The Lie, page 18
“Mitchell? Emily?” I whispered, my voice cracked with pain.
“Surprised to see me, doll baby?” Mitchell replied. His tone was ominous, unrecognizable from the one I associated with the man I loved.
Tears of sorrow raced down my face as I watched them move in perfect unison. The wind left my lungs in a giant whoosh. Abject fear rendered me speechless.
“There, moral dilemma solved, my dear. You see, we only showed you what we needed you to see, to ensure that you would come—and bring the appropriate sacrificial lamb. What better way to ring in the new world than with the death of one of His believers—wouldn’t you agree?”
Uncle Cy’s words ripped through me like a hot dagger, shredding my being into an unrecognizable pile of mush.
“It’s all been a lie…and each of you used me,” I whispered to no one in particular.
“Oh Karmen. Your mom is right—you are so naïve. Did you really believe that this hunk of gorgeous manhood was in love with you? I mean, seriously, look at you. The boring, crazy recluse that stews away her time fretting over stupid, silly things, that’s what you are. Now, look at me—I’m the complete opposite. I embrace who I am and don’t deny indulging myself in all the delicious appetites the world has to offer. But, I grew tired of the religious nut-jobs like my parents that tried to curtail my activities by telling me that the lifestyle I wanted to live was sinful. The guilt trip they wanted me to ride on didn’t sit well with me, so I began looking for something new, something different. Something more, shall we say, accepting. Thankfully, your mother saw my struggles and showed me a new line of thinking.”
“Oh Emily,” I said through my sobs of heartache.
“Please, save your whining for someone who cares, Karmen. You had the world by the balls and you didn’t even know it! Do you know how many times I wanted to slap the living daylights out of you?” Emily spat. Each word sliced deeper into my heart as she began mimicking me, “‘I feel so guilty about all this money, Emily. I think it’s wrong for one person to have so much…I’ll give half to charity’ or ‘I love Mitchell but I don’t want to be his wife for goodness sake! I’m too young’ and on and on, for years! I listened to you bitch and moan about things that you should have been ecstatic over.”
Emily’s mocking tone screeched through my ears, destroying the last vestiges of sanity that I desperately clang to.
“Enough theatrics, Emily,” Mitchell said, his voice deep and sinister. “We have business to attend to. The past generations have waited for this day, and I am not going to prolong it any longer. My destiny, as the only remaining heir to my family’s place in this circle, is about to come to fruition.”
Mitchell and Emily hoisted Jacob’s body onto the altar. The enormous rock pulsed and vibrated with intensity the second Jacob’s skin touched it. Uncle Cy left my side and glided over to Emily, who stood at the front of the altar over Jacob’s head. Mitchell bowed his head as Uncle Cy approached, his bare arms outstretched toward him.
“Brother, do you make this offering of your own free will and enter into this blood pact with open eyes?”
“Yes, Elios, I do,” Mitchell replied in an eerie, somber voice. The minute the words were spoken, Uncle Cy bent down and retrieved the elongated, ornate dagger that had been resting at the edge of the altar and handed it over to Mitchell.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
In the space of the amount of time it took for me to blink, everything became crystal clear. I realized every single thing Jacob had told me before was true. There was a God in Heaven, a Creator of all life. The Jesus that walked the earth, who I previously only viewed as a man that taught valuable moral lessons, was truly God’s son. He had come here to save the world from their evilness as the ultimate sacrifice. A being did exist that once had been the arch angel Lucifer that became the Devil when removed from Heaven. And that humanity was heading straight into the apocalypse when he came into power if Mitchell succeeded in killing Jacob.
The fire of truth raced through me, giving strength and power to my limbs. The chanting started up again but barely registered in my head. The naked bodies of the twelve in the outer perimeter of the circle swayed in harmony, their eyes closed and heads skyward. The remaining four people that once were my world were each lost in their own euphoria as Mitchell raised the knife high in the air. My life, my purpose, my existence boiled down to this very moment.
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
My legs propelled me in two long strides over to the vibrating altar. In one giant leap, just as Mitchell brought the blade down toward Jacob’s chest, I used my collision with Emily’s body to launch myself on top of Jacob. For an instant, time seemed to stand still as Jacob awoke and locked his eyes with mine. I smiled, then yelled, “Let the truth be known!” as the hot dagger sliced through my back.
First Light Saturday Morning
Heylel finished drying off the body that once belonged to Kiroly Adamik inside the airplane’s enormous master bathroom. It had taken him a full thirty minutes to wash off all the blood and gore left over from his previous romp in the bedroom. As he shook the water from the heavy blond hair on his head, Heylel marveled at the sensations he had just indulged in. He had forgotten how glorious the feel of causing pain was when felt through the confines of flesh, or how the screams of agony seemed so much sweeter when reverberating through an eardrum.
When Heylel opened the door to the bathroom and surveyed his handiwork, his face broke out into an evil sneer as the fresh memories of shredding the bodies down to mere piles of jumbled, unrecognizable gunk danced in front of his vision. The mess was incredible, but as it had always done in the past, money would wipe away the atrocity and silence those who cleaned it up. Heylel made his way to the closet, picking his steps carefully as he sidestepped the stinking mess. He retrieved his fresh set of clothes and shoes, and shut the door behind him without another glance.
Heylel sauntered into the main cabin and back to his spot by the window. Once dressed, he reached over and gently caressed the cold steel case that held the signed treaty. The new body that he called home tingled with his excitement. He had been close several times over the years to achieving his rightful place on earth only to be trumped by some pathetic act of love or sacrifice by some sniveling infidel. But Heylel knew the chances of someone offering such a selfless act in the current state of self-indulgent behavior that humanity was embarked in was almost certainly zero. Heylel had been busy the last three hundred years bounding from one end of the earth to another, ensuring that very fact.
He glanced at the clock on the wall and noted that in less than an hour, the flight would arrive in New York. In just under thirty-six hours, he would bring humanity to its knees and establish his throne in Jerusalem. The weak, spineless masses would be astounded by his powers, beseech him for every morsel they hungered for, and be his devoted followers.
Those that dared to question his authority would pay. Dearly.
Underneath the attaché sat his laptop. He reached down and retrieved it and pushed the “on” button to bring it to life. He was eager to read what Elios had sent him. He wanted to watch the words morph into life when the sacrifice was made, which he knew would occur at any moment.
After a few clicks of the mouse, Heylel opened the email from the person the world knew as Cy McMann but he knew as Elios, and his words appeared on the screen. Heylel’s trusted servant had yet to fail him in any way. Of course, centuries of grooming the McMann family to do his bidding didn’t hurt, either. Heylel recalled the day that he watched from his ethereal plane when Cy McMann recognized the signs and contacted Kiroly Adamik. Cy’s insistence to meet with Kiroly worked, and after just one brief visit in Cypress, Kiroly Adamik finally understood and accepted his role in life, just as Cy McMann had.
Cy McMann: Heylel’s false prophet that would stop at nothing in his insatiable quest for power and wealth. When Heylel heard Cy’s prayers offered up from the jungles of Vietnam so many years ago to him, begging for his life to be spared in exchange for his unyielding devotion to the deity his family worshipped, Heylel listened. Once Cy had escaped the clutches of the enemy that day, he never wavered from his promise to serve Heylel. And when Heylel witnessed the sacrifice made twenty-three years ago, from the hands of Cy’s sister no less, Heylel knew the time was nigh.
The printer spat out the pages in quick succession, and Heylel walked over to the other side of the cabin and retrieved them. Although the handwriting was atrocious, the words he needed to speak to rule the world were staring back at him. He recognized the symbols and numerous languages that it was written in and caught himself saying the words out loud. Had Heylel been capable of the emotion, he would have laughed at the sound of his voice as he spoke in gibberish.
The anticipation, the wait, was more than Heylel could stand. Although he knew it would weaken him and put his new physical body in jeopardy, he settled back into the soft folds of the leather couch and closed his eyes. He reached out through his mind, past the confines of space and time, and sought out the glen in the hills of Kentucky where his reign would officially begin.
He wanted to watch.
As Kiroly Adamik’s body fell into a deep, hypnotic trance, Heylel’s spirit moved across the ocean, following the pull of the sacred stone that migrant worshippers had placed there thousands of years ago. Just as he caught a glimpse of the valley shrouded in red, it was gone.
“Mr. Adamik? Mr. Adamik? Are you all right?”
Heylel found himself back inside the sickening boundaries of flesh again. The body jerked out of the trance as Heylel’s essence slammed back inside. When he opened his eyes, the frightened stare of one of the pilots glared back at him.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Nazir?” Heylel replied, controlling the annoyance he felt.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but this is urgent. Please tell me you haven’t eaten anything since you boarded?”
Intrigued, Heylel replied, “No, I have not, Mr. Nazir. The only item I indulged with since arriving is a glass of champagne so graciously provided by your benefactor. Why do you ask?”
Mr. Nazir, clearly relieved by the answer, cleared his throat. “We just received word that the chef is an imposter. An infiltrator sent to kill you before you arrived in New York, sir. I balked at the notion when I first heard it, since he surely looked like no assassin I’ve ever seen before. But then it hit me—he would use food. There is no finer food in the world than Middle Eastern cuisine, but the spices and flavors would mask any poison in it, should someone chose to use that route.”
“That certainly was an insightful idea on your part, Mr. Nazir. I am grateful that you came to warn me before I decided to satiate my hunger.”
“Sir, if I may?” Mr. Nazier inquired, lowering his voice. “Please, come with me…”
Mr. Nazir’s words were cut off in mid-sentence by a low rumble that resonated throughout the cabin. Heylel felt the tremble and realized it emanated from him. He looked down and saw the papers he still clutched vibrating, the words alive and writhing on the pages. The edges suddenly burst into flames and the words swirled in circles, like a vortex was pulling them to the center of the page. In a flash of smoke, the pages evaporated.
Uncontrollable rage erupted out of Heylel. Something had gone terribly wrong, he felt it. He leapt off the couch, knocking the stunned pilot on his rump. He roared with anger, his piercing voice so loud that the entire plane shook.
“Nooo!”
The cabin filled with bright, intense light. Then a voice that Heylel hadn’t heard in ages boomed. “It is not your time yet, Lucifer,” Michael shouted.
Heylel couldn’t stop his being from bursting out of the shell that housed him. The body that was once Kiroly Adamik’s exploded, coating the entire cabin with his dripping remains. The force of his expulsion from the earthly realm back into the ethereal one caused the windows to blow out of the Airbus. Frigid air rushed in then right back out, the pull so strong that an enormous hole was ripped open in the fuselage and it extracted the body of the screaming Mr. Nazir out, along with several rows of seats.
As the emergency lights flashed throughout the plane and the panicked pilots squawked over the radio for help, the massive Airbus took a sharp nosedive and like a bullet, raced to its final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Burning pain tore at me as the sharp steel sliced through my back and into my chest. My ears were bombarded with screams of anger all around me. Mitchell, who had been unable to stop the trajectory of his thrust, immediately yanked the blade out, and then I felt nothing. My entire body had gone numb. He grabbed the back of my neck and twisted me around to face him.
“Nice try, bitch,” he grumbled, then spit in my face. He tossed my body aside and stepped back over to Jacob, who was fully awake and on his feet.
I couldn’t move. My voice was locked along with my torso, my spinal cord shredded. In a crumpled heap next to the altar, my vision blurring, my body struggling for oxygen, I knew it was over.
“Jesus, help us!” I heard Jacob scream. His voice boomed across the glen, the cry so loud that it made my ears ring.
Slap!
“Shut up, old man! This is our time, not his! He had his time on earth, now it is Heylel’s!” Mitchell screamed, his voice just as loud as Jacob’s had been.
Suddenly, the earth shook so violently that the ground underneath us began to split apart. Uncle Cy must have lost his balance because he fell down right next to me, his wicked face smashed into the dirt by my ear. In the distance, I heard trees snap and crash to the forest floor.
“Mitchell, move!” I heard Emily yell from my left.
“Not until it’s finished!” Mitchell screamed back.
A clap of thunder, louder than I had ever heard before, crackled above us, followed by a brilliant bolt of lightning that skittered across the blood-red sky, turning it a vibrant light pink.
“The time has not yet come!”
The second the words were spoken from the stratosphere, the red that had permeated every inch of the open glen disappeared, replaced with a white, intense light that burned through my eyelids. A flash of heat raced through me, and I felt a presence surround my head. I began to sob when I realized I could feel something cover my entire body, enveloping me in a loving embrace.
“Do not fear, Karmen.”
An explosion ripped through the field. As the ground quaked beneath me, I heard the screams of panic from the souls that had been chanting earlier. Just as quickly as they started, they were snuffed out one-by-one. Deadly silence overtook the glen and the earth moved no more.
The warmth that had covered me shifted to my back, the concentration of heat immense, yet I felt no pain. My gurgling breath stopped and I realized I could feel my limbs once more. I sucked in a huge gulp of air as my eyes flew open.
What I saw in front of me was utter devastation.
The altar was gone. No, not gone, obliterated. A huge, round crater was all that was left of the huge slab, a gaping crevice that stretched from one end of the field to the other running through it. The valley was no longer glowing red for the source of the evil hue had been blown to kingdom come. All the pieces that remained were no bigger than the size of small pebbles. Puffs of hazy smoke dotted the landscape, as if someone had started several small campfires then put them out.
The acrid smell from the smoke hit me, and to my disgust, I realized that the source of it was flesh.
I rolled over and pulled myself onto all fours, waiting for the stabbing pain in my back to hit me once more. It never came. My legs seemed to work again so I stood up slowly and scanned the destroyed area for any signs of life. That’s when I saw a figure limping toward me from the other side of the glen. It took me a moment to realize it was Jacob.
“Jacob!” I yelled, running to him.
His face was covered in soot, his clothes just as dirty. His hair had turned snow white, his face shining so bright that it looked almost like he was holding a flashlight to it. Then it hit me—it was pitch black, which meant he was glowing.
I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight, sobbing into his shoulder. “Oh God, Jacob. I thought Mitchell killed you. I tried…I tried to save you. What…what happened? Where are they? And why…what happened to your hair and face?” I sputtered through choked sobs.
Jacob’s strong hand stroked the back of my hair. “Shhh, it’s all over now, Karmen. It’s over. That is all that’s left of them,” Jacob said, nudging me to follow his gaze. “He destroyed them with his words.”
Confused, I replied, “Who destroyed them, Jacob?”
“I’m not sure, but my guess would be Michael.”
“As in the angel, Michael?” I whispered. “All of them?”
“Yes. Didn’t you see him?” Jacob replied, the awe and reverence in his voice unmistakable.
“No, all I saw was a bright light. I couldn’t move—something was covering me.”
“Not something, Karmen. An angel. I watched him take you into his wings before another one whisked me away over there,” Jacob pointed to the edge of the glen that he had walked from.
I didn’t ask any more questions. My mind was overloaded with information as it was. My entire core of loved ones, everything and everyone I had ever known and believed in, had been rendered down to several piles of smoldering ashes. Death came on swift wings and slew them all, leaving me alone in the world. Alone and full of so many unanswered questions that I doubted I would ever fully understand the answers even if explained to me.
Jacob released his grip and pulled back, his eyes focused on something behind me. “Stay put, Karmen. There is one more thing that needs to be disposed of.”
“What?” I said as I watched him limp over toward the crater.
