The Sixth Seal
Chapter Twenty-Two

The world was beginning to return to her, as though it was a great machine warming up after having been left idle for too long. Ana was vaguely aware of a voice droning on in the background. She struggled to make sense of her surroundings. The mahogany desk was gone, as were the windows. She was still strapped to a chair, but it was a different chair in a different room. There was nothing but a muddy light with an indeterminable source, and an incessant droning emanating from the void. It was like a litany being repeated to her at high speed. It was too fast to make sense of. She strained to separate an identifiable strand from the constant barrage. Alpha. A wave of elation ran through her. She definitely heard the word alpha. She listened for it again. There. It repeated once every few seconds. If she could just make sense of the last word, maybe she could break it down. Omega. The contorted face of the old man, Martin, flashed before her, angry and shouting. Was it a bit of memory? What had he done inside her mind?

More of the world came into focus. The room was much larger than she had first been aware, as though a fog lifted to reveal that which had been hidden. A door sat in the middle of the far wall. There were no windows. In the center of the room there were four hospital beds; three of them occupied. An old man in one, a middle-aged woman in another, and a child, a young boy in the third. Each one had an oxygen mask and tubes of various lengths connected to their arms, and poking out from beneath their blankets. She now realized part of what she thought was the litany, was actually the blips and bleeps coming from the monitors positioned next to each bed. She tried to drown out the noise of the room and focus solely on the stream of words.

Alpha. DivinationUplinkInitiatedProtectorateDigamma. Omega. The litany cycled through her mind again. With each pass she isolated words and slowed the pattern down, until each word came to her one after the other. Alpha-Divination-Uplink-Initiated-Protectorate-Digamma-Omega. It was the book. It was speaking to her. She realized it was waiting for a response to something that she initiated. Again, a memory of Martin’s face flashed before her. How long was he inside her mind, bending her to his will? It was so hard to make sense of things. What was it that he kept saying to her? Where is the Eye of Jupiter? Initiate the sequence?

She winced as the memory returned to her. Martin ripped through her being, digging for what he was after. He had done what so many others failed to do, including Doctor Gabriel. He brought her memories back to her. Not just those of this life, but those of the others. There were so many others. She had indeed been Joan d’Arc. She remembered burying the book beneath the sanctuary, and then cursing those who were after it while the flames danced before her eyes. She cursed the Horsemen on that day as they watched her burn to death. It was the same curse that had wiped the existence of the book from her memory. She spent the next lifetimes wandering the world in varying states of sanity, knowing she was meant for a greater purpose, but unable to remember what it was, until finally it came to her on her thirteenth birthday when she was little Hannah Klein. It was the first time in nearly five hundred years she remembered her purpose. Now she remembered it all over again. It wasn’t what she had assumed. The litany interrupted her thoughts, and at last she understood it. Alpha-Divination-Uplink-Initiated-Protectorate-Digamma-Omega.

“Scry divination. Imperio a protectorate digamma. Respondere.” She spoke the words in one of the accepted command languages able to invoke the book’s core functions.

The litany stopped. The scene in front of her eyes replaced with another, like a movie on a giant screen. There was no sound. She was looking at a small room with a clean, modern couch. A family portrait in oil hung above it. The face of the old woman in the painting looked familiar, but she couldn’t put a name to her. Ana’s field of vision was fairly narrow and everything seemed distorted, as though she was looking through a fish bowl.

A petite woman with shoulder length blond hair passed in front of her. A man was with her. The man was Doctor Gabriel. What was the book showing her?

At first their conversation appeared to be genial. Doctor Gabriel showed the woman some pictures, pointing at each in turn, and asking questions. The woman shook her head, and then took one of the pictures from him. She studied it closer, and after a time, she smiled. Ana wished she could hear what they were saying. The Doctor said something else. The woman spoke a name in response. Hannah? The Doctor smiled. Then he asked her something else. The woman’s features changed, as though a realization came over her. She backed away from him.

The Doctor took the picture back from her, and placed it with the others back in his coat pocket. He was wearing the same clothes as when he found her this morning. Then she knew. She was witnessing recent events. The Doctor’s next action startled her. One moment he was smiling and nodding, and the next he yelled and slapped the woman. She stepped backward, almost out of Ana’s field of vision. Despite the lack of sound, she could tell the Doctor was still screaming at her, shaking her. What did he want with this woman?

Another veil of fog lifted in her mind. The book was showing these things to her. She knew there was only one possible way that could be, if the Horsemen did indeed have the book. The Eye of Jupiter. She was seeing this scene play out before her from the large clear stone that sat in the center of the book’s interlocking rings. But if she had such a close view of these events, why couldn’t Doctor Gabriel see the Eye? That was obviously what he was after. It had to be right there in front of him.

The muscles in his neck were taught and the veins on his forehead pulsed. Spittle flew from his mouth as he continued screaming at the woman. She was crying, pleading with him, her face streaked with tears. Doctor Gabriel drew his arm back and slapped the woman hard across the face with the back of his right hand. Ana could almost hear her neck cracking and the thud as the petite woman slammed into the wall. She painted the surface with her blood as she slid limply down to the floor.

The last image of the scene was Doctor Gabriel’s face. A face she had known in many other forms. He had pursued her throughout the ages. He was the one who found her after she buried the book at Patay. He helped light the fire beneath her in the square. The familiar rage came to her again. She remembered now where they had last met. He was there in Toulouse when she removed the Eye of Jupiter from the center of the book. He had been a doctor then as well.

The rage grew stronger. Martin had gotten the truth out of her. Somehow he had forced her to invoke the sequence that played the image in her mind. He witnessed it as well, and then put her in this room when he got what he was after. Her only consolation was that Doctor Gabriel had likely fallen out of favor for his obvious failure.

If the Horsemen haven’t killed him, I’ll gladly do the job myself.

Omega. Awaiting digamma.

The images faded, replaced by the hospital beds and the small, sterile room that imprisoned her. Something gnawed at her. Something Lee said to her about the protectors. He hadn’t been able to track them for some time. Now she knew why. These were the other protectors. The Horsemen were keeping them drugged and asleep until they needed them.

Her eyes drifted to the empty bed. Mine? Not a chance. The rage trembled within her again.

Awaiting digamma.

The book was still waiting for an input, a command. What was she going to do? The Horsemen were surely on their way to retrieve the Eye. Even if she could free herself, she’d be too late to stop them. And after seeing first-hand what Martin was capable of, she wasn’t sure she could stop them.

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Awaiting digamma, repeated the book. It was then she understood. She was digamma, the sixth, the only seal of the seven that could unlock the book’s power. That’s why they needed her above all others. She couldn’t stop them from getting to the Eye, but she could make it difficult for them. Perhaps it would buy her enough time.

She commanded the book. “Imperio solum digamma. Si ipsi tangere subvertat fulgur. Respondere.”

Sicut dicitur, the book responded.

That should give them a shock, she thought. She pulled against the restraints holding her to the chair, relieved that they used rope instead of handcuffs.

Another flash of memory came to her. It was brief, more of a reminder than a concrete image. She had been in a similar situation before in another life. She used it like a blueprint, twisting and contorting her hands and wrists in a specific sequence. The ropes fell from her hands. She rubbed the feeling back into her wrists before bending down and undoing the restraints at her legs.

She hurried to the room’s only door. Locked. She scanned the room again. No obvious weapons other than the chair.

She crossed the room and stood next to the little boy’s bed. In a strange way, he was her family. What had these bastards done to this poor child? Did he even know who he was or what the strange voices in his head meant?

She bent down and kissed his forehead. “I will come back for you, little one.” Tears welled up and she placed a hand over her heart. The necklace. May it bring you luck, Lee had said. She smiled, unclasped the double looped, silver chain that held the dainty chrysanthemum, and stretched it out between her hands.

“It will bring me more than luck, my Love.”

A couple of short kicks to the door with the heel of her boot aroused attention from outside. She pressed her back to the wall next to the door, and looped the ends of the chain around her hands.

The door burst open, and one of the guards rushed in. “What’s going on in he--” The man didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.

She threw the chain over his head and cinched it around his neck. She put her knee in his back and slammed him into the wall. She pushed the door shut with her foot, pulling the chain tighter and tighter until the man went slack. She released her grip and guided his body to the floor. Her hands were striated where the chain dug into her skin. She put the necklace back on, making sure the tiny chrysanthemum sat perfectly in place. Then she pulled back the man’s coat and found what she was hoping for, a nice little SIG Pro and an extra clip.

She stood, gripped the pistol in her right hand, pulled the slide back and released it before opening the door.

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