Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (19 page)

The television coverage had put everyone a little bit on edge, except Tung who was still secretly basking in the glory of his new found celebrity. Michael was particularly worried because he knew how many viewers this type of broadcast could reach and there were any number of people who could have spotted them and reported the sighting to the TV station. He knew how much Joe Public valued even two minutes of fame so anyone who’d seen them was likely to try and get themselves on TV.

They definitely didn’t want to be found because there was just no way to explain the strange objects which had been left in the hotel room. Michael had no idea how they would be treated if they were tracked down, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.

“This is worrying,” said Michael. “You guys probably don’t understand the reach that this kind of coverage has.”

“But we’re famous. That’s got to be good.”

“That is definitely not good. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. We must keep the idea of low profile in our heads. Keep things simple. Everything we do must be simple as ABC.”

As soon as he said it he realised it was a poor choice of simile. Tung couldn’t read so ABC was distinctly not simple.

“Low profile,” he repeated. “Low profile.”

Michael was also troubled because he hadn’t seen Faith in person since the crazy champagne party. They’d talked on the phone on numerous occasions, but the conversations had been superficial; he hadn’t even told her about his subsequent meetings with Tung and Madrick. He wasn’t sure why he was keeping that a secret, but his gut told him to keep it to himself for now.

She hadn’t been back to work since the infamous party because her hangover had morphed into a severe dose of the flu. Michael felt sorry for her, but it gave him some time and space to sort out what direction his life was going to take without dragging her along this unknown path. Much better to wait and then share everything with her once he had some sort of idea how it was all going to pan out.

He turned up at the office just before nine o’clock and got stuck into his work straight away. The day turned out to be a bit of a mishmash, thoughts about his new companions distracted him and stopped him concentrating on his job. Luckily, there were no particularly difficult problems to deal with, so he breezed through the day. As usual, most of his colleagues packed up and left on the dot of five, but he always waited about fifteen minutes before he followed them out. It was that last fifteen minutes which meant ninety-five percent of his workmates had no idea how late he stayed, all they knew was he had worked later than them and that was always good for the image.

The front door banged behind him, it was good to be home. Tung and Madrick were in front of the television eating pizza, no surprise there. They exchanged a few pleasantries before he headed for his computer. He’d decided it was time to initiate phase two of his destroy-IIBE plan. The antics of his traveller friends might force them all to beat a hasty retreat from the media and he didn’t want that to scupper his plan. He was happy to run with his new friends, but he wasn’t going to let all his meticulous preparation work to go to waste.

The usual routine followed… log on, check own emails and messages. Next, check the email accounts he’d hacked into. There was one odd email to the chairman which caught his eye. It wasn’t the subject matter which piqued his interest; its title suggested it was about some pricing report. What made this one grab his curiosity was the fact that the body of the text was encrypted.

Brilliant, he loved this sort of puzzle. Codes and ciphers had always fascinated him, but this one was a tricky little number. It was going to take him some real effort to crack it so he filed it away for later. He would tackle it when he’d more time; it probably wasn’t particularly interesting or important anyway.

It was now time to concentrate on his plan, because once he hit the metaphorical ‘start button’, there was no turning back. His scheme would be in play. It would take on a life of its own, but he was ready, or at least as ready as he was ever going to be. He typed in the commands which started a number of little routines running at the heart of the IIBE systems. The ultra sophisticated Noviru software wouldn’t detect them because he’d disabled the particular components which would have spotted this type of attack.

Thunderbirds are go, he thought as he hit the enter key.

An invigorating feeling swept through his body, this was the moment he’d been working towards for the last eighteen months. There was nothing more he could do until someone noticed the unusual financial activity and started to investigate. Now, monitoring things and spotting when the bank’s security team began their investigation became top priority.

Okay, now back to other people’s emails, specifically the encrypted message to Samuel Buckingham. He stared at it and looked for obvious patterns, but there were none. He searched it for familiar number sequences that would suggest what encryption method had been used, but he found none.

The next step was to run it through the highly sophisticated Noviru intelligent analyser modules which he’d ‘borrowed’ when he left the company. These modules sifted and sorted text, making intelligent trial-and-error decisions about the type of message. In the first pass, they could generally determine the originating language. In the second pass, they could work out the nature of the message, for example, was it a scientific message or did it relate to financial data? Then finally, it would grind away until the message was cracked.

These were state of the art routines which security agencies around the world used regularly. What these agencies didn’t know was that there were even deeper levels of sophistication which Noviru didn’t share with anyone. These were the levels which Michael was now applying to the message.

After an hour, the Noviru analysis had made a little progress. It had determined that the originating language was English and the message contained a date and time, 07.45 GMT 17
th
of this month. It had also ruled out a lot of things. The message wasn’t scientific, mathematical or financial in nature. He reset some of the parameters, widened the analysis and left it to run while he went to talk to the others about what they should all do next.

This message was just a distraction anyway, he thought, maybe he shouldn’t bother with it at all, after all, he’d enough other things to be getting on with.

Sir Samuel Buckingham sat in his plush office and pondered on some of the strange events which had occurred in his City. There was powerful magic afoot and it brought into clear focus the truth of the ancient legends and prophecies. It also offered a stark reminder of the actual purpose of the organisation he led, a purpose which had somewhat faded over the last few centuries.

Things had changed dramatically in the short time since the strangeness had begun; other things would need to change dramatically as a result. It was clearly going to be an interesting and exciting time. Some men would be frightened by the prospect, but he wasn’t ‘some men’. His very being buzzed and his soul tingled.

What a fantastic legacy it would be if he turned out to be the Great Grand Master who recovered the Scroll. He thought about what it would mean for the Occultus Populous as an organisation, but he spent more time considering what it would mean for him as an individual.

He was already immensely wealthy and powerful so he had no need, nor desire, for more money or any further trappings with which his wealth had blessed him. The family fortune had been amassed over many centuries, but its true origins were known only to the head of the clan. The other family members only knew that their ancestors had held a baronetcy since the title was introduced by James I in the early 1600s. They knew there had always been great sums of money, but they didn’t realise the true source of their immense privileges.

Buckingham, as current Baronet, had been given the ancestral tome when he acceded to the baronetcy upon the death of his father. He therefore knew the whole story, and what an utterly fantastic story it was.

The ancient book traced the family name back to the year 1360 when they adopted the surname Buckingham for all future generations. The book also mentioned the earlier years and charted their ancestry back to a great wizard, Gravalar, the first Great Grand Master of the Occultus Populous. Their lineage spanned over twenty generations and was better documented than many of the great royal dynasties. However their ancestral philosophy was to be prominent, but never overtly great. Hence they had chosen the baronetcy in the sixteen hundreds rather than any grander title or any tight connection to royalty.

There were many benefits to a baronetcy and it had been a wise choice which had served the family well. It enabled the hereditary title of ‘Sir’ and officially documented their genealogy, but it kept them below the radar of most snooping commoners.

The centuries had been kind to the family, although his family had not been particularly kind to the centuries. They had been responsible for many atrocious acts over the last millennium. These acts had been typical of the elite lineages; each act designed to enhance their wealth regardless of the consequences to others. They had caused wars, famines and global financial crises, but each great event had been engineered to reinforce their enormous wealth and power, and help keep the common man in his place.

So, he wondered as he reflected on his current status and standing, what could the Scroll bring to a man who had everything; a man who had everything yet a man who craved for more?

He answered his own question almost immediately, the Scroll brought infinite opportunity. In a world where true magic was practically non-existent, he would have control over a spell which could create any and all of the great ancient spells. Those spells combined with the enormous global power of the Occultus Populous would bring about the fulfilment of the ultimate dream where the elite would totally control the planet. And he was the elite of the elite.

It would have sounded egomaniacal to most, but he knew it was the truth, he could literally rule the world.

Michael drummed his fingers on his desk and stared at the computer screen. Nothing was happening. His software had been shifting money out of IIBE for hours now, but he’d yet to detect any response. Surely they must have spotted it by now? Had he missed something vital?

He trawled though his hacked email files. There was nothing out of the ordinary; nothing which suggested they’d discovered the leak of money. Maybe they weren’t as efficient as he thought they were. Maybe his little software modules were more difficult to detect than he’d reckoned.

To take his mind off his worries, he went back to the intercepted, encrypted email to the chairman. The Noviru analyser had been analysing it for hours and still seemed no nearer to cracking the code. As a last resort, he switched in the hardware simulator module. He didn’t have high expectations for this. It only helped with the highest level encryption, the type used by the most secretive and advanced national security agencies. There was no way the chairman would need anything like that. Was there? He wouldn’t have that level of sophisticated hardware in his possession. Would he?

He watched the software go though its analysis. His fingers drummed harder and faster. He was about to give up when the words ‘decryption complete’ flashed up in front of him. This was getting stranger and stranger. He started to read the translated message. What the hell? A particular paragraph grabbed his attention. He leaned closer to the screen.

‘Magic which is outside our control has been used on at least twelve different occasions. Our research has concluded that the time travellers have arrived with the Scroll.’

His mouth dropped open as he stared at the message. He couldn’t begin to grasp why the chairman of a financial organisation would be getting emails about magic. He could however grasp the gravity of the threat this posed. These people knew about Tung and Madrick. He skipped back to the start of the email.

‘After solemn and due consideration the European Executive of the Occultus Populous has deemed it appropriate and necessary to convene a meeting of the full Grand Council. This decision has been ratified by the Great Grand Master.’

What was the Occultus Populous? He typed it into Google. His query brought back loads of entries for Populous. He tried again with double quotations… “Occultus Populous”. It offered him pages of answers for “
Occultist
Populous” but no entries for his specific search.

He shouted for Madrick. His voice sounded a couple of octaves higher than usual. That only happened when he was worried… or very scared.

Madrick wandered over to the PC corner. He was expecting another funny video; Michael loved showing him funny videos.

“Have you ever heard of the Occultus Populous?”

“No. It means nothing to me,” replied Madrick. “The words could be Salatin which, for your enlightenment, was the language which evolved into Latin.”

“Skip the history lesson. I think we’re in deep trouble here. What do the words mean?”

“The translation from the ancient language is never precise, but they mean something like Special People. What’s the problem? What’s going on?”

“Read this,” said Michael as he pointed at the screen.

Madrick read the message. He turned as white as a flag of truce.

“Someone knows about us? Some secret organisation knows about us? Who are these people? What do they want?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I was asking you. Listen, first things first, you don’t need to panic. They may know about you, but they don’t know where you are… yet,” said Michael. “And they don’t know that we know that they know about you. We have a head start, but we need to move fast. We need a plan.”

Michael’s flat became a hive of activity over the next few hours.

Ignoring, Michael’s own ‘first things first’ advice, they collectively panicked as he unravelled more detail from the email. He deciphered the recipients of the message; the Council members. They included the richest and most powerful people on the planet and it looked as though these people were after them.

If these guys were hunting Madrick and Tung, they needed to disappear. They needed to become invisible… again. They started with some simple basics, things that would make them harder to identify. Tung cut Madrick’s hair and beard. He looked completely different and the modern clothes from Michael’s wardrobe finished off the ‘disguise’. Tung was given a similar make-over so at least now the television descriptions would be of little help to anyone trying to spot them in a crowd.

They thought through what could link Michael to the travellers. The biggest worry was the original champagne party in the Ritz. Michael hadn’t booked the lunch table using his own name and Madrick had taken care of their bill so he hadn’t used his credit card. The waiters or the manager or other diners would have spotted them partying together, but no one there knew who he was.

They could probably get descriptions and maybe even a picture of him, but that would be a small pearl of knowledge within a mass of detail. It would be an information pin in a data overloaded haystack, but if someone had enough time and resources they could eventually connect his image to his name. Then they’d be knocking on Michael’s door. They needed to get away from there and leave no trail whatsoever.

They gathered money, provisions, clothes and toiletries. Michael parcelled up everything which identified him - credit cards, driving licence, passport - he’d destroy it all later, but he wanted anyone who searched the flat to find these things gone. They would think Michael Phillips had bolted. They’d be looking for Michael Phillips. They wouldn’t be looking for Michael Baker, the false identity he’d created eighteen months ago when he started planning his heist at IIBE.

Michael explained what he was going to do next.

“The Council are going to congregate tomorrow. There are forty-eight of them and they’re gathering at special locations which are spread all across the globe. They’ll have to use technology to ‘meet’. One of the locations is the IIBE headquarters. I can hack into their system so we’ll be able to watch them. We’ll find out what they know and we’ll be able to listen in to their plans”

Neither Madrick nor Tung had any idea what any of this meant, but Michael was clearly excited so they made little supportive noises. If Michael was excited then so were they.

“While I set up the spy software, why don’t you two create some spells and see if you can come up with anything useful? We’re in big trouble and we don’t have any time to lose.”

“No time to lose. That’s the story of my life,” said Tung as he prepared himself.

Michael went back to his computer and began to install the spy software. He knew exactly where to target his program. He’d seen the secure teleconferencing facility on the network when he’d been cataloguing the full system. Why hadn’t he bugged it at the time? Anyway, it was no big deal, he’d be ready to spy in a few hours.

While Michael tackled the bugging, Tung was busy creating and dissipating spells.

“We’ve been at this for ages and we’ve nothing useful to show for our efforts. I’m knackered.”

He stopped creating and surveyed the mess around him. The room was strewn with magically created debris including a chest full of horse leathers, a magnificent diamond engagement ring, five hundred candles, an oak table and two extremely ugly bronze statues of goats.

He’d also created a beautiful autumn-inspired aroma which wasn’t much use to them right now. It would have been a lot more valuable back in his stinking century and, in particular, in the foul-smelling street where he used to live. Or in the fishy hotel room not far away. Or back in Mifal’s cell after the great stallion had shown its fear.

The only spell which was potentially useful had given him the power to see in the dark; apparently it would last for a few days. It probably wasn’t going to help them stay safe, but Tung had a bit of fun finding long forgotten biscuits which were hiding in the shadows under the settee.

“We need a rest, and some pizza. I’m off to fire up the microwave.”

Michael continued working on installing his spy-eye software. It was considerably more complex than he’d been expecting. These guys had spent a lot of time building security around the facility. He had just about cracked it though, after all it was impossible to protect yourself against trusted sources and he’d made himself a trusted source for every single system within IIBE.

“We’re ready to rock,” he shouted out loud, throwing his arms in the air. “We’re in.”

“And the pizza is ready,” said Tung. “Let’s party.”