The Secret Chapel (god's lions)

by John Lyman

  Leo studied their situation, his analytical Jesuit training forcing him to weigh all their options. Apparently, only the most powerful demon, Agaliarept, had eyes the color of blood, while the other four demons possessed yellow eyes, making it easier to differentiate between Satan’s grand general and the lesser demons who guarded the tunnels. Five against five-but odds mattered little in a battle with the supernatural.

  “They’re in all the tunnels!” Alon shouted above the din of howling and chanting.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “It’s too late,” Lev told him, “they’re blocking the exits.”

  John grabbed Alon by the shoulders. “The book! We’ve got to get the book.”

  “The book … are you crazy? Those things will probably kill us all before we even touch it.” Alon was beginning to tremble. Even a man built like an oak tree had his limits.

  Leo had to do something. Anything. “Sprinkle the holy water in front of yourselves!” he shouted. Praying in Latin, he held the cross in his outstretched hands and commanded the entities to depart while the others began to pour their holy water around in a circle.

  Suddenly, Satan’s general appeared directly in front of them. He had been there all along, and only the last-minute command to use the holy water had prevented him from entering the circle, or worse, entering one of the team members. The hideous demon glared right into Leo’s eyes before becoming vapor-like and fading from sight.

  The terrifying sight of the malevolent yellow eyes staring out from the black robes of the demons in the tunnels was beginning to unnerve the group. What were they waiting for? In the blink of an eye, the demons disappeared from their hiding places and materialized inside the cavern. The feeling of evil was electric as they flickered and blurred before disappearing once again. The events were becoming more and more chaotic, disorienting the team.

  “Where did they go?” John shouted.

  Leo held his cross high. “They’re still here. Join hands and pray.”

  A strong wind blew over the group as the vibrating hum of thousands of tiny beating wings echoed off the surrounding walls. In an instant, a massive swarm of bright red flying insects filled the cavern and surrounded the team. The insects discovered that they were blocked by the ring of holy water and began circling the group in a maddened frenzy.

  The temperature in the cavern began to rise, causing the holy water to slowly evaporate into steam above the transparent floor. The petrified group could feel the rising heat on their exposed skin as the vapor rose around them, and then, without warning, the insects were on them.

  God’s chosen five screamed and shouted in agony while trying in vain to protect themselves from the savage insects. Leo crossed himself and prayed for salvation. Had God abandoned his chosen ones? Above the sound of the insects and their own screams, they could hear the demons laughing all around them. It was now only a matter of time as the blood flowed from their wounds and their vision began to cloud into blackness.

  Feeling that she was about to lose consciousness, Ariella dropped the rectangular crystal from her hand. It struck the transparent black floor, causing a brilliant light to shoot from within, filling the cavern with the shining image of a gigantic golden sword directly over their heads.

  The insects stopped in midair. They seemed to melt before turning into a foul-smelling dust that drifted onto the floor and over all the surfaces of the cavern. The demons stopped their dreadful laughing and fled to the tunnels.

  Leo shielded his eyes as he looked up at the golden image hovering above them. “Saint Michael’s sword!”

  But Satan’s general and his demons were far from through. The swirling wind enveloped the team again, and the heat became unbearable. The yellow eyes of the four lesser demons could be seen keeping a death watch from a distance inside the tunnels.

  Without warning, a loud crack reverberated throughout the cavern. The floor trembled slightly. Their vision blurred as the minor shake transformed itself into a violent, full-blown earthquake. The five fell to the floor, unable to stand. Chunks of the once-beautiful ceiling began to fall; piece’s of it barely missing the group.

  The ground continued to tremble, causing a large crevice to open up beneath them. The rumbling stopped. All was quiet. They waited. The earth began to rumble again. It grew louder and louder until a geyser of water blasted from a widening fissure in the floor and tons of water gushed into the cavern from somewhere below.

  The sudden earthquake had shattered the onyx-like floor, and Leo could see that the Devil’s Bible was now exposed. The demons in the tunnels shot from their hiding places in an attempt to retrieve their master’s prized possession. With the realization of what was about to happen, Leo staggered to his feet. The demons were about to retrieve the unholy book and take it to another hiding place. He had to act.

  The rest of the team members were in a life-and-death struggle against the elements. The water was rising in the cavern, and they were still weak from the attacks by the insects and the scorching heat. With their strength failing, they saw Father Leo standing in the calm embrace of prayer, his large golden cross clasped tightly to his chest as a cloudy vision appeared before him.

  The demons began to wail and screech. Agaliarept reappeared next to one of the tunnels … cowering from the misty apparition beside Leo. Suddenly, a strange, transparent fire erupted around all of the entities and they began to disappear, one by one. The fierce wind slowly dwindled to a soft breeze, while the circling black cloud above evaporated into nothingness.

  Ariella looked dazed. “What happened?”

  “The earthquake must have fractured an underground aquifer,” Lev answered, bobbing about in the rising water.

  “No, I mean the demons. Why did they leave? Did they take the Devil’s Bible?”

  “I don’t see it,” Lev said.

  Alon shouted to the others and held up his arms. “Look! Our wounds are healing!” They all looked to see the deep bites from the insects miraculously fading away.

  “Father Leo. He blessed the water!” John shouted. “We’re all swimming in holy water.” He looked over at the smiling priest who was still clutching his cross and trying to keep his head above the rushing torrent. The apparition that had appeared next to him was now gone.

  Their relief was shattered when, without warning, thousands of bubbles began to rise around them. The team started to panic as the cool water looked like it was beginning to boil. They held their breath, waiting for the next attack from the demons.

  Leo shoved his head underwater and peered into the depths below. He saw a dark shape rising toward them. Leo strained to focus and braced himself as the blurred object loomed closer. Suddenly, the red book shot from the surface and splashed down into the water beside them.

  “The Devil’s Bible!” they all yelled in unison.

  Without hesitating, Alon reached out and grabbed the book. He swam over to John and threw it into his backpack. They had miraculously succeeded in obtaining Satan’s Bible, but their priority now was escaping from the quickly flooding cavern.

  The water was gushing forth with tremendous force and had already covered the tunnel entrances. Maybe they hadn’t succeeded after all. The walls had lost their glow, requiring the team to switch on their lights. Trying desperately to think of a way out, they continued rising toward the solid top of the dome.

  “Can’t we swim down and out through the tunnel?” Ariella shouted. “It slants upward, away from the cavern, and part of it might be above water.”

  “No way,” Alon answered. “That tunnel is too long … it’s probably totally underwater by now.”

  “I can’t believe God would let us get this far only to let us drown,” John sputtered.

  Leo held the cross out of the water. “Pray everyone.”

  Instantly, the golden image of the sword appeared once again on the ceiling above, followed by a thunderous crack like the one they had heard before. The rising water stopped and quickly b
egan to recede, causing a mist to form with the sudden pressure change within the cavern. The dog-paddling group felt the fractured floor beneath their feet as the last of the water disappeared into the fissures caused by the earthquake.

  They lay on the floor, huddled together in the mist-filled cavern, barely able to make out the openings of the tunnels around them. Everything looked different. Which tunnel should they use?

  Leo shined his light around the walls in an effort to find what he was looking for, but the murky atmosphere within the cavern was making it difficult to see. There! His light flashed across the initials carved into the wall. “That’s the way we came in.” Leo lifted his hand and pointed in the direction of the tunnel.

  The others breathed in before slowly lifting themselves to their feet. Their respite was short-lived when they were seized by horror at what they saw and heard next. The fissures beneath them began to widen with a sound like paper tearing, while the transparent floor of the raised area in the center seemed to liquefy before their eyes into a thick, black substance that flowed out over the cavern floor.

  “Run!” was all Leo could manage to shout. No one hesitated. They ran as fast as they could into the black tunnel they had entered from, slipping in the thin torrent of water that was still draining back into the cavern. More rumbling from below prompted them not to look back as they felt a searing heat behind them. Run! Their lungs were bursting for fresh air, and they knew they couldn’t stop to catch their breath.

  They continued to run through the tunnel as fast as they could and had almost reached the exit when a loud explosion rocked the ground and walls around them, hurling them to the floor.

  A second explosion erupted underground. They looked back to see a yellow wall of flame flowing through the tunnel and heading their way. Lifting themselves up, they made their way forward again before staggering out of the tunnel into the cool air of the open pit. They threw themselves to the ground behind the leaning slab of rock just as the flames shot from the tunnel mouth and curled around the huge stone.

  Crawling, they retreated to the farthest corner of the open cavern while flames and smoke belched from the fiery opening. A loud roar that mimicked the death throes of an exploding volcano could be heard from deep inside the earth. The noise was deafening, and the acrid smell of the fire was making them all choke. It was becoming impossible to take in a full breath of air.

  Alon withdrew a grappling hook with a rope attached from his backpack and threw it over the edge of the pit onto the loose sand of the desert floor above. He gave the rope a mighty tug and the hook came flying back down on top of them, almost hitting Leo in the head.

  Without waiting, Alon picked it up and threw it back up over the edge. The others now backed away as he once again pulled on the rope.

  “It’s holding!” Alon tightened the straps on his gloves and began climbing hand over hand until he reached the top and heaved himself over the edge. Looking down at the others, he wrapped the rope behind his back and yelled for Ariella to grab on. The flames were now shooting wildly from the entrance of the tunnel. The heat was becoming unbearable as the confines of the pit transformed it into an oven.

  Alon pulled with all of his strength while Ariella inched upward using both hands and feet until she reached the top. Grabbing her by the hand, Alon flung her over the edge onto the sand. On the cavern floor below, the others began shouting out in pain. They were roasting alive.

  A new noise filled their ears as a bright light flooded the area from above. They all looked up, shielding their eyes from the dust, smoke, heat, and light. Over the rumble of the ground beneath them, they could make out the sound of something familiar. It was a helicopter.

  Alon watched with exhausted relief as a webbed canvas rescue net came flinging out of the door of the Blackhawk and landed in the cavern below. The wash from the rotor blades beat the smoke back and stirred up the sand as the three men shielded themselves from the flames and felt for the webbed net. Ariella and Alon could hear the shouts from below and feel the heat radiating from the cavern as they groped for their goggles in the swirling sand and peered over the edge into the inferno.

  In the fiery glow, they could plainly see the rescue net with the three men clinging to its webbing. It floated upward behind the helicopter that was now powering away from the flames engulfing the entire cavern. Ariella fell to her knees and began to weep, deep sobs coursing through her body. Alon picked her up and carried her away from the edge of the glowing pit into the cool desert air.

  The Blackhawk flew low, swinging in an arc over the moonlit desert to where Alon and Ariella had taken refuge on a small hilltop several hundred yards away from the flaming cavern. The helicopter’s searchlight illuminated the area as Nava lowered the rescue net holding the three men to the ground before tilting away and circling back for a bouncy landing at the base of the hill.

  Leo, Lev, and John lay in the sand as the hazy white light from the full moon, combined with the yellow light of the fire in the distance, created a surreal pattern of flickering color around them. They were a little red from the heat, but no burns were visible as Alon and Ariella rushed to their sides and began pouring what little water they had over their bodies in an effort to cool them as much as possible.

  They raised themselves up on their elbows and gulped in the cool air of the desert night with the knowledge that the sudden arrival of the helicopter had saved them from being burned alive in the radiant heat inside the cavern.

  Ariella laid her water bag down and held her father close, feeling his pounding heart through his shirt. He patted her on the head and stroked her hair. “I’m alright, little one. That water felt good. Thank you, dear.”

  “That was quite a ride,” John said. He rose to his feet and shook the water from his hair. “Thank God for the chopper. Another thirty seconds down there and we wouldn’t be standing here now.”

  Alon looked down at his wrist and saw that his watch had been ripped off by the insects. “What time is it?”

  “It’s after midnight,” John answered. They turned to see Moshe, Daniel, and the paramedic walking up the incline to the top of the hill. The medic began checking everyone for injuries they might not have noticed in their adrenalin-fueled escape from the cavern. He had once been a combat medic in the same army medical unit with Ariella, and they had both seen fellow soldiers fail to detect severe wounds in the heat of battle.

  Leo led the group in a short prayer before they scanned their surroundings. The moon was so bright they had no trouble discerning their deserted camp in the distance. The immediate threat had passed, but they all sensed the presence of the entities somewhere out there around them.

  Moshe reached down and grabbed Lev by the arm, lifting him to his feet. The two old friends looked at one another as they had many times in the past after a battle. They had been together during the six-day war in 1967, rushing headlong into the old part of Jerusalem when the Israeli army captured that part of the city and took control away from the Arabs. It had remained under their control ever since.

  Lev looked down at his watch and eyed his old friend. “If my watch is right, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. You should have been out of the area at midnight.”

  “We got lost,” Moshe winked. “We thought we were headed for Jerusalem.”

  John reached in his backpack and held the book up for all to see. “I think we need to get this thing out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Is that what we came for?” Moshe asked.

  “Yes,” Leo said, taking the book from John. He paused for a moment, knowing the effect his next words would have on those who had yet to learn the nature of the object. “It’s the Devil’s Bible.”

  Moshe and Daniel stood motionless, unable to speak. The words were incomprehensible to them. Daniel thought he had misunderstood. “The Devil’s Bible?”

  Leo looked down at the book. “Yes. We’re taking it back to the villa … John’s right …we need to get out of here
as soon as possible.”

  Moshe and Daniel remained frozen in shock while Leo shoved the book into the backpack and handed it back to John.

  “Let’s go,” Lev said. “Grab your gear, and let’s head down to the helicopter.”

  Nava and Gabriella had stayed with the chopper. They were coordinating with other forces in the area by radio when they saw the group descending the hill toward the aircraft. Gabriella began sniffling from her copilot’s seat.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Nava asked.

  “I didn’t think we would ever see them again.”

  Nava looked back out her window and saw the pale, drawn looks of the faces of those who had just escaped from the cavern. “Oh, my God. They’re in shock.”

  Without waiting, she began firing up the engines.

  Ariella climbed onboard and began strapping herself into her seat. “I’m freezing.”

  “Me too,” John said. “Just like the first time when we encountered the demon.”

  The members from the support team began to cover the five shaken survivors with warm blankets and shoved cups of hot coffee into their hands. With everyone inside, the engines throttled up to a crescendo and soon the aircraft was flying over the bright desert floor under the moonlit sky.

  The helicopter was barely in the air when a dazzling light signaled a massive explosion that rippled across the ground below them. The desert above Satan’s underground cathedral erupted in tall, shooting flame.

  The flames they saw were not the same flickering yellow ones they had seen pouring from the tunnel. Instead, a straight tower of blue and white fire was seen rising out of the ground. It resembled a twenty-story blow torch reaching toward the sky.