“This is a holy place,” answered Apollos.
“I guess so. I see lots of crosses,” I said.
Naomi took my hand. “The crosses mean something.” Her eyes begged me to indulge in whatever was going on.
“Even if it is holy,” I said, “that doesn’t explain why we’d rush away from Rome just to end up here.”
“What do you think happened in Rome?” John asked.
“An earthquake,” I hesitated, “and something bigger.”
“Much bigger,” John said. “Bart has told me what you discussed with him. Did your dreams not prove true?”
“It’s getting harder to separate dreams from reality,” I answered, looking to Naomi. How could she not have seen the dragon? “No one else saw anything unusual in Rome.”
The old man nodded like he knew I was hiding something. He picked up a book from a wooden shelf by a wall of the cave. “Two thousand years ago, my namesake John saw unusual things, things no one else saw.” He put his finger on a page of the book. I noticed even he was wearing one of those rings on his thumb. “The apostle saw a serpent unbound, a woman clothed with the sun, and a great white throne. Many think his visions are allegory, or crazy. Is that what you think?”
“Yeah, they sound crazy. Symbolic at best.”
“Like your visions?” he pressed.
“They are more than symbolic,” I admitted.
“Because they proved to be true?”
“I don’t know.” I was running out of explanations.
“Care to guess why you’re here?”
“Your order wants to know what I see…maybe because you think I’ll tell you what’s coming next.”
“That’s right,” he said. “We have faith about the future, but that does not mean we know all the steps and their reasons.” He sighed. “Here’s what I believe: you’re a seer, Elijah. You see what others cannot. In the days ahead, you must learn to act upon what you see.” His words dripped out with the patience of pouring honey. “Seeing the truth is only a curse if you deny it or stand still and watch.”
“Wise words,” said an unknown woman’s sultry voice. “And fine last words, though they’ll do no good.” She stood in the doorway, hands on her bare hips. Sleek black scales, like those of the dragon in Rome, covered her skin but revealed every curve of her perfect body. I could not move my eyes off her.
“What do you say, my little prince?” A forked tongue flicked out of her mouth, towards Gregory.
“The words will do no good,” the prince mumbled in response. He stepped close to her. I found myself yearning to feel her touch, jealous as she ran her finger along Gregory’s cheek.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she asked.
“This is Jezebel,” he said to us. I broke my gaze away and was stunned to see Naomi and Apollos eyeing her with innocent smiles, as if she were a normal woman passing by.
Only John’s useless eyes looked at her differently. He was wary, pressed against the back wall of the cave. His words came out firmer than iron: “I prayed it would not be you, Gregory. What was your price?”
“Me,” Jezebel answered, smiling. Her teeth were like fangs, but with her sensuous lips, they threatened pleasure instead of pain. “It’s not too late for the rest of you to switch sides.” She stepped forward and beckoned to me.
I held out my hand. I wanted nothing more than to feel her touch. Her voice drowned out my other senses.
“Stop him.” It was John’s voice.
I heard the words as if in the distance. Jezebel’s body filled my mind, my very existence. It beckoned me.
But suddenly Naomi was tugging me away. She looked plain, human, compared to Jezebel.
“Elijah, Elijah,” Naomi was saying, “What’s going on? What do you see? Something more than a tourist woman?”
Jezebel ran a finger between her breasts. “Come, Elijah, I have something for you.”
I stepped towards her, but Naomi gripped my arm firmly, holding me back.
“What do you see?” John asked. “Elijah, what does she look like?”
“Pleasure,” I answered.
“Describe her,” John demanded.
“Describe me,” Jezebel invited.
I hardly recognized my voice as I spoke. I could not restrain the passion, even lust. “Her face and body are so dark, so perfectly chiseled.”
“What?” Naomi’s mouth gaped open.
“Tell us more,” John said.
“She has bare onyx skin.” Words began to roll out of my lips as if Jezebel were a muse summoning them. “Bare except for the smooth scales, hiding but revealing her hips, her waist, her breasts. Her mouth is danger and delight, a forked tongue and lips like a forbidden fruit. The little horns are—”
“Demon!” Apollos shouted. “How can this be? Away!” He was holding up a gold cross toward the woman.
“Shiny cross,” she said. “At least you can look at that while you all die. Last chance, who wants to join Gregory and me? Who wants to live? Who wants me?”
“No,” whispered Naomi in my ear, still holding my arm tight. “Elijah!”
The way she said my name broke something, like a dark glass sphere around me cracking and light shining through. I stepped back from Jezebel, whose eyes were glowing coals. “What are you?” I asked. “How—”
“In the name of Jesus Christ,” John interrupted, his ancient voice as solid as the cave walls. “You shall have none of us. You know our Lord will prevail.”
Jezebel bellowed out a deep, harsh laugh. Carnal waves rippled through her curved figure.
A loud crack from outside silenced the room.
“The true lord is coming now.” Her smile was gone. All of her allure turned to terror. Fear and shame gripped me. “You will all die.” She pointed at me. “This battle has just begun.”
Then the ground started shaking.
“OUT, NOW!” APOLLOS charged toward the door leading out of the cave, with his cross held out toward Jezebel.
I moved to follow but stumbled when the ground lurched. Jezebel struck Apollos like a snake. She grabbed his outstretched arm and snapped it over her knee. The cross fell to the ground and Apollos screamed in pain.
Jezebel turned to Gregory and slid her forked tongue into his mouth. His face was in ecstasy, his eyes blazed. Jezebel pulled back and fled out of the cave.
Gregory stood blocking the door. Apollos was on his knees, groaning over his broken arm.
The ground shook again, harder.
“We have to go,” John said. Stones began to tumble from the rock walls and ceiling above.
Naomi stepped forward. A small, gleaming gun was in her hand. Where had that come from?
“Let us out,” she demanded to Gregory.
“My ray of sunshine,” he said, his eyes still burning fires. “I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
“Three.” She pointed the gun at his head. He blinked but stood his ground.
“Two.”
There was a roar outside. I knew the sound. The dragon.
“One.”
She lowered the gun and…crack!
The sound exploded in the room and Gregory fell, screaming and grabbing his leg.
Naomi kept her gun pointed at him while she motioned for the rest of us to leave. John and Apollos hurried out, and Naomi and I followed.
A vast chasm split the island in two. The dragon was hovering in the air over the chasm, wrapped in shadows. Its red eyes glared at us just as in Rome.
“You all see that?” I asked, pointing at the monster while it flapped its gigantic, sinuous wings.
“Another earthquake,” said Naomi. “The ground is ripped open. We have to get back to the boat.” She sounded every bit like an ISA-7 agent, and not at all like someone who saw a dragon in the sky.
“What do you see?” John asked. His blind eyes seemed to be studying me.
“The dragon, or serpent, or whatever you call it.” I pointed at the creature. “It’s right there.”
“So he is unbound.” John’s solemn voice matched his white-haired visage. “Naomi is right, we have to get to the boat. We cannot fight him. He will only destroy and torment until he is conquered.”
“This way,” Apollos grunted, clutching his broken and bleeding arm. He started down the path we had followed up to the cave. John went second, Naomi was third, and I was last. We moved at a quick walk, as fast as John’s aged legs could go.
Halfway down we had to step over the body of one of the guards. Blood puddled around him, and a boulder was on the ground by his side. There were no cliffs over us. It was as if the huge rock had been thrown at the man.
We kept going and turned a corner so that the vessel came into view in the cove. Jezebel was standing on the sandy shore, between the raft and us. Her hand was on her hip, waiting and daring us to approach.
“I’ll fight her,” Naomi said. “Apollos, you and John get to the raft.”
“I’ll fight, too,” I volunteered.
“No,” Naomi ordered. “She has power over you, because you can see her true form. All I see is a bland, dark-haired woman.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “I am your vision. Do you have another gun?”
Naomi shook her head, but Apollos pulled one out of his robe. It was long and thin, with a charge pack by the trigger and Chinese characters. An automatic laser rifle. China was rumored to have equipped its drones with these.
“Here.” Apollos held it out to me. “My right arm is broken. Take it.”
I took the gun. Its weight in my hands made me feel stronger—probably false security.
“You cannot kill her,” John explained, “but you can resist her. Any resistance against her will weaken her.” He pressed his finger to my forehead and made the sign of a cross. “To avoid her allure, close your eyes if you must,” he told me. “We will slip behind her while you fight, then you must join us.”
Our group split then, with Naomi and me walking straight towards Jezebel. She moved forward to meet us.
“I like you, Elijah,” Jezebel taunted. “That’s why I’m going to give you another chance. Let me take your girlfriend and these two worthless priests, and I’ll let you ride my father and, if you’re lucky, me.”
Naomi shot her gun and hit Jezebel between the eyes. The demon woman staggered back, but the hole from the wound sealed over in black and she stood straight again.
“Not nice, sun girl,” growled Jezebel. This time she sounded nothing like a temptress. “You know we are rivals. Won’t you let me play with your pet boy?”
“Your words will not affect me,” Naomi said. She fired her gun again. “I do not need to see your true form to know you for what you are.”
I raised the gun to my shoulder, looked down the barrel, aimed at Jezebel’s chest, and pulled the trigger. With only a slight quiver, a red line suddenly beamed out. Its path was true. It hit the demon right where her heart would be, if she had one.
“No!” she screamed, glaring at me. She staggered forward with a grimace on her face. The laser fired through her and out her back, but still she advanced. The beam was like a rope, tugging her closer.
Crack, crack, crack.
Naomi unloaded on her. The three shots made Jezebel fall. As she did, the laser beam split her open like a zipper undone through her shoulder.
I let go of the trigger, and the red beam disappeared. Jezebel was a sizzling pile of broken blackness on the ground.
Naomi took four swift steps to stand over the pile. Her taut, outstretched arm fired the rest of the bullets down into the smoldering remnants.
The smoke from the tip of Naomi’s gun swirled and mixed with the fumes from Jezebel’s twitching, destroyed body. Part of me cringed at the loss of that physical beauty, but most of me wanted to run somewhere, anywhere away from here, as fast as I could possibly run.
A rush of wind engulfed us and stopped me before I could make a move. The dragon soared overhead and landed just above us, on the bottom of the hillside. Its landing sent a cascade of huge stones rolling down at the beach and us.
As we scrambled away, Apollos was charging back towards us. He threw Naomi to the side just as the stones crashed down. An instant later a boulder rolled over him, exactly where Naomi had been standing. His brown robe was motionless. Blood pooled out from under his crushed body.
Naomi cried out at his side. I fell to my knees in shock.
“Come, now!” John shouted. He was standing in shallow water by the raft. Two guards were there now, with guns raised to the sky, nowhere near the dragon.
Now I was convinced. They could not see the creature, and I most certainly could. No figment of my imagination could send boulders crashing like that, killing Apollos.
Naomi raced for John, and I followed after her. A glance back over my shoulder showed the dragon taking flight again.
It swooped low, inches from our heads, and landed in the water beside the raft, the guards, and John.
Its giant mouth sneered at me.
“No!” I shouted.
“What?” Naomi’s voice sounded desperate, terrified.
“The dragon…” I said, pointing at the creature. Its movements were strange, gradual then twitching, like a spirit possessed or a leaf whipped around in the wind. I almost expected it not to be able to touch the men, but when it flung its wings out, the guards were flicked away like marbles. Their bodies splashed far into deeper water.
John turned his head to where the men had been, but he had no chance. The dragon stretched its jaws wide, then struck straight down at him. Its teeth pierced through the old man, jerking his body like a mutt with a bone.
“No!” Naomi cried. “Elijah! What can we do?” She clung to me, shaking hard.
“We have to fight it,” I said. This creature was definitely and terribly real.
I aimed my gun and unleashed the laser into the dragon’s body. It twisted and shrieked, but it was too late.
With a last snap of its head, it flung John high over our heads. His lifeless body crashed into the stones behind us. My breath froze.
Both of the priests were dead.
Naomi’s face was ashen shock as tears began streaming down her cheeks. “Elijah!” she screamed. “Stop it!”
The dragon roared at me. The laser was a line connecting us, but this time the red beam did not pierce through. It was swallowed by the dark ribbons of smoke swirling around the dragon’s body. I realized there was no way I could kill this thing.
The creature began to flap its wings and lift into the sky. It flew at us again. I tried to shield Naomi. The dragon was too fast. As it flashed by us, it swung its tail around my side and whipped it into Naomi.
Snap!
It sounded like her body broke. Then she was soaring through the air away from me. With a loud thud, she landed twenty feet away. Her body rolled to a stop in the shallowest water by the shore.
I sprinted to her. She was on her back, looking up at the sky. She was still breathing, barely.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I lied.
“Elijah,” she grimaced. “It wasn’t…not like this.”
“I’ll get you to the boat now.”
“No time,” she gasped. “I’m dying.”
“No,” I spoke as if the word could change reality. “I won’t let you.”
The dragon roared again in the distance. It almost sounded like laughter.
“Elijah, listen.” She was motionless as tiny waves washed up against her body.
I put my hands on her cheeks and looked into her beautiful, distant eyes. “I’m listening. What?”
“You are chosen. A gift. You must see…prepare the way.” She paused. It was too long a pause. I did not need our sync to tell me she was fading fast.
“Naomi!”
Her eyes saw me. “I love you…” she exhaled.
Then her eyes did not see me. They were blank.
“Wait, Naomi, wait! I love you.”
She did not answ
er.
“No, please.” A groan rose up from inside me. “Nooo!” I shouted. “God, please, no…take me!”
But her breaths had stopped. Her eyes froze, and she was right there, in my arms, dead.
MY CHEST HEAVED as I knelt over Naomi’s body.
I felt for a pulse and felt nothing. I laid my head on her chest, listening for anything. I heard nothing. I tried to turn on my precept, to check our sync. Nothing.
But I felt everything, deep in my core.
It was like a guillotine dropping on a thin thread, where the thread was a chance of a future together. How could I have held such hope for such frail twine? I should have known it would not hold in this chaos, much less against the dragon, the guillotine of my dreams.
As my emotions raged, the dragon and all else became nothing to me. My only reality was sobbing, tears falling on Naomi’s motionless body.
I cried out again. “God,” I pleaded. “If you bring her back, I’ll believe. I promise I’ll believe. Please…”
The dragon roared again. This time it sounded furious.
Over the creature’s roaring, my cries, and the ocean sounds, I did not hear a man walk up behind me.
“Elijah.” His voice was gentle but powerful. It was a new voice.
I turned to look at the man through my tears. I could hardly make out his face before he embraced me, holding me tight. His arms were strong. His scent overwhelmed me. It was like cedar, like fresh plowed earth, like a sea breeze. A few more sobs coursed through me and I became calm. The man released me but held my shoulders and looked at me. His eyes were like the sun, searing into me. I glanced away, unable to bear his gaze.
“Elijah,” he said again.
I looked back at his face. He was just a normal man. The brightness was gone. His eyes were no longer like the sun. They were brown, just a plain, warm brown like his hair and beard.
“Naomi is waking,” he said, stepping past me.
He reached down and touched her, almost the way Don had touched her. His hand pressed on her forehead.
I held my breath for a moment, with a glimmer of hope. But nothing happened.
He turned back to me. I could not find words to say. I must have looked dumb, my mouth ajar in disbelief, tear streaks down my face.
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