He paused just beyond the range of the light, so he could observe the occupants inside without being seen. A woman was bending over a rough wooden crate stuffed with straw. She wore a blue cloak which covered her hair and concealed her features. Her attention was focused on an object lying on top of the straw.
Abraham realized with a start that the object was moving. It was a baby kicking its arms and legs against the wool blanket which covered it. The infant gurgled and laughed and squirmed.
The mother sensed a presence outside. She raised her head, and the cloak fell to her shoulders revealing her face.
With a thrill of excitement, Abraham recognized her. “Hannah!” He called out her name and stepped eagerly into the stable.
She looked up at him with an air of detachment for a few seconds. It was as if she didn’t know him at all. Then, with a mysterious smile, she dissolved into thin air.
“Hannah!” he cried out again in desperation, but she had slipped away from him. She eluded him in his dreams just as effortlessly as she eluded him in the real world.
He transferred his attention to the baby, but it was a newborn no longer. The child was a toddler of about two. It was now standing up in its bed of straw and regarding Abraham gravely.
“My son,” the diviner whispered and knelt down beside the crate.
“Father,” the child replied without faltering. The voice was that of a much older boy. “Why have you abandoned me?”
“Abandoned...” Abraham froze in shock at the words. “I never...”
“Why have you abandoned me?” the child repeated, his eyes becoming cloudy and unseeing.
Abraham reached out to shake him by the shoulders— to anchor his attention in the present moment.
“My son, I never abandoned you! Your mother ran away. I have tried in vain to find her— to find you. I never gave up!”
The child’s eyes now seemed focused on another world entirely. The filmy pupils grew white. “Never mind,” his voice replied dreamily. “It is finished.”
The sound of sheep bleating in the darkness grew louder and more insistent. Abraham watched helplessly as the solid body of his son dissolved into vapor and then into nothing at all. The old man was left alone in the shed, kneeling next to an empty wooden crate filled with straw. He reached out for the woolen blanket which remained behind. He pressed it to his face, sobbing into it as he recalled his son’s last words with horror. “Never mind. It is finished.”
***
Abraham’s eyes flew open wide. He struggled to disentangle himself from the bedclothes, stood up and stared wildly around his dark, silent chamber. It had been a dream. No, not just a dream—a vision. He was the diviner. His dreams were messages from beyond. He needed no time at all to interpret the meaning of this one. He sank to his knees beside the mattress, burying his face in the coverlet. In a parallel to his dream, he began to sob uncontrollably into the blanket. He cried until every last drop of moisture had been wrung from his eyes.
“Never mind. It is finished,” he murmured. He understood the message. His son had died in the Fallen Lands. They would never meet again in this world.
The boy’s death could only be interpreted as the judgment of the Lord. Abraham had failed miserably in his duty to shepherd the Nephilim. Hannah, his lost lamb, had been spirited away by the devil because he not been vigilant enough. Now God had taken his son as a punishment for his laxness, and the diviner knew the chastisement was just. Abraham thought with dread of the afflictions which the Lord might yet visit upon him in the afterlife.
The old man raised his head. Perhaps it wasn’t yet too late if he could show his master that he would never fail again. If he could wrest Hannah away from the devil and bring her back to God, surely that would prove his devotion. He must get her back. It wasn’t merely the girl’s soul which stood in jeopardy. It was his own as well.
Abraham peered at the red glow of the alarm clock in the darkness. 1:45 AM. He had slept all of twenty minutes. Shakily, he got to his feet and stumbled into the bathroom. He poured the contents of the sleeping potion down the drain. If such visions were what sleep held in store for him, he feared to shut his eyes in repose ever again.
Chapter 21—Bad Blood Brothers
Daniel had just let himself out of his father’s office after his usual weekly progress report. For once, he hadn’t needed to stretch the truth too far. He was close to a breakthrough in cracking the dove riddle. Of course, he neglected to tell his father that the puzzle was likely to be solved with the help of one of the Fallen. If his father had any idea of Chris’s involvement in the relic hunt, no matter how limited that involvement might be, Daniel didn’t like to imagine the repercussions. He sauntered down the long hallway, head down, lost in thought until he sensed that someone had fallen smoothly in step with him.
“Hello, brother.”
Daniel looked up with a start to realize Joshua was walking alongside him. “Hello,” he replied uncertainly. “I... I... didn’t see you.”
Of course, that was typical. Daniel never saw his sibling’s approach. Joshua always had a way of gliding up on a person unawares. He’d been doing that since they were boys. Daniel never knew why. Perhaps Joshua hoped to surprise him in some wrong-doing. The scion glanced at his brother’s archly smiling face. They looked nothing alike. Daniel took after his mother. There was no trace of the diviner in either his physique or his temperament. Joshua, on the other hand, looked
