I held my breath, waiting for something to happen. A few seconds later, the door gave a stone-scraping-on-stone lurch, dust billowed, and the giant slabs of basalt heaved inward, revealing a staircase leading into a pitch-dark passageway. A second later, torches erupted with great flames that lit up a fifteen-foot-wide limestone staircase. We climbed. The steps were smooth and unworn through the ages, and the walls had been carved with more depictions of angels smiting enemies and the victorious winged ones standing over piles of the dead. As soon as we reached the top of the stairs, Rebekah let out a high-pitched whimper, visibly shaking with fear.
The body of a giant—sixteen feet in height—sagged against the far wall of the Sanctum. His torso rose and fell weakly as he breathed, but heavy iron chains draped across his wrists and ankles and around his neck. The carvings of angels at war continued on all four sides of the chamber, but where the images were within reach of the Naphil, they had been angrily clawed away until they were unidentifiable. Inside some of the jagged streaks were dried blood and broken fingernails. His head moved and his warm brown eyes—the only part of him that seemed human anymore—pierced mine from beneath long hair that had become twisted and matted into thick locks. He bared what was left of his broken, yellow teeth, blackened at the gums. His pale, dirt-caked skin had gouges cut deep and turned to black with rot that never healed, gouges that were elegant in the way they’d been cruelly carved. The marks were angelic script, a spell to keep his strength bound. If they healed, the spell would be undone, so another had been carved into his skin to keep the wounds from healing.
Tears ran down my cheeks and I covered my mouth with my hands to keep myself from breaking down sobbing. Ethan Stone had warned me of barbarity, but nothing could have prepared me for this.
“Do not weep for me, Gabriel,” the Naphil said in a raspy, deep voice thick with the accent of a long-extinct human language, making the walls shake. “I am but a casualty of war.”
I sniffed back my tears and forced out a response. “You know me?”
“You look different,” he replied. His chains rattled as his body shifted. “very different. But I would recognize your face anywhere, even when it is not streaked with blood. Have you finally come to finish me off? I have been waiting to die for thousands of years.”
“I am so sorry,” I said. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret what I’ve done to you.”
“There is no need to lie. Angels do not feel regret.”
“I do,” I told him. “I have a human soul.”
He dragged himself toward me like a spider, his chains and boney joints scraping across the stone floor. His body was deathly thin, all sharp angles and ghost-pale skin tight over bone, but somehow he had survived all this time. I could only imagine that it was his angelic side that kept him alive in agony. “You are a paradox, small Gabriel. You are not what you are, and you wish to lose what you have that makes you what you are not.”
It took me a few moments of blinking to say, “What?”
“You are human, you are angel, you are neither now,” the Naphil said. “Your humanity glows. Why would you wish to relinquish it?”
“I don’t!” I said. “I don’t want to be who I once was. I want to stay human, but I can’t. The world is in danger.”
He made an ugly noise. “Again? Who is your enemy this time?”
His words stung. “The demonic reapers, led by the Fallen Sammael and Lilith. They intend to take every human soul to Hell and destroy Heaven and Earth.”
“You say that you regret what you have done, but you stand before me now prepared to repeat your actions. one must kill to save a life. That is the foundation for war, is it not?”
“That is a terrible truth,” I admitted. “But seven billion human souls don’t deserve an eternity in Hell. Even you can’t deny that.”
He studied my face, his eyes wandering and curious. “Who is to say who is right and who is wrong on either side of a battle?”
“My only wish is to protect the lives and immortal souls of the people in this world,” I said. “The human race can’t defend themselves against the reapers. This planet will burn and there will be nothing left!”
“I cannot deny the crimes of my kind,” the Naphil said. “My own hands are permanently stained by innocent blood. But we never wanted to destroy everything. We only wanted more.”
“We all want more,” I said. “That’s the part of you that makes up your human side. I feel that too. I want more. I want to live, but my life isn’t as important as billions of lives.”
A distant look grew in his gaze. “I would not know what it means to live anymore.”
“Saying how sorry I am will never make up for what has been done to you,” I said. “This is barbaric.”
“I have deserved no less a fate,” the Naphil said. “I have done murder, Gabriel, and you imprisoned a criminal. That is the difference between our sins.”
“Then you understand why I must kill you now?” I asked him.
“I have always known that you would come for me one day and why,” he said. “I’ve had thousands of years to accept that I have done evil and that this is my punishment. I welcome death. Tell me about these beasts, the demonic reapers.”
“They have gathered against us and are killing as many humans as they can and sending their souls to Hell. We can’t let them do this anymore. We have to stop them once and for all. Sammael and Lilith, the Fallen leading the demonic, want to annihilate all life, everything.”
The Naphil tried to stand, but his muscles had clearly atrophied. He slumped back over and his head lolled about on his shoulders. He stared sadly at the ground. “I am tired,” the Naphil said. “I am tired of this hole in the earth.”
“I wish I could offer you a better fate,” I told him. I wanted nothing more than to free him and let him see the sky again, feel the sun on his skin, to let him live. But I couldn’t. He couldn’t live, and neither could I. I once asked myself if I could sacrifice others to win this war, and now that I knew I could answer that question with a ‘yes,’ I hated myself.
The Naphil’s pitiful gaze found mine. “Kill to save many lives, Gabriel. Begin with me. Give me an honorable death.”
“I’m sorry for what I have to do,” I said.
“Do not be sorry for this,” he said. “This is mercy. I do not want to live like this anymore. Whatever fate greets my soul after death must be better than the weight of old iron chains.”
Will stepped forward. “I’ll do it, Ellie. Don’t—”
“No,” I said firmly. “I did this to him. I have to finish it.”
The Naphil watched me as I moved toward him and called a single sword into my hand.
I would never forget the feel of the Naphil’s skin breaking under the metal of my sword. I forced myself to watch him die as his life’s blood poured from his haggard body. His eyes only left mine when he was gone. I wrapped his heart, which was about the size of a basketball, with linen that Rebekah gave me, and tucked it into my backpack.
The moment we left the Sanctum, the torches went out and the chamber turned to blackness, swallowing the corpse of the Naphil. We started back the way we had come and explored several tunnels that each ended in a wall of stone or another cave-in. Rebekah and Ethan walked well ahead of Will and me, poking at a tunnel system map between them.
“Derinkuyu had a ventilation shaft that was also used as a well,” Dr. Massi said excitedly. “Most ventilation shafts are too tight for any of us to fit through, but one through which water is drawn should be wide enough. We may be able to use it to escape.”
She hurried off, ducking into tiny doorways and whirling around columns, and the trickling sounds I’d heard since we entered the city grew louder as we followed her. The passage became a staircase that took us up and then back down again until it opened into a large cavern filled with water that gave off an eerie azure glow. The ceiling was two stories high at least and at the apex, a beam of daylight shone through a w
ell shaft and hit the water.
“Oh, excellent,” Ethan Stone said. “A way out. Good thing I was sure to be bitten by a radioactive spider so I can scale these walls and ceiling and shimmy my arse right out of here.”
Will studied the well shaft for a long moment. “I don’t think that would work,” he murmured as Ethan’s bad joke went right over his head. “I could fly up there. It’s too narrow to fly all the way up, but I could climb. If I’m out, then I can find a rope, or look for another exit.”
I nodded. “Good thinking. Maybe we can be out of here by dinnertime. I’m starved.”
He shrugged off his T-shirt and handed it to me so I could keep it in my pack. He stepped over to the edge of the water and his wings spread with a slow grace to their full sixteen-foot breadth. Rebekah drew a sharp breath and whimpered, but she managed to hang on to her composure. Will jumped into the air, his wings beating a cloud of dust off the ground, and he rose through the center of the slant of golden sunlight. It only took him a single powerful wing-stroke to reach the shaft. His hands dug into grooves in the rock and he pulled his body into the narrow tunnel, the muscles in his arms and back twisting and straining with strength. His wings re-formed into his skin and his boots kicked into rock to push himself higher until he was out of my sight. My gut tightened for several long minutes as he scaled the well shaft and I held my breath when I couldn’t hear him anymore.
Then something tumbled through the shaft, banging on rock, and a bucket tied at the end of a rope appeared and splashed into the water.
“Ellie!” Will’s voice called from the surface. “Ellie, get the others to swim to the bucket and hang on. It should be strong enough to hold the weight while I hoist you all out one by one.”
“There must be an active village built around this well,” Rebekah said.
I dipped my fingers into the water to test the temperature. It was surprisingly chilly, but we’d warm up once we got to the surface and into the sunlight. “You two go first,” I instructed.
Rebekah stepped into the water gingerly, moving slowly as her body adjusted to the sharp cold. She shivered a little once she began swimming, her head and backpack bobbing above the crystal-clear water. She reached the bucket and tried climbing into it, but it was so small. She accepted defeat and merely hung on with dear life. She gave the rope a couple of tugs and Will lifted her into the air slowly and smoothly with ease. Ethan’s turn was next, and then at last it was time for me to get into the water. I made a little gasp at the chill, and I tried to keep my backpack from submerging with the Naphil’s heart wrapped within. I reached the bucket, gently set my pack inside, and gripped the rope tight. I tugged once and looked up into the bright well shaft, wishing I could see Will’s face. The bucket began to rise and my body rocked left and right as I rose high into the air. Determined not to look down, I stared at that hole until the sunlight practically burned my retinas out. The shaft was narrow and the rock walls clawed at my clothing as I was lifted through. I tried curling into a ball to keep my body from hitting the side as much as I could, but my hair still got caught on sharp pieces of stone jutting out.
As I reached the top, hands grabbed me and lifted me into blinding daylight. I stumbled over a rock ledge—the wall of the well, I realized, as my eyes adjusted to the bright light—and caught my balance before I hit the ground. They were Will’s arms around me. I caught his scent before I could squint up into his face. I looked around him for the others. The well was situated in the center of a small, unusual village comprised of tall, cone-shaped houses made from mud and brick. Rebekah crouched over, talking to a small boy in dusty jeans. Ethan, cursing up a storm, wrestled his backpack straps from a few relentless sheep who really wanted whatever he had in there.
“Shirt?” Will asked.
It took me a moment to remember that I’d taken it for safekeeping so his wings wouldn’t rip the fabric. We had only brought so many changes of clothes with us. I dug the shirt out of my backpack, which was mostly soaked with water despite my attempt to keep it dry, and handed it to him. I also checked on the heart. The linen wrapping was still wet with blood, but it didn’t look like the heart was damaged. The water even seemed to have washed away a lot of the blood. Now we just needed to worry about how we were getting out of the Middle of Nowhere, Syria.
Ethan Stone let out a triumphant roar when he won back his pack and, still dripping wet, stomped over to us. He pulled a plastic waterproof case from the bag and snapped it open to retrieve a satellite phone.
“You thought of everything, didn’t you?” I asked him, bewildered and relieved to see that phone.
“Not everything,” he replied as he fiddled with some buttons. “Satellite phone with GPS enabled, yes. However, I didn’t bring towels.” He put the phone to his ear. “Yusri? Hello? We’re ready for pickup.”
30
ETHAN STONE EXPLAINED TO US THAT THE RITE OF my ascension could only be performed on hallowed ground, and it was Will’s idea to travel to Israel. The final showdown would be at Armageddon, at Har Megiddo, and I decided that I should ascend someplace very sacred. After all, there wasn’t a better place for one to become an archangel than in the Kingdom of Heaven. I wanted to maximize what power we could draw from Earth into this spell. I needed to be as strong as I absolutely could.
After Yusri picked us up in a helicopter, Ethan offered us a room at a luxury hotel in Aleppo, but I only wanted to get out of there. We rented a Jeep to leave Syria and continue to Jerusalem. Even if I wanted to crash for the night, I’d never be able to fall asleep. I felt sick and restless over what had happened at Ain Dara. Something inside of me had changed, turned—like a piece of my humanity was now missing. I was used to having blood on my hands, but this was different.
Ethan Stone promised that he’d fly into Jerusalem at first light. Will and I packed our things into the Jeep and headed out. We also didn’t want to run the chance of meeting any more of Sammael’s goons. If he’d stationed one in Aleppo, then there were bound to be more. Will and I needed to keep moving to lessen our chances of being found.
The journey was over three hundred miles in pitch-dark night. I drove, partly in an attempt to cure my restlessness and give myself something to focus on. To my dismay, that left Will with nothing to focus on but his worry for me.
“You did what you had to do,” he said gently.
I glanced at him before staring back onto the road. “I’ve been telling myself that a lot lately and I know it’s true. I just don’t like doing what I have to do.”
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
I exhaled. “Will you be all right once I become an angel again?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m just following your lead here.”
“If I do this, then we have a shot at beating Hell. That’s all that matters.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Not all.” Before I could reply, he spoke first. “I won’t stop your ascension. You’re the one thing I can’t be selfish about, but I am nevertheless. I finally understand why Michael forbade me to love you. In some ways it makes me a stronger Guardian, but in others I am crippled. I just never expected I’d have to give you up.”
“When Michael asked you to become my Guardian, did you ever consider saying no?”
He slumped deeper into the seat, thoughtful. “Not even once. Instead, I wondered if I was willing to give up my life for you, to lay it down for you. I wondered if I was willing to become expendable and insignificant, to relinquish my own dreams and desires and to become a servant. When he asked me to be your Guardian, I considered only selfish thoughts, and I realized that they were things I could sacrifice. I knew that I wanted only to have you in my life, to protect you and to follow you, so that in the end, I wasn’t losing anything at all. But now I’m going to lose you after I believed I would have you forever. This is the first time since I became your Guardian that I feel like I’ve ever given up anything, that I feel empty. You were a gift.”
; I glanced at him again only to find him watching me with those crystalline green eyes. “I believe there’s a chance that I will be myself when I’m an archangel again, and that I will survive using the hallowed glaive.”
“I will pray for it,” he said.
We arrived in Jerusalem just before dawn. Will had taken over driving at about the halfway point, so I was able to get a little sleep, but it was nowhere near what I needed. We decided that we needed to rent a room somewhere and rest before we did anything else. The size of the city allowed us to disappear into the crowd and would make it hard for our enemies to track us, so we found an inconspicuous hole-in-the-wall inn that had vacancy. I texted our location to Ethan Stone. After a few hours of fitful sleep, we woke to a fierce rapping on the door. Will got up, rubbing his eyes, to let Ethan into the room. I pulled the covers over my head and hid, but kept one eye peeking over at him.
“Morning, morning,” Stone sang so cheerfully that I wanted to break his kneecaps. He set two large brown paper bags on the little round dining table across from the bed. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I brought you breakfast!”
The smell of food lulled me out from my hiding place. I flipped the blanket over and crawled across the bed toward the bags of goodness. I grabbed one and tore it open. My stomach roared like I hadn’t eaten in days. Inside was a plastic container of eggs and another filled with a salad and a big chunk of bread. “Aw, no bacon?” I asked.
Ethan gave me a reproachful look. “You’re joking, right?”
“Yes, moron.” I pulled out the eggs first. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“It’s good,” Will said approvingly through a mouthful as he dipped his bread into some pasty stuff. “We don’t have a plan of action yet. We just wanted to get here, to Jerusalem.”
Ethan slapped a tourist brochure onto the table. “St. Anne’s Church. That’s where we’re headed.”
I slid it closer so I could take a look. The cover featured a photograph of a beautiful and ancient Roman Catholic church built of gold and gray stone. “Why?”