Chained In Darkness Anthology: Chained In Darkness

By Eugene Barnes

The struggle between good and evil began at the dawn of time and with the granting of free will. Dr. Eugene Barnes adds a new and exciting dimension to this classic theme in Chained in Darkness Anthology. It is a tale of fallen angels and their leader, who have been captured and imprisoned by the forces of Light. They seek to escape being chained in perpetual darkness by using earthly surrogates - such as the evil Charlotte Devereaux - to destroy the world. Against this background, Detective Wanda Price investigates a series of apparent suicides in her hometown in Illinois, USA. She suspects a spiritual link and seeks the advice of Reverend Kristofer Masters, the pastor at a local church. The trail leads them to confer with his mentor in New York, where similar unexplained deaths have occurred. There, a team of academics and theologians is assembled, but they must first cope with mystical experiences and be exposed to personal danger by dark forces. Relationships are forged through trust, and international associations are established. They pool their esoteric knowledge to unravel clues from sacred texts and ancient wisdom to prevent the impending apocalypse, which reaches its climax in the town of Bethel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugene Barnes
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215950029

Eugene Barnes

Eugene Barnes, works in employment, economic development, community organizing, youth development, technology, and banking/housing. It became a catalyst for improving the physical and financial health of residents in Central Illinois. He’s combined over 40 years of experience in social work with community organizing beginning with the NAACP in 1965. His diverse experience from private and public caregiving institutions enriched his capacity to understand the complexities of change from within the community. Dr. Barnes has organized citizens to have a voice in shaping public policies and programs on a national basis as Board President of National People’s. He has been instrumental in forming over seventy national nonprofits. His most recent accomplishment was being invited to the White House for the signing of the historical Financial Reform Bill of 2010. In 2012, Dr. Barnes held the first Faith-Based Conference in Champaign, IL, bringing houses of worship to partner with the city government to effect change. Dr. Barnes has traveled to Israel, Palestine, and South Korea as an Ambassador for Peace and a member of the American Clergy Leadership Conference. He is the author of several books. He is married to his childhood sweetheart.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes wept with a loud voice, and many shout aloud for joy. Ezra 3:12

By a stretch of one’s imagination, you could call the building on North Clock Street a church; it just didn’t look like a church—but it looked like the house it was. There was neither a cross hanging outside nor a marquee, just a folksy wooden sign with the word Redemption.

The church-house reflected the other homes in the community built in the sixties. It had aged, showing that it had weathered every storm dashed against its lumbered exterior walls that now shone with its new paint coatings.

Neither stained-glass windows nor steeple did she possess. The new Andersen windows gave her a redemptive look underneath the canopy of a new roof job.

Inside she boasted eighteen hundred square feet, with most of the space reserved for the semi- circular sanctuary arranged to foster unity rather than an imposed hierarchy intimated by a singular podium. It suited the arrangement well because all the congregants could view and speak to each other directly. The seating suggested participation by all, and the rows were four deep. The single opening within the semi-circle allowed participants to leave quickly during a refreshment break or an emergency. The semi-circle center was a six-foot table that held an extensive Bible opened to its first page that read, The Holy Bible. Discussions began within the circle and started with the biblical inscription and ended with it. Thus, the Bible was the beginning and end of any conversation.

Against this backdrop, Rev. Kristofer Masters presided as pastor of the church called Redemption. Rev. Masters would be the first to say that he needed to lose a few well-earned pounds. His favorite black suit strained at the buttons, which could be remedied by purchasing vintage Goodwill pieces. Although he exercised regularly, his fastidious palette for soul food betrayed his best intentions.

His favorite dish was collard greens mixed with kale and seasoned with smoked turkey thighs. It was served over a bed of wild rice capped with sliced onions, tomatoes, and several dashes of Last Rites, his favorite spicy sauce.

He preferred to clean and cook his collard greens and kale with special care. The smoked turkey thigh meat boiled off the bone in seasoned chicken broth. Afterward, he removed the larger stems of the collard greens after soaking them. The collards and kale-combo were folded together and sliced. Once the turkey meat was bones-free, he added the greens to the broth and cooked until tender. He carried this detailed routine out at least once a month, with leftovers lasting several days, and to Rev. Masters, representing a taste of heaven before the Second Coming.

According to his estimate, he stood five feet ten inches. He weighed two hundred pounds, despite medical affirmation to the contrary. His skin was a dark coffee that showed off thirty-one pearlies, the lone one having been sacrificed to a dentist’s whim of removal over his balking at paying for its replacement. A neatly trimmed fine white beard covered his face's lower portion while his shaved pate glowed atop the ears. Rimless glasses were his latest addition to a pampered look that several female kinds found quite striking. Yet, he perceived several female parishioners' phone calls for pastoral counseling to lack sincerity.

Redemption Church had its proverbial membership of twenty-five percent. Every pastor knows that regardless of the church's roles, only one- quarter of the congregation is faithful. This is demonstrated by the example of Jesus and His inner circle of three. Sunday’s numbers attested to those who showed up for service. At the same time, Wednesday night bible study reflected dedicated church membership, not except those who came out for Easter, Mother’s Day, and Christmas. These fashion-show services were appalling to the Rev., who usually assigned one of his charges to officiate, despite the complaints from those who cited that these services required the attention and sobriety of one skilled in homiletics. The right reverend Kristofer Masters was undaunted for his rendition of what-sayeth-the-Lord was not served these days, mainly because he had no hoop for the people to get the scoop.

He sought to have the church's doors opened daily so those truly deserving of God’s grace could access the Capporeth, heaven's mercy seat. Seven days a week, he unlocked the doors. Beginning with an initial prayer in the inner sanctum, he cleansed himself of the world’s latest satanic assaults. He pleaded with Jehovah to continue to shed his groveled portion of courage and patience upon his wretched frame and this branch of Zion.

CHAPTER 2

Hear O Israel, The LORD our God is one LORD. Deuteronomy 6:4

Praise the Lord was a salutary response for the faithful whenever encountering one another—as was greet each other with a holy kiss. This was a commandment espoused by Rabbi Saul, or the Apostle Paul, as the church later called him. The faithful distinguished their religiosity from the unsaved and those not as saved as others. More often than not, the salute was sincere and honest, overworked and traditionalized through centuries of use. As he arrived at Wednesday night bible-study and emerged from his nineteen-eight Ford Taurus, several Praise the Lords greeted the Pastor.

A to God be the glory purred from his lips as he shook hands and hugged his way to the Sanctuary doors. Deacon Daryl Honeydripper placed his meaty hands on the door as he inserted his key into the lock. He pushed it open for his beloved pastor. Pastor Masters looked back at Deacon Daryl Honeydripper. They beamed a look of approval to show his undying admiration and love for so faithful a black angel of a man as they entered the sanctum together.

Deacon Honeydripper came to Redemption Church several months after the Pastor had answered the Call and opened the church's doors. Back in the day, Daryl Honeydripper had been a bagman for the St. Louis mob and was given a floater out of the same city by the police chief. They did this in concert with the criminal head of St. Louis to spare the deacon a prison term for shooting a wooer of his wife in the nose with a flat-nosed thirty-eight bullet. Deac had explained all this to Pastor before his ordination as First Deacon of Redemption Church. Their kinship and friendship were legendary in the community, some even thinking that the deacon was Pastor’s father.

As Pastor disappeared into his nine-by-twelve offices, Deacon Honeydripper prepared bible study by tidying up the sanctuary and arranging the chairs with the aid of the early faithful few. In attendance were Evangelist Nora Thompson, Lula Mae Honeydripper, deacons Harry Wilson, Doug Whitehead, George Sugarman McKnight, and several other members of the Wednesday session. As the Pastor pressed his way to enter the circle, the body came to order. All mystically chorused into singing Blessed Assurance, after which Deacon Honeydripper sought the Lawd.

In his rich bass voice, Deacon Honeydripper, a voice reminiscent of some of the late actor William Marshall, bellowed. Lawd, I know that we’s not worthy to stand before your presence, but we come upon the finished work done at Calvary, asking yo’ blessing for this branch of Zion. We’s come humbly, as we knows how to ask You to forgive us for our sins of omission and commission. We thought that if we did the dos and didn’t do the don’ts, we would be all right, but we discovered we had still failed you. We ask You to forgive us and cleanse us from mother earth’s smear. These mud suits You placed us in have caused us to rebel against heaven and commit high treason, but through the blood of Jesus, it has washed us cleaner than the driven snow.

Deacon Honeydripper continued to seek the Lawd for the next ten minutes, and each assembled Soul took his turn at the throne of grace to reveal the Lawd further.

Finally, Pastor stood and asked if he could get an amen. Several affirmatives arose when Pastor finally sought the Lawd, as he had earlier been peeked at and revealed. After fully disclosing the Lawd’s whereabouts amid the assembled in Redemption, Pastor queried if all had their weapons, their Bible. They could then turn to the Book of Isaiah in the fourteenth chapter. Ye shall find written these few words:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Isaiah 14: 12, 13, 14

When last we met, whooped Pastor Masters, we discussed the dangerous path of descent for the Archangel known as Lucifer. According to the bible, he was almost perfect in his ways until the day that iniquity was discovered in his dark soul. Sin began in heaven, and it began in the heart of Lucifer. We must understand that the bible mentions several instances of sin, and God treats each differently. There was verbal permission from those assembled, several amens, and a talk sir, from the Deac.

Let us first look at transgression in our talk tonight. Transgression means to cut across the law. You know the commandments, but you go against the grain of the law, becoming a lawbreaker. The law says thou shalt not covet yet we covet, and how do we dream but with the eye-gate. We see our neighbor’s new car. We desire to have the exact vehicle, if not better, and this was a design by God in that the law could spotlight our actions contrary to the law. The law occasioned sin."

At this point, Deacon McKnight stood up with the bible in hand, this being the prescribed fashion in which to ask a question or comment on the lesson presented. Pastor, are you saying the law makes us sin? This query drew whispered words amongst the saints whose numbers had grown to forty-some-odd people, as enumerated by Pastor, including a new face that had emerged. Pastor Masters had noticed the stranger during last week’s session. Still, the stranger had left before the study period was over.

Deacon McKnight, I’m glad you asked that question. ‘Does the law causes us to sin?’ is the question. And the answer is an emphatic no. The law does not make us sin but acts as our schoolmaster. There was always the moral law, and we needed the law to show us how far out of bed we were with God. See, it works like this: The law will show you that your face is dirty, but it won’t wash it for you. You have to do the washing, the washing away of sin. Am I right about it? The saints agreed with their Pastor in their understanding.

"The second aspect of sin is called missing the mark. I must liken this to a person shooting an arrow at a bulls-eye. We seldom hit dead center within the innermost circle, but we hit all around it. We aim to hit the center or bull’s-eye, or so we say, but we miss the mark. Because of the sinful nature that we aim to do right, that old man is still within us and causes us to serve the element of flesh that leads to sin. Rabbi Saul—and I’ll paraphrase it—says, ‘When I would do good, evil is always present. The truth of the matter is that we sin daily, and we need to repent daily, and saints do sin’!"

The latter statement brought laughter from those who sat at the feet of their Gamaliel. And more subdued comments that quickly subsided when Pastor’s posture intimated he was ready to ascend the sacred desk again through oracular pronouncement.

The stranger who was present was busy writing in a notebook she had explicitly brought for this occasion. She had outlined most of what she had written in red ink, representing the many questions that had caused the veins in her forehead to become gorged with blood and distend. Tonight’s lesson was the situation presented to Chief Detective Wanda Price in executing her job. She wished she had paid more attention while attending Sunday school earlier. She had hoped that her faith level was equivalent to those around her who seemed in sync with their pastor and his doctrine. It was now that the lessons and warnings of her parents assailed her conscience as she tried to recall their Christian teachings. Detective Wanda Price continued listening and writing despite the burgeoning headache developing like a mushrooming cloud-ready to explode into a full-blown migraine. Just her luck.

Sin is an abrogation of God’s law and an alternative plan to God’s plan of salvation. God’s plan, which is also a plan of restoration, is to restore man to that place he enjoyed with God before the tainting of man’s priesthood by the Archangel Lucifer. Lucifer caused one-third of the angels to rebel against heaven’s authority. Our discussion now brings us to that third view of sin, which we shall call iniquity. Iniquity means something perverse, twisted, or maliciously deviant from the norm—Nero, Adolph Hitler, Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy— and yes, even its architect, Lucifer.

Pride became the enemy of Lucifer, and jealousy became a tool for destruction for a portion of the angelic host and eventually fallen man. Lucifer became jealous of man’s position before God, as though God had forsaken him—yet the God that we know loves us all, for He created us all. We are all God’s creation but not all God’s children. The rebellious angels who treasoned against heaven were cast from their divine lofty tiers, pink-slipped from the abode of Zion, and bound to their newly formed demonic realm.

Pastor Masters was sweating his message out. When the spirit arrives, he also brings heat, heightening the intensity of the message. Kristofer Masters thought to himself as he entered the fray with both feet, Start low, rise high and catch afire!

Detective Price thought that she, too, was catching afire. She recalled her youth at her church in Waukegan, Illinois, and how the old folks would shout and call the preacher to make it on in as he preached his heart out. Some congregations of the female persuasion would vault from their seats and run up and down the aisles until they were physically exhausted. It then reduced them to standing and reeling from one foot to other, with their hands planted squarely on each hip, looking up toward whence cometh their help, with tears streaming down their face. Detective Price reminisced how Mother Williams would do such a thing and culminated her exercise with exclamations of Oh sweet Jesus, Oh sweet Jesus. She would pace back and forth until one of the other sisters, recognizing that the Mother was spent, would shepherd her back to her seat. There she would receive the benefits of well-worked hand fans. Detective Wanda Price felt like she had come home to the Redemption church.

Now the bible says, and not Kristofer Masters, that Lucifer was more subtle than any beast of the field. It implied he was extraordinarily crafty yet highly dangerous to the earth plane. Lucifer was the architect of the evil of both Zion and the Garden of Eden. Understand that although Lucifer seduced Eve, Adam willfully sinned. Did he allow a relationship with evil to pass by his own free will? It not only signaled his own doom but humanity’s as well, and all was within the will of God in His plan of salvation.

Several members had been standing for some time, and Pastor coasted in for a landing. At the same time, the congregants shared their understanding of the lesson presented and their observations. As usual, Sister Lula Mae Honeydripper leaned over to her six- foot-six frame of a husband to ask him questions and to receive suitable answers. She would then resume her upright seating and beam her approval at her doting husband. Sister Lula Mae loved her pastor and respected him to the utmost, but Pastor wasn’t a Daryl Honeydripper.

CHAPTER 3

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33

The hour had grown late. After a few brief announcements and pastoral remarks, Pastor Masters delivered a short prayer along with the benediction, and the body was dismissed.

Kristofer Masters had pointed to his office to divest himself of his wet clothing when an unrecognized but melodious voice called to him. The voice said, Rev, could I have a word with you? but it sounded as though the spoken word was sung to some undefined tune. Still invested in his next step, he slowly turned his head to the right to catch a glance of her who spoke. But could not do so, which caused him to stop his advance and turn one hundred eighty degrees, representing a repentant mode to face his challenger.

What Rev. Kristofer Masters gazed upon was one of Champaign’s finest arrayed in a red, below- the-knee linen dress. The dress's collar was framed in white, highlighting a light bronze-skinned, perfectly oval face, and there it riveted his attention. Her eyes were as large as any he had seen. The eyes bespoke upturned corners as though Asian blood infused in what was a child of color and an exquisite child. The lips were full and smooth. As Kristofer mused, the lips were a hotdog carefully sliced down the middle, with each cut side curving up or down in perfect proportion. The only unsettling object of what otherwise would have been an ideal landscape was

what appeared to have been a broken nose. Kristofer Masters’s expression was telegraphed to Detective Price.

Regaining what was to pass as his composure, he asked, Sister, was there something that needed to be clarified for your understanding? It did not come out well, and his familiar baritone voice had gained a somewhat higher octave. Betrayal was not only found in the Garden of Eden!

Pastor, my name is Wanda Price, and I am a chief detective of the Champaign Police Department. If I could get you to respond to a few questions from tonight’s study session, it may help my investigation. As Wanda Price was speaking, she was still advancing upon him. As she neared him, she extended her right hand, perfectly fitting into his outstretched hand that met hers. She could feel the calloused palm.

For a brief instant, she felt as though he had ever so gently pulled her farther into his space, but she shunned the idea and spoke again when she looked upward and saw his expression. She would have sworn under oath that the man was blushing. Her lips turned upward in a faint smile. She extracted her hand and resumed her official position as a representative of the Champaign Police Department—albeit with a fascination about Pastor Masters.

They both spoke simultaneously. Detective Price was apologizing for keeping Rev. Masters from continuing his duties. He was asking what her given name was. She had already told him. The exchange resulted in them both smiling and agreeing with her.

Rev. Masters, again, I apologize for detaining you. But I gather that you have either read or heard about some strange occurrences in our fair city in the Daily Sentinel or media.

DETECTIVE...

I’m Chief Detective Wanda Price, Reverend.

Detective Price, I was on my way to my office to change my clothing....

Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t notice, being so intent on....

"Please, don’t