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Primordial (Lilitu Trilogy Book 2)

Page 14

by Toby Tate


  “I can’t believe you remember it. Most people don’t recall anything after the initial infection.”

  “I remember everything.”

  “Everything? Did he tell you why he was building the obelisks?”

  James nodded. “They’re basically just receptors. The real power comes from something he’s going to put inside them. Then he’s going to use them to open a gate.”

  “What kind of gate?”

  “A gate to another dimension.”

  Fifty-five

  Gabe tried to process what James was telling her—the obelisks were towers to hold something that would generate an energy field through which matter could pass from one universe into another. The radioactive stones that Hendricks stole were probably the source of power. But what was it that would pass through that gate?

  “I’ve got to get some pictures of this thing to take back with me,” Gabe said, raising her camera to get a shot. She continued shooting as she circled all the way around the base of the structure. Several cars had driven up while she did so and people were surrounding the obelisk, staring up at its imposing mass.

  When she reached the front of the obelisk, she stopped next to James. “I saw a door on the back. Any idea what it leads to?”

  James nodded. “I’ve never been inside, but I know there’s a spiral staircase that leads all the way to the top. I don’t know exactly what’s up there, but I believe that’s where they’ll take the power source.”

  Gabe stared at the giant black monolith, her camera in one hand.

  The puzzle was finally starting to come together. If she only knew what Hendricks would be trying to bring into our universe. Whatever it was, she had a feeling it would be something monstrous.

  * * *

  Jordan drove Hunter and Mac back to the base, where they said their goodbyes and boarded the plane. The pilot had been notified and was already in the cockpit, engine running. It was still fairly early, about three p.m., but they wanted to be back in time to meet with Gabe and discuss their findings. Besides, Hunter didn’t want to be away from his pregnant wife any longer than he had to.

  They were soon airborne, but Hunter was so preoccupied that he had barely noticed.

  “Mac, I’ve been wondering: how did the Lilitu manage to survive if the earth had been made uninhabitable?”

  “According to legend, God created Lilith, and then punished her for refusing to obey him, turning her into a demon. The Lilitu race was reborn through her. Now Hendricks wants to take it to its ultimate end.”

  “What do you think is at the top of that monolith?”

  “Hendricks kept talking about those meteorites being a source of power. I think they have something to do with the obelisks. They both work together somehow. The obelisks might be receptors, or transmitters. I can’t imagine what he would transmit with them.”

  Hunter thought about the shape he had seen on the map.

  “Remember what he said, that the pentagram could be used to call up supernatural entities? What kind of entity do you think he could call up with a pentagram the size of the entire Mediterranean?”

  Mac glanced at him with sullen eyes.

  “A dark force more powerful than anyone on this earth could ever imagine.”

  Fifty-six

  The minute Gabe opened the door to her hotel room, Lisa practically knocked Hunter over backwards rushing into his arms.

  “I was praying the whole time you were gone,” she whispered into his ear.”I had one of those dreams again. About the creatures…and the baby.”

  “Well, I’m here now, so you don’t have to worry.”

  Jade watched from across the room. “I took good care of her the whole six hours you were gone.”

  “We got a lot of good intel, so at least now we have something to go on,” Mac said, closing the door behind him. “The obelisks are going to be used as transmitters, and I believe those stones are going to be the power source. But I still don’t know how it’s going to work, or its purpose, except I think he’s going to call up some kind of entity.”

  Gabe told the story of Felicia James and all the memories the woman had retained while under the influence of Hendricks’s parasitic creature.

  “So, he’s going to open a gate to another dimension,” Mac said. “Then I was right, he is calling up an entity. But which one, and why?”

  “We need to go to the university and show our photos to Dr. Petrakis. He’s the only one that can read these things,” Gabe said. “I’ll give him a call and see if he would be willing to stay late for us.”

  Hunter glanced at Lisa, then back at Gabe, and handed her his camera. “I think I’ll stick around here, just in case.”

  Gabe grabbed the camera and smiled. “Mac and I can take care of it. We’ll let you know what we find out.”

  * * *

  Petrakis stared at Mac’s drawings of the glyphs through his bifocals, shaking his head, his fine white hair waving back and forth like shredded cotton.

  “It’s strange that I never noticed these glyphs before. I must be getting old,” he said.

  “They’re very hard to see chiseled into the black granite, but these drawings are pretty close to exact. What do you think they mean?”

  “Well, it appears to tell a story, or a prophecy, or both. See here?” Petrakis pointed at the paper. “This first one—a disc-like object beneath a stormy sky. The sky probably represents turmoil and the disc could represent the history of mankind up until then. This symbol is of a man holding a staff up to the sky, as if asking the gods to touch him, make him powerful.”

  Petrakis sat back for a second, stroked his chin, and then resumed talking. “I’m sure this one represents humankind, but the feather I’m not sure about. The eye over top of it is round. Maybe an owl?”

  Mac moved in closer and peered at the screen. “The ancient symbol for the Lilitu.”

  “One represents what appears to be a lighthouse, or the obelisk itself, with a light shining from the very top. This next one is obviously a symbol for some sort of god. It looks like a beast, similar to a serpent or a dragon. But this last one, a round object preceded by concentric circles. I have seen symbols of the sun, but this is not the same. It’s as if the planet is moving away, or being transported somewhere.”

  Mac’s eyes suddenly lit up. “No, it couldn’t be.”

  “Couldn’t be what?” Gabe asked.

  “Tartarus, the god of the underworld.”

  “Who?”

  “Tartarus was one of the primordial deities, one of the first beings to come into existence, according to legend. But Judeo-Christians know him by another name—Lucifer, the fallen angel.”

  Petrakis swiveled his chair around as Mac continued.

  “But that’s not even the worst part. Tartarus isn’t just a god, it’s also a place—a place we know as Hell.”

  “What are you saying? That Hendricks wants to bring Hell to Earth?”

  “No, what I’m saying is the pentagram that he’s trying to power up isn’t going to transport something in. It’s going to transport something out.”

  Gabe crossed her arms. “What the hell is he going to transport with a giant pentagram?”

  Mac hesitated, not wanting to voice the horror of what he was thinking. But the evidence was inescapable.

  “Earth,” he said.

  Fifty-seven

  “Mac, I’ve been with you so far, but this is pushing the boundaries of believability,” Gabe said.

  “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but think about what you saw in the cave. The glowing rock, those creatures, the eggs, and now the obelisks—it all ties together. He wants to return the earth to a time before humans existed, and one way to do that is to transport it into another universe, where there will be no interference from outside forces, the forces of good. Hell, or the underworld, is the absence of good: it’s a universe of pure evil. There, the Lilitu will once again thrive, and Tartarus, or Satan, or whatever you want to call him, will reign sup
reme.”

  “I am not a physicist,” Petrakis said, “but to create such a field would require enormous amounts of energy. Where would he get that kind of power?”

  “That’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that are still unsolved. Something is going to take place soon, probably in the next couple of days: an alignment of stars or planets, or some sort of celestial event. Also, there’s the curvature of the earth.”

  “What do you mean?” Gabe asked.

  “I mean that in order to create this pentagram, the light would have to bend with the curvature of the planet. The earth curves one degree about every sixty-nine miles. So they obviously will have a device that not only concentrates the light into two extremely powerful laser-like beams, it also has to bend them, like an Airy beam.”

  “Maybe we should talk to the astronomy department here at the university and see if there are any events coming up that they know about,” Gabe said.

  “That is easy enough,” Petrakis said, and grabbed his laptop off a nearby desk. “I can check the astronomy department web site.”

  Five minutes later, they had their answer.

  “I think I’ve found something,” Petrakis said. Mac and Gabe peered over his shoulder at the screen.

  “It looks like you were right Gabe,” Mac said. “It’s a solar flare—a coronal mass ejection. That’s a pretty major event.”

  “Apparently they only just discovered it,” Petrakis said.

  “Yeah, solar flares don’t usually announce themselves in advance. But if there’s anything that can generate enough power for Hendricks’s transporter, that would be it.”

  “Won’t this coronal mass ejection interfere with Earth’s magnetic field?” Gabe asked.

  “Most likely, and this one looks to be one of the biggest in recent history, according to the web site. A geomagnetic storm can cause an increase of electrical current in the magnetosphere, affecting communications, radar, satellite, pretty much everything we rely on as an advanced society. Normally, any electrical system would be adversely affected by the storm, but Hendricks’s meteorites will apparently utilize it as a power source. The pentagram will create a field around the central obelisk, which will probably house the meteorite with the most power. That stone will be the one that opens the actual portal itself, allowing whatever is on the other side to envelop the entire planet.”

  “But what about the moon and the sun? If they disappear, won’t the earth freeze instantly?”

  “I would say yes. The planet would be completely uninhabitable, just a solid mass of ice. But then again…who knows for sure? You’re asking questions I have no answers to.”

  Fifty-eight

  “Okay, so we know what Hendricks is doing and why,” Gabe said as she and Mac drove back to her hotel. “Now, we just need to know when.”

  “It’s going to have to be soon,” Mac said. “It takes about forty-eight hours for a mass ejection to reach the Earth, and the website said the flare happened yesterday.”

  “That means we have until tomorrow to figure this out.”

  “I think there’s really only one thing we can do. The central obelisk right here in Crete is the key. It’s the one that will open the portal once the other stones are in place.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Pack it with about ten pounds of C4 and blow the shit out of it.”

  “Are you serious? How do you plan to do that?”

  “We blow the door off the obelisk, climb up to the top and then blow up the mechanism. It would help if we could get Interpol or the CIA involved.”

  “I talked to Interpol yesterday, told them everything that was going on. They basically said I was crazy, that David Lawrence was a respectable businessman and for me to mind my own business. As for the CIA, well, I’m pretty much on my own with this one. If anything goes wrong, I’m to be disavowed. So for now, it’s just going to be us.”

  Mac shook his head. “Swell. It’s always nice to know your government has your back in a time of need.”

  * * *

  After informing Hunter, Lisa, and Jade of their findings, Hunter, who had been standing, fell back into a chair, nearly missing it and sprawling out on the floor.

  “That’s the craziest, sickest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said. “Can he really do that? Does he have that kind of power?”

  “I think the ideas for all of this came from somewhere else, a mind much more intelligent than his,” Mac said, finding a chair of his own. “This has been planned for centuries, long before Hendricks was born.”

  “It’s so much like the dreams I’ve been having,” Lisa said. “Especially the last one.”

  She told them about all of her dreams, from the day she arrived in Crete up to the previous day.

  “It sounds like you’ve tapped in to this entity somehow,” Jade said. “You’re seeing things that either could happen, or will happen.”

  “But they’re not going to happen, not to her,” Hunter said. “Not to any of us, because we’re going to stop this crazy bastard. Right?”

  Mac glanced at Gabe, then at Hunter. “Well, we have an idea, but it might be a little dangerous. It involves explosives.”

  Hunter smiled. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Let’s blow some shit up.”

  Fifty-nine

  He had been preparing for this day for months: amassing his fortune, playing the benefactor, building the obelisks, and then putting people in place in Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Sicily, and Romania. Sometimes he had even been required to kill: a couple of European reporters who got a little too nosy about the source of his money, and of course the unfortunate Sam Jensen. But they would have been dead anyway; they just didn’t know it. Now it was all about to come to fruition. The outsiders had used him to do their work on Earth, and Hendricks was glad to do their bidding. He didn’t really know how many entities there were, but he knew there was one leader, and he was powerful. He had given Hendricks the plans for the obelisks, and the ideas for creating the pentagram using the stones. He didn’t really even understand the principal behind the mechanisms that would use the power of the geomagnetic storm to concentrate and bend the beams. He just had them built exactly as instructed, and he knew they would work, because they had said so. It was all simply a matter of faith, just like Noah building the ark.

  He was just like Noah, wasn’t he? Kind of the anti-Noah, or maybe the anti-Moses.

  Let my people go.

  All of the men now had their assignments and were ready to carry them out. They were under his parasitic control and would do his bidding to the death. Each one had a passport for their respective country and all had people waiting for them in those countries to take them where they needed to go.

  Except Sicily, of course. Felicia James had eluded him, escaped the control of the parasite. No matter, there was someone else to take her place. He had even found a way to get the stones past security by smuggling them into each country. The outsiders had thought of everything.

  He would place the last stone personally, the one that would open the portal to another universe, a universe of darkness, where he and his kind would flourish and multiply like the stars in the sky. Except, there weren’t any stars in that sky, were there?

  The Lilitu had been gathered from the four corners of the Earth and were now here on this island, awaiting the final countdown, the final transition, the ultimate joy ride.

  Hendricks gazed at the lead-lined box that sat on his desk. Inside was the final and most powerful stone. With that, he would bring to pass a miracle of science, a miracle that would mean life for the Lilitu, and death for the human race.

  He wondered what the humans would think, especially Jade and Hunter and the rest of them, when they suddenly found themselves in Hell and realized that there was no hope of ever escaping. They would be nothing more than cattle, food for the gods. He thought about that as he stroked the lead box, and a smile crept over his face.

  Sixty

  Lilith was in h
er element—the hunter, walking the night on the prowl for blood. New York City was a shambles, caused by the storm she herself had created. Water still flooded the streets, most of which were littered with glass, overturned cars and uprooted trees. Emergency vehicles lit up the dark sky with blue strobe lights as she made her way through the deserted neighborhoods of Manhattan. Something was happening inside of her, something that was causing great pain. She knew she was about to give birth after only a few hours, undoubtedly the shortest gestation period of any known animal in history. But her species had existed before history had even begun.

  She climbed over several fallen trees into the center of a park, raising her huge muzzle and sniffing the air, assuring herself there were no humans nearby. Then she lay in the wet grass and gave birth to her young. The pain was nearly unbearable as her flesh tore open to make way for her baby. She bellowed and howled like a tortured demon until finally, mercifully, the job was done and she looked down to see what had emerged. It wasn’t a baby; it was an egg roughly the size of a bowling ball, gelatinous and transparent, glowing and pulsating with life. But her astonishment was only temporary. She had expected a human baby, and she was no longer human, so whatever she had given birth to would not be human. It didn’t matter—it was her baby, and she would die to protect it, as any mother would.

 

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