End of Days, page 11
‘But they’ll track us!’ exclaimed Alex.
‘No.’ General Assad’s voice was firm. ‘We’ll be flying under their radar, using one of our military planes. The flight path is already approved. Where are the others?’
‘Packing, General,’ answered Jason.
Sarge and General Assad stood in the hallway. ‘Hurry. We evacuate now,’ said Assad softly.
‘You’re going nowhere.’ Sarge lifted his C8 carbine and pointed it at General Assad. Assad reached for his revolver. Sarge shot him point-blank in the head.
He dropped to the floor like a stone. Dead.
Lily started to scream.
Alex held her to him. ‘Be quiet, Lily,’ he whispered. Jason reached for his revolver.
Sarge grabbed Lily and held the gun to her head. ‘Put your weapon down, Mr De Vere.’
Slowly, Jason laid the revolver on the floor.
‘I only want him.’ Sarge waved the gun toward Jason. ‘He’s got the bounty on his head. We’re only here for the money.’ He released Lily.
A posse of Special Forces militia, dressed in black, knocked the door flat, surrounding Jason.
‘Daddy!’ Lily screamed. ‘Da-a-a-ad!’
Jason looked back at Lily and Alex.
‘Look after her, Alex.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Alex answered, trembling in shock.
Sarge rammed the carbine into Jason’s forehead. Blood gushed from the gash in his temple.
‘Dad!’ Lily screamed.
Alex placed his hand over her mouth and dragged her behind the sofa, as a mercenary injected a substance into Jason’s neck, roughly placed a black bag over his head and handcuffed him.
Jason collapsed.
The black militia soldiers hauled him out of the flat, leaving Lily sobbing in Alex’s arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Las Vegas
Lawrence St Cartier walked through the hotel casinos and held out his ticket for the Cirque du Soleil.
‘The Right Honourable Grand Vizier Von Slagel is expecting you, sir.’
He was ushered respectfully through the crowds to seats in the very front of the theatre. He would recognize that flamboyant hat anywhere.
Charsoc, otherwise known as Kester Von Slagel, was sitting, rifling through a bag of merchandise, his carpetbag at his feet, his multitude of vermillion rings glittering in the low light.
Lawrence sighed, then cleared his throat loudly. Charsoc looked up.
There was a hiss from behind. ‘Take off your bloody hat.’
Charsoc turned and gave the British tourist a killing stare.
‘Ah, Jether, long time no see, as they say in the less educated parts of this stinking planet.’
He looked Jether up and down languidly.
‘You are quite the worse for wear, it would seem.’
Jether remained impassive.
‘Do you think you could clear your popcorn and other frippery off my seat?’
‘Tut-tut, tetchy, tetchy.’
Charsoc gingerly removed a large bag of popcorn, five chocolate bars, and a pile of glittering merchandise off the seat beside him.
Jether sat down heavily.
‘Las Vegas,’ he muttered. ‘Only you would see fit to have our first meeting of the aeon in Las Vegas.’
‘Cirque du Soleil,’ Charsoc replied, his mouth full of popcorn. ‘The arts, Las Vegas, entertainment capital of the world. You know how very partial I am to the arts.’
He gingerly offered a half-eaten Hershey bar in Jether’s direction.
Jether shuddered in distaste. Charsoc shrugged.
Jether studied Charsoc’s attire.
‘Grand vizier? Part of the show?’
‘Very amusing, I am sure.’ He stretched. ‘But yes, you are correct. I feel most at home here.’ Charsoc stretched his legs out in front of him, his golden-tasselled slippers in full view.
‘Your agenda?’
‘Agenda, agenda. Is it imperative we have an agenda? Can we not just be two old compatriots meeting to catch up socially?’ Charsoc took out his mobile blood-pressure cuff and proceeded to roll up his shocking-pink sleeve.
Jether rolled his eyes. ‘Your blood pressure can wait. I am pressed for time. We are fully aware of all your master’s dastardly plans concerning Adrian De Vere’s resurrection.’
Charsoc grimaced. ‘Gabriel’s snivelling little spies have been doing overtime, I see. Our pay is so much better. Maybe there are yet others who will defect.’
Jether heaved a sigh of boredom.
‘Those days are long gone, Charsoc. Your master’s malevolent agenda is laid bare for all to see. Now, to business.’
‘What is it you want from me, Jether?’ Charsoc snapped.
He studied his reflection approvingly in a pale-pink Ted Baker mirror from his cell phone.
‘Pale pink?’ Jether remarked.
Charsoc snapped the cell phone shut in irritation. ‘I have developed rather an obsessive penchant for pink since I arrived in this world. It soothes my soul.’
‘Your soul obviously requires a vast amount of soothing.’ Jether studied Charsoc’s outfit, from the pale-pink kid gloves to the shocking pink underdress and vermillion velvet robe.
‘Eccentric.’
‘Eclectic is the word in the fashion industry. Not that you would have any glimmer of comprehension. Your attire is consistently, remarkably bland, Jether. Beige.’ Charsoc wrinkled his nose in distaste.
‘Be that as it may, Charsoc, we have business to discuss. It is thirty-nine moons. Your master was given an ultimatum: desist in his chimeras within the next forty moons, or he will be banished from the First and Second Heavens for eternity.’
Charsoc grimaced, and fished with his long fingers in his carpetbag. He took out a sealed missive and grudgingly placed it in Jether’s grasp. ‘My master’s answer.’
‘Your master’s demise draws nearer, Charsoc. And yours with it, may I add. I don’t imagine there is much pale pink in the Lake of Fire.’
‘We will fight you to the very end, Jether,’ Charsoc snarled, choking on his popcorn.
Jether patted him rather too hard on his back, then rose to his feet. ‘It would be a gross stretch of the English language to say it has been a pleasure.’
‘You’ll miss the show.’
‘You will inform Lucifer that your absence from the greatest angelic battle in the history of the aeons was due to the fact you were watching Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas?’
Charsoc scowled. ‘I shall be there. Make no mistake, Jether. And you will be my prize.’
Jether bowed to Charsoc.
And vanished.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Black Site
Undisclosed Location
Israel
Jason pulled on the orange jumpsuit over his knees with difficulty. He winced in agony as he drew it up over his bruised and bloodied ribcage.
His forehead was bruised, the gashes above his eyebrows streamed with blood. He limped across the claustrophobic cell.
There was a slit for a window. Only a hole in the ground, and a bare thin mattress soaked in sewage running from the walls onto the filthy cement floor. The perimeter of the cell was covered in barbed wire.
‘Where am I?’ he rasped.
‘Black site. On the moon.’ The savage-looking soldier with shaved head, in black militia garb, grinned lecherously at him, then placed a blindfold over his eyes and pulled the knot tight until Jason screamed in agony.
He thrust his rifle butt against Jason’s ribcage. Jason collapsed on the stinking wet mattress. The steel doors locked automatically.
Safe House
London
Lily sat curled in a foetal position in the corner of the sofa, trembling uncontrollably, staring at General Assad’s bloodied body sprawled out in the hallway.
Alex looked around the kitchen, grabbed a worn blue-checked dishcloth, ran back into the hallway, placed it over the general’s bloodied head, and then scrabbled frantically through Assad’s pockets.
He looked over to Lily in consternation. ‘Lils, try and get yourself together, please. Got it!’
He held up a cell phone. He scrolled down the numbers.
‘Nothing.’ He raised his hands in frustration.
‘What?’ Lily’s voice trembled, ‘what are you looking for?’
‘Coordinates for our plane. We have to get out of here now.
‘Dylan!’ he shouted across at Weaver, who was hiding behind the sofa with Storm.
‘Weaver, for God’s sake. Get a grip, man! They’re miles away by now.’
He threw the cell phone at Weaver. ‘Make yourself useful.’
‘What,’ mumbled Weaver, ‘are we looking for?’
‘Call the last four numbers.’
‘Dead . . . dead . . . dead.’
Alex swigged down the gin from his hip flask, lit a cigarette, and picked up his X-pad.
‘Maxim!’ he shouted. ‘You can come out now.’
Maxim’s head appeared from under the table. He was shaking.
‘I . . . I removed the bullets in the revolver.’ Maxim held back a sob. ‘To polish them. And now they’ve taken Master Jason.’
Alex raised his face to him. ‘Look after him, Lily, won’t you?
‘Airports. Private airports,’ he muttered. ‘I need to know all airports in a twenty-minute radius. Weaver, get to it.’
Weaver switched his computer on.
All the electricity went off.
Storm screamed.
‘It’s okay,’ Weaver said from the darkness. ‘I’ve got a portable generator. Has anyone got a torch?’
Maxim walked over to Weaver, shining a torch in his own face.
‘Maxim, you look like a ghoul. Could you kindly pass it to me?’
‘Sh-h-h-h,’ whispered Alex. ‘Someone’s outside.’
The lock turned.
‘Why isn’t the alarm working?’ hissed Weaver.
‘Because we disarmed it.’ A soldier wearing night-vision goggles, his head covered with a balaclava, stood in the entrance. ‘Resistance,’ he added quietly. ‘Come with us.’
Weaver nearly choked on the day-old sandwich he was now stuffing into his mouth.
‘How do we know you’re not going to kill us?’
‘You don’t.’
Weaver spat the sandwich out, pale.
‘You either come with us or stay and get caught. They’re ring-fencing the square as we speak.’
‘You.’ He pointed at Alex and repeated. ‘You. Are you Alex Lane-Fox?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get everyone evacuated into the van outside. Immediately.’
The soldier’s voice had an authoritative tone.
‘Lily. Go,’ Alex instructed.
‘They’re going to kill us,’ said Weaver, a wild look in his eyes.
Alex turned to his grandfather and said in Yiddish, ‘Zayde?’
David Weiss spoke to the soldier in Hebrew. The soldier whispered something in Hebrew back to him.
‘No, they’re not,’ David said. ‘They’re Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s special forces unit. It’s okay, Alex.’
‘Weaver, Storm, Maxim – out!’ Alex motioned them through the door.
‘Let’s go,’ the soldier commanded, ‘or we miss our pickup.’
Maxim was hastily gathering a sheaf of architectural papers in his arms.
‘Ahem,’ he said, looking flustered. ‘Blueprints for my Tardis – have a rather pressing appointment.’
He stood up.
‘And I am late.’
And he vanished before their eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lucifer’s Bedchamber
Ice Palace
Perdition
Charsoc the Dark stood outside the soaring black diamond doors of Lucifer’s bedchamber.
He hesitated, his ears attuned to the sounds of an exquisite, haunting melody coming from within.
He nodded to Lucifer’s royal guards. They pushed open the heavy doors, and Charsoc entered, his voluminous canary-yellow night robes swishing across the marbled floors.
The grand casement doors of Lucifer’s bedchamber were flung wide. Hundreds of frankincense tapers burned in iron chandeliers overhead.
Charsoc moved nearer.
Lucifer stood in the shimmering light of the thirty-nine crimson moons, playing his viol, his eyes closed in ecstasy. The exquisite, haunting melody echoed across the murky lava wastelands to the White Dwarf Pinnacles of Perdition.
Lucifer’s face was raised to the heavens. His raven hair, loosed from its diamond braids, fell gleaming over his bare shoulders. He swept the carved horn bow with long, passionate strokes over the strings of his viol, his long, slim fingers moving dexterously across the fingerboard.
He drew a deep breath, then turned to Charsoc.
‘I ordered no disturbances, Charsoc the Dark.’
‘Your Excellency, I have woken from strange and sinister dreamings.’
Lucifer flung the viol down on a magenta couch, strode to his throne on the east side of the chamber, and sat.
‘Jagon,’ he called to the gleaming white ice wolf lying by a raging fire in the monstrous iron hearth.
Jagon rose and slunk across the chamber to his master’s side.
Lucifer picked up sweetmeats from a golden bowl and gently fed them, one by one, to Jagon, who lay at his master’s feet.
‘I have no interest in your strange and sinister dreamings, Charsoc the Dark.’ He gestured to the balcony. ‘The fortieth crimson moon rises on Perdition’s horizon. My victory is assured.’
Charsoc drew nearer.
‘Your Excellency,’ he said, ‘I am a dark seer. The Stones of Fire, I know that they magnetize your soul.’
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. ‘You speak out of turn.’
‘I speak out of supreme loyalty to only one.’
Lucifer flung a sweetmeat into his mouth.
‘Speak then, if you must.’
‘Your Majesty,’ Charsoc drew near to Lucifer, ‘I consulted this dawn with the Warlocks of the West and Nakan the Necromancer.’
He hesitated.
‘We are all of one accord.’
‘One accord?’ Lucifer stared at Charsoc disdainfully. ‘Naysayers, every one.’
‘I speak of the Stones of Fire, Your Excellency.’
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed.
‘I know the intention of your soul,’ Charsoc continued. ‘They draw your very being. You would enter and take Yehovah’s throne through the river of the Stones of Fire. It bodes ill for you, milord. They contain Yehovah’s consuming fire.’
‘Yehovah has grown weak,’ Lucifer railed. ‘He has not exercised his hand against me in millennia. He believed it was finished with the Nazarene. But I will show him who is king. I will imprison the race of men and take his throne.’
He stroked Jagon’s sleek white coat.
‘It is a trap, Your Excellency.’
Lucifer rose from his throne and walked to the balcony, staring for a long time at the rising fortieth crimson moon.
‘Yes. The Stones of Fire. They call to my very soul,’ he murmured.
Then he swung around to Charsoc, his face contorted with malice.
‘I walked those stones for aeons when I was his light-bringer, his seraph. Prince Regent, Son of the Morning. I shall walk them again to overtake his throne. No one, NO ONE,’ he roared, ‘is to be informed of my plans.’
He picked up his viol and smashed it on the marble floor.
His time ran down. He sensed it.
‘Armageddon draws nearer, milord. May I humbly remind you, Your Majesty, if we lose, you will be held in the Crypts of Conflagration, then incarcerated for a thousand years in the bottomless pit, before your demise in the Lake of Fire.’
Lucifer carefully sliced a blue fruit with a gleaming dagger. He placed a slice on his tongue, caressing the blade lovingly, then walked over to the trembling Charsoc, grasped him by the hair, and held the razor-sharp blade to his neck.
‘Charsoc the Dark,’ he hissed, ‘if you ever, ever bring up the subject again, I will sever your ugly, pasty head from your body.’
He pressed the blade against Charsoc’s neck until blood started to seep from his grey skin.
‘I will take my brother Michael prisoner as collateral,’ he hissed. ‘And Jether will be forced to escort me to the Labyrinths.’
He flung the gasping Charsoc savagely onto the marbled floor of his chamber.
‘Get out,’ he hissed.
Charsoc lay rooted to the floor, trembling.
‘Get out!’ Lucifer screamed. ‘OUT!’
Charsoc gathered his voluminous yellow nightgown in both hands, rose to his feet, blood seeping from his neck, and stumbled out through the glistening black doors.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tower of Winds
First Heaven
Jether the Just hesitated before the small silver filigree door of the Garden of Tempests. As he held his onyx ring over the keyhole, the door slid open. A huge, vibrantly colourful garden stood revealed, and at its centre the Tower of Winds.
He walked towards the very centre of the tower gardens, where six of the ancient angelic monarchs of the Royal House of Yehovah sat on golden thrones around a large table, the azure breeze teasing at their white hair and trailing beards. Their heads were bowed in supplication. They were the devoted executors of Yehovah’s unutterable marvels and governors of the three great portals. They were the custodians of the sacred vaults of the flaming cherubim and seraphim – vaults that housed countless billions of DNA blueprints, genomic codes, and the boundary lines of Yehovah’s innumerable galaxies, seas, and multiple universes.
Obadiah and Dimnah were Jether and Xacheriel’s youngling attendants, tasked with assisting the Ancient Ones in their custodianship of Yehovah’s countless new galaxies. Blissfully oblivious to Jether’s arrival, they lay on their backs in the fountain, wearing what looked like inflatable neon-green armbands. The two younglings – of an ancient angelic race possessing the characteristics of eternal youth, a remarkable inquisitiveness, and bright orange hair – were sucking on sweetmeats and slurping loudly at the thick chocolaty mixture that was now gushing from the fountain.
