Chapter Fifty-seven

Only when the dark spirits that suffocated the group lifted was Leuters able to identify the putrid brimstone scent they carried as the same that permeated the Mexican federal prison where he had been incarcerated. As soon as he identified the familiar smell, his mind clicked into the realm of the cosmic mind, and though his body remained on Bell Rock, his awareness was instantly transported to the prison.

He saw all of the cells in the prison simultaneously. Some of the inmates he recognized from his time in the correctional institution, but many he had never seen before. He watched from the perspective of the all-knowing, all-seeing cosmic mind as both prisoners and guards alike shook in seizure. Their bodies flounced violently, both orange jumpsuits and tan uniforms, as dark energy birthed itself through every orifice in their bodies. It looked like a scene from Revelations, where people twisted in torment while burning eternally in a lake of fire. Not every person in the prison suffered from this demonic birthing process, however. A few of the prisoners slept soundly on their bunks, wrapped in threadbare wool blankets that were dirty from years of use.

Leuters’s mind traveled around the globe, and he watched varying expressions of the same scene. Somewhere on the other side of the world, speaking in a language that Leuters didn’t recognize, a self-proclaimed prophet dressed in holy garb vomited black spiritual tar while standing at the front of an auditorium.

He watched as every person on the planet expelled the dark delusions that haunted their bodies and minds, realizing that most people, even the relatively normal, were in fact very spiritually ill. The darkness rose like smoke, hanging in the ether. The poor, the rich, the famous, leaders of churches, government officials—there were no exceptions. Except one: a small town in New Zealand where kids played hide-and-seek. He watched as each child let out a small cough and released a puff of gray smoke, then resumed their game, unaware of the commotion rocking the rest of the world.

It lasted for only three minutes. And then the world was silent again. People looked about them in a daze, not understanding what had just happened. They rubbed their eyes as if waking from a bad dream.

His perception clicked back into Sedona, where all of the darkness, from around the globe, had traveled. He watched the spirits whir, loud and violent, wrapping around and passing through the brother he had known in this lifetime. His brother fell to his knees and screamed. Every horror that had been created on the Earth passed through his consciousness in a stream of images. The darkness demanded to be both known and experienced until it had found its resolution. But, in him, it wouldn’t find the light that it sought. His brother screamed curses and banged his head against the ground—as if trying to knock himself out.

“Jiso!” Angeline cried. The alarm in her voice indicated that she had witnessed the same scene. She turned her head quickly and locked eyes with Leuters, though he could hardly see her through the cloud of darkness that shrouded her. “Come to me! Every single one of you—come to me!” she commanded the proximal darkness. Her voice boomed with such authority that Leuters’s body shook in response. Within seconds, the remaining darkness in the small mountain town rushed forth and engulfed her. Jiso had been freed. He dropped his head into his hands and wept, thanking a God that he neither saw nor felt.

Leuters breathed a sigh of relief. He saw his brother for what he was. His soul had never matured. He was like a child, burdened by the consequences of untold lifetimes of bad choices.

In a startling contrast, Angeline had offered to shoulder the burden that Jiso had created, but was incapable to carry on his own. Tears streamed down Leuters’s cheeks. Simply witnessing the maturity that she displayed made his soul reach to do the same. She had taken responsibility for the darkness, whether it was hers or not, and he was determined to do the same. He turned to find her, but she had completely disappeared from sight. She stood at the center of a hurricane of terror and darkness.

Leuters remembered the vow that he had made to her: I will protect you. He looked around wildly, trying to formulate a plan. He called to the darkness, just as Angeline had, “Come to me!”

The darkness did not move. It shifted around her, clamoring like moths to the flame.

“Come to me!” he yelled again, this time more

emphatically. He jumped up and down and waved his arms. “Come to me . . . come to me . . .” he cried desperately when he saw that his plea had been unnoticed.

“We have to help her!” Toby hollered over the deafening sound. “We can’t leave her alone; there will be nothing left of her.”

“I’ll go,” Noah yelled. He braced himself to run straight into the darkness.

“I’m going with you,” Suna called after him.

Noah stopped, turned around and shook his head. “No,” was all he said.

“I have to,” she said. “For myself, for my humanity, for my world.”

Ignoring Noah’s protest, Leuters wrapped his arm around her, an attempt to shield her, as they ran into the darkness without a moment of hesitation. Toby and Noah were fast on their heels. They didn’t know what they would face; they only knew that they needed to help Angeline—for themselves, for their humanity, for their world.