“Guys! Quiet!” Vero said, waving his arms. “I think I’m getting something.”
The group fell silent, as Vero held his hands to his temple, eyes shut. “I definitely hear something. A voice.” Vero frowned in concentration. “Pax’s voice!”
“What’s he saying?” Kane asked anxiously.
“He’s testing to see if I can hear him.”
“So they don’t have any clues for us?” Kane dropped his shoulders.
“I guess not.”
“Well, tell them where we are,” Ada told Vero. “Describe this island to them. Maybe they can find a scroll about it.”
Vero nodded and shut his eyes, conveying the message. After a few moments, he opened his eyes. “They said they’re on it.”
“So in the meantime, I guess we hang out here and rest up,” Ada suggested.
“I’m gonna go find some shelter until this storm blows over,” Greer said. “Anybody coming with me?”
Kane looked at the others in disbelief. “So we’re just gonna wait here until we hear something?” he said annoyed. “Did you guys forget that this is a competition? That other angels are also out there trying to solve the riddle!”
“No, I didn’t forget,” Greer shot back. “But we’ve been flying around for hours, and this island is the first thing we’ve seen. I say before we abandon it, let’s at least find out what it is. I don’t see any point in going back up there and just flying around, hoping the answer will magically appear to us.”
Kane was ticked off. On the one hand, he knew there was some sense to what Greer had said. On the other, sitting around doing nothing seemed like a colossal waste of time, and he was growing more frustrated with each passing moment. The others didn’t understand how badly he wanted — he needed — to win. Kane stomped his foot. “We’re gonna fail!”
Suddenly, the ground began to shake. The trees swayed. The angels looked around, panicked.
“Did you just do that with your foot?” Ada asked Kane, alarmed.
“Earthquake!” Vero shouted.
But then the trembling stopped.
“That was a short earthquake,” Greer commented.
“Are you complaining?” Ada retorted. “Would you like it to last longer?”
Greer smiled. “I guess not. But we should explore this place and see if we can get out of the rain.”
“Okay,” Ada said. “Just give me a minute. I’m pretty exhausted.” She sat on a large white stone surrounded by reddish flowers. “Wow, this is surprisingly spongy,” she said, leaning her back against a large green stalk directly behind the stone.
Just then Greer screamed. Vero and Kane ran over to her and laughed as Greer peeled a small tree frog from her cheek. She dangled it by its front leg.
“He’s kind of cute,” she noted.
“Unless he’s one of those poison dart frogs,” Kane warned her.
Greer instantly flung the frog into the air. It landed on a tree branch, its suction-cup feet stuck to the bark.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Where’s Ada?” Vero asked.
The others spun around to the white rock where Ada had been sitting. She was no longer there.
“Where’d she go?” Greer asked.
“Ada!” Kane shouted. “Come on, we want to get out of here!”
“Ada!” Greer yelled as she looked around a clump of flowering bushes.
Vero searched in every direction but didn’t see Ada anywhere. A sinking feeling formed in the pit of his stomach.
“But she was there a minute ago,” Greer said, her brow furrowed in thought. “She couldn’t have gone far.”
“Especially with these plants growing everywhere,” Vero added. “It’s hard to go anywhere quickly.”
“Then where the heck is she?” Kane sounded annoyed. “She’s not taking the Trials seriously! She’s playing games!”
“She’s not the type to play games,” Greer shot back at Kane.
“I know. I know,” Kane sighed. “But where the heck is she?”
Frustrated, he sat down on the white rock. “Hey, this is soft and spongy,” Kane commented, almost to himself. He looked into the sky as if hoping for divine inspiration. None came. Suddenly, the rock began to tremble.
“What the . . .!” Kane exclaimed leaping off the stone.
The other angels stood, curious and rooted to the spot, as Kane raced over to them. Greer’s eyes grew hard as she spotted her frog still clinging to the bark of a tree. She yanked it off the tree, walked over, and placed the frog on the white stone. After a few moments, the large green stalk behind the stone began to move. It seemed to be unfolding from the earth up, and the white stone moved with it. The angels’ heads slowly turned skyward as a beast rose menacingly over them.
Before the fledglings loomed an enormous plant, laced with white jaws and standing eight feet tall — a giant Venus flytrap of sorts, thick enough to swallow a man. It hadn’t been a rock Kane was sitting on — it was the plant’s tongue! And the red flowers that surrounded the rock weren’t flowers after all — they were teeth! The creature closed its enormous jaws and swung its head upward as the frog slid down its throat.
“A man-eating plant . . .” Greer stuttered.
Vero pointed to the plant’s stalk. “Guys, look! I think that’s Ada in there!”
In the stalk was the outline of Ada struggling to escape from its confines. But despite her efforts, she was slowly sinking down the stalk.
“Ada! How can she breathe?” Kane asked, his voice full of panic.
“We need to get her out before that thing digests her!” Greer shouted.
Having swallowed the frog, the plant bent back down again and placed its head, mouth open, on the ground, waiting for its next meal to sit on the white tongue.
“I say we charge the thing and rip it to pieces,” Greer stated, stepping forward and motioning the others to join her.
“Greer, get back here!” Vero whispered as loudly as he dared. He wasn’t sure if the plant had ears, but there was no point in risking it.
Greer returned to Kane and Vero’s watch point, looking furious.
“We get it, Greer,” Vero said.
“I’m not sure you do,” she snapped. “Unless one of you carries weed killer on you, Ada is going to be humus if we don’t do something quick.”
Vero’s heart was pounding. “Okay, so either we dig the plant out of the ground from its roots, which would take a long time, and there’s no guarantee it won’t try to eat us while we’re digging . . .” He bit his lip. “Or we slice its head off when it extends itself.”
“That would be doable if we could grow our swords!” Kane shouted, exasperated.
“Vero,” Greer said. ”You’re the only one who grew a sword. Can you do it again?”
It was true. When Vero was engaged in a deadly battle with two maltures, a sword had miraculously sprung forth from his hand. At the moment he had needed it most, it had materialized.
“It appeared because someone had prayed for help,” Vero explained. “I don’t know how to do it myself.”
“Why do they always send us out in the Ether without anything to fight with?” Kane said, pulling at his hair.
Greer spun around, scanning their surroundings for some sort of weapon.
“Here’s something.” Greer picked up a long heavy pointed fallen branch and handed it to Kane. “A couple good smacks might take its head off.”
She bent down, grabbed two more long sticks and put one in Vero’s hand. He looked down at the weapon with great reluctance.
“It’s not a sword, but it’s the best we’ve got at this point,” said Greer.
“We’ve got to get it to extend its ugly head first,” Vero said. He picked a furry caterpillar off a broad, waxy tree leaf and took a few tentative steps toward the plant’s massive tongue. He stopped, summoned his courage, then ran at the plant, and chucked the caterpillar. It looked like it was headed s
traight for the center of the tongue at first, but the caterpillar was lighter than Vero had expected, and it landed short, on the lower part of the white tongue.
“Lousy shot,” Kane said, shaking his head.
Vero dashed back to the safety of Kane and Greer and waited. Several moments passed. Nothing happened — the flower did not attack the caterpillar. The angels watched as the caterpillar began to crawl off the white tongue toward the ground.
“No, no, stay there,” Greer shouted to the caterpillar, her voice tinged with urgency.
The caterpillar continued to inch its way off the giant tongue and fell to the ground.
“It’s not heavy enough. It doesn’t sense it,” Kane said.
“I don’t see anything else we can feed it,” Greer said as she crept towards the flower, holding her stick out in front. “We’re losing too much time. Ada could be buried in the dirt by now.”
“Be careful,” Vero warned her, as she inched closer to the plant.
Vero held his breath as Greer scooped up the caterpillar onto the end of her stick from the mossy ground. She held the stick over the plant’s tongue and flicked the caterpillar right smack into the center. Vero breathed a sigh of relief as she turned around and headed back to them.
“Now maybe it will sense the caterpillar,” she said with a smirk.
Vero’s eyes went wide as he saw the flower shoot off the ground and lunge at her. “Greer!” he screamed.
The plant’s jaw clamped down on Greer, catching her shoulder and pulling her toward it. She slammed on her back into the wet dirt. Vero and Kane quickly ran to aide their friend, their sticks raised. The outline of Ada’s body was still apparent in the creature’s stalk. Vero saw the look of terror on Greer’s face as the flower’s spiky red teeth pierced her flesh.
“Get off!” she cried.
Fueled by Greer’s pain, Vero lost all sense of danger and charged the plant. He swung his stick like a baseball bat at the monster plant’s head. The blow startled the plant, and it opened its huge mouth, releasing Greer. As it turned its attention to Vero, Kane seized Greer around the waist and pulled her safely from the flower’s reach. The gigantic head repeatedly snapped forward, grabbing for Vero. It looked like he was dancing to avoid the creature’s jaws, taking two steps forward and one step back. As Vero stumbled to avoid the giant mouth, he was reminded of the arcade game with the claw that dropped down, attempting to clasp a stuffed animal. Except now he was the stuffed animal! When the top row of teeth grazed his shoulder, Vero knew he needed a new strategy. He threw his wings out into the lightly falling rain and shot into air.
“Hey, I’m up here!” Vero yelled down to the plant.
As the plant’s head turned upward, Vero slugged it with all his might. It was a homerun! The head swayed, stunned. Kane got airborne and glided toward the flower’s head, holding up his stick.
“Why should you have all the fun?” Kane ribbed Vero.
Kane whacked the flower. The head swung from side to side, even more dazed. Then Vero hit it again.
“This is fun. Sort of an Ada piñata,” Kane smiled.
Kane swung at the creature with such force that its head slammed hard into Vero, sending him straight into the ground. As Vero tried to get up, the monster’s jaw grabbed his left wing and pulled him high into the air, shaking him violently from side to side. Vero screamed when he felt his wing being ripped from his back. Greer, still writhing from her own wounds, watched helplessly from below, unable to move as one of Vero’s feathers gently floated down to her.
“Kane! Help him!” she yelled desperately, clutching the feather.
Kane flew around the plant, searching for an open spot to bash its head, but every shot risked hitting Vero.
“I can’t get a clear shot!” he shouted, panic-stricken.
Greer bent over and willed her wings to open, but her shoulder was too badly damaged. They would not sprout. The mouth opened, releasing Vero’s wing. As Vero dropped to the ground, the mouth opened wider, aiming to gobble Vero’s head. Greer tightly closed her eyes, too afraid to watch. Suddenly, out of the mist, a warlike cry penetrated the scene. Greer opened her eyes in time to see a set of claws slice deep across the flower’s neck, decapitating the head from its stem in a single swipe. The flower’s massive head landed on top of Vero where he lay in the dirt beneath his tangled wings. He managed to wiggle out from underneath the flower only to see the enormous stalk sway, then collapse, falling inches from his head.
Out of the green stalk crawled Ada, covered in green mucus. As she wiped her face clean, she blinked in the sudden rush of light and tried to focus her eyes. There, sitting regally before her, was Ariel, the sphinx-like Power. Ada gasped. “You,” she said. “You saved me.”
“Are you all right?” Ariel asked.
Ada nodded. “Just a little gross.”
“More than a little,” Kane furrowed his brow.
Ada held her face up to the rain, hoping to clean it.
Vero winced as he touched his back and felt the damage done to his wings. Ariel saw the pain in Vero’s face and walked over to him. She placed her paw over his injured back and held it there. Vero felt warmth come over the spot, which continued to spread throughout his body. Moments later, he no longer had any pain. He reached behind him and realized his wings were completely healed.
“They’re totally better,” he said, astonished.
“We Powers were blessed with the gift of healing,” Ariel told him.
“Well, could you bring a little of that healing over here?” Greer asked as she grabbed her bloodied shoulder.
Ariel leapt over to Greer and placed her paw on her wounded shoulder. After a few moments, Greer, too, was healed.
“You’re Ariel, right?” Greer asked.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t we competing against you?” Greer looked puzzled.
“Yes, but a competition is no reason not to do the right thing. I’m sure if I were in trouble, you’d help me out.”
“Yeah, you got it,” Greer answered with genuine sincerity.
Ada smacked Kane’s arm.
“What was that for?” Kane asked.
“Ada piñata? You were enjoying those shots a little too much!” Ada snarled. “I could hear you, you know.”
“I was aiming for its head,” Kane answered.
Ada narrowed her eyes at him, not quite buying it.
“Hey, guys, does the fact that Ariel’s here mean we’re on the right track?” Vero asked. “It’s probably not a coincidence that we both wound up on this island. Maybe the person we’re supposed to find is here after all?”
“What makes you so sure it’s a person?” Ariel said. “It could be anything.”
“What do you mean?” Vero asked.
“The Powers are the keepers of history,” Ariel began. “So I can tell you that in the past Trials, some of the riddles involved finding David’s harp, Moses’s bronze staff, Joseph’s multi-colored coat . . . What we seek need not be a living being.”
“Then what led you to this island?” Vero persisted.
“The riddle says that whatever we’re supposed to find is stronger than one thousand men. I know every word of the Bible committed to memory, and that’s what led me here.” She paused. “To the jungles of Geshem, home of the Children of the Fallen.”
“The Children of the Fallen?” Ada said, her eyes wide.
“The Children of the Fallen,” Ariel repeated with a definite warning in her voice.
The fledglings looked frightened.
“Who are they?” Vero asked.
“I can’t tell you any more. This is still a competition,” Ariel replied. “We are to use our given talents to figure it out on our own.”
“But . . .” Kane began.
Ariel turned and walked away, cutting him off. Her powerful muscular shoulders moved up and down with each step.
“Good-bye,” she said. “And good luck.” Ariel crouched down and, springing off her back le
gs, bounded into the dense jungle.
9
CHILDREN OF THE FALLEN
Greer spun around to the other fledglings, stepping over what was left of the flower’s decapitated head. “Vero, transmit to Pax and X what Ariel told us. Have them research the Children of the Fallen in the jungles of Geshem. See if they come up with anything.”
Vero put his hands to his temples and tightly shut his eyes. After a few moments, he looked up. “I also told them to research the number one thousand in the Bible.”
“Good. Let’s go,” Kane said, heading toward the jungle.
“Where are you going?” Greer said.
“Ariel obviously knows a lot more than we do,” Kane replied. “She went this way so we should follow her.”
“I don’t know . . .” Vero said.
“You got a better idea?”
Vero shook his head and followed after Kane. Ada and Greer hurried alongside him, journeying into the heart of the dense tropical rainforest. As they walked, Vero surveyed the dense vegetation. On the ground, the shrubs had grown so tightly packed together that they swallowed his legs with every step. Trees buttressed by fifteen-foot roots towered over the crowded shrubs. Slippery mosses covered rocks and trees, bathing them in dark hues of green, while vines with woody stems climbed on anything that would support them. Colorful lichen and fungi shot out of tree trunks and up from the wet, muddy soil. The waxy, oval leaves of the trees formed a canopy over Vero’s head so thick that barely any light came through. Though the thick vegetation kept most of the rain out, the air inside the forest was hot and humid.
Vero tugged at his shirt collar. “It feels like we’re trapped in a giant greenhouse,” he said.
“But it is pretty,” Greer commented, running her hand over a smooth, broad leaf.
Suddenly, the ground beneath Vero’s feet began to shake once again. It was another unnerving earthquake. As the fledglings paused, they looked up and could see the treetops dangerously swaying. Vero feared one might topple over and crush them. As Ada steadied herself by grabbing onto Vero, the trembling finally stopped. She let out an uneasy sigh of relief.
Pillars of Fire Page 9
