The Judgment Key

By Shawn Hopkins

AN ANCIENT RELIC. A SECRET BROTHERHOOD. AN INFERNAL HUNTER.
AND FOUR FRIENDS ON THE BACK ROADS OF HELL.

When a flight from Canada has to make an emergency stop at a small, remote airport in the middle of the mountains, Heather, Ashley, Ian, and Marcus decide to make the drive home to Maryland rather than wait for the airplane to be repaired. The only thing on their minds is getting home in time for Christmas. Little do they know, however, that their rental car has come with a surprise, and that just seeing another Christmas might be a miracle too big to expect.

As an ancient puzzle is constructed along their path, and a blood-thirsty demon hunts them for what he believes is his, the four friends will find themselves caught in the midst of an age-long battle between Light and Darkness, ultimately coming face to face with the dark secrets hidden deep within their own hearts.

 

Prequel to The Solomon Key, The Judgment Key slips King Solomon's other ring onto the readers finger and pulls them into a world of supernatural suspense!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Banzai Press
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201898526

Shawn Hopkins

Shawn Hopkins lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and children. He holds degrees in theology and biblical studies. He is an avid football fan, enjoys the weight room, and loves reading. He is busy working on the next novel.Be sure to visit his website shawnhopkins.com to get on the mailing list for a free book and to get notifications on events, new releases, contests, giveaways, and other fun stuff.

Book preview

Prologue

He isn’t sure where he’s going. He doesn’t care. Randomness—pure reflexive action based on nothing but split-second, moment-to-moment decisions—is the key. If there is no reason for why he is going to wherever he is going, no conscious directive guiding his decisions, then certainly his actions will forever remain a secret.

At least, that’s the idea.

He would much rather destroy the thing and be done with it. But thousands of years worth of history have already gathered within the courts of reason and sentenced such a notion as utterly futile. For whatever reason, universal laws have been rendered obsolete by an even greater degree of cosmic engineering, ensuring the relic’s indestructibility.

His only option is to hide it.

But though conventional wisdom would perhaps suggest the bottom of the ocean to be the most suitable spot for the task, legend has already declared that particular location unacceptable. And it is because of such stories that he now wonders if his mission could have been doomed from the start. For if the ocean itself is not an adequate hiding place, where else on the planet could it be safe from both human and supra-human reach? He supposes there is no place hidden from the latter, but if the latter should require the participation of the former in order to retrieve it... No. He recalls from the legends that only a fish had been required. A damn fish.

The thought is like a skewer through his conscious, and it draws blood from an entirely different dilemma, the uncertainty as to whether he is working for the sake of righteousness (as he prays he is) or whether it’s the mission of hell he has taken as his own.

The barren highway races toward him, and he reaches forward to turn on the radio, hoping that its music might distract him from the spiritual conflict now raging in his soul.

A Christmas song plays through the small speakers of the rented Ford Taurus, a heavy blanket of static trying to strangle its lyrics. The bad reception complements the vast emptiness surrounding him, the still landscape buried eerily beneath a deep layer of snow. He doesn’t know where he is, has in fact made it a point not to know, because if he doesn’t know where he is, how can anyone else?

"...Oh, h—y nigh-

The stars are—-ly shi——

——s the nigh-—our dear Savior’s bir—"

The wintery scene stretching out beyond the salt-stained windshield erupts to life, seemingly spurred into abrupt animation by the song itself. Not with scarfed snowmen waving three-fingered branches in yuletide glee, not with cute critters with bushy tails caroling beside the frozen road, and not with a line of reindeer pulling a fat man behind a glowing red beacon. These white, wooded hills suddenly morph into something much more sinister. And though he wishes to believe it’s only his imagination, he knows he cannot blame this on his mind, no matter how disturbed the whole ordeal has made it. Something has once again summoned the presence of the multidimensional, and dark, tangled wisps of many ethereal bodies are now skittering in and out of his field of vision. If the song has signaled Lucifer’s agents to come fulfill what Herod could not, to prevent the Savior’s maturation, then they can chase after the rental car for all eternity without ever finding themselves one day closer to that star-lit, Bethlehem sky. But the song has nothing to do with his sudden company. It is the relic that has brought them hurdling over the boundaries between the two worlds, and the mission they’re on is not so unachievable.

Fall o-—r knees—

Joab had done that two years ago, fallen on his knees. It had been his Damascus experience, everything about him changing in a mere instant. And since that moment of peculiar transformation, he had known this time would come, what his mission had to be. But even as he carries it out now, he wonders again if perhaps he had been deceived from the start. How did the saying go? You don’t know you’re deceived until you’re not? Or perhaps it isn’t deception, but rather the Enemy’s sowing of doubt, fear, and...temptation.

He grimaces and tells himself that it’s natural to be tempted, even with the Spirit’s indwelling. Christ, too, was tempted in the wilderness. He deceives himself, however, by thinking that temptation itself is the critical issue, and the Epistle of James charges into the ongoing fray with such a revelation. Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

One of the dark shadows leaps out of the snow with an unearthly roar, its mystical shape indiscernible against the twilight. Like a rabid jungle cat from some alien planet, it races beside the car, watching him with a single yellow eye. And though he knows it’s pointless, he presses harder against the accelerator.

He begins to whisper the Apostle Paul’s words. ‘...For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good that I want to do...’ He recognizes his rambling as an attempt toward absolution and forgiveness, but at the same time he knows that forgiveness may not negate the necessary consequences of his sin. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

"-O-, night-

—en Christ—s born-"

He wipes sweat from his forehead while stealing a glance out the window beside him. The creature is no longer keeping pace with him. ‘...No, the evil that I do not want to do—this I keep doing... His lips quiver, his eyes filling with the bitter waters of repentance. ‘...So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me! For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’

"H—law is love -—H—gosp—is peace

Chains shall he break- -or th- sla—is ou- broth—"

A dragon sweeps up from out of the blacktop ahead, spreading its wings in peacock fashion above its head. The sunlight behind it fills the pink leathery expanse with hues of red and orange, setting the bat wings on fire with moving colors. Its mouth opens to reveal hundreds of serrated daggers, a black tongue slipping out from between them and dangling like a python with a forked tongue of its own. The man screams out as his vehicle is enveloped by the folded wingspan and the interior of the car is plunged into darkness, the winding road suddenly invisible.

There is no time to contemplate what is happening, to ponder its meaning, and impulse alone makes him strike the Christmas song from the airwaves with a thrust of his finger. Purged with silence, the infernal obstruction that was draped across the windshield disappears.

The sedan is left once more to the lonely landscape, hell’s fiends exiting through whatever door it was they’d first come. But it’s a screen door, and one through which they’ll be maintaining their surveillance of him, he is sure. He wonders again whether or not the flesh-and-blood servants of these shapeless monsters might be in communication with their spiritual masters. If so, then randomness is pointless, his physical pursuers aware of his location from a multidimensional feed completely beyond his ability to elude.

After another twenty miles, a small road emerges on his right, stretching away into the dark void of snow-covered pines.

Randomness. It’s still his only chance.

He turns the wheel and leaves the highway.

Bouncing over the uneven road, he’s swallowed by the shadows and forced to turn on the headlights. He sends the two beams out searching for a destination that is unknown to him, relying on mere moment-to-moment feeling rather than some knowledge-based set of objectives.

He pauses, suddenly detecting what could be a fatal flaw in his logic.

It is not randomness that is directing him...but his feelings. The subtle revelation brings with it the obvious question of whether or not his feelings are, or even can be random. He should be relying on a coin or some other instrument of chance for such decisions, and he’s haunted by the possibility that the very psychological makeup he’s tried to keep out of the equation is what has been plotting his course all along.

He pulls alongside a recently plowed dirt road and parks. He sits there a moment, shaking. He can’t lose the thought that he’s being led, not by God or mere chance, but—

No, that possibility is too frightening to acknowledge, and he tries to ignore it as he gathers himself and steps out of the car. Standing, he reaches into his pocket and touches the object he spent two years plotting to steal, hoping it might strengthen him in some way. Maybe he can bury it in the woods. No one would ever find it there, or at least they shouldn’t. After a few minutes of walking, however, he spots a cabin. Something tells him he should go into it, though he doesn’t know why. Could it be the angels’ voices, an actual conviction born of some spiritual awareness that now leads his steps? Or is the thing in his pocket controlling him?

The property surrounding the cabin rests beneath a sheet of untouched snow. The place seems vacant, no lights, no sounds, no smoke rising from the chimney.

His feet crunch through the icy snow, and he takes three wooden steps up to the door, each one bending audibly beneath his weight. He knocks, not knowing why.

There is no response.

He tries the door, and it swings open on creaking hinges. Darkness stares at him, an emptiness that is as much a mystery as is his being here. He steps in. Walking through the cold blackness, the floorboards singing out of tune beneath him, he rounds a bend and comes within view of a window. He can see through it and into the back woods beyond.

Two sets of footprints are stamped into the snow, coming from the woods and violating the still portrait.

He is not alone.

No.

The unmistakable sound of a match being struck startles him, and light and darkness are suddenly battling across the cabin walls.

No.

He doesn’t turn. He doesn’t need to. He knows who they are and why they are here, even if it doesn’t make any sense as to how they could have found him.

That isn’t exactly accurate, though, because they didn’t simply find him. They somehow anticipated him. But if his decisions were random, how could they have predicted that he would be here? Even if his psychological makeup could be unlocked by some top secret NSA profiling technology, it couldn’t account for the agents here now...ahead of him. Not unless they came from the future—or had seen the future. He hadn’t thought of that.

He watches the distinct shadow of a man begin dancing on the wall in front of him and can see in the reflection of the window that there are two men standing behind him. One of them is stepping forward, blocking the light from the match still held in the hand of the other.

Joab, the moving man says.

How did you find me? he asks, reaching slowly into his pocket.

Neither of them answers his question.

Slowly, he begins to understand, to realize that this little trip of his was anything but random. That these men are not from the future any more than they are here because of a CIA mind-reading program. That his feelings had nothing to do with his arrival here at all.

As the shadow on the wall moves in sync with the scene unfolding across the frosted window, an arm is raised. Though the shadow portrays only an exaggerated finger being pointed, the reflection reveals the horrible truth. A sound-suppressed .22 caliber pistol. The tool of an assassin.

Joab stiffens, waiting for the impact while whispering a desperate prayer.

The match burns out.

Darkness envelops the house again.

Not taking a moment to think, he sprints toward the window, the object now clutched in his hand. He launches himself through the glass, landing in the snow below. A burning line leaks across his forehead as he struggles to his feet and takes off into the woods, back to the rental car.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, he fumbles with the keys before finally getting the engine turned over. He flicks the headlights on, throws the car in drive, and slams on the gas. Snow, dirt, and gravel shoot into the air behind him.

He’s back on the highway a minute later, the fading sun sinking orange behind the distant mountains that stand across the horizon.

Half an hour passes before his breathing returns to normal and his heart seems content to remain within his chest. He swears out loud, not caring to repent. If his moves are being orchestrated, which he now knows they are, what option does he have? He takes the thing out of his pocket and holds it up to the sinking fireball that is the center of his planet’s solar system.

The bronze ring twinkles as it absorbs the sun, fiery hues swimming in circles through its band. Far from filling him with a sense of purpose, it now infuses him with such a terrifying sense of damnation that he almost throws it out the window just to escape the guilt of it.

He shouldn’t have put it on.

He had known better. His flesh was weaker than he thought. To think he could handle the power, that he would be judged as righteous, was nothing but pride. And God hates pride. He begins to doubt the genuineness of his salvation, of the experience that had surrendered him to the Light in the first place. He’d chosen to believe that the demonic manifestations were being caused simply by having the ring in his possession, but he now realizes that they were conjured as a result of his corrupt body violating its bronze sphere. He’d been judged by the ring as unworthy and had thus become theirs...an instrument of hell, the sport of idols and demons that Solomon had warned of in his writings, as did the Templar who later found it buried beneath the Temple Mount. He should have avoided wearing the ring as he would have avoided walking through a portal to hell...which, in a sense, was exactly what the ring was. For most.

He’d been aware of the temptation he knew would try overtaking him, but to leave the ring in the possession of the Society was unthinkable. He had to take the risk, even if it meant giving into its power and falling for the very lie that had deceived Eve in the garden. He was doing it for the world, for its future, and hadn’t the Apostle Paul said that he would gladly go to hell himself if by doing so it would save his people? Wasn’t that what he was doing? Maybe, then, God would be gracious and acknowledge the sacrifice he’d made...what it had truly cost him.

Five hours later, he checks himself into a motel.

Standing in front of the mirror, leaning against the sink, he stares into his reflection, trying to detect anything different within his eyes, but he notices nothing but fear-ridden hopelessness swimming laps around the black circles of his pupils. His fifty-three-year-old frame looks more like seventy, the betrayal he’s levied to his fellow brothers taking its toll on more than just his spirit. He can’t bear to look at himself any longer, and hoping that what he sees staring back at him isn’t the same image that God sees, he heads out of the room and to the front desk.

Can I help you? the man at the desk asks without looking up from the magazine he’s reading.

Is there a shopping mall around here? The need to be surrounded by as many people as possible is furious.

Yeah, about ten miles south. Just follow the signs. The hotel manager looks up and seems taken aback by the bald man standing before him, his eyes narrowing on the tattoo etched into his neck—a cross wrapped by a rose.

Thanks, Joab says. He hopes the manager is more interested in the dirty magazine than the ancient symbol that can be Googled easily enough on the computer behind him.

He pulls into the shopping mall fifteen minutes later. About to exit the car, and against every instinct, he takes the ring from his pocket, opens the glove compartment, and slides it beneath a stack of instruction manuals, maps, and paperwork. Even though the car can’t possibly be traced back to him, it’s hardly an ideal hiding spot. But he mustn’t have the ring on his person if their agents find him again.

He walks across the parking lot, pulling his big coat tight against himself, and tries to ignore the stalking shadows that he knows are entering the mall with him.

The buzz of activity hustling about beneath the bright Christmas lights and hanging wreaths provides a certain level of community that he has never before experienced. Not like this, anyway. But there is no time for such bitter reflection now. He needs a disposable phone so he can contact the Jesuit priest who had shared with him in secret letters what the ring actually was and what the Society hoped to use it for. Perhaps now the Jesuit might have a better idea of what could be done with it.

Quickening his pace toward the proper kiosk, he is almost there when he sees them. Two agents. Not the same ones from the cabin, but undoubtedly armed with the same lethal machinery. He thinks about running and decides against it. He’s too tired to keep running from what he knows will inevitably come anyway. Turning to face them, he prays silently, again offering his soul to the very God the song ringing throughout the mall honors, whether the shoppers realize it or not.

The two men step close, seemingly unconcerned with the crowds of consumers pressing in around them. They remove their suppressed .22s and raise them in a single, fluid motion.

Before the two bullets punch through Joab’s forehead, chapters of Solomon’s Testament come instantaneously to mind, attempting to answer for the last time so many unlearned mysteries.

He falls backward, his eyes holding on to the huge star fixed atop the forty-foot Christmas tree that occupies the food court, the star of Bethlehem (Sirius to the Brotherhood) shining from its apex. As his life flickers away and the two men searching his pockets begin to fade, he thinks of the ring resting in the glove compartment of the rental car and wonders if his actions will work at all in preventing Lucifer from carrying out his ages-old mystery of iniquity.  

THE ROOM IS DARK, THE electricity having failed hours ago due to the lightning storm being hurled at the earth. Though the more recent technologies have suffered, the stone architecture of the building itself remains unimpressed by the weather.

They killed him? The taller man walks away from the spectacle outside the window, a flash of branched energy scorching the sky and outlining him with purple light. His long robes drag across the stone floor behind him, slithering like a velvet tide always chasing its master.

Yes. The second man is dressed in similar attire and stands hidden in the shadow of the room’s entranceway.

And the ring was not on his person?

No.

How did he get to the mall?

That has yet to be determined.

The man by the window turns toward his fellow Brother. What about his accomplice?

Nothing yet, Jacob.

Jacob thinks. We must seek guidance.

What if Joab managed to destroy it?

A moment of silence passes as the question is considered. Thunder rattles the windows. Finally, Jacob brings his hands together and presses the tips of his fingers against each other. You know that the Judgment ring cannot be destroyed.

I know the legends hint at such, but—

Contact him.

The man pauses, stunned. "Him? You don’t mean—"

Yes.

Surely, you can’t trust him.

Of course not. But his...ability may be the only resource available to us. We will worry about what to do with Jonathan after he has found the ring.

I don’t need to tell you of the mess he could create for us once he has it.

What else would you have us do, Stephen? Give up on the Master’s plan? Surrender thousands of years of orchestration to the wind?

Stephen hesitates. Perhaps it is not the only way to bring the vision about. Maybe the rings present just one of many opportunities by which we might bring it to pass.

Jacob steps forward. "And it is precisely this one ‘opportunity’ that has been entrusted to us. If it doesn’t work, its failure will not be due to our lack of trying."

I understand, Jacob. It will be done. He bows his head and steps backward, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor.

Jacob turns his face back to the window and whispers into the night, Come now, Jonathan, let us use you one last time, will you? 

One

She could feel it all closing in on her as each encroaching inch swung an ice pick into the frozen walls of her resolve, chipping away at the fortification she had erected around her delicate psyche. But she knew a breach was inevitable, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation. For a moment she tried imagining herself in an endless field, exchanging the stuffed, cylindrical cell for open freedom. She knew it was all in her head, so if she could just get herself to—

You okay?

Ian’s voice came as a beacon, a guiding light sweeping back and forth through the fog, searching for her. But light wouldn’t help. She couldn’t grasp light, couldn’t relax as it physically pulled her ashore. I need to get off, she whispered, eyes still closed.

Hey, is she all right? Marcus’ deep voice drifted over from the row behind.

Ian shook his head while looking up and down the aisle for some sign of help, though he wasn’t sure what it would look like if he even found it. Other than an open door leading to a gleeful sprint across the open tarmac, there wasn’t really much that could be done.

It’s gonna be okay, Heather. Shouldn’t be too much longer. Ashley was leaning forward and over the chair, rubbing her sister’s shoulders. It was a practice she’d been repeating for many years now, dating back to when she was just a scrappy thirteen-year-old not knowing how else to relieve her big sister’s pain. There was no evidence that the technique actually worked, but she continued trying, as if hoping that someday she might exorcize the poison from Heather’s mind once and for all, drawing it into herself like some sin eater so she could spit the black stuff—it had to be black, right?—onto the ground and watch satisfied as many a passerby trampled the evil underfoot.

Marcus leaned over from the seat beside her and with his lips mouthed, the accident?

Ashley nodded and began moving her fingers soothingly through Heather’s straight, golden hair. It’s okay, she repeated.

The Accident.

It was something Heather never talked about, but situations like this one made it impossible to keep a complete secret. Her closest friends knew most of the details, but not all. Not even Ashley knew them all.

Excuse me, Ian called out to a passing stewardess.

The woman stopped, and it took a second for her tired eyes to find him. Yes?

Any idea how much longer this is gonna take? A question you’ve been answering for the last hour, I’m sure, but my fiancée here has a bit of claustrophobia, and we’re just trying to gauge how much more of this she can take before... He made his eyes into saucers and filled his cheeks with air, then made an exploding motion with his hands while blowing the air from his mouth.

The stewardess tilted her head to the side a bit so that she could get a glimpse of Heather for herself. She sighed, defeated by her own helplessness in the situation, and said, It shouldn’t be too much longer. If it’s an emergency—

No, Heather interrupted, opening her eyes. She forced a smile and tucked a few strands of blond behind an ear, freeing them from Ashley’s petting. No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.

Are you sure? Ian asked. Maybe—

But she waved him off. Please, she whispered, it’s embarrassing enough without having to be rushed off on a stretcher in front of all these people.

So Ian thanked the stewardess, releasing her from their plight.

The woman, dressed in the airline’s proper attire—red skirt neatly pressed, red vest over white satin, and a nametag reading JOY—walked toward the cockpit, circumnavigating the flying complaints flung by an uneasy clientele. Things were starting to get ugly.

Hey, why don’t you just leave her alone, Ian hollered at the angry mass. It’s not her fault.

Hey, pal, ya wanna ssstep ousside? a voice came back.

Oh, pleassse, Ian mocked.

Wasssat ssuposta mean?

Heather could make out a form rising across the aisle and laid her head down on Ian’s shoulder. She loved her fiancé’s willingness to stand up for the innocent, though she’d never actually witnessed him in a fight—and she wasn’t going to witness one now, not without the air marshall’s handcuffs coming out.

Someone else tossed an obscenity-strung command at the man, telling him to shut up and sit down. That freed Ian from the man’s crosshairs, his aim shifting to the new target.

We need to get off this plane soon or the marshal’s gonna have a riot on his hands, Marcus said. He put one of his caramel-colored arms around Ashley as she leaned back into the seat beside him.

Heather tried to concentrate on her breathing, to convince her mind that she wasn’t going to suffocate, that her feelings weren’t an accurate portrayal of the truth. She let her imagination run wild with Marcus’ statement, enjoying for a second the unfolding of such a scene, though interpreted as more of a