Christopher was sure that he saw the trace of a tear in Sarah’s eye, but he didn’t say anything. He could sense how she felt right now.
The boys walked into the log cabin that was the heavenly mansion of the Andersons. The inside of the house was quite rustic. It wasn’t a particularly large home, yet it was pleasantly furnished with fine wood furniture, a stone fireplace, and shiny hardwood floors with a variety of mismatched throw rugs. Christopher had been here several times before, yet the ambiance of this place always impressed him. It was very unlike the modern home of his parents on Earth, and equally dissimilar to his home here in Heaven, which struck him as being a bit austere. Angels weren’t the universe’s best interior decorators.
No, this place had the feel of a well-kept, backwoods home of the 1920s or ’30s. It had old-style electric lamps and fixtures, though they operated on a wholly different principle from those of early twentieth-century Earth. The water faucets utilized hand pumps to bring the water into the basins. He figured that Jerry’s parents went with the appliances and furnishings that were the most familiar to them.
The boys headed into Jerry’s bedroom where they could discuss what had transpired in the forest, away from Jerry’s mother. Christopher figured that Jerry would have some questions for him. He wasn’t disappointed.
“OK, why did we just lie to my mother about what happened in the woods?” asked Jerry, closing the bedroom door behind him. “I always tell her the truth. Relationships in this family are based on trust.”
“You didn’t say anything,” corrected Christopher, “and I didn’t lie to her. What did I tell her that wasn’t the truth?”
Jerry had to think a few seconds on that one. Christopher had a point. “Yes, but it was misleading.”
“Maybe,” admitted Christopher. “I’ve been reading books on American history in one of the libraries in Zion. I spend a lot of time there. One interesting book was about American politics during the Cold War.”
“I’ve heard of the Cold War,” replied Jerry.
“Well, during the Cold War there were certain American military secrets that were even withheld from the president himself—deep, dark secrets. Some were violations of international law. If the president knew about them, they would have counted him as part of the illegal activity. They couldn’t risk that. His not knowing gave the president what they called plausible deniability. It kept him out of trouble.
“If we told your parents about what happened out there in the woods today, we would put them in danger too if the other demons found out. I don’t want to put your parents in danger, do you?”
“No,” confirmed Jerry. He hesitated before continuing. “You know, what I find real…well…troubling about you is that you don’t act or talk like most ten-, I mean almost eleven-year-olds. You don’t really play, and you don’t read the sorts of books that most kids read. I mean, do you ever read books like
Tom Sawyer
or
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
?”
“I’ve read them both,” replied Christopher.
“OK, but sometimes the things you say are sort of creepy.”
“I was mostly raised by angels, not ordinary parents, and not wolves,” retorted Christopher.
“I get that,” replied Jerry. “But you do problems in analytic geometry, whatever that is. You know your Bible like no one I know, and you study American political history in fantastic detail. And after all of that, you still can’t tie a decent fly to go fly fishing with.”
Both Christopher and Jerry were laughing now. It broke the growing tenseness in the room.
Then Jerry continued. “What you did out there in the woods…do you think you could teach me how to do that?”
“I think so,” said Christopher, with not a second of hesitation in his voice. “You can gate from one place to another in Heaven with pinpoint accuracy. That takes thousands of times more energy and control than what I just did. I think it’s important that you do learn it.”
For the next hour and a half, Christopher explained to Jerry what was involved in what he had just done. Then Jerry tried it for himself. More than three hours later, Jerry rolled a small ink pen several inches across a table with nothing more than the power of thought. It wasn’t so much mustering up the power to do it as it was mustering up the faith to do it. The power wasn’t resident within the individual but within God’s own Holy Spirit who permeated all of Heaven. It became a matter of convincing himself that all things were possible, even when common sense urged that they were not.
In the coming days and weeks, mastering such an ability might become a matter of survival. Yes, they could escape a demon by simply gating away 1,000 miles or to another level of Heaven entirely, but did they truly wish to spend their eternities constantly on the run? No, it would be better to stand and fight and vanquish their foe if possible—and apparently it was.
I
T HAD BEEN DARK FOR
several hours when Bill Anderson emerged from a glowing cloud of blue and onto his front porch. His wife and the boys were there waiting for him.
“I was starting to get worried,” said Sarah, stepping forward. “Well…how did it go?”
Bill’s expression was not encouraging. “Not too well. We arrived just outside of the great walls of Zion, at the gate where we normally enter.” Bill paused. “There were people running everywhere. In all of my years in Heaven I have never seen panic like I did today. I mean, there was never any reason for it. People were gating out all around me, tens of thousands of them. It was impossible to enter into the city with a flood of people trying to get out. Not many people were in the mood to talk to us either, but those who did talk painted a real grim picture.
“The angels and demons had been battling in and above the streets all day. They were still battling. There was smoke drifting everywhere. Parts of the city were in flames. Many people had tried to reach the Holy Place to seek sanctuary, but at least some were turned back by roving bands of demons. Both angels and demons alike were urging the human population of Zion to leave. I swear, I never thought I’d see a day such as this.”
“Did you try to gate right into the city itself?” asked Jerry.
Bill shook his head. “Son, you know that doing that is forbidden. You have to walk beyond the walls of the city before you can gate in or out.”
“Dad, I had the feeling that it was more an issue of etiquette than a hard and fast rule,” said Jerry. “In an emergency, I think it would be allowed.”
“I don’t know about that, son,” replied Bill. “We weren’t about to put it to the test.”
“Mr. Anderson, could you tell who is winning this war?” asked Christopher.
The hesitation in Bill’s answer was not encouraging. “From what we were able to learn, this was a sneak attack by an enemy who had been preparing for years. The angels were caught completely off guard and were falling back. Many had been captured. As you all know, angels can’t gate like we can. They can’t travel instantly from one place to another simply by thinking about it. That ability is reserved for the Father and His children. Wherever they go, angels have to either walk or fly.
“But there are physical gates that they can use, rings of stone and metal like the one in the meadow not far from here. The angels use those to move great distances. Now, our ring is what they call a local gate. It allows angels to move mainly from one place to another on this plane of Heaven. But there are also the main gates, one or two on each level of Heaven. They allow angels to travel anywhere, even back to Earth or to the depths of Hell.
“Apparently, the demons entered through those gates and managed to gain control of them. That is how they got here in the first place. Then they spread out to the local gates, controlling them as well. They’ve managed to cut the angels off from each other. They’ve got them in full retreat on all sides. They’re keeping the pressure on them, not allowing them to get organized.”
“But still, don’t the angels have something like a two-to-one numerical advantage over the demons?” asked Jerry.
“Something like that,” replied Bill, sitting down on the porch swing. “The thing is, nearly half of the angels are on Earth right now, and they have no way of getting back with all of the gates controlled by the demons.” Bill paused. “No, that’s not quite true. I heard that the angels managed to hang onto control of a few of the gates. In fact, I heard that they have managed to keep the demons completely out of the second level of Heaven. It’s become a sort of fortress, and humans have been helping angels get there so they can regroup.
“We heard that a legion of the angels had finally managed to make a stand at a place called Ceranda, not far from Zion, but that they were quickly being overwhelmed by huge numbers of demons. A group of humans helped wounded angels by the tens of thousands to gate from there over to the second level of Heaven and safety. They created their own gate, then led the angels hand in hand through it, hundreds at a time. While they did that, others held the demons off for a time with some kind of new weapon that they had fashioned. Word of their resistance is spreading. All over Heaven humans are joining the angels in their fight against the demons.”
“That’s why the demons are threatening us,” reasoned Sarah. “They don’t want us to get into the fight.”
“That’s about right,” confirmed Bill. “But we can’t just stand by and let this happen. The angels are going to lose this war unless we get involved. A meeting has been called at the church this evening. We’re going to try and get the whole community together and see what we can do. We’re sending out runners to let everyone know. The meeting starts in less than two hours. We need to get ready.”
Sarah nodded as Bill headed off into the mists to spread the word to their neighbors. “Well, let’s get ready. It sounds to me like we’re going to have a long night ahead of us,” she said.
As Sarah entered the house to prepare, Jerry turned toward Christopher. “That meeting at the church may be a good place to let the people know that we have authority over these demons. You could tell them what you’ve done. Some of the others have to have that same power. Maybe we all do—we just have to realize it, that’s all.”
Christopher hesitated. “Are you ready to bet everything on that?” he asked. “Are you willing to bet the eternities of this entire community on one isolated event in the woods? That’s what we would be doing. Jerry, I don’t even know exactly how I managed to do it. I was angry and frustrated, and I just acted. Maybe when the people of God are backed into a corner, they will find the power to do just what I did. But your father didn’t return with stories of that kind of thing. No, he mentioned that some people were able to come up with some kind of weapon—a gun I guess, by the sound of it.”
“People need to know,” insisted Jerry.
“We’ve been all over this before,” objected Christopher. “Plausible deniability, remember?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Jerry. “I just figure that we need to do something, that’s all.”
“We will,” confirmed Christopher, “just not now. Right now we need to listen and plan. Before we jump in, we need to have all of the facts. We really don’t know anything yet. Maybe we’ll know more after the meeting tonight.”
A bit over an hour later, the three entered the glowing mists and emerged in front of their community church. Their church looked very much like the picture book example of a small town, community church with its white exterior, large stained glass windows, and high steeple. It was the main gathering place for their far-flung, yet close-knit community. The building sat in the middle of a small, grassy meadow about three miles from the Andersons’ home. Tonight it was bustling. Groups of people were gating in all over, and everywhere people were gathered in small groups discussing the terrible curse that had befallen the community.
Sarah and the boys quickly made their way toward the large, wooden front door. Beyond, in the well-lit church, still more people were gathered. Some sat in the wooden pews, while others stood around in groups. This church was large and could easily accommodate 500 people. They would have a standing-room-only crowd tonight.
“We’ll try and sit near the front,” said Sarah, moving through the crowd of familiar parishioners. Everyone knew everyone else here. It was part of the very nature of Heaven. You instantly knew anyone and everyone you encountered, whether it be in church, in Zion, or in the forest beyond. It was a gift from God: there were no strangers in Heaven.
Sarah had found space in the third pew back when Jerry pointed out a pretty, dark-haired woman talking with a group of people near the front of the church. “Remember this morning when I was telling you about my meeting with Chris Davis years ago? Well, that’s Jennifer Davis, Chris Davis’s mother. We’re likely to hear quite a bit from her before this night is over. When Serena was in Hell, Jennifer sent her things like clothes, food, and seeds. I suspect that she will be put on the demons’ black list real quick. They’re already on hers.”
Over the next 20 minutes, the rest of the congregation filed into the church until it was completely filled. Bill, Cy, Jennifer, and several others sat up on the platform and would be addressing the congregation. Cy opened the meeting in prayer, then presented to the assembled multitude what they had discovered at the City of Zion. It was not an encouraging story.
One of their group had even managed to brave the raging flow of people fleeing through the great archway and got beyond the wall and into the city. He spoke of collapsed buildings, rubble filling the streets, and angelic battles still raging above the southern regions of the city. However, the city itself was firmly under demon control. All of the saints who remained within the walls of the city did so at their own peril.