September 29, 1964

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Emily Walker answered the door before Samael Grifford could knock, and half-curtsied. "Your honor, welcome to our home."

Grifford returned her gesture with a half hearted bow. "Were it only under better circumstances, Emily. Is your husband home?"

"He's waiting for you in the drawing room, judge. Please come inside, and out of the sun."

Grifford nodded once, and stepped past the threshold of the entryway. Emily stepped aside as he passed, and shut the door behind him. Grifford continued into the foyer, through the hall, and turned right to the drawing room. Clayton was sitting by the hearth staring at the long dead ashes of a once fire. Grifford cleared his throat, and Clayton glanced over his shoulder. When he saw Grifford, he stood and acknowledged the judge. "Judge, it's an honor to have you in my home."

"Let us do away with formalities for now, Clay." Grifford admired the drawing room a moment, and found his way into the comfort of the seat across from Clayton's.

"Very well." Clayton bowed his head in reverence to the judge, and took his seat.

"I'm afraid I've kept secrets from you, Clay." Grifford sank back into his seat. "I received your message about the attack on your home, but I'm afraid I could not respond."

"You're a busy man, judge. I understand."

"Now is not the time for formalities. Let us speak plainly."

Clayton blinked, feeling the same discomfort he felt when Martin Bellar addressed him without the traditional formalities of The Order. "Alright."

"Good. The night of September twenty-seventh you called for me. Do you remember what time?"

"Uh..." Clayton scratched at the back of his neck. Down the hall, past the den, from the kitchen he could hear Jonathan repeating the word no. "I want to say just a little while before midnight."

"It was exactly a minute before midnight. Rosa took the call, recorded the time, and because you insisted its importance, your message was delivered to me by one of my personal Zealots."

"I don't follow."

Grifford held up his hand. "At the time you called me, I was at the quarry."

"The quarry? That late at night?"

"More specifically, I was a few hundred feet underground... and yes. That late at night."

"The mine."

"Yes, Clay. I was down in the mine. The research team requested me an hour before your call. They discovered something."

"Research team? I didn't know we had any local teams at work."

"Our project, The Hands of God has been a tireless effort on all involved. The quarry was how we imagined the idea. It was necessary to dig, but we had to disguise it. It would do us no good if we deemed it an archeological dig site."

"It would attract unwanted attention."

"Correct... but what is to anyone just another quarry? We dig around, cart it off by the truckload, and when we finish we fill it up with water. Maybe toss in a few fish for the locals, and call it a lake. Our dedication to preserving nature, and wildlife."

"What did you find?"

"Research has no idea. The church may know but if they do, they are not telling: they want it reburied. Personally, I do not think it can help The Order... but I believe it may be tied to you."

"What's down in the mine?"

"It is not exactly a mine." Grifford swallowed, and spared himself a moment of thoughtful silence. "It was there already. A local found an old piece of pottery on the land before we started digging. The fool thought nothing of it, and sold it at the bazaar. He sold it to Marisal."

"The gypsy."

"Aye, the gypsy. Her father Abram, God rest his soul, claimed to know what it was, and personally brought it to my attention."

"...we didn't... you didn't..?" Clayton gestured with his thumb, sliding it across his throat.

Grifford laughed, and despite the tension around them, Clayton felt a little of the severity in the air ease. "I compensated him handsomely for the piece, and bought some of that rich tobacco they smoke. The stuff mixed with roses."

"...and hashish."

Grifford shrugged.

Clay nodded, and let go the subject. "What did they find""

"Monsters, my dear friend. Monsters."

"What, like Lon Chaney, and Boris Karloff?"

Grifford grinned his fractured grin, genuinely amused. "Sculptures. Statues I suppose, they are certainly large enough. Eight of them. Well, seven of them intact. One was in a pile of itself."

"I don't understand."

"Like I said. No one understands. No one seems to know or if anyone knows, no one wants to discuss it."

"...but you believe you know."

Grifford nodded. "I apologize for all this suspense. I spend perhaps too much time with Marisal. She tells a fine tale, and I believe her when she says the value of anything worth knowing is in the way you tell it."

"I don't much trust the gypos."

"I do not blame you. Marisal might be an ally, but she is easily an opportunist. She refused to join The Order, but disdains much of the same things we disdain. The rest of her caravan? Let us say simply this... I keep my pocketbook far out of reach."

"With your driver?"

"I leave it at home. In a safe. Just in case."

It was Clayton's turn to laugh now.

Grifford looked happy - was in fact happy - and he was glad for it. If there were any in The Order he was unwilling to sacrifice, it was Clayton. Clayton was not the greatest fighter among them, nor was he the smartest. Clayton's greatest asset was his House - not his home, or the land he owned; it was not the vast wealth a long line of Walkers accrued over the past three-hundred-forty years. It was the fact his House stood beside Grifford's from the very beginning. Since their houses landed at Plymouth Rock, House Walker was a staunch ally. They were there when the court of Oyer and Terminer formed at Salem, and stood by to see the heathens hanged, crushed, or drowned for their crimes against God and Nature.

The Walker line was a line that was, and always would stand by his, but equally as important, they would always stand by The Order, even if no others would.

"Your honor?"

"It is time I rewarded you for your loyalty to The Order, and your trust in me to make the correct decisions. I am proud to call you a Goodman, Clayton Walker... and I am proud to call you friend. I am not going to tell you what we found in the mines."

"Judge?"

"I am going to show you. Come with me. My driver is waiting."

✟ ☧ ✟

Under the clouded night sky, the depth of the quarry looked like a gaping mouth in the ground, as though the land were yawning... or a wide open mouth waiting to feed.

To Clayton, somehow the darkness brought a sinister quality to the inert heavy machines. The cranes, the cable and hammer tractors, the drills and draglines looked like slumbering beasts resting at the mouth of the void. In his short life so far, Clayton never feared the dark, nor the things in it. His years spent hunting coven in Driftwood revealed more than he would ever want to see and the time spent abroad chasing tall tales, and local legends spared him no peace in the things he saw, or had to do. It was duty, always only duty... but even in the line of duty, the psyche of a man had its limits. His threshold on stability, and sanity was stronger than most in The Order, but if Clayton jumped at the sight of a shadow it was because he bore witness to what shadows without someone to cast them could do.

Memory associated his experiences to allusion. What looked like a crane to most, looked like something else to him. From his exploration, and experience in the meaner parts of the world, the uncivilized reaches of tribal lands across continents, to his misadventures through domestic inquiries as close as Collings, Clayton had every reason for his unease.

There were darker corners of the earth than Driftwood, but none so dark as where hope was swallowed whole.

Despite his discomfort, the descent into the quarry was easy once he and Grifford ignited their lamps. He drew confidence from the Judge, and soon enough on the slow descent, his trepidation was gone.

Until.

...until they stood at the entrance to the mine.

"Are you alright, Clay?"

Clayton felt a cold inside him, a cold no manner of warmth could respite. Not his thick leather boots, nor his winter fatigues; nothing abated the chill in his bones, or the feeling of ice in his veins. Clayton drew his long coat around him tightly, and shivered. "It's freezing."

"Take heed, Clay. That is not the cold you feel. That is a phenomena radiating from the mine." Grifford gestured to the adit of the mine. "What do you see here?"

"This is not a mine." Clayton stared at the adit, and from the springers to the keystone, he recognized immediately the deliberate construction.

Each of the nine large and black glossy stones that made the entrance were carved with painstaking precision, and polished to a high gloss. Under their lamplight, the stones had an oily red hew. Each of the nine stones were marked with a single symbol in their center, they keystone - the largest - marked with a seal.

"No, it is not. This is not a quarry. This area in its entirety was buried in antiquity... quite possibly before man."

"Before man."

"The height stands at one-hundred-seventy-one cubits - that's two-hundred-fifty-seven feet."

Clayton clenched his jaw a moment. "I remember how to cou t in cubits, your honor."

Grifford smiled. "...the stones that make up the adit are not true stone. From what we can determine, it is a type of glass."

"Obsidian?"

"No. No one has seen this glass anywhere in this world." Grifford stepped up to the stone, pulling his black leather gloves over his claw-like hands. He stepped slowly to the side of the adit, and placed his hand on the base stone. "The glass vibrates at a higher frequency than we can measure."

"What does this mean?"

"Did you feel any inclination of dread, or irrational fear as we approached the quarry? Be honest."

Clayton nodded, staring at the architecture of the arch. "I didn't think anything of it. There were some moments at the top of the quarry I was certain the equipment was... I don't know."

"...something else?"

Clayton shrugged. "Things look different at night, than during the day. It's a human inclination to fear the unknown."

"Yes, but we do know what is out there, do we not? What imagined monsters could darkness inspire that supersedes the true horrors we know are out there?"

"What we thought we knew?"

Grifford pulled his hand away from the stone, and pointed at Clayton. "Exactly. What we thought we knew. We call this black glass... or rather, they call this black glass."

"They?"

"Them. The heathen scum, Clay. As far as we know, there are no known substances in our possession that can cut it. We cannot even scratch it."

"It's harder than diamond?"

"It can withstand blasting. Ballistics. Picks. Hammers. We cannot measure a melting point, because as far as anyone can discern... it does not have one."

"What are those marks on the glass?"

Grifford turned and stared at the arch, stepping backward until he was side-by-side with Clayton. "We sent a number of photographs to our superiors in Rome. They requested samples from the site."

"...but you couldn't take any."

"That is correct... so they sent a representative. Their early assessment is that the symbols are angelic in origin. Angelic, but not necessarily celestial."

"Infernal?"

"They don't know. No amount of research could find a match for the marks, but we are almost certain the marks are names."

Clayton took a single step backward, away from the arch, and away from the judge. "You said this was buried?"

"We think it was."

"Forgive my ignorance, but why would anyone bury this?"

Grifford began toward the mouth of the adit. "It may have to do with what is inside. I will show you."

✟ ☧ ✟

Though Grifford entered the adit casually, it took a force of will for Clayton to set foot past the arch. The strange energy he felt from the stones - the black glass - made him nauseous as he passed them, hurrying to walk beside the judge.

"The nausea will pass. It only happens once."

Inside, Clayton stared at the detailed inscriptions in the wall, glyphs written in similar symbols to those marking the stones that made up the arch at the adit. The floor was carved in horizontal ridges from wall to wall, and during their descent they stepped down carved stairs. They continued down the long corridor. Clayton counted the metal pillars and still support beams as the walked deeper in. The pillars and support beams made the inside of the corridor look like the inside of a serpent with heavy steel ribs. "This was all carved from solid rock... from the inside out?"

"It would appear that."

"Were all the pillars and support beams here?"

"That was a decision I made. There is no inherent danger to the halls here, but the safety of our excavation teams is important, and I felt it better to err on the side of caution. There is no true certainty in this discovery."

"I see." Clayton was lying. He did not see, nor did he understand the scope of the hall, or its purpose. He felt it was dangerous, though not structurally so much as what its actual structure suggested. "Is there anything we do know?"

"We did make a small discovery - a breakthrough of sorts - that helped decipher some of the artifacts we found." Grifford stopped in their descent. "I want you to know why none of this was revealed to you sooner."

"It was not my place to know."

"Normally, I would agree. Most of our expeditions and archeology work is done outside the knowledge of those not directly involved... but this project is in part what inspired the Hands of God. We may have a new enemy out there. Something we have not yet seen."

"Outside of Coven?"

"Outside anything we are familiar. We wanted to keep this quiet as long as we could... there is no good in reporting anything until there is something to report."

They continued their slow trek. "What I am about to tell you must stay between us. Do you understand?"

Clayton took a deep breath in through his nose. The air was cool, and odorless. It was not the musty and stagnant air he expected from a mine, but then this was no mine. These were seamless halls, carved out rather than constructed. He exhaled as saw a brief plume of frost from his breath. "I understand."

"Your hesitation says so much. You want to do what is right, but you are uncertain what the right thing is. May I give you a piece of advice I once gave your father? It could help you."

"Please."

"Sometimes there is no absolute right answer. Instead, we must accept the lesser of two evils can be the good for a greater cause." Grifford stopped again, and Clayton stopped beside him. "It is easier out there in the field, tracking and terminating heathens. It is a contrast of black and white, right and wrong. The more you become a part of what I do, and the decisions I have to make, you begin to see that some action at least requires immediate response. We are faced with forces we were not prepared, quite possibly infernal forces that demand an immovable object. Forces that can affect us, even with the Rites and Blessings we receive in The Order."

"I've never heard of anything like that."

"Perhaps we can shed light on this." The path leveled out from their descent to even ground. The vast hall continued a short way, a soft glow flickered at the end of the hall. He hurried his pace, and Clayton kept up behind him. They walked in silence until the reached the end of the hall.

Clayton covered his mouth, and it was all he could do to keep from gasping.

"I know how you feel, Clay. I never saw such a place. You could measure the distance in this room in acres... direct your attention now to the center of the room." Grifford stepped into the dim lit room, and Clayton followed.

The area was half as tall as it was far, and wide. Clayton felt a cold heaviness forming in his chest as he focused on the center of the great room. Looming over everything was a twisting, winding tower of a tree, its thick black leafless, and knotted branches reaching in every direction. Clayton froze at the sight of seven creatures perched in the tree, posed on their branches in a vigil, glinting eyes staring down at the entrance of the enormous chamber.

"They're not real, Clay." Grifford placed his hand on Clayton's tense shoulder. Clay was shaking. "What is it?"

"I don't exactly remember. It's familiar."

"The message relayed to me from the twenty-seventh was cryptic... but there were certain phrases that caught my attention. Phrases that told me you needed to see this. A tree. An owl. Snarling, gnashing things you could not see."

Clayton shuddered. "There are only seven here."

"Follow me."

Grifford released Clayton's shoulder and took the lead and they walked with Grifford taking the lead, into the center of the chamber. They came upon the tree, and up close it was no more a comfort to Clayton than it was from the entrance. They circled around it and Grifford spread his gloved hands out to present one of the sculpted statues laying in a rough pile of itself at the base of the tree. Clayton collected his composure and knelt next to the broken statue. Its face was as the face of an owl, and somewhere in the depths of memory it was a face he knew. A face that watched over his son. "I know this creature. It didn't look like this, but the face. I know its face."

Grifford knelt next to Clayton, and nodded. "It is called Yan'shuf."

"It has a name?"

"Yan'shuf means owl. In Hebrew. Each of the terrors you see in the tree, and this were named. As we descended the halls, you no doubt saw the walls were marked in symbols. The church sent pontifical archaeologists to assist in the finds. The nine marks on the large stones at the adit, and on the walls of the halls all read the same thing."

"I saw a tenth symbol along our way." Clayton pushed his gloved finger against the face of the broken creature.

"Yes. It is also a name... but we could not find anything matching its description here. The names you read were Yan'Shuf, the owl. Tannīn, which is crocodile. Pil, the Elephant. Nakhash - the snake... it could mean serpent. Sūs, the horse. Khul-da, which means rat. Arvye, the lion, and Karnaf. Karnaf means rhinoceros."

"Judge, what are the ninth, and tenth names?"

"Ehts, and Ta'al." Grifford frowned and closed his eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration. He began to shake. A single droplet of blood bobbed from one of his nostrils, and then a thin trickle of blood from the other. "Ehts means tree. Ta'al..."

"Stop."

Grifford opened his eyes, snapping his attention to Clayton. Grifford's eyes were bloodshot, and in that moment, the old judge was pale, small and frail looking. "I am sorry, Clay. You have to understand, there is no turning back. We could bury this chamber and its massive halls

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