The Woman and the Dragon

By Shaaloo Jackson

Angels’ lives hang in the balance, subject to the mercy of a society of potential allies. But you can’t save an angel’s life if you hesitate for a second or deliberate your own destiny with another agenda.
When heroes need a hero, one woman with a conscience that needs no reason steps up and doesn’t stop to think about herself. A war is inevitable and alternative revelations transpire where only love can conquer hatred. But can it conquer death?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728354682

Book preview

1

A wave of emotion came over her whole body. Naked and heaving with the rising heat and fire that burned through her, she clasped her breast and felt some supernatural force touching her, holding her. She breathed an emotive and crying breath as the energy encompassed her body and sent a stroke of sensual fervour from her toes upwards. The faux-fur blanket, black and white striped, was tangled around her bare body, between her legs, tickling and half covering her chest. Her breast hung out there, heavy and soft, dangling in the open air, pleading for His touch. The feeling of invisible, delicate wet lips kissing and caressing her nipple and the grope of a manly hand excited her.

Could this be happening? Had Jesus finally succumbed to her yearning and taken her? Midnight, and she could feel His awesome power. She embraced the fur, feeling the warmth of a long-haired, virile male, a beast. She had called the Holy Spirit to her and then, writhing and posturing, her ever-hungry mind had asked for more.

Breathing short, gasping breaths as the Holy Spirit moved over her, inside her, touching her there, there where she had always wanted Him, the love was immense. She couldn’t deny that she had hankered for this for years. Coming to fruition, the sensation of the crescendo in the meeting of two hearts destined for love and nothing less, the eruption of feeling that exploded in perfect union was heart-stopping.

#This sex is on fire … (Kings of Leon)

Jesus was now her lover.

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I think I’ll have lemon water instead of tea this morning.

Feeling the necessity of maintaining the Holy Spirit, she happily drank the lemon water. Her husband was intrigued but didn’t question her. It was certainly out of character for her not to have tea, but how could she explain the experience she’d had the night before?

From the first time she had felt His presence, the conversations she had had with family and friends and work colleagues all conspired to twist her mind in a way that she had come to expect whenever God was earthbound. Paranoia or coincidence? Both. That was the way God worked, and she felt privileged to be subjected to it. It had been a gradual awakening, evergrowing in her mind throughout her married life. Every little thing was a sign, a message in imagery. The aeroplanes in the sky were now J watching over her; the helicopters were the devil, as were the Harley Davidsons on the road. The Suzukis were the good angels. And every Sunday, J flew over her, appearing as a power glider above her house. Still, she couldn’t cope with the enormity of Jesus speaking specifically to her. Maybe she was the only one listening. She never once dismissed it as paranoia—rather, it was a communication channel.

Ball lightning, glowing orange-yellow, passed by her house again, as it did at least once a week, a phenomenon with which she wasn’t familiar. It moved horizontally on a slow journey across the sky. At first, it looked like a Chinese lantern, but on closer observation, it was revealed to be a burning ball of fire some hundred feet above the houses. It wasn’t accompanied by a storm; it simply floated by mysteriously.

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Her mind wandered back to two years earlier: 2007.

I’m going to baptize myself in the water at Church Bay. She smiled.

If that’s what you want to do, her husband had told her.

She was sure in a manner that overtook all the assurance of a human mind. They packed the tent and drove off on a whim. As she approached the water, she wondered if she would fully immerse herself or just splash. The Anglesey water was murky and cold, surrounded by ominous towering cliffs. A gloom hung over her miserably as the chill corrupted her resolve to plunge in. The sun tried to infiltrate the grey through a broken cloud that strived to overcome the heavy rain hanging in its lower belly. She went knee-deep, then timidly splashed her forehead with sea water. What did the tone of this experience mean? Was it reflective of a life of misery, attending church and embracing sobriety? Her husband was proud of her—that she had committed herself to God. Little did he know how she really felt about Him.

As they drove away from the beach, a dove flew down and landed on the road in front of them. She didn’t need a sign; she was sold. Jesus was talking to her.

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She thought back to the birth of her son: 2008.

She’d had a dream while pregnant—her baby boy, dressed like a man, would save the world from a flood. Somehow, she knew it was a boy, even though she and her husband had declined information about the baby’s gender.

Another recollection made her reassess her life. While staying at her mum’s house after the birth of her son, she happened to open the Bible at random and found The Woman and the Dragon in the book of Revelation. Something told her that she was this woman and her boy was the son. That night, her baby only a few months old, she rested in the double bed with her boy. He was fast asleep, but she was alert and wide-eyed with terror at the prospect of her boy dying as implied by the script in Revelation.

At around three o’clock in the morning, she heard a helicopter flying close to the house. It sounded loud and menacing. The curtains, although drawn, allowed fractured light to illuminate the room and create sinister shadows on the ceiling and walls, filling her with dread. She cried hard, feeling a threat against her baby by this helicopter. She got out of bed and fetched from the spare room a glass crucifix, adorned with colourful paint and a gold figure of Jesus on the cross, then sat bolt upright in the bed, baby in arms, tearfully praying to God. She clutched the cross tightly, forgetting any need to sleep as the helicopter hovered for a while nearby, then flew away. The darkest part of the night, just before the dawn, was silent and petrifying, as dark clouds surrounded the periphery of her vision, and blackness was all she could see. She waited alone with the baby and trying to steady her breathing, nervously looking around her and listening intently.

The sky began to brighten as she and birds celebrated the dawn. Her baby was still alive.

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The woman had been soul-searching and joined an Alpha course at her local church, St Martin’s. A group of parishioners gathered once a week for introductory lessons on Bible study. She, her husband, and their son had attended every session, eager to learn more and enjoy the complimentary meal that was put on for the students. During one of the lessons, the conversation turned to what they thought God wanted from them. The woman participated with a question. Should she get a job or stay at home with the baby? The elderly group leader told her she was called by God to be a mother, and that ended the session. Happy, they had all got out of their seats to say goodbye to one another, and she casually opened her copy of the Bible to slip a leaflet inside. She was astounded that it had randomly opened at Job!

Unable to hold back her amazement, she laughed with the leader about the uncanny coincidence, and the leader told her that Jesus liked to surprise people that way.

Week after week God continued to talk to the woman at the Alpha course, and she was dazzled by His methods of communication, which included accompanying instincts. They brought to life her intuition emotively. The last session was centred on how they were all now prepared to interpret Bible proverbs and ended with the advice to put on the full armour of God.

That was all before the baptism at church and the confirmation, in November 2009, that made her feel as though she must die for Jesus. It was something in the atmosphere that had distorted the meanings of each verse uttered from the holy book and filled her with an impression of finality, leading her to agree, in her mind, to voluntary martyrdom.

The baptism had been a lovely affair in a sort of pious, prudish, conformal set-up. She’d had her baby boy christened at the same time. The hymns were so … traditional. Still, the presence of the Holy Spirit was real. She didn’t care what others thought of her becoming so religious, even after the life she had lived. She had always known that Jesus wanted her, and now, she wanted nothing more than to be with Him.

However, somehow, all she was and all she had learned was against her own religion now. Surely that meant that she had been cleansed. And now that she was willing to die for God, she knew she had been forgiven? What did that mean anyway? She wasn’t sorry for the life she had lived. She put it down to youth and overactive hormones. Surely, God would understand, wouldn’t He?

Back home, the radio played Jordin Sparks’ latest track.

#I guess you better go get your armour (get your armour)

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J knew she was open and willing to receive Him intimately.

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Baptisms of fire, misconstrued by contemporary interpretation as a punishment, turned out to be the burning of a human soul with that of God Himself. Their endless nights together served to fuse the two of them to each other. It meant that the woman had extrasensory perception because she could see some of what God could see—she could almost read people’s minds and anticipate the future. His power could work through her and dictate her feelings, and she His. This fusing of souls would guarantee the protection of God through whatever she embarked upon. They carried each other.

Now her hands signed words. She had learned the alphabet in sign language as a child by a teacher named Mr Martin, and she still remembered it. An angel, St Peter, was communicating with her through sign language. He was with her all day, while J took the night shift. St Peter had told her that he loved her but that she didn’t love him. In her mind, she told him not to be ridiculous but he was adamant. What did they want with her? To her, that didn’t matter. It was all about what she could do for them.

St Peter helped her to understand the Bible and frequently led her to the educational scriptures she needed to learn to be a Christian. Unknown to her, he was making fun of her by pointing at strict Catholic rules in the Bible through her own hands and making her feel inadequate, quietly laughing to himself! One day, she was in town with her baby when St Peter decided to instruct her on how fast to walk and which way. She had to take the main road as a route back to the house as opposed to the beautiful, scenic riverside walk she usually took. As she approached her street, St Peter, using her fingers, pointed to the shop to her left. She turned to look and wondered what this was all about but trusted St Peter’s instructions. He then pointed to the sky in front of her, and when she turned her head and looked up, she saw a rainbow ring around the sun! She had never seen that before, and she was delighted at the sight of what proved to her that she wasn’t crazy.

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The woman was fascinated by the way her hands signed words that she couldn’t even have imagined. St Peter had told her that she would die at the age of 53. She wasn’t worried. A little frightened at the how maybe, but for J—anything. St Peter continued his conversation through the music channel on the television. He continued to prime her for Catholicism. She was sceptical but accepted his advice as a rite of passage.

Tears burned in her eyes as she stared at the TV screen and believed every word St Peter had told her. Her husband was having an affair with her sister? But it was in code. Could she be misinterpreting? Was it a prophecy of what would happen if certain events took their course? Hardly able to see through the water that welled up in her eyes, she frantically took off her engagement ring and wedding ring and went into the workshop, where she took the biggest hammer she could find and smashed them. The ring, the engagement ring, the most beautiful expression of her husband’s love for her. They had bought it together on a weekend trip to York, where it had just shined out from the rest as a classic piece fit for a petite hand. Now she smashed it and smashed it, overcome by the grief and despair that raged through her. How could he cheat on her? She reminded herself that this was the word of an angel and she could just be mentally ill. But no, she believed what was said to her through the music video, and it was just the excuse she needed to justify her love for Jesus.

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Thinking back to her work days, before she had gone on maternity leave, she had come to believe that she was in some kind of reality TV show since there were people following her with cameras at work before her boy was born.

I’m watching you! a new cleaner had told her at nearly every opportunity she’d had.

The words of a security guard who worked with her at the department store where she was a supervisor now came back to her: I have a mate who works in GCHQ. She had previously met another guard, a plain-clothed security guard, with long ginger hair and stubble. He was average height and dressed poorly but still he had an air about him that smelt of power. Every time she looked at him, her heart stopped. He reminded her of Jesus, and she had felt a sensation in the air whenever he was about—she felt weak.

#Weak in the presence of beauty (Alison Moyet)

The woman had stayed up all night talking to her husband. She had revealed that she was in love with this security guard because she believed him to be Jesus, stressing the point that only Jesus could take her away from her husband and that was what He was here to do. Her husband had been dejected over how she felt—it was love at first sight—but he didn’t believe that this man was Jesus returned. She only knew how she felt emotionally and physically in the presence of this man. It was a long night, and her husband’s tears welcomed the morning. However, she couldn’t deny the desire she felt towards this man. That was 2007, a year after she and her husband had married.

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Spending time at home with Jesus, who was invisible, the woman was surrounded by magic. She asked Jesus to draw a picture of Himself through her hands. She set up the easel and paper and prepared a nicely sharpened pencil. It was an autumn evening, still fairly warm outside but night was falling fast as she raised her hand to the paper. He began. She held the pencil very gently and watched in utter astonishment as it was guided across the page, almost positively without effort from herself. Her husband walked in the room and took a seat on the ecru leather sofa.

Look at this! she exclaimed. I’m not doing it! I’m not drawing! Jesus is doing it.

Her husband was irritated by this and tried to change the subject. She looked up at him, and whilst she turned her eyes away from the drawing and conversed with him, her hand continued to sketch. She had to interrupt her husband.

Look—I’m not doing this! I’m not even looking!

The annoyed man of the house glanced very briefly at the picture but refused to enter into a discussion about it. He continued to talk about other things.

The woman carefully observed the way J’s eye was drawn, hoping to gain some of the disciplines of artistic technique. She looked at the one eye yet didn’t have the first clue as to how to go about sketching something as intricately as that. You have to see this. I can’t draw like this. It’s not me—I’m possessed! Still, no interest was paid whatsoever by her husband.

The long strokes of the pencil etched the hair of Jesus around the face, half hiding what He looked like. The mouth and chin area was to be covered by his long straight mane, leaving something to the imagination. His nose was not curved, as portrayed in some movies and paintings of Jesus. No, it was straight.

The picture was a masterpiece. Suddenly, her hand began to scribble. It scribbled out the tresses and, for some reason, began to recklessly go into curls. She got the feeling that something was wrong, and as she asked Jesus in her head what was the matter, the now-random curly squiggles became faster and faster and crazier. Some intuition told her that someone was watching and that He didn’t wish them to see. Fearful, she put down the pencil and prayed that Jesus was OK and that she hadn’t upset Him.

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The woman, once her spirit was activated in the real world, had asked J if she could use the power to make love to this security guard, Martin. She had already asked her husband if she could sleep with him—just once—and He had reluctantly agreed. Now she had a way of being with him through God’s power. She had become confused—was she with J? Was this man J? How could she discern?

The power that she now possessed had been transmitted to this spy like some STD.

It wasn’t long before she was in serious pain as this man tried to screw her up the ass through the power. She had asked God if she should do it, even though she had told herself that it wasn’t right. The music on the CD—in the car her and her husband and son were travelling in where the attack happened—said,

#don’t come back for me

She had resisted the approach from this man. And it wasn’t the only time he had tried his luck. One night, lying in bed, the