the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

the eleven to tell them to be at their guard. Lucifer had stolen a seed from the forbidden tree, flying about the outer rim in search of a creation. The time was ripe. While all of this was happening Lucifer and his sub angels were carrying a seed from the Hwee-Aell-Sihl-Tree, circling a galaxy and trying to create a Thirteenth Angel. For the first time, Lucifer was playing angelic creator.
When Lucifer landed on the Fields of Nostalgia, his wings had turned pitch black. His eyes were red and his feet had long nails. There was a thirteenth sub angel. An angel created by Lucifer.
The tree, the forbidden fruit tree planted as a warning, had lost a seed.
He had been the first child, he screamed, and his task was uncovering the truth.
“I warned you.” God screamed. “You did not listen.”
He smashed Lucifer against the Plato-tree, but flew up again to his sub angels’ criss-crossing the sky. Every one of them got struck by lightning and arose straight away.
Lucifer screamed. His body was convulsing and his eyes were glowing.
“I am superior to you, my Lord,” he cried. “I had the authority of the first to tread the grounds.”
God appeared in a bolt of lightning and his figure stood erect and motionless over the fourteen rebels. When the hand struck down upon them it was no longer fourteen angels but fourteen Devils, with hooves, forked tails, red skin and fur that crawled along them.
“Your vanity hath robbed the glitter in what I considered to be my brightest star! Leave this place.” God shouted. “I gave you the chance to better yourself long enough. Evict them, cut off Lucifer’s
connection with Eden!"
Michael stood at the edge, purple robe and flaming sword intact and held high.
For eons the Devils lay in the ruins of Yambalah upon dried plains, motionless.
Lucifer had fallen.

THE BATTLES OF A FALLEN STAR
A strong wind blew across the plains that night. It was a wind of change, a dark change that one day would make forlorn children cry. The first of these lost children had once been walking toward the light was now walking toward darkness. Yambalah was in mourning, for its original son had turned to vanity and greed. Somehow, no one knew exactly how, this once so gorgeous land had turned into a wasteland of rocky hillsides, deep canyons and dark forests. Lucifer’s brethren all knew that the land mirrored his soul. In the midst of this now so dim and once so potent land there lay the original cave where Lucifer had sought refuge in the beginning of time. It was surrounded by forbidden trees.
When Lucifer was evicted from the dimension of paradise the strange sub angels that had been made his own followed him. Evicted, they lay eons upon the dried plains of Yambalah before awakening again. The original thirteenth angel that Lucifer had created out of the forbidden fruit was now unwillingly turning into a demon during sleep and found himself shedding seeds upon awakening.
The forest around the cave had not been there long when Lucifer’s army started to grow.
With the army that grew, the unrest in heaven was reaching a boiling point.
It was at that point when Michael suggested a descent upon Yambalah to track down and fight the growing demonic army.
The Lord said that he would allow it, but only to crush the army and teach Lucifer a lesson.
It was dark night when the angels arrived upon a surface where the ground was cracking with drought. The hot winds that blew across the wasteland made the seraphic capes flutter in the breeze. A half-dim light shone here. It was the remnants of the old fiery glow that once inhabited the territory.
The army was moving closer. At the helm of a triangular formation of demons walked Lucifer. His visage had changed. He was now more a monster than a heavenly creature. Michael’s voice was deep and full of pity as he spoke. “Brethren, we have come to take Lucifer home.”
The ten archangels all exchanged glances. Raphael spoke. “Home? Where is his home?”
Michael looked down and kneeled upon the plain and picked up dust on the ground. He dropped it to the ground and let the dust fly away in the breeze. The other archangels heard him speak and knew instinctively what he had been saying. It was time. “I wish I could say heaven, but I cannot.”
Then Michael saw what these soldiers looked like. Hideous faces masked by black claws. There were dried plains, cracking and grey earth under a black sky as far as the eye could see. The two legions met in a clash of lightning. Clawing paws met brutal hands and soon enough the eleven brethren found themselves in the middle of a battle that seemed not to end. There were demons flying over the ground and heavenly beings in combat. Every one of the fiends seemed possessed by some willpower to crush whatever good was trying to vanquish them. Each one of them was a duplicate of the original son’s conceit, drooling, screaming, and full of spite and anguish. There was nothing left of their saintly origin.
Without forewarning the earth opened and revealed red flowing lava. Michael was forced to flap his wings fiercely in order to escape the pit. His brothers fought equally not to be drawn into the depths. Below them the demons that had been in battle with pure souls fell into the pit with high pitched wails. The earth closed and the angels left. Above the sky darkened, clouds blocking the moon.
Only two were left. Two brothers plucked from the heavens. Blood brothers under a stormy sky next to one tree that stood erect under a thunder cloud and seemed to think and watch and wonder.
It was night. There was a wind. A moon was on the rise. Two brothers stood face to face on purple plains. Against the wall of the cave a cowering sub angel, the only survivor of a heavenly war.
Michael jumped, his lily coloured robe flowing and his hawk-handled sword banging against his right thigh. He somersaulted in the air. Lucifer flew against the tree and hit his head. Green blood oozed out from his red face. Lucifer sat up and looked up at the much larger Michael, his black eyes displaying only whites below his half-moon iris. The wall of silence parted the brothers that night and its electricity still seemed almost physical. Both of them looked at each other with fearful desperation and Michael was stoic. Lucifer jumped up from his position by the tree's roots, one drop of green blood blocking his right eye’s black iris, and twisted sideways landing on both legs and leaving Michael on the ground.
Michael gathered his strength, flew up and Lucifer, who saw this, met him half-way. They crashed together, collided and fell on the ground. Lucifer grabbed Michael's face and squeezed. Michael struggled and started kicking him in the back with the leg that Lucifer was not pushing down.
“We are fighting because you cannot realize that humility makes one stronger.” Michael gasped.
“Humility. I spit on that.” Lucifer’s pant was rank as he spoke.
Michael freed an arm and grabbed Lucifer's naked wing to pull him away. There was a fierce sensation of pain as Lucifer felt his blood brother's nails bury themselves deep inside his flesh. He screamed, face upward, gnarling high-pitched. Then he looked down at his brother and was just about to hit his brother when he was taken aback. He flew up, haunted by some vision. It was from the future. And as the vision came, the sub angel cowering by the cave wall looked up and saw it too.

A man hanging from an oak, Caiphas’ gold coins beneath his cloak, Sunset behind him on a hill,
A soon resurrected heart goodness of will, The fire inside that soul, Realized as Judas’ goal.

The vision disappeared in a flash when Michael awoke with a start. Michael kicked Lucifer’s chin, blood spurting from his left nostril, his face sideways and claws up, the braches of the tree looking like demon hands.

Lucifer remembered the 666 sub devils falling into the ground, how his horns had turned black as a result.

Lucifer looked again at his sub angel, whose gazing eyes were full of fear.
He could see the eternity in that cowering angel’s eyes.
“I am sorry, Lucifer. As an Archangel I should not be violent, but we gave you enough chances to better yourself, even when you went way over the line.”
Michael turned around only to feel claws grab his legs and then land face forward on the ground. Michael looked into the night, only dust in front of him.
His legion was now below, if he understood it correctly, right below, being tossed and turned between ice and fire by an invisible twister. But where was the gate?
Lucifer turned around but Michael was still in the lead.

Where is my cave, the Callenian Cave? Yes, of course, my oasis. I see it.

The two wrestled until they both were about thirty feet from the tree, bloody and beaten.
Michael kicked his brother in the groin and made him cringe.
“Secrets?” Michael said. “What secrets lay under your skin?”
“I have none.” Lucifer answered. “Mine is an open heart.”
Lucifer punched Michael twice, once on the left and once on the right cheek.
Michael sunk down on his knees and growled. He looked down.
"I doubt very much that you have a heart … you had the nerve to question God.”
By the light of the full moon a howl was heard. The branches of the tree, which’d grown another inch now, made shadows on the plain. “Where did that howl come from?”
”I think your sub angel is crying, Lucifer!”
Lucifer shot up and aimed for the cave and Michael went after him, but half way there he was stopped by a light that came from above. It was like a bright spotlight that just became brighter as it descended. Lucifer horned and hoofed, stood with arched back and twisted fingers and looked up, eyes completely white, Michael thirty feet behind him, dumbfounded. A bolt of lightning came down and struck Lucifer, whose body convulsed and shook, fell to the ground and screamed, leaving echoes bouncing off the invisible walls of nowhere. He jerked up on his feet and grew still.
Then out of Lucifer emerged the white spirit he once had been. It had white wings and dark blond hair. It was young, handsome, and brave, dazzling in beauty, spiritual in frame. It hung midair, then spoke.

"I am your ruined future. Look at me through your bars, Lucifer."

Lucifer turned around and looked at Michael with eyes that spoke of fear and jerked around looking up at God. The light vanished and the spotlight left only the angel on the plains.
But as the angel took physical form it attacked Lucifer.
The two flew up and crossed the land, followed by Michael at a steady pace.
Into valleys they flew, by the minute more beaten, they grew angrier.
Two personas, one person. Two souls, one spirit. Two victories. One evictor.
Back on the plains, Purity dragged Impurity across the wilderness and it seemed to be clear that Purity had won. Seeds of Hwee-Aell-Sihl were dropping away from Impurity. The plants of forbidden fruit sprung up like weeds across the plains around the cave. Soon enough a forest was raging around them. And now the birds that were emerging out of the new woodwork did not croak, they screamed.
Lucifer, suddenly energetic from this newly found surrounding promoting his