The Third Heaven : Apocalypse of Kings Read online

  “Aye, I am familiar with their history and their importance to the chronicles of man and affirmation to the scriptures integrity. It is amazing that she is oblivious of her bloodline.”

  Vantress looked at the wall hangings in her room; several were adorned with the images of teen vocalists while her laptop was illuminated with multiple images from her social media pages. “She clearly has no knowledge of her heritage. Brief me of her family… with what familial spirit must I contend?”

  Paschar sighed. “This is true. You should know that her family was targeted by Baphomet for Destruction. Her father heard the gospel and believed but was soon murdered by the enemy: killed in a car accident as was her brother. Her mother struggled with the loss descending into sorcery, dabbling in with what the humans call Meth. The substance opened her to debauchery and eventually she succumbed to the fed lies of a spirit of great power in this region. Unable to fend against the powerful spirit her associations subjected her to a murderous death.

  “I see,” said Vantress. What intelligence do you have of this angel?”

  The Grigori’s darkened face, covered by his cowl projected the yellow eyes of his kind: eyes which narrowed. “He is a seducing spirit and goes by several names over the centuries, Abacus, Furfur, and Pithius.”

  “That is typical behavior for the Horde. By what moniker does he go by now?”

  Paschar looked upon Vantress and replied. “Others have called him by the name Eridu, but we have uncovered his true name given at the Kiln: a name by which you already know…Eridu.”

  Vantress was taken aback. He had not seen his nemesis in decades. He had lost track of him somewhere in the Middle East. And now…he was assigned by God to be here, to guard a young woman who was stalked by his angelic enemy. Anger rose up within him as he thought about the death of his friend.”

  “I will send him to Hades if I see him,” said Vantress.

  “Your orders are clear Harrada, protect the woman. Give her the space she needs to turn from her ways…that is your mission.”

  Vantress gritted his teeth. “I will of course obey the command of my God.”

  Elizabeth got up from her bed and took a seat at her desk. She flipped open her laptop and after several key strokes she found herself ogling the social media profile of Mike Gains. Immediately, a private messaged popped up on her screen.

  Mike. G: So are you coming over Friday night?

  E. Gains: Yeah I’ll be there. My foster mom’s going out.

  Mike. G: Sweet! We have a keg of beer, and Upsilon Pi is coming down from State to liven up things with some music. I’m looking forward to seeing you. It should be fun!

  E. Gains: Thanks for inviting me! I’m looking forward to it.

  Mike G: No sweat. Besides, I’m expecting to get a dance with your sexy butt. ;-)

  Elizabeth flushed with both excitement and her body tingled thinking about Mike holding her hips and them dancing together. She quickly typed out a reply.

  E. Gains: Is that right? Well, it takes one to know one. So what are you doing right now?

  Mike G: Just chilling, it’s too hot out. Why do you want to see?

  E. Gains: Sure.

  Elizabeth suddenly received a request to view a web-cam and she hit the accept button and the 17 year old Mike Gains was sitting at his desk shirtless with nothing on but a purple and gold shorts. His pubic hair was clearly seen encroaching on his navel. Elizabeth blushed but couldn't help herself as she was enamored by his muscular and tanned body.

  She typed furiously on the screen.

  E. Gains: That’s all I get? Her text followed by a wink smiley.

  Michael gains smiled into the camera and then stood up. He slowly lowered his shorts. Elizabeth's eyes widened as she gazed upon him. She quickly typed a reply.

  E. Gains: I most definitely approve! Several devil smileys followed his text.

  Vantress and Paschar watched the pubescent exchange. For countless years he had seen the mating rituals of the human species. Unlike the animals El had made Adam-kind had consistently found a way to objectify the female of the species. Humankind degenerated into a lust filled debauchery.

  He watched as the two exchanged glances of lust and innuendos that he knew would lead to their eventual copulation.

  “She is playing with fire this one. She does not know that he is a plant by the enemy.”

  “No,” replied Paschar. “She is infatuated, and succumbing to the sin of pride: seeking affirmation at the expense of the command of God. Yes this will end poorly.”

  I could of course kill the human but Michael has made clear that such rules of engagement are not allowed.” Vantress sighed, “Things were much easier in the days of the Canaanites.”

  “Indeed, but be that as it may, the maiden is filled with hurts. She is not able to process at this time the emotions that are flooding her. What will you do?”

  Vantress settled into the back of the room as he continued to observe the interplay between the young girl and her male attraction. “I will take a page from your book Grigori. I will watch for now. I need to study her family history. Her adversary has not revealed himself. I will take my leave and seek her familial record, something seems amiss here. There is a power at work here. My tours of duty have shown me that this is always true. Normally my arrival prompts my nemesis of the Horde to reveal himself. This has not occurred before nor consistent with the tactics that I have seen. Something has changed, and I must find out what. I project that I have at least forty eight earth hours before she is exposed to the fruit of this most recent sin. This young man is a riddled with lust. It is evident where this interchange will go.”

  Vantress watched as the young woman smiled in childish glee at the anticipation that she carried, watched as he had seen such human interaction play out in the past. He knew he would have to hurry before she was assaulted.

  ✽✽✽

  Vantress arrived in Heaven and made his way to the Grigoric Hall of Records: the building's walls projected the current happenings of the universe. Vantress wondered if men could see what he saw with what excuse would he make to Almighty to justify his existence. Plague, pestilence, war and rumors of war decorated the majority of the walls. Yet despite the horrors that man inflicted upon man. There were bastions of goodness. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, there were pinpricks of light that escaped the turmoil that crashed upon the seashore of man. From children who helped their brothers and sisters do chores to Vantress watched an image where a fire fighter rushed into a flaming building. He watched as the man’s angel recorded his deeds; pryingly observed as the human rescue a small child. Only to be crushed in flaming debris. But the human would not die. He refused and pushed with his might to heave a wooden beam whilst he cradled a small baby in his arms: his oxygen mask off. Vantress knew the man’s lungs were seared beyond his body’s ability to repair. He watched as the human escaped the flaming building behind him. Only to collapse his arms stretched out wide with the living child. Vantress watched the human give his dying breath to save a baby who could not even recognize his face. Vantress smiled at the sacrifice. It was almost angelic he thought: an act worthy of an Elohim. He smiled until he saw a member of the horde standing in the doorway: one of the many rebels who now occupied the Earth, wreaking havoc on mankind. Vantress watched as the conflagration of the burning home embroiled those humans still inside. He watched as daemons were unleashed to feed upon the fear of those trapped and dying inside.

  Anger welled up in his breast. His mission to protect the damsel in his charge and he needed intelligence on what he was up against. He continued to the reference desk to make inquiry.

  Each attendant Grigori was visible and diligently wrote the schedules of the times and seasons of creation while most Grigori were invisible these scurried about carrying books hither and thither and cataloging the events of all things.

  Vantress approached a desk and spoke to an attendant behind the counter.

  “I have come to research the bloodli
ne of a human female: Elizabeth Foley.”

  The Grigori was silent and motioned for the angel to follow. Vantress stepped behind the counter and the attendant floated into a room that opened into a chamber that contained countless images of humans and their movements in clear crystals of octagonal glass. Stacks upon stacks of and rows of endless rows were littered with crystals which contained moving images of humans from all of recorded history. Vantress marveled. He had never bothered to come to the library as his work was typically in the field doing surveillance of the enemy’s movements. But it impressed him.

  The attendant floated to what appeared to be the center of the room and a shittim wooden table with a large glass screen materialized as they neared the center of the room.

  “How am I to find the lass in all of this?” Vantress asked.

  The Grigori was silent and merely motioned for the angel to sit. Vantress obeyed and seated himself. And when he did, the table spoke to him. “State a name, that the record might be opened.”

  Vantress jumped slightly startled and replied, “Elizabeth Foley.”

  “There are 4,739 records. To which record would you scroll?”

  “Grrr…” agitated he replied. “Regress to earth-side solar current year, location United States, Michigan, Commerce Township.”

  The tables glass screen illuminated and in angelic script. Three dimensional small colored globes projected into the air. Each globe showed moving images of the young woman’s birth, movements, and chronicled her entire life.

  Vantress noted in one image that Elizabeth’s mother was seated in a tub of warm water fully clothed. He watched as a man cut into her wrists. Blood trickled into the water as she gradually lost consciousness. Her head tilted and her body slumped deeper into the bath as the door was broken and her daughter ran in to shake her. Vantress watched as Elizabeth bravely called emergency services and frantically bandaged her mother’s wrists and struggled to keep her awake as she cried holding her dying mother in her arms. But the man was no longer there.

  “Is this person an angel. Has he defied the articles of war and interfered in taking this womans life?”

  But both the Grigori and the tables screen were silent.

  Vantress swiped the image forward and saw her standing over a grave. Attendees walked past her and touched her shoulder in vain gestures of comfort. He watched as the preteen buried her mother and tossed a single rose into an open grave as a wooden casket was slowly lowered into the ground. He noticed a dark aura also in the presence of the girl and Vantress took his fingers and expanded the image to see an angelic figure standing but ten cubits from her. The dark figure’s mouth could be seen to move as if he whispered something and Vantress watched Elizabeth lips also mouth something.

  Vantress looked at the attendant who stood silently ready to assist. “The maiden has uttered something. What did she say?”

  The Grigori took his stylus and drew a circle around the image of the girl’s mouth and her words floated into the air to be heard.

  “Mom, why did you leave me? What did I do? Why didn’t you want to be with me anymore?”

  Vantress drew back in anger and spoke to the attendant. “There is a member of the Horde in this image. He too has whispered something in the spirit towards this girl. His echo permeates her mind. Give me his words.”

  The attendant nodded and took his stylus and drew a circle around the angelic form that stood also at the grave site near the girl and pointed his stylus at the angel’s lips, and its words floated into the air above Vantress’ head to be heard.

  “What did you do that your own mother no longer desires to live with you?”

  Vantress grew angry and spoke. “She is but a girl. What is this filths interest in her? Show me her ancestral line and cross reference with any familial spirits that have attacked her lineage.”

  The attendant was silent and merely gestured and the table caused the images to absorb back into its glass. All except one. In the image Vantress watched the young woman’s birth, and slowly the images marched backwards to show the courtship of her parents, then grandparents: onward the pictures cascaded in motion.

  “Hold!” Vantress yelled.

  Vantress eyes narrowed, and he saw a concentration camp in Bavaria Germany. He watched as the young girl’s grandfather was liberated and how he survived the war the humans had called World War two. He looked at the darkened image that hovered over the man and noted an angel also hovered near him sword drawn.

  “Do you have a clearer image of the adversary here?”

  The attendant shook his head.

  Vantress slammed his fist into the table. “You are the Grigori. Do you not record all?” He huffed. “Can you at least tell me if this is the same spirit at the mother’s funeral?”

  The Grigori nodded staring coldly at Vantress.

  Vantress looked at the angel in the image ready for battle and focused on the sigils embedded into his breastplate. “This one is of house Malakim. One of Prince Gabriel’s house. Curious, the Malakim only protect…”

  Vantress’ mind reeled, and he slowly came into the realization that her line was one of the few protected by the Malakim prince. “In El’s name, she is descended from the tribe of Levi then?”

  The Grigori again nodded.

  “With what import does the Horde place value on this life? Show me.”

  The Grigori then took his stylus and placed it on the glass, and the mirror shimmered in fog like distortions until a man could be seen whose child was newly born. The man then kissed the forehead of his wife as she spoke. “Hurry Micah, I will see to our daughter. Go and hide the scrolls. The Romans cannot be allowed to find them. Bury them my husband. Bury them deep in the caves. Let not the words of our people be left to these gentiles. May the sands hide them and let the word of God stand forever. Now hurry my love before the soldiers come.”

  The Jewish man looked at his beloved wife and the small female child she bore him. He then took a scarlet ribbon he pulled from his robes and tied it upon the wrist of his daughter. He kissed her softly on the forehead and then looked at the midwife and commanded her.

  “Guard her and Elizabeth with your life. Hide them and I will return as soon as I can. Do not wait for my return. I will find you.”

  Vantress watched as the man left his family and traveled from the city of Qumran, making his way past Roman legionaries he stayed in the shadows and stealthily made his way through the desert to the caves near the shores of the Dead Sea. While many of his countrymen fought and died by the Romans in a Jewish uprising. Micah scurried deep into the desert to hide the clay jars that contained the words of his people. The few remaining scrolls he had he would see safely to the depository. He looked around making sure he was not seen and rushed into the dim-lit cave. He felt for the markings he had made to guide him and found at the base an indentation that showed the spot he had designated for the burial of the clay jars that held the words of God to his people. He quickly dug into the earth with hands and unearthed the top of a jar and carefully placed the papyrus scrolls within. Sealing the vessel he covered it and continued to camouflage the area so that prying eyes would not merely stumble upon the preserved words of his people.

  Vantress fidgeted in his chair and stood up and spoke, “There is nothing here that would rouse the attention of the Horde. Humans have hid their trinkets in the ground for millennia. My time is precious…”

  The Grigori then silently responded by pointing at the screen and Vantress turned around to see that a dark angelic shadow hovered above the young scribe and eyed the young man menacingly. The black-winged shadow turned to look back at the cave and he followed the young scribe back to the city of Qumran.

  Micah moved deftly to evade the roman centurions that were quickly taking over the city, but when he arrived at the place where his wife had given birth she and the midwife were gone, and instead a human-like figure stood in their place. And in his hand was the small ribbon of scarlet Micah had given his daug
hter.

  “Please sir,” Micah spoke. “That ribbon belongs to my child, have you seen her?”

  The cloaked figure kept his back to him and spoke, “You have hid the words of El in the caves. Because you have done this I now curse you. For you and your kind have interfered with my master's plans for the last time: for we will now destroy this place because you have hidden the word of God.

  If it pleases you, take comfort in that you have indeed set us back centuries. And because you have hid the word of God from my agents know I have now too hidden your woman and your child and have turned them over to the gentiles. Know that they shall experience servitude and hardship. For you have betrothed a wife, but another man shall lie with her.”

  “Nooo!!” Micah yelled, and he took up his hands and ran to smite the hooded and cloaked man. But the man but spoke a word and Micah’s vision suddenly left him and blackness washed over his eyes and fell to the dirt floor now blind.

  Unable to see Micah crawled towards the man to grasp his feet.

  The cloaked man continued his pronouncement.

  “Know son of man that your child will be given to another people and thine eyes shall look and fail with longing for her all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand to deliver; as you hovel before me now. Your offspring shall hovel in the world of men until there is no more sun: for I will haunt your line to its extinction. For thou hast procured the curse of the Horde be upon you son of man, a curse I pledge to see fulfilled; for I shall follow the scent of your blood and if it ever bears fruit in the earth. I will see it mature then die before your offspring’s eyes. Cursed shalt thou be in thy waking and cursed shall though be in thy lying.

  A vexation and plague of spirit will I haunt your seed. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out: for I am he who enforces, and I shall see the thing done. Know this human and despair. Despair for thou hast drawn the ire of the Horde. Despair that I will ever watch thee and will never, ever leave your house.”