Brink of Dawn (A Chosen Novel Book 2)

by Jeff Altabef

  “So what’s the first clue?” asks Akari.

  Stuart smiles.

  “Seek the grandest place:

  A monumental holy space;

  Never finished, it’s a symbol of human struggles;

  Choose unwisely and you’ll never solve the puzzles;

  Fire and light have both burned within its walls;

  Find the statue that shows it all;

  Moon versus Sun, good versus bad;

  Peer into evil and you’ll be glad.”

  Blake rakes his hand through his hair and sighs. “I hate riddles.”

  “Oh, there’s one more item. Yes, yes, I should mention this.” Stuart’s eyes gleam. “You have one hour to recover all four crystals.”

  My heart plummets. “Or what?”

  He shrugs. “The stakes have to be high. Yes, yes, without pressure you will never unlock your gifts and learn to control them. Better to know this before we confront the Deltites.”

  “So, what mental thing have you done now?” Connor barks.

  “You can buy additional time, but it is costly. Costly indeed. Every additional half an hour will cost you one life.”

  “You’re going to kill one of us for thirty minutes?” Akari’s face twists into an angry scowl.

  Stuart grins. “Oh no, not one of you Chosen. That test has been finished. Yes, yes, you passed that test. I will kill a person close to one of you. Your loved ones will be in danger. You will not know whom. This way you will feel the responsibility you share—to save your kind.” He scratches his beard and his eyes turn to scalpels. “You all have people you love. Yes, yes, parents, a grandmother... and even you, Connor.”

  Connor’s face twists with explosive rage.

  “Maybe not family for you, but a certain pub owner’s daughter? The test has begun.” Stuart’s face fades from the screen and is replaced with the time.

  12:18.

  I’ve been run over by a truck. Black tire tracks are probably burned onto my face.

  I came to New York to protect my family and friends so they wouldn’t be thrown in the middle of this mess, and now a new wildfire threatens to burn them. The reality of my situation sinks in like a lead ball. They’ll never be safe until we finish this thing, until I find a way to defeat the Prime Elector.

  How could they be?

  My family isn’t even safe from the people who are supposed to help me.

  My stomach tightens for another totally selfish reason. I glance at Connor and find the truth on his face. He loves the pub owner’s daughter, which only proves that I’m being silly. He loves a girl back home, probably someone with blonde curly hair and freckles and wide eyes and....

  Just as my mind threatens to slip down that slide, Blake thankfully interrupts my toxic thoughts. “Do you think he’s serious? How could he know who we care about?”

  “He looked serious to me.” Akari throws a glass against the blank screen.

  “He knows a lot about us.” My voice turns grim. “He knows about your family, Blake, and how they use the twisted muskets, and he knows how Akari and I just barely escaped Seekers. He knows about Connor’s parents and how they died, and he knows this pub owner’s daughter.”

  Did my voice really just go up an octave? I didn’t mean to bring her up, but once my mouth starts to run, sometimes my foot gets lodged in it.

  “That nutter is really winding me up,” Connor grumbles. “But we don’t have time to debate whether he’s serious. We need to pass this bloody test so he won’t do something stupid.”

  “Well, what was the riddle again?” Blake glances at us.

  Troy has an amazing memory, so he repeats it for us.

  Blake speaks first. “We have to focus on the beginning for now. The rest we can figure out later. According to the riddle, we need a grand holy place. It has to be St. Patrick’s. That’s the most elaborate church in the City. I went there once and it’s amazing.”

  Blake stands. He’s ready to go, but St. Patrick’s doesn’t feel right to me. It seems too obvious.

  “Hold on,” I say. “We need a place that’s never been finished, and he mentioned that fire and light are both involved somehow.”

  Blake shrugs. “Are cathedrals ever really finished? And fire and light might represent heaven and hell. Who knows, but Saint Patrick’s has to be our place.”

  I’m unconvinced, and a wisp of an idea floats into my mind. “Troy, what did Landon say about that church on the Upper West Side?”

  He smiles. “He said St. John the Divine was the largest cathedral in the world and it’s not yet finished because of a—”

  “Fire! A fire damaged the cathedral so it’s still being worked on! That’s our place.” I’m certain of it.

  Blake crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve never heard of St. John the Divine before. St. Patrick’s is the most famous church in the City.”

  Connor stands. “He said grandest space, which could mean largest not fanciest. No offense, Blake. I’m sure St. Patrick’s is a posh place, but I’m with Juliet. The clues fit her choice better.”

  He looks at me and his eyes pierce mine. An unspoken moment passes between us—he trusts me.

  An inferno scorches my face. Lives are at stake and I’m acting like a silly girl with a crush over a guy who loves a mysterious, and probably I-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-her beautiful, pub owner’s daughter. How stupid is that?

  “Let’s go,” urges Akari.

  We bolt into action, racing for the church and leaving Troy behind to fetch a cab. We sprint north and practically fly to 112th Street and Amsterdam. We’ve become shadows in the darkness, blurs on the pavement, almost invisible until we stop at the church.

  A massive stone gothic cathedral stretches for an entire city block. The front has two vast wooden doors in the center, a huge round stained glass window above those doors, and a turret off to the right that looks like it belongs to a medieval castle. No lights are visible from inside. A series of smaller doors flank the two large ones in the center.

  “It’s certainly giant-sized.” Blake hesitates at the stairs that lead to the cathedral. “What next?”

  “We need a statue with a moon and sun that depicts the struggle between good and evil. It could be anywhere.” I spin in a tight circle, but no statues are out front.

  “Could be,” says a tired, gravely voice. A vague form appears on the steps in front of the cathedral. An old man who wears a dirty sweatshirt and jeans stirs to his feet, his face all bones, his eyes hollow in deep sockets.

  Connor approaches him. “Do you know the statue we’re looking for? The one with the moon and sun?”

  The man shoots him a half smile and reveals a jagged, toothy mountain range with more than a few teeth missing. “Yes, I do. I’m the mayor of this city, but it’ll cost you.”

  Connor digs into his pockets, pulls out a bill, and hands it to the homeless man. “How about a tenner? But you had better not be yanking my chain.”

  The old man takes the bill with shaky fingers, shoots us another craggy grin, and points to the courtyard just south of the church. “It’s behind the fence. Can’t miss it. Big black metal thing.”

  “Thanks,” Connor says, and we jog to the ten-foot tall wrought-iron fence.

  It’s dark, but a streetlight from the corner sheds enough light onto a statue inside the courtyard that I can spot its outline.

  It’s hard to see clearly, but it looks like a giant winged angel.

  “What’s that angel standing on top of?” Blake points at it. “It looks like a ball.”

  “It looks like a moon or sun, which would make good the riddle.” Akari puts her hands on her hips.

  “We’d better get a closer look.” Connor tugs on one bar of the fence and I pull on the other. We use our enhanced strength, so they bend easily, and we create a gap wide enough for us to fit through.

  A second later, a taxi pulls to the curb and Troy hops out. When the cab rolls away, we race forward, leap over a short fence and appr
oach the winged angel.

  “That’s the weirdest statue I’ve ever seen. What’s it doing by a church?” Blake’s eyebrows furrow together and his mouth hangs open.

  The massive iron statue is totally bizarre. A giant winged angel holds a sword in one hand and a deer’s head in the other. Another oddly-shaped deer climbs on his back. Underneath the angel’s feet is a twisted human body that’s hard to make out in the darkness, an odd moon face, some type of crown, and what looks like lobster claws.

  Connor points to the base of the sculpture. “This has to be the right bloody statue. That’s a moon face. The angel must be good and that twisted body underneath him has to represent bad. So now we need to look inside evil, whatever that means.”

  Troy glances at his phone. “We’ve spent fifteen minutes so far.”

  “Great,” mutters Blake.

  We circle the statue and look for something, anything that might help. Time feels heavy, and I move as if weights circle my legs. The artwork is beautiful, the lines and dimensions stunning, the imagery startling. I could study it for a month and not catch all the details.

  I pause at the moon face; Stuart mentioned the moon specifically, so maybe it’s more important than just a weird part of the design.

  Then I see it. “There. Underneath the moon is the devil’s head, hanging from a lobster claw.”

  “Freaky, but that has to be what we need,” says Blake.

  Akari grunts and squeezes the head, but nothing happens. “How do we open it?”

  “We can’t crack it open like an egg.” I catch Connor’s eyes. “Stuart said we needed to use our abilities to pass this test. You’ll have to liquefy the iron without melting the crystal inside.”

  Connor squints, touches the head by the horns, and looks at me. “I don’t know if I can do it. What if I wreck the crystal? We’ll be gutted.”

  I touch him on the shoulder. “You can do this. I believe in you.” I’ve only just met him, but the crazy thing is that I really do believe in him. He radiates strength.

  “Seventeen minutes,” says Troy.

  I glare at him, and he shrugs.

  Connor closes his eyes. At first the skull bends and becomes pliable like putty, and Connor starts to shake as if he fights an urge to melt the entire head at once. A few heartbeats later, the iron drips away—not in a gush, but slowly, layer by layer. Sweat beads on Connor’s forehead as the effort takes all his strength. He stares at the mess that drips from his hands, eyes blazing hot, until a crystal in the center catches the dim light.

  I bend closer to the head. “I see the crystal. You have to stop.”

  He pulls his hands from what’s left of the head and a crystal chip falls to the ground.

  “Wow, that’s gross.” Blake steps back.

  “You’re a real samurai,” snorts Akari as she lifts the crystal. It looks like a poker chip with grooves and writing on the surface. She shrugs and hands it to Blake, and I realize that she can’t read English.

  “Here’s the next clue,” he says.

  “Into the church you must tread;

  Find a magical beast filled with dread;

  From ashes it’s reborn;

  Unlock the name its light will adorn;

  A holy man will be revealed;

  To be saved, he must be unsealed.”

  “Twenty minutes,” says Troy.

  We race back to the front of the church. In the slippery moonlight it looks like a fortress. I’ve never understood why some churches look like castles. Who do they want to keep out? More to the point, how do we break in?

  The homeless man watches us, dusts himself off, and meanders over. “Did you find the statue? I told you it was just over there.” He points at the courtyard. “I’m the mayor of these parts. Nothing happens here that I don’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a key to the bloody church, would you?” asks Connor. “We need to get inside.”

  The homeless man grins. “I might know a way in, but it’ll cost you. Twice as much as before.” He holds his hand out.

  Connor hands him a twenty.

  The old man pockets the bill and hobbles toward the front doors.

  Connor and I share a look.

  “They don’t leave the front door open, do they?” I ask.

  He reaches the massive wooden door on the left. “Not usually, but I saw this little guy come through it a few hours ago. I’ve never seen him before. He forgot to lock the door when he left.”

  “Did he have curly red hair and a beard and look a little like a troll?” asks Akari.

  “That’s him. He had blond eyebrows though. I can’t imagine why. Weird, but I guess you see all types in the City.”

  “You’d be surprised how weird he really is,” says Blake.

  The door creaks when Connor pulls it open, and we move inside. At first it’s so dark my footsteps are tentative, but Troy flips a switch and a few lights flutter on.

  One time, when I was eleven, Sicheii took me rock climbing. We had just finished scaling a particularly steep stretch and reached a ledge high above Slippery River. A red rock collection called Devil’s Peak soared across the canyon, reaching another fifty feet above us. Air froze in my throat when I first looked upon it, just like it does now.

  When Sicheii noticed my reaction, he grinned and patted me on the leg. “Some places are spiritual in nature. You never know where you’ll find them, but if you open your heart, they appear in the most unusual of places. This is one of them. The separation between the spirit world and the living world is thin here. It’s easier to communicate with those that inhabit the shadow world when in a place such as this. Breathe deeply and you can almost smell the difference. One time, I had this same sensation in a donut shop in Old Town. Of course I was hungry.”

  We both chuckled, but he was serious. He saw what others could not. I’ve never communicated with spirits or dead ancestors, but I understood what he meant: some places are special. I felt that connection one other time when I went to the Pacific Ocean on vacation with my mom. The vastness of the water, the motion of the waves, the sun as it glinted off the horizon—it sent butterflies fluttering inside my stomach. I felt connected to something permanent, something bigger and more substantial than I could ever hope to be.

  I’ve always thought those special places had to be natural, like the ocean or on the edge of a cliff. I’ve never experienced this sensation inside a building before... until now. The cathedral speaks to me. Maybe it’s the scale, which is huge, or the arched ceilings, which soar upward, or the way the pews lead to the altar and the massive organ. Probably it’s all these features together that take my breath away. No matter the reason, this is a spiritual place.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to guess what the riddle is about.” Blake points to two giant phoenixes that hang from the arched ceiling in the center of the church. They face us, and even though they’re the size of small airplanes, the vast interior of the church swallows them whole. Made of hammered tin, they have red, gold, and green feathers, with long wingspans and heads that look more like dragons than anything birdlike.

  “Now that we’ve found the phoenixes, what’s next?” Akari walks toward one of them, her head tilted upward, her eyes fixed on the colorful figures.

  The largest one of the magical birds faces a great round stained glass window, and I know what we have to do. This test is not only about our special abilities, but it’s also about controlling them. “We need to know which saint that phoenix points to on the stained glass window.”

  Troy reads from one of the informational boards. “That window is called the Great Rose Window. It’s over forty feet wide in diameter, made from over ten thousand pieces of glass, and is the largest rose window in the world. Jesus is in the center, but different saints surround him.”

  Connor turns toward Akari. “Phoenixes are supposed to breathe fire. You have to create a line of flames from the mouth of that phoenix toward the window. It should fall upon one of th
e saints. Then we’ll know what to look for.”

  He’s right. She’ll have to control her ability for us to discover the right holy man.

  “Once we know which saint is our guy,” I add, “we’ll have to unseal him somehow.”

  Akari balls her hands into fists and her face flushes with anger. “I will kill Stuart when this is over.”

  Blake shoots her a wry grin. “Just don’t burn down the entire cathedral. It’s been through one fire already.”

  She glares at him and turns her attention to the phoenix. The air sparks and crackles.

  I hold my breath when a thin fireball erupts from the phoenix and shoots the hundred feet toward the window.

  “Brilliant,” says Connor. “It lit up Saint Cuthbert.”

  Troy looks at him suspiciously. “How do you know which saint it touched?”

  Connor shrugged. “I spent too much time with the local vicar when growing up. St. Cuthbert is an English saint famous for uniting people. You can tell it’s him because of that shield he’s carrying with lions on it. That’s the sign of Wessex, and he’s their patron saint.”

  “Great,” says Blake. “They’re all dead old guys to me. We’ll need to unseal him somehow.”

  There has to be an easy way to find this Cuthbert. We don’t have much time and Stuart wouldn’t make this part of the test too difficult. The scavenger hunt is designed for us to use our abilities, not to see how quickly we can search the church for a name.

  I glance down at my feet and realize I’m standing on a round piece of marble with the name St. Patrick on it. “Look on the floor. These circular marble slabs have saint names on them. One has to be Cuthbert.”

  “Over here!” yells Akari a few seconds later. She points to a round black marble slab with the name Saint Cuthbert inscribed around the edges, and a shield in the center divided in fourths with a lion in each section.

  Blake bends low to inspect the marble. “Well, how do we unseal this? It must weigh a ton, and there are no handholds.”

  “Okay, if Cuthbert is the saint of unity, then we have to pitch in and do this together,” I say.

  “Right, but how?” Akari grabs a heavy metal stand and bashes it against the marble. Clang! “Maybe it will.” Clang! “Break.” She doesn’t even scratch the marble.