The Awakening ch.08

    Rick is walking down a dark back alley in the Vatican thinking, “A week! They rush me here than have me wait around for a week before calling me in. How long do they think it takes to get from L.A. to the Vatican? In this day and age with airliners it didn’t take me a day. Well let’s get this over with.”

 

     Rick walks up to the door to the secret entrance of the Order’s head quarters.

 

   The man inside asks, “Where is the cross of the father carried?”

 

    Rick held the space between his eyes while shaking his head thinking, “I can’t believe I have to say this every time, I come here on a regularly basis after all.”

 

    He sighed then said, “The golden cross must be bared on the backs of those who defend it.”

 

    Inside Rick notices the waiting chamber is being remodeled with brown robed figures every where putting in carpet, new walls, even doing electrical.

 

    “Greetings Brother Keene,” Rick says to the brown robed figure behind the desk, “I’m here for my appointment with the Head Inquisitor.”

 

    Brother Keene raises his head from a file he was looking over, “Yes” Brother Keene says, “the head inquisitor is waiting for you in his office.”

 

    Rick walks down the winding halls to the office of the Head Inquisitor. He knocks on the door and a voice inside asks him to enter, the source of the voice was a grand looking figure in a dark red robe with an overly large hood hiding the man’s face.

 

    “Why do the higher ups wear those ridiculous face obscuring hoods?” Rick thinks, “Can they even see in those things? Not to mention theirs no one here to hide their faces from.”

 

   Rick’s chuckle at his own thought wasn’t noticed by the Head Inquisitor who was looking over what Rick recognized as a print out of the mission report he had sent back ahead of himself on the plane regarding the incident in Brooksville.

 

     The Head Inquisitor sets down the report on his desk looking up at Rick, “It would seem,” he says, “that yet again Rhuen has destroyed one of our targets. Which as undesirable as it is for a monster like that to run free and make a mockery of us by killing targets in an instant that it took us months or even years to track down, this has cleared up your schedule so you are being reassigned.”

 

    Rick sat patiently listening as the Head Inquisitor continued, “We have received word from our field agent Brother Al’Suad of an incident in Northern Ethiopia. He has been posing as the assistant for a Dr. Brian O’Conner for several years now. It seems that that American based secret group the H.E.P. has hired this archeologist to help open a door in an ancient tomb. We have in the past tried to get a better idea of this group’s movements and goals, but they have proven more secretive and erratic in their movements than we originally thought. Which means this incident is also a rare chance to get some insight into this organization’s goals.”

 

      “Okay,” thinks Rick, “so this old bit again, some archeologist is hired by some greed obsessed company and finds a cursed artifact they can’t handle or wakes up some demon. Wander which this is?”

 

    “Okay,” asks Rick, “I’m guessing that was the bad news so what’s the good news?”

 

    The Head Inquisitor responds to his inquiry by saying, “The good news would be that Dr. O’Conner is just an archeologist who wants to know everything about the past and get credit for it. Unfortunately he doesn’t care who funds his research. This “quest for knowledge” of his often results in his benefactors making off with the rarest and priciest artifacts.”

 

    Rick with a frustrated sigh thinks, “Were not Interpol, so what does this have to do with us?”

 

    As if answering his silent question the Head Inquisitor continues, “And on some occasions mystical artifacts. In fact it seems amongst occult circles he has become famous for having a knack to find such things.”

 

      His next words grab Rick’s full attention, “And now it seems according to Brother Al’Suad the H.E.P. tricked him into waking up the destroyer goddess Sehkmet.”

 

    “Sehkmet,” thinks Rick, “the lioness headed goddess of Egyptian mythology? Now that’s different.”

 

    “Well” says Rick, “we certainly can’t have that.”

 

    “We are sending you to Ethiopia to assess the situation.” States the Head Inquisitor, “You will be in regular phone contact with Brother Al’Suad, but we need to you to stay away from the camp.”

 

   Rick interrupts, “So a standard one in one out stake out.”

 

   “Yes,” continues the Head Inquisitor, “just observe and find out what kind of demon this so called goddess really is. Your plane leaves tomorrow; all the details of the case are in this file.”

 

   The Head Inquisitor handed Rick a small file which Rick took on his way out of the office saying, “Don’t worry sir I’ll have every thing you need to know in no time and maybe kill this demon in the while I’m at.”

 

      The Head Inquisitor says in a stern voice as Rick’s leaving, “No, just watch and report back to us what you discover, don’t do anything else till we give you orders other wise.”

 

   Rick walks out saying, “Sheesh, things have gotten stricter around here.”

 

   A nearby brown robed order member tells him, “The Head Inquisitor has ordered that the protocols and rules be followed more strictly as too many agents have been taking things into their own hands, in fact we recently learned from a Father Henry who spotted him in his observation area that Brother Mike took off on his own to go werewolf hunting in northern California with out orders.”

 

    As Rick walked out side into the night air he thought, “Hmm guess Mike forgot to call in the mission and get permission to observe and pursue, Figures he would forget such a trivial step in protocol.”