XII

She stroked Hilda's head carefully and gently and said a prayer.

"Eh, my dear child, it will be incomparably harder for you and Damon to fight evil, now that you partially belong to him. He obviously considers you very important as soon as he left you his reminder, and at the same time he warned everyone else that you are under his protection."

The man was silent.

"There's even more reason to hurry now," she said as her hand tangled behind the giant freezer in the back room.

"Yeah, there it is, now fast."

There was a soft click and the whole wall moved.

"Nicholas, help," she said to her son. He grabbed the handle and the freezer slid to the side revealing an opening behind it. They entered quickly, and the opening closed behind them, while the work of the mechanism could be heard more here. It has to be like this. Just mechanics. If it had electronics, they would find them at once. They are everywhere and they are constantly looking for them.

"The other day they dropped two others. They were brutally tortured before execution. Now they have a private army with powers. Hard, very hard for us. We must persevere because the destiny of humanity depends on us."

He took a small lamp from his pocket, which barely illuminated a meter in front of him.

"Follow me. Carefully. Stop. There's a trap here. Here, now I will", he said as he stretched somewhere high and touched his hand.

Click.

"Now we can. Step over here. Now up. Left. Bow your head! Forward. Careful, lower your leg over the bulge, then straight."

After about twenty turns, ascents, and then descents through the corridors that intersected like in a labyrinth, Hilda lost track of the direction were they going and the distance they had traveled.

After fifteen minutes they stopped again, this time in front of a massive wall.

"Now comes the Labyrinth."

"Now?"

And what is this so far. Nicholas smiled slightly and put his hand somewhere to the right in the direction of his shoulder and she heard a soft click.

The light on the light goes out. The wall began to slide to the side. As the opening widened, a cold stream of air rushed inside. She shivered.

"Come in, quick, quick," Nicholas whispered excitedly.