Free Solomon's Jar by Alex Archer

ancient worship of the Great Mother and the horned god,” he said. “We subscribe to the true old religion,” Sir Martin proclaimed.
    â€œDon’t the Wiccans make similar claims?” Annja asked.
    He dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “I mean the religion of the dawn men. From before the druids, before the pyramids, before the great crime of agriculture. Ours is the primal religious ecstasy expressed by the cave painters of Lascaux. Our worship is devoted to the earth’s very self—we do not profane and diminish the earth by personalizing it as a mere human. Especially now, when humans have covered much of the beautiful face of the planet with their concrete canker sores, and the waters with their muck and ooze.”
    He sat upright again with a half-rueful smile. “You must forgive my vehemence,” he said.
    â€œYou certainly have the courage of your convictions, Sir Martin.”
    â€œThank you, my dear. You are most kind.”
    â€œSo the lodge believes that our modern technological civilization is a mistake?” she asked.
    â€œA desecration,” he said.
    Then his near white eyes slid past her. She turned her head but slightly. Far enough for her peripheral vision to register the direction of his gaze. He was looking straight at the brass jar on the mantel.
    He knows, she realized. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, she thought. She drew in a deep breath. Then she plunged in head first.
    â€œGiven your institute’s focus on prehistoric native beliefs,” she said, “I admit I find its interest in a relic such as the alleged jar in which King Solomon bound the demons to be quite curious.”
    He looked directly at her for a moment. It seemed that his expression hardened, and that his eyes went from silver to steel.
    â€œSo,” he said—softly, as to himself. “The margin of error is small, so small, in this terrible modern world of ours. As you observed, Ms. Corbett, I am passionate in my convictions. Sometimes my passions overwhelm me. Especially when my dearest expectations are raised, only to be cruelly dashed.”
    He stood. “As to my interest—our interest—theearth’s interest in the jar of Solomon, it would be pure waste to tell you now. No point, really.”
    Either his disdain for modern technology did not forbid him from carrying some kind of wireless communicator hidden on his person, or he possessed strong psychic powers. Annja did not discount the latter possibility as readily as she might have a year earlier. The door opened suddenly and two men, dressed in rough, soil-stained workman’s garb that seemed itself to belong to an earlier century, stepped in.
    â€œMal, Dave,” Sir Martin said. One newcomer was short and broad, with dark hair on his balding head and sticking from his prominent ears. The other was a huge, near shapeless mound of muscle. He was an albino with skin as chalky as the famous cliffs nearby and hair whiter than anything else in the white room. Both wore silver lodge medallions. The squat dark man carried a double-barreled shotgun under one arm.
    â€œMy Purdey, Dave?” Sir Martin inquired.
    The squat man shrugged. “It’ll do the job, won’t it, Squire?”
    â€œMs. Corbett is leaving us,” Sir Martin said. “Permanently, I fear. Reginald, I fear we need to clean up after my…indiscretions. See to it, won’t you, there’s a good lad?”
    â€œOf course, Sir Martin,” Reginald said coolly.
    â€œPlease take our guest into the back garden, kill herand bury her in the churchyard where none will be the wiser. And for nature’s sake, do it quietly!”
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    T HE HUGE ALBINO , Mal, picked up a shovel leaned against the moss-grown stone wall as they passed beneath a gateway arch at the back of the great white house. Annja didn’t know whether it was intended to kill her or inter her. Probably both