The Dark Temple

by The Dark Temple (retail) (epub)

  ‘You’re right, Stefani.’ Harker admitted. ‘But, Adonis, I would love to spend a day with you in the near future, and please let me know eventually what you discover about that beautiful piece of work, would you?’

  ‘Give me your telephone number before you go and you have my word on that,’ he replied. ‘So, Miss Mitchell, it’s down to business now. What is it that I can help you with?’

  Stefani glanced over at Harker who merely tilted his head towards her, expressing a non-verbal wish for her to go first. She cleared her throat and began, ‘Adonis, there is something that you may not be aware of, and in part it’s the reason I’m here.’

  It was obvious that he could sense negative undertones and he now began to look on in earnest. ‘Then, please, tell me. Would you like to take a seat?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she replied and with renewed resolve she began to explain. ‘Did you know that my father quit his priesthood?’

  Anastas looked unsurprised. ‘Yes, I did – some years ago now.’

  ‘OK,’ she continued, giving no hint that for her this discovery was recent news. ‘Well, yesterday… no a couple of days ago now,’ she corrected after glancing down at her watch, ‘he died.’

  The shock on Anastas’s face seemed genuine and he moved closer to her and took her hand. ‘Oh, Stefani, I am so sorry… How did it happen?’

  ‘He was shot by the police.’

  ‘What? Surely not, for he was one of the gentlest people I ever knew.’

  ‘I know. It’s come as a great shock to us all.’

  ‘Why?’ Anastas continued to look perplexed. ‘How?’

  She was now becoming noticeably agitated and it was at this point Harker decided to enter the conversation. ‘The circumstances are slightly murky but it would appear that Father Davies had been in the process of performing an exorcism and whilst doing so he became possessed himself.’

  The moment Harker mentioned the word ‘exorcism’, Anastas’s eyes began to widen and he pulled his hand away from Stefani’s. His expression was not so much one of bewilderment but of realisation. ‘What happened?’

  There was no easy way to explain, so Harker just said it. ‘He murdered and… mutilated the apparently possessed boy, along with the child’s mother and then was shot dead by an arriving police officer.’

  Anastas’s breathing began to quicken and he pretty much staggered back to one of the nearby desks and slumped against it. ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered, his lips quivering with every syllable, then looked uneasily towards the desk positioned at the far end of the room.

  ‘Adonis, I know that he contacted you just before it happened,’ Stefani interrupted as Anastas continued to stare over at that same desk. ‘What did he say? What is it you know?’

  It seemed like an eternity before he turned back to face them, but now his complexion had grown pale and sweat was forming on his brow. ‘You didn’t realise that he had left the Church, did you?’

  The man’s question was directed towards Stefani, and she stiffened awkwardly before shaking her head. ‘I just found out a few hours ago.’

  ‘Then you don’t know what he’s been doing, do you?’

  She said nothing, but once again shook her head slowly.

  ‘I first met your father about five years ago at a charity dinner in Rome held for underprivileged children. The museum was part of a programme that allowed such children from all over the EU to visit Italy and Greece, to experience different cultures etc. It was the usual type of EU project aimed at trying to create a unified European identity. Your father and I got talking and I discovered he had a fascination with Greek mythology. Anyway we got on very well, so I invited him here to the museum and our friendship began to take off from there. We got in touch with each other a couple of times a year, then one day he just turned up and told me how he’d quit the church and wanted to follow another path.’

  ‘Did he explain why?’ Harker asked.

  ‘Not in so many words. It clearly wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking about but I always got the impression he had experienced – or maybe realised – something that was incompatible with his role within the Church. What I did notice, though, was that he became fascinated with the concept of good and evil, not just in a spiritual sense but rather in a real physical, tangible way. It was quite odd, really, but I believed he was only trying to figure out what lay beyond religion – and reality itself.’

  ‘Reality?’ Stefani was now looking as confused as Harker.

  Anastas took a deep breath and glanced over again at the same desk. Harker was about to ask why when the man began to explain further. ‘It was as if he had come to believe that religion was not so much the final say but rather the outer layer of truths that lay beneath, and he had to know what those truths where. That’s the best way I can put it because he didn’t ramble on, as it were… but it was as if he had developed all these ideas that he believed were linked somehow and it was like he was trying to connect the dots. It was about this time that he started making trips to Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and even the Republic of Congo in central Africa – going there twice if I remember. Then a month ago he turned up and told me this story that had me thinking he should maybe see a mental-health professional.’

  ‘I could have helped with that,’ Harker said with sincerity – then wishing he hadn’t as Stefani now stared over at him.

  ‘How do you figure that?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘My fiancée works with the criminally insane…’ Harker let the explanation tail off and he glanced towards her gingerly. ‘Not that your father was actually like that but… Sorry, I didn’t mean…’

  ‘It’s OK. I know what you meant.’ Stefani replied with no trace of bitterness. ‘Please, Adonis, continue.’

  Anastas was now also looking sheepish and he scratched the back of his head whilst looking uncomfortable. ‘Your father told me that he had discovered the truth of life and what it meant, and that there were two kingdoms overshadowing ours but that history and all religions had got it all wrong. All topsy-turvy, as he put it. I suggested that his “two kingdoms” were the obvious – Heaven and Hell – but he became extremely agitated when I mentioned it and insisted that was exactly the same mistake religion had always made.’

  ‘I met a young man earlier who also talked about the two kingdoms,’ Harker intervened. ‘Of course that was before he was murdered, and after he had tried to drown me.’

  ‘Was murdered!’ Anastas exclaimed in nothing short of a yell.

  ‘It’s a long story, Adonis,’ Stefani said wanting the conversation to keep moving forward instead of getting caught up on following another tangent.

  Anastas gawped silently at Harker for a few more seconds, then he continued with his strange story. ‘OK, so he told me that deep in the jungles of the Congo he had found something that allowed him “the price of admission” to the one who revealed to him the truth of the real world and the actual nature of our reality.’

  This whole conversation was becoming a little bit funky for Harker’s taste, but on the other side of the room Stefani was staring diligently at the curator with a look of total fascination.

  ‘What did he find and who was the one?’ she asked, her mouth hanging open slightly in anticipation.

  Anastas let slip a small gulp and he motioned towards his desk. ‘What he found is locked securely in my desk drawer, and the one he claimed to have met was… well, he said he met the Devil… in person.’

  Chapter 13

  ‘Look, Stefani, I know I’m being a little bit blunt given that you just lost your father, but someone needs to be the voice of sanity here.’ Harker was almost shouting at the top of his lungs.

  Anastas began waving his hands defiantly. ‘Hold on there, Professor. Don’t forget that you came to me looking for answers. If anyone’s being the voice of reason here, it’s me. I was doing just fine until you turned up, getting all crazy.’

  ‘Crazy! You’re the one telling us that Stefani’s father m
et with the Devil,’ Harker yelled back. ‘And what happened to you calling me Alex and saying what a treat it is to have me here?’

  ‘That was before you called me a… what did you say? A whack job! How dare you insult me in my own place of work.’ A dark rosy flush had now returned to Anastas’s cheeks and he was still showing no sign of calming down.

  ‘I didn’t call you a whack job, you fool. I said that what you’re saying is completely whacky, and that’s not what a daughter who just lost her parent needs to hear.’

  Anastas’s temper finally began to cool on realising the mistake he had made, and Harker grasped this opportunity to return his attention back to Stefani.

  ‘Please, listen to me for a moment, Stefani. What seems more likely? That your father managed to conjure up the Devil, who bestowed upon him the secrets of life, or that sadly he had developed serious mental problems, travelled into the African jungle and, hey who knows, maybe he got stoned on some of the local peyote and had a crazy psychedelic trip.’

  ‘Enough, both of you,’ Stefani snapped, and then she pointed over to the desk that Anastas had seemed fixated on earlier. ‘You said my father gave you something?’

  Anastas glanced over at it too, and nodded. ‘That is correct, and he asked me to keep it safe for him.’

  ‘And are you aware it’s now glowing?’

  From Harker’s perspective, directly underneath the ceiling light, it was difficult to tell if that was true and so he reached over to the light switch next to him, clicked it off and finally saw what the others in the room had already noticed.

  From in between the cracks in the desk, could be seen a dark red light pulsating on and off, on and off, like an emergency light.

  ‘What’s causing that?’ Harker asked as both he and Stefani cautiously moved closer.

  ‘It did the same thing just after receiving your father’s last call.’ Anastas explained, gesturing towards the strange anomaly that was spreading red flashes of light across the white walls all around them.

  ‘What is it?’ Stefani asked as all three of them now stood around the desk.

  ‘Take a look for yourself,’ he replied and pulling a key from his pocket and then slowly unlocking the drawer which he then tugged open, bathing all three of them in the same flashing red. The object revealed was around five inches long, oval in shape and transparent as if it was made of quartz or crystal. Its ends were perfectly smoothed and rounded and the red light from it seemed only to be pulsing from the surface itself. The truly strange thing was that inside the object were small dots of light that zipped back and forth, like after someone sneezes heavily and upon reopening their eyes finds numerous little fizzing specks crossing their line of vision. It was a strange thing indeed.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Stefani gasped and she raised her hand towards the object, but Anastas grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Be careful. It’s got some unusual properties,’ he warned, then slowly moved her hand closer to it with her index finger still outstretched.

  A thin blue electrical charge leapt out from the object and connected with Stefani’s fingertip, and she pulled it away in fright.

  ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt,’ Anastas declared firmly, and Harker now moved his own hand towards it. Once again, a thin blue line of flickering electricity leapt up towards the tip of his finger and, despite the urge to pull away, he held it there as it licked the end of his finger like an electric bolt from a tesla coil. But instead of feeling pain, Harker felt no more than a tickling sensation.

  Feeling more confident now, he moved his hand even closer and the blue charge now separated into two bolts, one still concentrated on his finger and the other one moving across his open palm. ‘That’s amazing,’ he said, transfixed by the sight. Then the bolts suddenly disappeared and the pulsating red light cut out completely, plunging them into darkness

  ‘What happened?’ Stefani asked as she watched the silhouette of Anastas making his way to the light switch on the wall to click it back on. The ceiling lights again burst into life and Harker and Stefani found themselves staring at each other blankly.

  Anastas returned and stood beside them. ‘Like I said, it did exactly the same thing soon after the last call I received from your father, and it stayed on only for a few minutes – exactly as it did just now.’

  ‘What’s its purpose?’ Harker asked, clenching his fist shut, then opening it as the tingling began to disperse.

  ‘I have no idea, but take a look at this.’

  Anastas picked up the object itself and turned it over to reveal a cluster of engravings on its surface, running in a circle around one single larger symbol. The outermost circle was made up of identical symbols with which Harker was becoming ever more familiar, and he ran his finger around them.

  ‘Swastikas,’ he decided, counting them in a whisper. ‘Fifteen of them circling around this other one in the middle but I don’t recognise it.’

  The central symbol was simple in its design and consisted of just two circles overlapping each other like a Venn diagram producing an oval where they crossed and inside that sat a six-pointed star which had been etched directly in the centre.

  ‘That’s a pentagram – the symbol of Satanism,’ Stefani suggested, as Harker studied the strange object closer.

  ‘No, it’s not, since a pentagram has five points,’ Harker corrected, ‘and this star has six points. It’s the star of David, the symbol for man.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Anastas said, now offering the object to Harker. ‘Here, take it.’

  At first Harker pulled away from the weird artefact being presented, then he blew caution to the wind and took it from Anastas’s hand. The object was light but it crackled under the touch, as if a light electric charge fizzed across its surface, and he even laughed at the tickling feeling on the palm of his hand.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this as soon as we arrived?’ Stefani asked, with her eyes still fixed on it.

  ‘Because it belonged to your father and you’d only just told me that he passed away. It was strictly his business,’ Anastas replied, ‘but whatever that thing is you’re now welcome to it.’

  This offer drew Harker’s attention straight away and he looked at their host with surprise. ‘You don’t really think this is somehow evil, do you? You’re an archaeologist after all, supposedly a man of science and reason.’

  ‘That may be so but, given that thing’s back-story and the fact that it pulsated in just the same way before her father went… crazy, I’m happy to leave it as a mystery, thank you very much.’

  Harker was dumbfounded at this response. He didn’t believe for a second that the artefact was in any way devil-related, but it was certainly worth further investigation.

  ‘Why do you think it started glowing again just then?’ Stefani asked, seemingly more curious than annoyed at her father having been just called crazy.

  ‘Maybe it’s a signal that it’s time for you both to leave and take that blessed thing with you,’ Anastas replied politely, still obviously extremely wary of the item. ‘Consider it now yours in the spirit of our newly established relationship, Alex.’ He thrust his hand forward and offered it to Harker. ‘I somehow have a feeling that this is the beginning of a great friendship.’

  A loud smashing sound erupted behind them and Anastas’s whole body went rigid before he looked down at a small patch of blood that had suddenly appeared in the middle of his chest, soon spreading outwards like red ink spilled on blotting paper.

  Harker spun around to see a hole in the window surrounded by cracks. ‘Get down,’ he yelled just before he leapt over and pulled Stefani to the ground, even as another bullet struck Anastas in exactly in the same spot and this time dropped him to the floor in a heap.

  ‘Anastas!’ Stefani yelled but got no response from the curator’s glazed eyes which stared up at her as he remained motionless.

  A burst of automatic gunfire now strafed across the windows sending glass shattering all around them. They la
y huddled together until it finally stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Before Harker knew what was going on, Stefani had crawled across the broken glass, making minimal sound, then stood up to lean against the edge of the window. She reached inside her leather jacket and produced a black Walther P99 compact handgun, which she held up to one corner of the frame. ‘Get over here,’ she hissed quietly, and Harker carefully made his own way over the jagged shards of glass on all fours and reached her just as she poked her head quickly around the window’s edge to steal a peek.

  A second barrage shattered the frame and sent a thick chunk of plasterboard hurtling across the room. Stefani pushed Harker along with herself, backwards towards the doorway as further bullet holes exploded along the wall towards them. Without needing further prompting, Harker flung open the office door and the two of them threw themselves onto the cold marble-tiled floor outside as the final shot ricocheted off the wall and embedded itself deep in an ancient statue of a beautiful woman with braided hair.

  ‘Jesus,’ Harker gasped before checking the transparent object he was holding had not been damaged in the jolt. Once satisfied it was still in perfect condition, he dropped it into his jacket pocket for safe keeping. ‘Why didn’t you shoot back?’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Stefani replied coolly, getting to her feet. ‘That was a Herstal FN SCAR machine-gun, full metal jacket, serious hardware, and besides I’d rather they didn’t know I have a weapon… yet.’

  The Templars trained their members well, so this should not have come as a surprise. ‘Have you got a spare by any chance?’

  ‘Sorry, just the one,’ she replied and Harker began rummaging through his pockets for anything he could use, before finally settling upon the only thing he found.

  ‘It’s better than nothing,’ he whispered as he held up a steel-nib fountain pen.’

  His proposed weapon was met with a dry smile from Stefani, who shook her head and reached down to her ankle to unstrap a black, three-inch, boot knife that she slid over to him across the shiny floor. ‘Now, that’s better than nothing.’