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  A wave of confusion contorted the man’s perfect face. “I don’t understand.”

  The sound of the voice transformed from serpent-like to that of crumbling rock. “There is much you do not understand, nor could you. You have been away for so long.”

  “Is there a way of escape? Have you come to free me?” His tone spiked with hope.

  “We do not know whether it is possible for you to leave or not. But unlike your brothers who have no hope without heaven’s key, you may be able to reverse what you have done.”

  The man looked stunned. “You mean—” he pointed at himself.

  “No. I am afraid that is irreversible. I speak of the ill-fated journey that saw you here.”

  Here… The agonizing question surfaced on his lips before he could stop it. “And where is this horrid place?”

  The fluttering form of encircling smoke suddenly split into another presence, again speaking through the hissing tongue of a serpent. “It is an island that is surrounded by the body of water mankind has named after Atlas.”

  Atlas… But he could not let such personal thoughts divert him from the sudden plausibility of escape. “Is this the first time that sons of Noah have visited this place?”

  “No. It has been more than a hundred years since man has become aware of this island.”

  “But I have not seen anything until today. I have not seen anyone since the day I entered the device!”

  “We know,” they said in unison, the slippery voice choking on rock.

  “How is that possible? What has changed that your presence is suddenly allowed here, that I can see them?”

  “We will explain all of that in time. But first, do you remember how you came to be here, the plan that you followed?”

  “Of course. Though clearly my plan was flawed, for it put me here instead of at the doors of my brethren.”

  The form on the left hissed, “Yessss, much to His amusement I might suspect. But that is besides the point. We need only to get you back to the realm of man.”

  “Why? What is happening?” the man asked, wondering why after so long there was finally a communal interest in freeing him.

  Both voices were as one: “The end draws near, and we grow anxious.”

  He nodded, the prospect of again intermingling with humans making his flesh tingle. “I will need to build, but without children—”

  “Do not fret. We have come to help.”

  “How can you? Without physically manifesting your presence, you are of no use.”

  Just then the two pillars of swirling smoke converged into a large and formless cloud, churning within itself. And then, just as quickly, it was gone, leaving in its stead a strange object fixed with mirrors. At first, the man caught only his own reflection and was not surprised that he still looked exactly as he had on the day he left his first estate. But then his image faded and gave way to others. People. Walking about in places he did not recognize.

  “What is this?” he whispered.

  The gravelly voice came back from the unseen. “We have been busy this last century. Soon, you will be able to begin your work again in reestablishing his kingdom.”

  He let the words simmer, and as a result, hopes that he thought to be long dead once more began twinkling in his eyes. “Was I even close in my endeavor to unlock the gates?” he asked, momentarily reflective.

  “Abaddon will indeed be free once more, and the earth shall yet again be ours, but not until the appointed time. Now sit, we have much to teach you.”

  ****

  1687 Anno Domini. The Atlantic Ocean

  Of course it didn’t make any sense! None whatsoever. And though he tried to understand it, he knew it was nothing short of impossible. There was simply nothing to understand.

  Standing on the main deck, he looked again to the mizzenmast and the mainmast, ignoring the lingering storm clouds. Both were without sails, reduced to bare poles stretching up into the sky, their ends splintered into jagged points. Then he turned and studied the foremast, the only sail still intact. But this observation only taunted his reason more.

  Managing to tear his eyes away from it, he began moving his feet and navigated through a couple of his men, coming to the portside of the ship. Again, he leaned over her broken railing and peered down the side.

  How was it possible?

  The captain looked up from the passing water sloshing alongside the Sovereignty’s hull and fixed his gaze ahead to the portside bow — at the water it was somehow speedily cutting a path through.

  “Strange.”

  The voice behind startled him, and he turned to see his lieutenant standing there staring out into the vast ocean as well.

  The captain frowned, moving his gaze over the rest of his crew. “What are they saying?”

  The lieutenant shifted his eyes to the driver, to Britain’s flag flapping in the breeze. The red, white, and blue amalgamation of St. George’s Cross and St. Andrew’s Cross was still blowing in the wrong direction.

  “They do not know what to think,” he replied. “Though the storm itself is the context through which they are interpreting this odd phenomenon.”

  “Are they scared?”

  “Of course. It has been two days since the storm overtook us. Two days since we have had any control of the ship, and now many of the men are beginning to wonder where this mysterious fate is taking them.”

  Looking straight into the eyes of his old friend, the captain asked, “And what is it that you believe?”

  He shrugged. “I cannot deny that the storm seemed to be of distinct character.” His eyes went back out into the unknown. “It was not like anything that I have seen before.”

  “You think it was evil.”

  The lieutenant ignored the amusement that sat behind the statement because he knew it to be fabricated. He answered unashamedly, “There seemed to be a will behind it.”

  The captain laughed nervously, attempting to dismiss such a ludicrous idea. “Listen to us, talking as if nature were a person!”

  Eyes narrowing, he responded, “And yet, here we are with no sails to propel us, no means of our own by which to make a speedily retreat…”

  The captain nodded in consent and finished the lieutenant’s thought for him, “…moving quickly through this dead calm.”

  “It is not natural.”

  Looking up into the lingering rain clouds, the captain asked another question, this one born of simple hope. “Do you think that this could be Providence guiding us? Saving us, even?”

  “Perhaps I would have been more apt to consider such a pleasant thought if it were not for the nightmare that introduced us to such circumstances in the first place.”

  There was no denying what his lieutenant was saying. He had seen the storm — had felt it — and it had not been according to the natural order of things. Maybe he would never be able to put into words what they had encountered out on the sea two days ago, but the inability to express it would never erase it or change it from being something other than what it was — a mystery, of course, but a reality nonetheless. For though they may not have seen one, they were all certain that this particular storm had a face. And it had not been the face of God. Simply recalling the way in which it had spread across the sky made his spine tingle. That cold darkness that penetrated his flesh seemed to pass right through his soul… And now, here they sat, captive to something they did not understand nor could ever hope to control. In their own power and by their own means they were but stranded in the middle of the Atlantic with half of the crew dead, most of their supplies lost, and no means of navigation whatsoever. And yet there was indeed an unseen force moving them in contradiction to nature. But what was it, and to where was it taking them?

  Certainly not back to England.

  “It would have been better to stay and fight,” the captain whispered remorsefully.

  But the lieutenant shook his head in respectful disagreement. “The pirates led us into a trap, and you did all that you
could to save us. No one among the living could have foreseen this. It is not your fault.”

  But the thought of something being at fault triggered another idea in his mind. “Do you suppose we could have a Jonah onboard?”

  “You mean someone that God is angry with, his presence among us bringing judgment on the whole ship?” He shook his head, though his attention was still captivated by the watery horizon. “Even if we found such a person and threw him overboard, where would that leave us? Would God then tell us where we are, repair the whipstaff, and return our charts?”

  The captain thought about this. “You think it best to see where this invisible hand takes us?”

  “I see no other option. It is either that or we starve.”

  “We could eat the prisoner,” the captain jested with ill humor.

  The prisoner had been caught trying to reach the colonies in a small ship manned with a hired crew. It was after attaining him and upon their return to England that they ran into a hoard of pirate ships. Though they were able to outrun the pirates by heading southwest and into a strange fog, they were unable to outrun the storm the fog had veiled.

  “I would not care to touch that man, let alone eat him,” responded the lieutenant. “But if there is a Jonah on this ship, he certainly has my vote.”

  After a moment of silence and watching a few scattered water drops plunge into the surface of the water, the captain mumbled, “Would it be so outlandish to credit what is happening… to our prisoner?”

  “You are not suggesting that he is responsible for the storm, that he somehow plotted out this course for us?”

  “No, I would not suggest all of that. I merely wonder if there could be a connection, no matter how minute. After all, he is no ordinary man, is he?”

  The lieutenant finally turned to face the captain. “Other than the fact that he has six fingers on his right hand, how different can he possibly be from the rest of the depraved lunatics roaming our countryside?”

  “You do not give credence to the stories then?” The captain’s previous attempt to ignore such extreme possibilities had feigned quickly.

  “Though I cannot explain what I have seen with more thoughts than I have already disclosed, I do have a difficult time believing the stories to be anything more than exaggerations.”

  The captain frowned, confused as to how their roles had so quickly become reversed. “In light of what we just witnessed and what we are witnessing now, would it seem like so great a stretch to think of the supernatural as being present with us?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  At that moment a cry went out from the bow, drawing their attention away from bizarre speculation and to the more immediate and tangible present.

  “Land!” the voice was crying. “Land!”

  S U M M O N I N G

  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

  — Jude 6-7 (KJV)

  In like manner the Watchers also changed the order of their nature, whom the Lord cursed at the flood, on whose account He made the earth without inhabitants and fruitless.

  —The Testament of Naphtali 1:27

  It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children… Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of mount Armon.

  —Book of Enoch 7:1-2, 7

  ONE

  20th day of May. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania

  He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a faded Pittsburgh Penguins hat, quickly fitting it onto his head before the light changed. He didn’t care that his registration and insurance information had spilled onto the floor and was now hidden amongst empty coffee cups, old blueprints, tools, and a plethora of other strewn articles. The door to the glove box, like most of the truck itself, was broken, and he’d long ago grown tired of trying to keep things from falling out of it.

  When the light turned green, he leaned forward over the steering wheel, the brim of his hat almost touching the windshield, and applied careful pressure to the gas pedal. He couldn’t see anything through the sheets of rain falling against the glass, his view horribly distorted thanks to a pair of lazy wipers that decided to work only every three minutes or so. He had apparently delayed a day too long in seeing to their repair.

  Five agonizing minutes later, he pulled into a vacant spot facing the entrance to a convenience store. Hopping out with a handful of change, and not bothering to lock the door or turn off the engine, he took six quick strides through the downpour before he was under the canopy and holding the door open for someone. He was sliding back into the truck and across the torn bench seat with a steaming hot cup of coffee and seven cents in change two minutes after that. His t-shirt was clinging damply to his chest and his water-logged boots were beginning to divert some of their dampness up into the legs of his jeans. Suppressing a series of chills, he switched the heat on, a feature that ironically still managed to work this far into May, though the air conditioning did not. As he pulled back onto the road, aiming his old pickup toward Pittsburgh, all the windows began to fog up, and he had to lean forward to wipe off a small area of the windshield that he hadn’t been able to see through to begin with. Taking a sip of coffee and pushing an old cassette into the tape deck, he settled in for what was usually a short drive into the Steel City.

  Despite already running late, he kept to his daily routine of passing by the church. Twice in the past month he’d spotted the vulgar work of heathen pranksters splashed across the exterior walls of the white building. It was the reason he kept half a gallon of white paint in the bed of his truck — to restore the sanctity of the holy place before the world woke up and could witness God having been mocked. As much as it frustrated him, though, when approaching the pastor about possible precautions to take, the man of God just smiled warmly and humbly quoted the statement penned by Ignatius just ten years after the close of the first century: “Christianity is truly a matter of greatness as long as it is hated by the world.”

  His trip by the church today, however, was just as futile as trying to get his pastor to condemn the perverted drunks in the neighborhood. It was raining so hard, and his windows were so foggy, that he couldn’t even tell that the building was there. That’s what his pastor called it anyway — a building. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a place set apart for the fellowship of the saints. He wished he could view things as graciously as his pastor. In light of how much grace had been extended to him, one would think he’d be more lenient toward others by now.

  Stopping at another light, he listened to the sound of a guitar playing through the only speaker that still worked, its volume being contested by the squeaking wheels turning within the player. He took another sip of coffee while gazing at the big red blur hanging out in front of him. The street lights still shone down the sides of the street, and with headlights turning into streaking taillights, the whole scene looked as if it was from some weird, underwater sci-fi film.

  Guitar chords segued into the quick beat of a bass drum while the light still wavered as a shifting red stain over the street. When the song finally settled into a rhythm, and lyrics began accompanying the noise, he leaned over and retrieved the rearview mirror from off the seat beside him. He held it up and stared. It was an exercise he’d taken up recently, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. For some unknown reason, the last few days had introduced the strange and deeply disturbing sensation of being watched. And then there was the presence of shadowy things skitter
ing haphazardly across the boundaries of his peripheral vision… He wondered if he could be going crazy, or if maybe some sort of delayed PTSD was finally coming to collect on his sanity.

  Thunder sounded and lightning streaked across the sky, but still the light glowed red. He sighed and leaned back, tossing the mirror beside him and rubbing his eyes. Dropping his hand down to his stubbly beard, he subconsciously traced the scars he kept hidden beneath it. He didn’t know why the things that he had tried so hard to forget were suddenly coming back to him now. But he didn’t want to think about it, so instead, he set his mind on something else — tomorrow, Friday. Though it was barely an improvement upon the last thought, it was one he had no choice but to deal with. Tomorrow… He would deal with it then, and for now just hope that it took its good old time in coming.

  The light finally switched green, and he was grateful to turn his attention back to navigating through the real, albeit unfocussed, world of the living.

  ****

  He turned the key, shutting down the engine and the music in mid-lyric. Sitting there for a minute, intent on finishing his coffee and listening to the hypnotic sound of the rain pitter-pattering off his truck, he could just make out his partner’s yellow raincoat moving back and forth on the site beneath the stormy veil.

  Draining the paper cup, he tossed it onto the pile of others, further burying his driver’s information. Then he reached behind the seat, grabbed his tool belt, and took a deep breath before jumping out into the mud.

  “Is that you, John?” a voice called out from behind a curtain of runoff water. “If it is, you’re late!”

  John ducked through the waterfall that was pouring off of the concrete slab above them and wiped the rain out of his eyes. “Sorry, Miles,” he muttered. “Needed a coffee like you wouldn’t believe.”