Innocent Blood (36 page)

She studied the sides that curved up around her, noting the ridgeline was not as smooth as she had thought from the air, but looked rather more jagged, forming a natural palisade at the bowl’s rim. Heat radiated underfoot, more than she would have expected from this ash-covered day. It shimmered across the sand-filled crater, dancing with motes of dust.

Arella stepped away from them, heading toward the center of the crater. “Quickly with the boy” was all she said.

They followed her, mystified and confused—especially when she dropped to her knees in the sand and began digging with both hands.

Jordan cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe we should help her.”

Erin agreed. As Christian stood with Tommy in his arms, she joined Jordan and Rhun, digging shoulder to shoulder, scooping out the hot sand. Thankfully, the deeper she dug, the cooler the sand became.

Arella knelt back, letting them work, clearly still weak.

A half foot down, Erin’s fingertips hit something hard. A heady mix of anticipation and wonder rolled through her. What lay hidden here? How many times had it been buried and uncovered by passing sandstorms?

“Careful,” she warned the others. “It might be fragile.”

She slowed her movements, removing smaller amounts of sand, wishing that she had her digging tools, her whisks and brushes. Then a flake of black ash fell and stung her eye, reminding her that they needed to hurry.

Her pace picked up again, the others following her example.

“What is it?” Jordan asked, as it became clear that a layer of glass lay beneath them, swirling and rough, natural, as if something had melted the sand.

“I think it’s impact glass, maybe secondary to a meteor strike.” Erin tapped the surface with a fingernail, making it clink. “There’s a large deposit of such meteoric glass out in the Libyan desert. The yellow scarab on King Tut’s pendant was carved from a chunk of it.”

“Cool,” Jordan mumbled and returned to his labors.

Erin took a breath to wipe her brow with the back of her wrist. As Jordan and Rhun continued to clear the sand off the glass, she realized
who
worked so hard to free what lay buried here.

They were the prophesied trio . . . together again.

Taking heart in that, she redoubled her efforts, and in a few more minutes, they had cleared enough sand away to reveal edges to the glass—though more extended outward. Erin glanced all around.

Was the entire crater
glass
?

Had some meteor hit and melted this perfect bowl?

Was that possible?

It seemed unlikely. When the meteor hit Libya twenty-six million years ago, giving birth to Tut’s pendant, it had scattered broken glass for miles around.

With no answers at hand, she returned her attention to what they had exposed. It was as if someone had taken a diamond-tipped knife and cut a perfect circle in the glass floor here, forming a disk four feet across.

It looked not unlike a plug in a bathtub.

Erin bent to examine its surface closer, cocking her head at various angles. The disk was translucent amber, darker on one side than the other, the two shades split by an S-shaped line of faint silver, forming a melted version of a yin-yang symbol.

She noted the same pattern extended outward from here.

The glass on the eastern half of the crater appeared to be dark amber, the western half distinctly lighter.

But what was this in the center?

“Looks like a giant manhole cover,” Jordan said.

She saw he was right. She carefully fingered the edges of the large plate of glass, feeling enough of a ridge that someone might be able to lift it free if they were strong enough.

“But what’s under it?” Erin glanced to Arella. “And how does this help Tommy?”

Arella turned her face from the skies to the north and nodded to Erin. “Place the boy near my feet,” she instructed. “Then lift the stone you have uncovered.”

Christian gently lowered Tommy to the sand. Then he and Rhun took to opposite sides of the disk-shaped plug. They grabbed hold with the very tips of their fingers and lifted it cleanly up with a grating of glass and sand. The plate looked to be a foot thick and must have weighed hundreds of pounds, reminding Erin yet again of the herculean strength of the Sanguinists.

Carrying it at waist height, they stepped it over a few paces and dropped it to the sand. Erin crawled forward and looked down at what was revealed. It appeared to be a shaft, with a mirror shining back at her from a few feet down, reflecting the sky and her face.

Not a mirror,
she realized.

It was the still surface of dark water.

She glanced to Arella. “It’s a well.”

The woman smiled, stepping closer, growing visibly stronger, more radiant, her body responding to some essence from this well.

Arella knelt reverentially at the edge and plunged her arm down. When she drew it back, silvery water spilled from her hand.

It must be a natural spring, possibly once a part of the neighboring oasis.

Arella moved to Tommy and dripped water from her fingertips into the wound in his neck, then gently washed his throat. The blood cleared from his skin, stopped seeping from the cut, and even the wound’s pink edges began to knit together.

Erin stared in amazement. The scientist in her needed to understand, but the woman inside simply rejoiced, sagging to her knees in relief.

Arella returned to the well, cupping her palms full of water. She lifted the double handful over Tommy.

Erin held her breath.

When the clear water splashed onto Tommy’s pale face, his eyes startled open, as if suddenly woken from a nap.

He sputtered and wiped his face, looking around. “Where am I?” he croaked.

“You’re safe,” Erin said, moving closer, hoping that was true.

His eyes found hers, and he relaxed. “What happened?”

Erin turned to Arella. “I can’t explain it, but maybe she can.”

Arella stood and wiped her hands on her shift. “The answers are writ in the glass. The story is here for any to see.”

“What story?” Erin asked.

The woman swept her arm to encompass the entire crater. “Here lies the untold story of Jesus Christ.”

49

December 20, 3:04
P.M.
EET

Siwa, Egypt

Rhun turned in a slow circle, gaping at the sand-washed crater, picturing its foundation of mysterious glass. Even as he’d helped Erin and Jordan clear the opening to the well of healing waters, he had felt a slight burn from the glass. He wanted to dismiss it as heat from the sands, from the baking sun, but he recognized that familiar sting, from his centuries of gripping his cross.

The glass burned with
holiness
.

He felt the same from the well . . . and from this strange angelic woman. When she brushed past him to heal Tommy, water dripped from her fingertips, splashing to the sand with such holiness that he had to take a step back, fearing it.

Christian clearly felt the same, eyeing her with a glance of wonder and awe.

Rhun trembled, sensing the sheer weight of the crater’s sacred nature.

His very blood, tainted as it was, burned against the godliness of this place.

“We must clear the sand away!” Erin called.

She was already on her knees brushing away a test patch, revealing the edge of something etched higher on the glass. She waved them to spread out in a circle around the well.

Everyone set to work, even Tommy.

Only Arella hung back, showing no interest in digging. Then again, she already knew the secrets buried here for ages. Instead, her eyes remained on the ash-tinged skies, staring to the north, almost expectantly.

“It’s easier if you don’t fight the sand,” Erin said. “Work with its natural tendency to flow
down
.”

She demonstrated, shoving sand between her legs like a dog, pushing it to the lower slope. Rhun and the others followed suit. The grains of sand burned under his palms with a heat that came from more than the sun overhead.

Rhun dug down to the glass bedrock of the crater. More of the design that Erin had revealed appeared, incised deeply into the exposed surface. He brushed grains away, recognizing an Egyptian style to the artwork. He pushed aside more sand to reveal a square panel holding a single scene.

The rest of the team unearthed similar tableaus, etched into the golden surface. They formed a ring of panels around the wellspring, telling a long-hidden story.

They all gained their feet, trying to understand.

Seemingly drawn by their confusion, Arella stepped to the panel closest to Erin. She bent down and gently brushed dust off a tiny figure. The small body faced them, but the face was in profile, typical of Egyptian design.

“Looks like hieroglyphics,” Tommy mumbled.

But the tale here was not of Egyptian kings or gods. On the glass, a boy with curly hair wandered up a stylized dune with a pool of water waiting on the far side.

But it was not
any
boy.

“Is that Christ as a child?” Erin asked.

Arella lifted her face to them. “This tells how a young boy went alone into the desert to find a hidden spring. He was not yet eleven years old, and he played among the sands, among the pools, as boys do.”

Rhun’s blood stirred at the thought, of Jesus as a boy, playing in the desert like any other innocent child.

Arella stepped to the next panel, drawing them with her. Here the curly-headed boy reached the pool. A bird rested on the opposite bank, with etched lines radiating out from its body.

Erin studied the drawing, a crease pinching her brow. “What happened?”

“You are the Woman of Learning,” Arella said. “You must tell me.”

Erin dropped to a knee and traced the lines in the panel, picking out further details. “The boy is carrying a sling in his right hand, stones in his left. So he was hunting . . . or maybe playing. Acting out David’s fight with Goliath.”

Arella smiled, radiant with peace. “Just so. But there was no
Goliath
here in the desert. Just a small white
dove
with brilliant green eyes.”

Tommy let out a gasp, staring over at the woman. “I saw a dove like that in Masada . . . with a broken wing.”

Her smile wilted into sadness. “As did another long before you.”

“You’re talking about Judas . . .” Tommy dropped next to Erin, taking a closer look at the bird. “He said he saw one, too. When he was a boy. The morning he met Jesus.”

Erin glanced at Tommy, then Arella. “The dove has always been the symbol of the Holy Spirit for the Church.”

Rhun struggled to understand how this one bird could possibly bind the three boys together. And more important,
why?

Arella simply turned away, her face impassive, moving to the next panel, making them follow.

On this square of glass, a stone flew from the boy’s sling and struck the bird, leaving one wing clearly broken.

“He hit the bird,” Erin said, sounding shocked.

“He had meant only to strike near it, to frighten it. But intentions are not enough.”

“What does that mean?” asked Tommy.

Erin explained. “Just because you want something to happen a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that it does.”

Rhun heard the grief in the beat of Tommy’s heart. The boy had already learned that lesson well.

As did I.

The next panel told a grimmer end to this childish play. Here the curly-headed boy held the dove in his palms, its neck hanging limply.

“The stone did more than break its wing,” Erin said. “It killed it.”

“How he wished he could take back his action,” Arella said.

Rhun understood that sentiment, too, picturing Elisabeta’s face in sunshine.

Tommy turned to Arella, one eye narrowed. “How do you know what Jesus did, what he thought?”

“I could say that it is because I am old and wise, or that I am a prophetess. But I know these things because the child
told
them to me. He came rushing back from the desert, covered in sand and soot, and this was His story.”

Erin turned wide eyes upon the woman. “So you did more than lead the holy family to Siwa. You stayed here, looking after them.”

Arella bowed her head.

Christian crossed himself. Even Rhun’s hand went unbidden to the cross around his neck. This woman had known Christ, had shared His early triumphs and sorrows. She was far holier than Rhun could ever hope to be.

Arella waved her arm around the crater. “Jesus stood then where we stand now.”

Rhun pictured the well and the pool it must have once held. He imagined the bird and the boy along its banks. But what happened after that?

Arella moved along the ring of panels. The next revealed the boy casting his arms high. Rays, inscribed into the glass, shot upward from his palms. And amid those beams, the dove flew high, wings straight out.

“He healed it,” Erin said.

“No,” Arella said. “He restored it to life.”

“His
first
miracle,” Rhun breathed.

“It was.” She did not sound exulted by this act. “But the light of this miracle caught the dark eyes of another, someone who had been searching for him since the moment the angel came to Mary with his joyous message.”

“King Herod?” Jordan asked.

“No, a far greater enemy than Herod could ever be.”

“So not a man, I’m guessing?” Erin said.

Arella drew them to the next panel, where the boy faced a figure of smoke with eyes of fire. “It was indeed no
man,
but rather an implacable enemy, one who ambushed the boy not because of his hatred of the Christ child, but because he sought always to undo His father.”

“You’re talking about Lucifer,” Erin said, her voice hushed by dread.

Rhun stared at the glass, at the dark angel challenging the young Christ child—as Satan would do once again, when he would tempt Christ in the desert, when the Savior was a man.

“The Father of Lies came here, ready to do battle,” Arella explained. “But someone came to the boy’s defense.”

She stepped along the ring of art to reveal the boy now enfolded in the wings of an angel, just as the sibyl had enfolded Tommy that very morning.

“Another angel came to help him.” Erin turned to Arella. “Was it you?”

The other’s face softened. “Would that it had been, but it was not.”

Rhun understood the regret in her voice. What a privilege it would have been to have saved Christ.

“Who was it then?” Erin asked.

Arella nodded to the panel. It was still partially obscured by drifting sand. Rhun helped Erin clear it, the holiness burning his palms.

Erin pinched away a few final grains, noticing that it wasn’t only wings that guarded over the boy, but a sword, clutched in the hand of the angel.

Erin looked up at Arella. “The archangel Michael. The angel who fought Lucifer during the war in Heaven. The only one to ever wound Lucifer, striking him in the side with a
sword
.”

Arella took a deep breath. “Michael was always Heaven’s first and best sword, and so it was this time. He came down and shielded the boy from his former adversary.”

“What happened?” Jordan asked.

Arella bowed her head, as if unwilling to say. Rhun listened to the whisper of wind against sand, to the humans’ heartbeats. Sounds as eternal as the sibyl herself.

When he was certain that she would speak no more, he stepped by himself to the next sun-warmed panel. It depicted an explosion emanating from the boy, the lines shattering out from his thin form, stripping anything else off the panel.

Rhun lifted his face and swept his gaze around the crater. He tried to imagine a blast fierce enough to melt sand to glass. What could survive that? He pictured the angel’s wings shielding the mortal boy from the backlash.

But what of Christ’s defender?

Rhun turned to Arella. “How could Michael withstand such a miraculous blast from the child?”

“He could not.” She sighed softly, turning her back on the ring of art. “Michael was rent asunder.”

Rent asunder?

“All that remained of him was his sword, left abandoned here in the crater.”

Rhun reached the last panel. It showed only a chipped sword embedded point down in the crater. He scanned the arc of this story, trying to comprehend it fully.

Christ’s merciful act of restoring the life of a simple dove had resulted in the very destruction of an angel. How had the boy been able to forgive himself? Had it haunted him?

Rhun found himself on his knees before this last panel, covering his face. He had destroyed Elisabeta, a mere woman, and it still plagued him across the centuries. He was responsible for destroying her life and all those lives that followed in her bloody wake. Yet, in this moment, his hands did not hide his grief and shame, but his
relief,
recognizing the small measure of comfort offered by this tale.

Thank you
,
Lord.

Simply knowing that Christ himself could make a mistake lightened his own burden. This realization did not forgive Rhun’s sins, but it made them easier to carry.

Erin spoke up. “What became of Michael’s sword?”

“The boy came to me afterward, carrying a splinter of that sword in his hands.”

Arella touched her chest.

“That was the shard that you wore,” Erin said. “The one used to stab Tommy.”

She looked apologetically upon the boy. “It was.”

A piece of that angelic sword.

“Where is the rest of it?” Jordan asked, ever the warrior.

Arella’s serene voice grew shaky, as if the memory troubled her. “The boy told me that he had sinned when he killed the dove . . . and sinned again when he brought it back. That he was not ready for such responsibility of miracles.”

“So you’re saying Christ’s first miracle was a sin?” Jordan asked.

“He thought it was. But then again, in many ways, he was simply a scared, guilt-ridden boy. The truth is not for me to judge.”

Erin urged her to continue. “What happened after that?”

“He told me the rest of his story.” She waved an arm. “Then I calmed the boy and put him to bed, and I searched for the truth behind his words. I found this crater, the sword in its smoking center. Searching farther out, I discovered Lucifer’s footsteps to the south, stained by drops of his black blood.”

Rhun looked to the south. Now brought to his attention, he discovered a taint cutting through the holiness from that direction, faint but present.

Were those drops still out there?

“But of Michael,” Arella continued, “I found no trace.”

“And his sword?”

“It remains hidden,” she said. “Until the First Angel returns to Earth.”

“But isn’t that me?” Tommy asked.

Arella’s dark eyes lingered on Tommy for a silent moment, then she spoke. “You carry the best of him within you, but you are
not
the First Angel.”

“I don’t understand,” Tommy said.

Erin glanced at Rhun.

None of them did.

No wonder the boy could not bless the book.

Bitter disappointment coursed through Rhun. All the deaths to bring Tommy here had been in vain. So many had suffered and bled and died in pursuit of the wrong angel. And with the gates of Hell continuing to open, the world’s doom was now certain.

They had failed.

“Helicopter,” Christian said, stiffening in warning next to him.

Arella turned her eyes to the north, where she had been gazing frequently, as if she had expected as much. “So they all come at last. To see if what was once broken can be mended.”

“And what if it can’t?” Erin asked. She noted the sun sitting not far from the horizon. Sunset was little more than an hour away.

Rhun dreaded the answer.

“If it cannot”—Arella brushed her hands across her soiled white dress—“then the reign of man on Earth is over.”