Everyone focused on the boy’s words. So engaging was his presence, even Alexandra was held spellbound. She hadn’t heard the story of Guadalupe since she was a child in her mother’s house, but Nebu’s telling brought her back in time. Back to a simpler life she had long since abandoned. Before her lawyer’s life in America. Before her race to Eden.
Nebu extended his hand towards Alexandra and said, “The prophecy tells us that Guadalupe would return, at the end of times, to lead her people to the Promised Land. I have long understood the prophecy to apply to both the liberation of Mexico from Spain and also the salvation of all people from the destruction of the Earth. Guadalupe is here amongst us, and she is the one who has led us here!”
More people fell to their knees in weeping worship. Alexandra remained stunned. She wasn’t the reincarnation of the Virgin Mother, come to lead all Mexicans to a glorious afterlife.
Or was she?
Nebu’s explanations became conflicted amongst themselves and her own memories. She reopened Eden. Was he confirming that, even though he denounced that act a few hours prior? What was he really saying?
Again, as if he was reading her mind, Nebu said, “She discovered Eden so I could reopen paradise for us all. She led the way and we are blessed to have her with us in Babylon!”
With a dramatic flair, Nebu unfurled his cloak and roses flew onto the surface of the dining table. Wind whipped through the windows and across the gathered people. Candles flickered and many were snuffed-out. Distant thunder rumbled across the landscape.
At first, the gesture was lost upon her. Then, gasps escaped from the onlookers and Alexandra saw a picture in the flowers.
As unmistakable as a painting, Alexandra’s face appeared as a pattern amongst the stems, leaves and crimson petals. Demure and unassuming, her head was wrapped in a cowl and she gazed meekly to the side. She was both the virgin mother and Alexandra Contreras.
How was that possible?
She studied the image for many long moments but couldn’t reconcile what she saw. The legend of Guadalupe was a part of her past, a part of her people’s heritage – but she never really believed in it. Seeing the miracle reenacted, and her own face amongst the roses, she was bewildered.
“And now,” Nebu said, “I will show you what many of you have heard over the past day.”
Padre Hernon helped a blind woman forward.
“You all know Gabriela from Brasilia,” Nebu said. “Blind for many years, she has suffered greatly in her life.”
Hernon led Gabriela to Alexandra and placed the old woman’s hand in hers.
“Can you heal her, Guadalupe?” the padre asked.
The hall became silent. Once again, all eyes fell expectantly upon her and Alexandra felt the world’s grip tighten. If she didn’t fall into the preconceived notion of Guadalupe or God’s child, then what place would they reserve for her? Heretic? Freak of nature? Outcast like Koneh?
Uneasy, Alexandra tried to center herself and draw upon the energy she used in the past. In the midst of her own doubts and shock over Nebu’s words and actions – she found herself sputtering. That rush of strength and power didn’t come. She tightened her eyes and tried again. Instead of drawing energy from her tranquility, she looked deep within herself and forced the light from her hands and into the blind woman.
Unlike before, the act wasn’t sudden and dramatic. Instead, agony rippled through her body as she attempted to trigger healing in the old woman. Minutes crawled past and Alexandra shook under the strain. When she couldn’t take any more, she fell to her knees and opened her eyes.
Marco caught her arm and cradled her. Confused faces transformed into joy, relief and worship when the blind woman removed her bandages and looked around the room.
Alexandra wasn’t sure, but she believed Gabriela was proclaiming her restored eyesight to the gathered people in Portuguese. Spontaneous prayer and weeping broke from the people and Nebu watched with delight.
Alexandra’s heavy head pounded from the exertion and the remainder of the party was a blur for her. People came to her to receive her blessing. Nebu talked about events she didn’t recall – how she led Shaun and Nebu to Eden. The food was warm and comforting. Chords from a bajo sexto carried her to her room at the tower.
She floated into and out of sleep, through the barriers of one dreamscape into the next. Did the party really happen? Or was that just one of her many dreams that night? Uncertainty surrounded her every thought and memory.
At one point she was with Koneh again, but he seemed distant, removed from her in some way. He stood with his back to her in a green meadow and she knelt amongst some blasted rocks. She called to him, but he didn’t respond. As she ran to him, she couldn’t make the distance – he remained at a fixed point apart from her. What barrier separated them? Why couldn’t she reach him?
Then, Erzulie swooped in and carried her away. They landed in a ruined stone building. Torches lit the area and Erzulie leaned in towards her.
“How about that kiss now?” the angel asked, her mouth curling into a grin.
Next, Alexandra arrived as a robed version of herself, strange markings drawn upon her skin. Koneh and Erzulie were gone. Lilev stood at a stone altar, mixing various herbs into a chalice. Candlelight flickered around them.
“What is this?” Alexandra asked.
“I told you,” Lilev said, her voice akin to metal scraping against metal. “We’ll need something to sever your soul from your body for just a brief moment. Long enough to deal a mortal wound.”
Through the dreamy haze, Alexandra had some knowledge of what was going on. They were trying to kill her. Why?
“I’m… I think I’m dreaming again,” she said, grasping the altar for support.
Lilev halted her mortar and pestle work and stared at her. “Alexandra, what did we do yesterday?”
Tears sprung into her eyes. Why did she have these dreams? Was this really the future?
“I don’t know,” Alexandra said.
Lilev grasped Alexandra’s face with her clawed hands. “Are you sleeping?” the demoness asked. “Is this Alexandra from the past?”
She couldn’t respond. The possibility of her foresight terrified her. Was everything predetermined? Was she was glimpsing it through her dreams? Or was there some measure of free will to alter the future? Was her life meaningful or just a script to be executed? Was everything a continued hallucination?
“Stay with me,” Lilev said. “You must remember this.”
“What?”
“To get back to Eden, you must die,” Lilev said.
“Die?”
The dream faded until only Lilev’s all-black eyes remained in a cloud of smoke. “Seek me out and tell me you must die,” she said. “On this, all things depend.”
Chapter 23
Alexandra awoke to a sharp pain in her chest and she sat upright with her sword drawn in one smooth motion. She hyperventilated and realized she was alone in her small room. Sweat greased her hair and made it cling to the sides of her face. She trembled from the onslaught of disturbing visions for a few long moments.
Her vivid dreams haunted her as she got herself ready for the day. As usual, Padre Hernon waited for her at the church and she radioed General Ryan.
“At least you got them to postpone the executions,” General Ryan said through the radio’s speaker. “We’re moving as fast as we can, but it’s slow going. We stopped to help some survivors outside of Brasilia and we’re still a few weeks out.”
“Yeah, the trip has a way of prolonging itself,” she said.
“Sounds like you’re in their good graces for the time being, at least.”
She glanced at the padre and said, “For now.”
“Hang in there,” General Ryan said. “Out.”
She cut the power to the unit to conserve battery life and sighed. The cavalry was still weeks away. For several minutes, she sat in silence.
“Nebu shared his insight with me,” Padre Hernon fin
ally said. “I didn’t know what you went through. Please, accept my apologies. I thought you were evil.”
Alexandra looked at the padre and couldn’t decide if she considered him friend or foe. He was just trying to lead his people to a better future, and he had succeeded so far. Babylon bustled with life, albeit at the expense of whatever forest they cleared in Eden. The people seemed content and they were certainly safe. Who was she to argue with what he had helped build at the gates of Eden?
Her world upside down, she nodded her acceptance of his apology and trudged through the rain to the tower. After breakfast, she went back to the church at a more reasonable hour to perform blessings upon the ailing – of which there were many. She attempted to heal again, but the strain was too much. Padre Hernon ran interference for her and asked the people to give Guadalupe some time as she was exhausted from her journey.
The pattern repeated itself the next day. She mustered the strength to heal one other person, but it was as arduous as when she cured Gabriela’s blindness. After a few hours, she was summoned into Nebu’s chambers at the tower. Medina read from a book and smiled when she noticed Alexandra.
“Alexandra, it is most joyous to see you again,” Nebu said as he rose to greet her. Kir, the angel, watched her closely. His hand never left the pommel of his sleek sword.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Very well, thank you for asking,” Nebu said. “I hear about your blessings and praise God’s glory you found your way to us.”
She nodded. “You were right. It’s the least I can do. After all, I was given this gift for a reason.”
“It is a comfortable feeling to know your place in God’s plan, is it not?”
“I’m just happy to help,” she said.
“Of course you are. Anyway, I do have a bit of news.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Shaun Williams is returning to Babylon tomorrow,” he said. “Do you know who he is?”
“Yeah,” Alexandra said. “Walter filled us in. American businessman?”
“His resources made this city possible. From what I hear, he was also responsible for saving me when the quake hit. Quite an extraordinary man.”
Her heart raced and skipped. Was Shaun the same man from her dream? Was Satan returning to Babylon? Would he know who she was?
She shook her head. She wasn’t even sure she knew herself. So much was uncertain now.
“You seem preoccupied,” Nebu said.
Alexandra realized how one-sided the conversation was going and said, “I’m sorry. Healing takes so much out of me.”
“Ah,” he said. “I should be the one apologizing then. If I had known, I would have called for you after you had a chance to rest.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
After a pause between them, Nebu pointed to her sword and said, “I do hope we get to the point where you no longer feel you need to wear that.”
At first, the thought was inconceivable to her. She would always need her sword, or so she thought. Was Babylon safe for her now? After all, everyone knew who she was and Nebu all but declared her a saint. The angels were in awe of her, and even Marco seemed cowed by his belief in Guadalupe.
She eyed the pommel and rosary-wrapped grip. Did she need it?
“In time, in time,” Nebu said.
At that moment Alexandra realized she must have appeared like a wild animal to Nebu. Fresh from the wasteland, blood and dirt underneath her fingernails – she was a barbarian amongst civilized folk. Thinking back to the Christmas party in Brasilia, she wore her fatigues with her claws at the ready while everyone else, including Erzulie, was dressed in their finest.
What had she become?
The hostility of the wasteland was becoming a blur in the background now that she had rejoined society. General Ryan and Nebu both created stability from the chaos. But she rejected each one. Why? What part of her held on so tightly to the warrior’s life that she couldn’t relax?
Her face softened and she frowned. “No, you’re right.”
She didn’t need to sleep with her instrument of death cradled in her arms, nor did she need to carry it everywhere she went. Certainly not in her new home.
Home.
The word struck her like Koneh’s fist.
Where was home now? Babylon? Eden? With Koneh? The word lost its meaning the longer she stayed in one place. Or was it gathering momentum, poised to finally take shape in her new world?
With that certainty fresh, she unclasped the buckle on her shoulder strap and removed Koneh’s sword from her back. Hands trembling, she laid the weapon near the door and returned to Nebu’s throne.
“I know that must have been difficult for you,” Nebu said. “But look. I am not ordering my angel to seize you. Padre Hernon isn’t marching the stairs with an angry mob.”
The boy’s smile disarmed her and she laughed.
“Now that’s better,” he said. “I’m sure someone has told you this, but you are a portrait of humanity’s beauty when you laugh and smile, my dear.”
She laughed again as his words were adult, but his voice and face were that of a child.
“Okay,” she said, feeling more comfortable around other people than she had in a very long time, “time for you to spill your story. I hear you were a newborn when the earthquake hit, but you seem like a four-year-old to me. With a sixty-year old vocabulary.”
He chuckled and said, “As much as your gift is a mystery to you, so too is mine. Shaun found me as an infant and here I am, one year later, as you describe. I have found solace in accepting my gift from God, and not questioning it.”
“Sounds like good advice.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, lowering his voice. “Shaun helped me with that acceptance.”
“Did he now?”
Nebu nodded. “I was consumed with my quest to discover my true nature, as it were. Was I who everyone said I was? The son of God, here to assist mankind in their hour of judgment? Or, was I how you put it – a freak?”
The more she talked with the boy, the more Alexandra realized they shared a common bond. They weren’t so different and he wasn’t as dangerous as she first thought. He was stumbling through their new world, with his unexplained mysteries, same as she was.
“After opening Eden, I went to Rome to be raised in safety and in the wisdom of the remaining clergy,” he said. “Then, a funny thing happened. I started growing and Pope Victor thought it best we move the seat of power to Heaven’s gate on Earth. I agreed and here I am.”
“Wow,” Alexandra said. “That’s quite a story.”
Was it? She questioned her own words. Something seemed off with his assertion of fact. Didn’t she make that same trip to Eden?
“Flying thousands of miles in the arms of an angel,” he said, “now that’s something else.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said, though she knew she took the same trip in Erzulie’s arms at one point. Or, was all of that a hallucination too? A lie?
Nebu smiled his boyish smile again and said, “This is what I wanted. I knew we would become friends.”
Alexandra glanced towards Medina and asked, “Why don’t you join us?”
Medina shook her head, the same terror in her eyes but now directed towards Alexandra. What did she dread? She was chosen as the betrothed to Nebu, the Child King. Certainly, there was no reason to fear.
“When a saint gives you an order, you obey,” Nebu said.
Medina hesitantly rose and came to them.
Saint Alexandra. She liked the sound of that.
“What’s wrong?” Alexandra asked.
“I’m tired,” Medina said, though Alexandra sensed her lie immediately. What was the girl hiding?
“You may retire to your chambers,” Nebu said.
As the girl left the throne room, Alexandra couldn’t ignore the tug at the back of her mind. Her instincts told her she shouldn’t ignore Medina’s trepidation, but her analytical mind concluded the
re was nothing amiss. Medina was likely still out of sorts from moving and her new life at the tower. She would come around.
Shaun arrived as planned the next day. However, Alexandra wasn’t able to meet him until the day after. Her heart sank when she recognized him as the man in the suit from her dream where Erzulie betrayed her.
But that was a dream.
The man who waited for her next to Nebu’s throne wore a dark suit which contrasted against his fair skin and shortly-cropped, russet blonde hair. If he was Satan, then Alexandra realized she had made a grave mistake. Her sword was several flights of stairs below her.
“Well, here she is,” Shaun said as he made his way across the room to her.
She had slowly worked a simple shirt and pants into her wardrobe and left her fatigues in her backpack. Shaun examined her from head to toe and smiled.
“You seem no worse for wear after your journey here,” he said. “I’m Shaun Williams, and it’s great to finally meet you.”
“Likewise,” she said, uncertain what to make of his act.
If it was an act.
Perhaps he was simply Shaun, an American businessman turned wasteland hero. The concept wasn’t entirely alien to her.
“Reports of your miracles have spread far and wide,” Shaun said. “People are flocking here for two reasons now.”
“How did you get here so quickly?” she asked.
Shaun turned to Nebu and said, “Down to earth and practical, just like you said.”
“I’m right here,” she said. “I can hear you.”
“Sorry,” Shaun said. “It’s just… I’ve heard so much about you and I’m a little lost for words now that you’re here.”
“I can ask the questions if that makes you more comfortable,” she said. “Starting with how you got here so fast.”
“Oh,” he said. “Water! The ocean’s not gone like some people think. It receded and then came back a little. We can take a ship from western Europe or eastern America and land a few hours up the road. Should make things easier from here on out.”
Babylon (Eden Saga Book 2) Page 22