“Glimpses of just his extremities? How odd!”
“It’s sort of like she’s able to see what Gabriel sees, like she’s looking through his eyes. Sometimes his extremities come into the picture.”
Patrick flopped to the back of his chair. “Amazing! His eyes have become a cross-dimensional camera!”
“That’s what we guessed, too. But how could it happen?”
“I cannot fathom the reason,” Patrick said, stroking his chin. “I know very little about disembodied spirits.”
“Disembodied? You mean, like a ghost?”
“Certainly not,” Patrick replied, shaking his head. “The ghosts you see in horror movies are an absurd warping of reality. Although every spirit rises from its body, very few are ever seen on the earth. Gabriel is far from a haunting, morbid presence.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Elam’s voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I thought maybe he survived, that he’s just in another form.”
“Excalibur transformed his body, to be sure, but he still moves about in our world, so I think writing an obituary is premature.”
“But didn’t the prophecy say he had to die?”
“The prophecy does not use those words.” Patrick withdrew a folded piece of paper from his pocket and flipped it onto the table. “I have read it a thousand times since that fateful day, and there are many ways to interpret its morbid verses. By learning from other events in history, however, I believe we can hope that Gabriel survived. When God directs a sacrifice for the sake of others, isn’t it reasonable to assume that he has also paved the way for a resurrection? God used Gabriel’s sacrifice and the energy from the rubellite to make me human. I believe that such love and power could never end in death.”
Elam slid the paper close and slowly opened it. “So, what do you think Gabriel will do? I mean, he can’t just wander around, can he?”
“When it comes to willingness of heart, Elam, you and Merlin are the only humans I have ever met who come close to Gabriel’s stature. I am sure God will use him somehow.”
“Maybe Sapphira will figure it out. She’ll be watching what he does.”
Patrick wagged his finger at Elam. “It could be dangerous for you to continue meeting Sapphira. Morgan is always vigilant and will track Sapphira to her portal. For her safety and the safety of the children, you should stay in the house as much as possible and only come out through the tunnel exits.”
Elam spread the note out on the table but didn’t bother reading it. The words were already etched in his memory. “I guess you’re right. I’ll meet with her once more and let her know.”
Patrick raised the pendant from underneath his shirt and caressed its pearly white gem. “Ever since I became fully human, I have felt more alone than I ever had before. It’s as though my emotional connection to my dragon heritage departed hand in hand with my dragon soul. With the exception of you and my faithful wife, I feel I have lost everyone I ever loved.”
Elam gazed at the lantern’s flame as it danced atop the wick. “I know exactly what you mean. I still have Sapphira as a friend, but I can’t risk seeing her anymore. You’re the only person I can really talk to, and now we have to part company.” Blinking away tears, he turned to Patrick. “I’ll help you out in the orphanage as long as you need me.”
Patrick clasped wrists with Elam. “May God go with you, Markus. I am glad to have a friend I can trust.”
Gabriel floated in front of a hotel room door and read the numeric script at the side. Room 1178. This was it. After weeks of searching for the slayers, he had finally tracked them down. Maybe now he could end the nightmares his parents had faced for so many years.
He collapsed his body to a flat layer of energy and crept through the crack under the door. After expanding to his normal height again, he stalked toward a pair of typical hotel beds. Each mattress carried a gently heaving lump, two sleeping men with only drapery-filtered moonlight illuminating their forms.
Gabriel hovered for a moment over the first bed, peering at the shadowy profile a dark mustache, a swarthy complexion, but not familiar at all. As he floated toward the next bed, the shadows shifted away from the second man’s face. This was Devin. No doubt about it. Sleeping with his torso exposed, Devin snored lightly, apparently without a care in the world. Attached to a chain and resting on his hairy chest, a sparkling gemstone seemed to inhale wisps of moonlight.
Gabriel edged toward the gem. Somehow, it pulled on his body and drew him even closer. He tried to will himself backwards, beating his wings to create an electrostatic countercurrent, but even as his upper half moved away from the stone, his lower half stretched toward it, stringing his body out in a narrowing line of radiance.
His wings collapsed, and the gem slurped his entire energy field. He plummeted down a rivulet of light, sliding faster than if he were freefalling out of the sky. Tiny pricks stung his elongated body, and the sound of a rushing torrent surged through his mind, numbing his senses. After a few seconds, he pierced a soft black sphere, a jelly-like membrane that slowed his plunge. While floating downward through a chamber of blackness, his body retracted to its original shape and size, and when he finally stopped, all pain vanished, and a gentle hum replaced the noisy torrent.
He looked around the strange dark world and set his glowing hands on his hips. What had just happened? How could a gem absorb his body like that? Slowly willing his feet forward, he tried to move, but with only blackness all around, it seemed impossible to tell if he was making any progress.
Stopping for a moment, he focused his eyes in one direction, hoping to adjust to the lack of light and get his bearings. As he began to recognize the borders of a dark hallway, a glimmer appeared at the end of the corridor, growing quickly. Gabriel tried to back away, but he bumped into a wall.
The approaching light took shape, an old man with a friendly smile. Like his own body, this man seemed completely composed of energy.
“Ah! Gabriel!” the man said. His voice rippled along a thin current of radiance that passed between them. “I’m glad to see you!”
Gabriel floated a few inches to the side. “Uh, how do you know me?” His own voice sounded garbled and strange, like a static-filled radio broadcast.
The man chuckled, jiggling the edges of his field. “A friend of mine told me to expect a boy with dragon wings and that his name would be Gabriel. You’re the first visitor who has fit that description.”
“Really?” Gabriel spread out his arms. “How many visitors do you get in this place?”
“Very few, to be sure, but I would like to dispense with the banter, if you don’t mind.” The man bowed his head. “I am Merlin, prophet of God and former advisor to King Arthur.”
Gabriel shuddered and clumsily returned the bow. “And I’m Gabriel, but you already knew that.”
“You will be surprised at all I have come to know. But before I get to that, I would like to ask you a question.”
“Okay. I’m ready. . . . I think.”
Merlin stretched his arm upward, elongating it to twice its normal length. “According to my estimation, it is around two o’clock in the morning, so since you found Devin, I assume you came upon him while he was sleeping.” He shifted his arm toward Gabriel and draped it over his shoulder. “What did you intend to do?”
“To kill him. He wants to kill my parents, so I was trying to stop him.”
“I see.” Merlin stroked his chin. “How could you kill him in your disembodied state?”
Gabriel lifted his glowing hand and splayed his fingers. “I’ve been experimenting with channeling electricity. I’ve only done it with batteries, and I shocked a couple of cats, but I think I can hook up to an outlet and deliver a lethal jolt.”
“Assuming you were able, what do you think the jolt would have done to you?”
“I really don’t care.” Gabriel rolled his fingers into a fist. “Even if it scattered my atoms to kingdom come, it would be worth it if I could protect my parents from that murderer.”
Merlin nodded. “A reasonable motivation, to be sure, but do you think killing an unarmed man in his sleep is a noble act?”
As Gabriel tightened his fist, it flashed with a crimson hue. “I wasn’t thinking about nobility. I was just thinking about getting rid of a fifteen-hundred-year-old sewer rat.”
“I understand. In cases like this, strong emotions always seem to trump chivalry, so I won’t argue the point.” Merlin raised a sparkling finger. “Instead, I will tell you about your assignment.”
“Assignment?” Gabriel stretched out his arms and wings. “In this place?”
“Oh, no. You will soon be leaving, but I will explain that in a moment.” Merlin melded his hand with the tip of one of Gabriel’s wings. “Because of your status as a disembodied humanoid dragon, for the lack of a better term, you have been chosen to be the guardian of others like you.”
“Are there other disembodied humanoid dragons?”
“I mean other offspring of former dragons. A new one has recently come into the world. Patrick and Paili have had a daughter.”
“How am I supposed to be a guardian?” Gabriel clasped his radiant hands together. “I can’t even use a slingshot.”
“You have already figured out how to manipulate electrical fields. Perhaps you will learn other ways to alter your environment. The key is to figure out how to warn someone of approaching danger.”
“Maybe, but it seems like everything’s against me. My body passes right through the things I’d like to touch, like people or tools or weapons, but I can’t seem to penetrate most walls or doors. That would come in handy.”
“Ah, yes,” Merlin said, nodding. “God’s ways are mysterious, indeed. He seems to erect just enough boundaries to force us to seek the paths he wishes us to find. Experience, however, has taught me that every unexpected wall we slam into has a purpose, though we often cannot fathom it. Even we prophets find the limitations severely taxing at times.”
“But if you’re a prophet, and you’re still stuck in this place, how do you expect me to get out?”
Merlin pointed at a darker area of the chamber. “This gem has an exit channel. If I were to go through it, my atoms might diffuse, but your energy frame was welded together by the Great Key. You see, as the son of Makaidos, you became, in one sense, Patrick’s messiah. Not his human messiah, of course, but you were the sacrificial lamb who purged Patrick’s dragon nature. Because of that, you were able to live again, not in your old body, but in a nearly indestructible new body.”
Gabriel basked in the sparkle of the prophet’s dazzling eyes. They seemed to radiate sincerity and truth. “It all sounds pretty crazy, but I believe you.”
“As well you should.” Merlin laid a hand on his chest. “It is not often you find yourself inside a gemstone talking to a disembodied prophet.”
Gabriel shook his head and laughed. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Now,” Merlin continued, “although you have been a fine conversationalist, I must see you to the gem’s back door and ask you to be on your way. When you leave through the exit channel, you will have to fight against the candlestone’s pull or you will just be reabsorbed.”
“Yeah. I felt like a fly on a frog’s tongue when I came in here, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Merlin raised a finger and stepped closer. “One final exhortation, and I am telling you this as a prophet of God. Since you are a body of light, your greatest enemy is darkness. If darkness envelops you, it will gnaw away at your sanity and threaten your very essence. You will know it is upon you when your body dims or shrinks. If you seek the light, you will have the power to overcome the darkness.”
As the prophet’s eyes pulsed with brilliant light, Gabriel let the words sink in. Finally, he nodded. “I will remember your warning.”
Merlin spread out his arm toward the darkest region of the bleak chamber. “Come now; you must be on your way.”
Chapter 6
October 31, 1964
Gabriel swooped low over the Glastonbury Tor and scanned its grassy slopes. Only a few tourists lined the path that ascended the famous hill, making it easy for him to check every face closely. Any one of these sightseers might really be a predator stalking Shiloh, Gabriel’s young ward, as she made ready for a celebratory picnic in a nearby copse.
He guided his energy field in front of a tall, slender woman plodding up the hill and hovered a foot ahead of her, floating backwards at her pace. He gazed into her eyes, searching for a sign of an indwelling evil witch. With all of Morgan’s disguises, she could be any female, maybe even a male the grade school boy with the pea green knickers who trudged behind this woman, perhaps, or the hulking brute holding the boy’s hand.
Gabriel groaned. It seemed hopeless. Morgan could even fly in as a raven, and he couldn’t possibly search for a hint of unusual intelligence in every black bird fluttering in the trees. Even if he could identify the dark sorceress lurking nearby, the only electrical device he could use out in the open was the flashlight Shiloh had packed in her basket. Would lighting it up be enough to warn her in time?
He floated down to a small cluster of trees near the base of the hill. Carrying a folded blanket, his young protectorate searched for a suitable place to sit with her parents. When she found a place under the shade of a lush oak tree, he eased close and checked the basket dangling from a handle on her arm. The flashlight lay inside nestled against an apple and a wrapped sandwich.
As she spread out the satin-trimmed blanket, Shiloh’s gold-streaked hair shone in the setting sun, and her sparkling blue eyes flashed. She seemed like an angel, so innocent and pure. Even her gentle laugh as she sat next to her parents revealed a forgivable naïveté. To her, they were Robert and Sarah Nathanson, not Patrick and Paili. Though she knew about Patrick’s former life as a dragon, she had no idea that her mother was really an underborn almost as old as the civilized world. Yet, because of the stealthy relocating Shiloh had suffered through in her young life, including a recent, month-long visit to the U.S., she knew they were potential prey for a stalker of some kind.
Gabriel lifted into the air and hovered over their heads, watching the boundaries of their tree-filled haven. The magnificent tor towered above them like a protective sentry and cast a shadow that crept closer to the blanket as the minutes ticked by.
Patrick lifted a camera and pointed it at Shiloh. “Smile, birthday girl!”
Shiloh spread out the edges of her white party dress and flashed a cheesy smile. After the shutter clicked, Patrick laid the camera in Shiloh’s basket and all three settled on the blanket in a tight circle.
Paili set a double fudge, two-layer cake in the center. Fifteen candles lined the frosted perimeter. “I know you didn’t ask for a cake,” she said as she struck a match, “but what’s a birthday without cake and candles?” She cupped her hand around the match to keep the cool breeze from snuffing out her efforts.
As soon as the last candle came to life, Patrick and Paili sang a hurried version of “Happy Birthday.” Shiloh then leaned forward and blew out the candles.
Patrick clapped his hands. “All fifteen in one blow!”
Shiloh pushed back her hair and smiled. “I think the wind helped me.”
A twig snapped. Gabriel floated higher and gazed at a nearby thicket. Nothing moved. Maybe the breeze had knocked down a limb. He edged close to the thicket and peered through the leafy branches of a head-high bush. A man crouched behind it, and a raven perched on his shoulder.
Gabriel zoomed back to Shiloh and swirled his energy over the blanket. The flashlight was still in the basket! He dove inside, stretched his energy into a thread-thin line, and penetrated a tiny hole in the flashlight’s casing. He bridged the battery’s current to the bulb several times, making the light flash repeatedly, but how could they possibly notice? He streamed out again and wrapped himself tightly around Shiloh. Maybe somehow he could communicate the danger from mind to mind.
“And now for your gift!” Patrick withdrew a small, velvet-covered box from his jacket pocket, and, carefully lifting the hinged lid, presented it to Shiloh.
As she pulled out a delicate gold chain, a wide smile spread across her face. An octagonal bronze pendant dangled at the bottom of the chain with a marble-sized white stone glimmering at its center.
“Shiloh!” Gabriel shouted. “You have to hear me! Morgan is coming!”
Paili ran a finger along the chain’s links. “Do you like it?” she asked.
Shiloh leaned over and kissed each of her parents. “I love it! Thank you!” She settled back and examined the gem in the pendant’s center. “What is this? A pearl?”
After draping the chain around her neck, Patrick hooked the fastener. “It’s a rubellite, the rarest kind. It was once red, and it suddenly turned white almost a year before you were born. It’s a family heirloom my sister gave me a long time ago.”
Gabriel laid his hands on Shiloh’s cheeks. His fingers flashed like scarlet beacons. “Danger is near, Shiloh! You have to run! Now!”
Shiloh’s eyes widened, and her lips parted slightly.
“Is something wrong?” Patrick asked.
Shiloh lowered her brow. “I’m not sure. I have a funny feeling, like someone’s calling me.”
“Really?” Paili touched Shiloh’s hand. “Is it an audible voice?”
Shiloh closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m probably just tired.” She rubbed her thumb across the smooth stone. “So you got this from Irene? The lady in your stories about the dragons?”
“Yes,” Patrick replied. “It represents our life essence. Irene ”
The man burst out of the thicket. “Stay where you are!” He drew a sword from a scabbard and ran toward the birthday gathering.
Gabriel unfurled his wings in front of Shiloh and flashed his energy field with all the power he could muster, but how would that stop a charging swordsman? Without electricity, he was nothing but an invisible ghost! He scanned the skies. The closest electrical line hung at least a hundred yards away. Too far to tap into its power!
Leaping in front of Paili and Shiloh, Patrick spread his arms. The intruder halted and pricked Patrick’s throat with the point of the sword. Paili jumped up, but Patrick lifted his hand, signaling for her to stay away. He angled his head back. “Palin!” He swallowed hard. “What is the meaning of this?”
A female voice answered Patrick. “You know the meaning, Valcor.”
Stepping aside, Palin lowered the sword. A slender, dark-haired woman appeared from behind a tree. Her ghostly form seemed to float, though her legs moved in a normal cadence. “You didn’t send me a card with your change of name and address,” she said. “I was worried that I would never find you again or meet your lovely daughter.”
Patrick glared at her. “Morgan. How typical of you to pollute the pristine meadows like a walking weed.”
A scowl flashed across Morgan’s face, but she quickly replaced it with a broad smile. “Poetic, as always, my old friend, but your insults are misplaced. I have a wonderful birthday gift for Shiloh, and I would like for her to come with me to receive it.”
Gabriel tried to shove Morgan with his hands, then with his wings, but to no avail.
Shiloh stood behind her father and wrapped her arms around his waist. Patrick grasped her hands in front and intertwined his fingers with hers. “You’ll give her a gift when pigs fly, Witch!”
Morgan’s smile melted into a thin horizontal line. “I thought you would come up with a more original quip, but your denial was expected.”
“Where is your other pet gorilla?” Patrick asked, nodding toward Palin. “Has Devin finally given up hunting for your hostiam?”
Morgan reached for Palin’s blade and pricked her finger on its tip, drawing a bead of black fluid. “Because of your little shooting incident the last time you two met, I thought Devin would not control himself as well this time. If you decided to reject my demands, as I expect you will, Devin would kill you, and all would be lost.” She held out her hand, allowing a drop of thick blood to fall to the leaf-strewn grass. A wiggling brown sliver crawled out of the ground, like an earthworm squeezing up from a narrow hole. As it emerged, it lengthened to the size of a man’s foot, then doubled, constantly growing in girth, and, as it continued to stretch, one end morphed into the head of a snake.
Gabriel tried to grab the snake, but his fingers slipped right through it. He clenched his fists and screamed, “Help me! I don’t know what to do!” But his cry fizzled, unheard. Even the giant hill refused to reply with an echo.
Morgan grasped the snake and wrapped it around her shoulders and torso. Cradling its neck in her hand, she brought the hissing head closer to Patrick as he edged backwards. “So when we finally tracked you down,” she continued, “I sent Devin to make sure the place I prepared is ready for your daughter’s arrival.” She took a quick step toward Patrick, and the snake lunged and latched its fangs onto Shiloh’s forearm.
Shiloh screamed and shook her arm until the snake finally released her and dropped to the ground. Patrick stomped on its head with the heel of his boot, pounding it flat. Paili yanked Shiloh away and hustled her to the nearby oak tree.
Morgan shook her head in mock lament. “What a shame! Now I’ll have to take Shiloh with me.” She picked up the dead snake by the tail. “You see, I have the only cure for the serpent’s venom.”
As Paili tended to Shiloh’s wound, Patrick spat at Morgan’s feet, his face red and taut. “What good is she to you?” he shouted. “She can’t be your hostiam without my approval!”
Morgan wound the snake’s body into a ball and slung it into the thicket. “Don’t worry. I will keep her safe in the sixth circle until you change your mind. I’ll let you decide which is better for her. Will you let me take her body, or will you condemn her to live an eternity of tortured loneliness? For now, though, you have to answer a more urgent question. Will you allow the serpent’s venom to rot her flesh over the next three days until she suffers an excruciatingly painful death, or will you give her to me?”
Patrick shot her a threatening glare. “For healing only. Not as your hostiam.”
Morgan smirked. “I will accept that for now. It will amuse me to see how long it takes you to change your mind.”
Patrick ran to the tree and scooped Shiloh into his arms, whispering as he carried her back to Morgan. “Will you trust me, dearest angel?”
Amid dripping tears, Shiloh nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
As Patrick gazed into her eyes, his own tears fell onto her dress. “Will you remember what I’ve taught you? Never lose faith, no matter how long it takes. Above all, never eat Morgan’s food. God will provide for all your needs.”
Shiloh shook her head. “I won’t forget, Daddy! I’ll never forget!”
Sapphira pointed at the screen. “Palin’s carrying Shiloh up the tor. Do you think Gabriel will be able to follow her?”
“To the sixth circle?” Acacia pinched her chin. “I doubt it. He’d have to cross dimensions again.”
“But Shiloh’s got the pendant with her. Maybe Gabriel can use it somehow to get through a portal.”
“Good point, but we’d better hush and listen. It’s hard to hear them.”
In the viewport, Patrick and Paili charged up the hill behind Palin. Morgan halted, waiting for the pursuers to close the gap. She knocked Patrick flat with a wall of blackness, then shoved Paili with her foot, sending her tumbling to the bottom. Patrick scrambled down and helped Paili to her feet. Now separated by the entire slope of the towering hill, Patrick yelled up at Shiloh. “I’ll send someone to find you. I promise!”
“I know you will, Daddy!” she called back. “I’ll be waiting!”
With Shiloh still draped across his arms, Palin crouched low in front of Morgan as the dark sorceress waved her hand over her head. A blinding light flashed across the viewport and covered the hill with a sparkling blanket of white.
A lump grew in Sapphira’s throat. Was Gabriel close enough to Morgan to follow her through the portal? Would the scene change to the other dimension? After a few seconds, the flash’s glow faded away, revealing the familiar sloping grass of the Glastonbury Tor.
Sapphira stamped her foot. “He didn’t follow!”
“Shiloh’s in big trouble.” Acacia turned to Sapphira. “Why did her father tell her not to eat Morgan’s food? Does he know about her poisonous fruit?”
Sapphira folded her hands in front of her lips. “Probably, but I don’t think Morgan would give it to her. She wants Shiloh to live.”
“So now, if she doesn’t disobey her father, she’ll starve.”
“Not if I can help it.” Sapphira withdrew the cross from her waistband. “I know how to get to the sixth circle.”
“How? When we go through the portal Morgan just used, we come out at our mining level, and the rest of the portals here are closed.”
Sapphira waved her hand across the screen, and it rolled up into a spinning orange column. “Not this one,” she said, nodding at the portal.
“That leads to Morgan’s swamp. I know you love wrestling with serpents, but it’s still not the sixth circle.”
Sapphira tightened her grip on the cross. “I got to the sixth circle from Morgan’s island. I can do it again.”
“Will you be able to get home?”
Sapphira stared at Acacia. The deep lines in her sister’s brow mirrored her own concern. Could she return? To get to the sixth circle, she had plunged through that strange hole in one of the three doors, so there was no way to climb back up. And she left the sixth circle through a portal that led to the floor of the deep chasm, but, even if it still worked, climbing the sheer cliff would be impossible. The only other option was to dive into the boiling magma river, but going through that portal would destroy Dragons’ Rest, if it didn’t destroy her first.
Acacia laid her hand on Sapphira’s cheek. “You don’t know how to get back, do you?”
“No,” Sapphira said, lowering her chin. “I don’t.”
Acacia leaned over and picked up a stack of folded denim next to her sleeping mat. “I guess we should wear blue jeans, shouldn’t we?”