TWENTY-TWO

I STOOD ON THE DOORSTEP of my apartment with Betty and four of her friends —most of them even older than her, with gray hair, thick-soled shoes, and old-lady perfume. But hey, they were all Lights and had smiles as kind as Betty’s. As I unlocked the door, Betty met eyes with each of them, exchanging determined glances before rolling up her sleeves. “Let the cleaning begin,” she told them. As much as my place could have used a good scrub down, I knew that wasn’t what they had in mind.

I stepped through the door and looked around but saw nothing —no Creepers or afterlife wanderers. Still, Betty and her crew shut the front door and started praying like Satan himself was camping out at my place. At first it struck me as over the top —and even comical —how loud and assertive they were. But then something cool happened.

A lady named Connie pulled a small bottle of oil from her purse, ready to “anoint” the place, as she called it. While reciting Psalm 91, she smeared the clear oil on every doorframe in my apartment —the patio, bedroom, and bathroom doors included. She dabbed the stuff on every one of my windows too, declaring that God is a protective shield against evil’s terrors at night, the arrow that flies by day, and the plague that stalks in darkness. I’d never seen arrows flying in the spirit world, but I’d definitely felt dark thoughts hit me like they were shot from a demonic bow.

“Wickedness has no more right to enter this apartment,” Connie prayed. The cool thing was, each time she streaked the oil, to my spiritual sight it went from clear to a metallic, rainbow-looking gloss.

Then things took a revolting turn.

As Connie applied her oil to random spots on my walls, declaring that no pestilence would ravage my dwelling or come near me, that rustling sound I’d been hearing at night began to stir, like there was a big commotion behind the Sheetrock.

I put my ear to the wall. “Do you hear that?”

Connie tilted her head and listened, then eyed me like I was strange.

A lady named Glenda who barely came up to my chest began to belt out an old hymn, and my apartment got brighter —a brightness that exposed shadows moving inside the walls. I looked closer . . .

And freaked.

They were insects. Like, the demonic kind you might imagine skittering down the halls of hell. Hundreds of them, creeping behind the drywall and across my high ceilings. Then it got even worse. They came spewing out of the walls, landing on my sofa and furniture and all over the carpet. I hopped from one foot to the other, startling everyone, including Glenda, who stopped singing.

“Keep going!” I told her. As much as the extermination process grossed me out, I knew it had to be done.

She picked up the same chorus but was off pitch now, distracted by watching me jump around my apartment like a weirdo. But seriously, these bugs were like nothing on earth, and not just because they were way bigger. Some looked like cockroaches but with fat bumble-bee stingers, and there were spiders with crab-like pincers. There were slimy worms everywhere too —come to think of it, exactly like the one I’d seen at Veronica’s breathing deal in the clearing.

But by far, the most horrendous demonic-world pest had to have been the hairy black scorpions . . .

That flew.

I shielded my head and ran for cover into my bedroom, but they were in there, too. Every square foot of my apartment was infested. Finally, I realized that they fled from the circle of light on the floor around me. That helped me calm down a bit.

Still, what had I done to deserve this? Veronica came to mind. I’d been hearing movement in my walls ever since she’d stepped inside my apartment and borrowed my scissors. And read my palm. Had she drawn them here?

At last, Heaven sent the women some supernatural reinforcements. Custos charged into my apartment and stood in my living room, extending his arms shoulder high, palms up. More luminescent beings entered the room, only these were birds —two of them, big and solid white with glistening eyes and the wingspan of eagles. They each perched on one of Custos’s outstretched arms.

Custos spoke a word I didn’t understand, then tossed his arms up, sending the breathtaking birds forward in flight. Graceful and devastating, they scoured the place, grabbing and devouring the insects with menacing talons and crushing beaks. They swept through my whole apartment, sailing through walls, and I noticed with awe that instead of shadows, they cast light —light that zapped the insects dead.

It didn’t take long for the entire pestilence to die, their disgusting, mangled bug bodies piled on the floor. Custos raised a balled fist, then knelt and punched the ground, causing the bugs to bounce all together high in the air, then fall beneath the carpet, disappearing from my place. Away from the earthly realm entirely, I believed. Even my visible housefly population was gone. Meanwhile, the majestic birds flew up and out through my closed living room windows.

The only word for it was epic.

Even though they couldn’t see what I could, Betty and her friends seemed just as confident their prayers had been answered. They raised their hands and started singing and saying all kinds of adoring things to God. Custos laughed with delight, then got down and lay prostrate on his stomach, stretching from one end of my living room clear across to the other. I promise you, his armored feet were as long as my arms. He spoke in his unknown language, also worshiping, it seemed.

The spiritual atmosphere in my apartment became a jaw-dropping spectrum of light. From the ceiling to the floor, vibrant, translucent colors tumbled and swirled, dancing all over us. And a sense of all-consuming, unconditional love permeated the room —a deep knowledge that we were treasured beyond comprehension and never, ever had to fear losing our worth.

It was the kind of love every human craves but seems to always fail at giving.

My father had explained that God is self-contained and doesn’t desire or need me to express affection to him. It was best to give people love rather than the Source, he’d said. But all I knew was, in that moment, I couldn’t help but lift my hands and keep telling God how awesome he was.

I would have liked to pause that moment forever, but eventually, Betty and her friends hugged me before making their way out the door. I’d never been embraced by a grandparent, but when Connie squeezed me, I figured that must be what it feels like. Custos exited too, but he didn’t go far. He stood at attention on my balcony, his armored back to my door.

I collapsed onto my sofa and glanced around the room, still smiling. The awesome airborne colors had faded, but the rainbow oil streaks smeared on surfaces throughout my apartment hadn’t dimmed a bit.

I had so much to tell Ray Anne. I gave up on playing hard to get and called her. She said she was in bed, feeling a little better but still exhausted from battling a fever and relentless cough.

My heart sank. That’s why I hadn’t heard from her. I felt like a jerk.

I understood why she didn’t invite me over —she said she looked as awful as she’d been feeling —but I decided I’d surprise her anyway. I grabbed the envelope with Arthur’s letter inside, then hopped on my bike and picked up some Chick-fil-A chicken noodle soup plus a bouquet of colorful flowers. Once I turned onto her street, I gassed it, anxious to see her and tell her all about the world-changing mission we’d been given.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so shocked, but when I saw Ethan’s white Volvo parked in Ray’s driveway, I slammed on my brakes and glared in disbelief.

Surely they weren’t alone in her garage apartment, right? Less than an hour ago, she’d told me she wasn’t up for having anyone over.

I parked my motorcycle sideways behind Ethan’s safety-rated sedan, prepared to give her the soup and flowers right in front of his two-faced face. He knew she and I were a couple.

Sure enough, as I approached, I heard them inside laughing. Ray Anne coughed but caught her breath and kept giggling.

I figured, why knock when I could spy?

I wedged myself between some shrubs and the garage and inched my way to the window. There was Ethan, seated in a chair beside Ray’s bed, where she sat leaning against a pile of pillows, angled toward him. He reached out and clutched her hands, then began praying for her. That’s when Ramus, the armored Watchman who frequented Ray Anne’s house, appeared behind Ethan. I squinted as he placed an enormous, luminescent hand on their backs.

Ray and I had prayed together lots of times, but never once had a Watchman affirmed our relationship. That’s what this looked like to me.

I knew it was unspiritual or whatever, but I couldn’t help it —I was mad at Ramus.

I hurled the Chick-fil-A sack and bouquet into a garbage can in Ray Anne’s driveway and took off on my bike, passing vehicles like a madman. My mind raced even faster than my wheels.

Betty meant well, but she was dead wrong about my relationship with Ray Anne. There was no devil dividing Ray’s heart from mine. She was flat-out falling for another guy. And God clearly approved.

As for my father, he’d had the insight to see the truth and the decency to warn me. Evil wants to crush the human heart, not protect it —why couldn’t anyone understand that the departed spirits were on my side?

I went barreling into my apartment and slammed the door so hard, a picture fell off my wall and crashed to the floor. I didn’t care.

Custos was nowhere to be found, which irritated me some more.

I grabbed Arthur’s message from my pocket and held it high —my best attempt at waving it in God’s face. “How am I supposed to accomplish this with her when she’s trying to replace me with another guy?”

I squeezed the envelope, tempted to rip it down the middle, but somehow I found the restraint to toss it onto my breakfast table instead.

The silence was deafening. The anger, intoxicating.

I fell back hard on my sofa and chucked a hardbound book across the room. It slammed the wall and landed on top of the broken picture, shattering glass.

Good.

I’d committed to Betty to be done with my father forever, and Betty had assured me he’d never show up inside my place again. Those doors had been closed in the spirit realm this morning, and I was supposed to keep them shut. But right now, aggravated and alone, the desire to reach out to my dad was overwhelming.

I pressed my palms against my eyelids.

At first, I thought I was imagining the sound of my father calling my name, especially when I uncovered my eyes and saw that my power was still on. But then I heard it again. I stood and looked around. “Father? Is that you?”

“I’m here.”

I followed the sound of his voice to my front door. It sounded like he was standing on the other side.

“Please. Let me in, Son.”