Free DAEMONOMANIA: Book Three of the Aegypt Cycle by John Crowley

opened the door and slipped in, gaze lowered. Among those cross-legged on the floor was Mike, and he patted the place
     next to him, smiling. Ray Honeybeare sat on the edge of a tiny fiberglass chair, leaning forward, his hugeness balanced with
     remarkable delicacy there. He saw Rose, he definitely took notice of her, but made no sign, and did not pause.
    “So I’m not going to speculate about the end,” he was saying, “or about God’s plans for the future of this world. And I don’t
     particularly want to hear about your speculations either. But I know this: I know that the time we’re passing through right
     now is a time unlike any other. A time full of possibility, for good or evil. A time when God’s kingdom comes very close to
     our old earth, maybe not to arrive for good, maybe just to give us a glimpse. A time when some dreadful evil’s being done
     too, a time of contention between God and the Devil, when the Devil sees his chance to make big gains and is doing his damnedest—yes,
     his damnedest!—to take that opportunity.”
    Rose lifted her eyes to Ray, a shy smile, in case his eyes met hers. They did. She felt weirdly penetrated, though his smile
     was kind. He was big, both tall and heavy, and old, though just how old was hard to guess; his face was a network of fine
     cracks, as though it had been shattered once to fragments and glued patiently back together, and his featureswere small in its expanse: delicately winged nose, thin small mouth, very small nearly browless eyes of icicle blue. They
     did what eyes she read about in books often did but which she had not actually observed till she saw Ray’s: they twinkled.
     Glittered lightly as though faceted and catching the light when his big head turned.
    “And what role in this do we have? What are we as workers in the mental health field supposed to be doing in these days, what’s
     going to be our function and our job? Well, let’s open this book we have and do some reading.”
    He plucked with a practiced gesture a black leatherback from the baggy briefcase at his feet and opened it. Rose saw that
     it was stuffed with paper markers and place-holders of different colors. “Luke ten,” he said. Many of the others opened similar
     books, and around her there was an autumnal rustle of leaves turned. She remembered now that Mike had told her to bring a
     Bible (New Testament) and she clasped her empty hands.
    Ray Honeybeare cleared his throat. “Here Jesus sends out seventy of his disciples to go on ahead of him through the world,
     two by two. Seventy people, that’s a lot. And he says he is sending them out as laborers to the harvest, but he also says,
     doesn’t he, that he is sending them out as lambs in the midst of wolves. And he tells them that where they are rejected, they
     should shake even the dust of those towns from their feet, and they should make it clear that
the kingdom of God has come near
and that there will be some stiff judgments made against those places; but where they are well received, he says, they are
     to heal the sick.
    “Now there is no doubt they did so, as Jesus did; and how exactly did they do so? Well, when they return, what they say to
     Jesus, the first thing they say, is—let’s look, ten seventeen—‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.’”
    He looked over them, having clinched his argument (so his face and eyes said) and waiting for them to catch on or up.
    “The demons,” he said again softly. “Even the demons.” He read: “‘And he said unto them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from
     heaven. Behold I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions,
and over all the power of the enemy
: and nothing shall hurt you.’”
    Now there could be no mistake, his eyes said, and they were silent before him, getting it or maybe not getting it, and he
     spoke with sudden force (Rose started a little in surprise or guilt): “
They were healing the sick by ordering