Sliding into the driver’s seat, he fumbles with the keys before finally getting the engine turned over. He flicks the headlights on, throws the car in drive, and slams on the gas. Snow, dirt, and gravel shoot into the air behind him.
He’s back on the highway a minute later, the fading sun sinking orange behind the distant mountains that stand across the horizon.
Half an hour passes before his breathing returns to normal and his heart seems content to remain within his chest. He swears out loud, not caring to repent. If his moves are being orchestrated, which he now knows they are, what option does he have? He takes the thing out of his pocket and holds it up to the sinking fireball that is the center of his planet’s solar system.
The bronze ring twinkles as it absorbs the sun, fiery hues swimming in circles through its band. Far from filling him with a sense of purpose, it now infuses him with such a terrifying sense of damnation that he almost throws it out the window just to escape the guilt of it.
He shouldn’t have put it on.
He had known better. His flesh was weaker than he thought. To think he could handle the power, that he would be judged as righteous, was nothing but pride. And God hates pride. He begins to doubt the genuineness of his salvation, of the experience that had surrendered him to the Light in the first place. He’d chosen to believe that the demonic manifestations were being caused simply by having the ring in his possession, but he now realizes that they were conjured as a result of his corrupt body violating its bronze sphere. He’d been judged by the ring as unworthy and had thus become
theirs
…an instrument of hell, the sport of idols and demons that Solomon had warned of in his writings, as did the Templar who later found it buried beneath the Temple Mount. He should have avoided wearing the ring as he would have avoided walking through a portal to hell…which, in a sense, was exactly what the ring was. For most.
He’d been aware of the temptation he knew would try overtaking him, but to leave the ring in the possession of the Society was unthinkable. He had to take the risk, even if it meant giving into its power and falling for the very lie that had deceived Eve in the garden. He was doing it for the world, for its future, and hadn’t the Apostle Paul said that he would gladly go to hell himself if by doing so it would save his people? Wasn’t that what he was doing? Maybe, then, God would be gracious and acknowledge the sacrifice he’d made…what it had truly cost him.
Five hours later, he checks himself into a motel.
Standing in front of the mirror, leaning against the sink, he stares into his reflection, trying to detect anything
different
within his eyes, but he notices nothing but fear-ridden hopelessness swimming laps around the black circles of his pupils. His fifty-three-year-old frame looks more like seventy, the betrayal he’s levied to his fellow brothers taking its toll on more than just his spirit. He can’t bear to look at himself any longer, and hoping that what he sees staring back at him isn’t the same image that God sees, he heads out of the room and to the front desk.
“Can I help you?” the man at the desk asks without looking up from the magazine he’s reading.
“Is there a shopping mall around here?” The need to be surrounded by as many people as possible is furious.
“Yeah, about ten miles south. Just follow the signs.” The hotel manager looks up and seems taken aback by the bald man standing before him, his eyes narrowing on the tattoo etched into his neck—a cross wrapped by a rose.
“Thanks,” Joab says. He hopes the manager is more interested in the dirty magazine than the ancient symbol that can be Googled easily enough on the computer behind him.
He pulls into the shopping mall fifteen minutes later. About to exit the car, and against every instinct, he takes the ring from his pocket, opens the glove compartment, and slides it beneath a stack of instruction manuals, maps, and paperwork. Even though the car can’t possibly be traced back to him, it’s hardly an ideal hiding spot. But he mustn’t have the ring on his person if their agents find him again.
He walks across the parking lot, pulling his big coat tight against himself, and tries to ignore the stalking shadows that he knows are entering the mall with him.
The buzz of activity hustling about beneath the bright Christmas lights and hanging wreaths provides a certain level of community that he has never before experienced. Not like this, anyway. But there is no time for such bitter reflection now. He needs a disposable phone so he can contact the Jesuit priest who had shared with him in secret letters what the ring actually was and what the Society hoped to use it for. Perhaps now the Jesuit might have a better idea of what could be done with it.
Quickening his pace toward the proper kiosk, he is almost there when he sees them. Two agents. Not the same ones from the cabin, but undoubtedly armed with the same lethal machinery. He thinks about running and decides against it. He’s too tired to keep running from what he knows will inevitably come anyway. Turning to face them, he prays silently, again offering his soul to the very God the song ringing throughout the mall honors, whether the shoppers realize it or not.
The two men step close, seemingly unconcerned with the crowds of consumers pressing in around them. They remove their suppressed .22s and raise them in a single, fluid motion.
Before the two bullets punch through Joab’s forehead, chapters of Solomon’s
Testament
come instantaneously to mind, attempting to answer for the last time so many unlearned mysteries.
He falls backward, his eyes holding on to the huge star fixed atop the forty-foot Christmas tree that occupies the food court, the star of Bethlehem (Sirius to the Brotherhood) shining from its apex. As his life flickers away and the two men searching his pockets begin to fade, he thinks of the ring resting in the glove compartment of the rental car and wonders if his actions will work at all in preventing Lucifer from carrying out his ages-old “mystery of iniquity.”
****
The room is dark, the electricity having failed hours ago due to the lightning storm being hurled at the earth. Though the more recent technologies have suffered, however, the stone architecture of the building itself remains unimpressed by anything the weather has in store.
“They killed him?” The taller man walks away from the spectacle outside the window, a flash of branched energy scorching the sky and outlining him with purple light. His long robes drag across the stone floor behind him, slithering like a velvet tide always chasing its master.
“Yes.” The second man is dressed in similar attire and stands hidden in the shadow of the room’s entranceway.
“And the ring was not on his person?”
“No.”
“How did he get to the mall?”
“That has yet to be determined.”
The man by the window turns toward his fellow Brother. “What about his accomplice?”
“Nothing yet, Jacob.”
Jacob thinks. “We must seek guidance.”
“What if Joab managed to destroy it?”
A moment of silence passes as the question is considered. Thunder rattles the windows. Finally, Jacob brings his hands together and presses the tips of his fingers against each other. “You know that the Judgment ring cannot be destroyed.”
“I know the legends hint at such, but—”
“Contact him.”
The man pauses, stunned. “
Him
? You don’t mean—”
“Yes.”
“Surely, you can’t trust him.”
“Of course not. But his
ability
may be the only resource available to us. We will worry about what to do with Jonathan after he has found the ring.”
“I don’t need to tell you of the mess he could create for us once he has it.”
“What else would you have us do, Stephen? Give up on the Master’s plan? Surrender thousands of years of orchestration to the wind?”
Stephen hesitates. “Perhaps it is not the only way to bring the vision about. Maybe the rings present just one of many opportunities by which we might bring it to pass.”
Jacob steps forward. “And it is precisely this one ‘opportunity’ that has been entrusted to
us
. If it doesn’t work, its failure will not be due to our lack of trying.”
“I understand, Jacob. It will be done.” He bows his head and steps backward, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor.
Jacob turns his face back to the window and whispers into the night, “Come now, Jonathan, let us use you one last time, will you?”
One
She could feel it all closing in on her as each encroaching inch swung an ice pick into the frozen walls of her resolve, chipping away at the fortification she had erected around her delicate psyche. But she knew a breach was inevitable, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation. For a moment she tried imagining herself in an endless field, exchanging the stuffed, cylindrical cell for open freedom. She knew it was all in her head, so if she could just get herself to—
“You okay?”
Ian’s voice came as a beacon, a guiding light sweeping back and forth through the fog, searching for her. But light wouldn’t help. She couldn’t grasp light, couldn’t relax as it physically pulled her ashore. “I need to get off,” she whispered, eyes still closed.
“Hey, is she all right?” Marcus’ deep voice drifted over from the row behind.
Ian shook his head while looking up and down the aisle for some sign of help, though he wasn’t sure what it would look like if he even found it. Other than an open door leading to a gleeful sprint across the open tarmac, there wasn’t really much that could be done.
“It’s gonna be okay, Heather. Shouldn’t be too much longer.” Ashley was leaning forward and over the chair, rubbing her sister’s shoulders. It was a practice she’d been repeating for many years now, dating back to when she was just a scrappy thirteen-year-old not knowing how else to relieve her big sister’s pain. There was no evidence that the technique actually worked, but she continued trying, as if in hope that someday she might succeed in exorcizing the poison from Heather’s mind once and for all, drawing it into herself like some sin eater so that she could spit the black stuff—it had to be black, right?—onto the ground and watch satisfied as many a passerby trampled the evil underfoot.
Marcus leaned over from the seat beside her and with his lips mouthed,
the accident?
Ashley nodded and began moving her fingers soothingly through Heather’s straight, golden hair. “It’s okay,” she repeated.
The Accident.
It was something Heather never talked about, but situations like this one made it impossible to keep a complete secret. Her closest friends knew most of the details, but not all. Not even Ashley knew them all.
“Excuse me,” Ian called out to a passing stewardess.
The woman stopped, and it took a second for her tired eyes to find him. “Yes?”
“Any idea how much longer this is gonna take? A question you’ve been answering for the last hour, I’m sure, but my fiancée here has a bit of claustrophobia, and we’re just trying to gauge how much more of this she can take before…” He made his eyes into saucers and filled his cheeks with air, then made an exploding motion with his hands while blowing the air from his mouth.
The stewardess tilted her head to the side a bit so that she could get a glimpse of Heather for herself. She sighed, defeated by her own helplessness in the situation, and said, “It shouldn’t be too much longer. If it’s an emergency—”
“No,” Heather interrupted, opening her eyes. She forced a smile and tucked a few strands of blond behind an ear, freeing them from Ashley’s petting. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.”
“Are you sure?” Ian asked. “Maybe—”
But she waved him off. “Please,” she whispered, “it’s embarrassing enough without having to be rushed off on a stretcher in front of all these people.”
So Ian thanked the stewardess, releasing her from their plight.
The woman, dressed in the airline’s proper attire—red skirt neatly pressed, red vest over white satin, and a nametag reading JOY—walked toward the cockpit, circumnavigating the flying complaints flung by an uneasy clientele. Things were starting to get ugly.
“Hey, why don’t you just leave her alone,” Ian hollered at the angry mass. “It’s not her fault.”
“Hey, pal, ya wanna ssstep ousside?” a voice came back.
“Oh, pleassse,” Ian mocked.
“Wasssat ssuposta mean?”
Heather could make out a form rising across the aisle and laid her head down on Ian’s shoulder. She loved her fiancé’s willingness to stand up for the innocent, though she’d never actually witnessed him in a fight—and she wasn’t going to witness one now, not without the air marshall’s handcuffs coming out.
Someone else tossed an obscenity-strung command at the man, telling him to shut up and sit down. That freed Ian from the man’s crosshairs, his aim shifting to the new target.
“We need to get off this plane soon, or the marshall’s gonna have a riot on his hands,” Marcus said. He put one of his caramel-colored arms around Ashley as she leaned back into the seat beside him.
Heather tried to concentrate on her breathing, to convince her mind that she wasn’t going to suffocate, that her feelings weren’t an accurate portrayal of the truth. She let her imagination run wild with Marcus’ statement, enjoying for a second the unfolding of such a scene, though interpreted as more of a comedic stunt rather than a horrific blood-splattered frenzy. But it was a short distraction, and she was beginning to think a stretcher ride would be worth it if it got her off the plane. “Does anyone even know where we are?”
“Adirondack Regional Airport,” Ian answered, squeezing her hand and thumbing the rock he’d placed on it a couple months ago.
Marcus turned his gaze out the window. “The middle of nowhere.”
The scene beyond the plane held the afternoon sun in blankets of snow clouds, the mountains barely visible in the distance.
“It’s beautiful,” Ashley said. But the sight didn’t dispel her concern for Heather, and she didn’t linger on it long.