End of Days

by J. F. Penn

  End of Days

  ARKANE Book 9

  J. F. Penn

  Contents

  Quotes

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  BBC News Report

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Enjoyed End of Days?

  Author’s Note

  More Books by J.F.Penn

  About the Author

  Dedication and Acknowledgments

  Copyright Page

  "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him … until the thousand years were ended."

  Revelation 20:1-6

  "The female of Samael is called Serpent, Woman of Harlotry, End of All Flesh, End of Days."

  The demon Lilith, as described by Rashi, a medieval commentator on the Talmud and the Hebrew Scriptures

  Prologue

  Two weeks ago. Ruins of Babylon, Iraq.

  It was dark when Massoud went back to the tomb. The moon was high and silver light glinted on the sands of Babylon, like the edge of a knife before it lodged in the heart of its prey. The sound of the camp filtered across the dunes, the crackling of fire and the voices of men trying to forget what they had seen in the light of day. Their tales of bravado steeled them to face another dawn.

  But Massoud could not forget.

  He clutched his tool bag tighter and scrambled across the ruins towards the edge of the excavations. Before the war, Saddam Hussein had been rebuilding the ancient city and much had been renewed. The tyrant had remounted the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture over 2600 years old, and carved his own name into bricks alongside that of the ancient king, Nebuchadnezzar. For the glory of Iraq, he had said.

  But now Saddam was dead and gone. Iraq was broken by war and crushed under the feet of fundamentalists, fighting for the scraps of what remained. This ancient city had been pounded by mortar and bulldozed by western soldiers, grinding what was left of proud Babylon into the dust of the desert. Massoud shook his head. It was all madness, but for now at least, there was good money to be made digging for archaeologists who wanted to make their names in the desert once more.

  And there was a way to make more than just the daily cash in hand.

  It was dangerous but it was worth the risk. There were those who would pay handsomely for a piece of ancient Babylon if it could be smuggled out, and he had glimpsed something earlier today at the very edge of his patch. If he could just get it out then his family would not go hungry this winter and his daughter would have her medicine.

  A sound came from up ahead. A scuff of boots on stone and the hacking cough of a night watchman.

  Massoud froze and ducked down behind a rock. If he was found here at this time of night, he could be beaten … or worse. His heart pounded and his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth.

  But then the clouds shifted over the moon and darkness hid him as the guard passed only meters away. Massoud scurried to the tomb, clambering over the remains of the military base. He reached the very edge of the dig where they excavated part of the city that had not been explored before, revealing treasures unseen for millennia, a glimpse of its great past. Babylon had once been the largest city in the world, a hub of commerce and art and the pinnacle of civilization. Massoud smiled and shook his head. How the mighty had fallen indeed. A lesson that the Americans would learn some day, as the British and every other empire learned before them. Man was not built to last and days of glory passed quickly in the blink of history. All that mattered were the people you loved in this lifetime, and that was why he was here now.

  He made it to the tomb and crouched at the edge of the pit that led to the entrance. His fingers dug into the red dirt and he hesitated as he felt a shadow at his back. He turned his head quickly.

  There was no one there.

  He shivered, then took a deep breath, steeling himself before clambering down into the pit. He pushed aside the wooden barrier and crawled within. He couldn't risk the torch yet, not this close to the entrance so he scrabbled in the dark, feeling his way.

  Massoud breathed in the air of the tomb. He had dug at many ruins in the deserts of Iraq and he knew the smell of a ruined city. This one was not like the others. Where before he had smelled only the dust of the long dead, here he could smell the earth, freshly turned, as if something was alive down here.

  As if the city could spring awake again.

  He crawled into the darkness and felt the shadow of a presence, slipping along behind him in the dirt. A whisper in the dark.

  The crackle of dry skin rasping across sand.

  Sweat broke out on his brow but he kept going. He couldn't turn his head in the narrow tunnel and he knew he would see nothing anyway. Perhaps it was a djinn of the desert, a demon of this cursed city. But there were so many demons in Iraq now and Massoud was more afraid of the human kind than the ethereal. The extremists had taken his cousin away one night and his body had never been found. They had beaten his old father in the market when all he had done was play music at his stall. Yes, the demons in human form that stalked the country now were surely worse than anything under the sands. Massoud crawled on.

  At last he made it to the dogleg in the tunnel, out of direct sight of the entrance. He turned on his head-torch. The dull yellow light drove away the shadows and finally he crawled into the tomb itself. Lamplight flickered across rough-hewn walls, revealing a mosaic in bright colors, undimmed by buried years. It was both magnificent and terrible, the image searing itself on his memory. A massive serpent undulated across a map of the known world, its mouth gaping to swallow a bound woman. Its hooked fangs pierced the body of a screaming sacrifice while its huge coils wrapped around countless other dead. Massoud couldn't read the cuneiform text below the serpent, but he had been in enough tombs to know that it was a warning.

  When the archaeologists had opened the tomb a few days ago, they had found myriad skeletons of long-dead snakes amongst human bones, evidence of sacrifice to this demon serpent. Massoud shivered to think of being left down here in the dark with hissing death. A primeval terror, especially for a desert people.

  Suddenly, he heard a slither in the dark. Something moved at the edge of the torchlight, just outside the warm glow.

  Massoud jerked his head around.

  Were there still snakes down here?

  Stop being a fool, he chastised himself. The faster this is done, the faster you can get out of here and turn this old stone into a fortune.

  He turned back to the wall. A black stone slab lay at the corner of the mosaic, carved with the giant serpent on a smaller scale against an inlaid pattern of stars. Cuneiform text wound around it, disappearing into the rock beyond. He couldn't excise the whole slab, but it was still a priceless piece of art that was also small enough for him to smuggle out.

  He pulled his mason's hammer and chisel from his tool belt and bent to place the blade care
fully behind the stone slab. The metallic tapping obscured the rustle of snake skin from behind him in the shadows. The sound echoed down into the depths of the earth, calling to the darkness to rise again.

  1

  Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky, USA.

  Lilith stepped over the threshold into the tiny church. The white walls were duller than she remembered, marred by time and stained by the breath of believers, reeking of tobacco and the residue of communion wine. It had been years since she had visited, but the smell of the place instantly took her back to her childhood. Back then, the Appalachian Pentecostal church had been her home, her escape, the only place where she felt part of something bigger in a miserable life of poverty.

  She had come a long way since then.

  Lilith wore a shapeless dress of muted color, the traditional style for women in these parts, having left her smart tailored clothes behind in the city. Her face was bare of makeup and her titian curls hung loose about her shoulders. Her work colleagues at Viperex Pharmaceuticals wouldn't even recognize her.

  But she needed this. She had been away too long. There was something only this place could give her and today, she was coming home.

  Orphaned as a toddler, Lilith had passed from foster family to foster family around the poor neighborhoods on the border of Kentucky and Virginia. She had a propensity for silence and shied away when people tried to hug her. These things kept her apart and made even the most loving mothers think she was touched in some way. Then one day, here in this church, she had discovered that which brought her alive. She had never been drawn to people, but here she had found her true passion.

  In the last month, the serpents had called her back, haunting her sleep. She woke most nights with her hands in the air, reaching for the weight of them, wanting to dance. Perhaps today …

  "Hello dear." Lilith jumped as a woman touched her arm. "Are you visiting with us today?"

  Lilith turned and looked down at her. There was something familiar in the hunched frame, the faint smell of lavender and the woman's pattern of missing teeth.

  "Are you sister Beatrice?" Lilith narrowed her eyes a little, trying to remember.

  "Why, yes, child. I am. How would you know?" The woman looked more closely at her. Then a smile lit up her face, making her blue eyes crinkle and the gaps in her teeth protrude even more. "You're Lily. Well my goodness, it's been many years since we've seen you here, sweetie. Since that day …" Her words trailed off as her eyes dimmed at the memory. Then she patted Lilith on the arm. "Well now, you're welcome back. I'm sure Pastor John will be pleased to see you."

  The woman bustled away as the small community filled the church and the sound of greetings filled the air. Lilith stood at the back in a white wooden pew, eyes down and demure. She clutched a hymn sheet in shaking hands, anticipating the service to come. She didn't want to draw attention to herself – not yet, anyway.

  The plinky-plonk of piano keys filled the room and the congregation stood to sing a rousing folk song with clapping and shouts of praise interspersing the notes. Some shook tambourines, the rattle of tin beating time. The energy in the room stepped up a notch and Lilith felt the rise of a smile on her lips, buoyed by the faithful who came here to escape their miserable lives every Sunday.

  "I'm going to tell you children, do you know what Jesus Christ said?" Pastor John began in his singsong voice, the final words rising to a high note. He stepped forward, his hands raised towards heaven.

  And at his feet, a locked box.

  Lilith couldn't stop looking at it. She knew what was in there even though she couldn't hear the rattle from this far away. Her eyes stayed fixed on it as Pastor John continued, his tone rising and falling as his flock thrust their hands high.

  "And the gospel of Saint Mark says that these signs shall follow them that believe. IN MY NAME they will cast out devils, and speak with new tongues. IN MY NAME they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. IN MY NAME, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."

  "Hallelujah!"

  "Praise Jesus!"

  A man a few meters in front of Lilith began to shake in place, his whole body wracked with convulsions. Those around him calmly laid hands upon him and prayed. Another woman fell to her knees in the aisle, crying and speaking in tongues.

  Lilith watched, waiting for the atmosphere to rise even further, for the spirit-fueled hysteria to grow. Back in her university days, when she had trained as a scientist, she had researched mass hysteria and tried to explain away what happened in this little corner of the world. Some would say these people were caught up in the Spirit, others would think they were crazy. Lilith was still unsure what she believed, but her own truth lay inside that locked box.

  As the piano thumped into another tune, Pastor John bent and opened the lid.

  "When God anoints you, when the Spirit prompts you, you can take up serpents IN HIS NAME!"

  Lilith's heart raced as she caught a glimpse of the snakes within. Three timber rattlesnakes, deep brown chevron markings on their muscled bodies. She ached to touch them, to feel their cool skin against hers. She licked her lips, hardly able to stay in place.

  Pastor John lifted out one of the snakes and held it high. It wrapped itself around his wrist, tongue flickering as it tasted the air. He bounced to the music, shuffling around and singing loud as it wound around his hands.

  The man who had been convulsing just a few minutes ago stepped into the aisle. His forehead gleamed with sweat and patches of it formed under his armpits, staining his shirt. He fixed his eyes on the snake as songs of praise swelled and filled the little church.

  Those who spoke in tongues shouted their guttural praise to the Lord as the man walked to the front of the church.

  Pastor John nodded at him and held out the rattlesnake. From behind, Lilith could see cords of muscle on his back standing out through his sweat-drenched shirt. His fear was palpable and she knew the snakes would sense it.

  He reached out for the rattlesnake.

  Lilith clutched the edge of the pew, her heart hammering at what could happen if the rattler struck him. But the snake seemed merely bemused by its handling, curious to taste the skin of the man. Its flickering tongue tasted his salt, head wavering over his arm.

  She relaxed a little at the snake's behavior, confident that it wouldn't bite him for now. Lilith was a herpetologist by day, working with snakes in a lab where they were specimens to be tested, farmed and milked to make anti-venom. She understood snakes' body language but in the lab, she was a scientist, clinically detached.

  Whereas here the serpents were primal beings, and she craved their touch.

  More in the congregation were shaking and crying now, the frenzy growing. The pianist just kept playing as people stamped and prayed, some falling down.

  "Getting high on Jesus is better than cocaine," a man next to Lilith said with a toothy grin, as he joined the growing number of dancers in the aisle.

  A woman brought her baby up to Pastor John. With one hand he cradled the child and with the other, he picked up another rattlesnake from the box.

  "IN MY NAME they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. And we claim this now for your child, Lord."

  Lilith felt an echo of her once-strong faith. She had been the youngest child in the congregation to handle snakes at aged seven, considered a blessing on the church, a miracle of sorts. Until that day …

  It was time to face them again.

  She stepped into the aisle, her green eyes fixed on Pastor John, who held the baby in the crook of one arm, the snake in his other hand.

  He looked up and saw her approach. His eyes narrowed and then recognition sparked.

  "Praise Jesus," he called aloud. "A daughter returned."

  But Lilith could see hesitation in his eyes. He remembered. She had taken up serpents nearly every week until her fifteenth year, when she had been struck.

  Pastor John
had handed her the snake that day.

  She remembered the initial sting, the shock of the hit, and then burning physical pain as the venom had raced through her blood. Her arm had begun to swell immediately and the world had swayed and then collapsed into colors and sounds.

  Lilith remembered a curious jealousy in the eyes of those who had watched her fall to the ground. She had been given a chance to test her faith. Would the Lord take her? Was it her time? Or would she demonstrate faith by not succumbing to the poison?

  They had laid her in the Pastor's office on a blanket and prayed for her and over her and with her. Whispered words of faith in the hallucinations of the night, but nothing for the pain.

  No hospital treatment. No anti-venom.

  Just the rustle of snake skin in the dark.

  Then she had recovered just as the Lord had promised. A sign to the faithful. But fear had crept in and she had never handled in church again. She had stolen money and run to the city. Over time, she had been drawn back to snakes, training as a herpetologist and working for one of the foremost producers of anti-venom.

  Now years later, she was back here again.

  Lilith held out her hands, her eyes fixed on Pastor John.

  "I take up serpents because the Bible says I will not be harmed," she said calmly, loud enough for him to hear over the music. "It is the confirmed word of God."

  She knew he couldn't deny her the chance. He nodded and handed her the rattler.

  Lilith took hold of it. The heaviness of its body, the smooth scales, so cool to her touch. She raised it to her face, let its tongue flicker over her features, let it taste her. It felt like coming home and she wanted more.

  She bent and picked the final snake from the box, letting it wrap around her other arm. Then she reached out to the sweating man and lightly took the rattler from his shaking hands. The relief in his eyes was palpable and he fell to his knees in prayer.