Chapter 57
MY FATHER’S FINAL lesson for the day was a shocker.
“This was the battle I had been preparing for, Daniel. In Kansas.”
“When Number 1 came for you and Mom?”
My father nodded.
“But why were you training to fight Number 2? Why not Number 1? If you had concentrated on the top gun…”
“It was my mission, Daniel. It was why your mother and I came to this planet.”
“To fight Number 2? I don’t get it.”
“Daniel, Number 2 is the one humans call the Prince of Darkness. He is Satan.”
“The devil?”
Now the walls of the barn were filled with fiery images. Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment from the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, showing Satan as the boatman Charon ferrying the evildoers down to hell. A snake hissing in the verdant undergrowth of a garden. The cloven-hoofed, twin-horned fiend of legend and horror films.
My father turned to gaze at the devilish imagery writhing across the walls.
“He is the great pretender,” my father said. “A fallen angel fighting for souls, hoping to lure them into the darkness. He is the one Muslims call Iblis, a demon created out of smokeless fire. He is Beelzebub, who can cast evil suggestions into the hearts of men and women. He is the one ancient Zoroastrians called Angra Mainyu, ‘the destructive spirit.’ And you, Daniel, must fight him.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the beginning of the Apocalypse. The final, cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil; the ultimate struggle between the creator and the destroyer; a clash that is written about in holy texts on every planet in this universe because the devil—the one who thrives on evil, hatred, and destruction—is everywhere.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “If Number 2 is the devil, who or what is Number 1?”
“Something much worse,” said my father. “He is a deity, Daniel. A god.”