The explosion rattled the crowded city street as onlookers gasped in horror. No one could believe what they were now witnessing. This was no political building or commercial enterprise that was now being engulfed in smoke and fire- this was a church. This Sunday morning, those who had come to worship were meeting the One they had come for.
Sirens wailed as police cars, fire trucks and ambulances raced as fast as possible through the heavy traffic that littered the roads. Screams filled the air as people ran for their lives, believing this to be another terrorist attack. But what kind of terrorist would go after a single Christian church? This was the primary question on Lt. Tom Brayfield’s mind as he rode in the squad car towards the scene of the incident. Tom had served ten years as a policeman before joining the FBI. He quickly advanced to lieutenant status. Now, not one year after having taken the position, he found himself caught in the middle of the worst attack on American soil since 9/11. Having to come to the site of a church explosion wasn’t going to be the easiest thing for a Christian of seventeen years to do.
Buildings surrounding the ruined church were quickly evacuated. One building, a ten-story business called the Vance Oliver building, was damaged at its base and now appeared as though it might collapse. Tom raced out of the car when he got to the scene, immediately noticing the damaged business to the left of the church.
“Get out of this area!” cried Tom, waving his arms in the air as he ran towards stunned civilians. Those who hadn’t moved were awakened to their senses and began clearing out of the area. All except one. Tom watched as the damaged building began to lean. He couldn’t go any further than he was now. Stopping several meters short of the structure, he called out to the hooded woman staring at him. Her face was pale, setting a stark contrast to her black hair. She stood wrapped in a dark cloak, her blue eyes focused on Tom.
“That building is going to collapse!” screamed Tom at the top of his lungs.
I know you Tom Brayfield. He told me about you.
Tom placed a hand to his head. He wondered if that young woman had just spoken to him. But he hadn’t audibly heard her voice. Had she just communicated with him telepathically?
He won’t let me be harmed.
This time, Tom was sure he heard a voice speaking to his thoughts. “Ma’am you need to leave now!”
I will call you. We are going to play a game, OK?
Not five seconds later, the building collapsed upon her. Tom thought his mind was playing tricks on him when he saw the woman vanish into thin air a moment before the building’s collapse. He shielded his eyes, backing away from the smoke and debris. Running towards the relief workers, Tom wondered who that strange woman was. And yet, it was of no consequence, she was now added to the casualties.
†
Sarah Martin picked up the phone in the FBI field office in downtown Charlotte, NC. “Martin,” said she as she typed away at her computer while holding the phone between her shoulder and neck.
“I blew up the church yesterday,” said a voice on the other line.
“Excuse me?” said Sarah, now giving her full attention to the phone.
“Is Tom Brayfield there?”
“Who are you?”
“I need to speak to Tom Brayfield.”
“You said you blew up the church yesterday.” Sarah spotted Tom and motioned him over. She then hit the speaker button so the entire office could hear their conversation.
“Tom Brayfield is here,” said Sarah. The entire room became silent.
“Hello? Who is this?” said Tom, leaning towards the phone.
“Hello Tom. My name is Lilith. I told you I would call.”
“Excuse me?” asked Tom. Sarah had now backed away from the phone, taking herself out of the conversation.
“You don’t remember me? You saw me disappear right before the building collapsed.”
“Yes, I did. I presumed you were dead.”
“Did you tell them that I spoke to you in your thoughts?”
Tom looked uneasy. “No.”
“You should have,” replied Lilith. “It’s a neat trick I can do. But for now we’ll just talk on the phone, OK?”
“That’s fine.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I escaped the falling building?”
Tom shook his head, looking at Sarah. “How did you escape the falling building?”
“My Love saved me. I told you he wouldn’t let me come to harm. He once offered Jesus protection in the wilderness, but he didn’t want to bow before my Love.”
“Lilith, where are you?”
“Don’t you want to know who my Love is?”
“Fine. Who is your love?”
“Lucifer.”
Tom looked up at Sarah, their eyes wide.
“‘Lucifer is another name for Satan. Is that who you’re talking about?” asked Tom to the woman.
“He prefers to be called Lucifer.”
Sarah decided to intervene. “Lilith, we need to confirm with you that you are confessing to having orchestrated yesterday’s bombing.”
“Yes, I confess.”
“Then where can we find you?” asked Sarah, regaining her foot in the conversation.
“First we are going to play a game.”
“What kind of game?”
“I am planning to blow other things up too. Not just churches, but Christian schools and businesses. I am also going to explode cars and houses of Christians. All within this little city. But to stop me, I’m going to need you to do something for me.”
“We’re listening,” replied Sarah.
“You have Sixty-six hours to find the hidden disc containing the names and locations of the future victims. For every six hours you don’t find the disc, something will explode. Sixty-six hours in total, six hours in between each explosion; 666.”
Sarah motioned that the phone call be tracked. She kicked herself for not getting to that sooner.
“And I know by now you are probably going to want to trace my call. I promise you, my phone is bugged so that I can’t be tracked and my location is cleverly hidden, but if you win my game, I’ll let you meet me.”
“We need to know how to find this disc,” said Sarah, baffled by what was now happening.
“I will now give you a code. Solve it, and you find the location of the disc. The code is: RDXSW NHUMKI. I will call you every six hours and you can tell me whether you’ve found the disc or not. Let’s play!”
The line hung up.
Everyone immediately began working on this new case. Before she began working, Sarah turned to look at Tom. “What was that about?”
Tom looked confused. “What was what about?”
“This girl said she talked to you telepathically.”
“Seemed like she did at the time. Weird huh?”
“Weird? You actually believe she spoke inside your mind?”
Tom shrugged. “I know what I heard.”
“Do you really buy into all this Satan stuff?”
“If by ‘buying in’ you’re asking if I believe in the supernatural, then yes. I believe God exists and I also believe Satan exists.”
Sarah shook her head. “Sure Tom, if that’s your thing. As an agnostic, though, I hope you’re wrong.”
“Why?”
“Well, who knows what she’s capable of doing if she works for some evil supernatural being?”
“Only time will tell.”
The team searched for an hour, anything to find some sort of clue to where this disc would be kept and who this woman was. Sarah took a break from deciphering the clue and found something on her computer that she thought Tom might find intriguing. “This is interesting,” she said as she scrolled down a website. “Apparently ‘Lilith’ is the name of Satan’s mistress.”
“That explains why she called him her ‘Love,’” said Tom. “So I guess we can rule out that ‘Lilith’ is her real name.”
“It’s possible, but unlikely,” replied Sarah. She leaned back in her chair, arms folded behind her brunette head. “So we know she’s part of the occult.”
“With the devil number and an infatuation with Satan? Yeah, I’d say so.”
“And we know she hates Christians.”
“Apparently.”
“What do the other stations have to say about this?”
“She’s a nut,” said Tom. “But she’s not the only nut making bomb threats or confessing to the church bombing. The big guys want us to make sure this girl’s legitimate before they put any more people on this.”
“Which means we find this woman’s disc or hope she doesn’t follow through on her six hour explosion deal.”
“Right, so we need to focus on figuring this thing out.”
“On it,” said Sarah reverting her attention back to the code.
†
Tom paced nervously around the office. The six-hour mark was fast approaching and they still hadn’t cracked the code or discovered where Lilith was.
The clock clicked to six o’clock- exactly six hours after she had called them. A few seconds later, the phone rang. Sarah picked it up and put the other line on speaker.
“Hello! Did you find the disc?” Lilith sounded happy.
“No,” said Sarah. “Lilith, we have you on multiple charges now, we need you to make this easier on you and us and turn yourself in.”
“You don’t have the disc? But I told you what would happen!” she now sounded angry.
“We know Lilith, we need more time,” said Tom.
“No! We are playing my game now, and you just lost the first round!”
Pause.
“Lilith?” asked Sarah. “Where are you?”
“Nero once burned Christians in Rome. I’m doing it here.”
Another phone was ringing. An officer answered it. “Report’s come in that a car just exploded on 85.”
“I told you what would happen,” said Lilith. “Now, take me seriously and find my disc.”
“Your code doesn’t make any sense,” said Sarah.
“Of course, that’s why it’s a code! But I will give you one clue: The answer is at the tip of your fingers.”
“Do you mean within our grasp?”
“You figure it out.”
Line dead.
Tom dipped his head. This was going to be a long night.
†
Three hours later, FBI teams from all around the nation were searching for clues to unlock the mystery of the satanic woman and her disc. Some thought the code stood for separate numbers that could act as coordinates, others thought each letter stood for another letter. So far, no one had come up with any valid suggestions for the disc’s location.
“I don’t get it,” said Sarah to Tom as she typed away on her computer. “The answer is at the tips of our fingers? I told her we didn’t understand her code and now she thinks the answer is within our grasp!”
Sarah looked down at her keyboard, frustrated. Then she saw something; looking closer at the keys she spotted what could be their answer. With her index finger, she traced the letters RDX down the keyboard; this formed a diagonal line. She then ran her finger up XSW, creating another line. These letters formed what appeared to be the letter “V.” Again she traced her finger around NHU then around MKI. These letters in turn formed an “O.”
“Tom!” shouted Sarah, excited now. “I think I’ve found something!”
She showed Tom her technique of making letters on the keyboard out of the code. “You see? ‘V O.’ And the keyboard is at my finger tips!”
Tom stood back, amazed that this might possibly be their answer.
“What could ‘V O’ stand for?” asked Sarah.
Tom put his hand on his chin, contemplating. Then he remembered the building that had collapsed yesterday was the Vance Oliver building.
“I’ve got it!” yelled Tom. “Come with me!”
A team was assembled and for two hours they searched through the rubble of the Vance Oliver building, finding nothing. Tom dug with his bare hands, pushing over large pieces of concrete and metal. Sarah also did her part in sorting through the debris. Sweat soaked the bodies of all who worked.
“What if it’s not here, Tom?” asked Sarah, wiping the sweat from her brow. “What if I got it wrong.”
Tom looked up at her, and then nodded at a dead body that had been dragged from the ruins. “See that body?” Sarah nodded.
“That is an innocent person, killed by some maniacal occultist. Just like the four Christians who were in that car that exploded this afternoon. As far as I can see, your guess is the best one we’ve got.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting back to the office in case she calls?”
“I’m not leaving until we know this disc isn’t here. Lilith may have to wait to talk to us.”
“You’re pretty passionate about getting to the bottom of this, huh Tom?”
Tom tossed a chunk of metal to the side. “Aren’t you?”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been more determined to get to the bottom of a case than now.”
“Same here, which is why I want to find this disc.”
A half hour later, Tom worked his way over to a part of the building where no one was currently working. As he sorted through some damaged furniture, he spotted an unusual black box. At a closer look, the box appeared to have a pentagram on it. He opened it. Inside the steel container was the disc. He looked around; no one had seen him pick this up. Quickly, he left the scene.
As soon as he got back to headquarters, Tom inserted the disc into his computer. Just like Lilith had said, it contained the names and locations of her targets- eleven in all. Now all he had to do was have people find and remove these bombs. He had forgotten to report the disc’s location on purpose; he wanted to talk to Lilith alone this time, which would be the case since everyone else was out searching for the disc. This time when Lilith called, he wasn’t going to play any more games. He wanted to be done with it, for the city to be done with it.
Tom pressed the speakerphone button so he wouldn’t have to be constricted to the telephone’s wire when she called. When the phone rang, he answered, “I’ve found your disc. The one in the pentagram box at the Vance Oliver building, right?”
“Very good, Tom!” exclaimed Lilith. “You won this round! But you still have one more round to go.”
“One more round?”
“Don’t worry, this is the last round. It’s the hide-and-seek round. I’ll give you a clue and if you figure it out, you’ll find me. I’ll be waiting for you, OK?”
“Are we still on your six-hour time limit?”
“Of course. That’s what makes it fun! But don’t worry, I won’t use bombs anymore to kill people- instead I’ll just shoot them!”
Just then, Sarah arrived, covered in dirt and sweat.
“Hey, Tom,” said she walking towards her friend. “What are you doing back here now?”
“Is that Sarah?” asked Lilith.
Sarah glanced at the phone then looked at Tom. “You’re on the phone with her!”
Tom sighed. “I found the disc. I wanted to talk to her alone.”
“Why?” asked Sarah, trying to hold back frustration.
“Because I wanted to end it!” exclaimed Tom.
“But you have another round to play,” said Lilith. “Are you ready for the clue now?”
Tom reverted his attention back to the phone. “Yeah, go on.”
Lilith continued. “Seven to nine, you’ve crossed the line. Two to eight, you’re too late.”
She hung up.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me- tell anyone- that you had the disc, Tom,” said Sarah.
“I told you, I wanted to end this,” replied Tom. “I’m tired of everyone getting involved in this case.”
“It’s our job to be on this case!” exclaimed Sarah. “We need everyone’s help on this. Don’t try to be a lone hero here.”
Pausing for a moment, Tom looked her in the eyes. “You’re right.” He glanced at the clock; it now read eight o’clock. Turning to Sarah, he continued. “I need you to call Jim and have him update everyone on this case.”
Sarah smiled. “You got it.”
Grabbing a pen and paper, Tom jotted down the clue Lilith had given him. He wondered if the numbers referred to some timetable. Seven to nine. Remembering how Lilith’s last clue worked, Tom went to his keyboard and spotted the numbers in a line above the letters. Those wouldn’t make any letters. He looked at the numbered keys on the right. Using his finger, he traced the numbers “seven to nine.” This formed a horizontal line. Two to eight. Tom smiled as he ran his finger up the two and then to the eight. Together, all these numbers formed the shape of a “T.” Sarah walked over to him. “I told Jim everything. He’s filling everyone else in.”
“She uses the same old tricks,” said Tom looking down at his keyboard.
“What?”
Tom showed her how a “T” was formed by the numbers Lilith gave.
“Just a ‘T?’” asked Sarah. “I mean that doesn’t exactly give us much. There are plenty of places that begin with that letter.”
Tom looked up at her, throwing his hands up in the air. “Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure that letter stands for something.”
“Guess we’ll have to find out.”
Two hours later, the FBI office was filled with tired agents trying to discover where exactly Lilith might be waiting for them. The sole letter they had been able to make out from her clue wasn’t giving them as much help as they had hoped for.
As she searched the Internet for buildings starting with “T,” Sarah found a link to a website containing different crosses. One of them looked exactly like their letter. “Tom, come look at this.”
The lieutenant walked over to her desk, looking at the screen. “I think what you found wasn’t a ‘T’ at all,” said Sarah. “It’s a cross.”
Tom read aloud the writing next to the T-shaped cross on the screen. “It says here that it’s called the Tau cross. Also known as St. Anthony’s cross.” He grinned. “Good work, Sarah.”
She turned to face him. “What does that mean?”
“The church that was destroyed yesterday was St. Anthony’s Methodist Church. I’m gonna guess she’s waiting there now.”
Sarah got up to follow Tom out of the room. “Isn’t she going to call?”
“She said she’d be waiting there.”
As they were riding in the car towards the old church, Sarah couldn’t help but be puzzled. “There were agents here only a few hours ago. How’d we miss her?”
Tom shook his head. “I have no idea. If my guess is wrong, then it’s a good thing we’ve got people at the office still working on this.”
When the two arrived in front of the damaged church, they could see nothing in the ruins that now rested inside a border of yellow tape. They both got out of the car, Sarah quietly staying behind Tom. Slowly, a hooded figure emerged from the shadows near the church’s old entrance.
Hello, Tom, said Lilith telepathically from several feet away.
“I guess we win round two,” said Tom. “Are you going to turn yourself in?”
Lilith’s mouth curled on one side. Here were her two hunters. They had played her game well but now it was her time to be the huntress. This was going to be the best part of the entire game. Let round three begin.
Lilith reached inside her cloak with both arms, whipping out twin pistols. Tom tackled Sarah to the ground to avoid gunfire. Both bullets missed them by inches. Once the two had crawled behind a piece of concrete rubble, Tom told Sarah to stay down. Quickly, he pulled out his own pistol and shot several shots at Lilith; one bullet went straight towards her chest. Lilith just smiled as she walked towards them, unharmed. It was as if the bullet had passed right through her. My Love is protecting me, said Lilith to Tom.
Tom dropped back behind the concrete and prayed aloud. “Jesus I know you’re greater than Satan.” A bullet cut through the air just above Tom’s head. He continued to pray. “I can’t win this without you, God. I can’t be a lone hero this time.”
Another bullet struck the concrete near Tom and Sarah’s heads. Bits of concrete crumbled onto Tom’s leather jacket. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. With all the courage he could muster, Tom stood to his feet and aimed his pistol. He felt an invisible force over his hand that seemed to aim the gun for him. When he pulled the trigger, a bullet once again headed towards Lilith’s chest. This time, she sank to her knees, blood dripping from the newly created hole in her body.
The last words Tom heard her say were, My Love has abandoned me.
She then breathed her final breath before death overtook her.
Tom sighed in relief. He knew his God had just won him the battle. Sarah looked in horror at Lilith’s dead body.
“You know,” said Sarah to Tom after several moments passed. “I never did believe in all this supernatural stuff. But I saw you shoot her and she didn’t die. And then you prayed and when you shot her again in the exact same spot, she died.” She turned to face Tom. “I guess God does exist.” Tom nodded his head as they stood in silence, trying to come to grips with what had just happened.
Game over.
