Paul knew that madam A was not kidding, but still he doubted very much he was actually going to see Michael the archangel. His heart still had not slowed even a little, and he wondered how he was going to make it through the heartache that now seemed to consume him.

“Follow me,” Madam A said walking into the barn.

“After you show me Michael, will you just leave me alone?” Paul said.

Madam A did not answer Paul, instead she just strode outside and turned to face him.

“Here is where this is going to get tricky,” Madam A said, “You are going to have to pray in faith for this to work.”

Paul shook his head, “You expect me to pray in faith for something after what has happened to my family?”

Paul could feel the anger rising within him and tears welled up in his eyes. Before he could stop himself, he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

“It is your fault!” Paul shouted through the tears, “You took me from my family, none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you!”

Madam A allowed Paul to finish before she continued like nothing had happened.

“Paul, close your eyes and pray for God to allow you to see Michael,” She said, “Like this…God, please allow me to meet with Michael.”

As soon as she had prayed the words, Madam A was nowhere to be seen. Paul was torn between leaving right then and trying to find a way to see Michael.

“God, please allow me to meet with Michael,” Paul mumbled half-heartedly.

Paul was unsurprised when nothing happened and decided now was a good time to start walking towards the nearest town. Paul spun around to leave and almost jumped out of his skin when a young man appeared before him.

The young man was clothed like nothing Paul had ever seen. He had on many layers of cloth, each of a vibrant and bright color. Some of the colors Paul could not even explain. The man himself was almost glowing in appearance, it was as if the sun was reflecting off of his skin.

“You expect anything to happen when you pray like that?” The man said, “I am Gabriel and I have a message for you. If you want to go see Michael, you are going to have to pray with faith, not with a half-hearted mumbled prayer.”

The man was gone in an instant and Paul was left standing wide-eyed and stunned beyond words. He was not sure he could process the overload of events that had happened in the past few days, and this was about to send him over the edge.

Paul sat on the ground and tried to decide what to do. He wanted to just run away from everything and pretend none of this happened. But in the end, he decided to try to pray one more time with real faith.

Paul closed his eyes before he prayed, and when he had finished he felt the most intense rush of wind he had ever felt. The wind came from every direction and he felt he was going to be crushed. The wind stopped, and Paul could smell a freshness in the air he had never experienced.

“About time you made it here,” Paul heard Madam A’s voice.

Paul opened his eyes and instantly regretted it immediately. The Brightness of the place he was now in was more intense than he had anticipated. He closed his eyes again but the flash had caused him to still see a bright spot even behind closed eyelids.

“Your eyes will adjust to the intensity of the light,” A gentle voice cut into his thoughts, “While that is happening, I will talk to you in this manner. Once your eyes have adjusted we will talk face to face. My name is Michael, I am a protector of sorts and I am going to be working with you to take down a brand new threat in the Shedim.”

Paul felt a sense of peace he had not felt maybe ever, but in his mind, he had a sense of guilt for not being sad still over the death of his family.

Paul’s eyes adjusted slowly to the light. When he finally could open his eyes, the beauty he was beholding took his breath away.

They were standing on top of a hill that overlooked a great valley with a river running down the middle. Beyond the valley was a magnificent mountain range that stretched as far as Paul could see. This scene would have been beautiful on earth, but in this place, the colors were much different.

Water was more of a sapphire blue, with Gold and silver shining through it as if lighting the very bed of the river. The trees all had flower blooms, but each was mixed three colors per tree. Color was everywhere, even the rocks had color shining through as if a brightly lit gem was shining through a gray shell. There was even a waterfall across the valley that was putting off a rainbow with colors Paul had never seen before.

“It is wonderful isn’t it?” Madam A’s voice came from behind Paul.

Paul turned around and with wide eyes asked, “What is this place?”

“It is called Mési Omorfiás,” Madam A replied, “But I just call it Mési. The name means middle beauty in Greek.”

Paul noticed another young man standing close by, from the side Paul thought it was Gabrial again until he turned towards them.

Paul turned his head and closed his eyes, it seemed to be common to look at things and be blinded by the light.

“Will I get used to looking at you too?” Paul asked.

“If you get used to looking at me, it means you have died.” Michael answered, “You are seeing a fading reflection of God’s glory on my face. Enough talk about these things, we have business to discuss. The Shedim are going to be using Jasper, the man you tried to rescue, to set up an earthly kingdom.”

“He was burned so badly, He will not live, I am sure of it.” Paul Interrupted.

“The power of the Shedim is greater than you know Paul,” Continued Michael, “We must stop him at all cost, even if killing him is the only option. Lucifer himself has been in contact with Jasper, which is very bad for all of humanity. It is time to grow our group into a functioning army, start recruiting Madam A.”

Paul felt like he should be keeping notes as Michael rushed through their strategic plan of how to take down most of the Shedim.

“Paul, remember to look forward, your past is going to haunt you if you do not. When you return so will the pain.” Michael seemed to be finished and walked a good deal away.

Paul felt the rushing wind and knew it was time to go back to earth. He struggled to step toward Michael, but in an instant, he was standing on earth in front of the barn again.

The grief he had momentarily had a reprieve from, now felt even heavier than before as it descended upon him.

“Are you ready to fight with us now?” Madam A asked.

“Let me take care of a few things first, then I will fight with you,” Paul said through fresh tears.

Paul wanted to bury his family, but he also wanted to find the arson responsible for killing his family. He decided it would be best to not tell Madam A his full plan, she would most assuredly stop him.

Paul followed Madam A back inside and tried his hardest to shove his emotion deep within himself. When they entered the eating room again, Paul remembered that they were still in the slow state. Everyone was standing now but they had only maybe moved a few feet.

“Paul you have to will yourself to exit the slow state this time,” Madam A said, “When you enter from extreme sadness, you must force yourself to exit. Lastly, while you are emotionally supercharged, you must make a conscious effort to remain in normal time.”

Paul sighed and forced himself to relax a bit before trying to force himself into normal time.

“Paul and Madam A,” Tosha shouted, “we were just about to go looking for you. Agent 2 told me that the burned home was yours….I am very sorry for your loss.”

Tosh ran to Paul and hugged him around the middle. Much to Paul’s surprise he didn’t even mind that she was hugging him. Usually, he would have felt awkward but after the events of the past few days, he doubted he would ever really be the same.

Agent 2 agreed to drive Paul to his home and they started to make arrangements for that to happen. Meanwhile, Paul sat and went over in his head how he would go about finding the man who burned his home down, killing his family. He also thought about what he would do to him once he had him.

“We are ready to go,” Agent 2 said, “It will be late evening when we arrive, there is already a hotel for you to stay in.”

The others wished him well, as they headed for the same van he arrived in.

“Paul, when you decide what you intend to do, just go have a visit with Michael. He will tell you exactly what you need to do, we will be moving to a larger facility while you are gone.” Madam A said hurriedly.

The ride home was very long and Paul struggled with going in and out of the slow state as they drove. Paul let Agent 2 drive because he was sure he would have crashed.

Once they arrived back in Colorado Agent 2 was brief and left Paul at the hotel to check in.

“Do you need anything else?” Agent 2 asked.

“No, I am ok, thank you for the ride. I will see you again in a few weeks I would imagine.” Paul said with a half-hearted smile towards Agent 2.

Paul went to his room and lay down on the bed before allowing his emotion to come back. He was sure he had gone back into the slow state, but he didn’t even care.

Once Paul had calmed down, he wrote a list of places to check cameras. He would start with one’s that covered his street, first his neighbor’s security camera’s that covered bits of his property.

He went to his window to see if cars were moving in real time and he was a little surprised when they were. He had expected to have to force himself to exit the slow state. He decided that it was time to go and check his bank accounts and see what was left, if anything. He also wanted to buy a weapon of some sort he figured it may come in useful.

Once Paul found a computer, he logged onto his online bank account and was extremely surprised. In his account was a very large sum of money, one he had not expected to see. Half a million dollars sat waiting for him.

Paul decided to go and pull about ten thousand, just in case he was unable to access his accounts for any length of time. He pulled up the nearest bank, it was only two blocks away. Paul logged off of his account and stood to leave.

“Sir, please keep your hands where I can see them,” A uniformed officer told Paul as he stood, “You are under arrest.”

Paul forced himself to remain calm so as to not enter the slow state. He did as he was told and put his hands up.

“What am I under arrest for sir?” Paul said.

“You are under arrest for arson,” The officer said as he prepared to handcuff Paul.

Paul entered into the slow state and handcuffed the officer to the computer desk. He wrote a note to the officer saying he was sorry for handcuffing him to the desk and headed for the door of the hotel.

On the tv in the lobby, the frozen image caught Paul’s eye. There was the same image of his own burned home with a bold headline that read, ‘New evidence links husband to the arson of his own home.’

Paul just stared at the screen in disbelief, he now understood why the officer had been there to arrest him. The question still remained, how is it that he was being linked to the arson of his home and murder of his family?

Paul decided that it didn’t change the way he was going to approach the situation. He was still going to go to the bank and withdraw money. He was still going to find the real culprit behind the arson of his home, he was going to make him pay for what he did.

Paul made it to the bank near the hotel and willed himself to exit the slow state; it had been an odd experience walking down a busy street that was mostly frozen in time.

The first thing He did once he entered the bank was to look for any sign of a TV with the news about him on it. To his relief, there was no tv in the bank.

He approached the teller and told her his account number. He had decided on the walk over that a car would be helpful, so he asked for sixty thousand dollars out of his account.

The teller looked at him and back at the computer screen, “I am going to need your I.D. sir, I am sorry for your loss.”

The teller must have seen the stunned look on Paul’s face because she hurriedly explained that she had seen the money had come from a life insurance policy. He remembered that he had a special insurance that would pay out if he was missing for more than two days, but would have to be repaid if he was found.

The teller went into the safe behind the counter to get the cash he had asked for and returned with a few large stacks of bills.

“I am sorry sir but my manager said the most we can give in cash at one time is thirty thousand.” The teller said with a polite smile.

“That will be fine, thank you,” Paul said surprised by how large a stack of bills thirty thousand dollars was.

Paul stuffed the bills in all the pockets he had and decided it was time to go and buy some new clothes. He figured he would have to buy a backpack to more easily conceal the massive amount of cash he was carrying.

Paul strode out of the bank and spotted a used car dealership across the street. He figured he could hurry in there and buy a car, which would allow him to move more freely about the town.

A half hour later Paul was driving out of the dealership with an almost new ford focus. He would have preferred a nice truck, but he figured this would do for now.

Paul went to a few clothing stores and bought enough clothes to last him a week or so without changing, he also had stopped at a custom blade dealer and bought a katana. He figured it would be best to have a blade as a weapon, in the slow state it would take to long for a gun to do its work.

“Alright mystery arson, it is time to track you down,” Paul said out loud as he drove towards his neighbor’s house to look at the footage of the night his home was burned down.

He had effectively forced the sad emotions out of his mind, all that remained was a deep hunger for revenge. He had forgotten everything about the Phótenos for now. His only mission was to find and torture the man responsible for killing his family.

***

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