Enoch's Ghost

by Bryan Davis

  Nodding, Listener pointed at a spot over the ridge. The white dragon, just a tiny blur in the moon’s glow, was closing in fast.

  Chapter 22

  Sacrifices

  Facing the giant, Sapphira raised her flaming hands higher and whispered, “Jehovah-Shammah, I know you’re here with me. Grant us victory over our enemies, for they extend their prideful fingers into your holy city and dare to touch what is sacred with their bloodstained hands.”

  She edged closer to Bagowd and leaned into his protective energy field. The giant’s electricity buzzed across her skin, sending bullets of pain up and down her spine and through her limbs to her fingers and toes. Steeling herself, she called upon her internal fire. Flames leaped from her body, exploding outward from her head, hands, and torso. The fire ate away at the giant’s electric shield, and his surrounding glow shrank as she pushed closer to his feet with her inferno-clad body.

  Bagowd swung a foot at her but missed. “Begone, fiery demon!”

  Thigocia swooped low and took advantage of the weakened field, sending a blast of flames that torched the giant’s foot. Bagowd roared, but he kept his hands in place. Using the turbine’s output and the incoming light from the ten giants at the distant power plants, he refueled his electric cocoon, making it grow wider and taller. The dragon’s fire mixed with the shield again, and the combined energy grew into a twisting column that shot past the clouds. Sapphira trudged closer, and with each torturous step, the column dwindled.

  Thigocia took aim at the giant’s feet again, but a streak of red scales zoomed in front of her, making her swerve away. “No!” Arramos shouted. “Do not break off the central attack! We must keep the firestorm going. It is the only way to destroy the tower.”

  Sapphira screamed through her flames. “That’s what Mardon wants you to do! The vortex will break down the dimensional barrier between Heaven and Earth!”

  Thigocia looped back toward Sapphira. “How do you know this?” she asked as she swept by. She rose again into the air and began another orbit, too far away now to hear an answer.

  The giant grunted. “The girl is degenerating the field! I must increase the power!” A new surge of electricity blasted from his body, brightening the upward column and rebuilding his electrified barrier.

  As Thigocia approached again, Bagowd’s electric cloak pushed down on Sapphira’s flaming shield, making the orange tongues surrounding her body tremble. Pain knifing through her heart, Sapphira spat out her reply to Thigocia in short bursts. “I know this because … I am an Oracle of Fire … an underborn who saw the ancient days. … I have made many firestorms … so I know what they do.”

  Arramos dove down and barged in between Sapphira and Thigocia. “While we delay, our storm dwindles!” he said, making a tight orbit around the giant to stay in shouting distance. “Roxil and I destroyed Mardon’s tower once before, so we know what we are doing.”

  Thigocia beat her wings furiously, trailing Arramos. “But what if she speaks the truth?”

  “There is no time to argue. You said you would not doubt me when this hour came.” With a burst of wing power, he launched higher into the sky.

  Thigocia followed him, calling back to Sapphira, “I have no proof that what you say is true, so I must keep my word to Arramos.”

  Sapphira stretched her pain-racked body, reaching for the dragon in vain. “Noooo!”

  The three dragons again stirred up the mix of fire and electricity. The brilliant column continued to rise. The clouds evaporated, leaving nothing but a clear blue ceiling that seemed to bend and wrinkle in the heat of the twisting cylinder that stabbed the sky. The blueness streamed away from the atmospheric wound, leaving a black hole that expanded with every second. Soon, black faded to gray, then white. Brilliant light shone through the hole, like a sunray penetrating the clouds.

  Sapphira continued her relentless march toward Bagowd, bending at the waist as she strained to slide each foot forward. The electric shield pushed down on her like a thousand-pound load. A clanging sound of metal on metal made her glance back. A red-headed girl pushed up from the last rung on the ladder, dragging Excalibur behind her as she mounted the top of the generator.

  “Karen!” Sapphira called through the flames. “Don’t!”

  Karen laid the sword on the roof and rested in a crouch, her arms dangling limply as she panted. “I just … want to help.”

  A loud creaking sound erupted from the sky. The hole in the ceiling widened, revealing another land far above—a shimmering blue curtain bordered by a grassy field with several people and a horse standing nearby. The fiery tornado transformed into a cylindrical beam that solidified into a transparent tunnel of light. The tunnel knifed through the hole in the sky and attached to the center of the curtain, making a bridge between the two lands.

  The newly formed tunnel of light surrounded the giant, giving him a sleeve of protection. With his hands still raised, he held the end of the tunnel steady, his palms pressing against the inner walls and his feet supporting the base.

  Arramos shut off his fiery jets. “No more flames!” he ordered. “There is nothing more we can do. We have failed!”

  Thigocia wheeled around and flew straight toward the vertical column. “Failure is not an option!” She smashed into the tunnel chest first. In an explosion of sparks, the barrier flung her away in a whirling backward somersault. Stunned, she flapped her wings awkwardly and spun slowly toward the waterfall.

  “Mother!” Roxil zoomed under Thigocia’s body and helped her spiral safely downward.

  “Excellent!” a man called from the turbine room floor. “My new tower is complete! My father’s dream of a stairway to Heaven is finally a reality!”

  Sapphira cringed. Mardon’s voice. Now he’s going to try to climb up to Heaven! Her body still aflame, she crept close to Bagowd’s legs and laid a fiery hand on the tunnel wall. With a spine-jarring jolt, her hand sizzled and bounced away. She gripped her wrist, holding back a cry of pain. It was useless. The tower was complete; she hadn’t stopped it.

  Shutting off her flames, she hurried back to Karen. The redhead’s gaze was fixed on the sky. “What’s up there?” Karen asked. “Who are those people?”

  Sapphira looked up. The land in the sky drew closer, inch by inch, as if the tunnel were reeling it toward the Earth. The people in the small crowd near the curtain grew more detailed, but since they were moving around, it was hard to lock on any one of them. Finally, she caught a glimpse of a familiar face and followed it, a young man walking between a horse and the tunnel of light. When he paused to speak to a much older man, his identity became clear.

  Covering her mouth, Sapphira dropped to her knees. “Elam!”

  As gusty winds tossed his hair, Elam stood close to Dikaios and Naamah. “I think all we can do now is wait for the connection.”

  The horse nodded toward Zane and his nine followers. “Unless you have words of wisdom for our soldiers, I would agree.”

  The storm clouds thickened and descended, their feathery undersides brushing the treetops. Black funnels spun down. A dozen twisting tongues licked the ground before getting slurped back into the cloud bank only to be replaced by a dozen more. The ten wanderers huddled, the wide whites of their eyes a stark contrast to their soiled clothes. Though unable to see the looming catastrophe, the one blind man obviously felt and heard the rumbling storm and shaking ground. Only Zane seemed to try to keep a brave face as he firmed his chin and stared into the wind.

  Elam sighed and shook his head. “I’ll try to come up with a last-minute pep talk, but I don’t know if it’ll do any good.”

  “I sense that you have no faith in their abilities,” Dikaios said. “Do you have an alternate plan?”

  “Maybe.” Elam looked back at Heaven’s shield. “I need something to block the connection, a barrier of some kind.”

  Naamah picked up a cloak from the ground. “Perhaps this will work. You used it to cover me. Now it might serv
e another good purpose.”

  Elam took the cloak and slipped it on. “It might help, but something metal would probably be better.”

  “The only metal is inside Heaven,” Dikaios said. “There is none in the Bridgelands, at least none that I have seen.”

  “Then this will have to do.” Pulling the hood over his head, Elam approached his ten soldiers, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, the clouds lowered to the ground and enveloped them in soupy gray fog that swirled in a frantic dance. Damp misty hands slapped Elam’s hood down and mopped his hair with dewy fingers. The fog gathered into streams and funneled toward Heaven’s shield in a twisting horizontal cylinder, clearing the rest of the air.

  Like a huge spinning snake, the cylinder lunged at the shield, striking the blue wall just a couple of feet away from where Acacia stood, but she stayed put, still keeping her halo of light in place. As the rush of fog struck the shield, the mist evaporated as soon as it made contact, but the barrage of new fog continued unabated.

  The cylinder grew thicker and thicker, until it finally became rigid and slowed its spin. At the point where the fog struck the shield, the gray streams extended tiny fingers that drilled minute holes and attached to the blue wall. Like a ten-foot-thick rope being pulled at one end, the cylinder drew taut and yanked at the shield. The wall groaned but didn’t bend.

  At first gray and opaque, the cylinder slowly cleared to a translucent yellow, then to pure bright crystal. Thousands of sparks of light zoomed toward the shield and splashed against it in tiny bursts of energy.

  Elam patted Dikaios’s neck. “Please stay with Naamah, no matter what happens.”

  “I will protect her as you would,” the horse replied.

  Elam edged close to the cylinder. It hovered over the ground just above his ankles and reached well over his head. As he extended his hand to touch it, a buzz of electricity tingled his skin, but he ignored it long enough to push a hand into the path. Several sparks zapped his fingers. “Ouch!” He jerked his hand back. “It’s electrified.”

  Zane reached out and pushed his hand into the center. “I feel a tickling sensation, but it seems harmless.” He picked up a stone and released it inside the beam. It hovered near the center for a moment, then floated toward the shield, accelerating through the beam until it smacked against the blue barrier.

  “As I suspected,” Enoch said, “it should be safe for you and your companions to enter. The idea is for all ten of you to stand in the gap between Earth and Heaven and disrupt the path of those electrified particles so that Acacia may stand safely at the connection point to the shield. For the sake of all unredeemed humans on Earth, the beam must be extinguished.”

  Zane waved to his followers. “Let’s do this job quickly. Our eternal reward awaits!”

  The men formed a chain, locking elbows as they entered the beam about ten feet in front of Heaven’s shield. As soon as the light enveloped the last man, he called out, “I can see!”

  Elam tugged on Enoch’s sleeve. “Why can he see now?”

  “To remove all potential excuses,” Enoch replied.

  Thousands of sparks bounced off the men’s bodies and splashed to the ground, reducing the electrical attack on the shield. The men stood straight, pulling in their bellies and expanding their chests, like superheroes repelling bullets.

  Enoch waved at Acacia. “Move the portal in front of the connection point. The time to unleash the weapon is almost here.”

  Keeping the fiery halo swirling around her hands, Acacia slid her feet sideways and edged into the beam. As soon as she entered, dozens of energy particles lashed her face. Dropping to her knees, she called out, “Father Enoch! Help!”

  Enoch waved frantically at the ten men. “Too many of the particles are still getting through! Assemble in two rows and fill in the gaps!”

  The men scrambled into staggered lines of five and raised their hands to block as many of the tiny sparks as they could, but hundreds still passed around them and through the halo, spattering against Acacia. She struggled back to her feet, tucking her chin against her chest. Some of the sparks adhered to her blue cloak, making her appear to be on fire, and her white hair began to rise in the electrified light. “It’s not so bad now,” she grunted, still keeping her head low. “I can stand it.”

  Far down the cylinder in the opposite direction, a bright hole opened in the distant sky. The horizon drew slowly nearer. Trees collapsed as if swallowed from underneath. Ponds splashed high as their shorelines clapped together and disappeared. It was as if the entire land had become a river tumbling into a chasm.

  Elam backed away from the cylinder and laid one hand on Dikaios and the other on Naamah. In mere moments, they, too, would be washed into the void.

  The hole widened to fill the entire horizon. An image coalesced within as if the sky had transformed into a movie theatre screen. A huge man stood with his arms upraised within the cylindrical tunnel of light as a river of water fell into a building beneath him. Two smaller people crouched at the man’s feet, while another stooped near an inert body lying on the ground.

  As the Earth drew closer, details colored the people on its surface—the giant, furrows etched across his brow; a girl at his feet, red-headed and tear-streaked; and the other girl, white-haired and flaming.

  Elam swallowed a lump. “Sapphira!”

  Zane pointed through the tunnel. “I see a giant!”

  The other nine fidgeted, breaking the links between them. Hundreds of sparks zoomed past and hammered Acacia. She fell to her knees again, holding up the portal with trembling arms, but she didn’t cry out.

  “Hold fast, men!” Enoch shouted. “Do not fear this son of the Earth! If you stand firm in your faith, you will defeat this demonic giant!”

  The tunnel shuddered. A new pulse of energy shot millions of sparks into the barrier of men, half of them passing around and between their quaking bodies. As the particles riddled Acacia, she moaned but kept the portal in place.

  Elam screamed at the men. “Form your lines! She can’t take it much longer!”

  As the ten men pushed closer together, the sound of the disappearing horizon crashed all around—trees splitting, water splashing, and rocks smashing together in a cacophony.

  The giant let out a deafening roar. The strongest pulse yet shot through the tunnel. The men scattered, diving out of the connecting beam just before the wave of energy arrived. It smashed against Acacia and pinned her to the shield.

  “It was a giant!” Zane shouted. “He shoots electricity from his fingers! We can’t fight an enemy like that!” The other nine murmured their agreement.

  “Cowards!” Naamah shouted. “You speak as men of heart, but passion flows only in your loins!” She lunged for the tunnel, but Dikaios grabbed her dress with his teeth and pulled her back.

  “Father Enoch!” Elam screamed at the top of his lungs. “I have to help Acacia! I have to block the path!”

  “You would die in less than a minute!” Enoch shouted back.

  The tumbling earth roared closer. They had only seconds until it would swallow them all.

  “Better me than her!” Elam ran toward Acacia. He leaped into the beam directly in front of her portal halo and spread out the cloak’s cape as far as he could. Like bees from a hive, the sparks swarmed over Elam, adhering to his skin and clothes. Stinging with horrible pain, he turned and watched Acacia. Most of the particles that flew past him missed her, flying high or wide of her body.

  Acacia rose slowly to her feet again, her legs and voice trembling. “Father Enoch! The sacrifice has arrived!”

  The onslaught of energy pushed Elam back. He set his feet and leaned into the flow, suffering pure torture every second.

  Enoch pointed at Acacia. “Create the pyre for our sacrificial lamb! We will go to battle with the only energy strong enough to counter this monster!”

  Her body erupted in brilliance. She pointed into the halo with both arms and sent da
zzling streams of light into its center. Although the radiance streamed into the oval, it didn’t come out on the other side.

  Steadying her voice, Acacia spoke into the portal. “I am here. The sacrifice must enter alone, for as it approaches, the light will become flames and consume everything in its path.”

  The energy particles thrashed Elam’s body mercilessly. His skin burned. His bones ripped against his muscles as the onslaught flogged him with thousands of electrified lashes, stinging, piercing, stabbing at every pore.

  As he kept his pain-riddled arms outstretched, he shouted, “I can’t last much longer!”

  “Elam!” Naamah cried. She broke away from Dikaios and rushed toward him.

  Elam heaved violently. Breath and life drained away, and darkness bled into his mind until he knew no more.

  Cradling Listener, Timothy sprinted into the woods. As he leaped over brush and dodged protruding branches, he imagined the spindly limbs of altered ones stretching out to grab his ankles. He ran faster, stomping heavily on every moving shadow.

  When he reached the tunnel, he set Listener down at the entrance and shouted into the cavity. “Oracle!”

  The call echoed back. “Oracle! Oracle!”

  Timothy cupped his hands around his mouth. “I have come with the sacrifice. Are you there?”

  The tunnel’s light flashed on, so bright, he had to leap away.

  “I am here,” came the lovely voice, reverberating through the woods. “The sacrifice must enter alone, for as it approaches, the light will become flames and consume everything in its path.”

  He looked up into the sky. In a flurry of wings, Albatross skimmed the treetops and disappeared toward the edge of the forest.

  “They are landing at the river,” Timothy said, caressing Listener’s cheek. “There were two riders. I’m pretty sure they were Abraham and your mother.”

  As Listener nodded, her brow furrowed once again.

  He pulled her into an embrace. “Don’t worry. Neither one of them will be able to stop us.”