The Lost Angel

by Sierra, Javier

“It’s not me you’re offending,” he grumbled. “Many men throughout history have died searching for this secret. All of humanity’s greatest mysteries are tied to the search for direct communication with God. What were the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and the Kaaba, if not tools to get closer to Him? Dee was the last man in history to accomplish it. He achieved unrivaled fame in England for being able to communicate with heavenly beings. And it all happened on this patch of land where we’re standing. That’s why Sheila moved here.”

  “You think the actual ground is important?”

  “It very well could be. We’ve never fully understood how Dee opened this pathway to the world of angels. That’s why we have to respect even the ground he stood on when he established contact.”

  “So you truly believe John Dee spoke with the angels?”

  Daniel twisted in his chair while Martin watched in amusement.

  “To me, he has provided us proof beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Daniel said, as if his ego had been wounded. “These celestial beings told him about hundreds of events that were yet to take place. They were able to move through time to see them happen—it’s one of the reasons Queen Elizabeth the First was in this very house, to seek his guidance.”

  “So . . . did he guess right?”

  “I’m not sure ‘guess’ is the word you’re looking for.”

  “Okay.” I humored him. “Did he predict correctly?”

  “Judge for yourself, love,” Martin interjected. “Dee predicted the decapitation of Mary Queen of Scots and the deaths of Spain’s King Philip II, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and even Queen Elizabeth herself. So, yes. I’d say he was extraordinarily successful.”

  Martin sat down beside me, trying to provide some cover from Daniel. “Twenty years ago, when my parents moved to the United States, they charged Daniel and my aunt Sheila with looking into every aspect of John Dee’s life and history. Particularly the tools he used to communicate with the angels. We know Dee employed at least two ‘seers’ who were able to use the tools the angels gave him. At first we had no idea what those clairvoyants might have seen when they used the instruments. But apparently, it was something extraordinary.”

  Martin paused to gather his thoughts.

  “Those tools were simple but powerful. On the outside, they were plain-looking stones, but they contained unimaginable power. Dee was able to learn the secret to fine optics, geometry, medicine . . . He was so convinced of the stones’ power that he spent his fortune to build a sort of altar, an ‘invocation tablet,’ in which he embedded the stones. He adorned it with an obsidian mirror that the Spaniards brought back from the New World and encrusted it with a treasure trove of jewels from around the world, so that his mediums could receive the clearest messages from the angels. He followed every instruction he received from the other side, particularly from a spirit named Uriel, to open a free-flowing line of communication that hadn’t existed since ancient times.”

  Sheila then came into the room with a steaming teapot that smelled of spearmint and set it down on the table before us.

  “My girl,” she said, “what’s important is that we have the two stones, the very ones that Dr. Dee used in his experiments. Oh, there are others, including the ones on display in the Department of Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum. But none are as powerful as ours. We are the keepers of the true adamants of John Dee.”

  “Ada . . . what?” I said.

  “Oh, really, Martin!” Sheila said, slapping the back of my fiancé’s head with a smile. “You mean to tell me you haven’t told her anything? Really?”

  “I told you I wouldn’t! Not a single word.”

  “Good boy,” she said, smiling.

  As I poured the mint tea into a set of small cups, Daniel took up the conversation.

  “Okay, then I’ll tell her,” he said, first biting into his wedge of baklava and sipping some tea. “Julia, Dr. Dee’s writings say these stones, or adamants, were the most important gift the angels gave him. They were forged in heaven. They’re more special and rare than any moon rock NASA ever brought back to Earth. In fact, before the angels entrusted the adamants to him, they told him explicitly that they were taken from paradise. From the Garden of Eden itself.”

  I stared at him openmouthed.

  “Of course, you don’t have to believe anything we tell you. But ever since Martin’s father gave them to us, they haven’t ceased to amaze us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, although we’ve never gotten them to do what Dr. Dee’s private papers tell us they did, they do some . . . unusual things. Sometimes, they become heavier. Sometimes they’re lighter. Sometimes they change color. At times, we can see symbols in the adamants that disappear just as mysteriously as they appeared. And they’re so hard not even diamonds can cut into them.”

  “But what does any of that have to do with communicating with angels?”

  “Well, we put them in the hands of psychics, seers with a real reputation—the way Dee did in the sixteenth century—and they managed to get them to emit bursts of sound and light. But nothing more.”

  “What about a gemologist? Have you taken them to an expert?”

  “That’s another curious little fact,” Daniel said with a quizzical smile as he stroked his beard. “Let’s just say that all efforts to learn their secrets have failed. Only certain people with special psychic gifts have taught us anything about them. And that’s what we’re hoping you can do, Julia. Isn’t that right, Martin?”

  I watched Daniel’s eyes widen, his pupils dilate as he said those words.

  “Martin believes,” he added, “that you are one of those gifted seers.”

  “Me?”

  I felt my heart instantly begin to race. What is this? Some kind of a setup? I looked for answers on Martin’s face. He knew I’d spent my life running away from this kind of thing, the “gift” he always believed I had. How could he do this to me, especially on the eve of our wedding?

  “Julia,” Martin said finally, “I think it’s time you see these stones for yourself . . . and show us all what you’re capable of.”

  16

  Colonel Allen broke in, no longer able to contain himself. “So you’re telling me that you fell in love with a man who came to your town on the Way of St. James and instantly discovered your most closely guarded secret, your gift of ‘sight.’ And you agreed to marry him and didn’t find out until the day before your wedding that he also had a secret?”

  “That’s right. John Dee’s seer stones.”

  “So if you have this gift, why didn’t you see any of this coming?”

  “I already told you! I didn’t acknowledge my gift, much less use it. I tried to hide it. God, I prayed. I prayed so hard that one day I would wake up and this curse would be gone. If I had any kind of premonition, I ignored it. I just wanted to be normal, like any other person. Until Martin came along.”

  “I have to tell you I find that hard to believe, miss.”

  “This whole damn story is hard to believe!” I said, pounding the table. “Up to and including the point where you show up and get into a gunfight inside a church with some monk, or whatever the hell he was, who hadn’t even tried to hurt me.”

  “He was about to. I can promise you that.”

  The colonel remained calm and that allowed me to get ahold of myself.

  “So you think any of this will help you find Martin?” I asked.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll go on . . . What happened that day with the adamants was just the beginning. That was the day I finally accepted my gift. Although I probably never should have . . .”

  17

  Sheila walked over to the curio cabinet that had caught my attention, carefully opened its doors and took out a small wooden box decorated with silver. When she opened the box and placed it gently next to the teapot, I thought she’d made a mistake. I was expecting a pair of shimmering emeralds or rubies. I was surprised
to see displayed on the red felt inside the box a pair of innocuous black stones that looked like they’d been recently removed from the bottom of a riverbed. They seemed to be the most ordinary rocks you’ve ever seen.

  Plus, they weren’t faceted the way you’d expect from a jewel. They were kidney shaped, smooth and slender, unpolished and opaque, and about the size of a coin.

  “Choose one and take it over to the window, dear,” Sheila said.

  I chose the larger one and walked over to stand in the sunlight.

  “Now, hold it up and look through it.”

  I did as she said, and she continued to speak.

  “Some mediums say they come alive in the sunlight as you turn them clockwise. The sun’s rays change their molecular structure and spark a reaction inside them.”

  I turned the stone between my fingers but saw nothing. The one I’d chosen was opaque. Heavy. And just as lifeless as any other stone.

  “Look closer,” Sheila said insistently in a calming, measured tone. “Try to steady your breathing and keep turning it.”

  The more I studied it, the more I was convinced it was just another rock—and that Martin’s friends were either charlatans or nuts.

  “One of three things can happen,” Sheila said, “as you gaze at the stone: You might not feel anything, because your mind is not ready to accept this talisman. Or, on activating, its power will cloud your thinking temporarily . . . or it might kill you.”

  “It can . . . kill me?” I asked with a sarcastic smile on my face.

  “I’m sure you know the story of Uzza,” she said.

  “Uzza . . . ?”

  “According to the Old Testament, Uzza was one of the men who carried the Ark of the Covenant. He was a slave and didn’t know the history of the ark the way the Levites did. They warned him time and again never to touch the ark directly. But one day, as was recorded in several ancient texts, he couldnt avoid doing so. As they rolled the ark in a cart, it bounced against a stone and began to fall. Instinctively, Uzza rushed to grab it to keep it from crashing into the ground.”

  “I remember,” I said without taking my eyes off the stone. “He was struck down by lightning, right?”

  “Yes. But not by the ark.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “The ark contained the Ten Commandments, the very laws God himself had etched in stone. Those tablets were made of the very stone you are holding in your hands at this moment. And that’s why I say they could kill you.”

  I feigned a shiver. And just as I was about to return the adamant to its wooden box, I noticed something in it. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was like a brief spark, the way a prism catches the light. But it seemed impossible from this flat, unfaceted stone. I brought it back up to my eyes to take another look and noticed something I hadn’t before. As I turned it, I saw a spot on the black adamant where it seemed to become translucent, looking grayish-green. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but at one point it felt as if Dee’s adamant was coated in some kind of leathery flesh. A thin membrane that, as I held it up to the light, allowed me to see something inside it, like the pit of a date.

  “Did you see something, dear?”

  I nodded vaguely, astonished. “Why? Didn’t you?” I said.

  Hypnotized by what had happened, I looked closer at the stone. I turned it again, at different angles, so it was bathed in sunlight, trying to convince myself there was no way that pitch-black stone was actually becoming transparent before my very eyes. And I realized it was no longer just a lifeless rock. I admired it as if it were a diamond.

  Daniel, Martin and Sheila were watching me, looking satisfied.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” Sheila asked.

  I nodded again.

  Martin couldn’t contain his excitement. He’d stopped drinking his tea and was cracking his knuckles the way he always did when he was nervous. “See, I told you,” he said. “Julia has the gift.”

  “It certainly seems that way,” Sheila said, still watching me.

  But before I could say anything, something else happened. Something brief, and stranger still—if that’s even possible. Something I didn’t understand then but that came to change the course of my life forever: That once-lifeless stone began to tremble in my hands. It was clear and unmistakable, like a cell phone that’s set on vibrate. I looked up and saw the stunned look on Daniel’s and Martin’s faces. But that was just the beginning. The adamant began to feel lighter in my fingers. Lighter, and lighter still, until it had left my hand altogether, floating. It began to glow and flash with tiny bolts of lightning that illuminated the entire room, casting our shadows against the wall.

  “It . . . it flies?” I stammered.

  “Dear God!” Daniel roared. “What are you doing?”

  And just as he said it, the stone came to rest gently in my hands again. It was warm. Silent. And lifeless again.

  “I . . . I don’t know!” I said.

  Sheila stared at me with a piercing gaze but wore a wide, satisfied smile.

  “It has antigravitational properties,” Daniel mumbled to himself.

  “I have to congratulate you, Martin,” Sheila said, positively glowing. “She’s exactly the woman we’d expected. There’s no doubt.” She turned to me and added, “The adamant is now yours to keep, my dear. It’s clear that it obeys you. From now on, it will be your talisman. The other will belong to Martin. This will be your wedding gift.”

  18

  Pazos and Mirás had been dead for half an hour before their CB radio squawked for them to check in. But it only managed to chirp before it fell silent. The officer making the rounds had reached the front door of La Quintana café when the power grid went down for the second time that night.

  “Son of a . . .”

  And now, for some reason, his walkie-talkie wasn’t working, either. He smacked the radio a couple of times but it remained silent. Even the “low battery” signal was out. And then he remembered it was still the Day of the Dead.

  “Ghosts,” he mumbled, and tried to contain a shiver as he crossed himself.

  Nearby, at the end of the block, next to the Benedictine monastery Antealtares and across from the old restaurant O Galo d’Ouro on Rúa de la Conga, three shadowy figures plotted their next move. They kept a constant watch on the two patrol cars with armed police officers stationed precisely in front of their target.

  “We will not fail this time,” said the leader. “We need the woman.”

  “And if she doesn’t have the adamant?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll still take her,” he said, unflinching. “Remember that just an hour ago in the cathedral, our brother needed only to bring the Amrak close to her for it to activate. And that only happens in the presence of a human catalyst, an adamant, or when both of them together come close to the Amrak. So there’s a fifty-fifty chance that everything we need is in there,” he said, pointing at the café. “And that’s more than we have right now.”

  “And what if she left the adamant in the cathedral?”

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  “No,” one of them said finally. “If she has it, she’ll be carrying it.”

  “I’m surprised you’re so sure—”

  “Just look at what’s happened,” he said, interrupting. “We haven’t done anything but come close to her and already the power’s gone out again. Any time the Amrak senses a medium, it drains all the nearby energy to function.”

  “Look! Over there. Another sign the sheikh is right,” the third shadow said.

  He pointed into the sky and they all looked up, shielding their eyes from a million freezing raindrops that were like icy daggers against their skin. There, about fifteen feet above them, grazing the tops of the buildings, a shapeless fog had blocked out the storm clouds. It gathered with an iridescent orange glow, wispy fingers stretching in all directions.

  “Should we activate the Amrak?”

  The sheikh nodded.

  “It is the only
way to be sure. And this time, brothers, let us pray that no one else need be killed.”

  19

  This latest blackout caught us off guard. Nicholas Allen swiped his iPad’s screen to give us some kind of light, but it only flickered for a moment before going black. The waiter found a candle and matches under the bar.

  “Do you have the adamant with you?”

  “What if I do?”

  “Well . . . ,” he said, smiling ironically. “You could use it to give us a little more light, no?”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” he said. “Look, I’ve come a long way to find you. My government knows this. But before I make another move, I need to know you have one of the seer stones. In your husband’s video, he spoke of your reunion, and it seemed to me he wasn’t just talking about the two of you. Did he tell you whether he had hidden the adamants someplace?”

  Things were taking an uncomfortable turn. The colonel was drawing his own conclusions now, and that was my fault. Before he assumed I knew more than I did, I needed to tell him something important. Something I never thought I would ever tell anyone. Something about which Martin swore me to secrecy before he left.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, Colonel Allen, but I don’t have the adamant you’re looking for.”

  His expression was so disbelieving, I felt I had to tell him more.

  I continued. “A lot of things happened after Sheila Graham entrusted me with her adamant. Too many to explain in one sitting. But suffice it to say that during the training Martin and his family subjected me to, I discovered that the adamants were a powerful source of energy.”

  “I’m listening . . .”

  “I don’t know quite how to describe it. The adamants are a force all their own—a spring of powerful but unpredictable energy. Even my husband was scared of their potential.”

  “But were you able to use them? Were you able to communicate with angels?”

  “We tried, of course. Many times. Too many. Until I just got tired of the whole game.”