We checked in and dropped off our bags, with just enough time in the lobby for me to soak up the five-star air and swallow a shot of espresso.
The crowds would already be gathering for the Easter ceremony. So we headed out, toward the Vatican.
THE SUN WAS still low on the horizon when we left the hotel and joined the masses streaming along Rome’s streets. The sky was a brilliant orange-red, casting all the marble in a hue that hinted at blood. If my dreams were coming true, I figured we were sheep going to slaughter. Everyone seemed excited. Palpable energy filled the air.
We squeezed through the entrance to the Vatican and the piazza. The vast area was already packed, so we found a place to stand by one of the columns furthest from the basilica. As we waited there, the colorful sky began fading into a normal blue. My dream had dark clouds, and none of those were to be seen. Or maybe my dream had started with a blue sky? Not that I was worried. “How much longer do we have to wait?” I asked Naomi.
“Maybe half an hour.” She was gazing at the basilica on the far side of the piazza. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
The impressive dome was shining in the morning sun. “Yeah,” I said, “and it looks just like it did in my dreams.”
She turned to me. “You’re still thinking about that?”
“What else am I supposed to think about? I remember standing in pretty much this exact spot, but I’ve never been here before. This is surreal.”
“It is a clear morning, Easter morning. If what you’ve seen comes true, I will still trust in the Lord.” She swept her arm out towards the crowd. “So will many of these people, and maybe you will, too.”
“What do you mean?” It sounded like she fully expected what I’d seen to happen. “You’re the one who wanted to come for this,” I added. “Shouldn’t we have stayed away if disaster is coming?”
“This is where we’re supposed to be, Elijah. Right now, enjoy it with me while we can. This place is spectacular. Did you know they started building St. Peter’s Basilica over five hundred years ago? The saint himself is buried deep inside its tombs.” There was a zealous excitement in her voice.
“I’ve heard that,” I said. “Bart told me the Romans killed Peter on a cross, hung him upside down. If you’re both right, I think it’s pretty ironic that he ends up buried here.”
“Ironic?” she asked, looking offended.
“Yeah, the Romans kill the guy, then he gets some special burial in the capital of the empire. Then the church goes on killing opponents for centuries, the crusades and all that. Next thing you know, they’ll move Mohammad’s bones to these tombs to start the next cycle.”
She sighed. “Can we just wait in quiet and try to savor this moment?” Without waiting for an answer, she crossed her arms and turned away from me.
I wished I hadn’t opened my mouth. I’d really been doing a good job tolerating her faith, I thought. There were more important things, like love. We’d figure it out.
My legs started getting tired while we waited in silence. It was an awkward silence, especially with all the people around us talking. I tried to count the different languages to pass the time. I heard five I knew and seven I didn’t. I wondered how many were Jewish like me.
Naomi still had her arms crossed when the Pope finally walked out. He looked like a little pearl from where we stood. The stone piazza and basilica formed the oyster shell around him. Two giant screens to his sides zoomed in on his face of pale wrinkles and bright, beady eyes.
He held up a cross and began to speak. At first I didn’t understand a word of it. I’d forgotten this service would be in Latin. V caught up quickly, translating the words, but I’d missed the very beginning.
“What did he say at first?” I asked Naomi.
“He is beginning the Easter mass, saying the rites.” She kept her eyes on the Pope. “He invokes tradition.”
Welcome to the celebration of the resurrection, V translated. It was amusing to hear her Australian voice speaking the Pope’s words. Praise the Lord that we can celebrate this Holy Mass…
He spoke on and on, calling everyone to put faith in Jesus, calling for hope built on the rock which is God, calling for more religious stuff. I heard the words, but as each moment passed, I felt my dream slipping away. Maybe the tiniest part of me had actually thought it would happen, even if I could never want such a thing. An hour drifted by. The sky was still blue. The world still spun. My dream was nothing more than a dream. Nothing special.
And in closing, the Pope said, I pray for the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints, that the Holy Spirit may protect your souls and guide your vision. Amen. The little pearl of a man stopped speaking and lifted his cross.
The ground seemed to shake. Just a little shake. My legs were probably tired from standing so long.
But then another tremor. Not an earthquake. Was it just my imagination?
People around us started murmuring.
“Did you feel that?” I asked.
Naomi looked at me. This time her eyes were alert, alarmed, like someone who’s had way too much coffee.
“It’s coming,” she said.
Suddenly the sky was growing dark behind larger-than-life clouds. Wind began to gust.
“I thought you said—”
The ground started shaking again. There was no missing it this time. It trembled like jelly under my feet.
People started running and screaming. I staggered back just as someone collided with me. Our legs tangled and I fell to the side, my shoulder banging into a column. I was on the ground when I heard the sound. My heart froze.
It was the groan, the same deep groan from deep in the earth. Then, CRACK.
Everything happened exactly as I’d seen it, like when you’re watching a movie for the tenth time. Except now I was awake, and my spinning questions and doubts crashed onto something hard: reality.
A lightning bolt struck, sudden and severe. It hit the cross at the top of the piazza’s obelisk. Its flash was emblazoned in my eyes.
The cross smoked and leaned and crashed down. The crack through the middle of the piazza began to widen. Then, like a rubber band pulled taut and snapping apart, the piazza split open. The huge chasm swallowed hundreds of people. Their screams echoed and then were gone in the blackness below.
I felt a tug at my arm. It was Naomi, standing over me. She helped me to my feet, her face afraid but determined. We turned to run out, but then the ground shook violently again, knocking us both to our knees.
We watched in shock as the splitting earth spread to the basilica. I knew what was coming, but I still doubted it until the cracks rippled over the dome. The building wavered, swaying as if fighting gravity. But it lost the fight. The dome imploded and then the whole mass collapsed. A cloud of dust and debris mushroomed toward us.
I wanted to believe the creature wasn’t coming next.
I wanted to believe it was just a dream.
But I had to believe my eyes when the shape rose from the chasm. Huge oily claws grabbed the lip of the gaping cliff, then the creature leapt into the air and unfurled its wings. Where the obelisk had been, the black dragon-like creature now hovered. Its giant wings flapped smoothly, holding its position like a seagull on a steady ocean wind. Its body was slender and smooth, more snakelike than I remembered, with sinister shadows coiling and wisping around it. The dragon’s face looked eerily thoughtful…and hateful.
The few people still scattered around the piazza didn’t seem to notice the creature. Some were huddled over fallen bodies, but most were rushing out of the square without a look back, away from the destroyed basilica and the chasm.
One tall, lean figure in the piazza looked calm. He walked toward the dragon. It fixed its red eyes on the man as if seeing an old friend. The dragon suddenly spoke words I could not understand. They sounded like grunts, but the man paused and nodded as if he knew their meaning. This time I knew who the man was. He was Abaddon, Don Cristo, President of the UN, and he was turning
to me.
I tried to stand, to run, but my body did not budge. It felt paralyzed.
“Elijah.” It was Naomi’s voice. She was beside me.
“Elijah,” she repeated. “Remember what Bart said. Remember what my mother said.”
I had never told her about her mother, but I hardly had time to think about that. I remembered: you must go, you must protect her, do not let him touch you. That was what her mother had said.
“We can’t move,” I said.
“I know. He’s here.”
“Naomi.” Don was standing over us. He looked even more magnificent in person, and his smile was ecstatic. How could harm come from him? I sensed this was a man who could give me whatever I wanted.
“Nooo…” Naomi strained to say the word.
“My dear Naomi. This will go better for you if you stay silent.” He placed his finger over her lips and gazed down into her eyes.
Her lips looked sealed tight. Their normal luster became a pale thin line across her terrified face.
“There now, isn’t that better?” he asked. “I have known for so long that it would be you, Naomi. So brave, so beautiful, so innocent, so like his mother.” He spoke the word “his” with spewing venom and disgust, but then his face was smooth again, like a man who has passed by an intolerable stench. “How does it feel to be my chosen? Would you feel my touch?”
“Abaddon,” the word bubbled out of me. I was desperate to free Naomi from his gaze.
“Elijah!” he said, gleaming with pride. “It is good to see you again, much better than dreams, don’t you think?” His voice was smooth and welcoming. He held out his hand to me. “Remember, call me Don.”
I reached up to shake his hand.
“NO!” Naomi screamed through barely open lips.
Don turned to her, but he spoke to me. “This is a special woman, Elijah. But you already know that, don’t you? Now I will touch one of you. Should it be you, or her?” he mused.
Naomi was silent, but her face contorted with rage and fear. Her lips looked glued together again.
Do not let him touch you, I remembered.
“Touch her,” I said, with no clue what it would mean.
“Wise choice.” Don held out his hand. He inched it forward, toward her petrified face. The only part of her that moved was her eyes. They flipped about wildly, as if watching a swarm of gnats buzzing before her face.
Then Don knelt down and pressed his hand against her stomach, and Naomi’s eyes closed. Don’s other hand went to her forehead, and then reached for her waist. With both hands around her, he lifted her effortlessly and pulled her close to him.
“See,” he whispered to her, “that was not so bad.”
Her eyes were still closed. She sagged against his body.
“What’s happening?” I asked. I was not afraid, even though I had every reason to be. It was as if this man had power to terrify and to soothe. He was soothing me, and I could not stop him.
Don turned to me. He looked amused. “Haven’t they been teaching you, Elijah? You’re the only who could know. I will help you in time, if you survive. My friend is hungry.” He glanced over his shoulder at the dragon. “And more friends are coming soon. You two better run along now.”
He leaned Naomi’s limp body against my shoulder. Her eyes were starting to blink open as he turned and walked away, toward the chasm and the dragon.
I noticed then that the piazza was empty. Where thousands had stood just minutes ago, now there was no one left. Just Don, Naomi, a dragon, and me.
I pinched myself. I rubbed my eyes. Nothing happened. I was still awake. My breath caught and my heart raced. All I knew was that this was real, and I had a feeling Naomi had known that all along.
“WHAT HAPPENED?” NAOMI murmured, with her eyes half shut and almost all her weight on me. “I can’t remember anything after he was walking toward us.”
“He touched you.” I didn’t know what else to say. Don was nowhere to be seen. I tried to bring up V, to check Naomi’s vitals. Nothing showed. My precept worked, but was no longer connected. I felt like a medieval explorer without a compass or a map. “Can you walk?” I asked. “We have to get out of here.”
“I can walk with your help.”
I took a step to go, her arm draped heavy over my shoulders. Then I heard a horrific sound all around me, so loud it felt like it came from inside my head—the dragon’s roar. The creature flapped its wings and eyed us as it rose in the air.
It suddenly flew straight at us.
I dove with Naomi to the side of the closest column. The dragon’s head slammed into it and knocked the enormous stones over. It roared and took flight again.
I scooped Naomi up into my arms and ran. I ran as fast I could, my heart pounding. I saw no sign of the creature once we were outside the piazza. The broad street leading out of the Vatican, the Via della Concilizione, was in chaos. But it was oddly comforting. At least there were other people here. No one acted as if they’d just seen an enormous flying serpent. It was like a normal disaster scene, I guessed, having never actually seen one in person before.
The ground rolled under my feet again, though not as bad as before.
“Another earthquake!” shouted someone.
People were sprinting and scattering like ants under the shadow of a boot. I kept on running. The buildings around us wobbled. Several had already collapsed and lay in ruins. The sky was still darkened by clouds overhead, but the lightning had relented.
We were halfway between the Vatican and the Tiber River when I stopped to catch my breath. I could not carry Naomi much longer. I set her down and tried to pull up V. This time there was nothing at all. I pressed my wrist for a manual reload. I issued the reboot command. Nothing.
Suddenly I realized how slow and bland my mind felt. It was like a plain potato, robbed of the fixings.
I took a deep breath and picked up Naomi. She did not protest. She just looked up at me with a faint, pained grin. “Thank you,” she whispered.
I carried her toward a nearby row of parked scooters. Two guys were yanking on their wires, trying to jump-start them. Good thing Rome still had scooters old enough to hot wire.
“Can you help us?” I asked a wiry, dark-haired man who looked like he knew what he was doing.
He lifted his eyebrows, shook his head, then kept working on the wires of a rusted, lime-green scooter.
I tried Italian, “Potete aiutare?”
He glanced up, with understanding on his face.
“Gli darò oro.” My words came out choppy without V’s help, but nothing about my watch did. It was gleaming oro, gold. I held it out of his reach and pointed at the scooter.
“Bene,” he said with a smile.
His weathered hands took up the wires again and seconds later the motor was running. I gave him the watch, and he turned to work on the next scooter in the line.
I helped Naomi onto the seat and sat in front of her. “Hold tight, okay?”
“Okay, get us out of here.” Her voice was distant, but her grip around my waist was tight.
I’d never ridden one of these things, but I figured it was like riding a bike. It wasn’t. The throttle was tight. The engine sputtered and jerked as I tried to accelerate. It took every ounce of my focus to navigate through the debris littering the streets. But I made it work, riding as fast as I could toward the Tiber River. I wanted out of Rome and following a river seemed like my best bet.
Once I reached the Tiber, traffic was jammed everywhere. I kept to the sidewalks, dodging people, café tables, and chunks of fallen buildings. The muddy water flowing beside us was raging and churning like a flash flood. A few lifeless bodies were riding along the foam waves.
“There…” Naomi pointed to a sign for a highway.
“E80?”
“Mm hmm, to Fiumicino.” She sounded hurt, or sick, or maybe worse.
“What’s wrong? What did you feel when he touched you?”
“Just go,” she said, l
eaning her head against my back. “I need you.”
I nodded and forged ahead, following the signs to the highway. Within minutes, and after a few near crashes into poles and people and cars, we were on the highway.
It was a parking lot. People had stopped their cars and gotten out. They were shouting and panicking. I carved through the crowd like I was a drone in an ISA-7 test. They were just obstacles in my path, and my goal was to reach the port city of Fiumicino. I hoped Naomi knew what she was talking about.
We eventually reached a huge pileup of cars blocking the road. I swung to the far right, by the road’s barrier, and barely squeezed through. My knee scraped against the concrete, ripping a hole in my jeans and drawing blood. A small price.
The highway was clear from there. The wind whipped at me, the sky boiling overhead, as I accelerated the little scooter.
While we zoomed along, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. My dreams had been real. The dragon and the man, they were real, too. Don had touched Naomi. It had done something to her, but what? It was just a touch. How had it so affected her? I still felt like I was going to wake up soon.
After a short while, Naomi squeezed my shoulder. “Here. This exit.”
I turned off a ramp from the highway. It was the exit for the Fiumicino airport. The sea was not far in the distance.
“Left here,” she said. “Stay on this road another mile.”
I followed her directions even though they led us away from the airport. I trusted that she had a plan. Was it something from ISA-7?
We drove into the port city, where the scene was the same as in Rome, if on a smaller scale. People were in the streets, in disarray, amid piles of crumbled buildings.
After Naomi directed me through another five turns, she pointed me toward a narrow alley. The alley led to an inlet tucked tight between buildings on either side. A thin dock reached out into the water. Two men in military fatigues were standing there with automatic rifles. Floating behind them was a sleek, charcoal-colored yacht.
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