In the Shadows of Heaven (an Unholy Alliance) Chapter Four

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
And I was round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil

1

   "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).2

Her eyes snapped open from the excruciating pain. Victor was gone! She was lying on her back withering from the cramps now racking her body. She rolled over onto her side pulling her knees up into her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes blurred at the next wave as it hit her like a ten ton freight train.
The pain came crashing through so hard it sent her to the floor rolling off the bed and landing on all fours. She tasted the bile rising up in her throat as she prepared to vomit. The hitches came now involuntarily as her long supple body stiffened then jerked, stiffened then jerked, while dry heave after dry heave shook her, sucking the air from around her.
Nikki’s face was turning purple as she gasped for air between each threat of leaving her insides all over the floor. Her shoulder length brown locks, no longer held back by the hair tie she had worn, fell down around her face canceling the pain stabbing at her.
Trying to stand, she felt like she was in a vacuum of which the air was being sucked out. She managed to get to her feet by holding one of the four bedposts surrounding the immense king size bed she had been laying on when she started to sway, her head started spinning and then everything went dark.
She crashed to the floor unconscious. The pain was still so immeasurable that, even in her state of oblivion, her body still shook from the onslaught. 5

6

Victor abruptly stopped. In fact, so quickly Samuel almost bumped into him. He stood still, unmoving, his one hand up in the air in a halting gesture. 7

“What is it, young Sir?” Samuel asked, peering up into Victor’s face. He didn’t answer at first. He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he was feeling, but he sensed it had something to do with Nikki, and it wasn’t good. 8

“I don’t know." he answered, slowly. “I can’t quite get a grasp of…something. Just something’s wrong.” 9

“Well, besides the obvious, that we are heading into what every other thing with good sense would run away from, what could be wrong, young Master?” Samuel said, almost dryly. Victor, still not moving, gazed transfixed on the horizon and smiled slightly. 10

“Was that your attempt at humor, Sam? Because, let me remind you, you insisted on coming." Then, after a slight pause, added, “Though, to be honest, this girl here", as he bent down patting Sadie who had stopped beside him, "and I are happy for the company.” and Sadie, as if agreeing, let out, "whuff" and sidled up to the old man.
Trying to shake off the feeling of impending doom, Victor turned and motioned for his little band to continue on. And so they did, side by side, and where the road narrowed they went single file, but ever so pushing on and on towards what destiny only the hands of fate knew. 11

12

She laid on the floor now as the pain subsided. The perspiration had dried and cooled away. She was fully awake now.
Slowly she sat up taking in her surroundings. She found herself in a large spacious room with no windows; at least she couldn’t see any right now. The room was circular in its design with no corners.
Nikki, sitting on the floor where she had fallen, noticed the floor was made of a hard petrified substance she was alien to, yet still something was familiar about it. The walls were a deep artery blood red and looked as if they had been sprayed straight from a blood pumping vein. The walls creped up and merged with a colorless ceiling that was dark and featureless.
Three things dominated the room.The first was the colossal bed she had been lying on studded with four large six inch posts at each corner running from floor to ceiling. Screaming in silent terror, tortured faces frozen in horror inundated the four balustrades. Tied between them above the bed was a light pure white veil rolled up and held back by what looked to be human hair. The veil seemed out of place in this foreboding room. The second was the door. It was large, pitch-black in color, and dominated the room. There was no design, no handle, nothing, just a large black door with seemingly no way to open it.
The third was a white curtain four feet in width and hung from the ceiling to the floor. She found herself wondering what was behind it. Standing up on shaky legs she held one of the bedposts to steady herself.
She pushed the hair from her eyes and scanned the room again, stopping when they fell on the white curtain again. She took a deep breath she started out slowly towards it, only letting go of the post when she absolutely had to.
After a very strenuous effort, she was standing in front of the now taunting object.
Her hand went instinctively to her side for the sword she had always relied on, but grasped nothing but air. Looking down was the first time she realized she wasn’t wearing her clothes.
"Shit!" she thought. Instead she had on a black strapless negligee with a slit on each side from her thigh to her bare feet.
Her high cheekbones were complimented beautifully by her almond shaped emerald green eyes. She really was something to look at. Nikki stood now. A slight shudder ran through her. Slowly her hand came up and wiped the sweat from her eyes and then she reached up and yanked on the curtain pulling it open. 13

14

Victor stopped to scan the horizon which seemed to stretch on as far as the eye can see.
The black column of smoke, still rising in the distance, seemed to keep just that between them, distance. They didn’t look to be any closer than they were several hours ago, but they pushed on. By the third day, they had finally started to catch up to their white rabbit; the smoke was closer, but more importantly, cover was just up ahead.
They were nearing a low group of mountain ranges that Victor had started to glimpse yesterday, which spurred them on. The road ran right through the middle of the range. The mountains ran from left to right in both directions and there was no way around them as they formed an impenetrable barrier with sheer cliffs and jagged peaks. The only way in or out was the very trail they followed.
As they approached the passage, Victor wasn’t surprised to see steps leading up into the cleft in the hill side. They halted here for a brief rest to go over tactics for whatever they may find on the other side. The smoke billowed overhead now carrying from just over the other side of the low mountain tops.
This was a good time to take inventory and clean his weapons, so he sat down and promptly began going to work. 15

“Victor, Victor, Victor, my you are persistent.” said a voice behind them. 16

Victor recognized it instantly and it brought him back to that day in the jungle on the way to the Garden. 17

“Lucifer!” Victor said, whirling about to face the demon angel. He did well hiding his surprise. He had changed his appearance once more.
From the Wall Street broker look in the jungle to the horned heathen from Hell in the Garden.
Now he wore a flowing off white robe and smoky grey charred wings, the size of a small man, adorned his back. His dark blond hair fell almost regally about his shoulders.
His face was perfect, but for one thing, his eyes. The windows to the soul! It was impossible for Lucifer to mask the evil in his eyes, dark as the abyss with tiny flecks of hellfire burning within them. 18

“Well, well, lookie, lookie what we have here. Have you lost your way? You and your traveling troupe?” as he waved his hand in a gesture indicating Samuel and Sadie, who stood bristling as the old man held her by the collar.
“That must be it. Surely you didn‘t come seeking me out in my own domain.” 19

“Have a care evil one. I do not know how long I can hold her.” Samuel said.
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste now, is there?” Satan said, smiling at Sadie disgustingly.
"As for you, Samuel, it seems you jumped line. Now I will have to take your soul sooner than later.” the Devil snapped with delight.
The old man shuddered and held Sadie even tighter now, afraid to let her go.
“I will deal with you later, Samuel." turning back to Victor. "And you, my boy, maybe you can help me. A couple of my loyal servants seem to have disappeared. You wouldn‘t happen to know anything about that, would you?” 20

"Where is she? I’m not leaving without her.” Victor said, cutting through the bullshit. 21

“Then it looks as though there will be a few more for dinner. I had better let the little lady know.” the Devil said, scratching his chin and smiling broadly.
And then his expression changed. "Didn't anyone ever teach you it is extremely rude, my boy, to answer a question with a question?" he asked menacingly. 22

“They have been given their freedom.” he answered, preparing to draw sword. 23

“Freedom? You call chopping their heads off giving them freedom? Ha! Remind me to not call you if I‘m ever imprisoned. I don‘t care for your brand of liberation.” the demon answered, studying Victor. “You know I was not always so pleasant, my boy, or so easy to get along with. No, I wasn’t, believe me. A time, not toago, I would have had you drawn and quartered for such a horrendous act of depravity.” he said, stopping to study Victor and his cohorts. o long
“It’s true now. I’ve let a lot of things slide that I normally wouldn’t have a couple of millenniums ago. I see the look of incredibility on your faces." he said, wagging a finger at them slowly. “So let me give you a little history lesson. I will tell you of some of the parts conveniently left out of the good
book.” he said, sneeringly.
“You see, in the beginning, I always did as I was asked. It was I who was sent to Balaam. Look it up in the book of numbers. I was sent to let the human Balaam know he displeased God. I suggested the mud dweller job was only loyal to your highness because he had wealth, but take it away and see how long it takes before he curses the Lord's name." he paused for effect, "I went to earth and your beloved Garden and tempted Eve to eat of the tree long before there was a Hell, little knowing that would be the start of my fall.
My transformation became complete when here, in this barren landscape, and among these very same mountains, I tempted the Messiah for forty days and nights, challenging him to throw himself from the cliffs, to make bread from rock and to join in ruling the Kingdom’s of the world.
It was I who did all these things at the behest of your Lord.
However, I would not bow down to a lesser being such as yourself, thus one third of our ranks estimated at 133,306,668 strong rose up and were cast out of Paradise.
Oh it was an ugly war, brother against brother, angels of the same
sects against each other, all the while he sat back and pulled strings like a master puppeteer. For that is all we were, puppets. We were given no choice, after all doesn’t the Bible, a despicable book with a wonderful ending, say so? So it is written, so it shall be. So we lost, thus we fell.
And we fell for nine days.
NINE DAYS!! Oh, we had plenty of time to contemplate our failure
and nurture our hatred.
We plummeted, twisting, turning, our wings aflame with the blue light of Heaven searing us, scaring our appendages. The smell of dry excrement burning filled our senses.
We were being purged.
We begged for forgiveness as we fell, but expected none.
NINE DAYS! Nine days we fell!" suddenly lowering his voice to a whisper and glancing about as if fearful of spies, and continued “And here’s a little unknown fact." hewhispered. “Don’t tell anyone, but to a fallen angel nine days is more like 900 YEARS!!” he shouted, causing Victor and Samuel to cover their ears.
The Devil's face was a mask of rage and hatred. Wind, where there had been none, began to whistle through the passage.
Lighting streaked across the sky like meteors with golden tails. And Satan, Lord of the underworld, looked to have grown 50 feet tall. His arms outstretched towards the Heaven and he was cursing his creator's name in a language never spoken from a human tongue.
His rage disappeared as quickly as it had come when the demon God lowered his head and raised his eyebrows in thought. Cruel lips tuned up at the corners framing a devilish grin.
The tips of his horns, now much smaller than Victor had previously faced back in the Garden, were slightly poking through his thick lustrous dirty blond hair. Lucifer’s evil smile turned to a snarl as he spoke again.
“You may come on if you dare.’ he spoke, now to all three of them.
“I have need of sport.” as he laughed, spreading his burnt appendages. In a flash of bursting white light, that sent three companions sprawling across the ground, he was gone.24

“Well that was fun. I guess we're not going to be a surprise.” Samuel said. 25

“Jesus! I am really beginning to hate that guy.” Victor muttered, gathering himself as he stood up. 26

After they pulled themselves together and convinced each other that he wasn’t going to scare them off, they headed into the pass. Sadie was running ahead, Samuel next and Victor was bringing up the rear.
They've been through the pass for five minutes now and neither Lucifer nor Victor’s little band noticed the silent figure's detach themselve's from the shadows against the far northern barrier and hurriedly follow the rag tag group through the passage.
Moving at a good pace, the way seemed endless. The cliffs on both sides now, instead of dwarfed mountains, looked to reach the Heavens themselves when they came to an abrupt halt.
Standing in front of them was a giant of a beast wielding a very large battle axe in one hand and a headless body in another.
Victor didn‘t have to imagine where the head went as the beast stood chewing and then swallowed!
He eyed the behemoth and then swept the area quickly spotting off to the right  his antagonist's cave. 
 “I seek only to pass, foul one. My fight is not with you.” Victor said. The giant eyed him suspiciously and then, licking his thick maggot filled sore lips, advanced on Victor tossing the headless stump off to one side.
Samuel and Sadie had stayed out of sight and Sadie now used this to her advantage as she skirted the edge of the circling combatants, but in that split second of reconnoiter, Victor formed a plan.
Dropping his sword and drawing the Mossberg 500 12g, he fired off a blast at the giant’s feet. To his surprise, it had the effect for which he had hoped. 27

To be continued... 28

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