“Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:18–19
For a moment he was too stunned to move. Then Marcus ripped open the door and leaped from the top step to the grass,
then tumbled and rolled like he was four years old again. Finally he rose to his feet, rushed to Tristan, and grabbed the angel as laughter poured from his mouth. When he released Tristan, Marcus stepped back and his breaths came in gasps.
“Marcus Amber, son of the King, the goal of the enemy was to make you live in the might-have-beens, to dwell on them till they destroyed you and those closest to you. But now you have been set free and have been given a choice going forward. To believe the Word of God and live in that freedom, or take up the chains from the past and wrap them around your heart.”
Tristan peered deep into Marcus’s eyes. “My suggestion is you choose to believe what God has said.”
“I choose to believe.” Marcus adjusted his glasses and frowned at Tristan. “The alternate realities. Were they real? Was my physical body truly there?”
“Your body truly was there, yes. But were they real? No. As you now know, they were only a life of lies created by the enemy to destroy you.” Tristan squeezed Marcus’s shoulder. “It is time to go.”
“A question before we do.”
“Of course.”
“Simon.”
Tristan smiled. “Yes, a good man.”
“He’s human?”
“Yes. But years ago he did not make the same choice you made on the cliffs with Zennon, nor did he make the same choice you did at the door of your memories.” Tristan squeezed Marcus’s shoulder again. “But all is not lost and the day of restoration for Simon is coming. You have not seen the last of him. He has helped you, and I believe in the weeks and months to come you will have the chance to help him in return.”
“So be it.” Marcus nodded. “I’m ready to leave.”
“You’re not curious as to where I’m to guide you next?”
“No.” He smiled. “I am not.”
“Where then?”
“Home,” Marcus said. “To Kat.”
He took Tristan’s hand and the field and the door of his memories vanished.
R
EECE MARCHED DOWN THE PATH TOWARD THE FIRE PIT
at Well Spring as if his eyes had been restored and Dana and Brandon followed. The midday sun radiating off the stones was almost blinding. This was it. Excitement, fear, and resolve all competed for Brandon’s emotional attention. As the others settled in around the pit, Brandon built a fire. Once it burned bright and hot, Reece cleared his throat.
“I believe this will be the defining moment of each of our lives. It will be the moment we step into a battle we’ve been destined for since before we were born. If we are successful, the strike against the enemy will be catastrophic for him.”
“Do you still believe we can succeed? Without the four of us together?” Dana asked.
“If we obey the Spirit’s call to go in and allow him to take us where he wants us to go, we will have succeeded. Anything after that is a bonus.” Reece held a hand toward each of them as if to give a blessing. “This is our destiny. He is for us. We will ride together. We will ride with strength.” He lowered his hands. “Any comments before we go in?”
“Yeah, if we die in there . . .” Brandon slapped his legs. “No, forget it. I’ll tell you when we get out.”
“Tell us now,” Dana said.
“Okay.” Brandon shrugged and smiled. “Warriors Riding is the
greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked at Dana and hoped his eyes conveyed a piece of what his heart felt and that his voice did the same for Reece.
“Me too,” Dana said.
“I agree.” Reece nodded. “Anything else?”
“I feel the Spirit saying time to go,” Dana said.
“So be it.” Reece extended his hands to Dana on one side, Brandon on the other. Brandon took his hand and extended his other to Dana. The instant his hand touched hers, Well Spring vanished and a moment later they stood on the edge of the field of doors where they’d first discovered Tristan’s true identity. In front of them, not more than twenty yards away, lay the dark, pulsing ring of darkness that surrounded the entire field. The spirit of religion.
“What are you two getting?” Reece’s penetrating blue eyes danced. It was clear the man was ready for battle.
Brandon rubbed his lower lip with his eyeteeth. “Strange as this might sound, I’m getting the impression we’re supposed to go through the darkness and find out what’s on the other side.”
“Why strange?” Reece asked.
“Because if the black cloud is the spirit, wouldn’t you think that’s what we have to fight?”
“I’m not sure I know how to fight a cloud.” Reece turned toward Dana. “Anything?”
“I think Brandon’s right. We go through.”
“So be it.” Before the sound of Reece’s words faded, a murky tunnel through the cloud opened up.
“This seems a little too easy,” Brandon said.
Dana smiled at him. “It seems you’ve learned a lesson.”
“Maybe.”
Reece strode toward the tunnel. “Let’s go.” He walked toward the misty tunnel and reached it with three of his long strides. Two more and he vanished from sight. Dana went next, and then Brandon stepped into the swirling chaos.
The cloud grew thicker as he stepped farther in, and a sense of
evil radiated off of it like heat. Tendrils reached out as if to grab him and pull him into the cloud, but they only flickered near his arms and legs. They never took hold. Seven steps later Brandon was out the other side, breathing heavy, but fine other than that.
Too easy, Brandon thought again. It made no sense. Why would the spirit want them to get through if it’s where they were supposed to go? He joined the others who were both staring at the cloud they’d just exited. The tunnel was closed.
“Why did it let us through?” Brandon said.
“I don’t know.” Reece stared at the cloud for a long time before turning and gazing at their surroundings.
They stood on a dry, hard-packed dirt road beneath a reddish-gray sky. Vast drifts of undulating red sand stretched out for miles on either side of the road. The land held no trees, no plants. No birds flew overhead. The air was still. The heat blistering. There was no sound but the shuffle of their boots and shoes on the dirt.
Wait. A faint buzzing in front of and above them. Brandon looked up. Streaking down on them was a shadowy cloud of . . . he couldn’t tell. Birds? No, far too small. Then the sound of thousands of tiny wings reached his ears as the cloud came close enough for him to see what it was.
Wasps, moving faster than he’d ever seen in the physical world.
Dana staggered back. “I’m not a fan of wasps.”
“Brandon?” Reece focused his gaze on him and shouted over the roar of the insects. “Do you remember the orbs of fire you conjured up when we were inside Marcus’s soul a year ago?”
“Yeah.”
“I think now would be a good time to bring them back. And Dana, if you remember how to do them as well, all the better. I’d appreciate it if you’d greet our new friends with a few of them.”
Brandon and Dana stretched out their arms and an instant later two white-hot balls of fire rested in each of their hands. Brandon slung his fireballs at the swarm and Dana threw hers an instant later. They exploded as they hit the front of the attack.
They followed the first four with four more and seconds later all that was left of the wasps was a thin black column of smoke that cleared a few seconds later.
“Nicely done.”
“I’m guessing there are more assaults where that one came from,” Dana said.
“Maybe, maybe not. Expect the unexpected is a wise attitude to cultivate.”
“Sometimes you talk almost as weird as the professor,” Brandon said.
“Thanks, I’ve been working on it,” Reece said.
Just ahead of them the road sloped downward and grew level in a small valley. Then it rose, with multiple switchbacks as it climbed to the base of a cliff that shot two or three hundred feet almost straight up. On top of a column of dark red rock was a fortress.
Reece turned. “Does this look familiar?”
Brandon stared at the red sand, then to the fortress, then at the road. “Very.”
“Do you two realize where we are?” Reece turned to Brandon and Dana and winked.
“Unbelievable,” Brandon said. “We’re in the professor’s vision, aren’t we? The one he had a year ago when we first went to Well Spring. Where he saw the four of us riding through that demonic cloud on horses, with Jesus in front, and then the cloud lifted and he was freeing people alongside the road, and then we got to a fortress and Jesus took the enemy down, threw him into an ancient-looking box and then the whole land broke out into grass and trees.”
“It appears so.”
“So maybe we know how this thing is going to play out?” Dana put her hands on her hips.
“Maybe? I don’t like ‘maybe,’” Brandon said.
Reece turned and strode down the road. “I think it’s going to be more involved this time.”
For the next half hour they hiked toward the fortress in silence. Nothing more attacked them, but it gave Brandon no comfort. It only meant something else more ominous was coming their way.
Finally they crested the top of the last switchback and found themselves in a large courtyard of black stone. The air grew cooler as the sound of their shoes against the stones echoed off the castle walls. The pungent odor of rotting vegetation filled the air.
Brandon coughed out a laugh. “This is too cliché. Cue the creepy music and get a vampire to walk out the front door, or Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, or a crew of one hundred zombies, or the Hunchback of—”
“We get it, Brandon,” Dana said.
Reece looked behind them, then at the archway of the entrance to the fortress. “Are either of you getting anything from the Spirit?”
Dana and Brandon shook their heads. Reece stood and alternated between staring at them and the long corridor in front of them. “Neither am I. I have no direction on what we’re to do.”
Dana looked at Reece, then Brandon. “We go on.” She walked through the archway and down the long corridor, Brandon and Reece on her heels.
The Leader leading once again. Brandon would probably follow her anywhere. The passageway led them to a door, a mass of dark planks bound together at the top and bottom to rough two-by-sixes, three spikes pounded through each piece of wood. Dana reached up, hands steady, placed her palms on the gnarled wood, then turned back to Reece.
“Barricaded?” Reece asked.
Dana shook her head. “I’m guessing the Wolf has been waiting for us to arrive and wouldn’t feel the need to keep us from getting in even if they didn’t know we were coming. We are the flies here, not the spider.”
“No, Dana.” Reece glanced at Brandon, then back to her. “That’s exactly what they want us to think. But think back to what happened at the end of Marcus’s vision. In the place we now stand,
Jesus defeated Satan with no more effort than flicking a crumb of bread off a table.”
“But we’re not Jesus.”
“Yet he lives inside us and we sit with him at the right hand of the Father with all power and authority.”
“Good,” Brandon said. “’Cause I have a feeling we’re gonna need it.”
Dana pushed on the door and it swung open without a sound.
D
ID HE HAVE TO TELL HER
? O
F COURSE
. B
UT IT DIDN
’
T
mean he had the desire to.
Marcus stood in his kitchen and stared through the window at Kat, who sat on their deck in the backyard, head back, eyes closed, listening to music, the late morning sun on her face. The weight of regret over what had happened to Layne had vanished, and forgiveness filled the place of pain, but there was no way to know how Kat would react when he told her what he’d done.
No, Zennon’s illusions were not the truth, but that didn’t mean the outcome would be positive.
He slid open the screen door in the kitchen, eased onto the deck, and sat in a chair across from her.
She opened her eyes, waved at him, then closed them again. “When Doug called and said you and the other Warriors were going to have a late night, I didn’t think he meant this late. It’s almost noon.”
“He called you?”
“Last night and again this morning. He wanted me to know you were okay.” Kat sat up and opened her eyes again. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Marcus stared at the cherry tree to the right of the house as if it could give him an idea of how to start, what he would say in the middle, and what he would say at the end. Just like a good teacher should do. Work out the lecture in his mind first. Then
imagine giving it with confidence and clarity. Then deliver what he’d already practiced with perfection in his head.
But this wasn’t class, Kat wasn’t one of his students, and the only test was how she would react. “I thought you were working at the bakery today.”
“I took the day off. I had a feeling I should. Was I right?”
“Yes, you were.” It felt like he was sputtering out chunks of concrete. “I have to tell you something.”
“What?” Kat pulled her earbuds out.
“I have to tell you some—”
“I heard you.” She pulled her legs up so her feet rested on the edge of the chair and she wrapped her arms around them tight. “I meant what is it?”
“I don’t know how to begin this. The words are having difficulty emerging from my mouth.” His pulse felt like it was topping out at 180 beats per minute and cold sweat eked out along his forehead.
“Begin anywhere.”
“I don’t want to hurt us.” Marcus sighed. “I don’t want to lose everything we are.”
Kat’s face turned pale and then her eyes narrowed as if she suspected what he was about to say. But how could she know what he’d done?
“This is the secret the demon spoke of that night at dinner.”
Marcus nodded and stared at the trees along the back edge of their property as they swayed in the breeze. He stopped and gripped his knees with the tips of his fingers. He was near the edge of the waterfall now. The air seemed too thin and Marcus had trouble breathing. He braced himself for what was about to be unleashed on her, then unleashed on him, then them. It didn’t matter. It was the truth.
Jesus, let there be freedom in it.