by S. L. Duncan
Carlyle wouldn’t let up. “A war is beginning, boy. Whether or not you choose to believe that right now is irrelevant. Preparation is what is important to the future. With the attack in New York, it has become obvious that the enemy is moving faster than anticipated. They’ve somehow found a crack in the seal, a way to get to Earth through other means. It is time to unite the four and stop the End of Days.”
Gabe stood, shaking his head in denial, and moved to the exit. Anger gave way to a deepening sadness from his father’s betrayal of trust.
“Wait. There’s more to hear,” his father pleaded and held the sleeve of his son’s jacket.
Gabe jerked his arm away and walked to the door. Without looking back, he said, “I can’t deal with this right now. I need some time alone.”
The door to the vault room slammed behind him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Snow from the Palace Green kicked into the air with every step Gabe took toward the cathedral. On another day he might laugh at such an ironic choice of retreat, considering what he was running from. But for now, it seemed like the only place that felt familiar, safe.
He could imagine it still, the image of the mark seared into his memory. Everywhere he looked, even in the shapes and drifts of snow, it was there—the circle with a pattern of marks. Did he see what they wanted him to see? Some sort of manipulation or trick? One thing was certain—it felt real.
He rubbed the mark as he walked, feeling heavy, burdened by his father’s secret. My secret.
Unlike the cathedral in New York, Durham Cathedral had three towers. The view tower, the largest of the three, was open to the public according to posted signs, except for after hours and during inclement weather. Both of which applied at the moment.
Gabe slipped into the cathedral behind several students.
Stained glass windows lit up an enormous cavern of pews. Massive arches in the vaulted ceiling spanned from one stone pillar to the next. Luckily, the stairs to the central tower were near the entrance. A small Closed sign stood next to the door to the tower, but only a velvet rope served as a deterrent. Normally, this would have been enough to persuade him to find another retreat, but he needed someplace familiar to find his bearings on everything. Somewhere high above the insanity.
Gabe sneaked past the sign and climbed the staircase until he came to the door to the observation deck. He opened it, and a frigid wind cut through his clothes.
The memory of Central Park came to mind, and he felt homesick. Odd, he realized, considering how little time he actually spent in New York. Leaning against the stone guardrail, all of Durham extended out into the world, with the castle and the village lit up below. Out of habit he scanned the horizon for the red-tailed hawk, suddenly aware just how far away he was from his life in America.
A thin haze of smoke from the chimneys of the flats covered the town. Below, the Great North Eastern Railway departed the train station, lumbering over the nearby bridge. Life went on, like any other night. He had no idea what time it was, though it felt very late under the dark sky.
His father’s words rang in his head, “You are the archangel Gabriel.”
How could he be someone else or something else? He had his own history, his own identity—the foundation for which he based everything he did—and now it had been torn out from under him.
Yet something was happening to him. That he couldn’t deny. The visions. Richard’s murder. His home burned to the ground by someone who wanted him dead. He knew somehow all these connected to form a truth. And the only explanation offered, the only one that no matter how fanciful at least made sense, had come from his father and Carlyle. It was enough to give him another migraine. He rubbed his head to warm it. His hands stopped at the base of his skull.
The mark.
It felt like a curse.
An hour later, the only light on the observation deck came from the spotlights illuminating the flags above the cathedral. Gabe watched them flutter in the wind and felt similarly helpless. Somehow it made the tower feel even colder. Long ago, he’d lost sensation on his shaven scalp, now numb from the bitter cold. As he listened to the beat of the whipping flags, he thought he heard the squeaking hinges of a door opening. Gabe turned to see a girl standing in the exit.
“You’ll catch your death up here,” she said in an English accent and then held out her hand, offering a black wool hat for his frozen head.
He took the hat and looked at her, wondering how much trouble he was in, though she wasn’t dressed like one of the cathedral employees. “Is the university always this kind to trespassers?”
“Put it on, genius. Might unfreeze your brain,” she said and walked to the edge of the lookout, the soft light revealing her features. A strand of dark hair escaped from under her hat and danced around the sculpted cheekbones of her Persian face.
His mind stuttered for a moment, lost in her brown eyes. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Enjoying the view up here, are we?” she asked.
“Ah, well . . . sort of, I guess.” He fumbled with the hat and tried to put it on with his clumsy, ice-cold fingers.
“You know, of course, the tower is closed.”
“Uh, yeah. I had a lot on my mind. It kind of reminded me of home. Am I in trouble?”
“Depends. You weren’t trying to sprout wings and fly away, were you? I know I wanted to.” She winked.
The question threw off Gabe’s concentration. “I’m sorry; who did you say you were?”
“Micah. Micah Pari. Your father said you might be up here. Though Carlyle convinced him to try the student pubs first—possibly a self-motivated plan of action. And you are Gabriel Adam. We have a lot in common, you and me.”
With that she took off her hat. She brushed her hair away from the base of her skull and turned around. A small strip had been neatly shaved to reveal a birthmark symbol, another from the scroll.
“Ta-dah! I’m just like you.” She laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The archangel Micah?” Gabe asked.
“You missed a lot of Sunday school, didn’t you? Either that or you didn’t pay much attention. The archangel Michael. Slightly improved though, I’d say.” She did a quick spin.
He had to agree. “Why a girl?”
“Why not a girl?” Micah’s eyebrows arched, indignant, not unlike the woman in the picture at Carlyle’s house.
“Fair enough. So, I’m assuming you got the whole go-save-the-world speech, too? Tell me you haven’t bought into this whole God versus Devil stuff.”
Her playful demeanor quickly left. “As a matter of fact, I certainly have ‘bought in,’ as you say. If you had seen what I’d seen, you’d buy in as well. I promise you, the poor boy murdered at your cathedral in New York believed. So, the quicker you decide not to be a complete idiot, the better it will be for everybody.”
Gabe regretted the challenge.
“I was told that you don’t put much faith in things that aren’t tangible,” Micah continued. “And yet things that are tangible don’t require faith, do they? Quite the conflict you’re waging with yourself. If you have faith in anything, have faith in this: it’s happening. To you. And to me. This is what we are, and there’s nothing that can be done other than accept it.”
“Just accept it? Like it’s that simple. You sound like Carlyle.”
“Good. He’s right.”
“Right about us being angels on Earth? Soldiers in some supernatural war? What war? Look around you. How can you even know that this war, between heaven and hell nonetheless, is even real? Because I don’t see any armies gathering and certainly none with pitchforks and horns or halos and bright shiny white wings.”
“Because I’ve seen our enemy’s plan. You’ve seen it as well. Our world, consumed in fire. I’m suffering from the same visions. You know what is at stake. You’re just too scared to admit it. That’s understandable. You’ll need time. I know I did, but thinking everyone else is mental isn’t going to make it easier
on you or us.”
If Micah was lying or crazy, he couldn’t tell, but she sounded rational. Two people suffering the same nightmare amounted to something more than coincidence, no matter how much his mind wanted to deny it. In a strange way, Gabe was glad someone else knew what he was going through. “They’re horrible, aren’t they? The visions?”
“Yes. I’m having some difficulty with them. I can’t predict when they’ll come or why. And the violence . . .”
“I know. Did they just start for you as well? On New Year’s Eve?” Gabe asked.
She nodded.
“That’s really weird. So they just shipped you in, too, after they started?”
“No. I’ve been in Durham for a while. Not long after I was born, I was sent to live under the care of Carlyle when my parents died. We moved around the United Kingdom and Ireland for several years before ending up here. He’s sort of been the only parent I’ve known. Once he felt I was old enough to understand, he told me everything. But when the visions hit, so did the reality, I guess. I’m only beginning to understand. It can be a lot to digest.”
Gabe looked out onto the city, wishing he could get lost in it and disappear. “At least he trusted you enough to tell you.”
“I know. It was unfair, but your father did it with your best interest in mind. The point is, you know now. You don’t have to accept everything at once. It will come in due time. Preparation, however, is imperative. Something is happening out of turn that none of us understand. We don’t have the luxury of waiting until you’ve been convinced of the truth to start readying ourselves for what’s to come. For now, just cooperate. Play along, if that’s the way you see it. Eventually, I know you’ll come around. In the meantime, you’ve been enrolled, like me, into Durham University. More specifically, Castle College. We’ll be under the tutelage of Professor Carlyle in the Theology and Divinity Program, which will, of course, be your major.”
“Sounds like I don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“You do. There’s free will in every choice we make. But you’d do well to start listening to Carlyle. His sole purpose for being on Earth is to help guide you and me through these times. He’s not all piss and vinegar—he can be a laugh. Well, not often, but you know.
“Look, it isn’t all that bad,” Micah continued. “You’ll attend class here as a freshman with your core studies first. After class, we’ll do extracurricular studies with Carlyle. Think of it as Archangel 101. The important thing is to act like a regular student. Fit in, as it were. Be inconspicuous, and an inconspicuous student is one that acts like the rest of them.”
“So, pretend nothing’s happened. Do stuff like homework and hang out at the student pub,” Gabe said.
“Exactly or participate in sport, if you can find the time. Football is quite popular. Sorry, soccer as you Yanks call it. Cricket and rugby as well, though you look a little fragile for a scrum. Durham isn’t New York or London by any means, but life is good here. Besides, you’re the only other, you know—one of us—I’ve met. I was beginning to think I was the only one.”
Micah smiled at him, and he began to feel better about being here.
“Wait. I thought there were others on the way,” Gabe said.
Her brow furrowed. “Unfortunately, it seems they are running quite late.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Septis stood behind the yellow partitioning tape that separated the sidewalk from the cathedral grounds and watched the scurry of activity in the still-smoking ruins. Firefighters dug through ash and rubble, seeking burning embers to extinguish with their crude devices.
He felt cheated, uncertain as to how the dispatched boy had not been Gabriel, when there had been so little doubt inside the church. Now, instead of glory, the destroyed house of God served only as a reminder of his failure. A hollow feeling festered inside, a fear of what his prey’s escape might mean.
If Gabriel could not be found, if somehow he were to unite with the remaining three archangels, then Septis would have much to answer for. While the boy still lived, the Hellgate remained closed. To punish his mistake, Mastema would send another by exploiting the splintered pathway between the dimensions, opened by the humans’ negligent stewardship of this realm. Septis knew that little time remained before his life would become forfeit.
He could feel traces of Fortitudo Dei left in the city, the tiny echoes made by the growing power of the boy’s abilities. They were fresh and had been stronger here than in any other place. Yet the boy still lived.
Septis questioned his own capabilities, mainly his ability to track this target. He and Gabriel were connected, each possessing power that mirrored the other’s, making Gabriel the only child that Septis could find before the archangels reached their full potential as defenders of this realm. Where Fortitudo Dei brought strength to those around him, emboldening their own power, Septis could weaken his enemies by feeding off their fear and hate, transforming it into physical shadow.
Earth was ripe with such polluted thought. The boy’s power had shined like a beacon among it, leading Septis to New York. To the cathedral.
But the boy had slipped from his grasp by the time Septis arrived. In his bloodlust, his raw animalistic rage, he had been careless. The thrill of taking his enemy’s life had overpowered him in his greed to be triumphant in the eyes of Mastema. Now their cause lay in jeopardy.
As he watched work continue on the remains of the cathedral, Septis called to his shadows. Unnoticed by the passing humans, they flowed inside his suit and down his legs to his shined shoes, spilling over them and seeping into the ground. Through the dark smoke, he could feel the earth around him.
The shadows moved in the energies of the realm that ran through the world like a connected stream of consciousness, a network made by the interactions of all its living inhabitants. They rode its currents, searching for the boy’s light amongst so much darkness. Then he felt it—a place nearby, saturated in the essence of Fortitudo Dei.
Septis turned from the cathedral and moved quickly through the city until, after some time, he came to a small café swarming with the human pests.
He entered, the doorbell chiming as it opened. Gabriel had been here and often. Remnants of his power lingered inside the building like a stench. One tall table in particular reeked more than any other. Septis sat in its high leather chair and surveyed the shop. The essence of Fortitudo Dei had begun to spoil from time. The boy was not here.
“Hello,” a blonde waitress said. “I’m Coren. Can I get you anything?”
Septis turned to her and smiled. “Thank you, no. But perhaps you can help me. I am looking for a friend who may have frequented your café. He’s approximately your age and goes by the name of Gabriel. I believe he would be a regular, someone you or one of your coworkers might recognize.”
Coren looked at his suit and glossy dress shoes. She rolled her eyes, her smile fading into pursed lips. “Another detective?”
Septis nodded. “Detective Smith.”
“I guessed. You know, a couple of you guys came by this morning when we were in our morning slam. The lunch rush isn’t much of an improvement on your timing. I’ll tell you the same thing I told them—I haven’t seen Gabe since his seizure here several days ago.” She stopped talking, as if recalling the memory. “It was horrible. If he’s not at the hospital, he’s with his father, I would think.”
“We thought as much.” Septis stood and moved to the door. “I apologize for being redundant, but I have not yet spoken with the other detectives. Do you have a description of the boy’s parent?”
“Well, Father Joseph Adam came in here only once. Thin guy, fifty-something. Black hair, British.”
“British?” Septis asked.
“That’s right. Oh, and he was trying to help Gabe get his application accepted at NYU, if that helps. Hey, shouldn’t you be writing this down? You know, a little organization might help keep you guys from stumbling into each other’s investigations.” Coren looked at
him, her gaze falling to the black jacket and overcoat closed around his chest. A hint of crimson trickled through the fabric of his white shirt. “Are you bleeding, Detective?”
Septis pulled his coat tight and stormed out of the café.
Joseph Adam, he thought, where are you?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Classes started seven days after Gabe learned of his secret, and for the most part, he had been separated from his father and Carlyle by a busy schedule. To his dismay, he had yet to cross paths with Micah. Her classes were more advanced, with the benefit of starting a semester early.
Gabe relished getting stuck into the college life, having done all the things necessary to accomplish that transition from a regular seventeen-year-old boy to an actual university student. Books and school supplies were bought. He even attended a special orientation for those entering the semester late where he was given a list of courses assigned for his curriculum.
Life felt normal.
Much of the undergraduate module for a theology major consisted of familiar subjects. Being force-fed Bible studies for so many years turned out to be useful after all, though he’d rather eat one of his textbooks than admit it to his father.
Even with that advantage, classes were still tough. He left his final course for the day and walked back to his dorm room, feeling the heft of his new backpack pull against his neck and shoulders. Homework was already piling up, and with his free time dwindling, Gabe wondered how any college student had time to waste in a student pub.
One paper was due within the week, and several teachers were using the Socratic Method, a particularly cruel teaching technique that, in an earlier class, had ended with some poor, unprepared girl standing in front of the class as their professor peppered her with questions for which she had no answers. Gabe could barely watch the ten-minute barrage as the professor’s point was made—miss an assignment and risk the same fate.