EYES OF GOD

The Testament Burns

Mara's shots echoed in the stone chamber, but the bullets had hit nothing.

Dominic Vale was gone. The door at the top of the stairs was closed. And Father Gabriel lay dead on the floor, blood still spreading from the wound in his throat.

Elias stood frozen, the Testament of the Thirteen clutched against his chest. His mind was racing, trying to process everything. The priest was dead. The Veil knew who he was. And according to Dominic, if he died, the seal would fall.

"We have to move," Mara said. Her voice was sharp, professional, cutting through the fog of shock. "Now."

Elias looked at her. "He said they're coming for me."

"Then we need to be somewhere they can't find us. Come on."

She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the stairs. Elias stumbled after her, the book still in his hands. He glanced back at Father Gabriel's body, at the blood pooling around his head, at the eyes on the walls that were still watching.

They climbed the stairs quickly. Mara pushed open the trapdoor, and they emerged into the sanctuary. The church was empty, still and quiet.

"We need to get out of here before anyone sees us," Mara said. "That priest is dead, and we were the last ones with him. That makes us suspects."

Elias shook his head. "We have to go to the police. We have to tell someone—"

"Tell them what? That a man appeared out of nowhere, killed a priest, and then vanished? That you're the last descendant of thirteen executioners who sealed a monster under a church?" Mara's eyes were hard. "They'll lock us up, Elias. And while we're sitting in a cell, the Veil will find us. Or something worse will."

Elias wanted to argue, but he couldn't. She was right. Everything she said was right.

They left the church through a side door, emerging into an alley. Mara's car was parked around the corner, and they slid into it quickly. She drove away without looking back.

"Where are we going?" Elias asked.

"I have a place. Safe house. Used it before when things got too hot." Mara glanced at him. "You're going to need to process what just happened. We both are."

Elias looked down at the book in his hands. The leather was warm, almost hot, as if it had absorbed the heat from his body. He opened it, scanning the pages, trying to make sense of the language that he somehow understood.

The seal holds only while the Inheritors live. When the last Inheritor dies, the seal falls.

"I'm the last one," he said quietly. "That means there were others. Other Inheritors. And they're all dead now."

"It looks that way."

"Father Matthias was an Inheritor. And Father Gabriel. They were both killed. Someone is picking us off one by one."

Mara nodded. "That's what Dominic was warning you about. He said the Veil knows who you are. They know you're the last one. And they want you dead."

"So why warn me? Why not just kill me?"

"Because Dominic didn't come to kill you." Mara's voice was thoughtful. "He came to warn you. That means he's not completely on their side. Or he's playing a longer game."

Elias thought about Dominic's cold eyes. The way he had stepped over Father Gabriel's body without a second glance. He didn't seem like someone who could be trusted.

"I don't trust him," Elias said.

"Neither do I. But he's the only lead we have. He knows something about the Veil, and he gave us a warning. That's more than we had an hour ago."

They drove in silence for another twenty minutes. The city gave way to suburbs, then to industrial areas. Mara pulled into a parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse and killed the engine.

"This is it," she said.

Elias looked around. The warehouse was old, covered in graffiti, surrounded by chain-link fence. It looked like the kind of place where deals were made in the shadows.

"Safe," he said flatly. "You call this safe?"

"I call it hidden. There's a difference." Mara got out of the car and walked toward a side door. She punched a code into a keypad, and the door swung open.

Inside, the warehouse was surprisingly clean. There was a small living space set up in one corner—a couch, a table, a kitchenette. There were computers and monitors everywhere, some of them showing security feeds from hidden cameras.

"I've been using this place for three years," Mara said. "Ever since the m******e. The department doesn't know about it. The Veil doesn't know about it. It's the one place I can think clearly."

Elias walked inside, the book still in his hands. He set it on the table and stared at it.

"What do you know about the Testament?" he asked.

"Only what Father Matthias told me. It was written by the thirteen executioners. It contains the ritual they used to seal the creature. And it holds the key to stopping the Veil."

"Stopping the Veil? Or stopping the creature?"

Mara was quiet for a moment. "Both, I think. They're connected. You can't stop one without the other."

Elias opened the book again. The pages were fragile, the ink faded. He turned to the section on the executioners, reading their names.

Arvid. Helena. Marcus. Sophia. Dimitri. Isidora. Aethelred. Brigid. Valerius. Kael. Amara. Gunnar. Seraphina.

Thirteen names. Thirteen people who had sacrificed themselves to imprison something beyond human understanding.

"The ritual," he read aloud. "To bind the Watcher, the thirteen must speak the True Name. But the True Name cannot be spoken. It can only be remembered. And once remembered, it must never be forgotten, lest the bindings loosen."

Mara leaned over his shoulder. "True Name? What does that mean?"

"I don't know. It doesn't say what the name is. Just that it can't be spoken."

"Then how did the executioners know it?"

Elias turned more pages. The writing became more frantic, less legible. Some of the pages were stained with what looked like blood.

They sacrificed their tongues. They sacrificed their eyes. They sacrificed their memories. And in the moment of forgetting, they remembered. The Name came to them in the darkness, and they spoke it together. And the Watcher was bound.

Elias felt a chill run down his spine. "They cut out their own tongues. Their own eyes. All to speak a name that couldn't be spoken."

Mara's face was pale. "That's what happened at the research facility. The victims' eyes were missing. But they were still alive. They had been looking at something—something that took their sight."

"The creature," Elias said. "The Watcher. When people see it, they lose their eyes. Their sight is taken."

"Or they give it willingly," Mara said. "Like the executioners."

They both sat in silence, processing the horror of it.

Then Elias noticed something on the back page of the book.

A symbol.

It was the same symbol he had seen in his dreams. The same symbol carved into his walls. The same symbol that appeared everywhere the creature touched.

"What's this?" he asked.

Mara looked at it. "I don't know. I've never seen it before."

"It's in my dreams. Every night. I see it in the sky above the city. In the throne room. On the faceless figures." Elias traced the symbol with his finger. "It means something. It has to."

He closed the book and looked at Mara.

"We need to find the Heart of the Seal," he said. "The room where the executioners performed the ritual. If we can get there, we can strengthen the seal. We can stop the Veil."

"And how do we find it?"

Elias thought about Father Gabriel's words. The church in Black Hollow was a gate. The real church was underneath it. And somewhere inside, there was a room.

"We go to Black Hollow," he said. "We find the underground cathedral. And we find the Heart of the Seal."

Mara nodded slowly. "That's going to be difficult. The Veil will be watching. And we don't know what's waiting for us down there."

"I don't care." Elias's voice was firm. "If I'm the last Inheritor, it's my responsibility. I have to do this."

He opened the book again, intending to memorize more of the text.

The pages burst into flames.

Elias shouted and dropped the book. It hit the floor, the fire spreading across the leather binding. Mara grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed it, but the flames wouldn't go out. They only grew brighter, hotter.

"Get back!" Mara shouted.

Elias stumbled away from the burning book. The fire was consuming it rapidly, the pages curling and blackening. The symbol on the back page glowed white-hot, then vanished.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the fire stopped.

The book was gone. Only ash remained.

Elias stared at the pile of blackened residue. "No," he breathed. "No, no, no."

He fell to his knees, sifting through the ash. There was nothing left. No text. No symbols. No clue.

"The Testament is gone," he said. "All that knowledge. All that history. Gone."

Mara knelt beside him. "Whoever sent the package—they must have done something. Planted something in the book. A trigger."

"Or the book destroyed itself," Elias said. "Maybe it was protected. Maybe the executioners didn't want anyone to read it."

"Then why send it to you?"

Elias had no answer.

He sat back on his heels, staring at the ash. Everything he had learned, everything he had discovered, was gone. The names of the executioners. The ritual. The True Name.

And then he remembered.

He had read the names. He had read the ritual. He had seen the symbol.

He didn't need the book. He had already absorbed the information.

"The names," he said slowly. "I remember the names."

Mara looked at him. "What?"

"Arvid. Helena. Marcus. Sophia. Dimitri. Isidora. Aethelred. Brigid. Valerius. Kael. Amara. Gunnar. Seraphina." He recited them without hesitation. "I remember all of them."

"Elias, that's impossible. You only read them once."

"I know. But I remember them. Perfectly." He stood up, his mind racing. "The book must have imprinted the information on me. Somehow. Like it knew I would need to carry it."

The lights flickered.

Elias and Mara both froze.

The flickering grew worse, the lights dimming and brightening in an irregular pattern. The computers on Mara's desk began to hum, the screens flickering with static.

"What's happening?" Elias asked.

Mara drew her weapon. "I don't know. But I don't like it."

The static on the screens resolved into a single image.

An eye.

It filled every monitor, staring at them from multiple angles. The same blue iris. The same black pupil. The same impossible aliveness.

And then the eye blinked.

The lights went out completely.

Elias heard Mara curse, heard her fumbling for a flashlight. He stood frozen in the darkness, his heart pounding.

Then he heard something else.

Whispering.

Thousands of voices, all at once, speaking in a language he almost understood. The words were fragmented, overlapping, impossible to separate.

Inheritor... last... seal... breaking...

Find... the Heart... before...

They... are... coming...

The lights came back on.

Elias blinked, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness. Mara was still holding her weapon, her face pale. The screens were normal again, showing the security feeds.

"What was that?" she asked.

Elias shook his head. "The creature. It knows we have the information. It knows we're trying to stop the Veil."

"Or it's trying to help us."

They both looked at the monitors.

On one of the screens, a message had been typed.

BLACK HOLLOW. THREE DAYS. THE NIGHT OF OPENING BEGINS.

Elias felt the world tilt.

"Three days," he said. "We have three days."

"No," Mara said. "We have less."

She pointed at the screen.

The message had changed.

TWO DAYS. THEY ARE MOVING FASTER.

Elias watched the numbers change, and he felt time slipping away.

He had been given a mission. He had been given knowledge. And he had been given a deadline.

But he had no idea how to stop the creature. Or whether he even wanted to.

Because somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice was whispering.

Open the seal. Let Him see. Let Him judge. The world deserves it. Everyone deserves it.

Elias shook his head, trying to silence the voice.

"Two days," he said. "We need to get to Black Hollow."

Mara nodded. "I'll get the car ready."

And as she walked away, Elias looked at the monitors.

The eye was gone.

But the message remained.

THEY ARE ALREADY HERE.

Elias turned.

Standing in the doorway of the warehouse was a figure in black.

It had no face.

And it was staring at him.