The Third Key (GUARDING THE LIGHT) (16 page)

All
of
the tourists,
visitors, priests
and nuns
were out
wo
ndering about the sirens and alarm
s
.
The sky was
dark
,
and
the crowd buzzed about
, waiting for police and firefighters to arrive.
Some watched out for signs of fire, and some
speculated about possible
causes
of
this whole mess.
S
uddenly,
a
strong glow of white bright light
emanated
fro
m
inside the church
hall
.
Huge
windows
of differently colored glass
were
all
illuminated
from
the inside. The c
hurch now looked as if t
here were
huge
movie screens on all the
walls, glowing
with light
.
The crowd began muttering, not liking that they didn’t understand this new turn of events
.

A few
security guards were near the
main
entrance
,
looking
as confused
as
the
other people in
the
crowd
.
They
had concluded that the strong glow of light illuminating
the crowd
was definitely not a
fire
.
One of them
,
a
t
all
man
with a very
typical
English face
was n
ervously trying
to reach his friend:

“
Raymond do you read…? …
..
Ray ..?
Where are you
, mate
….”

When t
wenty minutes
had
passed and one of their
colleagues
did not respond, the guards felt a strong desire to react. The
remaining t
wo
members of security
decided to move
in,
before
the
police
cars
arrive
d
:

“Might
take ‘
e
m
20 minutes
more
to come”,
one of them commented
in a
strong Essex
accent
.
“May be
somefin
’
we have to solve
, at the end of the day
.”

“Wait
, please
.
I will go with you
.”
Rev. John Summers, the
head priest
of
St. Paul
,
stopped them
with kind but loudly spoken words. All three people went inside the church but they
would never have suspected
that
they
were just
a
few minutes
away from
the ugly face of death.
None
of them ever returned
.

XX.

“Anything
suspicious
up there?”
Jason’s
face and voice
reflected his
worry.

Everything seemed too easy
. They
were on the right spot and should soon
find the
Third
Key of the Diamond Gate. There was no sign of
Quabil
but
something just didn’t seem right.

“
All clear up here
.
How about d
own
there
?”
Gunnar replied.

“Same
here
.
We should be out soon.
Keep your eyes peeled
, they may be
planning
on an ambush since we’ve done the heavy lifting.
”

“
Good point!
I’m getting the latest scan of surrounding vehicles from the police
. If anything looks
strange
, I’ll…..scream.” Gunnar grinned.

“
You do that.”
Jason
grinned,
but
he was focused on his team
. The
y went over all
the
possible
hiding placed for the Key without finding anything
.
They checked
all around the altar,
and
all the spaces
below
it.
They looked
under the
altar’s
large
base
, moving the
huge structure made of stone and metal
to peer beneath i
t.
They checked all the
edges and
every place inside the altar
.
The newest generation m
etal detector
was no help
!
T
ime
was running
out
and they had nothing to show for their work.

“Guys,
let’s light up this place
.
It’s
time for those power
vacuum cleaner
s
.”
The team brought in powerful pumps, normally used to pump out
water
, to
quickly remove the
dirt layers
from the ground below the altar.

“
Let’s
check this place
all over again. Switch the spots.
Check the photos Gunnar shared
on your devices –
memorize the shape. We need to find this object!
”

Four muscular figures
made systematic sweeps of
the
whole area
inside
the Ritual Room
, inch by inch
.
Powerful flash
lights and cleaned floors promised
they
would
now find the hidden
object
.
20 minutes passed..
.
40
minutes.
Nothing.

“
Let’s look
below the altar
.
”
Jason tried not to sound desperate
.
How ‘below’ had the Guardian meant?
Jason wondered if it meant ‘below
the ground
’
.
They lifted up the heavy stone
squares,
exactly where the
altar made of
green
copperas
was placed
.
No
key.

“It has to be
here somewhere
–
below in a box,
hidden
somehow.
”
Jason was starting to repeat himself, but then
, he remembered another possibility! That would be much easier to check.

Jason
’s voice
now sounded openly nervous:

“Gunnar, we’ve found nothing so far
.
This is my idea: keep
the rest of
the g
uys
in
position but 2 or 3 guys
have to
go to the
main Church.
Start a
f
ire alarm or something
,
just find a way
to
empty the place so you can
go and check the
space
below
the altar
, there in the main church.”
Jason
paused, giving his friend
time to react.
“
We
can’t do anything else here but start
dig
ging
the earth.
”

“
Of
course,”
Gunnar replied and added
for Jason’s peace of mind
, “sometimes the simplest things are the best in life and we miss seeing that
.
”
He
spoke while moving
toward the
main Church entrance.

The f
ire alarm was
the
easy part
-
it took
a
good
15 minutes for all the tourists to
evacuate the area
. Gunnar
and
three
ex-military
professionals
began to hunt for
the key.

“This search
looks
more like
summer cleaning
than saving the world
”
,
thought Gunnar,
when he saw clean space inside the wide and high space of a church hall.
When everyone left, they locked all
the
doors from inside.
Just like
the
team
below
, they
searched
for a
palm-sized
metal
piece inside a room
.
Armed with
metal detectors
,
they were all sure it would be
an easy
task.

After half an hour of intense
searching, it no longer looked
easy.
The f
ireman
squad
had begun banging
o
n
the door, which meant that Prague p
olice
would arrive soon after
.
After 45
minutes of searching
,
their hope of
find
ing the
Third Key
there
became very weak and shaky
. Soon after,
hope
in the hearts of
the
four men
died entirely.
Facing the
facts
killed
it.

They left
the church hall using
the
back door exit
,
and
met with the rest of the
team.
Each man was
covered with dirt and sweat. Tired
from
the intense search and
digging
in
the
ground
below
the a
ltar, they could
see defeat on each other
’s
faces. They were
exhausted
but
the
feeling of
hopelessness
disturbed
them the most. All of them -
Gunnar, Michael and
the
others
-
were hoping to hear
a word
from
Jason
that would
offer the answer or
their
next move.
Jason
was there
but
he seemed absent; sitting on the stone of the stairs he
stared
in front of him at a distant spot
.
Finally, he spoke in a voice of deep exhaustion.

“Go,
take some rest
.
”
They were the
only words he could utter.

XXI.

Insid
e
St. Peter
’
s
church in Essex,
the search after the same
missing
object was taking place. However, those after
Third
Key
here
only
looked like
human
s -
those w
ith eyes to see knew the truth. T
hese ‘men’ we
re
demonic
creatures,
monsters in human
form
.
Moving extremely
fast,
two of them
swept
around the altar w
hile
their commander
stood silently
with his hands crossed over his
chest
, e
yes filled with expectation
and delight.
Moving a
few steps towards his assistants
made them move
faster, nearly at a run
.
Without words,
they knew he wanted results and he wanted
them
quickly
.
Ten
minutes
later, nothing had been found although
every single inch
had been searched of the ground
below
and around
the altar
area.
Suddenly both assistants fe
l
t
immense pressure around their necks.
They
were forced to turn
toward
the
leader
of their special
demonic
unit.