Page 38 of The Fallen

?Brenton looked up and focused on him, his face furrowed. “That would make sense. Michael said those were his kids that tried to attack us.”

?“The story of the fallen angels talks about Azazel, the angel who not only defiled the women, but also taught man eternal secrets that were preserved only for Heaven. Raphael was charged with binding him, hand and foot, and casting him into darkness. He was to open up the desert and put him in, placing jagged rocks on him and covering his eyes so he couldn't see light,” her uncle sounded shaky. “That was his punishment until the day of judgment when he would then be cast into the fire.”

?Brenton shook his head as if he had heard the story as well. None of this history stuff mattered to Marie, there had to be something she could do.

?“We only have a week. How do we get my parents back, that is the question?” she asked losing it.

?“That time will slip away so quickly. We need to figure out where he is and start gathering the army. If he can rise without you, there is a chance he knows how to free the others. They will start a war here on earth and that will be the end of us,” Brenton added.

?“He said the answer was in my surroundings. Does he mean here? In Texas?”

?“Maybe,” Brenton replied.

?“No, I don't think so. It would be a little more complicated than that,” her uncle said. “If he wanted to just speak to her in a dream, then he could have just done that. Instead, he took her through a desert, then she fell in a cave and was there for a couple of hours before he came to her. I believe the answers are in the surroundings of her dream.”

?They thought back, opening their minds to each other to analyze the dream. Marie tried to show them everything she saw, but her mind was struggling to put the pieces together.

?“Why is it so difficult for me to show you the whole vision?” she asked.

?“I don't know, but if he needs you to come find him, you would think he'd make it a little easier,” Brenton said.

?“Another thing is, how was he able to contact you? Why is he so sure that you're the angel that could free him?” her uncle chimed in.

?They both looked at Marie. She was just as lost as they were.

?“Is there more to that riddle about Azazel? Anything about what kind of angel he needs?” Brenton said turning to her uncle.

?“I would have to read into it, but we don't have much time. Right now, we should focus on finding out where his prison is.”

?Marie walked to the table that was in the corner of her room. She opened the laptop and began pecking away at the keys. Her uncle and Brenton came to stand behind her.

?“Those plants in my dream, I've never seen them before nor that spider. It was crazy huge. Maybe those are the clues,” she said pulling up a search engine.

?She typed in ferns with white bulbs underneath the leaf and a bunch of sites came up. This proved to be a dead end since the bulblet fern was found in so many different parts of the country, mainly around the entrances of caves.

?She tried again, this time describing the spider. It was big, black with a body that looked like armor, with what appeared to be silky hair over its body. The face was the shape of a hand, with legs as big as fingers. Once again, sites pulled up, but there were too many spiders to chose from.

?“Wait,” her uncle said, “what did you say the web looked like? That has to be a distinctive feature.”

?“It looked like a door shaped web covered in moss and dirt. There were strands coming from the web itself like trip wire. The web was a trapdoor that sprang when something crawled across it.”

?“Try putting that in and see what pulls up.”

?She did and sure enough a picture of the exact same spider came into view. Ironically, it was called the Trapdoor Spider and was indigenous to Sydney, Australia. Some were also found in Japan, China and South Asia, but Marie felt a strange connection to Australia.

?It was decided this is where they would start their search. Before they separated, Marie felt the urge to say something she was too scared to say, but knew it had to be said.

?“What are we going to do when we find him?”

?They all looked at each other without saying a word. Brenton had been preparing for this all his life, her Uncle Josh had too, but didn't think he would see it happening in this lifetime. Marie on the other hand had so much to lose. She didn't think about the risk as much as the consequences if she failed.

?The thing that kept flashing through her mind was the image of her parents, trapped and chained. Who knows how long her dad would survive? She knew she had to do everything in her power to prevent anything else from happening to them.

Chapter Twenty Five

The holy scribe, Enoch, came down from the mountain, into the pit, to inform the angels of their fate.

?Enoch, was the first man initiated by the angels in the art of writing. He wrote down all the secrets of astronomy, chronology and the world's epochs. It was only fitting that he had the job of relaying this information to the fallen.

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