Jonah heard the voice inside his head, a whisper but loud, filling up his skull. He blinked for a few seconds, looking at the others, knowing instantly that he wasn’t the only one who’d heard it.
“Who said that?” Hai Ling asked, looking up and down the hallway. “Did you guys hear that?”
“For a second I thought it was just in my head,” answered Jonah. “You heard it too?”
They nodded, all looking at him at once. As if he should have some kind of answer.
The truth was, he’d heard that voice before, in his worst nightmares and in person. Jonah knew exactly who it was—Abaddon. But there was no reason to scare his friends any more than they already were.
“That voice . . . ,” Julia said, unable to finish her sentence. She was shaking. “I’ve never heard anything so . . .”
“Evil?” Andre suggested. “Me neither.”
“Come on,” Jonah said, moving into the stairwell and heading down to the next level. “We have to finish searching. The sooner we do that and get out of here, the better off we’re all going to be.”
The map on the wall indicated that they were on the main level, and that there were three more levels below, including the engine room at the very bottom.
“Let’s go, guys,” Eliza said as cheerily as she could muster. They were all hesitating, including her. “Let’s push through this. It won’t take long, like Jonah said.”
Her words were less than inspiring, but they trudged down the steps. Red lights lined the halls on the next level, making everything seem gloomy and more sinister than before.
“I think it’s some kind of safety lighting,” said Frederick, staring up at the red glow from the lights on the wall. “Nice. Doesn’t really help the situation, now, does it?”
Jonah felt a chill ripple through his body as they went down below the main deck. The others were shivering too, and he wondered if this level was used as some sort of cold storage. But there was still no sign of Jeremiah in any of the rooms filled with equipment and supplies. So they moved another level down.
“It’s a giant swimming pool,” Frederick said. They were, indeed, standing in front of an Olympic-sized, eight-lane pool. A bank of solid glass ran along the wall. “Must be nice to come take a swim down here when it gets too hot up top.”
The pool was illuminated by that same soft glow of red, though, which made it seem creepy instead of relaxing. “I don’t think I’d like to be swimming in a pool that looked like it was full of . . .” Eliza didn’t finish her sentence, but Jonah knew what she was going to say.
Full of blood.
At one end of the pool was a door.
“Let’s be thorough,” Eliza said, and hurried over to open the door. “Pool supplies,” she said, disappointed. “Just what I thought.”
“Come on, Eliza,” Jonah said, trying to encourage her. “There are still two levels left. Maybe he’s down there.”
“I just thought that he was here. Like, actually on this boat,” she said, tears welling into her eyes. “When I saw that man behind the ambassador, it just seemed like he was the man I saw take Jeremiah. But now . . . now I don’t know, maybe I was wrong. I wanted to believe that we could find him, so my mind tricked me or something. We should just leave, before we get in over our heads.” She rubbed her arms, shivering.
Jonah felt the heaviness of evil like a blanket on top of them all. He suddenly wondered if she was right. Maybe they should just go. The coldness, the hardness of the place, was pushing out all of the hope inside him, spiraling like water down a drain. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes as he leaned over, hands on his knees.
“Elohim . . . ,” he whispered the word, more a cry of desperation than of worship or anything else.
A singular picture came into his mind of the day Jeremiah learned to ride a bike. Jonah was riding along beside him on his own, shouting, laughing, urging him on. Benjamin and Eleanor were behind Jeremiah, cheering, and there to catch him if he fell. Jeremiah’s face was full of untamed joy, his mouth hanging open, his hair blowing back, his eyes wide.
“Whhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee!” he shouted. Jonah laughed and cheered.
The image came and left his mind in an instant. But it was enough.
“Let’s finish this,” Jonah said, pushing back off the wall. He grabbed Eliza’s hand and took it in his. “If Jeremiah’s here, we’ll know soon.”
He moved and beckoned the others to follow. Steeling himself, he led them down another level.
The steps let out into yet another hallway, and Jonah stuck his head out first, to see what they could expect. There were doors all the way down to the left. When he peeked to the right, he immediately drew his head back.
“Guards!” he said.
“Standing there in the hallway?” asked Frederick.
Jonah nodded. “Two of them, right in front of a door at the end of the hall.”
Eliza smiled, suddenly much more hopeful. “They’re guarding him. I know it. That’s where he is!”
“Well then, let’s go get him!” Andre said, moving through the doorway.
Jonah grabbed his friend’s meaty shoulder and pulled him back. “Hold on, Andre. We need some kind of game plan. We can’t just barge in.”
“Some kind of distraction would be nice,” offered Julia. “Something to get them away from the door for a minute, so we can see what’s inside?”
“But we need to get in the door, and I’m sure it will be locked,” Eliza said. “No doubt those guys have the keys, though.”
“You guys create a distraction, and I’ll get us those keys,” Hai Ling said. Jonah was surprised again at her boldness. She shrugged. “I’m probably the sneakiest one here anyway. Might as well put it to good use.”
Hai Ling strode out into the hallway before Jonah or anyone else could protest. She marched down until she was right in front of two guards, standing beside the door. She waved her hand in front of their faces, knowing they couldn’t see her, and grinned back down the hallway at the quarterlings.
“I have to hand it to her, she has some guts,” Jonah muttered, the others nodding approvingly.
The men were having a discussion about New York City football teams, and which one was better, the New York Jets or the New York Giants. The guard didn’t notice when Hai Ling slipped her slender hand into his pocket, pulling out a small ring of keys.
The distraction needed to happen now. Otherwise, the men were going to see a key ring floating in the air beside them.
“Andre, now you can go!”
Andre ran down to the other end of the hallway and shoved a door so hard that it hit the wall behind it, but it stayed open.
“What was that?” one of the guards called out. “Who’s there?”
“Go check it out,” the other man barked.
Andre stood, waiting, pressed against the wall, as the man hurried down the hallway, hand on his hip, right where his gun was holstered. The man stepped up to the darkened room, peeking in.
“Anyone in here?” he said, flipping on the lights and stepping inside. “Hello?”
When he was all the way in, Andre grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut.
“Okay, guys!” he called out. “I’ve got him!” Using all his angel strength, he held the doorknob, leaning backward, holding it steady as the man tried to pull it back open.
Jonah could hear his cries from behind the door.
“Help! Hey, Frank, the door’s jammed! Help me out here!”
Frank muttered something under his breath and walked down the hall.
“Just turn the knob and open it!” he shouted. “Is that too complicated for a New York Jets fan?”
But when he was almost there, a door beside him flung open.
“Huh?” Frank said, peering into the dark room, and then he stepped inside.
The door suddenly slammed shut behind him.
“Hey! What the . . . ?”
Frederick held on to the knob outside. “I’ve got this one!” he called out. “You’re clear!” The door shook, being beaten on from the other side, but he held on tight. “Move fast, though, okay?”
Jonah, Eliza, and Julia were already down the hallway as Hai Ling worked with the keys to the locked door.
Finally, she found one that fit. “I think this is it!”
She turned the knob and opened the door.
The open door revealed a dark room that was hot and smelled like a gym locker. Jonah fumbled for a light switch along the wall and turned the lights on.
In the far corner of the room, a boy was bound to a metal pole that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was Jeremiah.