The Darkening Dream (21 page)

A week early.

Pain knotting her abdomen and warm stickiness coating her legs, she curled into a ball and sobbed. That was no normal nightmare.

She rolled out from under the covers and crept to the light switch. Her nightgown was stained red to the knees, and she’d trailed bloody footprints from her bed. She grabbed her notebook and recorded everything she could remember using her usual Hebrew cipher. Flipping back, she found the page with
only you can stop us
. Underneath, she wrote
My death, your blood, your death, my blood.

The window was ajar and the air was cold. She shut it, then stripped off her gown and used it to wipe the wetness from her legs and the floor. She balled the garment and sheets together, pulled on a fresh nightgown, and lay on top of her bare mattress. Even this was graced with a large dark stain, but there was nothing she could do about that.

She felt utterly alone.
Meet the one you hunt.

She tried to pray but concentration was impossible. The bat creature — he had to be the one that made Charles — must be the same monster that’d chased them into the cove. Except this thing made Charles seem small and weak — house cat to the lion.

She heard the clock downstairs chime four. At least an hour before she should rise, but she was far too shaken to sleep.

A haggard young woman waited for her in the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t the first time she’d tackled a day on three hours’ sleep, but first she needed to wash, and the water was as cold as a mountain stream. Unfortunately, warm water this time of morning involved a trip to the cellar to start the water heater.

Sarah retrieved a pair of old work boots from the basement steps, pulled them over her bare feet, and lifted the kerosene lantern from its hook. The leather scraped against her toes as she shuffled down the stairs. The earthy smell of the dark cellar mixed with the odor of kerosene and the copper tang of her own blood.

The heater was one of Papa’s newer gadgets, a three-foot tall copper cylinder that clung to the side of the water tank. She turned on the gas valve and lit the pilot light. Upstairs she heard the kitchen door open, probably their housekeeper Mary fetching wood. A gust of wind from outside slammed the cellar door shut.

Sarah felt herself in a bubble of lamplight enclosed by darkness. Oh, God, today was Saturday. She’d lit the heater on
Shabbat
. There’d be consequences, but this whole Cesarian by vampire gambit was plain unfair on God’s part.

She shuffled back toward the staircase, but a dripping sound from the shadows caught her attention. In the back corner of the house, under what was probably her father’s study, a network of roots had forced themselves through the stone wall that enclosed this part of the cellar.

Her heart raced as images flashed through her mind. Blood red sky below and roots above. She felt a coldness inside her, and the pain in her abdomen returned.

The horn blared. Everywhere and nowhere, the slow and mournful tone without beginning or end. The cramps forced her to her knees. She tried to breathe. The roots looked wet with blood.
My death, your blood, your death, my blood.

The door behind her opened, and light spilled into the basement.

“Miss Sarah?” Mary’s lilting voice. The sound of the horn faded, and with the added light she could see the roots were just damp with water, trickling down the wall.

Sarah managed to corner her father on the walk home from synagogue.

“You look tired,” he said as they started off down the tree-lined street.

“Nightmare. I couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards.”

He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Anything you want to tell me about?”

We must both die twice before we save each other.
Papa would know what to do.

She told him about the dream, leaving out the most ominous parts of Isabella’s dialogue. After Judah, she wasn’t going to plant those thoughts in his mind — or hers. She wasn’t ready to reveal what had happened with Charles, either, so she didn’t mention the first vision.

“It wasn’t just a nightmare,” she said when she’d finished. “It wasn’t normal.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The horn sounded like a giant
shofar
. I hear it sometimes — don’t think I’m crazy — I heard it this morning in the basement.”

“I believe you.” He gazed into Salem Common as they walked along the fence-line. “God created demons to test mankind. If we don’t resist evil with all our heart, we fail the test.”

As fearsome as he is, he serves another.
Somehow Sarah hadn’t gotten the impression that Isabella meant God.

“So you think God sent these dreams?” she said. “He wants me to fight evil?”

“I think your dreams are significant.” But he seemed more interested in the elegant afternoon strollers than her.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Now he turned back. “You remember the Horn we spoke about a week ago? The one from the Ram in the Thicket, the one that Gabriel keeps for Elijah?”

“I remember.”

“I believe that’s the sound you hear in your dreams.” He took his pipe from his pocket, useless on a Saturday, and sighed.

“What makes you think it’s the same?”

“Because God entrusted me with the Horn for a time.”

If she hadn’t seen the dead rise up and walk, she might’ve thought
he
was the crazy one.

“The Horn that signals the End of Days is in your desk drawer?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Not anymore.”

As she contemplated this humdinger, a passing bicyclist honked.

“Explain, before my heart explodes in my chest,” she said.

“Last night, Mr. Palaogos spoke of the Hofburg palace fire,” her father said. “That particular morning, I was at court for an Imperial audience. God sent me signs and portents, so that He might lead me to the palace treasury. There, He revealed the Horn to me.”

“Magical horns aren’t real.” The words sounded silly in her ears. “And wasn’t Gabriel keeping it for Elijah?”

Papa returned his pipe to his pocket. “I’d have thought so, but while an archangel may never be late, it seems he may misplace things.”

What is lost will be found.
Charles’ voice echoed in Sarah’s head.

“That was it? God showed it to you, and you brought it home like a cake from the bakery?”

“Not quite.” They turned onto their block. “Someone else was there, also seeking the Horn. I prayed, as your Grandpapa had taught me, and was able to make myself invisible to the wrongdoer.”

God had made Papa invisible? Could He do that? Well, obviously He could, but could someone learn to ask Him? She almost tripped she was so excited.

“Can you show me how?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but don’t get sidetracked. I need to explain what this monster was capable of. I watched him kill six innocent men that day. Him and his pets.”

Another vampire? No, Papa had said he’d been there in the morning.

“Time for lunch,” Papa said. They stood at the front door.

“You have to be kidding,” she said. “What about the fire and the villain?”

“I’m just teasing,” he said, “Let me grab a snack and meet you in my study.”

She stomped to his office, every fiber of her being electrified. Finally she was getting some answers.

Papa returned with a plate of
rugelach
, one of them already in his mouth. Sarah helped herself to one of her mother’s pastries while Papa settled himself behind his desk, leaving a trail of crumbs in his path.

“I was able to steal the Horn and escape to the stables, but the villain and his jackal-dog cornered me. I was trapped, so I used my
mezuzah
and the 27th Psalm to destroy his disguise.”

Sarah pulled up one of the side chairs. “Disguise?”

“He wasn’t a man. The Lord’s Light exploded his head like a ripe pomegranate, revealing a giant black beetle growing from his shoulders. I blew the Horn, and he was destroyed by the fires of heaven. Unfortunately, so were the stables.”

“You’re not the Messiah or anything? I don’t know if I could take that.”

He laughed. “Let’s hope not, but the Horn is God’s Strength incarnate and has many uses.”

In Hebrew, Gabriel meant ‘Strength of God,’ but strength also implied sacrifice, like the sacrifice of Isaac or the ram.
The Strength of God sings in our blood.
The horn sounds our sacrifice.

Papa took another pastry. “When Elijah sounds the Horn, he will use one of the secret names of God — unknown to me. As the world began with a
word
, so shall it end.”

Papa dropped half his pastry into his lap and managed to stain his suit. Probably a good thing he didn’t know the word that destroyed the Universe.

“Which name did you use?” she asked.

“
Ehyeh asher ehyeh.”

Sarah knew it of course, so God had named himself to Moses at the Burning Bush. “I am that I am.”

“I whispered the name into the Horn, and it became as a single note more pure than any sound I’d ever heard.” A faraway look came to Papa’s face. “The blare of the Horn threatened to sunder the very fabric of the world. Khepri burst into cold red fire and was consumed.”

As he said this, she heard it, the slow and mournful sound of the horn from her dreams.

“Khepri? Was that the beetle man?” she asked.

Papa reached over to his bookshelf, pulled down two large volumes, and flopped them onto the desk. Cracking one, he thumbed through. Sarah glanced at the spine.
The Gods of the Egyptians Volume I
, by Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge.

Papa turned the book so Sarah could see a color plate. An orange-skinned man holding a staff sat on a throne, in place of his head an enormous black scarab beetle.

The bottom of the page read, “The god Khepri.”

“An Egyptian god?” she said.

He flipped to another page showing a hieroglyph of a little dog. The text read, “Anubis, jackal-headed god who receives the organs of the dead.”

“
Hashem
refutes all other deities explicitly,” she said.

“Of course. They can’t be gods, not really.” He closed the books. “But perhaps these ancient legends have some basis in truth — for this is certainly what I saw at the palace that day.”

“Maybe he was some kind of sorcerer,” she said, “a devotee of ancient Egyptian secrets.”

“So you believe in sorcerers, just not gods?” He smiled.

“Aren’t you one?” He had just claimed to have turned invisible and battled false deities.

“I prefer learned man.” He folded his hands. “It doesn’t matter what they were. Khepri’s dead, and the Horn is safe.”

“Where is it, then?” If it was real, she wanted to see it.

“Returned to the Garden of Eden and Gabriel’s keeping.” He turned away, setting the books back on the shelf. “I did as God bid.” He sounded strange, his voice thick.

“How’d that happen? Gabriel knocked on the door one day and asked for it?”

“Not far from the truth. Hidden and not revealed.” He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.

“God is real.”

He smiled. “You doubted?”

“Not really.” If vampires and demonic beetles were real, God ought to be. “But believing in Him isn’t the same as thinking he actually told my father to recover an angel’s horn and destroy a monster.”

“I know. I felt exactly the same when your grandfather first showed me what was possible when a righteous man entreats the Lord.”

“You have to show me, too!” The idea thrilled her beyond comprehension.

He laughed again. “You already know most of what you need. It’s a matter of opening your heart to God. The little rituals and trinkets are just helpful tools.”

“So show me, please.”

“Right now, we need to understand why you’ve been sent these dreams,” he said. “I’m going to eat my lunch. Then I need utter solitude for several hours to pray.”

“You aren’t going back to
shul
for afternoon services?” she said. Papa never missed services.

“I can pray here, to ask the Lord for guidance — and to strengthen the protections on this house — so that evil finds it impossible to enter.”

“Will He listen?”

Papa stood up. “He’s been known to.”