Another barrage of arrows flew past, finding their targets in three more of the islanders.
Paul, now finished with the evil men piled at his feet, stood between the pure and the damned. He faced the charging host of corruption with swords in each hand, blood dripping from their blades. Without looking back, he took off for Osiris’ playthings with a savage battle cry that echoed off the walls and chased after him. Until it was drowned by the sound of clashing metal, beastly roars, and splashing blood.
As Chadwick led them up the ascending passageway, he knew immediately that the layout of this pyramid was different from that of the Great Pyramid, which would make sense if it were astronomically aligned — it being positioned in a different part of the world. He kept running, light from more of the bulbous objects illuminating their blank surroundings as a strange low-frequency hum began reverberating all around them.
“What is that sound?” John yelled up to Chadwick. He immediately thought of all that F-sharp stuff Chadwick had talked about — the perfect acoustics of the Great Pyramid and it being designed like the Whispering Hall in London. But Chadwick didn’t answer him.
One after another, the person trailing in the back of the line was instantly and violently sucked off his feet by some invisible force and dragged, screaming, back down the corridor and into the darkness.
The passageway finally leveled out and led them into some kind of chamber, and all the stories Chadwick told John about Egypt’s pyramids suddenly seemed ridiculously irrelevant — the stories of the pyramid’s prisoner, of the war that had disabled it, of the granite plugs that were placed in the passageways, the ceremonial journey to the stars… Nothing about those stories offered any sort of clarity now.
With only a handful of the pureblooded islanders remaining with them, John, Henry, and Chadwick all stood motionless within the empty room. There were no other exits, just huge, smooth black blocks surrounding them on all sides. The room was gigantic, its ceiling much higher than the passageway that led them there, its width and length forming a perfect square fifty yards by fifty yards. There were open shafts in the walls, but only large enough to fit a man’s arm into.
“Star shafts,” Chadwick whispered, wiping sweat from his face, “locking us into a celestial configuration.”
“What now?” Henry asked, his head pivoting anxiously.
The humming was growing louder, the limestone vibrating, tickling their feet.
And then a voice cut through the hypnotic tune.
“Ah, my three children… I was starting to think you wouldn’t make it.” Osiris suddenly materialized in the corner of the room. “I was beginning to worry.”
John flexed his empty hands, his heart pounding in his chest.
The fallen angel approached them, only now his hair was cut and he was wearing an expensive, 21st century black suit. Ignoring the five remaining islanders, he smiled. “The time has finally come for my release.”
They hadn’t envisioned a scenario like this.
John hesitated. “What about the last piece of your puzzle?”
An evil grin stretched across his face. “It was you, Johnny. You were the last piece.”
They froze.
“I wasn’t about to use this device again, not after what happened the first time.” He indicated his surroundings. “At least not without a failsafe in place.”
“I don’t understand,” John whispered against the sinking feeling burning in the pit of his stomach.
“You’re one of Hisss,” he stated. “The blood of the Messiah has cleansed you of my corrupting influence. It has also ensured your place within His kingdom.”
John’s head began to spin. He sensed Chadwick step closer.
“God can’t condemn me to Tarturus if you’re with me, Johnny.”
Everything seemed to be moving around him, and his sense of stability was evaporating faster than these new dots could be connected.
“That’s why you brought him here?” Henry asked.
“Ah, Henry. I appreciate you keeping your end of the bargain.”
John turned his eyes to Henry. “Bargain?” And he remembered Jackson’s words, that Henry remembered exactly how he had escaped the angel’s possession.
Henry looked at John, his eyes expressing a remorse that made John shudder.
“What did you do?” John breathed.
“He wanted me to get you here for the solstice. He promised that he would let us leave with him, that we could go home.”
“And what about Jackson?” John demanded.
The angel smiled slightly. “He’s my backup plan… in case this doesn’t work.”
“He’s one of your offspring, too, isn’t he?”
“Of course. Without him, Ronald would have never been able to get Henry here. And then I would’ve never been able to get you here.”
Henry stammered, “I’m sorry, Johnny, but there was no other way to leave.”
“Yesss,” Osiris said. “This way everybody’s a winner.” And then he waved his hands at the ceiling, and a long narrow shaft stretching all the way up to the crystal apex formed before their eyes.
By now, John knew that Osiris hadn’t planned on transporting his entire army into the real world, and that Jackson’s warning was only to create a precedent for ensuring his own presence within the pyramid. But there was still one thing that John didn’t get. “Why’d you need to sacrifice one last giant if you already had everything you needed?”
“Travel arrangements. But don’t worry, everything worked out.”
Just then, the sun reached its zenith and came to a stop, every megalithic structure that had been erected on the island housing the sun perfectly within its astronomical design, linking the sites not only with celestial coordinates but also with a perfect solar alignment. The sun sat in the center of every henge, setting their gypsum-covered perimeters on fire. It rested within the center of staggered monoliths, its bottom arc kissing the massive stone blocks as if resting on them. The ziggurats in the temple complex were all standing directly beneath the massive fireball of energy, its light sending strange serpent-like shadows slithering up and down their many steps.
The swirling clouds began crashing with thunder and closing in on the sun, lightning branching through them.
Giants stood staring up at the opening portal, believing it to be their salvation, while the surviving platoons of the pureblooded hurried as quickly as they could back to the caves.
The vibrations in the pyramid were growing stronger, the strange frequency elevating with them… if not causing them. They all watched the sun stand still above the diamond capstone as hundreds of rays of refracted light were beamed out from its crystalline essence and sent in every direction.
Osiris’ laughter mixed with the resonating frequency that was filling the pyramid, and John, Chadwick, Henry, and the five others braced themselves for whatever was about to happen. They could see up through the rainbow of dancing colors and to the swirling clouds wrapping around the sun, darkening the intensity of the capstone.
A blinding light began spreading throughout the room, washing everything away in its brilliance.
The sound was deafening.
For a split second, John could see right through the pyramid’s walls and out into the complex. Only instead of seeing stepped pyramids, there were lines of buildings standing beyond the Nephilim-infested courtyard.
But then the image flickered and the pyramids were back, the buildings gone.
The capstone seemed to be maneuvering reality’s antenna, searching for reception.
And then the brightness swallowed everything, and John had to close his eyes.
He couldn’t even hear himself scream.
****
The first thing John saw when he opened his eyes was the point of an obelisk piercing storm clouds. Realizing he was lying on his back, he tried to roll over, sensing with deep despair that the pyramid had simply sent them to one of the two obelisks by the graveyard. As he
shifted his position, the thought that he would never see Kristen again settled horribly in the forefront of his mind. He was trapped in this hell.
Rain began to fall on him, and he closed his eyes again, not wanting to face the reality of his hopeless future. But then a strange noise registered in his ears. Turning his head to the right, he saw Chadwick standing beside him, his gaze set out at something beyond their immediate location. “What’s that noise?” he asked, coughing. It sounded like a siren of some kind.
“Get up, John,” Chadwick said.
John shook the cobwebs from his head and turned to see where the piercing noise was coming from, but what he saw left him utterly stunned.
Paved streets, tall pastel-colored buildings, palm trees, metal gates, cars parked along curbs, mopeds…
He looked back to the obelisk next to him and noticed the cenotaph standing beside it, the Cabinet Building in the background. Across Front Street, a cruise ship was docked in Hamilton Harbor. “I can’t believe it…”
But Henry was on the other side of him and pointing to Parliament Street.
At Osiris.
The sound of sirens grew louder as a line of police cars came screeching around the corner. Their doors flew open, and police with submachine guns exited the vehicles, charging the grounds of the Cabinet Building.
At that exact moment, a black car pulled up along the curb on Parliament Street. Osiris, in his black suave suit, opened an umbrella and walked smoothly to the passenger-side door. For a mere second, John had an unobstructed view of the driver, and there was no doubting who it was.
Ronald Douglas Carter.
Looking back at John, Osiris gave a half-salute, folded the umbrella, and winked. “Take care of that boy of yours!” And then he shouted something about “forsaking the God of his fathers,” but the sound of the sirens had made it practically unintelligible. He slipped into the car and closed the door.
As the car pulled away from the curb and turned down Front Street, the small army of police officers stormed the obelisk with weapons raised. “Put your hands on your heads and lie down on your stomachs!” they were shouting through British accents.
They began to oblige when another voice suddenly began shouting for the police officers to stand down.
John felt someone grab his arm and pull him to his feet.
“Hi, there,” a familiar face said.
“Frank,” John said in bewilderment. He was so confused that all he could do was stand there, speechless.
“Where is he?” Frank asked, sweeping a curious eye over John’s company.
“Who?”
He leaned in close and whispered, “The fallen angel.”
All John could do was point in the direction the car had driven off in. “He just took off with—”
“Ronald Carter,” he spat.
“How did you—”
But Frank held up a hand, pulling out a cell phone. “It was all in his books.” He shook his head. “How the heck am I going to explain this to anyone?” He handed John the phone. “Call your wife. She’s worried to death.” And then he began shouting orders to his men, sending them in pursuit of two fallen angels.
Henry was embracing Chadwick, while the five surviving islanders were staring wide-eyed at a world they hadn’t seen in a long, long time.
Stepping away from the obelisk, and completely indifferent to the falling rain, John dialed his wife with clumsy fingers, tears of joy mixing with the rain.
“Hello?” she answered. “Is that you, Frank?”
“Actually,” John responded, emotion choking him, “it’s me.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and John checked to see if the connection had dropped. “Hello?” he asked.
“Johnny?”
“Yeah, baby, it’s me. I’m back.”
“Johnny!” she screamed, and then fell into hysteria.
John could tell that she was jumping up and down. “I love you so much,” he struggled to say, wiping tears from his eyes.
“I love you, Johnny! Where the heck have you been? What—” An unintelligible string of questions followed until she managed to settle down. “Are you in Bermuda?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be on the first flight out, I promise.”
“Are you okay? Pastor Brian watched that tape and thought you might—”
“I’m okay, baby.” He sighed. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again…” He saw Frank running over to him, and against every impulse he had, he forced himself to say goodbye. “I have to go now, but I promise I’ll call you right back.”
“Johnny, wait. I need to tell you something now, before I lose another chance.”
“I know,” he said. “We’re having a baby boy.”
“How did you… wait, what do you mean a boy?” she laughed, thinking that he was only joking.
He blinked more tears from his eyes.
EPILOGUE
21st day of December. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
Voices from the television drifted into the room, distracting him from the passage of Scripture Osiris had referenced exactly six months ago, right before driving away in the car with Ronald. Though John hadn’t heard the entirety of what had been said, he now knew that the phrase from the book of Daniel was generally attributed to the antichrist — a fact that occasionally kept him up at night.
Kristen’s round belly made an entrance into the room before the rest of her, and she saw that her husband’s Bible was resting open beneath a familiar furrowed brow. “Are you studying that passage again?” She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek.
He nodded. He’d also discovered that there were as many theories surrounding the meaning of the words as there were theories of whom (or what) the antichrist would actually be.
“I wish you’d forget about it,” she said.
And, in fact, he wished that he could. But, for some reason, the words wouldn’t leave his head. A persistent tide, they repeatedly and consistently lapsed over his brain. Had the fallen angel just meant to play games with him? Driving one last thorn into his otherwise firm faith before riding off into the sunset of some new conspiracy to free Apollo from Tartarus? If not, if there was some cunning truth to his parting words, then John could only guess what it might be.
“I don’t even like thinking about him,” she added. The “him” was Ronald… or rather, Doctor Grigori.
No one had seen the doctor-professor-author or Osiris since the 21st of June. Frank said it was as though they’d just vanished into thin air. But because he wasn’t looking to find himself condemned to a straitjacket for using taxpayer money in tracking down a fallen angel (who had borrowed the name of the famous Egyptian deity now imprisoned in Tartarus with two hundred other angels), his range of investigation was confined to a bed of very limited resources. That “Osiris” had used the disembodied spirits of his Nephilim offspring to communicate with Ronald was a story that even Chadwick didn’t want attached to his name — and the reason he didn’t want anything to do with an investigation into his kidnapping.
“I don’t like thinking about them, either,” he answered. And though his nightmares had once again fallen back into remission (the experience in Afghanistan nearly forgotten, and the attic demons staying put in their respective shadows), the memories of what he had seen on the island would be with him for the rest of his life. The Nephilim, the creatures similar to those in Revelation, the pyramid, the henges, the possessed women assassinated by their own husbands and fathers, the children in the village… Those things would never leave him, but thus far God was merciful in that they weren’t making cameo appearances in his dreams. For the most part, his dream state had returned to normal, save the occasional nightmare of impending apocalypse; but he figured that dreams of navigating loved ones through the barren landscapes of Hollywood’s most haunting portrayals of post-apocalyptic worlds were probably common ones.
He thought of the island often, about what might have happened to i
t once they left, whose theory had been correct. Had it folded up into nothingness, or did Osiris’ offspring set out exterminating each other as the survivors of the Triangle had hoped? What of Jackson, Paul, and Hunter? Had they survived? Had Jackson gotten to read the Bible he’d left in his care? How many of the pureblooded survived the war? His heart ached for them, for the women that had been waiting anxiously in the caves.
John’s own spiritual life had finally begun to thrive, despite the nagging foreboding of Osiris’ undefined innuendo. He felt no shame for killing the giant, and he honestly didn’t know if he’d killed more than that. He simply couldn’t remember. If he had killed more, then the thing he most feared about breaking his promise to God, relapsing into who he once was, had failed to materialize. Instead, the community had become his new mission field, and he was finally feeling like he had a holy purpose in life. And Henry had moved nearby and joined the same community church, partnering with them to meet the needs of those less fortunate. Like John, he had finally come to believe that his tainted genealogy no longer mattered. The cross had indeed proven to be the antidote, not only for the polluted gene pool he’d been born from, but from every vice he’d struggled with throughout the years. And this new spiritual bond between him and John had forced the rest of the Carter family to reevaluate their view of Johnny’s patriotic apostasy. And, if not approving of his choices, they at least began to tolerate them. Of course, the brothers hadn’t disclosed to their family all that really happened in “Bermuda.” And neither did they reveal the discovery of John’s own adoption, his knowledge of the fact a secret shared with only Henry and Kristen. He’d been a Carter his entire life and didn’t see any reason why he should make everyone feel weird about it now. After a few weeks of reevaluating almost every assumption he ever had about himself, he had eventually come to accept his unknown heritage.
John kissed Kristen’s lips and then her stomach before she turned to leave the room. He followed her with his eyes, wondering again as to how long they might actually get to be parents in this lifetime. Would they even get to witness their son’s second birthday, or would all the hopes and dreams that any person had for a child be found well outside the reach of time? She blew him a kiss before descending the stairs, and he snapped out of his musing.
Progeny Page 35
