Dark Rising

by Monica McGurk

  Under my hand, his heart skipped a beat, then faintly stuttered back.

  “No,” I said out loud. “Not yet.” I gathered him up in my arms, cradling him in my lap. He coughed, a fresh stream of blood welling up and running from his mouth.

  “No,” I repeated, wiping away the blood with my hair. I ran my fingers along his brow, brushing his hair out of his eyes, desperately wishing away his pain. “No.”

  He opened his eyes. They were clear. Untroubled.

  “It is finished,” he whispered.

  Beneath my hand, his heart contracted, then stopped.

  Frantic, I ran my hands over his body, as if somehow I could chase the last fleeting pulse of life, could keep it from leaving his body, could will it back into his limbs. My fingers fluttered over his broken bones, wishing him whole, willing my hands to knit him together. Even as I touched him, I could feel the cold seeping into his flesh, could feel his life slipping away.

  I stopped, my fingers hovering over his heart.

  Michael? My soul sent the question out as I waited in the shadows for him to answer.

  A torch sputtered and expired, followed by another.

  Michael?

  There was no answer.

  I gathered Michael’s body in my arms, the keen cut of grief slicing me through as I realized he was really gone.

  I huddled over it, washing him with my tears, as one by one, the torches snuffed themselves out, plunging me back into darkness. I held him tight, rocking, refusing to let him go. I curled up to him like a wounded animal, desperate to protect the shell that was his body, grief-stricken by the knowledge that I had betrayed him. I had been the instrument of his death, however unwitting.

  In that moment, nothing existed for me. My world was nothing but the dead weight of him in my arms and the guttural cries—the foreign sounds ripped from my own throat—that bounced off the stone walls, mocking me.

  Hope.

  My heart surged, then recoiled with disgust as I realized it was not Michael’s voice I was hearing. It was Henri’s.

  Hope.

  Somewhere outside, far below the chapel, I heard the breaking of glass and the plaintive wail of a car alarm.

  It isn’t safe here. You must go.

  “No,” I said, stubbornly clinging to Michael’s limp body.

  You must leave him. It was his last wish that you be safe.

  I paused. “It’s not safe?”

  If you linger here much longer, it will not be safe for you. Now, you must flee.

  A sudden weariness overtook me. It would be so easy to just lay down here. I could lie down next to Michael and wait for everything to end.

  I felt a sharp pinch in my arm.

  “Ow!” I shouted, rubbing at the spot. “You’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

  I’m your Guardian. I can always break the plane between our worlds to intervene when necessary. And right now it is necessary. Get yourself up. Say your goodbye. You must go. You must do it for him. For Michael.

  “Don’t you speak his name!” I shouted, the spittle flying from my mouth as I turned, sheltering his body behind me. My breath was coming in great heaves, my fingers shaking as I clutched at his bloody, broken corpse. The sounds below were growing louder. As angry as I was with Henri, I realized he was right. I couldn’t stay here. It was time to go.

  “Leave me,” I ordered, my voice raw with emotion. “I want to say goodbye alone.”

  Very well. I’ll wait outside the door. You have five minutes.

  I waited what seemed like long enough for Henri to move out of the chapel, realizing I’d never know it if he was still watching me. I laughed, a hysterical guttural sound, as I realized I’d trusted him, even now, when he was probably the least deserving of my trust.

  He and Enoch had both been unworthy of my trust, I acknowledged, bowing my head over Michael, giving myself over to my grief. I slipped my hand across his bloody chest until my palm came to rest over his heart.

  Forgive me, I thought, willing my thoughts through the night to find him, wherever he might be. Forgive me for not believing. Forgive me for leaving you here, alone.

  But more than that, I prayed, thinking of the frescoes overhead, clinging desperately to their promise, come back to me.

  Death and resurrection, I thought, taking a deep breath as I imagined the image of the phoenix, rising from the ashes, over the chapel door.

  Three days, I thought, clinging desperately to the notion of an Easter-like awakening. Come back to me in three days. I’ll be waiting.

  I bent over and pressed my lips to his bloody brow.

  Carefully, I slid his heavy body to the ground. I wrapped my sweatshirt around him the best I could, as if it were a blanket and he were simply asleep. I touched a hand to my lips and pressed my fingers one last time to his silent heart.

  Struggling to my feet, I backed away, limping, until I could go no farther. Then, I turned, picking up my backpack.

  From behind a column, a looming shape emerged.

  A Fallen One.

  I gasped and stumbled back.

  He followed me, stepping into the weak light that was trickling in from the window so I could see his face. His eyes were shining, his dusty cheeks marked with the trails of tears. With a shudder, he pulled his sword from his scabbard.

  I cringed. So this is how it would end.

  The sword dangled there in his fingertips, swinging idly at his side. I watched as he gripped and regripped it, his hands twitching. I could not look away as he wrapped his fingers firmly about the hilt.

  He lunged forward, tossing the sword away to clang and clatter against the cold floor, throwing himself at my feet.

  I was too scared, too confused, to move.

  I watched as he dragged his body across the rough stones. Slowly, reverently, he raised his head, eyes closed, to kiss the tip of my shoe.

  A new flurry of tears slid down his face.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, backing away on all fours.

  His form flickered. I watched, stunned, as his black armor fell away, replaced by snowy white. He drew himself up to his knees. Face filled with wonder and joy, he broke into a smile. His body started glowing, then pixelated into a million starry points of light before collapsing in on itself, disappearing.

  I stared at the empty space where he had been.

  The first to claim his redemption, Henri whispered. The first to understand what the opening of the Gate really means. Now you see for what you suffer.

  I wasn’t angry to find him at my side; my surprised scream had probably brought him to my aid. I couldn’t find any words to answer him, so I just turned and hobbled away down the ramp and out of the chapel.

  The night was black, starless.

  You’ll have to move quickly, Henri urged. There isn’t much time.

  My twisted ankle protested as I began my half-running, half-hopping descent down the rock. The steps seemed endless now, my journey pointless.

  Not pointless, Henri interrupted. We have to get you home safe.

  Home. The concept seemed foreign, now. But I felt a flicker of need; need for my mother and father, both; need for the comfort and love and unquestioning acceptance that I knew would be mine if I could find my way back to them.

  As we descended, winding down the rocky steps, strange sounds began floating up to me. The screeching of metal grinding together. The tinkle of broken glass. Screams.

  It has begun, Henri explained. The Fallen are in a frenzy of bloodlust. It will sweep the Earth, and you away with it, if we aren’t careful.

  I stopped and hung myself over the outer stone wall, clinging to the iron rail for support, and looked down. In the streets below I could see cars crashed into walls and into one another, left as smoking heaps against the sidewalk. The road was lined with vandalized homes, doors broken in and windows completely smashed, the crisp, lace-edged curtains that had hung so daintily in them this afternoon now hanging in shreds. Wailing sirens cut through t
he night, whining waa waaaah as the ambulances and gendarmes crisscrossed the other parts of town.

  The only person I saw was lying in the street, either injured or dead.

  “It’s a rampage,” I whispered in stunned awe.

  It is the beginning of what they think is the End. Even though they have fulfilled the Prophecy, they do not understand it. They think they have won. They think Heaven will yield to force. They cannot comprehend that the Gate has already opened to them, if they only ask forgiveness and mercy. This is the start—their celebration before they fling their armies against the doors of Heaven.

  Come, you have little time.

  I moved faster now, ignoring the pain in my ankle as we wound our way down the rock. By the time we reached the bottom, Le Puy-en-Velay was in a full riot, screaming crowds running through the streets, opportunists taking advantage of the disarray to plunder from vandalized stores.

  They sow fear and destruction in their wake. The worst impulses of humanity quicken at their touch. Whether driven by greed or cowardice, mankind’s violence shall shatter the peace of this night. Quickly, now.

  Henri steered me into the narrow street, back to the car. It seemed so long ago that I’d left it behind, parked against the curb. But, miraculously, it had gone through the night unharmed. I slid behind the wheel and fumbled with the wires, bringing the engine to life.

  I gripped the steering wheel. My fingers were tacky with blood, sticking to the vinyl. “I don’t know where to go,” I said out loud, my vision clouded with tears.

  It doesn’t matter. Just drive.

  I blinked my tears away, forcing myself to focus. I did a three-point turn in the narrow street, unwilling to head any closer to the riot. The wheels screeched in protest, but eventually I was racing back up the hill, toward the hotel and away from the dark chapel that stood proud and lonely, its secrets safe, atop the basalt needle.

  I’m fleeing a murder scene, I thought. When they found the body, Michael’s death would be classified as another unfortunate part of the nighttime melee, its mysteries left unsolved.

  Don’t think. Just drive.

  “Why are you even helping me?” I asked, baffled by his hanging on, still angry at his betrayal. I hated myself for being grateful that he was here to help me now and was more than a little suspicious that he was steering me into trouble.

  Maybe things didn’t turn out the way I expected them to, he answered, before settling into silence. In my haste to punish Michael for his prideful interference, I chose my allies poorly. Maybe I, too, misunderstood the Prophecy until it was too late.

  I ran into an improvised blockade: a pile of furniture, an abandoned baby stroller, an upside-down piano, and a burning car in the middle of the street. I took a side street, making a wide berth around the crowd that was sweeping toward me from farther down the block.

  The smell of smoke was beginning to seep inside the car. I looked around me and could see fires dotting the rooftops around the city. I sped faster, hoping to outrace the flames—headed to anywhere but here.

  The neat, white signs in intervals at a roundabout spelled out my choices. I drove in a circle, considering my options, feeling for all the world like I was playing a game of Russian roulette, the rampaging Fallen Angels closing in behind me.

  In my headlights the sign beckoned: Paris.

  The airport.

  Home.

  I careened around the corner, following the arrow, headed back the way I’d come just earlier that day with Michael and Enoch.

  I glanced at the gas gauge. I would have to stop, probably soon, or I would risk running out of gas on the open road. I stepped on the gas, willing the little Peugeot to go faster while I kept my eye open for a filling station.

  Nervous, I turned on the radio and fiddled with the settings. Urgent French, rapid fire and staccato, jumped out as I skipped around, looking for something I could understand. Every now and then a snippet of old disco or accordion music filled the car. I kept turning the knob until I found the sonorous voices of the BBC:

  … Unexplained, mass riots sweeping through cities around the world. Occupants of Shanghai and Beijing already woke to devastation this morning local time, with mobs ripping entire construction sites to the ground, shopping malls leveled, and open-air markets decimated by fire. Hundreds are dead in scenes that are being reported with eerie similarity elsewhere. No groups have claimed responsibility for these acts of terror. Indeed, the most frightening thing about them is they seem almost spontaneous …

  I clicked the radio off. I didn’t need to hear how bad things were.

  They want everyone to know that their age has dawned, Henri intoned. The age of terror.

  I shuddered, not wanting to think about what it would mean if they got their wish. The road narrowed, signs warning me to slow as I entered a town. I dropped to a crawl and made my way through the winding streets. Everything seemed deserted. A tiny gas station, brightly lit, beckoned.

  I pulled next to the pump, right behind another car. I tried to work the credit card machine, but it wouldn’t accept my card. Frustrated, I walked toward the station building to get the attendant’s help.

  I pulled the door handle, but it didn’t move. I shook it again and realized it was locked. I peered through the glass.

  “Hello?” I called.

  I looked again and noticed the pair of legs sticking out from behind the counter. Another pair stuck out at awkward angles from between the shelving, a tiny trickle of blood seeping toward the locked door.

  I backed away, frightened.

  I climbed into the Peugeot and locked my doors. I twisted the wires together to start the car. It sputtered to life, but not without me noticing how close to “0” the gas gauge had crept.

  I looked at the car parked ahead of me. The pump had stopped, and the car stood waiting for a driver who would never emerge from the station.

  I opened my door and slunk over to the waiting car, trailing my backpack behind me. The door was unlocked, and the keys were dangling in the ignition.

  I slid behind the wheel and tossed my bag into the passenger seat. With one hand I slammed the door shut while I turned the key over. The engine sprang to life, the needle of the gas gauge bouncing to “Full.”

  I pushed the image of the owner’s body back in my mind and pulled out of the station, ignoring the speed limit signs. Soon, the little hamlet was a speck in my rearview mirror and I was alone, speeding through the night. Here and there, along the Autoroute, I would pass the smoking ruin of a car. Otherwise, the roads were empty. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was so late, or because people were too scared to leave their homes.

  Henri had gone quiet again. I had become accustomed to his unannounced comings and goings, but now that I knew that his departures had likely been on occasions he was reporting on me to Lucas, his disappearance left me uneasy. I wondered how often he had actually been away, or whether he’d been lurking there, eavesdropping, more often than I realized.

  I’m still here, you know. Still listening.

  I flushed, caught in the act of thinking ill of him.

  “I shouldn’t have to apologize for doubting you now. Not after what you did. You lied to me.”

  I know. For what it’s worth, I didn’t realize that they would kill him.

  He sounded almost wistful.

  I gripped the wheel, staring into the green glow of the dashboard. My thoughts drifted back to Michael, lying all alone on the cold, stone floor. Who would find him there when morning came? Who would wash away the blood and stitch his wounds before laying him to rest in some unmarked plot?

  “Henri?”

  Hmm?

  “He’ll come back, won’t he?”

  There was a long silence.

  The Prophecy didn’t say anything about resurrection, Hope. It only talked about the opening of the Gate. Michael’s death.

  The road blurred as I began to cry. I wrapped my hands more tightly around the steering wheel and force
d myself to focus.

  There can’t be death without resurrection, I insisted, bargaining with myself. There can’t be all those comparisons to Christ, all the parallels, all those symbols, only to leave out the most important part. In three days, he will come back. I just know it.

  I stared at the road, letting the rush of pavement in front of the dim white light of the headlights lull me into numb resignation. I couldn’t think about it now, I told myself. I just had to make it to the airport.

  The hours dragged on. Every now and then I’d turn the BBC back on, but the reporting was always the same or worse. The violence was spreading, like a great stain upon the Earth, so that as the planet turned its face to the sun, the entire world was waking up to horror.

  In the early morning light, I began to see signs for the airport, as well as electronic signs that kept flashing the words, “’l’incident `a Paris.” The smoldering wrecks of abandoned cars became more frequent, as did the occasional band of dazed survivors, wandering the landscape, looking for shelter. I shut all the vents, but still the smoke seeped in, filling the car as I came closer.

  My gas gauge was getting low as I took the exit toward Charles de Gaulle. Cars littered the roadways, some folded in unnatural shapes around light poles, here and there a shuttle bus tipped over on its side. Whole chunks of asphalt were ripped out of the streets, piled with the burned-out bodies of abandoned vehicles and refuse into makeshift blockades. Beyond the fence, I could see the source of the thick smoke: Two planes had collided in the middle of the runway. The one nearest me looked like it had the top peeled off of it like an opened tin can. Black smoke billowed out of both of them as emergency crews tried, in vain, to extinguish the flames. As I wound my way through the debris in the road, a tank with a huge gun mounted on it grumbled by, quickly followed by a camouflage-painted truck filled with troops. From whom or what the place needed protecting was unclear, but the entire place seemed under siege. I nudged the car through the wreckage until I could get no farther, pulling off to the side to park.