The Essence of Darkness

by Thomas Clearlake

  Sir Elton Alberry took a sip of tea while trying to remain detached from what was happening around the table. Inside, his thoughts were all over the place. He needed to reorganize the details and start over again, to identify the ins and outs of this unlikely meeting.

  The Elders’ followers had independently commissioned each of the five scientists to conduct different research, all in the greatest secrecy. Irwin Jamissen had received the task of experimenting with all the possible mergers between human cells and other cells of a type Jamissen had never seen: so-called foreign cells. The Swedish scientist knew nothing about the creatures whose cells these were and even less about the plan for global domination by these same creatures. But he had successfully completed his mission.

  The followers had given the French physicist Armand Lucas certain biomechanical parts he attributed to a very advanced type of technology unknown to him. He had not asked his benefactors any more questions and had quickly gone to work. Seventeen months had gone by when he left his laboratory triumphantly. He called his newly designed device a quantum generator.

  The work of Fernando Galliciano was equally unusual and intriguing. Followers of this mysterious order had given him samples of an unknown ore. The molecular properties of this ore were extraordinary, since its particles seemed to be alive. The renowned Italian astrophysicist discovered that these particles were in tune with the moon when it passed through the celestial vault. His task was to define the laws that governed the relationship between the particles and the lunar attraction to draw a source of energy from it. Galliciano had accomplished this task with masterful skill in the space of a few months.

  As for Professor Gustav Meyer, he was working on the extractors. The Elders had made available to him a significant quantity of foreign matter as well as the precise plans of the device he had to develop. It was up to him to adapt it to function as well as possible. Twelve years after beginning Meyer’s work, the first extractor he had designed and manufactured was operational.

  Finally, Elton Alberry, the famous English geopolitician, had received a daunting task. He would design and implement—using ultracomplex simulation software he had programmed—the basis of the new global political-economic system. It would replace the organization of the current borders. The name “U-Earth” designated the global unification that would soon be taking place.

  Things were on track.

  Despite all the information they had at their disposal, the five scientists knew almost nothing about the creatures they had worked for so diligently all these years. Like intertwined darkness, these unreal beings sat on their gloomy thrones at that moment and scrutinized them in silence.

  Hominum primus, Gustav Meyer had called them, his eyes filled with devotion. He would have been happy to bow down in front of them if his colleagues would follow his lead. In twelve years of loyal service, he had only been able to meet them twice.

  Alberry had no choice but to give them a maximum score on strategic engineering. How was all of this possible? he wondered.

  The image of Russian nesting dolls came to mind—order within order—and finally, the question of origins.

  For Sir Elton, the only question that really arose was how the lineage of the Order of the Adepts could have been part of the course of history without anyone knowing, or even guessing, its existence. How had they been able to establish themselves in every political, economic, industrial, and even religious sphere and gain such influence while remaining in the darkest shadows?

  The London geopolitician answered this question with a hypothesis that was highly logical but very difficult for the human mind to accept. Alberry got support from Professor Meyer, who had had twelve long years of collaboration with these creatures. He had therefore gathered enough information about them to get a clear picture of their history. The hypothesis was that the Order of the Adepts had not arisen in the course of human history overnight, like a lion leaping on its prey. The takeover had taken place over time, century after century. It had progressed with mathematical thought, an infallible mind. Alberry and Meyer contended that the Elders had not appeared in the course of history, but that they themselves had created everything that constituted history.

  Obscure architects, they had knowingly laid the foundations of their conquest through the ages, like so many bricks of a building. They intended to assert their reign over men at the right time.

  And that time was very close now.

  27

  Lauren and Eliott kept reading the translation of the book all night. At dawn, they assembled a common version of Ravenwood’s work.

  The origin of the Order of the Adepts dated back to more than fifteen thousand years before the Common Era. Its source lay in the mountainous regions located in the north of present-day Iraq. Although these Adepts were human, they were affiliated with the lineage of the Sentinel, a creature that had established an organic link between the human species and the Elders for millions of years.

  It had all started at the beginning of the Earth, in one of its first geological eras, a dark age about which we know little with certainty. The first forms of life had supposed to appear on Earth during this period. But the theory of the origins of life was not the one that paleontologists had greatly heeded until now. During this immeasurably ancient period, an intelligent life form had in fact populated the Earth—beings with a very high level of knowledge and extremely advanced technology. This species, named Hominum primus in the secret scientific spheres, was in fact a plausible explanation for the appearance of life on Earth. Thus, Hominum primus appeared in the first Mesopotamian texts in the source language:

  The Elders breathed into the Earth what Human has called Life. This extended to everything in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; all living things are made of their energy. But it was in blood that they won omniscience, through the power of selection that they triumphed over ignorance.

  In long paragraphs, the Adepts described the fratricidal conflicts, genocides, deliberately widespread epidemics, major political crises, and murderous dictatorships that had persisted throughout the history of Hominum primus. Many descriptions mentioned their affinity with war and weapons. For them, selection had been harsh and extremely violent. They had sacrificed individuals on the altar of evolution. The thinkers, or Elders, had pursued the quest for perfection through constant sacrifice, without the slightest ounce of mercy. During certain periods of their history, they themselves had prevented any written record of their memories. Such brutal purges had aimed to hide the savagery with which they had killed one another. Bloody clan wars had decimated two-thirds of their population in the ultimate days of their civilization. The last of the Elders had then dominated the others and exterminated them without leaving a single survivor. And then they had seized their knowledge. In this archaic society, each ethnic group had had its own knowledge, which it had shared only with its own kind. The victorious sages had now attained omniscience and had acquired the power to perceive the layers of time. They had undergone a short period of development, but a great danger had loomed in the very near future. The scholars had foreseen that an era of catastrophes would soon strike the surface of the Earth and threaten their civilization with destruction.

  The extinction of their species would be inevitable.

  And beyond their civilization alone, every life form that had populated the planet would soon be swept away by earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions.

  To prevent their extinction, they had built crypts below the Earth’s surface in which they had designed a kind of tomb that could keep them alive with highly advanced biomechanical technology. They had predicted that this cataclysmic period would last forty million years. This very long lethargic phase would have a significant impact on their bodies. Their knowledge had allowed them to design an essence that would maintain the deep activity of their metabolism throughout this time. It would thus protect them from death; however, they would have to regenerate themselves if they hoped to wake up
one day. They could only achieve their regeneration by injecting themselves with another substance they called vital fluid. The Elders had faced the problem of how to make this vital fluid and, above all, how to preserve it for more than forty million years.

  It had seemed impossible.

  One Elder had provided a solution. Since they could not preserve the vital fluid, they would have to manufacture it before the awakening phase. But who could make it if everyone in the crypts were in a lethargic state? The Elder had suggested generating an evolved life form after the cataclysm phase ended on the Earth’s surface. When the being matured, it would then carry the ideal biological formula for regeneration—in other words, the vital fluid. The only thing left to do at that point would be to find a way to extract the fluid from the carrier organism.

  So Hominum primus had gone into a very long sleep, and forty million years of destructive cataclysms had passed. Eventually the time had come and conditions for the appearance of life had been right. Biomechanical technology on standby inside the crypts had generated clouds of living particles consisting Hominum primus genes. They had spread over the Earth’s surface. Slowly, the clouds had inseminated life, which had then developed on the various continents. To maintain a link to the life form chosen for their regeneration, the Elders had succeeded in creating clouds of intelligent particles. They had passed between the surface and the depths of the crypts to probe and shape the human species. They had also kept the consciousness of some privileged sages active during their long sleep.

  Man had finally reached maturity, and his dominant position over other species had ensured an increasing demography. Then the black particles had definitively recognized him as the carrier of the vital fluid essential to the regeneration of the Elders.

  A cloud of dense and complex black particles had then created the first Sentinel. It had possessed the body of a boorish hunter from the plateaus of Mesopotamia. He had then assembled the first Adepts, who had founded the Order. Over the centuries, through the Sentinel, the Adepts had grown in number and inherited the immeasurable knowledge of Hominum primus. In the darkness of their crypts, the first Elders had awoken one by one from their long sleep. They had created and transmitted to the Adepts the foundations of the first religious traditions and a system of writing. They had also bestowed the beginnings of philosophical, scientific, political, and economic systems, the organization of cities, and government. The Elders had bequeathed everything that would guide and control humanity on the path of progress for the millennia to come.

  Thus, man’s only true creator, Hominum primus, had created his history. Even God himself was a myth these creatures had conceived, and his return to Earth was an image of their own awakening.

  *

  “Holy crap!” Lauren exclaimed as she watched the scientific teams busily working on the tombs, “Their goal is to regenerate these monsters!”

  “I think so too,” Eliott replied. “The texts say there are underground crypts all over the world. I’m afraid that—”

  Suddenly, a metallic click echoed behind them.

  “Don’t move!” ordered a man’s voice.

  “Turn around very slowly with your hands on your head!” shouted another menacingly.

  They complied without resisting.

  Two soldiers were aiming assault rifles at them.

  One of them stepped forward holding two pairs of handcuffs. The other continued to hold them at gunpoint with his Kalashnikov. Eliott stared at Lauren. She realized he was going to transform at any second. The man with the handcuffs walked toward Eliott. The soldier kicked him in the legs, knocking him to his knees. But when the soldier grabbed his arms to cuff him, Eliott’s hands were nothing more than black shadows. The two men screamed in horror as the Sentinel pounced on them. They didn’t have time to scream again. A few seconds later, their shredded bodies rolled down the steep slope.

  “Run, Lauren! Get out of here as fast as you can,” Eliott growled, “Go back to the four-by-four, and whatever you do, avoid the roads for now.”

  “Okay! But what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try to find out where the helicopters are going.”

  Without turning back, Lauren set off, jumping from rock to rock down to the path that crossed the stream. She quickly reached the Jeep. She slid behind the wheel and started the car. What should she do now? Go to Rochester, but where? She remembered Eliott had told her about Special Agent Colin Andrews. The Bureau had assigned him to continue the St. Marys investigation. She decided to find him. He was probably on the scene.

  For now, she had to leave the area as discreetly as possible.

  She put the car into gear and stayed in first, making her way along the bumpy track that wound through the woods. When she was some distance away, she turned onto a forest track, where a wooden sign read, “St. Marys: 35 miles.”

  A fine rain was falling, painting a gloomy veil over the early morning. She turned on the radio and came across a news flash.

  “Following the irregular fluctuations in securities prices today, the closing of the markets is already promising a day full of surprises tomorrow. Now here’s a word from our analyst Clifford to wrap up this breaking news.”

  “Well, we don’t know what to think of this incredible reversal in currency rates that started this morning. Some people are talking about a major economic crisis, others about an unexpected opportunity. There will probably be many transactions during the day. We’ll see what tomorrow’s opening will bring, Richard. But let’s not forget—”

  Lauren flipped to another station. She had no interest in financial affairs; in fact, they majorly annoyed her. On Big Radio, Mick Jagger was crooning “Miss You.” But he couldn’t distract her from the images that came back to haunt her, going round and round in her mind. She saw Eliott’s eyes and felt his icy breath when he had whispered that these beings were speaking through him, that he was one of them now. She had seen the creature in the shadow of the crypt; it had wrapped a sticky tentacle around her wrist to make her drop the syringe of sedatives. Eliott was becoming a monster. He had managed to talk to her in his Sentinel form. He seemed to be able to control the force that had intruded on him—but for how much longer?

  As she approached St. Marys, she wondered what she would be able to get from Agent Andrews. What was the point of going to question him? She felt like Eliott had sidelined her to protect her. If Andrews had resumed the investigations, he was undoubtedly looking for the children at that very moment. But in Lauren’s eyes, the St. Marys disappearances had become trivial compared to the things she and Eliott had discovered. The translation of the book had revealed unthinkable things to them. Scientific teams supervised by the armed forces were transporting dozens of creatures to an unknown destination. Eliott’s informer Matt had disappeared, and the involvement of FBI officials in this case was reaching incredible proportions. Things were getting out of hand. She had a sick feeling that things would soon get away from them, that Hominum primus was actually much more powerful than the scientists who were studying it. She nearly turned back to the forests to be with Eliott and discover the truth, however horrible it might be. She couldn’t quell the powerful intuition that had taken hold of her—that this threat was spreading far beyond American borders.

  She had no idea how far it was going.

  *

  Holiday Inn, St. Marys: November 12

  Colin Andrews rocked back on his chair in front of his computer, his cell phone in his hand. He had been waiting for a call from Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France for half an hour now. At the same time, he kept his eyes on his computer screen because he was also supposed to receive an email from the Berlin offices.

  For two days, there had been a blackout between Special Agent Fournier and him. Fournier was no longer responding to any of his communications. Until then, the French agent had immediately forwarded him all the information he had been able to gather in the Hohenwald file. His silence was becoming worrisome.
On the European side, this investigation had taken a turn that disturbed him. It was far outside his comfort zone.

  First, they had found the remains of a black witchcraft sacrifice in the cellar of a castle: thirty-four bodies, victims of cannibalism made even worse by torture. Isolde Hohenwald was the posthumous suspect of perpetrating the crimes. The report noted that she had been a member of the Order of the Templars of the East. Interpol had discovered an obscure ore with unknown physical properties in her home. Finally, they had connected her with a network of Ukrainians specializing in human trafficking, which would have supplied her with individuals for her rituals.

  Andrews was a pragmatic guy, like all special agents. He had trouble believing in paranormal phenomena and wasn’t at all interested in the occult. From the beginning, the St. Marys case was already unusual, with its serial child abductions, all in an ordinary small town in Pennsylvania. Andrews was having a hard time with this investigation.

  Something Cooper had said suddenly came to mind.

  It had been during their last telephone conversation on the night a witch metamorphosed into a horrible flesh-eating creature. In his delirium, Cooper had told him about some unusually shaped ruins, where he discovered a mineral with supernatural properties—his word. Interpol had commissioned a German scientific team to analyze a strange ore found in Isolde Hohenwald’s bedroom. That element formed a link between Fournier’s investigation in Germany and the St. Marys case. An ore, Andrews thought, was something very tangible; it could hardly be more concrete. One couldn’t deny a block of stone, even one with unexplained properties. It was solid. He felt an irresistible need to go verify what Cooper had said about the woods. If this mysterious ore really existed there, he would see it with his own eyes.

  Then there were those acts of cannibalism, which were difficult to explain other than by madness. The incidents had occurred in both America and Germany.