by S. L. Duncan
His father walked by his room to check on Micah next door.
“Do you hear that?” Gabe said and moved to the other end of the room. He walked into the bathroom, still hearing the noise, like the sound of water starting to boil in a teakettle.
“Did you say something?” his father asked from the entrance to the room.
“What is that? That whistling?”
His father stepped into the room. Micah came out of her apartment and stood at Gabe’s entrance.
“It’s driving me crazy,” Gabe said. “Where is it coming from?”
The sound got louder, and he felt his ears ringing.
“I don’t hear anything,” Micah said.
The kettle started to scream. A sharp pain sparked to life in his head, like the migraines that used to curse his life. Gabe stuck his fingers in his ears to silence the whistle, but it didn’t help.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
His father rushed to his side just as the room spun, the darkness taking Gabe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gabe woke to the shock of light and ringing in his ears. His stomach dropped with a sense of falling through the air. A woman’s voice whispered nearby, and he wondered if he’d see Coren again. The voice shifted, becoming clearer as the ringing settled. He couldn’t tell if it was the echo of a memory or if he was hearing it now. She was screaming his name, terror in her voice.
Micah, he realized.
His body ached, the skin on his ring finger burning around the band. As his eyes focused, he saw the texture of the wall, inches from his face. He was in a bed and recognized the white wall of his room. He rolled over, to be greeted by his father sitting in a chair in the middle of the room.
“Welcome back,” he said.
“What happened?” Gabe asked. “What was that noise?”
“Micah and I didn’t hear anything.”
“It was screaming, like a kettle boiling over.” He sat up, rubbing his head. His body ached, as did the mark on the back of his head.
“That hasn’t bothered you in a while, has it?” his father asked.
Realizing what he was doing, he pulled his hand from the mark. “No. Not since Axum.” He looked around the room. “I thought I heard Micah.”
“She left an hour ago, to find Afarôt.”
“An hour? I thought I just heard her, screaming my name.” Gabe pulled his legs over the side of the bed. “She sounded like she was freaking out.”
“Concerned, certainly. But I would not characterize her reaction as freaking out,” his father said, enunciating the phrase like something foreign in his mouth. “And she never screamed your name.”
Gabe tried to shake the memory from his head. “I must have dreamed it or something. And no, before you ask—it wasn’t a vision.”
His father’s eyes narrowed, as if the explanation wasn’t convincing. “Have you experienced this before? This sound?”
Gabe shook his head. “Not like this.”
“This has gone on long enough,” his father said, standing. “Afarôt owes us an explanation.”
“I haven’t seen him since the carrier. And we barely spoke.”
“I have. Apparently, the sword needs to be woken. His words, not mine. He also mentioned trying to figure out what the issue is with that ring of yours. I know we haven’t known him long, but I’ve never seen him so focused. There’s a certain air of agitation around him as well—an eagerness. Quite unusual.”
Gabe absently touched the ring on his finger and rubbed its stone. The irritated skin itched around the band. He didn’t want to think about the ring anymore. His thoughts were drowning in the troubles it caused. “That was Aseneth, wasn’t it?” he asked, changing the subject.
Joseph stood and stretched his back, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “Indeed, it was.”
“She looked pissed at you. Like, not happy to see you.”
“Duty happened, Gabriel. Nothing more. She could never accept that. The truth is, Aseneth and I were nothing more than a summer love. A fling. We were never meant to be.”
“But you loved her. I heard you tell her.”
Joseph looked at him curiously and then seemed to remember. “Ah. Carlyle’s riddle. A love lost.”
“I also overheard you once, talking on the phone. You said you loved her but it couldn’t work. I remember. I was . . .”
“Seven. You were about seven when I spoke to her last. Eavesdropping, were you?” Joseph asked with a smile.
Gabe just shrugged.
“Always the little scoundrel, you were. Our relationship was . . . complicated. I met Aseneth here in Iznik. Seventeen years ago. Hard to believe. Carlyle and I were here as representatives for the Rabbinical Assembly and the Vatican, respectively, to assist in the Nicene Project. Aseneth was the lead representative for the Turkish government. A decorated professor. Degree in everything. Very, very smart.
“When the Nicene Project began, the Vatican had a vague knowledge of what was in the Apocalypse of Solomon, which included a general date for when to expect the arrival of the Watchers. At least a date in terms of signs. But the information was deemed a low-priority, nonprobable event—none of it taken seriously. At the time, I was very low in the hierarchy of the Holy See. Kept on the team, as it were, by my family name. Carlyle had joined the project as the Essene delegate. ‘Close to where it all began,’ he used to say. Once here, he reached out to me. You see, he was a believer. Even amongst the Essenes. His study, his dedication. He discovered my family crest, our lineage, and it led him to seek me out. We met, and he had decades of research. Bloodlines and family histories. Predictions. Evidence. He had sifted through thousands of reports of odd circumstances surrounding the births of children. Weird birthmarks and the like. Most were fruitless, as you might imagine.”
His father paused. “And then, you were born. At that moment, everything changed. Carlyle presented his case to the Vatican, and they began to subsidize the project with money under his leadership. And from that point on, it became a sort of apocalyptic research facility, thus giving direct control over the Nicene Facility to the Holy See. A bit of a coup, you see? Thus, an archeological hub. A base for our scientists to operate from while they scavenged the ancient world, looking for more clues that might help.”
“Carlyle didn’t leave when you left?”
“No. He stayed for three more years until Micah was found following the deaths of her parents. He insisted he be her guardian. Aseneth then took over.”
Gabe recalled the look in Micah’s eyes when she told him of the things she’d seen. She must have been old enough to remember the deaths of her mother and father. He wondered how they died.
“The facility was granted embassy status,” his father said, “placing it in the sovereignty of Vatican City. Their original intention was to repurpose the campus to house the four of you within its walls and train you all under one roof. Carlyle and I had reservations as to safety and concerns about keeping you all together, especially when you were young. We believed, and rightly so, that the enemy would do all within its power to stop the prophecy as foretold in the Apocalypse of Solomon and stop your rise.
“My own life changed drastically as well in order to fulfill my duty as a Guardian of the Watcher.”
“Why couldn’t you just let someone else do it, if you were in love with Aseneth? Surely, the Vatican had volunteers waiting to step into your place,” Gabe asked.
“They did. But it was not their right or privilege. My father took our heritage very seriously, and it took me quite a while to understand our importance. What is legend and what is reality, I’ll never know. But we were known as the Kabbilyun—advisors to the four archangel generals in the first war. A religion was born around my family’s line, which was eventually folded into Judaism.”
“But you’re an agent of the Vatican and a Christian.”
“True. When religion becomes entwined with politics, compromise is made. The religion started by
the Kabbilyun was eventually seduced by the power of Rome, and thus their knowledge, culture, and traditions were assimilated by Rome and became, to that extent, Christian.
“And for all of this, Aseneth and I could not be together.”
Gabe felt his strength returning. “I don’t know. Seems like you both could have tried.”
His father smiled. “To be young and full of naiveté. I know you want more than anything to have a normal life again. Of course you do. I am saddened every day by what you might miss as you grow up. But sometimes what we want and what we get are two different things. What I’m telling you is that thing you never wanted, that thing you end up getting, can be just as fulfilling and rewarding.”
“I know. I’ve accepted that.”
“Have you?” He moved to the bed and put his arm around Gabe, despite his shrugging protest. “I would never presume to tell you about sacrifice, but had I not given up things I wanted for myself, I would have missed out on so much in this world. You included.”
Gabe squirmed out from under his father’s arm and stood, the ringing in his ears now gone. “I know, already.” He couldn’t stifle a laugh. “So, according to your family line, you’re like, one of my generals?”
“Our heritage is sacred. But it isn’t that sacred. I order you around.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“He left her there so he could attend to my birth,” Gabe said. “And Carlyle came a few years later.”
Micah sat in the chair, rocking slowly as it spun on its base. She held a strand of her hair, picking at split ends, so removed from the kiss on the carrier, so unattached to those emotions. She had been since they’d lifted off from the flight deck. It was almost as if it had never happened at all.
Gabe’s thoughts tangled when he was around her. The stupid children’s game sang in his mind. She loves me, she loves me not . . .
“Carlyle never told me what he did in Turkey. So strange. Sometimes I think of him like a father. And then, it’s like . . . I barely knew him,” Micah said, sitting at the seat designated by a small placard for the delegate of Israel. She toyed with an earpiece connected to some sort of digital receiver, meant obviously for translators where needed.
Clearly, Gabe thought, she’s bored.
They sat alone in the dim light under the dome of the expansive forum. The gentle slope of the roof arched down to the podium stage, following the decline of the rows of delegate seating. It somehow reminded Gabe of a concert hall.
He sat in the seat designated for Saudi Arabia a row above her. Micah wheeled around, her eyes searching the room for something to alleviate her boredom. Her chair twisted, until she was facing him.
He felt a touch on his foot. Looking under the table, he saw Micah’s foot kicking at his shoe. She smiled as she toyed with a fingernail between her teeth.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to do,” she said. “Entertain me.”
He stood, jerking his foot away, and took a few steps from her. Under his own weight, the tightness in the muscles of his legs made itself known. They felt weak, atrophied as if he’d spent the month in bed. He leaned against a table across the aisle.
“Oh, come on,” Micah protested. “Is this how it’s going to be? You bloody acting like a child every time I flirt?”
“Seriously?” Gabe barked. “How am I the ass, here? You’re so hot and cold I don’t know whether to wear linen or fleece around you.”
“Oh. My. God. You are such a baby.”
“I am not a baby. I just don’t like being played with like a new toy.”
“First, you’re an old toy. A familiar toy. You are safe and supposed to be without complications. Second, what do you want? Do you want to be in love? Get married? Do you want me to have your babies? Grow up. You don’t get that life anymore. We don’t get that life anymore. Just look at your father. He and Queen Drama? They’re us. It doesn’t work out, obviously.”
He knew she was right, even if she didn’t know how temporary their life was supposed to be on this planet. Still, this stupid preoccupation with her didn’t care about reality. It buzzed endlessly around his head like a fly refusing to leave through an open window. “So, screw my feelings?”
“You’re not supposed to have feelings. That’s the point of us. It can be just, you know, us. Together. Forgetting about all this shit around us. That’s why it’s safe. How am I the only one who sees it for what it is?”
“I can’t do that,” Gabe said, shrugging. It came out before he could consider any other side. Some voice inside urged him to shut up, but how he felt was how he felt. He couldn’t not be absorbed by her presence, by her smell, by her energy and beauty.
“You can’t do that?”
“No. I can’t stop myself from liking you more if we’re, you know, together.”
“I care for you, Gabe. And I love our friendship.”
He felt the knife turn. “Yeah. Friendship. But I can’t do the benefits part. So . . . friends without benefits. Or all the way. One or the other.”
“Fine.” Micah blew a lock of hair out of her face. “You were so much more fun five minutes ago. You can sit down. I promise not to bite.” She went back to separating good strands of hair from the bad.
Gabe cautiously approached the chair and sat, half expecting her to take a swing.
“Have you ever thought about your real parents?” Micah asked, offering the mercy of a change in subject.
“Not really. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been curious, I guess, but never enough to really dig into their history. Joseph is the only father I’ve known. I think I saw my mother in a vision once. Her face was familiar, but I didn’t feel any connection to her. It was all sad and amazing and real. And then I felt her pass. She was beautiful, but that is all I have of her. And, to be honest, it could have been a figment of my imagination. The whole birth thing was covered up by the Vatican, my father says. He doesn’t even know any details about her, really. What about you?”
“Very limited memories. I wasn’t found until a few years after my birth. I was maybe two or three. I vaguely remember having to flee our home in Iran. I remember an accident. A car. And then being told that my mother and father weren’t coming home. Or I was leaving. But they were dead. Even then. I could just feel it; do you know what I mean? I remember Carlyle, too. My first impression of him is associated with seeing snow for the first time. He said I had been born, bearing the mark, to a peasant family in a small, conservative village. Carlyle never told me how they found me, but he made sure I knew it was the Vatican and the Essenes that saved my life.”
“I’ve wondered how they knew about me, too. Weird, right? Out of all the babies born every day, they find us.”
“I think it was Enoch. He announced the births of all of us. And then they searched.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t think Enoch showed up until after we were born. My dad said Carlyle had this obsession to find us. Files and files. And none of our parents are around, either. Yuri said his parents had been dead a while.”
A moment drifted, the space between them filling with unspoken questions.
“We’ll probably never know. It’s not important, I guess.” Micah shrugged and managed a smile. “You know, without Carlyle I have nothing that connects me to this world.”
“You’ve got me,” he said, hearing his own desperation in his voice.
Her smile seemed to stretch over sadness she wanted to hide. She reached over and patted his hand the way an aunt would.
A pat, he thought. We’ve been reduced to hand patting. Before Axum, her hand might have lingered. It might have pulled away. A subtle difference, but he noticed the distinction like he noticed just about every atom of her.
He pushed the thought aside as he felt the metal ring on his finger. She was probably right. Any road he might have taken with her would, more than likely, be short. But maybe there was value in the fleeting moment.
Maybe I made a m
istake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A door opened at the other end of the forum, and lights activated overhead with a metallic humming. The fixtures sputtered to life, slowly brightening the room in a way that made Gabe feel like he had been discovered doing something he shouldn’t.
Gabe’s father walked in, followed by Secretariat Borelli.
“So, Afarôt found you, then, did he?” his father asked.
“No,” Gabe said.
“He should be here by now. So should Aseneth, for that matter.”
As if on cue, Afarôt entered, followed by Aseneth and several of her staff. Gabe felt a twist of conflicting emotions as he watched him climb the forum stairs to their level.
“There you are,” Afarôt said. “Been looking everywhere for you both.”
Gabe’s father glanced up to the lights, then back down at Gabe. He could almost hear his father’s thoughts working out the math on finding two teenagers alone in the dark. His father frowned and looked as if he wanted to launch into a cross-examination.
Gabe shook his head, waving the concern off as if to say, I’m not that lucky.
Fortunately, Gabe’s father was distracted by a folder Aseneth nearly hit him with, which landed on Micah’s table.
“Here is the list of delegates who will be attending,” Aseneth said. “Most everybody accepted, and those who are not already here are en route. The Turkish government said they would be sending an envoy to welcome the delegates as soon as everyone arrives, and they’ve offered a formal apology for not having a presence as a host. President Magus sends his personal regrets for not being able to attend but will send his newly appointed vice president in his stead. The pressing matter of establishing his new capital in Istanbul has seemingly taken precedence.”
“Highnesses,” Borelli said. “We would like to invite you to the Nicene Council. A demonstration of your abilities would be very persuasive in getting the delegates to convince their nations to join our cause.” He pinched the air with his thumb and forefinger, accentuating his point. “The Western Alliance is the key. If they unanimously support our cause, so then will the Rabbinical Assembly and the Muslim Nation.”