7

by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

  Icar laughed. “This is probably closer to the truth than you can know, priest.”

  “Icar is not a victim. He is right where he wants to be, doing just as he pleases,” said the monsignor. “He only wants to tempt you to his side.”

  As the monsignor said this, Cloe felt as if she had been awakened. The devil’s ways of persuasion now became clear to her. She had almost fallen for Icar’s line.

  “Be gone, Satan!” she screamed.

  CHAPTER

  89

  While the beast was focused on Cloe, the seven had moved closer. They formed a tight circle with Robby at the point with clasped hands. Cloe could hear that humming sound, like a high-voltage power line, coming from them. It rose steadily in volume. Energy radiated from them like an electrical bonfire, aimed toward Icar.

  Icar turned back toward Robby.

  “Ha! Led by children, are you?” he taunted. Still, as the power from the group became stronger and surged over him, he stepped back.

  Behind him, a terrible, tearing sound vented from the earth, and stone and dirt flew upward. A pit appeared, and smoke and fire belched from its recesses. Cloe put her hands over her ears as the screech of stone upon stone grew louder, drowning out even the storm. The force from the seven redoubled and drove Icar back toward the noise. A deep, gaping hole in the earth appeared behind him, beckoning. Cloe reckoned it to be about fifty yards wide. As the crevasse widened, she was pulled toward it.

  “It’s the abyss!” cried the curator. “The seven have opened the abyss, and they are pushing Icar toward it. He will be imprisoned for another thousand years.”

  Icar slid toward the chasm, but a few feet away from it, he suddenly stood straight, anchored himself, and faced the seven. He extended his arm toward them and pointed directly at Robby. The boy faltered for only a split second—it was enough for Icar to recover the advantage. Power emanated from the beast, a dirty elemental energy. The devil’s strength met the faith force of the seven and began to counter it. The seven stopped and began to slide backward, slowly. They fought back and channeled every bit of the power of good that they possessed. Once again the devil was forced back.

  Cloe saw that the contest had come to a virtual draw. The seven had stymied Icar’s advance, but they could move no further against his power. Each side struggled and pushed. She could think of nothing else to do, so she picked up a good-sized stone and heaved it toward Icar. The rock exploded about three feet from its target and was blasted into sand.

  In spite of his efforts, Icar laughed.

  Cloe saw the beast take a half step forward and then be pushed back slightly. Still, he had gained a few inches of ground. He took a larger step, and Cloe saw the seven were beginning to weaken. Their efforts had clearly exhausted them.

  The monsignor ran by her and heaved the spear of St. Michael toward the beast. It caught him full in the shoulder and pierced his body.

  Icar fell backward and landed a foot or two in front of the abyss. Cloe looked at the seven and saw that they had collapsed in disarray under the fatigue of the effort. All the power and energy that had filled the battlefield a moment earlier fled. Now all that could be heard was the never-ending howling of the wind surrounding them.

  Icar rolled over on his side and tried to stand. He fell back but tried again. He sat full upright and stared at the lance. He looked at it almost quizzically, as if he could not believe he had been wounded. Black blood streamed from the wound.

  He said, “Well, it’s been a while since this has happened to me. There must be something of my old nemesis in this spear.”

  The monsignor strode toward him with the sword of St. Michael in his hand, surely to apply the coup de grâce to the beast. As he approached, Icar broke the shaft of the lance and reached around and pulled the tip out of the back of his upper shoulder.

  The monsignor swung the sword in a mighty arc that would have separated the beast from his head, but Icar rolled and came up with what was left of the lance, pointing it at the priest. Cloe could see the hole in Icar’s shoulder closing. In a few seconds, as the combatants circled each other, the wound had completely healed, and Icar’s face once again bore his sardonic smile.

  The monsignor swung the sword again, but Icar ducked and came up, plunging the remnant of the lance into the priest’s midsection.

  Cloe screamed as Monsignor Albert Roques went down hard and did not move. She ran to him, but there was little she could do. Still, Cloe tore pieces of the monsignor’s tunic and tried to stanch the bleeding.

  “You bastard!” she screamed at Icar. “He’s badly hurt.”

  “I hope he’s dead,” said the beast, grinning in triumph. “I’ll see him in hell!”

  “Not today!” cried Zack.

  Cloe turned and saw the seven were back together, and the dire intensity on Robby’s face spoke volumes. They clasped hands, and the power surged.

  “Go away, you bad man!” screamed Robby. “You hurt my friend!”

  The devil was thrown back toward the abyss. If the fight with the monsignor had not carried him away from it, he would have been cast into the pit. Again he rallied, stood, and launched his counterattack.

  “I’m not going anywhere, you annoying brat!” Icar shouted. With that, he gathered himself and shot a huge burst of energy toward Robby and the seven.

  Cloe cried and clutched her heart.

  The burst caught Robby full in the chest, and he went down like a sack of potatoes. The circle was broken, and all power drained away. The beast stood straight and howled a cry of victory.

  Icar glanced over his shoulder at the abyss. Without the power of good to keep it open, it had slowly begun to close. He had won.

  He smiled at the figure who now appeared on the edge of the clearing and beckoned her to him. Cloe watched as her assistant, Dr. Jeanne Richard, walked to Icar. Dressed in all black, tight-fitting fatigues, she looked different … seductive. Even in this light, the red lip gloss gleamed.

  Cloe stared at her assistant, suddenly realizing how Icar knew their every move in advance, and said, “How could you?”

  “My reward will be great,” said Jeanne, looking up and smiling at Icar and then back at Cloe. “You were nothing to me, another arrogant academic to be pushed out of my way.”

  “You were my closest colleague. I trusted you with everything I knew!” said Cloe, her anger swelling at the magnitude of the deception.

  “Yes, and I was able to use every bit of it against you,” she laughed.

  “You bitch! Rot in hell!” shouted Cloe.

  “Ha! Rule in hell is more like it. Kill her!” commanded the devil’s assistant.

  Icar turned, his face dark and fierce. He grabbed Jeanne by the neck and twisted until a gruesome snap was heard. He then tossed her lifeless body away like so much garbage.

  “There is only one ruler in hell!” snarled Icar.

  CHAPTER

  90

  “You shouldn’t have hurt the boy!” said Michael, whose voice was muffled by the wind.

  Cloe looked up and saw Michael’s scarred features emerge from the shadow of one of the ancient walls, where he had been watching everything.

  “What …?” asked Icar.

  A low growl issued from the other side of the clearing.

  Cloe turned and saw that Bully had dragged himself from where he lay bleeding from his wounds and was now standing on his hind legs, teeth gnashing.

  “Satan! Today you return to the abyss!” shouted a man with shoulder-length brown hair who had stepped out from behind the rocks.

  “Who?” asked Icar, turning to the newcomer.

  Cloe surveyed the man and cried, “Valent!”

  The beast’s attention was riveted on Valent as he slowly, deliberately moved toward him.

  “Icar, do you recognize the ring on my finger?” cried Valent.


  “The Ring of the Fisherman,” said Icar.

  “Yes, we retrieved it from the dying hand of your servant on Malta,” barked Valent with a triumphant smile on his face. “You have lost the ring. You have lost.”

  Michael advanced surreptitiously toward the distracted Icar, as did Bully.

  The devil glanced belatedly at Michael and then back at the monster bulldog. His vision walked back to Valent. He inched backward toward the nearly closed abyss.

  “You’re too late!” laughed the beast. “The abyss is closed. I have won.”

  “Not yet!” shouted Michael as he broke into a sprint toward Icar.

  Bully raged and galloped at Icar, shoulder muscles bulging, launching himself into a great leap at the throat of the beast.

  At the same time, Michael lunged at Icar. They moved so quickly Cloe barely had time to suck in her breath.

  Dog and man hit the beast in mid-chest, and their combined weight carried him backward toward the narrow crevasse that remained. A horrible scream of despair issued from deep within the black gut of the beast. In but a moment, man and beasts were gone.

  Everything became calm. The wind lay down, and the wall fell. Rays of sunshine pierced the gloom.

  Cloe jumped up and ran toward the place where the opening to the abyss had been. Valent ran after her.

  “Michael!” she cried.

  But they were gone. The earth had sealed over, and the devil was cast down into the abyss for another thousand years.

  “Michael!” she screamed.

  “He’s gone,” said the monsignor, now by her side, arm around her shoulders. “It seems Michael sacrificed himself for all of us.”

  “Albert, how?” she asked in shock. “You were on the point of death.”

  “I’m not sure, but the boy had something to do with it,” he replied.

  Cloe looked back at J.E and the seven. There was Bully by Robby’s side, his great tongue licking his wounds.

  “How?” she cried.

  “Perhaps it is God’s will,” said the knight.

  “But the prophecy—it was supposed to be Robby, the innocent, who vanquished evil,” she said.

  “Consider the next line in the prophecy,” said the monsignor. “Who in God’s eyes is innocent? Why not the man who has given his life for his friends?”

  “Albert, is Michael …?” asked Cloe.

  “Michael is with God,” said the priest. “No greater love has any man than the one who gives his life for another. Somehow, Michael was redeemed at the last.”

  CHAPTER

  91

  A week later, Cloe sat on the front porch of her Madisonville, Louisiana, home with the monsignor. The ever-present laptop was open. She had been working while awaiting Albert’s arrival. The porch overlooked the crystal waters of the Tchefuncte River. Every now and then, the sun would catch a diamond ripple on the water, blown upriver by the southeasterly wind. Children were playing in the late afternoon on the grassy area abutting the river, referred to by local residents as “the wall.” The vista was a far cry from the chaos of a mere week ago.

  “How are you, and how is the pope?” asked Cloe.

  “I’m fine. Not even a scar. His Holiness is recuperating; he’s now able to be treated in a proper hospital, so we expect him, eventually, to fully recover. Right now he has a touch of pneumonia in addition to his injuries from the explosion. Of course, he has much on his mind.”

  “How much of the Vatican was reclaimed?” asked Cloe. “Is there anything useable?”

  “Yes, surprisingly,” said the monsignor. “Most of the destruction was mob generated. It was random rather than organized. The biggest damage is to St. Peter’s and of course the fire and smoke damage. Contrary to the news reports at the time, the father curator says the library with its books and records and the museums holding much of the historic treasure of the Church remain intact, although some have been damaged. As you know, most of this was belowground in secure areas. It will take a while, but even now the pope is beginning to rebuild the Vatican staff. Once that’s done, the work of resurrecting the Vatican itself will proceed. Swiss guards have been deployed to protect the grounds and buildings. The Italian government is back in charge in Rome even though martial law continues.”

  “Amazing. That’s real progress in just a week,” said Cloe. “And how is the curator?”

  “He’s fine. His days are very full now, and of course his new pal, Boogie, is his constant companion.”

  Cloe looked down and thought of Miles and the other scientists at Uruk.

  “Where’s J.E.?” the monsignor asked.

  “He’s in Washington, DC, on a new assignment,” she said, looking up. “It seems the US government is badly in need of good intel and competent people who can process and assess it. Washington is mobilizing to move supplies, medical, food, water, and various services on a scale not seen in decades. They need to make sure everything gets to the right places and people.”

  “The seven have gone back to the lives they led before Megiddo,” said the monsignor.

  “Surely not everyone?” laughed Cloe. “Hopefully Louie will find a better line of work in New York than he had before. Something legal, I hope.”

  “They all seemed a little dazed by what happened, but all have been profoundly changed. I suspect Louie will find something more constructive to do with his time. Each seemed imbued with a new energy to make a difference.”

  “Were they God sent for this purpose, Albert?” Cloe asked.

  “Yes, I believe so, and I think they or their counterparts have been with us always,” he said.

  “Are we good for another thousand years?” she asked. “It would be nice to think that.”

  “With the speed of everything and the worldwide reach of events now, I tend to think the cycle might compress, but who can say?” said the monsignor. “I don’t think we can consider ourselves safe by any measure.”

  “You know, I flew back with the boy,” said Cloe. “Robby, his mom, and Bully all came back to New Orleans with me. It’s remarkable to think they live just across the lake from me.”

  “How is Robby?” he asked.

  “I rented a car and drove them to their little house,” she replied. “They asked me to come in for a while. His mother missed most of the excitement, but what she did get was plenty. She had a million questions I could not answer.

  “You know, when I was talking with her, Robby went to his toy box and pulled out a small car set and began playing with it like any other seven-year-old,” she continued. “Bully sat watching, between him and the door.”

  “Perhaps that’s just what he is now, a regular seven-year-old,” said the monsignor. “Children have remarkable curative and coping mechanisms. In a few weeks, he may not even remember the events.”

  “Maybe, but I had no answers for questions like whether he was permanently different or was he now someone else or was he from heaven,” she said.

  “No … who can say?” said the monsignor. “I just know he was empowered by God to do what he did. They all were.”

  “After all her questions had been asked, our conversation died away, and it was time for me to leave,” Cloe said. “Robby’s mom walked me to the door, and I thought for a moment Robby was too engrossed in his game to notice I was leaving. Just as I was slipping out the front door, I heard him call out, and he came running. He gave me a great hug and whispered in my ear, ‘Dr. Cloe, it’s not over.’”

 

 

 
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