The Salvation of Gabriel Adam (The Revelation Saga)

by S. L. Duncan

  The light faded as Magus closed the lid, leaving Gabe hanging in the darkness.

  The darkness.

  The ring felt more alive than ever.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The descent into the well opened quickly to a cavernous sewer system. Micah and Afarôt waited at the end of the rope. Through the doorway at the bottom, a series of lanterns, sparsely separated, lit the way into the tunnel, their bulbs burning a dull yellow. A small bridge spanned the sewer, its modern steel a contrast to the surrounding brickwork and stone.

  The waterway, on the other hand, looked as though it had been forgotten by time.

  “Are we alone?” Gabe whispered, but his voice seemed to bounce off the walls.

  Micah shrugged. “You tell us.”

  He felt the ring’s energy surging strength into his bones and muscle, filling him with the desire for dark energy. “Doesn’t feel like it.” Gabe crossed the small bridge.

  Micah followed, and when she set foot on the bridge, its metal groaned in response to the added weight. She moved past Gabe, to the side of the tunnel where a raised stone walkway jutted from the curving wall.

  Afarôt had an uncertain look on his face. “This is why I was seldom tempted to descend the passageway to the Tabernacle of God. I do not appreciate the danker places of this realm.”

  Micah gave him a wry look. “Just be thankful the ladder was properly maintained. The city is falling apart, and that ladder is in better condition than you kept yours.”

  Afarôt huffed and muttered something under his breath in defense of his stewardship of the Ark of the Covenant.

  “Follow the flow, right?” Gabe asked.

  “That’s what he said.” Micah braced herself and leaned out over the black water. “Hard to tell. It looks still.”

  Afarôt stepped onto the bridge and steadied himself on the rusted railing. He seemed to pick at the paint and then threw something at the water. A flake of white landed with the smallest of ripples.

  Gabe watched as it started moving away from them, toward the gentle bend in the yellow tunnel ahead.

  “There,” Afarôt said. “Our course is plotted.”

  He joined Gabe and Micah on the walkway. A bulb hanging from the curved ceiling burned above their heads. An electric wire dangled from the fixture and connected to the next bulb hanging several yards down the tunnel, far enough to leave a gap of light in the space between. They looked like an afterthought, as if the tunnel’s use didn’t require the investment of a more permanent source of light. Gabe avoided touching the lower-hanging wires, fearful they could be dangerous in their corroded state.

  Deeper into the tunnel, new sounds echoed from the darkness.

  “Quiet,” Micah whispered and held up their progress.

  Gabe stopped and moved against the damp wall, keeping still. Over the sound of trickling water, something clanged, like a hammer against metal in the darkness of the curving tunnel ahead.

  Another clanking sound, and one of the distant lights went out. Gabe heard the chime of broken glass on stone.

  “We are not alone,” Afarôt said.

  Gabe strained his eyes against the darkness, hoping to see what was ahead.

  Another light extinguished, this one close enough for them to see the spark of the exploding bulb.

  From the darkness emerged something resembling a human. At least, it walked on two legs. Red eyes glowed in the black, and when the figure stepped into the light, Gabe saw the familiar smokelike shadow that crawled over its tatters of hanging, dead pieces of skin.

  It had not noticed them yet.

  Gabe moved to step in front of Micah, but she held him back, shaking her head as she nodded to the ring. She was already removing the Gethsemane Sword from her back.

  “With the utmost quiet,” Afarôt encouraged. “We would do well not to invite more interest.”

  The monster’s back was to her. Micah snuck ahead, sword already drawn back, ready for a strike.

  The demon smashed another light, and the darkness drew closer. It then turned and struck out across the tunnel’s expanse, so quickly it seemed to bend the space between.

  A chill ran up Gabe’s spine. The demon suddenly looked like something more dangerous—not the mindless zombies he’d seen in the city. Gabe looked at Micah, standing by herself, her sword at the ready. Careful.

  Micah hesitated. She must have felt something similar.

  The demon became still. Its back straightened, head turning up as if it was smelling the air.

  It hissed, the sound echoing down the tunnel.

  Micah took a cautious step forward.

  The demon turned, its burning eyes finding Micah’s sword as blue energy ignited down the length of the blade. A screech erupted from the demon, so loud it seemed to shake the walls of the tunnel. For a moment it stood there, as if sizing Micah up.

  Behind Gabe, something answered the scream with a similar sound. The flow of water in the sewer doubled, becoming ankle-deep, its current rushing by below.

  The demon bolted, climbing the curved wall to the ceiling. It moved impossibly fast, retreating into the darkness and far out of reach of Micah’s sword.

  A shot of blue energy exploded from Afarôt’s extended hand. It struck the ceiling, just beneath the demon, which cried out in pain and fell into the water. Rubble the size of a car crushed the monster as it emerged.

  Gabe stood still, fearful for Micah beneath the fragile ceiling. She stood several yards away. The blue flame of her sword, again in her hand, sparked to life and lit the tunnel. Her gaze traced the curve of the wall and the darkness growing behind them. She breathed heavily and dared not move, waiting.

  Behind them, the yellow glow began to dim, the darkness deepening as the flow of water in the sewer gathered strength.

  Something scratched against the stone. Distant and buried in the dark where they’d just been, the sound grew. It multiplied.

  Something screeched in the darkness, animal and furious. Its call was met with the chorus of a hundred more.

  Gabe gasped and realized he’d been holding his breath. The ringing in his ears now pulsed with the pounding of his heart. Images of red-eyed shadow demons—the pets of Septis—still haunted his waking mind. The power feeding from the ring fought his instinct to curl into a ball and close his eyes.

  “Quickly,” Afarôt shouted. “Run.” He grabbed Gabe by the shirt and dragged him toward Micah and the darkness ahead.

  Micah swung the sword back into its sheath and ran. Once past the sparking, broken light fixtures, the black consumed the path ahead.

  Gabe kept moving his legs, one after the other.

  “Stop,” Afarôt shouted, several yards back.

  Gabe nearly didn’t hear him over the sound of his own panting. He stopped running, his hands falling to his knees as he fought to catch his breath. His chest hurt, his lungs unable to keep up with his heart’s thirst for oxygen.

  “Where are they?” Micah asked. Gabe only heard her disembodied voice in the dark. The blue flame of her sword sparked to life, and the tunnel was revealed once more.

  “They know we’re here,” Gabe said. “Why haven’t they attacked? What are they waiting for?”

  Afarôt listened to the distant scramble of demons. He raised his hand, but no target showed itself.

  Gabe faced forward. He could hear the sound of water, rushing faster toward them. “They’re not attacking, because that’s not what they want.”

  “What, then? What do they bloody want, if not our heads?” Micah asked.

  “They’re driving us forward,” Gabe said.

  “Toward what?” Micah asked.

  Gabe felt the tickle of warmth pulsing from the ring, an appetite that demanded satisfaction.

  “Something bad.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  The darkness of the tunnel gave way to a growing light and the sound of rushing water. An echo of clattering and banging rattled down the curved walls, which, as they journe
yed deeper, showed new signs of decay. The surface of the tunnel’s walls now lay in rubble, nearly blocking the way. Pipes jutted through brick, exposing earth and leaking water. Frayed wires hung from above. Gabe noticed the stench of gas in the air.

  He turned, the hissing of their pursuers now only a hush in the dark.

  “I think they’ve stopped following us,” he said and coughed into his sleeve, tasting blood on the back of his tongue. His body had become this weird internal conflict. The ring’s thirst for the surrounding dark energy instilled his muscles and bones with strength, filling him with this drive to seek it out, like an alcoholic would a drink. But behind this newfound reserve, he could feel the ring eating away at him from the inside.

  You’re dying, Coren’s voice said in the back of his mind. He could feel it now—the emptiness that seemed to hang in front of him, a future no longer filled with paths and roads and decisions to be made.

  There was only one destination now. And his body was telling him that he would be arriving soon.

  Afarôt climbed over a cascade of boulders jutting from the collapsed wall. At the top of the heap, he dropped suddenly, taking cover behind a large stone. He turned to Gabe and Micah, put his finger to his lips, and motioned for them to follow. Micah helped Gabe to the top of the pile and hoisted the sword onto her back.

  The tunnel opened to a cavernous room. Banging and clattering no longer echoed through the tunnel, as if the work had been abandoned. Water flowed around columns of stone that held up what was left of the ceiling. Each showed a waterline high on the marble, indicating the volume missing from the underground pool. Ancient sculptures and carvings adorned the columns, though some had been broken and lay in heaps.

  The cistern.

  The center of the room looked as though it had been hollowed away. Light from the sky fell from an enormous breach nearly the size of the room.

  There was another building above in a worse state. Flashes of light and sounds and screams echoed down from outside the great dome. Water flowed past the line of columns and then leapt into a pit the same size as the breach in the ceiling. The ragged edges of the surrounding walkways were freshly made, their rubble still falling into the darkness.

  Afarôt noticed Gabe’s gaze. “Those are the sounds of war coming from the Hagia Sophia above.”

  Gabe recalled the same sounds of gunfire and men dying on the streets of Axum. A rumble shook the room, and debris fell from the gaping hole in the ceiling. Just at the edge, an enormous marble column lay on its side, supported by a tangle of steel and stone and rebar.

  Below, in the middle of the pit, a single pathway extended into thin air like an unsupported pier, defying gravity. On the floating platform, a tiny object glowed in the pale light.

  “What is that?” Micah asked.

  “The Seventh Vial,” Afarôt said.

  Micah moved to hurdle the fallen boulders, but Afarôt held her back. “Something is not right,” he said. “Such a treasure would not remain unguarded.”

  The ring had begun to pulse on Gabe’s finger, sending pleasant vibrations into his arm. They felt warm, invigorating, a teasing promise of feeling better, of healing. There was powerful dark energy here, and the ring knew it and wanted to feed on it, to consume. In the back of Gabe’s mind, he felt his will losing ground.

  I just want to feel normal.

  The vial hung in the air as if suspended by the column of light streaming through the dome high above. Several candles at the corners of the room, where the original flooring of the cistern remained intact, helped give dimension to the space.

  In the far corner, just beyond the floating platform, Gabe saw movement in the flickering light. He leaned out from the tunnel’s wall, squinting. His eyes focused sharper, revealing a face in the darkness.

  Dad. Suddenly the ringing in his ears silenced. The world quieted to only the raspy sound of his breathing. “Dad,” he said. “It’s my father.”

  Gabe was running before he even realized it. He heard the shouts of Micah and Afarôt but ignored them. He ran, vaguely aware of the cold wetness weighing down his shoes and splashing onto his trousers. The water flowed under him and leapt from the shattered edge of the tunnel into the endless abyss below.

  The room looked as though it had been excavated, the middle dug away and forming a pit. The edges of what remained of the old cistern stone walkway stood broken at the corners and did not connect. There was no way to get around the gaping hole in the middle of the room.

  Gabe stood on the edge and looked down. The stone beneath his feet loosened, and he stepped back to firmer ground before rocks slipped away, tumbling into the emptiness. He listened, but the rock made no impact noise, nor was there the echo of water splashing on the ground below.

  He saw his father clearer across the vast room now. He was lying on his side, his eyes closed, the stain of blood on his face.

  Behind him came splashing, feet on stone. He turned to see Micah and Afarôt running to his side.

  “Gabe, we’ve got to get to cover,” Micah said. “We don’t know—”

  He pointed across the room.

  Micah squinted, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh, my God.”

  “There’s no way across.” Gabe pushed past her, to the floating platform, the only way forward. He inspected it, getting on his hands and knees to see what was beneath. The structure looked to be built from leftover materials—rock and stone and chunks of concrete, compressed together. Underneath, his fear was confirmed: nothing supported the island floating in the middle of the room.

  He stood and hesitantly placed a foot on the bridge. The bricks and concrete didn’t give under his weight.

  “It’s so obviously a trap,” Micah pleaded.

  “What do you expect me to do?” Gabe answered.

  Afarôt moved to the outer edge, closest to a hallway on the eastern wall. A gap separated the tunnel, too far to jump. “Someone is coming.”

  Micah unsheathed her sword.

  Gabe looked at the hallway, its darkness giving way to light. The ring pulsed stronger, his muscles filling with a newfound vigor. He took a step onto the bridge and wondered if he would ever reach the bottom if he fell.

  “I’m going,” he said. “I might be able to reach the other side from the end of the bridge.”

  “Gabe . . .” Micah said. She looked worried, fear stretched across her face. She seemed to be holding something back.

  “I’ll be fine.” Gabe took another step, half expecting the bridge to crumble beneath him and send him falling into the abyss. But it held. He inched farther out, the rock and stone feeling as solid as the ground.

  He looked up at the island and the glistening vial. Gathering his courage, he put one foot in front of the other until he found himself on the island of light.

  He remembered a vision he’d once had of a large onyx room, lit only by a single overhead light.

  Across the room, his father lay on his side. He looked beaten and weak. But alive. Gabe called out to him, and his father’s eyes opened. He seemed to struggle on the ground, unable to move properly or speak.

  Gabe moved to the edge of the island. The distance to the far wall was too great to leap, and he looked around, trying to figure out a way to get across. Part of the structure of the Hagia Sophia hung down; if there was a way to propel himself up to it, he could climb across the exposed pieces of the rebar hanging down from the broken ceiling and rafters.

  Something buzzed in the back of his mind, a feeling that was growing stronger by the second. He turned to look at the Seventh Vial, hovering in the air just above his head, sparkling in the light.

  On the other side of the gap, his father stirred, but Gabe couldn’t shake the thought of the vial. It spun in the air, emitting a warm glow. Suddenly, it stopped and began to tremble, shaking violently.

  The ringing in his ears became an eruption of sound, deafening and painful. Gabe fell to his knees, his hands over his ears, unable to make it stop. The metal band o
n his finger burned, a glowing red brand against his skin.

  Micah shouted, but he couldn’t hear her. A great flame was building in the tunnel behind where she and Afarôt stood. Micah’s sword ignited, and she turned to face the danger. The wall near Afarôt exploded as he conjured a shield to protect Micah from an attack from the east hallway. There, a woman appeared, her arm outstretched.

  Beside her stood Simon Magus.

  The ringing became unbearable, like something trying to claw out of Gabe’s skull.

  He stood. The bluish-white energy of Micah’s sword and Afarôt’s light danced about the room. He had to stop the vial to end the pain. His father lay on his stomach now at the edge of the abyss, reaching for him.

  Gabe’s world darkened. He began to lose consciousness, the walls of his brain constricting and expanding, worse than any migraine he’d ever experienced. The ring felt like lightning, shooting through the nerves of his arm.

  He reached, his trembling hand glowing with energy, the jewel on the band burning brighter than it ever had. As his hand made contact with the vial, electricity arced out, using his shoulder and body as a conduit, his skin alight with searing pain. Gabe felt the rushing sensation of his strength and energy pulling away from his body. The vial glowed blue, pulsing out of its glass, its waves of light like a ripple in a lake, and the room became silent.

  Gabe was knocked to the ground, spitting blood as he landed. He could feel his heartbeat weakening, slowing. The vial fell, bouncing once on the island. The tinkling of its glass rolling across the concrete was the only sound he heard until it reached the edge and tumbled over.

  Its glow lit the sides of the hole as it fell until it, too, became consumed by the endless darkness. For a moment there was only silence. Gabe struggled to move to the edge and watch, his breathing labored as he hung his head over. Deep below, he saw something. Another light. Orange and red. Fire.

  And it was rising.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The suspended island shook, and the bridge began to crumble, losing some of its rock to the pit. Gabe watched it fall, sparks flashing as it disappeared deep in the earth. The swirl of fire below grew brighter, closer.