The Watchers (50 page)
Sherman began to speak in a loud, commanding voice. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you, foul spirits, to leave my presence. Leave this place. Leave this man!”
The Head Elder took one step back, for the foul beings all around him had responded hatefully to Sherman's words.
That one step, the impact of Gucci leather on Carrara marble, obscured the faintest sound of movement from outside . . .
Crash!
The living room's picture window shattered profusely, deafeningly. Glass cascaded all over the space.
A black-clad male form flew into the center of the room, screaming “FBI! FBI!” at the top of his lungs.
The Head Elder called out for help, but none of the beings this leader of the Scythian Brotherhood had served would save him now. Bullets flying around him, he turned away from a row of white, translucent beings and dashed across his marble floor in terror. He reached the edge of his second-story veranda, framing that magnificent seascape, and leaped . . .
He struck the terrace below with unearthly force, turning his limp body into the mockery he had so often made of others.
MARCELLE'S ROOM
âTHE NEXT MOMENT
“Yes, I can remember in my childhood,” Marcelle was saying, “hearing stories of these unbowed women coming over from Africa and singing praises to God even while they still lay chained in the horrible holds of those transport ships. I remember.”
“It's amazing,” remarked Abby, “that as hard as their lives have been here, with all the days of slavery, the hard years after Emancipation, or many decades later in the fight for equal rightsânone of it's squeezed the gifting out of those godly women.”
“Yeah, but still, we've all been hamstrung,” Marcelle said, her voice starting to weaken. “It's a scandal, we've had so little to do with each other's faith that it took this long for the gift to cross racial boundaries.”
“Maybe now it's time,” Susanne said.
“Maybe it's time for all these old breaches and grudges to get washed out of our system,” Abby agreed. “Can you imagine what the church could do, with our prayers alone, in this messed-up world? Without these divisions and grudges to sap our strength?”
Marcelle held out her thin arms, inviting Susanne, herself just a stick figure, to climb up onto the bed. Tentative at first, she crawled forward and lowered herself into the old woman's arms. Slowly, tenderly, they formed a mother-child embrace.
“O Lord,” Marcelle called out as she tenderly caressed Susanne's forehead, “you know I have missed this. I remember, Susanne. And I know you remember.”
Abby knelt before them, letting herself melt into their healing embrace.
Then Abby furrowed her brow and gazed up into the face of her grandma in the Spirit. “We've forgotten how sick you are.”
“Oh, I'm all right. Fact is, this is the happiest day of my life!”
“And mine,” said Abby.
“And definitely mine,” added Susanne.
Abby leaned forward, took her mother's hand, and placed both on Marcelle's head. It was a posture she had seen only once before, when standing before Sister Okoye at the Believers Gathering as she herself was nearing death.
Both of the younger women began to pray silently, moving their lips.
It was at this point that television viewers all over the world, regardless of their set's quality or the reliability of the video feed, began to experience the old standby. Technical Difficulties. Some saw what were once labeled ghost images, or shallow transparent forms moving across the screen. The whole viewing audience noticed a brightening of the ambient light in the room; some even assumed that an electrical malfunction had overtaken the nursing home.
Only a select number of them realized what was actually taking place.
Suddenly a bright flash of light shot from the center of the room, and of viewers' screens. Thousands would report that their tubes had exploded, and scores would have to be reminded by manufacturers' help desks that their televisions no longer even possessed such things.
In the room, the bright flash and remaining glow revealed what video could not fully captureâthe translucent figures of radiant beings standing about them.
Abby and Susanne scrambled from the bed as Marcelle shooed them off like an impatient parent, hopped off the mattress, and took them both arm in arm for a walk down the hallway.
Dylan met them there, a glow of intense satisfaction playing across his features. His eyes met Abby's, and they narrowed in a blissful smile. He came aside of them, draped his arm over Abby's shoulders and squeezed hard. Then he leaned over and buried his mouth in her unkempt hair. No one else around would know what was exchanged just then. A word of triumph, a bid of congratulations, or perhaps something more.
In either case, they had completed the quest. Finished the race. And there was one thing no one could take away from either one.
They were both warriors in the highest sense.
ATLANTA, MCQUEEN STUDIOS
America's favorite talk show host turned away from a giant video screen, which still bore the image of a smiling Marcelle. The host's face was slack with awe, wonder, and amazement. All she could do was shake her head, her arms crossed and her eyes lined with tears.
“I can't help but feel like we just set off a shock wave of the Spirit that's rocking across our country tonight,” she said, accompanied by a roar of delighted applause. Her voice began to rise, drifting into the preacherlike cadence of Mara McQueen at her most inspired.
“I don't know if you felt it like I did, but all I can say is,
let the healing begin!
”
WESTWOOD MERCY HOSPITAL, LOS ANGELES
Nurse Gladys was walking down one of the hospital's gleaming hallways, carrying two cups of medication, when suddenly her muscles began quivering and her eyelids fluttering. Her fingers twitched, and the cups went flying as though flicked out of her hands by an invisible gremlin. The pills they contained scattered all about the floor.
Gladys lowered neither her gaze nor her hands in response to the mishap. Instead, her eyes searched out the nearest window through the open door of an adjacent patient's room. She stared out into the sky with a look of fierce curiosity.
Another few seconds passed. With a look of disapproval, a nurse behind Gladys dropped to her knees to pick up the tablets. Everyone on the floor knew Gladys hadn't been acting herself since an inappropriate conversation had surfaced several weeks before between her and Abby Sherman, the hospital's now-famous patient who had disappeared.
Still Gladys did not look down. In fact, she began to smileâa wide, beaming grin that transformed her winsome face.
She closed her eyes and two enormous tears flowed down her brown cheeks. Her lips started moving. A nearby colleague trained in lip-reading would later report that the nurse's only words were
Thank you, Jesus, thank you . . .
Over and over again.
IJEBU ODE, NIGERIA
Kneeling before the grave of Sister Okoye, Sister Motumbe quickly looked up from the clump of small flowers she had just transplanted.
A few hundred yards away, lying in a hammock restored to the ceiling of the Eredo Rampart, Saronu opened her eyes abruptly, jarred awake from a deep sleep. At first somewhat alarmed, she peered into the distance, then started to smile slowly. She nodded her head as though an inner question was being answered somehow, from somewhere.
Both women closed their eyes, serene.
JERUSALEM, ROOFTOP OF CHURCH OF THE HOL SEPULCHRE
Facing the setting sun from her perch over the city, Rulaz closed her eyes and smiled blissfully. She held out her arms and extended her hands. It almost seemed like a faint, imperceptible breeze was washing over her.
She tilted her head back, heavenward, and began to laugh a rich, unforgettable laugh, which her brothers and sisters had never, ever heard her unleash before.
Pure laughter and praises to Jehovah began to drift downward across the crowded rooftops and alleyways of the Eternal City.
Most of the Nigerian geography I depicted in
The Watchers
is authentic. The location of highways, rain forests, and most of the Sungbo's Eredo is all real. Everything mentioned about Sungbo's Eredo is historical, from its appearance and location to most of its historyâexcept that it was not a fixture in Watchers lore, as these Watchers were my invention. Yet it was indeed reputed to have been built by an ancient, wealthy queen from Ethiopia. The rampart's remarkable water-gathering qualities were taken from archaeological literature. My depiction of Port Harcourt was all too close to the mark, as throughout the writing I'd continued to read media stories of abducted and murdered Westerners in the Niger Delta region.
My descriptions of London were culled, sadly, from the Internet and I trust, accurate.
As for Jerusalem, everything about the Abyssinian monks on the rooftop of the Holy Sepulchre church is trueâexcept for the fact that no Sentinel of Jerusalem or Watchers matriarch lives among its beleaguered Coptic population. However, the entire account of age-old tensions, abuses, and even outright fistfights between the two Coptic contingents is sadly true.
Finally, I'd like to address the issue of “Spiritual Genealogy,” which arises in this book. I encourage everyone to try to trace their spiritual genealogy as far as possible, as a fascinating and inspiring pastime. However, I have no desire to confuse, dilute or otherwise complicate the far truer and more edifying Scriptural nomenclature of the Family of God. God is our true heavenly Father, and our spiritual one as well. Those matter supremely. I only maintain that tracing the path of the one or ones who led us to Christ can often reveal fascinating and revealing truths of our spiritual heritage.
A globe-trotting thriller like this requires one of two things: either unlimited airline miles, or some well-traveled friends. In my case, I was blessed with the latter.
My thanks go out to Rev. Joseph Thompson of the Nigeria Harvest Experience and The Church at the Well, as well as to his wife Sola, for their assistance with Yoruba vocabulary. Thanks to my longtime writing buddy, Stephen Bransford, for his help on Nigeria as well.
My friend Claudia Cross was essential in forming the concept for this story, and I'm grateful to her. My cherished agent Lee Hough was as always a source of profound encouragement and guidance both during and after the first draft.
A huge dose of thanks and
well-dones
belongs with this book's two primary shepherds at Bethany House, Carol Johnson and Luke Hinrichs. Both of you poured your hearts into helping me craft and hone
The Watchers
tremendously. Thanks for your wisdom, your talent, and most of all, your patience with me. It's been a great experience.
I must thank my wife, Connie, and my children, Ben, Abby, and Emma-Le, for their incredible patience and resiliency during the latter stages of drafting this book. Only you and I will ever know how grueling that period was for all of us.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
MARK ANDREW OLSEN, whose novel
The Assignment
was a Christy Award finalist, also collaborated on bestsellers
Hadassah
(now the major motion picture:
One Night With the King
),
The Hadassah Covenant,
and
Rescued
. Mark grew up in France, the son of missionaries, and is a Professional Writing graduate of Baylor University. He and his wife, Connie, live in Colorado Springs with their three children.
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