Reluctant Demon (24 page)

I was thinking that very thing the morning I was at my post to watch the Nile. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile, so Satan wanted to be sure we always had some sort of disturbance going to keep their attention.

"Watch and report," the dispatching demon said to me every day. The extent of my worth to Satan could be summed up in those words. Never mind there had been nothing to report for years. I wasn't given access to the inner sanctum for any other reason than to report. I wondered if Satan would recognize me if I were to show up with any news.

The killing of the babies was certainly not news anymore. You may think the massacre would have been so awful no one could ever become used to it. You only think that way because you are human and don't understand demonic capacity for evil. Another problem is with how you're made. The painful, emotional suffering you experience when you see death, injustice, and mindless violence against those whom you consider innocent is incomprehensible to a demon. Why should anyone care what someone else suffers? Demons cannot relate to such silly sentimentality. I watched so many babies drown that I had long since lost interest and track of the numbers.

It was always the same. Screaming women, screaming babies—after a while, they all ran together.

Now that I think of it, maybe that was the reason she caught my attention. The woman was not screaming, and neither was the baby she put in the basket. She was a Hebrew, no question about that. Her clothing gave her away. The baby had to be a boy, otherwise why would she be doing such an odd thing? She had probably been able to hide him for a few weeks, but now he was too big.

Although I was under orders to report the slightest variation in the Hebrews' behavior, I considered letting the whole thing slide. It didn't seem worth my effort.

Why not let her try some feeble attempt to save her baby? In the end, her plan could not work because someone was sure to find the basket and turn the baby in for a bounty. W h y should I get involved in a situation that was likely to resolve itself in a matter of hours? I'm certain I would have let the whole thing pass if I had not seen the baby's face.

Humans call a person's eyes the window to the soul through which one can look and see the essence of the individual. Big deal. Demons can do the same thing. In fact, they are better at it than people. They not only see, but they can also read the soul. How do you think Satan knows who the easy marks are? He sees the soul and all of its memories, scars, and weaknesses when he looks into the eyes of humans, and he always takes the path of least resistance. After all, if one is in the business of stealing souls, it helps to know what brand of deception is going to work best.

I knew something was different when I looked into this baby's eyes and could not read his soul. It was hidden from me. What I did see scared me. I had seen it only two other times in the hundreds of years and the millions of people who had passed upon Earth. I saw it in Noah, I saw it in Abraham, and now I saw it again in the eyes of this baby. No, it was not the human soul I saw in his eyes.

It was the soul of God looking back at me. I could not believe He was going to try it again, but I was convinced He was. God was launching one more attempt to save the souls of the pitiful children of Abraham.

I made mental notes as his mother placed the baby in the basket among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

It wasn't long before Pharaoh's daughter went to the Nile to bathe as she did every day. Her attendants were walking along the riverbank when one saw the basket among the reeds.

"My lady," she cried. "Look, it's a basket. Shall I bring it to you?"

"Bring it," answered Pharaoh's daughter. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him.

"This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said. "Where did he come from?"

As I could have guessed, the baby's sister popped out of the papyrus grass right on cue.

"Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby?" she asked, as if one might be lingering around the next bush.

"Yes, go," Pharaoh's daughter answered.

So the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you."

Now I ask you, wouldn't you think these girls might have thought this was a little too convenient? Didn't they think something strange might be going on?

Handing the baby to his mother, Pharaoh's daughter said, "His name will be Moses because I drew him out of the water."

I leaned in a bit more to take another look at the baby's face when I realized he was looking back, and he saw me. It was not possible, but across time and space, he saw me. Then he laughed. I lurched backwards, stepped on my left wing, and fell over myself trying to get away.

I struggled to hurry but I couldn't get traction. I ran, I stumbled, cracked my hoof when I fell, hopped a ways on the other one, and finally got altitude.

A million questions flooded my mind. "God, where have You been for four hundred years? W h a t makes You show up now? W h a t are You thinking? If it's the humans You want, You've waited way too long. They are not the way You remember them. Have You seen them lately? They won't know who You are. How could the baby see me?"

I flew with all of my might to the deepest part of second heaven, where Satan reveled on his throne, but I was stopped at the entrance by his henchmen. The ranks of demons had become so defined by now that only those of high authority—the princes, powers, and thrones—

could directly access Satan. I was still just a watcher. It had been a long time since anything worth reporting had occurred, so I no longer had credentials to enter in to bring news.

"I must get in," I screamed at the guarding demons.

"What do you want?"

"I know you," the other guard interjected. "You were always the troublemaker."

"I must tell him. It is important. Please, get out of my way."

I tried to rush past them, which was extraordinarily poor judgment on my part. They lashed out at me and sent me tumbling tail over claw into the wall.

"Tell him that I'm here. He will want to see me," I whimpered to them as I picked myself up. "It will be your head next if he finds that you kept this news from him."

They whispered together, and one of them went in to where the prince of darkness hid himself. In a moment the guard reemerged from the inner chambers and snarled at me.

"He doesn't want to see you. He said you are to give me your information, and I will relay the message."

In one way I was glad to let someone else give the message and let him face the wrath that would spew from Satan when he heard it. In another way, I wished I could see the prince's contorted face for myself when he finally realized that what I had warned him about for eons was about to land on his doorstep. I thought about asking the guards to be sure Satan knew it was me who had predicted this would happen, but my good sense returned before I got the words out.

I pulled myself up and said the words that would soon enough turn his kingdom upside down.

"Tell him," I whispered, "the deliverer is coming."

CHAPTER 27

IT DIDN'T TAKE
long, and it was as bad as I guessed.

The gates of the inner sanctum flung open with such force that the walls on which they were hinged cracked from the weight of Satan's appearance.

I had not seen him personally for quite a long time and he seemed much worse than I remembered, if you can imagine that.

"You're looking somewhat well, sir; interesting, really," I babbled, trying to figure out what was different about him.

He did not acknowledge my greeting but slapped me aside and then stepped on my tail as he stomped to the edge of second heaven. I should not have said "somewhat."

At first, he did nothing. I suppose "nothing" is subject to local interpretation. In the realm of darkness, it was nothing, but to humans it might have been quite something. He stood (levitated in place is more accurate) looking back and forth with hideous eyes at who knows what, and all the while breathing sulfa and fire into the nothingness surrounding his domain. Then he began to accuse God and demand that He appear.

"Bad move, very bad move," I muttered to the guards.

"What if He should actually show up here?" I could see the guards themselves were getting the jitters at the thought. I folded my wings over my eyes and hid in the corner.

"Will You never be done with them?" Satan bellowed toward the throne room of God. "What are they that You waste Your time on them? W h y are they so important to You? Deal with it. They are mine, and You cannot have them back!"

I wondered if I should point out to him that, technically, the Hebrews were not his. He did not own their souls.

It was the Egyptians he owned, who in turn owned the slaves. "A minor point to be sure," I was about to say, "but an important one in a court of law." Satan's snarl and low guttural growls came from somewhere deep within him.

"Maybe not." I put my head back down. He was in no mood to discuss the fine print.

In complete frustration at the silence from third heaven, Satan lurched madly into the atmosphere, chasing something that was not there. Then he crashed back onto the ledge from where he assaulted the character of God.

I stayed cowered in the corner, completely terrorized by his words. I looked at the guards who were glaring at me as if Satan's meltdown was somehow my fault. W h y one of them didn't at least try to shut him up, I do not know. They knew as well as I did that Satan's ranting against the Most High God put us all at risk. There was a limit, a point, something coming one day that would mark the end of God's tolerance for this lunatic angel.

None of us dared say it, but we knew it. Someday, at some time, God will have had enough. When we did not expect it, there would be a "suddenly" with God. I gasped for breath just thinking about it.

A "suddenly" of God is the thing nightmares are made of in the demonic realm. Suddenly, He would act.

And when He did, it would be the certain end of this maniac and the end of us. Perhaps this was the day. I was shaking so hard that my scales began to peel off.

Satan continued, and it got worse.

"Go away, God. Go far away. Nobody remembers You here. Give them up. Find another hobby. Cut Your losses. You are not wanted. Your creation has turned against You. They worship
me.
I will kill them before I see them turn back to You. I will die before I allow them to escape."

Oh, how I wished he had not said that. "If the guards would not do something, maybe I should try," I said in my head. "We are all going to die anyway."

If socks had existed, and if I could have found one, I am sure I would have tried to stuff it in his mouth. Maybe Satan did not fear Tartaroo, the deepest part of hell reserved for the rebellious angels, but the rest of us did. I could see the demon guards were traumatized at this tirade as they shrunk back into the darkness, as if they could hide there.

They were as frightened as I was at the hysteria and rage Satan was railing at the Creator of the universe.

"You think You can save them?" Satan bellowed. "Go ahead. Try to snatch them out of my hands. But it will cost You, God. Oh, it will cost You more than You are willing to pay."

Satan rolled in laughter at his threat against the Almighty, as if he had caught God in some terrible joke only they knew. His countenance changed again, and with yellow, hideous eyes, he roared then bleated as if he were some tortured animal. Next, he began frothing from his mouth and spinning on the floor like a captured tornado. He was completely mad; there was no other way to describe it.

Then as if nothing had happened at all, everything was still. I raised my head to see the guards peering out from the cave where they had sought refuge. A dreadful and dark silence cloaked us as Satan, having worn himself out from his fit, lay in a throbbing heap hanging over the edge of second heaven.

"Answer me, God," he moaned into the darkness as he settled into a motionless trance.

God, of course, said nothing.

CHAPTER 28

AS SHE HAD
done for several days, Samantha waited for the phone to ring. How many weeks had it been? She read and reread the translated scrolls so many times that she could recite much of the text from memory. The hardest part was telling no one what she had. But how could she when she didn't know herself?

She had no choice but to wait. The mysterious Wonk Eman, the man without a phone number or address, would have to call her. Where was he? He had seemed so anxious to have the scrolls translated, and now he had disappeared. Nothing added up.

She answered the phone before it could ring a second time.

"Dr. Yale?" asked the voice she recognized as the strange man who had visited her so many weeks before.

"Wonk," she tried to sound calm. "Where have you been?"

"Did you translate the scrolls?"

"Yes, I did. We must talk. When can you come here?"

"I can't come. It's not safe."

"Not safe? What are you afraid of?"

He did not respond. Only the sound of his breathing assured her he had not hung up. At last he spoke.

"Someone else may try to contact you. It's desperately important that you not mention me or the scrolls."

"Who are you talking about?"

Silence.

"Wonk?" Fearing he had hung up, Samantha said,

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Why are you afraid?"

Wonk barely whispered, "His plan worked; he survived the flood."

Her mind raced through its stored memory of the scrolls' text to figure out who he was talking about. No one survived the flood except for Noah and his family.

Suddenly she remembered.

"You don't mean Og, the Nephilim king? That's impossible."

"I'm sorry, Dr Yale. I've said too much."

"What do you expect me to do with the translation?"

Her exasperation was beginning to come through her voice.