Reluctant Demon Read Online Free PDF Page A

the looks on our faces when He amazed us with His inexhaustible creativity.
    "What's the meeting about?" someone asked, but no one seemed to know.
    We mused out loud as to what might be in store until the Ancient of Days took His place on the judgment seat of heaven. The atmosphere changed instantly. The angel next to me whispered, "Something is wrong."
    "Wrong?" I whispered back. "How can anything be wrong in heaven?"
    No one dared say anything more. Without being told to do so, we fell to our knees and folded our wings at the weight of His presence.
    But something really was wrong. We had not seen Him like this before. The only word I can use to describe Him is somber. But how could that be? He was never somber. What was there to be somber about in heaven?
    We looked to Adonai for a clue, but His eyes betrayed nothing of what His Father was about to say.
    Following God's gaze, I realized that Lucifer was standing alone among the kneeling angels. I nudged the angel next to me. "Tell him to bow down."
    "He doesn't have to," he answered back.
    "Do you see God's eyes?" I asked as quietly as possible.
    The angel raised his head and saw the eyes of God sweeping across the legions bowed down before Him.
    Ducking back down, he quickly tapped the wing of the angel next to him, starting a moving line of nudges and whispers for Lucifer to bow down, but he would not.
    "He isn't going to do it," the angel answered.
    "Make him," I blurted out.
    "Make him?" he asked incredulously, as if I had suggested some ridiculous thing, which, I suppose I had. Certainly none of us could make an archangel do anything.
    "Then tell him to go stand by himself." I eked out the words and lowered my head as the cherubim who went before God ceased moving and lay flat on their faces as Omnipotence rose from His seat. Peering directly into Lucifer's eyes, as if no one else were in the room, God the Father opened His mouth to speak. The tone in His voice was heavy beyond bearing as He said to the archangel, "From the day of your creation, you were sheer perfection. Now look at what you have become. Evil has been found in you."
    The pillars of the courtroom trembled at His words, and smoke rose above as the atmosphere became unstable.
    No one dared stand.
    "What did God say?" The muttering swept through the kneeling angels.
    "Evil? In Lucifer?" The accusation telegraphed through the whispers of the gathered host.
    "Wait a minute," I interrupted. "What does God mean by evil} We don't know anything about evil"
    For a moment the telegraphing stopped as the others realized what I said was true. Although it was clear from God's words that something was definitely wrong, no one in heaven could possibly have understood something that until now had not existed. Before Lucifer's rebellion, there was no concept of evil, so how could we possibly be sure what it was?
    "It has to be about Lucifer's intent to rule," one of the others said.
    I hunkered down a little more and tried to imagine what I would do right that minute had I been in Lucifer's place. I would be apologizing, groveling on the floor, and working on a plea. To this day I don't know why Lucifer risked it. He must have known he had picked a fight he could not possibly win. He should have backed down.
    That's what I would have done. The accusations against Lucifer began among the still kneeling, anxious angels.
    "Why did we let him get this far?"
    "Why wasn't his position enough?"
    "Lucifer was cherished and denied nothing. Now look at what he's done?"
    "He shouldn't have involved us. We haven't done anything."
    "We're guilty by association; that's all. We don't deserve any punishment."
    The angel next to me tugged on my wing and asked,
    "What did God think was going to happen? Is He going to take some responsibility for this?"
    "What are you saying?"
    "He spoiled him, overindulged his every whim. This really is partly God's fault, you know."
    "God's fault?" I was unnerved at the utterance, though I had privately