Conquer the Dark

by L. A. Banks

  “Which was my point,” Isda said, vindicated. He gave Bath Kol an angry look but then focused his attention on Azrael. “It’s been on the move true. But Kemet—Egypt—was the second place it was transferred after Atlantis went down. So why would it go back to the most obvious location of ancient ruins, huh? Why not the sacred temples of Thailand or some remote Fiji island?”

  “What’s on the tablets or in this big book they’ve been consolidated into that’s so important?” Celeste asked, glancing around. “I got impressions, but I don’t understand what this place is that housed it and why everyone is so wigged out.”

  “In Dreamtime,” Melissa hedged, sending her comments in Celeste’s direction, “my grandfather showed me a place far away that had thousands and thousands of metal books on massive slanted shelves. Some pieces were so heavy one man could not lift a book alone. Others were maybe forty to fifty pounds each, with tablets inserted within them like pages—single sheets of metal. Also there were all sorts of plants and seeds stored there for a rebirth of the mother, he said.”

  Melissa stared off toward the sunlit windows as though seeing the images unfold right before her eyes. “It was like a giant library, and he called it the Hall of Records … and a botanical ark in case the final battle left nothing but scorched earth.”

  “And while it was in my old homeland of Ecuador, many men were discredited and died with the secret in their hearts trying to find this repository of knowledge,” Maggie said in a reverent tone. “There was also war in Ecuador … in 1997. I was just fourteen and we prepared to move to Colombia. Two years before that, Peru bombed an Ecuadorian military base. Things were escalating. My grandfather got sick and he said that evil forces were trying to find the library … and me. The next year, in 1998, the only man outside the tribe that knew about how to find it was shot in the street and he died. Even though my grandfather was very ill, we moved to Colombia anyway. I was fifteen. They said it was a robbery—the man who was shot. Grandfather called it an assassination. “

  “It was, beloved,” Aziza said, wrapping her arms around herself. Her voice drifted as she closed her eyes and her lids began to flutter. “Men who tried to tell the Western world were discredited. They even took Neil Armstrong there, the famous astronaut, as Maggie said. They found a ring, dated 1500 BC, but it was just a relic left behind during a hasty move.” Aziza squeezed her eyes shut more tightly. “That was in 1976.”

  “The Bicentennial!” Celeste shouted, pulling away from Azrael to pace in a circle. Information poured into her mind so quickly that it made her ears ring. “The timing of that first expedition attempt by an international team—led by a well-known explorer of the cosmos, freakin’ Neil Armstrong, for crying out loud—syncs up with a milestone in American history … just like the first vision I had about the event occurring in Philadelphia. I saw a horrible battle, but didn’t know what it meant at the time … and we all soon found out that we’d have to take a stand in Philly or die trying. And I’m still getting very strong impressions that something major is yet to happen here.”

  “Correct,” Isda said with a smug glance toward Bath Kol. “Even da lady says it’s still g’wan ’appen in Philly, mon.”

  “Okay, okay, I stand corrected,” Bath Kol said, beginning to walk away. “My bad.”

  “No,” Celeste said, rounding Bath Kol as everyone in the room strained their attention in her direction. “Whatever is in that library has to come here … or will come here. But that doesn’t mean it can’t originate from somewhere else.”

  “In the Bible it’s very clear, ladies and gentlemen. Celeste is right. Says in the last days the only church that had found favor with the Light was the church of Philadelphia, which translates to the congregation or institutions here. It’s in the Book,” Bath Kol said in a slow, calmer tone. “Check it out in Revelation 3:7, if you guys are still into reading the old texts, dude. Philadelphia holds the key of David—he that opens and no man shuts. Need I say more? It’s in the Book. Case closed. There’s gonna be action in Philly. We can bank on that part. But what I’m trying to get you guys on board about is the fact that we have to head it off at the pass, and to do that we have to go back to the old country—Egypt.”

  “So, whatever these tablets are—in the form of one huge book—the dark side is going to bring them here, eventually, and that’s not a good thing, right? We need to get the tablets first?” Celeste looked around the room and then back up to Bath Kol.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem in a nutshell, baby girl.” Bath Kol smoothed his palm over his hair and walked away toward the refrigerator and opened it to get a beer, then looked at Azrael. “You wanna tell the little lady or should I?”

  “The library,” Azrael said slowly, crossing the room in a calm lope, “was written in precious metals and crystal—because it’s not only permanent, it’s also conductive. Precious and semiprecious stones were also used … diamonds, quartz, lapis, you name it, to keep certain frequencies within the chambers. That treasure made the library vulnerable to human incursion. Humans, who could be sent in to breach the protective prayer barriers, even when dark forces could not. Humans can walk over prayer lines. Humans can cross through areas that have white Light protection in ways a demon cannot. So demons lead humans to the areas where they need things extracted and where they cannot directly go in themselves. That’s why it had to be hidden.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Celeste said, frowning and lifting her heavy ponytail up off her neck. “What was so deep in the library—in fact, why write it if there was worry it could fall into the wrong hands?”

  Azrael let out a long sigh. “My brothers of the Light who got trapped here after the first big war with the fallen had to wait some twenty-six thousand years before the alignment happened again—the alignment that would open up the veil between worlds, per the Mayan calendar and the ancient Kemetic calendars, yes?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know that part,” she said, growing impatient.

  “We needed a way to regenerate our human armies that were battling the forces of evil with us. When the alignment ended and the portal shut down, only a few of us remained here in the flesh. Most were extracted home to fight the darkness from the etheric realms. Those left were Special Forces,” Azrael added, giving a nod of respect toward Bath Kol and Isda. “Their mission was to search for the Remnant … beings like you that are the hybrid offspring of angels and humans. Actual physical intervention was necessary; not all of what had to be done could happen from the etheric realms.

  “Dark Nephilim had to be slain, Remnants of the Light had to be protected while our trapped brothers like BK and Isda were also trying to hold the line with their etheric brothers and sisters—our side needed ground troops. We needed a way to raise significant human armies of the Light to assist when the time came. But that knowledge couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. That’s why it had to be secreted away.”

  Paschar nodded. “The demons had almost overrun the planet. The fallen were many more in numbers than we, as they had hundreds of thousands. To keep humankind from completely going dark, ofttimes, Celeste, we would raise a human army to fight side by side with our physical and etheric forces to beat back evil. It was always for a just cause and to save humanity.”

  Turning slowly, Paschar motioned to his body and then toward Melissa. “My Remnant that would have matched my tribe was lost. But because of you, I was able to locate Melissa nonetheless. The brothers that manifested as a Dane and as Aborigine did not get to her before I did, but that is no slight upon their valiant efforts. Searching for each of you to be born is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack without a locator. We had that as a challenge until you were brought to us, while also trying to beat back demon incursion upon humankind, and protecting the vault.”

  Azrael let out a hard breath and began to pace, raking his locks with his long fingers. “The problem is very complicated, Celeste. The sacred vault holds information only shared with the highest-level human
priests and shamans, those whose souls were without question on the side of the Light. There needed to be a repository of information that would help keep humanity from falling into the Dark Ages, to help them remain advanced—just as in all the Golden Ages … and to be a legacy once we finally retreated from the planet.”

  Isda released a long whistle and folded his arms over his chest. “Well, you saw what ’appened to Europe when da Dark Ages hit ’em … damned bubonic plagues, witch hunts, barbaric medical practices, no social justice, people living in total human squalor … the Inquisition, burning people at the damned stake for believing in gravity and dat de earth was round—insane and all orchestrated by the dark side … when access to the vault was temporarily lost to high priests and priestesses of the old cultures. Kill the shaman, kill the knowledge, mon. Occasionally had a breakthrough, like Merlin, but by and large, the period was bad. Took a couple of centuries of human history to come back from those ashes, brother.”

  Bath Kol nodded. “There’s information in the vault that some cultures might call magic, but it’s just energy manipulation. Stuff like how to levitate heavy objects—a good thing to know if a demon battalion is on your ass or if you want to build a Stonehenge or pyramid to increase the positive energy flow in a region. We gave them star maps—astronomy, an understanding of the way the gravitational pull from heavenly bodies affects different personalities, what you call astrology … showed them the logic of mathematics in numerology. Then organized religion started trying to keep this info from the people, the dark side said it was the occult … outlawed the use of herbal cures, crystals, started relegating feminine energy—women—to the spiritual sidelines, man … it was a jacked-up public relations campaign by the darkness. Anyway, long story short, in there is info on how to cultivate crops, sacred geometry, sacred architecture—”

  “Like Masonic principles?” Celeste said eagerly, cutting Bath Kol him off.

  He shrugged with a half smile. “Yeah, something like that. But all Masonic mysticism comes from Egypt by way of the vault.”

  “The founding fathers of this country were Masons, and a lot of that sacred geometry is embedded in Philadelphia architecture.” Celeste looked at Bath Kol as he glanced at Azrael. “Maybe there’s a clue here?”

  “Right, little sis,” Bath Kol said, taking her more seriously. “The Egyptians, otherwise known as Kemetians, were the first people since Atlantis to really absorb the vault and apply it to the fullest. The vault used to be hidden under the Sphinx when the Nile Valley was fertile and that big sucker was half-underwater, some twenty-six thou ago. Then it was necessary to move it deeper into the interior—we hid it in Songhai, then Mali, some of it in the repository of Timbuktu, but no place was as strong or impervious to invasion as Kemet was for all those years. From there the vault did a tour of duty in Asia and all the way up into the Himalayas in Tibet and over to Indus Kush—or India—as the dark side laid siege to the Nile Valley using Roman legions. China became a hotbed of turmoil, Persia was crazy, and the dark side took up residence in Babylon—so we got it over to the Americas, first with the Incas, then Mayans … some of the Hopi tribes, then over to Europe, and back out.”

  “There were so many secrets in the vault,” Azrael said. “Countless technologies humans needed to know to protect themselves and the planetary environment.”

  “Better stated,” Bath Kol pointed out, ironically gaining a nod from Isda. “If they were going to fight along with us, humans needed to know how to eat right in order to get and stay strong, how to instantly heal and regenerate from a mortal wound, how to infuse the human body with additional physical power to make the average Joe as strong as Hercules.”

  “So give me credit where credit is due,” Isda said, frowning. “I’m not some short-order cook. That was a cheap shot, mon.” Isda lifted his chin with pride. “I have province over nourishment, the thing you need to supercharge the cells of your body. That is why blight and famine are such crimes. The dark side does this, not the Light, and even so—there is enough food on this planet to feed every hungry soul what is clean and good … but greed is evil. It keeps food for profit from the starving.”

  “Okay, okay,” Bath Kol said, waving his hand. “I’m sorry. But can we not lose focus, man?”

  “Speak,” Isda said impatiently, walking away to lean on the other end of the table.

  Bath Kol released a breath of frustration, then turned back to the four women, focusing on Celeste. “Like where do you think martial arts came from, or the Zen meditations? Or all of the walk-over-hot-coals-and-still-be-chill stuff? There’s a reason why we had to teach human warriors that, ladies. Like how is some dude gonna walk over hellfire when the demon armies spread a carpet of that down under our human legions, huh?”

  When no one answered his rhetorical question, Bath Kol walked off a bit and sipped his beer. After he’d turned the bottle up to his mouth and taken a healthy swig, he winced and looked at the group again. “Just like we have to constantly update our knowledge of human culture, customs, and speech patterns to blend in, humans had to learn some of our cosmic gunslinging methods in order to survive the darkness. Main thing humans needed to know was how to raise the dead if you’ve got a hundred thousand slaughtered troops on the battlefield, a li’l somethin’ interesting in the metal library, as humans call it.”

  For a few moments, no one spoke. No one moved. Then Celeste broke the silence with a simple question.

  “So, if the dark side gets ahold of this library, the right section of it, they could literally raise the dead?”

  Bath Kol nodded. “They could raise the dead along with every demon and fallen angel we’ve sent to the pit over the last twenty-six millennia if they get to the book in the library that holds those tablets.”

  Chapter 2

  Celeste moved to the table and sat down slowly, joined by Aziza. It took a moment for what Bath Kol had said to sink in, and Celeste needed to repeat it to be sure she’d heard right.

  “So, you’re saying that if we don’t find this library—or at least that one book of tablets—and hide it, if the dark side gets it, they could raise an entire army of darkness?”

  “No,” Bath Kol said, now leaning against the sink. “The vault was relocated to Egypt because that was the last place they’d look for it again. That’s called hiding in plain sight, darlin’. For a while we had it totally underwater, like off the coast of Japan—until the United States nuked them in WWII … and then we hid it in the Bermuda Triangle. But it sort of defeats the purpose of leaving a legacy for humankind to help them if they can’t access it, so we brought it back to one of the original rotation sites. That’s why the main vault is back in Egypt. But we need to remove the book from the vault and stash it directly under our protection for safekeeping from now on. That’s my argument.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Celeste glanced around the group.

  “The one crystal book of tablets with the prayers on it that can get the job done is missing. Not to mention, the bad guys now have Imhotep’s crystal sarcophagus with his gold-covered bones in it. That’s what I saw in my vision.” Bath Kol eyed Isda until Isda looked away.

  “Imhotep was a genius,” Bath Kol said, pressing on for Celeste, “and member of the Light Remnant, just like those other dudes in the Good Book that lived seven to eight hundred years. But since Imhotep came before them, his skeleton was dipped in gold to protect the DNA in his marrow and to make his Light energy in that DNA more conductive—enough so that with his bones and the prayers from the crystal tablet, recited on the winter solstice, which is the darkest day of the year on the planet, December twenty-first, the reanimation energy can be focused. That focused energy will allow the dead soldiers from battlefields past to be able to get up and fight again. Houston, we’ve got a problem if the dark side gets the crystal book of resurrection tablets to go with a Light Remnant’s bones. Dark Remnants’ bones can’t reanimate and of course we’ve hidden the tombs of all of the Remnants of Light,
but Imhotep is one of the most powerful they could have found.”

  Bath Kol turned to Isda and crossed his arms and lifted his chin. “And, again, that’s the reason I was lobbying to head to Egypt, to find the book before the dark side does.”

  “But how did a freaking crystal tablet book get lost?” Celeste was out of her seat at the table on and her feet. “Seriously!”

  “Human free will, ma. That’s the risk of dealing with ’em. You think you know people, then something spooks ’em, or they think they’re getting a better deal from the other side … a kid gets held hostage and they break, or they just plain get tricked, whatever. We try to keep tabs on ’em, but, hey, those of us down here can’t be everywhere at once—and once some of our secrets fall into the wrong hands, if they block out etheric vision from the Light, just like we can block theirs coming from the dark, what can you do?” Isda said with a shrug, going to the refrigerator. “Anybody else want a brew while I’m over here? My stomach is too messed up now for breakfast this morning.”

  “Yeah,” Azrael muttered, walking over toward Isda and extending a hand to accept a bottle. “Isda, I would have thought after twenty-six thou, you would be used to last-minute missions across the globe.”

  “The man has jokes.” Isda popped his bottle cap and clinked his longneck beer against Azrael’s. “You never get used to the drill … and remember, the last time we were travelin’ light. No humans. No females. All immortals. And you ain’t been here for that full monty, mon. I’ve got a right to be hoppin,’ spittin’, cussin’ mad. You have no idea what it was like all this time in the temporal zone—and you’ve jus’ been here three short months, found your Remnant on day one … unheard of. So give some of us battle-weary brothers a break, if we ain’t exactly all gung-ho.”