Two Days Later
The angry heat of the last few weeks was over and a fresh breeze now blew off the river Thames. Blake sat by himself in an alcove of the Jerusalem Tavern, listening to the gentle rattle of rain against the window. With the change in the weather, the unrest in the city had also calmed.
Blake glanced at his watch; DCI Milton was late. On the small wooden table in front of him was a half-drained pint of Guinness. His mind felt restless. The events of the last week kept hovering in his thoughts, refusing to settle. He took a large gulp of the black liquid and wiped the remnants of the froth from his top lip.
Blake and Mary had spent the hours following the Reckoning trying to make sense of the events that had occurred deep beneath Lincoln’s Inn Fields. They sat together on a park bench watching the soft rays of dawn grow over London’s largest public square. The discovery of the gigantic subterranean pyramid under Lincoln’s Inn Fields was astonishing, probably the greatest historical discovery ever made in the capital.
That morning they retraced their footsteps back to Temple Church and the raised tomb that had provided access to the tunnel. The passageway was completely blocked by debris. Blake had made a forlorn attempt at clearing the rubble himself but he was soon stopped by Mary’s hand on his shoulder. It was best to keep things hidden, she contended with a serious look. Having experienced the power of the Logos Stone first-hand, Blake gave pause to consider her suggestion. Concluding that it might be the most prudent course of action, he let the rock in his hands fall to the ground. They promised never to reveal the pyramid’s existence to anyone.
As they walked southwards towards the Thames through the labyrinth of legal offices and squares that made up the Temple area, Mary revealed more of the information that Enoch Hart had disclosed to her. Soon large pieces of the jigsaw began to slot into place and an incredible story, stretching across millennia, took shape in his mind.
The starting point was one of the most famous quotes from the Bible.
1 John 1:1
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
According to the Bible, God created the universe and everything in it through the Logos. Ancient Jewish tradition states that God Himself met with Abraham in Mesopotamia, or modern-day Iraq, and miraculously carved the words of the Logos onto a special stone. God bestowed the stone to Abraham as part of His special covenant with him. The Logos Stone and its hidden power had been passed down in secret through the millennia.
Still trying to wrestle with this supposition, Blake’s online research had then moved to the biblical figure of John the Baptist. At every point in the investigation, the name of the Baptist kept popping up. According to the Bible, John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah, a temple priest, and his wife Elizabeth. Blake was amazed to read that both Zechariah and Elizabeth were descendants of Aaron, the owner of the sacred rod.
Continuing his research, Blake stumbled upon the shocking conspiracy theory that Jesus Himself might have been a follower or even disciple of John the Baptist. Without doubt, John had an extraordinary impact on Jesus’ life, as Jesus said of John, ‘… no greater man was ever born of woman.’ Even though the theory was hotly contested, Blake found several New Testament verses stating that a number of Jesus’ early followers had previously been followers of the Baptist. Could there be a spark of truth in the revelation that Jesus Himself had once been a disciple of John?
It also hadn’t missed Blake’s attention that Christ’s ministry had taken place about two thousand years ago—around the time of the last Sirius alignment. Blake shook the thought from his head; there were just too many unknowable answers.
Continuing on with his study of the enigmatic biblical figure of John led Blake to corroborate that soon after Jesus’ death, there existed a sect of Christians that claimed to be the only true initiates of the faith and that ascribed John the Baptist as the foundation of their secret church.
According to Mary, Hart revealed that it was this group that the two founding members of the Order of the Templar Knights, Hugues de Payns and Godefroy de Saint-Omer, met secretly in the ancient city of Ur. The two knights were initiated into the sect at the Ziggurat of Ur and made the perilous journey back to Europe carrying details of their mission: to rescue sacred artefacts and documents from the Holy Land before they were forever lost to the ravages of the Crusades.
Under strict secrecy, the Templars smuggled the artefacts out of the Holy Land and headed for England. The Rod and the Logos Stone were interred at secret locations in London: the Rod at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Logos Stone in Temple Church. There they remained, untouched for centuries, until Christopher Wren, London’s genius architect, discovered them both: the Rod during his excavations of the cathedral foundations following the Great Fire of London; the Logos Stone after its location was revealed to him by a mysterious white robed student of Francis Bacon, himself an initiate of St John. Blake guessed that the man also divulged to Wren the secrets of the pyramids and their connection to the rare astronomical alignment of the star Sirius.
Stretching back into prehistory, the alignment that later became known as the Reckoning was well known to the ancients, its significance revered by many cultures throughout the Middle East. Great pyramids were erected to harness the power of the alignment, an event when mere mortals were said to be able to communicate directly with the Gods. These instruments of stone provided access to the divine world.
Earlier that morning, Blake had reminded himself of the route that Abraham, the patriarch of the three faiths, had taken in response to God’s calling. The epic journey, detailed in the Old Testament, took him from his home in Ur in Mesopotamia, all the way to the distant land of Egypt. Was it by coincidence that the start and furthest point of his journey were marked by pyramids—the Ziggurat of Ur and the Great Pyramids of Giza? Or was Abraham somehow utilising their power to communicate directly with God, through the Logos Stone during his journey?
Comprehending the significance of the Rod and the Logos Stone and the terrific power they could wield, Christopher Wren swore to protect the sacred relics at all costs. He selected a band of gifted masons for the task and, after pledging sacred oaths of allegiance, they formed the secret society of Freemasons, just a stone’s throw from St Paul’s Cathedral. Initiated in the ancient secrets of Mesopotamia and Egypt, St John the Baptist, and the Templar Knights, this band of brothers set to work to create new temples to protect the artefacts.
Wren shared the burden of the task with his fellow member of the Royal Society, Isaac Newton. Newton sent out a research party to Egypt to ascertain the exact dimensions and resonant proportions of the pyramids. Once verified, they were plotted out close to Temple Church in an area that later became known as Lincoln’s Inn Fields. This time, the pyramid was not built above ground; instead, to protect its location, it was excavated below ground, using the extensive restoration to the foundations of Temple Church as a smokescreen for the work.
With the Logos Stone interred safely in the pyramid under Lincoln Inn’s Field, and the Rod likewise sealed within a newly created crypt under the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, Wren had secured the safety of the holy relics out of the hands of evil. He then set about encoding the location of the Logos Stone in the rebuilding of the churches that had been lost in the Great Fire. What better motif to use as the key to his secret design than the Tree of Life, the mysterious pattern described in the Book of Creation?
Before his death, Wren left instructions that a band of three Masons should always be tasked to protect the secret. The three should be chosen from the ranks of the Freemason brotherhood and swear a lifelong oath of guardianship. Henry Ross, Marcus Sabatini and Enoch Hart were the last three Guardians of the Logos.
Blake looked up from the table. The hulking silhouette of DCI Milton passed by outside the window. Blake ran an anxious hand through his hair. Milton had asked to meet Blake. He had some important news concerning the man Blake had killed with a shard of mirror outside the Church of St Stephen Walbrook. Blake still hadn’t been formally exonerated for the crime, and he prepared himself for some difficult news.
A nervous smile crossed his face as the DCI shimmied past the adjacent table and deposited two pints of creamy black liquid on the table. Milton shook off the rain from his jacket and pulled up a chair. They traded greetings for a beat and then the policeman’s face turned serious.
‘Right, down to business,’ said Milton after gulping down a third of his pint. ‘The policeman you skewered.’
‘Yes?’ said Blake, with a sense of crawling unease building under his ribs.
‘I can’t tell you his name, because things are still ongoing.’
‘Right.’
‘What I can tell you is that he was mixed up with some weird shit. His house was searched by internal affairs, and they found a bloody armoury in his basement, along with a whole host of occult paraphernalia.’
‘Come again?’
‘Looks like he was preparing for the end of the world or something: automatic weapons, night vision goggles, even grenades.’ He paused a breath. ‘They also found pictures of Carla in Rome. Looks like he had been following her for days, and that’s not all.’
‘Go on,’ breathed Blake, trying to quell his anger.
‘He wasn’t working alone. He was linked into some kind of cult. Scotland Yard are still flushing them out of the woodwork.’
Blake’s mind was turning at full speed. The two men exchanged glances.
‘Anyway, the good news is that you won’t be facing any charges.’
‘You sure?’
Milton nodded, cracking open a smile.
A wave of relief rolled through Blake. ‘Thank God.’ He sat back in his chair and took a gulp of Guinness.
‘One other thing; you asked me to do some digging on David Constantine, the official from the United Grand Lodge.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘It turns out that he used to be in the force too.’
Blake shot the DCI an interested look.
‘He worked in the Royal Protection Squad. He still has a firearms licence.’ Milton lowered his voice. ‘The thing is, he seems to be very linked to our friend Commissioner Lewis, the prick. Masons together, if you get my drift.’
Blake sat up in his seat. Now that he understood the nature of the secrets held by the United Grand Lodge, perhaps Constantine’s and the Commissioner’s interest in Blake’s snooping was more understandable.
‘Anyway, Lewis is out of my hair at the moment,’ said Milton.
Blake gave the DCI a ‘how come?’ look.
‘He’s getting flak from all directions about the disappearance of the Mayor. They’ve got nothing to go on. It’s like Lambton has vanished off the face of the earth.’
Outside the window, a fork of lightning stabbed down from the sky, followed by a heavy rumble of thunder.
‘Bloody hell, that was close,’ exclaimed Milton.
‘Just like that earthquake we had a couple of days ago,’ smiled Blake, finishing his pint.