The Revelation of Gabriel Adam (25 page)

Had this been a trick? Was he being mocked? Had he been baited to England, lured away from his search for Joseph Adam and his son by the showing of Enoch’s power in order to distract from the boy’s movements?

The mistake in New York continued to haunt him. Mastema’s patience would not last much longer. Yet Septis could feel it all over the human—the remnant of power. He decided to proceed with caution and caught his reflection in a passing window.

Appearances
,
after all
,
can be deceiving
.

Septis flicked his cigarette to the ground and moved toward the flat. He placed his hand on the door, shadows slipping from his fingers to unlock it. He entered, silent, undetected. Shadows reached from darkened corners and found their master, concealing him from sight.

Inside, the human put on a kettle while some mindless daytime game show played in the background on the television set. Leaving the kettle to boil, the insect returned to the couch and watched the program, hypnotized by the sounds and images.

Sickened, Septis could hardly stand to be in its presence.
How could such a meek and worthless species inherit the Earth? Blind is the ignorance of God. His likeness indeed
.

The human started to laugh at something, but suddenly couldn’t find the ability to continue. It gasped and choked, struggling for breath.

Septis had grabbed the throat. Lifting the human from the couch, he held it off the floor. Eyes bulged in shock, yet to register the attack. Septis pulled it closer and inhaled.

Fear.

The human flailed about, dangling from the arm, attempting to scream. The gravity of the situation set in, and the thing calmed to a terrified stillness, awaiting its doom. Septis positioned thumb over the jugular vein to feel the pulse. Blood pumped through its veins.

He wondered if the human might die from shock before ever providing any entertainment or information. The pulse settled to a steady, measurable rhythm. “I will ask you questions,” he said. “If you lie, I will know, and you will be dead. I swear it. Where is Gabriel Adam?” Septis loosened his hold to allow it to speak.

“Who? I don’t know him! You’ve got the wrong house,” the man struggled to say.

Septis felt no change in the heartbeat.
Truth
, he thought. “Where is Enoch?”

“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got the wrong . . .
gah
!”

Septis squeezed, ending its protest.
This maggot tells the truth again, yet Enoch’s stench covers the thing like a perfume.

The man tried to say something else, but it only frustrated Septis, so he crushed the neck, snapping the spine. Eyes went vacant as the body fell limp. A last breath hissed out of the gaping mouth.

Septis let go, and the body dropped to the floor in a heap.

He thought for a second, trying to restrain his rage.
The trail is cold again.
As the berserker inside begged for release, his concentration wavered.
I am undone by my own failure.

The kettle whistled loudly.

The flame.
An idea occurred to him.
Answers can be had by means other than asking
. He looked down at the lifeless form and took off his overcoat, laying it on the back of a chair.

He found a soup cauldron and lit the stove. Then he poured in some of the boiling water from the kettle.

Like a dog gnawing at an infected paw, Septis bit his finger and held it over the boiling water, allowing several drops of blood to fall into it. He then rolled up his sleeves, revealing ceremonial scars cut into his skin.

He dragged the body near the stove. As he kneeled over the head, a grotesque, crunching noise followed the sound of blood spilling onto the linoleum floor.

With red-soaked hands, Septis placed two eyeballs into the cauldron. He bent down again and went back to work on the corpse. Sounds of ripping, popping. In his hand, a tongue, dripping and mangled.

He placed it into the boiling cauldron and stirred the liquid with his bare fingers.

The broth bubbled into a thick crimson froth. He placed his palms over the substance and began to chant.

Shadows grew from every corner of the wall—from every crack in its surface. They flowed like oil into the cauldron as he spoke, enslaved by his will. The liquid sloshed and boiled over, sizzling in the flame of the stove. He finished the incantation and opened his eyes.

It was done.

He drank the potion right out of the cauldron.

Vertigo struck him instantly. He stumbled on the body and fell into the corner, spitting and writhing in pain. The kitchen hutch toppled, sending plates and cups shattering onto the floor.

Septis put his hands in front of his face as if something had appeared there. His eyes turned to deep, black pools.

Muscle memory from the tongue moved his mouth. Visions seen by another’s eyes appeared in his mind. Words stammered back through time, as if rewinding the human’s life, until Septis felt a moment different from the rest, draped in a familiar energy. He drew toward the memory, focusing his mind to slow, and relived the man’s experience.

Mumbling at first, he spoke, the voice alien to his own.
“. . . Entheos Genesthai. Use it sparingly . . . The potion is very powerful and will open up time and the realm of
creation
. . . Only the Watchers may consume it . . .
Solomon
. . . the ark . . . the ring . . . Zion . . . Axum . . .”
The vision climaxed and Septis roared, the sound shuddering through the house like an earthquake.

Windows inside the house burst, sending broken glass onto the street.

Septis felt consumed by the excitement of the revelations.
Enoch possessed the human in order to counsel Fortitudo Dei.
His eyes opened wide as new life and resolve invigorated his scarred form. In his mind, the remnant of what was the bald human dwindled into oblivion. Once more, his thoughts were his own.

“Ethiopia,” he whispered in his own voice. A smile crept across his face. “Axum,” he said louder. “The ark is in Ethiopia.”

Septis stood and walked with a renewed purpose toward the front door. He lit a cigarette as he left. Flames the color of its ember ignited inside the building.

The trail is fresh again
.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The window to the hotel room looked east into the desert sky and allowed the Egyptian sunrise to spill its rays through the lace curtains, turning Gabe’s makeshift bed on the floor into an oven. Combined with the incessant car horns that beeped through the night and the thin rug, which offered little comfort on the hardwood floor, Gabe had accumulated a grand total of no sleep whatsoever.

Under the covers, sweat trickled down his back. He wished he’d joined Micah last night on the king-sized bed. The thought had crossed his mind. Several times.

He kicked off the damp comforter and sat up.

She slept, benefiting from another sedative. His father snored on the couch. Gabe regretted not taking one of the sleeping pills his dad offered before the last flight.

He felt worse than tired. It was a bone-deep kind of exhaustion that had drilled into his waking thoughts. His chest and side still ached from Yuri’s kick, which last night had made it impossible to find a comfortable position on the plane.

He stood and stretched the soreness out of his back and then pushed aside the lace curtains and sliding door. On his way to the balcony, he grabbed the sword case propped up against the wall near Micah’s bed.

The sky was awash in light. At first glance, Cairo was a sprawling orange mess, like a giant puzzle waiting to be solved around the Nile River. After a moment, the beauty of the city began to unfold, and he recalled the first time he visited New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Monet’s dots of paint, much like the clutter, buildings, and streets of Cairo, somehow came together to become more brilliant than their individual parts.

Across the river, tall buildings lined up against the bank. Their piers were filled with boats of all kinds and extended into the blue waters. Trees lined a riverside walk below. Various ferries docked against its landing, ready for tourists and sightseers who walked by.

Beyond the busy district, lush grass and foliage extended from the riverbanks, the Nile a stripe of green that faded along with the rest of the city into distant orange sands of the desert rising on a hill in the horizon.

Gabe couldn’t help but smile.

The hotel faced upstream on the point of an island situated in the middle of the river, with its waters flowing north to the Mediterranean Sea. Gabe leaned against the railing and watched the nautical traffic. Industrial ocean liners, haulers, ferries, small cruise ships, and boats with hoisted sails went about their daily routines, oblivious to this changing world that now felt bigger than it ever had before.

And at the same time the world felt smaller, closing in, with fewer and fewer places to call sanctuary.
Fewer places to call home.
He couldn’t remember what it was like to not endure a sense of urgency.

Above a building to the northeast, the Union Jack flapped in the wind. The British Embassy sat next to the bank of the Nile. He wanted to run to them and beg for some sort of military or government assistance.
A gun, maybe. Though
perhaps
their army would be better.

It seemed unlikely that the embassy would believe a story from three strangers about a coming apocalypse, but what was there to lose? Unless, of course, they had been breached or infiltrated by the enemy. The sting of Yuri’s betrayal still weighed heavy on Gabe’s mind. Suspecting everyone around him was a terrible feeling, but trust had become a liability. He trusted his father. Micah, too. Outside his two travel companions, anyone could be an enemy.

He pulled over a chair and sat down next to the railing. Thoughts drifted back to Carlyle—the look on his face when Yuri murdered him.

Carlyle knew. He knew that was his final moment.

Gabe unsheathed the sword. It had been cleaned—all the blood wiped from the blade by his father at Carlyle’s place. Gone was any evidence of Yuri’s death. Any hope of uncovering what he knew, lost.

And what about Raphael? Was he dead? Or turned like Yuri?
The possibilities made Gabe’s neck muscles tighten into a dull ache. As his anxiety returned he realized that his head didn’t hurt. Even with all that had happened, he had not experienced a migraine since he’d taken the Entheos Genesthai.

“Africa . . . can you believe it?” Micah asked from the doorway.

Her voice saved him from his wandering mind. She stepped into the arid breeze and sunshine, looking deflated. Worn. Sad. Loose strands of hair danced around her face. They defied the light, the black somehow darker, more radiant. She brushed them behind her ear and held them against her neck.

“I was just thinking the same thing. How are you feeling?”

“It’s like I can’t sleep enough. Like I don’t want to do anything but sleep.” She paused, her words hanging in the air. “That pill leaves a bit of a hangover. Your father’s still knocked out. And snoring. Loudly, in fact,” she said, looking out over Cairo. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? The Nile?”

Micah stepped onto the balcony. A flash caught her face. She turned to see the sword twirling in Gabe’s hand, light reflecting off its blade like a mirror. “Could you give me that, please?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Sorry.”

“It’s just . . .”

“No explanation needed.” He handed it over.

“Thanks.” She put the forked end on the floor and let the blade reflect the sun into her eyes. For a moment, she was lost in its brilliance. “Do you think we have a chance, Gabe? You saw what Yuri was capable of. He’s been coached. Trained. What if the same thing has happened to Raphael? There’s something we’re not seeing. Some clue we’re missing.”