The serpent twisted around me. “Oh, but yess you do,” it hissed. “Try to think really hard.”
“I don’t know!” I yelled again.
The serpent came closer and twisted itself around my legs. “But I really think you do. Now why don’t you say it out loud?”
My heart was racing. Only one name came to my mind. “Azazel?” I stuttered.
“Ahh, that sounds so good when you say it,” it hissed out loud. As it did, it seemed to grow into double size.
“You … just became bigger …”
“You are making me stronger. Your fear makes me more powerful.”
“I am not afraid of you.”
The serpent burst into laughter again. “Ha-ha … but I see right through you, my dear. I see your weak heart. I feel your fear. I feel your doubt. I devour it.”
I went quiet for a minute. The serpent stared at me like it was waiting for my next move.
“So you caused the screamers at the school?” I asked.
“Yess. You like that, did you? Nice trick right?”
“You used Adrian to freeze people? Freeze their bodies and minds in a state of terror?”
“We used each other. Adrian wanted me. He wanted the power I could give him. He wanted to live up to his full potential. As spirits you have so much power. You just don’t know it. They don’t tell you. You could be ruling the world.”
“So Adrian was your way into the school?”
“He was my body and my entrance. All I need is a weak heart. And they are everywhere. A greedy one is the easiest. They are so willing, almost demanding no persuasion.”
“So Adrian froze the students for you?”
“I helped him learn how to transform himself into something else, and he gave me his heart. He let me operate through him. So did Portia. So did your little friend’s step-dad. See? I don’t need to be free from my chains. I don’t need to be physically there to do great harm.”
“What about now? Are you really here now?”
Azazel burst into a chuckle. “Well that, my dear, will remain a secret. You will have to figure that one out on your own.”
“What do you want from me?”
The serpent twisted around another time and turned to look me directly in the eyes. “I want your heart.”
“You are not going to get it.”
Azazel hissed and moved away. “But I can give you so much.”
“I don’t think you can give me anything. I don’t want power. I don’t care about money or magic powers. There is nothing you have that I want.”
The serpent froze, then it turned and stared at me. It seemed to be smiling while moving closer.
“But you see that, my dear, is where you are wrong. I do have something that you want. Something you desire more than anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Really? What about Jason?”
Everything inside of me turned to stone.
“What about him?” I asked.
The serpent came close to my face. I felt its tongue touching my cheek as it spoke. “I have him.”
“No you don’t!”
“Oh yes, I do.”
I felt like my heart would jump out of my chest. “What have you done to him?”
“You have seen it.” The serpent placed his face so close to me that I could see my own reflection in his eyes. Then the picture shifted and I saw Jason. He was crying while injecting heroin to his arms.
“He seems to be enjoying it, don’t you think?”
I grabbed the serpent around its neck and threw it to the ground. As it moved toward me again it was still chuckling.
“I will take good care of him,” he said.
“You gave him the drugs?”
“With a little help, of course. I couldn’t have done it all alone. When his mother was arrested for killing his step-dad, Jason let the anger rise inside of him, and that opened a door for me to come in. The rest was really a piece of cake. The anger made him feel horrible and he needed something to make him forget. So I merely suggested that he try the drugs. He did the rest himself. And now he belongs to me. I hold the chains that he is bound by. I hold the key to his heart.”
“Set him free!”
Azazel chuckled. “I will be happy to.”
“What?”
“I said I would gladly set him free.” The serpent moved away from me and started to climb the young tree next to us. Slowly it twisted its long legless body around the branches.
“But you have a price, right? There is a price to pay, am I right?” I said.
The serpent was dangling its head from a branch. “Well of course, my dear. Nothing is free. You know that. But I do think you will find my price fair and reasonable.”
“Let’s see about that. Name your price.”
The serpent lifted its head and came close to my face while the rest of the body was still attached to the tree. It seemed to be smiling. It had a hypnotic look in its pitch-black eyes.
“Bow down to me!” it commanded.
“Never,” I replied immediately.
The serpent tilted its head.
“Just one time, it hissed. “Just bow down to me once, and Jason will be free. Free to see you, free to live his life.”
The serpent paused and looked at me.
“That is not too much to ask for, is it?” it said. “One time, and he is free. Isn’t it all you want? You once said you would do anything for him. This is nothing. It will hardly cost you any effort at all.”
“You gave him the drugs, you used his step-dad to put him in this position, to get him angry, to put him in bondage. You made all this happen to him. Why?”
The smile on the serpent disappeared as it hissed at me. “Why is not important! Come to me and I will set him free. Bow down and I will set him free.”
I felt my breathing become faster and faster. I really wanted Jason to get well, I did. I wanted what the serpent was offering me so badly it was almost hurting me.
“Just one time, right here, get down on your knees. No one will even notice, no one will ever know,” it whispered while twisting itself around my head.
I felt like everything around me was spinning and it made me dizzy. Maybe it was the serpent constantly twisting around me, maybe it was its hypnotic eyes, or maybe it was just the situation that made my head spin, I didn’t know. I had a hard time thinking straight, yet I knew my answer. I knew in my heart what I had to do.
So I floated toward the serpent and stood in front of it. Its eyes were sparkling with anticipation.
“That’s my girl,” it hissed. “Now bow down and worship me.”
I looked at the serpent with my eyes filled with tears. Then I opened my mouth and said loud and clear, “I will never bow down to you. Not now, not ever.”
I heard a loud wheezing coming from the serpent as it moved toward me in a fast attack, trying to bite me. But I moved quickly backward. It crawled down from the tree and moved across the grass toward me. Then I jumped into the air and hung over its head where it could no longer reach me.
The serpent transformed into a black crow and started attacking me from the air. It went right through me a couple of times, hurting me and leaving me breathless. So eventually I had to descend to the ground to catch my breath and not dissolve. As I sat exhausted on the ground, I heard something approaching from behind me. A roar let me know that the panther was back.
I turned just in time to see it jump at me with open mouth and claws stretched out in front of it.
Suddenly I realized it wasn’t moving any longer. It was like it was frozen in the air—like time had stopped. Shaking all over, I pulled myself up. My head was spinning.
“I think it is fair enough to say that we made it just in time,” a voice said behind me. I turned and saw the beautiful Archangel Raphael. His arms were stretched out toward the panther. By his side, nodding, was Mrs. Ohayashi in her red kimono.
Chapter 24
Raphael brought
me to Salathiel’s chamber. He knocked before he went through the door with me in his arms. I had been too exhausted to fly. For a moment there was complete silence in the room as we entered. Raphael put me in a chair.
Then someone said my name. I looked up and found Mick. His blue eyes were red from crying.
“Where have you been? I have been so worried about you,” he said. ”You can’t sneak out in the middle of the night like that … you just can’t. People around here care about you, you know. I can’t protect you if you keep putting yourself in danger.”
He knelt in front of me and put his lips on my hand. I looked up and saw into the eyes of Salathiel. Both he and Rahmiel were staring at me.
“You’d better tell us the whole story,” Rahmiel said with her gentle voice.
“Yes, please go ahead,” Salathiel said.
So I told them everything. I told them how I had been so worried about Adahy that Mrs. Ohayashi had felt it and she offered to help me. I told them how we went into the forest and she disappeared.
“I sensed that something was very wrong and something evil was lurking around us. So I put on the Batuz and flew back to get help,” she explained.
“And left a student behind?” Salathiel asked.
Mrs. Ohayashi looked down. “Well, yes,” she said.
“We will have to discuss that later,” he said and turned to look at me again. “Go on.”
So I told them about the clearing that turned into my nightmare and the crow that kept transforming itself until it finally became a serpent, how it had explained to me who it was, and how it had used Adrian for its purpose to freeze students. I avoided telling them about the temptation the serpent had provided, but told them that the serpent attacked me and that was when Raphael had showed up. I don’t know why I didn’t tell them what the serpent wanted from me. Maybe I was embarrassed because I had come close to accepting its offer.
“Very well,” Salathiel said as I paused. “So you left the school area and broke a hundred of school rules along the way and met a demon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Some night you had.”
I nodded in silence. I was thinking about Jason and how I had failed to help him. I sighed deeply.
“So tell me,” Salathiel continued. “This demon called itself Azazel?”
“That is what it wanted me to call him. It was like he wanted to hear his name, and it made him grow when I said it.”
Salathiel looked at Rahmiel and nodded. They seemed to be exchanging thoughts somehow, like they were talking with each other without anyone hearing them. Raphael nodded too.
“But there is one thing I don’t understand,” I interrupted them.
“Only one?” Salathiel laughed. ”Then you are better off than I am.” He paused. “What is it?”
“Why had I dreamed about that place and that shack? Why was it in my nightmares with my dad?”
“Oh no, sweetheart,” Rahmiel said. “It is the other way around.”
“I don’t understand … ”
“See, Azazel used your nightmare. He used it to get to you. If you had known it was just an illusion, you would have noticed that a lot of the details probably were wrong. He had no clue what they were, since it is your dream. But somehow he got some of the dream from you and he used it to get to you. He needed your fear to get to you, so he created a scene from your nightmare.”
“So the trail of blood wasn’t really there?”
“No, that was just one of his many lies and illusions. Azazel himself wasn’t even there. He just used Adrian and the animals to show himself to you,” Salathiel said.
Raphael nodded. “Azazel himself is still tied under the desert.”
“But he is getting stronger day by day now,” Salathiel said. “That he was able to do all this to you and create this big of an illusion shows us that he is a lot stronger than we had anticipated.”
“Has he been in contact with you before?” Rahmiel asked.
I nodded slowly. “In the funnel, in the tornado the second before I was hurt and ended up in the hospital.”
The Angels all looked at each other.
“That isn’t the only time, is it?” Rahmiel asked.
“Every night after that, I heard him calling my name.”
“This is more serious than first anticipated. He is getting stronger every day now. We have to inform the board of Angels about this,” Salathiel said.
“But … I don’t understand …”
“Go on,” Salathiel said.
“Why me?” I asked.
I saw Rahmiel, Raphael and Salathiel exchange looks. Again it was like they were sharing a secret or talking among themselves inside their minds.
“I don’t know,” Salathiel said. “I honestly don’t know. All I know is that he has been using Adrian to place an attack on the students of this school and now Adrian is safe back in the dungeons under the castle until it is decided what to do with him. He shall remain frozen as a panther until we have a decision. It is all in the hands of the board now.”
“What I want to know is who let Adrian out from the dungeons in the first place,” Raphael said.
We all went silent for a few minutes.
“Well, the way I see it, it can only mean one thing,” Salathiel said while touching his long white beard.
“I think I know what you are saying. Someone must have helped him?” asked Rahmiel.
“Yes. We must have a traitor in our midst.”
Rahmiel nodded and sighed.
“Well at least we solved the mystery about the screamers, and the students are coming back as we speak,” she said.
“So Abhik is well again?” I asked.
“He is on his way back here now,” Salathiel said. “They should all be here by breakfast.”
I had to smile. That was really good news. I couldn’t wait to talk to my friend again and go for a fly.
“And there is more good news for you, Meghan,” Rahmiel said.
I looked up and my eyes met hers. She smiled. Then she reached out and grabbed my hand.
“It is with great pleasure that I can inform you that Jason had been set free from his bondage.”
I felt my eyes grow big and wide. I looked at Mick who was now standing next to me and felt a twinge in my heart. He smiled but his eyes revealed his concern. I knew he was afraid he was going to lose me now.
“What are you saying?” I said.
Rahmiel let go of my hand and moved hers in the air and between them appeared an old leather book.
“See for yourself,” she said and placed the book on the table.
On the page I saw Jason sitting alone in his abandoned house with his eyes stoned and cold. I looked up at her with a disappointed look.
“This is the book of life. Of Jason’s life. Now turn the page,” she said.
I reached out my hand and flipped the page.
“When a new page is turned in someone’s life, everything becomes brand new,” she said.
I had a hard time holding back my tears and soon they were rolling down my cheeks. On the next page I saw Jason entering a rehab center, and on the next he was back in school. I flipped one more page and on the next he was speaking publicly in front of thousands of people about his drug abuse, helping other young people like himself.
I wiped away the tears and looked up at Rahmiel.
“Is this really true?”
She nodded with a great smile.
“But how? Why?”
“Well, we don’t exactly know how it happened, but it seems that you have somehow managed to weaken Azazel when you resisted his temptation.” She paused and put her hand on my shoulder. Of course she knew, I thought. I felt so small, like she could fit my whole body in the palm of her hands.
“At least it was enough to make him loose his grip on Jason,” she continued.
My heart was beating so fast. Could this be true? Had I really managed to free Jason after all?
“Will he be able
to see me again?” I asked.
“No, sweetheart. For that he still bears too much anger. But he will some day. When his faith and trust is restored.”
I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mick start to float away from me and toward the door.
“You can visit him anytime you want to,” Rahmiel said.
I looked at Mick who was about to exit the chamber. I sighed.
“I’d better not,” I said.
Mick stopped just as he reached the door.
I got up and floated to him. I stood in front of him and grabbed his chin.
“I am engaged to another side,” I said and smiled while I looked him directly into his sparkling blue eyes. He smiled back. Then he grabbed my face between his hands and kissed me.
THE END of book #2 in The Afterlife series.
Endurance
Afterlife #3
Chapter 1
The two-story brick house was set back from the street on a wooded lot. I stood for a long time under one of the trees and stared at the house. I knew I had to go in, but I hesitated. I didn’t know what I was doing there, why I had come, but I knew that something horrible had happened in this particular house. Don’t ask me how, I knew it. I just did.
I tried to be still inside. To keep my calm. But my heart was pounding. A neighbor drove by, looking at the house quickly and then looking away. This was the kind of house that only outsiders and kids would dare to stare at.
I floated around the house and looked in a rear window. I could see all the way through to the light in the front yard, past silhouettes of furniture. The scent of jasmine was heavy in the air. I remembered having read once that jasmine was supposedly as calming to people as a prescription tranquilizer. If it worked on spirits, I didn’t know. I didn’t feel any calmer.
A latticed porch ran across most of the back. The seal of the police department stretched across the porch door. I put out my hand and pushed myself right through the locked door and into the kitchen. I stopped at the breakfast table. Pictures of a happy family around the table flashed before my eyes. The smell of pancakes and freshly brewed coffee. Laughter and even quarrels at the table. These walls had seen a lot. The first step of a baby, the kiss from a husband who just got promoted, a young mother crying from lack of sleep, a child getting a band-aid on her bruised knee.