Legacy of the Watchers Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Nancy Madore

  “Where am I?” Nadia asked.

  “You’re in Saudi Arabia,” said Will before Gordon could give her a more specific answer.

  This was alarming to hear, even though she had pretty much figured out that they were somewhere in that general vicinity. “What time is it?”

  “It’s Saturday, just after three in the afternoon in New York,” said Gordon, consulting his watch. “It’s ten-fifteen Saturday night, here.” Nadia absorbed this. A day had passed.

  “Who are the ‘goons’ you’re going to pass me off to?” she asked. Will’s earlier mention of them had been niggling at the back of her mind.

  The question seemed to amuse Clive. “Let’s just say you’ll miss us when we’re gone,” he told her.

  “But who are they?” Nadia demanded, alarmed by Clive's remark.

  “Look, if you help us, we’ll help you,” Clive told her. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “I’m trying to help you!” Nadia shouted at him. Then she added in a calmer tone—“I’m telling you everything I know.”

  “Is there anything you might have left out about Huxley or Butch? Or Trevelyan?” asked Will.

  Nadia thought about it a minute and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “My grandmother was only sixteen years old when they took her to Qumran. I’d say her observations were pretty remarkable for a girl that age.”

  “It just seems a little strange how easily the two pieces of the puzzle came together,” mused Clive. “Huxley finds the magic tablet and voila! A Book of the Dead for this particular djinn just happens to turn up in a bunch of scrolls that were hidden by the Essenes.”

  “The who?” asked Nadia. She shook her head in confusion. “According to my grandmother, Huxley had that tablet for years. He followed every archaeological discovery involving the Sumerians looking for the matching Book of the Dead.”

  “Yeah, but, what I’m saying is; out of all the books and scrolls in that cave in Qumran, this Bedouin dude pulls out that particular one and then puts out the word that he has it—like maybe he was looking for the matching tablet,” Clive said.

  Nadia hadn’t considered this, but she was curious about something else. “You mentioned someone hiding the scrolls. The Essenes, was it? What about them? How are they connected to this?”

  Clive glanced at the others. Nadia felt there was something significant in the exchange.

  “The Essenes were a select group of Jewish priests that lived by themselves, much like the Catholic monks who came later,” explained Gordon. “They emerged around the time of Abraham, and became the self-appointed record keepers of all the ancient documents. They studied language, which is how they were able to translate the documents they found. They copied texts that were damaged, just as they probably did with Lilith’s Book of the Dead. Butch was wrong in his supposition that the Jews would have destroyed Apocryphal texts—though I can understand why he would think that. Most priests would destroy anything that didn’t support their own beliefs. But not the Essenes. They protected all the ancient writings, whether they considered them Holy or Apocryphal. Those caves in Qumran were probably left unprotected by the Essenes because of the conflict going on in the region at the time, or they could have been stolen from the Essenes and put there by someone else.”

  “So…these Essenes were still around in nineteen forty-eight?” asked Nadia.

  Gordon glanced at Will. “No one knows exactly what happened to them,” he said. Nadia felt that he was hiding something.

  “It’s interesting that Butch was the one who ultimately figured out how to make the two documents work together,” said Will, changing the subject.

  It suddenly occurred to Nadia that her captors were not just casually going over the details of her grandmother’s story. They were examining each of the participants, conducting an investigation in order to determine which of them was responsible for what ultimately happened there. This was an entirely new way of looking at it for Nadia. She had always considered all of them—Helene, her father, Huxley and Butch—innocent victims of a terrible crime, most likely a robbery.

  “And let’s not forget that Trevelyan conveniently brought his daughter along,” added Clive.

  Nadia wasn’t sure what he was implying but she didn’t like his tone or the way they were all suddenly scrutinizing her. She felt the need to defend her great-grandfather. “Robert Trevelyan was just an innocent bystander. Huxley had the tablet before they even met!”

  Don’t get tangled up in this, she warned herself. It’s not real.

  “It’s true that we don’t know what happened, yet,” said Will, emphasizing the word ‘yet’ in a somewhat threatening tone as his stony eyes assessed Nadia’s face. “But when we figure it out, I have a strong feeling we’ll find our killer,” he finished quietly.

  “With that cheery thought, why don’t we pick up where you left off?” Clive suggested. “Do you remember where you were?”

  Nadia poured herself another cup of coffee. She would have no trouble finding her place in the story. It was as if that night in Qumran had been stalking her since she called it to mind the previous evening. She had the sense that all of the players were there with her too, patiently waiting for her to pick up where she left off and bring each and every one of them back to life.

  Chapter 10

  December, 1948

  Qumran

  “How long do you think this will take?” asked Helene’s father, glancing at Helene. “It’s after nine now.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Helene. “I can stay up all night.”

  “How do you know that?” asked her father. “Have you done it before?”

  “Yes,” she lied, raising her chin a notch. She was feeling a little reckless from the wine. She didn’t particularly care for the taste, but it made her feel warm and wonderful inside.

  Her father laughed, recognizing her bluff, but admiring her spirit. She had learned early on that to be treated like an adult she merely had to act like one.

  “We’ll see,” he conceded.

  “The ritual itself won’t take long,” said Butch. “But what comes after…may not be entirely appropriate…” he cocked his head sideways and looked at Helene’s father. Helene held her breath, realizing immediately that he was referring to her.

  There was a moment’s silence and then her father laughed. “But you don’t really think…?” he looked at Butch, incredulous.

  Huxley and Helene looked at Butch as well. Of the three men, Butch was the least likely to believe the experiment would actually work. But then again, his logical mind would naturally consider every possibility, just in case. Butch gazed back at them serenely. He seemed mildly amused by their astonishment. Huxley was the first to respond.

  “If it works,”—Huxley couldn’t stifle a small, nervous laugh here—“It will prove the scroll’s legitimacy, and from that I think we could assume that the other assertions in the scroll would work as well. It would seem that whoever holds the ring should have full control over anything coming out of that portal.”

  They all turned toward the center of the floor, where the metal shavings had been neatly arranged to form a circle. The ancient symbols added along the outer edge made it seem more authentic somehow. When no one said anything for several moments, their gazes slowly returned to Butch.

  “All right then,” said Butch, effectively taking charge of the situation. “Since I’m the one who’s most familiar with the Sumerian language, I’ll lead the proceedings…if there are no objections.” There were none. “I have the ring right here…” He wiggled his fingers, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

  “Everyone come around,” he said in an authoritative tone, and they each took their positions around the circle. Helene stayed close to her father and he took her hand in his.

  The men were suddenly solemn and pensive, like characters in a play. Helene was reminded of boys on the school playground and their grave expressions as they took on the latest dare. A kind of u
ncertain expectation hovered over the event, giving it a dreamlike quality. In spite of her excitement, Helene didn’t expect the experiment to work. She suspected that the others—especially Butch—felt the same.

  Reading from a notebook, Butch began to speak, pausing several times to clear his throat. The language was so unusual that it actually changed the timbre of his voice, bringing it to a higher pitch that made the words seem all the more foreign and sinister. As he became more fluent in the reading, his voice became louder and grew even more peculiar sounding. It seemed to Helene that the early Sumerians were not all that pleasant to listen to.

  The incantations were odd, but they were also hypnotic and enticing. Even though Helene couldn’t understand the words, she could hear the plaintively pleading tone in the collection of words overall. Now and again she recognized a phrase which was becoming familiar through repetition. It was ki-sikil, lil-la-ke. When pronouncing the phrase, Butch placed particular emphasis on the first syllable of the second word, lil. As the minutes slowly ticked by, he repeated the strange phrase over and over again. The ritual seemed to be having no effect, aside from making Helene feel strangely numb, as if she were the one being drawn out. She stared at the circle in the room’s hazy light, mesmerized by the continuous chain of aberrant phrases flowing from Butch’s lips. They sometimes sounded like the low, melodious drone of a whale, while other times they sounded more like the shrill cry of a seagull. They were grave, fervent and piercing. Her mind had unconsciously begun listening for the familiar phrase—ki-sikil lil-la-ke—and she felt a certain satisfaction each time she heard it.

  It seemed to go on and on. Helene suppressed a yawn. She turned her eyes—careful not to move her head too much so as to appear like a fidgety child—to look at the others. Butch was engrossed in his reading. Huxley stared solemnly into the circle. Her father’s eyes were glued to Butch. He squeezed Helene’s hand reassuringly, sensing her restlessness. With effort she kept still, resisting most of her temptations to squirm. She glanced at the clock. Thirty seven minutes had passed. She returned her gaze to the circle, stifling another yawn.

  Suddenly—and quite unexpectedly—the room went black. Helene instantly snapped out of her stupor into full alert. No one made a sound, except for the sharp intakes of breath they all took before they stopped breathing altogether. Helene’s ears strained. The darkness was extraordinary, calling to mind the black-out days when heavy curtains were used to block out all light. But this seemed even darker than that. Helene tried to recall if the curtains were left open or closed. She felt that they were open. In fact, she remembered looking out at the moon shortly after she woke up, and that was barely an hour ago. And even if someone had closed the curtains at the last moment, surely some small light would still get through. Helene had learned this from the blackouts. But searching blindly in the general direction of the windows, Helene could detect no light whatsoever, not a single flicker from a faraway star, nothing. A sharp thrill of terror shot through her.

  All these thoughts occurred to Helene in mere seconds. Meanwhile, no one had uttered a word. Butch had simply stopped reading.

  Helene noticed too that her eyes were not making the slightest adjustment to the dark. Perhaps it was only her imagination but the blackness seemed absolute, as if it were occurring within her as well as out.

  Helene heard the small, sharp strike of a match and in the next instant a tiny flame brought minimal, although welcome relief. The hand that held the match—Huxley’s by the proximity of it—was trembling conspicuously, but he managed to keep it close enough to the page so that Butch could resume his reading.

  Butch quickly picked up where he had left off, and the only sign that anything was amiss was a noticeable tremor in his voice with the first few lines he uttered. But the sound of his voice seemed to give him courage, and his tone grew steadier and stronger as he went, pausing composedly whenever Huxley had to extinguish one match and strike up another.

  “There’s no stopping now,” he interjected during one of these intervals. “We’re very nearly through.” Helene wasn’t sure if he was speaking to them or to himself.

  Meanwhile, Helene’s father had kept a tight hold of her hand, periodically squeezing it to reassure her.

  Again and again Helene recognized the strange, hypnotic phrase, ki-sikil lil-la-ke. It seemed to come up more and more often now. She stared into the tiny, flickering flame of the match until it made her dizzy.

  A soft whistling noise, like wind, circled in and around them. Helene could feel it gently lifting her hair. Her father’s hold on her hand was so tight that it was uncomfortable, but Helene didn’t dare move or utter a sound.

  “Butch…” she heard her father murmur anxiously, as if to object, but Butch only raised his voice louder, and her father backed down. Butch was undoubtedly determined to see it through to the end and, in truth, every one of them felt the same.

  The wind was becoming more and more intense and in response Butch read faster and louder. He was literally yelling at the top of his voice in order to make himself heard. Huxley struggled with the matches, holding them close to Butch’s notebook and blocking them as best as he could from the squall. When it first started up, the wind was about the same temperature as the room, but as it picked up strength it got colder. It seemed to just keep getting colder and stronger until Helene felt as if her skin was being pierced by tiny shards of ice. Her hair was whipping around her face. She brought up her free hand to protect her face, and was forced to shut her eyes.

  And then, in a sudden instant, it was as if a switch went off. The lights came back on, the wind stopped and everything was quiet and still.

  Helene opened her eyes. The first thing that struck her was the eerie sense of normalcy all around them. It was as if nothing had happened on the surface, but just below there was the sense that everything was different. And then she saw it.

  Something was moving inside the circle. It looked like nothing more than mist at first, but it was transforming right before their eyes. It appeared to be translucent and weightless, like smoke curling up from the end of a cigarette. But with every undulating wave the image took form and grew clearer, shifting and changing as it did. One minute it seemed as if Helene was seeing a human shape and the next it looked more like the silhouette of a wild animal. As the thing kept changing it grew larger. It continued to shift and change for several long minutes, as if it was having trouble deciding which form to take. They all watched in amazement.

  At last the issue of form was resolved and the creature materialized before them. It was still faintly translucent and almost appeared to be glowing. The thing was hunched over, little more than a dark mass at first, but as soon as it became aware of itself—or them—it abruptly rose up to its full height with a small cry of surprise. They all gasped at the sight.

  Chapter 11

  It was a woman the likes of which Helene had never seen before. She towered several feet over Huxley, who was the tallest among them. The top portion of her face resembled that of an innocent fawn, with large, strikingly beautiful brown eyes that were adorned with long, shadowy lashes. The eyes were complimented by a petite, uncomplicated nose and feminine lips. But that’s where her appearance took a turn toward the macabre. The lower part of her face protruded outward at the jaw, stretching her dainty lips over teeth that were long, pointy, and sharp, like those of a wolf. Her skin was the rich, splendid color of freshly ground nutmeg. Her long black hair wound around her body in thick, dark waves, shielding it like a luxurious blanket. In spite of her hair, Helene could clearly see that she had the body of a woman, with a slender torso and lean arms and legs that would have been perfect if not for her hands and feet, which were shaped like the talons of a hawk.

  The delicate exquisiteness of the creature, overall, clashed disturbingly with the grisly teeth and claws, to say the least. Helene could not think why the creature would assume such a form. It seemed to expose a terrible evil lurking just beyond the beauty. And t
hen it occurred to Helene that the woman’s appearance might not have been of her own choosing. Even as she considered this, the creature was staring down at the ghastly appendages in horror.

  It was as if everyone in the room had been struck dumb. Helene tore her gaze away from the creature to look at the others. They were staring at the apparition in awe. Huxley and Butch had unconsciously taken a step backwards.

  “I’ll be damned,” murmured Helene’s father under his breath. It was the first time she'd ever heard him swear. He squeezed her hand even tighter and pulled her nearer.

  Butch cleared his throat several times, making a visible effort to pull himself together. “Er, uh…hello?” he stuttered. But then, catching himself, he added something in the Sumerian language.

  Up to this point, the creature had been too wrapped up in herself to notice them. She seemed as amazed by her appearance as they were. She had just discovered her teeth, and was running her claws along the sides of her jaw with a low, dreadful whimper when the sound of Butch’s voice distracted her. She jerked her head around and carefully examined each of them, resting her formidable gaze on Helene the longest. Then she turned back to Butch, her large, doe-like eyes wet with tears as she addressed him accusingly.

  “What have you done to me?” she demanded. Her voice was soft and womanly, but it held a definite undertone of command.

  “You…speak our language?” Butch asked.

  She snorted in disgust. “Who do you think crafted language?”

  Butch was taken even further aback. “You crafted language?”

  “My father—and the other Watchers—did,” she said haughtily. “That language you spoke before was among their first, more simplistic creations.” She gave another little snort, adding sarcastically—“I see you haven’t found it necessary to expand or develop it much since then.”