Heaven and Hell (45 page)

Serena couldn’t argue with that. “But what class of angel were you?”

“I was a warrior,” Abaddon said, then paused, sensing the next question in this young human’s mind. “I know, I know; if God is all powerful, why would He need warriors? Again, I am uncertain. Nonetheless, He created us, and I was one of the best. I was set in charge of an entire legion of angels. I answered directly to Michael himself and had twelve lieutenants under my command.”

“But allow me to speak of the third class of angels, for herein lay the seeds of disunity. They were those who surrounded the thrown of God, singing praises unto the Father of the universe. Lucifer, who now calls himself satan, led them. No other angels had closer access to God than these. They formed an administrative council of sorts, directing the activities of the other angelic classes. Yet, as time passed, they began to think of themselves as being better than the rest of us. As your people might say, they were becoming legends in their own minds, and none of them thought more highly of himself than lucifer.”

“He told you at your sentencing that he rebelled against God over the issue of God’s love for man, but I tell you, that is only partially true. Lucifer used man as an excuse, as a rallying point; he had delusions of grandeur long before God proclaimed that He would create your kind. Lucifer actually thought that he could lead a successful revolt against the Father, as he stirred up discontent among the angels under his command. He convinced them that Michael’s and Gabriel’s angels would follow them if only he made the first move, so he did.”

“But they didn’t follow him,” deduced Serena.

“No, they didn’t,” confirmed Abaddon. “They remained faithful to their heavenly Father and took up arms against lucifer and his followers. Strange, isn’t it? Lucifer’s cast was supposed to have possessed the most highly developed minds of all of the angels, yet it was they who perpetrated the most irrational act in the history of the cosmos. Supposedly, they had their revolt planned perfectly, the ultimate coup d’état. I was among those who battled against lucifer and his angels on that day. Lucifer and his angels had the element of surprise and careful preparation on their side. We were totally unprepared for such an eventuality.”

“What kind of a battle was it?” asked Serena. “Was it a battle of swords?”

That comment brought Abaddon to outright laughter. “No, child, it was not a battle with swords, at least not the kind of swords that you are familiar with. All too often, you humans picture warring angels with shields in hand, broad sword raised high, but it is not like that at all. Our weapons may take the appearance of classical human weapons, but they are far more than a sharp implement of hardened steel. I doubt that you could comprehend the nature of the weapons used in the battles we fight.”

“To put it simply, the war against satan and his minions was a battle of angelic wills, wills that commanded vast forces. It was a battle that was raged on the ground, in the air, and into realms that you could not even comprehend. It was a battle like none other, utilizing forces that make the nuclear weapons of your age look like toys. Amid the sound of thunder, the blinding brilliance of the lightning, it raged on for days, trying all of us that fought it. None could be slain in the battle, for we are immortal. Yet our immortality did not mean that the battle would go on indefinitely. We are capable of feeling heat, pain, and exhaustion. What gave the victory to us was our endurance, our numbers, and I would like to think, the blessings of the Father.”

“Then God didn’t take part in the battle personally?”

“Not in the battle itself,” confirmed Abaddon. “At some level, I’m certain that He was involved, but not in the way you might think. Understand; God manifests Himself as a physical and a spiritual presence. You saw His physical presence at your sentencing, but you can also feel His spiritual presence. During the days of the battle, His physical presence vanished from our midst. In very fact, it is my understanding that lucifer and his allies were convinced that they could hold the physical presence of God captive, perhaps use it as a bargaining chip. Imagine, trying to hold God hostage. Such was their pride and their foolishness.”

Serena seemed most puzzled. “But couldn’t God have simply waved His hand and defeated satan and his angels?”

Abaddon leaned back as if to ponder Serena’s question. “Perhaps, but I now believe that this battle was part of His divine plan. I have become convinced that God intended to test His angels, to see who would be faithful to Him in the time of crisis. God’s thinking is so far above ours. He seemed so close when I talked to Him, so understanding, so loving. It is hard to fathom just how powerful He really is. I loved Him too, I guess I still do. I was not going to betray the Father on that day. I would fight for Him, for however long it would take to defeat His enemies, and I know He gave us strength in those trying times.”

“I encouraged the legion under my command to be true to the Father, to fight for His cause to the end of their endurance and beyond. I can tell you that during the battle there were times when my strength and those around me was tried to nearly its limits. There were times when I was very uncertain of the battle’s outcome, yet I and hundreds of millions of other angels endured. I earned a name during that struggle. I became known as the Destroyer.”

Serena shuddered slightly at the name given this strange fallen angel. Would the Destroyer continue to show mercy upon her, or would he eventually discard her into the sea of fire?

“In the end, lucifer and his minions were exhausted, unable to continue the fight. We pushed them back, confined them, and in the end, brought them to their knees. Then we awaited God’s judgment. I was convinced that God would bring an end to the very existence of the rebellious angels, yet His love and compassion held sway over the moment. Rather than destroy them, He exiled them to this place, a realm beyond His creation, never to return. Their punishment was to dwell beyond His presence. Here they would spend eternity.”

“But look at this place,” Serena said. “It is its own punishment. To be sentenced to a barren, burned out cinder such as this one might be worse than blinking out of existence.”

“Perhaps, but it is my understanding that this place was never a paradise; but in the beginning it was not the world you see today. God was not so unmerciful. Satan and his followers could have molded this world into something better; but instead, they reduced it to a savage wasteland. He created the Hell you have experienced out of his own insane hatred for humanity, to exact some vengeance on God’s most prized creation.”

He knew one day that there would be humans who, in their ignorance, would rebel against the Father as he had. He prepared this place for that day. It became his single passion, his very reason for existence, and he convinced his followers to labor with him. With so many capable and willing hands and hearts at his disposal, it was accomplished in a relatively short span of years. Indeed, he continues to make certain improvements. Now he views himself as the lord of this realm, the architect of this twisted creation, master of all that he surveys; yet he is mistaken. He is just another prisoner in this accursed place. He retains the illusion of power by commanding his legions, by subjecting the humans of Hell to constant agony. He is a pathetic creature.”

Serena leaned forward slightly, still not knowing what to make of this strange being. Was he an ally, a friend, or just a disgruntled demon in need of sympathy? “But how did you end up here?”

Abaddon continued, his tone still calm and deliberate. “It was many centuries, indeed, over a thousand years after the fall of satan and his minions that I made my fatal mistake. I had, on occasion, made my way to Earth to see God’s most prized creation, and I liked what I saw. Humans, especially human females, were fascinating to watch. To see them learn and develop, to discover the world around them, was a unique experience. I was delighted when the Father asked me and others to journey to Earth to safeguard humanity. I took a form not unlike that of a human male, that I might observe these fascinating beings more readily, and as situations dictated, guide them. Indeed, angels of God do it to this day.”

“Guardian angels? They actually exist?” Serena asked.

“Of course they do,” was the reply. “There are more of us in your world than you could possibly imagine. There are millions. Unfortunately, I grew too close to the problem, and I was not alone. Many angels in that day erred as I did. We interfered in ways that had been forbidden by the Father. We rendered unto humankind certain knowledge. Knowledge of how to forge certain metals, of creating more effective plows and weapons, and of utilizing natural herbs to create simple potions to treat illness; all of these things we did.”

“But that doesn’t sound so bad,” objected Serena. “So you saw suffering and ignorance and tried to alleviate it. Certainly God didn’t object to that.”

“But it didn’t end there,” Abaddon said. “In taking on a human form, we also became subject to human passions. The daughters of man were fine indeed, objects of beauty crafted by the Father, and we decided to take them unto ourselves, to become even more human. Need I elaborate?”

Serena was stunned by this revelation. “You mean you had sex with them?”

“More than that, we gave them children, children who were more than human. Your society might say that they were genetically engineered. We sought to hurry along the development of humankind, introduce into their primitive culture a number of truly superior specimens, men of valor who would grow to lead the human race into a golden age. The legends of ancient history echo their names—Hercules, Imhotep, and Perseus still stir the imagination. However, in doing this thing, we exceeded our mandate from God.”

Serena sat in stunned amazement. Why wasn’t this story in the Bible? Then she realized that it was, but briefly. Didn’t the Book of Genesis mention the sons of God becoming involved with the daughters of men? Strange that she should recall that vague reference now.

“We weren’t prepared for the full consequences of our actions,” continued Abaddon. “We thought that we had the art of creation mastered, that we could engineer a superior human. How foolish, how arrogant we were. We failed to realize that our essence was not truly compatible with that of humankind. In trying to create a superior human, we created a race of inhuman monsters bent upon conquest. Some were of titanic proportions. Now, matters were worse. Still, God might have forgiven us for such an error in judgment. After all, in some respects, our hearts were in the right place; but we didn’t stop there.”

When things started to go badly, when the children we had fathered started to go astray, we took desperate measures. Some of us revealed ourselves to humanity, not as servants of the Father, but as deities in our own right. We proclaimed ourselves to be gods or sons of God, hoping to strike fear and reverence in the hearts of our wayward children. The stories of Zeus, Amon Ra, and Marduk are all based upon the exploits of angels among humanity. But this made matters even worse. We reveled in the role we had created for ourselves, accepting the adoration of humanity. We quickly became lost in the fantasy, becoming false gods, and this is what the Father would not permit. In our own way, we had subverted God. Not as openly as lucifer and his angels, but just as deliberately.”

“Oh my god,” gasped Serena, before she was able to stop herself. She was surprised to find that her hasty comment had not affected Abaddon in the least.

“Like lucifer and his followers before us, we too were sentenced to outer darkness. Needless to say, there was no love lost between satan and his followers and ourselves. We lived in a state of uneasy peace with these original inhabitants of Hell. There were those among them who felt that they had a score to settle with me and the others. We were always on the move, attempting to avoid confrontations with satan’s minions, beings that we had helped condemn to this place.”

“I tried to place as much distance between myself and satan as I could. You might say that he and I go way back. The divisions between us are deep. I eventually made my home in this remote region, far from satan’s infernal palace. At the time, satan and his minions hadn’t quite transformed Hell into the obscenity that it is today. I roamed far and wide across this globe, managed to rescue some of the last plant and animal life that still struggled for survival on this barren rock. The small flower in your room is one of its descendants. You see, I loved your green Earth. I wanted to preserve something that might remind me of its beauty.” Abaddon rose to his feet and extended his hand to Serena. “Come, walk with me.”

Serena accepted his hand and walked with the dark angel toward another hewn passageway along the far wall. The passageway followed a twisting course through the depths of the island. There was an increasing odor of moisture, and more than that, an air of life. Ahead Serena witnessed a growing illumination until they emerged into another cavern room, a room whose size staggered the imagination. Its ceiling was covered with brightly glowing crystals, giving the vast chamber an illumination that rivaled true daylight. What Serena saw made her gasp.

The cavern was alive with greenery—grass, flowers, even small trees. Vines with large glossy emerald leaves grew up the cavern walls and along natural rock pillars that supported the lofty, crystaled ceiling, their source of life. At the center of the cavern, a pool of water, green with algae and lily pads glistened in the glow of the crystalline light. Never had she imagined seeing such a display of life again. Tears of joy came to her eyes as she scanned the green vastness.