THE FALL (Rapha Chronicles #1) (The Rapha Chronicles) (4 page)

Chapter Three

A Fresh Start

Again evil’s menace grew. Why did Adonai refuse to destroy the roots of perversion? Surely He could discern only too well Lucifer’s desire to corrupt… everything. Was it pity for the victims of Lucifer’s experiments that kept Adonai from destroying every hidden hold? Could Adonai remain holy
and
defeat evil? When Rapha could not understand he grieved and found unity with the heart of his Maker.

For the man creatures, things went from bad to worse. Lucifer’s experiments became more sophisticated as he refined the art of corruption. New manipulated beasts erupted from the bowels of the earth.

Reptiles, the sleek, dominant hunters of the period, began increasing in size and ferocity. Most simply grew in height and girth but not intelligence, their lumbering forms multiplying across the earth’s surface. But some of the species developed a particular taste for humans. Life on earth became a constant struggle to survive for early man. Men lacked the size, strength and cold-blooded focus of their foe that was drawn to their warmth even in darkness. Thus it appeared the roots of mankind would be erased. But the man creatures displayed a surprising ability to adapt, a fact Lucifer underestimated; a fact that would serve them well in the days to come.

Rapha was there in the celestial court when Lucifer was granted an audience and appeared with a contingent of his fallen brothers. Lucifer’s words of greeting were gracious, all according to protocol, but it did not take long for his true purpose to be revealed.

“I come with a proposition, Oh Most High.”

“Yes, my child.”
Lucifer flinched at the address.
“State your thoughts.”

“I offer peace.” The attending celestials murmured in surprise. “Let us make an end of death and war. From this day forward my motto with the man beings is ‘Live and let live.’” Lucifer raised a magnanimous arm and smiled at his former compatriots.

“And what do you gain?”

“What do I gain? It is enough to know our conflict would be at an end.”

“Speak your desire, Samael.”

Lucifer grimaced once again but when he spoke his voice was steady, even cheerful. “My desire is to heal, to take the hands of my celestial family and, together, return creation to her former glory, beginning with Earth.” With a flick of a finger Lucifer opened a porthole in the heavenlies and the assembly beheld the blue-green planet, peaceful from a distance, but as they watched, he brought their view closer until glimpses of war, pain and devastation—a weeping child, a sleeping woman unaware a gigantic reptile hovered above her, man slaying man, the injured, sick, naked, and starving populace of Earth paraded before their eyes. Lucifer’s accusing gaze swept the faces of those gathered.

“State your requirement,”
Adonai’s calm voice broke the hypnotic hold of the horrific images.

“Nothing much, actually quite trivial.” Lucifer shrugged and put a hand to his head as if recalling a fleeting thought. “Ah, yes! Celestial stewardship over earth.”

The uproar was immediate and Lucifer’s entourage formed a protective circle around their leader while Michael’s angry voice rose above the rest, “With you in charge, no doubt!”

“Actually,” Lucifer continued, “I would join my angelic brothers in this errand of peace and restoration. Men are not prepared for this task. It requires celestial wisdom and power. We would show them the way.”

Michael burst forth with an explosive laugh.

“Yes, Michael. Something you would like to share?”

Michael’s massive, muscular form shouldered through the crowd, “Adonai, he dares to come before your throne with a lie!”

“Unlike others,” Lucifer continued without so much as a glance in Michael’s direction, “I seek to heal division, even to work side by side with those of a more… unforgiving nature.”

Michael gave a snort of disgust.

“And if your request is denied?”

“The best interests of earth, of
Your
creation, are at stake.”

“You knew you would be denied and your plan is already at work.”

Lucifer chuckled. “It’s just impossible to surprise You.” He shrugged and swept a hand toward his companions, “Of course, I cannot accept all the credit for our plan, but I stand prepared to aid earth,
if
given the ability to do so.”

Rapha recognized his old friend’s expression of triumph. Compromise had never been in Lucifer’s vocabulary. It was absolute victory or nothing.

“I cannot grant your desire, Samael.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that, always faithful to your word.” Lucifer shook his head and sighed.

“Tell your brothers your plan.”

“Well, you already know, and why should I alarm them since, if You are true to form, You will not intervene.”

But Michael, with lightning-quick temper and reflexes, already held Lucifer’s throat. “You
will
obey the command.”

Lucifer sneered, “Predictable as always, Michael.
You
I will enjoy telling.
If
you please,” he tapped the hand at his throat with a dainty finger and smiled into Michael’s glare. The hand at the fallen angel’s throat was grudgingly removed but Michael’s grip on Lucifer’s shoulder remained. Lucifer smiled into Michael’s angry face as if relishing a delicious secret.

“Earth will be destroyed,” Lucifer announced with wide-eyed innocence. “There now, we’ll have nothing more to fight about. We’ll be
best
of friends again.”

“You lie!” Michael said.

Lucifer turned his attention back to the throne, “Would you like to revise your answer, Oh Most High?”

“I see the end of all things, Samael, yet I choose holiness. It would be well for you to do the same.”

Lucifer inclined his head and his cohorts sprang into action, closing tighter around him. “I am not given dominion over earth but I retain some power. An oversight on your part?”

The rebels’ fire blazed, blinding in its combined strength. Michael was also caught in their midst as their sphere grew tighter and brighter.

But Rapha was determined to retrieve Michael who struggled in vain as Lucifer cackled with ecstasy.

“No, brother!” Gabriel’s urgent voice was in Rapha’s ear and his strong arms grasped him as Rapha dove toward Michael. Immediately Rapha’s momentum was increased a hundredfold and he was sucked toward Lucifer.

“Yes,
brother
. Join us,” Lucifer’s face was ecstatic in welcome.

They whirled, spinning and increasing to piercing brightness until, with a breathless, split-second’s silence, even Lucifer’s laughter stopped and all was black.

Rapha felt his being shatter and collapse as he and the other celestials caught in Lucifer’s vortex exploded through the porthole and plummeted toward Earth.

Even at such a moment, Adonai’s strength flowed through Rapha, calming, giving hope and direction. He sensed unity with Gabriel and Michael whose thoughts also centered on the Most High even as the rebel angels enfolding them shrieked hatred and targeted Earth’s core.

Cords of trust and love linked Rapha, Gabriel, and Michael, an even stronger link than the fire engulfing them. They felt the burst of surprise from Lucifer when the three of them pulled the cluster of celestials tighter still. They felt his resistance as they willed their light to revolve in the opposite direction of Lucifer and his minions, every rotation grating against the rebels’ collective will. Then they heard his howl of rage as the celestial fireball burst asunder short of Lucifer’s target to scatter plummeting points of light across land and sea.

Rapha knew one instant of vague satisfaction before his being was splintered as by myriad shards of molten glass.

He had no way of knowing how much time had passed when he came to with liquid fire before his eyes. He had impacted on dry ground. That much Rapha remembered. But the searing acid engulfing him was real.

Had Earth been destroyed? Had all been reduced to swirling elements without form?

“No,”
Adonai’s calm voice assured him. And Rapha was not alone. Strong arms were lifting him; familiar voices were speaking to him. His last view of earth as one of his brothers sped him toward the heavens was a blur of smoke, fire, and flood with thousands of bright points of light—the attending, faithful celestials—working amidst the devastation.

The pain from countless screaming souls smote the last of Rapha’s waning strength and he knew no more.

In the following days, as Rapha recovered, the stench of death rose from the land while ash rained filth from above. Panic and horror reigned as land and sea traded places and foundational stones ground together forcing jagged pinnacles skyward. Huge tidal waves capsized forests and mountains and many of the ocean’s inhabitants were marooned in shallow pools or stranded on dry land. Magnetic forces clawed for stability and the earth’s rotation tilted as if threatening to fall out of its appointed path in the cosmos.

But there were survivors. With celestial assistance and man’s knowledge of caves and deep-water sources, discovered as they had fled Lucifer’s monster lizards, a ragtag remnant of mankind remained to defy insurmountable odds.

The huge reptiles, however, did not fare so well. Stranded on the surface where sustaining plants withered and the temperature plummeted, the giant predators starved, their ice- and ash-covered carcasses the largest among the tombstones dotting earth’s strange new landscape where the titanic forces of displaced seas formed giant swells of ice on Earth’s new polar axes.

But, despite an unrecognizable terrain and skewed forces of nature, Earth’s life force continued to pulse, feeble but constant, beneath the shroud of death.

The stain of immortal flesh, Lucifer’s triumph, could not be destroyed, but the planet’s natural forces, made more violent due to its injuries, served to bury this corruption far beneath rock, soil, and water, out of harm’s way—for a time.

But Lucifer was nothing if not persistent. His experiments continued even as earth limped toward renewal and many centuries of relative peace.

Earth’s inhabitants began creeping out of hiding as air and water flowed clean once again. As before, fierce creatures made life a constant battle, but the deeper aim of their manipulator was taking form in Lucifer’s hidden holds.

Rumors reached Rapha’s ears of new horrors, of creatures possessing both the intelligence of humanity and the ferocity of beasts. On occasion they erupted to fuel the night terrors of those who inhabited the yet fertile land and sea. With the passing years these skirmishes grew in scope and intensity. Roots of myth and legend were born while mankind became more and more like the beasts they fought.

Finally, Lucifer’s new strategy was unveiled.

No longer would the fallen angel refrain from defying Adonai’s primary celestial edict, a law established from the beginning of all things
—“Celestials will not join their flesh to that of mankind.”

But if earthly flesh and blood were required for earthly dominion, so be it. The rebels would acquire it.

All heaven grieved when descendants of “the gods” began appearing as lords of Earth’s various tribes. What use did the children of men have for an unseen creator when these glorious beings, a feast for earthly senses, could be worshiped?

These lords were a diabolical combination of glorified beast and man. Whatever creature was most feared in a tribe, the lord would appear who claimed dominion over it. They possessed the physical attributes of man and beast, yet were larger, stronger, wiser. For one culture the lord resembled man and snake, for another, a man-lion, while yet another bowed before a man-dragon.

Mankind was eager to seek the favor of these gods. Who else would give them the knowledge and tools of war necessary to survive?

Thus the leaders of men swore allegiance to these glorious beings. In return they received knowledge, power, wealth, and the means to destroy the beasts that plagued them. These “shining ones” received whatever they demanded. Their requests were simple. They merely desired earth women as their mates.

So Lucifer’s goal was achieved with mankind’s eager acquiescence. The cities of men became glorious wonders of architecture while commerce, art, and science attained astonishing heights through wisdom handed down from the gods.

And the celestial offspring! Never had there been men of such stature, beauty, and strength. In that golden age following the defeat of the evil beasts, men knew ease and safety. Their edifices rose higher, their tables overflowed with the fat of the land and their pride soared.

But not all were deceived. Some prophets spoke of catastrophe to come but few listened. Who would dare oppose the sons of gods? Indeed, any who tried paid the price of that folly with their lives.

However, as celestial offspring flourished, mankind began to realize their error. They watched these saviors become the oppressors; their tyranny, cruelty, and disdain for those of inferior blood established the reigning law of the land: Might is right.