“Without a doubt. Dee deciphered it, but for reasons that are quite easy to understand, he never published it. The Inquisition was full-on, and they scrutinized every publication. Disguising a message within a symbol has proven the safest way to transmit such information for millennia.”
“So you think the symbol came from the Ark?”
“Right. Noah, who descended from angels just as we have, engraved it on the bridge of his ship in case future generations came up against a similar catastrophe. I think he knew that if it happened again, no god was coming to our rescue . . . so he left us this warning. It’s like one of those road signs that signals ‘dangerous curves ahead.’ You might not be able to avoid it, but you can slow down enough to survive . . . Just look right here.”
Julia and Ellen nodded. Jenkins focused in on the symbol and asked Nick Allen to have a look.
“So that’s the big mystery,” Jenkins whispered. “That’s the symbol in the pictures Elijah poached from the Russians, right?”
Allen handed the binoculars back, nodding.
“At first glance,” Daniel Knight said, his voice echoing throughout the cavern, “you might think this symbol is a cross between astrological and occult symbols. The sphere with the horns hints at the astrological sign of Taurus. And the horizontal line beneath it could easily be some symbol of femininity. Venus, maybe. But don’t be fooled . . . We have to realize we’re making assumptions based on Western culture, which is loaded with images of astrology and alchemy. None of that existed in the time of Noah. So we have to rely on much simpler terms to read it. This symbol is a universal warning.”
“Get to the point, Daniel,” Bill Faber said, eyeing the counter, which now read fourteen minutes, thirty-two seconds . . . thirty-one . . . thirty . . .
“The circle with the dot in the center was a symbol the ancient Egyptians used to represent the sun. Even modern astronomy uses this icon to denote the sun. The dot in the center is the key. It represents a sunspot. And in ancient times, when you could see a sunspot with the naked eye, it was considered a terrible omen. Some of the more than two hundred legends of the Great Flood make a reference to the sun ‘falling ill’ just before the flood began. These were allusions to the surging sunspots. And that’s where the half-moon shape on top comes into play; it’s a reference to the plasma waves that the sunspot produces. In prehistoric times, people had no idea what they were. They were invisible, after all. But they nevertheless felt the effects—on their skin, with internal bleeding, blindness . . . as if they’d been invaded by some invisible force. Infected by it.”
“And what about the cross?”
“It’s no cross at all, Julia.” Knight smiled. “It’s a sort of sword suspended over a pair of twin peaks . . . peaks that are identical to the twin summits of Ararat. Taken together, the symbol is both a warning and a sign of hope for mankind: The very moment when the sun focuses its power on this place will also be our opportunity to open our connection to the other side, to drink from the fountain of knowledge that allowed Dee to communicate with God. With his messengers. Our incorruptible ancestors.”
“It’s mankind’s most ancient symbol,” Martin added, taking Julia’s hand and checking to make sure the helmet was snug against her temples. “Noah’s earliest descendants spread the symbol far and wide, engraving it on important landmarks across the world as a warning to future generations.”
“So . . . what I am supposed to do with all this information?” Julia asked.
“Concentrate on the invocation tablet, my love. Just remember the symbols and what each means. Let them combine in your mind. Hold the adamants and try to focus on what you’re feeling. Let the desires in your soul come to the forefront,” Martin said. “The electrodes you’re connected to have been designed to pick up on even the slightest electrical activity in the left hemisphere of your brain. If any of those electrical signals correspond to a sound of speech, the computers will synthesize it into sound waves and transmit them to these speakers. There’s no purer way of tapping into that information. The acoustic vibrations your mind produces will open the stairway to heaven.”
Daniel interrupted. “Do not doubt, because the ability is within you. It’s something programmed into the human genetic code. Before mankind was expelled from paradise, God taught humans his perfect language. Humans spoke it until he confounded their speech during the building of the Tower of Babel. We angels never had the ability to speak it. When we were pure, we didn’t need it to communicate. So our only hope of communicating with our homeland is to use these ancient stones and entrust them to someone with your gift.”
Julia sighed deeply, knowing she had no way to escape her captors. “Okay . . . Tell me how to start,” she said.
“Take a deep breath,” Martin said. “Try to relax. Find your center. And remember what your gift is capable of.”
97
Remember what your gift is capable of . . .
That phrase somehow resonated deep within me. The sound of the words reverberated in my mind, even as I was strapped to the stretcher, which was tilted so I was nearly vertical. The sensation traveled over my skin, down my back, tickling as it coursed through me. My muscles gave way and all the tension from the past few days—the sleepless night in Hallaç, the climb up Ararat, seeing Martin again—seemed to simply slip away as I slid into a dream state.
A feeling of euphoria, sudden and unexpected, washed over me. I was overcome with a sense of calm. And having Martin near me, despite everything, infused me with a newfound confidence. I was awash in endorphins that filled me with an overwhelming sense of well-being, a sensation unlike anything I’d ever felt. And that’s when I realized that this indescribable feeling of peace only began the second I took the adamants in my hands.
If there’s one thing I’d learned about the psychic realm in my thirty short years on Earth, it’s that nothing happens unless we open ourselves to possibility. So when Martin asked me to remember all that my gift made me capable of, I’d accepted his invitation and opened myself to him. All he had to do was place the adamants in my hands and my mind was ready and willing to accept them.
I could have clenched my fists shut.
I could have dropped the adamants to the floor.
But I didn’t. I took them from him and made my choice . . .
“Now . . . ,” he whispered softly into my ear, “let the crystals guide you. Don’t force it, my love. Gaze into the invocation tablet. You already know the Amrak and its forces. Focus on the symbols etched into the Ark. Inside your soul is the key to pronouncing them appropriately. Let the symbols float together in your mind. Visualize them. Let your mind put them in order . . . Let your mind sing their sounds. Let them reverberate throughout this ancient place and call out to the Creator just as they did more than nine thousand years ago. You have the gift . . .”
“I . . . don’t know if I can,” I said. “It’s been so long . . .”
“You can,” he whispered. “Believe in yourself. Believe in us . . .”
And at that moment, I turned myself over completely to the forces inside of me. I squeezed the adamants and closed my eyes.
At first, I felt nothing but the adamants’ smooth, warm surfaces. But then, as I took one last peek at the symbols etched on the Ark, I thought I saw the adamants glimmer a second before I closed my eyes again. It was a pale glow, much like the way they had pulsed on my wedding day those many years ago. It comforted me and encouraged me to give myself over to their power once more.
Just one more time.
And for the very last time.
“Feel how they palpitate in your hands,” I heard Sheila say, though her voice seemed muffled, far-off, as if she were speaking to me from the bottom of the ocean.
“Find the essence that you share with the stones,” Daniel said, also from somewhere far away. “That pure vibration is the holy language of the celestial beings.”
“You’ve come all this way to help us communicate with them. Help us,
now, Julia.” Sheila said.
Help us . . .
Their plea echoed in my mind.
Help us, Julia . . .
It was a desperate plea. Intense.
Help us . . . , they repeated again.
It became a mantra. An ancient plea. A supplication that I’d heard once before, many years ago. It brought back a forgotten memory of my youth.
I closed my eyes and let it carry me to the day my grandma Carmen told me about my gift. I was nine years old. She was the one who taught me to see the auras around people, to judge their health and attitude—their life force—by gazing at the colorful clouds around them. Grandma, with her eyes fixed on mine, said, “You’re like the jackals the Egyptians used to rely on as guides to the spirit world. Among us, there are angels whose auras glow the color of pure gold. They search for girls just like you. The day they come to you, they will say, ‘Help us,’ and that will be your signal.”
She held a gnarled finger up to her lips and smiled—this would be our secret. I noticed the aura around her flicker, then dim.
Two days later, my beloved grandma Carmen died peacefully in her sleep.
And on that day, the day I learned my visions presaged her death, my gift felt like a curse.
98
Zero minutes, zero seconds.
A hush fell over the icy cavern below where Jenkins and Allen hid. Down below, William Faber held his breath. Jenkins had been so enraptured with the beauty that Julia Álvarez radiated that he didn’t even notice when the countdown on the flat-screen hit zero. He watched her sleeping peacefully, her head resting on a small pillow, even as she lay dangled at a nearly ninety-degree angle and electrodes came from her head. She looked like a fairy tale princess just waiting for Prince Charming’s kiss. He wondered what she was dreaming about at that very moment.
But when the counter went to zero, she didn’t open her eyes.
As a matter of fact, no one around her—not even Ellen Watson, who was still eyeing the Ark in a stunned stupor—seemed to expect it. Everyone was simply focused on Julia, waiting for that invisible gift of hers to combine with the crystals to activate that mysterious communication device.
“It’s time,” William Faber finally said. “The hail of plasma should just be coming into contact with the ionosphere. We’re about to find out whether these high-energy particles are going to do their part. It should be only a matter of seconds before—”
A loud crack! interrupted him. It sounded like it came from the diesel generator, as if something had shorted out.
Artemi Dujok looked but saw nothing. His henchmen pointed their trusty Uzis in the general direction of the sound, looking for an intruder. After all, someone might have followed them up there. Before they could turn their attention back to Julia, an arc of electric-blue light shone down from the sky just a few feet away from them. And then another. And another. In a matter of seconds, a crackling flood of blinding blue light rained down around them, sparking like a welder’s torch.
“What is this?” Ellen yelled.
All of the angels immediately froze.
The sparks of blue light didn’t fizzle once they hit the ground. Instead, they crawled along the icy floor, headed for the gurney where Julia was strapped. They were like a million flickers of light, twisting and intertwining—and moving with a purpose, like some kind of intelligent life form.
Martin took a step back. Haci and Waasfi followed his lead.
These electric spiders crawled their way up the bed onto the helmet on Julia’s head, then began spreading out, doubling and tripling in number until they completely covered her body. Most of them gathered around her fists; the adamants seemed to draw them like magnets. Julia, still unconscious, shuddered for a moment. Then again. And again. Then, she began to shake wildly and violently, popping several of the straps. Then, just as suddenly, she straightened against the bed, stiff as a board.
“What is it? What’s going on?” Ellen yelled hysterically.
But this time, they could barely hear her voice.
The loudspeakers had begun to emit a sound, a high-pitched squeal that seemed far off, almost inaudible at first. Then, as the electric spiders multiplied and spread all over the lab, the electrical equipment sparking as the charge tested their circuits, the sound coming out of the speakers became a constant hum. Meanwhile, the invocation tablet, which Sheila and Daniel watched dutifully, began smoking, sending a column of greenish fog to the ceiling. A second later, as if meticulously choreographed, the loudspeakers began pulsating and emitting a rhythmic tune. The Armenians looked spellbound. Martin and his father seemed positively in ecstasy.
Iossssummmm . . . Oemaaaa . . .
“It works!” Ellen said, laughing nervously, looking over at the angels.
Hasdaaaaeeee . . . Oemaaa . . .
“It works!”
Twenty feet overhead, Tom Jenkins and Nick Allen knew right away this was their chance.
Careful not to disrupt the column of thick, green smoke, they scaled down unnoticed. Jenkins’s pulse was pounding even before he set foot on the icy ground. If he was lucky, he thought, he’d be inside the weapons locker in less than sixty seconds. Meanwhile, Allen made his way around the perimeter of the cave and hid behind a pair of metal containers. He was within striking distance of Haci and just seven or eight steps from the weapons. If those sparking spiders continued to keep them entranced, this was going to be easy, he thought.
But just as he was about to make his move, a flash of light made him stop dead in his tracks.
It was a spark, a flash against a wall that made him remember something from years ago that he’d rather have forgotten. The air seemed rarefied, just as it was on that day in 1999 as he stood on the edge of the Hallaç crater.
The colonel couldn’t help the shiver down his spine.
Just then, there were four flashes, like lightning, against the wall of the Ark.
The symbols!
That forgotten terror he’d felt those many years ago, while standing next to Martin Faber and Artemi Dujok, came rushing to the forefront of his mind and all but paralyzed him.
The Glory of God . . . Not again!
But he was a soldier with a mission to accomplish, so he steeled himself. He gathered up his courage and broke for the weapons locker. He whipped it open and found several M16 assault rifles. Quickly, he grabbed two and loaded a clip in each, slinging one over his shoulder and holding the other at the ready.
This time, he thought, that thing won’t catch me unarmed and off guard.
Meanwhile, the sounds coming from the speakers connected to Julia’s electrode helmet got exponentially louder. The four notes—Iossssummmm . . . Oemaaaa . . . Hasdaaaaeeee . . . Oemaaa—became higher in pitch. And soon, the sound synchronized into a terrifying rhythm with the glyphs on the Ark—, , , and —which began to light up, on and off, in perfect sequence with the sound.
Allen either was too busy to notice any of it or didn’t want to. But that didn’t spare him the sight when he spun around to find the people near the Ark transfigured.
The electric spiders had crawled all over them, too. And their web of lightning made them shine like copper in the sun.
Allen noticed that the old man had reached his arms up toward the Ark, while the ones who’d been armed had let their weapons drop. He thought he saw Waasfi look over at him, but he didn’t seem at all fazed by Allen’s presence.
Allen broke toward Ellen Watson and pushed her out of the way just as a bolt of electricity struck the very spot where she’d been standing. She went flying into the arms of Tom Jenkins, and they rolled across the icy floor before coming to rest at the other end of the cavern.
“Tom, it’s you!”
His deep blue eyes widened. “My God, Ellen, I thought they’d done something to you.”
“Where . . . where’s Julia Álvarez?” she stammered. “She’s got the adamants! You’ve got to get them away from her!”
Jenkins thought his partner wa
s in shock. Between the electromagnetic field she’d just been exposed to, plus the solar energy hailing down on them at fifteen thousand feet, she’d clearly been affected.
“Wait . . . Where is Martin Faber? He masterminded this trap!” she said, her eyes lost.
Tom looked around for Martin. Even though he’d only seen him in the kidnapping video, he quickly picked him out. He was about fifteen feet away, as motionless as a statue, covered from head to toe in crawling blue electricity. He needed to get him out of there, but Jenkins didn’t dare touch him. He was trapped in some kind of high-voltage network that kept him alive but unconscious to his surroundings. Only the four notes playing over the loudspeakers seemed to matter to these zombies. They repeated rhythmically as if someone had set the tune on an infinite loop. Iossssummmm . . . Oemaaaa . . . Hasdaaaaeeee . . . Oemaaa. And each time a note played, a bolt of electricity struck a different part of the cavern. Every lightbulb in the room had been blown out. The computers were fried. And their satellite link was gone.
Jenkins was surprised to find only three people unaffected by the connection: himself, Colonel Allen, and Ellen Watson.
He couldn’t make out Julia Álvarez within the electrical storm. She was covered in a glowing electric current like the rest of them. From the outside, it looked like she’d been swallowed by a giant insect whose tentacles enveloped the others, at once immobilizing them and connecting them via a high-voltage umbilical cord.
“What the hell is going on here?” Nick Allen yelled, breaking Jenkins’s stupor.
“Something . . . something’s happening to the angels!” Ellen Watson yelled, just barely above the resounding buzz. Tom was worried about his partner. She was weak and looked ready to fall over.
“Angels? Ellen, are you okay?”
“That’s what they told Julia, Tom,” she said, her eyes half-closed. “These people . . . they’re all descended from fallen angels. And they’re doing all this to try to get back into heaven. They’re using the energy from the solar storms to . . . to . . .”
The Lost Angel Page 33