Tag: fiction

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 8

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 8

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

SULLY SAGE

FOR GOD MAY SPEAK IN ONE WAY, OR ANOTHER, YET MAN DOES NOT PERCEIVE IT. IN A DREAM, IN A VISION OF THE NIGHT. (Job 33:14, 15)

  “Why are you giggling?” Violetta asked. Her face was inches from mine as her eyes glared lazers at me. The urge to kiss her was overwhelming, but it already felt like she was going to break my arm as it twisted unnaturally behind my head.

  “I know something you don’t know,” I told her.

  “What?” she replied. Her large, lovely blue-green eyes squinted suspiciously.

  “I too have studied martial arts.”

  My words threw her off guard, and she relaxed just a little. Before what I told her could sufficiently sink in, our roles were reversed. She now found herself on her back with her arm twisting unnaturally. “How do you like it now?”

  “I like it just fine,” she replied with clenched teeth.

  She slipped out of it somehow, and we grappled for a minute. She was good, very good! She rolled away from me and sprung to her feet. She crouched in an attack position. I did likewise, and began to say, “Look, Violetta, lets…”

  Right when I began to speak this, she went where I was unwilling to go with punching or kicking. She came in fast and low right when I began to speak and rise from bended knees. She meant to slug me in the abdomen, but the blow went low and landed on my male reproductive system. The lightning bolt of pain felt like it blew the top of my head off.

  I hit the ground with a thud, and curled in a fetal position. One positive that came from this experience of excruciating pain was that it showed me a different side of Violetta for the first time. She crouched by my side and put a hand on my upper arm. She bent close enough to my ear that it tickled when she spoke. I guess she thought noise would add to my misery. “Sully, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you there… Are you alright?”

  “No,” I groaned.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing… Except… Stop… Being… Violent.”

  It felt like hours before the pain began to subside, but it was probably only minutes. I rolled onto my back, took a deep breath, and sighed. I looked at Violetta. Although her face looked very concerned, I said, “You’re mean.”

  Her hand covered her mouth, her eyebrows raised, and her eyes actually looked merry rather than the fierce gaze I had become accustomed to. She apologized again, but giggled as she did so.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  “You have to admit it is kind of funny.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  Now she outright laughed. Then like a switch was flipped, her fierce demeanor returned. “This all started when I saw you pointing a gun at yourself. How dare you contemplate something so selfish! Especially right before Callie and Jeremey’s wedding!”

  “Violetta, it had no bullets. And I was just looking at it, not pointing it at myself. I was gonna throw it into the river.”

  “Oh,” she frowned. There seemed to be genuine meekness in her countenance before she scolded. “You still should not handle a firearm so carelessly, regardless of whether it is loaded or not.”

  “Yeah, I know, you’re right,” I admitted, as I put one arm under my head and another over my eyes.

  “Is there anything I can do? I truly feel bad.”

  “Mouth to mouth resuscitation,” I replied mildly.

  “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” she replied testily. “In your dreams, fella.”

  “I need some type of resuscitation, that’s for sure,” I said, surprising myself.

  The physical pain must have caused my emotional pain to resurface. That unbearable feeling of being alone, especially in a crowd. Ever since my wife died, I had nobody to truly confide in. I was paranoid. I didn’t even fully trust my cousin Jeremey, even though he was the closest thing to a brother that I had. I had watched him eagerly ride the coattails of my celebrity too many times.

  But the Karr sisters were like a breath of fresh air. It seemed neither were impressed with my celebrity status. But they came at their indifference from two different angles. Violetta’s whole attitude toward me was hostile like, ‘you really think you’re something.’ Which made me ponder, do I? I suppose my obnoxious reaction toward her attitude only fed her harsh approach toward me.

  Cricket, on the other hand, treated me with subtle pity. This was actually worse. She also was so honest. But it came across with gentleness and meekness. Even the first time I spoke with her, I detected something different. I even hinted at my emotional despair. Now I just gave Violetta a similar hint and instantly regretted it. What was it about the Karr sisters that was urging me to open up?

  “What do you mean you need to be resuscitated?” Violetta asked.

  I sat up and hooked the crook of my arms around my knees. Her countenance was neutral, but curious. It had been a long time since I felt like I could trust somebody, like I did Poppy. Oh how I missed her! I couldn’t stop my eyes from welling. As a matter of fact, the effort only opened up the spicket. I felt embarrassed and tried to cover up. “Oh the pain, you throw quite a punch.”

  With a sympathetic tone approaching her sister’s, she asked, “Is it really from the punch?”

  I nodded.

  “Fair enough,” she replied, and picked up my gun. “Once again, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean for our little sparring match to get out of hand. Since you’re incapacitated, do you want me to throw this in the river for you?”

  “Go for it.”     

  She threw it like a frisbee, and as it sailed through the air, it reminded me of a boomerang. It made me wonder when my dalliance with death would return. I had to stay strong for at least a few months.

  “I need to get going,” Violetta said. “You gonna be alright?”

  “Do you really care?”

  “Look, I meant it when I said I was sorry.”

  “Wow, so you do have a compassionate side. Must be Cricket’s influence.”

  She smiled. It wasn’t a warm and fuzzy grin, but pleasant enough. Especially since during or brief acquaintance, I had become accustomed to seeing her pretty lips pursed and her lovely eyes narrowed. “That’s truer than you realize.”

  In the midnight hour, my mind rotated back and forth pondering the Karr sisters as I laid in bed. No woman had moved me like my Poppy did. Now a pair of sisters both had come the closest, yet in different ways. I couldn’t sleep so I watched some reruns of ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ Then I played some games on my phone. Some time after four I drifted off to sleep and ended up having the most profound dream of my life.

  I was walking in a beautiful meadow. Long grass shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight. I marveled at the majesty of the rich green grass with golden tips waving and twinkling in a gentle breeze with a powder blue sky above. A majestic mountain loomed in the distance.

  Suddenly I came upon Poppy’s tombstone. I was puzzled because this wasn’t the correct setting, as beautiful as it was. Then Cricket seemed to appear out of nowhere. She sat atop Violetta’s mare, Ivory Bell. She asked, “Would you like to see her again?”

  “Would I ever!”

  “You can, at the second coming of the Lord Jesus, when the righteous are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. The dead will rise first. Then we who are alive will be caught up with them. Therefore you will be with your beloved Poppy again. Isn’t that a comfort?”

  “Yes, yes it is,” I replied.

  I told Cricket about my dream. Keep in mind, at the time I was not a student of the Bible. I had only thumbed through it a few times. So I was absolutely blown away when she shared 2 Thessalonians chapter four with me. In particular, verses sixteen through eighteen.

  “Follow me to the mountain of panic and peace,” Cricket had said in my dream.

  “Panic and peace? That’s a contradiction.”

  “That’s because narrow is the road, and difficult is the way, and few make it to the top,” she explained, paraphrasing Matthew 7:13, 14.

  “Come,” she said, waving her arm in a follow her gesture.

  She galloped off and I began to run. I was surprised at how fast I moving, yet Cricket, on the back of Ivory Bell, began to fade into the distance. I ended up at a twenty foot gate made of wrought iron. I couldn’t get it open. Then I heard a deep soothing voice.

  “Would you like entrance?” a bearded man asked. His attire was that of a mountain man or maybe a lumberjack with red flannel shirt, tan Carhart pants, and work boots. His face was friendly, his gaze strong but gentle.

  “Did you see a young lady on a pale horse?” I asked.

  “I did. She’s at the top. Now would you like entrance?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Although I had pushed on the wrought iron gate to no avail, he pushed it aside with ease. “Who are you?”

  “Jack Querida is my name,” he replied. “Helping people negotiate the mountain of life is my game.”

  “Will I make it to the top?”

  “If you turn your eyes upon Jesus.”

  “Is this the mountain of life? Cricket called it the mountain of panic and peace.”

  “I suppose it could represent both. For now let’s call it an allegory of the mountain of life. Cricket is at the top. Go to her, and she will guide you to the Way the Truth and the Life.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll find out. For now follow me. Stick to the trail and you will make it to Cricket. But there is one rule. That rule is to keep your eyes on the trail up the mountain. Do not look to the right or left. The farther we go, the narrower the road gets. Therefore the further you will plumet if you take your eyes off the path.”

  The journey began. The more distance we covered, the more narrow the trail became just like he said. When it narrowed to the point of needing to place one foot directly in front of the other, I stopped, placing my hands against the cool rock of the mountain. I fully understood why part of the name was panic. “Jack!”

  “I’m here.”

  He had been in front, but now he was behind me! How did he do that?

  “Keep looking up the trail. You are almost there.”

  I kept moving along, hating how high and precarious it seemed. Then I saw Cricket twenty feet away on plateau, sitting on Ivory Bell. How did they get up there? A halo of light was behind her, making her look angelic, but her countenance was somber. “Cricket.”

  She didn’t speak, only waved her arm in a come motion. The path was now so narrow I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. I could only scoot. I was terrified! I was only ten feet away from Cricket when I came to a narrow opening, just wide enough for a body to squeeze through. Keep your eyes forward, Jack had instructed. But when a voice spoke, the unexpected sound caused my head to look in the opening.

  “Sully!” It was Violetta. She looked just like she did when we grappled in black running attire and her strawberry blonde hair in a single braid. Her arm stretched toward me. “Take my hand.”

  I did, and the next thing I knew I was in a small cave with her. I laid on my back with my breath coming in desperate gasps. It was so hard to breath! Violetta scowled at me. “Get a grip.”

  Her hand reeled back and she slapped me. But I didn’t feel a thing. She did it again, but once again I didn’t feel it. She sighed and said, “You poor thing. You do need mouth to mouth resuscitation.”

  Her head lowered toward mine and our mouths connected. She began to kiss me and it felt so real! I was kissing her back and it wasn’t unpleasant at all, quite the opposite. But we had barely begun when Cricket’s voice put a stop to the brief passion. “Sully, you were almost there!”

  I jolted awake and my eyes blinked at sunlight streaming through the cracks of the window shade. I was laying on my back, and my arm was covering my mouth. No wonder I was having a hard time breathing. Scowling, I grabbed a tissue and began to wipe away slobber from my arm. I wasn’t making out with Violetta; I was kissing my own limb as I dreamt.

  I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It showed twelve twenty in the afternoon. I jumped in the shower, and at just before one PM, I made my way downstairs. To my surprise, Cricket was there by herself sitting at the kitchen table reading. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back with a clip. Her blue gray eyes seemed to twinkle. Not for the first time I marveled at the atmosphere of peace and brightness that seemed to always surround her. She wasn’t as pretty as her sister, but she was more beautiful, if that makes sense.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Good afternoon,” she replied with a giggle and a warm smile.

  “Yes, I suppose it is afternoon. You should have let me know you were here.”

  “No big deal. Callie said you would probably sleep past noon.”

  “I guess my body is still on touring schedule. Are you here by yourself?”

  “I am now. Callie and Violetta just left.”

  No sooner had she said this, when Violetta burst through the screen door saying, “I forgot my tea… Oh, hi Sully.”

  “Violetta.”

  She eyed me cooly, then picked up her travel mug. I watched her mouth connect with the container and take a sip. Then she licked her upper lip and said, “Hot.”

  “Yes,” I said, as I eyed her mouth. Kissing her in my dream felt so real! I perceived her aiming a frown at me. “Those insulated mugs hold heat rather well.”

  She nodded, said bye, and just like that her appearance was in and out like a lovely vapor.

  “Are you ready for our study?” Cricket asked. “Or do you want to wait awhile?”

  “I’m ready,” I said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from her at the rectangular table. “But let me ask you something first. What do think of dreams?”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 7

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 7

SULLY SAGE

WHILE WE DO NOT LOOK AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE SEEN, BUT AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT SEEN. FOR THE THINGS WHICH ARE SEEN ARE TEMPORARY, BUT THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT SEEN ARE ETERNAL. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

  The gun slammed into the back of my head, and I understood why cartoons showed stars circling a noggin after a blow. The gun was my own and the hand that whacked me was also mine. But I did have a little help.

  Right when I was rearing back to throw the unregistered gun I had been considering ending my life with into the river, Cricket hollered, “Sully, don’t!”

  When I raised the weapon to throw, Cricket assumed I had lifted it to cause self-inflicted harm. A couple nights previous that would have been the case. Then, I had pointed the barrel both under my chin and at my temple. But I was having a hard time squeezing the trigger. I just about had myself talked into it when my cousin called.

  Would I have gone through with it? I shudder to think I would have. But once my cousin reminded me of his impending wedding, I could not put a blight on it by ending my own life. I figured I would now have to wait at least a couple months before putting an end to what I considered a miserable existence. How bizarre. I was living what was supposed to be a dream existence, yet I hated it! Financially I was set for life, but I dreaded the future.

  Even though it was my intention to die in the near future, I didn’t want to hang on to an illegal pistol for several weeks or months. Besides, why die in such a violent fashion? Was I intrigued by drama I claimed to hate? Was I infected by rock star disease, wanting to go out with a bang, like Kurt Cobain? Subconsciously, did I actually want to go down in rock history by joining the notorious twenty-seven club?

  Yes, I did want to die. But no, I didn’t want to join the twenty-seven club. I would endure this world and tolerate my tormented mind for five and a half more months until I turned twenty-eight. Then Jeremey and Callie’s wedding would be sufficiently past as well. I also would die by an overdose rather than the violence of a hollow point bullet ripping through my squirming brain.

  As I winced and grabbed my head, the gun dropped into a clump of weeds. Cricket came rushing up. “Sully, shame on you! What a dark blight you would put on Callie and Jeremey’s wedding by what you were about to do!”

  “I wasn’t,” I began, but moaned at a throb of pain.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Sully,” Cricket said sympathetically. “I shouldn’t scold you when you feel so poorly that you want to kill yourself.”

  “Cricket, I wasn’t going to kill myself,” I told her, refraining from saying, ‘right now anyway.’ “I was about to throw that pistol into the river.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “To get rid of it,” I shrugged.

  “Why did you have a gun in the first place?”

  Another throb made me groan.

  “Sully, you’re bleeding,” Cricket declared. “Let’s get you back to the house. Grandma is a retired nurse.”  

  As we approached the house, Callie exited the front door carrying a travel mug. She stopped in her tracks, frowned and said, “Wow, and I thought Vi got rough with Sully.”

  “He was getting mouthy,” Cricket said with a shrug, making Callie laugh.

  I guess it should have comforted me that they weren’t all that concerned about my injury. But Callie’s face did turn serious as she asked, “What happened?”

  “He was throwing something into the river, but threw it into his head instead.”

“Is he alright?”

  “I think so,” Cricket replied. “But I want Grandma to see if he needs stitches.”

  “She’s not here,” Callie said. “Grandpa took Grandma out to breakfast for their lunarversary.”

  “What’s a lunarversary?” I asked.

  “Grandma and Grandpa were married on May fourth,” Cricket explained. “So Grandpa does something special like taking Grandma out to eat on the fourth of every month.”

  “Oh, nice,” I replied. “So how many?”

  “Grandma said this was their seven hundred and seventeenth,” Callie replied.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed.

  “It’s months, not years,” Violetta said as she walked up behind us.

  “Come on, Vi,” Callie said. “They are only three months away from sixty years of marriage. That’s something you’ll never experience.”

  “How do you know?” Violetta snapped.

  “You have to like guys first for one thing,” Callie shrugged.

  “What are you nodding about?” Violetta barked at me.

  Although the pain of my initial injury subsided, I winced to avoid the wrath of the redhead.

  “Violetta, take a look at Sully’s wound. Would you please?” Cricket asked.

  “What did you do?” Violetta sneered as if my injury was a result of idiocy. How did she know?

  Turns out Violetta was an EMT on the volunteer fire department. We moved into the house, and Violetta retrieved bandages and a plastic bottle of some type of antiseptic. She looked at my wound and then declared, “It’s not that bad. Sully’s just being a baby.”

  “Hey! What did I do to merit being called a baby? Do you see all this blood?”

  “The scalp has an extremely dense network of superficial blood vessels,” Violetta explained as if she were a professor. “They are anchored in tough connective tissue, preventing them from closing naturally when injured. That’s why a little cut on the head can bleed profusely.”

  “Regardless, I am not a wimp,” I said stoically.

  A malicious grin developed on Violetta’s face. “Good, then this shouldn’t bother you.”

  She dowsed my cut with rubbing alcohol and I bellowed. I’m sure my scream echoed through the valley. When the pain subsided, I admitted, “Okay, I’m a wimp.”

  The three ladies laughed, but it was Violetta I did a double take at. For the first time I thought her face looked pleasant, rather than hostile and bitter. I thanked Violetta, and she brushed it off as no big deal. Cricket pulled me aside and said, “Can I talk to you in private?”

  I felt a sense of apprehension. Now that my wound was doctored, it was full frontal on my mind that she wanted a broader explanation about my gun. I would simply tell her the truth. We went to the horse barn. The equine were happily munching their breakfast. I explained to Cricket what I was doing when she discovered me. “I promise you, I was not going to shoot myself.”

  Cricket studied me carefully. As she looked into my eyes, it was as if her gaze was siphoning  thoughts from my brain. It gave me an uneasy feeling. With a frown, I asked, “You don’t believe me?”

  Her demeanor became perky. “Oh I believe you, Sully. Sort of. It’s just, well, I had a dream about you. That’s actually why I came out here so early today. You may not have been intending to use that pistol against yourself when I saw you. But you have recently intended to use a pistol against yourself, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you are getting at,” I replied, feeling extremely vulnerable.

  “An angel of the Lord came to me in my dream. He said go to him who stands in front of a pale horse. Death and hades are following him. I’m ninety nine percent sure his message suggested that you have suicidal tendencies.”

  My mind reeled and spun. Was I in the Twilight Zone? “You were visited by an actual angel?”

  “Whether he was real or a figment of my mind, I don’t know. What I do believe is that the message of my dream was real, and that it was inspired by God. After all, I did find you in front of a pale horse.”

  I looked at Violetta’s light colored Palamino, contentedly munching on hay. I was agnostic at best, atheist at worst. But I had to admit, something supernatural was going on here. With a baffled expression, I looked back at Cricket. She said, “I believe God has a purpose and a plan for you. I was instructed to bring you the words of life.”

  “I see. And what are these words of life?”

  “Christ and Him crucified,” she declared, quoting 1 Corinthians 2:2.

  “What does that mean for me?”

  “Salvation.”

  “Cricket, I’m somewhere between atheist and agnostic. So how can God have a plan for me?”

  “I’m an atheist, too,” she replied happily.

  I folded my arms. “Up until now, you have struck me as one of the most honest people I have ever met. But you just spoke the biggest contradiction ever. You tell me about dreaming of angels, words of life, and Christ. Then in the next breath you say you’re an atheist. Explain that!”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the God you don’t believe in?” she said.

  So I did, with my main point being how did she justify a God of love burning people in hell for eternity for just not believing in him?

  “I don’t so that’s why I said I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in the God you just described either. I believe in the God of the Bible. And a thorough examination of the scriptures prove eternal torment is a false doctrine.”

(For a free, well done Bible study guide on this subject, you can go to Amazing Facts online and click on study guides and find the one entitled ‘Is the Devil In Charge of Hell?’)

  “Well, there arises another problem. I don’t believe the Bible. How can you trust a book two thousand years old?”

  “Because of the sure word of prophecy,” she said. “The prophecies about Jesus. The prophecies of a persecuting power that would be fulfilled during the dark ages, to name a couple. Look, I don’t have much time. I need to get to work. How about you and me have a Bible study?”

  “You want me to study something I just said I don’t believe in?”

  “That’s where we will begin. We will discuss why you can trust and rely on the Holy Bible.”

  I have to admit that I was intrigued by everything she said. From her dream to suggesting I could count on the Bible. I had met thousands and thousands of people in my line of work. But I had never met anyone quite like Cricket Karr before.

  She wasn’t exceptionally pretty. Not like her volatile sister anyway. But she had this brightness in her personality, a light that shone from her character. So I said, “Alright, when?”

  She said her mother was scheduled to run their flower shop the next day, so we agreed on tomorrow afternoon.

  I got something to eat and took a long nap. Later that afternoon, I went after the gun I had tossed into the weeds before somebody else found it. I found it and dug it out of the clump of weeds. I don’t know why, but before tossing it into the river, I sat on a bank and looked the gun over as I contemplated the conversation I had with Cricket.

  After several minutes, I stood and began to raise the gun to throw it into the water. Recalling my bonked head, I began to lower it into position to toss it like a frisbee. Suddenly two hands were on my lower arm that held the gun. My limb twisted in a painful position that had me both frozen in place and groaning in pain.             Then Violetta’s pretty face with an ugly expression was inches from mine. Her large blue-green eyes looked fierce. Her red-gold hair was pulled back tight and into a braid that fell over her left shoulder. She looked every bit the part of a female warrior. With clenched teeth, she said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 6

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 6

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CRICKET

EVEN IN LAUGHTER THE HEART MAY SORROW, AND THE END OF MIRTH MAY BE GRIEF (Proverbs 14:13)

  “Oh, it’s you,” Violetta said to Sully as a less than friendly greeting.

  “Nice to see you, too,” Sully replied as he sat on an upside down bucket.

  “Is it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Get off that bucket. I need to feed the horses,” Violetta ordered.

  “Get a different one.”

  “I want that one.”

  “Too bad.”

  Well this wasn’t starting off too well. They began to have a standoff as they both gave each other stink eye. Correction, half of it was a sit off.  “You pompous jerk,” Violetta finally barked. “Why don’t you go back across the road? You’re Jeremey’s guest, not ours.”

  Sully had told me he wanted to get along with Violetta, since they were going to be paired up as bridesmaid and groomsman at our cousin’s wedding. But it sure didn’t seem like he was helping himself. I curled and uncurled my toes in my New Balance sneakers. I silently prayed, ‘Lord what do I do?’

  “I’m going fishing,” I said, thinking of the Apostle Peter’s words in John 21:3.

  “What?” Violetta and Sully said at the same time. Then Violetta added, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’re supposed to say I’m going with you.”

  “When’s the last time you went fishing?” Violetta asked.

  I looked up at the rafters as I tried to recall. “Last summer with Grandpa.”

  “Is Mom running the flower shop today?”

  “No, but I got a few hours before we open.”

  “I need to feed the horses,” Violetta said as if it were an all-day endeavor rather than the approximately thirty minutes it actually took. “Now get off that bucket. It’s the one I like to use.”

  “I’m quite comfy,” Sully said with a little smirk. He seemed to be enjoying getting Violetta riled up, but I was cringing inwardly. He didn’t know one of Violetta’s biggest weaknesses was a quick temper, ESPECIALLY when in conflict with a macho man prone to cockiness.

  “I said get off!” My sister demanded and shoved his shoulder.

  “Make me,” Sully said, folding his arms.

  “Make you? What are we ten?” she replied fairly calm. This remark gave me momentary false hope.

  Sully stuck his tongue out at her, and she shoved him with two hands this time. “Get off!”

  “Children, it’s only a bucket,” I playfully scolded. “Violetta, I’m going to the tack room to get you another one.”

  “I want the one he’s sitting on. It has a mark, so I know how much grain to put in.”

  Sully laughed mockingly, causing her to really get her ire up. My mouth dropped in surprise when she tackled him. They rolled a couple times on the dirt floor. Now Violetta is a martial artist, specializing in Brazilian Jujitsu. In seconds she had him pinned. His eyes were wide as he said, “Wow, you’re strong.”

  “Yeah, well I wouldn’t test me any further.”

  Violetta’s eyes were like lazers boring into his as she sat on top of his belly. He held her gaze, but his eyebrows raised comically meek. He said, “This is weird, people typically adore me.”

  This was where I saw the icy hostility in Violetta begin to break just a little. I could see a smile try to curl upward from her pursed lips. I could also see by her clenched jaw and narrowed eyes that another part of her was resisting the merriment she was beginning to feel. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  The barn door opened and Cousin Callie came in. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped when she saw a fierce-looking Violetta sitting atop Sully with his hands and arms pinned behind his head. Callie attempted to come to Sully’s rescue. “Vi, what are you doing?”

  She hooked Violetta under the arm pits and pulled her off of Sully. Violetta demanded through clenched teeth, “Let me go!”

  The two best of friends, who were also cousins, now began to grapple. Callie too had been a martial arts student. I tried to stop them. “Children, children!”

  The door opened and Callie’s older sister Cecielia entered. When she saw her sister and cousin rolling on the dirt floor and me looking like I was doing a funky dance around them, she became my tag team partner. C. C. was a year older than me and five years older than Violetta and Callie. Although a laid back hippie-like art teacher, she was also the oldest of the Karr cousins and grew up being our boss at family gatherings.

  C. C. clapped her hands a couple times, and horse bodies came to attention along with my sister and her sister. When she ordered the two women to stop, they obeyed immediately. After sorting out the situation, she gave another order. “Vi, tell Sully you’re sorry.”

  Like a five year-old being scolded for taking a toy from someone, Violetta looked at her feet and said, “Sorry.”

  “Sorry for what and to who, Vi?” C. C. said, not satisfied with Violetta’s apology.

  “Sorry for tackling you,” she said, then looked at him and said his name rather snarky, “Sully.”

  “You should be,” Sully replied with mock indignation. “But I’ll take the high road and forgive you.”

  “Mr. Sage,” Cecelia now addressed Sully. A smile played at her lips. Although she had a bossy side, and I’m sure she kept her high school students in line, she was also fun loving and detected that the skirmish just broken up was likely not all that serious.

  “Ma’am?” Sully responded.

  “You should apologize to Violetta as well,” Cecelia suggested. “It sounds like you were provoking her.”

  “Sorry.”

  Cecelia sighed and said, “For what and to who?”

  “Sorry for provoking you, Violetta.”

  “Now you two shake,” Cecelia ordered.

  Violetta actually offered her hand first. But Sully smiled warmly and opened his arms. “We can even do better than that. How about a hug?”

  Violetta’s eyes narrowed and she took a step back. Cecelia suggested, “That’s a nice gesture, Vi. Now give the fella a hug.”

  My lips parted in surprise as I watched Violetta step into Sully’s embrace. Although Violetta had a general dislike, bordering on hatred for a certain type of male, she had in fact dated a few guys. However, just to be clear, they were guys that were not her type. But I had never seen her participate in something resembling physical affection, as in a hug with a man she was not related to.

  I felt a twinge of something as I watched their arms go around each other. I don’t think it was jealousy. But Sully was a great looking guy. He reminded me of a feral version of Ashton Kutcher. He also had a charm and cool about him that had probably developed over countless performances as a musician.

  When I observed the two step toward each other, I thought it would be a two second pat-pat on the back. But again to my surprise, Violetta’s arms looped around his neck. Sully’s hands clasped around the small of her back. They did make a gorgeous couple.

  Believe it or not, I was never jealous that Violetta was prettier than me. I was actually pleased that I had the same parents as someone so lovely. Besides, it’s hard to resent a person who you know would not only give you the shirt off her back, but lay down her life for yours.

  The harmonious feelings between the previously bickering pair wouldn’t last. An eruption was on the horizon of peacefulness. Sully, a few inches taller than Violetta, bent his head and kissed her cheek. She pushed away from him. “What’d ya think you’re doing?”

  “Making peace,” he said with a smirk.

  I think it was the smirk that motivated Violetta with her next spontaneous move. Behind the grin was, dare I say it, a demeanor of cockiness. With both hands she shove him hard in the chest as she bellowed, “Creep!”

  Sully stumbled backwards and tripped over the bucket he had been sitting on. He fell hard on his rearend. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I think I felt the reverberation. Even Violetta’s lovely large blue green eyes widened, and a hand went to her mouth.

  “Violetta!” Cecelia scolded. “Help him up.”

  Violetta offered her hand and Sully took it. But instead of allowing her to assist him, he yanked her down and she landed on top of him. Laughing gleefully, and beginning to roll her backside to the floor, he declared, “Who pins who now?”

  Sully was over six feet tall and probably approaching two hundred pounds. He appeared surprisingly fit for someone who seemed to be a self-indulgent rock star. Violetta was five foot nine and maybe one forty soaking wet. But she was strong and knew self-defense. She rolled along with Sully rather than resist him, then rolled halfway around again and she pinned him again. But this time she began to twist one of his wrists in an unnatural position. His vocal emission went something like this, “Ow, ow, ow!”

  I squinted my eyes to make sure I was seeing correctly. Violetta was smiling, then giggling. But Callie grabbed her left arm, Cecelia grabbed her right arm and hoisted her off poor Sully. When the dust settled and was brushed off as well as possible, Cecelia tried making peace once again. This time she held a fly swatter and waved it back and forth. “You two shake hands and only shake hands. Any deviation will garner a slap with this bug terminator. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sully said. Violetta nodded.

  As they shook, Sully said in a very debonair manner, “I do apologize for provoking you, Miss Karr.”

  “And I apologize for getting a little violent.”

  Sully chuckled. “If that was a little, I better not ever provoke you to a lot. Cricket called you a pistol, but I’d say you’re more like an assault rifle.”

  Violetta frowned so I piped up. “I believe that was a compliment, Vi.”

  “It was,” Sully confirmed. But then sort of disqualified his statement saying, “For the most part.”

  The four of us Karr women all pitched in and had the half dozen horses fed and watered in under ten minutes or so. When we finished, I didn’t see Sully in the barn. He wasn’t outside either.

  Querida, via visiting me in my dream, had instructed me to share God’s love with Sully. But I had barely got started when Violetta, and then the other two Karr sisters, interrupted us. I was about to begin a search for Sully when my sister grabbed my arm. In a low, secretive tone she said, “Cricket, come here.”

  “What for? I need to find Sully.”

  She frowned. “What for?”

  I shrugged. “I want to talk to him about God.”

  “Him? God?”

  “Yes, so please be quick. What do you want?”

  “Come over here,” she instructed, leading me over by the corner of the horse barn. “Come close. Now sniff.”

  She began to flap her arms like she was doing the chicken dance. “Vi, what are you doing?”

  “Sniff,” she ordered. “Do I stink?”

  Reluctantly I did as requested. “Not really.”

  “Not really? That’s not a NO.”

  “Well, you don’t smell good. You went for a run, and then tried to beat up Sully in a horse barn. You’re all sweaty. Do you expect to smell like you just stepped out of the shower?”

  “I didn’t try to beat him up. We just had a playful skirmish. Now how bad do I stink?”

  My brain momentarily got stuck on the word playful before the word skirmish. Why playful skirmish instead of just stand alone skirmish? Why was she concerned with body odor?

  “Cricket, how bad?” She inquired impatiently.

  “You smell… Earthy.”

  “Earthy? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you went for a horse ride, then a run, and then rolled around on a dirt floor. Trust me, he was probably preoccupied with your skirmish. I don’t think he noticed any possible B.O.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “PROBABLY, you don’t THINK, any POSSIBLE. You’re not giving me a definitive answer.”

  “Vi, what’s the big deal? You don’t like him anyway.”

  She bit her lip, nodded, then said, “Alright, thanks, I’ll talk to you later.”

  I grabbed her hand. “Vi, I was just inches from your fanning armpits, and I didn’t think, ewe gross, that reeks… It was just earthy.”

  She smiled and gave my hand an affectionate squeeze. “Thanks.”

  She turned to catch up to the other Karr sisters. They were working on another barn, preparing it to host Callie and Jeremey’s wedding. I looked around for Sully, and noticed Grandma was still on the porch. “Grandma, did you see where Sully went?”

  She frowned. “Who?”

  “The strange young man.”

  “Oh him. First he went over to Jeremey’s for a couple of minutes, then he went that way, toward the river.”

  The family farm was bordered on the east side by a river. There was a low maintenance road between a corn field and some woods that led to the water. It was about a half a mile or so mile from the house. I pursued.

  I saw Sully standing on a bank of the river with his back to me. I stopped and gave pause with what I noticed in his hand. It was a gun! I began to step toward him again and prepared to call out. Then he began to lift the gun up toward his head!

  “Sully, NO!” I bellowed as adrenaline surged through me.

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 5

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 5

CRICKET

AND IT SHALL COME TO PAST IN THE LAST DAYS, SAYS GOD. THAT I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH; YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS (Acts 2:17)

            Querida came to me in dreams. When he did such, it was in an angelic form, albeit mostly veiled, and he called himself only Querida. It was his voice that was distinctive. Clear and melodious, comforting, strong, and soothing, like a rippling brook.

            The couple times I think I met him in person, it was the voice that made me wonder, is this Querida? When I encountered him in my dreams, he always announced himself. Every time I was instructed to minister to someone in need. Every time the situation turned out to be real. Every time he gave me scripture to look up. The day after Sully Sage arrived in a Lear jet was no exception.

            That night Querida came to me in a dream. It was as if he were standing in front of my open bedroom window. A breeze was blowing the curtains and obscuring the white glow of his form. He said, “Behold, he stands with a pale horse and death and hades follow him. Go, give him the words of life.”

            “Who stands with a pale horse?” I asked. “Do you mean Ivory Bell?”

            Ivory Bell was Violetta’s beloved light colored Palomino mare.

            “He who metaphorically used to ride a white horse wearing a crown, conquering and to conquer, now stands with a pale horse, contemplating death.”

            “Don’t you mean sits on a pale horse?”

            “Like I said, I’m metaphorically speaking, just borrowing from Revelation chapter six,” he replied, specifically using parts of verses two and eight.

            “What does this mean?”

            “Go to Sully Sage.”

            “Where?”

            “Your aunt and uncle’s farm.”

            “When?”

            “Now.”

            His word NOW was like a snap of the finger. I sat bolt upright in my bed; my nightgown slightly damp with sweat. My window appeared the opposite of my dream. Whereas my dream had it open and the curtains blowing, reality had it closed and the curtains drawn. Dawn’s sunlight streamed between the sides of the curtains.

            I looked at my clock, and it read five minutes before six. I dressed, ate a quick breakfast and headed to my cousin Callie’s family farm. Jeremey, Callie’s fiancée, lived on an acreage right across the road. That’s how the two met. Friendly neighborly banter quickly turned into a special chemistry leading to romance.

            My Auntie Emma and Uncle Walt’s farm had been my grandparent’s homestead at one time. As a matter of fact, Grandma still lived with them. So I was very familiar and welcome there. Grandma was sitting on a bench swing on the front porch reading her Bible. Her eyes rose in surprise as I climbed the five steps in front of the renovated farmhouse. “What are you doing here so early, Dear?”

            I bent down and kissed her check. I refrained from saying that I was on a mission from God. Instead I told her, “I woke up early and felt compelled to see the horses.”

            “Oh dear,” Grandma frowned. Then with a conspiratorially low voice, she said, “That strange young man staying with Jeremey just asked if he could go into the horse barn. He told me he used to have horses. Why don’t you sit and, how do you youngsters put it? Hang out until he leaves.”

            I marveled that Sully was in the horse barn, even though I never doubted Querida’s messages in my night visions.

            “It’ll be okay, Grandma. I’ve met him, and I’ve already talked to him a little bit about God. I’m hoping to share some more.”

            Grandma was all about sharing her faith. “Well then by all means go. I’ll be praying for you, Dear.”

            “Thank you Grandma.”

            I don’t know why I behaved sneakily. But I slowly opened the horse barn’s door and winced when it squeaked a little. But in the early quiet morning, a little was a lot. Just as Querida had said, Sully stood in front of a pale horse, Violetta’s beautiful light colored palomino Ivory Bell.

            With the noise of the door, Sully turned to look at me. I was surprised to see tears running down his cheeks. The thing that took me off guard was his being alone, gently stroking the nose the horse in front of him, and weeping.

            Violetta had shown me a video of Sully singing one of his songs live. It was a heart wrenching rendition of dark and depressed lyrics with loss, but ending with a tiny glimmer of hope. His voice was deep, powerful, but anguished. Yet his face was stone cold, his eyes were dry.

            I had a lump in my throat as I listened and watched the video. My eyes were welling. When I glanced at my sister, her eyes glistened. But she chewed her lip, fighting back any more moisture coming to her windows to the soul. So I was amazed that Sully could sing so emotionally, yet appear emotionless.

            I opened my mouth to speak. What words were to come out I don’t know because Sully spoke first as the sleeve of his t-shirt assisted with eliminating the fluid from his cheeks. “Man, my allergies! Lots of hay and dust in here.”

            “Yes, high pollen count right now, too,” I added, feeling compelled to help him save face with his embarrassment. My own allergies were in fact affected by the pollen.

            “Yeah, boy,” he said, stuffing his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

            “Yes indeed,” I said, and feeling awkward, I mimicked his gesture of hands in back pockets by jamming my hands into mine as well.

            “Beautiful sunrise,” I said after several seconds of uncomfortable silence.

            “I suppose so.”

            “Out for a morning stroll?”

            “Something like that,” he said. Then he looked at Ivory Bell, then back at me, and then back at the palomino. “I saw a woman riding her this morning out of my bedroom window. The sight of it reminded me of… something.”

            “What kind of something?”

            He looked at me with a concerned expression, as if he was wondering if he could trust me with a secret. He attempted to change the subject. “So, Callie lives here with her parents?”

            “For the time being. Jeremey proposed not long after she graduated from college. So she figured she might as well keep living here until they tie the knot and move in together.”

            “That nice old lady on the porch, surely that’s not her mother?”

            I found it interesting he called her a nice old lady, and Grandma referred to him as a strange young man. Although she did so not mean spiritedly. “Her grandmother. Mine too. She lives with my Aunt and Uncle as well, which would obviously be Callie’s parents.”

            “I see. Do you know who was riding this horse?”

            “It had to be Violetta,” I told him. “That’s her side by side parked outside the barn since she only lives about two miles from here. And Ivory Bell is her horse.”

            “Oh,” he replied, pulling his hand off her horse’s nose as if it were hot.

            I giggled. “She’s not gonna care if you pet her horse.”

            He shrugged nonchalantly. “She clearly doesn’t like me, so I don’t want to take my chances.”

            “Trust me, she doesn’t dislike you.”

            “Could have fooled me.”

            “You just have to understand her.”

            “Okay, so help me understand her. Jeremey tells me she and I are gonna be paired up.”

            “Paired up?” I frowned. “Paired up how?”

            “You know, in Jeremey and Callie’s wedding the week after this. I’m a groomsman and she’s a bridesmaid. We’ve been paired with each other to walk her down the aisle together. You know, her hand on my arm and what not. So it would be kind of nice if she didn’t look at me like she wanted to vomit.”

            I didn’t really know what to make of all that. Was it significant? Anyway, Querida came to me in a dream instructing me to give him words of life. But I felt the need to understand his tears. I didn’t buy allergies. I also wanted to know what was behind SOMETHING. Sometimes to get people to open up, you need to share something of yourself.

            “Violetta and I lost our brother a few years ago,” I told him. “She’s been pretty bitter ever since.”

            “Jeremey mentioned something about Callie having a cousin who died,” Sully acknowledged. “I’m sorry. How did he pass away?”

            “It’s complicated, but it was ruled a suicide. Personally, I suspect an accident, but Violetta believes it was murder.”

            “Who does she think murdered him?”

            “I’m not gonna say who she suspects, because that’s all it is, her suspicion.”

            “Could she be correct?”

            “Yes, it is possible, but not likely. Like I said, I believe it was an accident. Or maybe negligence would be a better description. He was quite intoxicated.”

            “Can I ask how he died?”

            “A running car in a closed garage.”

            “I see.”

            “Our brother was bullied because some people, mostly popular jocks, thought he was gay.”

            “Was he?”

            “I don’t know, he never talked to me about it. But there was an incident that got him labeled as such. But when he talked to me about that, he said it was something that never happened, It only looked like something happened.”

            He opened his mouth to ask me about the something with my brother. But I asked him about his something with Ivory Bell first. I was quicker at the verbal exchange. “Can you tell me about the SOMETHING when you saw a woman on Ivory Bell?”

            He shrugged, yet eyed me a little cautiously. “My wife… I mean my former wife… Actually, you see, I was married; but Poppy, my wife was killed in a car wreck a couple years ago.”

            “Yes, I was aware of that. I’m so sorry.”

            He nodded. “She always wanted a pony or a horse as a girl. When I, ya know, made the big time so to speak, I bought her a couple. They both looked similar to Ivory Bell here. When I saw the woman wearing a running outfit riding out there, it felt strange.”

            “I’m sure it was Violetta,” I said.

            He nodded, but his expression showed distaste. I perceived it had to do with Violetta reminding him of his wife. It seemed the resentment, animosity, or whatever it was between them, was mutual.

            “For some reason Poppy liked to wear running attire when she rode, even though I bought her actual horse riding outfits. Then when I saw, you know… Violetta…”

            “Violetta frequently likes to go for a run right after a horseback ride.”

            “I see.”

            “Can I ask you something about a song of yours?”

            He arched an eyebrow. “You listen to my music?”

            “No, not usually,” I said. But before I could continue, he started laughing. “What?”

            “You are so genuine, Cricket. Have you ever told a lie?”

            I bit my lip and looked at the rafters. “I don’t recall a lie I’ve told off hand. But I don’t want to tell you I haven’t, only to have the Lord bring one to mind I need to confess.”

            “You fascinate me,” he said, then picked up a nearby bucket, turned it upside down and sat. “I figured you were a Christian right off the bat. Not just in name only either. My Poppy became a Christian a couple months before your Lord let her be violently killed. She supposedly gave her life to Him… So let me ask you something. Where was God when a drunk driver plowed into her car?”

            I felt his pain. So I didn’t try to hide a tear that leaked from my eye. “The same place He was when His Son sweat great drops of blood, was violently beaten, whipped, spit on, and nailed to a cross.”

            I could tell he was affected by my response. Which way or how much I didn’t know. But I would have to wait to find out as a familiar voice interrupted our dialogue.

            “Cricket, are you in there?” Violetta said as the walk in barn door opened. Violetta entered, wearing dark blue stretch pants with matching sports bra. A baseball cap was backwards on her head while her face and arms were slick with sweat as she returned from a run.

            “Good morning, Sister,” I greeted cheerily.

            “Morning,” she said with a little smile. “What are you doing out here so early?”

            No sooner had she said that when she spotted Sully sitting on the bucket. She stopped in her tracks, her smile evaporated and her eyes narrowed when she looked at his hand scratching Ivory Bell’s chest.

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 4

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 4

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

RECKLESS WORDS PIERCE LIKE A SWORD, BUT THE TONGUE OF THE WISE BRINGS HEALING (Proverbs 12:18)

            “Tricky triangles sure are helpful,” Vermillion told me with glee as he and I, along with Cricket and Violetta, watched Sully Sage exit a Lear jet. With his Prada Cashmere polo shirt and Brunello Cucinelli shoes, he could have passed for a successful businessman.

            But with his shaggy dark hair, faded ripped jeans, along with tattoos and sunglasses, not to mention a half smoked cancer stick hanging from his lips, he looked like the vain rock star that he tended to be.

            “They can be,” I replied and my former friend’s mirth diminished a little bit.

            “You know as well as I do that the odds are on my team’s side,” Vermillion added.

            I tried to have as little dialogue with my opponents as possible. Yet sometimes it was helpful to find out what they were thinking. Just as with fallen humanity, the tempters of souls, AKA demons, had the same self-centered tendencies. like being unable to withhold anger and vengeance, as well as bragging and gloating.

            “Percentages have been on your side,” I admitted. “But typically your tricky triangles, as you called them, don’t have somebody like Cricket as one of the three.”

            “Have you considered my servant, Job?” Vermillion mocked, quoting part of Job 1:8. Then he chuckled maliciously. “She doesn’t have to actively participate to cause ole Sully to be torn between the two sisters.”

            “Judging by Violetta’s facial expression, getting her to be drawn to Sully will be a tall order.”

            Vermillion laughed diabolically. “And you know as well as I do the contradictions within human nature. The very guys Violetta despises, she finds physically desirable. Sex is such a powerful, powerful weapon for my team!”

            “You are aware she’s never given in to those desires.”

            “Yet, my former friend,” Vermillion said and laughed sadistically. “Violetta has never been more enthralled with a guy than she is with Sully, yet they have never actually met. But she has become addicted to looking at the countless things about him on YouTube. Like many addicts, she hates herself for it. So I’m really, really anxious to see how she reacts meeting him in person. Will she be enthralled and unable to hide her adoration? Or will she be hostile toward  a guy she has never met stirring her emotions so intensely?”

            My adversary declared this just seconds before they did meet. Sully took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. He hooked his Louis Vuitton sunglasses in the V of his polo shirt. As he strode toward his two hosts, he gave them both a quick study.

            One looked like she stepped out of an Amish country store in her long denim skirt and light brown hair in a bun. All that was missing was a bonnet. The other looked like a cowgirl. She was exquisitely beautiful, even in the plain attire of a baseball hat with a strawberry blonde ponytail threaded through the back. She wore a flannel shirt and jeans tucked into cowboy boots.

            He noticed a resemblance in the sisters, despite one being prettier than the other. He had seen thousands and thousands, maybe even a million pretty females, but there was something extra special about Violetta. Maybe it was the way she looked at him with contempt rather than adoration. That rarely happened. Yet he could tell his presence also unsettled her for some reason.

            He had noticed the cowgirl get out of the driver’s side of a huge pickup truck.  As he approached the duo he asked, “Is this your truck?”

            “No, I stole it,” Violetta replied.

            Sully eyed her calmly, but was a little taken aback by the snide comment. Violetta cooly held his gaze. Cricket quickly alleviated the tension. “I told you she was a pistol.”

            Sully looked at Cricket and a corner of his mouth curled into a grin. “You must be the sling shot.”

            “I suppose I am,” she replied as she extended a hand in greeting.

            Sully was pretty good at reading people. He marveled at what he detected was an extreme contradiction with Cricket. She seemed gentle but strong, meek yet confident. Even her handshake was firm, but not overbearing. Her hand itself was dainty, yet mildly calloused from labor. “I’m Sully Sage.”

            “Cricket Karr.”

            “That’s right,” he said and put his hands on his hips. “Please tell me how you got named after an insect.”

            “My legal name is Jimena, and…”

            “I get it,” he interrupted with delight. “Jimena Cricket, like the cartoon Jiminy Cricket.”

            “Very perceptive. My grandmother started calling me Cricket before I can even remember. I have frequently forgotten my real name myself.”

            “Interesting,” Sully responded, continuing to stare into Cricket’s eyes.

            His gaze began to make Cricket feel uncomfortable, so she turned his attention to the woman he seemed to be ignoring after her snotty comment. “As you’ve probably guessed, this is my sister, Violleta.”

            Sully offered his hand, and due to her western attire, he spoke like an old TV cowboy. “How do, Ma’am?”

            Sully was surprised at the limp handshake of this fiery woman, especially compared to her meek, not quite as pretty sister. “Very well.”

            “I bet you do.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Violetta said testily as she jerked her hand out of Sully’s gentle grip.

            Sully’s brow furrowed and he showed her an open palm. “Nothing, I’m reaffirming what you said. You know, agreeing with you.”

            “Sounded to me like you were getting fresh,” Violetta said.

            “My, aren’t we full of ourselves?”

            “You ought to know full of yourself. Come strutting off a private jet like a…”

            “People, people,” Cricket interrupted, attempting to diffuse a possibly hostile situation. “Why are we making a simple task complicated? Violetta, I have to admit, you’re being rude. What did you want Mr. Sage to do, crawl off the airplane?”

            “Was I strutting?” Sully asked Cricket with a frown.

            “A little bit,” Cricket winced as she pinched her thumb and index finger together indicating a small amount. “But let’s not make too much of it. I would venture to guess the vast majority of people with the means to fly on a private jet tend to swagger or feel proud.”

            “So I was swaggering with pride?” Sully asked.

            “Ya think,” Violetta piped.

            “Hold it,” Cricket demanded, putting a hand up like a traffic cop. “Now we just got off on the wrong foot. I want you two to shake hands again.”

            “Gimme a break,” Violetta said and sighed.

            “Violetta, play nice,” Cricket scolded, then attempted a little humor to create a little levity. “Or I’ll tell Mom.”

            Violetta snorted. “What, are we ten?”

            Cricket aimed a sweet smile at her sister. “Well, the behavior is seeming to fit. Why are you acting so immature?”

            “I do apologize if I’ve somehow offended you,” Sully told Violetta with surprising meekness as he offered his hand again. “Sincerely.”

            “I’m the one who should apologize,” Violetta admitted as she took his hand, shook it quicky and pulled hers away. “Cricket is right, I was being rude.”

            “There, don’t we all feel better,” Cricket said happily. “Now let’s get our human cargo delivered.”

            “Human cargo?” Sully smirked with an arched eyebrow.

            “No offense,” Cricket said sweetly.

            “None taken,” Sully chuckled. “I suppose that’s just what I am.”

            One of the personnel from the airplane brought a couple suitcases. Violetta directed him to put them in the bed of her pickup. As they began the twenty minute drive to Jeremey’s place, Sully asked, “I’m starved; I haven’t eaten today. Can I buy you two ladies dinner?”

            “Smells like you’ve had plenty to drink though,” Violetta said.

            Cricket’s toes curled. She thought she had smelled alcohol, but had been around people drinking adult beverages so infrequently she wasn’t sure. Violetta’s comment confirmed her suspicion. She wasn’t sure how to diffuse her sister’s snide comment this time, especially since he offered a kindness by inviting them to dine. So she merely accepted. “I’m kind of hungry. How about it, Vi?”

            “No thanks,” she replied cooly. “I’ve got things to do.”

            “That’s fine,” Sully said. “I’ll wait and have dinner with my cousin.”

            “But you said you were starved,” Cricket commented with concern.

            “No problem, I have something to help tide me over,” he declared and a tiny bottle of whiskey manifested in his hand. He screwed off the top and downed the brown liquid.

            “How dare you open a container of booze in my vehicle,” Violetta barked. “That’s illegal!”

            “No worries, ma’am, it’s empty.”

            Cricket’s toes uncurled and curled again. They rode in awkward silence all the way to Sully’s cousin’s home. When they arrived, Sully thanked the ladies. Cricket said, “You’re welcome.” But Violetta just snorted.

            Sully flashed three crisp one hundred dollar bills in front of Violetta. “For your trouble, ma’am.”

            “You know what? Since you opened booze in my truck without even asking, I’m gonna take them,” she told him and then snatched them out of his fingers.

            Sully chuckled. “You are a pistol.”

            “And you’re arrogant,” Violetta barked.

            Sully shrugged and Cricket noticed how sad and lonely his eyes looked, despite his bravado. She said, “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Sage.”

            “Please, call me Sully. It was nice to meet you too, Cricket,” he replied, then addressed Violetta. “Thanks for the lift, Miss Karr.”

            She didn’t reply. After he retrieved his luggage from the back, Violetta drove off. Despite her stern expression, and knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel so tight, Cricket couldn’t help scolding. “Violetta, you were very rude to Sully right from the start. And for no good reason.”

            “Oh, I had good reason,” she said with surprising meekness, especially given her angry expression.

            “Would you care to enlighten me?”

            “No.”

            “Pretty please, little sister,” Cricket said with a sing song voice. “I sure would like to know why you put me in such an awkward position.”

            Violetta glanced at her with an exasperated expression. Then she looked at the road and chewed her lower lip for a couple seconds. “I’ve never been so drawn to a man in my life.”

            Cricket looked at her siter like she had two heads, maybe three. “You could have fooled me by your behavior toward him. He seems the epitome of the type of guy you don’t like.”

            “I know… And that scares me.”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART2 – CHAPTER 3

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 3

CRICKET

IN HIM WAS LIFE, AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. AND THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS AND THE DARKNESS DID NOT COMPREHEND IT (John 1:4, 5)

            My sister came charging into my flower shop, breathlessly saying, “You gotta help me, Cricket?”

            “Vi, what’s wrong?” I asked as my own pulse rate increased. I couldn’t fathom what had my bold, fiery sister so rattled.

            “Callie conned me into picking up Jeremey’s cousin at the airport,” she told me, placing a slightly trembling hand on her forehead.

            This didn’t make sense at all. Violetta and Jeremey’s cousin Lindsey were fond of each other. I expressed this sentiment. “What’s the big deal, you like Lindsey?”

            “It’s not Lindsey,” she said and then sighed. “It’s that guy.”

            “What guy?”

            “Come on, Cricket, you know what guy. The guy we watched the documentary about.”

            “You mean Sully Sage?”

            “Yes.”

            “When?”

            “His plane arrives in about a half hour.”

            “So what’s the big deal?”

            “You know I don’t like guys like him.”

            “So be yourself. No guy has ever made you timid before.”

            “He’s not making me timid,” she said testily as she placed her hands on her hips. “Just the opposite.”

            “So you’re afraid you’ll offend him, is that it?”

            “Something like that.”

            “That’s never bothered you before either.”

            “This is different.”

            “How, why?”

            “You saw his bio,” she said and then her pretty face looked like she bit into a lemon. “He’s not all bad.”

            My poor sister. She was attracted to the same type of male she despised, which was macho, muscular, and confident. Unfortunately, confident often morphed into cocky. Therefore, a group of cocky young men were prone to become bullies. And it was thus such a species that plagued our brother. How much this played into our brother’s mysterious death only God knew. But Violetta certainly believed it played a role.

            I considered the biography of Sully and his band. The first part of the program showed a shirtless, muscular, tattooed singer cockily strutting the stage singing about drugs and referring to women with the slang word for female dogs. This was a dictionary description of a man Violetta despised.

            Then the middle chronicled his relationship with his wife. Even I was fascinated with Poppy’s vibrant, bubbly personality that contrasted with Sully’s dark, brooding, depressive demeanor. Then, of course, Poppy’s untimely death in a tragic accident and Sully’s life being turned upside down.

            The last part showed Sully as contrite and soft spoken. His music transformed from party anthems to soulful ballads about lost love and dealing with depression to the point of suicidal tendencies. Yet as dark and despondent as his music was, he always seemed to shine a little glimmer of light, a tiny morsel of hope.

            “So how about it?” Violetta tried. “You go after him and I’ll man your shop.”

            “Don’t you mean woman it?” I asked with an innocent smile.

            It was a little tease due to her feminist propensities. She aimed an exasperated expression at me. “It’s a figure of speech. But your insinuation is correct, the term is a bit sexist.”

            “The thing is, Vi, you know I don’t like to drive. Let alone how busy it is this time of day by the airport. So who’s stress levels would be higher? Me in heavy traffic, or you riding twenty minutes with a person you’ve never met, but already decided you don’t like?”

            “I never said I don’t like him. My goodness, Cricket, you make me sound like a nasty wench.”

            “If you don’t dislike him, then what’s the problem?”

            “Let’s just say I’m leery.”

            “Could it be that you’re leery because he fits the mold of the type of guy you don’t like? But ironically you find him desirable.”

            Voletta narrowed her lovely blue green eyes at me and crossed her arms. Oops, I thought. I probably shouldn’t have poked the bear, but she was behaving like a teenager. On the other hand she wasn’t all that far removed from adolescence. She pointed a scolding finger and was about to chastise me when I was literally saved by the bell.

            The front door jingled and our mother entered. She smiled when her eyes landed on her youngest child. “Violetta, sweety, I thought that was your car out front.”

            If there was one person in the world that could soften my hard sister, it was our mother. Before the two women exchanged a quick hug, Violetta cooed, “Hi, Mommy.”

            My mother didn’t greet me because we lived together in the apartment above the flower shop. Not only were we roommates, we were business partners. Our home and our work place was nestled on the north side of a town square in the quaint little city of Cotton Creek. Our town was situated about fifteen miles west of Cedar Rapids.

            “What brings you to our large metropolis on a Thursday afternoon?” our mother asked Violetta.

            “Yes, thankfully I have GPS or I wouldn’t be able find my family’s flower shop here in Mayberry,” Violetta joked. Then she turned girlish as she made her eyes wide and laced her fingers together in front of herself. “Mom, we were wondering if you would mind closing up shop for Cricket? She was wanting to go to the airport with me to pick someone up.”

            “Yeah, that would be no problem.” Mother replied, then aimed her kind face at me, patted her mostly gray hair. “Dear, why didn’t you tell me at lunch you needed to go to the airport with Violetta?”

            “I hadn’t known I wanted to go yet,” I replied, looking at my sister. “Violetta just informed me that it was a deep desire of mine.”

            Violetta winked at me and said, “We better get going.”

            I rarely drove my little light blue Toyota Corola because driving makes me uncomfortable. But my own flesh and blood sister drives a big Red Ford F350 diesel with four wheel drive and dual wheels on the back. She also regularly pulled a horse trailer with it.

            We were about ten minutes from the airport when her phone whinnied. If you hadn’t guessed, my sister is very much a horse person. She looked at the caller ID. “It’s what’s his name. Answer it.”

            “You, it’s your phone.”

            “I’m driving.”

            I hit answer and said, “Hello?”

            “Is this Violetta?” a male voice asked.

            “It’s Violetta’s phone, but I’m Cricket, her sister.”

            “What’s a Cricket?”

            “Well, it’s an insect. Or a game played with a ball and bat. But I guess it’s also me. I mean my name.”

            “I’ve met a lot of people, but I don’t recall meeting a Cricket before.”

            “It’s more like a nickname that sort of became a permanent name.”

            “I see. So, if you’re Violetta’s sister, you must be Callie’s cousin. Jeremey said Callie’s cousin was picking me, but he said her name was Violetta.”

            “Violetta is driving, so I’m on phone duty.”

            “Smart move. I’m able to talk because someone else is flying the plane.”

            “That’s a smart move as well.”

            “Especially since I don’t know how to drive it.”

            I laughed and said, “I don’t know that driving a plane is correct terminology.”

            “You’re probably right.”

            “Just remember that and we’ll get along fine,” I told him and then winced. That was more of a Violetta reply than something I’d typically say.

            He chuckled and said, “You seem like quite the pistol.”

            “Actually my sister is a pistol, I’m more of a sling shot.”

            He laughed again, and Violetta narrowed her eyes at me for a second before turning them back to the road. Sully Sage said, “My plane is due in about twenty minutes. It’s a private plane, so you’ll need to go to gate C, where the hangars typically are. I gave airport security Violetta’s name. Just so you know, they’ll probably give your vehicle a quick search for weapons. But I trust you have none.”

            “Just the sword of the Spirit,” I told him.

            “I don’t think a sword will be a problem,” he said slowly, not understanding I was referring to the Word of God.

            “It shouldn’t be. By sword of the Spirit I mean my little Bible that I carry in my purse.”

            “Sounds dangerous,” he joked.

            “Dangerous in a good way. When it stabs somebody in the heart, it changes their lives for the better.”

            Violetta nudged my upper leg and shook her head, indicating that I shouldn’t start preaching. I nudged her back and nodded.

            “Are you gonna stab me with it?” he asked.

            “Only if you want to be stabbed.”

            “Who knows, maybe I would.”

            I’ve shared the Gospel with countless people. I was used to following the Holy Spirit’s lead. But I questioned whether I followed His leading correctly. You see, I felt compelled, given our dialogue about being stabbed, to say, “In Romans chapter six, Paul speaks of being crucified with Christ, and thereby dying to self and letting Jesus live within you.”

            It was Sully’s response that had me question whether I followed the Holy Spirit’s leading correctly. But I would later discover that I was just breaking some eggs to make an omelet, so to speak.

            Nonetheless, his words sent a chill up my spine, especially knowing his background. “Well, I’ve certainly been contemplating being dead to self lately. But I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 2

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

PART 2

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 2

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

WOE TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH AND THE SEA!  FOR THE DEVIL HAS COME DOWN TO YOU, HAVING GREAT WRATH, BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT HE HAS A SHORT TIME. (Revelation 12:12)

            Throughout earth’s history, I didn’t take on the form of a person very often. But as the time of the end drew near, I appeared as a human being more frequently. Of all the assignments where I met my subject face to face, Cricket Karr is right up there with the most special. Not only because her devotion to the Savior was exceptional, but because she was the main focus of my last task before the end of time and the second advent of Jesus Christ.

            As with the brief account of Enoch in the book of Genesis chapter five, Cricket walked with God. However God did not take her as He did Enoch because He had a special work for her to do. Her culminating work had to do with Sully Sage. Without Cricket’s influence, Sully most likely wouldn’t have become the loudest voice during the loud cry of the three angels proclamations of Revelation chapter fourteen.

            My adversary, Vermillion, along with his team had all but destroyed Sully Sage. The biggest blow had come with the death of Poppy, Sully’s wife. Already under the control of chemical addiction, Sully had fallen deeper into self-destruction. Almost to the point of death. Then he met Cricket.

            Vermillion also sought to destroy Cricket. She often put herself in danger ministering to those in need. But her full confidence in and submission to God was rewarded. As she worked for God, we worked for her. I had to step in personally after a down and out prostitute who went by the name Bambi had visited Cricket’s church. With Cricket’s help, the young woman had begun to get her life turned around. But her demon possessed boyfriend tried to force her back to her own vomit. But guided by the Holy Spirit, she refused his demands.

            Fueled by demonic passion turned to rage, her boyfriend placed his hands around Bambi’s neck and squeezed. Although her earthly life was snuffed out, her soul was safe with Jesus (Matthew 10:28). The scoundrel couldn’t touch that soul which was submitted to God.

            But an evil tranquility came over the killer. He was sedated by an unholy arousal. His Satanic leaders had him calmly wait for his next prey. The potential victim of murder, and likely torture, was none other than Cricket. As she entered the dingily apartment, intent on Bible study and a conversation with Bambi, she softly sang, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”

            It was then that I was given permission to manifest in human form. As Cricket began to climb the steps in  the eight apartment building, I rolled down the steps toward her. Cricket shrieked in alarm. Whoever was home in their apartments were either too absorbed in their personal entertainment, or too inebriated to care about the noise. Arguments, shouts, and door slams were not uncommon in the building or neighborhood.

            “Your head is bleeding,” Cricket declared as she crouched by my side. She pulled a light pink hanky from her purse.

            “Oh, ma’am, don’t mess up your handkerchief,” I told her. “I’m alright.”

            “Are you kidding! Blood is running down your cheek and dripping off your chin! I need to get you to the emergency room!”

            She took my arm and led me to her car. Cricket looked a little frantic as she negotiated the roads to the hospital. I tried to reassure her. “Ma’am, I believe I’m okay. The bleeding has stopped. Just like it never happened.”

            “Well, I’ll be,” she said with surprise. “By the way, my name is Jimena. But people call me Cricket.”

            “You can call me Jack.”

            “Glad to know you, Jack. Ya know, you still should get checked out for a concussion or something.”

            “Trust me I’m fine. I’ve been through enough battles to know.”

            “Are you a veteran?”

            “In a manner of speaking.”

            “Thank you for your service.”

            I nodded. She pulled her car over and said, “I better call my friend and let her know why I’m late.”

            “Actually, we need to call the police. I believe your friend has been harmed.”

            “How do you know who my friend is?” Cricket frowned. “You and I just met.”

            “I’ve seen you go to Bambi’s place before.”

            “Oh,” her frown deepened. “Do you live in her building?”

            “No, but people I care about do.”

            I did indeed care about Bambi. Why my team wasn’t allowed to intervene I do not know. But I believe she will inherit eternal life and I trust God implicitly. God’s timing is perfect timing regardless of how it looks to fallen, flawed people. Like Job, a person’s attitude should be, ‘though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.’ (Job 13:15)

            I got Cricket to focus on calling the police. I convinced her to call a friend as well. I calmed her as much as possible when it was discovered that Bambi was dead and her boyfriend arrested. Thankfully it didn’t take long for Destiny Knight-Storm to arrive at the crime scene, with her large, muscular husband in toe. I slipped away as Cricket hugged the handsome couple from her church.

            Vermillion’s team was outraged, and I needed to get back to the spirit realm. In simple terms, I can see and protect better there. Although I have complete trust in my team, I like to have the full scope of what’s going on.

            I had two more encounters in human form with Cricket over the next couple of years. Once when she went to an old warehouse in a drug infested neighborhood looking for a runaway girl. And another time when she went to a seedy bar to reason with a former church member.

            It was shortly after our last in person encounter when I helped lay the ground work for Sully Sage to come to Iowa. When he  arrived he didn’t ask, ‘Is this heaven?’ Only to be told, ‘No, this is Iowa.’ But if you believe Jesus’s words that the kingdom of God is within (Luke 17:21). Then Sully did indeed find a piece of heaven in Iowa.

            Sully had spiritually and emotionally hit rock bottom. Like a modern day Solomon, he could write a contemporary version of Ecclesiastes chapter two. And as he sat at a table with a bottle of whiskey to his left and a pistol to his right, his thoughts summed up his life with verse eleven. ‘Indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.’

            Sully took a slug of booze, and picked up the revolver. For a third time he pointed the barrel at his temple. He gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes, squeezing a couple of tears out. Vermillion whispered lies into his mind. “Come on, just do it. Third time is a charm. No more sleepless nights. No more substances that give you both pleasure then pain. If you pull the trigger ‘you will not surely die’ (Genesis 3:4), you will be reunited with Poppy.”

            Will I? Sully wondered.

            I tried to speak to his mind as well. But he wasn’t acquainted enough with scripture. So trying to bring forth Bible truths like the last half of 1 Thessalonians chapter four was fruitless. So I ran interference instead. I impressed his cousin to call him.

            Sully’s ring tone was set as an old fashioned train whistle. As he squeezed the trigger to a millimeter away from death, his phone spoke to him. “Hoo, hoo.”

            Vermillion pleaded with him. “Ignore that. Come on, just a little more pressure!”

            But Sully froze. When the phone went ‘hoo, hoo’ a second time, it brought his mind to simple, pleasant things in life. That’s why he chose the whistle as a ring tone in the first place. He gently placed the pistol on his thigh and picked up his phone as it went ‘hoo, hoo’ for a third time. It was his cousin Jeremy. He hit answer and said, “Hey.”

            “Hey, what’s up?” Jeremy asked.

            “Not much,” Sully replied and then glanced at his right hand holding the pistol against his upper leg. He rolled his eyes at the absurdity of his answer.

            “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” Jeremy said eagerly. “My wedding is in two weeks. Are you gonna be able to make it? Or do I need to find another groomsman to take your place?”

            “Oh dude, I forgot about your wedding,” Sully said and then made to slap a hand to his forehead, but it held the pistol. The metal thunked against his skull. “Owe!”

            “What happened?” Jeremy asked.

            “Oh, I, um, stubbed my forehead.”

            “How do you stub your forehead?”

            “I mean, I bumped my head.”

            “How?”

            “Look, when do I need to be there?” Sully asked, hoping his cousin didn’t enquire further how he hit his head.

            “Did more dates get added to your tour? According to what you told me, it was supposed to end a couple of days ago.”

            “No, no, it is over.”

            “Okay, good.”

            “Look, how about I fly out tomorrow?”

            Jeremy paused. “You don’t need to come two weeks early, just two days.”

            “What, you don’t want me around?”

            “No, no, that’s not it. What are you gonna do in Iowa for two weeks?”

            “Well, you live there. What do you do?”

            “I have simpler tastes than you. Plus my job is here.” Then he laughed. “Unless you want to slip me a cool million.”

            “Do you need money? I’d be glad to help you out… Retire you.”

            “No, no, I’m joking.”

            “I’m not. I don’t have much family.”

            “Sully, no! I was kidding. I make a very decent living. I’m just not a jet setting rock star.”

            Sully snorted. Then he said, “I’m coming out tomorrow. I could use a nice quiet place to recoup from months on the road.”

            Unheard to human ears, Vermillion roared angrily, as did his leader. Getting rid of Sully Sage was a big deal to them. They wanted to devour him like a roaring lion. (1 Peter 5:8) Sully encountering Cricket Karr was dangerous to their cause. With this new development, they needed to play their cards right. Violetta Karr just might be needed in counteraction to her saintly sister.

            “Well, if you’re sure, I’m glad to have you. I’ve got plenty of room,” Jeremey invited.

            “No, I’m used to hotels.”

            “I guess you’re also used to people wanting pictures and autographs.”

            “You’re sure staying with you won’t be an imposition?”

            Jeremey laughed. “Not at all.”

            The next day Callie, Jeremey’s fiancée, called her own cousin, Violetta. “Vi, are you off work?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Are you busy?”

            “No.”

            “I was supposed to pick up Jeremey’s cousin at the airport, but something came up and I have to work late.”

            “Yeah, that’s no problem. What time does Lindsey’s plane get in?”

            “Lindsey’s not due until tomorrow,” Callie replied. Then she winced and bit her lip. She knew Violetta and Sully would be like mixing oil and water. Or more like Mentos and Diet Coke. “I need you to pick up Sully Sage.”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 1

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

PART 2

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 1

CRICKET

HERE IS THE PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; HERE ARE THOSE WHO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD AND THE FAITH OF JESUS. (Revelation 14:12)

             “It’s Sully!” My sister shouted.

            A dozen of us gathered on the shore of the lake and watched anxiously as Sully paddled a kayak furiously. Three fast powerful boats were chasing him. My hands were steepled in front of my lips as I murmured in prayer.

            All of a sudden the water parted that the boats were skimming on top of  and the speeding vessels momentarily became like air planes. Seconds later the water closed back up. Then the large body of liquid became a boisterous tempest, as if it were a giant pot of boiling water. The wind and the waves roared. But only for a minute.

            “Oh Lord, save them, they parish,” Pastor Samson could be heard above the storm. “Maybe some will be convinced now.”

            The tempest suddenly calmed and a dozen bright orange forms bobbed in the tranquil water. A minute later another boat pulled up and rescued the unintentional swimmers. Several geysers began to spew about twenty feet in the air between us on the shore and the people giving chase. Sully’s one person skiff skimmed off the water and skidded to a stop on the sandy shore. We rushed to greet him.

            Three days earlier Sully had been arrested. His crime? Defying the national Sunday law. He had used his notoriety as a very famous musician to join God’s people in the loud cry of the third angel’s message. The loud cry being the warning message of the three angels from Revelation 14:6-13.

            The Sunday laws had begun as a simple ordinance carried out by numerous states. They were reminiscent of the Sunday blue laws of old. The government mandated that businesses close and civilians limit activity on what most Christians considered their sabbath. Most religious leaders, especially Christian nationalists, were on board with these government legislations, feeling it would bring the country back to God and a sense of morality.

            Then many non-Christians surprisingly came on board, viewing the push for a day of rest as an environmental reset for the planet. It also ensured that people forced to work by their employers on Sunday were fairly compensated. It became a requirement for companies to pay their workers double time.

            All of these reasons sounded good on the surface. What worthy employee doesn’t deserve fair compensation? What decent person doesn’t want to take care of the environment? Most important, people should come back to God. However, you can’t force genuine morality. Jesus said if you LOVE me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15). Therefore He doesn’t force His way in with governmental religious mandates. He stands at the door and knocks. (Revelation 3:20) It’s up to us to open that door and invite Him in.

            So the Sunday mandates escalated quickly from local ordinances into state laws, and then federal law. The reasons issued by the newly formed church-state were several. The out of control immorality, wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters to name a few.

            These were the main aims of mandatory worship. They imposed economic sanctions on those who disregarded them, thereby fulfilling the prophecy in Revelation 13:17 regarding buying and selling. This only strengthened the mindset of taking the country back for God. But I digress, back to Sully’s arrest and escape.

            Being timid and shy I stood back and watched a dozen members of my church family greet Sully enthusiastically. He received hugs, handshakes, and pats on the back as he was questioned how he escaped from a high security prison.

            Sully was in a state of disbelief himself with hands motioning and head shaking as he explained. “It was an angel of the Lord. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought he opened the door with a code or a key. I even wondered if he was taking me off to be executed, so I drew back. But he said, ‘Fear not, I am Jack Querida. I’m a friend of Cricket’s.’”

            Sully’s gaze turned to me. He was so handsome, so talented, so brave. My heart often fluttered when he gazed into my eyes. After Sully swiveled his head in my direction, twenty some eyeballs aimed at me as well. I shifted uneasily, but smiled and shrugged. Sully walked toward me and was followed by my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. My biological sister was by his side, mouth agape, her lovely eyes wide as they looked into mine.

            I knew what she was thinking. She and I were very close. So I knew she was wondering, who is this Jack Querida, friend of Cricket’s? How did I tell her I didn’t know myself? It was just then, with Sully’s harrowing escapade, that finally confirmed in my own mind what I suspected. That the man I had encountered numerous times over the years was actually a ministering spirit. (Hebrews 1:14) In the beginning of our, what? Friendship? Acquaintance? I had ministered to him, unaware of his angelic status. (See Hebrews 13:2)

            Sully continued to gaze at me with an expression of wonder. “How do you know him, Cricket? Who is he? He helped me get out of that prison as if we were teleported. Then he said he left a kayak for me at such and such and to hurry.”

            Cricket isn’t my legal name. My parents were expecting a boy, and I was to be named after my father, Jim. When I turned out to be a girl, they still called me Jim, but combined it with my mother’s name, Elena. So I became Jimena. Before I was old enough to even remember, my grandmother started calling me Jimena Cricket after the cartoon, Jiminy Cricket. People followed her lead, and to this day most people don’t even know my legal name.

            “I don’t know him that well,” I shrugged.

            “You must,” Sully said. Then seemed a little jealous as he added, “I guess I failed to mention he not only called you his friend, but precious friend.”

            “I don’t know what to tell you,” I shrugged again, even though I felt a little thrill. Yet I didn’t know what precious meant. Although Jack intrigued me, I wouldn’t call my feelings for him romantic. Now Sully on the other hand… But I suppressed those desires for the man standing before me. He was more suited for my sister. Even though she was a man hater, Sully had broken through her shield.

            In a strange way, Violetta and I were like Racheal and Leah from the Bible. But only as far as looks go. My sister was beautiful. More than once I heard her referred to as drop dead gorgeous. She had long wavy red-gold hair, large blue-green eyes, and flawless skin, with a lithe athletic body that still held desirable female curves.

            As for me, one of my blue grey eyes was called lazy. My reddish brown hair was straight and limp. And my frail body was clumsy and twitchy. Chronic allergies also kept my nose frequently red, highlighted by my pale skin. But I was otherwise healthy, so praise God!

            “How don’t you know what to tell us?” Violetta inquired, her own demeanor seeming a little jealous. “You’re apparently his precious friend.”

            I shrugged again, but now pulled nervously on my fingers. “I don’t know where Jack is from, I don’t know how old he is. Only that he seems older than me. Until Sully called him Jack Querida, I didn’t even know his last name.”

            “God works in mysterious ways,” Pastor Kirk Samson, also known as Captain Kirk, said.

            “Yes, he does,” Sully agreed, nodding emphatically.

            “Why I noticed a few Bible stories come to life in miniature,” Captain Kirk added. “The parting of the lake reminded me of the parting of the Red Sea. The sudden tempest for a minute or two reminded me of Jesus calming the storm on the lake. Plus an angel prison break like in the book of Acts.”

            “Praise God,” Sully said as he put his right hand on my shoulder and his left hand on Violetta’s. “What a privilege to be the Lord’s instrument. When I was in jail, I was sure I’d never see you all again.”

            I observed Violetta gaze fondly at Sully and bite her lip. It reminded me of the first time I witnessed Violetta bite her lip over Sully. Which also happened to be the first time I saw my sister bite her lip over any guy.

            A year or so before we watched Sully wash up on the shore of the lake in a kayak, Violetta and I had watched a biography of him on YouTube. It was the day after our cousin introduced us to Sully’s cousin. He was her current beau, and had joined us for Thanksgiving dinner at our grandmother’s house.

            Callie had never brought a boyfriend to a family dinner before, so I was intrigued. I figured they must be pretty serious. Violetta, on the other hand, was skeptical. At one point Callie had taken my sister and me aside, whispering excitedly, “Jeremey’s cousin is Sully Sage.”

            I had leaned in eagerly, excided by my cousin’s excitement. But the name meant nothing to me, so I asked, “Who’s Sully Sage?”

            Callie looked stunned at my ignorance, but Violetta appeared slightly annoyed as she said, “Come on, Cricket, even I know who Sully Sage is.”

            “Well, who is he?” I asked, curious over this supposedly very important person.

            “He’s a drug addled reprobate that sings about loose women, drinking, and drugs,” Violetta declared.

            “Come on, Vi,” Callie replied. “Why do you have to be so negative? Yes, his early career was, I guess, pretty raunchy. But he became a super star singing about lost love and feelings of hopelessness.”

            “Oh boo hoo,” Violetta replied. “Poor pampered rock star. Takes countless women to bed and then cries over his main squeeze dumping him. Then profits off it with sappy songs.”

            Callie looked disappointed. “Vi, you shouldn’t be so judgmental. Sully’s wife was killed in a car crash three years ago. Despite his wild stage persona, Jeremey claims Sully was faithful and loyal to his wife. They were high school sweethearts.”

            “Well, like I said,” Violetta responded with a shrug. “I know who he is, just not much about him.”

            “Well then maybe you ought not judge people you don’t know,” Callie rebuked. “You certainly didn’t like people judging Jimmy.”

            I felt my toes curl. Violetta’s and my brother was a sensitive subject, especially with my sister. He was the reason Violetta despised macho guys, even though she was attracted to manly men. Jimmy was a bit effeminate, and thought to be gay by his peers. He was bullied by the type of guys Violetta loathed. His death was ruled a suicide, but I considered it to be an accident. Violetta believed it was murder.

            Callie’s eyes widened as Violetta’s narrowed. Trying to correct the mistake of bringing up Jimmy to Violetta, she tried, “You should take a page out of Cricket’s book. We all ought to.”

            “I don’t follow a book of my own,” I meekly replied. “I live by the Bible.”

            “Yes, you sure do,” Callie responded with a nervous laugh.

            As different as we were, my sister and I loved each other deeply, and our cousin knew it. By mentioning me, and thereby bringing to mind my devotion to God, Callie quelled the savage beast in my rebellious sister. Violetta forced a smile as she turned her gaze on me and nodded.

            The next day Violetta and I watched the documentary on Sully Sage in her apartment. The first quarter of the program dealt with his early life and a difficult, dysfunctional upbringing. It also covered his becoming an item with Poppy at sixteen, the woman who would later become his wife.

            The next part covered the young lovers running away from home at the age of seventeen when they were both in between their junior and senior year of high school. Then Sully as a struggling musician in LA the next three years. The making of his band, and their first block buster hit, which was a tongue and cheek song about a break up and how much the woman hated her ex.

            The program then covered Sully’s band continually on the road the next three years. It chronicled the personal and legal troubles that accompanied the seemingly never ending travel. There was only a brief six week break to record their second album. The long stint on the road ended with a heart breaking tragedy.

            Poppy, who was a constant companion of Sully’s on the road, was very pregnant and spent the remaining couple weeks of the tour resting at a friend’s LA home. At eight thirty one evening, Poppy left to meet another friend at an In and Out Burger. One block from the restaurant, a speeding drunk driver ran a red light in his hopped up pickup truck. He hit Poppy’s car broadside, killing mother and child instantly.

            The last part of the program dealt with the aftermath of Sully’s terrible loss. It detailed the songs that came from his pain. The biography described his relationship with Poppy. Bandmates and friends talked about the differing natures of the young couple before the tragedy. Poppy, a vibrant light to Sully’s dark brooding personality seemed to somehow balance the pair.

            Now, after the calamity, some music journalists predicted Sully would end up a member of the twenty-seven club. But, at only twenty-four years of age, most didn’t think he’d make it that far. It was already known that he struggled with addiction, depression, and volatility. Throw in the loss of his greatest love in the world, and you had a recipe for human destruction.

            I watched three expression come over Violetta’s face as we watched the biography. The first was neutral as it covered Sully’s childhood. Then she sneered in disgust when they showed clips of him early in his career as a cocky, feral, tattoo covered, shaggy haired rock star.

            Then her face softened when they showed excerpts of his tender relationship with Poppy. They showed him explaining some of the lyrics describing Poppy and the pain he felt. One of the names of endearment he had for his wife was Sunshine. That was what was behind the wording of a song that described how quick the sun could drop away.

            The lyrics of the song described him as he laid in bed all alone, unable to get over his grief. The next few lines described the suicidal despair he felt. Yet the last line held out hope for a better tomorrow. That is when I watched Violetta’s eyes well up, followed by me observing her biting her lip over a man for the first time.

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 23

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 23

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER, TENDERHEARTED, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER, EVEN AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU. (Ephesians 4:32)

            Vermillion approached me as I watched Jenny and Jimmy exchange a brief hug. “What are you up to?”

            “What do you mean?” I asked as I refrained from giggling. The merriment I felt wasn’t in any way trying to gloat over my adversary. I was pleased because the arrangement I assisted on  worked out better than I hoped.

            “I know you impressed Jimmy to go to that night club. Isn’t that against your principles?”

            “It wasn’t for the sake of self-indulgence. Jimmy hasn’t had an adult beverage in more than a quarter century. He simply went with some business associates to support their friend in his new band. He stayed for the first set and now he’s leaving.”

            “I don’t get it. You knew Jenny was going to be there with her latest fling.”

            “Jimmy wasn’t all that jealous. It’s been four years since Jenny moved out.”

            “I notice you qualified it with ‘all that.’

            “I know you had the green eyed monster give him a slap. But I followed up with feelings of fondness for her.”

            “Why?” Vermillion snorted sarcastically. “She’s become nothing but a whore, only she doesn’t get paid. Why she’s gotten down to her birthday suit with as many partners as Jimmy did as a swinging single playboy. Only she’s done it while legally married.”

            “That’s why I had her cross paths with Jimmy. Deep inside she wants the stability and peace she once had with him.”

            My opponent looked surprised, then irritated. “Do you really think this encounter is gonna initiate a reunion? You gotta be kidding. They only spoke for a couple minutes.”

            “It wasn’t the duration of the brief conversation, but the spirit.”

            “Bah,” Vermillion replied and then laughed spitefully. “Her date had his hand on the small of her back the entire time. Other than when the man she’s gonna go to bed with tonight shook her HUSBAND’s hand.”

            “She initiated the hug.”

            “Only because Jimmy brokered peace between Jenny and their son the other week. But you noticed that didn’t stop her from meeting a guy online.”

            “We’ll see,” I replied as we both watched Jimmy leave. Jenny watched the familiar gait of her husband until he disappeared through the door. She bit her lip as she noticed he had lost weight and was looking rather fit. She had a surge of remorse over ruining things between her and Jimmy.

            Jenny had been surprised when a familiar voice said, “Hey there, Grandma.”

            She looked to her right and into the beaming face of her husband. The twinkle in his eyes she remembered even from their high school days caused a grin to grow onto her own face. “Hey yourself, Grandpa.”

            Two weeks earlier their son Jason had called her to tell her that he and his wife were expecting their first child. It was the first time they had spoken since her infidelity had come to light. The birth of two children by their daughter had somewhat repaired the breach between them. However, Kelsey not once had asked her to babysit.

            “Thank you for Jason,” she said sweetly, and that’s when they shared a brief hug. “He told me you put him up to calling me.”

            “It’s nothing,” Jimmy shrugged.

            “No, it’s something, something pretty special,” she  replied. Then she glanced at her date. “Oh, Jim, this is Tim. Tim, this is my ex-husband, Jim.”

            “Nice to meet you, Jim,” Tim lied.

            Jimmy, not wanting to lie, repeated his wife’s paramour’s name as pleasantly as he could muster. “Tim.”

            The next day Jenny picked up her phone a half a dozen times as she thought of Jimmy. Then it came to her mind that Jimmy approached her last night, so she should make the first move now. She texted. ‘It was nice to see you last night. It’s been a while.’

            ‘Good to see you, too!’

            His exclamation point inspired her to shoot another text. ‘You look well.’

            ‘So do you.’

            She waited a few minutes, not wanting their dialogue to end. ‘Thanks for not refuting me calling you my ex-husband.’

            After she hit send, she scolded herself. What a stupid thing to say!

            ‘What’s to refute you are my ex?’ he replied.

            ‘Technically we’re still married.’

            ‘I haven’t shared a bed with you in almost a half-decade. I think that constitutes us as ex’s.’

            She typed, ‘Would you like to change that?’

            Her thumb hovered over send. Then she shook her head, deleted it and typed instead, ‘How come you never filed for divorce?’

            Instead of answering her question, he posed his own. ‘Jenny do you want to go have lunch? Call me old fashioned but I prefer a face to face conversation.’

            ‘Sure I’d like that!’

            After they agreed on a time and place, Jenny hurriedly shoved her sexy skirts and dresses aside in her closet, digging out an old denim skirt that fell just below her knees. She put on a conservative long sleeve black blouse with lace trim, black tights with black boots that reminisced the 1800’s. She applied subtle makeup and secured her shoulder length hair with blonde highlights with a hair clip.

            A half hour later Jimmy’s breath caught when he saw Jenny get out of her car in the Olive Garden parking lot. She looked like the woman who accompanied him to church hundreds of times during the first two decades of their marriage. It was a far cry from the hot to trot attire she wore on her date the previous night of leggings that were painted on and enough make up to decorate a clown.

            Rather than going in right away, they stood by Jenny’s car and talked. Jimmy asked with a sly smile. “I hope your boyfriend doesn’t mind you having dinner with your ex.”

            She snorted. “He’s hardly my boyfriend.”

            “How long have you been seeing each other?”

            “Just since last night, but never again.”

            Jimmy couldn’t help feeling pleased that her date didn’t go well. “Where did you meet?”

            Jenny felt her face flush. “On a dating sight.”

            “So what went wrong?”

            “Let’s just say we had a chemistry problem,” she replied quickly and then sought to change the subject. “So Jimmy, you didn’t answer my text when I asked why you haven’t divorced me.”

            He shrugged. “Why haven’t you filed for divorce?”

            She shrugged. “To be honest, I figured the longer we stayed married, the more money I’d get when you did file. You’re rather astute at business… Now your turn. Why haven’t you divorced me?”

            “I always hoped you would repent and return to me.”

            Jenny was stunned as she stared wide eyed at him “You would have taken me back after all I have done?”

            “Yes.”

            “Why?”

            “I love you.”

            “You love the woman that betrayed you and made a spectacle of herself on the internet?”

            “I love the woman, not the behavior.”

            “But how?”

            “You’re the mother of my children, the grandmother of my grandchildren. We had a good life, a happy marriage before you went astray.”

            “I don’t even know how it happened,” she said and then laughed without humor. “I asked myself a hundred times, how did I get in this cycle? Now I’m, I don’t know, stuck. I’ve tried reading my Bible, but I only end up feeling lost and ashamed and end up putting it back on the shelf.”

            “He that began a good work will in you will complete it until that day of Jesus Christ,” Jimmy told her, quoting Philippians 1:6.

            “Then why do I feel so empty?”

            “I suppose you haven’t fully repented and surrendered yourself to Christ.”

            “I’ve tried,” she said and then frowned. “Well, sort of.”

            Jimmy smiled kindly and gently said, “Sort of isn’t a full commitment. Jesus said take up your cross and follow Me.”

            “Yeah,” she said with a sad smile and looked at her husband with longing. “I wish I could go back and stop myself before I got started down this road of rebellion.”

            Jimmy took hold of his wife’s hand. “You might not be able to go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.”

            Jenny put her hands in her face and wept. Jimmy began to do circles on her back. As the tears began to subside, she went into his arms and quietly asked, “Can I change the ending with you?”

            “Absolutely.”

            “So you forgive me?”

            “One hundred percent.”

            “So if you forgive me, does God?”

            “One hundred percent. God tells you so in 1 John 2:1. If anyone sins we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

            By the grace of God, Jenny indeed changed her ending. She repented, was rebaptized, and she and Jimmy renewed their wedding vows. She also retained the good graces of her children. Thus making for one of her and Jimmy’s favorite activities going forward as grandparenting together.

(Writer’s note: Dear Reader, I am posting early because I will be unable to write this weekend as well as the following week. The Lord willing, my next post will be Sunday evening August 22 with something fresh. I’m still deciding on three different stories, most likely with Querida once again. Thank you for your interest! May God Bless!)

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 22

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 22

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

YOU SHALL NOT MURDER (Exodus 20:13)

            “Pretty gruesome, huh, Querida?” Vermillion said and then chortled. “I didn’t know if Jill had it in her, but she performed remarkably well. Even if she wasn’t very thorough. Can’t blame her though, that was quite the blood curdling scream emitted from Jenny. Plus she had the wherewithal to not only use Jimmy Stetson’s axe, but track some of the blood with a pair of his shoes.”

            I had righteous indignation flare up. I aimed it at my former friend, and he fled from my presence. He and I had been opponents in the same cases numerous times over six thousand years. But you could count on one hand the number of times I had chased him off.

            This world is an odd situation. It is fallen, which means Satan and his demonic realm are largely in control. But because humanity’s first parents failed the test of loyalty and obedience, their descendants were born with dispositions to follow Satan. Because of their disobedience, they inadvertently invited the arch foe to, as Jesus proclaimed, become the ruler of this world. (John 14:30 NKJV)

            As a result, humans murdered God’s own Son when He chose to become one of them. They put to death God’s prophets before Him. The reformers were martyred after Him. Throughout the course of human history, only a minority actually sought to truly follow God. The majority to this day follow church tradition rather than searching the scriptures for themselves.

            The Savior of the world, precious Jesus, even declared, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:9)

            Here’s a few examples. Only eight people were saved on Noah’s ark. Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego were the only ones to not bow down to Kind Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. Only a few anticipated Jesus’s birth. All forsook Him and fled at His death. The Bible itself says many will live by way of the broad road, with only a few traveling the narrow road. (See Matthew 7:13, 14)

            Poor Jimmy Stetson was the one to discover the crime scene. To add to the horror of his discovery, he was initially arrested for the murder of Justin Phillips. To add salt to his wounds, when his wife recovered sufficiently from her shock and blow to the head, she told the police she awoke to discover Jimmy violently chopping at Justin with his axe.

            But there are no perfect crimes, only imperfect investigators. Jill Phillips made a couple mistakes. Her primary mistake was believing a woman would not be suspected of such a brutal crime. This despite having muttered the poem based on Lizzie Borden, ‘Jill Phillips took an axe and gave her husband forty whacks.’

            She also believed she had adequately framed Jimmy for the crime. Having been neighbors for several years, she had acquired the knowledge that he kept the key to his shed under a brick behind the small building. Then when she stole the axe a the day before her crime, she discovered the handle of a snow shovel wearing Jimmy’s fluorescent yellow ski mask. She also spotted greasy coveralls he wore when working on his cars. What luck!

            Then to put a period on the frame up, she put on a pair of Jimmy’s oversized shoes that she found in the foyer the night she crept in. She correctly assumed that there would be a lot of blood, and she left numerous footprints. But what she hadn’t anticipated was Jenny’s screams, or the decibels emitted.

            In Jenny’s haste to escape the predator, her foot became entangled in the sheet, and she fell backwards out of bed. Although Jill had only counted six whacks to her sleeping husband’s head and torso, she figured she needed to take care of his mistress.

            But as she began to move around the bed toward Jenny with raised axe, she noticed the neighbors across the street turn on their porch light. She needed to get out of there post haste! She dropped the axe and fled from the house.

            In her haste to flee the crime scene, and with adrenaline combined with passion eliminating common sense, she did a sloppy job of discarding Jimmy’s shoes, coveralls and ski mask. She threw the bloody shoes in the creek behind their houses. She returned the ski mask and coveralls to the shed. She foolishly expected her actions to incriminate Jimmy.

            But long time detective Sargent Francis Folkenflicker immediately saw things didn’t add up, even though his Lieutenant ordered Jimmy Stetson arrested. First, he did not exhibit the behavior of someone who had just committed a crime of passion. He was clearly in horror filled shock, coupled with distress.

            Also, why would he so carelessly discard his shoes into a creek not even large enough to float a paper boat? And why hang his blood spattered coveralls on a nail in his shed?

            The next viable suspect was Justin’s wife. But when located at her sister’s home, after she successfully snuck back in, she seemed to have a solid alibi. Plus, sleep deprivation and anxiety helped her give an Oscar winning performance of a distraught wife.

            But before Detective Folkenflicker left Jill’s sister’s home, his phone jangled in his pocket. It was the lab. “Hey Sarge, we found a couple long blonde hairs in the ski mask.”

            Folkenflicker informed Jill of this. A switch was flipped in her psychopathic mind, especially when Folkenflicker suggested a DNA test. Jill’s demeanor changed from distress to cold paranoia as she declared she wanted a lawyer. Folkenflicker’s jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he nodded.

            But there was nothing a lawyer could do to stop a DNA test. The truth came out, and Jill was arrested for murder in the first degree for the slaying of her husband. She was also charged with attempted murder in the case of Jenny. The first charge would stick, while the second wasn’t sufficiently proven.

            What followed Jill Phillips’ arrest was the aftermath of two destroyed marriages and the ripple effect on their families. The Phillips children located to another state and were raised by Justin Phillips’ parents. Although the Stetson’s son and daughter were adults, the news of their mother’s affair and the brutal murder of her lover caused severe damage to their maternal relationship.

            But Jimmy sought reconciliation. The ordeal only caused him to draw closer to God. He felt compassion for his wife and the horror she witnessed. He also tried to repair the breach between Jenny and their children. To top it off, he forgave her infidelity. Love for God caused him to focus on her potential, not her failure.

            But the ordeal led Jenny the opposite way from God as her husband. She felt anger for the trauma she endured. Sure, she was unfaithful to her husband. But did having a little sinful fun on the side merit such a violent, diabolical result? She unwisely tended to blame God rather than the adversary of souls.

            She did agree to marriage counseling. But the atheistic psychiatrist she saw for her personal problems had more influence. Four months after the horrific murder of Justin Phillips, Jenny announced to Jimmy that she was moving out.

            She moved in with a scoundrel. She had met a good looking charmer, who talked her into capitalizing off her fifteen minutes of fame. Although the crime was horrific, her life and the affair didn’t have enough juice to merit a book, let alone a movie.

            But with much persuasion, he talked her into starting an erotic website. She figured why not. She was estranged from her kids, and separated from her husband. The charmer assured her, there would be no sex, just revealing lingerie and glimpses of nudity.

            It was initially very successful due to her notoriety. Her vanity surged to its highest peak. But when the views began to decline, the charmer suggested they get more risqué. She said no. He insisted they needed to. She put her foot down. After all, she had her principles. Please note, she had HER principles, not God’s.

            But she was in love, or so she thought, so she compromised. After all, a little more risqué wouldn’t hurt. Then a little more became a little more. Their website became more popular than ever. But their relationship was always up and down with excitement, but volatile.

            Then a phone call from Jimmy upset the apple cart of her current life. Although their occasional communication had been consistently civil on Jimmy’s part, the last time they had talked she had received a stern rebuke from him. So her jaw clenched and her body tensed as she answered with a bark, “What!”

            “Wow, I see you’re glad to hear from me,” he said mildly.

            “Not if you called to play self-righteous again.”

            “I wasn’t being self-righteous that last time we talked. I was observing that your behavior was an embarrassment to your children.”

            “They disowned me, remember? So what does it matter?”

            “They didn’t disown you; you drove them away.”

            “Goodbye!”

            “Jenny, wait. That isn’t why I called you.”

            She paused before hanging up, pursed her lips and once again said, “What?”

            “Kelsey wanted me to relay some news,” he said, referring to their daughter.

            Her pulse quickened, but it was also disheartening that her own flesh and blood didn’t want to tell her something herself. “Okay.”

            He gently said, “You’re gonna be a grandma.”

            For some reason this news threw her for a loop. Her daughter and her husband had been married for four years and were very much career and travel minded. As she absorbed this, the news began to break through the walls regarding her family that she had put up. She felt a lump form in her throat. “Why didn’t she want to tell me herself?”

            He paused. “I’m not being self-righteous or judgmental, you asked… She feels awkward about your drastic lifestyle change.”

            The last time she and her daughter talked, Kelsey had asked bitterly, “Why did you weird out so bad?”

            “Are you there?” Jimmy asked.

            “Yeah,” she croaked.

            “Jenny, I’m sorry.”

            She is the one that betrayed him, yet he said he was sorry? For what? That he was stuck in the middle of the mess she made with her family? Once again she croaked, “Yeah.”

            “It’s not too late?” he said softly.

            “For what?” she asked hopefully.

            “To get back in good graces with the kids.”

            “I see,” she said bitterly. “Why don’t you give me a list of do’s and don’ts then. Then I can shove it…”
            “Jenny, stop it!” Jimmy interrupted. “You burned the bridges by your behavior. All I’m doing is telling you that the bridges can be rebuilt. What happened to you? I thought we had a good life together. I was willing to forgive you for, you know.”

            “Oh were you?” she said and then snorted. “And what, hold it over my head the rest of my life?”

            “When we were trying to work things out, what did I do to lead you to believe that I would hold it over your head?”

            She felt tears burn her eyes, and self-reproach force an admission. “Nothing. I was bored, and I was vain. You know I was a nerd and a late bloomer. Now I’m this hot fifty year old, and guys numbering in the thousands have actually paid to see all of me.”

            “You’re a spectacle,” Jimmy mildly.

            “Am I? Well you can…” she swore at him.

            With great patience, he asked, “Please answer me. What happened to the sweet God fearing girl I married?”

            “She’s dead, Mr. Stetson. And the real me is alive and living life to the fullest.”

            For the first time since the murder of Justin Phillips, Vermillion approached me. “How the mighty have fallen, Querida. Once a head deaconess that everyone looked up to. Now someone with a niche in the dirty world of adult entertainment. It’s also interesting she does the opposite of being dead to self and alive to Christ. She calls the God fearing Jenny she once was dead, and the harlot she now is alive.”

            “You are noticing her defiance,” I told my former friend. “But I believe you are now gonna see what’s truly been working inside her.”  

            “Are you truly happy, Jenny?” Jimmy asked.

            She almost lied, but then said, “Goodbye, Jim. Thanks for telling me about Kelsey.”

            She hung up and broke down sobbing. The charmer had been wanting her to get even more vile in their videos. Instead of agreeing, they got into their biggest fight yet. Instead of passionate make up intimacy, they broke up and she moved out.

            After Jenny and Jimmy’s conversation, I put a dream inside his head that night. Jenny wanted back in his life. He struggled with whether to take her back or not. But dreams are often strange. In familiar, yet foreign settings, he was reminded of what a philanderer he was before he was married. Although they went way off the deep end, I made him feel she deserved a second chance.

            When he finally woke, feeling discombobulated, he turned on a light and reached for his Bible. I manipulated the page he opened to and the verse his eyes landed on. It was Hosea 1:2. After reading the verse, he got a red pen and underlined a portion. “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry.”

            “You can’t be serious,” Vermillion said with a smirk.

            “We’ll see,” I shrugged. “Time will tell.”