Excerpt three from my '18 NaNoWriMo novel

Happy Beginning of the Christmas season-Proof that God does love you and wants to know you.

This is the third excerpt of my current Nano Novel, from chapter five and is 2781 words long.
He has the letter he was suppose to get and is now back at headquarters of the secret organization he works for. You might recognize the entrance, if you read old comics and maybe watched a newer TV show. Jar learns some disturbing News and figures it is his fault.

I forgot to mention. I named a couple of cities in this one but not all. I may just change all of the names of places. The description of the very long valley most of the cities here are in makes this another world so I will have to change what names I do have.

A word though before we get into the story.
Books do make good presents and gifts. And in most cases and esprecially Indie writers like me, you would be gifting two people at once, even if you don’t know one of them.



Excerpt


Later he turned left and continued on a street that looked like had few people walking on. He went by two magic schools, one had only one student, or it seemed by the active spells he felt. The other had maybe three and neither of them were that powerful. Children of rich parents who wanted something else for their spoiled kids? Someone trying to find a defense against a person or persons chasing them? The second school also was known for sword and dagger training. That would be some place he would want to go.
A block later he went down a side street and stopped before a few houses, as if he wanted to find a certain safe house or someone who could help him. He knew when he entered the field around the headquarters. Even his eyesight seemed to be effected by this field. But he had been here before so knew the feeling and where to go. He found the right building and the right storefront. There were store on either side of this one, who were all authentic businesses. This one catered to the hair of the very rich and royalty. They had been in business for over a hundred years about the same time the clandestine organization started. Back then it wasn’t as secret but it never was well known. On purpose.
He entered and found a maitre-d who knew who he was. The place smelled of cucumbers, a mixture they made to rejuvenate skin and hair. The man took him back to small room in the back. He let him in and said that his attendant would be along. Jar, nodded once said thank you in a posh tone and sat down in a chair. Once the man closed the door Jar spoke one word. A word that translated as care.
The chair started down through a cunningly canceled hole under the chair. It stopped when it reached a lower level. He got up and walked through a door. A hallway presented itself. Very classy with blacks, bare metal and browns. He walked down the hallway and found an office set to one side. He knocked on the closed door and soon was let in. He found a plush room with a desk and three padded chairs. A little bit comfortable but not too much. That was so guests would not feel like staying for long.
The man seated behind the desk wore an all brown suit made for someone to serve the king. Its vest buttoned all the way up and it had a part that could flip over to hide the buttons. The trousers looked neat and tidy and out of silk yet tough enough for a hoodlum’s life. This one had a Spanish flare to it. The one he had on last time Jar met with him looked like one made by a German clothes maker.
He said, “You have the letter we sent you to get?”
Jar nodded once and said, “Yes, I do. It’s been a hard trip back here with it, they found me out somehow, but…”
He reached behind him and took off the pack. He unzipped it and took out five pieces of paper. By feel alone he found the right one and handed it to the man, who took it and carefully examined it.
When finished he said, “Yes, I can see and sense it is what we wanted. But it came too late. They were able to raise their wargod out of his forced sleep.”
 “What? What wargod?”
“The group you were told to steal from is a batch of worshippers of Kurell, a very old god of war, at the time one of the smaller ones. Ten millenniums ago he was forced into a confinement to sleep. The only way to wake him was to release him from that confinement. No one knew where he was imprisoned nor where the key to open it was. The last of his worshippers went into hiding before they were killed. Some were searched out and killed but others hide too well. Over the centuries they became adept at hiding who they worship. In the last twenty-five years they have partially come out. They do not make a big deal about it and some do not mention he is a wargod. Hardly anyone looks twice at them.”
“But the Organization did?”
He nodded, “Yes, those at the top were surprise to learn which god their worship. So we sent a couple of agents to infiltrate them. One almost was killed in the process and the other made it in. Through his services and other means we learned, and it was conformed, that they had found some ancient knowledge that would allow them to do a ritual that could make a key that would work every time.”
Jar thought, so a skeleton key to magical locks.
The man continued, “They wrote a letter to a high priest to explain that. To hide the key and make it easier to transport they turned that letter into the key. Few people would think of something that important made out of paper. We caught a bit of a conversation and our person inside was able to look the site of the ritual over afterwards. Some bad things were done there but he also found drafts to the letter, not yet disposed of. We put two and two together to get the answer of where the key was.”
“And you sent me, without telling me what I was really getting.”
“We didn’t want them to realize that we knew.”
“Looks like they found out.”
He nodded once.
He shook his head, “They have already conquered a fifty league track of the Multi kingdoms. And they will get the next fifty easy enough. An army is being formed out of six of the kingdoms. They are headed straight down the main track through the valley. They probably will mop up the smaller kingdoms and city-states on the sides after they hit the major ones. It is possible that the huge army might stop the wargod. They will have some powerful wizards but so far he had beaten everyone that has tried to stop him. That includes ten who joined together. He is too powerful, angry and cruel to lose. And he is gathering strength with his victories. His forces are growing too. Either his worshippers fooled us and had many more followers than we thought, which included training schools, or he has somehow persuaded people to join him. Maybe because he is winning, maybe to keep themselves and loved ones from being tortured,” he shrugged/
Jar frowned, none of his precautions had done any good. Maybe for a day or two, what he had done mislead them but they found him in less than a week. They must have a way to trace that letter. He hadn’t kept anything else he had stolen that night. Now though they didn’t need him, for they must have made another key.
H had put innocent people at risk for nothing. In the cities and towns he had stayed at, and in the caravans-a couple had been killed there and wounded. Most of all he had placed the troupe in real danger. That was not good.
He and his boss talked some more than he was dismissed. The man took the letter and placed it in a drawer until they could decide what to do.
Jar went to a room he usually used after a mission. Just a small one with a comfortable cot and small desk for writing. It looked like a monk’s home at one time. Maybe this had been a monastery when it was made. The age smell showed it was ages old and sometimes he almost thought he could smell incense in the main room. That would have been the chapel. That would explain some of the feelings he got while here and some of the core protections this place had.
He stripped off his dirty clothes, he could get them cleaned here, and laid down. The plain wool blanket would be enough down here.
No sleep came his way though. Maybe he should get dressed and head for the kitchen for some caffe. By the time he got there, drank the caffe and got back he might be ready for sleep. He had done that before after a hard mission. 
 He shook his head. That would not work this time. His guilt kept him from falling asleep. He had placed people in danger, even new friends, for no good reason. If it had all worked as he planned he might be able to fight or ignore his guilt. Not now though.
What could he do to calm his guilt? Ask the Organization to send them more money? No.
Warn them to head through one of the passes that lead over the next set of even higher mountains? They might be safe for quite a few years there.The man had sounded like he didn’t think that army being formed would win. He probably hadn’t realized his feelings came through his tone. But if he thought the wargod would win there was a very good probability that he would.
For a second he thought of their daughter growing up and doing something to save the day-years late. Maybe she could and this was a warning to get the letter to her. Or a hint that even if he failed someone would take his place eventually.
Failed at what though?
As soon as he asked the question he knew. He knew how to get into the house even though the temple would be in a basement and he knew where the letter or key now lay. His office would be protected but he knew many tricks on how to bypass those protections. And the office knew him already.
Jar frowned. Even if she was able to win the day at sometime in the future he needed to do it now. During those years many people would die and many more be tortured. Heroes would come up and heroes would die. Some like him might become users of the night and shadows who would take people to safety and rob the wargod’s people to give to those in need and such but no. Over all it would be better to stop before it went much further.
That meant he had to steal from his boss, and the Organization. They had made something of him, even with his background. Yes they were using him, but for good things and they rewarded him not only with money and such but with a peace of mind and knowledge that he was doing something good.
He fell asleep sometime after he made that choice. Early in the morning though his bladder woke him up. There was a watercloset down the hall. A very old one that went along with the building but it had been updated. Somehow they had made a water trough under it and the other water closets in this underground complex, so that the water kept moving, shoving out everything that went down the holes in the broad seat.

Once back in his room he decided that the time had come. Late, but not too early in the day yet. There would be people still now here, agents finished their missions, or got into town, at odd times. But they would be few and since he belonged here no one would think it strange that he was up now.
He gathered what items he had taken out of his backpack and headed out. He knew the man usually slept here. He had a nice set of rooms in a side area. As far as Jar could tell there were as many as a dozen such apartments on that side. Possibly a dozen on the other side.
Jar closed his door as silently as possible and walked down the hallway. A few voices came from both directions but none should concern him.
Not much in the way of shadows here, probably planned that way, he thought.
After the odors in the water closet he realized the hallway smelled clear-that is not clean but not much of anything. Again most probably on purpose, he surmised.
He turned the right corridor and walked with purpose to where the office was. There were a lot of offices here, some with lights under the doorway and a couple with doors open, for this was the main entrance. Guests sometimes came this far. Jar nodded to or waved a hello to three people who worked here. One was an elf which always surprised him, for generally they stayed out of the affairs of humans. But what the Organization did might concern them too. And some elves didn’t go along with what is usual behavior for elves.
When he arrived at the correct door no one was about. Jar went down the hallway in both directions but found no one close. He listened but the only voices sounded way down the hallway. He went back to the door, pulled out a certain lock pick he had already pocketed, Sweat slide down his back even the hallway was cool. He sniffed the door and the air but outside of scents that lingered he could detect no cigar, sweat or performa odors that showed anyone waited in the room. No light shone under the door.
A bad taste formed in his mouth, for he was about to break into Juan’s office. True the only thing he wanted was the letter, but still. They may think they could figure out something to use against the wargod, maybe they could and possibly that is what John’s daughter would use if his idea was true, but he knew how to use it now. Before a lot of destruction and deaths. Right now people were being tortured into joining them.
No one had thought of the possibility that they could make a second key, but still if he had done better, grabbed a fast horse or gone to Spain where a secondary headquarters was, the key could have been back here before they made that second one and awoken and set free this awful wargod.
He listened for anyone coming and when he heard nothing, he bent over to look at the lock. The keyhole had been placed in the middle of the black frame set under the knob. Right in the center of that piece of thin metal. He touched it with just the palm of his hand, a very light touch. He could sense the wards and what was on the lock. Not all that powerful yet they still might somehow make the man know someone was messing with the lock. Not if he bypassed them, though.
He concentrated on making the pick feel like a key to the wards. He insetted it while he watched the wards. The pick was much smaller than a key would be but it also had a weight on the end along with a bent point. It weighted the same as a big, black metal key. He sent in his own magic and got a picture of the tumblers. He eased that image onto the pick. It went in okay. He knew the type of lock that had been used for this door and knew where to place the end of the pick. It hit an obstacle he took to be a tumbler. More sweat down his back and his sides from his armpits. Now he caught a scent of ozone, which wasn’t unusual and some oil used to protect the lock from grime and dust.
It clicked, good one down. He moved his pick over and repeated the procedure. He was probably taking too long and a ward would send an alarm but he had to do it.
Again he felt the tumbler move. He twisted his waist as if he turned a real key. The final click sounded. He looked around but even though that was louder than usual no one was near enough to hear it.
The door should be unlocked now. He kept the key in and pushed open the door. Once it had opened enough for him to walk in, he took the key out. And stepped in.
He halted at once.
There next to the desk, the man stood watching Jar.
After a long moment Jar gasped. Juan had been there the whole time even though he hadn’t sensed Juan. Now Jar had been caught breaking into the man’s office.


end excerpt