What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [5]
He’d just closed his eyes to ponder this weighty inquiry when the giant speakers that hung from the ceiling erupted with a furious sound – a robotic buzz saw that tore through the cavernous arena. At the same time, every light ramped up to full brightness, flooding the building with brilliant light. One exploded in a shower of sparks.
The metallic racket worked its way down from a high-pitched static to a low rumble that shook the floor. Cadmon jumped, startled by the blast of sound, and tried to stand, but his elephant-skin cowboy boot slid, and he fell awkwardly over the top of the chair, sprawling across the seats in the next row. The noise was overwhelming, and he could barely think, but he had to get up and do something. For a second Cadmon thought about Ray, the audio tech, wondering if the idiot was blasting his damned 80’s music again. But then he realized that he recognized the sound. Shit, he thought, disentangling himself. It’s the middle of the day!
Then it was gone. The light and noise had quit just as quickly as they had started, leaving the arena in total darkness. The change caught Cadmon by surprise, but he grabbed a handrail and managed to avoid falling on his face. He crept slowly down the steps toward the main floor, his eyes locked on the scene before him.
Down on the stage, a glowing, white-orange light appeared, bobbing and hovering three feet off the floor. In the center of the orb, Cadmon could see shapes and shadows moving as if through a window. The light grew brighter and taller, and as the preacher arrived at the foot of the stage, the shadows resolved themselves into the shape of a very tall man. The man stepped forward, and the light seemed to shrink and close behind him.
His eyes were shut and his hands clasped in front of him. At last he looked up, letting his hands fall by his sides. “William Cadmon,” the angel said, “I am Ezekiel.”
Cadmon stopped, frozen – he couldn’t help it. He shook the feeling off, and stormed up the steps to the stage, ready to tear the angel a new one.
“Yes, hello again, Ezekiel.” The angel always introduced himself as if it were the first time. What an idiot, thought the preacher. The novelty of meeting someone who’d spent time face-to-face with God had worn off. “Can’t you just come in the door or something?” He threw his arms up in exasperation. “Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost me to fix all those lights and speakers again?”
The angel turned his head slowly, looking down at the little human. He glowed with a light that pulsed and ebbed, making him look like he’d just spent some quality time inside a nuclear reactor. His eyes narrowed and seemed to Cadmon just a little bit fiery. “You have made a lot of money since I started visiting,” he said. “You can afford it.”
“Yeah, okay. So that’s true,” Cadmon admitted. And it was. The angel had told him that if he wrote the books, they would sell, and they’d sold. The angel had told him to start up the automated, computer-based prayer service, and now that was raking in millions. Perhaps the most important information that the angel had shared, however, was a warning about a series of natural disasters that had struck over the last eighteen months – earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, and plagues of gross things. And that, more than anything else, was what had allowed Cadmon to grow his empire.
The preacher had started by sprinkling a few relatively benign statements about the coming Day of Judgment into his sermons. After the first earthquake had struck Paris, he’d started a two-month series on Judgment Day and the Book of Revelation. He was two weeks into that when the first swarm of locusts had showed up. A week later, two tornadoes ripped through Manhattan and central London almost simultaneously. He’d got a call that night from a producer on CNN, asking if he was available for some on air commentary. And so he’d begun his rise to national prominence.