The Demon Signet Read Free

narrowing on the tattoo etched into his neck—a cross wrapped by a rose.
    “Thanks,” Joab says. He hopes the manager is more interested in the dirty magazine than the ancient symbol that can be Googled easily enough on the computer behind him.
     
     
    He pulls into the shopping mall fifteen minutes later. About to exit the car, and against every instinct, he takes the ring from his pocket, opens the glove compartment, and slides it beneath a stack of instruction manuals, maps, and paperwork. Even though the car can’t possibly be traced back to him, it’s hardly an ideal hiding spot. But he mustn’t have the ring on his person if their agents find him again.
    He walks across the parking lot, pulling his big coat tight against himself, and tries to ignore the stalking shadows that he knows are entering the mall with him.
    The buzz of activity hustling about beneath the bright Christmas lights and hanging wreaths provides a certain level of community that he has never before experienced. Not like this, anyway. But there is no time for such bitter reflection now. He needs a disposable phone so he can contact the Jesuit priest who had shared with him in secret letters what the ring actually was and what the Society hoped to use it for. Perhaps now the Jesuit might have a better idea of what could be done with it.
    Quickening his pace toward the proper kiosk, he is almost there when he sees them. Two agents. Not the same ones from the cabin, but undoubtedly armed with the same lethal machinery. He thinks about running and decides against it. He’s too tired to keep running from what he knows will inevitably come anyway. Turning to face them, he prays silently, again offering his soul to the very God the song ringing throughout the mall honors, whether the shoppers realize it or not.
    The two men step close, seemingly unconcerned with the crowds of consumers pressing in around them. They remove their suppressed .22s and raise them in a single, fluid motion.
    Before the two bullets punch through Joab’s forehead, chapters of Solomon’s Testament come instantaneously to mind, attempting to answer for the last time so many unlearned mysteries.
    He falls backward, his eyes holding on to the huge star fixed atop the forty-foot Christmas tree that occupies the food court, the star of Bethlehem (Sirius to the Brotherhood) shining from its apex. As his life flickers away and the two men searching his pockets begin to fade, he thinks of the ring resting in the glove compartment of the rental car and wonders if his actions will work at all in preventing Lucifer from carrying out his ages-old “mystery of iniquity.”
     
    ****
     
     
    The room is dark, the electricity having failed hours ago due to the lightning storm being hurled at the earth. Though the more recent technologies have suffered, however, the stone architecture of the building itself remains unimpressed by anything the weather has in store.
    “They killed him?” The taller man walks away from the spectacle outside the window, a flash of branched energy scorching the sky and outlining him with purple light. His long robes drag across the stone floor behind him, slithering like a velvet tide always chasing its master.
    “Yes.” The second man is dressed in similar attire and stands hidden in the shadow of the room’s entranceway.
    “And the ring was not on his person?”
    “No.”
    “How did he get to the mall?”
    “That has yet to be determined.”
    The man by the window turns toward his fellow Brother. “What about his accomplice?”
    “Nothing yet, Jacob.”
    Jacob thinks. “We must seek guidance.”
    “What if Joab managed to destroy it?”
    A moment of silence passes as the question is considered. Thunder rattles the windows. Finally, Jacob brings his hands together and presses the tips of his fingers against each other. “You know that the Judgment ring cannot be destroyed.”
    “I know the legends hint at such, but—”
    “Contact