The Third Key (GUARDING THE LIGHT)

by Ramsey, V. K.

  Part 3

  Third Guardian

  XII.

  “How predictable”, said a man, comfortably leaning back in a luxurious chair. Thin lips were slightly smiling on his sharply lined face but it wasn’t a smile of kindness. The expression of his green eyes in the dark, olive-toned face did seem excited – but the two men standing in front of him felt more nervous than ever.

  This man was of a special kind, the kind that gets excited as the people surrounding them suffer. Everything about this person pulsed with symbols of power and supremacy. Everything visible that was on and around him glowed with material opulence – from his Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers watch down to his waxed black Louis Vuitton alligator leather shoes. However, even while taking a bath he was scary, and most people never felt comfortable in his presence, even if they wielded power of their own. Even his allies or assistants feared him – especially after his “resurrection”.

  “Sir, I am not sure I understand”, a bold man with wide shoulders asked cautiously. “Predictable? Do you mean us …?”

  “No, fool. I am looking at the pitiful attempts of a human that deserves my attention now”, replied the man from his luxury chair.

  On a thin screen that levitated in front of him, he was able to access any device connected to the Internet, on 3G or 4G networks. Using advanced demonic technological devices, they could easily scramble the data banks of any agency or government of any country on Earth. But, unlike the ‘super-sonic spy’ movies, it was done without risk – this technology was unknown and undetectable to humans, and truly able to achieve the impossible. Demons could bring someone back to life via their technology. A small device, implanted inside his chest, allowed the man to manipulate any object containing metal. With another implant on right hemisphere of his brain, he could influence and control the minds of others.

  The list of his powers was long and scary for an average person – but not at all for Quabil Shahzad, the topmost servant of the Demonic Alliance. All that power was backed up by mystical black magic that, same as the demonic technology, would torture and suck out life energy. Just as the milk touched by the tongue of a serpent carries poison, anything created or touched by the demonic mind, even if meant for good on the surface, is meant only to serve black demonic goals.

  “Last time we met, I promised him an ugly end. However, he escaped …” Quabil mused for a moment with his fingertips touching.

  “Before crushing his skull, now that I am back, I will make him watch me destroy every single person that he loves”.

  “Sir, it seems that you show him special attention. Why does he deserve that attention, please, sir?” The big man with a scar on his face knew that he was taking a chance by asking, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  When Quabil looked straight into his face, the man was forced to take a step back, both arms raised in apology.

  “He deserves EVERYTHING I have for him!” The blood-freezing answer filled the air. “He will soon come to find me -” the cold voice continued, “- and in his miserable mind he thinks he can stop the Invasion of Darkness. “While we have two and soon the Third Key of the Diamond Gate he is absorbed with a game, playing two roles. One is the role of a Yoda and the other is a Sensei…” He started to laugh…“and another is the role of a neighborhood watch, hahaha!” He laughed with a bitter twist to his words. Then all of a sudden his voice became serious.

  “Stupid human! He had no clue about what is to happen… but now… I feel that now he knows we are here. Somehow, he knows and I am waiting for him.”

  Quabil enjoyed the nodding of two men in front of him. They responded with confirmative gestures after every sentence he spoke, worshiping him and offering respect to all his words.

  “Let’s speed this up. Bring the prisoner to the ‘room of honesty’ now. I’ll personally make him tell us where the Third Key is! Let’s see how he will resist me!” The two men who jumped immediately to fulfill his order felt scared at the tone of these words.

  Quabil, a descendent of the powerful Shahzad dynasty, had seen the real face of evil from early age – and liked it. His father and grandfather were senseless and cruel rulers, real decision makers that affected even a few countries besides Somalia. He was trained to mercilessly pursue more power and more wealth ‘regardless of price’. But, his real nature and mission were not then revealed to him – nor was it revealed during his education at the best American private schools. It started about the time he was at Princeton when he killed his roommate with his bare hands. It was all over a senseless argument; he just wanted to prove ‘what death is’. It started then - his father pulled him back to Somalia and soon after, his real transformation began.

  He was chosen by the controllers of the Demonic Alliance as a perfect candidate for fulfilling their purposes on this planet. (This evil force of the material world’s lower planetary systems would never be quite understandable to the human mind, either in their power or their purposes, but these beings strove constantly to destroy human life.) Demonic beings, although many times more advanced than humans, are entirely devoid of any spiritual values and totally hate anything of a higher nature. Anything that reminds them that they are not supreme controllers, they hate and want to destroy - angels, demigods, sages – anything reflecting the principles of goodness! Demonic leaders know about the special position of planet Earth, especially during this particular time Kali Yuga* – Planet Earth is a place where spiritual advancement is easiest to achieve. Demons think that by populating this planet and annihilating the human race they will destroy the expansion of spirituality and of God!

  Yet, even with all their advantages, the Demonic Alliance couldn’t destroy Earth without opening the doors to this dimension – hence the need for access to the Diamond gates. Quabil Shahzad was adopted, trained and then transformed into their most powerful agent who had easily killed two powerful Guardians, and taken the two Keys they had kept safe. Only one Key remained. With it, the Demonic Alliance would easily invade earthly regions.

  The Third Guardian had also been defeated and captured. But the Key was not on him. That is why he still lived – refusing to say where the Key was being held.

  XIII.

  Quabil jumped up and start undressing out of his spotlessly ironed Alexander Amosu suit. The Vanquish II Brioni coat had been customized to him only a few days ago. He carelessly threw away the coat (which could have covered five or six months of bills for an average Chicago family). He walked towards what looked like a wall and the space opened without a sound.

  In the ‘room of honesty’ there was nothing but a man hanging in a cross position, hands and legs tied to the wall by metal shackles that looked like iridium. The man’s body was tortured and bruised. On his left hand he had 2 fingers left, but the fresh wounds were (strangely) not bleeding. On his right hand and feet he had no fingernails, and even without bleeding, it was just all a bloody mess. He was kept alive and conscious, tortured again and again. He was hardly recognizable as the strong Guardian of the Light that he had been two days ago.

  One quick signal to Quabil’s two assistants made them quickly start reviving the man into consciousness. Small injections in the back of his neck made him open his eyes and start screaming in pain. Quabil pointed a finger towards his temple, and the man was instantly relieved of all suffering and pain. He spoke in a deep soothing voice like a teacher instructing a child:

  “I have two things to tell you:

  First - all that my men have done to you so far is nothing compared to what I can do to you. They have introduced you to the tip of the pain and torture iceberg – I am the rest of it!

  Second – I only need ONE small bit of information from you. A few numbers, a GPS location, an address – as you wish. Give me the location and live free of pain, as you are right now. Otherwise, I’ll double it, and then triple it - I won’t stop. I won’t let you faint or die! “

  The defeated Guardian visibly trembled in front of this man emanat
ing horror all around him.

  “You have exactly one minute to decide…….” These words were interrupted by the sound of an iPhone vibrating on a metal surface.

  There were three mobile phones on a metal table in the corner. All belonged to former Guardians.

  “This may give you a few minutes more….or maybe not”, announced Quabil. He curiously raised his eyebrows in the direction of a bold man operating the glassless monitor in a corner of the room…checking caller ID.

  “It’s him - Mr. Shahzad!” he announced while another assistant handed the vibrating iPhone5 to their master.

  “How nice to hear your voice again”, answered Quabil, the person that Jason was hoping to find but NOT in possession of this phone. He decided to speak fast.

  “If you stop what you started and return to whatever hellish place you came from, I will spare your life this time. Go back to your ugly friends and stay away from earth. If you don’t do that, you won’t die, but this time I will make you suffer eternally”, pronounced Jason clearly.

  The effect on Quabil was as if he had heard a hilarious joke for the first time, and he laughed loud and long, an infectious and honest-sounding laugh. Jason gritted his teeth, willing it to end. Without warning, Quabil’s laughter shut off and he switched to a cold, cunning but controlled tone: “Due to Steve Jobs’ blessing, let me introduce you to your dear colleague, I apologize for his dress code”, pointing the camera toward the captured man who was visibly trembling in fear as Quabil continued. Jason accepted the video call and was hit hard by the scene.

  XIV.

  “We were just about to have a chit-chat …” Jason could hear demonic laughter on the other side of the line.

  On another line, in a presidential suite of the Four Seasons Hotel sitting next to Jason, Gunnar was in front of his computer sharing data with several hackers. They were all trying hard to crack the scrambling shield that stopped detection of the geolocation of the phone. (On the screen, the signal was jumping from Cairo to Bora Bora, from Chicago to Madrid, and so on – making the hardcore hackers angry and busy as a swarm of bees – they had never seen this level of protection).

  “Are you ready for me, ‘Guardian’?” With a cynical tone, Quabil moved back, so the camera could show the scared and tortured man with eyes wide open in fear. He could feel that something even more horrible was about to happen to him.

  Jason knew that this would be hard to watch. The ‘fallen Guardian’ hanging there helplessly in front of evil personified was already scary, but he fully focused all his mental powers to be ready to help. What else could he do?! Even if Gunnar could detect the exact location, only a short time was left. However, there was one thing that inspired Gunnar to try harder. He knew about Jason’s psychotronic* power he had had from birth. Geolocation would help Jason to focus his power. He had to act fast, as soon as he knew what to do!

  On the phone’s screen, the face changed to a painful mask. It was clearly on the edge of toleration.

  “I just made your nerves double in sensitivity – I can do it again. You won’t faint, you won’t die – you will feel more and more of everything …until you tell me what I want to know.” Just the sound of Quabil’s voice made his target completely desperate, writhing in his bonds.

  Jason used his powers only when absolutely necessary, but this was one of those moments. As he started to invoke his inner powers, the room started to vibrate. To those that see beyond averages, the room was bursting into red-orange light, formed into balls of energy that grew in power and size. With the speed of thought, the energy explosion formed into a blue beam of protective energy, wrapping itself around the body of the captured spiritual warrior.

  The energy shield did create an immediate effect. Suffering and pain disappeared from the man’s face, and in his eyes a tiny spark of hope was born.

  “What a nice try!” Quabil’s loud reaction did not promise a great future for that newly born hope. Without any further comment, Quabil started attacking the bulb of protective energy with his dark powers. Those with vision could describe the scene as dark thick smoke mixed with grey fog attacking a bright light in a blue sky. Without vision, one could only follow the reactions on the face and body of a person caught in the midst of the fight.

  The protective beams of energy accumulated again, but the receiving signal on the iPhone5 screen was disturbed from the charge. As white forces grew, so the dark force strengthened in this power struggle of opposing forces. It looked like there was a chance of success for the powers that Jason used to protect the secret location of the Third Key. Demons needed the Third Key, and only that was stopping them from invading Earthly regions right now!

  Both men were using their powers in full; this was the real battle of light and darkness. Energy contained in the room would have been hard to deal with for anyone - it strained the face of the tortured Guardian. Sensing a turn of events, Quabil Shahzad began to produce in vibration the sounds of verses from demonic scriptures. Not many mortals of this planet have heard those sounds and lived to tell about them. Those who did mostly melted out of the power contained in those metallic, teeth-gnashing chants.

  The ancient demonic ritual started to take form. The room suddenly changed – darkened- all light began to die. Starting with the electrical bulbs and lights, then the electronic equipment, mobile phones – every device lost its glow as if sucked out by a strong vacuum. On the other end of the video call, the signal turned black. But the light-sucking vacuum that Quabil created with ritualistic chants of evil continued to grow.

  Staring hard at the black screen of his iPhone, Jason could only hear the screams. The sound of suffering was so disturbing that Gunnar just ran out of the room. He was a strong man with a rock-solid understanding of this life and beyond, but hearing suffering turn into begging for mercy – helpless to help - was far beyond anything he could imagine. Gunnar knew that these were the sounds of destiny threatening to take over this world. It was announcing that fate – the fate of a world taken over by the Demonic Alliance.

  XV.

  Before the gut-wrenching screams stopped, Jason could hear words that set the tortured man free a few minutes later. Pronouncing those words was the worst possible outcome, for 7.043 billion additional reasons besides the man’s death. Those spoken words carried the potency to end the lives and loves of 7.043 billion people on Planet Earth – children, men, women…. ‘when’ became a question of few hours. Those spoken words were:

  “..it is…below… green copperas altar…Temple of 39. T10ETG”

  Both warriors heard, and their hearts sank. Quabil, obviously satisfied, ‘allowed’ his prisoner to die. He understood those words and started moving fast, shouting out orders, right after hearing them. “Let’s get that Third part of a damned Key! Take the equipment, prepare the Jet, we move right now!”

  Jason, on the other hand, could not understand anything about it. Especially 39. T10ETG part … what it is, where it is, nothing. What next? He sat down, trying to make some sense out of it.

  Part 4

  Cracking It…

  XVI.

  Gunnar was walking up and down, silently uttering his favorite set of prayers. Many times in the past, these had helped him focus on solutions, not on problems. On his path of life, from a poor kid to a self-made Internet millionaire, he had gathered plenty of experience. One of the things he learned was that when nothing else helps and everything looks totally hopeless, sincere prayer helps. This time, they did not need anything else but help – the world needed a miracle.

  Gunnar could understand the meaning of silence on the other side of the doors - everything must have ended badly or else Jason would have already called for him or run out with good news. Gunnar saw that Jason’s protective powers formed a shield that seemed to be effective against the evil of Quabil Shazhad – hope grew strong but was crushed unexpectedly by powerful rituals. Jason’s psychotronic* power had been overpowered, and that silence in the other room meant that the tortur
ed man had died in the most horrific pain.

  With eagerness in his eyes, Gunnar entered the living room. Surprisingly, the main room of the spacious presidential suite was empty. He called out:

  “Hey... My man … I’m sorry I could not tolerate those sounds! Where are you, you okay?” Gunnar searched for his friend all over the large luxury suite.

  He found Jason on the floor in a corner, behind the big sofa. He was on his knees, palms sinking into the soft Persian carpet. His iPhone had sunk into the carpet in front of him. His t-shirt had completely soaked through the back, and he was breathing deeply.

  “Is everything… are you okay - what happened?!” Gunnar asked, worried. He had never seen his friend looking so exhausted. Gunnar placed his palm on Jason’s shoulder and got a shock! His body was burning hot.

  “Mensch* you’re burning! We have to take your temperature down…right now!” He took his phone out and started to dial 1391, for medical emergency.

  Jason stopped him with a hand and spoke in a weak, soft voice:

  “No, stop. This will pass in a few minutes, it’s just a reaction.” Though soft, Jason’s voice was filled with intense emotions. Gunnar’s attention was completely focused on his next words.

  “I need your help, my friend. I have failed to protect the location of the Third Key. My powers were overpowered by evil and darkness.” Jason paused for a moment, trying to catch his breath.