The Flaming Sword Of Michael

“Knowledge has led them to the reality of insight, and they are in contact with the spirit of certainty. They find easy what is regarded as rough by those who live in comfort and luxury. They are intimate with what terrifies the ignorant. They are in the company of people with their bodies, yet their souls are lodged in the highest realm.”

- Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam, No. 147 -Ali

"Chosen?" Michael replied in a shaky voice. He brought his equally shaky right hand up before his face, and asked the strange gray cat through his fingers, "Chosen for what?"

"You've been chosen to wield a great power." She said elusively.

Michael's head bobbed once, then twice. Ignoring completely that he was having a very serious conversation with a cat, he said, "Yes I see, but.. ..but what am I supposed to do with this great power?"

Lilith paused to consider her answer. Michael jumped back in with another question. "And why? Why me?"

Happy to pounce onto a new thread, Lilith fixed a flinty stare on him. Michael found it difficult to meet that stare, yet impossible to look away. She then widened her eyes, and craned her neck up at him.

"You were chosen because of your rare and pure heart Michael. You are an innocent, but with a strength uncommon in your kind."

"Is it from Radiation, or something?" Michael interrupted. "Are one of my parents an alien?"

Lilith rocked her roundish head side to side, and rolled her eyes slightly upward and away from him. "That's.. ..not exactly how it works.. ..what I mean to say is.." She trailed off for a moment then sighed.

"Okay, look. Your species, your kind, there's a great deal about the universe you live in that you don't know. You actually know very little, and what little you claim to know is often wrong, or at least not quite right." She was trying very hard to not seem condescending.

"Is it something from God?" asked JoAnne who'd just come around from the shock of what had happened. She still had no idea what was going on, but managed to absorb the latter part of the conversation happening between her friend (and now knight in shining armor) and a cat. A fact that also didn't seem to elicit the sort of reaction from her it would from you or I.

The little cat chuckled. "We're getting off point. I'm sorry young lady, but I didn't come here to discuss theology with you, nor are you chosen. You were someone who needed help, and Michael is someone who's been given the power to do what was needed. That is all."

Lilith saw a potential problem here as JoAnne decided whether or not add something. The cat could easily see how her new weapon, her new ward, hung on every word or gesture this dim little human made. Mercifully the child opted for silence.

"About that power..." began Michael, but this time Lilith butt in.

"In time Michael. In time." This time she failed to hide the exasperation in her voice. "For now, all you need to know is that you have this power. It is the power to change a person's heart. Only you, so innocent and pure could be trusted with it. Only you can defeat evil where it lives."

That last sentence wasn't metaphorical. Though, at the time, Lilith didn't see any reason to tell anyone that.

"So what? I'm supposed to wait around for bad things to happen, and stop them?" Asked Michael. "Like, like a superhero!?" He was warming to this bizarre scenario. "I'll like, wait behind the school where the bad kids hang out, and when they do something bad, I'll be there to shine a light into the darkness. To bring truth, justice, and the American way. I'll have them... ...Hey, wait. Am I gonna get a cool costume?"

Michael trailed of when he got a look at Lilith's face. The concern, and pity he read in that open face of hers gave him pause. And I don't mind telling you, when she spoke to him then, afterwards, he did indeed pause.

"Michael." She stated with a sad weight. "You are not going to school today. You are never going again, likely. The bus has not arrived, because I have arranged it so. Your power is not for this silly little suburb, where evil is an occasional occurrence. You will come with me on a journey; a very difficult journey. Your life will forever be different from this moment on."

The gravity and timbre of her voice had changed while she spoke. It felt to Michael as though the words were a physical presence around him knocking him back and holding him up. He blinked slowly twice and put his knuckle under his lip, then muttered, "I don't really have a choice do I?"

"Of course you do." Said Lilith softly. "But the world needs you. I need you. JoAnne, and your parents need you. There is a great evil coming, and as powerful as you are now, you're no match for it yet. You must come with me to learn, to train. My sisters are plotting to enslave this world, and you are the only person who can stop them."

"Sisters?"

"Yes, my sisters, Agrat Bat, Naamah, and Eisheth Zenium. They and their children known as the Cambion are coming soon, and we must stop them."

The fear evident on Lilith's face silenced the two teenagers. An unseasonably chilly breeze swept the early fall leaves up all around them, then settled on the ground one at a time like spirits falling into the river Styx. Michael shivered visibly, bud nodded at Lilith.

"How?"

...To be continued.