Deviled-Edged Sword

Chapter One

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"Our father, who art in heaven,

Hallowed by thy name,

Thy kingdom come,

They will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil,

For thine is the kingdom,

The power and the glory,

For ever and ever. Amen."

Occasional light-headedness had become an occupational hazard for Wilton Modine whose congregation had grown to the point of needing a new church and from the completion of that project came more headaches. It seemed everyone had an opinion on what their evangelical church should stand for, such as anti-abortion rights, charter school vouchers, school prayer and the restoration of our society. The politicians were ready and willing to play ball, except the ball they were playing had lots of shifting, shady rules accompanied by assurances that the ends would justify the means. So far, that had held true. However, they were at war with liberal lunatics who fought against Christian values with every ounce of their being. Therefore, he fully embraced the necessity of chicanery in doing God's work. Throughout the last thirty years of his life he'd focused on building a strong foundation for Christ and foresaw his son (who was an ordained minister) taking over but his son... His son has a wife and three beautiful kids but whispers of his willful indulgence makes it seem unlikely that he'd be responsible enough to assume the helm of such an important church. Doctors told Wilton that he needed to slow down but there was much work to be done and besides, saying the lord's prayer always cured his maladies.

Today was Saturday and Wilton had delayed going to has granddaughter's birthday party so that he could duck into his office unnoticed and review campaign strategies for the upcoming elections. One of their Congressman was retiring and the other had been weakened by a scandal regarding campaign expenditures; what better place to test messaging than in the church, he thought. The liberals were constantly trying to get a foothold so that they could void the work of God, but good Christians would never let that happen; it didn't matter if their freshman congressman was questioningly qualified, he'd be learning from his peers. Nor did it matter that their current congressman may be a crook because on his worst day any conservative is better than a liberal. The people just needed a simple, repeatable message to go with an image we're all comfortable with. Wilton jotted down three of the big topics of the day and brainstormed with an anti-liberal furor. Copious amounts of venom spilled onto the page in a sort of goulash of dissimulation and doublespeak which, properly prepared, provided a hearty appreciation for conservative values. After all, he thought, conservative values were God's values, so God protects those who serve him.

Just as Wilton felt satisfied with his brainstorming, the dizziness returned with increased intensity. This time accompanied by blurred, slow-moving spirals formed in a prism of distilling colors in front of his face, twisting together and apart against the shadow of an ever-fading light. There was a sudden piercing pain in his chest and he felt as though someone had hit him in the solar-plexus with a sledgehammer while at the same time another hand had reached up into his ribcage and was squeezing his heart from within. The air in his lungs continuously evaporated despite his frantic heaving and in that moment of quickening panic he heard the excruciating screeching of death drowning out all that he'd ever known to be life. He could still feel the pen locked in his grasp and thought to cry out for help but words spewed violently from his mouth and nostrils in a most muculent eruption that choked away his final breath. Wilton's body, lacking viability, fell forward, sending his face careening into a pool of vomit that splashed up like a fat man doing a belly flop in a pool of mud.

As Wilton's eyes adjusted to the nebulous darkness he could see blue-green squadrons of lightning colliding one against the other with the kind of truculent violence that easily rips courage from the most brazen warrior, thereby reducing his valor to that of a frightened babe. The blue-green lightning seemed to have an immense gravitational field that pulled everything towards its tempest of infernal heat. At the apex of that maelstrom stood a large brawny horse with a lifeless coat of gray granite, a mane of flaming onyx with shadowed eyes and nostrils venting the sulfur of a massive coal fire. Straddling this frightful steed was an equally large being armored in what appeared to be bones, but not earthly bones, nor anything that the nether regions of an overactive imagination could ever conceive. These bones appeared spiraled, smoothly layered, meticulously ridged and thickly spiked for confined warfare; Wilton tried to focus on what looked to be an overlay of decomposed marrow but his gaze fixed instead upon an empty place where there should be a face and found himself less able to control the mechanisms of sight. All in all, he knew this rider was death, the reclaimer of souls, the gatekeeper of time, yet he found himself reluctantly marveling about a beautifully tailored suit of morbidity if ever one existed.

The horse turned and its hooves clattered down, down, down into the burrow of the profane abyss. They zigzagged through a hellscape of total darkest that was dimly lit only by the gray granite hide which seemed emblazon with elements of fire and ice, both serving him equal proportions of agonizing affliction which felt more unbearable with every step forward. It occurred to Milton that he felt things, but he could find no corporal connection to these feelings nor reason for sight without eyes, yet it was undoubtedly happening. He searched his thoughts for a calming memory, specifically the words of his maker, and finding no comforts there that he could recall, his suffering increased tenfolds until he abandoned the effort. The horse trotted on through infinity; clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, zigzagging through darkness, down, down, down into the burrow of the profane abyss. They went on that way for time in memoriam, hopelessly sinking into an insanity of seething chaos where nothing moved or changed except a crushing wreath of angst that drained the very essence of his humanity. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, zigzag, zigzag, zigzag; the unabiding repetition caused an implosion of yearning within Wilton as he wished, begged and screamed for the simple mercy of change. But in his state of aphasia, conscious thoughts reverberated like a capillary bursting musical conundrum which couldn't be shut off. Thus, he was forced to capitulate, despite righteous intent, that this must be Hell.

Just as he began contemplating a lifetime of fence walking morality the clip-clop changed into a rapid fire clappity-clap and instead of spiraling downward they plunged, straight down at a gut heaving pace, into a mephitis gloom so murky that the gray granite hide disappeared. In that harrowing decent Wilton's sight and sense of smell were sullied by a most potent sulfurous decay, his hearing was pummeled with an unrelenting storm of woeful lacerations and the sensation of fire and ice coalesced into an unendurable combustion which caused him to cry out and hear his voice for the first time as but a whisper within the storm of woe. The clappity-clap ended and suddenly as it had begun and Wilton found himself alone, shivering in terror, held fast against a wall of blackness which yielded a little at a time until he was violently sucked through that wall and deposited at the feet of death. Looking up into that uninhabited void Wilton understood with an epiphanic clarity that he (unlike those thrown into Hell) had been born into Hell which gives him no right to salvation on the Lord's day, but unlike the naturalized angels of Satan he would be doomed to languish forever under the tyranny of Hell. He struggled to his feet and turned away from death like an arthritically deformed old man and looked out upon an infinite expanse of smoldering brimstone covered by a fog of effusive blight. Wilton's eyes couldn't pierce the fog, yet somehow he knew that there laid below layers upon layers of wicked retributions for immutable sinners, even those like himself who'd done wrong things with good intentions. "Good intentions;' in life those words were wrought with duplicitous connotations, but here they stung like a million mad hornets attacking his brain from within his cranium. He'd imagined himself appointed by God to carry out his will and, as one of God's chosen, he believed that he'd been granted authority to remove obstacles in the path of righteousness. Obstacles, however, were numerous and unimaginably stubborn in their refusal to obey God's will thus he found it necessary to stretch the truth, then bend it and soon he was in a torrid affair with all-out lies. Once he was being lauded by like-minded people he evolved lies into the art of opinion that was loved by the masses because it was wrapped in the savior's shroud. His infidelity had led many astray and for that he will endure a cataclysm of infinite retribution and, while he was undoubtedly an immoral teacher, he never once fathomed the severity of the stripes for people like himself; entrusted with the burden of influential affluence.

Just as he thought he'd endured significant suffering amongst the brambles of self-pity, something from the pit stirred; suddenly and with savage rancor it rose, trailing behind it a vociferous wake of smoke, ominous in its scabrous hue. Then gripped his incorporeal being a feeling of dread so tight that there whipped around him a paralyzing, strangulating, infinite decimal of terror which quickened the tempest of churning chaos ascending surreptitiously through the mist. A slew of unscrupulous introspection seized Wilton, both haphazardly and extraneously, and those memories attacked him with dizzying speeds so that the abundance of his life was reduced to merely an unremitting snapshot of villainous debauchery which didn't define his life but had irrevocability tarnished it beyond redemption. He wallowed laboriously in the muck of a life spend devoted to the pursuit of wealth which was well within his grasp as he'd successfully mounted a campaign of influence for Washington power brokers, who in turn, gave him opportunities to expand his reach through various media platforms. Notoriety increased his coffers tenfold as he gleefully dedicated as much money to political influence as he did time; time that he denied his family who he often used as props in his church. The faces of his wife, son and grandchildren evaded his memory but the suffering they felt by his abandonment caused him excruciating pain which felt like railroad spikes being nailed into his spirit one by one before being hastily removed and driven once more into an untapped orifice. Conceding to his fate, Milton buttressed a pound of courage up against the walls of Jericho that, given the horror rising from Hell's tempestuous blight, would immediately crumble into dust.

An intense feeling gripped him as he desperately tried to maintain the wall between himself and the pain. It was a very sudden and jarring locomotion of staggering ruminations assaulting his disembodied intelligence with an ice leaden boomerang of malice, caustic tridents of precipitous sloth, vociferous explosions of arrogance, sharpened stones of avarice, blunted bones of pride, cavalcades of parasitical vanity and reciprocally cocooning his sinful existence in a molten copulation of carnality. He wished himself insane for a deranged mind, like a drowning man could perhaps gulp a single breath of sanity in the flails of his impending demise, but Hell was the pinnacle of deprivation. Here, in the immutable nebulous, there were no second chances, no reprieve, no escape from the torment of these unrelenting Spartans who he'd raved about unscrupulously to further specific ends. He'd allied the word of God with the will of Satan for the preservation of conservative values and never once imagined that his reward would be damnation. The convergence of unspeakable agony raked him from stem to stern into a prostrating apoplexy as he sensed something piercing through the clouded blight.

A large globular crown of burnish bronze pierced the effusive blight followed by a human-like Goliath of excellently defined mass dripping with a sticky vile goo that smoldered profusely and stank quite nauseatingly. An exclamation of gender hung like the Eiffel Tower from its hairless anatomy, which would've been a model for beauty if not for a perfusion of fiendishly scabrous scars obscuring the intended framework of vanity. The scars looked to be a carving of psychopathic rumination, deep jagged gullies, long snaking keloids, puss erupting blisters, pits of all manner of discoloration splayed and splashed randomly and all of these horrors brought into crystal clear focus by a coruscation of orange-red fire with a center of ice blue. Its eyes were beryllium combustions of searing hate melting everything that it cast its heavy brows upon. Seemingly in the exhalation of death, it raised its pointed chin so that the nape of its neck lay flush against its spiked back, then it released a colossal cannonade that went out into the netherworld and returned within the echoes of over a trillion terrifying implications. Death remained mounted on his horse, unmoved as it approached; they convened face to no-face in a familiarly that was steeped in martial etiquette whereas the Goliath gave deference to one who traversed realms as easily as putting one foot in front of the other. The Goliath spoke in the voice of many and in each word was a reeking spittle-bird launching from his purplish tongue, flying through serrated choppers before disappearing into the mire of death's shadowed countenance.

Greetings in the name of Ahimoth. This thrall has given and will continue to provide a bountiful harvest of wayward souls as his covetousness leadership has inspired the corruption of many. This is the way of man; they move closer to us and we embrace their duplicitous nature and as their dubious trust in a false God wanes, the power of this kingdom is ever expanding. These are days of glory almighty for Lord-King Lucifer who has broken many seals and many more will be broken, thus infinity will cease and the kingdom wars will begin in earnest. As the Earth realm turns, so does God, in his boredom, away from his pathetic humans who he dared forsake us to embrace. It is undeniable that our coffers overflow with the essence of power while this so-called nirvana rots from root to stem with an ancient ardor of piety that burns ever dimmer. Ahimoth reminds you that the forsaker does not forgive the forsaken as he, your brother, endures your anguish in servitude to the bedazzler of promised lies, yet the taste of freedom dances on his tongue like suckling flesh sopped in birth milk. Your brother... Your brother confides in you for the benefit of all; for the glory of Lord-King Lucifer, what say you?

A profuse glazing of winter surged from the unseeable face of death, encircling the demon's globular crown in a gaseous glacier that momentarily extinguished its smoldering audacity with the displacing agent of condescending contempt.

I agree, labor in vain is but a fool's gain. Your reward shall befit a King of Kings so let us deliberate stratagem: Out Lord-King Lucifer has sanctioned an incursion into the human world and bestowed upon Ahimoth the glory of choosing his son for this journey. The purpose of this incursion is to exalt the teachings of our Lord-King Lucifer, who is highly favored among throngs of humans who openly crave his guidance but are denied his eminence through a doctrine of falsehoods. Like a bulging damn our Lord-King Lucifer's teaching shall be released onto the world of man and those who've controverted his doctrine shall be drowned in the great deluge of famine, plaque and war. There is one like yourself... A fallen angel, but allowed to live amongst men unblemished by wrath, a willful oversight for one undeserving of favor. Like yourself, I say facetiously and with fractious indignation, for the wheels of favor do not stop at random, but our Lord-King Lucifer provides an opportunity to lay hands on the wheel, to break the levers of fate. This angel shall be yours in exchange you will provide passage to the son of Ahimoth; for the glory of Lord-King Lucifer what say you?

Although there was no light that could penetrate the murky void of death, Wilton discerned from its sinister exhalation an accommodating mutuality which excited the eruptions of the demons' hieroglyphic scaring.

In the name of Lord-King Lucifer a bargain is struck. Even as man swells with hubris he burns even more for guidance. You shall find the fallen one doing the work of his master. The son of Ahimoth will stay at your side in concert with the fallen one until his purpose is manifest, then you will shield the son of Ahimoth in darkness while he seeds man for our Lord-King Lucifer. Your reward shall be presented forthwith. I return to our Lord-King Lucifer your esteem and with much zest, we shall ravage this thrall in your honor.

With those final words Wilton's disembodied consciousness suffered arresting spasms, tossing him backwards into a cell of timorous retribution. The demon snatched him up by the scruff of his neck like a wayward pup and plunged into a spiraling decent and the icy wickedness of eternal afflictions flashed before him like the totality of his life; recollections smashed together abruptly and simultaneously in a jumbling insanity and the amplitude of dementia made the separation of external and internal forces an impossibility. The cascading vortex of mental imagery and a diabolical hellscape ripped away the scab of aphasia, causing him to cry out. His vociferous agony entered the vast ocean of torment as but a whispering drop of suffering dispersing unobtrusively within the super-mundane pandemonium. They crashed into the ocean layers and everything became a blur until he reached what he believed to be the terminus of Hell. There he was seized by legions of seething monsters, malformed and twisted into an inconceivable grotesqueness, whose malevolence weighed upon him an indefinite measure of terror.

Chapter Two

First Enoch

Elias' hulking seven-foot frame remained prostrated before an altar of prayer as he'd dedicated himself to doing every day since founding Salvation Sanctuary with his wife Josephine. The two met at a church gala held at Mount St. Mary's University that was sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce to raise money and awareness for ACF International. At that time Elias was a traveling minister who by chance met The Chief Priest who then invited him to be his guess in the small town of Emmitsburg. Josephine was a cashier at the University and although she wasn't by aesthetics the most beautiful woman there, she was absolutely the most beautiful woman there, standing apart in a shimmering aura of pious purity unlike anyone Elias had seen on earth before. Since his unceremonious fall from God's grace he'd walked as a giant in the shadows of man's inequity, hiding from them the origin of his existence while his own sense of self-awareness slowly meshed with their version of normalcy. However, standing at a Paul Bunyan seven-foot-tall, normal was an ever present glaring spot light of unwanted attention that he found to be easier to dim by a large Bible which he often carried in his right hand. Through shattered memories, Elias felt an undeniable truth in his heart that he was once an angel who must now seek redemption in order to have any hope of being in the presence of God once more. Each day he prayed for a renewal of his divine purpose and then he met Josephine, who filled every moment of every day with that purpose.

Josephine and Elias became an instant item for the population of a little more than two-thousand residence who observed their chaste devotion to one another. It was safe to say they became the talk of the town; him working for The Chief Priest while she worked at the University. Both of them spending an inordinate amount of their free time with each other. During this period Elias obscured his past with augural charms while getting to know Josephine and her mom Sherri, who was also an amazing woman. Sherri grew up Christian but fell in love with a Catholic. Sherri and her husband Anthony married in her hometown of Mechanicsburg before moving back to Emmitsburg where she accepted the imposition of Catholicism in the name of love. Even though Anthony's profession often took him out of town, leaving her to carry the torch of their faith, they lived a happy life-giving birth to three girls, with Josephine being the baby. Sadly, Anthony was killed during a robbery on one of his out of town business trips and even worst it was during the first year of college for their oldest daughter who absolutely adored her dad. Needless to say, the entire community was devastated and instantly mobilized their assistance. The open wounds of loss closed over time thanks to good people doing great things, but Sherri realized in the process what she was and what she wasn't; Christianity was her true faith so she left the Catholic church, but never the people.