:o Hey! Told you it wouldn't be such a long wait this time. Thanks for the lovely reviews people!
nora88: Hehe no kissing this time, but maybe soon? You'll just have to wait and see... :D
Numair's Daine: yes I'm English. No I can't imagine Lara saying 'panties' either! And I loved your fight scene (like everything else you write), hmmm what is it that's so appealing about them getting all, er, physical? ;)
Horsecrazy: lol the KTEB has made us both crazy, do you think we could claim compensation? :D Okay, you can put the stick down now...
Anyway here's the next installment, it's pretty long and has lots of talking/explaining so I hope it's not boring.
* * *
Chapter 14: Ozan
We followed Ozan through a door halfway along the corridor, and up a flight of concrete steps to the first floor of the museum. We walked down another passageway lined with offices and storage rooms until Ozan stopped at one of the doors and pulled a bundle of keys from his pocket. He unlocked the office and ushered us inside warmly.
The room was small but full of books, papers and boxes. Drawings and charts covered the walls. There was no desk, but instead a round wooden table stood in the centre of the room, documents piled neatly on its surface. There were three chairs set around the table, and a tray bearing three cups of steaming black coffee.
"What do you do at the museum, Ozan?" I asked.
"I do a lot of their translation work," he replied. "Cappadocia has had a very rich and varied past, as I am sure you are aware. Many different cultures have put down roots here through the ages, and the ancient languages of the region are my speciality, I suppose." I caught Kurtis' eye - if Ozan could translate the symbols on the medallion, he really would be helpful to us. "Please, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable."
I took a seat, and after a moment's hesitation Kurtis did the same.
Ozan handed us a cup each, and then sat down opposite us. He folded his hands in front of him on the table and sat looking at us, beaming.
"So," Kurtis said. "I guess you're psychic, then." It seemed as good a place as any to start.
"Indeed," Ozan replied, still smiling. "I apologise, you must be wondering who on earth is this strange little man! I will try to explain. I hope I did not cause either of you any distress by intruding on your sleep this morning. But I thought it would be a bad idea to turn up in person, particularly when you are both concerned about this Karel, the Nephilim. I do so want for you to be able to trust me."
"You know about the Nephilim?" Kurtis asked.
Ozan nodded. "Yes. I have much to tell you about them. But first I should explain who I am, and how much we have in common, Kurtis."
"Me and you?" Kurtis replied, sounding sceptical.
I blew cool air onto my drink before taking a sip. Black, with one sugar. Ozan even knew how I took my coffee.
"Yes. You have psychic powers which you inherited from your ancestors, Kurtis. So did I. They are not the same as yours, I cannot move objects with my mind, but I have the ability to communicate telepathically. I can also sense things from people; moods, thoughts and such. My ancestors developed their telepathic powers partly so that they could store their memories and secrets across generations. It is hard to explain, but we have memory... in our blood. I have my father's memories, my father had the memories of my grandfather; I have in my head the memory of many hundreds of generations. That is why I can read the ancient languages. That is why I will be able to help you."
Earlier, Kurtis had folded up a wad of his notes and drawings and put them in one of the pockets of his pants. He took them out now, and smoothed them out on the table. "I don't know if you'll be able to read this. It's the writing from a medallion which was found in Derinkuyu, but -" He frowned, and passed the papers over to Ozan. "But I'm sure the symbols are linked to the Lux Veritatis, the Order I was raised in, and they had roots in Western Europe, not Turkey."
Ozan nodded politely as Kurtis spoke. "Of course, I understand your confusion. But the history of the Lux Veritatis in fact began in Turkey, in the very city where that medallion was found."
"In Derinkuyu?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes." He looked thoughtful. "It is rather a long story. Is there anything you need before I begin? Something to eat perhaps?"
We told him that no, we were fine, and I smiled. I found myself liking Ozan immensely, even though we had only just met. He was clearly in possession of information that would be useful - if not vital - to us, and yet he still wanted to make sure he was being a good host.
"Very well," he continued in his melodic voice. "In the twelfth century, a legion of the Knights Templar passed through Anatolia on their return from a bloody Crusade in Syria. They were injured, weary, hungry. They found in the heart of Cappadocia a place to shelter, deep beneath the ground in our ancient city of Derinkuyu. There they were cared for by Christian dwellers, people whose ancestors had fled from Arab invasions in the seventh and eighth centuries. Living amongst these men and women were an order of monks, who told the Knights some very interesting stories. Now the Knights believed that these monks had arrived with the Christians, and indeed many of the younger Christian settlers assumed the same. But they had been there far longer. They lived in those sunless caverns not because they were fleeing Arabs or recovering from battle, but because they were guarding something. Something ancient and terrible.
"At this point I have to take you back even further, to the time of the Hittites. Over a thousand years before Christ was born, the Hittites created many of the underground chambers that are still there today, as they attempted to protect themselves from Phrygian invasion. But they were not the first who had been besieged beneath the rock and earth. The Hittites knew of great caverns hidden beneath the ground, which had been there since before any man could remember. Huge caverns that could only be entered through a single, narrow passage that led down into the earth. No one knew how these caves had come to be, but the Hittites believed themselves very fortunate to know of the catacombs as they spread their burrow of rooms and halls from this starting point.
"After some time the Hittites vanished from Derinkuyu. No one knows why, but it seems that some of them fled and attempted to fill in some of the tunnels and passageways of the city behind them on their way out. Other peoples settled in the city in the centuries that followed, but none for very long until my ancestors took root there. This was in the infancy of Christianity, after Saint Paul had passed through Anatolia spreading the word of Christ. The order that settled in the caves in this time did not succumb to the same fate as the previous inhabitants. Rather, they began to convert the city, creating churches in the great halls and filling them with statues and paintings. They seemed to be drawing their faith down into the ground, filling the city with it. This is why it became such a welcome place for the later Christian refugees to come to, and the Knights on their return from the Crusades.
"So this is all very interesting, I'm sure you are thinking, but what does it have to do with me? With you? With this strange creature Karel. Well, my ancestors came upon the city long after the Hittites did, but there were still myths about that place and what had happened there. These stories had a profound effect on my ancestors, convincing them that they should settle in the city and bring God's light into it to protect it from the evil below.
"In the time of the earliest civilizations, it is believed that some of the angels left heaven and came down to walk upon the earth. They wished to see what God had made, and understand why he had done so. It is possible they spent many years amongst the living; human lifetimes even. But they were affected enough, or made curious enough, by their proximity to humans to wish to mate with them, and that is how the Nephilim came to be. The Nephilim were aberrations, able to live with neither angel nor man, wishing only to devour. God punished the angels responsible for creating the Nephilim by sending them into Hell, and He sent down His angels of death to scour the Nephilim from the Earth altogether. Knowing that death was coming for them, the Nephilim fled to seek refuge. They came to this region and burrowed deep into the volcanic rock, carving out a vast, deep chamber for themselves with their bare hands. Most of the tunnels were closed up behind them in a series of earthquakes, and there the Nephilim stayed for thousands of years. Men are beings of earth, but angels are beings of light, and they were unable to feel the presence of the Nephilim hiding beneath the ground. Possibly the Nephilim were so weak from their exertions that they were even harder to detect, and too weak to resurface, because they stayed there until this very day. They did not try to dig their way out, perhaps because they were still too weak, perhaps because they were too afraid. But their presence could be felt in the underground city, as if they haunted it, and that is what drove out the Hittites and other settlers."
Ozan paused here, and drank some of his coffee. I glanced at sideways at Kurtis and saw that he, like me, seemed to be itching to ask questions. With great effort we held back, trusting that Ozan would tell us all he needed to.
"So," he went on a moment later. "Knowledge of what happened all those thousands of years ago was passed on through the ages by the people living in this region. As time went by, of course, many people stopped believing in it, thinking it was just an old myth or folk tale. But then, not so very long before the arrival of Christianity, something happened to change that."
"What?" I asked, unable to rein in my curiosity. Ozan didn't seem to mind the interruption at all, though, and he smiled warmly at me before continuing.
"One of the Nephilim did escape," he said, a grave expression now clouding his pleasant features. "He called himself Pharys, and he was truly a terrifying creature. He alone had the will to drag himself out into the world, and his plan was to find a way of releasing all his siblings so they could claim the world for themselves. Over the years spent underground the Nephilim had become insubstantial, but Pharys used this to his advantage. Once he had gained some strength he found he was able to reshape his body and could take on a human appearance."
He looked up at Kurtis suddenly. I turned to see Kurtis leaning forwards in his chair, a look of realisation on his face.
"I know what you are thinking, Kurtis. No, Pharys and Karel are not one and the same," Ozan said, answering Kurtis' unspoken question. "But they are closely linked. Because of his changing appearance, Pharys spent many years living undetected, and in that time he mated with a human female. But he became careless with his disguise, and eventually he was visited by one of God's angels. He was destroyed, but the angel feared that more of the Nephilim may emerge. And so she gathered some of the holy men from the area and gave them a gift. A language that would act as some kind of a weapon against the Nephilim if they should be found. This gift also gave the holy men heightened mental powers, which they passed on to their children along with the understanding of the language. My ancestors were the early Christians initiated by those who knew the sacred language. They formed a monastic order within the city at Derinkuyu, and used the language in paintings and sculptures to keep the Nephilim locked inside. When they met the Knights Templar in the eleven-hundreds, they saw kindred spirits in them and taught them the language. They had received word from other travelling Christians that Pharys' offspring had survived, and that he was in Western Europe planning some kind of resurrection of the Nephilim race. They wanted to send these Knights back to the West with the sacred language, in the hope that the half-Nephilim and his followers could be stopped. This half-Nephilim, of course, is the creature you both know as Karel."
"My God," Kurtis said, shaking his head slowly. "I was always told that the Lux Veritatis was formed to fight the Cabal. But it was always about the Nephilim."
Ozan nodded. "Unfortunately, the Lux Veritatis did not share the clarity of memory that my people had. Perhaps their original purpose was lost over the years. And their instinct was to fight, while ours was to protect. But to begin with, the two Orders were very much the same. The one to which I belong is named after the language given to man by the angel. The Light of Truth."
"Lux Veritatis..." I whispered.
"Our numbers dwindled over the years, and I myself have no sons or daughters. All the other remaining members were murdered, most likely by the same Cabal who killed your father, Kurtis. I am very sorry." He paused. Kurtis nodded stiffly. "So now, all the memories of the Light of Truth rest with me. And as I cannot pass the secrets on through blood then I shall pass them on to you through word. There is no blood connection between you and I, friend, but a bond was forged between our ancestors nevertheless."
Ozan sat back in his chair, looking rather tired. I imagined he wasn't used to speaking for such a long time. He sighed. "I am sorry that I do not have better news for you," he said, looking at our stunned expressions. "Karel is planning something that could be truly catastrophic."
I reached across the table and took his hand, giving it a friendly squeeze. "We were lucky you turned up, Ozan. I think we might have a chance after all." He smiled back at me, seeming genuinely moved.
"And I am very fortunate to have met you both. Of course, I will get to work right away translating these engravings for you. There were other medallions too, three of them. I think that there is a replica of one of the others in a museum near Aksaray. I will speak with them, try to get a picture of that one too."
"That would be wonderful," I said. "Is there anything we can do in the meantime?"
Ozan hesitated for a moment before replying. "Not really," he said. "I don't believe Karel is ready to awaken the remaining Nephilim for a few more days, so we still have some time. I must work on these translations, and on finding out more about Karel's camp and the tunnels they are using."
"How will you do that?" Kurtis asked.
Ozan tapped the side of his head in response. "I will need to be a lot closer to the site, but when I am... I will be able to probe the minds of some of his workers, find out what they know and what they are planning. The next part, getting into the city and stopping Karel, will rest with the two of you, although I hate to say it. It will not be easy. His strength is growing..." He looked troubled.
"Can you pick up thoughts from Karel?" I asked, puzzled.
"Not exactly. But he is Nephilim, and because I have the Light of Truth I am able to sense him. And his energy is getting stronger."
"I promise you, if you can get us in there, we'll take care of Karel," Kurtis said firmly. I wished I felt as confident.
Ozan nodded. "I have a lot of faith in you, my friends. I am sure that together we will succeed. But for now, you may as well rest and enjoy your stay for a little while. Nevsehir has some excellent restaurants." He beamed. "One more thing. I have arranged some accommodation in Derinkuyu. I will need to stay there in order to find anything out from the camp. Please, there is enough room, will you be my guests? It will be safer for you than any hotel or inn."
Kurtis and I exchanged glances, both taken aback at the invitation. We had known this man for less than an hour, and reason told us that we should be wary; but something else was telling us we should accept his help, and that we would not succeed without it. Kurtis gave me an almost imperceptible nod.
"Thankyou, Ozan," I said. "We would be glad to stay with you."
"Wonderful," he replied, sounding relieved. He took a sheet of paper and a pen and started jotting something down. "I will give you directions and the keys to the house so you can go there whenever you wish. I will join you there as soon as possible, once I have finished my work here."
He got to his feet and unfastened a key from the bunch in his pocket. He passed the key and the sheet of paper to Kurtis. At the door to his office Ozan shook our hands again enthusiastically and promised to do his best to help us. He waved to us as we made our way back down the corridor.
Once we had descended the stairs and found our way back to the main hall of the museum, Kurtis stopped and looked at me.
"Are we crazy?" he said uncomfortably. "We just met a guy who made a guest appearance in our dreams. For all we know could pop our heads open with a single thought, and we've just agreed to spend the night in his house. Doesn't that strike you as kind of weird?"
I smiled and shrugged. "No more weird than a race of human and angel hybrids living under the ground for millennia, or a language that can be used as a weapon against them, or the fact that you descended from the Knights Templar, or-"
He rolled his eyes. "Okay, I get the point" he butted in, and followed me out to the car.
* * *
Sooo... any thoughts? Hope it wasn't too talky. The next chapter will be a little more fun... I'll leave you to think about what I mean by that ;)
nora88: Hehe no kissing this time, but maybe soon? You'll just have to wait and see... :D
Numair's Daine: yes I'm English. No I can't imagine Lara saying 'panties' either! And I loved your fight scene (like everything else you write), hmmm what is it that's so appealing about them getting all, er, physical? ;)
Horsecrazy: lol the KTEB has made us both crazy, do you think we could claim compensation? :D Okay, you can put the stick down now...
Anyway here's the next installment, it's pretty long and has lots of talking/explaining so I hope it's not boring.
* * *
Chapter 14: Ozan
We followed Ozan through a door halfway along the corridor, and up a flight of concrete steps to the first floor of the museum. We walked down another passageway lined with offices and storage rooms until Ozan stopped at one of the doors and pulled a bundle of keys from his pocket. He unlocked the office and ushered us inside warmly.
The room was small but full of books, papers and boxes. Drawings and charts covered the walls. There was no desk, but instead a round wooden table stood in the centre of the room, documents piled neatly on its surface. There were three chairs set around the table, and a tray bearing three cups of steaming black coffee.
"What do you do at the museum, Ozan?" I asked.
"I do a lot of their translation work," he replied. "Cappadocia has had a very rich and varied past, as I am sure you are aware. Many different cultures have put down roots here through the ages, and the ancient languages of the region are my speciality, I suppose." I caught Kurtis' eye - if Ozan could translate the symbols on the medallion, he really would be helpful to us. "Please, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable."
I took a seat, and after a moment's hesitation Kurtis did the same.
Ozan handed us a cup each, and then sat down opposite us. He folded his hands in front of him on the table and sat looking at us, beaming.
"So," Kurtis said. "I guess you're psychic, then." It seemed as good a place as any to start.
"Indeed," Ozan replied, still smiling. "I apologise, you must be wondering who on earth is this strange little man! I will try to explain. I hope I did not cause either of you any distress by intruding on your sleep this morning. But I thought it would be a bad idea to turn up in person, particularly when you are both concerned about this Karel, the Nephilim. I do so want for you to be able to trust me."
"You know about the Nephilim?" Kurtis asked.
Ozan nodded. "Yes. I have much to tell you about them. But first I should explain who I am, and how much we have in common, Kurtis."
"Me and you?" Kurtis replied, sounding sceptical.
I blew cool air onto my drink before taking a sip. Black, with one sugar. Ozan even knew how I took my coffee.
"Yes. You have psychic powers which you inherited from your ancestors, Kurtis. So did I. They are not the same as yours, I cannot move objects with my mind, but I have the ability to communicate telepathically. I can also sense things from people; moods, thoughts and such. My ancestors developed their telepathic powers partly so that they could store their memories and secrets across generations. It is hard to explain, but we have memory... in our blood. I have my father's memories, my father had the memories of my grandfather; I have in my head the memory of many hundreds of generations. That is why I can read the ancient languages. That is why I will be able to help you."
Earlier, Kurtis had folded up a wad of his notes and drawings and put them in one of the pockets of his pants. He took them out now, and smoothed them out on the table. "I don't know if you'll be able to read this. It's the writing from a medallion which was found in Derinkuyu, but -" He frowned, and passed the papers over to Ozan. "But I'm sure the symbols are linked to the Lux Veritatis, the Order I was raised in, and they had roots in Western Europe, not Turkey."
Ozan nodded politely as Kurtis spoke. "Of course, I understand your confusion. But the history of the Lux Veritatis in fact began in Turkey, in the very city where that medallion was found."
"In Derinkuyu?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes." He looked thoughtful. "It is rather a long story. Is there anything you need before I begin? Something to eat perhaps?"
We told him that no, we were fine, and I smiled. I found myself liking Ozan immensely, even though we had only just met. He was clearly in possession of information that would be useful - if not vital - to us, and yet he still wanted to make sure he was being a good host.
"Very well," he continued in his melodic voice. "In the twelfth century, a legion of the Knights Templar passed through Anatolia on their return from a bloody Crusade in Syria. They were injured, weary, hungry. They found in the heart of Cappadocia a place to shelter, deep beneath the ground in our ancient city of Derinkuyu. There they were cared for by Christian dwellers, people whose ancestors had fled from Arab invasions in the seventh and eighth centuries. Living amongst these men and women were an order of monks, who told the Knights some very interesting stories. Now the Knights believed that these monks had arrived with the Christians, and indeed many of the younger Christian settlers assumed the same. But they had been there far longer. They lived in those sunless caverns not because they were fleeing Arabs or recovering from battle, but because they were guarding something. Something ancient and terrible.
"At this point I have to take you back even further, to the time of the Hittites. Over a thousand years before Christ was born, the Hittites created many of the underground chambers that are still there today, as they attempted to protect themselves from Phrygian invasion. But they were not the first who had been besieged beneath the rock and earth. The Hittites knew of great caverns hidden beneath the ground, which had been there since before any man could remember. Huge caverns that could only be entered through a single, narrow passage that led down into the earth. No one knew how these caves had come to be, but the Hittites believed themselves very fortunate to know of the catacombs as they spread their burrow of rooms and halls from this starting point.
"After some time the Hittites vanished from Derinkuyu. No one knows why, but it seems that some of them fled and attempted to fill in some of the tunnels and passageways of the city behind them on their way out. Other peoples settled in the city in the centuries that followed, but none for very long until my ancestors took root there. This was in the infancy of Christianity, after Saint Paul had passed through Anatolia spreading the word of Christ. The order that settled in the caves in this time did not succumb to the same fate as the previous inhabitants. Rather, they began to convert the city, creating churches in the great halls and filling them with statues and paintings. They seemed to be drawing their faith down into the ground, filling the city with it. This is why it became such a welcome place for the later Christian refugees to come to, and the Knights on their return from the Crusades.
"So this is all very interesting, I'm sure you are thinking, but what does it have to do with me? With you? With this strange creature Karel. Well, my ancestors came upon the city long after the Hittites did, but there were still myths about that place and what had happened there. These stories had a profound effect on my ancestors, convincing them that they should settle in the city and bring God's light into it to protect it from the evil below.
"In the time of the earliest civilizations, it is believed that some of the angels left heaven and came down to walk upon the earth. They wished to see what God had made, and understand why he had done so. It is possible they spent many years amongst the living; human lifetimes even. But they were affected enough, or made curious enough, by their proximity to humans to wish to mate with them, and that is how the Nephilim came to be. The Nephilim were aberrations, able to live with neither angel nor man, wishing only to devour. God punished the angels responsible for creating the Nephilim by sending them into Hell, and He sent down His angels of death to scour the Nephilim from the Earth altogether. Knowing that death was coming for them, the Nephilim fled to seek refuge. They came to this region and burrowed deep into the volcanic rock, carving out a vast, deep chamber for themselves with their bare hands. Most of the tunnels were closed up behind them in a series of earthquakes, and there the Nephilim stayed for thousands of years. Men are beings of earth, but angels are beings of light, and they were unable to feel the presence of the Nephilim hiding beneath the ground. Possibly the Nephilim were so weak from their exertions that they were even harder to detect, and too weak to resurface, because they stayed there until this very day. They did not try to dig their way out, perhaps because they were still too weak, perhaps because they were too afraid. But their presence could be felt in the underground city, as if they haunted it, and that is what drove out the Hittites and other settlers."
Ozan paused here, and drank some of his coffee. I glanced at sideways at Kurtis and saw that he, like me, seemed to be itching to ask questions. With great effort we held back, trusting that Ozan would tell us all he needed to.
"So," he went on a moment later. "Knowledge of what happened all those thousands of years ago was passed on through the ages by the people living in this region. As time went by, of course, many people stopped believing in it, thinking it was just an old myth or folk tale. But then, not so very long before the arrival of Christianity, something happened to change that."
"What?" I asked, unable to rein in my curiosity. Ozan didn't seem to mind the interruption at all, though, and he smiled warmly at me before continuing.
"One of the Nephilim did escape," he said, a grave expression now clouding his pleasant features. "He called himself Pharys, and he was truly a terrifying creature. He alone had the will to drag himself out into the world, and his plan was to find a way of releasing all his siblings so they could claim the world for themselves. Over the years spent underground the Nephilim had become insubstantial, but Pharys used this to his advantage. Once he had gained some strength he found he was able to reshape his body and could take on a human appearance."
He looked up at Kurtis suddenly. I turned to see Kurtis leaning forwards in his chair, a look of realisation on his face.
"I know what you are thinking, Kurtis. No, Pharys and Karel are not one and the same," Ozan said, answering Kurtis' unspoken question. "But they are closely linked. Because of his changing appearance, Pharys spent many years living undetected, and in that time he mated with a human female. But he became careless with his disguise, and eventually he was visited by one of God's angels. He was destroyed, but the angel feared that more of the Nephilim may emerge. And so she gathered some of the holy men from the area and gave them a gift. A language that would act as some kind of a weapon against the Nephilim if they should be found. This gift also gave the holy men heightened mental powers, which they passed on to their children along with the understanding of the language. My ancestors were the early Christians initiated by those who knew the sacred language. They formed a monastic order within the city at Derinkuyu, and used the language in paintings and sculptures to keep the Nephilim locked inside. When they met the Knights Templar in the eleven-hundreds, they saw kindred spirits in them and taught them the language. They had received word from other travelling Christians that Pharys' offspring had survived, and that he was in Western Europe planning some kind of resurrection of the Nephilim race. They wanted to send these Knights back to the West with the sacred language, in the hope that the half-Nephilim and his followers could be stopped. This half-Nephilim, of course, is the creature you both know as Karel."
"My God," Kurtis said, shaking his head slowly. "I was always told that the Lux Veritatis was formed to fight the Cabal. But it was always about the Nephilim."
Ozan nodded. "Unfortunately, the Lux Veritatis did not share the clarity of memory that my people had. Perhaps their original purpose was lost over the years. And their instinct was to fight, while ours was to protect. But to begin with, the two Orders were very much the same. The one to which I belong is named after the language given to man by the angel. The Light of Truth."
"Lux Veritatis..." I whispered.
"Our numbers dwindled over the years, and I myself have no sons or daughters. All the other remaining members were murdered, most likely by the same Cabal who killed your father, Kurtis. I am very sorry." He paused. Kurtis nodded stiffly. "So now, all the memories of the Light of Truth rest with me. And as I cannot pass the secrets on through blood then I shall pass them on to you through word. There is no blood connection between you and I, friend, but a bond was forged between our ancestors nevertheless."
Ozan sat back in his chair, looking rather tired. I imagined he wasn't used to speaking for such a long time. He sighed. "I am sorry that I do not have better news for you," he said, looking at our stunned expressions. "Karel is planning something that could be truly catastrophic."
I reached across the table and took his hand, giving it a friendly squeeze. "We were lucky you turned up, Ozan. I think we might have a chance after all." He smiled back at me, seeming genuinely moved.
"And I am very fortunate to have met you both. Of course, I will get to work right away translating these engravings for you. There were other medallions too, three of them. I think that there is a replica of one of the others in a museum near Aksaray. I will speak with them, try to get a picture of that one too."
"That would be wonderful," I said. "Is there anything we can do in the meantime?"
Ozan hesitated for a moment before replying. "Not really," he said. "I don't believe Karel is ready to awaken the remaining Nephilim for a few more days, so we still have some time. I must work on these translations, and on finding out more about Karel's camp and the tunnels they are using."
"How will you do that?" Kurtis asked.
Ozan tapped the side of his head in response. "I will need to be a lot closer to the site, but when I am... I will be able to probe the minds of some of his workers, find out what they know and what they are planning. The next part, getting into the city and stopping Karel, will rest with the two of you, although I hate to say it. It will not be easy. His strength is growing..." He looked troubled.
"Can you pick up thoughts from Karel?" I asked, puzzled.
"Not exactly. But he is Nephilim, and because I have the Light of Truth I am able to sense him. And his energy is getting stronger."
"I promise you, if you can get us in there, we'll take care of Karel," Kurtis said firmly. I wished I felt as confident.
Ozan nodded. "I have a lot of faith in you, my friends. I am sure that together we will succeed. But for now, you may as well rest and enjoy your stay for a little while. Nevsehir has some excellent restaurants." He beamed. "One more thing. I have arranged some accommodation in Derinkuyu. I will need to stay there in order to find anything out from the camp. Please, there is enough room, will you be my guests? It will be safer for you than any hotel or inn."
Kurtis and I exchanged glances, both taken aback at the invitation. We had known this man for less than an hour, and reason told us that we should be wary; but something else was telling us we should accept his help, and that we would not succeed without it. Kurtis gave me an almost imperceptible nod.
"Thankyou, Ozan," I said. "We would be glad to stay with you."
"Wonderful," he replied, sounding relieved. He took a sheet of paper and a pen and started jotting something down. "I will give you directions and the keys to the house so you can go there whenever you wish. I will join you there as soon as possible, once I have finished my work here."
He got to his feet and unfastened a key from the bunch in his pocket. He passed the key and the sheet of paper to Kurtis. At the door to his office Ozan shook our hands again enthusiastically and promised to do his best to help us. He waved to us as we made our way back down the corridor.
Once we had descended the stairs and found our way back to the main hall of the museum, Kurtis stopped and looked at me.
"Are we crazy?" he said uncomfortably. "We just met a guy who made a guest appearance in our dreams. For all we know could pop our heads open with a single thought, and we've just agreed to spend the night in his house. Doesn't that strike you as kind of weird?"
I smiled and shrugged. "No more weird than a race of human and angel hybrids living under the ground for millennia, or a language that can be used as a weapon against them, or the fact that you descended from the Knights Templar, or-"
He rolled his eyes. "Okay, I get the point" he butted in, and followed me out to the car.
* * *
Sooo... any thoughts? Hope it wasn't too talky. The next chapter will be a little more fun... I'll leave you to think about what I mean by that ;)