Rise of the Fallen

by Chuck Black

  “It’s dangerous, Persimus. You have no backup … no one watching out for you.”

  “And what you are doing isn’t dangerous? These boys have no one watching out for them either … or at least they didn’t. Besides, I’ve learned a few tricks that no one else knows.”

  Validus looked at the brave and compassionate angel he called friend and smiled. He shook his head. “You are the bravest warrior I know, Persimus, and I’m proud to be your friend!”

  Persimus hugged Validus again. “It’s good to see you, Validus. I’ve missed you.”

  “This seems too much of a coincidence,” Validus said.

  “Perhaps for us, but not for Elohim.” Persimus’s countenance turned serious. “What are you doing messing with Barob? That’s not just dangerous; that’s plain foolish.”

  Validus hesitated. “You’d better scan again. If they figure out I’m here, the gates of hell will be unleashed.”

  Persimus made another scan, this time taking a few minutes to be sure the entire area was clear. When he returned, Validus told him all that had happened.

  By morning they had a plan.

  The next morning, José, Paulo, and Luiz met Validus and Persimus at the shack. José offered the end of a loaf of bread. Validus was amazed at how hungry he was, and though the bread looked old and stale, it was tempting to down the morsels to stop the howling in his stomach.

  “That’s your breakfast, isn’t it, José?” Persimus asked.

  “It’s okay. I’ll get to eat later. Here,” he said, shoving the bread into Validus’s hand. “Eat.”

  Validus took the bread and tore it into three pieces, offering one each to Persimus and José. José gave a sheepish smile, then took the bread and devoured it.

  The boys made their way back to the street where Miguel lived. By now it was midmorning, and the favela was bustling with activity. Validus appeared to be trying to gather the courage to enter the shack.

  José put a hand on Validus’s shoulder. “I’ll go in with you if you want me to.”

  Validus glanced at Persimus. “No, I want to show him I’m not afraid. He won’t hurt me once he knows I’m family.”

  José nodded. “We’ll be out here if you need us.”

  The other three boys all nodded, Paulo and Luiz gathering courage from José.

  Validus retraced his steps to the shack of Barob and leaned cautiously inside. In the chair sat the room’s lone occupant. The lampshade cast a shadow across the face of the man so that Validus couldn’t see him clearly.

  “What do you want?” The voice was raspy and deep.

  “I am looking for Miguel,” Validus said.

  “Come closer, boy, so I can see you better,” the voice called from the shadow.

  Validus slowly stepped toward him. The place reeked of both evil and feces.

  The man leaned forward out of the shadows, glaring at Validus with hollow eyes. “I’m sure you are.” He smiled, revealing yellow teeth through a vile smile. “I told them you would come.”

  “I don’t understand … Who would come?” Validus asked innocently as he studied the man’s dark eyes. They were eyes not his own. It had to be Tinsalik Barob.

  The man’s eyes grew fierce. “Don’t play games with me!” He snapped out his arm and grabbed Validus by the throat.

  Validus pulled at the hand with his boy fingers, but it was locked around his neck in a steel grip. Translation was his only option.

  “Go ahead, translate,” Barob said with a distant stare behind Validus. They are waiting to cut you down in a moment. Do it!” He began to laugh. “Yes, you angels are so stupid. Over and over I trick you and kill you, and you keep coming back. What fools God has made!”

  Validus fought for air. He would not last much longer. He fought the urge to translate, for he knew there were swords and death waiting for him if he did.

  “Leave him alone!” José screamed from the doorway.

  Validus could just see his four friends in the doorway with rocks and sticks, ready to save him.

  Barob turned to look at the brave boys. “Leave!” he snarled in the voice of a demon.

  “Go find help,” José ordered.

  “You know more people. You go, and I’ll stay with Diego,” Persimus said. “Hurry!”

  Barob growled and rose up out of the chair, lifting Validus by his neck. As soon as the other three boys disappeared, Persimus attacked at the same time that Validus wrapped his arm around Barob’s arm, using his shoulder to break the grip on his neck. Persimus drove a shoulder into Barob’s side. As Barob’s grip loosened, Validus knuckle punched his throat.

  Barob recoiled and struck back. He grabbed Persimus around the waist and threw him up against the wall. For a boy his size, the impact would have knocked him out or even killed him, but Persimus was ready. Though they were limited by the physiques of boys, they had four thousand years of warrior experience on which to rely. Persimus spun midair and was able to get an arm and a leg into position to cushion the impact. He fell to the ground and was back up a second later.

  Validus attempted to drive an elbow punch into Barob’s abdomen, but the demon caught it and used Validus’s arm to sling him to the other wall. The impact hurt, but he too was able to calculate and absorb the shock with minimal damage to his body.

  The strange duel between demon-possessed man and angel-empowered boys continued on. The advantage for Barob was his immunity to much of the pain and also the power-endowed body of the man he possessed. Before long all three combatants were bruised and bleeding.

  Barob came for Persimus.

  “Stop!” Validus shouted. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “But I want to hurt you!” Barob snarled in a guttural voice.

  “The Fallen are coming, Barob,” Validus said.

  Barob turned and glared at Validus with blood-red eyes.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he said between gravelly breaths. “Apollyon is coming for me, and it’s because of you, angel,” he screamed, pointing his crooked finger at Validus. “I have nothing left with which to barter for my life. I am just a threat now, and he’s coming to eliminate me … to destroy me.”

  Validus held up his hands. “He’s coming to destroy us both.”

  Validus knew he couldn’t appeal to Barob’s conscience. He had none, for it had been seared by the hot iron of evil for over six thousand years. There was only one argument to appeal to a demon who was twice fallen.

  “Take one last action of independence—defy him. You owe him nothing! If he is coming to destroy you, why honor him by your silence? Tell me what you know to spite him.”

  Barob’s face twisted in a contortion of hate, spite, and rage, then vengeful delight. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and tilted his head as if he could hear his dark master coming. He glared at Validus, and for one brief moment, his countenance filled with fear and desperation as the man’s soul fought to gain control.

  “They’re coming!” the man cried out, his eyes darting from side to side.

  “Shut up!” Barob screamed as he subdued the man and his stark fear.

  Validus looked at Persimus and nodded. Persimus left to keep the other boys from returning.

  “Yes … to spite Apollyon one last time.” The corners of Barob’s mouth turned upward as he subconsciously scratched a wound on his arm until it bled. “Apollyon sent three of his warriors to Zion to the Hall of Ages to discover the trigger point of the End of Days so he could change it.”

  “Impossible,” Validus interjected. “They would have been dissolved before—”

  Barob roared his disgust. “Quiet, angel! Your ignorance offends me. Quiet, or I will tell you nothing!”

  Validus glared at Barob, still and quiet, but waiting. He would decide later how much of Barob’s words were fabricated.

  “Two of the warriors entered the city through the crystal waters beneath the wall.”

  Validus knew he was lying now. Demons did not survive long-term exposure to wat
er, especially immersion. Validus had seen it. The pain was worse than the Curing, and the end of it was always a slow, painful dissolution to the Abyss.

  Barob sneered when he saw the disbelief in Validus’s expression. “They knew they would not survive, but Apollyon promised them a position of power when the gates of the Abyss are opened.” Barob scoffed. “They had a choice—the Abyss without a promise or the Abyss with one. The Abyss is not just a prison. It’s the yoke by which Apollyon rules.” Barob fell silent for a moment, and Validus waited.

  “They didn’t know if they would survive long enough to discover what Apollyon wanted. In searing agony they made their way to the Hall of Ages. One of the warriors entered while the other waited at the door to carry the message back to the third warrior waiting beyond the wall.”

  Barob stopped and began to lick the open wound on his arm. The demon moaned with delight at the taste of the blood. Validus turned away in disgust. He could hardly take it.

  Out in the streets he could hear men shouting. The drug lord and his gunmen were coming.

  “Did it work?” Validus nearly shouted.

  The man Barob had possessed cried out. “I must run. They will kill me … they will kill me!” His eyes darted about the room, but his body seemed frozen, unable to move.

  His face contorted from fear and terror back to a calm, ghoulish peace. “No,” Barob said. “We will not run. You will die, and the draegers will come for you.”

  From the eyes of a human, the exchange was schizophrenic, but Validus knew exactly what was happening. Barob was through with this host. Whether it was to escape to roam again or to go to the prison of the Abyss, he was tired of the man. His only escape was the man’s death.

  Barob recovered control and glared at Validus. “Why do you think they are coming for me? They know something about the future that you don’t, a secret that Elohim is hiding.” His face twisted into a malicious smile. “And they know the only way you can find out is through me. That’s why Apollyon is coming to kill us both.”

  Something Barob said sent chills through Validus. Was this a secret of Elohim that he was not supposed to know? Validus hadn’t considered that finding the answer he sought might anger the Lord. Perhaps his discovering what Apollyon knew might be an act of disobedience.

  The realization sobered Validus to his core, and it frightened him. How had he rationalized, searched, and come this far without understanding this?

  Trembling, he stood up, repenting that he had come, fully understanding that this act may not have helped in his mission to protect Carter but instead actually jeopardized it. He turned to leave, wondering if it was already too late to escape.

  “Drew Carter is the last,” Barob said, smiling almost gleefully.

  Validus froze.

  “That was the message the demon shouted out before dissolution—Drew Carter is the last. Apollyon knows the Book of Life is nearly full. He’s going to kill Carter before he is saved and Sydney Carlyle, just as a measure of precaution. He’s changed the course of humanity before, and he’ll do it again.”

  Barob began to laugh sadistically. He had played Validus all along, knowing what it would mean for him to learn this secret. He had entangled Validus with his words and brought potential judgment against him because of it.

  “Now you know, angel!” Barob mocked. “How does it taste?” His laughter filled the dingy room.

  The drug lord and his men were at the door.

  Validus ran to the back doorway and bolted through it, but the laughter of the demon lingered and danced in his mind. He scrambled across the littered floor and shimmied through the window of the adjoining shack. One more shack and he reached the alley behind this cluster of houses.

  Outside he cried out to Elohim, pleading to hear His voice but afraid of the silence that might be waiting for him forever. Validus had never known fear, not even facing the worst of droxans, but he knew it now. He fell to his knees in the muck of the alley behind the dilapidated shack and lifted his face and hands toward heaven.

  “My God, my God, forgive my foolishness. In my ignorance I have offended You. Please do not forsake Your servant!”

  Validus’s heart broke as he contemplated what it might mean to fall out of fellowship with the Holy One. He wept bitterly in the silence of his waiting. Long seconds passed until there, in the refuge of humanity, the angel warrior wrapped in the flesh of an impoverished little boy heard the whisper of God.

  Be still, My servant, and be at peace. I am here, and My love for you is unchanged. Rise up and fight!

  Validus’s tears of sorrow turned to tears of great joy. It would be the closest he would ever come to feeling the joy of salvation filling the heart of a human for the first time.

  The blue fire of Ruach Elohim began to fall on him, filling his heart with the courage of the King. The Fallen were coming, and even though he could not see them, he knew they were near. He bathed in the power of Elohim’s Spirit, knowing that just across the thin veil of the realms, a raging war waited for him.

  He shouted out his praise to God and began to translate back into the world of angels and demons. The translation hurt, and midway through it, the world exploded around him, filling his eyes and ears with excruciatingly vivid sensations once again. All around him thousands of angels were fighting desperately, all to protect him. It felt as if the world were collapsing in on him.

  “Validus!” Captain Bern shouted from atop a nearby shack as he threw Validus’s sword to him.

  Validus caught the weapon just in time to slice across the chest of an attacking demon. He looked to his left and saw Persimus battling with two fierce demons. He ran to his side and engaged one of the Fallen not a moment too soon.

  Gunshots rang out in the shack beside them, and a moment later there was a flurry of activity by the Fallen just behind the line of battle. Barob, now freed from his host, was on the move, fleeing through the walls of the thousands of shacks in the favela. Many of the Fallen gave chase, easing the raging fight surrounding Validus and the warriors of Sorak.

  Validus searched for an exit route for the warriors. The forest was southwest—their best chance.

  “Captain, have your men retreat to the forest!” he shouted to Bern. Sorak had obviously put him in charge of the assault.

  Slowly they extracted themselves from the favela. Validus and Persimus were the last to leave, providing cover for the wounded warriors.

  Just before they reached the tree line, the Fallen redoubled their efforts to get to Validus, but reinforcements from Sorak’s legions to the south arrived and put the attack down. They gave aid to their wounded and recovered back to headquarters at Sao Paulo Cathedral.

  Once the wounded were attended to and the regional commanders had given their reports, Validus and Persimus were called to a private meeting with Commander Sorak. He deserved answers. Validus had brought the Fallen from two continents to his doorstep and disrupted his entire force, jeopardizing many of the scheduled missions in South America.

  Sorak stood with his arms crossed, glaring … waiting.

  “Commander Sorak, I know this has been costly to you and you don’t even know why.” Validus stopped, remembering that moment when he thought he had lost everything. “What I discovered I’m not sure I’m supposed to know, but now I know why the Fallen are trying to destroy Drew Carter and why I’ve been assigned to protect him.”

  Sorak eyed Validus with a steely gaze. “You and I have seen too many battles and fought in too many wars to pretend like we don’t make mistakes. I don’t need answers from you as to why you did it. I just need to know that the men who lost their lives today did so for something worthy.”

  Validus stared back, remembering the valiant fight of every warrior—knowing the pain of their dissolution and of their angst in Mount Simcha at being unable to continue the fight with their brothers. He also knew how much harder the remaining battles would be without them.

  “Apollyon is trying to interrupt the time line for
the End of Days. He knows his time is short, and he intends to change that. Your men fought for the very preservation of the will of Elohim on earth as the End of Days draws closer.”

  Sorak thought for a moment, then nodded. It seemed to be enough.

  “Commander,” Captain Bern interrupted, “a guardian is here for Commander Validus.”

  Bern stepped aside, and the guardian stepped forward.

  “Tren!” Validus exclaimed, delighted to see his fellow protector. But his delight was short lived, for he knew that Tren’s presence could only mean one thing … trouble.

  “Validus, you’d better come back with me, and soon. Carter could be in serious trouble.”

  “How can he be in serious trouble? The FBI have him. That’s as safe as a nonbeliever can get.”

  Tren shook his head. “You won’t say that when you find out what they’re planning on doing to him.”

  “Who?” Persimus asked. “The Fallen?”

  Tren shook his head. “The United States Government.”

  Validus scrutinized Tren. He couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worse than defending an unbeliever from the gangs of Chicago and the FBI all at the same time.

  He morphed his wings, and Persimus and Tren followed suit.

  Validus looked at Persimus. “The boys?”

  “He’s briefed us,” Commander Sorak interjected. “We’ll take care of them. Restoration Ministries in Sao Paulo is a great asset for us.”

  “Thank you, Commander.” Validus nodded.

  Sorak nodded back. “Godspeed, Commander Validus.”

  The trio launched upward through the ceiling of the cathedral and into the heavy, humid air of Brazil.

  “Drew Carter … the last salvation,” Validus said almost to himself as they gained speed.

  At least now I know why the Fallen are after him. They’ll stop at nothing to delay the End of Days and their impending judgment, Validus thought.

  Tren flew to his left. The guardian was discerning, and Validus knew he needed to rely more on his abilities than he previously had. He was as good a guardian as Validus had seen. Choosing him for the mission to protect Carter until salvation now made perfect sense.