I squeezed my eyes tight, and gripped my ears. Their cries became so loud I couldn’t hear individual voices, only their frenzied, col ective 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 stil 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 pul ed me to fol ow. 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, shal 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 wel .” 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; stil 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 wal with great force and hit the ground with a thud. Despite its age, not a page loosened.
I stood and walked to the smal 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 emotional y tired as wel . 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. “Wel , 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 Hel , 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 real y 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 Hel 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 cal ed 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. “Tel me, Father. I want to know.”
Jared sighed, and the priest continued, “He specifical y mentions pregnant women in the Fourth Esdras. He says ‘Pregnant women wil give birth to monsters.’”
Jared rol ed his eyes. “Uriel thinks I’m a monster.”