“Yes, but that ruckus we heard was not the sound of a blown bulb, Jeffreys. You know what I’m saying?” Williams nailed in the very notion his colleague was desperately trying to avoid.
Through the dusk of the threshold landing they crept, batons in hand.
“And you said we didn’t need to be issued firearms. What do you say now?” Williams badgered Jeffreys as the matte darkness enclosed them.
“I swear to Christ, Williams, one more word out of you and I’ll push this night stick down your fucking throat!” Jeffreys ranted a bit louder now, half careless at the volume of his voice if only to effectively convey how sick he was of Williams’ bitching.
It worked.
For the rest of the way, he had no trouble from his whining partner, who followed with weak knee in his wake as they carefully navigated room after room. They followed the low rumble in as little light as possible as not to be detected by whatever they were to encounter when they found the origin of the sound. As they drew nearer to the Department of Prehistory and Europe, the resonance became ever more vivid. From afar, it resembled the deep tone of a chamber of bass cellos engorged in a symphony of doom. It was a sound somewhere between the after-chime of a great iron bell and the rumbling of thunder. In fact, both guards were convinced that it was indeed thunder crawling through the halls of the Museum, had it not been such a ludicrous notion.
In secret, Williams wished he was home with his judgmental girlfriend. She could say anything she wanted to him now. It would be just fine with him. His eyes stayed fixed on his partner’s back, as he did not want to lose track of him and be left behind in this vulnerable state. Now for the first time, Henry Williams had to admit that he was a coward. Hell, he would even admit that he was fat. It was all true. It would all be admitted in exchange for salvation from this ordeal. Something deep in the pit of his being told him that what they were stalking was a force far greater than what they could ever deal with. Like the breath of the devil on his heart, he knew this — he knew for a fact that what was coming was otherworldly, ancient and very aware of them.
But he dared not lay a hand on his partner’s back to suggest reason, no. He had been warned in no uncertain terms that he would be worked over and he did not doubt the authenticity in Jeffreys’ threat. There was only one thing to do as they saw the faint illumination of the walls in the next room. Williams simply turned and ran. With the rush of a hellish desperation he bolted from the room, running back through the halls they had crept through. He did not care if his colleague had heard him leave, nor did he care if he would be fired for his actions. Not only did he feel that his life was in danger, but his very soul was at stake. Williams was not good at, or for much, but one thing about him was his almost infallible intuition. And the only message he got from his sensitivity right now was to run for his life.
In the gaining light of the room he approached, Jeffreys realized that he had been abandoned. To be honest, it did not surprise him in the least and it certainly did not make him feel at all less capable. He did not feel more anxious or more terrified than before. As a matter of fact, he was relieved. Williams, for the all the weight of his body and the gravity of his self-serving boasting, carried no substantial purpose whatsoever. Jeffreys almost smiled in the grip of his terror. Now he could move quietly, swiftly.
Ahead of him, the walls pulsed with a bluish light indirectly illuminating them from the opposite side of the room. Jeffreys felt his abdomen ache every time the thunderous sound sent tremors through the floor, echoing so that its waves travelled right through his body.
What in God’s Name is that? he wondered as he rounded the doorway to where the Lewis Chessmen glared motionlessly from the other side of their glass prison.
He was now in the section where the Tromsø Burial hoard was exhibited, surrounded by all manner of pre-Medieval Norse artifacts from Northern Scotland and the islands neighboring it. In front of him, he saw three men remove some treasures of the Lilleberge Viking Burial and placing the items in an ancient wooden bowl with a lid. The bowl was unique in design, a dark wood with what looked like iron and ivory inlays. Its lid was circular and once done, they fixed the lid by twisting it on, something he found peculiar. Jeffreys fell back against the wall on the other side of the entrance, gasping in fearful thrill at the situation. He attempted contact with the head of security again, but to no avail. Only static coursed through the wiring of his communication device. Jeffreys sighed with great labor.
He was on his own. Only he could stop the intruders. But how? He had one weapon with which he had to get into close quarters with some dangerous individuals and he had minimal training. In the dark, with the thunderous serenade about him, Jeffreys murmured a drove of prayers, mantras and encouraging words to himself, his eyes shut in preparation of his awkward onslaught.
In the weak light the next room exuded, something gleamed nearby him. It gave him an idea. ‘The place is full of weapons, you idiot. Yes, it is illegal to touch them and it is basic sacrilege toward history, but this is your life, old boy. What is one artifact when it comes to stopping the theft of an entire hoard, huh?’
In one of the rooms, there was a large pointed stone with jagged edging and quite heavy for its size. It would not break easily should he use force and besides, he never understood why the hell they called it a “hand axe” anyway. It’s a bloody rock. A million and something year old rock some ancient farmer or butcher grated until it formed a point on one side so that he could use it as a weapon or an instrument for skinning and such, the guard thought as he entered Room 2.
‘Bloody stupid. It’s just a rock. Does it ever occur to these educated morons that all rocks on the ground are formed from other rocks that are over a million gazillion years old anyway? What is so special about this one anyway? It’s a stone, like all the others,’ he lectured himself, more to disregard his reluctance to use the item so lovingly displayed. But there was no time for sentimentality. There it was — Hand axe — Lower Paleolithic, Olduvai Gorge — aged older than God, by the way the scientists treated it.
With the stone firmly in hand, Jeffreys returned to the room where the burglars were angrily locked in argument about something. He could hear that one was a woman. Their words did not come in English, so he could not ascertain who they were or why they chose to steal this particular hoard. With the ancient stone in his hand he came into the darkened room. As he crept closer, his heart ramming his chest in terrible anticipation, their language became more audible. German maybe?
The three figures were dressed in black and masked, just like in the movies Jeffreys watched. For a minute, it all felt surreal to him, as if he had stepped into a scene from an action film, apart from the very real peril he now found himself in. The thunder was prevalent, yet its origin was undetectable. Among the three, the argument grew to a heated fight. Jeffreys knew that it presented an opportunity for him to surprise them and without another moment’s hesitation he lunged at the bigger man of the two.
As he plunged, the sharp side of the rock into the base of the man’s skull, the woman screamed and gathered up their loot. Jeffreys came down with his victim, repeatedly slamming the ancient rock against the intruder’s skull to render him unconscious. The woman stared in horror at the guard’s fury and in the middle of it all he glanced up to her. What he saw ran his blood cold.
‘Is she glowing?’ his baffled mind asked while his senses played havoc in the throes of the confusion and fear. The other man pulled his sidearm. The woman’s skin seemed luminescent, her eyes vacant and ethereal blue as she fitted the Silver arm band, an intricate and beautiful piece from the Silverdale find. As it latched onto her arm, her head fell back and she sucked in her breath in a long inhalation of exhilaration, like the electric charge of a lightning bolt. Jeffreys was mesmerized. He did not see the barrel of the other man’s Luger P 08 kiss his temple before the flare of its bite opened his skull and sent him to the cold hard floor of the British Museum.