The Centaur (6 page)

The dark angel followed until he found himself in the laboratory. The lights flickered and dimmed and flickered as the sound of muffled explosions somewhere nearby caused the building’s foundations to shake.  He stood in the center of the room as she circled it slowly.

“I sense something here, Abaddon. Something very, very strange and powerful. And there.” She pointed to a scorched spot on the marble slab atop the central table. “Something was burned here.” The oven door stood open.

Abaddon approached the oven and peered into the dark opening. He could smell ashes and a cloying odor like burned flesh.

“A body was burned here.” He announced and ran his finger over the door. A fine gray powder stuck to his index finger and he tasted it. “Yes. Definitely.”

“Hmmm.” Huber nodded. “I will ask
Sabaoth about it when he comes.”

“My lady!” Abaddon called to her as she exited the lab and started down to the lower, safer levels. “Please listen, Your Excellency. The Prophet cannot break through. He sent me to beg your assistance.”

Huber spun on him and his liver failed him. Her eyes blazed with fury.

“I don’t believe it!” She snarled at him. “Who can stand against him?”

“He has powerful enemies, my Lady. Very, very powerful.” Abaddon had her attention now and as predicted, she was infuriated at the idea of someone daring to oppose Sabaoth. “He asked me to come to you. He is unwilling to leave his forces alone in the face of such danger. He said to tell you, if you cannot help him, you might take flight to friendlier climes until he can call for you again.”

“What are suggesting, Schweikert? Do you think I would willingly consign myself to oblivion and hope that
Sabaoth remembers to send for me in the future? That is ludicrous.”

“Then I will offer my assistance to you, my lady, as I offered my assistance in the days of old.”

“The days of old?” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t remember you in the days of old. Did you serve my father as you serve Sabaoth?”

“I did, my Lady, and he treated me well. I owe him much and would serve his daughter as I served him.” The dark angel bowed his head.

“Ahhh. I am sure I could reward you just as well.” Huber raised her eyes to the ceiling as the lights flickered and threatened to leave them in total darkness. “You’ve been out there, Abaddon. Tell me about the enemy. What is their strength and their weakness? How would you suggest we address them? Have my children been worrying them?”

“They have done their part, but they have suffered badly,” he told her truthfully.

The creature spat in anger. “They will pay for their foul deeds. Come with me. We will lay our plans together. Tell me more about how your served my father.”

Abaddon let go a long sigh and followed the Queen Mother into the depths of the shelter under the palace. So far, so good.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

“Santa Maria!” Lucio shoved Simon aside just as the first large boulder rolled past them on the rocky path that led to the summit of the mountain. The sun had left them halfway down and sneaked out of sight, leaving them in a hazy purple twilight.

Simon picked himself up and dusted off his surcoat. The formerly white tunic was hopelessly stained and filthy. The Healer was tired. They had been preparing an altar on top of the mountain near the ruins of Jethro’s temple. Simon was not pleased with the place that his father had chosen. It just didn’t feel right, but then nothing felt right.

“Poppi?” Philip’s worried face appeared in front of him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” The Healer said shortly and looked back up the trail. The boulder had come from no where. Just as the snakes the day before and the pit trap the day before that. The god of the mountain was not happy with them and that made him even more reluctant to pronounce the sight ready for the burnt offering his father planned to make before they opened the Ark. To put it in plain terms, he was terrified.
Burnt offerings
. He had almost become one himself and the last and only time he’d seen such a thing done, the entire mountain had gone up in smoke and taken half of Naples, Italy with it. And that had been Mark Andrew’s doings. Simon had much more confidence in Mark than in his own father. He never expected to make it home to his wife again. If they were not all killed outright, he felt sure that the world was about to end. His only consolation was in knowing he had six of his eleven sons and his father here with him, along with the rest of his Brothers. The only person not there with them was Mark Andrew and he thought it a shame that Mark could not have been there to argue with Edgard about the details of their destruction.

In spite of his insistence that he was fine, his sons, Philip, Issachar and Zebulon helped him down the mountain like the old man he felt he had become over night.

When they had him safely back in his tent, Lucio shooed them away and sat down on the floor beside his cot.

“Simon. Everything is ready. Why do you put them off?” He asked in a low voice.

“It is not ready. There are things that are simply not right.” Simon pulled his surcoat over his head and threw the uniform that had become nothing more than a dust rag in the corner. He began to unbuckle his chainmail.

“And you are not a good liar, Brother.” Lucio smiled at him, crinkling the scar on his face.

Simon stopped working on the catches and stared at the Italian for a few moments before striking him on the shoulder.

“Shrive me, Brother.” Simon’s light blue eyes were wide with fear.

“You don’t need to confess, Simon.” Lucio got up and sat next to him. “Especially not to me.”

“You don’t understand.” Simon felt he would faint under the pressure. “I didn’t expect that pit, Lucio!” The Healer crossed himself and closed his eyes, willing himself to be still and calm. “I didn’t expect it.”

The wilderness tabernacle had been erected on an almost level patch of bare rock and soil near the ruined entrance to Jethro’s ancient temple. He, Levi and his father, Edgard, had labored well into the night on the previous day, erecting the purple, red and blue tent and draperies that would temporarily house the Ark of the Covenant on its final journey. They had personally carried up the relics needed to make the Temple complete: the golden candlesticks, the shewbread table, incense and even the stones for building the altar for the burnt sacrifice. Zebulon, Izzy and Philip, along with a small contingent of soldiers had returned with an unblemished red heifer, brought especially from Ireland by King Corrigan for this very purpose, the Atonement sacrifice they would make before the ultimate sacrifice wherein they would destroy the Ark. The two Knights could hear the lowing of the sad beast from where they sat. When everything had seemed ready, Simon had climbed back up the trail alone to inspect the sight once more.  To his shock and horror a great, gaping hole had opened in the midst of the ruins behind the Temple. Smoke, ash and a horrible moaning noise emanated from the depths of the mountains as if the stone, itself, were weeping and wailing for what they were about to do. “You don’t understand.”

“I think I do. Here,” Lucio pushed him off the cot to the floor on his knees. “Repeat after me. No, no. Look up there. Toward Heaven. In this way you will know you are well and whole and things are not nearly so bad as you might imagine. Not all has fallen, Brother. The fat lady has not sung.”

Simon fixed his gaze on the roof of the tent.

“Now I want you to relax as best you can, Brother, and repeat after me.” Lucio got on his knees beside the mystic healer and crossed himself before fixing his own sight near the top of the tent flap. He closed his eyes and began the negative confession in a soft sing-song voice. “Hail,
Usek-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.”

Simon glanced at him briefly and hesitated.

“Trust me, Brother, the dead listen better than the living.” Lucio opened one eye and looked at the healer.

“Hail,
Usek-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.” Simon’s voice excelled even the Italian’s in his soothing recitation of the ancient words.

“Hail,
Fenti, who comest forth from Khemenu, I have done no violence.” Lucio took up as soon as Simon finished. Simon began the next line and Lucio’s voice overlapped his with the next line. Simon caught up the rhythm and soon the sounds of their combined voices drifted across the emptiness of the desert like a beautiful song from ages past. The confession would go on in this manner for a half hour or more.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

“This makes no sense.” Michael said as he pushed up the dust-encrusted goggles and squinted at the looming shapes of the three pyramids adorning the western horizon. “We should be able to see the Sphinx from here. I distinctly remember hearing a great deal of talk about returning to the Sphinx.” Michael scratched his chin under his beard.

Galen stood in his stirrups and shaded his eyes against the glare of the sinking sun.

“I don’t see it. Maybe it’s on the other side of the Great Pyramid. That would block it, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose, but I always thought that the Sphinx was east of the other monuments on Giza.” Michael shook his head and glanced behind them. They had only three of the horses left. The trip had taken nine of the horses that had belonged to the angelic warriors. Three had stampeded over a bluff, three had been killed and eaten by a horrid, toothy monstrosity and three more had run away into the desert and the two wanderers had been forced to flee for their lives when a pack of wild wolf-like creatures the size of ponies had ambushed them near a dry wash. But those animals had been the only creatures of demonic origins they had encountered on their hard ride west.

The sun was sinking almost visibly now and a long, low wail behind them set their nerves on edge. The animal or whatever it was sounded vaguely human and was answered by another howl away to the north.

“Are those on this side of the river or the other?” Galen asked nervously.

“I can’t tell.” Michael pulled the goggles off his head and hung them on his saddle. “We’d best move on. I have a feeling we either beat them here or we made a serious miscalculation. I see no signs of anyone passing this way recently.”

They wasted no more time before putting some distance between themselves and the unknown creatures behind them. Michael had come here long ago with Galen and Lucio on one of the only field trips they had ever managed in the troubled times in which they grew up. He vaguely remembered some buildings made of stone near the front paws of the Sphinx. He hoped to find a defensible place to spend the night where they could quarter the horses nearby. If they lost their mounts, they would be in very serious trouble, even
moreso than they already were. The silence of the desert and the empty highways weighed heavily on them as the horses kicked up expanding plumes of dust which blew away to the south in the light breeze. They came suddenly upon the rectangular pit where the Sphinx had sat for thousands of years staring sightlessly across the desert vastness. The horses skidded to a stop near the edge of the pit, almost dumping the riders over their necks.

“Whoa!! Hold on!!” Michael shouted and simultaneously slid from the saddle. He turned just in time to catch Galen as he was thrown backwards from his own horse. They tumbled into the dirt together and then scrambled up to run after the startled horses. When they got the horses under control, they returned to the edge of the pit. The remnants of a metal fence that had once surrounded the enclosure to keep out curious tourists after hours, lay twisted and mangled, scattered across the area.  But it was not the entirely destroyed tourist trap consisting of buildings, parking lot, ramps and souvenir stands that caused their gaping stares. It was the empty pit where the great monument once sat. The temple that had occupied the space in front the lion’s paws was a pile of tumbled down blocks. Here there were the bones of great beasts, picked clean by the carrion birds and scavengers. The scene was one of total devastation.

“Ahhh.” Galen nodded as understanding sank slowly into his sun-baked brain. “The Sphinx. Not back to the Sphinx! They said they had to get the Sphinx back. The lion with wings. The gryphon. My father has raised the Sphinx.”

“Oh.” Michael said shortly as he made the same connection. In the excitement of the battle and the ensuing confrontations between the armies of the Templars, the European empires and the Fox, Lucifer had quickly and quietly called them away in pursuit of the fleeing ATV containing Abaddon, Lucifer’s old friend. They had been unable to make contact with any of the Templars though both of them desperately wished to see their fathers and other members of their extended family. Their disappointment at being dragged away had been quickly replaced by shock at being left behind. Now they stood looking at something even more shocking and
bewildering. The outline of the stone beast was clearly visible in the pit as a very dark hole that seemed somehow sinister from their present perspective.

“Is that a hole or what?” Galen frowned down at the disturbing sight.

“I don’t know. It looks like paint or something.” Michael was confused, disgusted and afraid. He felt responsible for Galen. He had always felt responsible for Galen. Michael was the consummate ‘Brother’s Keeper’. “We’d best get down there and see if we can find a spot in the ruins to make camp.”