Chapter Forty-Two - Richard Bellamy
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Richard Bellamy
THE SPIRE LOOMED against the cold, dark sky. It’s weather stone bathed in a cold, silver glow. Bellamy crossed the courtyard, the sharp crunch of his polished shoes against the ice cutting through the eerie hush. His breath clouded in the frozen air as he checked his watch, the glow from its face briefly illuminating a tight, satisfied curl of his lips. After trailing Ethan for most of the evening, Bellamy had lost him somewhere near the library. Yet a man of his expertise and instincts would deduce that they would cross paths here, the Summit Spire.
The university’s iconic bell tower stood as it always had — a pillar over the campus, the place where it had all begun.
Bellamy paused to admire its stark silhouette. The spire, rose defiantly into the cloudy night sky, carrying it with an ancient weight, nearly as if it had stood through the rise and fall of epochs. Its weather stonework, darkened by time and streaked moss, now bore a ghostly pallor as the snow settled into its crag. Lions, rather than traditional gargoyles, were carved at the corners of the bell chamber high above seeming to keep watch over the campus below.
The surrounding trees were heavy, branches sagging under thick wet snow. The copper roof of the spire had dulled to a deep green patina. It was sharp and angular, its edge rimmed with frost that shimmered faintly under courtyard lamplight. Snow was falling steadily, in heavy silent sheets, blanketing the courtyard in pristine white, muting the world. The bell tower seemed to exist in a pocket suspended from time — untouched, unshaken, and waiting.
Bellamy could feel it — waiting for him .
He cast his gaze upward, marveling at the meticulous detail etched into the tower’s surface. There had been a time years ago when the bitterness of loss and failure consumed him. Winona, dead. Isabelle institutionalized. His career in ruins, all have left him in a chasm of despair. It was in his darkest moment that he had received the note. Bellamy’s hand drifted to this coat pocket, brushing the handle of the snub-nose revolver holstered there. It had once been a potential end, a grim finality to his problems. But the note — a cryptic, handwritten letter — had arrived the very day he had resolved to use it.
The sender, anonymous save for the signature that read simply, “an admirer of your work,” had written Bellamy with an opportunity.
A university out west, an institution more than it seems is a nexus of extraordinary power and will soon become a gathering place for the subjects of your study. There is a greater, more ancient purpose dictated for this place beyond the facade of academia. Take yourself there by any means necessary and you will find exactly what you seek.
It had promised answers to the questions of his work. Perhaps it was foolish for a man of science to rest his hopes on something resembling religion, but what choice did he have? The task had been simple, apply for a faculty position and use any means necessary to garner proximity to the university. His work over the years had afforded him several favors that he promptly called in and gained a faculty position easily enough. With his knowledge of the field and academia, he had risen quickly at SSU, giving him a vantage point to watch for those with attunements. He had been able to cobble together a few more answers to the letter’s mysterious call, but not much more. It had promised connections between thoughts and reality, the boundaries of the mind and the universe. The threads tying human thought to a cosmic order. There is a discussion of a spire , not by name necessarily, but the unmistakable description of a focal point, a conduit of power beyond human perception.
While Bellamy had not understood all the note implied, it had rekindled something inside of him — a spark to know more. He abandoned Cambridge, left behind the wreckage of his old life, and arrived at Summit State University. He couldn’t explain it but there was something larger looming, he was on the precipice of a great cosmic happening and he was preparing his seat.
A rustle broke his reverie, the crunch of an icy pavement beneath hurried footsteps. Bellamy froze, instinctively slipping into the shadow of the snow-laden trees lining the courtyard. From his vantage point, he saw a figure merging from the opposite side of the courtyard.
The figure paused, glancing up at the spire before moving towards its entrance. Bellamy’s breath caught with recognition. Tall stature, broad shoulder, and that unmistakable auburn hair catching the dim glow of the nearby lamplight.
Jason.
Bellamy’s pulse quickened as he watched the young man, shoulders taut with tension, slip through the heavy oak doors of the spire. Jason was alone, his steps cautious but with determination, his worry visible.
A predator’s instinct took hold of Bellamy. Where there was Jason, Ethan would soon follow. He reached into his pocket, his fingers curling around the revolver’s cold grip. The relic of his past, was no longer an object of despair but a tool of strength. Jason’s presence here could only mean one thing — he was searching for Ethan.
Slipping silently from the shadows, Bellamy followed Jason into the Spire, the heavy door creaking behind him.
Tonight, the game would change.