Ruby then flung her hands outwards, sprinkling the Holy contents of the bottle into the ether. She drew her arms across her heart and cried out with all of her remaining strength – mental, physical, and spiritual:
“Ee-ah-oh! Mahl-kooth! Veh-Geb-oo-rah! Veh-Ged-oo-lah! Leh-Oh-lahm, Ah-men!”
There was a blinding, almost painful, bright blue-white light and the sound of a divine celestial choir, intensely loud, but serenely pure; millions of voices from every point in time and space, all coming together in a sweet, intoxicating, irresistible harmony. The aura was sublime, and materialising within it was a winged figure, with a face of great aquiline beauty; a beauty that held an indomitable strength and steely determination of purpose. The light gained in intensity and frequency, becoming a clear topaz and then a diamond white; so bright that you could not even see the room any more. You could not see anything. The room was there, but had seemingly ceased to exist; its various inhabitants were there, but were no longer individuals, no longer had any physical presence; they were just beings, just ‘there’.
There was no up, no down, no left or right, back or front, there just ‘was’.
Ruby continued her incantation, almost weeping with the passion and poetry of the words:
“But at that time - the end of the world, shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who stands up for the children of your people. And there was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and although the dragon and his angels fought back, they were overpowered and lost their place in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent known as the devil or Satan, the seducer of the whole world, was driven out and hurled down to earth and his minions with him!”
When she had finished, she allowed herself a few seconds of silence to take in the beauty and majesty of what was taking place before them.
From his place on the floor, where he was still busily grappling with Dave, Reverend Phullaposi looked up in astonishment:
“What IS that?”
“WHO is that?” corrected Ruby: “That, my good Reverend, is the Angel Lahabiel. One of the Malachim Angels, I believe. Currently our Saviour, and the immortal foe of this decidedly unsavoury Ahriman character, whose company we could well have done without.”
“My Lord!” The Reverend was staggered.
“Not quite, but I’m sure he’ll do the trick,” quipped Ruby.
“Amen to that!”
With a heave, the Reverend hurled Dave off him.
Dave clattered into the wall, stunning himself quite badly; enough for him not to be able to continue the fight.
Even Devizes and Nutter had stopped their activities, awestruck and terrified in Lahabiel’s presence.
Ahriman turned to face the Angel with a mingled look of surprise, hatred, disgust and above all, though he did his best to disguise it, fear:
“You! Nobody has awoken you for millennia, pretty boy! You have no right interfere here, this is my domain! I was summoned here and here I shall stay and summon my own. You have no business here... Especially on the behalf of your sworn enemy, a heathen witch! Go back to harp-plucking with your Nazarene friend and avoid the embarrassment of certain defeat!”
Although his rhetoric was strong, Ahriman’s underlying terror was all-too-evident.
The brightly-glowing vision silenced him merely by raising its hand.
“Ahriman, deceiver and swindler, false flatterer and bully. Surely you must remember that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
The voice resonated and reverberated around the room. Definitely benign, but not to be trifled with.
The Angel continued to hover in the air, quite at ease, then in the blink of an eye, he made a direct line for Ahriman, drawing a slim, silver-tipped lance as he did so.
Ahriman backed off to gain space and time to counter-attack.
Ruby busied herself reciting incantations of protection for all but the two combatants.
Reverend Phullaposi saw his chance and threw himself, athame first, into the back of the Demon.
Ahriman screamed as much in indignation as pain from the Reverend’s attack.
The whole building shook with his cries and oaths. Devizes and Nutter dived for cover. Pearl fainted from the sonic blast of the Demon’s keening voice. The velocity of the sound dashed Magpie Jack against the wall, and he fell insensible to the floor.
The Demon spun round, swung his gnarled fist and knocked Reverend Phullaposi clean off his feet.
The Reverend fell back, his skull hit the wall with a sickening 'crack!' and for the second time that day he lay spark out.
The athame, meanwhile, had flown from his hand and skittered off, bouncing across the floor towards Dave.
Still smarting from the pulsating flesh wound in his back, Ahriman moved carefully out of the range of Lahabiel’s lance. His eyes still firmly fixed on the Angel, he snarled at Dave:
“Pick up the blade and put it to use, David.”
Ahriman pointed a sharp, scaly, reptilian claw at Ruby.
“Despatch the witch and claim your prize, menial,” he goaded.
Dave looked at the blade in his hand and moved towards Ruby, pointing it at her.
Ruby remained firm.
“Think hard David,” she warned. “Not just about the here and now, but about all the nows that you are about to throw away.”
Dave said nothing; he just shuffled a little closer, levelling the blade.
The tension was palpable. Dave edged closer and closer; Ruby did not waver.
Finally, Dave made up his mind:
“Ahhhhhh! Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!” screamed the possessed Postman, waving the blade in front of him as he rushed across the room. He hurtled past Ruby, pushing her bodily out of the way and leapt straight onto Ahriman, plunging the athame all the way up to the hilt in his breast.
The Demon howled and lurched backwards at the very second the Angel’s lance thrust forward to meet him, piercing his evil black scaly hide. Skewered, Ahriman was pulled towards the Angel; screaming, spitting, fizzing and bubbling with pain and rage, his reptilian arms windmilling forlornly against the Angel’s stronger might and will.
Flailing wildly, the Demon latched onto David, his nemesis, and
