RAIDERS OF THE NOT SO LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT...or WHAT THE VAMPIRES FOUND

We are back in Jerusalem and I am telling you about the old man and Jonathon and the French knight, just like I told you I would last night. The three enchanted beings left the old garret and climbed down the stairs to the street. The night market was winding down. A few vendors hawked religious trinkets and reconditioned electronic devices. The old man (a vampire too) broke into crazy, manic laughter everytime he set eyes on any type of religious artifact. He'd yell --- FAKE! FAKE FAKE! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! I have seen the truth! I have breathed the Dust Dinine!.....Then he'd just thrash about and scream until someone dragged him away. So Jean-Michel (the French knight vampire) took special pains to distract him. He whispered little gossipy tidbits in his ear, superficial things about others in the Jerusalem vampiric community, causing the old man to chuckle with delight. Jonathon, being Jonathon, couldn't resist ducking into a certain brightly lit stall to purchase a pair of hand tooled, fine dark red leather slippers. (you know how he is when it comes to trim, smart, well fitting shoes) But the whole transaction took less than three minutes and it's not that his heart wasn't in the right place, for it was (just beneath his sternum), but rather that even after one thousand years, he still often thinks with the brain of an eighteen year old.......Charming.

They snaked through a series of narrow, casbah-like thoroughfares, finally emerging into a large square abutting the fabled Western Wall of The Great Temple of Jerusalem......Well, not actually of the Temple, but of the huge, stone platform built to support the Temple. Small knots of the faithful, lost in prayer, petitioned God for all manner of things....peace and brotherhood.....the coming of the Messiah.....a cure for cancer..... a new Toyota Prius..... Bright spotlights bathed the politically sensative area 24/7 and spruce duos of IDF personel patrolled the sacred ground.

Some hasidic types were bowing and praying right up by the base of The Wall. The old man stopped a few feet away, took out his prayer cap, slapped it on his head and began to communicate with The Lord. Jonathon, recognising the liturgy, joined in. Jean-Michel stood respectfully nearby. Then, after a few dozen heartbeats, the old man impatiently gestured for them all to hold hands. They did. He led then round and round in a little dance, throwing back his head and laughing like a little child. The hasids (cherishing acts of spontaneous rapture) stood 'round them, smiling and clapping their hands.....Jerusalem fever....You know how it is.

After a time they began to spin faster and faster. The old man added a rythmic STOMP every now and then. They could feel a powerful intent, flow out from his body and enter their own. Then, after perhaps three dozen heartbeats more, they began to sublimate through the ether until they disappeared.....I don't know what the hasids though. But a couple of Israeli intelligence officers watching the scene on  a bank of security monitors saw the whole thing and feverishly began to call in to their superiors at the Bureau of Miraculous Occurances.

A fraction of a heartbeat later, they (our vampiric threesome) reclaimed solid form (well...spirit-form would be more like it) deep within  the shadows of a secret, rough hewn chamber far beneath the foundations of the Temple Mount, just as a group of Levites (a lower Order of the Priesthood) reverently placed a large, golden relic into a sacred niche. Jonathon caught a glimpse of the two guardian seraphim kneeling upon the lid. He saw it. and he knew what it was..........