Seraph

by James Hicks

  Sophia started to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I must find Gabriel.”

  Sophia turned to leave but ran right into the chest of Gabriel, who had just arrived.

  “Gabriel? Hallelu Yahuah. I was just going to find you.”

  They greeted each other by touching their foreheads together.

  “I was meditating on the roof of my quarters when I saw you gate in. I saw that John was injured. I rushed here as soon as I could. Is he okay?”

  “He will be.”

  “Sophia, how did this happen?” Raphael asked.

  She was dressing John’s wounds and trying to use her spiritual energy to heal him; however, the extent of John’s injuries was causing complications. Her only other alternative was to place John in a healing chamber. Healing chambers were used for angels that had suffered serious battle-related injuries. This chamber was made for the anatomy of angels and not humans, but it would have to do.

  “Ornias did this to him.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Lilith and Ornias are working together. They captured and imprisoned me. John found me. Set me free.”

  “I’m glad he was able to find you,” said Gabriel.

  Sophia was visibly upset and felt this was all her fault.

  “I did this to him . . . I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be captured.”

  “Sophia, you are no warrior, you are a messenger and a great one. There is no way you could have stopped this from happening.”

  Sophia was silent.

  “You know the Father has a reason for everything that he allows to happen. The reason was probably to spy on their plans. Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes, Andrea Rose is an intricate pawn in their plans. . . . Her son, David, should be here.”

  “I agree. Uriel, summon David and have him brought here. Hopefully by that time, John Summers will be awake,” Gabriel said, heading toward the door.

  “Where are you going, sir?” Sophia wondered.

  “The One will want to hear what you have to say.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, I want Raphael to have a look at you. And it will be good for John to see you when he wakes.”

  Lillian pulled up to the gorgeous home surrounded by a forest. She remembered every little thing about the property. Something wasn’t the same way she had left it. It looked as if there had been a struggle of some kind and evidence of a fire, but she didn’t have time to delve into any investigations with Andrea around.

  Lillian helped Andrea with her luggage and up the stairs to the guest room, where Andrea wasted no time flopping onto the bed. Andrea was emotionally and physically drained, and fell into the deepest sleep of her life. Lillian stayed and stood over Andrea, placing her hands on Andrea’s stomach. She began chanting and Andrea’s belly began growing. Her belly’s growth accelerated from four weeks to twelve weeks.

  Lillian wanted the gift child out of the woman as soon as possible. And stimulating the growth was the best way. When she finished chanting she left the room. Her plans were going so smoothly and nothing was standing in her way. Just as she was beginning to fantasize about her soon-to-be-new position in the ranks of hell, there was a loud banging on the door.

  When she went to the door she wondered who could be so foolish and unlucky as to bang on her door at this time of night. She was going to make this soul suffer. She opened the door as Lilith, in her supernatural demonic form, preparing to scare this being into eternity. But when she opened it, there was Ornias, lying on the steps and smoking!

  “Ornias! What happened here?”

  “Mistress,” he struggled to answer. “Mistress, they . . . have . . . escaped.”

  “You pathetic imbecile! One thing I command and you cannot even do that! I assume that is why the cabin looks partially burned down, hmm?”

  “She . . . had help, mistress.”

  “Who?”

  Ornias was in too much pain to answer her.

  “Well, who was it? Do not make me ask you again or your bad night will get much worse.”

  “J-J-John . . . Summers.”

  “John Summers . . . who the hell is that? I do not remember an angel by the name of John Summers.”

  “Not . . . angel . . . human.”

  “A human did this to you? How in the hell did—” And then it hit her.

  She remembered when Ornias told her he had imprisoned an angel inside a human.

  “So . . . it has backfired on you after all. . . . He must be exceptionally strong.”

  “He has . . . no weakness.”

  “Everyone has a weakness . . . you only have to find it.”

  “Me?! If I meet him in battle again, he will surely kill me.”

  “I wished that he killed you this time. But no, not you . . . perhaps me, though.”

  “I’m lost, mistress.”

  “As always. I’ve seduced many of the earth’s mightiest warriors since the beginning of time. He will be no different.”

  “Mistress, I—”

  “Silence. Once again I am forced to fix another one of your idiotic mistakes. But we will see how strong he really is.”

  Lilith walked inside the cabin and Ornias followed her. She took a seat on her couch and began concocting a plan of attack.

  “Is . . . is she okay?” Ornias asked.

  Lilith ceased thinking and shot him a look that would burn a man alive. “You have almost single-handedly sabotaged us, and yet you wonder about the well-being of that insignificant wench? Have you lost your mind? Were she not sleeping soundly in the guest room, I would peel the flesh from your body.”

  “Mistress . . . please. Forgive me.”

  “I do not want you here by the rise of the sun. I trust I don’t have to explain what will happen if she sees you?”

  “But where must I go?”

  “To hell for all I care . . .”

  Ornias was truly dejected. Knowing that he had failed his master. Knowing that Andrea was so close yet so far away. Knowing that there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Now keep quiet, I have much thinking to do.”

  Days and nights passed in the beautiful home surrounded by the gorgeous wooded landscape that Lilith used as her base of operations. With each passing day Lilith, masquerading as Lillian, was very kind and gentle to the pregnant Andrea. She prepared meals, listened to her life story, and to her ramblings about Oscar. She closed the blinds when Andrea expressed a fear of being watched in her sleep.

  Andrea said she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and see two red glowing eyes staring at her from the trees. At night Lilith would work her true plan. She would steal away into Andrea’s room and speak the same enchantment over her belly.

  Andrea began losing her grip on reality when she started to notice that her stomach was growing at an alarming rate. She appeared to be five months pregnant after just a few days. And the normal symbiotic relationship between mother and fetus was now parasitic in nature. Her child drained her of vital nutrients, leaving just enough energy to keep supplying it with food.

  The once stunning Andrea, with her glowing skin and voluptuous figure, was being reduced to pale skin and bones with all the baby weight protruding from her belly, making her look horribly abnormal. She felt so ghastly that she began to see herself as the bride of death itself. In two weeks’ time she felt ten months pregnant and long overdue. Distraught, depressed, desperate to give birth and remove the demon seed growing inside her, she cursed herself, the day she was born, Oscar, and the baby.

  One day, at about nine o’clock at night, Andrea phoned Sally as she always did. Sally and Lillian were her true friends and when she wasn’t speaking to one, she was speaking to the other. Andrea called her friend and waited for her customary greeting.

  “Hey, honey.”

  “Sal . . .”

  “Are ya feeling any better?”

  “No, everyday gets worse. I look like I�
��m about to give birth any day now . . . I can’t do nine months of this. I wish you were here to take me back home. This thing is eating me from the inside out. I look a mess and my hair is falling out . . . just this morning a whole wad of my hair came out.”

  “Oh, Andrea, stop. I miss you too, but you must be living the dream with Oscar by now.”

  “Sal, are you listening to me? I haven’t seen him. I don’t know where he is. All I know is he played me for a damn fool.”

  “At any rate I’m sure he’s better than that other idiot, Kenny.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Oh nothing, don’t mind me.”

  Andrea let out a whimper as the baby kicked and moved inside of her.

  “You alright over there, princess?” she said in a sarcastic tone.

  “No, Sal, I feel like I’m dying over here . . . Can you come get me?”

  “Come get you? You know you’ve got some nerve? For the last week and a half all I’ve heard is you moaning and grumbling about being a little pregnant. Which I can’t understand because for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been tryna get pregnant. And now that you are, you’re complaining about a little bit of baby pains. If I were you, I’d be grateful just to be pregnant.”

  “SAL . . .”

  “And another thing, what makes you think that I’d just drop whatever I was doing to come and ‘rescue’ you? I’ve got my own problems; have you even stopped to ask me how I’m doing? Or what about my girlfriend? You haven’t even asked about her. You’ve always been jealous about our relationship.”

  “SAL, HOW ON EARTH DID THIS BECOME ABOUT YOU?”

  “WHY CAN’T IT BE ABOUT ME? WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU? YOU SPOILED, PRETENTIOUS, LITTLE WANNABE BEAUTY QUEEN!”

  That was the nail in the coffin. Andrea broke down in tears over the phone.

  “Who are you?” Andrea sobbed through tears.

  “Someone who’s tired of your bull crap.”

  With that last statement Sally hung up and Andrea was so hysterical at the way her best friend of over thirty years had just talked to her that she could not physically take it. She began vomiting violently in bed and all over herself. Dealing with this rejection of epic proportions had dragged her down to a state worse than any physical beating that Kenny could have given her. The rejection, combined with dealing with this wholly unnatural pregnancy alone, drove her to her feet and out of her room. As if she were a woman possessed by insanity itself, she looked at the balcony separating her floor from the main floor, ran to it, jumped over the guardrail, and landed on a glass coffee table in the middle of the living room.

  When Andrea crashed in the middle of the living room she realized she was not in a beautiful cabin but in an old ratty one. The new luxurious furniture that she had been accustomed to was old, moth-eaten, and replaced with dusty sofas and chairs. She could hardly believe her eyes. Whatever it was that blinded her from seeing the old cabin for its true nature had been undone. Perhaps it was the fall.

  The loud crash brought Lillian from her room into the living room where she saw Andrea lying on her stomach in pain. Shards of glass cut into her face, hands, and belly. Lillian rolled her over and called out.

  “ORNIAS, GET IN HERE NOW!”

  Ornias came through the door and saw Andrea on the floor bleeding profusely, but still conscious. Andrea looked over at the man who burst through the door and was surprised to see that it was Oscar. The look of confusion on her face threw her into a conniption. Still in human form, Ornias ran over to the injured woman and tried to console her, but to no avail.

  “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

  Oscar tried to explain and apologize, but Lillian put a stop to that.

  “You . . . left me,” Andrea repeated, weeping and struggling against both Lillian and Oscar.

  “He was never yours to begin with. He is mine!”

  “YOU’RE SLEEPING WITH HER?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You stupid human.” And with those words Doctor Lillian transformed into her natural state and reintroduced herself as Lilith.

  “I am Lilith, the first of all women and your mother. Oscar, as you know him, is my slave Ornias.”

  Oscar changed into his demonic form with much hesitation. His feelings for Andrea were strong, and he didn’t want to hurt her more than he already had, but obviously the damage done was irreparable.

  Andrea was incensed, betrayed, and deeply wounded. She regretted not trusting Sophia when they met; she regretted not giving her heart to the Lord when Tom and Kelly Goodwin witnessed to her. Most of all, she lamented not being able to have another chance because she knew that no matter what happened, this was her last few moments of life.

  Lilith took her sword and cut into Andrea’s stomach, making her cry out. Lilith was preparing to deliver the gift child, but what she saw stunned her completely.

  John woke up in a dark room. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, but fear was the furthest thing from his heart. He felt love so immense that it could be held, almost as if it wasn’t oxygen he was breathing but love itself. He remembered feeling this sensation once before. He rose from the bed he slept on. His hand was completely healed, and he walked to a tinted window to try and confirm his assumption about his location. When he thought about wishing it was lighter in the room, the lights came on. He could see all over the room and out the window and knew that he was in heaven once again, but he was in some sort of hospital, which he thought was very strange.

  John could almost see the whole city of Zion, which he had never seen before. The last time he was here, he wasn’t allowed in. Jesus said he would never want to leave and he wasn’t kidding. John was already dreading the moment when he’d be told he had to go back to earth.

  The door to his room opened and a group of people poured in: The One, Gabriel, Sophia, Raphael, and David.

  “Lord.” John saw The One and bowed.

  “Are you okay?” The One asked, pulling him to his feet.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I heard about your hand. How does it feel?”

  John flexed his hand a bit.

  “Good as new.”

  “You did well.”

  “Well?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “An hour and a half,” Raphael answered.

  “Oh, that’s it?”

  “That’s our time. On earth you’ve been gone nearly two weeks. I’m David by the way.” David extended his hand and John customarily shook it.

  “TWO WEEKS? Oh my god . . .”

  “Yes?” Jesus joked.

  “Not you,” he smiled. “I can’t believe I’ve been gone that long . . . I’ve got to get back.”

  “You will soon enough but we must talk about what happened. Sophia, you can tell us what you know now,” Gabriel responded.

  Sophia stepped up and addressed the small crowd.

  “I have reason to believe Lilith and Ornias have set in motion a series of events to bring about the Antichrist that John prophesized over 2,000 years ago.”

  “Lilith?” David asked. “I’ve observed this demon in my mother’s chronicles.”

  “Who is she then?” John asked.

  “Well . . . she was the first woman,” David said, looking toward The One.

  “Lord?” John questioned.

  “On the sixth day we created man in our image. Male and female, we created them. There was a dispute between her and Adam and she called out to us. She used our holy name and transformed from a woman to something else. Adam asked us to return her to him. So we dispatched three angels and commanded that she go back to Adam as his wife or be cursed to remain in the abominable state forever. She chose the latter.”

  “But I thought Eve was the first woman.”

  “Eve came later.”

  “So what is she? A demon?”

  “Now she is a succubus. She has perverted and defiled herself with the lust of men.”


  “Whoa . . . that’s insane . . . how come we don’t know about this?”

  “There are many secrets the people of earth will never be ready to hear until they have made heaven their home. Here is where all secrets will be made known.”

  John seemed overwhelmed by this new information.

  “Okay, okay, so Lilith and Ornias made plans to bring about the Antichrist?”

  “Yes, Lilith told me the night I was captured. . . . Ornias confirmed it. He slept with the woman, and I believe she is now pregnant with his child. Their plans are well underway,” Sophia said.

  “The woman?” David asked. “You mean my mother?”

  “Afraid so, David. I’m sorry. When the woman . . . Andrea gives birth they will present him to Satan as a gift. In hopes that he’ll later preside over the earth as a king.”

  “As a god is more likely,” Gabriel added.

  “I’ve read some of the Book of Revelation, but I don’t think their plan is going to work is it, Lord?” John asked. “I mean this cannot be possible, right?”

  The One remained quiet.

  “If it’s possible that this child will be the Antichrist, then I must stop them. Should I kill him?” John continued.

  “No. You cannot kill an innocent child.”

  “Innocent? If this child is who we think he’s going to be then he’s already guilty.”

  “Everything that my Father has said is going to happen will happen, and there is no way around that. You killing this child will do nothing to change the future. And he is but a child, he must grow to make his own choice to become what is prophesied or not.”

  “Choice? I thought the Antichrist had no choice.”

  “There have been many chosen by the Evil One to become the Antichrist. All those ‘chosen’ so far have rejected the offer . . . everyone has a choice.”

  “I’m sorry . . . I just don’t know what I should do.”

  “If you all will excuse me, I will talk to John privately.”

  Everyone gathered to leave, but David lingered a bit longer and approached both The One and John.

  “I’ve done some research on human and angel hybrids. This creature will not be the birth of the Antichrist,” David said.

  “How can you be so sure?” John asked.