Tell the Truth The Devil Won't

by Colette R. Harrell

Genres: African American Christian

Synopsis

The Love Zion members are in the middle of a spiritual tsunami. The flood has them up to their necks, deep in muck and mire, and treading water looking for a life raft.

The full-figured Esther Redding doesn’t realize it, but she desperately needs a change. Her Cinderella tiara is tarnished, and her glass slippers are cracked.

Briggs Stokes has always had a soft spot for Esther. She was in his blood, and he didn’t want a transfusion. When he returns to Detroit, he decides that nothing will keep him from her door. Well, nothing but once-reformed bad girl Monica Stokes Custer. She’s Briggs’s ex, and she wants to be his “give me one more chance again” wife. The tug of war that ensues may be the catalyst that destroys the person they both love the most.

Don’t blink—pray. These shenanigans are too juicy to miss.

Release date: November 1, 2015

Publisher: Urban Christian

Print pages: 288

Sample

It was dead cold. The air crackled with the sound of ice-covered tree branches crashing onto cement sidewalks; it was an unnatural arctic day, even for Harlem. There were motorists stranded on every major highway as an epic ice storm settled over the length of New York City. And while the air over those highways was filled with road rage, explicit language, and hunger pains, the contrasting hush of the opulent brownstones on 132nd Street was shattered by an eerie scream that filled the bitter air.

Monica Hawthorne, the ex-Mrs. Briggs Stokes, stood shaking uncontrollably. Her beloved, risked-everything-she-had-to-have-him husband of one month, Randall, lay in a pool of blood on their imported Brazilian cherry kitchen floor. If Randall could, he would have stood up and told her for the tenth time that ten thousand dollars for a floor was too much, and just because she could buy it didn’t mean she had to.

But Randall couldn’t utter a word. She watched horrified as his blood seeped into the natural grooves of the wood, giving credence to the fact that maybe the cost was too much.

Monica blinked, but he wasn’t getting up or giving her advice about her newly acquired wealth, because standing over him was his newly divorced wife, the ex-Mrs. Meredith Hawthorne. This She-Spawn-from-the-Pits, with her six hundred-dollar hairdo mussed, her designer clothes askew, and her chest heaving in spastic breaths, clutched the knife that once protruded from Randall’s chest. Words of explanation weren’t necessary; the vivid picture painted its own morbid story.

Monica was spellbound. She was in her own home. The ordeal of leaving one husband to claim another’s was behind her. The guilt had been laid aside. The shame stamped down, at least temporarily. It was Randall and her against the world. But it had all just changed drastically.

Snapping to, Monica shrieked, “Oh sweet Jesus! What have you done? You crazy—!” Her cries were halted by the demented gleam in the ex-Mrs. Hawthorne’s eyes. The maniac’s focus switched from Randall to her, then back to Randall.

Mrs. Hawthorne had gone mad, crazy, bonkers, cray-cray.

Monica’s head hurt at the thought that she was still addressing this woman by what was rightfully her new name. It bore psychological study that she could only think of the witch as Mrs. Hawthorne. For over three years the woman had railed it at her, negating Monica’s right to ever wear the title. She’d stood in haughty arrogance and promised in divorce court that she would never relinquish it. At the time, Monica didn’t care; she felt Mrs. Hawthorne could keep the last name, as long as she had the man. Now she felt she had been short-sighted. If in the middle of a bloody rampage, she thought of her that way, then who was she?

The murderous interloper looked on in glee as blood bubbled out of Randall’s mouth. Monica observed her spiteful approval as Randall’s hand feebly stretched over his wound, but failed in mustering the strength to staunch the flow of his river of life. His eyelids fluttered—pausing, fighting to focus as he scanned beyond Mrs. Hawthorne’s face. His eyes settled on Monica’s outstretched hands.

“Randall,” Monica whispered. She swayed in agony. Time was grinding to a stop, like an old-fashioned watch discarded in a moth-eaten hope chest, it would soon end, and Randall would be done. She needed a way to get close to him, but Mrs. Hawthorne stood as she had for the last three years, directly in her path.

Always . . . in my way.

Rage bubbled into a go-for-broke moment. Monica launched forward and charged Mrs. Hawthorne with a Joan of Arc warrior’s roar. The sound of the impact and responding grunt was dulled by the body that crumpled to the floor. Monica gambled . . . and lost. Her body fell inches from Randall’s.

Her hands bloodied, Mrs. Hawthorne rocked in despair. She had meant to take her time with the slut, but her offensive attack had taken her by surprise. Then . . . Monica moved. What she was witnessing had Mrs. Hawthorne’s keening wail ricochet throughout the spacious brownstone. She glowered in anguish, howling as Monica’s fingers inched toward Randall’s, and they entwined even in their near-death status.

She watched in ghoulish repulsion as the almost loving tableau played out before her. Her eyebrows arched as she made out Monica’s pleading words, “Jesus, help us.”

A rattle of air descended from Randall . . . and then stillness.

In slow motion, Mrs. Hawthorne turned in robotic movements away from the scene. Her steps faltered when she heard Monica’s fading voice, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The prophetic words washed over her as she stood in cold resolution. Shaking it off, she strutted away from the two people who had humiliated her in public and had caused her heart to bleed dry for three unbearable years. Randall had won his freedom, imprisoning her in her own madness in the process.

She had sworn to Randall’s dying mother, there would be no divorce. Tears gathered at the end of her hawkish nose, dribbling onto her twice-a-week, spa-waxed upper lip, then streamed down her cosmetic-tightened neck. She was Mrs. Meredith Hawthorne, of the Hawthornes, and failure was foreign to her.

In agony, she backtracked, and stumbled, tumbling over the bodies. Blindly, Meredith wiped her eyes, reared back, and spit in Monica’s face. Still feeling empty and unfulfilled, she stared, craving the ability to wake Monica and kill her again.

Rising, she noted Randall’s discarded, prized Civil War-era, matching pearl- and jewel-handled knives. She blew a kiss at him, and left the knives there. It was only fitting Randall have ownership of what he demanded in the divorce decree. What better way to deliver his bounty, then to use it as the method of obliteration for both he and his tramp?

Mrs. Hawthorne reached into her purse and pulled out her derringer. Acting as a lover whose desire is close to fulfillment, she caressed it.

Her insides churning, she panted, taking one last glance at the co-conspirators to her destruction. She could answer Monica’s final question. God had forsaken Monica because she was a Delilah home wrecker. What Mrs. Hawthorne wanted to know, was why He had forsaken her.

She lay the letters for her children—who never called—on the solid mahogany credenza, then her purse. All she’d had was the facade of a happy life. She’d paid for it in an avalanche of tears as she played dumb blonde to Randall’s neglect and numerous indiscretions over the years, anything to keep him home.

And how had he repaid her? By falling for a nasty, ashy-prone, ghetto rat. The slut’s resulting pregnancy, and his request for a divorce, “so he could be happy” was the Joker’s wild card. How many wrongs was she expected to endure?

She looked around and hiccupped laughter—a great-granddaughter of the Confederacy ending up in a brownstone in Harlem?

Well, rise up every long-buried plantation owner and move over. I’m coming in, and from this gaudy, overpriced slum.

In the middle of her cynical chuckle, she bit her lip. She was stalling and knew it. The gun shook in her hands as she placed the barrel to her temple; lips pressed together, she focused on the brightness of the moon, brilliant against the frigid dark sky.

The trigger was pulled, and the gun clattered to the ground. Once again blood seeped into the Brazilian cherry hardwood floor.

It should now have been quiet in the apartment. Instead, after the booming sound of the gunshot, you could hear through the intercom three things: the startled cries of a newborn, a phone ringing, and a feeble whimper.

The air was clear and sweet with the aroma of citrus floral and the essence of myrrh. Large winged inhabitants fluttered about on missions of supreme purpose. Above, two hovered in midflight, one apparently holding the other from takeoff.

“Why do you hold me, Zadkiel? I must go. Did you not hear Monica scream? I am hers, and she is mine. Monica thinks that God has forsaken her. I am here,” he bemoaned. What the guardian saw split him in two. He could not linger.

Zadkiel pulled the guardian angel back, his wings clutched, and held him firm through the struggle. “Stand down. She cries out in fear, not faith. We are not charged to react to tears, but we are rewarders of faith. What is occurring is heartbreaking, but you have not been given leave to interfere.”

The guardian wanted to push at Zadkiel’s wings, but that would have been disrespectful. “Oh, why do the humans act this way? Must they torment and cause such pain to each other? They have left a child and though Monica has not been innocent for many years, her screams of pain bring too many hurtful emotions to the forefront. How can you float above it all?”

“I am not above anything, but we must be obedient to our Lord of Hosts. He has not given us permission to intervene; a greater good must be coming.” Zadkiel then telepathically shared with him how he kept the sounds of Randall’s and Monica’s pain in the background of his thoughts. “I am empathetic to your feelings. I have learned that our God knows all and His will is the only way. He did not create this mess, but He will make a way out for the innocent babe. Go sing a song of praise. It will ease your soul.”

Large expansive wings flapped in decisive strokes as a voice of power and beauty soared over majestic heads. As other voices joined in song, the angelic choir trumpeted the holiness and sovereignty of God. Contrary to the chaos, He continued to reign.

In another realm, the gates of hell rattled in anticipation of the eventual capture and consumption of the new souls. It was a two-course meal: adulterer and murderer, their favorites.

In Atlanta, Georgia, the winter had stilled any lingering smells of magnolias floating through gauze-covered windows. The night air was crisp and cool. Briggs Stokes, the ex-husband of Monica Hawthorne, finally had an opportunity to put his feet up and open his mail. It had been a hectic day. Having primary custody of his son made most days hectic.

His laptop open, he did his usual evening ritual of reviewing his e-mails and reading the few letters that still came from the U.S. post office. His brow furrowed when he saw a thicker envelope postmarked by the same lawyers that represented Monica in their divorce. Briggs’s heart thudded as he slit the envelope open and began to read. Within minutes his evening was ruined.

“When Hades freezes over!” Briggs shouted, slamming down the letter from Monica and Randall’s attorneys demanding primary custody of his son. “You leave me, and now you want my son?”

Briggs picked up the subpoena and read it again. Initially, Monica’s desertion had devastated him. Later he realized that he had invested in a life with someone who had never made a deposit into his. Now, this summons was launching him backward in time to a place he had fought like a chained junkyard dog to gnaw his way out of. He couldn’t and wouldn’t let this throw him back into a world of darkness and fog.

Two years before, ten months after Monica left, he’d hit his lowest point. But the revelation for his comeback came with a knock on the door, in the form of his father, the world renowned televangelist, The Honorable Bishop Stokes.

The day care staff looked askance as a scruffy, unkempt Briggs dropped his three-year-old son at the child care center. He ignored them and left. His intentions were to drag himself home and into bed, an unproductive habit he had been performing for months.

A half hour later, mission accomplished. Briggs stumbled out of his jeans and into his unmade bed—a siren luring him closer. He sighed and sank into its peace. Then a loud knock at his door disturbed him. Sleepwalking into his living room, over papers and fast-food bags, he snatched open the offending door. His father, his image thirty years in the future, glowered at him.

Bishop Stokes eyeballed a hole into Briggs’s disheveled appearance. He stepped past him, his eyes recording Briggs’s stained shirt, spotty goatee, and uncombed hair. He sneered at his sagging boxers. “Son, I’m sorry for your pain, but this can’t go on. I have members everywhere, and I don’t need my phone ringing from day care staff who are worried about Briggs Jr.’s daddy.”

“So, you worried about what people are saying? Of course you are,” Briggs snorted, as his father took a seat. “Stupid of me to think you came here for me.”

Bishop Stokes stood abruptly, his actions dislodging his Kangol cap. “Son, I raised you to respect your elders.” He picked up his hat and hit it against his thigh. “But it sounds like you buried a bone, and it ain’t dead yet, ’cause the taste of it is still in your mouth.” The bishop waited for Briggs to say something. When he took the Fifth and remained silent, Bishop Stokes growled. “It’s Monica you’re still angry with, and she’s not here, but I am. So make yourself happy.”

Briggs spewed years of frustration. “How come you have wisdom for everyone but me? Where’s my prophetic, ‘God’s going to turn things around’ word? I need an appointment with one of your fifty assistant ministers? Should I call your hotline for prayer? Tell me, Daddy, how do I get in touch with the Honorable Bishop Stokes?” Briggs held his father’s incredulous stare.

Bishop Stokes flopped down, shaking his head. “You rattling my cage? That girl leaving you has made you slip and bump your head. Her abandonment has you believing you been neglected? Boy, we were inseparable right up until you entered college. You were entering manhood; it was time to allow you to walk all the talk—time to let you make some new mistakes. Why make ones I had already made? Those lessons were already taught and learned. It was time to let you make a new sin that needs a different repentance, to become the teacher for someone else.”

Briggs clapped his hands. “And the award for father of the year goes to—”

“I will pull off this belt and old school you. Better yet, I will meet you outside in the yard with some boxing gloves. Forget what LL Cool J said, ‘Daddy gonna knock you out,’” Bishop Stokes stood to leave. “Where are you coming from to disrespect me like this? I love you, son. But I am not the punching bag to absorb your pain.” His lined face was creased with agony. “Is this the coping lesson you’re teaching Briggs Jr.?”

Briggs heard the break in his father’s voice and saw his contorted face. He realized he had attempted to share his pain, instead of his heart. Shaking his head, he murmured, “I can’t do this. We should talk some other time.”

“No, you’ve been wallowing for months. We’ll talk now. Can I tell you what I’ve observed over the years?”

“Could I stop you?” Briggs gave a short fake laugh.

His father gripped his shoulder. “Honor thy mother and thy father, Briggs, and your days will be long. You gon’ fool around and shorten your days anytime now. You ready to give me some honor and listen?”

A chastened Briggs straightened his posture. “Yes, sir.”

“God didn’t make this storm, but He can navigate you through it. You at the altar crying about God letting Monica leave you when you should be at the altar asking Him to show you your next level.” His grip on Briggs’s shoulder turned into a supportive squeeze. “Y’all created what I call false intimacy. It wasn’t real; but it sounded right. You had a baby together, so it looked right. But it wasn’t. Like those scripted reality shows. You don’t know those people. It’s all smoke and mirrors. You and Monica had your own reality show. You were the only fan in your real-world fantasy.”

Briggs attempted to defend their relationship. “Well, the pain is real. And—”

Bishop held up his hand. “Shush, let me finish. She wasn’t the first person you ran to with your triumphs or your failures. When you got the new church you called me and your mama. Told us you would tell her later.”

Red-faced, Briggs said, “She wasn’t at home at the time.”

Bishop paced impatiently. “Neither were we. Boy, we don’t live with you. You called us on your mama’s cell just like you could have called Monica.”

“You’re really making me feel better,” Briggs said. His sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on his father.

Flat-footed, Bishop glared. “Oh, is that why I came—to make you feel better for a little while? Or was it to help you see that you have your whole future ahead of you? There is a woman out there who will love and pray for you so much, you will have a Peter experience and receive healing whenever her shadow passes over you.”

Briggs blinked and mumbled, “Esther.”

“What’s that, son?”

Briggs shook his head as though clearing it from a barrage of distorted memories. “I hadn’t thought of anything I might be gaining. I couldn’t see past the loss.” He then buried his face in his hands and breathed.

“I think . . . No, I know I felt that I had been obedient to God in staying with Monica when I wanted to divorce her right before I learned she was pregnant. Her leaving feels like a slap in the face of my sacrifice.”

“I remember, son, but scripture says obedience is better than sacrifice. Your answers lie with you. Did you hear from God before you up and stayed with a woman who had already left you long before your thoughts of leaving her?”

Briggs sought to clarify his and Monica’s timetable for his father. “She hadn’t left me back then, Dad. We were still together.”

“Oh, she had left you. Did she listen to your dreams? Did she support your goals?” Bishop Stokes said, fingering down an invisible list.

Briggs had to shake his head.

Bishop Stokes nodded. “Okay. She wasn’t employed outside of the house so did she cook your meals, wash your clothes, handle paying the bills? Make love to you as only a wife can? Share her dreams, her goals, and her needs?”

Briggs hung his head in defeat. “Well, for a minute, and then . . . Uh, no.”

He slapped Briggs lightly with his hat. “Then, she had already left you; you just didn’t know it.”

Briggs clutched his stomach as though he had been punched in the gut.

“Son, back then you called me, and I tried to counsel you on making good choices. You thought that meant staying with Monica. When you said you and Monica were reconciling, I didn’t have the heart to tell you that sometimes what looks right is just that—appearance.”

Briggs’s head swiveled around. “Staying was a bad decision?”

“As pastors, we want to send our members the right message. You stayed with Monica all these years because you thought your sacrifice made you a better man of God. Now, there are those Christians who believe marriage is forever, even if it turns bad or dangerous. But you’re the only one who knows what God spoke to your heart.”

“I felt that no matter what, I had to give my marriage all I had to try to make it work,” Briggs said, brushing his fingers over his fuzzy hair.

His father’s voice was sympathetic. “And now she’s gone. She had the courage to do what you only thought about. This is your blessing, a season to begin again. It doesn’t look like it, but it is. Don’t try to hold on to what’s letting go of you.”

Briggs’s cloudy eyes became clear and focused.

“Maybe Monica did do me a favor, both of us just going along, day to day.” Briggs spoke with final resignation. “She didn’t go about it right. She could have done it better—” Overcome he said softly, “I got a great son out of the marriage.”

“He’s the best. You’ve done the pity party, now get your Holy Ghost dance going. Pray your way through this. Ask God for your next steps.” Bishop Stokes wrapped Briggs in a fierce hug. He then marched to the front door, then turned to face him. “Forgive her and move on. It’s okay to fall, son. A man standing before me with a history of falling also has a history of getting up.”

Briggs’s smile was genuine. “Yes, leaning, but I’m up. More proof I’m now in my right mind. I’ll take Mama’s offer to help out.”

“Troubled halved can make you whole.” Bishop Stokes stepped outside and called over his shoulder never looking back. “Get reacquainted with some soap and water, son. You liked to scorch the hairs in my nostrils.”

Intent on the present, Briggs shuffled through the legal document and heaved a sigh. He had pulled himself together after his father’s visit. The next week, he had stepped down from the small church he was pastoring and took a sabbatical. For months, his mother came over daily and helped him stabilize Briggs Jr.’s days. She even gave him the nickname BJ and it stuck.

When Monica’s guilt had subsided enough to ask him for weekend visitation, he reluctantly allowed it. As long as Randall was not sleeping at her place when BJ was there, he agreed. At that point BJ was four years old, and he just wanted his mama.

Their arrangement started out fine. While Briggs had retreated from his relationship with Monica quietly, Randall’s wife had fought, with spite, hatred, and bitter revenge. Her weapons were carnal, persistent, and ugly. She’d even had Briggs hauled down to the courthouse to be disposed and drawn into her and Randall’s divorce proceedings.

He’d told his truth, to shame the devil. Only the devil has no shame, only more devastation.

He’d tried to help; felt it was his Christian duty to caution Meredith Hawthorne to look up and live. But as spittle ran down her chin, she tried emasculating him by labeling him weak and ineffective, blaming him for not being able to keep Monica under control.

On that day, Briggs knew Meredith was losing it, and he had warned Monica.

Then, Monica got pregnant by Randall after two years of Randall fighting to get a divorce.

The pregnancy caused the volcano to erupt between Randall and Meredith, and when the cinders were sifted through, Randall won the divorce, but lost his social standing in Atlanta. Last month, Monica married him, and relocated to Harlem. She hadn’t seen BJ since. Briggs thought a new marriage, baby, and city were keeping her busy. Not an elaborate plan to steal his son.

The day before, he had received the best news of his life next to his son’s birth. Love Zion, his first church assignment, wanted him back. Reverend Gregory, whom he had subbed for as interim pastor over six years before, wanted to retire. He was asking Briggs to take over his legacy.

The cherry on top of life’s ultimate sundae? Briggs’s college sweetheart Esther, the woman he almost walked away from his marriage for was now available. Briggs had made the decision he was going for it all: the job, the woman, and the joy. His current circumstance had been short on passion. He wanted—no, needed—that in his life.

Briggs rolled up the papers, hitting them on the desk. “Now this man is about to make me put up my clergy collar and wring his neck.” He sighed, then straightened out the document. He leafed through it looking for Monica’s stamp on it. He knew her methods and couldn’t see her usual maneuvers played out on it.

Could Randall be doing this on his own as some grand gesture of his love for Monica? Old wealth has long arms of influence.

Briggs vowed to get to the bottom of things and though it was after midnight, he phoned Monica. The phone rang numerous times before finally going to voice mail. “Monica, I can’t believe you would pull this stunt. Call me,” he yelled.

The next morning after two more attempts during the night to reach Monica, his phone rang. It wasn’t Monica returning his call, but the New York Police Department, 32nd Precinct, Harlem.

Chunks of ice melted from Briggs’s Cole Haan wing-tipped oxfords. They left a muddy puddle on the pristine floor of New York Presbyterian Hospital’s ICU. A normally considerate person, he didn’t care. His thoughts were consumed by the comatose woman reclining in the bed. Briggs stared at the tubing connected to Monica’s throat providing her only means of breathing.

She cannot be dead. I’ve wanted to kill her. I saw it in my dreams. But not this.

Shaky hands tentatively touched her. He exhaled feeling her warmth. “It will be okay. You’re so headstrong. Fight, Monica. Fight to live!”

An authoritative voice filled the room. “Briggs Stokes? Of Atlanta, Georgia?”

Briggs spun around, his gaze made hazy with unshed tears. The doorway was blocked by a balding, medium-height man, with a pad and pen in his hand. He was rocking back on his rubber-soled heels.

“And you are?” Briggs asked curtly, offended by the man’s tone and apparent disregard for common courtesy.

In response, the man arched his brow and gave a curt reply. “I’m Detective Edward McWilliams. We spoke on the phone.”

His eyes scanning Monica’s still form, Briggs rubbed his cheek and exhaled. “Thank you for calling me. But my family and I just got here. I came straight from the airport. Can your questions wait?”

Detective McWilliams moved a toothpick around the corner of his mouth. “Mr. Stokes, you were called to town for a reason. I know your parents and son are at the station taking custody of the baby. I like to close my cases as fast and efficiently as possible. I’d also like to go home to my family. Your cooperation is appreciated concerning this murder-suicide case.”

Briggs didn’t want to argue or have this conversation in Monica’s presence. Hadn’t he read somewhere that comatose patients heard what went on around them?

Gesturing that they step outside of the room, Briggs walked briskly down the hall with the detective on his heels. He needed caffeine. Reaching the vending machines and taking change out of his pocket, Briggs bought coffee, then sat on the nearest bench.

“What do you want to know?” Briggs sipped, then scowled that his caffeine was barely lukewarm.

Detective McWilliams flipped through his notepad. “Were you acquainted with Ms. Meredith Hawthorne? Were you aware of the tensions surrounding this new marriage, of your ex and Randall Hawthorne?”

Head hung low, Briggs remembered Meredith’s facial features contorted in unbridled fury at the court deposition she dragged him into. “Meredith couldn’t let go. The last time I saw her, she was in naked agony, and it was hurtful to witness.”

Briggs looked up at the detective with haunted eyes. “Randall and Monica started a new life, had a baby, and it seemed that every smile they wore broke Meredith a little more. She was deranged with it.” He rubbed his eyes in weary sorrow. Turning the cup up and draining his coffee, he crushed it with reddened knuckles. “I warned Monica that they should not dismiss Meredith’s malice, but they continued to underestimate her wrath.”

Chewing on the end of his pencil, Detective McWilliams asked, “You called several times last night, each voice mail you left was more agitated than the last. Were you in a custody dispute with the couple?”

Briggs fingered his collar, loosening the top button before giving an answer.

“Not really. I had just gotten a letter from Randall and Monica’s attorney saying they wanted custody of my son. He’s been in my care since the separation and subsequent divorce, over two and a half years ago. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.”

Briggs leaned forward making direct eye contact. “My son loves his mother, Detective. This is a nightmare. Ironically, I will now have their daughter while she recuperates. Monica has no one else with the exception of some distant relatives in Jamaica. If there’s nothing else, I need to get back. I was waiting to speak to her doctors.”

Closing his notepad, Detective McWilliams nodded. “Thank you for your time. You’re a good man for stepping in. Your account of the situation lines up with everyone else’s, including the newspaper clippings about the divorce battle, and even Randall and Meredith’s adult children said she wouldn’t let go.”

Briggs had one parting shot before he walked away. “No, her suicide proves she finally let go. What she couldn’t figure out was how to forgive.”

Two ominous figures sat in quiet contemplation. The larger one’s head was gargantuan in nature, and foul droplets of acidic mucus fell from his protruding fangs.

The smaller one stood sixteen feet tall, and his rapier tail was wrapped protectively around his middle. He sat as still as cold, hard stone. His sinister eyes were yellow-rimmed and telegraphed evil cunning. He was known as The Leader.

Their silhouettes cast eerie shadows against the backdrop of the smoke-filled flames that spewed from the lake of fire. They had been here before. This place, this type of meeting. It was The Leader’s least favorite venue, not because of the atmosphere, but because it was where “he” liked to meet. The Leader hated The High Master. For him, only humans equaled this type of loathing.

A thunderous voice filled the dark void, its hiss deep and unending.

“There is a barrage of angelic activity. I can smell the stench of their perfumed presence everywhere I ascend. We are losing battles. The angel, Michael, and his legion are formidable opponents. You must be vigilant. You have failed with this group before, and you begged for a second chance. It’s an inane request at best, but I felt you may know the weaknesses of these disposables, and that may give us the upper hand.”

The Leader sat as he always did in the presence of The High Master—silent. He wanted to wrap his tail in a protective manner around his middle, but The H