The Watchers

by Mark Andrew Olsen

  “Welcome to Deir es-Sultan,” called one of them with a rehearsed intonation.

  “Hi. How are you?” said Dylan.

  “I am blessed, thank you,” he replied.

  “Is this the Ethiopian Coptic area?” Abby asked tentatively.

  “This is not an area, as in a sector of the church,” answered the man, who possessed only an eerie stare, blue-black skin, and a pale gold robe wrapped neatly around a very thin, bald body. “It is the rooftop, which is the home of Deir es-Sultan. And we are the Coptic monks of the Abyssinian Community of Jerusalem. Spiritual and physical offspring of the apostle Philip.”

  “But this is where you stay, all the time?”

  “My dear, if our people were to quit this rooftop for even a second, even over the span of several centuries, we would forfeit even our contested right to be here. We would return to find any trace of our presence here erased forever.”

  “But isn’t it cold in winter? And hot in the daytimes? And uncomfortable always?”

  “It is all of those things. But we still consider it an honor when compared to the blessing of being saved by the sacrifice of our Savior.”

  “It’s an honor for us to be here with you,” said Abby. “Did you know that while the spaces downstairs are thick with demons and their combat with angels, that you up here have a spiritually clear space, defended by four of the tallest and most impressive warrior angels I have ever seen?”

  “Thank you, my Sister,” he said. “And yes, I have been made aware of this state of affairs. It is most gratifying.”

  “I must ask you something else,” began Abby in a completely altered tone, “does the image of a female eye mean anything to you?”

  The man cocked his head and smirked slightly. “You must look more closely before asking such things. Yes. It is our most common image, carved into our candles and necklaces, painted on our venerations and icon panels. It is, as you say, our motif.”

  “And is there anyone up here, a woman most probably, who seems to embody the meaning behind your motif more than the others?”

  He cocked his head sideways. “So you truly are her. Come with me.”

  They followed him across the rooftop village, feeling like Western missionaries in some old tale of woe. Beyond the other side of the huts, against the vantage point where the church’s most exposed side opened into a sprawling cityscape of Jerusalem, lay a cot.

  Beside that cot, a woman was struggling to stand.

  They said nothing but watched the woman rise to her feet with an inexorable slowness. Finally, now having stood on her own, she looked their way and flashed them an excited, even familiar look.

  “For weeks now she has been waiting for a great breakthrough to arrive. A ‘healing of the breach,’ she calls it. Every day she grows weaker, and every day her prayer is not answered.”

  “Today is the day,” said Abby boldly.

  Helped by another of the nuns, the feeble woman had now approached quite closely.

  “Would you excuse us?” Abby asked the monk. With a nod, he left her.

  She stepped forward, and not knowing how to express herself, bowed awkwardly.

  The woman extended her arms as Sister Okoye had, and her sisters at the jungle safe house, what seemed like an eternity ago. Abby saw with amazement that, while the woman dressed and moved like a mature woman, she had the eerily serene face and piercing eyes of a young girl.

  “Welcome, my Sister,” the woman said in a slow and breathy voice. “I have waited for you so long!”

  Abby did not have the patience to answer but immediately moved into her embrace. The woman stepped forward and pulled Abby into her arms. They swayed and held each other for a long time. Sobs could be heard, muffled through fabric and skin. As they stood and held each other, it felt to Abby like she had never before felt such a nurturing and loving grasp in her life.

  They eventually pulled apart, and Abby said, “I have searched for you all over the world! I can’t believe I’ve found you at last.”

  “And I have prayed for you and longed for your coming,” the woman replied. “What is your name, my dear?”

  “It is Abigail. Abby, for short.”

  “I am Rulaz.”

  “I’m Dylan,” he said, from what sounded like a mile behind them.

  Rulaz nodded to him. “You are a very unusual man,” she said. “Do you have the gift?”

  “He may well develop it,” Abby said. “In any case, he is a warrior. Both spiritual and otherwise.”

  “Yes,” Rulaz said thoughtfully. “My guardians here,” she said, smiling and pointing at the giants no one could see but them, “told me you would come.”

  “Your guardians,” Abby added, “confirm to me that you are the matriarch of the Watchers. The one with the answers.”

  The old woman smiled the most mysterious and enigmatic smile. “I have managed to keep that role secret for many, many years, despite being out here on this open rooftop. One of the reasons is that my sisters and I never speak of it out loud.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry . . .”

  “Please, do not apologize,” Rulaz continued. “Today is not the day for such mincing of words. This is a rare day, with open warfare. Can you not feel it?”

  Abby looked out over the nearby Alexander Hospice and a sea of roofs that stretched all the way to the sheer blue Dome of the Rock.

  “Yes. Yes, I can.”

  “Around here, I am known as the Sentinel of Jerusalem. I spend most of my days looking out over Jerusalem, tracking the comings and goings of spiritual beings across the city. Watching. That is our oldest and truest name, you know, the women gifted like us. The Watchers.”

  “And now? What do you do?”

  “I wait.”

  “The Lord himself told me to find you,” Abby said through tears, “and heal the breach.”

  “Praise Him! He is so faithful.”

  “He is.” The two women locked eyes, taking each other’s measure.

  “Dylan,” Rulaz said, “I have seen a clouded account of your coming as well. And yet I see that your heart is pure, and that you follow our Lord. You are therefore welcome among us. I would gladly offer you chairs, but sadly even such items of basic comfort are denied us by our tormentors. I speak of our earthly ones, of course.”

  “I have so many questions to ask you!” Abby blurted.

  Rulaz let out a delicate laugh. “And I have so very many answers to give you, my dear Sister. Some of them will require that you ask me their questions. Others will not. But we have little time. We will have to speak during the heart of a pitched battle. You two have brought great danger and conflict with you into this city today. Even now, the skies above us are stormy with the writhings of demons of greater size and influence than I have ever seen here at one time.”

  “Have we given you away?”

  “I do not believe so. You have attracted a massive conflict to Jerusalem, but I think as yet my own identity is still protected. I think our enemies are searching for you, and that is why we must move quickly. Several of my sisters have come, and more are on their way. Brother Dylan, if you are truly a warrior of the highest order, then your leadership will be most precious today.”

  “Did you say we have both physical and spiritual enemies entering the Old City right now?” he asked.

  “Yes. How coordinated they are I cannot tell. But they have definitely drawn each other to this place, all in search of you. They are bound to the death to stop Abigail and me from solving the mysteries between us.”

  “Does Abby need to be physically concealed from view?”

  “Our guardian angels have the power to conceal, but I do think it would make things easier for everyone if she were disguised.”

  “Right,” Dylan said. “Are there any monk’s robes or similar garments we can give to Abby to wear while you talk?”

  One of the sisters lurking in the background nodded, disappeared, and then quickly returned with a gray woolen robe that they drape
d over Abby’s upper body.

  “Why don’t you crouch down against the wall and make your whole body invisible,” he suggested.

  Abby complied, only opening the fold enough to say, “I can tell I’m going to have an exciting role to play today,” with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  “Your role is to have a conversation,” Dylan reminded her. “The whole reason we’re here, taking the risks we’re going to face, is so you and Rulaz can speak at last. Don’t you forget that.”

  “Yes sir,” she answered playfully, teasing him for his sudden turn toward the brusque leader.

  “Rulaz, what can you tell me about the physical attack coming this way?”

  “The Lord only showed me a symbolic cloud in a vision,” she replied, “but from many years of interpreting such things I would say it was a group of four or five dozen men. All of them intensely evil, well trained and motivated in the extreme.”

  “They are Scythians?”

  “I believe so.”

  “There is something else,” Abby broke in. “They have taken my father. There’s been no ransom demand or any contact, but I’m sure it’s them, and they mean to take me out of the fight today.”

  “Does your father walk with Christ?” asked Rulaz.

  “No. That’s part of my concern.”

  Rulaz frowned and moaned softly. “He is in great, great danger. We will have to spend many resources praying for him as well.”

  “Rulaz, can you spare someone with the gift to go with me into the city?” Dylan asked.

  “Sister Sarha,” called Rulaz. “Would you go on a prayer-walk with this brother?”

  From her vantage point against the wall, Sarha stepped forward and nodded vigorously.

  “Sarha, I’m Dylan,” he said, offering his hand.

  She shook it and said, “Mr. Dylan, I would be most pleased to accompany you, and to pray as the Lord leads.”

  “Thank you, Sister. Well, we’ve no time to waste. Let’s go.”

  And the pair disappeared into the rooftop complex.

  “Brother Brehan?” Rulaz cried out. A man’s lean face appeared from between two of the low-slung huts. “Today is the day of reckoning I have told you about. Could you gather your other brothers and spend the next few hours along the rooftop perimeter, praying without ceasing for our spiritual and angelic protection?”

  “We think you are a heretic, Sister, you know that.”

  Rulaz froze and aimed a glacial stare at the monk, awaiting the end of his statement.

  “Which is why we will be glad to pray for you in this way,” he finished, smiling.

  Rulaz chuckled. “Thank you, my brother.”

  CHAPTER

  _ 62

  With their defenses in place, Rulaz finally lay down on her cot, pulled a thin shift over her body, and turned to where Abby sat crumpled against the wall, well concealed.

  “The evil spirits familiar to these skies are accustomed to the sight of me upon this bed, fighting for strength. They will think nothing of it and will not hear us whispering to each other.”

  “First of all,” Abby asked softly, “are you the mother, the heart of the Sisterhood of whom they speak? The leader of those who see?”

  “I am first of all the Sentinel of Jerusalem, as you have been told. That means that I and my predecessors use our gift in the service of Jerusalem, to watch, like a harbormaster if you will, over the departures and arrivals of spiritual beings at the city’s holy places from all across our world. Then I dispatch this knowledge to the sisters I know, scattered though they are.”

  “But surely there is more,” Abby prodded.

  “Yes, there is. I am the earthly granddaughter one hundred twelve times removed, and spiritually descended just as many generations deep, from Anna, the prophetess who held baby Jesus in the Temple and proclaimed Him Messiah. “

  “Whom I saw, or even inhabited, in my dream which began all this.”

  “Yes, as we all have. It is the surest sign of being one of us: having the dream of Anna.”

  “So the reason we all have this dream is because we are all her spiritual descendants, in an unbroken line?”

  The woman nodded intensely. “Many, many of your spiritual relatives have not learned this. They simply look at the gift as a random occurrence, because almost no one has developed the practice of tracing back one’s family legacy in Christ.”

  “How did this legacy build?” asked Abby.

  “Well, the Word does not record it, but after meeting Jesus, Anna left the Temple and followed His ministry from afar. After His death and resurrection, she became one of the early church’s most enthusiastic witnesses. Her spiritual family at the time of her death was rumored to be in the thousands. As decreed in this birthright, I am the matriarch of a spiritual family name of which the words Iya Agba are only the Nigerian variation. It is a very old and far-flung spiritual family, but its primary name around the world is The Watchers.”

  A NEARBY ROOFTOP

  The photographer knelt only seventy yards from the rooftop enclave of the Ethiopians. In everyday circumstances, the leather-jacketed paparazzo would have felt more at home at a movie premiere in London or Cannes, jostling among the usual mob for a celebrity snapshot. And while Jerusalem was hardly considered a haven for the jet-set, the subject he was about to shoot represented the biggest name, the biggest media story in the world at the moment. Definitely worthy bait.

  Still, he wasn’t sure. The sleaziest of anonymous tipsters had called with a tip for the ages, according to him. Passed on to him from one of his coolest and most mysterious sources. Condition was, the tip went to just one person. Someone who was good. Someone who could get the shot sent out to the major syndicators in minutes.

  He’d been flattered at the thought of it, if not the source.

  He focused his longest telephoto lens, a contraption so large he sometimes found it hard to hold steady. There—right in the open on the church roof. Man, old woman, younger . . . had she died her hair? Made sense if she had. He bore down with his focus, trying to make out the face for certain.

  Snap. He took a preliminary photo. His warm-up shot, he called it.

  He flipped on the review button and studied the shot. Sure looked like her . . .

  He decided to go with it. Aiming the lens again, this time set on rapid-fire, or one shot per second. The photographic equivalent of a Gatling gun.

  Where were they? A sharp glare filled his viewfinder, dazzling him. The light forced him to put the camera down and regain his bearings. Chill out, he told himself. Strange, because the sun was nowhere near his shot. What was it, then? What obnoxious strip of reflective metal had he failed to identify? And why was it catching sunlight only when he looked through the camera?

  He tried again. Same result. A pillar of blinding light assaulted his eyes, enough to sear his retinas.

  ABYSSINIAN ENCLAVE, ROOFTOP OF CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE

  “I received nearly thirty thousand responses to my question within a day of posting it to my website,” Abby said, midway through her description of the Sighted sisters in America.

  Rulaz was staring at her in amazement when suddenly she almost jumped from her cot—the most dynamic motion she had made since their arrival.

  Before Abby knew it, the woman was on her feet and pointing dramatically at the rooftop’s edge.

  “Abigail, do you see? What is he doing? What is that gesture?”

  Abby squinted and tried her best, but the Sight was not upon her just then. It had not been the most ideal of days. Fatigue, preoccupation, not spending enough time in prayer. She had seen darkness in the church downstairs, but that had been all.

  But this seemed urgent. She had to do something.

  Lord, I don’t deserve it, but please restore to me the gift you so generously bestowed on me. Please allow me to see along with my sister. . . .

  She opened her eyes again. Nothing. She knew what it was: she couldn’t just treat God like that. He could
grant her prayer in a second, but more than that, He wanted her to walk with Him.

  Even though she knew it was for mixed motives, she began to praise Him. She started to hum her favorite worship tune under her breath, and despite being less than totally sincere, she felt her spirits begin to rise.

  Then it came. She blinked against the brilliance pouring out of the two towering figures, standing at the rooftop’s edge.

  She peered closer. They were holding up their hands against something. A cascade of even more radiant light was pouring from those hands. Whatever or whoever the supernatural measure was being used against had better take cover. . . .

  “Forget this!” the photographer barked in frustration. He already had the warm-up shot. It wasn’t well focused, but good enough to identify the subject, which was all that mattered. It might have been a lucrative picture, might have even made his year. But for a professional photographer, nothing was worth burning out a retina.

  Even if its source could not be explained . . .

  He trudged down to the corner Internet café, e-mailed the shot, then waited for his cell phone to ring.

  Within ten minutes of its transmission, the photograph had aroused interest and even frantic activity among no less than thirty-four people in Nigeria, Europe, and the United States. At Fort Meade, Maryland, home of the National Security Agency, the half-focused pixels were resolved and Abigail Sherman was positively identified with 94 percent certainty, including a margin of error of less than 3 percent.

  By the time the photographer had returned to his rooftop post to make sure his prey had not escaped, his cell phone’s voice-mail box had already logged in thirteen messages.

  No matter, though, to the people involved. Although its ringer was turned off, its signal allowed a tracking to within fifteen feet of his location. The proximity to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was noted within seconds—the nature of the building not lost for a moment on the Scythians receiving word on their way into the Old City.

  CHAPTER