Tartarus kingdom wars ii, p.7
Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II, page 7
Nothing happened.
The urge was to focus. I resisted it.
I saw clouds. Highlights. Shadows. Movement. Billows. Cavernous depths. Angels.
So startled was I when I saw them, they disappeared from view. Setting myself again, I forced myself to relax, fighting off my rising excitement.
There were thousands of them and they were massing. Robed. Shining with a heavenly glory that was mesmerizing and fearful. Moving with grace. Solemn. Silent. They filled the sky stretching north to south from horizon to horizon and upward in a column that reached to the heavens. Was this the ladder that Jacob saw?
But unlike Jacob’s angels who ascended and descended the ladder, these angels traveled a singular direction, from heaven to earth. Their assembly had the appearance of a grand choir.
I laughed out loud. Wasn’t it a mere five miles south of here that they had assembled in similar fashion to announce the birth of the Christ child? And now here they were again. To announce what?
There was a tap at my door.
“Grant? Are you ready?”
I bolted across the room and startled Sue Ling with the suddenness of the door opening. Grabbing her by the arm I pulled her across the room.
“You have to see this!”
“Ouch! Grant, you’re hurting me—”
“Sorry, it’s just that—” I pulled her onto the balcony. “—look!”
With the sweep of my hand I showed her the angels.
“I know,” Sue replied, unimpressed. “I have the same view from my balcony. That’s why I brought an umbrella. Oh, look, what good timing. Choni’s in the parking lot waiting for us.”
“Sue? Can’t you see them?”
Of course she couldn’t see them. But at times like this there is no reason, only excitement and desire. I so wanted her to see what I could see. Maybe if I wished hard enough. Maybe if I clapped my hands.
“Well, we’re off!” she said cheerily.
I blocked her with my arm.
“Sue, I see angels.”
Her genial expression faded.
Sue Ling didn’t need to be convinced of the existence of angels. As the professor’s assistant she’d seen Abdiel often enough, possibly even conversed with him. She also knew enough to know that seeing angels wasn’t always a good thing.
“Angels,” she repeated. “How many and where?”
She scanned the rooftops in anticipation of viewing the location, if not the angels.
“Thousands,” I said. “Thousands upon thousands. And not down there. In the clouds.”
With fervent gaze she scanned the clouds. With reverent voice she said, “And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Matthew 24, verse 30.”
“We have to get down there,” I said.
It took a moment for my words to penetrate. When they did, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the room.
“Ouch! Sue, you’re hurting me—”
She let go of my arm in the elevator. I rubbed it.
Her eyes were fixed on the floor indicator, urging the elevator downward. As soon as the doors started to open, she was pressing to get through and ran into a woman and two men who were getting in.
“Jana!” she exclaimed.
The collision knocked Jana back a step into her bow-tied coworker and cameraman, whom I recognized from the press conference, though he wasn’t carrying a camera at the moment.
When Jana recovered, she looked at Sue, then at me. “What are you doing here?”
Sue stepped around her and waved for me to do the same. “Grant, we’re late,” she said, hurrying on.
“Hi, Jana.” I stepped to one side to let her into the elevator. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Grant!” Sue called to me.
“Sorry, Jana, I have to go.”
I was halfway across the lobby when—“Grant!” It was Jana.
I turned back.
“Grant?” Sue held the lobby door open.
Once again I found myself forced to choose between my former girlfriend and the woman I was attracted to but couldn’t have.
But from the expression on Jana’s face, she wasn’t expecting me to make a choice. She was sizing me up.
She turned to the cameraman. “Get your camera. Move!” To the bow tie, “Get the car.” Then she fixed her sights on me. “Grant, what exactly are you doing here?”
A vise grip clamped onto my arm. It was Sue. She pulled me across the lobby. At the door, I said to Jana, “Sorry—”
Jana followed us into the parking lot where Choni stood beside his car and waved at us.
“Take us to Mt. Olivet,” Sue ordered.
The sharpness of the command wiped the smile off Choni’s face. As Sue bundled into the backseat and I climbed in front, Choni slipped behind the driver’s wheel.
Putting the car in gear, he said, “It would be better to sightsee another day. My father is expecting—”
“Mt. Olivet,” Sue repeated without explaining herself.
She looked out the back window. Jana was standing in the middle of the parking lot watching us.
Had it been me giving the orders, Choni would have argued with me. But women have a certain tone men and children have learned not to argue with. Sue used that tone. She used it well. I doubted it was the first time she’d used it.
“It is important you get to Olivet?” Choni asked.
Sue and I exchanged glances. “Has anything changed?” she asked me.
I looked eastward at the clouds. “Unchanged,” I replied.
“End-of-the-world important,” Sue said to Choni.
“And that woman?” he asked, motioning to Jana.
A small car screeched to a halt beside her. The cameraman, carrying his camera, emerged from the hotel at a dead run.
“She’s of no consequence,” Sue said, “but if you lose her, it wouldn’t break my heart.”
Choni smiled. “A chase scene. I’ve always wanted to do an American chase scene.”
Exiting the hotel parking lot he sped down the access road and onto the main thoroughfare. Then he turned hard left into a housing district.
“A shortcut,” he explained. “I used to date a girl who lived here. I thought it was serious, like she was the one, you know? She broke it off because her dog didn’t like me. It’s not like I wanted to marry her poodle.”
Jana’s car followed us in.
The housing district was a maze, every few hundred feet a turn. The cloud of angels swung from my side of the car to the front, to the driver’s side, to the back, to my side again, and finally to the front as we exited onto the main road.
I stuck my head out the window to get a better view. Sue rolled down her window and did the same.
“I’ve never seen anyone so fascinated with a thunderstorm,” Choni said. “I must visit San Diego and see this city that has no weather.”
We exited the maze. Sue watched the exit for Jana for as long as she could see it. Jana’s car never came out. Sue faced forward with a satisfied grin.
The road we were on skirted the southern edge of the Temple Mount running parallel to ancient walls. At the southeast corner the road turned north.
“We’re entering the Kidron Valley,” Choni said. “Mt. Olivet is on the right.”
At the base of the slope was a huge graveyard that stretched farther than we could see.
The car slowed.
“Why are we stopping?” Sue asked.
Choni motioned to the road ahead. A tour bus had stopped and was blocking the road. The panel to its engine was raised.
Tourists buzzed around the bus doing what tourists do. They wandered mindlessly in search of suitable backgrounds to take pictures of their spouses and friends. Several of them were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the middle of the road, smiling and saying, “Cheese,” with the ancient city at their backs.
Sue climbed out of the car.
Choni and I exchanged puzzled looks. “I can get around them,” he said of the tourists.
“Sue?” I climbed out of the car.
She was standing on the shoulder of the road, taking in the surrounding area.
“The Golden Gate.” She pointed to a double-tiered archway that was embedded in the wall. “Also called the Gate of Mercy and the Beautiful Gate.”
Maybe at one time it had been a gate, but the archway had been filled in. Now it was just part of the wall with graves scattered in front of it.
“Jesus and his disciples walked through that gate to go to the Temple,” Sue said. “It was through that gate that Jesus rode a donkey while the crowd waved palm branches.”
I nodded. I could see it. The gate was situated in line with the Temple Mount.
“On this side,” she said, indicating our side of the road, “is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested.” Her gaze moved up the hill. “And Mt. Olivet, where he ascended into heaven in a cloud of angels. I can see it.”
“I can, too,” I said. “It’s just as the Bible describes it.”
“No,” she said. “I mean, I can see them. The angels. I can see them.”
If she was pulling my leg, she was doing a masterful job of it. The expression on her face was one of awe and wonder.
“You saw this at the hotel?” Choni asked.
His face was just like Sue’s. He could see them, too. He stood inside the open door of his car, his arms resting on the top, his mouth open, his eyes wide and fixed on the clouds.
“Well, will you look at that?” one of the tourists said with a southern drawl. “Jubal, lookie up there at them special effects. Looks like angels in the clouds, don’t it? How do they do that?”
Jubal glanced upward and squinted his eyes. “Thas nothin’.” He spat. “I seen better special effects at Disney World.”
A line of cars had queued up behind us. About a dozen or so cars back was Jana. Like everyone else, she was gazing up at the sky in wonder. As she gazed, she directed her cameraman to record the event. She needn’t have bothered. His camera was pointed at the clouds.
“We need to get up there,” Sue said.
Choni assessed the situation. In both directions now the road was jammed with people. Everyone was getting out of their cars and staring at the angel-filled clouds over Mt. Olivet.
“Only one way I know of to get to the top of the mountain,” he said.
Vaulting over the edge of the road he slipped and ran down the bank. Sue and I were right behind him.
As I made the leap I glanced in Jana’s direction. She was recording a report. Her cameraman was lying on his back in order to get the angels in the background. Our movement caught Jana’s attention. She said something to the cameraman, and seconds later they were running down the slope after us with Jana in the lead, the cameraman on her heels, and the bow-tied reporter trailing. He was carrying a small monitor.
We crossed the Kidron and began climbing, weaving through olive trees that were part of the Garden of Gethsemane. Choni led us to a path that crested onto a road.
“Come, come!” he urged us, with a huge kid’s smile.
He reached for Sue Ling’s hand and pulled her up, though she didn’t appear to need help. I, on the other hand, was wheezing like an old man.
“Don’t tell me,” I said to Sue Ling. “You’re a jogger.”
“Five miles every morning.”
“I plan to start Monday.”
We crossed in front of the Church of All Nations with its colorful mosaic façade. It was easier going here. Level ground.
Cars had caught up with us. A steady stream snaked up the side of the mountain. Behind us Jana and her crew were climbing onto the road.
The church’s retaining wall came to an end and we began to ascend. We came to a fork in the road.
Choni went left. The steeper road.
A crazy thought born no doubt of oxygen deprivation popped into my head. It would be just my luck to drop dead of a heart attack minutes before the greatest spiritual event in the history of the world since the Resurrection.
I was falling behind. Sue slowed for me to catch up.
“Do you need help?” she asked.
“Thanks. No. I’ll make it.”
Apparently I wasn’t convincing.
“We can walk. Or hitch a ride.”
The idea of slowing to a walk was tempting. The possibility of catching a ride was not likely. While the cars were bumper to bumper, they were moving at a quick clip and the roads were narrow. Stopping would back up everything. Besides, most of the cars were packed with passengers. Some even had young men riding on the hoods and tops and trunks.
“Lets. Just. Keep. Going,” I said.
While she could have run ahead, Sue stayed with me.
With my lungs bursting with pain, my knees threatening to collapse, and white spots floating in my vision, we crested the round summit. From here everything flattened out.
There were people everywhere, heads tilted heavenward, mouths gaping at the angelic assembly overhead. For their part, the angels were oblivious to our presence. They moved into place and stood with solemn reverence, eyes forward, not looking down.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Tears moistened the wrinkles of Choni’s eyes.
Actually, I had, but I didn’t tell him that. The last time I saw an assembly of angels of this magnitude I was standing atop a skyscraper in San Diego in the center of it all. I liked this time better. No one was paying attention to me.
Hunched over, my hands were on knees as I tried to catch my breath.
Choni came up to me. “You knew before they appeared. How did you know? Are you a prophet?”
“I have a better question,” I said. “Where from here?”
“Yes, yes—” Sue exclaimed, looking around. “Choni, there are three locations that claim to be the place where Jesus ascended.”
Choni nodded. “Traditions, at best. All we have from Scripture is that Jesus ascended in the vicinity of Bethany.”
“Where’s that?”
“Here. Somewhere.”
“So you’re saying—”
“We’re close enough. From here it’s anybody’s guess.”
My breathing was such I could straighten up again. I looked up, wondering if I could see something the others couldn’t see. But all I saw were angels.
A young man ran from group to group, showing everyone a picture on his cell phone. People were nodding and grinning when they saw it.
He approached us and held up his cell phone. It was a picture from space of the phenomenon localized over Jerusalem. There was enough detail to see that the clouds were inhabited with figures. The central passageway, Jacob’s ladder, appeared as a laser beam shooting into space.
“Where did you get this?” an excited Choni asked.
“Internet,” the boy replied proudly. “This one—” he said, changing the picture, “—is from the Israeli air force.”
It, too, was from an elevated perspective with greater clarity and detail.
A short distance away three men with open Bibles began reading aloud, one at a time.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
…and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
People around us hushed as they recognized the familiar verses that were being revealed over our heads. The third man read:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
At the reading of this verse a cheer resounded atop Mt. Olivet.
“Grant Austin!”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and swung me around to face the fury of Jana Torres.
“Why didn’t you tell me at the hotel? You saw this, didn’t you? You saw it before anyone else did. And you didn’t tell me? You ran away and didn’t tell me?”
I went from feeling elation to scum in a nanosecond. “Jana, I’m sorry. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing.”
I hoped the excuse wasn’t as lame as it sounded.
From Jana’s expression, it was worse than it sounded. “After all we’ve meant to each other…”
Sue Ling watched our exchange from a distance.
“Something’s happening!” Jana’s cameraman yelled.
With a smooth motion he swung his camera onto his shoulder, pointing it heavenward. All around us people did the same with video recorders, cameras, and cell phones.
An unseen trumpet sounded. Clear. Unwavering. Its sound came from above us and resounded all around us.
People fell to their knees. Young and old, male and female. They lifted clasped hands to heaven. Tears streaked their cheeks.
Above us the angels appeared agitated. They gave a mighty shout.
It was a shout such as I had never heard. It passed through me like a wave, knocking me to my knees.
Choni was beside me, weeping with both hands raised. Sue Ling appeared positively beatific, as did Jana on my other side. What kind of friend was I to deny her this experience?
A collective gasp rose upward as the heavens parted, and there shone a great light. The light took the form of a man, descending from the clouds. His radiance outshone the angels and illuminated the thousands of faces looking up at him.
His garments were translucent and white as snow, rippling as though in a breeze. His arms were outstretched all at once to embrace us, and to show us the nail scars in his hands. His face was unblemished. His eyes…his eyes…his eyes…took you in and warmed you and loved you.
