Walter wiped sweat from his brow. These angels were only about twenty feet away from their hiding place! Did they know he was watching? Would they mind?
Yereq pressed his mouth close to Walter’s ear. “Some new arrivals,” he whispered. “Listen to the shining creatures, and you will learn what is happening here.”
One of the angels spread out his four wings and stepped closer to the line of shadowy figures. He seemed to shine with a light of his own. The white radiance washed over the prisoners, giving detail to their bodies and faces.
Walter stifled a gasp. One of the chained arrivals looked familiar … too familiar. There was no mistaking the silky gown, the slender figure, the angular face, and the long black tresses. Unable even to whisper, he mouthed the name. Morgan!
He glanced up at Yereq. The giant’s slack jaw proved that he, too, had recognized her.
A low, hissing voice rose from behind them. “What have we here, Grindle? A lost boy and a wandering Naphil?”
Walter jumped back from the promontory and pointed Excalibur toward the sound. The sword shone brightly, sending a ghostly glow over four reddish-black figures nearly as tall as Yereq. One raised a notched dagger. With dark wings his only adornment, he flexed his muscular arm as he cackled. “Look at the boy’s eyes, Grindle. He is definitely alive.”
One of the other devils flapped his jagged wings. “Excellent. We shall have his blood in our goblets tonight.”
“Not if I can help it!” With a quick downward swipe, Walter lopped off the first devil’s hand, then, swinging the sword back up, narrowly missed his face. The other three flew at Walter and Yereq, each waving long stilettos and clawing with pointed fingernails.
Yereq grabbed a devil by the arm and dashed him against the wall. Walter dropped to the ground, allowing the second one to zip over his head. Thrusting Excalibur upward, he pierced the attacker’s belly as he flew over and rammed the blade completely through. Then, ripping it out again and leaping to his feet, he wheeled around and sliced through the third devil’s waist, cutting him in half.
With the devil he skewered writhing on one side, and the one he cleaved wiggling in two halves on the other, Walter lowered Excalibur and gasped for breath. Strangely enough, there seemed to be no blood flowing from his victims, nor from the smashed body of the one Yereq was now dragging back from the wall.
The devil Walter first attacked leaned over and picked up his severed hand. “It will take years for it to heal,” he muttered as he turned and slinked away. The second devil rose from the ground and spread open his belly wound as if checking for missing innards. He then picked up his stiletto and scuttled into the darkness.
Yereq tossed his pummeled victim down. Crawling on its belly, it slithered away inch by inch. The fourth devil pushed against the ground with his hands and slid his upper half toward his hips and legs. “One dark night, we will catch you off guard,” he snarled. “No one has ever escaped this realm, and you cannot hide from us forever.”
A new light poured onto the scene. Walter spun around. One of the bright angels was watching them from the other side of the promontory. His booming voice echoed. “Walter and Yereq, Jehovah has commanded that you come and see the execution of justice upon his enemies.”
“Yessir!” Walter slid his sword into its scabbard and hustled to the wall. The angel reached over with one arm and, grabbing Walter by his coat, pulled him across. Grappling the rock with his long limbs, Yereq climbed over the promontory and joined them.
The angel led Walter and Yereq across the gravelly beach toward the jetty and its long wooden ramp that led out over the lake. As they approached the ten chained prisoners waiting near the beginning of the ramp, Walter kept his head angled away from Morgan, but as he walked by, a shiver crawled along his skin, no doubt a result of the icy stare he was trying to avoid.
As they tromped down the narrow ramp, black foam gathered along the edges of the supporting rocks, raising a noxious stench—sulfur mixed with burning flesh. Walter gagged. How could he possibly breathe in this place? Just a few more seconds and he would heave everything in his gut!
Fortunately, when they neared the end of the jetty, the fumes dissipated. The ramp widened out into an octagonal platform, maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. As he stepped onto the flat stone, Walter scuffed his foot across an etched design. It looked like a compass with a multi-pointed star in the center and narrow spires tapering in the direction of the octagon’s sides.
The angel brushed a wing across a wooden bench at the very edge of the platform. “The witness seat,” he said in his resonant voice. “Please sit in silence until you are called upon to speak.”
Walter set his hand on the waist-high bench. Since it had no back, he could choose to sit facing toward the lake or away from it, but facing the lake would mean that his feet would dangle over the black fire.
His legs shaking, he eased onto the bench with his back to the lake. When Yereq sat at his side, the bench’s wooden frame groaned under his weight. The giant clenched his hands together, but his face showed no signs of fear.
The other two angels led their prisoners to the center of the platform, stopping them over the star on the floor. Trying to keep his gaze focused away from Morgan, Walter looked over at the lake, just a few feet to his side. The glow from the angels illuminated the surface. Black tongues of flame leaped and fell like waves on a storm-tossed ocean. Finally, those bobbing red lights came into focus—the heads of flailing people, their faces and hair afire in crimson flames and their mouths open in silent screams.
Walter clutched his chest. It felt like his heart was ripping in two. Hot prickles ran across his skin. Such awful pain! Who could stand a minute in that fire, much less an eternity? As he imagined himself in the lake, fear rifled through his body—a dagger that peeled away the lining of his stomach and shredded his bravado. He felt like a cowering pup. If he had had a tail, he would have tucked it between his legs and whined. This is what Ashley must have felt in the stairwell to Hades, the gut-wrenching nausea of naked exposure while trapped deep within an inescapable pit.
“Let the first condemned soul approach!” the lead angel boomed.
Walter jerked his head back to the prisoners. Morgan stepped forward. Her stare, red and flashing, locked on his. An evil smirk dressed her face with insolence, but she said nothing.
Unable to pry his gaze from Morgan’s wicked glare, Walter intertwined his fingers and twisted them painfully. She had never looked so evil, so hate-filled.
The angel’s glow brightened. The light seemed to ooze into Walter’s body, soothing his stomach and quelling his shakes. That helped, but Morgan’s stare kept the shivers running up and down his arms.
Opening a book that spread over his palms, the angel looked at Morgan. “Your name is not written in the Book of Life, so the Lamb has sent you here from his judgment seat where he condemned you to the eternal fires. Justice does not demand that I explain the Lamb’s sentence, so I do this for the sake of the two witnesses who can testify against you if called upon. They will bear this witness to the race of humans and hybrids, not for the purpose of proving your guilt, for your sins against dozens of generations are already well known. Their witness will serve to give the waking world hope and renewed confidence that, even though there is much evil and suffering in their realm, justice will ultimately prevail.”
Morgan spat at his feet. “Jehovah is pure cruelty! Any so-called god who would condemn someone for all eternity is worse than cruel. He is a hateful monster. If all of you angels had joined my lord Lucifer in his quest to unseat that tyrant, we would be enjoying wisdom, freedom, and the pleasure of our bodies. You would”
“Silence!” The angel closed the book and pointed at Morgan. Her lips melted together, and her face withered. Within seconds she looked like a hairy prune—dark, warped, and wrinkled.
The angel’s eyes blazed with white fire. “I need not defend Jehovah-Sabaoth to you, but for these witnesses I will proclaim the truth. Every man, every woman, every ancient witch who suffers in the second death is a faithless rebel. They are liars. They are murderers. They are idolaters. They are stumbling blocks to those who seek the truth.” He pointed at Morgan again. “And you, Lilith, are the symbol that represents all of these sins. A day will come when Hades will give up its dead, and all of your kind will join you in the Lake of Fire, but you and these other nine must go now.”
The other two angels grabbed her arms and dragged her to the edge of the platform. As they passed by the bench, Morgan’s dress swept across Walter’s arm, boiling his stomach once again. Then, picking her up, the angels threw her into the lake.
Walter grimaced, expecting to hear the sounds of horrible agony—a blood-curdling scream or a lamenting wail, but not even the tiniest splash erupted from the lake, only a strong sulfur odor that quickly diffused. Morgan’s wrinkled head bobbed to the surface, her face in red flames as she joined the other crimson beacons in the eternal black void.
The lead angel’s voice boomed again. “The rest of you come forth!”
The other nine shuffled forward. Most seemed well dressed and groomed, making them look like respected professionals who might be gladdened by the company of angels, but their terrified faces and shaking bodies revealed the horrible truth—they feared the torture that lay ahead.
Nodding at his colleagues, the lead angel said, “Bring the millstones.” The two angels flew away, returning only seconds later with ropes and nine stone discs. They tied a wheel-like disc to the neck of each of the nine, leaving just enough rope between stone and neck to allow both the wheel and the prisoner to stand upright.
The lead angel reopened his book. “You are of the liars Yeshua decried when he said, ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”
As the angel closed the book, his glow brightened again and arched over the trembling prisoners. “You have caused many little ones to stumble. You are entering Perdition in this manner so that these true witnesses may testify that all who bring such offense will earn a place in the Lake of Fire.”
The two angels began pulling the nine and their millstones to the edge of the platform, some kicking and flailing their arms.
His throat constricting tightly, Walter watched each condemned prisoner’s feet drag across the star’s spire that pointed toward the lake. The six men and three women poured out anguished wails but no words—no protests of innocence, no pleas for mercy, no curses. One by one, the angel picked up the millstone and pressed it against the prisoner’s chest before throwing both in.
When the last of the nine plunged into the lake and disappeared into its depths, Walter covered his face with his hands and wept. Shaking so hard his ribs ached, he peeked between his fingers at Yereq. The giant just sat and stared at the setting sun, wide-eyed, a single tear tracking into his beard.
The lead angel sat next to Walter. “Many questions are in your mind. Do you care to raise them?”
Walter licked his dry lips and tried to stop shaking. It was just too awful! Those poor souls would suffer in those flames forever and ever and ever! They could never get out, not in a million, billion years.
Looking out over the black turmoil, he spotted Morgan’s face, her mouth agape in anguish. Was she right? Was God really a cruel tyrant?
He shook his head hard. No! It couldn’t be! If God sent those people here, then it had to be the right thing to do, no matter how pitiful they looked, no matter how horrific an eternity of punishment would be.
As the sulfur fumes again assaulted his nose, the nausea rekindled and his shakes worsened. The angel spread a wing over him, immediately calming his nerves. Sniffing, he gazed into the angel’s radiant face and squeaked out his words. “I guess … I guess they had a trial, didn’t they?”
The angel’s wide brow lifted. “Indeed, they did. They went before the judgment seat, and their deeds were exposed. They knew their guilt, so, as you witnessed, all but one had no words of protest. There is coming a great judgment day when all will come to the judgment seat in like manner, and even the thoughts and intentions of the heart will be laid bare.”
Walter swiped his sleeve under his nose. “What about MorgI mean, Lilith? Can you answer all that stuff she said?”
The angel’s eyes blazed again. “She is Lucifer’s personal minion, one who willingly worships him. She is like a rebel angel herself, so she was well versed in attacking the light of truth. Like the serpent of old, she twists the minds of those who are foolish enough to listen.” As the fire in his pupils settled, his voice eased into a gentler tone. “Eternal punishment is not cruel; it is deserved. Every condemned soul has resisted the call of God and rejected the light he was given. As a created mortal, you cannot understand the severity of lifelong rebellion against the immortal Creator. Living without surrendering honor to the Life-giver is the very heart of rebellion. It is the worship of self, the sin that leads to all others and establishes the heart of pride.”
Walter again gazed at the flaming heads in the lake, reading the agony in the screaming faces that represented horribly tortured minds. As a new wave of nausea boiled inside, he pushed his palm against his stomach and bent over. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
The angel stroked his back. “As all men of compassion become when they consider the destiny of the unrighteous. We angels celebrate the judgment, for we see what you do not see, yet cannot feel what you must feel when you sympathize with their pain.”
Walter swallowed back an eruption of acidic bile. The burning sensation refreshed the pain he felt for those in the black fire. Their burning was far worse, a scalding torture that enveloped their entire bodies, but they couldn’t swallow it away.
He glanced again at the silent screamers, the angel’s words echoing,
the heart of pride, the heart of pride.
As one of the women floated closer, in his mind, a new face covered hersAshley’s.