End of Days, page 17
‘Stormie!’ Dylan Weaver shouted in exasperation from under the table, where his ample girth had stuck fast. ‘Well, help me, girl!’
Storm ran over. ‘What are you doing?’
With difficulty, Weaver, wheezing and red-faced, extricated himself from under the table.
The seven Jordanian astrophysicists smiled at his struggles.
‘There.’ He pointed to the highly sophisticated wall of computer screens. ‘Help me with the cables.’
Storm plugged each cable in meticulously, assisted by a trembling novice priest.
‘What are you doing?’ Storm asked.
Weaver held up a black box. He plugged it in, and neon-blue lights flashed. ‘This little baby . . .’ He rubbed his thick fingers together in triumph.
Storm frowned.
‘Look,’ Weaver said. ‘It reads antimatter.’
Storm sat down, entranced. She fumbled for her large black reading glasses.
‘You’re saying that it can translate entities made up of antimatter?’
‘Precisely.’
‘From another dimension?’
Weaver stuffed half a bag of crisps into his mouth. ‘Yes.’
‘Onto those screens?’
Weaver nodded, crunching loudly. He pointed a greasy finger at the screens. ‘Those babies there will reveal any extradimensional movement by any entity. In real time.’
Storm gazed at him in wonder. ‘That’s . . . that’s incredible.’
Weaver tapped his nose. ‘If any paranormal being intends to take over Adrian De Vere’s body, we’ll be able to view the moment the exchange happens, right here – miles away.’
He clapped his hands at Storm. ‘C’mon, copilot, rev it up. Time waits for no man.’
He tipped the last of the crisps into his mouth. His fingers flew over the keyboard, then froze. He stared above him at the screen broadcasting a live feed from the BBC.
‘Oh, god! Look over Jerusalem. Von Bechstein, turn it up.’
This is the BBC. Over to our correspondent in Jerusalem, came the announcer’s voice.
The correspondent spoke in urgent, dramatic tones. This is unprecedented. Thousands of unidentified flying craft have been circling the skies over Jerusalem since dawn today.
As you can see on your screen, more craft are appearing every second.
‘Oh, god, it’s The X Files,’ said Weaver, staring transfixed at the TV screen. ‘Thousands of them. It’s got to be a hologram.’
Alex, Jibril, and David Weiss entered. Their eyes followed Von Bechstein’s to the portable computer screens that Weaver and Storm had installed.
David shook his head. ‘Not a hologram,’ he said softly. ‘NASA has been aware of extraterrestrial activity for decades. Those are real flying craft. In 2017, the Pentagon was already operating a $22 million programme monitoring UFOs. Roswell was no fabrication.’
‘Two minutes, thirty-six seconds,’ Von Bechstein announced.
Adrian De Vere’s body was still visible in the open casket, in the mausoleum of Jerusalem’s Third Temple.
‘He looks like a Madame Tussaud’s wax effigy,’ Lily whispered. ‘Oh, I can’t believe Dad shot him. It’s a nightmare. He’s stone-cold dead.’
‘Not for long,’ Jibril muttered.
Third Temple
Temple Mount, Jerusalem
Lucifer landed on the roof of the Temple, his monstrous black wings at full span, his features set in rage. The Warlocks of the West surrounded him.
‘It is time, Your Majesty.’ Dracul, their king, bowed low.
The atoms of Lucifer’s body started to gyrate faster and faster until he vanished completely.
Laboratories
Petra
‘Corneal tracking device active,’ Weaver declared.
‘Copy that,’ replied Storm.
Von Bechstein moved nearer to the screens. ‘There,’ he said softly. ‘Watch the antimatter. The gold doors. By the eastern entrance.’
All eyes fixed on the faint but visible silhouette moving rapidly through the open doors, past the long queue of dignitaries still paying homage to Adrian. The pulsating silhouette moved nearer and nearer the mausoleum.
‘Five seconds,’ Storm announced quietly.
The silhouette flew directly over the casket and entered, disappearing into Adrian De Vere’s inert body.
The BBC correspondent’s voice continued from the screen. Dignitaries from all across the world are still queuing night and day to pay their respects to the President of the European Union, Adrian De Vere. We are about to–
The voice was interrupted by a major outcry around the casket.
Oh, my god! The correspondent’s voice spiked. On screen, her face was suddenly pale. Zoom in on the coffin. Now!
Old City
Baku, Azerbaijan
The priest sat huddled in his grey windbreaker in the corner of the coffee house, a black knitted cap covering his head. He was the last customer.
He spooned the final dushbara dumpling into his mouth, wiped his lips with the cheap paper napkin, then walked over to the crackling fire.
He pointed to the wide-screen television above the bar.
‘Vklyuchite yego?’
The barman grunted and pushed up the volume on the remote.
The priest shook his head. ‘Medeniyyet.’
The barman clicked his tongue in irritation, flicking through the channels and stopping on Medeniyyet TV.
The priest stared, riveted, at the images of thousands of flying craft still descending over Jerusalem. The images on the screen suddenly juddered.
The presenter stared into the camera lens, speechless. Then the images switched to pandemonium breaking out in the Temple.
The priest clutched his rosary, rose to his feet, and moved closer to the screen.
The images changed again, this time to a close-up of the coffin.
The barman, wide-eyed, pointed to the television.
The priest watched in silence as Adrian De Vere, President of almost the entire Western world, sat bolt upright in the casket.
Pandemonium broke out in the Jerusalem Temple as the Secret Service gathered around the coffin, gesticulating wildly to the television crews to cut away.
The priest watched new images of women fainting in the crowd of dignitaries.
Finally, a strange silence fell across the entire Temple as the cameras zoomed in on a glaringly empty casket.
The barman dropped to his knees. ‘He is God!’ he whispered, crossing himself. ‘A resurrection. He is God.’
He flung himself to the floor.
‘He is God!’
‘Switch it!’ The priest gesticulated to a second man, who was now sweeping up. ‘What is it saying? Turn it to the BBC!’
The man shrugged and switched channels with the remote.
Over and over again, images were rerunning: the assassinated President sitting bolt upright in the coffin.
The man slapped the priest on the back.
‘He is a god, yes?’
The priest laid a fifty-manat note on the table, looked back at the barman still facedown on the floor, and walked outside into the snow.
He pushed a number on his mobile phone: a ‘burn’ phone for untraceable calls.
Cyrillic letters appeared on the screen: Конца дней. Kontsa Dney.
He clicked the phone off and threw it away in a rusted bin on the dirt road.
Waving a taxi down, he shouted through the window. ‘Heydar Aliyev Airport. I’m late.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Citadel of Babel
Babel
The Fallen had landed. The twelve golden palaces now inhabited by the fallen Satanic Princes gleamed in the harsh sunlight of Babylon. The princes of Grecia, Babylonia, Persia, and Magog were guarded by the Black Horde, Lucifer’s elite milita.
The palace’s crystal spires soared a hundred feet into the air, surrounding the impenetrable fortress that was Lucifer’s abode and the headquarters of the Fallen: the monstrous six-hundred-foot gold and crystal tower that overwhelmed the desert horizon.
The new Tower of Babel, Lorcan De Molay’s personal pièce de résistance.
De Molay’s palatial gold-leafed royal quarters on the uppermost levels were a fantastical expanse of two hundred works by Old Masters, with the finest Savonnerie and Aubusson carpets. Floating glass walkways hovered four hundred feet above pools lined with mature cypress trees. A library spanning six floors, panelled with antique British oak, was filled with priceless ancient scrolls gifted from the secret archives of the Vatican and the damned. Painted frescoes adorned every ceiling. Exotic and lush hanging gardens surrounded the Tower. A rushing waterfall fell thousands of feet to the glistening azure infinity pools far below.
The monstrous crystal spire, where the newly designed Bells of Limbo hung, housed the Warlocks of the West.
Moloch and Dagon raced in their monstrous chariots along the four-hundred-foot walls surrounding the sprawling city of the Fallen – New Babylon.
All humans had been evacuated, and any who had refused the warnings – investment bankers, stockbrokers – were now the shackled slaves of the Fallen.
No human now dared enter Babylon.
The rumours of cannibalism, of thirty-foot giants, monsters and chimeras, of the bartering of women for oil, and of magical powers were rife throughout the Western world.
Even the bravest military pilots gave it a wide berth. The eye in the skies over Babylon was savage – no pilot lived to tell the tale.
Thousands of UFOs, armed with electromagnetic scalar weapons, circled the skies day and night.
The Fallen had taken over the entire Middle-East oil supply. The Satanic Princes of Persia once again ruled what had been the ancient lands of Persia: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf.
The stage was set. The Warlocks of the West gathered at the very summit of the Tower of Alexander, pronouncing their evil incantations, awaiting their master – the Son of Iniquity himself.
Petra
There was a tentative knock on Alex’s door. ‘Come in,’ he shouted, splayed out on his bed in his jeans and T-shirt.
Lily entered, dressed in her Hollister jeans and Lululemon T-shirt. ‘I think I could really get used to this place. Can I sit?’
‘Sure. You’re still walking, kiddo.’
Lily swirled around, then stood en pointe.
‘I certainly am, Mr Lane-Fox, though I don’t remember a thing about that night. I fell down a cliff, crippled, then woke up in Egypt. Walking.’
Her eyes shone with exhilaration. ‘No more wheelchairs for me.’
Lily frowned. ‘Alex, what happened to you?’ She touched Alex’s neck gently.
‘My neck? Oh, it’s nothing, just a little run-in with . . .’ Alex stopped in mid-sentence.
Lily stared at him for a long time, silent. Finally she spoke.
‘No, Alex,’ she murmured. ‘My room’s next to yours.’ She looked up at him with big troubled eyes. ‘You were screaming last night, Alex. In your sleep. I came into your room. Your granddad was here. Your sheets were soaking with sweat. He couldn’t wake you. He told me you had post-traumatic stress.’
Alex sighed.
‘Who hurt you, Alex?’
‘I ran into Guber and his thugs.’
‘Kurt Guber? Adrian’s Nazi sidekick?’
‘Yup. They hung me upside-down for two days. Beat me senseless. Waterboarded me.’
He grasped Lily’s hand.
‘You can’t tell my grandparents I was waterboarded. Our secret. Promise?’
Lily nodded. ‘Promise. How did you escape?’
‘One of my fixers bribed a guard with a wad of cash. I ran. Didn’t even look back. I got away.’
Lily picked up Alex’s wallet and studied the picture of Polly.
‘You must miss Polly so much, Alex. I’m so sorry.’
‘Like I would miss the air I breathe, Lils. You must miss her, too.’
Lily gulped. ‘So much, my heart literally hurts.’
They sat in silence.
‘Remember,’ they both blurted out at the same time, then laughed.
‘You first,’ said Lily. ‘Greatest memory.’
‘It was at the airport in New York when I flew out to Saudi. It was the way Polly looked into my eyes, Lils. Like she knew she wasn’t coming back. Almost as though she knew she was going to . . . to . . .’
He stopped short, his memory returning to the airport three months earlier.
They had barely made it, running like crazy through the airport. As he was clearing check-in, Polly was in floods of tears. His heart contracted as he remembered. It was the Rapture thing again. They had been over it a million times. Polly was convinced it would happen while he was gone, and that they would never be together again. He remembered like it was yesterday. Polly. How he loved her, he wanted to be with her forever. That was . . . to be the last time they would ever be together.
Polly had turned to Alex.
‘Pol . . .’ He frowned. Tears were streaming down Polly’s cheeks.
Alex sighed. ‘It’s this Rapture thing again, isn’t it? It’s got you all wound up. You think it’s going to happen while I’m gone, and you won’t see me again.’
He held up his hands. ‘Pol, we’ve been over this a million times.’
‘Look after Lily,’ Polly whispered. ‘She loves you.’
Alex took back his passport and walked towards security. He turned back to Polly. ‘Didn’t get that, gorgeous.’
He grinned and waved to her, standing behind the ropes.
‘I love you, Pol. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you!’
That was the last time he’d seen her alive . . . except for the Saudi Incident.
‘Alex . . . Alex!’ came Lily’s voice.
‘The last time I saw Polly was in New York when she saw me off at the airport,’ he said, and fell silent. Then he mumbled awkwardly, ‘Did Polly ever mention the . . . the . . .’
Lily smiled gently, encouragingly.
‘The Rapture?’ he finished.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘But you didn’t believe her?’
‘Alex, I didn’t know what to believe. Polly was the most grounded person I ever knew. But she honestly believed that she’d get, I suppose, taken . . . out of here in the End of Days.’
‘Lily, if I tell you something, you won’t think I’m crazy?’
‘Try me.’
Alex laughed. ‘You’re a chip off the old block. That’s just what your Dad always says to me. Okay. Brace yourself. Something happened. When I was in Damman.’
‘The Saudi Incident?’
Alex nodded.
‘I lost my temper with Nick – badly. He refused to leave with us. As though he was waiting for something.’
‘Or someone,’ Lily added softly.
Alex pushed his dark fringe out of his eyes.
‘It wasn’t only Nick. It was Jotapa too. I knew exactly what Nick was waiting for.’
‘The Rapture.’ Lily murmured.
‘Yes. I thought he was delusional.’
‘What happened, Alex?’
Alex again pushed his ever-straying fringe off his face.
‘Everything started to go crazy. There were four of us in the room. Myself, Nick, Jotapa, and Jibril. And then – then it happened.’
Lily looked at him, listening intently.
‘Suddenly this incredible fragrance filled the whole room.
‘And then the stranger came into the room. Well, he didn’t exactly come in because the door was closed. He just appeared.’
‘He appeared?’
‘Look, I know how crazy it sounds. That’s why I’ve never talked about it. He was around Nick’s age – twenty-nine, thirty. But the weird thing was it was as though he and Nick were long-lost buddies, the way he embraced him. And Jotapa too.’
‘And Jibril was there?’
Alex nodded. ‘He’ll corroborate everything I’m telling you. But that’s not the craziest part. Look, Lils, I don’t know how to say this.’
‘Try me,’ Lily said softly.
‘Lils, the stranger knew me. He knew my name, he spoke to me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Alex Lane-Fox. You’ve searched for truth all your life. I am the truth. But that wasn’t it. Lily, this is the part that is completely insane.’ Alex hesitated. ‘Polly . . . Polly came into the room.’
‘Polly?’ Lily’s eyes were wide with confusion.
‘Yes. I told you it was crazy. That’s why I don’t talk about it. Polly. Flesh and blood. Long blonde hair. Gentle smile. Dimples. She stood there smiling at me. But she was real, Lily. As real as you standing in front of me now.
‘But here’s the thing, Lily,’ he went on. ‘When I returned from Damman I did some intensive research – General Assad managed to obtain records from the internment camp she was in.’ Alex walked over to the small table in the corner of the room and picked up his X-pad. His fingers flew over the keyboard. ‘Here, take a look. Polly’s death certificate.’
‘It says she was beheaded, but then . . .’ Lily looked up at Alex, a strange faraway look in her eye. ‘Then she disappeared. Dematerialized.’
‘Yes, and it gives the precise time of death as 11.07 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.’
‘My watch stopped precisely when the Saudi Incident happened. The hands, they wouldn’t budge.’ He rummaged in his rucksack and handed a watch to Lily. ‘Look, the electromagnetic field was so strong it stopped, and it’s never worked since. General Khalid is a witness.
‘Lily,’ he added, ‘Polly was executed at exactly the time I saw her in Damman. Which was precisely . . .’
‘6.07 a.m. in Damman.’ Lily finished his sentence softly.
Alex nodded, ‘They all disappeared at the same time. Lily. Nick, Jotapa, and Polly were all believers. Jibril and I weren’t.’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘Remember that book about the Rapture in Walmart in the early 2000s? I picked it up from Polly’s shelf one day and skimmed through it; dismissed it as raving fundamentalist delusions.
‘Lily,’ Alex looked at her, trembling, ‘Jibril and I were left behind.’
Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp
Poland
Michael stood, arms crossed, surveying the barren windswept vista of the crumbling crematoriums and gas chambers – all that was left of the grotesque Nazi factory, the Birkenau concentration camp.
