The Third Key (GUARDING THE LIGHT) (16 page)

All
of
the tourists,
visitors, priests
and nuns
were out
wo
ndering about the sirens and alarm
s
.
The sky was
dark
,
and
the crowd buzzed about
, waiting for police and firefighters to arrive.
Some watched out for signs of fire, and some
speculated about possible
causes
of
this whole mess.
S
uddenly,
a
strong glow of white bright light
emanated
fro
m
inside the church
hall
.
Huge
windows
of differently colored glass
were
all
illuminated
from
the inside. The c
hurch now looked as if t
here were
huge
movie screens on all the
walls, glowing
with light
.
The crowd began muttering, not liking that they didn’t understand this new turn of events
.

A few
security guards were near the
main
entrance
,
looking
as confused
as
the
other people in
the
crowd
.
They
had concluded that the strong glow of light illuminating
the crowd
was definitely not a
fire
.
One of them
,
a
t
all
man
with a very
typical
English face
was n
ervously trying
to reach his friend:


Raymond do you read…? …
..
Ray ..?
Where are you
, mate
….”

When t
wenty minutes
had
passed and one of their
colleagues
did not respond, the guards felt a strong desire to react. The
remaining t
wo
members of security
decided to move
in,
before
the
police
cars
arrive
d
:

“Might
take ‘
e
m
20 minutes
more
to come”,
one of them commented
in a
strong Essex
accent
.
“May be
somefin

we have to solve
, at the end of the day
.”

“Wait
, please
.
I will go with you
.”
Rev. John Summers, the
head priest
of
St. Paul
,
stopped them
with kind but loudly spoken words. All three people went inside the church but they
would never have suspected
that
they
were just
a
few minutes
away from
the ugly face of death.
None
of them ever returned
.

 

 

 

XX.

 

“Anything
suspicious
up there?”
Jason’s
face and voice
reflected his
worry.

Everything seemed too easy
. They
were on the right spot and should soon
find the
Third
Key of the Diamond Gate. There was no sign of
Quabil
but
something just didn’t seem right.


All clear up here
.
How about d
own
there
?”
Gunnar replied.

“Same
here
.
We should be out soon.
Keep your eyes peeled
, they may be
planning
on an ambush since we’ve done the heavy lifting.


Good point!
I’m getting the latest scan of surrounding vehicles from the police
. If anything looks
strange
, I’ll…..scream.” Gunnar grinned.


You do that.”
Jason
grinned,
but
he was focused on his team
. The
y went over all
the
possible
hiding placed for the Key without finding anything
.
They checked
all around the altar,
and
all the spaces
below
it.
They looked
under the
altar’s
large
base
, moving the
huge structure made of stone and metal
to peer beneath i
t.
They checked all the
edges and
every place inside the altar
.
The newest generation m
etal detector
was no help
!
T
ime
was running
out
and they had nothing to show for their work.

“Guys,
let’s light up this place
.
It’s
time for those power
vacuum cleaner
s
.”
The team brought in powerful pumps, normally used to pump out
water
, to
quickly remove the
dirt layers
from the ground below the altar.


Let’s
check this place
all over again. Switch the spots.
Check the photos Gunnar shared
on your devices –
memorize the shape. We need to find this object!

Four muscular figures
made systematic sweeps of
the
whole area
inside
the Ritual Room
, inch by inch
.
Powerful flash
lights and cleaned floors promised
they
would
now find the hidden
object
.
20 minutes passed..
.
40
minutes.
Nothing.


Let’s look
below the altar
.

Jason tried not to sound desperate
.
How ‘below’ had the Guardian meant?
Jason wondered if it meant ‘below
the ground

.
They lifted up the heavy stone
squares,
exactly where the
altar made of
green
copperas
was placed
.
No
key.

“It has to be
here somewhere

below in a box,
hidden
somehow.

Jason was starting to repeat himself, but then
, he remembered another possibility! That would be much easier to check.

Jason
’s voice
now sounded openly nervous:

“Gunnar, we’ve found nothing so far
.
This is my idea: keep
the rest of
the g
uys
in
position but 2 or 3 guys
have to
go to the
main Church.
Start a
f
ire alarm or something
,
just find a way
to
empty the place so you can
go and check the
space
below
the altar
, there in the main church.”
Jason
paused, giving his friend
time to react.

We
can’t do anything else here but start
dig
ging
the earth.


Of
course,”
Gunnar replied and added
for Jason’s peace of mind
, “sometimes the simplest things are the best in life and we miss seeing that
.

He
spoke while moving
toward the
main Church entrance.

The f
ire alarm was
the
easy part
-
it took
a
good
15 minutes for all the tourists to
evacuate the area
. Gunnar
and
three
ex-military
professionals
began to hunt for
the key.

“This search
looks
more like
summer cleaning
than saving the world

,
thought Gunnar,
when he saw clean space inside the wide and high space of a church hall.
When everyone left, they locked all
the
doors from inside.
Just like
the
team
below
, they
searched
for a
palm-sized
metal
piece inside a room
.
Armed with
metal detectors
,
they were all sure it would be
an easy
task.

After half an hour of intense
searching, it no longer looked
easy.
The f
ireman
squad
had begun banging
o
n
the door, which meant that Prague p
olice
would arrive soon after
.
After 45
minutes of searching
,
their hope of
find
ing the
Third Key
there
became very weak and shaky
. Soon after,
hope
in the hearts of
the
four men
died entirely.
Facing the
facts
killed
it.

They left
the church hall using
the
back door exit
,
and
met with the rest of the
team.
Each man was
covered with dirt and sweat. Tired
from
the intense search and
digging
in
the
ground
below
the a
ltar, they could
see defeat on each other
’s
faces. They were
exhausted
but
the
feeling of
hopelessness
disturbed
them the most. All of them -
Gunnar, Michael and
the
others
-
were hoping to hear
a word
from
Jason
that would
offer the answer or
their
next move.
Jason
was there
but
he seemed absent; sitting on the stone of the stairs he
stared
in front of him at a distant spot
.
Finally, he spoke in a voice of deep exhaustion.

“Go,
take some rest
.

They were the
only words he could utter.

 

 

 

XXI.

 

Insid
e
St. Peter

s
church in Essex,
the search after the same
missing
object was taking place. However, those after
Third
Key
here
only
looked like
human
s -
those w
ith eyes to see knew the truth. T
hese ‘men’ we
re
demonic
creatures,
monsters in human
form
.
Moving extremely
fast,
two of them
swept
around the altar w
hile
their commander
stood silently
with his hands crossed over his
chest
, e
yes filled with expectation
and delight.
Moving a
few steps towards his assistants
made them move
faster, nearly at a run
.
Without words,
they knew he wanted results and he wanted
them
quickly
.
Ten
minutes
later, nothing had been found although
every single inch
had been searched of the ground
below
and around
the altar
area.
Suddenly both assistants fe
l
t
immense pressure around their necks.
They
were forced to turn
toward
the
leader
of their special
demonic
unit.

Other books

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H Balson
Flight of the Eagle by Peter Watt
Mind Strike by Viola Grace
Wickedly Charming by Kristine Grayson
BAD Beginnings by Shelley Wall
Keep It Together by Matthews, Lissa
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Sharing the Sheets by Natalie Weber
Too Black for Heaven by Keene, Day