Silas Robb: Hell Hath No Fury

Chapter 2

2

"Come in,” Father Hellmuth called out at the knock on his door. His office was a small, cramped affair that, although clean, still held a faint scent of mold. Age was age, and no amount of Lysol would change that. The white plaster walls and rough wooden floors were simple, if a little boring. Just the way he liked it. But it was big enough for his plain desk and shelves, and he had the best internet connection in the entire village, maybe the best in all of Germany. There were some perks to being an agent of the Inquisition, and technology was one of them. They did love their technology; he supposed it was their form of magic, their weapon against the Pale. And they needed every weapon they could find.

Deacon Troeger opened the door abruptly and rushed inside. He was disheveled and dirty as though he had been rolling in dust. Sweat made lines through the dust on his forehead, and his normally brown hair, made gray from the dirt, was plastered to his head with sweat. He looked like he had just crawled out of the ground, breathing heavily as though he had been running and his only pause was to knock at the door.

"Father Hellmuth, we have a problem," he gasped.

"My God man, you need to calm down," Father Hellmuth said and sprang up from his chair. At least, it was as close to springing up as someone his age can get. He was still tall and thick of build, but he was approaching his seventieth year and counted more aches and pains with each passing season. He walked around the side of the desk and tried to guide Deacon Troeger to the small couch. "You look like the Devil himself is after you."

"No Father, you must listen," Troeger said and pulled himself away from Father Hellmuth. "We don't have time, Father. It is the barrow."

Father Hellmuth gasped. "The tumulus of the Alfr?"

"Yes."

"Please Deacon, sit; you must tell me everything," Father Hellmuth once again gestured to the couch.

Troeger ignored him. "I was doing my yearly visit and everything looked fine from the outside. It appeared undisturbed as it has been every year I’ve checked, and probably for the thousand years before. In fact, I almost didn't go in, but I knew it was my sacred duty."

Father Hellmuth didn't like where this was going; he nodded encouragement to Troeger.

"But I did go in, being careful as always to hide my tracks and disturb as little as possible. Everything looked the same inside. Except the sarcophagus. It had a large crack running down the center and a small one across the corner."

"But Deacon Troeger, things age. Stone is bound to crack, it does not mean..."

"I know Father. But after I got over my initial fear and realized I was in no immediate danger I moved the corner stone. I knew you would have wanted me to look, just to know if anything was amiss. And Father I saw nothing."

"Nothing, well that is good then right?"

"No I mean nothing. No body, not even the ground. It looked like it was just a hole in the ground."

Dear God, Father Hellmuth thought. "Take me there, immediately."

An hour later they had reached the top of the large hill where the tumulus resided. Father Hellmuth was out of breath. The burial mound was far from roads and signs of civilization. In fact, it had been part of his job to keep it that way by using his influence within the village to separate this location from prying eyes.

Despite having been up the mountain twice already Troeger seemed in good shape. But he was also much younger than Father Hellmuth, who was only a few years away from retiring from field work and moving to the Vatican proper.

After pausing a moment to catch his breath, the two priests approached the tumulus. The earthen mound was at least twenty five feet tall, but the simple stone door was small enough that a grown man had to bend to pass through. Except for the stone door, it could have passed for a large hill.

Together they were able to move the stone. At some point years ago the Inquisition had removed much of the rock, cleverly cutting it down so that it was easy to move, but still looked like an impossible task for one or two men. They had probably realized it was silly to send an army of men just to check once a year on a coffin that hadn't been disturbed in well over a millennia.

Until now that is.

The inside of the tumulus contained just one large room, damp and earthy smelling, and at its center a massive stone coffin. As they crawled into the burial chamber, flashlights in hand, Hellmuth could see it. A massive crack down the center of the coffin and a small corner piece broken off. He approached it cautiously, not sure what to expect. They had brought the usual protections of course, holy water and his .45 holstered at his side, but that did not mean it was adequate protection. You never knew when dealing with the Pale.

He reached out and carefully touched the broken corner of the lid, like it might bite him. When nothing happened, he laid down his flashlight and pulled at the broken piece. It slid off the sarcophagus and fell to the floor with a loud thud. The ground shook and dust rained down from above, covering them both in a fine coating. The larger piece of slab covering the sarcophagus remained intact.

With a quick look back at Troeger, who was hanging back by the stone exit, he peered into the hole. It was hard to see anything even with the flashlight, but it did indeed look as though there was no ground.

Suddenly with a loud groan followed by an ear piercing crack, the lid shattered into pieces and fell into the sarcophagus.

"Father!" Troeger called out.

Father Hellmuth sprang back as the lid caved in. He pulled out his gun in one smooth motion and aimed it at the now-gaping hole of a sarcophagus.

But nothing came out. No monster, no draugr, nothing.

After counting several heartbeats, Father Hellmuth moved closer to the sarcophagus and once again looked in. It was a hole slightly smaller than the size of the coffin; it dropped down about ten feet and then a tunnel went off into the mountain side.

"Oh s**t," Father Hellmuth said. "They came for her and stole her right from under our noses."

"Who stole her? Why would they want an old, dried-up body?"

"I don't know, but there had to be a reason the Inquisition wanted us here, watching. I'm not even sure that they knew what we were supposed to be watching for, but I have a sinking suspicion that we f****d it up."

He had to call Father Moreales. He had no idea how long the body had been gone, but he had to report this as soon as possible. Maybe Moreales would know what to do.