Alexi’s insanity almost gave me calm, an odd sense of peace, like this was supposed to happen. “You’re taking us to him?” I asked.
“Where else?” Alexi grinned and shifted into drive. We started rolling forward.
I placed my hand gently on Naomi’s leg, trying to comfort her. She looked at me like I was crazy, too. She shook her head and mouthed: No. Get out. Then she opened the passenger door.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Alexi said.
Naomi was half way out, ready to jump, when she froze. A creature blocked her way. It was the giant that had thrown Dumah. Its red eyes fixed on her, and she cowered back into the truck.
The giant slammed the door shut and jumped up, its feet landing with a thud on the roof above us. Gabriel’s spot. I hadn’t heard anything from the back of the truck. Was Aisha still there?
The truck cruised out of the tunnel. Stretched out before us, appearing all at once, was the vast city of Jerusalem. Its hillsides were dotted with charred buildings. Smoke rose in hundreds of columns and gathered in dark clouds overhead. The resistance had left its mark, but still the towers had multiplied. They clustered around the center of the old city to our left, close to the immense golden dome. The dome might have been brilliant in the early morning light, but all its radiance was swallowed by the dragon perched on top of it.
Alexi started laughing. “Looks like a golden egg, don’t you think?”
He still couldn’t see it. The dragon.
“It looks like blasphemy, like evil,” Naomi said. “Who are you?”
“Is she always this harsh?” Alexi asked me, taking his eyes off the road. We were headed straight at a guard rail and a steep drop down the hillside.
“Look!” I pointed ahead.
Alexi turned and whipped the truck left, just grazing the rail with the left headlight. He cackled again.
“This is Alexi Marcos,” I said to Naomi. “He is Don Cristo’s political adviser. You’ve seen him before. He was the UN delegate who attended our first meeting at ISA. And he visited me in Don’s palace. He was in the control tower.”
Naomi studied me, looking confused. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
I nodded, trying to assure her with my eyes, then turned to Alexi. “Why does Don want us?”
We were winding down the hillside, to a valley leading up to the dome and the dragon. “Who knows,” Alexi said, “but count yourselves lucky. See the line to visit with President Cristo?” He nodded up ahead.
An immense crowd covered the opposite hillside. They filled every inch of the roads weaving among the ancient buildings up to the Dome.
“Why do they want to see him?” Naomi asked.
“He is the world’s best hope!” Alexi said. “It was true before the solar flare, and it’s even more true now. Can you imagine the disorder and the destruction if Don weren’t in control?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t.” The buildings around us were bombed-out crumbles. Faces ducked into alleys as we rode by.
“What do you expect?” Alexi shrugged. “Don had created a perfect world for mankind, but the enemy was jealous. He destroyed it. We will pick up the pieces. Don will bring Babylon back. He has sworn this to the people.”
“What does he want with us?” Naomi asked.
“The same thing he wants from everyone: your allegiance to him.” Alexi turned and glanced at the baby. “And, of course, his son.”
The crowd grew thicker, and the roads grew tighter, as we approached the old city. The people parted for us, but we could still hardly fit. Some of them cried out for help and banged on the truck as we passed. I heard one or two shouts in Hebrew. Most were in Arabic.
The baby made a soft crying noise. Naomi cradled him close, but his eyes gazed out the front of the truck. His cries grew louder.
“Shhh, shh,” Naomi said gently.
Another bang on the side of the truck, right outside Naomi’s window. We hit a pothole in the road.
“Waa!” The baby whined. Then he was silent for a moment, winding up. “WAAAA!”
He wailed on, louder than I’d ever heard him. It made everything suddenly feel out of control.
“SHUT HIM UP,” Alexi demanded, shaking his head in annoyance. He had his right hand over his ear, keeping his left hand on the wheel.
The baby’s cries grew more intense, filling every space in the truck’s cab. It felt like we were sinking, the pressure rising.
Then Naomi started to sing. Over the baby’s wailing, over the shouts outside and the truck’s engine, her voice flowed like a soothing river. “Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,” she sang, staring down at her son. His round, innocent eyes turned to her, and he quieted down. He let out a sigh—the kind of peaceful baby sound reserved for the voice of a mother.
“Thank you,” Alexi said, still annoyed, “but could you sing something else?”
Naomi continued as if she hadn’t heard him.
“No matter,” he sighed, “we’re here.”
The truck stopped before a small gate in a huge wall. Two robotic guards stood on either side. A crowd of people gathered behind us. One of them shouted again in Arabic.
“Don awaits!” Alexi turned to me with a clown smile spread across his face.
Then a gunshot fired into the truck.
THE WINDSHIELD SPLATTERED in blood. Alexi’s smile froze. His head fell forward and thudded against the steering wheel. There was no hair to hide the gruesome hole—shot from behind. I started to look back when the demon landed on the hood and glared inside. His red eyes matched the blood on the glass.
Naomi was pulling at my arm. I could see she was shouting, but I could barely hear her through the ringing in my ears.
I read her lips: “Come on!”
I shook my head, trying to wake up, but this was no dream. I stumbled out of the truck after Naomi. A crowd pressed around us. They all wore black robes, head to toe. Their bearded faces were a blur, and so were their voices, shouting in Arabic but muffled to my ears. A line of them had guns raised in the direction of the Dome, at the dragon. Before I could make sense of it, two of the men grabbed my arms. I barely resisted as they ushered me down the hill. We were heading away from the dragon, and Naomi was right in front of me.
We rushed down two old city blocks, then turned into an alley, then another. The crowd began to clear, and so did my mind. Someone had shot Alexi. Someone from behind.
“In here!” someone shouted.
The men corralled Naomi and me through a door. We left the alley and entered a plain room stuffed with more black-robed, bearded men. They circled tight around us. They blocked the door we’d come in through—the only door out.
Aisha was cradled in the arms of a man facing us. He set her down gently in a chair beside us. Aisha laid a gun down in her lap.
“You shot him,” I said. It was neither a question nor an accusation. She’d been in the back of the truck.
She nodded. “I couldn’t shoot the guy while he was driving. Too risky. But we stopped, and I heard Zafar’s voice shouting. It was the best chance I was going to get.”
“Zafar?” Naomi’s eyes scanned the group around us.
The man who’d been holding Aisha took a step closer. “We are the Mahdi’s people, what’s left of them. He will rise again.”
“This is one of the entrances to our headquarters here,” Aisha added. “The other leaders should be here soon, including one from your order.”
“Who?” I thought of Chris.
Aisha shrugged, her lower body motionless on the chair. “I don’t know. I’ve been here only as long as you have. When the power came back on a few hours ago, Zafar and the others picked up my signal. They knew we were coming into Jerusalem. They were waiting to save us from Cristo’s men.”
“Dajjal.” Zafar growled the name and glared down at the baby in Naomi’s arms. “This is his child?”
“Yes.” Aisha’s eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, Naomi.”
Naomi clutched her
son tighter and stepped back. “He is my child.”
“You are lucky,” the man said. “I let you live. But not this … monster.” Zafar nodded to the others in the room and shouted some order in Arabic.
Naomi crouched as the men closed on us. I tried to step in front of her, but the men were soldiers. One of them shoved me aside like I was nothing. A man reached for the baby, and Naomi shrieked and twisted away. She fell back and collapsed into Aisha. The men surrounded her, but then they froze. Naomi had Aisha’s gun in her hand.
The men drew their own guns. At least a dozen of them.
“Naomi.” Aisha’s voice was calm. “Give them the baby.”
“Never.” Naomi held the gun steady.
“If you shoot, you die,” Zafar said. “So does the monster.”
“You know what it is,” Aisha added. “The devil is its father. We cannot let it live.”
Naomi shook her head. “The devil wants evil, but my baby is innocent.”
“Dajjal won’t stop until he has the child. Hand him over. Now.”
I glanced at Naomi. Her eyes were fierce. I remembered my dream, with the baby in the dragon’s belly. Maybe this was how it was supposed to happen. Maybe there was a compromise. “What if—”
“No more words,” Zafar demanded, his eyes locked on Naomi. “Last chance, put down the gun.”
He stepped forward, and Naomi leapt back. She swung her arm around and jammed the gun to Aisha’s temple. “Try to take him, and Aisha dies.”
“Take the child,” Aisha said to Zafar. “I’ve done my part. I’m nothing without my legs.”
Nobody moved. I slid between Naomi and the men.
“Easy, now,” I said. “She’ll shoot.”
“Do it!” Aisha said behind me. “Fire!”
Zafar lurched forward. Naomi fired a shot.
CRACK.
The sound froze everyone, but only for a moment. One of the men slammed into me. We crashed to the floor. I tried to fight free, but another man grabbed my legs. They pinned me down, tied my wrists and ankles. Something was tied over my mouth. A bag went over my head.
Over the noise of men rushing past, I heard Naomi screaming, more shouting, and the baby wailing. Then, slicing through it all, I heard a familiar voice shouting, “Stop. No, STOP!”
EVERYTHING FELL QUIET, motionless. Through the bag over my head I heard heavy breathing from one of the men beside me, then Chris’s calm voice further away.
“You’re safe,” he said. “Calm down, it’s—”
“No!” Naomi shouted. “I will NOT calm down. They took my baby. They want to kill him!”
“The child must die,” Zafar growled. “We have agreed.”
Boots shuffled around me. I twisted on the ground, trying to get someone’s attention, writhing as the cords cut into my wrists and ankles. I couldn’t see, couldn’t speak.
“Hold!” Chris ordered. “Hold. We did not agree to this. Akil is coming. Akil will decide.”
Zafar said something I couldn’t understand. The movement stopped.
“We agreed the child was a danger,” Chris said, “and that it would likely die. I never agreed we would kill it. Enough innocent blood is spilling.”
“Innocent?” Zafar scoffed.
“All mankind is fallen, but this is a son of man, not of the devil. We have tested it.”
“Your tests know nothing of the spirit, the ro’eh.”
Roeh. My middle name, my mother’s maiden name. I heard the shuffle of more movement, then a new voice. It had an Arabic accent, but it sounded older, wiser.
“All of you, sit.”
No one protested. More movement—like chairs sliding across the floor.
“Zafar, hand the child back to his mother.”
He grunted in protest, but then I heard Naomi’s sigh of relief. She seemed to have forgotten completely about me. I tried twisting again, banging my arms against the floor. A boot slammed into my side with a dull thud. I lay still, gagged and hurting and listening in the dark.
“When the greatest evil arises, even enemies must unite against it.” It was the old man’s voice. Akil. I imagined him with a thick gray beard and a turban high on his head. “Chris and I have agreed in these last days. We cannot take the child if our partners do not consent. Chris?”
“We fight against Don Cristo,” Chris said. “There is no trace of evil in this baby. The order, the Mahdi’s people, and the true Israelis will make this last stand together.”
“You made a deal with them?” Naomi’s voice was calmer, but I knew her, and her purity would not stand for this. “Do you know how many have died at the Mahdi’s hands?”
“Quiet, girl,” Zafar growled.
“Millions! That’s how many have died because of you.”
“Please, both of you,” Chris said. “Naomi, they have protected me. Remember our call to love even our enemies.”
“With limits!” Naomi gasped. “Do you love Don Cristo, the man who killed your children? Do you love the Mahdi, the man who bombed the innocent? Do you love the devil himself?”
A gunshot cracked into the air.
“Silence!” Zafar shouted. “No one says Mahdi in the same breath as Dajjal. Do it again and your friend dies, along with the child.”
“Friend?” Chris asked. “Who?”
A shuffle of feet near me.
“Bring him here,” Akil said. “Untie him.”
Suddenly men were dragging me across the floor. Someone put me in a chair and cut the bindings on my wrists and feet. The bag lifted off my head.
The first thing I saw was Chris’s shocked, smiling face. “I thought we’d lost you,” he said.
Before me, standing tense around a table, were Chris, Naomi, Zafar, and four other men. One of them was older—gray beard but no turban. Everyone but Chris and Akil held a gun. I noticed Aisha, looking defeated, in a chair behind the others. Everyone’s eyes were on me, but my gaze moved on, to a light, to a man sitting on the windowsill.
It was Gabriel.
“What do you see?” Naomi asked.
“Gabriel,” I said, keeping my eyes on the angel. “You survived?”
He nodded. His eyes hinted at a smile on his flawless face. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t budge.
“So this is the seer?” Zafar said. “The boy with the visions?”
I ignored him. “Can you help us?” I asked the angel.
He held up his palms to me and mouthed the word, Stay. More words filled my mind. Love your enemies. Give up what you hold tightest.
“He speaks to the air,” mocked one of the men. “We never should have partnered with these Nasraneyin.”
I turned to the man who had spoken. His mouth was mostly hidden behind a long black beard, but it looked like a snarl.
“You cannot see what I can.” I stepped forward, feeling a great energy rising in my core. “I have seen Dajjal in his true form. I have seen the Messiah. I have seen the end, and now I see the angel Gabriel.” I turned back to the window. But Gabriel was gone. My mouth fell open as I faced the group at the table again.
The man scoffed, “I say we kill the baby and this lunatic.” His face flickered, then was normal. I’d seen that before. On Gregory’s face. On Vicente’s.
“Demon.” I pointed at him.
“You doubt me?” the man said to the others. “Listen to this Yahoudy.”
“Quiet.” Akil’s voice commanded attention. “I had wondered …” The old man’s eyes were fixed on me. They held wisdom and wonder and not a trace of fear. “We must have dignity, especially now. If our enemy drives us to this, he has won.” He turned to the man whose face had changed. “Zafar, take Ifrit away. Lock him up. He is no longer one of us.”
“What?” The man surged to his feet, but Zafar had already leveled a gun at him.
Zafar shrugged. “Akil’s orders. Let’s go.”
“If not for your guardian,” the man growled, glancing to the window and then glaring at me, “you would be dead now
.” But he did not resist as Zafar guided him away at gunpoint. Another man lifted a hatch on the floor, revealing stairs. They walked down them and out of sight.
Chris stood beside Akil, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. “We must hold whatever bonds remain. We cannot divide like this.”
“What do you suggest?” Akil asked.
“I know what to do,” I said. They all turned to me. “Your people want the child to die?”
Akil nodded. “Many wish this.”
I turned to Naomi. Trust me, I tried to say with my eyes. “And we know you hold him close, he’s your son. So we use him as a decoy.”
“What are you doing?” Naomi whispered.
“We don’t have much choice.”
“A decoy,” Akil mused. “Tell us more.”
“Don Cristo wants the baby more than anything,” I said. “We can use that to our advantage.”
Chris was nodding. “We have our position near the Dome, hidden like before. So if we set the child somewhere out in the open, away from the Dome, Don’s androids will come for it. They will bring a force, thinking we would defend that position. But instead we attack the Dome. One final onslaught, with all the firepower we have, against Don’s headquarters.”
“I like it,” Akil said. “Zafar can lead our men.”
“You can’t take Adam from me.” Naomi sounded uncertain.
“We won’t,” Chris said. “You stay with your son, as Don would expect. If we succeed, you might be safe for a while.”
“I will call our forces,” Akil said. “We will develop the plan. Let’s meet again in an hour.” He motioned for his men to leave. They stormed out of the room, but one of them stopped and lifted Aisha. Her legs dangled uselessly from his arms.
“Eli,” Aisha said, “I believe you. I’ll stay with you.”
The man holding her looked to Akil, as if for permission.
“So it will be,” Akil said. “But first, Aisha, let us take you to our people. This may be goodbye.” Aisha nodded, and their group made its way down the stairs.
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