Eden (14 page)

We passed the rocky wall that welcomed
us to Woonsocket, and then made our way to St. Ann’s. Yellow tape
surrounded the church. The glass from the once exquisitely stained
windows had been removed, and the holes that remained were covered
with boards and plastic tarp.

Jared parked, and we climbed the
steps. He tugged on one set of doors, but they were locked. He
tried two others, but they were locked as well. The tarp blew in
the summer breeze, flapping against the building. The town seemed
otherwise quiet.

Jared turned and noticed a passerby.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Is the church closed?”

The man shrugged. “Father Francis has
kept it locked. He hadn’t been actin’ right since the explosion.”
He walked away.

An explosion. Shax and his minions all
but tore the church to shreds during our most recent showdown, and
it left St. Ann’s looking like a war zone. Some construction had
taken place, but Woonsocket was no longer the booming industrial
hub it used to be. The community that had once pulled together to
fund the extravagant adornments of their social center with
paintings and stained glass was now preoccupied with a recession
and modern priorities.

We walked to a side door, and Jared
gave it a light tug. It caught again. “I don’t want to leave
without speaking to him, and I don’t want to break in,” he
said.

“
Call him.”

Just as we stepped away, we heard a
familiar voice.

“
Wait!” Father Francis
called, walking briskly from the back of the church. “I’m here,
lad!” He slowed to a stop, trying to control his labored breath.
“I’m sorry. I was in the back building, praying. It used to be the
school, you know.” His face dropped. “I’m ashamed to say I feel
safer there, now.”

Jared cupped the priest’s shoulder. “I
understand, Father. Some things you can’t un-see.”

Father Francis nodded, and then
gestured for us to follow him inside. We walked behind him, waiting
patiently for him to climb the steps into the side door of St.
Ann’s.

It was cold and drafty. The wooden
pews and marble statues were covered with linens. An eerie feeling
dwelled within the walls, and I could see why the priest didn’t
want to be alone there.

The faces of the angels and saints in
the paintings looked down on us. I couldn’t help but think they
seemed sad, waiting for someone to restore their home to its former
glory. “Father,” I began, pulling my pocketbook from my purse. “I
brought this hardship on you. Let me help.” I scribbled six figures
onto a check.

Father Francis’ eyes softened as he
took the paper into his hands. “Thank you, my child. We need this
more than you know.”

“
Father,” Jared said,
pulling Shax’s book from under his arm.

The priest’s eyes widened and he
immediately looked away, shaking his head. “Oh, no! No, no, no. You
mustn’t bring that here!”

A soft ringing in my ears grew
infinitesimally louder, sounding more like panicked whispers. I
looked around the room, but we were alone. Just us and the hundreds
of people in the paintings on the walls and ceilings.

I looked up. In a scene in which God
had cast out the rebellious angels, the artist had drawn them in
such a way that the angels seemed to be falling out of the
painting—out of the ceiling. I looked at another mural at the back
of the church, featuring Navy sailors drifting helplessly in a
stormy sea, reaching out to St. Mary. In a moment of what had to be
confusion, I could hear their panicked cries. I could hear them
all, shrieking and wailing at the sight of the book that brought
their home down around them.

I squeezed my eyes tight, and gripped
my ears. Their cries became so loud I couldn’t hear individual
voices, only their frenzied, collective panic.

Jared’s fingers touched my arm.
“Nina?”

At once, it all stopped. I opened my
eyes and looked around. Insanity was the first thing that popped
into my mind.

Father Francis nodded in
understanding, however. “It gets too loud for me sometimes,
too.”

I peered around to the different faces
in the paintings, unsettled.

The priest looked to the book, and
then to Jared. “You can’t have that, here.”

“
I still need your help,
Father.”

“
I’ve given all I can
give.”

Jared shook his head. “I can’t accept
that, I’m sorry.”

Father Francis left for the back of
the church. Jared pulled me to follow. We kept a quick pace all the
way to his quarters, where he immediately made himself a drink. He
threw it back, and then made himself another. His hands were
shaking, causing the mouth of the decanter to clink against the rim
of his glass.

The priest closed his eyes and lifted
his chin, taking in another gulp of the amber liquid with one
movement. The glass dropped from his hands, crashing into the
floor. Some of the bigger shards made their way to my feet, and I
stared at them for a moment.

“
Father,” I said, looking
up at him. “It’s almost over. I know you’re scared, but we’re
taking the book back soon.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “To the
Sepulchre?”

“
Yes,” I said, reaching
out to him. I touched his arm, and he placed a hand on
mine.

“
You won’t make it,” he
said sadly.

Jared shifted in frustration. “Let’s
deal with the issue at hand, shall we? I just ask that you sit down
with me one last time to try to find another way. Surely our only
option isn’t to just wait until the baby is born and hope Heaven
steps in.”

The priest shook his head
dismissively. “We’ve searched every line. There’s
nothing.”

“
Just one more time.
Please,” Jared said. “Before I take my wife and unborn child to
Jerusalem, I have to know I had no other choice.”

Father Francis glanced at
the leather-bound pages and sighed. “Very well.” He adjusted his
round spectacles, and glanced above him. “Then you must leave, and
never bring that
thing
to the house of the Lord again.”

Jared nodded. “You have my
word.”

The priest brought in an extra chair,
and he and Jared opened the book. Immediately the room turned cold,
and I wrapped my arms around my middle. The others knew we were
here, and that we had the book. The element of surprise long gone,
Jared didn’t hesitate discussing different passages. When Father
Francis would get an idea, the pages would be flipped to one
prophecy, prompting Jared to think about something else. The pages
would flip the other way. They argued and agreed; each idea led
them only to more frustration.

Minutes turned to hours; still they
went over each point of the prophecy until it sounded more like
chanting than discussion. A strange glow lit up the edges of the
windows, and I realized it was the morning sun. We’d spent all
night in Woonsocket, and my eyes didn’t even feel heavy.

For the first time, Jared looked up
from the book to see me fidgeting in my chair. “Hungry?” He said it
as if he’d just remembered I was there.

“
Getting there,” I said,
resting my chin on my fist.

He threw the book across the room. It
hit the wall with great force and hit the ground with a thud.
Despite its age, not a page loosened.

I stood and walked to the small
kitchen, found a glass and turned on the tap. My body was just
starting to feel the beginnings of fatigue, and the tension in the
room made me emotionally tired as well. A copy of the King James
Bible sat on the counter. The spine was worn to nearly nothing, and
the pages hung at an angle; the book so spent it could no longer
hold itself square. I flipped open the cover, and then pushed
several pages with my fingertips.

“
We should get you
something to eat,” Jared said.

I turned to the priest. “What does
your Bible say about this?”

Father Francis thought for a moment.
“Well, it does have its own version of the end days. It talks about
the woman with child.”

“
I’ve mentioned to Jared
that we’re looking in the wrong place. If you can’t find the
answers in the Bible of Hell, shouldn’t you look in
Heaven’s?”

The priest shrugged. “I suppose so.”
He walked over to the counter and picked up the book. “It’s worth a
try. A third of the Bible is prophecy.”

I offered Jared my glass, and he took
a sip. When he handed it back to me, he kissed my cheek. The two
men returned to their chairs, this time opening Heaven’s
Bible.

Father Francis flipped the pages.
“Let’s start with anything that discusses women with child in the
end days.”

Jared nodded, and waited for the
priest to find the first passage. They discussed trumpets, and
something about seals—I imagined angels opening wax-sealed
envelopes the way celebrities do at award shows—and a dragon and a
woman with child. I tried to tune that part out, because the sound
of it terrified me. But I didn’t have the luxury of putting
frightening prophecy to the back of my mind. Because of what I had
seen the last two years, I knew prophecies were very real
possibilities. My only defense against the instinct to run
screaming was simply not to hear. The priest discussed literal and
symbolic interpretations, among other things that made my head
spin. I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion, the fact that I was
purposely trying not to pay attention, or that their discussion
really was simply over my head. At any rate, I was pregnant, tired,
and irritable.

“
It would be nice if you
two wouldn’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I
grumbled.

Jared’s eyes turned soft, and he
reached for me. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’re trying to hurry, but
we need to be thorough. This is our last chance.”

“
Why is that?” I
asked.

“
Kim needs to return the
book to Jerusalem. I’ve made her wait long enough.”

I nodded. Traveling to Jerusalem had
crossed my mind many times. Shax and the rest of his minions would
not make it easy for us to return his book to the one place he
can’t go. The Sepulchre was above the tomb of Jesus; the creatures
of Hell were forbidden. Even infinite, divine patience refused to
tolerate desecration of the Sepulchre. The war could start the
moment the plane lands, or they could try to keep us from even
getting on the plane. We had no idea what would happen. That was
the worst part.

Father Francis looked up from the
pages. His eyes were unfocused as he slipped deeper into thought.
“There is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text called the Fourth
Esdras. The archangel Uriel describes many things about the end of
days.”

Jared frowned. “I know what you’re
about to say, and I know Uriel. Gabriel is the loudest adversary of
Hybrids. Uriel is the second.”

“
Nevertheless, his
prophecy has some merit. He says—”

Jared cut him off.
“Father….”

My curiosity and sense of
self-preservation outweighed everything else. “Tell me, Father. I
want to know.”

Jared sighed, and the priest
continued, “He specifically mentions pregnant women in the Fourth
Esdras. He says ‘Pregnant women will give birth to
monsters.’”

Jared rolled his eyes.
“Uriel thinks
I’m
a monster.”

I hesitated. “What…what kind of
monsters?”

The priest glanced at Jared, and then
back at me. “He makes many prophecies similar to Revelations. He
refers to this as ‘The Beginning of Sorrows’. Jesus also states,
‘Woe to those who are pregnant or nursing babies in those
days.’”

“
That doesn’t mean
anything,” Jared said.

“
You need to listen,” I
said. “Maybe you’re unable to figure this out because you refuse to
hear the truth. Maybe this is out of our hands.”

Jared’s brows pulled in. “Those
prophecies state an abundance of Hybrid births. If something like
that were happening, we would hear about it. Besides, Bean isn’t a
Hybrid.”

Father Francis pushed up his glasses,
clearly intrigued. “You know this for a fact?”

“
Yes. The only child
capable of this kind of reaction from Hell, a child capable of
disturbing the Balance, will be more than a Hybrid.”

“
Your child isn’t
human?”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach,
cradling Bean protectively. “You make the baby sound like an
abomination.”

“
Isn’t it?” Father Francis
said.

Jared stood. “No. It’s a child. Our
child.” He took my hand and I stood with him.

“
Forgive me,” Father
Francis said. He stood before us. “I didn’t mean to offend you. We
are in strange times—frightening times. I let panic get in the way
of my thoughts. I just don’t see how it’s possible.”

“
Nina is a descendant of
the Nephilim,” Jared said, matter-of-factly.

The priest was confused. “But, this is
what you are. Nephilim are children of angels, born of human
women.”

Jared shook his head. “I am the son of
an Arch. The Nephilim bred the likes of Goliath. Giants not meant
to blend in. These angels roamed the earth. They
had…rebelled.”