The Soulkeepers (16 page)

* * * * *

What was good for the goose was good for the
gander. At least that's what Jacob told himself as he parked the
big blue truck that he'd borrowed from the Laudners around the
corner from the Gupta residence. He'd had to roll the beast down
the driveway in neutral; the engine was loud enough to wake the
dead. But it was worth the risk of getting caught if Malini had
some answers.

Just after midnight, he crept below her
window. Her room was on the second floor with a small terrace
barely large enough for a lawn chair. Bright pink flowers bloomed
in flower boxes on the railing.

He picked out several small stones from the
landscaping. Unlike the Laudners, Malini lived in town, making his
midnight visit all the more dangerous as the street lights glowed
brightly and the neighboring homes were close enough to see
clearly. But it must have been late enough because he saw no
evidence of life behind any of the neighbor's windows.

Cachink

His first rock hit Malini's window and
ricocheted back, rolling out from between the slats of the terrace
railing. It was louder than he'd expected and he ducked behind a
bush near the side of the house. He waited but Malini's window
didn't open. After scanning the houses for curious neighbors, Jacob
came out from behind the yew branches.

He searched the wall of the house, looking
for some way to climb up. The brick held no convenient rose lattice
to rely on. But at the base of the house, directly under the
terrace, there was a garden hose. Once he'd determined there was no
other way, Jacob decided it was worth a try.

The puddle he formed on the side of the
house wasn't very deep. The water sank into the ground almost
immediately but he let it run long enough to make a twelve-foot
circle of very wet grass. Then, he turned the water off and placed
himself in the middle of the soggiest portion of lawn. He closed
his eyes and envisioned himself rising, surfing up to the terrace
on a spray of water. Nothing happened.

Jacob concentrated harder, reaching out with
his mind to listen to the hum of the water at his feet. He thought
about how he'd felt when Dane had touched Malini, how the jealousy
and anger had coursed through his veins, how he'd needed to help
her. Something beneath his feet shifted. He concentrated on how he
needed to get to the terrace. It was absolutely essential he get to
her, to protect her. A wave of self-induced panic lurched in his
stomach.

Whoosh

All of the water from the lawn rushed out in
a geyser beneath his feet. He squatted a little for balance as the
pressure shot him into the air and then abruptly let him fall.
Jacob landed awkwardly on the terrace railing and had to circle his
arms for balance before jumping down onto the small square of wood.
The water had already returned to the lawn below.

"That was interesting," he said to nobody.
For as much as he was desperate to believe Dr. Silva was crazy, he
could no longer deny that this gift was very real—and very
cool.

He knocked lightly. The lace curtain moved
aside and Malini's face lit up behind the glass. She fumbled with
the lock and threw open the window.

"Jake! What are you doing here?"

"Needed to talk to you. Can I come in?"

"Of course," she answered. Her arms snaked
around his neck and she gave him a peck on the cheek. "How did you
get up here?" She moved aside so Jacob could crawl through the
window.

"Jumped."

"Very funny."

As his eyes adjusted to the inside light, he
was surrounded with Malini. Every inch of wall was covered with a
reminder of the vastness of the world. There were framed photos of
Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, and European castles, but
also pictures of a Bengali marketplace, African orphans pulling
water from a well, aboriginal dancers, and an American Indian
meditating on a red mesa. There were maps of the world, as well as
more detailed ones of the Middle East and Asia. An oversized
picture of Anderson Cooper hung beside the multicolored sari print
of her bedspread.

It was exactly the type of room he would
have expected Malini to have.

"Wow," he managed.

"Thanks."

A pang of jealousy and resentment of his
grossly pink room shot through him.

"What's with the poster of Anderson Cooper?"
he asked, trying to get his mind off his own self-pity.

"He's who I want to be when I grow up."

"You want to be a middle aged white
guy?"

"No!" she said, slapping his shoulder. "I
want to be a journalist, a citizen of the world. I want to be
someone who makes a difference, not just for one country but for
everyone."

Jacob stared silently at her wondering how
so much good could be contained in one person's body. He wondered
why God, if there was one, hadn't given Malini gifts like his. He
was sure she would do something better with them.

"So, what's going on?" she finally
asked.

"You're Christian, right?" Jacob asked,
awkwardly.

"Yep, all my life."

"Do you have a Bible?'

"Of course." She pulled down a thick book
from her shelf and placed the heavy volume on her desk. She turned
on a small desk lamp.

"What can you tell me about fallen
angels?"

"Hmm. You came to my room at midnight to ask
me about fallen angels? You've got to be kidding."

"It's like homework, for Dr. Silva. She
wants me to research fallen angels. I'm not sure exactly why but if
it means I pay off my debt faster, fallen angels it is." He looked
at his feet, hoping she would buy it. He hated misleading her but
wasn't ready to share what he'd learned so far.

Malini considered him for a moment, then
resigned herself to whatever conclusion she had drawn and opened
the Bible. She also reached across the desk and booted up her
computer.

"I'm not sure where to start," she said,
flipping to the back of the massive book.

"How about Genesis?" Jacob said, recalling
the passage Dr. Silva had mentioned.

"Alright." She flipped back to the
beginning. "I've actually heard of this one before. It's very
controversial. We spent an hour talking about it in my Bible
study."

"Why? What's it say?"

"
Genesis six, when men began to increase in number on the
earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the
daughters of men were beautiful, and they took of them all which
they chose." Malini looked up from the page. "See it's
controversial because not everyone agrees on what it
means."

"What does it mean?" he asked.

"Well, there are different interpretations.
See some people believe that the 'sons of God' were people
descended from Seth." Malini paused at his quizzical expression.
"You have no idea who Seth was do you?"

"No."

"The remedial version then."

He winced.

"Seth was a later son of
Adam that was said to be exceptionally godly." She raised her hands
and elongated the word
gaawdly
, like she found the term a
little humorous. "Another interpretation is that it refers to
leaders from neighboring countries: like how the Egyptians thought
of their pharaohs as the sons of Ra. But the last interpretation is
the one that applies to your research. It says that the 'sons of
God' were fallen angels who married human women and had children by
them."

"Why would anyone believe that one? The
first two sound much more reasonable."

"You would think, but the
biblical evidence actually points to the third interpretation. Look
at this." She flipped to the index again, and then back to a page
in the middle. "Job chapter one, verse six, now the day came when
the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord—and
Satan also arrived among them
.
See the 'sons of God' here is clearly referring
to the minions of Satan—fallen angels. In fact every other passage
in the Bible referring to 'sons of God' is about fallen angels. But
the best evidence that the third interpretation is correct is not
in the Bible at all. Well not in
this
Bible."

She turned to her computer and typed
something into the search bar.

"This Bible? Isn't the Bible… the
Bible?"

"Actually no. Different branches of
Christianity have different books that they include. The book of
Enoch, as it so happens, is a book in the Bible of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church but no other Christian church recognizes it as
anything but a prophetic writing." She turned the computer monitor
toward him.

"Anyway, the book of Enoch
comes right out and talks about fallen angels. It calls them
Watchers. See what it says here, in chapter seven." She pointed to
the screen. "Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom
they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them
sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the
women conceiving brought forth giants
."

"Giants?"

"You've heard of the story of how David slew
Goliath?"

Jacob nodded.

"Well, the theory is that Goliath was a
giant descendant. King David was battling a child of the fallen
angels."

A chill ran up his spine. It was the same
story Dr. Silva had told him.

"But if all this is true Malini, don't you
think someone would have noticed, if angels and giants were
here?"

"Well, the great flood...you know the story
of Noah's Ark, right?"

He nodded again. Even he'd heard that
one.

"God sent the flood to kill the giants and
the humans that had turned to the angels' dark ways. Then, He made
it so that it couldn't happen again."

"How?"

"I think…I'm not sure but I think He made it
so that they can't have relations—you know, sex—with human women
anymore."

"That wouldn't have killed the fallen
angels, though."

"I don't know. It isn't logical. That's why
most people believe the other interpretations."

Jacob stepped back and sat on the
multicolored bed feeling overwhelmed. Was this what Dr. Silva
wanted him to learn? Was this what she meant by destroying man
again? Was the battle between good and evil really a battle between
the descendants of the Soulkeepers and the followers of
Lucifer?

It couldn't be true.

"Are we done with the Bible, now?" Malini
asked.

"Oh, sure. Thanks for helping me," he
said.

"No problem." She turned off her computer
and her desk lamp. "I fully intend to extract payment for my
services," she waggled her eyebrows and puckered her lips, "in
kisses."

The next thing he knew, she was in his
arms.

This Might Be Cooler Than
It Sounds

"Something else has happened, hasn't it?"
Dr. Silva said, staring at Jacob in that unblinking way that made
him think she was reading his soul.

"Yes," he replied. He wanted to tell her, to
tell someone. He wanted to try it again. "I shot myself out of a
puddle—about twelve feet, I think."

She clapped her long fingers together and
laughed. "This is terrific news. Let's see if we can make that
happen again and maybe stretch it into something more useful."

"More useful? More useful for what?"

Dr. Silva was already pulling over the hose,
wetting down the grass in front of the sunroom. "How much did you
need?"

"I don't really know. It soaked into the
ground. I guess I ran it for a couple minutes."

A puddle was forming at Dr. Silva's
feet.

"You pulled it from the ground?"

He nodded.

"That's a very powerful gift, Jacob. Think
about the implications. I wonder if you even need this," she said,
waving the hose. She turned the water off.

"Show me. Jump to the roof of the
sunroom."

He took his place in the middle of the
puddle. The hum from the water surrounded him, as if it were
whispering in his ear. He concentrated on the roof. Nothing
happened.

"It's not working," he admitted.

"What was different last night?"

"Well, I was trying to get to my
friend…wait, I think I remember now." He pretended Malini was on
the roof. To protect her, he needed to get to her. The panicky
feeling came again, the urgency. All at once, he was flying through
the air. He bent his knees to absorb the impact of landing on the
slate roof.

Dr. Silva cheered from below. "Wonderful!
What was different that time?"

"I remembered that I had to pretend I was
protecting her to make it work. It was the same in the parking lot
and the school. When I felt like I had to protect her, that's when
it would listen to me."

"Her who?" Dr. Silva asked. Her lips
pursed.

"My girlfriend, Malini."

"Malini Gupta? The insurance agent's
daughter?"

"Yep."

"That must be the trigger then—the desire to
protect. You must be a Horseman. I suspected it from the beginning
but this confirms it. The trigger makes sense if you think about
it. For as long as I've known you, I've known you were loyal to the
people you care about. The desire to protect is an urge to act on
that loyalty. First it was your mother and now Malini."

Horseman, the label sounded ancient. Jacob
wasn't sure how much of her story he was willing to believe, but
being called a Horseman didn't bother him. It was as close to an
explanation for what he could do as he was going to get.

"What now?"

"Come on down and we'll try something
else."

Jacob prepared himself mentally and jumped.
The water rose to meet his feet and carried him gently to the
earth, like a falling geyser.

Dr. Silva was in front of him in an instant.
One second her hands were empty and the next a staff appeared in a
flash of blue light.