ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 4

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

WHY ARE YOU CAST DOWN OH MY SOUL? AND WHY ARE YOU DISQUIETED WITHIN ME? HOPE IN GOD. (Psalm 42:11)

            “Productive moves,” I told Vermillion.

            “I thought so,” he replied confidently.

            “But all things work together for good to those who love God,” I quoted Romans 8:28.

            “The Son of God said if you love me keep my commandments,” Vermillion challenged. “But does Jenny keep God’s commandments?”

            The demonic realm knows scripture better than humans. That’s why they have been so successful in diverting people away from the truths in which the Bible actually teaches. Often through traditions and religion itself.

            He continued, “No, your little angel, pun intended, was on the verge of self-murder. When I get through with her and the people she looks to for support with the tiny urchin in her womb, she will at a minimum execute him. Then the guilt will put her back into a frame of mind to execute herself as well.”

            “We’ll see.”

            “You even admitted I set her up just fine for destruction.”

            “On the contrary, I believe your arrangement will ultimately give her resolve, not despair.”

            He had seemed self-satisfied but now looked dubious. Satan and his demons are experts at reading body language. They also specialize in knowing just what buttons to push for everyone’s particular temptations. But they can’t read the mind. They can’t force a person to sin.

            ‘Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). Verse 8 is key. ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.’

            Righteous angels also can’t read the mind. But we do have an advantage. God, in whom we ultimately take direction from, can. The advantage the dark side has is fallen human nature and the selfish desires that go along with it..

            Vermillion worked to do, not just a double whammy on Jenny Oakley, but a triple whammy. As painful as it was for me to see her in pain, I needed to stand by and allow it. For I knew something Vermillion didn’t.

            As much as she dreaded it, Jenny felt the need to inform the potential fathers. But first she felt the need to inform her mother. Vermillion paved the way for this encounter by giving her mother trouble with Jenny’s two older half siblings.

            Three days earlier, Jenny’s twenty-five year old sister was sentenced to two years in prison after yet another arrest for theft. Two days later her twenty-six year old brother was fired from yet another job. Then only an hour before Jenny’s arrival, he had asked to borrow money to pay his rent. When it rains it pours!

            Jenny’s mother was clearly stressed. So she decided to postpone informing her mother about her dilemma. But her mother knew she had paid her a visit for a serious reason, so she coaxed it out of her youngest child. Her reaction couldn’t have caused Jenny more pain.

            It was one of those situations where a person would rather have a response of anger. With tremendous remorse, her mother began to weep. A pitiful whimper escaped from her lips as she lamented, “Oh, Jenny. You were my one hope.”

            As bad as she felt as she left her mother’s place, Jenny intended to still tell the two potential fathers. She not only wanted to get it over with, she wanted to know what their reactions would be.

            By the time she got to the front door of Devin’s condo, she felt defiant. Normally meek and timid, her mother’s reaction made her, at first sad, then angry. Angry at Devin. Two years of dreaming about a white picket fence and two or three kids shot down. And why? Was she not pretty enough? Was she not smart enough? Was she not witty enough? Was she not charming enough? Was she not driven enough? Was she too clingy and needy?

            There were eight units in Devin’s condo. He was on the bottom floor in the rear corner of the building. Her finger hovered over the intercom button for unit three. She hated the sound of hearing his mechanical ‘yeah?’ coming through the device. She disliked replying ‘it’s me.’ Then without a word of greeting from him, there was the sound of a buzz as if opening the door in a prison.

            She decided to go around to his back patio instead. What did it matter if he didn’t like it and threw a fussy fit? She would just blurt out, I’m pregnant and you’re… Oh my! She stopped and bit her finger nail. You are the father? You might be the father? How should she put it, what with not being certain of the parentage?

            Then she visualized him crossing his arms and giving her that squinty eyed glare of his. Then asking, who else have you been with if she said might. But who cares? Wasn’t he with someone else himself! After all it was he who wooed her back for a half dozen intimate encounters. It was he who strayed not once but twice. But boy, what a mess not knowing exactly who the father was!

            Six foot tall hedges surrounded the ten by ten patio. There was actually a chain link gate blocking the entry. She had always thought that was silly since a burglar could just plow through the hedges, if he was willing to risk a couple scratches that is. She had only seen Devin work the three digit combination a few times, but she had remembered it.

            Once past the gate she took tentative steps toward the sliding glass door. She raised a hand to rap and then froze. She noticed the tops of two heads that appeared to be joined sitting on the sofa. Why hadn’t she considered that he could be with the other woman? Now she was spying on the pair making out on his couch.

            She took a couple steps back as she prepared to slink away. This obviously wasn’t the right time. She tripped over a patio chair, lost her balance and fell onto a second patio chair. She inadvertently shoved the second chair and with a loud bang it slid into the sliding glass door.

            Thankfully the glass didn’t break, but the couple on the sofa shot up like a couple jack in the boxes. Jenny was mortified! Then stunned! Devin apparently didn’t leave her for another woman after all. The partially dressed person that had been on the sofa with Devin was a guy.

            Devin seemed to shove his companion toward his front door as the two rapidly buttoned up their clothing. Devin moved quickly to the sliding glass door and opened it. Although he used expletives as he asked Jenny what she was doing, he seemed more confused and discombobulated than angry.

            “Jenny, what are you doing here!” he said, more as an accusation than a question.

            “I need to talk to you about something.”

            “Why didn’t you go to the front like a normal person?” he asked with hands on hips.

            Vermillion was inspiring Devin the way he had during most of their association. He was taking control, making her feel she was unworthy and that she should feel grateful to simply be in his presence. He had been the boss in their relationship, and he needed to take charge now. Especially with what she might have seen as she snuck up to his back door and spied.

            I, on the other hand, reminded Jenny of how often she felt humiliation with his condescending ways. I gave her recollection of why she was there in the first place. The pair of thoughts gave her the boldness needed to stand up to him. He had twice dumped her and left her pregnant after coaxing her into satisfying his lust.

            She shrugged and mirrored his hands on hips. Then she spoke loud enough he feared the neighbors overhearing. “I didn’t want to hear your pathetic voice through that squeaky intercom.”

            His frown turned into arched eyebrows. Jenny had never spoken to him like this before. Her reaction to the break ups had been crying and blithering. But then he frowned again. “So what did you feel the need to talk to me about? I’m not taking you back again!”

            “Taking me back? Ha! You’re the one that came crawling back several weeks ago, telling me you made a mistake with…” Now Jenny’s frown turned into arched eyebrows. “That guy.”

            “What guy?” Devin replied, seeming rattled. He turned and looked into his condo, and then back to Jenny. “There’s nobody here.”

            “I know what I saw Devin. You were sitting on the couch with some guy.”

            “Oh him… We had been working out together, then watching a ball game, but he had to leave.”

            “You two appeared to be kissing. You were half undressed when you stood.”

            “What are you talking about!” Devin said testily, but clearly nervous. “I told you we had been working out. Come sneaking up spying on me and then making phony allegations. How dare you!”

            Jenny put her hands up. She wisely realized he was only gonna get angrier if she pushed it. “Look, Devin, let’s just forget about it. There was glare on the glass, I must have been seeing things. Okay?”

            He eyed her suspiciously, Then wanting to move away from what she may or may not have seen, he asked belligerently, “So what did you need to tell me that a phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”

            “I’m pregnant?” she blurted.

            He looked stunned. Then his brows furrowed and his eyes squinted. Then he sarcastically replied, “Really?”

            “Really,” she responded quietly.

            He began to pace and breath hard in and out of his nose. Then he stopped. “I thought you were on the pill?”

            “I am,” she replied. “But in the aftermath of our break up, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, and I became lackadaisical and forgot to consistently take them.”

            “So what now, are you trying to trap me?”

            “No, not at all. I just thought you had a right to know.”

            Devin still eyed her skeptically. Although he knew she wasn’t the type to sleep around, he had to ask. “So you’re saying I’m the father, and you’re one hundred percent sure?”

            She shook her head and then hung it in shame. “No, just most likely. You and I were together a half dozen times, but I did have a one night stand a couple days after you left me the second time.”

            “You had a one night stand?” he laughed without humor. “Maybe you should tell him too. Or was it some low life who you don’t even know?”

            “I know him and I plan to tell him.”

            “Who is it?”

            “You don’t know him. He was an old classmate I ran into when I went out with some friends.”

            “Wait here a minute,” he said cooly. He returned and placed two one hundred dollar bills into her hand and closed her fingers around it.

            “What’s this?”

            “It’s for an abortion.”

            “I’m not getting an abortion,” she said, shoving the money back at him, but he ignored the gesture.

            “Yeah,” he laughed sarcastically. “So you’re too moral to get an abortion, but not too moral to get naked with a guy you don’t know.”

            “I told you I knew him.”

            “Oh yeah, how long have you been dating?”

            She dropped the bills on the patio. “Have a nice life.”

            “Jenny wait,” he ordered. She kept going. Then with frightening hostility, he spoke to her back. “If you spread any lies about me, you’ll regret it! Big time!”

            Jenny stopped her hands from trembling by gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. Maybe she should get an abortion, she thought. Did she really want to have a child that was half Devin? But there was a chance it was Jimmy’s baby, small though it might be. For it was only the one time and on the back side of her monthly cycle when she was probably done ovulating.

            Since the odds favored Devin being the father, she decided to procrastinate telling Jimmy of the possibility. Between the ugly encounters with first her mother and then Devin, she didn’t feel she had the fortitude to face a third confrontation that day. So she planned to wait at least until tomorrow. But her meetings with her mother and ex-boyfriend left such a bad taste in her mouth, she ended up waiting a week.

            Like a spiritual chess game, Vermillion and I maneuvered our pieces in the time before Jenny sought out Jimmy. He put into his path a woman that looked like she stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine. While I caused his eyes to be cast onto something that at one time was a simple piece of blank white paper but now carried a meaningful message.