Lillith had driven through the night and made good time. She easily snagged the keys to an older Jeep Cherokee from someone at the bar near the hotel. She stopped and grabbed an extra cell phone just as she had discussed with Tobias. The area where The Eater Of Souls dwelled wasn't that difficult to get to as far as the terrain was concerned. After all, they were able to get a Lincoln town car into the area and planned to drive a RV into it as well. Still the Jeep gave her options to make new roads and a better chance to escape. The Jeep had 2 metal gas cans attached to the bumper, and she made sure they were both full before getting into the desert. Once she got into the area, she parked and looked for a good spot to hide the phone. The reception here was terrible, but she was able to find an area that got a solid one bar of signal. She sent Tobias a text from the extra phone, made sure it had a full charge then left it there. The caves entrance was the only thing around the area so it shouldn't be too hard for them to find. Lillith left the area without looking back, glad nothing crazy happened before she made it back to the main road. The Sun was starting to set ahead of her as she drove into Nevada and on to Las Vegas. Sin City would be a great place to lay low until all this blew over. Besides, an Enchantress in Las Vegas? It was practically a palace built for lust and greed, she would fit right in. Who knows, maybe she would win big? Stranger things have happened!
Sĕigo and Shay were on the road again. Shay was driving the first leg of the trip and Sĕigo would take over 30 minutes before sunrise. They had painted the windows black from the inside and taped tinfoil over the paint. Obviously they couldn't do this to the windshield but the back bedroom was completely blacked out and once the accordion door was closed, it would be fine for Shay. He wasn't taking any chances with the sun now. It was a really nice RV and had plenty of room for the two of them. Shay had grabbed a small group of drunk girls having a ladies night out and loaded them up in the back bedroom, his daytime hideout. Gagged and tied up, they weren't going anywhere, and as long as he didn't go overboard, the five of them would easily last him until they were ready to make their move on The Order. Sure, the whimpering and the smell of piss would bother anyone who wasn’t a complete sociopath, but neither of them cared at all. They were making good time and hoped to only stop one more time to get gas before hitting the desert. As planned they had waited and left 24 hours after Lillith had left them. Neither of them completely trusted her, but the spell she had done to locate Tobias had been accurate at least. They didn't really need her help, Sĕigo was REALLY powerful by himself and Shay was a killing machine in the dark. Plus The Eater Of Souls was... Ancient and powerful beyond words, to the point The Eater Of Souls was still a bit overwhelming to Shay.
Angiola and I got back to the hotel shortly after we finished up in the park. Getting a taxi would have been a nightmare, but thankfully we had rented a car for the week as well as the room. We would be needing it for the museum robbery anyway. Could it be called robbery if we were going to replace the item anyway? Sure it wasn't with an original artifact, but the original was cursed beyond all words. In the rental, Angiola plucked feathers off my armor as I drove, then cleaned up most of the blood with some wet wipes. The sigils tattooed on us and engraved guns would make the eye pass right over. It would also be really hard to see even on video but with everything else going on we really didn't want to risk walking into a hotel armed and covered in blood and feathers… Sure, I know they work, but why push things. All we need is a drunk in the lobby to get a good glimpse out the corner of their eye or something like that. It would be a real inconvenience if we had to change hotels and most of the equipment was still in our room. Once we got back inside the room we were able to get changed and showered, washing the remaining blood and flamingo bits off. When we got out of the shower I had a text message from an unknown number. It was from Lillith, and read. “Its L. Phone charged and 100 feet from cave mouth. Can't miss it. Only thing in area. I’m out of here. Track as needed. Goodbye Tobias.” My phone buzzed again and there was a picture message. It was Lillith, taking a selfie. The caves entrance was in the background and easily visible if this was taken where the phone was left. I handed the phone over to Angiola so she could see everything. “This is perfect! I can track the phone's location and pull the embedded geolocation data from the picture!” She said excitedly walking over to her laptop. She sat down with my phone and began tapping away at her keyboard. “I’ll forward everything over to Reginald and see if he can think of anything I may have missed. I'm sure by the time we have the phylactery, they will have a plan on how to destroy it and attack.” She was so excited and so beautiful, it was a joy to watch her work. I smiled and sat down across from her at the kitchenette table. Tomorrow we would make the swap, hopefully without issue and then we would head back to the compound. Tonight however, it was still our honeymoon.
The plan was simple. Angiola and I walked the halls of the metropolitan museum of art, holding hands and taking pictures like any other tourist or couple. Angiolas smartphone, however, was drilling right into the security systems, cameras, motion detectors and electronic locks. Not surprisingly Angiola really enjoyed the visit. She was definitely an artist at heart, her own work truly rivaled what was hung on display, at least in my opinion. We could have been in and out pretty quickly at least to finish the hack, but I was enjoying spending time with her, and she was enjoying the art. It was funny, walking around and seeing some artwork from people I was passingly familiar with when they were alive. I guess I should have picked up some of their work, o well. I don't really have much of an eye for it but I know what I like, and there was some really impressive work on display. After several hours we left and went back to our room. The museum would close in about an hour and a half. Angiola plugged her phone into her laptop and checked the data she snagged while we walked around. “How did it work, did you get everything?” I asked, hoping that we were still good to go for part two. She typed away, her nimble fingers dancing across the keyboard. I could tell she was concentrating hard on what she was doing, but I was a ball of excitement and anxiety. Angiola smiled across the table at me and said, “Looks like we got everything! I'm in the master system but it's going to take me a bit to get in there and make all the changes we need. We should be good to go by tonight.” I smiled broadly, her smile was so contagious.
Much later that evening and well after The MET closed for the night, Angiola dropped me off at the back of the building and drove off. It was all a matter of timing now. We had set our watches and planned everything out in increments of either thirty or ninety seconds. Ninety seconds after she dropped me off, the back door keypad changed from red to green. I opened the door and made my way inside. I casually walked down a long hallway, through an employee only area. Pausing to hide inside the men's room while the camera panned my way. Thirty seconds passed and I was out the door and running down the hall and heading into the public displays area. Timing it just right, I opened the door and snuck into the main museum floor, just as the camera panned past the door inside the gallery. At the same time the hallway camera panned past the door I was exiting. Timing the camera's sweeping passes was a pain, but it was easier than looping the footage if anyone else was working here. Angiola had built in a lag that would buy me a blind spot as long as I stuck to the increments planned. When she closed her override to the system and logged off, the cameras would be back to normal in 30 minutes, stepping the cameras back little by little. Bypassing all the security without notice was difficult enough. I was almost to the display case when I crouched behind a nearby sculpture, waiting for the camera to go by before I could get to the case and make the swap. “Wait one.” Came over my ear piece. Angiola was parked down the street a bit and was watching the live feed. I wasn't sure what went wrong but I knew to trust her and froze in the camera's blind spot. “Are you in blind spot 7?” she asked. I reached down and clicked the button twice for yes. I could hear faint footsteps coming down the hallway leading to the room. There was also an occasional squeaking. An older gentleman came by pausing at each glass display case, spraying on some cleaner, wiping it dry, and moving on to the next. Thankfully I was completely hidden from his view, but this still threw a bit of a hitch into things. My plan was to act as a janitor if anyone came by, my tattoos showing them what they needed to see, to view me as a janitor. He finally moved on and went down to clean another exhibit hall. “He's out of sight. Wait 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, go!” Angiola said into my ear, resetting the countdown for the camera's constant scanning. I ran over to the display case and began to pick the lock open. In six seconds I had both top and bottom locks picked. The alarms were off so opening the case wouldn't trip anything. I donned a thick leather glove onto my right hand and grabbed the phylactery. Then suddenly, my vision went black.
There were small fires spread about six feet apart, illuminating a large cave. I could hear chanting in a language I wasn't at all familiar with, yet I could somehow understand it. The air was thick with smoke from sage, hemp and something else I couldn't place. It was pungent and spicy, making my nose itch fiercely. I could feel the cool cave floor underneath my naked body, the floor worn smooth over the decades of use. A native American man stood over me and was blowing smoke from a small burning bundle of twigs and herbs. The chanting continued and was reaching a crescendo. The artifact I had just stolen was there, held in the hands of another man. As the chanting reached a fevered pitch a massive beast appeared lumbering through the haze and smoke. Reaching over me, it extended a single long claw from his finger and stabbed it deeply into my chest. Strong men held down my arms, but I was completely paralyzed. I could only move my eyes as they grated in their sockets, frantically looking around the cave. A thick black and red noxious smoke poured forth from the wound and was inhaled by the beast, before it was exhaled into the statue. I could feel the humanity leaving my body. Every ounce of good, joy, peace and kindness went with it. The beast removed his nail from my chest and the wound closed up instantly. There was a faint glow to the statue for a few moments, pulsing fainter and fainter. I sat up, and could feel the darkness of my God flowing into me, wrapping me like a warm fur. I would never be the same, and I would never die. After many days and many nights, the ritual was finally completed.
“Tobias! Tobias, are you there! What's happening, you have to move!” I could hear Angiola over my ear piece. I was laying on the floor, the phylactery still in my gloved hand, my fingers clenched so tight I’m shocked it didn’t shatter. “Time check.” I groggily said into the comms. “Just put in the fake and get out of there. I had to run the looped footage for this area and the exit path, you wont show up on camera. Just get out there NOW!” I was still in a haze, that vision or whatever had left me shaken. I felt dirty and my chest still felt like it had been ripped wide open. I stood up and replaced the statue with the fake and locked the cabinet back before running out the showcase floors employee door and making it down the back hallway. When I exited the MET, Angiola was there waiting for me in the rental car. As soon as I got in she hit a few keys on her laptop before closing it and passing it over to me. She put the car in gear and quickly headed back to our hotel. “What happened back there?” Angiola asked me, she was obviously in a panic. “The camera panned back and you were laying on the floor shaking, you had collapsed and were having some sort of seizure. Thankfully I had a 5 second delay on the live feed so I could go to a loop if something went wrong. ARE YOU OKAY?!?” I was still trembling but the pain in my chest had started to fade. I had placed the phylactery into a thick leather pouch that had contained the replica. I tossed it into the back seat and with trembling fingers shucked the thick glove off of my right hand. Angiola was looking from me to the road and back again. She noticed my trembling hands and immediately pulled the car over. “I'm okay, I think. I'm not really sure what happened but whatever you do, DO NOT touch that thing. When I grabbed it, I was suddenly shown how the Lich was made. I was there, in his body and saw the climax of the ceremony I think. It was... I can't... It was just bad… okay. Let's get back to the room, let me shower and get some coffee. I feel freezing cold and dirty all over. I will tell you everything after that.” I could tell she wasn't thrilled but she got back onto the road and headed towards the hotel.
After a long hot shower, the last 25 minutes of which I was just cured up in a ball, simply letting the hot water hit me. I sat down to a cup of coffee. I had packed away the artifact before I showered, I didn't want to have to mess with that thing any more than necessary. We had a hard case with locks and custom cut foam inserts that we brought the replacement copy into the country with. We didn't want the flight staff or anyone else to mess with it at all. While I was in the shower, Angiola had called The Order and let them know we had gotten it and were ready to head back. I wasn't sure if she had told them about my black out or not. I took a few sips of my coffee and Angiola sat down across from me again. We were out on the balcony and I had lit up a small cigarillo. I rarely smoke, but I always keep a small pack in my gear bag in case it's needed for cover. You can step out for a smoke, and disengage conversation easily with that excuse. I took a long drag, inhaled, paused then exhaled before taking another sip of coffee. “I could see and feel everything that happened when his soul left him. They did some ceremony and everything was sucked out of him by The Eater Of Souls then blown into that phylactery. I could see and feel all his humanity, any shred of decency or good he had in his heart as it was just stripped away. All of the good floated away with the smoke and all of the evil and hatred was poured out from The Eater Of Souls and into the Litch. There was like a feedback loop, just bouncing between the artifact and him. Back and forth, over and over again until he was full of nothing but an intense evil and a rage that was overwhelming. I could feel the power from The Eater Of Souls, it was there and a large part of the ceremony as well. It shook me... I know I've been around a lot of evil before but this...” I trailed off, shaking my head and taking another drag on the smoke. “I've never seen you smoke before, are you sure you're okay?” I nodded and knocked the ash off before taking another drag. “I don't, well normally. I will if it's needed for cover in an opp or something, that's where this one came from. I will occasionally, as in this is the 1st one I've actually smoked in about 30 years. That whole thing just really has me on edge.” I just didn't have the words to explain it to her, or even myself. I know that we have God on our side, and I was sure we could destroy this evil but. This was the first time in a LONG time I was afraid of what we were going after. The nuke was different, man made. If we got vaporised, that was it. It would be over before we knew we messed up and that would be the end of things for me. I was worried it would kill a huge chunk of The Order, and I couldn’t imagine the repercussions globally if we failed. This thing, it wanted to ruin us in ways we couldn't imagine. It would kill us and bind our spirits to our bones for eternity, feeding off our pain and suffering.