The man looked up to the sky where he new that the moon, while not quite full, hung overhead. His rational mind argued that it was the light from that moon, the light that shined down into the night which caused the eerie glow on the dense fog rolling in from the lake. But he had stopped paying attention to his rational mind long ago. What good had it ever done for him?
It was hard to believe that it had been almost a year since he began to hear the angel’s song; a year since the angel first whispered into his ear. In that year, like clockwork each and every new moon, the angel returned crooning its message.
At first, even he did not believe that he was the recipient of Heaven's words. He thought that he was losing his mind, but the doctors who ran the myriad tests told him that all was normal. There was no physical reason for him to have these auditory hallucinations. Instead they referred him to a psychiatrist.
“What a bunch of hooey that was,” he thought. “A psychiatrist is merely the modern day equivalent of a witch doctor — someone who pretends to treat his patient but does not really know anything at all. A psychiatrist employs the same hocus pocus and voodoo that any shaman uses to treat the uneducated. They dupe their own patients.”
Of course, those medicos offered him pharmaceutical treatment, but what good could that do? The medications only masked the truth by using physical changes in brain chemistry. Besides, they did not work; not really. Nothing in mankind’s arsenal could stop the angel from singing into his ear when the angel only followed the instructions of his creator.
Once he accepted the reality of the angel’s song, he put away his belief in the rational and turned his faith to the angel. It was then that the words the angel sang became sharper, and it was then that the man began to understand.
“But why me?” he once asked the angel. “Who am I? I am a nobody; just another ordinary guy living an ordinary life. There is nothing special about me. Why was I chosen for this message? Why was I chosen to be Heaven's vessel? Why must I put this cup to my lips? Until you sang to me, I never even believed in God and I am hardly an innocent man.”
“Who are you to question the will of Heaven?” the angel sang back. “He has chosen you. That is all you must know.”
The song grew clearer.
The end was nigh and this was the year when Samayel would finally break free from his prison. This was the year when the Dark Prince would rise from the fiery pits of hell to walk among men in God’s creation. His legions would follow to take peace from the earth and he would reign across the world -- unless he was stopped.
“But how can I stop him?” the man asked the angel.
The angel sang back and Heaven’s command became more clear. The righteous man must stand before the Gates of Hell and offer a lamb to God. Then bathed in that blood, a blood infused with all the power of Heaven, the righteous man could repel the legions of Hell.
The year had passed and with each new moon, the angel’s song grew louder. Tonight was the night. Halloween was and had always been the night when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest.
He looked into the fog. The light from within that fog grew brighter and he knew that light was not reflected from the moon, rather it emanated from the flames that burned in the pit. The light they made shined through the veil as the Gates of Hell cried out in complaint while demonic hordes attempted to pry them open. From within the deep fog he heard the roar of those demons and he heard the raspy voice of the Dark Prince command his legions as he arrayed them to take the earth.
The angel’s song continued in his ear urging him to take quick action. The time was now and he must act.
“This is it. It’s now or never,” he thought. “But the sacrifice — it’s too great!”
“Is the life of one lamb greater than all of creation?” the angel sang his reply.
From deep behind the fog he heard Samayel continue to order his armies about.
“Why would God ask this of me?” he wondered.
“Hurry,” the angel sang. “It must be now. Or would you allow The Morning Star to darken the world?”
“I can’t!” the man wailed.
“You must,” the angel sang.
He shook his head and felt the tear that welled in his eye and then the tickle it made as it trekked down his cheek. He raised his arm, blade in hand, ready to bring it down to strike the lamb, then looked to his own innocent son who was drugged and tied to the altar.
“Be prepared to go forth,” from the fog he heard Samayel’s call to his army in a voice that sounded too much like the angel’s song.
He hesitated.
“Now!” the angel commanded in his ear.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the angel take form just beyond the fog on this side of the veil.
Realization hit him. This was no angel singing in his ear.
He looked down to his son still tied to the altar, then cried out in anger at how he had been duped. The man plunged the knife into his own torso and fell to the ground.
The angel walked through the fog and knelt down beside the man.
“Foolish man,” the angel sang.
“I have ruined your plan,” the man replied. “You cannot bring him through, now.”
The angel laughed as he reached down and placed his hand into the blood that pooled from the man’s wound.
“It is not the blood of the innocent that we need. It is the blood of the righteous.”
As the man’s life ebbed away, he saw the angel turn and use his own blood to unlock the Gates.