by August Arrea
Another iron rod was stirred from the ground, followed by another and another. They came at Jacob from all directions with a blinding speed burrowing themselves into the wall to form a perfect outline around his body. And then, as if they were living things, they began to move, twisting and slithering across Jacob’s body and binding themselves tightly around his limbs and across his neck until he was securely imprisoned in a strangling reinforced web of steel. Jacob struggled with all his might to pull himself free, but it was a futile use of his strength.
A chilling cackle came from the boy still flailing wildly about in Gotham’s clutches, and he began to taunt and mock the angel.
“Oh, how you long to kill me, don’t you, angel? I can see it flaming in your eyes,” said the boy in a wickedly hissing voice. “It would be so easy, just to end me and be done with it, wouldn’t it? But you won’t dare, will you? For to do so would mean killing this precious, young boy.”
Gotham held the boy tightly by the neck in one hand while the other kept immobile the razor-sharp clawed hand that fought to slash to ribbons the angel and everything in its path. He leaned forward until his face was inches from the boy’s and stared deep into the lifeless white void that were his eyes.
“Do not dare test my constitution at this moment, demon,” warned Gotham in a withering whisper. “You better than anyone should know I’ve drawn the blood of those far more innocent.”
The mocking laughter continued and grew louder. The angel’s eyes blazed brighter from behind his darkening face and his fingers began to slowly tighten themselves around the boy’s neck. Quickly, the laughter was replaced with the gasping and choking that comes with a straining struggle to breathe when life is slowly choked away.
“No…DON’T!” Jacob cried out. Despite whatever monstrous thing had attacked him, Jacob couldn’t see past the sight of a young boy fighting for his life in Gotham’s unyielding grip.
The boy’s body began to contort in the most unnatural of ways. His legs were kicking all about in a desperate attempt for freedom, sending an onslaught of powerful blows from his free hand to Gotham’s torso, none of which seemed to faze the angel in the slightest. Gotham’s grip grew tighter on the slender neck fighting for air until finally a deep guttural growl filled with defeated rage left the boy and swept through the back alley. The boy’s rabid movements began to quell and go limp. With a look of shock still residing upon his face, Jacob caught sight of what looked like the movement of shadow emerge from the boy’s feet that had now ceased their vengeful kicking, only there was no sun to allow the existence of such a shape, and even if there was, this shadow moved independently from the body casting it. The black formless shape slipped to the ground like a plume of oil and quickly retreated to a corner of the alley where it disappeared into the darkness it found residing there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Heart of Akdamar
“W
hat the hell was that?” Jacob bellowed once Gotham had pried him loose from the iron rods holding him captive. His body pulsated with the dull, painful throbbing being slammed into the side of a building can bring.
“What part of stay in this doorway and don’t move didn’t you understand?” barked Gotham. It was more a statement than a question and it was spoken in a voice still laced with anger.
Jacob’s attention, however, had already turned to the boy who had attacked him slumped on the ground against the side of the building. Despite what had occurred moments earlier, a sense of dread came over Jacob as he looked down at the lifeless, limp body. The youthful face, no longer distorted by the mysterious shadow that had consumed it, looked calm and peaceful. And innocent.
“Is he…dead?” asked Jacob hesitantly.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,” assured Gotham. “He will awaken bewildered and confused—somewhat sore, I might add—but he will not carry any recollection of how he ended up in this alley or what took place here.”
“What about his hand?” asked Jacob, motioning to the one that lay by the boy’s side bleeding from the puncture wounds at the fingertips made by the sharp claws that were no longer visible.
Gotham knelt by the boy and took the hand in his own. He then dipped his other into a nearby rain puddle and carefully drizzled the water across the bleeding fingertips, and Jacob’s eyes widened with amazement. As the blood was washed away, so too had any sign of the wounds.
“Get your things, we must go,” instructed the angel, rising to his feet. “Now that they know you are here, they will quickly return. And in greater numbers.”
Jacob hurriedly retrieved his shirt from the ground and wrung the rainwater from it before slipping it back over his damp torso. There would be time to change into drier clothes later, away from this alley.
“Who?” asked Jacob with his stolen bag once more in his possession. “Who are ‘they’?”
Instead of answering the boy, Gotham tossed him a shopping bag he left sitting on a steel drum in the corner of the alley with a surly, “Here, take it!”
“What’s this?” asked Jacob.
Opening the bag, he looked and found inside a heavy, warm coat.
“You’ll thank me later. It gets cold at night in these parts this time of year,” said Gotham.
Jacob found it to be an oddly thoughtful gesture from someone who didn’t so much as crack a smile when he presented it. He knew then there was much more to the angel beyond the steely armored shell he had come to know.
“Had I known you would have pulled such a stupid stunt like you did, I would have sooner let you freeze, instead,” Gotham was quick to add gruffly once Jacob had wrapped himself in the warmth of his new jacket and gave the angel a smile of gratitude. “Now we must hurry, and let us hope this diversion hasn’t cost us our boat ride.”
They hurried out of the alley and ran nonstop in the direction of the lake where they managed to board the last ferry as it was about to pull away from the dock. As the charter boat slowly began making its way out across the Van Gölü, Jacob sighed heavily as he stood watching and making sure Tatvan, and the darkness that lurked in its corners, was left behind in the ferry’s wake. Had he made it? Was he finally safe? Gotham had told him while aboard the train about the Furies and, for whatever reason, their desire to keep him from the water. Now he was cruising across the lake watching Tatvan grow smaller in the distance, and yet he couldn’t shake the deep-seated sense of dread that danger continued to stalk them. The only sign of brightness came when Jacob noticed the drenching rain had stopped, vanishing as abruptly as it arrived when they exited the train in Tatvan, and he turned a squinting eye skyward where he felt the warmth of the sun begin to penetrate its way through the dark storm clouds.
“It was a Fury, wasn’t it?” Jacob asked the angel once they were a safe distance from the shore, even though the feeling of being safe never quite managed to settle in around him.
“Had it have been, it is highly doubtful you’d be sitting here able to ask the question,” said Gotham. “Furies aren’t in the habit of toying with their prey. They are more vicious than anything you will likely ever encounter, and when they choose to strike, their target almost never knows what hit them.”
“Then what was it?”
“An evil entity known as an Infector, but evil nonetheless. And like their name they favor moving amongst civilians, like a deadly virus, infecting as many as they can with their foul, unclean ways and turning otherwise good souls in the same way milk left to curdle goes sour,” Gotham explained. “Be glad their attempt was made through the guise of a boy. Their true physical form is much more deadly and dangerous. I fear had you looked upon one as they truly exist, unready and untrained as you are now, the great terror they likely would have provoked from you would have overtaken your ability to fight it off as well as you were able.”
Jacob couldn’t imagine anything much more terrifying than what he had just witnessed, still unable to shirk from his mind the image of the knife-like talons emerging from the boy
’s fingers, or the white eyes filled with so much evil and rage. Or the hissing voice.
Gotham could readily see how troubled the incident had left the boy. A Nephilim’s first encounter with an Infector, a Fury or any of the soulless souls that inhabited the Darkness was never not jarring, and almost always left some sort of scar, physical or otherwise. He offered Jacob a rare smile of encouragement. “You did well, considering. The makings of a strong Nephilim, you have shown.”
Strong was the last thing Jacob was feeling, however.
“Some Nephilim. I actually thought he was an angel at first,” remarked Jacob sourly. “I heard you call it a demon.”
“I called it what it is,” said Gotham.
“It spoke about some kind of gate,” recalled Jacob. “It said I would never reach it.”
Gotham stood silent, his gaze lost in the distance of the open water, and Jacob didn’t bother to question him about the what or where of any such gate figuring the angel would reply with the same answer he’d received since leaving Cain’s Corner—wait and see. And frankly, he was resigned to do just that.
“It said I was an abomination,” Jacob muttered warily under his breath, but quiet enough that Gotham did not hear. He felt himself growing somewhat nauseous, only not the kind of churning sickness commonly visited upon unsuspecting stomachs out in the middle of open water.
~~~
The sun began to eat its way through the dark black clouds that soon disintegrated like a thin shroud of moth-chewed silk as the bright warmth pierced its way through and sent thick bands of sunlight to descend from the heavens and illuminate the surface of the lake. The gray brackish waters were suddenly transformed to brilliant shades of blue upon which the ferry cut a frothy path to a small shoreline landing at the foot of an island residing in the middle of the lake. There a member of the crew, wearing white linen trousers slightly dirt-smudged and fraying at the ankles and brown leather sandals that were a size or two too big for his feet, jumped off the boat holding the end of a thick woven rope which he secured to a wooden bollard.
“Welcome to Akdamar Island,” he announced jovially in a thick Turkish accent to each of the passengers he helped onto the platform as they filed off the ferry one by one.
Jacob and Gotham followed the other excited tourists up a narrow flight of concrete steps snaking its way along the grey, limestone landscape. When they reached the end of their ascension, they were met by the impressive ruins of a great church that immediately elicited a collective cooing from its visitors. Built with various shades of red and pink volcanic tufa, the four-lobed, clover-shaped church with its massive pyramidal dome was striking in contrast against its barren, dry rocky surroundings. The lilies and hyacinths, euphorbias, wild onions and other various species of flowering plants that usually blanketed the island with the colors of life had withered and dried, retreating back into the rocky soil from the approaching cold of winter. The almond trees that grew in cloisters nearby and usually perfumed the air surrounding the church with the sweet fragrance from their blooming flowers now stood skeletal as they slipped into dormancy. One look at the ruins, however, and it was clear it needed none of nature’s ornaments to procure immediate adoration from the island visitors as they disembarked the ferry.
“What is this place?” asked Jacob.
“It depends to whom you’re referring when asking the question,” answered Gotham.
Great, thought Jacob with a roll of his eyes, another riddle.
Despite the number of tourists wandering about, the island felt empty and ghostly to Jacob. Together, he and Gotham walked with the crowd along a narrow dirt path past what was left of a low, crumbling stone wall bordering much of the church. The dusty, rocky ground crunched loudly beneath the soles of their feet as they passed through pockets of visitors who had arrived at the island earlier in the day and mulled about the foot of the ancient structure where one-worded gasps of wonder spoken in different languages could be heard being traded amongst them. Dark sunglasses shielding eyes from the blinding light of the sun were all focused upward while digital cameras and cell phones trained on the wall of the church’s great conical dome clicked away in unison. Jacob looked up to see what grabbed the attention of the throngs, rustling them with so much excitement. There he found ornamental reliefs of striking figures adorning the wall’s faceted surface that had been cut like crystals to resemble a great stone jewel. Four circular carvings containing the portraits of what looked to be holy men floated above a much larger relief of a boat and a man falling prey to a great fish.
“Isn’t it amazing?” remarked a woman as she came up from behind Jacob, an iPhone capturing the church from numerous angles gripped tightly in her hand. She looked every bit the part of a typical middle-aged tourist from the one-size-too-small sparkly, blinged-out jeans she had squeezed herself into, to the fanny pack cinched tight around her middle. Her freshly frosted blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and covered beneath a pink duck-billed cap trimmed with sequined daisies that danced with brilliant flashes of light beneath the sun. Taking note of the blank confused look fixed on Jacob’s face, she ceased snapping pictures of the carvings and blurted loudly, “It’s Jonah!”
She waited a moment for a look of clarity to cross the boy’s face. When she failed to see it, her body slumped with disbelief.
“You know…Jonah. From the Bible. He was swallowed up by a whale.”
Her words came slow and succinctly, as though she were speaking to a two year old, or a foreigner she believed could pick up the English language instantaneously if only she spoke slowly enough, not to mention loudly enough.
“Of course—Jonah,” replied Jacob, flashing her a half-smile and nodding politely. The woman shrugged and went about taking her pictures leaving Jacob to turn his attention back to the relief. Now that he knew, he could make out more clearly the fabled story.
“Impressive,” came Gotham’s voice from over the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t you think?”
“Looks more like a fish than a whale,” muttered Jacob with a nod to the oddly scaled figures etched into the pale red rock.
Yet despite the seemingly lack of enthusiasm emanating from the boy, the angel could see the beginnings of wonderment in the teen’s eyes. For rarely could anyone who treaded in the presence of the stone church look upon its hollowed remains and not be somewhat enamored by the weathered markings.
“One hundred and fifty three figures are carved onto these walls. Same as the number of fish said to have been miraculously pulled from the sea by the apostles in the New Testament,” said Gotham. “Together they tell the history of mankind, beginning with his creation.”
The angel guided the boy along the walls making up the perimeter of the church, describing to the boy the various figures, some of which seemed to erupt from the surface of the stone facade like living, breathing sculptures aided by the shadows being cast from the chiseled edges by the shifting sun. The biblical David was seen overpowering the giant Goliath. Samson stood victorious from battle and Daniel was flanked by two lions licking his feet, their tails hanging submissively between their hind legs, while the saints George, Sergius and Theodore did battle against evil forces that surrounded them in the form of dragons and ferocious cats. And elsewhere, there was the presence of angels.
Always the presence of angels.
Only when they came to a sculptural relief showing Abraham, his dagger at the ready, wrestling with the decision to sacrifice his son to God did Gotham suddenly grow quiet. Noticeably so. And Jacob saw the angel’s face had darkened as he stood staring at the image; mournfully or brewing with anger he could not tell. Nor did he ask. When they reached the eastern facade of the church, they were greeted with images of St. John the Baptist, St. Thaddeus and the prophet Elijah. It was the lone figure surrounded by numerous animals, however, that kept it hold of Jacob’s attention. And for once, the boy needed no explanation of who the solitary carving was meant to depict.
“And Adam gav
e names to the animals,” he translated aloud from a cryptic inscription chiseled nearby into the wall.
Further down, the story of humanity was begun with a rendering of Adam and Eve coupled with the Tree of Life and a forked-tongue serpent with four legs. And as Jacob followed the story around another corner of the church, the adjoining north wall revealed the ultimate fall and expulsion of the first man and woman from the Bible’s sacred garden—the Garden of Eden. Gotham remained silent as he stood beside the boy. His eyes roamed across the figures that somehow held the long history of the ancient world in full upon the small canvas of stone. His mouth parted, and he spoke in a gently, hushed tone.
“Amidst the rush and roar of life,
Oh, beauty, carved in stone, you stand mute and still, alone and aloof.
Great Time sits enamored at your feet, and murmurs:
‘Speak, speak to me, my love, speak, my bride!”
But your speech is shut up in stone,
O Immovable Beauty!”
Once he had finished, a familiar voice rang out from behind, “That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.”
Gotham and Jacob peered in unison over their shoulders to find the woman with the sequined daisy cap. She had made her way around the opposite side of the church and intersected with their path.
“The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore would have been pleased to know his words moved you so, ” said Gotham with a friendly crook of his mouth.
“I couldn’t help but hear you earlier explaining the various images,” the woman remarked rather giddily. “You seem to know so much about the church. May I ask, are you a professor or something?”
