Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Robert Liparulo

  “How? It’s been at least an hour since Steampunk stole the Stone.”

  Ollie’s expression grew serious. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He looked at his fist, still resting over his stomach. He turned it over and opened his fingers. In his palm lay a fragment of stone. It was about an inch wide and two inches long, thin as a piece of cardboard.

  “I didn’t do it,” Ollie said. “It broke off while I was handling the Stone, just touching it.”

  Jagger couldn’t stop staring at it. Gray, with specks of white and black. It did look like granite.

  “It’s not as strong. The angels are more . . .” Searching for a word. “See-through. Like after they start to fade, before they’re gone. But they’re still . . .” Looking around the room. “So beautiful.” He lifted his hand, bringing the piece of stone closer. “Take it.”

  Jagger threw him a puzzled look.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to pull through . . .”

  “You will.”

  “I don’t know; you don’t know. I need to give this to someone I trust, someone who will take care of it. I trust you, Jag. Do with it what you think is best. Pray about it.”

  “Ollie—”

  Feet pounded outside the bedroom door, then it opened. Ramón rushed in, followed by two EMTs in flight suits. One carried a big case with a red cross on it, the other a wood stretcher. “They’re here,” Ramón said. “It’s time to go.”

  “Jagger!” Ollie said, pushing the edge of his open hand into Jagger’s ribs. “Take it!”

  Jagger dropped the cloth he’d used to dab Ollie’s face over the Stone and scooped it up, pinching it between the folds.

  Ramón pulled on the back of Jagger’s shirt to get him out of the way. “Come on, they’re here.”

  Jagger rose, pushed the cloth into his pocket, and stepped to the foot of the bed.

  The EMTs gave Ollie the once-over, Ramón saying, “I told you he’s ready to go. Go!” They slipped the stretcher under him, strapped him down, and started carrying him through the door.

  Ollie groaned.

  “You’ll be all right, Ollie,” Jagger said, needing to say something. “You’ll see.”

  Ollie said, “Hurts like a son of a—”

  And he was out the door.

  [ 23 ]

  Jagger stopped outside the apartment door before entering, hand on the knob. Tonight had conjured monsters. For his fallen brothers, it was the cloaked skeleton of Death, shrieking with hunger as its foul breath blew over them. For Ollie, it was a beast of Pain, possibly leading Death to him, possibly not, but tearing and shredding either way. And for his family, it was a hideous creature with the prickly quills of Fear, the claws of Grief, the snapping teeth of Worry. He felt as though it was in with them now, snapping and digging, rooting into their spirits. He wanted more than anything to be the White Knight, the hero who’d magically appear, slay the creature, and make everything better. But he wasn’t. He was as vulnerable as they were, probably more so, already injured with doubt and frustration.

  The knob turned under his hand and the door opened. Beth stood there, eyes red, lines in her brow and around her mouth showing her concern. She threw her arms around him and whispered, “How’s Ollie?”

  “It doesn’t look good,” he said.

  She squeezed him tight, pushed her face into his chest. She gripped his shirt and looked up at him. “I feel so bad . . .”

  He nodded. “Ollie’s a good man, and the monks—”

  She nodded, but said, “That’s not what I mean.” Her face was pained, and what he saw there wasn’t only grief and worry. It was guilt. “Those monks . . . ,” she said. “They shouldn’t have died like that. Ollie, that man’s been so kind to us. Such a gentle soul. Tyler loves him.” She lowered her eyes and appeared to be speaking to his chin. “I hurt for them, but I’m more grateful that you’re all right. I can’t get it out of my head that you could be dead too, and that you’re not . . .” She shook her head. “I want to praise God.” She showed him a sad smile. “I want to dance and sing. I’m . . . elated.” She pressed her face into his chest again and began to cry, not the sobbing or weeping of sorrow, not now; hers were tears of relief and thankfulness.

  “That’s normal, Beth,” he said, rubbing her back. “If the whole world were wiped out tomorrow, but somehow you and Tyler and I survived, the only ones, my joy would wash away my sadness. That’s . . .” How to say what he was feeling? “That’s the way love works. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  And he realized something: it worked both ways. If every living being suddenly became happy and healthy and death-free, but the price of that was Beth’s and Tyler’s lives, his grief would be boundless. It would be deep and dark, a black hole that threatened to suck everything in and end it all.

  She took him by the hand and led him into the living room. They sat on the couch and she shifted to face him, one leg tucked under her. She held his hand in both of hers. “Will you pray with me?”

  “Of course.”

  She lowered her head and asked God to take the monks into His arms, to ease the grief of the other monks, to make Ollie all right and bless the hands of the surgeons working on him. She thanked God for Jagger’s safety and for protecting everyone else in the compound who’d survived that night’s attack. When she was finished, she squeezed his hand and waited.

  Jagger was still uncomfortable praying, though he did it in private sometimes. His anger at God for letting the crash happen had diminished, while a new sort of fury had swelled up inside him, a fury at God for making him what he was, destined to outlive his family, to witness their deaths. Threaded through his anger was shame . . . for having committed the atrocities that condemned him to immortality and for being part of the Tribe for as long as he had been, perpetrating the very sins he hated them for. He couldn’t blame God for turning His back. Between the anger and shame, praying seemed . . . what? Pathetic? Hypocritical? Insincere? All of the above.

  His only hope was that God would change His mind about him, Jagger. Praying was his way of reminding God he was here, an outcast tapping on the window.

  “Lord, thank You for sending Your angels to save me,” he said. “Please show me what You want me to do with the piece of stone Ollie gave me. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

  Beth looked at him, wiping her cheeks. “What? What piece of stone?”

  “Well . . . ,” he said, and went on to describe the events of the evening.

  “You saw angels?”

  “And demons.”

  “What did they look like?” She waved her hand at him. “The angels. I don’t care about the demons.”

  “If you saw them, you would.”

  She ignored that and said, “Did they have wings?”

  “You believe me?”

  “Yeah!” Said it with two syllables, as in of course.

  “I’m not sure I believe it yet.”

  She slapped his shoulder. “Jagger Baird! You of all people. What don’t you believe?”

  He shifted, pushing himself farther into the back cushion, and took a deep breath. “Well, for starters . . . all of it.”

  “Was something, a being, standing over you?”

  “That’s what I think I saw.”

  “And you saw them in the chapel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Ollie saw them too?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “What don’t you believe?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, angels? Demons? Fighting each other, helping people?”

  “But you believed in angels, right? Before tonight?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Where did you think they were? What did you think they were doing?”

  “I guess I never really thought about it.”

  “But you didn’t think they were visible before. They’re invisible because they’re spiritual, right? Or did you think they’re always visible to
us, and the reason no one sees them is because they don’t come around? Because they spend all their time in heaven?”

  “Uh . . . no. I’ve always thought they were active in people’s lives.”

  “Okay,” she said, feeling like she was getting somewhere; he’d heard the tone before. “So it’s not the angels you find unbelievable. Is it the demons?”

  “No, I believe in them.” More now than ever, he thought.

  “So.” She should have been a lawyer. “It’s not the angels or demons you can’t believe. It’s that you saw them.”

  He thought about it. “Yeah, that I saw them.”

  “But it didn’t just happen. You touched that stone, the one Ollie thinks is a piece of the first tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments, the ones Moses broke.” She stretched to reach the Bible on the coffee table and flipped through it, searching. “Listen to this. ‘Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.’”

  She smiled at him, and at that moment he would have accepted anything she said: Jesus left a message for you in the sesame seeds on a hamburger bun? Yeah! Wow!

  “It’s right here,” she said, poking the Bible passage with her finger. “God can put incredible power in things, make miracles happen through things. If He did it with bones, why not a stone, especially that stone?”

  “Yeah. Wow.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “I know. So am I. It’s just . . .”

  “What? It happened in the Bible, but it can never happen to you?”

  He shrugged. “And what did you mean, ‘you of all people’?”

  “You’re immortal, sweetheart. You’ve come to accept that, right?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I mean, you know you are. You’ve seen the evidence: pictures, the things Owen told you, the way you healed when Owen shot you.” Which Owen had done to prove the very point Beth was making.

  “Yes, I believe that some people in this world are immortal. I happen to be one of them.”

  “So God can and does do things that science can’t explain?”

  He nodded.

  “Jagger, how did you become immortal?”

  He frowned.

  “Not why,” she said softly, rubbing his hand. “And we know it was God, but what was the instrument He used to change you into an Immortal? The first tablets Moses brought down the mountain! Jagger! The stone you’re talking about now, the Judgment Stone. You know it had power once. You experienced it. Why can’t God’s power still be in it? I don’t know why He does things like that, but He does. I don’t know why it lets us see the spiritual world, but I believe it.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t you?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then: “I guess I do.”

  She lifted herself up to kiss him, pausing before their lips touched so they could taste each other’s breath, their essence. Then she planted her lips on his.

  When they parted, she said, “Now, tell me all about it. I want to know everything. What did the angels look like? Did they have wings? Were they male or female? Or neither? Did they speak? Did you feel different while you were having the vision? Was it wonderful?”

  He smiled at her excitement. He leaned to one side so he could reach into his pocket and pull out the cloth he’d put there in Ollie’s room. He said, “I can do you one better.”

  [ 24 ]

  “What is it?” Beth asked, looking at the piece of stone lying on the cloth. “That’s not the Judgment Stone, is it? You said that woman dressed all Steampunky took it.”

  “She did,” Jagger said. “It’s a piece that broke off. Ollie gave it to me.”

  “It’s a piece of a piece of the first tablets.”

  “Call it a fragment. Go ahead, touch it.”

  “Should I pick it up?”

  “Just touch it,” he said. “I think it’ll be enough, and I’m still kind of unsure about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As you said, it has power. What if there are side effects?”

  “Like what? You don’t think it’ll make me immortal, do you?”

  That made his stomach clench up. He hadn’t thought of that, but this was a fragment of the rock God used to make him immortal. As much as he’d cherish having her with him forever, he’d rather die right on the spot than curse her the way he was cursed. He folded the cloth over the fragment and pulled his hand back.

  “No, wait,” she said. “I was kidding. God was punishing the Tribe when He made them immortal. I don’t think He’d punish everyone who just touches the Stone. He doesn’t work that way. Or at least He would have warned us. Moses would have said don’t touch that, and it’d be in the Bible.” She gripped her hands together and raised them to her chin. “Please?”

  “I still don’t know about possible side effects. Maybe we’ll get headaches or go blind.”

  “Go blind?” She gave him an exasperated look. “Really?”

  “Who knows?”

  “You’re okay.”

  “For now.”

  “Come on.”

  He uncovered the fragment again.

  She scanned the room. “You think they’re in here?”

  Considering Beth’s faith—if not his own—and that David says in Psalms that angels encamp around believers, he said, “I hope so.”

  “I’m scared.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t do it.”

  Her hand shot out, and she laid the tip of her index finger on the Stone. She screamed, at once grabbing Jagger and trying to push herself back through the couch, sliding up onto the back cushion. Half-dollar eyes, trembling lips—she was terrified.

  “J-J-Jag! Jagger!”

  “Beth, it’s okay.” But he wasn’t sure it was, not with her response. He brought his other hand around to touch the Stone and remembered he didn’t have another hand. He dumped the fragment onto his thigh, tossed away the cloth, slapped his palm over the Stone.

  White light burst in his eyes, and then he saw: a demon with lion-like features was coming through the front wall of their apartment. Not the powerful-but-somehow-attractive Aslanian lion, but a Chinese shishi: flaring nostrils, oversized mouth and teeth, exaggerated brow furled in fury. Instead of fur, it was covered in scaly, reptilian skin, hued in reds and yellows. Its mane was a congregation of writhing, snapping snakes. For a nanosecond Jagger feared that it wielded Medusa’s power of turning anyone who laid eyes on it into stone; but the boulder that had formed in his gut notwithstanding, he and Beth hadn’t become statues. The thing was twice the size of any lion he’d ever seen. It apparently walked on all fours, though at the moment its front paws were off the floor and it was swinging kitchen-knife-sized claws at an angel.

  Just as the earlier angels had done, this one glowed with an impossibly bright body that rippled and undulated, giving the impression of flowing robes. Its embers swirled around it, primarily in front, instantly coming together to form a shield against the demon’s slashing claws, then breaking apart and snapping out like a whip at the beast, which flinched away, ducked its head, twisted to come in low at the angel. The angel swung a sword through its own embers, which parted for its passing. The blade sliced a gash in the beast’s scaly hide. Ashes billowed out, floated away.

  Only the front half of the demonic creature was inside their apartment. The rest went through the wall and must have been standing on the walkway outside. Moving fluidly, it didn’t seemed burdened or hindered by the physical structure of the building. Jagger realized that no movie magic could mimic the sight: there was no line or blur, no demarcation on any kind between the wall and the beast; it was simply there, occupying the same space as the wall.

  The angel was as tall as the ceiling, and when he—for it seemed male to Jagger, perhaps because of its muscu
lar build or its fierceness in battle—jumped away from the sweeping sets of claws, his head disappeared into the whitewashed, plaster-covered ceiling. Only boards lay beyond, then the sky, and he wondered if the angel’s head could be seen from the outside, bobbing out of the roof, to anyone with the Stone-induced vision to see.

  The beast snarled and growled and snapped, spewing flakes of ash. More ash swirled in from the wall, whipped around, pulled back into the wall. It lunged, and the angel kicked its snout.

  Jagger crossed his arm over Beth’s chest, protecting her. He said, “Beth, it’s okay. They were there before we could see them.” Movement caught his eyes, and he noticed another angel standing in front of Tyler’s bedroom door. He was doing nothing to help his comrade, but watched intently, seeming ready to join the fray. His embers sailed around him, seeming agitated to Jagger. They came together like a force field in front of him, then came apart to form two big spike-like weapons aimed at the beast. They broke apart again, flew behind him—looking wing-like for a few seconds, before flattening out into a vertical pane over Tyler’s door.

  Jagger realized the angel was specifically protecting Tyler. He didn’t know how he knew. He might have come to the conclusion simply by the angel’s position and posture, but he knew it with a certainty that went beyond that; he sensed it.

  “Beth, it’s all right,” he said.

  Another flash of brilliant light appeared, this one sapphire and appearing as a beam coming out of Beth’s head going straight up into the ceiling. He saw that Beth had lowered her head, clamped her eyes shut, and was praying silently, her lips moving fast. This close, he saw that the blue light was veined like marble with sparkling gold cracks. Gold light came from the cracks, instantly intense and blinding. Embers spiraled out of the ceiling, spiraling down the beam and washing over Beth. They flowed off of her and formed an angel.

  All of this—from the appearance of the beam to the manifestation of the angel—happened in maybe a second, no more than two.

  This new angel’s millions of glowing orange embers formed wings, a shield, a weapon, one after the other in the span of the blink of an eye. They became a sword and stayed that way, looking to Jagger as though it was forged from molten lava. Holding it in an upraised fist, the angel charged forward.