by S. L. Duncan
The Greeks arrived nearly two hundred years before the Common Era and claimed the sacred site for their own, in an effort to replace their fallen Athens. Here they built on top of these hallowed grounds a temple to their false god Zeus as testament to western supremacy over the Asian continent.
The Altar of Zeus. She couldn’t help but feel the twinge of sadness for the shrine to the fallen god. Deep inside, a part of her remembered what it was like to put so much faith in a god that did not exist. Zeus had been mighty in the eyes of those who loved him, and even he had fallen into ruin.
She imagined the entire creation erected there in front of her. Nearly four hundred feet wide, the horseshoe-shaped structure would have made for an impressive monument at this site.
Its Greek columns would have reached into the sky, built on top of a carved frieze that surrounded the entirety of the altar and depicted a battle between giants and the gods. A large, white staircase led to the altar’s podium.
The ruins that remained were now strewn across the hill, evidence of the ravaging owners of history.
It was the earth below, where the true Altar of Pergamon rested, that interested Lilith the most.
There was a line she fancied, from Revelation in Constantine’s book: “In Pergamos, where Satan’s Throne is.”
The line had been interpreted by scholars as a commentary on Rome’s corrupt power, but Lilith couldn’t help but smile. How close they came to discovering the truth. How close they came to Mastema’s treasure.
She looked at the earth, refocusing on what she came here to do, and took position at the base of the ruins. Every ounce of strength would be required to retrieve her prize.
Closing her eyes, she called to the darkness. Her voice echoed upon itself, both whispering and crying out, words on top of words.
Ambient light struggled against her power. The stars faded into the endless sky.
Shadows grew strong on the ground, moving to overcome the light from the nearby town. Electric street lamps, which had been placed to highlight what little beauty was left of the Greek’s artistry, exploded as the shadows consumed them.
The ground shook under the strength of Lilith’s will. Dark now covered the area.
She moved the shadows, controlling them with little effort. They flooded the ground like water until they found the Pergamon Altar.
The shadows burrowed into the land, pushing away rock and soil. Debris spewed from the hellish excavation, sending dirt and stone hurtling into the air.
Giant boulders in the ground fractured and separated. Lilith used her shadows to move the earth around the focal point of the Altar. Dirt flowed to the surface like lava. Giant plates of rock and soil separated from each other, forming a gulf. A deep trench opened in front of her, shadows pushing its walls apart while cutting a deep wound into the land.
Drained, she pulled her power back. The shadows kept their strength, forming a curtain of darkness and silence around the altar.
Lilith walked down the new path in the earth. The walls around her grew high as she descended into the pit.
She called again on her powers, igniting a red flame in her palm, which she held like a torch. The light flickered against the exposed marble and dirt.
Below the site where the Altar of Zeus once stood, evidence of another altar became visible. Ancient and eroded, this altar was from a time long before the Greeks’ effort. Demonic runes and symbols of hate had been etched into some of the structure.
At last, Lilith found her treasure. Half-covered in soil and dirt, a solid marble vase nearly the size of a man sat on a carved slab of rock. Words of a language no longer spoken had been etched into the vase, warning anyone who ventured to open it of its contents. They were welcome words, in her eyes.
The vase was familiar to Lilith. Its sister, also carved from a solid piece of marble, sat inside the St. Sophia in Istanbul, adjacent to the future palace of Simon Magus.
Carefully, she removed the lid and placed it on the ground.
“Thank you, my dear Enoch,” she said to herself.
The treasures the vase held nearly took her breath away in anticipation of what they would bring. Inside she discovered seven small vials, each made from a crude, ancient glass and sealed upon creation. The contents of the vials moved at her touch, some like oil, some like smoke. There were no tops or separate stoppers. Only single cylindrical vials, solid in construction like the shells of eggs, sealed and waiting to be broken open when the right time came.
Lilith collected all seven and began the climb out.
They were cold to the touch, the glass still strong, and the contents sloshed inside: contents key to a new kingdom. A kingdom that had been wrongfully denied for millennia.
Soon, she would have justice.
At the foot of where the Altar had been, shadow flowed out of the hole dug into the earth like rivers of smoke, snaking into the air. Lilith emerged, holding something.
Atop the hill, the soldier looked back at his platoon, just hidden beyond the next rise. There was little commotion from them, and he guessed they were still safely oblivious to the demon. For reassurance, his fingers traced the raised cross on the Templar medallion he kept beneath his shirt on a chain around his neck.
He looked closer as the woman placed her prize in a leather pouch.
She did this seven times, and the soldier felt ice fill his veins. The horror of what he was witnessing caused a moment’s hesitation. He managed a breath and refocused.
You have a job. Do it.
He reached into his pocket and removed a mobile phone, dialing quickly. On the other end, someone answered.
“She has found them, General,” he said. “All seven. I will do what must be done.”
The soldier hung up the phone and shuffled back from his vantage point. Rock and gravel slid under him, the sound not enough to give him away.
Under the darkness, he would have little difficulty getting back to his squad. He slipped down the hill, staying low. The helicopter’s blades were idle, the starboard light of the tail now visible and casting a pale green light over the path ahead.
A breeze picked up as he quietly moved toward the landing site, and the green light faded into a shadow, like a star disappearing behind the clouds.
Ahead, the port-side light of the helicopter was now visible as he circled, the red light appearing from the darkness where the starboard green had been. As he wondered how the helicopter would have turned around without being operational, a sound distracted him.
Behind him came the clatter of teeth and a hiss.
The red light separated, becoming two. Then four. Burning red eyes blinked all around him, agitated, and moved in like a pack of wolves on a kill.
Without a thought, the soldier removed a device and his mobile phone from his pocket, connecting the two with a small cord attached to the plastic explosive. He fell to his knees and prayed.
The hissing and chattering became a growling horde as the shadow demons rushed across the ground toward him. The soldier turned on his cell phone and said, “By the Shield, you will not have me, and you will not have this realm.”
He placed the device to his head, pressed the button on the screen, and saw but a fraction of light before the darkness pulled him from the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
From the window of the helicopter, Gabe watched the huge tanker ships steaming in and out of the Dardanelles Strait. Their white wakes trailing behind told him which direction they were sailing. According to one of Alois’s unsolicited factoids, the body of water below was the long and narrow shipping lane that separated the Aegean Sea from the Sea of Marmara. Gabe wondered if Alois had missed his calling in life as an obnoxious tour guide.
Below, the deep blue met a rocky and sparse shoreline. Whitecaps crashed against the tall cliffs of the western tip of Turkey.
His helicopter slipped east into the morning sun, following the flight convoy of the other helicopters that led the way. They flew low a
nd fast, flanked by an escort of gunships. The scenery flashed by in shades of sparse green, yellow, and brown. An unforgiving topography of hills of jagged rock and stone jutted from the ground, forming what looked to be a very inhospitable landscape.
Despite the rough terrain, villages and towns lined the coast.
Soon, the sea was far behind the helicopters, and for the longest time, nothing but sprawling land passed underneath them in increasingly dry hues of green, until another body of water came into view. It looked big enough to be called a sea, and in the far distance, the shore tucked into a line of hills.
Alois pointed to the water below. “Gölü Iznik,” he said. “It is a lake. Lake Iznik.”
It was one of the first points of interest that Gabe thought was, in fact, interesting.
The helicopter slowed, its nose tipping to the sky, and assumed a hovering position at the northeasternmost point of Lake Iznik. Turbulence from the blades shook the aircraft gently as they waited for their turn to land.
Outside the window, a building caught the sun as the aircraft began its descent. It was large and circular and domed, like a mushroom rising from the ground. The building was situated at the end of a long highway that paralleled the lakeshore, the large structure isolated and in stark contrast to the nearby city’s buildings. One by one, the helicopter descended toward its helipad.
“That is the Nicene Facility,” Alois said.
“It looks like a space station.”
“In a way, it is. You will like it, no?”
The wind picked up on the ground, scattering dust and debris into the air as Gabe’s helicopter touched down. His father waited on the landing pad, shielding his eyes. The armed platoon jumped out of the aircraft and formed two flanking walls, scanning the surroundings with their guns raised.
Micah stood next to Gabe’s father and her bag, trying desperately to wrangle control of her hair as it whipped around in the churning air. Her own Swiss Guard had formed a protective perimeter around the waiting area.
Unlike within the walled confines of Vatican City, Gabe felt exposed and defenseless. The facility was several hundred yards away, and standing in the open on the tarmac didn’t seem like a very intelligent thing to do. His father looked at the horizon, following the soldiers’ weapons as they moved back and forth, scanning the hill line through their high-powered scopes on Alois’s orders. The expression on Gabe’s father’s face seemed to validate his feelings. A nagging feeling kept telling him it was a mistake to be in Iznik.
He dropped his bag next to Micah’s sword case. “Where is everybody else? And Afarôt, where is he?”
She shrugged. “All these years on this planet, and you’d think he would have developed better social skills. Can you imagine how awkward he was when he first got here?”
“Most delegates will be here already,” Gabe’s father said over the sound of the departing helicopters. “But we should expect a steady stream of arrivals through the evening. Afarôt’s agenda will be separate from ours for today.”
Micah gave Gabe a knowing look as they waited.
A moment passed. A minute turned to several as they stood in silence, waiting.
“Just so you know, there’s no way I’m walking,” Micah said.
“You sure they’re expecting us?” Gabe asked.
His father cleared his throat and shifted. He stared at the distant facility, his eyes narrowing. “There. See?”
Down the road, a convoy of electric vehicles like golf carts on steroids appeared, making their way from the facility’s entrance.
There were enough vehicles to carry the lot of them, but one stood out as it approached. Driving the first car was a woman. Her black ponytail swished back and forth behind her in the wind. She parked the electric car, the back tires skidding to a stop, and exited from behind the steering wheel, all in one motion, tightening her ponytail as she walked toward Gabe’s father.
Gabe knew her identity before he even saw her face.
His father let out a long sigh and cursed under his breath. It seemed to be taking every ounce of his British stiff upper lip to keep his emotions in check, and though no one else seemed to notice, Gabe sensed his struggle in his uncomfortable stance and the sudden confusion over what to do with his hands. Awkwardly, he switched back and forth from sticking them in his pockets to folding his arms.
The approaching woman looked exactly as she did in the picture that hung on the wall of Carlyle’s flat in Durham, though she seemed to have given up the sandals and flowery, flowing dresses in favor of heels and a sharp business suit.
The genesis of a love lost is a love gained, he recalled from Carlyle’s riddle. His father’s love lost was now walking right toward them.
“Hello, Aseneth,” Gabe’s father said. His hands went to his pockets. The rear ones, this time.
“Joseph Adam,” she said in an accent that suggested she had studied English somewhere in Britain. “Looks like you’ve come full circle back to Iznik.” She nodded to the bags, all business. “Is this all you have?”
Gabe’s father looked at the luggage at their feet. “It is. We’re traveling light, thankfully.”
“If a small army is what you call light,” Aseneth said, looking at the two platoons. “Put their bags on the cars,” she said to one of the drivers and turned back to her small vehicle. “Take them to the facility.”
Aseneth stepped into her vehicle, spun the car around, and sped back toward the facility.
“Well, that was weird. She doesn’t exactly look thrilled to see you,” Gabe said.
“No,” his father said and chewed on his lower lip. “I suppose she isn’t. Right. Shall we, then?”
Gabe got in one of the electric vehicles.
Micah slid in next to him, her eyes betraying mild amusement. “Was that drama I detected?” she whispered.
“Very observant.”
“You’re going to tell me what this is all about later. All the juicy details. Every. Last. One.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Inside, the Nicene Facility looked like something out of science fiction. Everything in polished, glistening white marble and chrome. Gabe caught his sickly reflection in everything.
“It was originally a social experiment,” his father said as they followed the porters and their bags. “Sort of a way to mend antagonistic relationships between God-fearing religions through the use of science and archeology.”
A UN for theology majors, Gabe thought.
“Of course, that was what it looked like on the surface. And for a while, that was the truth. Eventually, it became merely a cover for its actual purpose,” Gabe’s father said, looking up at the atrium entrance. “When you two were born, it was repurposed. The Nicene Facility was where most of the different religions sent their brightest to conduct research and preparations for the apocalypse. Deep underground labs and libraries provided the base of these operations, hidden from the rest of the world. We funded it through the Vatican treasury. Or, I should say, Carlyle did. My role was more advisory.”
Gabe felt as though he had walked into the future. He half expected to see a robot offer something to drink.
Parts of the enormous domed building opened to endless space, while others were tightly packed corridors filled with LED lighting. Every door, every light panel was digitized and computerized.
His father took them to the forum, where the Council of Nicaea was to actually take place. It reminded him of images of the Senate or Congress he had seen on television back in the States. Every chair was designated by a small plaque marked with the country’s delegate who sat there.
The thing that stood out above all was the lack of windows anywhere other than the atrium. All light was artificial. Not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the building. And for that matter, also absent were plants. Some of the more modern pieces of art from different religious cultures populated much of the facility. The abstract paintings and contemporary sculptures differed wildly from the Vatican�
�s décor.
It was a very odd place, wanting to be so many things at once. Everything was curved and flowing. And everything, even much of the art, was hospital white with brushed-metal accents.
His father led them down several hallways until they reached another atrium, this one artificially lit and lined by room after room, like a hotel.
On the first level, the porter dropped their bags between two doors.
His room looked nothing like the one he left behind in Vatican City. The Holy See had a much more luxurious interpretation of comfort. What the facility provided, however, was more in line with what he had back at the University of Durham. Functional with a side of even more functional.
Without a window, the room looked as if it had been built for an insane asylum.
That’s about right, he thought.
Thankfully, Micah was just next door, so he wouldn’t have to go far to escape the monotony of the four plain walls. His father was on the same floor, on the other side. Gabe assumed that Afarôt’s room was somewhere nearby, but he might not have had a room anywhere. He reminded himself to ask Afarôt if he ever slept.
It would be one of many outstanding questions he had for the Healer of God.
Leaving the door open, Gabe threw his bag in the corner and proceeded to quickly empty its contents by throwing his clothes on his bed and on the chair in the corner. Once his room had been adequately disheveled, he surveyed his effort.
From the corner of the room by his bed, he heard a noise.
It sounded like a whistle but distant and different from the normal ringing in his ears. This was almost metallic, industrial, warping the other sounds of the facility.
From another room, maybe.
He jumped onto his bed and pressed his ear to the wall. The sound wasn’t louder or closer. Pulling his head away, he still heard it, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint where it was coming from.