Soul's Gate

by James L. Rubart

  “How are you holding up?” Reece said in a hushed voice.

  “I . . . I . . .” Sweat trickled down his back. “That wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.”

  “You know it was real.”

  “What was he?” Marcus ran his hands up his face and over his head. “What are all of them?”

  “I think you know exactly what they are.”

  “Demons.” Marcus clenched his hands so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “Yes.”

  “He said he was an angel.”

  “Technically demons are angels.”

  “We have to leave here.” Marcus shifted from one foot to the other and glanced to his right at the double glass doors leading to the parking lot.

  “It’s okay. Greater is he that is in you, yes?”

  Marcus sucked in and blew out his breaths in rapid succession. “How can they be inside a church? There’s no . . . it doesn’t make sense.”

  “They love being in church. Church is often the most fertile breeding ground for religion.”

  Marcus steeled himself and glanced at the aisles. “Demons can’t be in a church.”

  “So Satan can be in the presence of God, but demons can’t be in a church? You gotta start reading the Bible, pal. Things will make a lot more sense.”

  “I do read the Bible.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re referring to Job.” Marcus slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

  “Very good.” Reece joined him on the beige carpet and tapped out a slow rhythm on his knees. “Maybe it’s not so much a matter of your reading the Bible as it is choosing whether or not to believe what it says.”

  “But no one can see them. And the rocks the people are taking . . .” Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead.

  “Deep breath, Marcus.” Reece demonstrated by pulling in a long breath of air of his own. “On second thought, take two deep breaths, or three.”

  “Is that an attempt to make me smile so I don’t sprain my mind?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I don’t understand why the rest of the congregation was unable to see what I saw.”

  “Don’t be so surprised. It’s been going on around you all of your forty-two years, but you’ve never seen it before this morning.”

  Fifteen minutes later Marcus stood in the parking lot with Reece, Dana, and Brandon, still trying to process what had happened, the bright noon sun a welcome sight after what he’d experienced. A shiver ran down his back. What had Reece said? That his mind would be blown? That was an understatement. But emotions of the incident were fading and his logical mind was taking over. Reece was right. The Bible was peppered with stories like the one that just happened to him. His eyes had been pried open.

  Marcus stared at Reece. “We have to tell the pastor what transpired in there.”

  “If someone had come to you before today with the story of what you just saw, what would you think? How would you respond?”

  Marcus shook his head. “I still think we should try.”

  “Maybe. Maybe someday.” Reece patted Marcus’s shoulder.

  Dana reached over and placed her hand on Marcus’s arm. “What did you see?”

  Brandon folded his arms. “And what were you doing up toward the front in the middle of the service?”

  Marcus rubbed his lips and shook his head again. “I saw a slew of demons. Three in each aisle of that church. And I conversed with one of them.”

  Dana and Brandon stared at him as if he’d turned into a gigantic, fanged Easter bunny—a mixture of surprise and terror.

  “What? During the service?” Brandon said.

  “Where were we when all this happened?” Dana asked.

  Marcus clasped his hands behind his head and squinted into the sunlit clouds above.

  Brandon cocked his head. “You’re serious, you really saw them?”

  Reece glanced at the people milling around them as they strolled to their cars. “I’m thinking we should talk about this someplace else. Anyone up for a bite to eat?”

  “Lunch?” Marcus pointed toward the church doors. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  “Good call, I’m starving,” Brandon said.

  Reece turned to his right. “Dana?”

  “Famished.”

  “Great. How about Mexican? Las Margaritas in Woodinville?”

  Brandon and Dana nodded.

  Marcus frowned. “I’m not hungry, or did you all miss that?”

  “We didn’t miss it, Professor.” Brandon threw his arm around Marcus’s shoulders. “But since you’re the one the adventure happened to, you’ll be doing the talking so you won’t have time to eat.”

  As Brandon and Dana walked to their cars, Reece smiled at Marcus. “It’s a good idea to debrief, and”—he moved his head in Brandon and Dana’s direction—“they need to know what happened.”

  “All right. That’s fine.” He and Reece walked across the parking lot to their cars. “I get the whole demon stuff and religion thing and the backpacks and the stones. But please explain to me how the pastor looked right through me.”

  “With pleasure.” Reece clapped him on the back. “We’ll talk about that at the restaurant as well.”

  “Do you want to give me a hint I can mull over on the way there?”

  “The professor has found a puzzle he can’t solve and wants a clue?”

  “Exactly.”

  They reached Marcus’s car and Reece rested a hand on the hood. “Think about Star Wars Episode IV. That should get you started.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE CLINK OF SILVERWAR E, THE CLANK OF THICK glasses, and the smell of chimichangas and frying fajitas seemed to calm the professor, Dana decided. The frantic expression he displayed in the church parking lot had been replaced by a look of mixed puzzlement and concentration, as if he was trying to apply Occam’s razor to what had happened inside the church. She smiled. Marcus would probably be impressed she knew what Occam’s razor was.

  After they ordered, Dana tapped her fist lightly on the back of Marcus’s hand as it rested on the table. “Ready to regale us with your amazing tale?”

  “Yes.”

  Marcus described what happened and when he finished, questions poured out of Dana’s mouth and Brandon joined her.

  “You’re sure they were demons?”

  “The one you talked to. What did he sound like?”

  “Did anyone not have a backpack?”

  “How did you stop yourself from freaking out?”

  When Brandon asked why the pastor hadn’t seen Marcus, the professor’s eyes lit up and he pointed at Reece. “That’s precisely what I want to know. Please explain how I could walk down the middle of that church and have no one see me.”

  “Mass hypnosis,” Brandon said.

  Reece took a chip and used it to scoop up a liberal portion of salsa from the small brown bowl in the center of the table. “The Spirit covered his eyes.”

  “He was blinded?”

  “Yep. As well as the rest of the congregation.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Clearly,” Brandon said.

  Their waiter brought their food and after Reece blessed it, he tapped the tips of his fingers together. “I’m confused. I thought we established that all of you have read the Bible.”

  “Oh, okay.” Brandon spread guacamole and sour cream on his chicken enchiladas. “You mean where it tells us where to pick up our invisibility cloak? I looked up that verse the other day. Second Rowling, chapter 3, verse 16—if memory serves.”

  “The idea wasn’t original with J. K.”

  “Right, right, it’s in the gospel according to Obi-Wan Kenobi?” Brandon smiled. “You’re ripping off a page right out of Star Wars.”

  “No. Lucas was ripping off God and didn’t even know it.”

  “How so?”

  “As I’ve already said, everything that has been created came from God. Everything. All Satan ca
n do is imitate and counterfeit.”

  Dana took a drink of her root beer. “Star Wars? I’m lost.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Star Wars.” Brandon cut off a large bite of his enchilada. “We never watched those together?”

  “I saw each movie. One time.” She glanced at Brandon. “Yes, with you. That was plenty. So forgive me if I didn’t memorize every scene.”

  Brandon rubbed his hands together. “There’s this scene in Episode IV—the first movie—where Obi-Wan waves his hand and says, ‘These aren’t the ones you’re looking for,’ or something like that, and the soldiers couldn’t see Han Solo—”

  “Han Solo? Try Luke,” Marcus muttered.

  “Hmm.” Dana raised her eyebrows. “So I’m not the only one without a perfect memory.”

  Brandon scowled at her. “The point is Obi-Wan confused their minds. They should have seen it was him but they didn’t.”

  Marcus turned to Reece. “Is that what you’re saying? You waved your hand, which caused them to no longer see what was right in front of them?”

  “The Spirit did it. Not me.”

  “But you initiated the process and created a scenario where I was rendered undetectable to everyone in that room.”

  “I think we’ve already established that.”

  “I missed that lesson in Sunday school,” Brandon said.

  “Too bad.” Reece took a massive bite of his nachos.

  “So are you going to tell us where you think this is in the Bible?” Dana said.

  “Ib eeding.”

  “And talking while you’re chewing,” Dana said. “That’s delightful.”

  “Look it up on your phone.” Reece wiped his mouth. “Luke chapter 4, verses 20 through 30.”

  Brandon fumbled with his phone and thirty seconds later held it up. “Got it.”

  “Read.” Reece took another bite.

  Brandon held his phone close to his face. “’Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

  “’All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

  “’Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’

  “’“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

  “’All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.’”

  “Must be the wrong translation. I didn’t really pick up on the verse in there where Jesus turns invisible.” Brandon set his phone down on the table. “Anything else you want me to look up?”

  “No, that covers it.” Reece took a long drink of his Dr Pepper and looked at Marcus. “Now do you understand?”

  “Not exactly,” the professor said.

  “I’m still lost as well,” Dana said.

  “Make that three,” Brandon added.

  “Read verse 30 again.”

  Brandon picked up his phone and poked at the screen. “’He walked right through the crowd and went on his way.’”

  “Think about it.” Reece placed both palms on the table. “How do you think he did that? Are you kidding me? Why didn’t they see him? He simply walks away like he’s on a stroll through the park?”

  Reece grabbed a bottle of hot sauce and spread it on his nachos. “Please explain to me how a crowd of people has a guy cornered on a cliff ready to throw him off of it, and suddenly—poof!—he turns around and walks right through the middle of all of them? How did that happen? Did he point at something on the horizon and say, ‘Holy cow! What’s that?’ then race off while they were looking in the other direction?”

  Reece took another bite of his nachos, staring at each of them as he chewed. “Here’s a man who can make blind men see and you’re surprised he can make seeing men blind?”

  “Might I view that?” Marcus reached for Brandon’s phone and stared at the screen. “They have him on the cliff, ready to push him off, so he must have . . . he had to . . . he must have . . .”

  “He must have what? Stay with it. Ignore your mind. What is your spirit telling you? You just did the same thing in that church service. Tell me, what did Jesus do?”

  “He . . .” Marcus shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this.”

  “Say it.”

  “He must have made himself unable to be seen somehow.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are you insinuating you can do the same thing?”

  “No. Not me. Like I already said, the Spirit does it.” Reece pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “But we can tap into that power, yes.”

  Reece grabbed another chunk of nachos. “What’s the deal with you three? Have you been studying only the boring parts of the Bible?”

  “I’ve read that verse so many times, but have never seen that,” Dana said.

  “In John’s gospel Jesus says, ‘Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things . . .’

  “Jesus raises people from the dead, walks on water, walks through walls, keeps Peter, James, and John from recognizing him on that beach after he was resurrected, and he says we’ll do the same things he did.” Reece pushed his plate away. “I’m thinking we should believe him. Peter did. Remember when he escaped prison in Acts chapter 12? He strolled out of jail right past two guards.”

  Reece paused and looked at each of them. “The Bible says Jesus isn’t the same today as he was yesterday? Is that how the verse goes? Nay. I think not. I think he’s the same.”

  Dana sat stunned. What could she say? What could any of them say to refute Reece’s little speech? The look on Brandon’s and Marcus’s faces and the silence on their lips told her they were jumping through the same flaming mental hoops. But it was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  “The arrogance of man is that he thinks he can explain the universe. And the church thinks they can explain God.” Reece shook his head. “It’s comical. Go back and look at the science books from one hundred years ago. Even fifty years ago.”

  Reece motioned to their waiter for the check, then glanced at the professor. “You know this better than any of us, Marcus. Much of the content is laughable. And people fifty years from now will laugh at many of the things we swallow so, uh, blindly. Go back and look at the things the church has believed through the ages. We don’t have it all figured out.”

  The waiter arrived and Reece handed him a Visa card. “You’re all discovering the power of God’s Spirit. What it can reveal. How it can heal. How it can bring freedom to your lives. This coming week watch for chances to bring those things to the lives of others.”

  He put his thumb and forefinger up to his eyelids and stretched them wide. “There are chances in every moment if we have eyes to see.”

  “When do we meet again?” Dana said.

  Brandon tossed his napkin on the table. “I have a couple of concerts this week, so I’m out till next Sunday.”

  Reece took their bill from the waiter and scrawled his name. “I’m not sure about our next meeting. I’m praying about it. I’ll let you know.”

>   As Dana drove home she spun through the faces of the people she worked with at the station and imagined what God might show her about them. But the face that stuck wasn’t one of her coworkers. It was an image of Marcus’s wife from the photo she’d seen at Well Spring. But Kat’s face was no longer smiling. It was full of fear.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  KAT AMBER PUSHED HER BLUETOOTH TO ANSWER THE call coming in from Marcus. “How was the church service?”

  “Enlightening would be a vast understatement.”

  “Really?” She pushed her auburn hair back over her shoulders. “Would you like to describe it for me?”

  “It was a continuation of the trajectory Reece started for us at Well Spring.”

  “I’m still not convinced Reece didn’t slip something into your drinks out there in Colorado and you’re imagining all these things.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  She smiled. “Of course not, but you have to admit it’s out there, even for you.”

  “But you believe me.”

  “Yes, but give me a little room for some skepticism, okay? I’ve only had two days to digest what you’ve told me.”

  “Fair enough. And tonight I’ll give you all the details of the latest revelation. It was truly a staggering experience.”

  Kat glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her Toyota. She was going to be late. “Was it good or bad?”

  “A little of both.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just keep your eyes open,” Marcus said, and the words seemed to echo through Kat’s Bluetooth.

  “What does that mean?” Kat sped down 35th toward the soccer fields and glanced at the clock again.

  Marcus started to speak, then stopped. “Our little band of warriors has been delving into areas the enemy cannot be pleased about.”

  “You hesitated. You were about to say something else.”

  “I’m just thinking about the girls.”

  “What about?”

  “That the enemy might come after them.”

  “You’re scaring me, Marcus.”

  “Like I said, keep your eyes open. I’ll see you at home this evening.”