by Robin M Helm
He kissed her again, lightly. “Would you mind being pregnant again so soon?”
Elizabeth smiled and put her hands on either side of his face. “Not at all. I am glad, though, that we put off finishing our doctorates. We are just too busy, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to shortchange our children. But, Xander, how do you feel about having a fat wife again? I haven’t had my figure back but a few months.”
He lowered his forehead to hers. “Have I ever acted as if I find you unattractive, Mrs. Darcy?”
She laughed. “I believe the evidence speaks to the contrary, Mr. Darcy.”
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, holding her with one arm as he drew the covers down with his other hand. After gently laying her on the sheets, Xander knelt by the bed, turned his head toward her face, and placed his ear against her stomach.
She was watching him closely for his reaction.
He smiled at her broadly. “I hear the heartbeat. It is somewhat different from the way John David’s sounded. Can you hear it through my mind?”
She listened intently as he projected the sound through his thoughts. Her joy was in her eyes as she heard the thudding of the tiny heart. “It does seem to be beating in double time, but it is very strong,” she said.
Xander sat on the edge of the bed, turning to pull her into his arms. “We have done very well, my love. I think we are well on our way to that full quiver mentioned in Psalm 127:3-5. I can say with Solomon, ‘Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they shall not be ashamed, when they speak with their enemies in the gate.’”
He kissed her deeply. How can my love keep expanding this way? The more I love you and our children, the more love I have to give. I want to show you how much I love you, Elizabeth.
“What about that rest that I need so badly?” she asked innocently.
“You said that you rest better after exercise. I am helping you in that respect – though, if you prefer, I can just rub your back until you fall asleep,” he replied, a small smile playing about his lips as he held her in his arms.
Elizabeth kept her arms around his neck, drawing him beside her into the bed. “I’ll never turn down a back rub, but if that leads to other things, we can sleep a little later in the morning, perhaps?”
In answer, Xander turned off the alarm and texted Jonathan that he and Elizabeth would be late for breakfast.
Michael and Gabriel faced the windows.
~~oo~~
Xander and Elizabeth entered the dining room with John David around ten the next morning, surprised to see Charlotte and Jonathan just sitting down to eat. Of further and more pressing interest to Xander, Michael, and Gabriel, however, was the extra guardian with the young couple. Alec lifted his palm in salute to his Chief, the Captain, and the archangel, and they nodded in acknowledgement. Cahal and Kenward saluted the newest addition to their group.
Lexus and Edward stood behind their charges.
Charlotte is with child? asked Michael, looking toward Lexus.
Lexus allowed himself a smile. She is. The child was conceived after Xander sent his message to Jonathan. They also decided to ‘sleep in.’
Gabriel beamed beatifically. That is wonderful news. It appears that Elizabeth is into her second month with another child as well. Our Master has abundantly blessed this team.
Elizabeth, you cannot show any change of expression, but Charlotte is pregnant, too. I have just met the baby’s guardian, said Xander into her mind.
Elizabeth hid her smiling face by kissing John David’s cheek. I am so excited! Charlotte and I will carry our children together. We can share this with each other. Don’t worry; I’ll keep the secret, but I can’t pretend that it will be easy to do so. Fortunately, I won’t have to keep it for long. She’ll know within a couple of months. I should deliver in late February or early March, and she’ll be a month or so behind me. This is wonderful! I’m really glad that she’s already finished her Master’s degree. It was very important to her, but I know how hectic her life is about to become.
Xander and Elizabeth sat down with Jonathan and Charlotte, and Xander began a conversation about their plans for the day. Soon a waitress came to take their orders and bring them a highchair.
If Charlotte noticed that Elizabeth seemed a little more animated than was usual for her friend in the morning, she kept her observations to herself.
~~oo~~
The following night, in Washington, D.C., President Timothy Reeves slept soundly in his bed in the White House, secret service agents guarding the door. As his wife was in Florida taking a short vacation with their two children before school resumed, he was alone, except for the unseen dark ones lining the walls of his room.
The President had not rested well since the untimely death of his Vice President in January, and he had never trusted the man whom he was forced to nominate as his new Vice President. The cabal supporting Wickham had met with him the night of Howard Andrews’s unfortunate demise, showing him “evidence” proving him to be a traitor. If he refused to nominate Wickham as Vice President, they threatened to start impeachment proceedings against him immediately, and knowing that his career would end in ignominy, he had capitulated quickly. He had worked too hard and too long to accept the infamy of impeachment or the trial that would surely follow resulting in his conviction, and he refused to resign.
As Reeves twisted and turned in the bed, Gregory Wickham’s face invaded his nightmares.
Reeves was running, yet unable to move with any speed, his feet slogging through the muck of a swamp. The powerful men who had forced him to accept Wickham chased him through the darkness, Wickham at the front of them, waving the counterfeit evidence. He worked to escape, even knowing that evasion was impossible, but he could not outrun them. He tried to scream, but his screams were silent. His mouth opened over and over, but he could make no sound. The trees seemed to bend over him, grabbing at him, ghostly and bare.
The demons drank of his fear, reveling in his terror.
He heard a strange sound as Wickham finally reached him, pulling at him, forcing him to turn and face him. Reeves slowly looked behind him, and what he saw nearly stopped his heart. Wickham opened his mouth wide, hissing, displaying fangs, and his eyes glowed a brilliant crimson. The monster was deadly, but at the same time, beautiful. His forked tongue darted out, tasting the air, as he slowly lowered his head to Reeves’s throat.
Reeves jolted to consciousness, drenched in sweat, shrieking at full volume while the demons danced around his bed. Within seconds, the agents were in his room and the lights were on. One of them shook the President until he awoke. Reeves stopped screaming and looked at the agent, terrified.
“What happened?” Reeves asked.
“Nothing, Mr. President. You had another nightmare,” the man answered.
“Have you searched the room? Someone was here – I swear it,” whispered Reeves.
The other agents had been carefully combing the room, and each of them answered, “All clear.”
“Shall we stay with you, Mr. President?” asked one of the agents.
Reeves felt foolish. “No – no. That won’t be necessary.” How can I tell them that it was Vice President Wickham, and that he had fangs?
“Are you sure, Mr. President? Should we call your doctor for something to help you sleep?” the agent asked, genuinely concerned.
“No. Don’t disturb him. I already have some sleeping pills he gave me earlier,” Reeves answered, rising from the bed to change his pajamas and take the prescription medication. “I’ll hit the panic button if I need you. Return to your posts.”
The men nodded and left the room, resuming their seated positions outside the door, and the demons again surrounded the President’s bed.
Reeves, clad in fresh pajamas, lay back down. He picked up the remote and turned on the television, thi
nking to distract himself with an old movie. After watching for a half hour, the pills did their work, and he drifted back off to sleep, leaving the television on, the noise lulling him to unconsciousness.
He began to dream again, and the nightmare picked up where he had awakened.
Wickham was there again, leaning over him, fangs extended.
President Reeves realized that he was dreaming, and he slowly opened his eyes.
Hovering above him was an enormous olive green snake, watching him with cold, dead eyes. Am I still dreaming? I must be.
He looked at the reptile coiled in his bed, and he calmed himself. This is a dream. There is no way a snake could get in here. He must be more than ten feet long.
The snake slowly lowered his head to the President’s neck and bit him, delivering a full load of venom directly into his jugular vein as Dark Spirit spoke into the man’s confused, medicated mind, You are dreaming. Do not embarrass yourself by screaming again.
Reeves thought, I am dreaming. This is just a dream.
The snake continued to bite him on his neck, face, and chest, flooding him with deadly poison. After each bite, the reptile stared into Reeves’s eyes hypnotically, mesmerizing him, convincing him that nothing was real.
The demons bowed to Dark Spirit, worshipping him and chanting as he removed the obstacle to the Dark Prince’s power.
The black mamba finally drew back, watching Reeves as the signs of severe neurotoxicity ensued. Within a few minutes, Reeves experienced difficulty breathing and his heart began to beat erratically. When his stomach began to twist and spasm in pain, he tried to reach for the panic button, but his arm would not obey his brain’s commands. His paralysis was such that he could not make a sound. Reeves’s eyes rolled back as he went into shock; cardiac arrest soon followed, and the President died before ten minutes had passed.
His work done, the snake slithered to the door and waited, surrounded by his admirers.
~~oo~~
When the President did not answer his wake up call the next morning, the agents opened the door to rouse him. Quickly the coiled snake struck, catching one of the agents on the hand and then racing down the hall in the aftermath of confusion. By the time anyone thought of chasing the reptile, it had disappeared, though it had been identified as a black mamba.
As one of the agents radioed for a doctor and made a tourniquet for the victim’s hand from his tie, the others entered the room, finding a horrible scene.
Several doctors appeared nearly immediately, but none of them could help President Reeves. He had been dead for several hours, and the cause was obvious. The only question was how the snake had gotten into the President’s room, and security footage of the hallways gave no answers.
Vice President Wickham was contacted, and within an hour, he took the Oath of Office administered by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Gregory Wickham swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, his hand carefully hovering just above a Bible without touching it, and became President of the United States.
At thirty-six years old, the handsome young man was the youngest President in the history of the country, displacing John F. Kennedy from that position. He photographed beautifully, dressed impeccably, and spoke intelligently. While the American people grieved for the loss of President Reeves, they were quickly distracted from mourning by the vision of their virile, youthful leader and his lovely, accomplished wife. President Reeves was soon a distant memory, and President Wickham was hailed across the nation and around the globe as the leader for a new age.
President Wickham nominated one of his colleagues, Senator Hugh Dodge of North Carolina, to be Vice President, and he was confirmed by the Senate in record time. Dodge knew Wickham’s family very well. In fact, he had helped to train his master’s son.
There would be no need for secrecy between the new President and his Vice President, and there was a guarantee of absolute loyalty.
Lucifer was very pleased.
~~oo~~
Late July 2010
Xander and Elizabeth were shocked by President Reeves’s sudden, horrible death, as were the rest of the SoulFire team. They had finished the tour, offering comfort to the stunned people in the rallies, and pointing them to the only true security, much more powerful than anything the world had to offer – placing their trust in God and accepting salvation through His Son. The summer had been truly amazing in its success. Americans were turning to God by the thousands, spurred to action by Jonathan’s series of sermons on the end times. The media was talking of a revival surpassing the Great Awakening of the 1700’s, led, interestingly enough, by Jonathan Edwards. Three or four such “awakenings” had been recognized in the history of the country, but none equaled the power and scope of the one beginning in the twenty-first century.
More than ever, Xander and the others were convinced that they were, indeed, seeing the fulfillment of Christ’s six signs of the times from Matthew 24. The first sign, the proliferation of false teachers and false christs, was undeniable. David Icke, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Maria Devi Christos, Sergei Torrop, David Shayler, and several others had claimed to be the Messiah with disastrous results. The current crop of false religious leaders who tickled the ears of the public with promises of prosperity were gaining followers daily.
The second sign, wars and rumors of wars, was easy to prove. Wars abounded across the planet, skirmishes and full-fledged battles, killing more people than at any other time in history, and the potential for mass destruction continued to escalate.
Famines, the third sign, were widespread as a large percentage of the world’s five billion people suffered from food shortages while drug lords replaced food crops with poppies, and well-intentioned politicians diverted corn which had previously fed the starving masses into bio-fuel production.
Earthquakes, the fourth sign, were occurring at a level higher than at any other time known to man with staggering numbers of seismic events happening daily throughout the world.
Worldwide attacks on Christians were the fifth sign, tribulation. In many nations, Christians were suffering great persecution and even death. The world watched apathetically as great churches were razed or converted to other uses. Countries allowing religious freedom were growing scarce, while the numbers of nations closing their borders to missionaries and ministers were increasing at an alarming rate.
SoulFire was actually helping to fulfill the sixth sign, the preaching of the gospel throughout the world, with their ministry. Other ministries continued to do so as well, using television, radio, missionaries, the internet, and multiple translations of the Bible.
As Xander mused over the events of the past two years, however, he realized something important.
During the short weeks between tours, Xander and Elizabeth employed Anna Armstrong to stay with them. As John David was down for a nap under Anna’s watchful eye, Xander asked his wife if she would enjoy a walk with him. She agreed, so Cahal, Kenward, and Halvard remained with Anna and the baby while Michael and Gabriel followed Xander and Elizabeth as they began ambling through the trees behind their house. They drank in their peaceful surroundings and the hot summer weather, walking in silence, shaded by a canopy of leaves until Xander paused and turned to Elizabeth, taking both of her hands in his.
“Elizabeth, I have been thinking about Gregory,” he said.
“Something I try to avoid as much as possible,” she returned, smiling as she looked at their joined hands.
“You know that Gregory appears to be setting himself up as the Antichrist,” he continued.
“Yes. You don’t think he is anymore?” she asked, looking quickly up at her husband.
Michael and Gabriel listened closely, intensely interested.
“I think he wants to be the Antichrist, but I am no longer convinced that he truly will be,” said Xander, dropping his hands to his sides.
“Why not? Didn’t God tell you Gregory is the Antichrist?” she queried.
> His perfect mind recalled the exact words of God: Satan has a greater plan for Gregory after he eliminates Elizabeth; however, the time is not full. He cannot be allowed to force My hand.
Xander paused for a moment. “Actually, I thought that is what He meant, but it may not be so. God said that the time is not full, and that Satan cannot be allowed to force His hand.”
“What do you think that means?” Elizabeth asked.
Xander spoke deliberately. “I have been thinking about the Scriptural qualifications of the Antichrist, and Gregory does not meet all of them. He has not fulfilled all of the prophecies, and it appears that he is trying to make himself fit some of them. When he was shot on the steps of the Senate and seemed to come back from the dead, he was trying to fulfill Revelation 13:3 and 17:8, but he arranged that entire episode himself.”
“That’s true,” replied Elizabeth. “And he also made himself answer the prophecy of Revelation 13:17-18 by having ‘666’ tattooed behind his ear.”
“The main consideration at this time is his origins,” said Xander. “I do not see how he can make himself fit into Daniel, chapters 7, 8, and 11. He does not come from the race of the original Roman Empire, or that of Seleucus, who ruled the areas of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Neither is he of Middle Eastern descent. He was born in North Carolina to an American mother of Scots-Irish heritage and Lucifer. That is the material point.”
“Then what could it all mean?” she asked.
“I believe that God wants us to stop Gregory and Lucifer from trying to ‘force His hand’ in attempting to hurry His timetable. I am not certain that Jehovah is ready for this to be the end of the age. He will select His own Antichrist, and Lucifer cannot put his choice in place of God’s,” Xander answered.
“So, God chooses the Antichrist? That’s an odd thought,” Elizabeth said, puzzled.
“Not exactly. I think that Lucifer always has an Antichrist ready for every age, but God will choose the time, and therefore, the Antichrist, Himself. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35-36, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.’ Lucifer wants to choose the time himself, and his choice for the Antichrist is Gregory.” Xander paused for a moment, and then continued resolutely. “I think that God wants us to stop him,” he explained. “That does not necessarily mean that we are not in the end times. The Almighty does not view time as we do. He may choose to rapture the church and begin the second coming of Christ in two years, five years, or twenty years. There is no way to predict when it will happen. However, we must live each day as if His coming is imminent.”