Uprising (Alternate Earth Series, Book 2) (18 page)

The ring is made of silver, and embossed with a pentagram and six colorful jewels.

I slip it off his finger and place it in the pocket of my jacket. I remember the story Mason told me about Lilly and the ring. She didn’t know it at the time, but the ring was made from Lucifer’s Archangel crown. He was able to use it to transport her to him. No one was aware of its power at the time, but we knew now. Wearing the ring in this reality would most likely place the wearer at the mercy of Lucian. That was definitely something I didn’t need to deal with at the moment.

I lean into the sarcophagus, shining my light into its interior, all the way down to King Solomon’s skeletal feet. I don’t see any sign of the trumpets.

When I lean back out, I ask Michael, “Where else could they be?”

Michael looks around the empty room.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “I thought for sure they would be inside the coffin with him.”

I suddenly feel a headache begin to throb against my temples. I close my eyes and lower my chin to my chest as I use my free hand to massage my forehead with my fingers. After a few seconds, I open my eyes and stare down at the spot on the stone floor where the light of my flashlight is shining. I squint at the spot, because there seems to be something different about it when contrasted against the rest of flooring around it.

“Michael,” I say, kneeling down to look at the discolored patch of stone, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yes,” he answers, kneeling down beside me. “See if you can pry it open.”

I pull my sword from its sheath on my back and place the tip of it in the groove between the out of place stone and the rest of the floor. It takes a little bit of effort and jiggling on my part, but the tip is able to slip in far enough for me to apply some pressure and lift the stone up an inch so I can grab it with my fingers. After I lift the stone away, I discover a deep hole. I sheathe my sword and shine my flashlight down into the opening, where I find a long, round, worn leather tube. I reach in and carefully pull it out of the hole, realizing it looks like something you would store a large, rolled-up map inside of. Excitedly, I stand up and remove the cap at the top. Inside, I find the first trumpet. Though, it doesn’t look the way I thought it would.

“For some reason,” I say to Michael, pulling what looks like an animal’s horn out of the case, “I thought it would be made out of gold.”

“It’s called a shofar, and this particular one is made from the horn of an antelope,” Michael tells me. “Most of them were, and still are, either made from the horns of rams or antelopes.”

I shine my light at it, and see that its coloring is a beautiful blend of brown and tan. Even after all the years it’s been hidden away in this tomb, the trumpet is still glossy- looking, as if it was polished only yesterday.

I carefully place the trumpet back in its case and leave it standing upright as I point my flashlight around the other stones encircling the King Solomon’s final resting place. I notice two more stones the same color as the one I just moved. When I walk around the coffin, I notice there are six more in all.

As quickly as I can, I move the other stones to retrieve the remaining six trumpets. Luckily, the cases and horns aren’t that heavy, just cumbersome. Not wanting Mason to venture too far down the passageway towards the tomb when he returns, I begin to run the cases down to the end of the corridor two at a time. While I’m making my way down with the last trumpet, I see Mason phase in. He shines his flashlight at the six leather cases.

“Take them up!” I call out to him, from the other end of the passageway.

Mason gingerly gathers them all up by their slim leather straps and phases to the surface, only to return a few seconds later. I run the rest of the way to him and he phases us back up to rejoin the others.

When we get there, I see that Brand and Malcolm each have three of the leather cases across their shoulders.

“Did you get the ring?” Horace asks excitedly. I swear I can almost see him drooling with anticipation.

“Yes,” I tell him. “As soon as we can, I’ll use it on Faust to get yours back from him.”

“When?” Horace demands.

“Soon,” I promise. “You did us a great favor, and I always repay my debts. You have my word, Horace.”

“Jess won’t let you down,” Chandler says by way of backing up my claim.

“Just don’t take too long,” Horace grumbles. “You know where you can find me.”

“Wait!” I yell to Horace, stopping him before he can phase away.

“What?” he asks impatiently.

“You know who Ravan truly is, right?” I ask.

“Yes,” Horace says, looking surprised that I know such a secret.

“How has she survived this long? Can your type of magic make something like that possible?”

“It can,” Horace admits reluctantly, “but if you want to know exactly how Faust is doing it, you’ll either have to ask him or Ravan. They could have chosen a hundred different possibilities. Is there anything else you want to know, or can I leave now?”

Without really waiting for my answer, Horace phases, leaving us standing there with our prizes.

“What should we do with the trumpets now?” I ask.

“For now,” Brand says, “let’s take them back to the castle and keep them in the graviton cage. I think we should do what you did with your princes on your Earth. I’ll contact six other Watchers that I trust to hide them somewhere only they know about. When it’s time for you to return to your reality, you can take them and do what you want with them.”

“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” I say.

Mason phases me to the basement, with Brand, Malcolm, and Chandler only a second behind us. When we walk into the metal box that houses our graviton cage, Lucifer peers at me through the bars as he lies on his cot. He’s lying with his right arm bent to prop his head on his hand. There is a book laid out in front of him on the mattress.

He grins at me, looking rather mischievous, but then again, he is the devil. How often does he look any other way?

“Looks like you’ve been productive today, Jessica,” Lucifer says, sitting up on his cot as he watches us all enter the antechamber of his prison.

I don’t reply. I simply walk over to where we have this world’s Gabriel lying on the floor for safekeeping, and stand the leather case I’m carrying next to the wall beside him.

“You seem to have started quite a collection,” Lucifer muses as he continues to watch us, me in particular.

“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?” Malcolm asks Lucifer in disgust.

“I could ask the same of you, Malcolm,” Lucifer snaps back.

“I’m not in the mood, you two,” I say, feeling tired all of a sudden as I turn to my husband. “Would you phase us to our room, please?”

Without a word, Mason takes my hand and leads me out of the graviton cage to do as I ask. As soon as we arrive in our private sanctuary, he makes me sit down on the side of the bed so he can remove my boots for me.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, as perceptive as ever of my moods. “Did something bad happen in the tomb?”

“Could we talk about it later?” I ask him as he begins to take off my other boot. “I just want you to hold me for a while. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even over yet.”

Mason stands and removes his own shoes before climbing into bed with me. He takes me into his arms, making me feel safe and protected from the memories of that day. I close my eyes and rest against my husband, thankful for the millionth time that we were brought together to have and to hold from the moment we met and into eternity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After a while, I tell Mason what happened down in King Solomon’s burial chamber.

“Something told me you shouldn’t go down there,” Mason says, sounding like he failed me in some way. “I wish I’d argued with you harder about it so you didn’t have to relive that moment.” He kisses my forehead tenderly, as if the action will erase all my bad memories.

“I had to go. There weren’t a lot of options left open to us,” I say with a sigh, snuggling back up to Mason and laying my head against his chest while he rests his chin on my head. “I know we need to, but I
really
don’t want to get out of this bed.”

“I’m content to stay right here with you for the rest of the day,” Mason tells me, holding me even tighter.

“I wish we could,” I reply, closing my eyes and imagining what Mason and I could do with a whole day to ourselves. “Maybe we could even make baby number three.”

“We need to come up with a name for our second son,” Mason says. “Calling him ‘baby number three’ just isn’t very dignified.”

“Hmm,” I say, thinking of some names. “What about Drew?”

“It’s nice,” Mason says, not sounding convinced. “What about Wyatt? Or Ivan?”

“I kind of like Wyatt,” I say. “Let’s put a pin in that one. What do you think about Sean or Kash?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Mason says. “I have a feeling we’ll end up picking a few and only settling on one after we see him, just like we did with Max and Brynlee.”

We fall silent after our small brainstorm for baby names, and I know I’m just putting off the inevitable.

“We should go check on Leah,” I say, pulling away from Mason’s warmth. I know if I don’t do it now, I’ll never get out of bed.

“Ok,” Mason says, putting his hand underneath my chin and tilting my head up slightly. He kisses me chastely on the lips, knowing as well as I do that we don’t have time to delve into pursuits that are even more pleasurable.

After we put our shoes back on, we leave the safe confines of our room and walk down the hallway to Leah’s bedroom. When we get there, we find the door wide open and the interior unoccupied. The bed has been neatly made, and the lights are off.

“Where do you think they went?” I ask, knowing that Gabe and JoJo wouldn’t have left before Leah woke up.

“I don’t know,” Mason says, taking my hand. “Let’s go look for them.”

We walk down to the first floor and find Leah, Gabe, and JoJo in the kitchen with Malcolm, Mia, and Ava. Leah is sitting at the dining table with Mia and Ava. I realize all three of them lost loved ones on the same day. Leah and Mia sit beside one another, speaking in low voices, while Ava sits at the head of the table, silently starring off into space. Her eyes look puffy from crying, and her spirit seems broken. She doesn’t even react when Mason and I enter the room. Everyone else glances in our direction.

Gabe is cutting up some tomatoes for what looks like a salad, considering the already-cut-up lettuce in the large glass bowl in front of his cutting board on the island. JoJo is helping Malcolm cook some chicken tenders. She is flouring them in a shallow dish, and Malcolm fries them in a skillet on the stove.

When Leah sees me enter, she immediately excuses herself from Mia and walks directly into my open arms.

“How are you doing, sweetie?” I ask her, holding her tight.

“I’m ok,” Leah answers as she lays her head on my shoulder. “I feel numb.”

“That’s perfectly natural,” I tell her, stroking her long hair against her back, doing what little I can to bring her comfort. “You just need to give yourself some time to cope with everything. Grieving takes a while. There’s no rush.”

I say these words to console Leah, but, in the back of my mind, I know there are multitudes of people out there who need our help to end their pain. In particular, a temple full of Taoist monks who are anxiously awaiting our return. I just can’t bring myself to ask Leah to do such a thing yet. I know she needs a period of grieving, but we also have a duty to those seeking relief.

“Oh, good, you’re all here,” I hear Brand say as he walks into the kitchen behind us, with an unexpected visitor by his side: Noel Cross, Xavier’s personal assistant.

Leah and I pull away from each other to give our full attention to the new arrivals.

“Noel just brought me some good news,” Brand says to us, a rare smile on his face. “I’ll give her the honor of telling you what it is.”

All eyes turn to Noel as we anticipate what she has to say.

“Xavier has been invited into Lucian’s inner circle,” Noel tells us, with a faint smile that says she isn’t exactly happy about the news.

“That’s great,” I say, realizing how well things have been going for us lately. The news should make me feel more confident that we have a chance to win this war. Instead, I begin to feel apprehensive that something bad is about to happen to even out the good. I silently berate myself for maintaining the ‘glass half-empty’ mentality, and wish I could be more of a ‘glass half-f’ kind of gal. “What made Lucian decide to do that?”

“He suddenly had an opening,” Ava says from her seat at the table, still staring at nothing, but obviously aware of what is transpiring around her.

Noel’s eyes shift in Ava’s direction, and she simply nods to the rest of us, silently letting us know that Ava is correct. With Ava’s husband, Micah, executed for helping us during the rescue mission, Xavier was now exactly where we wanted him to be. It’s not the way any of us wanted it to happen, but we can’t deny that it places us a step ahead in the game Lucian is playing.

Noel walks over to the table and takes a seat, opposite Mia and closest to Ava. I watch as she reaches for something inside the right front pocket of the black leather jacket she’s wearing. I see a glint of gold as she places a ring in front of Ava on the table.

“I found it in his ashes,” Noel tells Ava. “I thought you might want it.”

Mia begins to cry as she stares at the band of gold on the table. Leah leaves my side to give her new friend what comfort she can.

Ava’s eyes seem to come back into focus as she looks down at the ring in front of her. Slowly, she reaches out to pick it up.

“I know the two of you had your differences,” Noel tells Ava, “but, in the end, he proved that he truly did love you.”

“Then why did he do it?” Ava asks. “Why did he set me up to take the fall?”

Noel sighs. “Micah had his suspicions about you, and told Lucian, but I believe he thought he was just being paranoid and wanted to prove to himself that you weren’t a spy.”

“He never thought I could betray him,” Ava says in a dead voice. “And I proved him wrong.”

Noel stretches her arm across the table and rests a comforting hand on Ava’s wrist.

“At least you know that he truly did love you, Ava,” Noel says, hoping her words bring her friend some solace. “He sacrificed himself so you could live. I witnessed firsthand how the princes’ torture of you tore him up inside. When he saw an opportunity to save you, he took it.”

“If I hadn’t betrayed him in the first place, he’d still be alive,” Ava says as twin tears spill from her eyes and slide down her cheeks. She slips Micah’s ring onto the index finger of her right hand, and stares at it as she continues to cry. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell him I loved him one last time.”

“I’m sure he knew you did,” Noel says comfortingly.

Ava turns her head and looks at Noel. “He only knew I betrayed him. Don’t you dare sit there and act like you know what he was thinking.”

Noel removes her hand from Ava’s arm, and sits back in her chair.

“You’re right,” Noel admits, “I have no clue what he was thinking in his last moments. But I don’t think he would have sacrificed himself if he didn’t believe you still loved him. People don’t generally martyr themselves for someone they believe hates them. You’ll only lessen what he did for you by believing he thought you hated him. In my opinion, that would be worse than anything you did behind his back while he was still alive.”

Ava averts her eyes from Noel, and stares at Micah’s ring on her finger as she begins to twist it with her fingers.

Noel remains silent, waiting for Ava to say something else. When it’s obvious Ava is through talking, Noel stands from her chair and walks back over to us.

“Brand said you needed to see Faust,” Noel says to me, turning her attention to things that still need to be done.

“Yes,” I say. “We promised Horace we would get his ring back from Faust after he helped us.”

“I can help you with that,” Noel says. “I can phase you directly to his apartment in New York City. Lucian is throwing a party tomorrow evening, to welcome Xavier into his circle of trust. Faust will be attending, and he always stays in his penthouse when these things happen. I can phase you there while he’s getting ready. He only keeps a few guards around, so you won’t find much resistance. Besides, if you have control over Faust by using King Solomon’s ring, you can just order him to make his men stand down. They’re only humans, anyway. Faust doesn’t like having fallen angels around him, don’t ask me why.”

“Probably because he likes being the most powerful man in the room,” Mason says knowingly. “He’s always been rather prideful.”

“That’s true,” Noel agrees.

“When should we be ready to leave?” I ask, wanting to get this part over with as soon as possible so I didn’t owe Horace anything.

“I’ll be back tomorrow at 7pm to get you,” Noel tells me before looking at Brand. “Do you have anything you want me to tell Xavier?”

“Just to be careful,” Brand says, with furrowed brow. “Tell him not to take any unnecessary risks with his life.”

“I’ll let him know,” Noel replies, turning her attention back to me. “I need to get back before I’m missed, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We’ll be ready.”

Noel phases.

“Do the two of you have a spare moment? Josh has something he would like to give to Jess,” Brand says to Mason and me.

I look over at the kitchen table, and see that Leah is still comforting Mia. Ava has already phased, presumably to deal with her grief in her own way.

“Go on,
mon cherie
,” JoJo says to me. “We have things handled here.”

“Ok; thank you, JoJo.”

“Follow me to Josh’s office,” Brand tells us, phasing there.

Mason touches my arm and phases us to Josh’s room.

Josh’s workspace is like a computer geek’s nirvana. I’m not sure what all his equipment does, but it definitely looks shiny, sleek, new, and highly technical. I can’t imagine that he’s lacking anything this world has to offer, technologically-speaking anyway.

Josh has some hard-pounding rock music playing in the background, but, as soon as he sees us, he claps his hands twice and the music stops.

I begin to laugh. “You have your music on the Clapper?”

Josh smiles, reminding me so much of our Joshua in that moment, and shrugs his shoulders.

“It saves me a little time,” he says, like a confession.

“Do you have Jess’ surprise ready?” Brand asks as we walk up to Josh.

Josh stands up, grabbing something small and black off his glass and steel wall desk.

“Yep,” he says walking straight up to me. “I’ve got it.”

“What exactly is my surprise?” I ask, intrigued.

Josh holds out his right hand to me so I can see something that looks a lot like a small, shiny black button.

“It is a miniature camera,” he tells me as I continue to stare at it. “Brand said you needed something to record Ravan the next time you speak with her. I thought you could wear this inside the snap on your jacket. Whenever you want to turn it on, all you have to do is press it and it will start recording. May I?” Josh asks, pointing to the snap on the lapel of my leather jacket.

“Sure,” I say as I watch him push the camera into the opening where the other part of the snap is supposed to go.

“Cool. Perfect fit,” Josh says with a pleased smile. “Since it’s so small, you’ll only be able to film her for about 10 minutes, so make sure you wait until she starts saying the good stuff.”

“Ok, I’ll try.”

“As soon as it stops recording, it’s programmed to automatically upload to my server for safekeeping.”

“Good,” I say in relief. “I tend to lose things sometimes. At least I won’t have to worry about misplacing something so small.”

Nina phases into the room.

As she walks up to us, she asks, “I heard you were going to go see Faust tomorrow. Do you want me to go with you?”

“I think we have it handled,” Mason tells her. “It doesn’t sound like he has much security, and Jess will be wearing the ring to make Faust cooperate. We should be fine.”

“Sounds good,” Nina says, nodding her head and glancing my way. “Uh, Jess, could I have a moment alone with you to get your opinion about something?”

“Sure,” I say, drawing the word out, because I don’t have a clue what Nina might want to talk about.

We walk over to a far corner in the room so the boys can’t hear our conversation.

“So, I’ve been thinking about what I should do to handle the Rafe situation,” Nina says quietly, “and I wanted to get your opinion on what I’ve come up with.”