The Revelation of Gabriel Adam (4 page)

He pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped the remaining sweat from his forehead. His heartbeat had returned to a steady rhythm, but whatever happened on the subway begged an explanation
. Nobody has hallucinations during a migraine.
Or had he fallen asleep? Maybe it was a dream. He tried not to think about it.

For once, his studies came as some relief. At least they would help to distract his worries. He hoped to read a few chapters and get something legible onto paper. If he went to his father with nothing, any New Year’s Eve celebration was off. And if he used the migraine excuse one more time, it was definitely off. “Too sick for study, too sick for play,” he could hear his father quip.

Inside his backpack was a mess of books, pens, and crumpled papers. Some were for school, but the rest belonged to the Official Bible Study Curriculum from Hell. Gabe checked his watch.
Not much time
, he thought.

The possibility of missing tonight’s Times Square celebration caused his back and neck to tense. He rubbed the muscles and tried to force them to relax. Advice from his doctor on how to prevent migraines popped into his mind:
Avoid
stressful
situations whenever you can
.

Tell that to my father
.

On a worn scratch sheet was a list of dates and assignments. Beside each date was a check mark or nothing, indicating reading he’d done or reading he needed to do.

The first on the list without a check was Revelation.

Coren returned with his order and set it on the table. Her mouth dropped at the sight of the list. “No way. Are you serious? He’s making you do his Bible studies on New Year’s Eve?”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“That’s sadistic. What’s on the menu tonight? Paul’s letters? Genesis?”

“You’re going in the wrong direction, actually. I’m thinking Revelation. And by the way, your interest in this stuff is totally bizarre,” Gabe said.

“I’m going to major in philosophy. What can I say?” Coren glanced around the café, checked her tables, and then sat down. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever fully read Revelation.”

“Consider yourself lucky. It’s weird. Certifiably.
Incoherent
would be a nice way of describing it. The whole thing reads like the author took a bunch of drugs and then turned it out. Apparently, it was a bad trip. Multiheaded monsters, an evil woman standing on a crescent moon, horsemen, and wars between angels and demons—it’s wild.”

“Um, you know all this, and you’re calling
me
weird? What’s that saying about pots and kettles?”

“The difference is, I’m forced to learn it. For you, it’s like a pastime or something.”

“I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to become more cultured and learned. But whatever.” Coren looked across the room at someone trying to get her attention. “Hold your thought. We’ll continue this momentarily. Need anything else while I’m running around?”

Gabe shook his head. “I’m good.”

“Shout if you do.”

He thanked her and opened his study manual to begin the assignment.

“Can I get you anything else?” Coren asked again.

“No, sorry. I thought you heard me before.” He looked up and saw that she was across the room, talking to another table, yet he could hear her as though she stood right beside him.

Suddenly, all the voices in the café amplified. Ambient noises like cups on plates, spoons on tables, talking, chewing, and slurping collided in his head, and the migraine doubled. Every sound and syllable was like a gunshot, each one stabbing into his mind. A heat seared through the back of his head, radiating from the base of his skull. For a split second, Gabe thought someone had spilled hot coffee on him.

The pain spread through his whole body. His heart felt like it was going to beat through his chest. A dull impact hit his knee and then his face. When he heard the table flip over and the cup and plate shatter, he realized he’d fallen to the floor.

In the background of his mind, Coren’s scream faded, along with the rest of the world, into silence. As confusion spilled through Gabe’s remaining thoughts, darkness like a black shroud pulled over his eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

Gabe lay facedown on something hard and warm, his breath fogging the onyx surface of a polished floor. He pushed up to his knees, wiped the drool from his cheek, and tried to recall the last moments. Detached memories drifted loose through his mind; however, there was one clearer than the rest—something about the café.

This place was a cavernous room, like a warehouse, lit only by a single domed light fixture. It hung from a chain that reached into the darkened eternity above. Its light covered a small area around him, not much longer than he was tall, and the warmth from its intensity heated his skin to the point of sweating. Gabe shielded his eyes from the glare and looked into the ocean of black beyond the light’s reach.

Nothing
.

Nearby, another light activated. The fixture buzzed and hummed to life, and in its illumination he could see a person kneeling alone. Gabe stood and so did the figure.
A mirror
.

He felt drawn to it, but leaving the light meant crossing the darkness. For a reason he could not explain, the idea provoked a sense of fear. Above, the fixture sputtered, its intensity fading, dying.

The warmth cooled around him. Gabe tested the floor beyond the luminance with his foot, yet nothing happened. The fixture seemed to have only seconds before it shut off completely. Building confidence as the space darkened, he stepped from the light.

The fixture behind him vanished.

A black void surrounded Gabe. His heart raced, and something inside him urged him to run toward the mirror and the remaining island of light.

A hissing sound filled the air as he ran. It was behind him, getting closer. Panic filled his veins, weighing him down, his legs sluggish with fear. He could feel a presence at the back of his head, nearly upon him, before he dove at the floor in front of the mirror.

There was silence and warmth once more.

Gabe’s body shook. He drew his knees to his chest and held them tightly. “Who’s out there? What do you want from me?” he screamed at the darkness. Questions continued to twist in his mind, but thinking was so difficult. His head throbbed as he tried to remember what got him here. It was as if he was in a lucid dream, and he wanted more than anything to wake.

In the mirror he studied his reflection, its familiarity comforting. The image seemed to shimmer and change, as if it were reflecting another scene. Gabe saw sky and stone, a bell.
The cathedral
, he remembered. He touched the glass, and a flash of white bloomed around him, blinding his sight.

He was unable to see, and the skin on his face tingled with the feeling of a passing breeze, cooling and welcome. When he opened his eyes, the dark room was gone. Now he was back at the tower floor of the cathedral’s observation deck, and memories of New York came streaming back.

Sunshine beat down, hot like the summer. Wisps of cloud drifted through the clear sky.

Home
, Gabe thought. He stood and stomped on the floor. It was solid, real. The view of Central Park looked familiar, but instead of the bare trees and browned grass of winter, greenery and foliage covered the city.

His heavy clothes and jacket felt stifling in the heat. The sleeves and back of the shirt stuck to his skin, soaked in sweat. It occurred to him that he had yet to live in New York during the summer months.

This is all wrong
.

As he tried to understand, the buildings on the horizon darkened. A storm gathered over the skyline. Clouds grew tall, an ominous gray eating away at the blue horizon. Their blanket of shadow slid over the city toward the cathedral. It reminded Gabe of a storm formation shot with trick photography used to speed up time.

Winds shifted, gathering momentum. Thunder clapped in the distance, and the church bell groaned in protest.

In the back of his mind a woman spoke.
You are in danger
, she said
.

Gabe decided to seek shelter inside the cathedral below. He had to lean into the wind in a struggle to get to the hatch under the belfry. Once there, he threw his weight into pulling it open, but the door wouldn’t budge.

The storm strengthened, its crack of thunder louder, closer.

What looked like snow fell to the tower floor, blown in on the winds. Gabe touched one of the delicate gray flakes sticking to his coat. He felt a slight heat as it disintegrated into a chalky streak.

Ash?

He looked to the sky. Flashes of orange and red flickered from one cloud peak to the next.

The clouds. They’re burning
.

The city beyond the outer edge of the park caught in an inferno. Flames carried through the smoke rising above the buildings.

Dusk fell over the cathedral as the approaching storm blotted out the sun. Nearby, trees in the park burned as a wall of flame sped toward the tower, like an avalanche of fire.

Screams from the streets below lifted to the tower.

The surface of the observation deck became an oven. Gabe tried to shield his face from the heat with his hands as the storm crashed against the cathedral. Flames licked at the sides, climbing higher with each passing second.

His clothes smoldered. Exposed flesh blistered and flaked away. He could no longer breathe. Pain from the heat engulfed his body, dropping him to his knees.

A familiar hissing sound filled his ears, so loud he thought they might burst. Writhing from the pain, Gabe turned toward the far end of the tower. There stood a man he recognized, his business suit billowing in the wind. Blood stained his white shirt in a pattern, the material turning a wet crimson. His eyes, calculating and the coldest of blue, locked with Gabe’s.

“You will be undone, Fortitudo Dei. As will it all,” he said. Black smoke then flowed from his clothes and body. In an instant he became dust and disintegrated into the winds.

Gabe felt tears stream down his face, his emotions seized by the fear of dying. The full power and ferocity of the storm hit the top of the tower. Rock and stone sheared away. The belfry crumbled and fell, cutting through the cathedral’s structure. Gabe tumbled behind the bell as everything he knew was destroyed.

In that moment, his world ended.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the endless darkness of Gabe’s mind, a small ray of light pierced through.
The light at the end of the tunnel
, he guessed, his thoughts awash in uncertainty. It cut through, expanding to create a ray of shining brilliance.

From it, muffled voices spoke.

Gabe felt the longing for his mother, who had died giving him life. He wondered what she might look like, who she might be. Since he was a child, he had wished to know her, and now the excitement of their first words lifted his spirits.

He heard a repetitious chirp, like the sound of birds calling to each other. Somewhere a male finch courted a female. Gabe recalled being in a cathedral’s bell tower, listening to their songs in a park.

Concentrating, he made every effort to isolate the sound. The finch sang louder, its tempo quick.

Too quick. Too precise
. He realized the noise was something else, not a bird. The more he thought about the sound, the clearer and more recognizable it became.

Electronic, a heart monitor
.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing one in person, but he knew their beat from any one of a hundred doctor shows he’d seen on TV. This one sounded like it was going crazy—furious and fast.

The sensation of circulating blood returned to his body. A hollow wind, like air filling lungs. Nerves connected, coming alive like a million hot needles on his skin.

Fluorescent light at the end of the tunnel neared, bringing with it new and familiar thoughts.

Cold. The frozen subway
.
Hot. The burning cathedral.
Memories of what felt like another life crashed against the shores of his mind as clear as if they were happening in that moment.

The storm. The bleeding man
.

Once more, the pain from the final moment hit him as it had in the tower. It felt real. He struggled against it, resisting its inevitable end.

“He’s coming around,” someone said.

The tunnel’s light expanded, blanketing Gabe’s vision, consuming what was left of the darkness. For a moment, he could make out ceiling tiles above him. He opened his eyes wider and then rolled them back into his head only to close them again at the harsh brightness. Something soft lay beneath his body. Fingers found a cotton fabric.
A bed.