around Excalibur’s hilt. “First I need to know who I’m dealing with. Are you one of the Nephilim?”
“I have been called that.” The man raised his chin a notch. “I am one of the giants of old, but I prefer not to be associated with those who wear the Nephilim name too proudly.”
Walter pointed the sword at the giant’s feet. “So you’re not one of Mardon’s plant creatures? You weren’t suspended in a growth chamber for years?”
The giant scrunched his brow. “How do you know about Mardon and growth chambers?”
“Let’s just say a little blue-eyed girl told me.”
Crouching to Walter’s level, the giant drooped his shoulders. “I see. … You know Mara.” He let out a blustery sigh that whisked through Walter’s hair like a stormy breeze. “If she informed you,” he continued, “then you are likely acquainted with many details about Nephilim.”
“Her name is Sapphira now, and she did tell me quite a bit. I met some of the other Nephilim, and they looked almost exactly like you, but they had red eyebeams, kind of like lasers.”
“I have them as well.” The giant flicked his beams on and then back off. “But in this place of scarlet light they only serve to give away my location. It is better if I keep them off and stay in hiding.”
“So are you like the others? Are you one of Mardon’s hybrids?”
“Only in that I developed from a hybrid seedling in a growth chamber. I acquiesced to Mardon’s plan, because I learned that obeying him was the only way to survive. He and Morgan had no patience with even the slightest hint of insubordination. Many of us suffered death by poisoning.”
Walter scratched the pebbly soil with Excalibur’s point. “Any idea how you ended up here?”
“We were running low on food, so Mardon told us his plan to make us sleep until he could figure out how to get us into the upper lands. After we dug out new growth chambers, he implanted a device in the strongest of us that would wake us up when the time came. He then gave us a potion that would make us sleep, and I stepped into my chamber. After that, I woke up in this dark place. How I came here is a mystery.”
Walter propped Excalibur on his shoulder again, whispering to himself. “Maybe you’re the one Karen replaced.”
“If you are addressing me,” the giant said, “I cannot hear you.”
Walter shook his head. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Thinking is good, but we would be better served now by acting. If, however, you keep waving that glowing blade around, you will likely not survive long. Your presence will soon be noticed by the devils.”
The word echoed shakily from Walter’s lips. “Devils?”
The giant rose to his full height. “If you are a valiant man, then please follow.” He marched into the darkness.
Walter let the sword’s glow diminish to a bare minimum and trudged through the mixture of gravel and sand. No sense in not following. Even though this giant looked just as dangerous as Chazaq and his buddies, his story about trying to fool Morgan was convincing enough. Besides, flying back up to the surface wasn’t exactly a reasonable option.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim red light, Walter darkened Excalibur and scanned the coastline. With its areas of beach and rocky promontories, it reminded him of the coastline he visited in Oregon, though this one lacked any hint of the Pacific breezes that had chilled his skin in the Northwest.
As the giant headed toward the floating red lights, a sulfur smell drifted into Walter’s nose, growing stronger and stronger as they neared the black ocean. When they reached the water, a wave washed over the ground near the giant’s bare feet. He jumped back to avoid it. As the wave receded, it left strings of dark vapor rising over the stone.
Walter guided the blade near the edge. The glow fell over the black waves, a restless ocean seemingly coated with thick oil. Although the lapping of gentle surf masked all other sounds, Walter kept his voice quiet. “Is the water too hot for dipping your toes?”
The giant whispered in return. “It is hot, indeed.” He lowered himself to one knee and shot his beams into Walter’s eyes. “May I address you by your name, swordsman?”
Squinting at the red light, Walter fumbled with his words. “Uh … My name’s Walter.”
The giant shut off the beams. “Walter, please pardon my visual intrusion. My beams are harmless. When I look into someone’s eyes, I can often judge his character, and since we will be passing by an area where I have seen the devils before, we might soon have to go to battle together. I want to be sure I can trust you.”
“I’m cool with that, but I don’t have eyebeams. How can I be sure I can trust you?”
The giant lowered his head. “I could tell you more about my life’s story. Perhaps then you will be able to judge my character.”
“Fair enough, as long as the devils stay away.”
“We can only hope.” The giant took in a deep breath and spoke slowly. “I suppose I should begin with my name. Mara gave it to me many, many years ago when I was a mere seedling. I still remember how her voice chirped like a songbird when she said, ‘How about Yereq? It means green.’”
Walter pointed at him and blurted out, “You are the one Karen replaced.”
Yereq clapped his hand over Walter’s mouth and jerked him close, whispering into his ear. “Walter, you must keep your voice down. If you wish to summon the devils, then, by all means, do so, but please give me fair warning so that I may watch from the shadows while they pierce your lungs with knives and cast you into the Lake of Fire.”
Walter squeezed out a barely audible, “Lake of Fire?”
Pointing at the dark ocean, Yereq slowly released his grip. “The second death.”
Walter squinted at the rising and falling waves. “That doesn’t look like fire.”
“It is black fire. Flames that emit no light. I heard some strange creatures talking about it. They seemed great and powerful, so I was hoping they might be able to get us out of this place, but they are so fearsome, I have not decided if they will be friendly to us.” He hunched over and whispered even more softly. “If you have decided to trust me, come, and I will show them to you as well as the tragic end of the faithless.” With the black fire on his left, he walked slowly along the beach.
Walter followed Yereq’s huge footprints, glancing from side to side as he tromped, imagining shadows of pitchfork-carrying devils lurking behind the head-high boulders scattered along the beach. The sun, now close to the bloody horizon, provided just enough light to help him stay out of the fire, but too much to allow him to feel safe from the dozens of eyes that were probably staring at him this very moment. The feeling of dread shivered his bones. Night was approaching. The devils could probably see better in the dark than he could, and it would be impossible to find his way back to the portal that brought him to this dismal place.
After a few minutes, a white light shone from around a rocky promontory that jutted into the lake. The cape looked like a huge foot with its toes in the flames and the rest of the foot sloping up and out until it rose sharply into the “leg,” a vertical wall that reached into the darkness above.
With his hands on the promontory’s “ankle,” Yereq peered around the edge, while Walter, holding on to the crannies in the wall, scrambled up to get a look. A two-foot-high jetty ran at least a hundred feet into the lake. Three dazzling angels stood at the beach end of the jetty with their backs to the sulfurous flames. From the darkness to the right, a line of ten or so slumped-over figures shuffled toward the angels. Fettered with manacles and dragging long chains that linked ankles from prisoner to prisoner, they cowered as they drew near.
Walter wiped sweat from his brow. These angels were only about twenty feet away from their hiding place! Did they know he was watching? Would they mind?
Yereq pressed his mouth close to Walter’s ear. “Some new arrivals,” he whispered. “Listen to the shining creatures, and you will learn what is happening here.”
One of the angels spread out his four wings and stepped closer to the line of shadowy figures. He seemed to shine with a light of his own. The white radiance washed over the prisoners, giving detail to their bodies and faces.
Walter stifled a gasp. One of the chained arrivals looked familiar … too familiar. There was no mistaking the silky gown, the slender figure, the angular face, and the long black tresses. Unable even to whisper, he mouthed the name. Morgan!
He glanced up at Yereq. The giant’s slack jaw proved that he, too, had recognized her.
A low, hissing voice rose from behind them. “What have we here, Grindle? A lost boy and a wandering Naphil?”
Walter jumped back from the promontory and pointed Excalibur toward the sound. The sword shone brightly, sending a ghostly glow over four reddish-black figures nearly as tall as Yereq. One raised a notched dagger. With dark wings his only adornment, he flexed his muscular arm as he cackled. “Look at the boy’s eyes, Grindle. He is definitely alive.”
One of the other devils flapped his jagged wings. “Excellent. We shall have his blood in our goblets tonight.”
“Not if I can help it!” With a quick downward swipe, Walter lopped off the first devil’s hand, then, swinging the sword back up, narrowly missed his face. The other three flew at Walter and Yereq, each waving long stilettos and clawing with pointed fingernails.
Yereq grabbed a devil by the arm and dashed him against the wall. Walter dropped to the ground, allowing the second one to zip over his head. Thrusting Excalibur upward, he pierced the attacker’s belly as he flew over and rammed the blade completely through. Then, ripping it out again and leaping to his feet, he wheeled around and sliced through the third devil’s waist, cutting him in half.
With the devil he skewered writhing on one side, and the one he cleaved wiggling in two halves on the other, Walter lowered Excalibur and gasped for breath. Strangely enough, there seemed to be no blood flowing from his victims, nor from the smashed body of the one Yereq was now dragging back from the wall.
The devil Walter first attacked leaned over and picked up his severed hand. “It will take years for it to heal,” he muttered as he turned and slinked away. The second devil rose from the ground and spread open his belly wound as if checking for missing innards. He then picked up his stiletto and scuttled into the darkness.
Yereq tossed his pummeled victim down. Crawling on its belly, it slithered away inch by inch. The fourth devil pushed against the ground with his hands and slid his upper half toward his hips and legs. “One dark night, we will catch you off guard,” he snarled. “No one has ever escaped this realm, and you cannot hide from us forever.”
A new light poured onto the scene. Walter spun around. One of the bright angels was watching them from the other side of the promontory. His booming voice echoed. “Walter and Yereq, Jehovah has commanded that you come and see the execution of justice upon his enemies.”
“Yessir!” Walter slid his sword into its scabbard and hustled to the wall. The angel reached over with one arm and, grabbing Walter by his coat, pulled him across. Grappling the rock with his long limbs, Yereq climbed over the promontory and joined them.
The angel led Walter and Yereq across the gravelly beach toward the jetty and its long wooden ramp that led out over the lake. As they approached the ten chained prisoners waiting near the beginning of the ramp, Walter kept his head angled away from Morgan, but as he walked by, a shiver crawled along his skin, no doubt a result of the icy stare he was trying to avoid.
As they tromped down the narrow ramp, black foam gathered along the edges of the supporting rocks, raising a noxious stench—sulfur mixed with burning flesh. Walter gagged. How could he possibly breathe in this place? Just a few more seconds and he would heave everything in his gut!
Fortunately, when they neared the end of the jetty, the fumes dissipated. The ramp widened out into an octagonal platform, maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. As he stepped onto the flat stone, Walter scuffed his foot across an etched design. It looked like a compass with a multi-pointed star in the center and narrow spires tapering in the direction of the octagon’s sides.
The angel brushed a wing across a wooden bench at the very edge of the platform. “The witness seat,” he said in his resonant voice. “Please sit in silence until you are called upon to speak.”
Walter set his hand on the waist-high bench. Since it had no back, he could choose to sit facing toward the lake or away from it, but facing the lake would mean that his feet would dangle over the black fire.
His legs shaking, he eased onto the bench with his back to the lake. When Yereq sat at his side, the bench’s wooden frame groaned under his weight. The giant clenched his hands together, but his face showed no signs of fear.
The other two angels led their prisoners to the center of the platform, stopping them over the star on the floor. Trying to keep his gaze focused away from Morgan, Walter looked over at the lake, just a few feet to his side. The glow from the angels illuminated the surface. Black tongues of flame leaped and fell like waves on a storm-tossed ocean. Finally, those bobbing red lights came into focus—the heads of flailing people, their faces and hair afire in crimson flames and their mouths open in silent screams.
Walter clutched his chest. It felt like his heart was ripping in two. Hot prickles ran across his skin. Such awful pain! Who could stand a minute in that fire, much less an eternity? As he imagined himself in the lake, fear rifled through his body—a dagger that peeled away the lining of his stomach and shredded his bravado. He felt like a cowering pup. If he had had a tail, he would have tucked it between his legs and whined. This is what Ashley must have felt in the stairwell to Hades, the gut-wrenching nausea of naked exposure while trapped deep within an inescapable pit.
“Let the first condemned soul approach!” the lead angel boomed.
Walter jerked his head back to the prisoners. Morgan stepped forward. Her stare, red and flashing, locked on his. An evil smirk dressed her face with insolence, but she said nothing.
Unable to pry his gaze from Morgan’s wicked glare, Walter intertwined his fingers and twisted them painfully. She had never looked so evil, so hate-filled.
The angel’s glow brightened. The light seemed to ooze into Walter’s body, soothing his stomach and quelling his shakes. That helped, but Morgan’s stare kept the shivers running up and down his arms.
Opening a book that spread over his palms, the angel looked at Morgan. “Your name is not written in the Book of Life, so the Lamb has sent you here from his judgment seat where he condemned you to the eternal fires. Justice does not demand that I explain the Lamb’s sentence, so I do this for the sake of the two witnesses who can testify against you if called upon. They will bear this witness to the race of humans and hybrids, not for the purpose of proving your guilt, for your sins against dozens of generations are already well known. Their witness will serve to give the waking world hope and renewed confidence that, even though there is much evil and suffering in their realm, justice will ultimately prevail.”
Morgan spat at his feet. “Jehovah is pure cruelty! Any so-called god who would condemn someone for all eternity is worse than cruel. He is a hateful monster. If all of you angels had joined my lord Lucifer in his quest to unseat that tyrant, we would be enjoying wisdom, freedom, and the pleasure of our bodies. You would”
“Silence!” The angel closed the book and pointed at Morgan. Her lips melted together, and her face withered. Within seconds she looked like a hairy prune—dark, warped, and wrinkled.
The angel’s eyes blazed with white fire. “I need not defend Jehovah-Sabaoth to you, but for these witnesses I will proclaim the truth. Every man, every woman, every ancient witch who suffers in the second death is a faithless rebel. They are liars. They are murderers. They are idolaters. They are stumbling blocks to those who seek the truth.” He pointed at Morgan again. “And you, Lilith, are the symbol that represents all of these sins. A day will come when Hades will give up its dead, and all of your kind will join you in the Lake of Fire, but you and these other nine must go now.”
The other two angels grabbed her arms and dragged her to the edge of the platform. As they passed by the bench, Morgan’s dress swept across Walter’s arm, boiling his stomach once again. Then, picking her up, the angels threw her into the lake.
Walter grimaced, expecting to hear the sounds of horrible agony—a blood-curdling scream or a lamenting wail, but not even the tiniest splash erupted from the lake, only a strong sulfur odor that quickly diffused. Morgan’s wrinkled head bobbed to the surface, her face in red flames as she joined the other crimson beacons in the eternal black void.
The lead angel’s voice boomed again. “The rest of you come forth!”
The other nine shuffled forward. Most seemed well dressed and groomed, making them look like respected professionals who might be gladdened by the company of angels, but their terrified faces and shaking bodies revealed the horrible truth—they feared the torture that lay ahead.
Nodding at his colleagues, the lead angel said, “Bring the millstones.” The two angels flew away, returning only seconds later with ropes and nine stone discs. They tied a wheel-like disc to the neck of each of the nine, leaving just enough rope between stone and neck to allow both the wheel and the prisoner to stand upright.
The lead angel reopened his book. “You are of the liars Yeshua decried when he said, ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”
As the angel closed the book, his glow brightened again and arched over the trembling prisoners. “You have caused many little ones to stumble. You are entering Perdition in this manner so that these true witnesses may testify that all who bring such offense will earn a place in the Lake of Fire.”
The two angels began pulling the nine and their millstones to the edge of the platform, some kicking and flailing their arms.
His throat constricting tightly, Walter watched each condemned prisoner’s feet drag across the star’s spire that pointed toward the lake. The six men and three women poured out anguished wails but no words—no protests of innocence, no pleas for mercy, no curses. One by one, the angel picked up the millstone and pressed it against the prisoner’s chest before throwing both in.
When the last of the nine plunged into the lake and disappeared into its depths, Walter covered his face with his hands and wept. Shaking so hard his ribs ached, he peeked between his fingers at Yereq. The giant just sat and stared at the setting sun, wide-eyed, a single tear tracking into his beard.
The lead angel sat next to Walter. “Many questions are in your mind. Do you care to raise them?”
Walter licked his dry lips and tried to stop shaking. It was just too awful! Those poor souls would suffer in those flames forever and ever and ever! They could never get out, not in a million, billion years.
Looking out over the black turmoil, he spotted Morgan’s face, her mouth agape in anguish. Was she right? Was God really a cruel tyrant?
He shook his head hard. No! It couldn’t be! If God sent those people here, then it had to be the right thing to do, no matter how pitiful they looked, no matter how horrific an eternity of punishment would be.
As the sulfur fumes again assaulted his nose, the nausea rekindled and his shakes worsened. The angel spread a wing over him, immediately calming his nerves. Sniffing, he gazed into the angel’s radiant face and squeaked out his words. “I guess … I guess they had a trial, didn’t they?”
The angel’s wide brow lifted. “Indeed, they did. They went before the judgment seat, and their deeds were exposed. They knew their guilt, so, as you witnessed, all but one had no words of protest. There is coming a great judgment day when all will come to the judgment seat in like manner, and even the thoughts and intentions of the heart will be laid bare.”
Walter swiped his sleeve under his nose. “What about MorgI mean, Lilith? Can you answer all that stuff she said?”
The angel’s eyes blazed again. “She is Lucifer’s personal minion, one who willingly worships him. She is like a rebel angel herself, so she was well versed in attacking the light of truth. Like the serpent of old, she twists the minds of those who are foolish enough to listen.” As the fire in his pupils settled, his voice eased into a gentler tone. “Eternal punishment is not cruel; it is deserved. Every condemned soul has resisted the call of God and rejected the light he was given. As a created mortal, you cannot understand the severity of lifelong rebellion against the immortal Creator. Living without surrendering honor to the Life-giver is the very heart of rebellion. It is the worship of self, the sin that leads to all others and establishes the heart of pride.”
Walter again gazed at the flaming heads in the lake, reading the agony in the screaming faces that represented horribly tortured minds. As a new wave of nausea boiled inside, he pushed his palm against his stomach and bent over. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
The angel stroked his back. “As all men of compassion become when they consider the destiny of the unrighteous. We angels celebrate the judgment, for we see what you do not see, yet cannot feel what you must feel when you sympathize with their pain.”
Walter swallowed back an eruption of acidic bile. The burning sensation refreshed the pain he felt for those in the black fire. Their burning was far worse, a scalding torture that enveloped their entire bodies, but they couldn’t swallow it away.
He glanced again at the silent screamers, the angel’s words echoing, the heart of pride, the heart of pride. As one of the women floated closer, in his mind, a new face covered hersAshley’s.
The thought of her in that horrible lake stung his heart. He wanted to ask the angel, but should he? Could he bear to hear the answer he dreaded? He closed his eyes tightly, trying to shake away the image, but he couldn’t. He had to know! He just had to!
Clearing his throat, he looked down and twisted the toe of his shoe against the platform. “I have a friend … Ashley Stalworth. She has nightmares about going to Hell, so … I was wondering …” He looked up at the angel, trying to keep his voice from squeaking. “Is she in your book anywhere?”
The angel nodded sympathetically. “You are concerned about her destiny.”
“Uh-huh. She doesn’t really have much faith, because she’s kind of … I don’t know how to say it …” He twisted his shoe even harder. “Maybe it’s like you were saying before … I guess she has a heart of pride.”
The angel reopened his book, flipped through a few pages, and ran his finger along an entry. “She has not yet made her final decision, so her destiny is yet to be determined.” He looked again at Walter. “Your prayers and the prayers of others have ascended on high, and Yeshua is calling Ashley to himself. Whether she responds to his call is ultimately up to her.”
Walter caught a glimpse of the book, but the angel didn’t seem to mind. The page was filled with beautiful but unrecognizable characters. He clenched his fist and set his hand on Yereq’s knee. “But we can help, right? We can tell her about this place and warn her!”
Yereq shook himself out of his trance and turned toward Walter and the angel. “I am ready to serve in any way I can.”
The angel stood and drew a flaming sword from his robe. Its dazzling blade dwarfed Excalibur’s both in size and in brilliance. Walter trembled, and he could feel Yereq shaking the bench.
“What emotion do you feel?” the angel asked.
“Scared.” Walter edged farther back in his seat. “So scared I’m getting sick again.”
The angel swiped the point of the blade within an inch of Walter’s nose, so close he felt the scorching heat. He lurched back, nearly losing his balance, but Yereq caught him before he could fall.
Giving Walter a stern look, the angel’s voice boomed. “Does the sight of this blade cause you to love me?”
Walter could barely breathe, but managed a weak shake of his head.
The angel’s sword continued to blaze. “Fear rarely creates a heart of devotion. It is love that begets love. Since Ashley is a skeptic and already lives in fear, telling her of this place could drive her even further from the heart of God.” He put the sword back into his robe. “If, however, the faithful show her the love of a perfected heart, her skeptic’s heart of stone will more easily be made into one of flesh.”
As if cued by the vanishing sword, Walter’s throat loosened, and his nausea eased. “How do I show her that kind of love?”
“Sacrifice. Since you are one of Yeshua’s lambs, sacrifice is the one and only word you need to know and perform. She will see his face in you.”
Walter pushed himself to a standing position, but his legs still shook badly. “So how do we”—he nodded at Yereq“—get back to the world above?”
The angel produced another sword, just as large but without flames, and gave it to Yereq. “God still has a purpose for this Naphil, but he must remain here battling the wandering devils until a later time when I will restore him to his proper place. Those devils will eventually be swept into the Lake of Fire, but for now they are well suited for preparing Yereq’s heart, mind, and body for his upcoming task.”
Feeling much stronger, Walter smiled at Yereq. “Is it all right if I tell Sapphira that he’s okay?”
“You may, if you wish, but for Ashley’s sake, I advise against it. It would be better to avoid all mention of the lake of fire if you hope to replace her fear with love and hope.”
Walter sighed. “She has a lot of fear. That’s for sure.”
The angel spread out his wings. “And that is why you were brought here.”
Walter didn’t bother to ask what he meant. He already knew. He could finally feel Ashley’s greatest terror, the darkness of the abyss, and now fear and love combined to stoke a raging fire in his soul. He had to show Ashley what love was all about—the sacrifice of a devoted heart. He had to make sure she would never have to fear this place again.
“Come,” the angel said, reaching out his hand. “I will take you back to your friends.”