The Shadow Project (17 page)

T
hey moved into the library because Uncle Hector wanted to consult a book. Danny stood wondering if his head was going to explode. Problem was, he didn't know what he wanted to focus on first. He wanted to find out more about the Priory of Mons. He wanted to talk to the other two—still not sure about Hector yet—about Farrakhan and that creature in his triangle. Everything was overwhelming. But at least Opal was safe here: that was the main thing.

Unless Farrakhan tracked her down.

A scary picture popped into Danny's mind, clear as a Spielberg movie. There was Farrakhan in his second body, strolling through the Project walls and halls. There was Opal's father, Sir Roland, hanging up the phone. There was George Hanover beside him, hanging up
his
phone. “It's all right—she's with Uncle Hector,” says Sir Roland. “Yes,” says George, “you mean Michael's uncle
Hector Hamilton-Oakes, who lives at Blandings, just twenty minutes south of here, and Michael's with her and so's young Danny—no worries there, then.” Danny could see Farrakhan pricking up his ears.

Maybe it was time to bring up current problems. Danny said loudly, “Farrakhan sent the thing that killed Fran. I don't know what it was, but he's sending something worse after Opal. A lot worse. I saw him call it up in some sort of black magic ceremony while I was out of my body. Called it a Devourer.” Well, there it was. If they wanted to phone the men in white coats, now was the time to do it.

He looked at Opal, who was staring back at him with open disbelief on her face. “Did you say ‘Devourer'? The old woman in the clinic warned me about a Devourer!”

Danny frowned, wondering what she was talking about, as Hector, who had his nose buried in a leather-bound book, said, “I know.”

It irritated Danny. “No you don't,” he said sharply. “I'm the one who knows. Rest of you wouldn't
believe
what I saw, trust me.”

Hector glanced up and said mildly, “It's a war, Danny. It's always been a war. Between people like us and people like them. The bit you see is just a puppet show—the Skull and his suicide bombers, the politicians and their armies. It's Farrakhan and his ilk who
pull the strings—or rather the forces behind them. ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.' Read your Bible. Ephesians six, verse twelve. Never truer words spoken.” He looked down again, as if embarrassed, then added, “We've known about Farrakhan for some time—and his spirit servants. The techniques he uses are old Egyptian. The Egyptians were the most knowledgeable magicians of the ancient world. Farrakhan has studied their methods. Old magic, very dark. Once Michael told me Opal had actually seen him, we knew it would only be a matter of time before he mounted an attack on the Project.”

“We?” Danny asked. “You and Michael?”

“The Priory,” Michael said. “Uncle Hector means the Priory.”

“I think you'd better tell us more about this Priory,” Opal said.

She was looking at Michael, but it was Hector who answered. “I suppose since you're under threat from the Powers of Darkness, you deserve to know you've got some friends among the Powers of Light.” He took a deep breath.

“Uncle—” Michael interrupted warningly.

“It's all right, Michael,” Hector said. “They're Project
operatives. They know how to keep a secret. Besides, if they did tell anybody, who would believe them?” He grinned, then turned back to Opal. “I'm afraid it's rather a complicated story. Have you ever heard of the
Fama Fraternitatis
?”

Opal shook her head. “No.”

“It was a document published in Germany in 1614. Caused a sensation at the time because nobody knew who wrote it. It told the story of a man named Father C.R.—it stands for Christian Rosenkreutz—who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was subsequently instructed by the sages of the East in the most ancient esoteric wisdom. He studied alchemy, physics, mathematics, magic, and the Kabbalah. When he returned to Germany, he and some others established a secret Christian fraternity, the Fraternity of the Rose Cross. Members—or brothers, as they called themselves—were instructed to use their knowledge to heal the sick free of charge, wear no special clothing or insignia, keep their membership in the Order a strict secret, and meet together once a year in what the document called the House of the Holy Spirit.”

Opal frowned. “Are you saying that was the origin of this Priory you belong to?”

“Not quite,” Hector said. “The real Priory of Mons dates back about five hundred years earlier. It was
secretly established by the Knights Templar based on some unbelievably ancient scrolls they discovered in the Ark of the Covenant.”

This is getting batty,
Danny thought,
even for Uncle Hector.
He opened his mouth to try to bring the conversation back to the problems at hand, but Opal beat him to it. “The Ark of the Covenant that's mentioned in the Bible?” she asked. “The thing God used to communicate with Moses?”

Hector nodded. “The holiest relic in the whole of the Old Testament—and an artifact of great power. The Israelites used it to slaughter their enemies when they were wandering in the wilderness. It disappeared when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC, but the Templars found it hidden in a cave under the Temple Mount. It contained scrolls dating back to a lost prehistoric civilization with information on spiritual techniques of amazing efficacy in the service of the Light. The Templars used them to found the Priory of Mons.”

Intrigued despite himself, Danny said, “Where does the Fama Whatsit come in?”

“It was important that the Priory remain a secret,” Hector said. “Unlike the Powers of Darkness, which often work through politicians and popes and other influential people, the Powers of Light are pledged not
to interfere with humanity's free will, so any work they do is subtle. And the Priory
did
remain a secret for five hundred years. But then one of our members went over to the Dark Side and threatened to expose its existence. So the Priory issued the
Fama Fraternitatis
to divert public attention. There was just enough truth in it to keep scholars busy—Christian Rosenkreutz really existed, for example: he was one of our late medieval friars—but subtly slanted to send them looking in the wrong direction. So the
Fama Fraternitatis
sparked off a whole occult Rosicrucian movement, and the real Priory managed to stay hidden. When our Dark Brother told his story, everyone assumed it was a variation on the Rosicrucian theme and ignored it.”

“And my
father
is a member of this Priory?” Opal asked incredulously.

“An Outer Member,” Hector said. “Which means he is sympathetic toward our ideals and is permitted to attend certain meetings, but he plays no part in policy decisions. What he does do, of course, is keep us informed on matters of interest—his position with MI6 is ideal for that.”

“Look,” Danny said, “the history lesson is all very interesting, but can we get back to what's happening today? That old boy Farrakhan is sending something very scary after Opal. Do you think she'll be okay here?”
It was his biggest worry, and he was beginning to think Uncle Hector might actually know the answer.

But Uncle Hector said soberly, “Nobody's safe anywhere. Fran was only a trial run. But even Opal is just the beginning. Farrakhan will aim to wipe out the entire Project, now that he's discovered it. Farrakhan will hunt down Opal; and he'll find her eventually, make no mistake about that. But before he does, he will kill everyone else associated with the Project—everyone.”

“My father's at the Project,” Opal said.

Hector added, “Unless somebody stops him.”

There was a long silence in the room; then Opal said, “How do we do that?”

“I'm not sure
we
do,” Uncle Hector said. “I think it may be up to Danny.”

“Hey, wait a minute—” Danny said.

“You're
sohanti
, Danny,” Michael told him sharply, as if that explained something.

Danny rounded on him. “Listen, I never even
heard
about
sohanti
until you told Opal about your old man. But even if I am, it just means I attract bugs. Farrakhan is into
devils.
”

“Is it really a devil?” Opal asked, looking at Hector.

“Near enough, I'm afraid. Not exactly Satan and his minions—that's Judeo-Christian mythology—but the
old Egyptians had some very nasty lines of communication into the dark side.” He turned another page of the book. “Ah!” With the book still open, he swung it around and pushed it toward Danny. “Is that what you saw?”

The illustration was an old black-and-white woodcut, crudely done, of something ripping the arm off a naked man as casually as a child might pull the wing off a fly. Badly drawn or not, Danny had no doubt what he was looking at. “That's it.”

Opal and Michael leaned forward to look. Opal said tightly, “What is it?”

“It's called a
matchet,
” Hector said. “A creature of Isfet, who was the Egyptian god of darkness and chaos, the great opponent of the light.
Matchets
were believed to live in a lake of fire and feed on human hearts. The Egyptians used to call them the Everlasting Devourers and the Lords of Terror. Nasty buggers. Very difficult to control—even black magicians shy away from them. Farrakhan must have used the Spear of Destiny. He took a dreadful risk.”

“What's the Spear of Destiny?” Danny asked.

“It's supposed to be the spear that pierced Christ's side while he was hanging on the cross,” Hector said. “Also known as the Spear of Longinus after the Roman
centurion who used it, or the Holy Lance. One of the reasons Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 was to steal it—the lance was in the Imperial Treasury of the Hofburg Palace at the time. He believed he could use it to channel spiritual power to aid him in his conquest of Europe.”

“Thought he lost the war,” Danny said. “Leastways that's what my old Nan always told me.”

“Fortunately for us all, he had no idea how to use the lance. Unfortunately, Farrakhan does.”

“Hold on a minute,” Danny said. “Let me get this clear. You're saying Farrakhan now has the spear that Hitler stole from Austria? How did he get it?”

“It went back to Austria after the war. It's now in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum
in Vienna. Or at least it was. At the moment it's on loan to a museum in Egypt. That's how we knew Farrakhan must be up to something on the inner levels. Everything that exists on the physical has a mirror image on the astral plane, which is a whole different reality. The spear's physical location is affected by what's happening to its astral counterpart. The fact that it's moved as far away as Egypt shows there are major problems and gave us a clue to what was happening. Hitler's mistake was believing he needed the physical spear. Farrakhan knows better. He has been manipulating the astral lance that stands behind the physical spear.” Hector closed the book and peered
again at Danny. “When did you see Farrakhan call up this thing?”

“About…” Danny frowned and calculated. “An hour ago. Maybe more.”

“Well, that's a bit of good news, anyway,” Hector said. “It will be several hours before it manifests completely in our reality. Which gives
us
time to get our ducks in a row.”

It occurred to Danny the old boy was enjoying this.

“What we need to do,” said Hector, “is tackle the source of the problem. No use attacking the physical manifestation of the Devourer—you can't kill a thing like that. We need to capture the Spear of Destiny.”

“You're sending us across to Austria? Oh, no, I forgot—you're sending us to Egypt.”

“Come on, Danny, stop pretending you're the village idiot. I told you it's not the physical lance we need—what we need is its astral counterpart.”

The
village idiot
crack irritated Danny hugely. Hector talked a lot, but he wasn't really saying anything. He kept dropping in terms that meant nothing to anybody outside this crackpot Priory he belonged to. But Danny kept his cool. “And where do we find the astral counterpart of something?”

“On the astral plane,” said Uncle Hector, as if that should be obvious.

Danny still managed to hold his temper, although he did sigh loudly. “What's the astral plane?”

Hector smiled slightly. “It's another level of reality, much like the one you're used to. The astral plane reflects our world, so some of our structures appear there the way they do here. Where I'm sending you will look similar to Ancient Egypt, since that's where Farrakhan is using the astral lance.”

“Hold on,” Danny said. “You're going to have to do better than that. There's another reality that's just like ours, and things that are happening in our reality are also happening in
that
one?”

“More or less,” Hector said. “The spear that exists in the astral plane isn't the same spear that exists in the Austrian museum collection—it's a
reflection
of that spear. And the two are linked, so what happens to one affects the other. If we're to beat Farrakhan at his own game, we need to take control of the astral spear. Which means you have to take a little trip.”

“Let's get this clear,” Danny said. “You want me to take a trip to this different reality? To the astral plane?”

“Not just you, Danny. One of the things we've learned about the astral plane in the Priory is the rule of three. Certain operations there require at least three people to complete successfully. I'm hoping Opal and Michael will agree to go with you.”