The Revelation of Gabriel Adam (21 page)

In an instant, he was wide-awake.
The vials
, he remembered.

He threw back the covers, forced himself out of bed, then grabbed a pair of shorts from a pile of dirty clothes in the corner and tried to put them on. Seeing his reflection in the mirror on the wall, he realized that he was fully dressed in yesterday’s outfit.

That’s convenient
, he thought and threw the shorts back onto the pile.

He barely had the door unlocked when his father barged through. “Where the hell have you been? The Vatican informed Carlyle that the vials were delivered to you by the messenger. Is that true? We’ve been calling your mobile since last night, for God’s sake!”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.” Gabe looked at his phone. “It was on vibrate; I didn’t feel it go off.”

“No excuses.” He took a step back. “You stink like a pub.”

“Dad, keep your voice down. The other students—”

“I don’t give a damn what the other students think. You are not
other students
! Do you even realize that we thought something had happened to you when you couldn’t be found? There are things out there that want you dead.
Dead
, Gabriel. Where are they? Where are the vials?”

Gabe slumped back onto his disheveled bed. “In my backpack.”

His father opened the zipper and removed the small box. He opened it and sighed, his posture decompressing and the red fading from his cheeks when he saw that the vials were safe. “If something had happened to you, to the vials, we would be lost. There is so much riding on you and Micah. Why can’t you see that?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . Micah told me what those vials can do. I needed time—”

“We’re out of time. This is
your
life, whether you want it or not. You have got to take responsibility and realize that you have a higher purpose than”—his dad looked him over—“drinking yourself like some fool into a stupor like
other students
do. You have a greater purpose. Do you not yet understand that? Even after all you’ve seen?”

His father stood, gently closing the lid on the small box. “You need to persevere. There is still much to prepare for and even more that will be asked of you. Did the messenger tell you anything?”

“His name was Enoch. He looked normal enough but he didn’t seem . . .” Gabe couldn’t say the word
human
to complete the thought. It would only sound like fantasy. “He said we are to perform the ritual and then seek Solomon’s Ring inside the Ark of the Covenant.”

His father’s legs seemed to give out. He fell into the chair by the desk. “Solomon’s Ring is in the ark? But it has been lost to time.”

“They are both in Zion. In Axum, Ethiopia.” Gabe felt awkward saying Enoch’s thoughts out loud.

“My God. You are certain? That is what he said?” He drifted, lost in thought. “Discovered at last. We will need to make travel arrangements immediately. I’ll contact Carlyle and let him know, so he can prepare Micah.”

“There was more. Enoch said Micah and I are the last archangels. The others are lost or turned. He didn’t know.”

His dad looked as though the wind had been knocked from him. “Then the hour is later than we thought. I’ll take the vials to the vault. Be there in thirty minutes. You’ll need to pack. We’re leaving Durham.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Inside the vault, Carlyle and Micah waited, looking frustrated. Gabe walked in with his father, who had been waiting for him upstairs in the gallery. Several candles flickered in the blackened room, casting shadows on the walls and looking more like a dungeon than ever. Micah didn’t make eye contact with him as he sat in the chair in front of the desk.

But Carlyle stared daggers. “Enjoy your break, boy?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind yesterday,” Gabe said.

“Hopefully you won’t be in the same frame of mind when the enemy makes an attempt on your life,” Carlyle said and stood from his desk where the box and vials were laid out. “I want to hear it from you. Where exactly did Enoch say we would find Solomon’s Ring?”

“Ethiopia. A city called Axum, though he also called it Zion. He said we would find the Ark of the Covenant there and the ring.”

“Idiot,” Carlyle snapped. “Do you know how valuable that information is? How many would kill you just to hear it whispered? If there is an argument against the existence of God, you are it. Because what god would entrust a damned fool like you with anything greater than tying your shoes?”

Gabe kicked his feet under his chair, just in case.

His father held up his hand in an effort to hold back the Scotsman. “There’s no point in berating him now. Gabriel is well aware of his mistake. The question is, why Ethiopia? It was my understanding that the ark was in Jerusalem near the piece of land that once held Solomon’s temple.”

Carlyle leaned against a wall and rubbed his forehead. He deflated, the rigid posture of anger from a moment ago giving way to a more academic slouch. He nodded and tapped the frame of his glasses. “Beneath the Dome of the Rock or somewhere in that vicinity was always the strongest possibility. Though Axum has a history connected to Solomon as well. Ethiopic Christianity tradition suggests that the ark was stolen by an illegitimate son born to King Solomon and an Ethiopian queen known as Makeda of Sheba and secreted away to her kingdom. When Christianity made its way down the Nile far enough from the influential reach of Rome, a denomination of the religion grew around this legend. Unlike Rome’s version, this sect was rooted in the Old Testament, much like Judaism. There has always been a claim by their followers that the ark was hidden from Solomon in Ethiopia, though archeologists and religious scholars never found credence in such boasts as its religious leaders refuse to allow a formal study or, for that matter, access at all. They deemed it merely a tourist gimmick.”

“And now Enoch reveals the truth,” his dad said.

“It seems he has. We should make arrangements to travel there as soon as possible.” Carlyle turned to Gabe and Micah. “But for now, we have more pressing matters to attend. I have prepared the ingredients of the vials for you both.”

Gabe saw two small pewter cups filled with an unassuming clear liquid on the table.

“You are about to take the Entheos Genesthai, the Oil of the Anointed King. It will awaken an inner pathway to the energies of creation, and many great secrets will be revealed.”

Gabe looked to his father for reassurance, but he only stared blank-faced at the vials.

Micah bounced her leg nervously, as if she were about to undergo major surgery.

“Much will be revealed to you. You may experience things that are not from this generation but of a generation from a long ago distant time. You may see events from a future, which have not yet come to pass. Your innermost self will come alive inside you.”

“Okay. Let’s have it, then,” Micah finally said. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I want to know anything more about it. Just give me the bloody stuff.”

“Right. No point in postponing the inevitable,” Gabe said and at last looked to Micah. Their eyes met, and they understood one another.

She took his hand and squeezed it before letting go.

Carlyle blessed the liquid with a silent prayer. When he finished he handed Gabe and Micah each a cup.

“A toast?” Gabe offered in an attempt at levity.

“To the future,” Micah said.

“And the past.” Gabe touched his cup to Micah’s, careful not to spill any of its precious contents, and drank the small portion.

The syrup went down without much fuss, like a berry-flavored cough medicine. In a matter of seconds, heat began to emanate from the pit of his stomach. An uncomfortable fever quickly spread to his extremities, causing a prickling sensation in his hands.

He heard Micah gasp. She started to hyperventilate. She screamed and fell out of her chair. Gabe watched as Carlyle caught her. Gently, he laid her convulsing body onto the floor and put a folded cloth behind her head.

Gabe was just aware enough to know that the same was happening to him and barely understood that he was now in his father’s arms, being laid on the floor as well. Candles were placed around their heads. His breath seemed to catch in his lungs. He tried to focus on the interior of the vault, but the candlelight grew at the corners of his eyes.

As his perception of the room drifted away, the straight lines of the ceiling and walls bending and curving, he saw the ghostly liquid image of his father kneel down. Gabe heard the echo of his dad’s breath, and then the candles were extinguished by a darkness that washed away the world.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Something crunched under Gabe as he lay on the hard, warm surface. He opened his eyes to see the familiar onyx floor now covered in shards of mirrored glass. As expected, the harsh light from the fixture beat down against his shoulders and back. He looked above him, wondering how much time the light had. But instead of the fixture, he saw a sky of endless blue. Its sun shined brilliant, bathing him in its rays.

Carefully, he brushed aside some of the glass and made room to push up from the floor. Bits of mirror stuck to his chest and face. He pulled at his shirt, and the glass fell back to the floor, jingling as the pieces hit. The rest he picked from his skin as he surveyed this world.

The black floor, covered by a sea of endless broken mirrors, met the horizon in every direction. Gabe knew he had just taken the Entheos Genesthai. All his memories and thoughts were clear in his mind. Gone was the confusion and fear of his visions, replaced by a feeling of peace.

“Do you wish to understand Solomon’s power?” asked the familiar voice of a woman. “How he attempted to use it to rid your realm of the demons left behind after the banishment of Mastema’s kingdom?” Her words seemed to play in the air, coming and going as she spoke. “Do you, Gabriel?”

The voice came from behind. Gabe turned to see a singular mirror standing in a small space that had been cleared of the broken shards. He approached his fading reflection to see a scene appear in the glass.

A bearded man wore a ring of gold, its jewel engraved with a pentalpha. He sat on a balcony that overlooked a building site in an ancient city.

“Solomon and his Jerusalem,” whispered the disembodied voice.

The king observed a nearly completed temple, rendered in marble and stone, at the top of a hill. Gold-encrusted pillars stood side by side, guarding the entrance. Solomon wielded the ring in masterful strokes, like a painter using his brush. Distant forms labored over its completion, but they were not men. Their demonic forms resisted against the ring’s power that bound them to its authority, compelling them to work.

Shrieks of protest carried on the wind.

Gabe’s reflection returned to the mirror as the image faded. “Is this what I am to do? Build the Temple?”

“The task was Solomon’s and his alone. Your path is laid before you in many directions. Do you not see?” asked the voice. “To ensure that you walk the right one, you must know your true self.”

True self?
Gabe gazed upon his face, noting that he looked normal enough for a seventeen-year-old. He then turned from his reflection. Other mirrors appeared, assembling from the pieces of glass on the floor. They surrounded him, and he counted seven in all. In some, his reflection. In others he saw the burning light of fire shine from within the glass. Again, ancient scenes reflected in a few, but one held his attention.

He approached, and in the glass he could see the front of the cathedral in New York, its wreckage smoldering in ruin. Richard’s mutilated body hung upside down on a cross stuck from the ground.

His father appeared nearby, bound and curled in the grass. Beside him a smokelike specter shimmered against the flames of the church. Gabe felt a surge of panic as his father struggled. He reached out to the glass, knowing what would happen, but something had to be done.

In a flash of blinding white light, Gabe was there in the streets of New York. Clouds of fire loomed over the city’s skyline. Central Park burned in a towering fire. He’d seen it before, but this time something was different.

“Fortitudo Dei,” hissed a voice in the air. Shadows and smoke of the specter swirled together into something physical, and in its shape formed the bleeding man, standing over his father.

Gabe felt something in his hand. He looked down and saw the Gethsemane Sword, complete with the stone of the spear affixed to the end. The blade burned hot, the air around it shimmering like a mirage. Subtle vibrations of power radiated from the hilt.

The man reached out, and a smokelike shadow leapt from his fingertips and wrapped around his bound prisoner, constricting like a serpent’s vise. He laughed and said, “Your weakness betrays you, boy.”

His dad writhed in agony, dying on the ground.

Gabe stood, unable to move, frightened by the display of dark power.
What can I do against such a thing?