As you read this excerpt you may see some of Frank Peretti and his brilliant way of describing scenes. Please note that I didn’t try to copy his work. But let’s face it, Frank Peretti is the best! I remember sitting on a beach reading the last chapter of one of his books where the heroine is saved. I remember crying as I read it. So I really tried to break away from what he had done, by giving us a healthy balance of the reality of the demons, but with the victory that we already have in Christ. I think I came up with a good balance. You will have to tell me if I did.
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1, Angels and Demons:
He sat slouched over on a mossy green stump of stone. He looked down in shame, and his eyes darted back and forth, looking from one demon’s ugly feet to another. Shame overcame him, shame and anger!
Their meeting took place in what looked like a rundown castle. The stone floor where his eyes were facing showed scratches caused by age. The cold-looking granite, dark and slimy had few speckles of white, and every one that should be seen had lost their luster years earlier. They were hidden by dirt and grime that no one would ever wipe up. The darkness that enveloped the scene completely eclipsed any type of light, yet in the shadowy glow one could see others in the room, not clearly, of course, not at all like when one is outside in the light. No, this scene appeared more like the dense fog that comes at night and is so thick that it feels gritty.
The putrid air remained thick with smells that always seemed to linger and were never gone . . . Periodic puffs of foul-smelling odor rose above the crowd, and the proverbial spotlight illuminated katepa. Everyone focused upon him, sneering at him, and some were just outright laughing at him. His crooked jaw set and he seethed with anger, and at the same time, he experienced a healthy dose of fear. His anger came because his inept overlord chose to mock, lecture and threaten him. Everyone knew that the only reason joln got his position had to do with political connections. But the very real fear that katepa experienced came because he knew that at any moment joln could send him to a place in the universe that would be eternal torment before his time, so katepa continued to listen meekly as joln’s inflated ego acted even more arrogantly, if that were possible, than everyone but he knew he had a right to act.
The master, satan himself, had sent a new directive, and joln singled out katepa to express this new directive’s emphasis and meaning. “But to call it a new directive didn’t accurately explain it either,” thought katepa as he kept his head down, and this too angered him. He had been in the business of deceiving humankind for the last 6,000 years. He knew what to do. He knew his expectation. That this sloppy, ignorant, unqualified overlord leaned down, bent over him, slapped him around, and spit on him every time he emphasized a word become more and more than katepa could handle. He wanted to reach up and grab joln by his bulging rippled throat, when joln brought up katepa’s Achilles heel, his past failures.
As katepa shriveled even more under the gaze of everyone else in the meeting, joln brought up Thales, the first-century nephew of Epaphras. And then, just to rub salt in the wound, joln brought up Alexander Rich, the nineteenth-century itinerant preacher in the United States.
“Two failures! Add it up, joln, you good-for-nothing blowhard. I’ve had two failures in the last two thousand years. With these mortals having a life span of seventy years, do you know how many successes I’ve had?” All of this katepa merely thought, for he would never say it out loud. He knew the expectation of this group. And the expectation would never change. Perfection, no failures, ever … and he had failed, twice.
I am reading the book on Kindle right now and for the first time in a year I get to read it without checking for punctuation. I’m really enjoying it! I’d even go so far as to say that I think the writer did a really good job!
But I’m probably a bit to close to the book to give you an honest assessment. So order the book and or download it, and enjoy it. But, please, give me some feedback.
Thanks, and enjoy,
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