“Hello Collin. Did you sleep well? How are you feeling?”
Collin could only nod.
The Angel knelt down in front of him. “Do you know where you are?”
Collin nodded hesitantly, feeling listless as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Can you stand?”
Collin stood without speaking, the Angel helping him to his feet.
“Good. Let’s get some breakfast.”
They entered a busy hallway filled with Angels escorting others who looked just as disoriented as Collin. A moment later, they sat at a private table in a busy cafeteria. The Angel spoke only occasionally, more to check-in rather than engage in conversation. The food was fresh and delicious. Collin was unsure whether he spoke or not.
Collin suddenly found himself in a waiting room. He looked at the nameplate on the door: ‘Rabii Shareon Hadraniel’.
The name seemed familiar and brought a sense of calm. Collin looked to his left. His Angelic escort was still sitting beside him. There was only one other individual in the waiting room. From the white uniform and serene beautiful face, Collin surmised she was another Angelic escort.
Moments later the door opened. Collin looked up to see the dark dull blue face of a young female Melchizedek. She was filled with anguish, looking as if she might collapse at any moment. She looked familiar, too. Her Angelic escort was immediately at her side. The female Melchizedek jerked her head back to see Rabii Hadraniel standing in the doorway.
“Please Shareon. Please don’t send me back to Sipheria. I can do better. I promise you I can.”
The ancient Rabii calmly walked to her side and kissed her on the cheek. “Loquel. Sweetheart. I just told you. It’s really not that bad. Right now, you’re only seeing your mistakes. I promise you, I’m not going to send you to Sipheria. I’ve already written you a prescription for Oceania. You’re going to have a nice long vacation. And you’re going to stay there until you put your past few lives into perspective and are happy again. Then we’ll see what you want to do next. Okay?”
The female Melchizedek forced a smile. Her Angelic escort cupped her elbow and helped her exit the room.
The Rabii’s soothing, yellow eyes found Collin. “Hi. You again? Come on in.” She walked forward and offered Collin a hand up, then wrapped strong arms around him and gave him a tight squeeze. She led him into her office by the hand and helped him sit on a sofa.
“Still having bad dreams?” she asked as she found her well-worn chair and sat. “Who is it this time? Josephine, Wrenn, Parvarti, or Britt?”
Collin shook his head. “All the above.”
The Celestial Realm of Planet Eden
Mansion World I Space: Country of Northern Venom
City of Old Kimcha
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Haiguns stood helplessly in the shadows on the opposite side of the market. His eyes darkened as he watched Janene try to protect the young girl. Janene’s right hip and thigh were completely destroyed by one of Zohar’s Nephilim. For 50 million years, she shared Frank’s luck as they tracked the Harvesters across the planets of Satania. Today, he worried her luck had run out.
“Who is your friend?” asked the frightened young girl who had pulled Janene out of the street and under one of the tables in the market. “He looks terribly sad.”
“That’s Frank. My boss. Someone very dear to me. He sent me to save you from those two,” Janene groaned, motioning toward Beliar’s two dead Nephilim lying in the street. Two of Janene’s toxic darts were stuck in their heads, darts intended for their God, Beliar. Talk about taking one for the team, Janene mused as she studied her handiwork, then thought it funnier still when she looked at her broken body and her sudden change of mission.
“Oh my goodness me. Then this virtuous Frank must be a very good and wise Yukta Yogi, indeed,” replied the astonished young girl. Dressed as a Rishikesh Princess, she naturally assumed Frank was one of these trans-dimensional creatures. “Those two miscreants were following me for hours. It was clear they had evil designs.”
Janene began to feel some relief from the injection she gave herself. She wondered who this Princess from Rishikesh really was. She hoped it was all worth it.
Janene flicked a Fire Coin into the air and shouted, “Vive La Castile!” knowing it would make Frank’s accounts in the military arms business skyrocket. How ridiculous to think the Caligastians could have manufactured a device as remarkable as a Fire Coin, a device that was programmed for Janene’s touch, a device Queen Magdalene had given her.
She at least hoped her loud, spontaneous exclamation would amuse him. It did put a brief smile on his face. But only briefly.
A single tear made its way down Frank’s face. He knew there was nothing else he could do. He knew their cover had been blown. He knew it was impossible to pull Janene to safety. But he also knew how to drink revenge. He blew her a kiss, quickly turned, and sprinted toward an open drain and into a swift flowing sewer.
Chapter 9
Going Feral
Sometimes the life of an assassin can be quite straightforward. They take from me. I take from them. They fuck with me. I fuck with them. They kill mine. I kill theirs. They kill someone I love. I go feral. Any questions?
—Valkyrie Silver Storm Lieutenant Colonel Frank Haiguns
The Celestial Realm of Planet Eden
Country of Northern Venom
City of Kimcha Proper
Frank had few thoughts as he flowed with the shit, piss, and occasional corpses dumped in the Kimcha sewer system. Fifteen minutes later, he climbed service stairs leading to a waterfall of fresh water. He was relieved when he pulled two stones from the wall and saw his and Janene’s emergency supplies still there. He stripped down, tossed his soiled janitor’s uniform into the sewer, grabbed a bar of soap, and washed off. No one ever came down here, so he had plenty of time to let clean water baptize him and collect his thoughts.
He covered himself with a drying, lubricating powder, then dressed himself in silk cotton, Angel’s Armor, chain of mail, black leathers, and finally the latest SAS fully automated, camouflage armor. While he flowed among his enemies unnoticed, as invisible and silent as a whisper, Frank would be able to see his enemies from miles away.
“Friendofmine,” Frank said, uttering his password that turned on the armor’s computer and defense systems. He felt a small pinprick as the armor took a blood and breath sample. There was a friendly ping when the armor’s analysis verified his identity.
“Haiguns 235782. Program 1A Alpha Zero. Beliar Unavailable. Revenge. Maximum Hurt,” he said, activating a set of specialized programs.
All Frank and Janene’s accumulated information on the Harvesters was stored in deep quantum databanks. The armor’s sensor arrays absorbed a full bandwidth of information from an individual’s size, face, expression, and posture. Sensors could read the depths of Celestial and Chakric systems. They smelled every pheromone, taking in terabytes of data per microsecond, scanning everyone within range. Then hundreds of multiple, redundant, distributed computer systems would analyze any potential threats, systematically guiding him from target to target. All he had to do was not be stupid, watch where he walked, and not fall into a trap.
Frank waited until nightfall. Dressed in his full battle raiment — knives, a sword, a baton, collapsed bows and arrows, shuriken, spikes, blowguns, and darts — he slipped up a service tube and entered a dirty alleyway. Only five blocks away was the home of Kimcha’s chief of police. Frank agreed with his computers. This was a great place to start.
Beliar. I may have missed you, but I can still hurt those who support you, Frank swore to himself. On his way to the chief’s house, he caught sight of an unexpected opportunity. A small slot automatically opened at his mouth and his saliva flew. To the unsuspecting and offensive Pharisee merchant, it appeared as though spit manifested out of thin air as it sailed into his face.
A specialized virus for this particular Pharisee, loyal to Beliar, had already been manufactu
red thousands of years ago — just in case a scenario like this ever transpired. Injected into Frank’s saliva was a rare, painful, and debilitating virus that would kill the merchant within days.
Beliar, you think you understand the concept of take, considering how much you have taken from my King Joshua, considering how much you have taken from my friends, considering how much you have taken from me. But you don’t know what ‘take’ is.
Frank’s computers did not find the police chief at home with his wife and children. Instead, the chief was spending a quality evening with one of his favorite hookers at Lakshmi’s most luxurious houses of prostitution in Kimcha Proper. The chief was having a good time, right up until his head was mysteriously severed from his body. The equally vile and corrupt but gorgeous, blood-splattered hooker ran out of the room, out of the building and down the street, screaming, “Rakshasa! Rakshasa! Rakshasa!”
An invisible Frank trotted after her, prodding and jabbing her with a spike at the end of his left pinkie, steering her into the path of an oncoming train. The timing was beautiful.
That put a smile on Frank’s face.
He saw a friend of his, an elderly man with whom he had had many long, thoughtful discussions over the years. He knew this kind, elderly gentleman was frequently troubled by hooligans, hooligans the police chief protected. The hooligans died that night, too.
The taking from Beliar did not end that night. For years, a cold-hearted shadow known as Frank Haiguns slid through Northern and Southern Venom, taking from Prince Beliar those things he loved and needed the most.
Chapter 10
Into the Belly of the Beast
The big problem with Smigyl is he was Beast Beliar’s father.
—Pasiel Pegasus
The Celestial Realm of Planet Urantia
Mansion World I Space: Continent of Atlantis
Prince Caligastia’s Palace
"I think this is good enough,” Lord Smigyl said to himself, as he looked at his reflection in the large mirror in his private dressing room. He did not like wearing this type of outfit. It was ridiculous for a God like him to obscure his true appearance for the sake of a bunch of monkeys. But he knew he would have to continue wearing these silly costumes until the completion of the next crucial phase of his plan — Salvington conquered and The Blind King and his equally blind family finally out of his way. When he finally revealed his true self, the cattle would look upon him with amazement, and the monkeys would cower in fear.
He briskly walked down a wide, empty hallway, practicing carefully chosen words, carefully chosen body language, carefully chosen expressions. She might be just a pigeon, but right now, this one is very useful. He reached the glass window in the control booth and watched as a splendid prototype Lanonandek transport craft was towed into a private hangar Prince Caligastia had especially constructed for Lord Smigyl’s sole use. He could feel Pegasus’ tension.
It’s logical. I bet she only found out days ago, he thought as he felt a rush of pride. Pegasus is going to be the one who transports me to Salvington. What an honor for her to be a part of this extraordinary moment in history.
He waited calmly until the tractor had detached, departed, and all of the hatches securely closed. With all interference out of the way, he further extended his penetrating senses.
Pegasus nervously ran her fingers across the various cockpit controls, as if prepping herself for the next maneuver — something that felt comforting even if she knew that it was a ridiculous process. She was locked up with nowhere to go. The thickness of the walls and doors guaranteed that. There would be no escape from this facility if hostilities erupted.
The only real weapon she had was the little red button. She flicked off the button’s cover and delicately stroked its smooth surface. Before making the final connections, General Ellis had allowed her to feel the button’s action. It was a two-part switch. There was resistance, then a click down, at which point the internal mechanisms would become powered, then greater resistance, another click, and then…
Well, neither Ellis nor Aniel had actually said what would happen next. From their expressions, it seemed clear that it was some sort of explosive. After allowing Pegasus to feel the button’s action, Ellis flicked the safety cover back on and asked Pegasus to leave for a moment, at which point Pegasus assumed she was making the final connections to fully transfer control to the red button. Pegasus leaned back with a frown on her face, thinking about what Aniel had said. ‘Smigyl and a lot of other problems will vanish for a very long while.’ She knew exactly what he meant.
Because of King Joshua’s comparatively young age, he had not yet finished all his bestowals. His seventh and final bestowal would begin on Eden, in supposedly a mere 5,000 Eden years. With that task completed, The Ancients of Days would transfer full authority to His Throne. Then the Valkyrie would finally be empowered to clean up a little problem called ‘Lord Smigyl’s Declaration of Liberty’.
If Smigyl was killed and his Personality brought to a Mansion World III Sphere to regrow a new Celestial body, the entire war could be over before he could mature enough to effectively resume his leadership role once again. Pegasus felt certain that the array of shrapnel her explosion would produce was designed to accomplish exactly that. The transport’s hull and walls were flexible and tough, but this was no armored battlewagon built for interplanetary war zones. Personally, she did not relish the thought of starting all over with a new Celestial body. She had worked too hard to get where she was today.
She checked her atmospheric analyzers for signs of different toxins, Celestial or otherwise. Nothing there but a very healthy array of naturally occurring compounds mixed into Rasa Waters. Still, she breathed shallowly with long periods of holding her breath.
She forced herself to take a breath as she studied the empty hangar. The interior looked almost like the one she had just left except for the colors. The walls in Jerusem were gray concrete but here on Urantia, the walls were pure alabaster with wide stripes of gold leaf. The location of the control booth and the doors around the interior were the same except no one was in the control booth. Still, Pegasus knew she was being studied as she sat alone in her golden cage.
“Showtime,” Smigyl mumbled to himself. He casually swung open one of the hatches to the hangar and strolled toward Pegasus. She saw the movement off to her right and turned to face someone wearing a disarming smile, walking toward her. The man had rich silver skin, penetrating blue eyes, and wore simple, neutral-colored pants, comfortable-looking shoes, and an open-necked shirt. He was handsome, easy on the eyes. His casual manner made her relax. She rolled down the window as he approached.
“Hello Pegasus. Thank you for being here. I’m so happy you agreed to this abrupt change in your schedule.” His hands were hanging naturally at his side. He gave a small bow while flicking his eyes to the floor. He was not grinning or frowning. He did not seem impatient. There was no sense of anger or judgment. He appeared just like a seasoned Valkyrie officer. His presence calmed her.
“And since we have pulled you away from your work, I thought it polite to at least tell you what happened to change our plans.”
Pegasus had no idea who this man was. Clearly, he was a seasoned diplomat chosen to place her at ease. And it was working.
“It was Guru Patanjali’s fault, of course. I actually need Rahu on Eden, but Patanjali felt like he would miss out on something. He threw a fit until I finally agreed to let him join us.”
It felt unusual for anyone to use such familial language when discussing Lord Smigyl’s own children. Pegasus focused more intently on his face. “I know you are restricted by your orders. Still, if there is any sort of refreshments or anything else I can offer you…”
A shockwave ran up her spine. He had said, ‘I actually need Rahu…’ This was not just some diplomat. It was Lord Smigyl himself! It seemed impossible. Smigyl frequently refused to speak to King Joshua’s most senior ambassadors. And in Smigyl’s court on Jerusem, Joshua wa
s referred to as ‘The Blind King’ and nothing else. He so looked down on all ‘pigeons’ with such contempt that he would conduct his business as if they did not exist. After all, the Overlords started calling King Joshua’s Angels ‘pigeons’ because they always shit on their parade. And now, here he was speaking to her in private as if they were old friends.
Pegasus slowly removed her helmet and the rest of her gear. She looked directly at the sovereign of Satania, bowed her head, and spoke with her eyes downcast. “My Lord. Please accept my apologies. I simply did not recognize you.”
He liked her polite honesty, but said nothing. He continued studying her in silence, an unassuming smile giving no hint of offense. He had heard about Pegasus from her scandal on Panoptia but had never seen her in person. He also had multiple artists’ renditions so it was clear why she was called ‘Horse Face’ behind her back. It was also clear why most of the artist’s renditions contained a strong flavor of caricature. She was not ugly in any way. Her face was actually quite symmetrical. She had a powerful appearance, a powerful presence. Is that what Kuko sees in her? he wondered to himself.
“Since these are unusual circumstances, I thought it best to speak to you in person,” Smigyl continued calmly, still smiling. He stepped back to admire the Lanonandek transport. “She really is a beauty, isn’t she?” he said as he took his time to study the craft. Pegasus watched politely through her many mirrors as he strolled around the craft, allowing his fingers to drag across the smooth surface, delicately touching the material of the wings as if they might shatter. He approached the left side of the pilot’s cockpit. She already had the window down when he arrived.
“So, the reason I asked for you.” Smigyl now spoke more officially. “My arrangements with King Joshua have been evolving over the past few months. At first, the plan was simple. Put me in a capsule and some time later I float up to Salvington. It sounded like the easiest solution, but then Rahu said he wanted me to travel with him to Eden…”
Lilith: Eden's Planetary Princess (The Michael Archives Book 1) Page 6