Judgment Stone (9781401687359) Read online

  But if it were, why was He waiting? Hadn’t He taken Ben right away?

  In His time.

  Yes, in Your time, Lord. I can wait.

  But she wanted, expected, every thought to be her last. That was it. Okay, that was it.

  She’d better learn to get a handle on this. Or she’d go mad for altogether different reasons. Or backslide, pushed again by frustration.

  No! That won’t happen! It won’t!

  Then she saw Bale.

  Sitting with her back to the parapet, she prayed for guidance.

  Don’t You want him dead, God? Him of all people? She supposed if God wanted the man dead, he would be. But then: What if I’m the one to do it? God’s fist. No . . . that’s what she thought before.

  She turned and rose slowly, peering over. The boy, Tyler! Bale was approaching him with a dagger. She knew enough about Bale to be certain he meant to kill the kid. Then Jagger, then Owen.

  If she did nothing, wasn’t that the same as killing them—Tyler, Jagger, and Owen? Wasn’t allowing evil the same as committing it yourself?

  But . . .

  Aaaaaaaagh!

  She brought the rifle up, rested it on the wall. She nestled the stock against her shoulder and aimed. Bale was waving the dagger in front of the child, taunting him—and his father. She drew a bead on Bale’s head.

  This thing can take your head cleeeeeeean off.

  Exactly what Bale needed: decapitation. So what if it was from a distance, using a modern weapon? It was only fitting that Bale would get it this way.

  She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She yanked the magazine out: empty.

  No, no, no, no, no . . . No time for this!

  Bale pulled his arm back, aiming for the boy’s belly. She’d seen the move before, commonly used on prisoners convicted of treason in the middle centuries: he’d plunge it in, then slice up, spilling the child’s guts.

  She thought, God is going to make me watch to punish me for all the blood I’ve spilled. Lord, no, I’m sorry. Search my heart—I am!

  In a blink, the world became brighter. Angels and horses and chariots filled the valley before her. They stood on every possible edge and ledge and bump all the way up the mountain opposite the monastery. They stood on the wall with her, on top of the parapets. Bits of flame flashed all around them, forming wings, shields, weapons . . . halos.

  They all turned their heads to the sky. She looked and gasped, tears instantly springing from her eyes. Millions of angels—the face of Christ!

  She pried her gaze away, spotted Bale yelling at the sky, and she saw her chance, grabbed this moment of grace.

  She pulled a five-cartridge stripper clip from an elastic band over the stock . . . held it to the rifle’s open ejection port . . . used her thumb to slide the bullets into the magazine . . . and snapped the bolt closed, chambering the first round.

  She lined up the crosshairs on Bale—turning again to Tyler, thrusting the dagger at him—and fired.

  Bale’s head exploded.

  [ 96 ]

  Jagger couldn’t grasp the extent of Bale’s evil. Even with God’s army of angels surrounding him, the man thrust the dagger at Tyler. Jagger screamed again: “Nooooo!”

  And Bale’s head disappeared in an exploding mist.

  The angels vanished. Like that, they were gone—no, he corrected, he just couldn’t see them anymore.

  Tyler had his head turned away, eyes pinched shut, waiting for the bite of Bale’s steel. Jagger saw another boy emerge from the rocks behind them—Jordan, the Tribe boy. Jordan made an incredibly long leap and—as Bale’s body fell to the ground—he tackled Tyler out of Cillian’s clutches.

  Cillian looked dazed, staring at Bale’s corpse, holding a fistful of Tyler’s hair. His chest exploded. He fell to his knees and toppled to his face.

  Artimus lifted the machine gun over Jagger’s head, aiming at the top of the wall. It rattled out bullets, his whole body shaking, trying to control it. Shells flew away from it as a belt of ammo over his shoulder was pulled into the gun. A chunk of his shoulder erupted, was gone. He took a round to his sternum and fell backward, the gun blasting at the sky for a few seconds. It stopped and toppled like a tree.

  Nevaeh was on a roll. After taking out Bale, she shifted to Cillian, blocked by Tyler. Something flashed across the scope’s optics, and Tyler was gone. She pulled the trigger, didn’t wait to watch Cillian fall. She rose higher to get an angle on Artimus.

  He was already firing, shredding the parapet in front of her. She fired, got him in the shoulder. Bullets ripped into her. She fired again, staggered back, and fell off the wall. She hit the edge of a roof, flipped around, and dropped thirty feet to the stone courtyard below.

  She lay there, facedown, feeling more pain than she could ever remember, feeling her blood flowing out of her. She loved it.

  Lord, she thought. I’m Yours. Please forgive me.

  When Phin rolled her over, she blinked at him and smiled. “Phin,” she said, blood gurgling out of her mouth. “We”—she coughed—“we were wrong.” She said, “Look.”

  He followed her gaze to the lightening sky, a swath of orange smeared across its eastern arc.

  “The sun’s coming up,” she said. “It’s so beautiful.”

  He looked at her wounds. “This is nothing,” he said. “You’ve suffered worse. You’ll be fine.”

  She shook her head, barely moving. “Not this time. Thank God.”

  Phin lifted her top half, preparing to toss her over his shoulder. She was too limp. He leaned her back, took in her face. Her eyes were open, staring . . . at nothing. “Nev? Nevaeh!”

  Toby came bounding around the mosque, taking great strides and stopping a few feet away. “Phin, pick her up,” he said. “We have to go. People are dropping like flies out there. Let’s go!”

  Phin was looking into her eyes. “I think she’s dead.”

  “Yeah, right. Come—” The teen must have seen his tears, his stunned expression. He said, “What?” He stepped over and dropped to his knees. “How?”

  Phin shook his head.

  Toby stuck his face right in hers. “Nevaeh! Nevaeh!” He rotated his head to look at Phin, his eyes wet now too. “Phin!” he cried.

  Phin pushed him away. He lifted Nevaeh gently onto his shoulder and stood. “Let’s . . .” He could hardly speak. “Go.”

  They started making their way toward the rear of the compound. Toby spoke into his radio. “Elias . . . Nevaeh’s . . .” He lowered the radio, raised it again. “She’s dead, Elias. We’re leaving. Meet us on top of the Southwest Range Building. Jordan! Jordan! Where are you, man? We’re leaving.” He looked back at Phin, carrying Nevaeh. “Jordan, we’re leaving with or without you. Get to our staging ground now. Up by the outcropping. Jordan?”

  “He doesn’t have his radio,” Phin said.

  “Then how—?”

  Phin shook his head again, not caring.

  Elias met up with them at the entrance of the tunnel that lead to the Southwest Range Building. He stared at Phin, at Nevaeh’s body. He threw down his cigarette and led them into the darkness.

  [ 97 ]

  Jagger rolled to face Lilit. She wasn’t there. He turned in time to see her running around the side of the monastery, by the excavation. He stood and limped toward Tyler. While he had no use of his wounded leg, he felt no pain; everything else blasting around his head pushed it out.

  Jordan was lying on top of his son, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should have come out sooner. I was so scared.”

  Tyler just smiled at him. He spotted Jagger and scrambled to get out from under Jordan, then ran into Jagger’s arms. His embrace was a vise on Jagger’s neck and body. They kissed and cried and hugged. Jagger never wanted to let him go.

  Beth’s voice called their names from behind him. He turned to see her running from the garden side of St. Cath’s, from the garden gate, he thought. He ran toward her, carrying Tyler. They met on the rocks, Beth throwing he
r one good arm around both of them.

  She grimaced when he bumped her bandaged arm. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Broke it playing on the roofs with Nevaeh.”

  She kissed Tyler, held his chin, and studied his face, smiling at what she saw. She kissed him some more, then gave Jagger the same treatment.

  He set Tyler down, held his hand, and wrapped his arm around Beth’s waist. He guided them to Owen, who was still on his knees, praying. They joined him, forming a circle.

  Owen opened his eyes. He smiled and said, “Did you see?”

  “Were they real,” Jagger said, “the angels?”

  Owen turned his head to give him a look. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

  “I saw them!” Tyler said. “They saved me!”

  Jagger looked up at the wall, where he believed the shot that had killed Bale came from. “Yeah, I guess they did.”

  “You guess?” Tyler said.

  “I mean, yes, they did.” He looked at Beth. “Did you . . . see . . . ?”

  She closed her eyes, smiled, and nodded.

  Jagger looked past her. Jordan was standing there, watching them. Jagger raised his hand to him. “Jordan,” he said, “do you want to join us?”

  The boy ran up, squeezed himself between Jagger and Tyler.

  They held hands, bowed their heads, and gave thanks.

  [ 98 ]

  Brother Ramón walked carefully on the rough stone ground of the valley floor in front of the monastery. He scoured the ground, kicked at loose rocks, brushed his sandals over gravel. He looked up at Jagger, ten yards away. “You’re sure, around here?”

  Jagger raised his gaze from the ground. “In this area, yeah.” He made a wide circle with his hand, indicating the area in which Beth, Owen, Gheronda, and two other monks moved slowly, staring at the ground. Beth crouched, swept away pebbles. “I was lying right here when Cillian took it out of my pocket. We found the cloth it was in over there, but the wind might have blown it.”

  Ramón nodded, kept looking. He went as far away from the monastery as the bloody rocks. Owen had taken the bodies that had fallen here into the charnel house. Nevaeh’s bullet had effectively decapitated Bale, and Owen had used a sword to permanently end Cillian and Artimus’s reign of terror. He wondered what Hester, Lilit, and Therion would do now that their leader was gone.

  Tourists occasionally came over to ask Ramón if the monastery was really closed. For a week or so, he’d tell them. Sorry.

  Twenty minutes later he stopped. He had just kicked away some rocks and there on the ground was the fragment as Jagger had described it. He glanced around. No one was looking. He crouched and picked it up. A flash of white light blinded him for a moment, then he saw them, so beautiful: little ones with long, spindly limbs, big ones lumbering around him, grinning. Veiny, light-colored flesh. A couple were hunchbacked, others appeared to be no more than skeletons covered with tight, leathery hide. Most bore fangs, all had claws. Ashes swirled around them, some forming wing-like spiked protrusions along their backs. The little ones—like the one that leapt onto his shoulder—were cute; the bigger ones handsome beasts.

  He saw other beings too: angels, strong, with glowing bodies that seemed to ripple like robes. The swirling things around them were orange. They sparkled and whipped around with much more fervor than the ashy stuff that encircled the other creatures. They were walking with Jagger, Beth, and the monks, and stood on rocks and the compound walls. All were watching him. He turned his back to them and said to the demons around him, “Shhhh.”

  One of them chuckled.

  He slipped the fragment into his pocket. Incredibly, the vision didn’t go away when he released the Stone.

  “Anything?” Jagger called.

  Brother Ramón wiped the smile off his face and turned to him. He said, “I’m afraid not.”

  [ 99 ]

  Jagger, Beth, and Tyler sat on the floor of the Chapel of the Holy Trinity on the summit of Mount Sinai. Beth’s left arm was set in a plaster cast—signatures and doodles from her family, Owen, and every monk at St. C’s making it look like graffiti art. A sling, patterned with bright, multicolored daisies, held it against her chest.

  Jagger rubbed the place were Brother Ramón had dug a bullet out of his calf. It had completely healed, and now he couldn’t even prod it into aching. He saw Tyler looking at him, and Jagger pulled on a thin chain around his neck, letting the bullet attached to it fall back over his shirt. Tyler did the same with his bullet, and they shared a look only fellow combatants would understand.

  On the walls around them, frescos chronicled the life of Moses. The building was small. Jagger guessed a single minivan could park in it—assuming someone found a way to get it up the mountain’s 3,800 uneven steps. Its construction was unremarkable: blocks of square pink granite bound together by thick, sloppily applied concrete mortar. The peaked roof looked like tar paper.

  The structure contrasted sharply with the vistas of rugged mountain peaks that seemed to go on forever. Seen at sunrise or sunset, each mountain range took on different colors: purple, pink, blue, gray, looking like the world was nothing more than layers of ripped construction paper and watercolors.

  In front of the family, Owen knelt in the center of the floor, chiseling away the mortar around a piece of flat stone. He had posted barricades and Closed signs on the two trails up the mountain, Siket El Basha and Siket Sayidna Musa, to safeguard their privacy. Jordan stood guard outside the closed front doors.

  “You sure this is the best place?” Jagger said.

  Owen looked at him. “It’s the right place.”

  Beth opened a wicker picnic basket and handed out sandwiches and soft drinks.

  Taking a bite of a PB&J, Tyler looked at the roof beams and said, “You think they’re here now, the angels?”

  Jagger ruffled his hair. “I’m sure of it, Ty.”

  “You think Leo’s here?”

  Jagged looked up at the ceiling beams. “Could be, I guess.”

  “Did the monks know Leo was an angel?”

  Jagger shrugged. Beth turned to him. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, wouldn’t they do a background check on him? I mean, before they let him work at the monastery?”

  “If God wanted him there, disguised as a human, He could set up a good cover for him, don’t you think?”

  Tyler’s eyes flashed wide. “Like an undercover agent!”

  “The best ever. In the Bible angels eat, sleep—”

  Tyler jumped in: “Dad says he saw Leo get electrocuted!” He turned to Jagger for confirmation.

  “Well, shocked,” Jagger said, thinking of Leo grabbing the Cobra. “He spasmed in pain. Looked real to me.”

  “Why didn’t he just become an angel, a real one, and . . .” Tyler’s big eyes narrowed as he searched for the right word. “And smite those robots?”

  “Good question,” Jagger said.

  “Maybe it wasn’t time to reveal himself,” Beth offered.

  Tyler chewed, thinking. “Why do you think God sent him here?”

  “Hmm,” Beth said. “Protect the monks, maybe, or the monastery.”

  “Or me?” Tyler smiled up at her sweetly. “Maybe he’s my guardian angel.”

  “Then he did a very good job.”

  “This time,” Jagger added. He raised an eyebrow at his wife and dug into the basket for a bag of chips.

  Beth rubbed Tyler’s back. She said, “You’re full of questions today.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Beth made eye contact with Jagger. “They’re pouring out of my ears, Ty. But God works in mysterious ways, and I’m okay with that. There are some things we’re not supposed to know.”

  Owen grunted and hammered a mallet into the chisel, harder than before, judging by the sound.

  Tyler watched him strike a few more blows, then said, “I wish we could keep the God Stone.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s cool, seeing an
gels and that whole thing—what did you call it?—the spiritual realm.”

  “You don’t need a relic to see it, honey,” Beth said.

  He looked over at her, one eye closed. “Huh?”

  “It’s in you, right here.” She touched his shirt over his heart.

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Isn’t it enough to know it’s real, all around us, even if you can’t see it?”

  He shrugged. “I’d rather see it.”

  Owen set his tools down and started prying the stone up with his fingers. Jagger crawled over and helped. They pushed it away, and Owen shined a flashlight beam into the hole. “Wow,” he said.

  “What?” Tyler said, crawling over. Beth joined them around the hole, all of them gazing down.

  “The stories were true,” Owen said.

  “What?” Tyler asked again.

  Owen held the beam on a stone surface below the chapel’s floor trusses. “See those round indentations in the rock? Those are the impressions of Moses’s knees when he knelt here to talk to God.”

  “For real?”

  “I believe it.”

  Tyler looked up at him. “You knew Moses. I mean, in person.”

  “Yep.” Owen turned and picked up a wooden box he’d made in the monastery’s workshop.

  “Can I see it?”

  Owen hinged the lid open. Resting in black velvet was the Stone.

  Looking in, Tyler said, “What about Ollie?” Always thinking of others. Jagger placed his hand over the boy’s shoulder, gently rubbed it. Owen had used his satphone to stay current on Ollie’s condition, first letting the others know that the archaeologist had made it through the initial surgery and that doctors were optimistic. Later, reporting that he’d intermittently regained consciousness long enough to demand where the angels had gone, growing more belligerent and vigorous, getting stronger, healthier.

  “What about him?” Owen asked.

  Tyler tilted his head toward the Stone. “He called it his Holy Grail. He’s going to want it, isn’t he?”

  Owen stared at the Stone, not saying anything. Finally he said, “Sometimes it’s better we don’t get what we want.” He looked at Tyler, seeing if he understood. Tyler nodded, and Owen closed the box. He lowered it into the hole and set it over the knee prints. “I believe this is Yours,” he said.