2. Something wicked this way comes

“Wait, a woman came to your house?” Max asked and Tamara pinched the bridge of her nose. She could hear that he was packing up to go seeing he was six hours ahead of her. She just caught him getting ready to leave for the cave.

“No I fell asleep and this woman came to me in my dream.” She went in the bathroom and looked at her jaw, bruise marks were starting to show. She frowned and kept talking. “It was definitely real, you didn’t have any kind of dream or odd feelings? I think something was triggered when you shared the photos.”

“Odd feeling, I always have an odd feeling going into these places. But what exactly did you find or see? how dangerous? I won’t go if you say so Tam. Just tell me what I’m dealing with, if it’s life or death. I’ve walked away before.” Both of them had, several times. Each of those times had ended in disaster for the people that didn’t listen. 

“It sounded more like something needed to be protected once it was found. She told me that I needed to do something.” She thought for a moment and then recapped the entire conversation. 

“Did you look up this Surt, what that could even mean?” He asked.

“Not yet but I was going to. You know seriously, I just wanted to work with artifacts, teach people our history. Here I am playing witch doctor to things best left alone once again. No one trains you for this kind of shit.” She wiped a hand down her face. 

“There’s marks on my chin, whatever it was, was real enough in my mind.” She told him.

“But just a death threat, not that actual death would happen?”

“No.” she told him. “She was concerned about her brother, which I don’t get. It must stand for something. A bond, I’ll keep deciphering and see what I find.”

“Did you want to come out here, we can wait and go in if you want to catch a flight. I might like to have you on the ground for this one.” He said with a laugh.

“No I can’t, I have a couple meetings tomorrow and those damn bowls are giving me a run for my money.” She said and turned picking one up off the top of the toilet seat. Seriously? The bathroom, she was starting to wonder if the items were just possessed with a prankster ghost or something. They didn’t feel malicious and didn’t react badly to holy items. 

“Yeah? Where’d they end up now?”

“Yesterday in the shower with me. Turned around there they were. Right now, on the back of a toilet seat. One time in my fridge and another on a ceiling fan blade.” She heard him laugh. “I prefer it when they just jump from table to table, that way I know they won’t get broken. They’re really old.” Again he laughed.

“Intriguing, maybe they should find a buyer that likes that kind of thing. Sounds harmless to me.” He commented and she moved over and picked up the last bowl still on the table. She put then back in their hand made wooden box. The only thing they didn’t disappear out of, once inside they always stayed there. 

“Yeah, probably best.” She said. “Look just keep me updated and I’ll keep going over what you sent.” She told him moving to her bedroom to sleep. 

“I definitely will, and I’m going to send anything we find ahead to you okay?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just make sure you send a detailed description with. I don’t want to be opening anything cursed or deadly. Booby traps work just as well as magic.” She heard his agreeing tone and said their goodbyes and hung up. She really did have a couple meetings tomorrow. She was flying to New York. She currently lived in Maine. She liked living in the middle of no where, didn’t have to worry about much. Especially if things went south on her.

Needless to say her sleep was restless and fitful, when normally she slept rather well. Was a rather heavy sleeper, her dreams were filled with water. The howl of wolves, and darkness, a suffocating darkness. She stood on the shore in part of it, and way out at sea just at the horizon she could just make out the arch of what looked like a massive snake or something. A sea creature from times long past. As she watched the thing was coming closer, she knew it was and the water was churning more violently. Parts of the body arching up and out of the water but never the head. It was more than massive, it seemed to fill the very sea, and water started to move and break in the spade shape of what could have been a head.

She turned to run terrified of what this serpent like creature was, but knew death was coming with it. As she turned she threw up her hands, fire. Flames were everywhere and a giant man ran by. He had to be twenty feet tall and he had a sword that burned. It set the ground a flame and she turned back to the sea but that wasn’t there anymore. That woman was, and behind her were the dead. She knew they were the dead, and other horrendous creatures moving forward. The landscape was now a city and the dead ran forward devouring people. 

Tamara turned one more time to run, or attack. She wasn’t sure but the woman wasn’t there and her lunge forward brought her into total darkness. She could hear breathing, and her heart pounded hard.

“Who’s there!” she demanded and it was kind of odd, she felt like maybe she was in a cave or something. The smell told her that, damp earth. The sound of water and then she could see just slightly. Just the ground before her but pitch black ahead and growling started. Her heart nearly stopped when a huge paw came forward and then another. They were massive bigger than her. She saw the nose first, then the muzzle as it leaned forward, the eyes solid black. Same as the fur and she noticed that the mouth was wide open with a huge sword jammed between the jaws keeping it that way.

Pull it out. The voice was female, demanding and Tamara could barely think with this massive wolf that towered over her. It looked like it was over forty feet tall. 

Pull that sword out before someone else does mortal. He breaks those chains before the sword we will all die. There was no way she was reaching into that thing’s mouth and taking that sword. Besides she couldn’t hold that sword up to save her life it was taller than she was. She could hear it growling softly but seemed unable to make any other sound.  Her eyes adjusted a bit more and she could see that something was wrapped around it. Hard to see with how the fur seemed to have grown into it. A glimmering chain was there wrapped around his legs and up to his neck before disappearing over the rest of his body in the darkness. 

“Wake up.” She said to herself suddenly and the eyes of the wolf narrowed. 

“Wake up!” She tossed herself to the side and woke up on the floor of her room with sunlight streaming in. She was covered in a cold sweat and shaking, she put a hand to her chest and gave a slightly hysterical sob. She looked at the time, five am, guess that’s what she got for staying up so late reading those ruins. For doing her job period. With a moan she got up and went to her bathroom to shower, still unnerved with her dream.

She went to her meeting, and while awake everything seemed just fine. When she went to sleep over the next four days that dream was always there. It was starting to get more violent, and she wasn’t sleeping all that well, she even tried a sleep aid. Maybe it would give her a dreamless sleep. But to no avail, the wolf scared her as did the huge serpent that rose from the sea. She saw its head below the waves now, eyes that burned a bright red and made the sea start to boil. 

Max was keeping in contact with her and she shared her dreams, and he said that they could stop. However she didn’t think that an option at this point. He confessed that he was having dreams too and so were a couple of the others, about a dark room and howls. Painful and sorrowful howls that turned bitter and angry at times. The only way they didn’t have dreams was when they were down in the cave working on getting behind it. They knew there was a hollow area there. They were thinking about blowing the rock face, even with the hint that there was an opening there somehow. Tamara had deciphered that much, that the part of the rock was designed to crumble.

She had looked up this Surt and figured Norse mythology was the best way to go. He was one of those that were to start the end of the world. After Ragnarok, which what she was seeing made sense in the dreams now, the sea serpent and the woman with the dead. They were all figures in the mythology of Ragnarok, especially the wolf. Him breaking free of his chains would start the end. He would kill Odin and several other gods before dying himself.

So she was trying to figure out what kind of magic this was. Just what it was protecting and she had a feeling it was something powerful. Something that hadn’t seen the light of day in a millennia. She didn’t believe in other beings, she’d seen no proof. She believed in magic which was just manipulating energy in her book, and those that could do it were still human. Just called witch or sorcerer, shaman. Even priests, were in this group for her. Demons were just piled up negative energy that could take forms but she didn’t think that they were actual living entities. She hadn’t seen one yet, she thought the same of ghosts. Just left over energy running on a loop. So her job was to fix the problem with the energy or find someone that could. It could be dangerous and she respected that. After all what was a bomb but a massive release of energy from a reaction?

“I don’t think this is supposed to be opened, The warnings and other inscriptions say that it has been sealed for the good of all. More or less.” She stated and pushed her hair back. “It’s not a door at all, just a huge slab of rock claiming to bar the way to the end of times.” She finally said and a sigh was on the other end of the phone.

“Well equipment stuck through cracks say that there is a space on the other side. A pretty massive one, and water is seeping out from underneath the rock face.” Drew was the one talking to her, he was going back down after speaking with her to update Max if she found anything else.

“Look I’m just saying, maybe a long time ago there was an opening somewhere along the rock face and the earth shifted and closed it in. But the assumption that there might be a magical door or something is wrong, I’m pretty sure about that. Whatever was in there, the people that inscribed the walls didn’t want it to come out.” She sipped the water in front of her and glanced at the windows. The day was grey the weather just didn’t seem to want to cheer up around here. 

“Okay, but as far as I am aware they have already started taking out a portion of the wall they feel is structurally best to do so. Io will be here to answer if you suddenly find something imperative that we must know.” He told her and she sighed.

“Just be careful, who knows what’s on the other side. Even something as simple as the kind of gas.” 

“We are as prepared as we can be. Talk to you later. I’ll let Max know what you said.” With that they hung up and she leaned back in her chair. She didn’t hear much from them over the next several days and she had other work to take care of but she made sure to check in with them. Her dreams had quieted down and she took that as a good sign. That was until she got a call from Max.

“We are sending you the only thing we found that looks valuable.” Max was on the phone and sounded excited. 

“I thought you said there wasn’t anything in there.” She commented as they were now talking over video chat. 

“There were items scattered about, kind of looked like a tomb really. Gifts left or something, and there were a lot of animal bone fragments. At least I hope they were animal bone. They were practically dust to be honest with you, don’t think we could actually get a DNA sample out of it. More like the impression left in the ground.” 

“And you are sending me?” She asked. “Some pots or something?”

“Better, there was a huge black kidney shaped object. I’m not sure what it is exactly, makes me think sarcophagus…” She cut him off before he could continue.

“You better not be sending me a coffin with some dead person inside of it. You know I hate dealing with that kind of thing.” She snapped and he laughed.

“Relax, we couldn’t get it open and I highly doubt that anything is inside of it. There is more inscription on the outside in gold writing no less. It feels smooth like marble but it’s black like obsidian. No one felt any kind of magic binding it, but you never know and I’d like your keen eye to look it over.” She made a frustrated sound. 

“I better not end up regretting helping you with this Max.” He laughed again.

“Look, you don’t have to do anything to it without me. I’m just sending it to you for safe keeping. It will come in a standard cargo crate. But I’ll tell you what, that thing was damn heavy and it took some serious muscle and effort to get it up and out of this cave so far down. It’s why we were out of touch with you for several days. By the way we had some weird dude hanging around our hotel rooms yesterday. Luckily I sent the object off immediately, like within hours. With the dreams and stuff  I didn’t want to take any chances and we needed extra help getting it up out and loaded. But after that I made some contacts to get it shipped off. Rather not have others know. Just me Drew and Io know it’s going to you.” Which they were the only ones that she had been speaking too.

“Good, I don’t need some occult nut contacting me from halfway across the world. That gets old really fast.” They both had a laugh at that but were completely serious as well. The kind of things they dealt with came with some bad baggage at times. 

“Well Lester is the one who picked it up and arranged for it to come to you. He’s good about discreet and this one I want discreet. Last night my dreams were filled with blood and death, horrible things. I think I got an hour’s worth of sleep.”

“Really? Mine were subdued. I actually slept rather well.” 

“Well I’m glad that one of us did. We are going to pack up more of what we collected before someone goes to the local authority and says that we are robbing them. Even if our permits are on the up and up, people get all bent out of shape when artifacts are involved.” She couldn’t agree more. 

“Well I’ll let you know what it gets here, and you let me know when you are back in the states okay? At least I’m assuming you are coming to the states, unless it’s back to London first.” She commented.

“No, I want to come see you and the object I’m sending. I can wait to go visit home.” She shook her head, he loved what he did completely and totally. Yeah she kind of enjoyed it too most days.

“Good because if things go haywire, I want you here so I can kick your ass.” He laughed. 

“As always.” After figuring out when he’d probably be back she said her goodbye and hung up the phone. If he talked with Lester then the item would probably be here in a day. He was good like that, no questions asked. Get it there as fast as possible and he had his own private jets. The man was loaded and Tamara along with Max had helped him on more than one occasion with an item he purchased and came with more than he bargained for. 

Tamara moved to get something to eat. She was curious about this random slab of stone she was going to be getting. She hadn’t decided if she was going to look at it first and see what it was, or if she’d wait for Max. As she ate her sandwich and thought, she had no idea that what was coming her way would end the life she was living. It would  drag her kicking and screaming into one she’d never have believed.