Chapter 9: The Holy Saviour(s)

Breaking into the tower of London was going to be no easy task.

...

The cold unforgiving building loomed over the murky river like Goliath towering over David. Its jagged turrets jutted out from the body of the beast. The menacing walls seemed to whisper dauntingly in the British breeze.

...

Three figures emerged beneath the cover of darkness. Their long, white coats concealed the sheer bulk of the man on the left and the slender cunning of his compatriot. The third man, their leader, ambled slightly ahead of the other two, his eyes on the prize.

...

The night swallowed them whole, save for the occasional flicker of moonlight catching the sharp gleam of calculating eyes. They moved in eerie silence, their boots making no more sound than the hissing wind that snaked through the Tower's ancient stonework.

The brute, a hulking mass of muscle, cracked his knuckles softly, the sound like splintering bones in the hush of midnight. His breath was heavy, steam curling from his lips like the last gasps of a dying man. Beside him, the smaller one darted forward with the twitching energy of a rat, slimy eyes darting left and right, fingers twitching, always ready to run, to fight, to vanish.

And ahead of them, the man who knew. The one who had spent sleepless nights pouring over blueprints, whispering with ghosts of the past, learning the way the stones themselves breathed. His was the mind that saw the path through darkness, the key to the kingdom of sacred British secrets.

A low murmur passed between them, barely a sound at all, before the three advanced toward the wall. The British Tower loomed ever higher, the black sky pressing it down into the earth. The wind screamed against the battlements, but inside the fortress, all was still. Too still.

A crow cawed from the shadows, the sound tearing through the quiet like the ripping of skulls. The small man groaned. The big man scowled. The one who knew simply smiled, a grim twist of his lips.

...

Up in the cold, suffocating dark of the highest height of the British Tower, Adolf Hitler trembled. The flickering and frail glow from between the dark (almost African American) bars, licked at the damp stone walls, casting long, shifting shadows that twisted like skeletal fingers. He could hear them - footsteps, deliberate and slow, a predator's patience.

A thin sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead, trickling down the sharp ridge of his nose, pooling at the edge of his trembling lips. His breath hitched. A shiver - not just of fear, but something stranger, something that curled in his stomach, tight and electric. He thought of Joseph...

His fingers clutched at the rough fabric of his thin (yet tight) undergarments, knuckles whitening, his body taut like a wire stretched too far. The anticipation was unbearable. The weight of inevitability pressed against his chest, making his breaths short and shallow. His skin prickled, hyper-aware of every brush of air against his neck, every creak of the ancient stones around him.

He could sense something, yet he did not know what. Outside, the three men had reached the tower (British). They were coming...

He closed his eyes, but that only made it worse. In the darkness, the feeling bloomed - sick, sweet, suffocating as his worst memories threatened to break lose once more. Suppressing his deep-rooted sexual insecurities had always been his drug of choice. But here...in the tower, he was forced into new levels of humiliation The loss of that false calm, the helplessness of the night, spoke to him in a terrible voice. His own vulnerability burned him from the inside, a slow and fevered unraveling.

The door groaned. His eyes snapped open, wide, glistening, lips parting as if to speak—though no words would come. His breath stuttered in his throat.

He was afraid. Again, he thought of Joseph.