Hit hard and be smart. It was a game, like the video games she had grown so accustomed to over the past few years. She liked that the games had become more realistic as technology developed. It made what she was doing more fun.
Beyond the sight of human eyes, inspiration arrived in the form of one of the messengers sent from Taylor Jones’s funeral. There was a smile on the dark wisp’s bright yellow face as the message was delivered to another whose huge hands and long fingers dug deep into the shooter’s head. Message delivered. His master would be pleased. Soon another one of these human creatures would perish.
The Target of Darkness
Argon waited for each of the dark wisps to return from their assignment. His thoughts were interrupted by one such excited being who asked carefully, “Sir, what is the greater plan? Why did you send those messages?”
“And who gave you permission to ask?” he responded in anger at being interrupted. “Have you suddenly become one with authority?”
“No, Sir,” came the answer deferentially.
“What is your name, little one?” Argon asked.
“I am called Zaccur.”
“A noble name with history I know,” Argon replied and paused for effect. “I will answer you although you have no right to know. The messages are for those who hold influence over human instruments we can use to advance the Dark Master’s plan. Consider the shooter. We protect and guide her; we confuse those who seek her, and we create fear and anger in the hearts of the masses. That you should have expected. The goal hasn’t changed. The Dark Master hates all made in the image of the Enemy, the one they call God.”
“Yes, but there is more here than that. I have seen others and have heard them talking,” Zaccur continued pushing for information despite the danger.
“What makes you think I know the Dark Master’s plan? I merely rule a city under other authority. The Dark Master rules the earth.”
“You had to know something to direct the messages,” Zaccur probed.
This one is both smart and ambitious. A dangerous combination, Argon thought.
“The Dark Master’s target is not simply this city and those the shooter may be persuaded to kill before she is ultimately killed. It is what we have been waiting for two hundred years, the end of arrogant America – the so-called “land of the free and home of the brave,” the nation that proclaims “in God we trust” on its money and “one nation under God” in its pledge, America, the “Christian nation.” It’s all a lie, but many people in the world believe it. America will be humbled and then destroyed. It will crawl and beg for the end. And Williams has a special place in the Dark Master’s plan – we will not fail.”
“Come and I will show you some of what I have been entrusted with,” Argon said arrogantly as he led and Zaccur followed, flying through the sky unseen by human eyes.
“Look now,” Argon said as they descended through a wall to enter a building where a meeting was in progress. “The one talking is called Sam Will. He is a retired truck driver with a high opinion of himself. He thinks he is the inspiration behind an organization they named the Citizens’ Militia, a name they took from some old document. This bunch wants to organize the gun owners in Williams to act as a private law enforcement group to stop the shooter. They have given up on the police. The possibilities for mischief are enormous.”
“Let me show you another,” and they moved toward an old rent house off of Bell and 17th which they entered with equal ease. “Those you see here were trained along the Afghan and Pakistan border in the fine art of killing masses of people. They will be most useful. They are but a test of a strategy which will be inflicted on the whole country as part of a larger plan. There are other groups forming in other cities, and even now many corresponding trained Jihadists are crossing the Mexican border to advance the Dark Master’s plan. It is not clear to me what the others are to do, but I know the intent is that together they will deal the United States a blow from which it can never fully recover,” Argon spoke with joy and passion.
“Respectfully, Sir, wasn’t that what September 11th was supposed to do?” Zaccur asked.
“September 11th was to humble America by destroying national symbols, killing masses as well as some of its elected leaders. It ended up embarrassing America, but only 3,000 died, and our instruments missed the targeted leaders. This is nothing like that. That was for show; this is to finish what we have been trying to do since the beginning. Just wait and watch. We won’t fail this time.”
Argon smiled, anticipating what was coming, excited at his part and loving the attention of the little one. His instructions had been obeyed fully. The messages, when delivered, had resulted in multiple long fingers digging deeper into skulls, the brain of each target being cradled as direction was planted in their consciousness so that they believed it was inspiration from their own thoughts and ideas. The scales over the eyes kept them from seeing anything their Keeper did not want them to see while the great hands covering their ears kept them from hearing anything other than what their Keeper wanted them to hear. As long as the Curtain remained closed, no one was the wiser and nothing in the physical would appear out of the ordinary.
CHAPTER 2
“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other…”
—Galatians 5:17
Thursday, January 31 – MD Minus 115 days
THE CURTAIN HAD not been fully opened for Paul Phillips as he slept. He had seen much in his dream which had not been apparent when he attended the funeral. Much of the forces of darkness present at the funeral had been revealed in the dream, but he had drawn a wrong conclusion. He cried out in fear at what he saw because to him, it appeared that he was in great danger when in fact he was being delivered and shielded from the influence of his Keeper, who had influenced his thoughts and controlled how he saw things for many years. Reality is rarely as it seems.
Had Paul been able to see the complete scene of which he was apart, he would have witnessed the forces of light also present, but in reduced numbers, for there were few servants of the light present that day at Taylor Jones’s funeral. As he viewed the crowd looking back from the coffin, he would have seen some who radiated light from within as if they were inhabited by light4 – a fact which he would not have understood, even as he did not understand the dark beings he could see. Those few, although in the presence of all the mass of Keepers, had no huge yellow hands resting on their heads or long fingers piercing their skulls with direction from the Dark Master. They received their direction from the light inside, from the Holy Spirit5, who obtains the messages it transmits directly from the Father, another name for God whom the forces of darkness call the “Enemy.” What had actually occurred was that a Keeper’s great hands and long fingers were removed from Paul’s skull by Simeon, a Guardian with the forces of light. It was Simeon’s strong arms that forced the Keeper away. Paul’s momentary and partial view behind the Curtain revealed the conflict between Simeon and the Keeper as the Keeper’s hands were forcibly removed from Paul’s head. Paul also didn’t realize that something like scales had fallen from his eyes and that his ears were now opened because the Keeper’s hands no longer covered them. He could now see, hear and seek to understand, rather than simply accept the Dark Master’s steady diet of deception. The Father had chosen him to be a searcher and had placed within him a passion for understanding what he had seen and experienced, and that made him a very dangerous human being to the forces of darkness – and search he did.
Argon had not missed the events following the funeral. The Keeper assigned to Paul had blazed across the sky to report Simeon’s