The Revelation of Gabriel Adam Read online

  For Liam

  Above all else, have faith in yourself.

  Published 2014 by Medallion Press, Inc.

  The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO

  is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 2014 by S. L. Duncan

  Cover design by Michal Wlos

  Edited by Lorie Popp Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  So much of getting this story from an idea in my head to the book in your hands was made possible because of the efforts of some very special people, and I am eternally indebted to them all. First, thank you to my agent, the brilliant John Rudolph, whose insight and counsel made this book better in every way and to my wonderful editor Emily Steele for sharing my passion for the story. Thank you to all the talented, brilliant book lovers at Medallion Press for being champions of The Revelation of Gabriel Adam. And special thanks to Lorie Jones for her sharp eye and attention to detail.

  To my family—thank you for your encouragement.

  Thanks to my friend Peter Rankine for his honesty in the early readings and to author Mindy McGinnis for her eleventh hour insight.

  And lastly, but most importantly, I am forever grateful for my wife, Kate, who endured me through this whole adventure.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pastor McPherson crept through the cornfield, his boots heavy and caked in mud. At last he was close enough to feel the warmth of the bonfire’s heat in the air. A glance over his shoulder told him how far he’d come without being seen. In the far distance at the edge of the field, he could just make out a twinkle of porch lanterns.

  For a moment he allowed himself to catch his breath. Letting a knee sink into the wet soil, he planted his fire extinguisher into the ground and leaned on the handle as if it were a cane. His tar-riddled lungs had struggled to keep up, not helped by the ever-present tightness that constrained his chest, but he’d done well to remain silent. Little currents of pain carried a familiar objection from the muscles in his lower back. You’re too old, they said, and he agreed.

  Stalking through the field bordered on ridiculous, perhaps even dangerous given his age, but there was no way in hell he’d let those damned teenagers get away again. Too many times they’d trespassed onto his land and trashed the field, running down his crop with their new trucks, only to leave behind enough drained beer cans to fill an empty grave. All while their witless parents turned a blind eye.

  Not tonight, he thought.

  In the front pocket of his shirt, one of the clear plastic corners of a sandwich bag had inched out, exposing its weather-sealed contents. Inside, a 35mm pocket camera blinked its tiny green light, ready for use. Fresh batteries. New film. This time, he came prepared.

  This time, their parents will know.

  McPherson kept to the darkened rows of corn, well out of reach from the bonfire’s glow that shimmered behind swaying tassels and flag-shaped leaves.

  Ahead, figures and shadows haunted the field at the light’s edge.

  Behaving like degenerates, he thought and stared into the darkness. The field was quiet. Unusually so. Typically by now, he’d hear the spoiled brats laughing and dancing, poisoning their minds to the incessant beat of some talentless pop sensation blaring from the speakers of their car radios, but as he listened, only a stillness lingered ahead.

  The pastor checked his hearing aid. A high-pitched squeal told him it was functioning properly.

  Something didn’t feel right. Nor did it look right, either. The light fluttering through the corn was bluish white instead of the orange hue he’d seen so many times cast by the teens’ bonfires. Also, the air smelled wrong—crisp and sweet from the crop, unlike the noxious stench that should be choking his lungs by now. Even stranger, there wasn’t a hint of smoke.

  Fueled by the uncertainty, his imagination ran wild with new possibilities of the light’s source. He dipped his fingers down into the soaked earth and wondered what could possibly burn in such wet conditions. Perhaps a lightning strike. A spatter of rain began to fall, yet the field ahead glowed brighter.

  As he got back on his feet and hobbled deeper into the corn, the intensity of light built until it became like looking into the sun. McPherson shielded his eyes and inched closer, hesitating just behind the last row. There he saw it, exposed by the radiance, a shallow crater surrounded by a grand circumference of flattened cornstalks.

  Fear held still every bone, every muscle.

  At the center of the clearing, shadows poured from a single burning bush like blood from a wound. They moved with purpose, slithering across the ground as if alive. Buried within the crackle of fire and the rustling of corn came a sound like a hiss through the chatter of teeth.

  A sound from something animal. Something predatory.

  McPherson’s mind raced for an explanation, but when none was given, intuition urged him to go, to leave and find a way back to the farmhouse as quickly as possible. The fire extinguisher fell from his hands and rolled away, already forgotten.

  He turned from the light and saw nothing but endless rows of corn and darkness. The drizzle had turned into a downpour, and the porch lamps he needed to guide him home had disappeared behind sheets of falling rain. Without them, his bearings were lost.

  But it is so beautiful, whispered a voice in his head.

  McPherson’s anxiety calmed at its sound.

  Come. Stay only a little longer.

  Blue flames danced amongst the branches and leaves of the bush, yet the fire did not consume them. Instead, the bush remained whole, unharmed. Lured back, the pastor found the spectacle impossible to resist. He drifted to the clearing’s edge and wondered, as he looked upon the kaleidoscope of light, if perhaps this was some reward for his faith. Thoughts of fame and fortune filled his mind. Removing the camera from the plastic sandwich bag, McPherson took aim through the lens and moved closer to the bush for a better shot.

  The instant he stepped beyond the last row of corn and into the clearing, the world seemed to stop. Sounds of the field vanished inside a groaning rumble in the earth. Rain refused to fall, the droplets of water sparkling like jewels in midair. Leaves no longer moved. In the microsecond it took for him to realize his mistake, something lashed out from the crater and spewed forth a stream of energy into the clouds above.

  The shock wave bent corn away from its epicentre and vaporised rain as it expanded.

  McPherson was thrown from his feet, and his shoulder struck the ground first and dislocated. He rolled, hearing a popping and then crunching sound echo in his bones. Before he could acknowledge the pain, an inhale to the clearing’s center, as inescapable as gravity, pulled him toward the flame. Wind rushed by as he grasped for stalks with his good arm, fingers scraping through mud and root, desperate for purchase—anything to stop from being dragged into the fire.

  As his feet entered the crater, a vortex ignited around the bush and spiralled upwards like a tornado.

  Regrets from a sinful life filled his mind. The money, the deception. The lust for innocents.

  Muscles seized; joints locked. Indentions made by invisible hands appeared on the skin of his wrists, the marks of three fingers reddening under their grasp. His captor held him, prying his arms open, joining his feet tog
ether until McPherson’s body took the shape of a cross.

  Debris cut through the air, tearing through his clothes.

  To his horror, a shape formed inside the vortex and split off like a branch growing from the trunk of a tree. The limb, wreathed in fire, rocked hypnotically as if guided by a snake charmer’s flute, slithering through the air closer and closer.

  Unable to look away, McPherson locked on the reaching fire. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” he prayed, “hallowed be Thy name . . .”

  The end of the branch neared his face and burned against his exposed cheek.

  “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in . . .” His mouth moved to finish the prayer, but the words caught in his throat, clenched shut by the unseen captor. He could feel the vise tighten around his neck like a noose, its physical presence undeniable. To breathe became a struggle for air, his lungs starved for oxygen.

  Five digits formed, clawlike, in the arm of flame as voices drifted on the winds. McPherson couldn’t understand the meaning of the ancient and foreign words, but they hinted at a great rage.

  The shadows that bled from the bush had found his body. They crept up his legs, his torso, to his mouth and nose. Under his clothes, muscles grew. Skin tightened, stretched by the expanding flesh, and threatened to rip apart like the seams of a garment. Ligaments severed. Bones snapped.

  He felt compelled to scream out, to beg for his life, to apologize for all the horrible things he’d done, but no words met his lips.

  A new presence flowed into his thoughts. The light of his world diminished, and as it faded, he found acceptance. His soul quieted, and in that instant, he knew his final moment was upon him.

  But before the abyss consumed him, something quite unexpected happened. In the last remaining shard of life before death, Pastor McPherson heard a voice. Its clarity cut through the falling curtain of his mind and spoke one single word. A name.

  Gabriel.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gabe checked his watch once more and cast another glance to the five-ton church bell. At the top of the hour, the monstrosity’s bone-rattling chime would ignite a migraine as bad as any he’d ever experienced. He imagined that somewhere inside the iron resonator, a clapper hung, aimed at the flared rim of the bell’s lip.

  Waiting to strike, he thought and pulled his jacket tight. Though the sleeping bell looked docile enough, the memory of the first time he got caught on the tower was still fresh in his mind. It took him two days to get over the migraine, and he heard the cursed thing pounding in his head for a week after that.

  Wooden beams in the cathedral’s belfry creaked as the December wind cut through the observation deck of the east tower. Gabe adjusted the range of his Nikon ED50 telescope and blew into his gloves for warmth as he looked out over New York City.

  “Gabe? Downstairs. Now, please.”

  His father’s voice, layered in an English accent, echoed through the marble and granite walls of the cathedral until it escaped through the hatch under the belfry. Gabe wanted to slam it closed. For weeks they’d lived at their temporary home in the cathedral’s residence, and yet the man still shouted at the top of his lungs whenever some stupid chore went neglected.

  He knows where I am. He can come and get me if it’s so important.

  On the eyepiece of the telescope, snowflakes no bigger than grains of sand accumulated around the rubber guard. He blew them off and wiped the glass with the soft palm of his glove, careful not to scratch the lens.

  “Gabriel Adam,” his father shouted again.

  Gabe shook his head and laughed. Sgt Adam reporting for duty, he thought. There was plenty to be done inside the cathedral. Christmas decorations of every kind filled the church wall to wall. They needed to be boxed and stored. One of the least appealing ways to spend an afternoon, especially when that afternoon fell on a holiday. He thought about his latest report card—perfect marks.

  “Don’t I deserve a little time off?” he asked the belfry hatch.

  Transferring schools during his senior year had been hard enough. Nobody wanted to get to know the new kid with high school nearing its end. And nobody was studying, either. Most of his class had decided to end the year on whatever achievements they’d already earned, their spots already promised at universities.

  Gabe would have, too, had his transcript not resembled a jigsaw puzzle. He’d lost count of the number of schools he’d attended over the years as he chased his father’s career around the country from church to church. Because of that, universities weren’t exactly beating down his door.

  He looked out over the city—at the streets full of busy people—and thought of the things he might want to be in life. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Become a doctor, perhaps. Or a lawyer. Something that would allow him to take root somewhere and build a life that didn’t involve traipsing across the United States. All these dreams began with the same first step—get into a good school. One with dorms and a rich student life. Freedom, girls, and parties—the whole experience. Achieving that meant Scholarship, because not getting a scholarship meant Student Loans. And student loans meant Local Community College, or in his mind, the Living with Dad School of Suck.

  While in New York City, he’d made some headway with the local schools. New York University in particular, thanks to a recommendation letter from Professor John Carlyle, an old friend of his father who lived in Britain. Gabe had never met him but figured him for one of those bookish pipe-and-jacket types, smoking behind a desk at his prestigious English university. Not that it mattered. He didn’t care if the man thought he was the Queen of England, so long as he had influence over the NYU admissions office.

  A gust of wind blew a strand of black hair into his eyes and brought him back to the present. He combed it with his fingers in a futile attempt to tame the mop and then readjusted the focus of the Nikon. The tower served as the ideal vantage point to look for New York’s rarest animal, the red-tailed hawk. According to his field guide, Central Park and the surrounding buildings were the birds’ adopted home.

  The park. What little he could see through the buildings ahead looked enormous, stretching clear across the city.

  A flash of brown streaking against the snow-dusted trees caught his eye. He grabbed the viewfinder and pointed the telescope across the park, focusing in on the target. Gabe dared not breathe. There it was—a red-tailed hawk circling just above the canopy. With a sudden dive, it disappeared into the park.

  Gabe tried to hold back his excitement so he could steady the shaking viewfinder and scan the telescope across the tree line.

  After a moment, the hawk soared into the sky and in its talons, something half its size with a wire tail dangling below.

  A rat, he realized and shuddered. A really big rat.

  The alarm on his digital watch chirped three times, beginning a countdown on its timer. Careless, Gabe cursed. For the moment, the bell was quiet, but it wouldn’t be for long.

  He moved quickly, hoping to avoid another migraine. A nylon bag for the telescope lay open with its accessory containers strewn across the tower floor. One of a thousand lectures from his father about the importance of tidiness came to mind.

  He hated it when his father was right.

  As seconds ticked away, Gabe picked up all the loose items and shoved them into pouches on the bag. He then removed the telescope from its tripod and broke it down, but the thickness of the gloves made the effort clumsy. With some struggle, he managed to get it into its sheath.

  Gabe checked his watch again. Just over a minute.

  The eyepiece required special attention. He fumbled with the unzipped end of the bag, trying to separate the telescope viewfinder with his cumbersome gloves. Finally, the piece unscrewed. He reached for its small, padded holder but was stopped cold by the sound of glass on concrete. The lens bounced once on its edge, then rolled across the floor like a dropped coin, gaining momentum toward a small drain that allowed rainwater to flow onto the roof below—its
opening just big enough to swallow one very expensive part of the Nikon.

  Gabe dove at the piece and caught it right before it disappeared. Relief then turned to panic as another sound, this one similar to a piano wire snapping, came from the yoke above the bell’s crown. Accumulated snow and ice fell from the crown, disappearing through the open hatch below. Noises from the clinking gears in the belfry sung in rhythm as cords and cables pulled tight.

  The sleeping giant had awakened.

  Gabe ripped a glove off with his teeth and crammed the eyepiece into its proper container. With the shoulder strap of the gear bag cinched tight to his body, he ran to the hatch and squeezed through, closing it behind him. He began to climb down the ladder, careful not to slip on the icy rungs.

  As the digital timer on his watch beeped wildly, the tower came alive with a chorus of moving arms and clinking levers. Cables traveled through the innards of the giant machine, louder and louder until finally there was only one nearly inaudible sound: the hush of a five-ton metal bell swinging through the air.

  He hooked his arms through the rungs and held tight, his teeth still clenched on the glove. The clapper punched the lip of the bell’s mouth and sent a sonic boom echoing down the chasm of the tower with a concussion that nearly shook him to the ground.

  It struck again. Ice fell from the slits above. With every strike, his brain swelled and contracted. An acute pain pulsed from the back of his skull, creeping forward through his head.

  Finally, the assault stopped, though phantom bells still rang in his ears. Gabe opened his eyes to a swirl of vertigo. His stomach turned, a sickness spreading through his body. He loosened his grip on the ladder and slowly made his way to the floor.

  According to the bell, the time was four o’clock. His head thumped like the inside of a drum. While the room spun, a feeling of nausea grew in his gut. Gabe braced against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t fall over. A sharpening pain at the back of his skull began in tiny bursts. Being out of commission for another two days with an unbearable migraine was not an experience he wished to revisit. Deep breaths helped steady the sick feeling, but he feared the damage was done.