Redemption (Book 4, The Redemption Series)

by S. J. West

  The message ends. I hand the neural memo to Malcolm so he can watch it too.

  “I don't think they'll back out of the deal,” Jered says after Malcolm has watched the message.

  “So you think we can trust them?” I ask skeptically.

  “No,” Jered hedges, “I wouldn't say that either. But, they hold all the cards right now. They have the seals, and they have Lucas and Millie. We really don't have much choice but to do what they tell us to.”

  “I hate to agree, but I do,” Malcolm says. “We'll have to wait and see how this pans out.”

  “I still think we should try to find out where Lucas and Millie are on our own,” Desmond says. “If we can find just one weak link in any of the people around Baal and Mammon, we might be able to learn where they've hidden them.”

  “We've been trying to find Andre by using similar methods for weeks now and still haven't learned anything useful,” Malcolm argues.

  “Is it any better to just stay put and twiddle our thumbs,” Desmond says. “I don't think that's a solution either.”

  “Agreed,” Jered says. “At least let us feel like we're doing something proactive. It can't hurt.”

  “You two go ahead,” Malcolm tells them. “I'll stay here with Anna.”

  “You should go too,” I say. “I need to do something else anyway.”

  “What?” Malcolm asks apprehensively.

  “I need to go see God about a matter,” I say vaguely.

  “He won't help us find them,” Malcolm tells me gently. “You know He doesn't interfere with things that need to run their natural course.”

  “I know,” I say, feeling disappointed by that fact. “I'm not planning to ask for His help to find them. I need to ask Him about something Helena told me.”

  “Which was?” Malcolm asks.

  “Can we talk about it when I get back?” I suggest. “I would really like to get all the facts first. Then I'll tell you what I find out.”

  Malcolm looks hesitant to give into my demands, but he finally nods his head.

  “I guess I can wait,” he says begrudgingly.

  I lean up and kiss my husband on the lips.

  “I'm not sure how long I'll be,” I tell him. “I guess it depends on whether or not He wants to answer my questions.”

  “We'll be out searching for any clues on where Lucas and Millie are,” he tells me. “I'll be back in a few hours.”

  “Ok. Be careful. I don't need to lose you too.”

  “You'll never lose me, my love,” Malcolm reassures me. “I'm hard to get rid of.”

  I kiss Malcolm one more time and then phase directly to Heaven.

  Chapter 7

  When I phase into Heaven, I find myself standing in front of Lilly’s mountain home again. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by who is sitting on the steps waiting for me.

  “Hello, Anna,” God says, standing from His seat, and walking over to me. “I assume you have some questions you would like to ask me.”

  “You know I do,” I reply, feeling the warmth of His love surround me like a blanket of comfort.

  “Which one do you want me to answer first?”

  “Are Lucas and Millie still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief for that small miracle.

  “I don’t suppose you'll tell me where they are,” I say. I realize I just told Malcolm I wouldn’t ask God for his help, but I can’t stop myself from hoping for a different response than the one I expect to receive.

  “I’m sorry,” God replies, looking remorseful for having to give me His answer. “I can’t interfere in what is supposed to happen to them.”

  I sigh in disappointment, but try to understand His steadfast rule of letting things run their natural course.

  “I believe there is something else you want me to clarify for you,” God prods, acting as though He needs me to voice my next question before He can explain anything to me.

  “Helena implied that she and I are related to each other in a way that I don’t know about. She told me I should ask someone else to enlighten me about the truth of my origins,” I say, counting on God to take my subtle hint, but He remains silent as He continues to look at me. I feel like He needs me to ask a direct question before He can give me a direct answer. “You’ve told me a couple of times now that my soul is ancient. Exactly how old am I? What ‘origins’ was she referring to?”

  “I knew there would come a time when I would need to tell you everything,” God says, sounding almost relieved that He will finally be able to reveal a great truth to me. “After I show you what you need to know, I hope you will better understand how integral your role is in the story of both Heaven and Earth, and how much Lucifer truly means to you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, openly admitting how confused I am by His statement. “Are you telling me we have an even deeper connection than him being my father?”

  God holds out His hand to me, silently asking if I’m ready to learn the answers to all my questions. I hesitate for a second, but then place one of my hands into His. He smiles benevolently, but there is a tinge of melancholy in His expression, warning me that not everything I’m about to learn will be pleasant.

  “Let me show you where you actually come from, Anna,” God says. “In order to make sure you fully understand everything you see, I will be showing you people and places in terms that you can identify with. The layer of Heaven where angels reside is somewhat beyond the comprehension of a human mind. So, don’t be alarmed when you see certain things or people you know suddenly appear. I’m simply making it easier for you to connect with what happens.”

  The scene around us alters, and I find myself standing in total darkness with only God holding my hand to tether me to the real world.

  “In the beginning,” God says, “there was nothing but me. It was a lonely existence and one I simply could not bear. So, I decided to create the universe.”

  An explosion of stars brings light into the darkness as they twinkle against the blackness of space. The intricate beauty and vastness of the universe literally takes my breath away. I feel small and insignificant as I realize I am but one person in the midst of infinity.

  “Even after the creation of all these worlds, I still felt lonely and needed someone to share the beauty I had just created with. That’s when I decided to make my first angel, Lucifer.”

  The scene changes once again, and I see God and Lucifer walking in a lush green garden, talking and laughing with one another like they’re old friends.

  “Lucifer and I were very close in the beginning,” God tells me, His voice reflecting the sadness He feels over how strained His relationship with Lucifer is now. “We worked closely together to design the different layers of Heaven. He was actually the one who asked me to create more angels like him so neither of us would ever feel the heartache of loneliness.”

  I find myself standing in a grand building made of what looks like crystal. The light of Heaven shines through its walls, giving it a happy, warm luminescence.

  “Lucifer decided that we should build a repository where the souls of our angels could be made and kept until they were needed. He is the one who created the Guf and its very first guardian.”

  I watch the scene in front of me as Lucifer closes his eyes and places his hand over his heart. A beatific smile graces Lucifer's face, and after a few seconds, he pulls his hand away from his chest. Sitting on the palm of his hand is a white glowing orb, brighter than even the sun's illumination. Lucifer throws it up into the air and just as it explodes like a firework…

  I appear, standing in front of him.

  “That's not possible,” I say, finding it hard to breathe as I stare at my mirror image. I begin to shake my head, unable to believe what I'm witnessing.

  God freezes the scene before us and patiently waits for me to grasp what He has just revealed to me. I turn my back to the sight because my mind is racing to catch up with what I've just been s
hown.

  I think back to what Helena showed me in Lucifer’s memory. After his fall from Heaven, he reached deep within himself and tapped into the worst parts of his soul to create Hell. Yet, when Lucifer searched inside his soul while still in Heaven, he created me.

  “Lucifer is the father of your earthly body, but he is also the father of your soul,” God tells me, attempting to make sure I fully understand my true connection to Lucifer. “You were the first Guardian of the Guf, Anna, and you were the second soul to ever exist in Heaven.”

  I look at God feeling completely lost in this new revelation. The enormity of what He's just told me is blowing my mind.

  “I need a moment,” I tell Him, allowing myself time to fully take in what I've just learned and straining to compose myself before He shows me more of the story.

  In an odd way, Helena was right. We were sisters because each of us was born from Lucifer’s essence.

  “Helena told me she was created from the worst parts of Lucifer's soul,” I tell God.

  “And you were created from the best parts of him,” God replies, answering my hidden question. “He has loved you like a father practically since time began, Anna. There is a bond between the two of you that can never be broken, by anything.”

  “Does he know who I really am then?” I ask.

  “He's known since the moment you were born,” God replies. “It's one of the reasons he wasn't able to stay away from you even when his stubbornness tried to overrule his actions. I know Millie explained his yearly visits while you were a child. Even then, you naturally drew him in. He has always loved you, Anna, and he always will. Your souls are connected by a tie so strong most people can't even comprehend it.”

  “Why hasn't he told me any of this?” I ask.

  “Lucifer isn't the most forthcoming with information, especially if he thinks it will give someone else an upper hand over him,” God replies. “He has always been one to keep things to himself unless forced to reveal it. He has a hard time sharing his thoughts and feelings, if you haven’t already noticed that. But when the two of you were working together in Heaven, he never held back his feelings from you. He freely showed you his love and, because of that love from your father, you flourished. Your imagination of what a soul could be is ultimately what brought about the creation of the human race.”

  I look over at God so quickly I fear my head might twist off.

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask in a whisper.

  “Perhaps you should watch the rest of what I need to share with you,” God replies, gently urging me to turn back around.

  Hesitantly, I do.

  I see myself and other guardians happily creating souls within the Guf.

  “Souls are conceived by the guardians from the energy which flows freely within the universe. While the Guardians of the Guf were creating souls for my angels, you decided to play with the dynamics of that energy and force it to reach its full potential. You stretched its willpower and strength to near its breaking point. By doing that, you created the first human soul. That soul would eventually be placed into Lillith, the first woman and the first of your human ancestors.”

  I absorb this information and wait for more. I feel sure there will be much more to come.

  “From that moment forward, I decided the guardians should follow your example and concentrate on creating more human souls. Unfortunately, my decision didn't please Lucifer.”

  The scene changes and I see Lucifer and me arguing.

  “You should never have created that thing!” Lucifer yells at me, not even attempting to hide his frustration over what I did.

  “I don't understand why you’re so angry,” I say in a calm voice, obviously not wanting to add to the tension Lucifer is placing in between us. “What did I do that was so wrong?”

  Lucifer runs the fingers of both his hands through his hair in frustration.

  “You have divided God's loyalties, and I fear we will be the ones who suffer for it,” Lucifer replies irately. “How can you not see what you've done? God has given up on making any more souls for angels. His heart is completely devoted to seeing these humans of yours succeed. Before you know it, we will be outnumbered by them in Heaven. Mark my words, Seraphina, He'll have us bowing down to them like servants next!”

  “Why can’t you understand that I love them as much as you love me?” I plead. “I’ve built them to be strong with limitless imaginations. Just think about what they will be able to contribute to the universe in time. Even if He did ask us to bow down to them, I would do it happily because I want to help them reach their full potential.”

  “What’s happened to your loyalty to your fellow angels?” Lucifer asks, incredulously. “Why are you so willing to just discard your own kind and make us all servants to these little monkeys?”

  “I’m not,” I defend. “I just don’t understand why you see it as us versus them. We can both live in harmony with one another.”

  Lucifer laughs harshly. “I will never accept your little pets as equals to me. We are superior to them in every way imaginable! Nothing will ever change that fact!”

  Lucifer turns his back to me in the scene.

  “I can’t even look at you right now,” he says in disgust and controlled rage. “I can’t believe you would betray me like this after all that I’ve given you of myself.”

  I watch as tears of sadness roll down my cheeks in the scene and end up feeling the same wetness against my own in reality. Lucifer’s spiteful words have done what they were meant to, cut me to the quick, and made me feel like I betrayed him. It was obvious from his words that my own father regretted ever creating me.

  “There’s nothing you can do to change the way things are now,” I tell him in the scene, fighting to rise above my own sorrow.

  Lucifer looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes burning with hatred.

  “Yes,” he tells me, “actually there is.”

  Lucifer walks away from me, and I find myself no longer in the tranquility of the Guf.

  God and I are standing on a barren landscape completely covered by the dead bodies of angels.

  I fall to my knees as an overwhelming sense of guilt slams into my heart. I begin to cry uncontrollably at the sight of what my tampering caused to happen.

  God kneels down beside me and brings me into His arms.

  “What Lucifer did was never your fault,” He tells me. The cadence of His voice makes me think it’s not the first time He has uttered those same words to me. “Yet, you always felt guilt over the war, like you were the one who caused it.”

  “How can you say it wasn’t my fault?” I wail. “If I hadn’t made a human soul, Lucifer would have never felt threatened. He would have never betrayed you, and this war never would have happened!”

  “And the human race never would have existed,” God gently reminds me. “As you told Lucifer, they have the potential for so much greatness…”

  “But was their creation worth all of this?” I ask, taking in the sight of the carnage around me.

  “As a human,” God says, “what do you think?”

  I shake my head silently because I don’t really have an answer, not in the face of so much death and destruction.

  “In a way,” God tells me, “Lucifer did get one thing he wanted from the war.”

  I wipe away my tears. “What was that?”

  “More angel souls had to be created in order to make sure the right side won this fight,” God tells me. “I couldn’t allow Lucifer to win. So I asked you and the other Guardians of the Guf to make the first angels born primarily for war. The War Angels were excellent fighters. They accomplished what they were made to do. They fought bravely alongside the angels who stayed true to me and defeated those who sided with Lucifer.

  My only regret is that they were almost solely made for battle and not much else. After the war was won, most of them felt lost because it seemed like their life no longer held any meaning. What they had been built for no longer ex
isted. Some of them adapted and found things to become interested in and some of them kept searching for something to give their life meaning. I allowed a few to go to Earth as part of the Watchers.”

  “That didn’t exactly turn out how you hoped, did it?” I say knowingly, standing back up to my feet with God’s help.

  God shrugs.

  “Sometimes things are meant to fail for a reason,” He tells me. “And I still have hope that what I had planned for angel and humankind will work out one day. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.”

  Before I’m able to ask Him what He means by that, the scene changes, and I see my Heavenly self lying on the floor of the Guf crying. Yet, crying is really too tame of a word for the heart wrenching wails coming from me. I see God phase in, kneel down beside me, and pick me up in his arms effortlessly.

  “This was after Lucifer’s expulsion from Heaven,” God tells me. “You were inconsolable over his absence. I wasn’t sure you were going to survive being separated from him. Then…you came up with a plan.”

  I turn my gaze away from the scene to look at God.

  “A plan?” I ask. “To do what?”

  “To save Lucifer.”

  I might not have been able to remember my time in Heaven, but my heart sings with newfound hope over this revelation.

  God nods toward the scene again indicating I need to pay attention to what happens next.

  I see myself whispering something to God, but I can’t hear what’s being said. After I’m through, He nods as if He agrees with what I’ve just told Him.

  He puts me down back onto my feet. My face is filled with a new determination. As I stand before Him, I close my eyes as if I’m in prayer. Almost instantly, a multitude of angels surrounds us within the Guf, and I know, without having to be told, that these are all the other guardians.