Love in the WINGS (3 page)

Pia jumped up and scrambled for the phone on the wall. “Lady Zoe! Oh, sweetie, I'm so happy to hear from you!” Tears overflowed Pia's big eyes and made twin trails down her cheeks.

Aria turned, intending to allow her boss a bit of privacy, but Pia held up a hand. “Excuse me, Zoe. Aria, please stay. Just go lock the front door and come back. I have a feeling we both need to hear this.”

Puzzled, Aria nevertheless hurried through the shop and locked up. Pia's voice sounded stronger by the time Aria slid into the seat across the table, and the smile the Pia offered as she reached across to squeeze Aria's hand seemed more relaxed and familiar.

“OK, sweetie,” Pia spoke into the receiver. “I'd love to just sit here and listen to your voice all day, but Aria is back, and we need…something. I'm putting you on speaker now.” She pushed a button that opened up the line for Aria to listen in. “Aria, Zoe is a dear, sweet friend and sister in Christ…and she has a connection with God unlike anyone else I know.” Her gaze met Aria's and held it as she spoke to Zoe. “Zoe, honey, what have you got for us?”

“Ladies, Zack and I have been battling Satan on your behalf for days. But I knew this morning that I had to call in some back-up. Things in Angel Falls are about to take a turn for the hellish, and you're going to need every piece of spiritual armor you can scrape together to keep the church afloat. And…” She paused.

Aria heard her draw a deep breath.

“Now, Miss Pia, there is no time for panic, but you should know that the enemy is going to target David in particular. I don't have a lot of details, but I do know this—you need to put together the strongest prayer team you can, starting…well, sometime last week, I think.”

Zoe's voice took on a deep urgency that communicated itself, even over the phone line, and squeezed Aria's heart in a painful vise-grip.

“This battle will not be lengthy, but make no mistake—it will not...be...easy. The enemy is swooping in hard and fast. Dark forces are seeking to destroy that amazing foundation of love in Angel Falls. Without it, the church there is lost, and Satan knows that.”

Aria couldn't quite break eye contact with Pia. She saw, in the slightly uptilted eyes, something that was almost certainly reflected in her own: Fear. Stark, unbridled terror.

Zoe paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter but no less direct. “Girls, I need you to hear this. Are you listening?”

In the silence that followed, Aria realized the woman actually wanted a reply. She sent a silent question to Pia, who nodded and spoke in the strongest voice Aria had heard from her today. “I'm listening, sweetie.”

“Good. Aria?”

“I—I hear you.”

“All right. Do
not
allow fear to have its way with your spirit. It will weaken your prayer force. The enemy is strong and determined. But hear this, my sweet sisters—God is stronger, and mightier in battle, and He's already sent in an entire league of angels to fight with you.” The sweet voice suddenly took on a note of pure steel, and Aria felt the force of that iron spirit zip through her own. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world!”

 

 

 

 

3

 

Aria went about her duties that afternoon in a quiet, meditative mood, but something in her spirit tossed in restless anticipation of a coming storm. From the other room, Pia's voice drifted in. She was on the phone, setting up a round-the-clock prayer team. Each church member she brought into the circle was made aware of what was going on and asked to spend an hour of prayer each day in The Falls Tabernacle prayer room. Based on Aria's descriptions of the thick atmosphere she'd encountered everywhere except at the church that morning, they'd decided their safest battleground would be the church itself.

Aria requested the prayer time immediately following her morning hours in the church office. She could walk into the sanctuary and spend her hour there each day before driving across town to work with Pia.

She peeked in on her boss once, and a glance at the list on the table surprised her.

“Pia…you have David on the team?”

“Of course!”

“But…I thought…”

Pia's smile was a little strained. “Sweetie, if David is going to be targeted specifically, he needs to be aware of the invasion and part of the defense force.” She lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “Besides, I happen to know my husband is a very strong prayer warrior.”

“I know he is. That makes sense.” Aria scanned the list and bit at her lip. “Mr. and Mrs. Hart?”

Pia actually chuckled. “Oh, yes! No prayer team at The Falls Tabernacle is complete without Uncle Andy and his…friends.”

Aria eased into the chair across from her boss. “You're talking about angels, aren't you?”

Pia studied her for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes.”

“You believe he sees them? That he actually talks to them?”

“I do.”

Aria drew a deep breath. “That's good enough for me.” She pointed to the name above her own on the list. “Corbin Bishop?” Despite her best effort, a note of displeasure colored her tone.

Pia hiked a dark, wing-shaped brow. “You have a problem with Corbin praying with us?”

“No! No…of course not. I'm sorry. I don't mean to question your choices.”

Pia reached for her hand. “Honey, what is going on between you and Corbin? He seems like a fine young man to me. And handsome…” She picked up her list and playfully fanned her face with it. “Oh, my word!”

Aria sighed. “Yes, he's handsome. And I'm sure he's nice. I just—oh, Pia, I don't know. He's done nothing at all to make me react the way I do, but—” She shook her head. “I rear up like a kitty in a dog kennel any time he wanders into my range of vision.”

Pia laughed outright.

Aria rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. But I just can't seem to help it.”

“David said he had a little”—Pia gnawed her lip, and then an impish grin lit her face—”well, a little
chat
with the two of you this morning.”

“Yeah.” Even to herself, Aria sounded like a disgruntled child. “We're supposed to pray for each other every day for a week.”

Pia grinned and gave Aria a proud thumbs-up. “That man of mine is more than just a handsome face, girl. He's about as smart as they come!”

Aria shook her head and stood, but she found a smile dancing at the corners of her own lips. “Praying for each other? That's your idea of ingenious thinking?”

“Why, sweetie, of course it is! Prayer is always the best answer.” She picked up the phone and ran a finger down the list to the next name. “And right now I've got more prayer business to take care of myself.”

 

****

 

After his unexpected morning discussion with Pastor David and Aria, Corbin spent the next couple of hours feeling a bit subdued, even fighting doubts as to whether he'd been wrong to come to Angel Falls. The move had felt so right in the beginning, but now….

Then he'd received a strange call from Pastor David's wife. She mentioned a call she'd received from a missionary friend in Haiti, and asked him to be part of a prayer team she was putting together to battle an oncoming spiritual storm. They would all meet at the church tomorrow night for further information.

Corbin agreed without hesitation, but not because he had any great belief in this kind of thing. Spiritual forces usually referred to things like angels and demons, mostly indefinable, completely intangible entities. Things about which he had serious doubts.

He believed in the church as a whole—of course, otherwise his entire profession would be a sham. But to Corbin, “the church” meant the people who gathered inside physical frameworks of brick and mortar to worship together. Those
people
certainly underwent periods of discouragement and trial. And if the
people
at Angel Falls Tabernacle were going to be deluged by some kind of mass oppression, then of course he wanted to hold up the hands of the weary and encourage the faint of heart.

He could get on board the prayer train. But he had a hard time relating to the idea of “spiritual warfare”—and those two words had been key players in Pia's hurried explanation.

He smiled. She'd referred to the round-the-clock prayer effort as a “prayer wheel,” and even given the prayer team a name. Prayer WINGS—Prayer Warriors in God's Service.

Corbin was still smiling about Pia's fanciful terminology when he turned out the light in his Heart's Haven cottage and climbed between the sheets. Maybe the meeting tomorrow afternoon would eliminate some of the surreal atmosphere the woman had created with her weirdly worded telephone plea.

Mere seconds later, he tossed the sheet off his clammy body, vaguely uneasy about such overpowering humidity this early in the year. But the day had exhausted him, and he fell asleep without much thought toward the unseasonal weighty air.

He jerked his head sharply from a spike of hay that poked with painful insistence at his face. Whoever thought up those stupid movies where folks slept on piles of hay like they were the next best thing to a feather mattress had, without question, never spent any time on a hay bale. The one pressed against his cheek stank of mold, and sharp fingers of the dry stuff tickled his nostrils and made him want to sneeze.

Lower on his body, it chaffed and itched against his bare skin. His old man had once again stripped him right down to his chonies before spread-eagling him face down on a “pallet” made of six or eight bales of hay. His wrists and ankles burned from repeated efforts to pull free of the strong rope looped around them and tied to four metal stakes driven into the ground.

The rattle of tools somewhere in the shadows made him tense and hold his breath. Dad was back. Corbin had hoped the old man had wandered off and fallen into a drunken stupor. His stumbling return meant he still had a few more swings left in him.

Corbin's only warning was the familiar, ugly whoosh of displaced air as a heavy leather razor strop sliced through it before slapping his bare back with cruel, cutting force. Despite his most stubborn intentions, he cried out.

“You know I gotta do this, boy!” His father's drunken bellow roused frantic neighs and whinnies from the stalls on the other side of the barn. “The
angel
says it's the only way to get the devil outta ya. And it's my duty, it is. I cain't just sit back ‘n let ol' Lucifer have my boy, not when I can whup him outta ya and save yer soul.”

The leather sailed through the air again and landed hard against Corbin's back. This time he managed to clench his teeth and prevent the scream that tried to rip from his throat. But he couldn't stop the instinctive arching of his body, nor the reflexive jerking of his arms and legs, which tightened the rope, driving it deeper into raw, bleeding skin.

“Get outta my kid, Bell-zee-bub!” His dad slurped down another swig of the whiskey that always brought on these attempts to exorcise the devil from Corbin. “You cain't have this boy. He's mine!”

The strop whipped through the air again and Corbin's back arched in agony. “Dad! Please. Stop.”

A harsh sob ripped from his father's throat, and he dropped to his knees beside the hay bed. “I want to, son. I wanna stop. Don'tcha know this hurts me worse'n it hurts you?”

Corbin seriously doubted that. His vision was glassy from pain, but he saw the disgusting strings of mucus hanging from his father's nose, watched him swipe them away with his sleeve. Then that same long arm was thrown across Corbin's lacerated back.

“But the
angel
, boy. The
angel
said I gotta do this. I'm savin' you, son! I'm savin' you!”

He struggled to his feet again, and Corbin heard the rattle of the strop's metal end as his father wrapped the handle more securely around his hand. Then came the dreaded sound in the air. Cringing, he squeezed his eyes closed and bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

Just as the screaming strop landed across his back, something happened. Something that had never happened before.

A sweet, feminine voice rang out across the huge room. “Stop! In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to drop that whip. You will not strike the boy again!”

Corbin's eyes flew open and he raised his head to peer across the shadowy barn.

Aria?
What is she doing here? She doesn't belong in this place.
He struggled to hold his bleary eyes open.
She doesn't belong in this
time.

She stood straight and unwavering in a swath of light, her little chin in the air. Her velvet brown eyes seemed lit from behind, turning them to molten gold. A breeze Corbin hadn't felt until that moment lifted her hair and blew it around her face like bright, billowing flames.

Behind her, some trick of shadow and light created the illusion of beautiful, majestic wings that swayed and fluttered against the rough walls of the large structure.

Even if his back hadn't been laid open, and every breath wasn't an exercise in pain endurance, the sight of her would have stolen his air. He moaned.
Oh, God, please let this be my imagination. Aria's the last person I want to see me like this!

“Come.” Her voice softened as she glided across the barn toward him and his father, who had dropped to his knees and crossed his arms over his face. “Get up. There is no devil inside you. Don't let him hurt you like this…not ever again.”

She touched the rope that held his right ankle, and it dropped to the ground. Corbin could not find his voice, nor take his eyes off her angelic face. Despite his abject humiliation at being found in this demeaning position, she held him spellbound.

One by one, the ropes fell away. He struggled to raise his torso off the prickly hay bales, trying hard not to reveal the extent of his pain.