Confronting the Fallen (32 page)

Sariel's chuckle flitted through Chris'
mind. 'Sitting inside of you. What an odd thing to believe. I am not
sitting anywhere, Chris. I am a spirit; you know that. We are
connected, one to the other and I can hear you when you call. But I
dwell in Purgatory and until I have paid for my crimes, in Purgatory
will I stay.'

'But when you reacted to Anna...”
Chris began but Sariel cut him off.

'I acted through you, yes. My mind can
be anywhere I choose, Chris. But my essence remains here at all
times.'

'Huh. That's very interesting. But do
you know what's happening with me right now?'

There was a short moment of silence,
then, 'Ah yes, I see. You are in search of a piece of the sword. And
Natalie is with you. Excellent.'

'Maybe, maybe not. It's possible that
the bad guys have figured out where we are. I just hope they don't
know what we're doing here. Can you tell if one of the fragments of
your sword is nearby?'

'Regretfully, no Chris. But you can.'

'I can? But how...'

'The ring, Chris. Like calls to like.
If you are near one of the pieces, the ring will respond. It will
resonate and tell you where the piece can be found. At least, I think
that's the way it works.'

Chris sighed loudly and Natalie turned
to look at him with a raised eyebrow. He shook his head and tapped
his temple to indicate the internal conversation. She grinned in
understanding.

'You mean you don't know if it works or
not?'

'Well, I mean, it should.' Sariel
sounded a bit defensive. 'That's my understanding of the process, but
it's never been put to the test.'

'Great. An untested ring that may or
may not tell me where a sword fragment is. I hope it doesn't decide
to kick in if I'm fighting for my life. Could be a distraction.'

'Trust in Natalie, Chris. Her angel is
very powerful; almost an archangel herself. I'm sure she will be more
than a match for whatever you might encounter.'

'Including Angelica?' Chris asked
dryly.

After a moment's hesitation, Sariel
said, 'Look, Chris, if you need me, just call. There may be something
I can do, even without the sword.'

'Yeah, thanks for that, Sariel. But I
think passing out in the middle of a fight would be a good way for me
to end up dead. I'll figure something out. I always do.'

'It's your choice, my friend. But I
will be here, waiting.'

Chris looked at Natalie who had been
watching his face intently.

“Little chat with your inner
angel?” she asked with a smile.

“Yeah. Big help as usual.”
Chris looked around at the fog, but heard nothing and saw no
movement. The four team members stood about ten feet away, screening
Chris and Natalie from any unseen attackers. Rabbi Eddleson stood
nearby. He'd been so quiet that Chris had forgotten he was there. He
caught Chris' eye and nodded solemnly.

“He says that if a piece of the
sword is near me, the ring should react to it somehow. But he's not
quite sure if it actually works.” Natalie snickered and Chris
shrugged. “Yeah, like I said. Big help.”

Natalie offered him a trail mix bar and
Chris accepted it gratefully. He chewed the bar slowly and sipped a
bit of water, all the while watching the swirling mist slip and drift
around them. His skin felt damp and an occasional drop of water
leaked down from his hair and on to his face. Chris wiped it off with
the back of his hand.

“How long does it take to find a
door”” he asked querulously.

“In this crap? Who knows.”
Natalie swallowed the last of her bar and slipped the empty package
into her pocket. She also swiped at her face to get the water out of
her eyes. “I'm going to end up looking like a prune in this
wet.”

Chris laughed silently and then whipped
around as footsteps suddenly sounded from their right. The security
team stood up straight, alert and ready for battle. A shape appeared
through the shifting fog and Chris held his breath until he
recognized the judge, the two security team members following closely
behind him.

“Well, we've found it. Or at
least, we found a depression in the ground that is too perfectly
formed to be natural. We'll have to shift some sand and gravel but it
shouldn't take long. I think we'd all better stick together from now
on though. Just in case.”

Chris was in complete agreement,
although no one asked him. Instead, the judge waved at them to follow
him, then turned back the way he'd come and vanished into the mist.

Everyone hurried to catch up to the
judge and they moved slowly through the mist, all within six feet of
each other. The ground crunched under their feet and the weird echoes
amplified the sound of their movement until Chris felt like he was in
the midst of a group ten times the size of their company. Judge
Hawkes calmly and surely led them around the heap of stones, keeping
the mass to his left and walked about thirty paces beyond it until he
stopped abruptly.

“There it is,” he said
quietly and pointed ahead at the ground. Chris moved closer to the
judge and looked past him at the wet-looking earth. The judge was
right; there was an obvious depression, roughly rectangularly shaped
and maybe six by eight feet, outlined on the ground.

“I'm afraid that we'll need to
use our hands, ladies and gentlemen, to clear this away. Unless one
of you thought to bring a shovel along with you?” The question
was obviously asked tongue in cheek as the judge glanced around at
their anxious faces. “I thought not. Very well. Four of you
will take position at our perimeter and watch for...whatever may come
our way. The rest of us shall get our hands dirty.” He shrugged
off his pack and set it aside. “Pile your packs here and let's
get to it, shall we? While there is still enough light to see what we
are doing.”

Chris dropped his pack along with the
others and followed the judge's instructions on where to start
digging. Four members of the team spread out around them, focused
outward, and watching for any movement. Everyone else, including
Judge Hawkes, began to dig along the edges of the depression,
flinging the wet sandy dirt outward.

Even with the damp cold pressing in on
him, Chris soon found himself sweating and breathing heavily. The
dirt was sticky and heavier than he had imagined and it took all of
them digging down about a foot before they struck a harder surface.

The judge peered down at his own hole
and nodded. “As I hoped, it is solid stone.” he said with
satisfaction. “I do believe this is our door. Dig, my friends.
Dig on.”

Finding the door gave everyone renewed
energy and Chris found himself digging faster. Anything to get out of
this foggy trap. It took a remarkably short time after that to clear
the slab of stone of all of its concealing dirt. Finally they stood
back, gasping for breath and wiping the sweat from their faces.

Chris panted and squinted down at the
revealed slab of stone. The light was almost gone and it was hard to
distinguish any features on the flat surface. A light suddenly
pierced the gloom and Judge Hawkes swept the beam of a flashlight
across the stone. Then he stepped down into the depression and stood
near the center of the slab, staring at some sort of design carved on
to the rock.

“Christopher. Natalie. Joseph.
Would you come here please?” he asked quietly. The two teens
exchanged puzzled looks with the rabbi and joined the judge. They
looked down at the illuminated symbol. “What does this look
like to you?” the judge asked them.

The carving was crude. Chris thought
that whoever had cut into the stone wasn't very artistic. There were
two vertical lines, a circle on top of them and two other lines; one
leading up at a right-angle and the other going left and down. He
stared at it and tried to puzzle it out. Then he glanced at Natalie
who was frowning down at the symbol.

“Any ideas, Nat?” Chris
asked hopefully.

“I dunno. It looks kind of
familiar. At least, it reminds me of something but, no, nothing leaps
to mind.”

The rabbi was stroking his beard
thoughtfully as he gazed at the carving but said nothing.

Chris looked at the judge who was
watching him with an expression of, Chris wasn't sure; pity, sadness?
It was hard to say.

“Come now, Christopher. Look
closely.”

Chris looked again. He knelt down on
one knee to examine the etching in the rock. And then it hit him and
he stood up and turned away slightly with a sigh.

“Yeah, of course,” he said
as he glanced up at the judge. “It's me, isn't it?”

“Yes, my friend. You. Or rather,
you as Sariel.” The judge sounded a bit sad.

“Oh, I see it now.” Natalie
was peering at the symbol. “Crude, but it shows the basics, I
guess. So how do we open it?”

The two teens looked to the judge who
appeared to be wondering the same thing.

“When my ancestor was here, he
indicated that the entrance was already open. That is how he managed
to find it in the first place. But when he left, he must have
triggered some sort of mechanism, because the slab slammed tightly
behind him. He remarked that it almost cut him in half. As to how we
get through, only one method comes to mind.” He looked at Chris
and then nodded at the entrance. “Touch the symbol, Chris.”

“Touch it? You mean just put my
hand on it? What good will that do?”

“Let's find out, shall we? Just
try it and see.”

Chris thought it sounded stupid and
said so, but under the judge's stern gaze he knelt beside the crude
picture again. He placed his right hand palm-down on to the stone.
The slab was cold, colder than the surrounding air. The bits of rock
and grit on top of it dug into the flesh of his hand as he held it
there, wondering how long he should wait before they were convinced
that it was a waste of time.

After a minute or so, Chris heard the
judge sigh behind him. “Very well, Christopher. I suppose we'll
have to think of something else.”

“Good,” Chris said. “I
feel kind of silly kneeling here.” He pulled his hand off the
stone and tried to stand at the same time, and then collapsed back on
to the slab. His hand was stuck to the stone.

“What the hell?” Chris
exclaimed and he started trying to yank his palm off of the slab.
Nothing happened except that he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.

“What's wrong, Chris?”
Natalie asked anxiously. She stepped up next to him and knelt down.

“My hand is stuck to this stupid
thing.” Chris looked up at the judge. “What's going on?”

Judge Hawkes moved to Chris' other side
and knelt down as well. “I have no idea,” he answered,
obviously concerned. “Are you in pain?”

“No. Well, just from pulling at
it. But my hand feels fine. It's just feels like it's glued to the
rock. And the rock is really cold.”

Natalie ran her fingers over the stone.
“It feels fine to me,” she said, puzzled. “In fact,
it's still a bit warm from the sun earlier.”

“Not to me it doesn't. My hand's
going numb from the cold, actually.” Chris was trying not to
panic, but he couldn't help but think of the fog around them and what
would happen if they were attacked while he was trapped stuck to this
damned stone.

“Christopher, can you speak to
Sariel right now?” the judge asked quickly.

“Um, yeah, I guess so. Why?”

“It's just a theory, but I think
the stone is waiting, for want of a better word, to feel Sariel's
power before it will open. It recognizes you as his flesh, but as a
human, you don't have his power.”

“His power? Huh. Okay, just a
sec.” Chris tried to forget the bitter cold that was leeching
the feeling from his hand and spoke internally. 'You there?' he
asked.

“Of course, my other self,' came
Sariel's reply.

'Have you been watching what's going
on?'

'I have, Chris. I think the judge may
be right. Fortunately, the hand that is stuck to the stone is the one
with the ring on it. You can easily touch it with my power.'

'Really? How?' Chris asked as he
gritted his teeth against the pain of the cold that was now creeping
up his arm.

'Just remember how you felt when you
used the power to heal. Remember the warmth, the sense of strength
that flowed from you to the one being healed. Power is power and that
should suffice.'

'Heal a rock? That's a new one.'

“Okay, your honor,” Chris
blinked a few times as he refocused on the world around him. “He
wants me to try. Here goes.”

He remembered the puppy, how much he
wanted to help, the feeling of urgency and desire to heal. And the
warmth, something that he wanted desperately to feel right now. Then
he stared at the stone under his hand and tried to push the power
down his numb arm, into his hand and through the slab.

For a moment, nothing happened. And
then Chris began to get some feeling back into his arm and hand. He
sucked in his breath as the sensation of pins and needles attacked
his fingers, but it passed quickly and a wave of heat shot through
him and into the stone. His hand popped off of the slab and he fell
over on to his butt as he lost his balance.

“Hey, Chris. You did it! Great
job.” Natalie patted his shoulder and helped him to his feet.

“Yeah, thanks Nat. But what now?”

That question was quickly answered as
the slab began to slide open, rumbling and grinding loudly. Chris,
Natalie, the rabbi and Judge Hawkes stepped quickly on to solid
ground and watched in fascination as the massive piece of stone
quickly disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in the sand.

The judge pointed his flashlight down
into the opening. A steep, dusty set of steps led down and out of
sight and there was no indication of how far down they went. The
judge glanced at Chris, who was surprised to see a smile on the man's
face.

He's excited, Chris thought and he had
to admit that he felt the same. Who knows what we'll find down there.
He flexed his fingers and looked at the ring. There was no indication
from it that one of the sword pieces was nearby, but Chris had no
idea of what would happen when he got close to one anyway.