by Luke Valen
“Who was she?” she sobbed.
“You mustn’t worry about that, Abigail.” Mr. Li’Ved reached down, placing his hand under her chin.
“No…” she said, breaking eye contact and looking back to the ground. The puddle of water grew. “I am not your daughter. I am a half-breed, and you know who my mother was. Tell me.”
“Darling, you are my daughter and more like me than you know, very powerful too from what I can now see. You will make a perfect queen.” Mr. Li’Ved placed his hand on her shoulder.
Abigail jerked it away from his grasp. “Do not touch me. You may never touch me. I am nothing like you. How did that, that thing know who my mother is? Why won’t you tell me?”
She jumped up and began to run as fast as she could, out of the room and down the hall.
“Abigail,” her father yelled from the room, his voice echoing in all the halls, “don’t run from Daddy.” His annoyance was returning.
The click, clack of his shoes could be heard following her trail. Her panicking breath came heavy with each gasp of air as she sprinted.
Her father appeared right in front of her. “Where do you think you are going?” He grabbed her shoulders. Shocked, she tried to wriggle free. “I think it’s time you cooled off.”
“Let me go!” Abigail responded.
Dragging her deadweight body down the hall as she kicked and screamed, she could see no remorse in his eyes.
“I hate you! I hate you! You won’t get away with any of this! Dean is going to stop you!” Abigail screamed as she wriggled on the ground, trying to release her arm from her father’s grip.
“You think I don’t know about your little boyfriend and his pals,” her father said without looking down, continuing to drag her down the marble-floored halls. “They think they are so high and mighty with their love from Him!” A hint of jealousy in his voice was apparent among the fury. “Well, they aren’t! Everything I need is already in motion!” Mr. Li’Ved stopped and leaned down to look her in the eyes. “And I have a little friend of my own taking care of those pesky little twerps as we speak! So quit this fit and act like a queen. Or you will never be one.” He was so close, the spit rained on her face. His breath like steam entered her pores.
Mr. Li’Ved turned from her and approached a stairwell at the end of the hall. He dragged her down a spiral stone staircase into their basement. The stairs were cold and hard, giving no mercy as her legs bounced from one to the next. The sound of her bones smacking the floor was unforgiving.
“Where are you taking me?” Abigail asked.
“Someplace I know you’ll stay. I knew I had to lock up your brother. I never thought I would have to lock up my daughter too. You kids, so ungrateful.” He tossed Abigail into the dark dungeon-like room. “I’ll come for you when the time is right and your precious angel is dead.” Mr. Li’Ved slammed the heavy wooden door closed. The sound of a large lock echoed through the room from the outside in.
Darkness. Pure Darkness.
“No! You can’t!” Abigail cried out, though it was helpless. Her screams could not be heard, nor the pounding of her fists on the solid tree of a door. “Dean, please hurry,” she whispered, sliding her back down the stone wall.
—§—
After making his way back upstairs, Lucifer picked up the landline. “Where are you?!” Lucifer shouted into his old black telephone.
A Middle Eastern man could be heard on the other line. “I’m going as fast as I can. I continue to run into…distractions.” Shouting could be heard in the background.
“Do your job!” Lucifer yelled. “Bring me what I ask for. We are running out of time. He is advancing his armies.”
“Yes, master,” answered the man on the phone.
—§—
“Hey, Al, who are you talking to?! Come on, man. Let’s go! Stop being so weird!” Bryon said. Jade and I turned to see what Bryon was yelling about. The two were about ten yards behind.
Al ended the phone call on his satellite phone, flipping it closed.
“Who were you talking to?” Bryon asked.
“I was making sure the roads were clear up ahead. The rebels have been setting traps for the government militaries near our route,” Al said.
“Oh. Okay. Well, cool, thanks. Come on. Let’s go. Dean and Jade are getting ahead of us,” Bryon said, waiting for Al to move in front of him. Jade and I waved to him.
Al complied and began walking again, following Jade and I. Bryon looked around in all directions. He seemed to be suspicious of something.
“Mr. Dean.” Al ran to catch up with me. “Mr. Dean.”
I stopped and turned to speak with Al. “What’s up?” I asked.
“How long have you known Bryon?” Al asked.
“I don’t know, not too long. Why?” I could feel my curiosity grow.
“I sense something about him that is off,” Al whispered. “Dark, one would say.”
“Bryon?” I chuckled, looking over at Bryon, who was searching his backpack with great vigor and finally pulling out a candy bar and jumping for joy. “Nah, Bryon is cool. I would have known if he was off.”
“Would you? You are just now regaining your powers. Didn’t he come into your life right as you began to see the darkness again? And he has been trying tirelessly to help you find this weapon of ultimate power without asking for anything in return. Don’t you find that a bit odd?” Al sounded very convincing, yet I was not swayed.
After a moment of thinking, I said, “Nah, Bryon wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. I mean, look at the guy.”
Al and I looked over at Bryon, smiling from ear to ear, eyes closed as he enjoyed his candy bar, chocolate smeared on his face, and sitting in the hot sand. Just as he was doing so, a small fly landed on his candy bar. His eyes popped open so large they could be used to see molecules on a microscopic level. His smile turned to a frown and he smashed the unlucky bug between his hands, laughing with malice. Returning to smile and enjoy the rest of his chocolate bar.
Al and I looked at each other.
“Okay, well, still,” I said. “Bryon wants to help, that’s all. I trust him.”
Al squinted at me. “Be careful who you trust, Mr. Dean.”
“Hey, guys! I think we are getting close,” Jade yelled from the very front of the group. Al, Bryon, and I all went running to where Jade was standing at the top of a desert hill comprised of golden sand. Jade pointed out into the horizon. “Look.”
At the tip of her finger about ten miles in the distance was a large rock standing all alone. Like a guardian of the desert, it stood its ground, firm and strong. A lone soldier surrounded by the vast emptiness of rolling hills of sand. The bright yellow sun was dropping quick and reflecting off the glassy pebbles. “We had better hurry if we are going to get there before sundown,” she said.
Al was typing something into his phone while we were still looking at the rock. Bryon turned and caught a glimpse of Al just as he was putting his phone away. The two locked eyes for a brief second. “All right, let’s get going then,” Al said, taking the lead. The three of us followed. Bryon looked at me with suspicious eyes. I nodded it off and smiled, taking a step forward. Bryon followed.
Displacing sand with each step, we made our journey through the remaining desert. With no buildings in sight, the only thing to fix our eyes on was the stone. Sand was our solitary company. Desert our grave.
Heat waves rippled off the ground, rising into the air, cooking everything the invisible radiation passed through. A desert microwave. The air was so hot it was tangible, like walking against an invisible wall of fire. The smell of fast-moving electrons burned our nostrils, hot energy draining our own. Though the sun was slowly falling, the temperature remained constant. I could taste the air.
Sweat radiated in our bodies’ vile attempts to cool themselves off. All except one. Looking over at Al, Bryon shouted, “Hey, Al, aren’t you hot?”
Jade and I turned to look.
“Of cour
se, what kind of question is that?” Al responded.
“Why aren’t you sweating like the rest of us then?” Bryon demanded.
“Bryon, come on,” I interjected, trying to stop an argument before it arose.
Bryon stepped closer to Al. “No. I want to know. You are completely covered from head to toe in all black, and you aren’t sweating one bit.”
Al responded without hesitation. “I have been out here for hundreds of years, Bryon. I am accustomed to the heat. My body has grown and adapted.”
“See, simple. Let’s go,” I said, taking a step forward to continue on. Jade followed behind me, but Bryon stayed, staring at Al as Al stared back. His starlike eyes seemed to anger as he turned and followed my steps. Bryon fell in line.
The distant ball of fire continued to descend.
CHAPTER 15
THE FOUR-HEADED SNAKE
Our desert journey to the monumental rock continued with still nothing in sight but the hills of sand and the solitary stone in the distance. The sun had nearly reached the horizon. The walk had been quiet, very quiet.
“Hey, Bryon, you okay? You haven’t said a word for like two hours.” I slowed down to get to Bryon.
“I don’t trust him,” Bryon said.
“Who, Al?” I asked.
“He isn’t right, Dean. He is hiding something,” Bryon said, wiping sweat off his brow and placing his hands on his head.
“Funny, he said the same thing about you,” I said.
“He is trying to turn you against me because he knows that I know he is up to something. I mean, can we really trust him? We don’t even know the guy. He came out of nowhere and is all of a sudden the nicest guy in the world, taking us to a place that for generations he has be searching for. Yet, it is only accessible by you. You heard him, that compass thing only works for you, no one else, and now he knows exactly where to go for whatever it is he is looking for.” Bryon stared in my eyes. I hadn’t seen him so serious, ever.
I looked over at Al. “He just wants to help. Yeah, he is pretty weird, but what is normal anymore? He was kind enough to bring us this far. I think he would have done something the second he found out where the location was.”
“What if he still needs you for one more thing?” Bryon asked. “Like how the compass didn’t work for him. There must be another safeguard, don’t you think? Something he can’t do on his own.”
“I didn’t know you or Jade either when we first started all this, and now look.” I glanced over at Jade. She seemed to be taking notes in a journal, looking up and down at the rock.
“This isn’t the same, and you know it. I mean, how can you not feel it? I get a completely different vibe from this guy than I did from Nile. There was a certain energy about Nile, something warm and good, and Al doesn’t have it. Dean, I know how you feel—you want to find this thing and learn more about your family and purpose, but…” Bryon placed his hand on my shoulder.
“You don’t know anything about how I feel,” I pulled away, “or what it’s like to not know who you are or who your family is. And you don’t know Al!” I shouted, sure the other two hadn’t quite heard the conversation, but they saw the annoyance on my face as I marched forward in front of the group. “Come on! We need to speed it up. The sun is almost down,” I yelled.
Jade and Al looked back at Bryon. Jade didn’t know what to do with the situation. Al, on the other hand, had a devious smirk of pride on his face. Bryon shook it off and marched on. Al ran to catch up.
“I told you that you cannot trust him. He is trying to turn you against your own kind,” Al whispered in my ear.
“Now is not the time, Al. I don’t know what to think about anyone,” I answered back. “Let’s just keep moving. I don’t want to hear about either of you anymore.”
His eyes seemed to shift in color as I spoke.
“Don’t turn your back on him, Mr. Dean. I believe he is working with the darkness. He hides his true form from us. We cannot trust him,” Al whispered again. This caused me to turn and look at Bryon, who was following with a look of anger on his face.
“Maybe you’re right. Now shut up and keep moving,” I said, turning forward again.
The four of us continued to walk. The desert was beginning to cool off. The air was no longer thick with heat but now felt as if a tropical beach was nearby. In fact, the air itself began to feel cool. The sand underneath our feet was no longer searing hot but cold to the touch. The sun fell. The desert sky was a soft yellow and orange mixed with pinks and grays.
“Jade, what’s going on?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I…” Jade tried to answer.
“We are here,” Al said, pointing upward.
Above, about two hundred feet in the air, hovered the mountain of a rock. There it was, levitating of its own free will. Yet, it cast no shadow. In awe we all looked up, admiring the goliath. The bottom of the rock was rounded and jagged like that of an iceberg. It was beautiful.
“Whoa.” Jaws dropped simultaneously. “Jade…” I struggled. The ground began to shake violently as if the earth was breaking apart.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She tried maintaining her balance.
“What’s going on?!” I yelled over the sound of earth cracking and shifting beneath our feet.
“I don’t think we are supposed to be here!” Bryon yelled back.
Trying our best to maintain footing on top of the vibrating ground, our arms flailed wildly. In an instant, two bolts of lightning came crashing down from the sky, one almost immediately after the other. Dirt and dust exploded into the air, creating a cloud of brown and gold particles. Our ears were ringing from the sound of the thunderous boom.
Bryon yelled out, “Dean, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I yelled back, “Jade, Al, you guys okay?”
“We are okay.” Their voices came sifting through the zillions of molecules floating around in the air. The dimming light of the descending sun reflected off each particle of dust, creating a golden mask impossible to see through.
As the dust began to settle, two towering beings slowly became visible.
First, their feet the size of boats, their legs taller and thicker than ancient redwoods, their skin made of pure gold accented by beautiful designs of white marble swirling around. Atop their glorious skin floated a thin layer of elegant blue and white flames dancing with a calm grace. The beings were so tall that their waists were belted by the lining of the clouds in the sky. Their upper bodies were hidden beyond the fluffy, white, floating marshmallows in the air.
“What are those?” Bryon asked.
“WHO DARES STEP FOOT ON THE HOLY GARDEN?” their thunderous voices came booming down to earth, shaking the ground once again. The sound was something of antiquity and beauty accompanied by an almost robotic vibrato.
“Not much of a garden, aye?” Bryon leaned over and whispered into Jade’s ear.
Jade stared at Bryon and rolled her eyes.
Al said, “Ancient ones! We come seeking an ancient relic. There is—”
“SILENCE!” their voices came in unison.
The quiet air returned like an old friend in the night. Stillness. The sheer power I could feel from the beings was paralyzing. Nerves fluttered their wings. I knew it was I who needed to speak. It was a power unlike any other. Be strong. I remembered my father. Strong. I am strong.
I spoke with confidence and power behind my voice. “Holy ones, my name is Dean Michael, son of The Great Archangel Michael.” I lowered myself to one knee and bowed my head. “I come seeking your aid. There is a great darkness coming to my home, and I cannot overcome it on my own.”
The desert was still, the air thin and motionless.
Whoosh.
“What the…” Jade said.
The air began to move, though not side to side like normal but rather…downward. Confused by the phenomenon, we looked to the other for an answer. Just then, out of the sky we saw it, a great, large hand coming from a
bove the clouds. The force of the truck-sized hand pushed the air down with such force, it blew the ground away like that of a powerful helicopter making its approach.
“Close your eyes!” Jade yelled.
The dust flew so fast it was like razor blades against our skin.
“No, duh!” Bryon yelled.
The hand slowed and came to rest atop the desert surface.
“COME,” the voices rumbled from the sky as the dust settled. I looked at Bryon and then over to Jade, seeking their approval. With a shrug of disarray from Bryon, I moved forward onto the platform of a hand.
The upward force of the hand as it began to rise into the clouds brought me to my knees with wind pounding against my face. The gravitational force was that of a spaceship launching into the dark void at near breakneck speeds. I am the bug against the windshield.
The hand slowed its ascent as it crossed the line of the clouds. Now, above the weather, the sky was crystal clear. Bluer than any blue I had ever seen before, with the golden rays of light reflecting off the magnificent bodies of the celestial beings. Shielding my eyes from the glow of their skin, the oculus in my head began to adapt, becoming friends with the light. Uncovering my eyes, the sight I saw was magnificent and fantastical. Colors unlike any seen by man, indescribable.
The beings had brought me but inches from their faces. The pure wonder kept me on my knees as I absorbed the beauty.
Not one but four faces on each head of the two beings. One of an ox, one of a man, another of a lion, and one of an eagle, just like the picture in the book. Seeing them in person was mind-bending, images like memories flashed through my mind. Their skin was covered in what looked like the purest-white marbled designed tattoos, swirling and lining their neck and faces.
I was as a speck of dirt next to a boulder compared to their massive size.
I stood to my feet, establishing myself. “Your Holy Ones, I—” I nearly fell from the surprise of their thunderous voice.
“SHOW US,” all eight heads said nearly simultaneously, echoing the others. Their heads spun slowly around their massive necks.
Instinctively, I moved forward, revealing the mark on my arm. Each face spun to see, to verify, and their eyes widened as each discovered what they were looking for.
