The Shadow Project (18 page)

Opal simply stared at him, but Michael said, “You can count us in, Uncle Hector.”

Always gung-ho,
Danny thought. “Why us?” he asked.

Hector said, “Because only those who can leave their bodies are able to reach the astral plane.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“It will be for Farrakhan,” Hector said grimly. “Once you get the spear, his Devourer will turn against him. I expect that will be the last our world will hear of him. With luck it might even get the Skull too. But stopping the world's leading terrorist has to be worth a bit of risk, right?”

“I think if you're asking us to undertake this,” Opal said soberly, “the least you can do is tell us what the risk is to us.” Clearly she was as suspicious as Danny that Hector seemed to be avoiding the question, for she asked bluntly, “Could we die trying to get this spear?”

Hector shook his head. “You leave your bodies behind, exactly as you do on a mission for the Shadow Project. I'll make sure to keep them safe and sound.” He tugged at his jacket. “Now, if you've no more questions, we need to get moving.”

Opal continued to stare at him. It was the same thing she'd been taught in Project training: you leave your body behind, so nothing can harm you. Everybody
had subscribed to that theory until Farrakhan trapped her in a cage. But there was no point in arguing with Hector now. There was a job to be done, even if it was dangerous. “So how do we get to this different reality?” she asked him. “How do we reach the astral plane?”

“Let me make a phone call, then I'll show you,” Hector said.

O
pal wasn't sure she liked this: they were going down steps to a cellar. She still wasn't completely comfortable with Michael's uncle, even if he did know her father. And what was the phone conversation with her father all about? All the talk about black magic had made her feel uneasy and out of her depth.

They entered a candlelit room that appeared square, but when you looked at it one way, it was round, then you turned your head and it was square again. The optical illusion must have had something to do with the circular zodiac painted on the ceiling—looking up was like looking into the night sky.

In the center of the room was what had to be an altar, but nothing like Opal had ever seen in church. It looked as if it had been made by stacking two cubes on top of one other, then draping them in black silk embroidered with mystic symbols. In the center of the altar was a large
quartz crystal, mounted on a wooden base so it pointed up toward the ceiling. Around it, set near the edges of the altar, were a yellow dagger, a stubby red rod, a blue chalice cup, and a peculiar wooden disc divided into four differently shaped segments.

There were four chairs in the room, one set against each of the walls, facing inward to the altar. On the wall above each chair was a painted symbol underneath an inlaid mirror. Opal's eyes flicked from symbol to symbol: a yellow square, a blue circle, a silver crescent, and a red triangle.

“What is this place?” she asked. Everything about the room screamed
occult
and
witchcraft
and
black magic.
She couldn't imagine that Michael would allow his uncle to put her in the way of unnecessary danger—and if Hector was telling the truth, her father approved—but it still looked like something you might read about in the tabloid press.

“Used to be a private chapel,” Uncle Hector remarked. “The Priory helped me convert it.”

Into what?
Opal wondered.

Danny said, “Nifty bit of crystal, Colonel. Must be worth a lot.”

Hector said, “It's a power source. Something the Priory learned from the scrolls. Apparently the lost civilization used crystals the way we use electronics.”

“What's it powering here, then?” Danny asked.

Hector said, “Any of you ever watch
Star Trek
?”

They looked at him blankly.

“Star Trek,”
Hector repeated. “Television series. If you've watched it, you can think of this as the transporter room. Only instead of beaming you up to a spaceship, it will send you into another reality.”

Opal looked around. After a moment she said, “How?”

“It's simple enough,” Hector told her. “You can't visit the astral plane while you're in your physical body any more than you could walk into somebody's dream. But when you're out of body, there are astral doorways you can use.”

Opal frowned. “I've never seen an astral doorway when I've been out of my body.” Except, she suddenly realized, she wouldn't know what an astral doorway looked like if it fell on her.

“I don't suppose you have,” said Uncle Hector. “How to activate the doorways is a very well-kept secret, but fortunately one known to the Priory—it was among the spiritual techniques preserved in the Ark of the Covenant. It's a question of turning you in a particular direction while you're out of body. The direction doesn't exist in our physical reality, so you wouldn't normally know where to look for it. What the crystal does is turn
your energy body in the right direction once you've projected. In effect, it opens an astral doorway. Instead of wandering round the physical world like a ghost, you enter the astral plane.”

“You haven't told us what we're supposed to do when we get there,” Danny pointed out.

“Hunt the spear,” said Hector promptly. “I'll make sure you're sent to the right area—I can do that by calculating the coordinates of the physical spear. But the location won't be precise. The astral plane isn't an exact mirror of our reality, and you're going to find that a lot of things work quite differently there. So I'm afraid your first job will be to find out exactly where Farrakhan is keeping the astral spear.”

“And do what?” Danny asked. “Bring it back here?”

Hector smiled thinly. “Wrong reality. But once you have the spear, Farrakhan's power over the Devourer will be broken. So all you have to do is put it somewhere safe—by which I mean somewhere he can't get it.”

Michael said, “Don't you think we should get started, Uncle Hector?”

“Okay,” Danny said. “What do we do?”

Hector looked relieved. “I'd like each of you to take a seat. Danny, I want you to sit in the south, under the red triangle. Opal, you go to the west—” He pointed. “Michael, you're in the north, as usual, over there with
the yellow square.” He waited while they sat down, then said, “What I want you each to do is look in the mirror on the wall directly opposite. The chairs are placed so all you'll see there is a reflection of the symbol above your place. They're elemental symbols—earth, air, fire, and water. By balancing them correctly, we can open your astral doorway.”

“I thought we were supposed to go out-of-body,” Opal said. The symbol reflected in the mirror opposite her was a silver crescent.

“Yes, you are,” Hector told her.

“You don't have any helmets,” Opal said.

For a moment Hector looked blank. Then he said, “Oh, you mean the sort of gear they use at the Project? We've gone a very different road in the Priory. Our emphasis has been on influencing the human mind in much more subtle ways. We would never dream of simply ripping the second body out of the physical, as happens in the Shadow Project. The ancients knew there were far more natural methods available, and we have inherited their wisdom. Just concentrate on the mirror symbol until it changes color. Once it does that, it'll pull you out of your body. Then you just walk through it. That's all you have to do—no electronics at all.” He took a deep audible breath. “Any questions?”

Danny said. “Are you coming with us?”

“Can't, I'm afraid,” Hector said. “I'm no teenager anymore. But even when I was, nothing seemed to shift me out of my body.”

“So who's going to sit in the fourth chair?” Danny asked accusingly. “You said there had to be a balance of four elements for this thing to work.”

“That would be me,” said a new voice from the door.

Opal turned to find they'd been joined by an elderly woman carrying a handbag.

“Cripes, Nan,” Danny gasped. “What are you doing here?”

H
ector is looking good,
Dorothy thought.
Always was a fine figure of a man.
She turned to Danny, who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. “Come to keep you out of mischief, haven't I?”

“Dorothy!” Hector exclaimed warmly. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

Danny looked shaken. “But how did you get here, Nan?”

“Taxi,” Dorothy told him briskly. She glanced at Hector. “He's waiting outside for you to pay him.”

“What? Oh yes—yes, of course. I'll see to that right away.” He walked off.

Danny said, “Thought you were still in the hospital, Nan.”

“Sent me home, didn't they? Right as rain now. Ready to do a bit of work for Hector.” Dorothy watched Hector's receding back, surprised at how fond she still
felt after all these years. “Come on, Danny, introduce me. Not ashamed of your old Nan, are you?”

Danny closed his mouth at last, then grinned. “Nan, this is Opal—she's a knight's daughter. And this is Michael Potolo from Mali, and he's a prince. Told you I had friends in high places, didn't I?” He turned to them and his grin widened. “This is my Nan—Dorothy Bayley. Isn't she lovely?”

You could see the other two didn't know what to make of her, but they both got up and came across. The girl shook her hand and said, “How do you do, Mrs. Bayley?” and stone the crows if it wasn't the girl she'd met at the clinic.

The girl didn't recognize her, of course, now that she had her clothes on and her hair brushed and a bit of makeup hiding the wrinkles. Both kids shook her hand, mannerly as could be.

But then Danny had her by the arm and was pulling her back out of the door into that gloomy bit of hallway before the stairs, out of earshot of the others. “What are you
doing
here, Nan?”

“Told you—come to keep you out of mischief.”

“No, listen, Nan, this is serious. You know the old boy or what?”

“The colonel?” She hesitated, wondering how much to tell him, not that her private life was any of
his concern. “Sure, I know him. Wouldn't be here if I didn't, would I?”

“I know that, but
how
do you know him?”

“Think you're the only one with friends in high places?” Dorothy grinned. “You and your knight's daughter and your African prince.”

“Come on, Nan, what's going on here? How do you know Uncle Hector?”

Dorothy said, “
Colonel
Hamilton-Oakes was my Stanley's commanding officer when we was in Aden. Got to know him then, didn't I?” She hoped he wasn't going to ask how.

But all Danny said was, “I didn't know that.”

“Before you were born,” Dorothy said.

“Doesn't tell me what you're doing here.”

“Hector found out I was psychic.”

Danny stared at her. “You're not psychic, Nan!”

“Course I am,” Dorothy said flatly. “You remember: I used to go to the Spiritualists after Stanley died.”

“Yeah, but that was just a bit of comfort, wasn't it? Because you missed him.”

“No, it was because I kept
seeing
him!” Dorothy said. “Still do. I went to the Spiritualists to find out if they could make sense of what was happening. But I was psychic long before that,
long
before. Used to see things when I was a little girl.”

“You never told me about that,” Danny said accusingly.

“Well, you don't, do you? Not a thing you talk about. Don't want people thinking you're bonkers. Only Hector found out while we were in Aden, I sort of let it slip in the heat of the moment, you might say. Thing is, Hector's interested in stuff like that, always has been. He's a Theosophist or a Freemason or something like that.”

“Priory of Mons,” Danny growled.

Dorothy smiled at him. “Oh, he's told you, has he? Wasn't sure if he'd come clean—they're very secretive in the Priory. Anyway, Hector got quite excited when he found out what I could do. Wanted me to join, but I wouldn't. Tell the truth, at that time I thought it was just a lot of rich blokes with too much time on their hands. I'd have been well out of place with Lord This and Sir Henry That—but I said I'd work as their medium if they liked. Made me take an oath of secrecy, and Hector's been my contact ever since. Calls me up when they need me. Never thought he'd call me in on one of your daft schemes.”

“It's not one of my daft schemes,” Danny said quickly. “This is serious business.” What he meant was
dangerous
, whatever Hector said, but he didn't want to worry her.

Dorothy said, “Well, don't you worry about that,
then. I'll look after you, same as I've always done.”

And Danny, bless him, looked at her with that wide-eyed, serious look he got sometimes and said, “Nan, this could be dangerous! There's a sort of devil that
kills
people.”

“Well, it's not going to kill
me
.” Dorothy smiled at him reassuringly and winked. “Tough as old boots, me.”

“A
re you all sitting comfortably?” Hector asked in a polite voice that was presumably meant to lighten the atmosphere. The old woman, Danny's grandmother, was in the east and seemed completely calm by all appearances. For some reason she looked vaguely familiar.

Opal nodded. “Yes.” Hector himself was in the center of the strange room now, to one side of that peculiar altar.

“Then I'll begin,” Hector said brightly. He dropped the smile and the bantering tone as he went on, “Look in the mirror on the wall opposite you. Can you see the symbol above your chair reflected in it?”

“Can't see a thing,” Dorothy said. “You'd make a better door than a window, Hector.”

“Sorry,” Hector said quickly, and moved to stand near the door. “That better?”

“Yes, I can see the mirror now.”

“The rest of you all right?”

There were mumbles from Michael and Danny that might have been assent.

“The technique is simple enough,” Hector said. “The paintings above your heads are the elemental symbols of the quarter you're sitting in—
tattvas
, the Hindus call them. Stare at your symbol in the mirror until you see a sort of halo form around it. That's not magic, just an optical reflex. The symbol will also change color—that's optical too. Once you get that, you'll be drawn out of your body. Just relax. You're all experienced in astral body work or remote viewing or whatever the Project calls it. So let it happen. When you come out of your body, you'll find that the symbol you were watching has grown to the size of a door and is floating in the air in front of you. It's automatic and it means the crystal has turned your second body in the particular direction I was telling you about earlier. Once—”

“When the symbol is floating in front of you like a door, will it be its original color or the color it changed into after the halo business?” Danny asked.

“The color it changed into,” Hector told him. “Now when all this happens, you simply
go through
the symbol doorways—”

“How do you get them open?” Danny asked.

“They're not
actual
doorways,” Hector said. “They're
symbolic
doorways. You don't have to open them. All you have to do is pass through them. Just move forward and pass through them.”

“Then what?” Danny asked, not in the least put out by Hector's irritated tone.

“Dorothy will be your guide at that point,” Hector said. “She'll help you get your bearings on the astral plane.”

There was a long silence, then, “You've done this before, Nan?” Danny asked.

Dorothy looked at him soberly. “Learned it a long time ago.”

“Can't believe you never told me this before,” Danny muttered.

“Certain things have to be kept secret.” Michael's eyes were glittering. Opal found his comment just the tiniest bit irritating.

It couldn't be any worse than flying off to Lusakistan,
Opal thought. Probably much the same. It had to be similar to out-of-body work. Her father used to say that in the olden times, people like magicians and alchemists worked out-of-body the same way Project agents did, but called it by different names.

“There's nothing to worry about,” Michael said. “Just remember we all experience these things differently.”

Danny rounded on him. “Why, have you done this before?”

“No,” Michael admitted.

“Then how do you know?” Danny demanded.

“Uncle Hector told me. He knows what he's doing.”

Which remains to be seen,
Opal thought. She wondered why Danny was so snappy with Michael, but maybe it was just their situation. Certainly the whole Priory of Mons thing made her uneasy. Probably it was not as romantic and spiritual as Hector made it sound—she simply could not bring herself to believe in scrolls found in the Ark of the Covenant. But it was clearly a secret organization that got up to some very odd things. And that was where her difficulties started. Her experience with MI6 had taught her that secret organizations were rarely what they claimed to be. She watched the silver crescent in the mirror opposite, wondering if it could really take her to another level of reality, and wondering what it was going to be like if she really did get there.

She glanced across again at Michael, but he had closed his eyes now. Danny, despite the instruction to relax, was leaning forward in his chair like someone watching a tennis match. His grandmother, Mrs. Bayley, had a vacant look on her face.

Opal looked back at the opposite wall. In the mirror a halo formed around her crescent symbol.