The Seventh Door

by Bryan Davis

  Below, farmland stretched out for miles and miles, cut into squares by dirt-covered access roads. At times, people stepped out of a farmhouse and looked up, unable to do anything to help as they gawked at the strange sight—a dragon carrying a winged woman. One farmer ran back in and emerged seconds later with a rifle, but after taking aim, he lowered his weapon. Apparently he didn’t want to risk harm to the helpless captive, or maybe he was worried about facing the fiery wrath of an angry dragon.

  Finally, an expanse of water came into view, a lake that carved a circular oasis in the midst of the endless squares of dark soil. Arramos descended toward a small island near the lake’s center. With just a few trees and a perimeter of dark mud, the island appeared to be no bigger than a convenience store parking lot.

  Arramos orbited the island twice at a low elevation, then released Bonnie near one edge. She dropped several feet, beating her wings to keep from tumbling headlong into the mud. When she touched down with her feet, she jogged along the lakeshore until her momentum eased.

  Arramos whipped around and blew a jet of flames over her head. “Stay on the ground!”

  Bonnie ducked just in time to avoid the fire. When Arramos landed next to her, she glared at him. Although questions bounced around in her mind, she said nothing. Speaking to the devil might be risky.

  As Arramos stared at her, his head swayed. “I assumed you would demand to know why I brought you here. Has the troublesome wench lost her eloquent tongue?”

  Bonnie crossed her arms and maintained her silent glare.

  “Answer me when I ask you a question!” He swatted her jaw with the end of his wing. “I have put up with your haughty arrogance for far too long!”

  Bonnie staggered backwards and splashed into the lake’s shallows. Blood dripped from her chin to the water, creating a red circle on the surface. The wound stung terribly, but she refused to grimace. “I answered you, but you were too dull of hearing to realize it. Even as I stand here, I speak with the tongues of angels. My song is my answer, and I have not lost it. You can slap me with your wings, spear me with your spines, or burn me with your flames, but you cannot silence my song. It is a song that has existed since the creation of the world, a hymn that called light out of darkness, that commanded fullness from the void, that brought order out of chaos.” She crossed her arms again and stood erect. “I am the eighth ovulum, and to those who have not chosen deafness, I am never silent.”

  Arramos’s maw spread out in a hideous smile. “Pretty speech for a weakling hominid whose eloquence comes from her dragon nature.”

  “Stop with the psychological games. You lost that contest years ago.”

  “But I will not lose this one.” Arramos used his wing to detach a leather bag and strap from a spine on his back. He lowered the bag and let it dangle in front of Bonnie’s eyes. “This is a tablet computer programmed to display crucial events. Since you are a woman of prayer, I assume you will want to view the events so that you can pray for those involved in what you see.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re trying to help me.” Bonnie grabbed the strap and pulled the bag away. “You don’t want me to pray. You just want to show me things that will hurt my song.”

  “Quite true, but you will not be able to resist the desire to look. For a short time you will battle between the responsibility to protect your song and the need to pray for those you love, but curiosity will be the deciding factor. Your final motivation will not be love or prayer or song preservation. It will be an insatiable inquisitiveness driven by your lust for self-gratifying knowledge.”

  “My decision to look at the computer or not will be driven by love, not selfishness.” Bonnie laughed under her breath. “You keep trying your accusatory games, but your slithering tongue has no power over me. You waste your time with your rhetoric.”

  “Perhaps so. I cannot delve into your mind to learn your motivations, but I do know that the vast majority of humans give in to their lusts every day, especially now that the song of the ovulum is so weak. If you choose not to watch, your song will weaken because you will know that Matt is struggling through the trials without you, and you will suffer in a state of tortured ignorance. If you do choose to watch, you will witness his failures, because he is woefully unprepared.” Arramos shifted his head closer. His rancid breath stung Bonnie’s nostrils, but she stood her ground. “You know your son lacks the spirit that empowers you. You know that he harbors hatred and bitterness. You know that such hostility of heart will lead him to calamity, especially since the tests we have in store were designed with such weaknesses in mind.”

  Bonnie forced herself to maintain a confident stance. Arramos had spoken the truth this time, but letting him know that his words had hit the mark would give him a psychological advantage.

  “Your song will weaken as you travail from afar,” Arramos continued, “whether you watch or not. Either way, I win, and you lose.”

  Bonnie clutched the tablet bag tightly. For some reason, a new, low-grade pain coursed through her body. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Indeed, we will.” Arramos shuffled toward one of two scraggly oaks. “Now to address the matter of keeping you here. I do not have time to stay and guard you, so one of my agents should have provided—Ah! Here they are.” He used a foreclaw to lift a pair of chains and manacles, though his foreleg trembled, as if weakened by the weight. “I am faster and more powerful than you are, so let us not waste time with a chase and capture. One way or another, I will chain you here.”

  Still holding the bag, Bonnie walked to the closer oak. With each step, the pain increased, and weakness weighed down her arms.

  Arramos snapped the manacles around her ankles and quickly backed away, aided by his wings. Bonnie examined the manacles— brass cuffs, each embedded with three dime-sized candlestones. No wonder Arramos appeared somewhat weak. All dragons were susceptible, even Satan in dragon form.

  The chains snaked around the foot-wide trunk as well as the smaller trunk of the other oak, making it impossible to slide the loops up and over the branches. A hefty lock secured the tangled mess. She jerked on the chains. They held fast.

  “You should feel fortunate,” Arramos said from the lakeshore. “I suggested that I burn your wings and fill the water with venomous serpents, but Tamiel was concerned that you would perish and bring about the curse. It seems to me that he is too softhearted for this pursuit.”

  Bonnie sat heavily on the ground, making the chains rattle. Although pain rippled across her skin, she had to keep her composure. “Softhearted wasn’t the word that came to my mind.”

  Arramos snorted in a laughing sort of way. “Actually, Bonnie, I admire your courage. Throughout the millennia, I have met only a few humans who possess your unfailing faith. Yet, since you lack my experience, you have no way of knowing the evils of the despotic being you call God. You worship a cruel tyrant.”

  Bonnie leaned back against the tree and breathed a tired sigh. “You can cut the theatrics. You’re used to dealing with easily manipulated puppets. I’m not one of them.”

  “Are you not?” Arramos unfurled his wings. “We shall see how long your resolve lasts.” With a beat of his wings, he lifted into the air and flew away.

  When Arramos faded from sight, Bonnie touched one of the leg irons. Recently it seemed that her song had been able to open locks. Maybe it would work on these as well.

  Pain tightening her throat, Bonnie lifted her head and tried to sing a note, but only a scratchy squeak came out. She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. When Tamiel shot a candlestone bullet into her body, she had tried a hundred times to sing herself out of captivity, and it hadn’t worked then either.

  She let out a pain-streaked sigh. At least she could see what Satan and his head minion were up to. She opened the bag, withdrew the tablet computer, and set it on her lap. After finding the power switch, she turned it on. White letters scrolled horizontally across the black screen—The video will play whe
n activity begins. Leave the computer on. It will shut down to power-save mode and awaken on its own at the proper time.

  Bonnie laid the tablet down and looked up at the sky. The sun poured reddish beams through thin clouds and painted the surrounding water with a scarlet tint, making it look like a placid pool of blood. No breeze shifted the foliage in the imprisoning tree. Birds, if any were around, stayed silent. It seemed that the entire world had quieted, as if waiting for something to happen. But what might that be?

  A performance? Had the surroundings become a polite audience that sat in wait for the curtains to open?

  She nodded. The world was waiting for her to sing. Years ago such a thought would have felt too proud, too self-focused. Imagine thinking that anyone cared to hear her voice! But now God had bestowed a gift and granted a responsibility. She had to sing in spite of the pain and in spite of past failures, for the sake of the world and all of its inhabitants. Knowingly or not, they were counting on her. She had to summon the energy to infuse the air with a remedy for their ills. And maybe this time the effort would unlock her own chains.

  She took in a deep breath and forced out a soft note—a smooth one that didn’t squeak. Soon the words would come, just as they had a thousand times before, whether in a dark candle-stone, on a lonely rooftop, or in the depths of Hades. The song in her heart, a gift from God, would rise to the surface and emerge from her lips.

  Yet, no words came to mind. When she tried to change the note to create a melody, her voice cracked and faltered. Her throat tightened worse than ever. A new squeak signaled the end of the effort. No song emanated from the ovulum.

  A tear spilled from one eye and trickled down her cheek at the same rate that at least three streams of blood and sweat coursed along her skin. All three liquids met at her chin and dripped to her shirt, pink droplets of toil and misery. Billy had been captured and even now endured torture. Matt continued on a dangerous journey without an experienced guide. Beset by anger and distrust, he was really a spiritual cripple. And the world’s culture crumbled as it pounded away at its own foundations, unaware that it was responsible for its coming demise. People were dying. Innocent children suffered. Evil blew a trumpet of triumph from horizon to horizon. Who could sing while being stabbed from all sides with so many daggers?

  Bonnie closed her eyes and whispered, “God of my love, you have proven yourself faithful so many times before. You are the composer of my song, the writer of my verse. Without you, I am nothing but a clanging gong. So I ask you to be the great composer once again, because I am empty, breathless, void of any poem or melody. I need a musical miracle, for these troubles plague my heart, and these candlestones shackle my body.”

  She inhaled and continued in a soft voice. “While I wait for your help, I will speak what I know, the timeless truth that you taught me during the dark days when I was transferred from foster home to foster home, sometimes waking up in a strange house and not remembering where I was. I had to hold on to my anchor— you, my Lord, who never left me for a single second.”

  She opened her eyes, gazed at the scarlet sky, and whispered,

  Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day:

  The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

  When she finished, she let out a satisfied sigh. “And thou art here on this lonely island, so I wait for you to help me sing again, my Lord, my stronghold, my salvation.”

  Chapter 11

  THE FOURTH DOOR

  After spending the night at the only open motel in Smithers, Nebraska, Matt, Darcy, Thomas, and Mariel climbed into the Mustang once again and drove along a two-lane rural highway. Fortunately, the motel had toast, juice, and coffee—not much, but enough to fill their stomachs, Thomas being the only exception. He chose a carton of prunes from the supplies box, a snack that he claimed would be plenty, though Mariel chided that he would soon lose his pants if he got any skinnier.

  “You are what you eat,” Mariel had warned him, but he paid no attention.

  Light snow fell from a gray blanket above. Although the air crackled with cold, no breeze disturbed the sparse flakes. Weather probably wouldn’t be a big problem.

  Matt propped the phone against the dashboard and read the address label: The Fourth Door—Friend or Fiend. A text message from Tamiel during the night had said they needed to arrive by 10 am. No problem. The destination lay only an hour from the motel.

  At around nine thirty, Matt turned onto a dirt road and drove for several miles before stopping the car in front of a one-story farmhouse. Dark shutters covered two windows that bordered the front door. A barn stood a hundred yards or so to the left. With bright red walls and a silver roof, it looked newer and more modern than the house, certainly more inviting.

  A silo loomed tall and straight on the closer side of the barn. With stubs of brown stalks all around, it was a good bet that corn filled the gray cylinder.

  “This is the place.” Matt turned off the engine. The phone beeped. He picked it up and read the message out loud. “Go into the barn. Your companions may relax in the house. You will find a fresh supply of food and more clothing there.”

  Thomas snorted. “The villain is feeding his pets, I see.”

  “Or maybe poisoning them,” Matt said.

  Mariel clicked her tongue. “No worries. Thomas can sense danger as well as the best of them. No one can poison us.”

  “Do you feel any danger now?” Matt asked. “I don’t. At least not yet.”

  Thomas raised a hand, his palm outward, and moved it slowly in a wide arc. Finally, he stopped. “Great danger lurks in that direction. All other angles are safe.”

  “The barn,” Mariel said. “The house must be all right.”

  “Then let’s get going.” Matt grabbed the phone and hopped out of the car. While he helped Thomas and Mariel, Darcy got out on her side and looked around, her eyes narrowed. Snowflakes settled on her hair and painted a stark contrast—white speckles on dark auburn, somehow profound. She shivered, casting off some of the flakes.

  As they walked to the house’s front door, Thomas and Mariel at the rear, Darcy stayed close to Matt’s side. “Like I said before, I’d like to go with you,” she whispered. “To the barn, I mean.”

  “Why?”

  “Even if you don’t think I can be strong where you’re weak, at least let me give you moral support.”

  Matt tightened his lips. Moral support? He squelched the urge to laugh. That would be harsh. He had already been too eager to question her every move and motive. “Let me think about it.”

  “Sure. Think.” She lowered her voice further. “But just remember. You shouldn’t walk straight into danger without someone to watch your back.”

  “Let’s get Thomas and Mariel inside, and we’ll talk.” Matt opened the door to a foyer that led to a furnished sitting room straight ahead and a kitchen to the left, complete with a stove and refrigerator, both avocado green, an eye-straining contrast to the blue-and-red striped wallpaper.

  While Matt held the door, Mariel walked straight to the kitchen. “Let’s see what I can whip up in this cozy little cottage. It might be quite a while before we can get a cooked meal again.”

  With Darcy staying close behind, Matt guided Thomas to an overstuffed sofa in the sitting room where a collection of jackets and sweatshirts lay, some for men and some for women. Several weather-proof boots of various sizes stood on the floor.

  When Thomas sat down, he rubbed his lips together. “Darcy, w
ould you be a sweetheart and find a tube of lip balm I left in the car? It must have fallen out of my pocket.”

  “Sure.” Darcy hurried out the door.

  Thomas tugged on Matt’s sleeve and whispered, “It did fall out of my pocket. On purpose, if you get my meaning.”

  Matt leaned closer. “Did you get a reading on her?”

  “Nothing definitive. I didn’t detect anything malevolent at all, but if she is who you suspect, I could be wrong. Sorcery has unpredictable effects on my gifts.”

  Matt nodded. “I understand. Thanks for trying.”

  When Darcy returned with the lip balm and gave it to Thomas, she picked up a fuzzy dark coat with a fur-like collar. “So these are for us.”

  “Tamiel said they are.” Matt gave her a come-along nod. “It’s muddy outside, so grab some boots.”

  Darcy put on the coat and a pair of calf-top boots, while Matt chose a sturdy jacket and ankle-high lace-up boots. He quickly put them on and fastened them in place.

  As they passed by the kitchen, Mariel carried a package of bacon and a carton of eggs to the stove. “When you come back, I’ll have a hot lunch ready. I hope Thomas decides to be a carnivore, or I’ll have to send him out to graze like an old goat.”

  Matt forced a smile. “Sounds good.”

  When he and Darcy stepped outside, he closed the door and looked her in the eye. “Listen, I appreciate all you’ve done so far . . .” His lips seemed to stick together. How could he tell her to stay here without letting on that he simply didn’t trust her?

  She grasped his wrist. “Matt, I know you don’t trust me, but even if I’m just protecting my own interests, I’m going to make sure that the only physically capable guy in our group doesn’t get his head blown away. I want to survive.” She gave him a dismissive wave. “Go alone if you want, but I’m going to follow you anyway. You can’t stop me.”

  “Okay, okay.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Come to the barn door with me, but stay outside until I’m sure it’s safe. Thomas said there’s danger, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”