Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

“Well, she didn’t really see him face-to-face.” Elam positioned his fingers to make a frame. “It’s really weird. There’s this portal where she lives. While I had the Ovulum, Sapphira’s portal stretched into a viewing screen, and she could watch me through it. Then, after Devin broke the Ovulum, the screen disappeared. But now the screen is back, and she can see glimpses of Gabriel’s feet and hands and sometimes the tips of his wings.”

“Glimpses of just his extremities? How odd!”

“It’s sort of like she’s able to see what Gabriel sees, like she’s looking through his eyes. Sometimes his extremities come into the picture.”

Patrick flopped to the back of his chair. “Amazing! His eyes have become a cross-dimensional camera!”

“That’s what we guessed, too. But how could it happen?”

“I cannot fathom the reason,” Patrick said, stroking his chin. “I know very little about disembodied spirits.”

“Disembodied? You mean, like a ghost?”

“Certainly not,” Patrick replied, shaking his head. “The ghosts you see in horror movies are an absurd warping of reality. Although every spirit rises from its body, very few are ever seen on the earth. Gabriel is far from a haunting, morbid presence.”

“Do you think he’s dead?” Elam’s voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I thought maybe he survived, that he’s just in another form.”

“Excalibur transformed his body, to be sure, but he still moves about in our world, so I think writing an obituary is premature.”

“But didn’t the prophecy say he had to die?”

“The prophecy does not use those words.” Patrick withdrew a folded piece of paper from his pocket and flipped it onto the table. “I have read it a thousand times since that fateful day, and there are many ways to interpret its morbid verses. By learning from other events in history, however, I believe we can hope that Gabriel survived. When God directs a sacrifice for the sake of others, isn’t it reasonable to assume that he has also paved the way for a resurrection? God used Gabriel’s sacrifice and the energy from the rubellite to make me human. I believe that such love and power could never end in death.”

Elam slid the paper close and slowly opened it. “So, what do you think Gabriel will do? I mean, he can’t just wander around, can he?”

“When it comes to willingness of heart, Elam, you and Merlin are the only humans I have ever met who come close to Gabriel’s stature. I am sure God will use him somehow.”

“Maybe Sapphira will figure it out. She’ll be watching what he does.”

Patrick wagged his finger at Elam. “It could be dangerous for you to continue meeting Sapphira. Morgan is always vigilant and will track Sapphira to her portal. For her safety and the safety of the children, you should stay in the house as much as possible and only come out through the tunnel exits.”

Elam spread the note out on the table but didn’t bother reading it. The words were already etched in his memory. “I guess you’re right. I’ll meet with her once more and let her know.”

Patrick raised the pendant from underneath his shirt and caressed its pearly white gem. “Ever since I became fully human, I have felt more alone than I ever had before. It’s as though my emotional connection to my dragon heritage departed hand in hand with my dragon soul. With the exception of you and my faithful wife, I feel I have lost everyone I ever loved.”

Elam gazed at the lantern’s flame as it danced atop the wick. “I know exactly what you mean. I still have Sapphira as a friend, but I can’t risk seeing her anymore. You’re the only person I can really talk to, and now we have to part company.” Blinking away tears, he turned to Patrick. “I’ll help you out in the orphanage as long as you need me.”

Patrick clasped wrists with Elam. “May God go with you, Markus. I am glad to have a friend I can trust.”

Gabriel floated in front of a hotel room door and read the numeric script at the side. Room 1178. This was it. After weeks of searching for the slayers, he had finally tracked them down. Maybe now he could end the nightmares his parents had faced for so many years.

He collapsed his body to a flat layer of energy and crept through the crack under the door. After expanding to his normal height again, he stalked toward a pair of typical hotel beds. Each mattress carried a gently heaving lump, two sleeping men with only drapery-filtered moonlight illuminating their forms.

Gabriel hovered for a moment over the first bed, peering at the shadowy profile a dark mustache, a swarthy complexion, but not familiar at all. As he floated toward the next bed, the shadows shifted away from the second man’s face. This was Devin. No doubt about it. Sleeping with his torso exposed, Devin snored lightly, apparently without a care in the world. Attached to a chain and resting on his hairy chest, a sparkling gemstone seemed to inhale wisps of moonlight.

Gabriel edged toward the gem. Somehow, it pulled on his body and drew him even closer. He tried to will himself backwards, beating his wings to create an electrostatic countercurrent, but even as his upper half moved away from the stone, his lower half stretched toward it, stringing his body out in a narrowing line of radiance.

His wings collapsed, and the gem slurped his entire energy field. He plummeted down a rivulet of light, sliding faster than if he were freefalling out of the sky. Tiny pricks stung his elongated body, and the sound of a rushing torrent surged through his mind, numbing his senses. After a few seconds, he pierced a soft black sphere, a jelly-like membrane that slowed his plunge. While floating downward through a chamber of blackness, his body retracted to its original shape and size, and when he finally stopped, all pain vanished, and a gentle hum replaced the noisy torrent.

He looked around the strange dark world and set his glowing hands on his hips. What had just happened? How could a gem absorb his body like that? Slowly willing his feet forward, he tried to move, but with only blackness all around, it seemed impossible to tell if he was making any progress.

Stopping for a moment, he focused his eyes in one direction, hoping to adjust to the lack of light and get his bearings. As he began to recognize the borders of a dark hallway, a glimmer appeared at the end of the corridor, growing quickly. Gabriel tried to back away, but he bumped into a wall.

The approaching light took shape, an old man with a friendly smile. Like his own body, this man seemed completely composed of energy.

“Ah! Gabriel!” the man said. His voice rippled along a thin current of radiance that passed between them. “I’m glad to see you!”

Gabriel floated a few inches to the side. “Uh, how do you know me?” His own voice sounded garbled and strange, like a static-filled radio broadcast.

The man chuckled, jiggling the edges of his field. “A friend of mine told me to expect a boy with dragon wings and that his name would be Gabriel. You’re the first visitor who has fit that description.”

“Really?” Gabriel spread out his arms. “How many visitors do you get in this place?”

“Very few, to be sure, but I would like to dispense with the banter, if you don’t mind.” The man bowed his head. “I am Merlin, prophet of God and former advisor to King Arthur.”

Gabriel shuddered and clumsily returned the bow. “And I’m Gabriel, but you already knew that.”

“You will be surprised at all I have come to know. But before I get to that, I would like to ask you a question.”

“Okay. I’m ready. . I think.”

Merlin stretched his arm upward, elongating it to twice its normal length. “According to my estimation, it is around two o’clock in the morning, so since you found Devin, I assume you came upon him while he was sleeping.” He shifted his arm toward Gabriel and draped it over his shoulder. “What did you intend to do?”