by Mel Odom
“Luckily,” Macomber went on, “between us we’ve had the skills to decipher most of those languages.”
“That decryption has been even harder,” Brewer said, “because all of the languages are artificial. What’s more, they haven’t shared a connective base. So for every endeavor we’ve made to decipher one, we’ve had to start from scratch.”
“A very laborious process,” Macomber said.
Brewer nodded. Evidently they agreed about that. Brewer was in his fifties, with dark hair and an intense gaze. Before the invasion, he’d been a professor of history and computer science at Harvard. He’d used both those skills to create computer games that had been quite popular. There were, in Simon’s opinion, few men who were more intelligent.
“We just deciphered one of the newest languages,” Brewer said, taking up the thread again. “It’s been quite interesting.” He touched the wireless computer he carried.
Instantly, a page from the Goetia manuscript appeared on one of the large wall screens that surrounded the room. The page showed smoke stains and charring around the edges.
“As you can see,” Brewer said, “this is one of the pages in the manuscript that suffered the most damage during your recovery efforts.”
“It wasn’t exactly something we could avoid doing at the time, mate,” Nathan said defensively. “What with the demons filling that bloody sanitarium and all. Retrieving that manuscript and saving our lives got to be sticky.”
“I quite understand.” Brewer smiled reassuringly. “I meant no disrespect. I know you suffered trying circumstances. What I simply wanted to impart was why it has taken us so long to decipher this page.”
Simon couldn’t help but grin. “You mean, in addition to the fact that it was—until now—an artificial language that no one but the author of that manuscript knew.”
Brewer’s smile broadened. He looked even more tired because of it. “Exactly. You do grasp what we were up against.”
“I do.” Simon noticed cots in the corner of the room. He also noticed that both men appeared to have slept in their clothing. “Have you been getting enough rest?”
Brewer and Macomber swapped looks.
“We’ve been getting what we could,” Macomber said. “We’re all desperate for whatever knowledge might be contained in this manuscript.”
“Get more rest,” Simon suggested.
“The work we’re doing here,” Brewer protested, “is very—”
“—important,” Simon interrupted. “I get that. I also know that you two are the only ones capable of breaking that language—those languages—down. But if you become ill or exhausted, we lose time.”
“We’ve been getting what rest we could.”
“Get more,” Simon said, “or I’ll station a guard in here to put you to bed at night.”
“All right,” Brewer said. Macomber nodded as well.
Simon glanced at the screen. “I suppose you know what we’re looking at.”
“We do.” Brewer indicated sections of the strange looking text. “We’ve spent weeks decrypting this language. Whoever wrote this original manuscript was incredibly intelligent. I would have loved to have met him. This section of the manuscript deals with the Truths.”
“What truths?” Simon asked. “The truths about the demons?”
“That concept at first stymied us, Lord Cross. We thought it was a generic term as well. The manuscript basically states that it’s going to unveil the nature of the Truths. We believe it referred to the fact that demons had been hidden away for so long that no one believed in them anymore.”
“The Templar never forgot the demons existed,” Nathan said quietly.
“No,” Brewer agreed quietly. “But not all of us believed quite so fervently as others.” He looked at Simon.
Guilt surged through Simon.
“You weren’t the only one that didn’t believe, Lord Cross.” Sadness darkened Brewer’s eyes. “I’d become quite complacent in my university calling, and in designing video games. I didn’t spend much time thinking about demons outside of the ones I created for the video games. No one could have been more shocked than me when the Hellgate opened.”
“But these Truths represent something else,” Macomber said. “We don’t know if they’re ideals or if they’re physical things.”
“Physical things?” Simon asked.
“Yes. They way they’re referred to in the manuscript leads us to believe they’re physical things.” Brewer turned back to the image on the wall and read. “‘In order that the demons may be turned back, that the evil tide will be stilled before it is a plague upon the world that cannot be removed, the Truths must be found.’”
As Brewer read, the words formed in English over the manuscript page.
“‘This world is protected against the demons,” Brewer continued. “‘When this world first was made open to the demon hordes, so also were the Truths placed here. For the first time, the Light sowed the seeds of destruction among a world that the Well of Midnight would one day threaten.’”
“‘The first time,’?” Nathan echoed. “How many worlds have these demons invaded?”
“We don’t know,” Macomber admitted. “This manuscript says there are hundreds of worlds out there. Not all of them are populated, but many of them are.”
“And they’ve all gone down under the demons,” Brewer said.
“What made this world special that these ‘Truths’ would be placed here?” Simon asked.
“The manuscript mentions there are warriors of Light in this world.”
“We believed at first that it referred to the Templar,” Macomber said. “But the time period was too far back. The original manuscript was written before the Templar Order was created.”
“In that,” Brewer said, “we disagree. Although the Templar Order got officially established at a later date, the ideals of what the Templar stood for were around for a long time before that. I believe these Truths were given to those men.”
“Then how did they lose something so important?” Nathan asked.
Brewer shook his head.
Macomber did as well. “We don’t know. The manuscript has a way of raising more questions as it gives answers.”
Simon studied the page. “So we don’t know what the Truths are or where they might be found?”
“It’s a conundrum,” Macomber said. “The manuscript simply says, ‘The Truths will be found within, then without. The unlocking of the inside door shall unlock the outside door.’”
“I don’t suppose whoever wrote this could have been a little plainer,” Nathan said.
“It would have helped,” Brewer said. “But at least we know there is some hope out there.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
W arren shone his torch around the latest room they had reached. It was directly under the treasure room. They’d gained access to a hidden stairway Lilith had guided them to.
Naomi remained by the oval door at the bottom of the curling stairway they’d followed down into the hollow earth. Judging from the number of steps he’d followed, Warren felt certain they stood at least a hundred feet below the surface. Whoever constructed the room had been serious about keeping it hidden.
“There may be more traps down here,” Naomi said.
“I know.” Warren glanced at Lilith. She walked at his side.
“When I was buried here,” Lilith said, “this room held no traps. The architects who built this place didn’t expect anyone to get this far.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t put traps in,” Naomi said. “You didn’t mention that hammer one upstairs.”
“I didn’t know about that one.”
“And what do you mean, when you were buried here?”
Cautiously, Warren moved across the floor. He took time to examine the space with his senses. This time he used his arcane powers as well.
Nothing triggered his alarms. But the wall on the opposite side of the room drew him. The weakening glow of his torch revealed a nu
mber of beautiful and deadly images carved into the wall. But in these images, Lilith fought only monsters.
She lifted her hand, and an incandescent blue light glowed brightly enough to fill the room. The return of her powers bothered Warren. For months he’d grown used to her being powerless. She’d needed him. Now, potentially, she didn’t. The thought that she might try to relieve him of the silver hand he wore lurked in the back of his mind.
“I was a hero to them,” Lilith said. “They worshipped me.”
“Because you killed the demons that offended you,” Naomi said.
“Yes. Until they found out I was one of the demons.” Lilith smiled more brightly. “Then they feared me. Of the two, I have to be honest: fear was far stronger. It always is.” She turned to Warren and stroked his face with the fingers of her free hand.
Warren felt as if a spider glided across his skin. He struggled to keep from stepping back away from her.
“I miss the fear I was able to inspire in others,” Lilith said quietly. Her eyes locked with Warren’s. “Do you fear me, Warren?”
He wanted to lie to her and tell her that no, she didn’t frighten him. But that wasn’t true, and he was certain she’d know if he lied.
“Yes.”
Lilith laughed aloud and drew her hand back. “Good,” she said. “You should be afraid of me. Very afraid.”
“I am,” Warren said.
“Good. Fear will keep you alive much longer,” Lilith told him. “As long as you and I are in agreement, you will be safe with me.”
That wasn’t true, and Warren knew it. He was safe only as long as she needed him. The instant that changed, the minute she found someone else to do the things she asked him to do, she’d turn on him.
But not until then, Warren told himself. Until then, learn and grow strong.
“Why are we here?” Naomi asked.
Lilith frowned at the woman. “I need you to reclaim my mortal shell. The flesh that I once wore.”
“You’re not a ghost,” Naomi said.
“No.” Lilith ran a hand along her lean body. “I am power incarnate, that which lives on after the body has died. If I were dead, I’d be drawn back to the Well of Midnight to be recast and born again. Nothing is ever created or destroyed.” She paused and turned to survey the wall. “But I would not lose myself in that place. I am Named. And I will be greater than I am now.”
Warren held his torch up and inspected the pictographs on the walls. All of them were of Lilith. Some of them showed her in a large forest area with a man. They stood in water up to their hips, both of them naked. Fish in the water clustered around them. Birds in the air hovered by their heads. Large animals lay along the bank of the river or lake they were in. Small animals occupied the spaces between or hung in the trees.
“Is this—” Warren couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“The Garden?” Lilith smiled. “Yes. Before that troublesome woman showed up. Things then were not so bad. It’s only after I taught evil to the children that your species became so chaotic and hard to control. I suppose I’m partly to blame for that.”
There were other images. Warren thought he remembered some of them from the Bible stories he’d learned while in foster care, but he wasn’t sure what the artist intended.
“Your body is in this room?” Naomi asked.
“Yes.” Lilith approached one of the walls, studied it a moment, then put a palm against the stone. “This one.”
Warren joined her and inspected the wall. “If I’m going to take that down, I’m going to need a sledge.”
“There is a sequence…here.” Lilith pointed, one at a time, to four different stones. None of the stones in the wall appeared to be the same size. They’d been stacked so that they worked together, then mortared between.
Following Lilith’s prompted cues, Warren pressed the sequence of stones. Something clicked deep within the wall. He stepped back and held the torch high, trying to guess which direction an unpleasant surprise might come from.
Instead, a section of the stone wall jutted out a couple of inches.
“Behind this wall,” Lilith said. “You’ll have to move it the rest of the way.”
“Bring that torch over here,” Warren directed Naomi.
Reluctantly, she brought her torch over and shone it against the wall.
Warren pocketed his own torch and slipped the fingers of both hands through the crack in the wall. He expected to pull back bloody stumps. At least, on one hand. He thought the metal one might hold up. He hooked his fingers behind the wall and pulled. The hidden door had to weigh hundreds of pounds and was hard to move. Then, inexorably, it moved by inches at a time and grated across the floor.
When he had the door open enough to shove his head and shoulders through to see if he could enter the space beyond, Warren entered the hidden area. He took out his torch. Everywhere his beam touched, metallic surfaces gleamed back at him. More riches awaited inside.
“Is that what I think it is?” Naomi asked.
“If you’re thinking that that’s another room filled with treasure, then yes,” Warren whispered in awe. He squeezed through.
“Before the invasion,” Naomi said, “this would have been a fortune.”
A stone sarcophagus occupied the center of the small room. Curiosity pulled Warren to it.
“A sarcophagus isn’t something you’d expect to find in the middle of England,” Warren said. “Unless you’d brought it in from Egypt.”
“It’s not a sarcophagus,” Lilith said. “It is a preservation chamber.”
Warren felt the arcane energy given off by the coffin-shaped box as he walked over to it. The outer casing was carved in the likeness of a beautiful woman.
“Before the Flood drank down the wicked empires that had turned from the Light, in order to end the madness and evil loosed in this world by the demons, men heard stories from those who prepared my burial chambers,” Lilith said. “I tried to keep my secrets from them, but stories get told all the same. Some of those who served me fled these lands and became the Egyptians. They remembered this preservation chamber and tried to construct some of their own.”
“Because they thought the sarcophagus would return them to life as well,” Warren said.
“Yes.” Lilith smiled. “Theirs didn’t, of course, but they kept believing that one day it would happen.”
“You were in the Book Merihim sent me after.” Warren looked at her.
“I was.”
“How?”
“The Book is an arcane object as well. It allowed me to travel the world without harm.”
“It was a safe place.”
Lilith nodded. “It was. I needed my body protected, but I had to be out in the world in order to know when the Hellgate opened and to arrange my own return here. Merihim wanted the Book because he’d heard of it, as he’d heard of other objects that ended up in this world through one means or another from all the worlds out there. This place, this world, has a tendency to draw things of power to it. That’s why the demons had to conquer it. The Book allowed me to fall into the hands of people I could…persuade to my cause.”
Warren knew she meant her use. He looked at the preservation chamber.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“I must be reunited with my body.”
Kneeling, Warren searched the container for hidden releases. He trailed his fingers along the sides. Lilith took him by the hand and guided him.
“Here,” she said, and indicated two intricately carved tiles.
“Press?” Warren tried, but nothing happened.
“Not with your hand,” Lilith said. “With your mind. These are sealed with arcane energy.”
Warren concentrated and ignored the pain in his chest. He felt the arcane energy within him and pushed it through his fingertips.
A hum vibrated through the preservation chamber. A crack suddenly split it and formed a lid. Pale emerald light glowed from within, and jade smoke roi
led out of the chamber.
Fearful of what was about to happen, Warren stepped back. He used the arcane energy to build a shield in front of him. Naomi stepped behind him, but she didn’t get too close.
The lid rose on its own and flipped open. In the next instant, the body within floated outside. Horror filled Warren when he saw what condition the body was in. Naomi cursed in disgust.
The body was withered, the flesh wrapped tight to the bone. If Lilith had been pretty at one time, none of that showed now. Her face was disfigured, and her black hair was patchy and falling out in clumps. Her sticklike arms lay crossed over her bony chest. Ribs showed beneath the gold sheath dress that looked several sizes too big for her.
“In my time,” Lilith said, stepping close to the crypt and peering in with a smile, “I was lovely.”
“That time,” Naomi whispered, “is so over.”
The young Lilith started turning translucent. She reached for her desiccated self, but her hand passed through. Grimacing, she turned to Warren.
“I require your help.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“I need to be rejoined with my body so that I can come back to my full strength. You have to be the conduit. Come.” Lilith waved to him. “Take my hand.”
Reluctantly, Warren told Naomi to hold her torch up, then he shut his off and placed it within his pocket. He crossed the room to Lilith. She reached for him and took him by the hand.
“Hold on to my body,” she instructed. “You must be the conduit that connects us.”
Stifling the gag reaction that turned his stomach to acid, Warren took the corpse’s hand. He found it surprisingly limber and warm to the touch. That made the nausea swirling inside him even stronger.
Lilith cried out in pain. Warren almost let go of the corpse.
“Hold on,” Lilith told him. Pain wracked her beautiful face. “This will only last a moment more.”
It lasted longer than that. Warren thought later that at least a half hour passed while Lilith screamed as she became one again. But when it was done, the two halves of Lilith existed obviously in one body. Her translucent features surfaced occasionally in the dried-up crust that leathered her skull.
