The Crossing Point

by August Arrea

  ~~~

  The water reflected back to Jacob a crystal-clear mirror image of himself being carried in Gotham’s arms as the two skimmed across the lake’s surface. So close were they to the water that Jacob was able to reach out and trawl his fingers across its surface. The sound of the angel’s wings beat with a rhythmic cadence when suddenly Jacob felt an abrupt stomach-churning pull upward and the water and the world below abruptly fell away from them as they sailed straight up into the soft, pre-dawn lit sky.

  “You okay?” asked Gotham grinning, his wings flapping with an ease of Spanish fans in the clutches of two elderly Señoritas gently shooing from their face the heat of a summer’s day.

  Jacob gave a nod he was more than okay and glanced down. For the first time, he could see almost in its entirety the ocean-sized Van Gölü from shore to shore. It was a tremendously beautiful sight, and yet nerve-rattling. Never before in all his experiences jumping off bridges or high mountain cliffs had he ever experienced a fear or timidity of heights. Now, suddenly, he felt an unexpected twist to his insides that made him tighten his hold on Gotham. As he did, he noticed immediately a look of concern cross the angel’s face that was most prominent in the crease that met the middle of his furrowed brow. His eyes had narrowed and were slowly and carefully searching all around.

  “Something wrong?” asked Jacob.

  “Remember I told you we were approaching the most dangerous point of our journey?” said Gotham. “I sense such danger is close, and its eyes are at this moment upon us.”

  The words brought a sense of alarm to Jacob, and like the angel he began to look all about them. All he could see, however, was sky and water and ranges of mountain surrounding them.

  The angel again repeated to Jacob his earlier instructions to hold tight to him and to capture a deep breath upon his command, and again Jacob nodded his understanding, then proceeded to open his mouth to speak. Before he could utter even a syllable, it was as though an invisible trap door of air upon which they were standing suddenly gave way sending them hurtling in free fall head- first downward back toward the waiting waters. It was beyond any drop the most stomach-stealing of roller coasters in existence could serve to a car full of screaming thrill-seekers. Jacob managed a shrieking scream, his eyes widely fixed on the lake that was fast approaching. The fear was short-lived and quickly replaced with an indescribable rush that surged through his body unlike any other he had felt before, and his scream quickly morphed to an ecstatic yelp.

  The air whistled loudly past his ears and blew through his hair. He had to consciously remember to hang tight to Gotham, but his arms longed to release their hold of the angel and stretch themselves out into the open air like they themselves were wings. The water grew closer, a mass of blue that looked to be rising up in a growing swell from the earth’s floor to greet them. Jacob felt like he could reach out and touch it.

  “Get ready!” instructed Gotham.

  Jacob’s body tightened with anticipation as he prepared to take that final, deep breath of air when, suddenly, a tremendous force slammed into them, and instead of inhaling, Jacob felt the wind knocked painfully from his body. It felt like a car collision. The jolt nearly pried him free from Gotham, but he felt the angel’s hand retain its tight grip on him. Gotham quickly regained control of the air through which the two were sent spinning, but dizzying stars continued to flash before Jacob’s eyes which he fought desperately to look past. Then he felt it—a sudden biting cold he first experienced in the dank back alley in Tatvan. And Jacob didn’t need clear vision to know instantly what had blocked their way.

  ~~~

  At first they were nowhere to be seen. The sky appeared an empty void except for the voluminous clouds gathered in billowy clusters all around. Yet it was from the clouds they revealed themselves, their shapes camouflaged in the darker shades of the marbled cumuli like so many insects gifted with the ability to hide in plain sight upon the bark of a tree trunk or among the leaves of a plant. They swooped in like patches of night. There appeared to be a half dozen, at least, flying all about. Winged creatures, just as Gotham was. Though there was nothing angelic about them in the least.

  “Infectors?” asked Jacob in a voice holding hope his guess was off the mark.

  “Remember when I told you back in Tatvan how you had been lucky to have been spared witnessing their true form?” answered Gotham. “It now appears your luck, unfortunately, has just ran out.”

  Jacob watched with growing unease the circling figures. They were shrouded all in black, phantom faceless beings wrapped in flowing garbs of darkness that made them appear more like wispy shadows that had been cut loose from the physical form which had once cast them upon the ground. The wings they possessed were enormous and threatening, not shaped with the smooth, sleek quills like that of a bird, but the vein-etched, crepey skin reminiscent of a bat. Or dragon. And when the wings flapped, they sliced through the air with a loud, wicked sound. Gotham was fast to his sword, its blade singing as it was drawn with lightning speed from a concealed sheath of skin hidden within the feathered plumes of his wings.

  “Take heed this warning demons, for I will only offer it once,” Gotham called out to the shadowy figures hovering about them. “Clear yourselves from our path, or be sure my blade will! Or has the black rot that has long befouled you cast such a long pall over your memory that you’ve forgotten the fate of your brethren that came between an angel and the waters below?”

  A growling, ominous laughter echoed through the skies as though coming up from the bowels of a cavern carved deep in a mountain side.

  “Your stinging sword may be swift, angel,” came a deep, menacing voice from one of the figures, slithering through the air with a hiss reminiscent of a snake, “but it’s wielded by one hand, while the other is hobbled by that which cowers in its noble but futile protection.”

  Before the last word had finished being uttered, one of the Infectors suddenly rushed forward with a great terrifying speed while sounding loudly a metal-grating scream. Gotham drew back his sword and just when the phantom demon was within its reach the gleaming blade was swung forth. The black shape exploded like gunpowder as the angel’s sword ripped through it. The piercing scream abruptly fell silent and a ball of ashy soot that had once been the slain Infector drifted momentarily in the air before dissipating into nothingness.

  “The approaching sun has yet to greet the Toros Taglari and already you are one fewer,” Gotham called out to the remaining dark figures with a steely confidence.

  “Cast aside the baggage that weights you, angel, and you are free to pass,” a hissing voice replied.

  Jacob turned and saw the angel’s face darken behind the golden eyes that were now blazing bright with flames of contempt narrowed and fixed on the Infectors hovering before them in the distance. His mouth parted and when he spoke it was with an icy, restrained tone.

  “Make haste to the unholy domicile whose halls you have chosen to dwell, or shall the waters below be fed with another helping of heads severed from your smote carcasses?”

  The Infectors let out a collective endless scream and began to suddenly circle. Moving at a frightening pace, they came at Gotham and Jacob, swooping in and darting through the sky like a flock of angry ravens, yet staying out of reach of the sword poised to strike the one who ventured too close. Following their movements proved dizzying to Jacob’s eyes, and the chorus of high- pitched cries filling the air even more painful to his ears. Yet he dared to not slacken the hold he had on Gotham in order to cover them with his hands.

  “The waters are about to savor a new delicacy,” came the serpent-like voice of one of the grim figures passing dangerously close.

  Gotham watched with a fiery coldness the black shapes soaring past when suddenly he was struck hard from behind. The firm stance he had held was momentarily lost to him, and it was all the Infectors needed. They came at him two of them from different directions, striking him repeatedly with an unrelenting viciousness. Gotham
struggled to regain his lost footing, but the barrage of pounding blows and stinging rips of the Infectors’ knife-like claws slicing into his skin became too overwhelming. The Infector’ words proved correct—holding onto the boy had unintentionally hobbled Gotham at a moment where he needed both his hands free to fight back the overpowering malefic swarm. The blows intensified, coming in rapid, merciless order, and Gotham knew it would not cease until the boy had been knocked free from his clutches. Still, Gotham held tight with all the strength he could muster while swinging blindly with his sword to no avail. The pounding from the winged figures and blinding pain of exertion throbbing in the striating muscles bulging in his weakening arm holding Jacob protectively to his side was taking its toll. He could feel his hold giving way and he cried out with a growing anguish.

  “Remember what I told you,” Gotham managed to sputter painfully to the boy.

  One of the black figures swooped down upon Gotham from directly above and delivered him a powerful, glancing blow. The angel’s arm finally ceded for mercy and he felt Jacob slip from his protective grasp yet managed in the midst of his fall to grab hold of Gotham’s ankle. The suffering blows relented somewhat as several of the figures fell away, and Gotham knew their attentions had turned to the boy who was dangling precariously in the open air like ripe grapes being eyed by a passing hungry fox. Immediately, he began kicking his leg in an attempt to shake free the weight clutching his ankle. Jacob cried out for him to stop while struggling to hold firm to the angel’s leg. He looked to the water below and knew his safety lurked within its tides. Yet despite the steep cliffs he had cast himself freely from in the past, Jacob found the long drop beneath his dangling feet too daunting to succumb. He then heard the flapping of the beastly wings of the Infectors who had taken leave of abusing Gotham, and Jacob looked to see two of the screeching phantoms heading toward him, and his heart quickened.

  There was then heard another rustling stir the wind, and he turned his wide eyes upward to see two other black shapes who had returned to resume their torturous beating of Gotham suddenly explode in a puff of billowy blackness. And when the soot-filled air cleared two angels with mighty wings and swords drawn could be seen against the soft dawn-colored sky. Jacob knew immediately that the winged warriors who had flown to their rescue were the Powers whose flaming tiger eyes lurking within mysterious silhouettes he had spied peering out from behind the walls of the monastery on Carpanak Island. And in that moment he not only came to understand the reason for the cabalistic vigil they held there amid the isolated ruins, but he realized in the instant he witnessed the fierce look they carried in their face that everything Gotham had said of them, and more, was true.

  In short order, the remaining Infectors quickly attempted to disperse amid the sudden presence of the Powers, but their retreat came too late and the sky was soon filled with the ashen snowfall of their demise. Jacob released a victorious cry, but his sense of relief was brief when the spine-shivering cry of an Infector once more rang painfully in his ears.

  ~~~

  Jacob turned and saw the blackness suddenly upon him. He was given not a chance to yell out or reexamine his fear of the stomach-pulling distance that remained between himself and the water below and instinctively released his hold of Gotham’s ankle. The fall seemed eternal before he was immersed in the icy coldness of the Van Gölü, and the piercing cries of the Infector momentarily snuffed into silence was replaced with the peaceful bubbling of the water. Jacob looked all around him desperately seeking the Gate Gotham told him was within the waters. All he could see, however, was nothing but a dark blue emptiness surrounding him, and that, too, was okay with him. Because for a fleeting moment he felt safe treading in this underwater world out of reach of the danger lurking above from the Infectors, who had not given chase past the water’s surface. His refuge was short-lived and his straining lungs soon had him paddling toward air.

  When he reached the surface he came face to face with the black shape with its white lifeless eyes waiting for him, and it let out a loud, angry wail that sent a rolling ring of ripples across the water. Jacob attempted to retreat back into the waves but the Infector snatched hold of him, preventing him from escaping.

  “Unfortunately, Nephilim, this is as close to Eden as you’ll ever get,” hissed forth a voice from within the phantom shape. Jacob attempted to put forth a mask of bravery, but his fear was thick as he looked into the deep black emptiness that offered not a glimpse of the demon’s cloaked face except two empty sockets of white blazing bright with a hatred burning from within. He then heard what sounded like the scrapping of dagger blades running against one another and he caught sight of the razor-sharp clawed hand the Infector slowly raised. And as the creature drew back its hand, Jacob clenched his jaw and tried to steel himself for the inevitable.

  Gotham was suddenly upon the Infector’s back, and the demon let loose a horrific cry. It quaked and shook violently to and fro in a desperate attempt to shake loose the angel, but Gotham’s hold was strong and fast, like a rodeo cowboy riding a raging, snorting and violently bucking bull. With his sword clutched in one hand, he grabbed hold of the Infector’s head and, as he did, the creature’s face—gray-skinned, scaled and too monstrous to behold— lurched forward from within the shroud covering it. Jacob cried out with a momentary terror then drew back a fist and sent a debilitating blow straight into the snarling ugliness.

  The Infector roared with anger, a murderous look the only thing alive in its otherwise empty dead eyes, and as it prepared to strike with its clawed hand, Gotham, backed by a look of vengeance cast upon his battered face, drew back his sword and swung. The Infector burst into a cloud of black ashen specks that were sent adrift upon the wind, and all that remained was its shrouded head clutched in Gotham’s hand that was tossed aside into the water like a discarded head of cabbage.

  It was not the last of the Infectors, and almost immediately another black figure sounding an angry cry was racing toward them low across the water. Gotham quickly pulled Jacob from the lake and as he took flight upward he gestured to the water with a sweep of his hand. The water instantly began to churn and bubble. And, as the Infector gave chase with a growing fierceness, a column of water shot upward, and from within it the liquid shape of some mythic leviathan took form. The Infector saw it and cried out, but it was too late. The watery beast took hold of it with its crushing jaws and dragged the demon, shrieking all the way, down into the murky depths.

  Gotham soared upward past the Powers who continued to lay waste to the remaining Infectors.

  “Go quickly, or there will surely be more to come,” one of the Powers called out to Gotham from behind the clouded remains of the slaughter that filled the sky.

  Gotham nodded his gratitude to the angel then turned to the sound of yet another Infector fast-approaching them at a terrifying speed.

  “Take your breath, as deep as you can,” Gotham instructed Jacob, and the sky once again released its support of them and they plummeted toward the water.

  Like pelicans dive-bombing their way into a school of fish to fill their gullets with a fresh feast, they broke through the water’s surface and disappeared from the world above. For a brief moment, Jacob felt a need to breathe a sigh of relief when it looked as though they had finally made it out of reach of the hideous creatures. With nothing except what seemed to be an eternal pit of water ahead of them, he dared not allow one single air bubble escape from his nostrils.

  ~~~

  Guided by the morning light penetrating the underwater realm from above in streaming, glistening bands, Gotham took them further into the foreign depths with a great speed. They quickly came upon the peaks of a cluster of massive stromatolites emerging from deep within the lake’s bowels like gnarled fossilized fingers of rock formed from the invisible grains of salt and sediment churning in the ever-growing icy currents. The further they descended, the more stromatolites appeared, rising up from the unseen lake floor like a kelp bed in a colony of tree-like
trunks that grew more monstrous in size the deeper they went.

  It wasn’t long before the first skull appeared, resting on its side upon a shelf jutting from the main body of one of the stromatolites. At first glance Jacob thought it to be an odd deformity of the encrusted surface. Then he noticed the teeth. Not human teeth, but the sharp, fang-like choppers like that of a wild dog. And his mind instantly flashed to the image of the creatures that attacked above the lake waters, the gnashing teeth lining their cruel mouths, and the heads that were severed from the grotesquely winged bodies and tossed into the water where they plummeted from sight.

  Further on, another head. Then another. And soon numerous heads lay littered among the pylons, all in various states of decomposition. While some had obviously been there for unknown ages, others were still encased in the gray, reptilian-like skin that was slowly flaking and breaking away in torn bits of decay to be carried away by the icy currents. Jacob was almost thankful that the rays of sunlight illuminating their path grew dimmer and dimmer until they were finally blocked by the towering pillars. The water grew murkier and more frigid. Jacob felt his body growing numb. He began to tremble, though from the cold, he was not certain. There was an ominous, unsettling feeling deep within the thicket of the neptunian, petrified forest. Nothing stirred. Not even a trace of the pearl mullet fish, the lone life force that had somehow managed to acclimate and survive in the lifeless, liquid void of the Van Gölü could be seen. The building pressure began to squeeze down on Jacob’s head. His ears began to throb with pain, as though offering a warning that swimming any deeper would threaten an implosion of his skull. He felt his lungs beginning to betray him, and quickly burn inside his chest with a growing need for air. And with no sign of a gate, or light, or an end to what appeared to be a seemingly endless watery tomb before them, a panic began its rise up inside him.

  Despite the swift speed with which the angel propelled the two of them forward, it suddenly felt to Jacob to take on the pace of a snail. He began to kick his legs with a flailing urgency, and as he did he felt the angel’s hand pressed against the center of his chest take hold of him tighter and pull him in closer as though sensing the boy was bracing to bolt. And from the angel’s touch a familiar warmth moved through Jacob, working to soothe him, but it was not enough to ease the increasing pressure crushing down on his skull the deeper they descended, or the screaming that was erupting from his lungs. So intense were both, he could not decipher which was causing him the greatest crisis.