by August Arrea
The angel’s words came in the same way a paintbrush lends color to a blank canvas, giving shape to a portrait of a son who would forever remain the jewel in his father’s eye. As he spoke, Gotham’s face seemed to brighten and a glimmer sprang from deep within his eyes as if a vision of his son had materialized before him. And for that, Jacob couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy rise up inside himself. What, he wondered, must it feel like to be thought of and adored in such a way by one’s father? Yet despite his envy, it proved a striking thing to hear this winged warrior whose intimidating fierceness he’d witnessed firsthand in the beheading of Infectors speak in such tender tones. Realizing, himself, he had inadvertently allowed this vulnerable side to slip into view, Gotham quickly pulled back the curtain and the light that had momentarily filled his face quickly faded.
“Listen to me, going on in such a foolishly doting way,” he quickly quipped in an almost self-admonishing way. “I suppose all fathers look upon their children with untainted adoration. Certainly, I’ve shown myself to be no different. Even now.”
“So, how many children have you had?” asked Jacob.
“Only David,” answered Gotham, his mouth slanting to a coy smile when he caught Jacob’s response. “You find that difficult to believe I see.”
“A bit, yeah. Especially considering how long you’ve been, you know… alive.”
“You mean aimlessly wandering the world, don’t you?” asked Gotham. “What can I say? The existence I’ve chosen while under the reign of my fall has been largely a solitary one. Uncoupled and uncomplicated.”
“Not to mention lonely,” added Jacob, sounding a bit bemused. “Look, I don’t want to stroke your ego or anything, trust me on that, but you look like you would have women swarming over you and you’ve been running around on Earth since like what…the Old Testament times? That’s an awful lot of swarming. And you’re talking about uncoupled and uncomplicated. You mean to tell me in all that time you never fell in love?”
“Love?” Gotham seemed to ponder for a moment the word and all its inflections, both good and bad, all at the same time. “We cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in such frivolity as love—at least in the way you mean it. To do so would betray the one who remains deserving of our full devotion.”
“You mean God?”
“Who else?” replied Gotham.
“But you’re a Fallen,” Jacob reminded Gotham in an almost apologetic voice. “What difference would it make?”
“What difference, indeed. But some loyalties are hard to sever, even amongst the Fallen,” said Gotham. “That doesn’t mean we are not besot by the same temptations that have long plagued mankind. Truth be told, I’ve faced such weakness on more than one occasion and my resolve against bearing the fruit of such temptation has been bent by many a woman locked forever in my memory whose beautiful faces and feminine charms fill a wide sea of the countless generations I’ve passed through.”
“And my grandmother?” prodded Jacob.
“Ava was the one woman to whom I would finally relinquish my resistance and succumb.” Yet there was no sound of defeat in Gotham’s reply, only unashamed surrender.
“She told me you saved her from the concentration camp she was kept prisoner.”
“Saved? No,” said Gotham, shaking his head in disagreement. “I may have delivered her from that Hell on earth that took root within the perimeter fence of Treblinka, but she…she saved herself—not to mention many others—with a dim light of hope that refused to go out. I can still see her as clearly as the day I stepped foot in the putrid muck of that horror, where all around me was desolate and hopeless. All, that is, except for the sound of her voice. It came to me in a sound I thought only existed in the far reaches of Heaven and led me to a frail figure of a girl crumpled at the foot of death, yet managed the strength to hold it at bay…all with a sound befitting a wounded sparrow, and battle cry of a trumpet, all at the same time.
“It wasn’t until several more years passed that the voice which had so moved me would find me again as I strolled a Parisian street one night. It led me inside a nearby opera house. There I saw her, the girl I had scooped up from the gnarled reach of despair, only now she was a young woman, beautiful and once more filled with life, illuminated in an aurora of firelight burning at the foot of a stage before a crowd of people as equally enthralled as I was. Never a more lovely sight had I seen before or since. I stood there in the wings completely captivated; transfixed by her singing, enslaved to her beauty, and defenseless to the shackles I had long managed to avoid as they fit themselves around my wrists and ankles then and there without so much as a struggle from myself.”
The angel suddenly became aware his memory of the moment was voicing itself with the same impassioned flourish that came when he spoke of his son. It made him instantly tighten his lips, much to Jacob’s chagrin. If anything, the boy enjoyed seeing Gotham slip somewhat free from the hard-edged demeanor he cinched himself into like some impregnable piece of armor.
“And so the two of you ended up falling in love and having a child,” said Jacob.
“No…at least not for some time, mind you,” Gotham replied shooting the boy a reluctant look. “My desire not to sire a child was not immediately swayed by your grandmother, despite my feelings for her to the contrary. In my eyes, such a union benefitted neither angel or mortal and was best avoided for the good of both despite Heaven’s change of heart on the matter. Neither did I look with judgment upon those of my brothers who did not share my view—and many there have been as the growing brood of Nephilim to this day shows.”
“But eventually—”
“As I’ve told you, we are not immune to temptation,” said Gotham. “And whatever favorable purpose I could never fathom coming about from the union of angels and women and begetting from such unions that which was neither fully angelic nor fully mortal vanished the moment I gazed for the first time into my son’s face when he was placed in my arms shortly after taking his first breaths.”
Gotham’s resolve was again weakened by the surfacing of his memories. Only this time he no longer cared what softness it brought to his face. Or who witnessed it.
“I had a son, and nothing brought me as much joy and pride as he,” he said. “Especially when the time came for me to bring him here to Eden to learn that which all Nephilim must when the age calls. And yet nothing could have prepared me for the news which came the day he was sent off to the Crescent Scar to learn his Grace with the rest. It would have been less shocking to me, as well as my brothers, had the ground itself opened up and swallowed all of Eden whole than to learn David was anything but a normal Nephilim.”
An anxious and bewildered look settled itself upon Jacob who became as still as a stone statue listening to Gotham.
“Normal Nephilim?” he muttered with confusion. “What was wrong with him?”
Gotham glanced over at the boy out of the corner of his eye.
“Your grandmother didn’t tell you?”
“I told you,” Jacob replied with a testy urgency to hear the rest of the story he had long wondered about, “she didn’t tell me anything. It seemed to upset her too much.”
Gotham nodded his head as if in agreement and Jacob began to fear the angel might think better of finishing his story.
“You remember when we were at Akdamar Island and the blackened fresco detailing a certain Apocrypha?” continued Gotham much to Jacob’s relief.
Jacob knew instantly what Gotham was referring to and nodded.
“Johiel said it had to do with a final Fall,” answered Jacob. “A Nephilim known as the Light Bearer is promised to bring angel and man together to form an army that would deliver a fatal blow to the Darkness and forge the path that would help bring about its eventual end.”
“That is correct,” said Gotham. “What Johiel didn’t tell you was that the Light Bearer would be revealed as the Nephilim who carried with him all seven Graces held by angels.”
“But…
Zuriel said a Nephilim could only have two, maybe three Graces tops. And never the Seventh Grace,” argued Jacob. “In fact, the Crescent Scar doesn’t even have a spot marking the Seventh Grace.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Gotham. “Which is why it proved so shocking when it came to be David’s turn to stand in the curve of the Crescent Scar.”
At first Jacob didn’t quite understand what Gotham was saying. And then the angel narrowed his gaze squarely on the boy.
“The Blackstone revealed him to hold all seven Graces,” said Gotham. “You see, my son came to be the Light Bearer.”
~~~
The revelation hit Jacob like a flash of lightning lashing out from the gloom of a dark storm cloud, and for a moment it was as if the power of speech had been paralyzed from him.
“I see you are shocked. But no more so than I was,” said Gotham. “To say I was humbled to my core that my son—begot by one so marked with Heaven’s disdain—was chosen to be the vessel carrying the covenant of a prophesy long awaited…”
He paused, fighting to still the tremble visible in his lip. “For the first time since my banishment, it was if Heaven had at long last smiled down on me and, in an act of mercy, granted me a sliver of forgiveness I had long sought.”
A dark shadow was quick in returning to Gotham’s face.
“Or so I was led to believe.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Gotham’s Confession
“H
ow did he die?”
Sitting with the stone tomb just a rock’s throw away, it seemed to Jacob a natural—necessary, even—question to voice and one which he had long been anxious, and reticent, to learn the answer. Yet his tongue couldn’t seem to find a delicate way in which to ask it. The more likely reason, though he was reluctant to admit it to himself, was the fear of what the answer might be.
“I would have thought the answer to your question would have been made known to you by now,” remarked Gotham, as if he had overheard Jacob’s debating thoughts.
“I told you, my grandmother didn’t care to talk about it,” said Jacob.
“I’m not talking about your grandmother,” said Gotham.
When Jacob hesitated in speaking further on the matter, the angel turned a penetrating glare on him. “Come now, Jacob, you’ve been here long enough to know the Garden is seeded with the rumors of which I speak. You’ve no doubt heard by now some of the stories, of which there is an abundance, regarding David. The halls of Havenhid are never silenced of the echoes of tales told in whispers behind closed doors, whether they be true or not.”
“There’ve been a few, I guess, I’ve overheard now and then,” answered Jacob.
Of course, he knew precisely what Gotham was referring to; tales long-shared by generations of Nephilim about the secrets of Eden, the angels who resided there, and one another. They seemed to have a life of their own, moving from room to room and passed mouth to ear like so many tidbits of gossip in an assembly line of hushed secrecy, especially at night right before the lights were turned out. And as Gotham noted, both truth and untruth rested in each whisper. Yet no stories, as Jacob would come to discover, became more lore-shaped in their telling like those surrounding Gotham’s son, particularly that of his fall from grace and ultimate demise.
“Tell me, what is it you’ve heard?” asked Gotham, but saw Jacob was reticent to do so. “Not to worry, for I doubt there is anything you can say about my son that hasn’t already fallen on my ears.”
“If that’s the case, then there really isn’t any reason for me to say the rumors out loud. And even if you hadn’t heard them, I’d rather not be made to repeat them. Not here,” said Jacob.
He was thinking, of course, of the time the first whispers concerning Gotham’s son found his ears during that first long walk so many weeks earlier to Lions Bite when Max, Leos, Kairo and Ethan voiced the shocking allegation of filicide. It wouldn’t be the last time Jacob would overhear such rumblings over the coming weeks, and even though he refused to believe something so monstrous, he himself couldn’t help but wonder now and again, what if the rumors were actually true?
“You worry you’ll offend me, and more importantly the memory of my son in this his resting place. For that, I appreciate your respect.” Gotham’s face cracked with a show of unexpected gratitude and he rose to his feet. “But I shall share with you, anyhow, what brought David to this crypt as cold and still as the stone from which it was made.”
“You really don’t have to,” said Jacob somewhat nervously. “Besides, I don’t see how it’s any of my business.”
Truly, he meant it. Yet at the same time he couldn’t deny the need he felt in wanting to know what had happened to this boy who in reality, strangely enough, was his own flesh and blood uncle.
“It’s important to me that any untruths you may hold regarding my son be unbent,” said Gotham. “It may eventually prove of some importance to you as well one day.”
He descended the slope of grass leaving the shade of the Tree for the bright sunlight. Coming to a bare patch of ground near where Jacob was seated, he stopped. His right hand reached under and behind his left arm and drew forth his sword from the plumes of his outstretched wing. The blade caught the light of the sun’s blinding presence in a brilliant flash before Gotham lowered it to the ground and without explanation began carefully etching the soft earth with the sword’s sharp point. Jacob leaned his body forward to get a better look at what the angel was doing, all the while mindful not to stretch himself too close to the Immortalis blooming with their radiant warning in scarlet hues just an arm’s reach away.
When Gotham had finished, he took a step back and looked down upon his scrawling like an artist admiring the canvas of a finished work.
“Whoa…how the heck did you do that?” exclaimed Jacob who quickly became visibly enthralled by the sight. “It’s a sword.”
And, indeed, it was; but not one formed from what began as scratches in the dirt; for the moment Gotham brought the end of the last line he drew with that of the first, the crude image took the shape of what looked to be an actual physical weapon resting upon the ground as real as the sword which had drawn it.
“Not just any sword,” corrected Gotham. “Does it look familiar to you?”
Jacob shook his head. “Should it?”
If anything, he found the sword to be most unfamiliar; both beautiful and intriguingly strange to the eyes at the same time. The blade was long and shined a bright silver, untarnished and gleaming like a viper’s fang wet with venom, and promising a far deadlier bite to anyone whose flesh met its razor-sharp bite. Yet curiously forged within the center of the blade and buttressed against the hilt of the sword was an altogether different weapon. It was shaped like a spearhead, and unlike the main body of the sword which framed it, the metal from which it was made was dark and weathered with both great age and untold battles. A gold sheath bound the spearhead, and it was embossed with several gold crosses at its base.
“I definitely would have remembered a sword like this had I ever seen it before,” Jacob remarked emphatically. “It’s so unusual…like a sword within a sword. Who does it belong to?”
“The ages have seen it fall into the possession of many except the one true hand destined to clasp it,” the angel replied.
Jacob’s brow suddenly furrowed and his gaze shifted from the sword to Gotham with a troubled seriousness. “Is this what killed your son?”
Gotham stared raptly at the boy, yet Jacob was lost to his sight. He didn’t answer.
Turning his back, Gotham cast his gaze past the Tree to the nearby mountains stretching toward the blue sea of sky.
“The sword has been known throughout history by many names: The Holy Lance; Spear of Longinus; Lancea et clavus Domini,” he said. “Most, however, would come to know it as the Spear of Destiny.”
~~~
DEEESSSSSSSSSTINYYY!
The word seemed to come up and around Jacob like a breath of wind carryin
g the voice that had whispered the same echo to him in countless dreams. It brought an immediate chill to his skin.
“The Spear of Destiny—I’ve heard that name before. I think I saw something about it on the History Channel or somewhere,” the boy muttered while searching his thoughts, yet choosing not to reveal the phantom voice heard in his dreams. “That’s the spear that was used to pierce the side of Jesus, wasn’t it?”
“Then came the soldiers, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they broke not his legs: But one of the soldiers opened his side with a lance, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.”
Gotham recited the words of the apostle John with a serene grace as if they were his own.
“Born of the sacrifice of Christ, the spear is a weapon of immense divine power, one by which God binds the world he created with the celestial,” continued Gotham, in his own words, following a short pause. “Whoever claims it holds the fate of the world, and all who dwell in it, in his hands be he good or evil. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you it is a long and storied history of those who have attempted to hold reign over such power, however briefly the spear resided in their grasp.
“The soldier who pierced Jesus’ side carried the spear with him the rest of his days and witnessed its power only once when it pierced through the shroud of darkness blindness would eventually bring him. With his death, the spear passed quietly into the world and into the legend awaiting it. Many would spend their years obsessively seeking it out, yet only a few would bear witness to its existence: St. Morris, Charlemagne, Constantine the Great, to name a few. Marked men you could call them, though not near the way I and other Fallen have come to be scarred. By them, and through the power wielded by the spear, dark armies were cut down, hollow religions were driven underground, and a holy empire was birthed. Yet each who would come to possess the spear knew intuitively they were merely guardians of the divine weapon, momentary protectors chosen to help guide it to the one in whose hand it was ultimately destined. And they were not alone in that realization.”
