Free Rising Darkness by D. Brian Shafer Page B

disappeared. Recovering from the visit, she leapt up to pursue the man, and ran into her husband, Manoah, as he was coming into the house.
    “Woman, are you out of your mind?” he demanded.
    Dheer and Michael smiled at the comical event. Dheer then turned to Michael and asked him, “Am I assigned to the woman, or to her child?”
    “You are assigned to both,” said Michael. “The enemy will certainly want to destroy the child before he can fulfill the task of delivering his people.”
    The two angels watched as the woman explained to her husband all that had happened. Manoah was completely baffled; he wondered if perhaps the woman had gone mad or had been drinking some of the local wine.
    “No, I am not drunk,” she said. “I tell you the man came and said we were to have a son! And he shall be a Nazarite and…”
    “Please!” he said. “Let me think this through.”
    He sat for a moment in silence and then, looking at his wife incredulously, got onto his knees and began pleading with the Lord to send the man to him so that he might understand what was going on. Dheer watched as the man prayed and prayed and…nothing happened. Frustrated, Manoah rose from his knees and sat silently at the table, gnawing on the bread that his wife set before him.
    “It seems that the Angel of the Lord will not come again this evening,” said Michael. He grinned. “Poor Manoah!”
    “What a wonderful promise!” said Dheer excitedly.
    “And an important assignment,” said Michael. “I told you that something remarkable was happening in Zorah!”
    Far above them, hanging silently over the little town, a dark angel named Shawa was watching the entire episode unfolding. As one of Kara’s spies, he had been following Michael’s movements ever since he had entered the area, and had witnessed the whole affair.
    He smiled and said quietly to himself, “You are right, Archangel. Something remarkable is
indeed
happening in Zorah!”

    “I should think that Michael would have sent a more important angel to Zorah if there was indeed something of importance happening there,” said Kara, musing over the recent developments in Dan. He looked at Pellecus for a response.
    Pellecus quelled the anger he felt rising in him toward Kara, who he thought was a posturing fool at times. For his part, Kara thoroughly enjoyed his role as interpreter of the information brought to him by his spies on the field. He believed that this made him not only powerful in his own right, but a valuable asset to Lucifer.
    “The fact that Michael was in Zorah with Dheer is of little importance,” said Pellecus, who had been given explicit instructions by Lucifer to work with Kara in keeping abreast of any movement by the Lord in Canaan. “However, the fact that the Angel of the Lord was involved is quite telling and therefore the promise of another deliverer must be taken seriously.”
    Kara looked at Pellecus and nodded in agreement with the angel in whom he had little trust but with whom he must now cooperate.
    “I quite agree, Pellecus,” he finally said. “We need more intelligence on this.”
    Kara smiled a knowing smile. “Have no fear, Pellecus,” he said. “I have ordered Shawa to remain close to the family of Manoah and report on whatever transpires.”
    “I hope you have ordered him to stay clear of Dheer,” said Pellecus. “He may not be competent but he is no fool!”
    “Do you really believe that the deliverer is about to be born?” asked Kara.
    Pellecus smirked at Kara.
    “He must be born one day,” he surmised. “If not this time, then some day. But the Angel of the Lord said he was to deliver his people from the Philistines. The Lord’s Angel does not appear to humans without purpose. Remember Hagar? And Gideon?”
    “Of course,” said Kara. “And Gideon delivered his people from the Midianites. That cowering fool! It seems the Lord will use simply anyone—especially if they are incompetent or untrained!”
    “That is part