Excerpt from "Angel of Vengeance" by Arrwyn Cliona Odhalt

Back in her bedroom, Tsidhqiyah was wakened by her own screams.  Her parents came into the room in a few seconds.

            "What is it?” Paul asked, frightened.

            "I had a dream ... A true dream.  But, I can't believe it."      

            "What was it, Angel?” Marion soothed and tried to wipe the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her robe.

            "I walked into a coven of Satanists and they began calling to me and saying I was their princess.” Tsidhqiyah turned accusing eyes to her father.

            Paul looked to Marion in alarm.

            "That look on your face tells me this was a true dream to be believed.  Father, how can I be the princess of Satanists?"

            "You are aware that you came to us with your name, we did not choose it for you.” Paul began.

            "Yes.  It is Hebrew and means 'Justice of the Lord'.  Supposedly, my father, my genetic father, gave me that name.  He signed my birth certificate."

            "He did.  You have never asked to see that birth certificate.  I think it is time.  If you are to fight this fight, Tsidhqiyah, you need to know your origin.” Paul finished darkly and stood with his hand extended to her.

            Tsidhqiyah looked at her mother, her face was washed with frightened tears but there was a determination there.

            "Mother?"

            "I had hoped this would not come so soon, but you must go with your father.  If you have had this dream now, it will be critical for you to make a conscious decision and it must be an informed one."

            "Come with us.” the girl begged.

            "Yes."

            They allowed the girl to get her robe and the three of them went to Paul's study.

            From the cabinet where he kept his Bibles and biblical reference works he took down a locked box.  He opened the box from a key ring he kept in his desk. 

            "Sit here, beside me." he commanded his daughter softly.

            Tsidhqiyah took the seat reserved for his counseling parishioners and turned it to face the same way as Paul's chair.

            From the box, Paul took a crumbling piece of paper.  The seal of the city of Bushehr in Iran was evident on the paper.  It was written in Arabic, but Paul spoke and read Arabic fluently.  He had taught it to Tsidhqiyah.

            "I was born in Iran?"

            "Yes, Tsidhqiyah.  You were born in Babylon."

            "That says Bushehr."

            "Your birth was registered in Bushehr.  You were born on the ruins of what is believed to be ancient Babylon.  You were already six days old when your father brought you to the hospital in Bushehr."

            "Is that his signature?” Tsidhqiyah pointed to a very flowery script in faded ink.

            "That is his signature; watch …” Paul told her as he slipped the ragged piece of paper on his scanner.

            Paul turned on his computer and brought up a digitized image of the paper.  Tsidhqiyah knew how the program worked and watched as her father isolated the script and then enhanced it.  At the end of the words was a sigil.  He enhanced the sigil then told Tsidhqiyah to go to his case and bring down The Book of Angels.  This was an ancient tome credited with having the sigils of every one of the archangels, angels, seraphim and cherubim, including the fallen ones.

            With the sigil on the screen, they leafed through the book and found its match in The Book of Angels.  It was the sigil of a fallen archangel named Azradziel.  The particular province of this fallen angel was spiritual war.

            "All this means is that the man who signed my birth certificate was versed in the knowledge of this book."

            "More than that, he was versed in the prophecies of the Book of the Damned which is credited with having been written by the Apostle John who also wrote the Book of Revelation."

            "Why do you say that?"

            "Get the book from the bottom of the case.  It is the one with the deep red cover.” Paul told her and hugged Marion's arm that was around his shoulder.

            When Tsidhqiyah laid her hands on this ancient and battered volume, something strange happened.  Every sound of the natural night ceased instantly as though the very Spirit of the Lord walked beside their house.  Then as she brought the book out of the cabinet, the lights went out, but not the computer.

            "What the hell is going on?” Tsidhqiyah whispered, annoyed.

            "Exactly."

            "What?” she turned frightened, to her father for she understood his meaning.

            "He walks the earth, Tsidhqiyah.  With your dream tonight and the way you feel, deep in your soul, as this truth is revealed to you, he knows you are awakening.  He's coming."

            "Who?"

            "Azradziel."

            "Which one of us is loosing it, Dad?” Tsidhqiyah was more frightened than she wanted to sound.

            "Perhaps you are, I wish it weren't true, but there was just too much evidence."

            "If I was born in Arabia, how did you, specifically, get me?"

            "We were chosen by a group of religious leaders; an ecumenical conference of Muslims, Jews, Coptic Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestant scholars.  I was on an archeological assignment in Palestine at the time you were brought to the hospital.  There were three men in the conference who knew my work and my spiritual gifts.  It was they who determined that you had to be raised by someone special and they chose your mother and me."

            Tsidhqiyah brought the book back to her father's desk.  When she placed it in his hands, everything went back to normal.

            "This is freaking me out.” Tsidhqiyah said as she sat down again.

            "It gets worse, child.” Marion said and put her hand comfortingly on the young woman's shoulder.

            Paul spent an hour and a half translating the Aramaic of the old book into English for Tsidhqiyah.  He read her all the passages that pertained to the coming of the first holy war on Earth after a thousand years of peace.

            "The last of the Crusades between the residents of Arabia and the Christian world were fought in the fifteenth century.  It has only been four hundred years, not a thousand, but even you must see that everything else the prophesy says has already come true.  The final step is that the child of a fallen angel be born in Babylon.  That child, Tsidhqiyah, was you.” Paul concluded.

            "Search with your God given gift of discernment, Tsidhqiyah.  Search your own soul and the knowledge you have of yourself.” Marion cautioned her.

            "I have to admit, I know you are right.  You know, Father, Mother, that I sometimes hear a voice, speaking to me in plain English, that I have attributed as the voice of Christ.  I have never been steered wrong by listening to that voice.  Now, somehow, I know that voice has confirmed what you have told me."

            Paul and Marion Justice were amazed at her calm.

            "In Genesis it says the sons of god found favor with the daughters of men.  Those were the Nephilim, but they were angels, right?  My mother was human, wasn't she?"

            "We are supposing that your mother was human for you are as perfect a human as any was ever seen, and the angels are widely accepted as being hermaphrodites.  You are only a female, Tsidhqiyah.  There were never any marks of this condition on you.” Paul explained.

            "No one knew my mother?"

            "Not in the hospital or since.  The only one who knew your mother were her husband, your father, and her people.  It is likely she was a daughter of the nomads of Iran."

            "If my human ancestry is Arabic, where did I get the green eyes and red hair?"

            "From your father.  Read in The Book of Angels his description."

            Tsidhqiyah opened the book again and read the entire passage on Azradziel.

            "Yes, it says here he was 'fiery of hair and had eyes the color of the sea, green and golden and terrible to behold."

            "You have your father's coloring and his temperament, child.” Marion said sadly.

            "I remember the temper, Mother.  But ... if I am born of a fallen angel ... does that mean I am condemned to hell as they are?" finally Tsidhqiyah had tears in her eyes.

            Paul rose from his seat and shut off the computer.  He pulled his adopted daughter to her feet and looked steadily into her green eyes.

            "Tsidhqiyah, you were born of a mortal woman and an archangel.  Though that angel preferred to serve in hell than in heaven, your mortal mother gave you a chance for the promise of God.  You willingly accepted Christ as your personal savior when you were only seven years old.  You have formally restated that vow several times since.  You are a redeemed child of God.  Your generation gives you powers and abilities beyond what most mortals know, but you have accepted, for yourself, which master you will follow."

            "Are you sure, Father?  I have accepted Christ and I believe He has accepted me, but what if my father comes for me?  What if this time, the covens win?"

            "Do you believe God will give you the strength you need?"

            "You shouldn't have to ask me that, Father."

            "Then why do you doubt?"

            Tsidhqiyah wiped the tears from her eyes.  "Let's pray.” she asked her parents.

            They moved to the center of the room and the three of them went to their knees, their arms locked about each other and joined in a unified prayer that lasted three hours.  When their prayer time was ended, both Paul and Marion Justice noticed a change in Tsidhqiyah.  If asked to describe the change, they couldn't, but she was decidedly different.

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