“Will you join us?” he asked. He clasped my shoulder again. Maybe he was one of the order, one of the twelve. Except there were only ten now.
“Who are you?” I asked.
A booming, crashing sound pulled my eyes away from him. I shivered as I saw the dragon land just above us on the hillside. It perched on a stone as big as a house. The dragon made it look like a pebble. It shrieked the worst sound I’d ever heard.
“Elijah,” the man interrupted the sound. His voice hit me like cool water on a hot day.
I turned back to him. He seemed oblivious of the dragon. For some reason I’d hoped he could see it, too. But no, apparently only me.
“Will you prepare the way?” he asked.
“The way to where? What about the dragon?” He did not look at me like I was crazy. So maybe he could see something.
“I will defeat the dragon.” He made it sound simple, like someone saying he would buy a loaf of bread.
“You are not even fighting,” I pleaded. For some reason I felt like it would all be different if he were fighting.
“But I am and I will,” he said. He must have seen confusion on my face. “Time does not limit me.”
Who said that kind of thing? I wondered if I was dreaming again, but I knew I wasn’t. I glanced down. No ring was on the man’s thumb. Who was he?
The dragon shrieked again and soared at us. The wind from its wings hit like a tornado’s force, slamming me onto the hard ground and knocking the breath out of me.
I raised my eyes. The dragon’s head was right in my face, staring at me. Its razor fangs almost smiled, but its slitted eyes filled with hate. Its neck coiled back. I was a dead man.
Boom!
The dragon struck at me, but it hit a wall. The wall was the man’s word. I’d barely heard him say, “stop,” but that’s exactly what the creature had done.
The man was standing over me. While one hand was held in front of the dragon’s head, he reached down with his other hand and lifted me to my knees.
“You are the second Elijah to come,” he said, patient. This had to be a dream.
“Okay,” I stammered. “But who are you?”
He touched my face. His hand was firm and hard, like a farmer’s. “You will learn my name.”
Time stood still as I looked into his eyes. They were like the sun again, but I let the brightness wash over me.
“Help is coming.” He glanced down at Naomi. “Protect her.”
I nodded, and then he looked to the dragon as it coiled back again and opened its mouth. Heat blared out, like a volcano erupting. Flames surged at my face. The inferno would burn me to cinders in an instant.
Then something flashed.
I do not know what caused the flash, but one second I cringed back, ready to be destroyed, and the next second a blinding white light erased everything around me. I was in the same position, but neither a dragon nor a man was anywhere to be seen.
I wanted it to have been a dream. But I knew it wasn’t, because Naomi was by my side, lying still.
I SAT IN the shallow water and pulled Naomi’s body into my arms. I held her close, and then I felt it.
A breath.
She was breathing. Unconscious but alive.
All sound was gone, as if I’d lost my hearing. My only sense was touch. I could feel Naomi’s chest slowly rising and falling. I could feel the steady beat of her heart.
Then I felt an ocean breeze. It blew the earth’s sound back into my mind. I heard the gentle lapping waves against the shore. I heard the cries of gulls above. I heard a distant, low humming.
That sound, the humming, was growing louder, or closer, or both. It drew my eyes away from Naomi’s peaceful face to the west horizon, where the clear blue sky and sea melded together.
Something on the horizon looked like a cloud approaching. It was a blur of white racing toward me faster than a cloud could blow. I realized it was a plane, some kind of jet, and the sound was the roar of its engine, lagging behind the flying object.
It closed the distance quickly. Suddenly it was hovering beside us like a giant disc. Its engines rotated down, blowing out blue-hot flames into the shallow water below. It lowered and, a few feet above the water’s surface, the flames turned off and the disc dropped. Waves crashed out and the disc bobbed like a lifesaver’s raft.
A door opened on the top. Two men climbed out, both wearing black body suits and helmets. A metal walkway slid out, and the men ran along it, leaping off the end into the waist-deep water. They charged toward us from there.
I sat waiting for them with Naomi in my arms.
As they reached us, the tinted glass masks of their helmets raised.
It was Chris. The same megachurch pastor Chris from DC. The other one was Patrick, ISA-7 Patrick. I pressed my eyes closed, then looked again. It was still Chris and Patrick.
“What happened?” Chris asked.
“I don’t fully know,” I said. “Why are you here?”
Patrick answered, “Naomi’s vitals showed her heart stopped for several minutes.” His face was pale against his black helmet. He had dark circles under his eyes. “What did you let happen to her?” he challenged.
“I tried to save her.” I held her tight against me. They had been monitoring her, probably tracking us. I didn’t trust them. I was not letting her go.
“We’re here to help.” Chris held out his hand. “We’ll get you to somewhere safe. Come with us.”
I didn’t move.
“You don’t want to stay here,” Patrick said. “Your precept is down. Another earthquake could come any time. You don’t speak Greek.”
“We’re on your side,” Chris added, somber. “We already lost two of our order here. Whatever happened, we have to get away. I promise, this is the best chance of protecting Naomi.”
I chose my words carefully. “We were attacked.”
“By what?” Patrick asked, scanning the hillside around us. “What could have killed John and Apollos in the space of five minutes? And where is Gregory? We lost the signal from his ring.”
I remembered seeing Gregory, writhing on the ground after Naomi shot him. He had been alive when we left the cave. And how did Patrick know about John and Apollos? Could all of that information pass through their rings?
“Was it the dragon?” Chris asked.
My face must have given it away, because he nodded as if I had given him an answer.
“Patrick,” he said, “take them back to the ship.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a rifle. “I am going to search the area. If I’m not back in ten minutes, leave without me.”
Patrick hesitated, then opened his mouth as if to protest.
“That’s an order.” Chris’s tone eliminated the last of my doubts—this was no plain pastor. Their order had to be connected to ISA, the military, or something like that.
“Okay, ten minutes.” Patrick turned to us. “You heard him, let’s go.”
I had little choice. “She stays within my reach at all times.”
“Fine,” said Chris.
“And you give me access to your network, so I can get my precept back online.”
Chris gave me a hard look. “Elijah, we are on the same side.” It was unclear whether that was a comfort or a threat. “You can use whatever we have, but you have to go, now.”
I stood with Naomi in my arms. Her limp body was heavy for my tired muscles.
Chris turned up the hillside, as Patrick led us to the disc plane. We walked on the thin metal ramp over the shallow water. The top of the disc had no identifying marks. There was a small opening with stairs leading down.
“You first,” Patrick said.
“Is this all an ISA-7 operation?” I asked.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” he answered.
“Then I’m not going inside this plane.” I studied his poker face. “Where are your loyalties—with ISA-7 or with this religious order?”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m
with,” he said. “Get in, now.”
Naomi suddenly stirred in my arms. “Water,” she said in the faintest voice.
“What did you say?” Patrick bent down closer to her.
I stepped back from him. “She wants water. You go first, we’ll follow. Okay?”
Patrick glared up at me, but then he turned and climbed down the stairs.
“Elijah,” Naomi said as I stepped onto the first stair. Her eyes opened, gleaming like gold in the sun, then closed again peacefully.
I smiled and carried her into the plane.
WITH NAOMI IN my arms, I followed Patrick down a tube-shaped hall. Seams of metal and wire were forged into stripes of bright aluminum. I’d seen prototypes of this kind of plane, but I had no idea they already existed.
Patrick ducked into a round door near the back of the ship. Inside was a small room with a bed and medical equipment.
“Lay her down,” said a woman’s voice.
I looked around, then remembered where I was: back in the real world with technology. This was an automated medical system.
I did as the system said. Several devices and sensors began connecting to Naomi, while Patrick and I stood close by her side. I glanced around the room and noticed an uptake link for precepts in the back corner of the room.
“Is that where I can reboot?” I asked Patrick.
“Yeah,” he said, without taking his eyes off Naomi.
I went to the link and input my biometric codes. The ship’s system began to reconnect my precept.
“Awaiting command,” said V’s voice in my mind a moment later. My senses came alive. My thinking sped up and focused. It was a bittersweet relief, like an addict going back to his drug after a month of detox. I realized there had been beauty in the freedom of my unenhanced senses. I had been liberated from the information, reports, and teaching that V had fed into me my entire life.
Now the information was back. My briefing screens showed destruction and devastation. It was just as Don Cristo had described it in his interview. Seven of the world’s biggest cities were wiped out, including Rome. The U.S. lost San Francisco…completely. Smaller quakes rippled through every continent. The death count was estimated over two hundred million, and increasing. The UN had declared a global state of emergency and sent its drones and aid workers to the worst disaster areas.
V began to show a recording of President Cristo’s latest speech. “Do not panic,” he was saying. “The UN is prepared to keep the world safe. Our connections are secure. We will give you guidance about food and shelter. We have established direct connections with every activated precept. We are developing a new system to ensure everyone has what they need.”
Blinking lights in the ship interrupted Cristo’s speech. Pulsing data projected on the opposite side of Naomi’s bed.
“Abnormal activity levels,” diagnosed the medical system’s female voice.
“What kind?” I asked.
“Naomi Parish registers healthy measurements,” the system explained, “but with twice the standard pulse rate and enhanced synaptic connections.”
“You know what that means?” Patrick asked me.
“Not really, but it sounds like her mind and body are working in overdrive.”
Naomi began to stir. Her eyes blinked open.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Much better,” Naomi said, lying still. “I feel like I’ve just recovered from a terrible headache. It’s like a vice was around my head, but now it’s gone. Without that pressure, I feel like I could fly. My skin tingles. It feels, I don’t know, almost like electricity is pulsing through my body.”
“Maybe it is,” Patrick said. “I think you’re glowing.”
Naomi sat halfway up, leaning on an elbow. She lifted her right hand. It was covered in dust and blood. I used a cloth to wipe away a layer of the grime. Her hand suddenly looked like it was basking in the sun. It seemed impossible for skin to look like that in the room’s sterile light.
Naomi looked to me. “What happened?”
“We were attacked,” I said.
“By the dragon?”
I nodded.
“I remember the woman, and…” She put her hand over her mouth, as if surprised by the memory. “We shot her…then something hit me…Oh God, what happened?”
Chris rushed into the room before I could answer. “I confirmed it,” he said. “There was only one survivor out there. John’s and Apollos’s bodies were gone.” He made the sign of a cross over his chest. Everyone else in the room did the same. Everyone but me.
The loud thrum of the ship’s jets turned on. I could feel the plane beginning to rise.
“We are leaving now,” Chris said. He turned to Patrick. “Go to the cockpit, and send Bart back. He’ll be desperate to talk to them.”
Patrick frowned but obeyed and left the room.
Chris looked to me. “Is she okay?”
I nodded, my mind still trying to grasp that Bart was on this plane.
“Elijah saved me,” Naomi said. “I knew he would.”
“No, it wasn’t…” I tried to say, but Chris interrupted me.
“You look amazing, like an angel,” he uttered to Naomi. “Or like the hand of God touched you.” He bowed down beside her and took her hand in his. “We thought we had lost you. What happened?”
“I told you,” she smiled, “Elijah’s vision came to be.”
“Of course it did!” Bart declared as he charged into the room. Unlike Chris and Patrick with their black suits, Bart still wore an old brown robe. It was somehow comforting. “That’s what I suspected all along. The boy is a seer—Elijah to come.” His wild eyes fixed on me. “Aren’t you?”
They all looked at me. I no longer doubted I’d seen things that they hadn’t. If that made me a seer, so be it.
“That’s what John told me,” I said, “before he died.”
“He’s really dead? Tell me no.” Bart turned to Chris, his giant chest beginning to heave in and out.
“We lost him, Bart.” Chris put his arm on the huge man’s shoulder. “And Apollos.”
“No!” Bart fell to his knees, with his arms and head leaning by Naomi’s side on the bed. His scruffy silver hair shook as he began to weep loudly. The ship lurched forward and hit the speed of sound.
Naomi put her hand on the back of Bart’s head. “They are in a better place,” she said.
He stopped crying and looked at her with his huge mouth hanging open.
“He’s unbound, isn’t he?” Bart asked.
Naomi shuddered as if someone rubbed a cube of ice down her neck. “Yes, Elijah saw the dragon. Don was there in Rome. I don’t remember everything, but Elijah said he touched me.”
“What did Don say?” Bart asked me. His eyes opened wider. “Is your precept connected?”
“Yes, why?”
“Shut if off!” he shouted. When I hesitated, he bellowed again, “NOW!”
He looked like he would tackle me if I didn’t do it, so I did. My mind went bland again. I was the addict back in rehab.
Bart nodded, but then turned to Chris with desperation. “He’ll find us now. They’ll know where Elijah connected, and his trajectory. We have little time before an attack.”
Chris glanced at me with sad eyes. “How did Don touch her? Where?”
“Go ahead,” said a familiar voice from the door. “Tell them, Elijah.” It was a proper British voice.
“You’re alive!” Bart stepped eagerly towards Gregory but suddenly froze.
The prince held a gun to Chris’s head.
“YES, BART, I’M alive.” Gregory pressed the gun into Chris’s temple. “Chris found me and brought me here. Cheers, Chris, so very kind of you.”
“Why would you?” Chris stammered.
“You’ll see for yourself,” Gregory said, looking to Naomi. “He’s coming now to take back what’s his.”
“The dragon.” Naomi’s voice was soft, distant. She put her hands over her stomach. Fear wa
s in her eyes. “I can feel his presence closing in on us.”
“Indeed!” Gregory shoved Chris to the ground. “Did you really think you could stop my lord? He won’t stop until all your order’s leaders are dead—all twelve except for me.”
“You are no threat to us, traitor,” Bart growled.
“Has the old moose grown horns?” Gregory mocked.
“Put the gun down,” Chris said. “You still have a choice.”
“You’re all the same,” Gregory taunted. “You know, John said the same thing before we killed him.”
A huge crash suddenly sent the room spinning. Red lights and alarm sounds blasted around us. I heard the sound of gunshots as I fell against Naomi’s bed and clung fast to it.
When we stabilized, Gregory fled the room, chased by Bart. Chris was on the floor.
“Follow them,” Chris commanded, and Patrick dashed out.
I looked down at Naomi. She nodded for me to go.
“Can you help me walk?” Chris asked Naomi. He winced and pressed his hands against his side. Had he been shot?
She rose from the bed. “Yes.”
“Good.” Chris turned to me. “She and I will go to the back, where there’s an escape vessel. Help Bart and Patrick up front, but flee to us if things look grim.”
I walked to the door, but stopped there. I had promised not to leave Naomi.
She came to my side and touched my face. “Go to them,” she pleaded, “they need your vision. There will be more than a dragon this time. The sky will darken with his minions.”
“Here.” Chris held out his laser rifle to me. “Take this.”
I took it. “Keep her safe.”
Chris nodded. “Go, now.”
I kissed Naomi’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”
She nodded and said, “God bless,” as I turned and ran toward the front of the plane.
The tight corridor was empty, but I kept the rifle raised. I had just reached the door at the end of the tube when the ship lurched again. I crashed to the floor, and the ship stabilized. My body groaned as I staggered back to my feet. I ignored the pain. I stepped forward and the door opened to a cockpit with walls of glass.
Unbound Page 19
