Heaven and Hell (63 page)

As the group began to reenter the cavern, another dark figure swept down. It was Abaddon.

“Thank our Father in Heaven that you are safe,” he exclaimed, embracing the still shivering young woman. He took a careful look at her, saw the blood splattered on her dress.

“It’s not mine,” she said quickly, pointing toward the demon flailing in the fiery sea.

Abaddon was amazed as he listened to Serena’s frightening story. When it was all told, he was visibly shaken.

“No human has ever accomplished what you have done today. It is a true victory for your kind.”

“I had a lot of help,” said Serena, looking at one of the tiny creatures, stationed on her right shoulder. She stroked its hair gently. She would never be afraid of one of Abaddon’s children again. She owed more than her life to them.

As they walked back into the cavern, Abaddon told Serena about what he had discovered. What was happening was unheard of. A war was breaking out in Hell, yet it was a war that could have only one ending unless they escaped. The demons had Abaddon’s kind outnumbered tens of thousands to one.

The green cavern bore the traces of the battle that had been fought. Abaddon reached down to pick up the small being that had given its life for Serena’s. Abaddon shook his head sadly.

“She was the prototype, the first of this new generation. She was the leader, the queen, as it were. She was the link that allowed them to function as one. The others will be in disarray until they select a new focus, a new queen or king.”

“How long will that take?” asked Serena.

“I’m not sure, but until it is accomplished they will be far less effective.” Abaddon glanced at the small being on Serena’s shoulder. “They may even bond with you for a time. I wouldn’t be surprised. The purity of your soul will be nearly magnetic to them; but in the end, they will select a new center from among their own. It might well be the one on your shoulder. He was the first born.”

Serena looked into the face of the small being that seemed oh so fascinated with her. He had a new friend, a friend who at last seemed unafraid of him. Serena’s attention turned to the crystal sphere. It glowed faintly, as it had all along.

“I hope that your husband contacts you soon,” said Abaddon, glancing at the glistening ball. “I fear we have little time. If things continue to deteriorate, we may have to leave this place.”

Serena glanced at Abaddon incredulously. “But where could we go?”

Abaddon shook his head as they made their way back toward the main room. “I don’t know; truly I don’t. All I know is that there is change in our future. Things will never be as they were.”

Abaddon and Serena sat together in the great room. Neither one said much. There was nothing more to say.

Then as if an answer to prayer, the total silence was broken by a soft hum emanating from nearby. Serena turned to the sphere that was nestled among vegetables in her basket. It was glowing within its depth—as if a small star had been born in its very heart.

“Abaddon!” she said, as she reached for the glowing sphere.

It was warm and softly vibrating in her hands. It felt wonderful. For the source of the glow within it was God’s own Holy Spirit. In effect, God’s own light had penetrated to the very heart of outer darkness.

Abaddon pointed to a white marble table several feet away. “Place it over there. We don’t know what to expect. Aaron said it has never been tested.”

Serena carefully placed the glowing sphere on the table. Yet despite Abaddon’s warnings she remained very close to it, drawn in by its radiance.

Quite abruptly the sphere seemed to vanish, replaced by a portal of snow, several times the size of the original sphere. A chill ran up her back as she heard distant voices coming from within the swirling blizzard. She couldn’t make them out, though she could tell that there were several different ones. Did one of them belong to Chris?

“Chris?” she called. “Chris, can you hear me?”

Her joy was nearly indescribable as she heard a voice from beyond call her name. It was Chris! It was really him.

“Chris!” she cried. “Oh my dear God, please let it be you.”

Out of the snow an image was forming, a three dimensional image. It swirled and contorted as if viewed across waves of heat.

“We’ve got something,” said another voice, more clearly this time. “We need more power, David.”

A form materialized out of the snow, the image of someone leaning in her direction. His face was a blur at first, but rapidly clearing. “Serena, I hear you. I can actually hear you,” he said, his voice becoming louder, more distinct. “I can almost see you from here. Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

“Chris,” said Serena, in tears. “I can hear you. I can see you. It’s a miracle.”

“Not quite a miracle,” said a figure standing directly behind Chris. “Not yet, at least.” He turned to some third party outside the field of view. “We look a bit out of phase.”

“I know, I’m working on it, Johann,” came the reply.

The image almost instantly sharpened, only to blur once more. A few seconds later it sharpened to crystal clarity. Serena looked into the face of her husband for the first time in months. It was almost as if he was standing beside her.

“That’s it,” said Johann, looking over Chris’s shoulder.

“This is taking a whole lot more power than I thought,” came a warning from somewhere in the background. “I can’t hold this wormhole open for very long. Let’s make it quick.”

“Serena, love, we’re ready here; we’re coming to get you,” said Chris. “You’ve just gotta hang on.”

“You had best make haste,” said Abaddon, looking over Serena’s shoulder. “Serena is in great danger here. You need to take her from here soon.”

It took a couple of minutes to relay the seriousness of their situation. The faces on the far side did not fill Abaddon with a sense of encouragement.

Johann drew closer. “Very well, we had originally planned our arrival for tomorrow. We will move our timetable up. Can you be ready in two hours?”

“I hope we have that long,” Abaddon said.

“We can’t be there any sooner,” replied Johann. “I’ll have to contact Moriah immediately. We will need his help. Without the support of his angels, I fear that our odds of success will be considerably lower.” There was a second’s pause. “Nevertheless, we are coming, so be ready. There is a region of level ground along the southern fringe of your island. Is the land there stable? Will it support a heavy craft?”

“It is solid rock,” confirmed Abaddon. “The only danger is from above.”

“Our angel escort should take care of that,” said Chris, his tone confident.

“Then that is where we shall land,” said Johann. “Be there in two hours. I don’t want to be on the ground for very long.”

“We shall be ready,” confirmed Abaddon.

Serena drew close to the vision before her, gazing into her husband’s eyes.

“We’re going to lose the signal in another minute.”

“OK, Nick,” confirmed Johann.

“So little time,” said Serena, drawing even closer.

“Just for the moment,” assured Chris, fighting back tears of his own. “But don’t worry; we’ll have the rest of eternity to be together. We’re getting you out of there, I promise. In two hours I’ll be able to touch you again. That thought will bring me through. Not even the gulf between Heaven and Hell will keep us apart. I love you, Serena.”

His words sent Serena’s head to swimming. “I love you Chris, more than ever.”

“We’re losing the link,” warned Nick.

“See you in two hours,” said Chris, his image beginning to fade.

Serena bid a final goodbye to her husband; yet she was not certain that he heard it, for the image dissolved before them, leaving a fading glow within the crystal sphere.

Abaddon placed his arm around the young human. “If there is anything you want to take with you, you’d best get it. We will need to leave here in ninety of your minutes. You don’t want to make your husband wait for you, do you?”

“No,” replied Serena, her smile growing.

“Then hurry up,” said Abaddon, ushering her away. “Time is wasting.”

Abaddon watched as Serena hurried off to her room. For once in his existence, he was unsure about what to do. Of one thing, though, he was certain; the next few hours would forever change his destiny. There was no margin for error. For the second time in as many hours he found himself reaching out to the Father for guidance. He only hoped that his words had been heard.

C
HRIS wiped away his tears as the holographic vision vanished before him. If only they’d had more time. No, he couldn’t think in those terms. He’d be seeing his wife again in less than two hours, touching her. He focused on that. Johann placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“There is nothing you can do here. We’ve loaded almost everything we need into the Spirit. All we need to do now is contact Moriah and let him know that we’ve had to move the timetable up. I want you to go home, visit with your mother for a time, then be back here in seventy minutes. Don’t be late; we are on a tight schedule.”

Chris hesitated, almost afraid to ask the question most on his mind. “Johann, are we really ready?”

“We will be,” replied Johann. “We need to bring the temporal capacitor up to full charge. That will require about forty minutes. We’ll need to recalculate our exit angle. All of our figures are based on a noon departure tomorrow. That could take about thirty minutes, but it will be done while the capacitor is charging. I just wanted more time to run through simulations.

“As best I can calculate, we will have about a twenty percent margin of error in terms of power. Not as much as I would have liked, but it is adequate.” Johann turned toward the clock on the wall. “Chris, you need to be back here in sixty-nine minutes. I suggest that you waste no more of your wife’s time.”

Chris smiled, but said not a word. A moment later he vanished into the portal that led home.

Johann turned, surprised to see Nick behind him. “I thought you would be anxious to charge the capacitor.”

“David is seeing to it. Johann, we have a problem.”

“Serious?”

Nick shook his head. “I’m not certain yet. I didn’t want Chris to know about it; he’d only worry. It took more energy than I had anticipated to open a wormhole of sufficient size to make the transmission possible. The density of the interdimensional barrier between Heaven and Hell must be denser than I’d calculated.”

Johann’s heart sunk. “Too dense for us make it back?”

“I’m not sure yet, but it is going to be frighteningly close. Even if we can make it, we won’t have much of a margin for error. We’ll need to get in and out as quickly as possible. I’ll put as much power into the capacitor as it will bear. At this point, we might as well jump first and figure out how to get back later.”

Johann nodded. He couldn’t believe what Nick had just said. Nick was usually so cautious, but not today. They walked to the Spirit to make the final preparations for lift off. Johann thought back to their journey to the Tarantula Nebula eight years ago. It had been one of their first attempts at interdimensional flight. A miscalculation had left them stranded for several days in deep space. There’d been no band of angels to rescue them that day. They’d been compelled to rely on their own resourcefulness to repair their overloaded drive system and limp home. A similar failure on this flight might have far more serious implications. He tried not to think about it.

Chris stepped onto the porch of the mansion where his old black cat had been waiting for him for the past two hours. He reached down and gave her a loving scratch on the head before heading inside. His mother was in her sewing room. She looked up and smiled.

“How did it go?”

“Not like we’d expected,” replied Chris, doing his best to explain the situation.

What Jennifer heard left her with plenty of questions and concerns, yet she gave them no voice. They spoke of familiar things for some time, yet did their best to avoid any further discussion about the perilous mission. Jennifer knew that there would be no changing her son’s mind. She wasn’t even certain that to do so would have been a good idea. Perhaps he was right; perhaps he had to go.