When he had the door open enough to shove his head and shoulders through to see if he could enter the space beyond, Warren entered the hidden area. He took out his torch. Everywhere his beam touched, metallic surfaces gleamed back at him. More riches awaited inside.
“Is that what I think it is?” Naomi asked.
“If you’re thinking that that’s another room filled with treasure, then yes,” Warren whispered in awe. He squeezed through.
“Before the invasion,” Naomi said, “this would have been a fortune.”
A stone sarcophagus occupied the center of the small room. Curiosity pulled Warren to it.
“A sarcophagus isn’t something you’d expect to find in the middle of England,” Warren said. “Unless you’d brought it in from Egypt.”
“It’s not a sarcophagus,” Lilith said. “It is a preservation chamber.”
Warren felt the arcane energy given off by the coffin-shaped box as he walked over to it. The outer casing was carved in the likeness of a beautiful woman.
“Before the Flood drank down the wicked empires that had turned from the Light, in order to end the madness and evil loosed in this world by the demons, men heard stories from those who prepared my burial chambers,” Lilith said. “I tried to keep my secrets from them, but stories get told all the same. Some of those who served me fled these lands and became the Egyptians. They remembered this preservation chamber and tried to construct some of their own.”
“Because they thought the sarcophagus would return them to life as well,” Warren said.
“Yes.” Lilith smiled. “Theirs didn’t, of course, but they kept believing that one day it would happen.”
“You were in the Book Merihim sent me after.” Warren looked at her.
“I was.”
“How?”
“The Book is an arcane object as well. It allowed me to travel the world without harm.”
“It was a safe place.”
Lilith nodded. “It was. I needed my body protected, but I had to be out in the world in order to know when the Hellgate opened and to arrange my own return here. Merihim wanted the Book because he’d heard of it, as he’d heard of other objects that ended up in this world through one means or another from all the worlds out there. This place, this world, has a tendency to draw things of power to it. That’s why the demons had to conquer it. The Book allowed me to fall into the hands of people I could…persuade to my cause.”
Warren knew she meant her use. He looked at the preservation chamber.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“I must be reunited with my body.”
Kneeling, Warren searched the container for hidden releases. He trailed his fingers along the sides. Lilith took him by the hand and guided him.
“Here,” she said, and indicated two intricately carved tiles.
“Press?” Warren tried, but nothing happened.
“Not with your hand,” Lilith said. “With your mind. These are sealed with arcane energy.”
Warren concentrated and ignored the pain in his chest. He felt the arcane energy within him and pushed it through his fingertips.
A hum vibrated through the preservation chamber. A crack suddenly split it and formed a lid. Pale emerald light glowed from within, and jade smoke roiled out of the chamber.
Fearful of what was about to happen, Warren stepped back. He used the arcane energy to build a shield in front of him. Naomi stepped behind him, but she didn’t get too close.
The lid rose on its own and flipped open. In the next instant, the body within floated outside. Horror filled Warren when he saw what condition the body was in. Naomi cursed in disgust.
The body was withered, the flesh wrapped tight to the bone. If Lilith had been pretty at one time, none of that showed now. Her face was disfigured, and her black hair was patchy and falling out in clumps. Her sticklike arms lay crossed over her bony chest. Ribs showed beneath the gold sheath dress that looked several sizes too big for her.
“In my time,” Lilith said, stepping close to the crypt and peering in with a smile, “I was lovely.”
“That time,” Naomi whispered, “is so over.”
The young Lilith started turning translucent. She reached for her desiccated self, but her hand passed through. Grimacing, she turned to Warren.
“I require your help.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“I need to be rejoined with my body so that I can come back to my full strength. You have to be the conduit. Come.” Lilith waved to him. “Take my hand.”
Reluctantly, Warren told Naomi to hold her torch up, then he shut his off and placed it within his pocket. He crossed the room to Lilith. She reached for him and took him by the hand.
“Hold on to my body,” she instructed. “You must be the conduit that connects us.”
Stifling the gag reaction that turned his stomach to acid, Warren took the corpse’s hand. He found it surprisingly limber and warm to the touch. That made the nausea swirling inside him even stronger.
Lilith cried out in pain. Warren almost let go of the corpse.
“Hold on,” Lilith told him. Pain wracked her beautiful face. “This will only last a moment more.”
It lasted longer than that. Warren thought later that at least a half hour passed while Lilith screamed as she became one again. But when it was done, the two halves of Lilith existed obviously in one body. Her translucent features surfaced occasionally in the dried-up crust that leathered her skull.
When Lilith was completely gone from sight, Warren concentrated on the body he still had hold of. He felt the power within it. It was so strong that there was no escaping it.
Jade fog poured into the room and obscured the surroundings. As Warren watched, the corpse took a breath, inhaling the fog. In the next moment, the dead woman’s eyes fluttered open, and Lilith stared at him from within the desiccated corpse.
“Very good,” she whispered dryly. She stopped floating and stood on the ground in her bare feet. “I…am still…very weak…in this…form. I cannot…allow that.” She looked down
