Alan Price and the Colossus of Rhodes (The Nephilim Chronicles) Read online

  Dominic’s body tensed. He could hear the Nephilim coming before he saw them. At all costs the boy had to side with him. “Kyle, our time is short. People are coming now who want to take you. We have only moments. Listen closely.”

  Chapter 37

  Running with Angelica was the most fun Alan had experienced in quite awhile. Never before had someone been able to keep up with him. What had been a strictly solo form of transportation was now a race between friends. Had the reason they were speeding towards the city college been any less tense, Alan would have almost laughed. However there was no time for joy now. Angelica’s grim expression more than showed the peril they found themselves in now.

  As blurring city images passed, Alan followed Angelica at a dead sprint. Only when they were in the center of the college campus did Angelica call a halt. She chose a large grouping of trees and bushes yards away from any student to finally stop and talk into her earpiece. “Valkyrie, we’re here. Do you have an exact location on Kyle Brown?”

  “Hacking into government satellite feeds isn’t as easy as it sounds… That—that didn’t make sense. Hacking into government satellites doesn’t even sound easy at all. Hold on, and, uh oh.”

  “What? What is ‘Uh oh’?” Alan asked. “Like ‘Uh oh’ we have the wrong campus or ‘Uh oh’ we are all going to die?”

  “Like ‘Uh oh’ Dominic Drencher is already walking Kyle away from the campus.”

  “Which way?” Angelica asked.

  “Go straight and make a right at the last building. You’ll see a large parking lot. That’s where they are headed. Be careful, guys.”

  Angelica nodded towards Alan and the two took off again. Fear more than anything else pushed its way through Alan’s mess of emotions. Dominic was there. The same man who had beaten him in his own home. Angelica was with him now but he was still learning. He wasn’t ready for a fight with a demonic Nephilim, not yet.

  Memories of being beaten up and bullied wouldn’t go away. Alan hated himself for being afraid. He hated the past that he couldn’t forget; he hated feeling weak and there was nothing he could do about the past now. He would always be haunted by those memories, no matter what he did. Before he could try anything to remedy these thoughts, Angelica stopped.

  Alan almost knocked into her. They were facing a smiling Dominic Drencher who stood only yards away. Beside him was another man who had to be Kyle Brown. The young man hugged his backpack looking frantically between Dominic, Angelica and Alan.

  “Not here, Dominic,” Angelica said in a clear voice. “You know the rules. There are too many witnesses.”

  Alan looked around. Although the parking lot was near empty, plenty of college students still walked within view and hearing distance of their confrontation. A few even paused as they walked by sensing the tension of the moment.

  “Great,” Dominic smiled, “then go about your way. Is that Alan Price? Why, Alan, you healed rather nicely, didn’t you? I’ll have to be more thorough next time.”

  Alan set his jaw as he did his best to combat the fear that still lingered in his chest.

  “Well,” Dominic continued, “Kyle has made his decision and he is coming with me. So there is nothing more to discuss unless you choose to provoke this already stressed situation.”

  Angelica shifted her eyes from her enemy and motioned to Kyle. “I don’t know what lies he has told you but he wants to use you and your knowledge—“

  “Kyle Brown already knows,” Dominic interrupted. “We have an understanding. His knowledge for everything he has ever wanted. What would you offer him? A life of service void of any vengeance and the retribution he deserves to cast on those who have oppressed him?”

  “No, I would offer him a life he can be proud of, a future in the light instead of the darkness you and your kind offer. Kyle,” Angelica said, “do not go with him.”

  Kyle seemed confused as he made the motion to speak yet no words came out. Alan almost felt bad for Kyle as he stood with a bewildered expression, his head turning from side to side as he looked back and forth between the two parties vying for his allegiance.

  “Who came to you first, Kyle?” Dominic asked. “Who made the first move to save you from a life of being a nobody? I’m offering you power and a chance to payback those who have stepped on you and belittled you your entire life.”

  Alan empathized with Kyle more than he thought he should. He knew what was going through the young man’s mind. Kyle’s life didn’t sound so different from his own. With a few things in history changed, Alan could have very likely been in Kyle’s position. Just as Alan opened his mouth to try to convince Kyle, Kyle spoke to Angelica and Alan.

  “Would you give me that? I mean, if this is all true and I can have power, can you give that to me? Would you?”

  Alan already knew they were defeated. Angelica’s response sounded like defeat in his ears. “No we cannot. On our side, only a select few are chosen. Kyle, trust me, ours is not a life you would choose if you knew the sacrifice involved. I cannot give you vengeance but I can offer you peace.”

  Kyle took a step closer to a smiling Dominic, “I don’t want peace. I don’t want to be weak or lonely anymore. I want to be able to stand up for myself.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Dominic said. “He’s coming with me by choice. The only way you can stop us now is through force.” Dominic paused as he looked around the school parking lot. “And we both know if you did that, dozens of lives would be lost even if you could stop me. By the way, I’m being very generous when I say that. We both know even the two of you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Dominic turned to Kyle. “Well then, it’s time for us to go.” Dominic began to walk away with Kyle following close behind. “Too-da-loo, you two. I’m sure I’ll be killing you very soon.”

  Alan felt sick as he witnessed the two men leave. A bitter taste entered his throat and no matter how many times he swallowed, it wouldn’t go away. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you say anything? he asked himself. “We can’t just let them go. We have to do something,” he finally said.

  Angelica shook her head. “No, Kyle made his decision out of his own freewill. There are too many people here who would be injured or killed if we tried to stop him by force.”

  Alan stood with a nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach as Dominic and Kyle vanished from sight. “What now?” he asked.

  “Now we pray,” Angelica said.

  Chapter 38

  Jacob paced the conference room floor. Alan could feel how tense everyone was as they awaited Michael’s arrival. For the second time that day Angelica tried to apologize for letting Kyle leave with Dominic, “Jacob, I feel respons—“

  “No,” Jacob said. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. We did exactly what we should have. They were just one step ahead, that’s it.”

  The room was silent again. Arther sat quietly between Danielle and Angelica; no smile played across his lips. Instead, a frown and pursed lips distorted his normally cheerful demeanor.

  Just when Alan couldn’t take the silence anymore the sound of the warehouse doors sliding open met their ears. Within moments, Michael walked through the conference room door. Immediately the tension in the room eased. Michael’s green eyes were twinkling and a smile came to his lips when he saw the waiting group. “Wow, let’s take it easy in here, people. Nobody died. We’re going to be okay.”

  Alan felt the tension in his shoulders lessen. He didn’t know what to expect, however Michael’s calm attitude reassured him things would somehow be alright.

  Michael moved to take a seat at the end of the large conference room table. “Jacob told me what happened. None of you is to blame. You had no idea that the Chronicle was real, let alone could be found by the Fallen.”

  Danielle raised her hand at the opposite side of the table.

  “You aren’t in high school anymore, Danielle. You can speak freely.”

  “Oh, sorry. So I get that there was
a book with instructions to make these weapons but why wasn’t it destroyed when the weapons themselves were and why give it to humans to protect?”

  All eyes shifted to Michael. Admiration for Danielle grew within Alan as he witnessed her usually mousy demeanor wither. She was asking the question they were all wondering.

  Michael nodded and pursed his lips. “It does seem rather strange, doesn’t it? The book was kept from being destroyed as a historical record rather than an instruction manual. It is a history on the art of celestial weaponry; we never thought that it would be used to make the weapons themselves. It was given to a trustworthy human family for safekeeping when the war in Heaven ended. We didn’t know they would be found and we never thought they would side with the enemy. I guess after a matter of time it was bound to catch up with us.”

  “But why humans?” Alan found himself asking. The word human fell from his mouth as though it were an alien species and not one that he had identified with only days before.

  “They were the neutral species. We had no idea if or when another insurrection would occur in Heaven. In order to save our heritage and traditions, our art, we entrusted it to a loyal human family.”

  Alan found himself agreeing with what had been done thousands of years before, despite their current situations. He couldn’t blame any race or species for wanting to preserve their way of life.

  “So where does that leave us now?” Jacob asked still pacing.

  Michael turned around in his seat to make eye contact with the Nephilim leader. “Jacob, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  Without hesitation, Jacob took a seat beside Alan.

  “Now, I go to meet with my brothers and sisters and we decide whether we confront the Fallen.”

  “You decide? What is there to decide?” Alan found himself asking.

  Michael frowned. “I know. If it were up to me, we would have stepped in already. You have to understand that technically the Fallen have not broken our agreement. They have not directly touched humans, Angels or Nephilim. If we are going to break this rule that has kept our sides from open war for all these centuries, we have to do so wisely and with a unified front.”

  Jacob stood from the table with a wild look in his eye, “While you go and discuss the next step, the Fallen will be moving ahead with their plans. Let us buy you some time. We can stop them or at least impede their progress.”

  Michael smiled again. “Yes, Jacob, you certainly can. Until now, they have been a move ahead of us, but no longer. They have the information to make the weapons but they do not have the materials needed. You can stop them before they get to it.”

  Arther spoke for the first time. “What material, Michael? Where was the metal that was melted from all those weapons placed? Deep within the earth?”

  “No, it was fashioned into a large statue of an Angel to memorialize all those who had perished during the war in Heaven.”

  Alan tried to think back to his high school history class for any mention of a large statue of an Angel appearing anywhere in history. He came up blank.

  Michael answered the question they were all thinking without being asked. “There is a list that was compiled during the infancy of the world, a list whose sole purpose was to document man’s most marvelous achievements. We call this list, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. However, they are not what history would have you think. The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus each hold a secret to our past. When it comes to the Colossus of Rhodes, the history books are close but they were manipulated to hide the truth. After all, the best lies are those founded on truth.”

  Alan leaned back in his chair looking from left to right to see if anyone else found it ironic that an Angel was talking about lies. No one did; they were too involved in Michael’s story to care.

  “The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of an Angel, not the Greek sun god Helios like history would have you believe. All accounts say the Colossus was lost to us in a great earthquake in 226 BC, they’re wrong. Years ago the Fallen destroyed the monument to our dead and cast it into the ocean in an attempt to bait us into another conflict. The event was difficult for us to endure but we managed to check our tempers.”

  Alan sat further back in his chair and let a long breath escape his lungs. From the very little he knew about the Colossus of Rhodes it was lost and had never been discovered. Now only hand-drawn interpretation of what it may have once looked like remained. If he chose to believe Michael’s interpretation of the story, there was no evidence to argue otherwise.

  “So, we go to where the Colossus once stood. To wherever the Fallen hid it,” Danielle said.

  “If they are not already there, they’ll be there soon. They will need the metal to form their weapons,” Jacob agreed.

  “I’ll provide you with the coordinates to where the Colossus rests before I go. I’ll be back as soon as I can. There are those of my kind who want to avoid open war at any cost, yet even they will think twice when I tell them that the Chronicle is now in the hands of our enemy,” Michael said.

  Jacob motioned everyone to follow him as he headed for the door. “Right, there is no time to lose.”

  Alan stood from his chair to find Michael looking at him with a stare. “A moment, Alan?”

  Alan looked at the others who shrugged. Danielle spread her lips wide and showed her teeth in the universal sign of, “Whoops, looks like you’re in trouble.”

  Alan resumed his seated position as the others left the conference room and shut the door behind them.

  Although the room was spacious and brightly lit by bulbs overhead, Alan couldn’t help but feel as if the room shrank in Michael’s presence. Light seemed to radiate off him like the sun shimmering on water.

  “Alan, how have you been adjusting?”

  Alan wanted to seem optimistic, at the same time he didn’t want to lie. “I’m glad I’m here, still it’s been a rough transition. I just wish I had more time to prepare before all of this happened. Everything is moving so fast and I—I—“ Alan couldn’t bring himself to share with Michael that he still felt depressed. The feelings of fear and anger he had dealt with his whole life hadn’t just stopped with the revelation of his powers.

  Michael spoke the words into existence so Alan wouldn’t have to. “Alan, it will take time. Who knows? The harsh yet true reality is that these feelings may be something you will always battle with.”

  Alan looked up into Michaels green eyes surprised by the lack of comforting words. “I just want to be honest with you. You may struggle with these problems for years to come. However, know that you are only given what you can bear. You are strong, Alan Price; that is why I chose you. You have yet to discover your full potential.”

  Chapter 39

  “And why don’t we just send Alan and Angelica ahead of us like before?” Danielle asked.

  “Well, they’re fast but still not fast enough to walk over water,” Jacob said. “I only know of one person who was capable of doing that.”

  Alan looked up with surprise from his seat. In a very unlike Jacob way, the leader of the Nephilim had made a joke.

  Jacob winked at Alan and turned his attention back to Danielle. “Plus, even if they could get there before the rest of us, I don’t know how much good it would do. Ardat is sure to have more than just Dominic raising the statue from the ocean. She knows we’ll be there. She’s smart. She’ll send only the most powerful dark Nephilim she has at her disposal.”

  Alan readjusted the seat belt across his lap and chest. He had never flown before. Every time the plane shuddered, Alan was sure the next second would bring flashing warning lights and oxygen masks tumbling from their overhead containers.

  Danielle and Jacob sat across from him talking. Arther and Angelica were piloting their plane as they headed for the Colossus of Rhodes’ final resting place. According to
Michael, the statue was deep in the bosom of the ocean just off the Greek island of Rhodes where the Aegean and Mediterranean seas met.

  Alan knew he had to do something to take his mind off the constant jarring and swaying of the plane or he was going to drive himself mad. “Who is Ardat?”

  Jacob looked up with a grim smile as he unbuckled his harness and stretched. “Ardat is one of the strongest Fallen. So far, she’s remained low-key during her sentence here on earth. I guess now we know what she’s been up to.”

  “She was also Michael’s girlfriend,” Danielle said adjusting her glasses. “I mean whatever the equivalent is for two Angels in love. I think the term ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ still works.”