Enoch's Ghost (16 page)

Timothy walked a pace or two ahead of Angel. Even when he slowed to allow her to walk abreast, she slowed, too, and stayed at his heels. He reached back and took her hand. “Let me help you.”

She pulled her hand away. “You are not my Adam.”

“We are not in the village,” he said, reaching again. “No one will be offended.”

Sliding her hand into his, she allowed him to pull her to his side, but she kept her gaze straight ahead as they forged on through the woods.

Well inside the forest, a brilliant shaft of light poured into a clearing from a hole in a cliff, the high ridge that circumvented the home of the shadow people. Keeping the prisoner behind him, Abraham approached the tunnel from one side and stood near the entrance. “Enoch’s Ghost awakens me every dawn with a hymn,” he said to Timothy, “and he speaks of this place. Perhaps after I sing it, you will be able to help me understand its meaning.” Pursing his lips, he sang, this time in a lower, smoother voice than before.

When souls are lost on darkest paths,

When fathers weep and mothers wail,

No salve can cool the fevered wound,

No solace calms the tossed travail.

A tale of hearts I tell in twos,

By inward scales their souls are weighed,

For one is brazen, shameless, proud,

The other gentle, wandering, strayed.

The rebel’s heart is veiled within,

With stubborn pride rejecting sight.

Her calloused eyes perceive no flaws,

For darkness blends them with the night.

The wayward heart will seek the light,

But finds a counterfeit instead,

And celebrates the knowledge found

In human wisdom’s lofty head.

O who can rescue scarlet souls

Who shake the fist or wander blind?

The souls they forfeit, gems so rare,

Are broken glass to darkened minds.

A stranger comes, a man who weeps

A father’s tears for loved ones lost.

He hearkens from a land unknown

In search of restoration’s cost.

In desperation’s hope he calls,

“A soul to trade, a soul to sell,”

For better one to suffer flames

Than daughters loved to burn in Hell.

A path of light within the rock

Will purge all falsehood from within

And bring to light the hidden truths,

The love ignited once again.

The tunnel leads a warrior chief,

A youth with mystery in his eyes,

With flames he walks to burn the chaff.

A child he leads to silence lies.

And once the hearts of gold he trains

Are drawn to lights of holy depth,

Then wielding swords they journey where

Corruption’s harvest draws its breath.

As he lengthened the final word and faded the tune, Abraham closed his eyes, exhaling dramatically. Everyone stayed silent. Even the dark prisoner had stopped jerking. Finally, Abraham opened his eyes again and looked at Timothy expectantly. “Any thoughts?”

“Many.” Timothy laid a hand on his head. “So many, I think my brain is about to explode.”

Angel pushed her hand into Timothy’s hair and pressed down on his scalp.

“It’s just an idiom,” Timothy explained. “My brain isn’t going to explode.”

“I know,” she said, smiling. “I guess I’m getting up to snuff with your idioms.”

Abraham lifted his prisoner higher. “Let me take care of this viper, and we’ll talk.” He nodded toward Angel. “May I have the companion?”

Angel unzipped her jacket a few inches, reached underneath, and withdrew the glassy egg. Gazing at it as she handed it to the Prophet, she said, “Its light and eyes are gone.” Tears tracked down her cheeks as she strained to finish. “I have never seen a companion restored from this state.”

“We shall see.” Abraham took the companion and pushed it against the prisoner’s chest. As he walked into the shaft of light at the mouth of the tunnel, the shadow figure in his grip thrashed once again. He raised the creature high and let the rays of light bathe its shadowy form. With a crackling sound, the edges of its frame sizzled and slowly disintegrated. Sparks ate toward its midsection and grew brighter while Abraham kept the companion pressed against its pulsing red heart. As its body disappeared, its flat white bones dangled from its frame, some breaking and dropping to the ground.

Finally, when the popping sparks converged on the heart, a tiny explosion erupted, sending a pulse of energy into the companion. As the prisoner’s remaining bones broke apart and fell from Abraham’s grip, an aura expanded from the ovulum. He stepped out of the light and extended the glowing egg in his open palm. “The companion is restored, precious Angel. It is not the same as having your Adam, but its presence will keep his memory alive.”

When Angel reached for the companion, it lifted off Abraham’s palm and floated toward Timothy. As it hovered a few inches in front of his face, its eyes gazed at him, unblinking. Then, after making three orbits around his head, it settled just above his shoulder and stayed there.

Abraham stared at Timothy, then at Angel. Timothy cocked his head, trying to see the companion, but could only get a glimpse of the semitransparent egg as it floated back and forth with his every movement.

“Remarkable!” Abraham set his hands on his hips. “I have never seen a companion take on a new charge. This is surely unexpected.”

Angel drew close to Timothy and watched the ovulum. “But it’s not unreasonable. Besides you, good prophet, we have never known anyone of our race who lacked a companion, so this opportunity has never arisen.”

“What is it doing?” Timothy asked. “It feels like its tickling the inside of my head.”

Angel laughed gently. “It is petting your soul with its soft fingers.”

“That is how it probes your mind,” Abraham explained. “It makes a spiritual attachment with you so it can be a helper in times of need.”

“Father!” Angel cried, lifting a hand to her mouth. “Could it be?”

Abraham squinted at her. “What is it, my child?”

Lowering her hand slowly, she gazed at the reborn companion. “Since Timothy is now attached to Dragon’s companion, could he be my new Adam?”

Chapter 11

The Lake of Fire

Walter kept his eyes open, hoping to see the switch from one world to the next. Hades had been an exciting place to visit, but he definitely didn’t want to live there. The column of fire spun violently, whipping hot air across his cheeks. Within seconds, it faded, then vanished, leaving a dim, dreary sky with a blanket of clouds hanging overhead.

“Whoa!”

Walter spun toward the cry. Flailing her arms, Karen teetered backwards over the stairwell hole. He snatched her waistband and yanked her away, shouting, “Not again, you don’t!”

When she regained her balance, he helped her stand upright. “You okay?”

“Whew!” Karen laid a hand on her forehead. “That was the worst déjà vu I’ve ever had! I don’t want to fall down any more bottomless pits!”

Gabriel flew to her other side. He fanned out his wings and stretched one around her. “This is cooler than iced cucumbers,” he said. “I’m solid again!”

Karen leaned away, startled. “Oh! Hi! I’m Karen.”

“I know.” As Gabriel patted her shoulder with a wing he extended a hand toward Walter. “Glad to meet you.”

“Same here.” Walter shook his hand but glanced around, counting the dimensional travelers. “Where’s Ashley?”

Gabriel took his turn surveying their crew. “And Roxil.”

Sapphira leaned over the hole, placing her bare foot in one of several huge footprints leading away from the edge. A cold drizzle added to the shallow puddle forming inside the print. “I don’t see them anywhere. Could they have materialized right over the hole and fallen in?”

“Oh, no!” Karen leaned over the opening and shouted, “Ashley! Can you hear me? Roxil?”

Walter dropped to his knees and peered down, his hands clutching the muddy edge of the hole. “I see some stairs, but they’re receding. I think I can jump to them if I hurry.”

“No!” Karen shouted. “You won’t be able to get back up!”

Grabbing the edge of the hole, he lowered himself into it. “I’ll figure out that part later.” He let go of the rim and plummeted. Bending his knees, he landed on the stairwell and tumbled down the steps, bumping his knees and elbows until he could brace his body against the curving wall and slow his momentum.

When he finally came to a stop, he sat up in the darkened spiral corridor, every part of his body throbbing. “Okay, that wasn’t cool,” he mumbled.

A loud crunching noise sounded from above, getting closer by the second. Jumping to his feet, he whipped Excalibur from its scabbard and flashed on its beam. The stairway was collapsing!

He spun around and dashed down the stairs, skipping three at a time. With each slap of his shoes against stone, the sound of crashing steps followed only inches behind, like a growling lion nipping at his heels. Finally, the step he landed on gave way, and he plummeted into blackness.

Still clinging to Excalibur, he jerked his head back and forth, searching for something to grab, but only chunks of debris fell within the sword’s glow. For some reason, he felt no fear. He had gone through dimensional portals before, and this vertical plunge gave him the same tingly sensation, though this episode seemed to stretch out much longer than any of the others.

Picking up speed with every second, he fell on and on, much farther than he and Ashley had descended down the stairwell. Wherever the bottom was, it would be deeper than the level of Hades they had visited … if there was a bottom at all.

After another minute or so, a strong breeze, hot, dry, and stale, buoyed his body, slowing his descent. He pointed Excalibur downward, trying to find the source of the wind. A dark red light mixed with the sword’s glow to reveal a huge man standing underneath him. As he drifted closer, the breeze steadily weakened until it finally shut off. With the loss of the support, he plummeted once again, falling right into the giant’s outstretched arms.

Although the man grunted, he absorbed the impact with only a slight sag of his cradling arms.

“Let me go!” Walter shouted, thrashing his body, but the giant held firm, gripping Walter’s wrist in his enormous hand and immobilizing Excalibur.

The giant shushed him with a commanding whisper. “Be quiet, son of man!”

Walter immediately calmed his body. Something about this man’s voice forced instant obedience, like a father’s urgent appeal that would save the life of a child.

The giant lowered Walter to the ground and, softening his tone, released Walter’s wrist. “We must maintain silence. There are dangerous creatures here, and I do not wish to alert them to our presence.”

“Sounds good to me,” Walter whispered, moving the sword closer to get a better view of this huge man who was easily as tall as the Nephilim in the mobility room. The maroon-tinted light seemed to adorn his head in a scarlet hood, making his features indistinct. “I’m looking for a teenaged girl, a little older than me, about my height. I think she fell down the same hole, maybe a minute before I did. Have you seen her?” He considered mentioning Roxil, as well, but thought better of it for the moment.

The man shook his head. “I have only been here a few hours. I saw the shining sword as you descended, so I created your air cushion. I hope that I sufficiently eased your landing. I fear that my breath was exhausted a little too soon.”

“Thank you. It was enough. I’ve had worse landings.” Now sweating, Walter unzipped his jacket and searched for the source of heat. Hanging low in the rusty sky, a dark red sun shot out snaking tongues of fire from its perimeter and coated the blackness in a dim, bloody wash. Still, it was enough to illuminate a huge black ocean perhaps a hundred yards away. Far out in the surf, red spots of light floated, bobbing and weaving like ships’ beacons on a rough sea.

The giant leaned down and laid a hand on Walter’s shoulder. “I am very glad to see you, son of man, though you are not quite what I expected.”

Walter had to push up to keep from sagging under the weight of the heavy hand. As he guided Excalibur closer to the man’s head again, the glow washed over his collar-length hair and scraggly beard, but most of his face was still veiled by scarlet shadows. “Well,” Walter replied, keeping his voice low, “I’m not sure what you expected, but you’re not exactly who I was hoping to find, either.”

The man set a hand on his bushy brow, shielding his eyes. “I apologize for my rudeness. Since you are so young, I assumed you were not skillful with your sword, but I was probably assuming too much.”

“I’m okay with it.” Walter ran a finger along the blade’s engraved design. “Do you need me to do something?”

“I am searching for a way of escape, but there are unfriendly forces here, so it is too dangerous to roam freely. With you and your sword, we can travel more boldly. I am big and strong, but I do not think I can fight more than two of them at once.”

“Them?”

The man curled his finger. “Come. I will show you.”

“Wait.” Walter stretched his fingers tightly around Excalibur’s hilt. “First I need to know who I’m dealing with. Are you one of the Nephilim?”

“I have been called that.” The man raised his chin a notch. “I am one of the giants of old, but I prefer not to be associated with those who wear the Nephilim name too proudly.”

Walter pointed the sword at the giant’s feet. “So you’re not one of Mardon’s plant creatures? You weren’t suspended in a growth chamber for years?”

The giant scrunched his brow. “How do you know about Mardon and growth chambers?”

“Let’s just say a little blue-eyed girl told me.”

Crouching to Walter’s level, the giant drooped his shoulders. “I see. … You know Mara.” He let out a blustery sigh that whisked through Walter’s hair like a stormy breeze. “If she informed you,” he continued, “then you are likely acquainted with many details about Nephilim.”

“Her name is Sapphira now, and she did tell me quite a bit. I met some of the other Nephilim, and they looked almost exactly like you, but they had red eyebeams, kind of like lasers.”

“I have them as well.” The giant flicked his beams on and then back off. “But in this place of scarlet light they only serve to give away my location. It is better if I keep them off and stay in hiding.”

“So are you like the others? Are you one of Mardon’s hybrids?”

“Only in that I developed from a hybrid seedling in a growth chamber. I acquiesced to Mardon’s plan, because I learned that obeying him was the only way to survive. He and Morgan had no patience with even the slightest hint of insubordination. Many of us suffered death by poisoning.”

Walter scratched the pebbly soil with Excalibur’s point. “Any idea how you ended up here?”

“We were running low on food, so Mardon told us his plan to make us sleep until he could figure out how to get us into the upper lands. After we dug out new growth chambers, he implanted a device in the strongest of us that would wake us up when the time came. He then gave us a potion that would make us sleep, and I stepped into my chamber. After that, I woke up in this dark place. How I came here is a mystery.”

Walter propped Excalibur on his shoulder again, whispering to himself. “Maybe you’re the one Karen replaced.”

“If you are addressing me,” the giant said, “I cannot hear you.”

Walter shook his head. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Thinking is good, but we would be better served now by acting. If, however, you keep waving that glowing blade around, you will likely not survive long. Your presence will soon be noticed by the devils.”

The word echoed shakily from Walter’s lips. “Devils?”

The giant rose to his full height. “If you are a valiant man, then please follow.” He marched into the darkness.

Walter let the sword’s glow diminish to a bare minimum and trudged through the mixture of gravel and sand. No sense in not following. Even though this giant looked just as dangerous as Chazaq and his buddies, his story about trying to fool Morgan was convincing enough. Besides, flying back up to the surface wasn’t exactly a reasonable option.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim red light, Walter darkened Excalibur and scanned the coastline. With its areas of beach and rocky promontories, it reminded him of the coastline he visited in Oregon, though this one lacked any hint of the Pacific breezes that had chilled his skin in the Northwest.

As the giant headed toward the floating red lights, a sulfur smell drifted into Walter’s nose, growing stronger and stronger as they neared the black ocean. When they reached the water, a wave washed over the ground near the giant’s bare feet. He jumped back to avoid it. As the wave receded, it left strings of dark vapor rising over the stone.

Walter guided the blade near the edge. The glow fell over the black waves, a restless ocean seemingly coated with thick oil. Although the lapping of gentle surf masked all other sounds, Walter kept his voice quiet. “Is the water too hot for dipping your toes?”

The giant whispered in return. “It is hot, indeed.” He lowered himself to one knee and shot his beams into Walter’s eyes. “May I address you by your name, swordsman?”

Squinting at the red light, Walter fumbled with his words. “Uh … My name’s Walter.”

The giant shut off the beams. “Walter, please pardon my visual intrusion. My beams are harmless. When I look into someone’s eyes, I can often judge his character, and since we will be passing by an area where I have seen the devils before, we might soon have to go to battle together. I want to be sure I can trust you.”

“I’m cool with that, but I don’t have eyebeams. How can I be sure I can trust you?”

The giant lowered his head. “I could tell you more about my life’s story. Perhaps then you will be able to judge my character.”

“Fair enough, as long as the devils stay away.”

“We can only hope.” The giant took in a deep breath and spoke slowly. “I suppose I should begin with my name. Mara gave it to me many, many years ago when I was a mere seedling. I still remember how her voice chirped like a songbird when she said, ‘How about Yereq? It means green.’”

Walter pointed at him and blurted out, “You
are
the one Karen replaced.”

Yereq clapped his hand over Walter’s mouth and jerked him close, whispering into his ear. “Walter, you must keep your voice down. If you wish to summon the devils, then, by all means, do so, but please give me fair warning so that I may watch from the shadows while they pierce your lungs with knives and cast you into the Lake of Fire.”

Walter squeezed out a barely audible, “Lake of Fire?”

Pointing at the dark ocean, Yereq slowly released his grip. “The second death.”

Walter squinted at the rising and falling waves. “That doesn’t look like fire.”

“It is black fire. Flames that emit no light. I heard some strange creatures talking about it. They seemed great and powerful, so I was hoping they might be able to get us out of this place, but they are so fearsome, I have not decided if they will be friendly to us.” He hunched over and whispered even more softly. “If you have decided to trust me, come, and I will show them to you as well as the tragic end of the faithless.” With the black fire on his left, he walked slowly along the beach.

Walter followed Yereq’s huge footprints, glancing from side to side as he tromped, imagining shadows of pitchfork-carrying devils lurking behind the head-high boulders scattered along the beach. The sun, now close to the bloody horizon, provided just enough light to help him stay out of the fire, but too much to allow him to feel safe from the dozens of eyes that were probably staring at him this very moment. The feeling of dread shivered his bones. Night was approaching. The devils could probably see better in the dark than he could, and it would be impossible to find his way back to the portal that brought him to this dismal place.

After a few minutes, a white light shone from around a rocky promontory that jutted into the lake. The cape looked like a huge foot with its toes in the flames and the rest of the foot sloping up and out until it rose sharply into the “leg,” a vertical wall that reached into the darkness above.

With his hands on the promontory’s “ankle,” Yereq peered around the edge, while Walter, holding on to the crannies in the wall, scrambled up to get a look. A two-foot-high jetty ran at least a hundred feet into the lake. Three dazzling angels stood at the beach end of the jetty with their backs to the sulfurous flames. From the darkness to the right, a line of ten or so slumped-over figures shuffled toward the angels. Fettered with manacles and dragging long chains that linked ankles from prisoner to prisoner, they cowered as they drew near.