A Pale Horse

by Wendy Alec

  She walked briskly toward number 64. She had pulled on a pair of faded jeans and sneakers. Her hair was pulled off her face in a simple ponytail, and she wore no makeup, only lip gloss and sunglasses. Passing the specialists’ offices until she came to number 64 Wimpole Street, she walked up the steps of the red brick building and stopped outside a gold plaque that read “THE REDGRAVE MEDICAL LIBRARY.” It started to snow lightly.

  She pressed the buzzer.

  Chapter Six

  Perdition

  Cydonia Mensae Region, Planet Mars

  2024

  Michael stood, his cloak wrapped tightly around his lean imperial form, his flaxen braids lashing his face, his cape flying wildly in the freezing arctic tempests.

  He stared out beyond the southern polar cap of Mars, toward the great silver battlements of the Ice Citadel of Gehenna, glistening in the nine magenta ice suns that rose from the murky, cold skies above the brooding ice-capped crags of Vesper.

  The Second Heaven.

  Lucifer’s forbidding realm.

  The wild, barren ice plains of Gehenna stretched for miles, surrounding the great looming fortress. Freez- ing arctic blizzards and tempests from Mars circled the citadel continually, venting their fury on Lucifer’s winter palace.

  The skies grew dark as packs of monstrous scaled gray-winged leviathans flew through the Martian skies, their powerful translucent webbed seraphim wings beating the air frenziedly, seething ice smoke spewing from their nostrils. A ghoulish screeching filled the solar system as thousands of white devourer vultures circled overhead.

  Michael turned. There, striding toward him over the barren landscape, was Lucifer.

  The familiar magnificent figure stopped directly in front of him.

  Michael studied his brother. Nine feet tall, lean, his waist-length raven hair lashing his face in the freezing wind.

  Lucifer raised his scarred imperial features in ecstasy to the dark blizzards that blew in from the White Dwarf Pinnacles. Then he turned to face Michael. He smiled brilliantly.

  “It has been many moons since we last fellowshipped, brother.” He bowed.

  Michael bowed in return.

  Lucifer ascended, his black wings outstretched, and hovered above the planet.

  Michael followed his elder brother into the bleak sky. Far below them rose a steep-flanked mass of rock eight hundred feet high.

  The shadowy likeness of a sphinxlike face, nearly two miles from end to end, stared back at them.

  “A memorial to the fallen cherub, the light bearer,” Michael murmured.

  A strange, evil smile flickered on Lucifer’s lips.

  “Quite a good likeness of me—I was gratified,” he murmured. “The Gray Magus conceived the blueprints. My shaman kings built it—a memorial to my eternal presence in the solar system. However, let us dispense with trivialities. You summoned me.”

  Michael held out a missive with the royal seal of the House of Yehovah.

  Lucifer snatched the missive and tore it open. He turned his back to Michael, pacing up and down as he read.

  “He dares,” Lucifer muttered. “He dares to give me an ultimatum.”

  He swung around to Michael, his eyes rabid with rage.

  “He threatens me with expulsion from both the First and the Second Heavens . . . unless we, the Fallen, desist in our genetic experimentation.”

  “That includes your nefarious scheme involving the Nephilim bodies transported to Mont St. Michel from Antarctica.”

  Michael watched intently as Lucifer’s expression changed to one of sheer hatred.

  “The Second Heaven is legally my territory,” he hissed. “I possess the title deeds. Eternal Law cannot be overruled.”

  “Unless you violate it by your own hand.” Michael stared at him. Fierce. “You have gone too far this time, Lucifer,” he warned. “You have contravened Eternal Law by your schemes to manipulate the Race of Men’s DNA. Even as the Watchers of old. Your legal claim on the Second Heaven became invalid the moment you contravened Eternal Law.”

  “I am chief prince, seraphim, second only to His throne,” Lucifer snarled. “I will enter the First Heaven just as and when I please.”

  Michael grasped his arm. “Those days are long gone. It would behoove you to heed it. Yehovah well knows your ill-founded schemes to mutate the Race of Men’s DNA. Your extraterrestrial creatures and your flying machines are known both to Yehovah and to the High Councils of the First Heaven.”

  Lucifer looked in revulsion at Michael, then removed himself from his grasp.

  “And will shortly be disclosed to the Race of Men,” he snarled. “The Race of Men—their television, movies, video games—all propagate my gospel, the gospel of extraterrestrial beings. How fervently they believe in us, not as the Fallen but as ascended masters, as a benevolent race from an older planet.

  “The revelation of an ancient civilization will prove that intelligent life other than man exists in the universe. Proof of artificially built structures on the moon and Cydonia, Mars, will eventually lead the Race of Men to the conclusion that the entities responsible designed and guided them throughout history—that our presence on Mars and in UFOs confirms that we are their gods.

  “Then we shall wreak our final revenge. We shall instruct them that the Nazarene was one of our own. No more, no less.

  “We shall persuade them that we are the gods they seek. They will worship us, their masters. The truth of the Nazarene and Golgotha will be obliterated.”

  The two brothers stared at each other, their hands on their broadswords, Lucifer with loathing, Michael with disgust.

  “You are drunk with your own importance, brother,” Michael snapped.

  “Michael, the ever sanctimonious.”

  “Lucifer, the deluded.”

  “Why should we not war right this minute, brother?”

  Lucifer grasped the hilt of his broadsword handle.

  “But oh, no.” He drew his sword and raised it to the skies. “Yehovah requires an army.”

  With a deft thrust, he struck the sword from Michael’s grasp. It clattered to the icy ground.

  “I was always faster than you, younger brother.”

  Lucifer returned his broadsword to its sheath at his side, his eyes hard as flint.

  “The war is not between you and me,” Michael said through gritted teeth.

  “Whom is it between, Michael? Pray enlighten me. I earnestly seek to be enlightened by my pious younger brother. Should I fight Yehovah? Will He descend from His holy hill? Will He descend from His rubied sanctuary. From His place of safety? His asylum?

  “Will He descend in the likeness of the angelic and have the nerve to fight me face to face?” he snarled.

  “Oh, no, my naive younger brother. Yehovah will stay out of harm’s way, in His anodyne habitation, His safe haven. Instead, He sends my brother to wage war against me.”

  “I tire, Lucifer,” Michael sighed. “Your beguiling speeches that once found their mark leave no trace on me.”

  “You have received Yehovah’s ultimatum, yet you dare continue with this folly. Hark back to the days of the fallen Watchers. They crossed the point of no return by committing intercourse with the daughters of men.”

  Lucifer grinned. “The Nephilim. What fun!”

  “You well know that the mutation of the Race of Men’s DNA carries the severest judgment. The Watchers lie chained these past millennia, reeking of sulphur in the lowest pits of hell beyond the abyss.”

  Lucifer’s expression grew dark. “I do not need my earnest younger brother to remind me of their eternal damnation.”

  “I warn you, Lucifer,” Michael continued. “If you reject Yehovah’s ultimatum and persist in your schemes of genetic Armageddon, you shall not only be expelled from the gates of the First Heaven, but I shall personally drive you and your Fallen from your monstrous citadels on the planets and constellations of the Second Heaven. Earth alone shall be your habitation.”

  Michael stood, his
hand on his broadsword.

  “You have forty moons to comply. Yehovah’s ultimatum runs out on the eve of the Great Tribulation of the Race of Men. At the rise of the two crimson moons.

  “You have been warned, brother.”

  He vanished.

  Lucifer stood trembling with rage, staring after him. The warlocks of the west materialized in front of him.

  “Summon the Dread Councils of hell,” Lucifer murmured. He raised his head to the warlocks of the west, whose hands were raised as they murmured their dark incantations.

  Summon the royal princes of Grecia, of Babylonia, the black ice magus. Summon the warlocks of Ishtar, the wort seers of Diabolos. Summon the necromancer kings. The Cyclops of Diabolos. Summon the legions of the damned to gather on the ice plains of Gehenna.”

  He held up the missive high.

  “We will conspire!”

  Chapter Seven

  Gabriel’s Palace Bedchamber

  Palace of Archangels

  Gabriel tossed and turned on his bed. Sweat from his brow soaked his pillow.

  “War,” he muttered, his eyes glazed and unseeing. “War . . . Hell and death ride with the Dragon.”

  Michael stood at the balcony doors, staring out at the seven pale blue moons glimmering on the First Heaven’s horizon.

  “You have returned from Mars,” Jether said. Michael turned. Jether stood in the bedchamber doorway.

  “Lucifer would war.” Michael sighed. “His self-importance has become insatiable these past eons.”

  Jether walked over to Michael. They stood together in silence.

  Finally Jether spoke. “It is his final answer?”

  Michael shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “He summons the Dread Councils of hell. They hold court.”

  He gazed back toward Gabriel.

  “Each night, it is the same, Jether. Gabriel falls into a deep and restless sleep; then the dreamings grip him like a vise. He is tormented by the visions he sees.”

  “He sees the Third Great War,” Jether murmured. “The War of the Revelation of St. John—the war between Michael and the Dragon.”

  “He is the Revelator,” Michael stated. “We knew it would be so. It would seem my elder brother has learned absolutely nothing from his defeat these past millennia.”

  “As eons pass, the wisdom of Yehovah recedes from him,” said Jether. “In its place grows the unruliness of lawlessness and pride. He becomes defiant. Reckless with his own self-importance.” Jether heaved a deep sigh. “Reckless because he knows that a millennium chained in the bottomless pit awaits him . . . and the Lake of Fire. We cannot act officially until the full forty moons of the ultimatum have passed. Yehovah’s justice demands he be given the allotted time.”

  “He will not go quietly to his doom,” Michael answered. “His intention remains. To set himself up as ultimate ruler, to set up the fallen angelic host in our place and rid the First Heaven of every trace of the Race of Men.”

  “Yes.” Jether looked at Michael with compassion. “Because of the victorious sacrifice of the slain Lamb on Golgotha, judicially, victory is ours. But practically, Michael, we are still required to enforce his defeat in the heavenlies. It is written in the High Courts. You, Michael, must prepare our armies.”

  “War.” Gabriel sat bolt upright in horror, his eyes glazed. “There was war in heaven,” he muttered. “Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels . . . ”

  Sweat dripped from his brow.

  “At the rise of the two crimson moons, forty moons hence, the Great Portals shall open. I see Lucifer. He storms the gates of the First Heaven, his wrath unbridled.”

  Jether walked over to Gabriel, but Gabriel stared through him, unseeing, then placed his head in his hands, trembling violently.

  “It is the Great War of the Apocalypse—war between Michael and the Dragon.”

  Jether bent over him, stroking his matted hair. “But the Dragon was defeated, Gabriel,” he whispered. “And there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great Dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”

  Gabriel’s countenance changed. His eyes focused first on Jether and then on Michael.

  “He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him,” Gabriel said softly. “It will result in the greatest conflagration that the Race of Men and planet Earth have ever seen. This last war—it precedes the great battle of Armageddon.”

  He rose and walked across the amethyst floors of his bedchamber.

  Jether watched as Gabriel bathed his face in the hot springs.

  “Let us ride,” said Gabriel. “It will clear my head.”

  He led the way down white marbled balcony steps onto the sands of infinity below his palace apartments. He mounted a beautiful winged white stallion, as did Michael, while Jether climbed astride Vesper the giant eagle’s saddled back.

  Together they ascended the skies, flying past the pale blue moons beyond the enormous Pearled Gates of the First Heaven. Out into the galaxies, far beyond them, was the faint silhouette of the Fourth Horse and its rider.

  “Nisroc, keeper of hell and death, rides a pale horse. The fourth seal of Revelation is about to be broken. The fifth seal yet awaits. The Rapture of all who wear the Nazarene’s seal will take place. Then the Great Tribulation of the Race of Men.”

  They stared out as one toward planet Earth and the galaxies surrounding it.

  “The Harpazo—the great snatching away of the church —the Rapture,” Jether murmured. “It draws near. Lucifer, in his obsessive envy of the Race of Men, will not share heaven with the Race of Men.”

  Michael moved his hand across the galaxies. Instantly, Moloch and his black horde became visible on Saturn. Their black braided hair hung well below their thighs. Their pale straw-colored eyes stared pitilessly out from their scarred, mangled faces. Alongside the fallen horde, a pack of snarling black jaguars paced, chained to their depraved masters, their poisonous black fangs visible, each with a tail of seven snakes.

  “The Fallen hone their warring skills. Moloch and his bloodthirsty black horde battle each other on Venus and Saturn.”

  “There is worse,” Jether murmured. “The Dread Councils of hell gather on the ice plains of Gehenna. The Twins of Malfecium create Lucifer’s supersoldiers: hybrids, chimeras. Monsters.”

  “We await his response to Yehovah’s ultimatum,” said Michael.

  “Lucifer’s visits to the First Heaven have become strangely rare these past moons,” Gabriel said. “These past seventy moons, he has come to our High Council Chambers, to the Supreme Angelic Courts, with his legislative host only seven times.”

  “He schemes,” said Michael.

  “For eons, his fallen judges have brought case after case against the Race of Men. He is accuser of the brethren,” Gabriel said softly. “He rails against the just. His envy of the Race of Men is unappeasable.” He paused. “Jether, what if Lucifer chooses war?”

  “He will enter officially through the Pearl Gates, as is still his legal right. Then, in his takeover bid, his armies will storm the gates.”

  The brothers followed Jether’s gaze over to the glistening Rubied Door, so colossal in its beauty that it was still visible from the higher heavens. Their gaze fell to Eden, whose beauty was visible throughout the galaxies. They watched the glistening aurora borealis of Eden in silence.

  “Lucifer himself will battle for Eden, the garden of Yehovah Himself,” Jether continued. “This war will be the most gigantic, unprecedented event in the annals of angelic warfare.

  “If it comes to battle, we, the holy angelic host, must defeat him, for once and for all time. And we must defeat him in our own backyard.”

  Michael nodded. “My task will be to drive him from the First Heaven and rid every planet in the Second Heaven—Venus, Saturn, Mars—of him and his evil cohorts.”

  “At the time of the Great Tribulation, directly aft
er the Rapture occurs, the Great Portals will reopen. I will cast down Lucifer and his Fallen through the Portal onto planet Earth. We rid the First and Second Heavenlies of the Fallen forever.”

  “And if we lose?” Gabriel whispered.

  “We will not lose,” stated Michael. “We must keep our heads. Yehovah will keep our souls. Justice will prevail.”

  Michael stood in the balcony doorway. He raised his palm. Earth came into view. “For the devil has come down to you enraged, in great fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

  Jether stared at planet Earth for a long time. His voice was very soft. “If we lose, the consequences for the Race of Men . . . ” He raised his face to Michael and Gabriel. “ . . . are untenable. Yet if we win, for a short time, Lucifer will vent his unbridled fury on the Race of Men. Planet Earth will be ravaged by Lucifer and the Fallen.

  “However, for now we wait.”

  Chapter Eight

  Dublin International Airport, Ireland

  Jason walked out into the Dublin Airport parking lot. He surveyed the unappealing concrete horizon, then made for a smaller rental car lot directly across the road. It was midwinter, but unlike London’s currently clear blue skies, Dublin’s skies were gray and overcast, and the wind was mind-numbingly cold.

  Jason pulled his coat collar close around him and stared out at the sea of parked cars: Budget, Avis, Europcar, Hertz. Finally, he spotted it, beyond the rental signs: the long-term parking lot.

  He walked up and down the rows of VW Eoses and Mazdas. Nothing. Damn. More Volvos, BMWs, and Land-Rovers. Nothing. Damn. Finally, his eyes fell on a small, battered red 2008 Ford Escort.

  It started to rain.

  He fumbled for the car keys in his pocket as a car accelerated past, splashing him with mud. Exasperated, Jason brushed at his suit jacket.

  He looked up, coming eye to eye with an elderly couple in the car opposite him, eating sandwiches wrapped in newspaper. They glared at him suspiciously. He glared back and then, with some difficulty, opened the Escort’s door, crammed his lanky frame into the front seat, and slammed the door.