Olsen's car plunged into the labyrinth of converted docks on the Isle of Dogs. The fog here, near the Thames, was thicker, saturated with the smell of rust, stagnant water, and the centuries-old rot hidden beneath layers of new paint and concrete. The headlights snatched glimpses from the gloom: massive brick arches, once gateways for ships, now transformed into boutique entrances or boarded up tight. Simon was silent, leafing through Varnava's notebook by the light of streetlamps flickering past the window. Each page was a hymn to madness or a desperate attempt to grasp the ungraspable.
*"The Guardian's ashes - the key. The key is in the box. Do not open."*
"Almost there," Olsen rasped, turning into a narrow passageway between two giant brick structures. "'Old Quay' Storage. Block G." He threw a nervous glance in the rearview mirror. "Someone... did you see it? Back in the parking lot?"
"Don't know," Simon replied, not looking up from a diagram in the notebook resembling a lightning trap. "But we should hurry."
Olsen parked beside heavy, scuffed metal gates bearing a sign: "Block G – Secured Storage". He fished out a keychain, selected the largest, rustiest key. The lock groaned and reluctantly gave way. The gates slid open with a groan, revealing the black maw of a vast, semi-dark space. Air hit their faces – cold, damp, smelling of dust, mold, and something chemical, like old oil or preservative.
"Here," Olsen switched on his flashlight, the beam sweeping over endless rows of metal shelving vanishing into the darkness. They were crammed with boxes, furniture, sculptures covered in tarps – the detritus of forgotten lives. "Varnava's section… somewhere here. Letter V."
They moved deeper into the warehouse. Footsteps echoed hollowly under the high vaults. The flashlight beam caught thick cobwebs draping boxes, rusty chains hanging from beams. Simon felt the chill from the bag against his chest intensify, as if responding to the proximity of something kindred. His own flashlight scanned the section numbers.
"Here!" Olsen stopped by a low shelf. On one level sat **three plastic containers** labeled "VARNAVA, A. Apt 27". They looked pathetically empty compared to the crammed neighboring sections.
Olsen placed his flashlight on a nearby shelf, beam pointing upwards, creating ghostly illumination. "Help me. What are we looking for? That box?"
"The box. And… anything unusual. Books, papers, objects that look ritualistic," Simon said, lifting the first container. It was light. He snapped open the latches, removed the lid. Inside: neatly folded but clearly cheap clothing – dark shirts, trousers, a worn coat. It smelled of mothballs and… a faint echo of something familiar – ozone and coppery fear? He quickly rifled through the clothes. Nothing. "Empty."
The second container. Books. Old, in tattered bindings. Simon flipped through them quickly in the flashlight beam: treatises on medieval alchemy, mythology of forbidden cults, something in incomprehensible languages with the same angular symbols in the margins. Interesting, but not it. No wooden box. No "crate".
"Third," Olsen whispered, lifting the last container. It was slightly heavier. "This is it."
Simon opened the latches. Removed the lid. Inside, on a bed of crumpled packing paper, lay just a few items:
**A bundle of yellowed letters** in envelopes without return addresses, tied with coarse string.
**An old pack of cheap cigarettes**, half-empty.
**A pair of glasses** in simple metal frames, one lens cracked.
And… **it**. **The wooden box.**
Simon froze. It was exactly like in the photograph: dark, roughly worked wood, as if hewn with an axe. And on the lid – **that very symbol**. The grid. The cage. Deeply burned, almost scorched through. In the dim flashlight beam, the lines of the symbol seemed wet, oily. He felt the chill in his pocket turn into an icy needle, piercing his chest. *Here. The key.*
Simon froze. It was exactly like in the photograph: dark, roughly worked wood, as if hewn with an axe. And on the lid – **that very symbol**. The grid. The cage. Deeply burned, almost scorched through. In the dim flashlight beam, the lines of the symbol seemed wet, oily. He felt the chill in his pocket turn into an icy needle, piercing his chest. *Here. The key.*
"God…" Olsen whispered, crossing himself. "It… it looks vile."
Simon carefully, like handling a bomb, lifted the box out. It was heavier than it looked, and cold. The wood wasn't porous, but dense, like stone. He placed it on the shelf. His hands trembled. *The key is in the box. Do not open.* But what was the "box"? This crate? Or something inside? And where were the "Guardian's ashes"?
He turned the box in his hands. No lock, hinges, or latches were visible. The lid seemed monolithic with the base, but the symbol… the lines of the symbol formed barely perceptible seams.
"Look," Simon pointed out to Olsen. "The symbol… is it the lid?"
Olsen leaned in, peered closely. "Yes… it seems these angular parts… can they be slid? Like a puzzle?"
Simon tried pressing a finger on one protruding part of the symbol. Nothing. Another. A third. On the fourth – an angular "tooth" – he felt a slight give. He pressed harder. A soft, distinct **CLICK** echoed, reminiscent of the sound in apartment 27. A section of the symbol retracted inwards, shifting an adjacent element.
"It opens!" Olsen gasped.
Simon felt goosebumps run down his spine. Every movement of the symbol-puzzle was accompanied by a click and an intensification of that familiar smell – ozone and fear. He slid another element. Another. The symbol, once a grid, now looked like an open cage, a broken lattice. The final click.
The lid of the box… didn't open. It **disintegrated**. Not into pieces, but into a **fine, silvery-black powder**, like ash, but cold and shimmering like a billion tiny stars. Ashes.
It cascaded down into the bottom of the box, revealing what lay within.
Not a key.
**An eye.**
A single one. Enormous. Human? No. An almond-shaped, vertical black slit pupil, surrounded by an iris of deathly green, veined with black. It was desiccated, mummified, yet preserved in a ghastly, unblinking wholeness. And it **stared** directly at Simon.
*The Guardian's ashes - the key.* This ash… was it *part* of the lid? The seal? And now…
Simon recoiled, nearly dropping the box. His heart stopped. Olsen cried out and stumbled back, hitting his back against a shelf.
The mummified eye in the box didn't move. But the green iris… it seemed to **contract**, focusing. And from the pupil, black as the abyss, something began to **ooze**. Not liquid. A clot of absolute darkness. Like ink, but thick, viscous, light-absorbing. It slowly crept over the desiccated sclera, engulfing the eye, transforming it into a black, pulsating mass.
And the smell… The smell of *coppery fear* hit with incredible force, mixed with the stench of rotting sea and ozone. The air crackled with static. Olsen's flashlight on the shelf went out. Their own flashlights dimmed, the light becoming weak, yellow, barely piercing the sudden thickening darkness around the box.
"No…" Simon whispered, understanding. "Do not open… We opened it…"
The dark mass in the box stirred. It rose, like a black serpent, over the edge of the box. Formless, it reached towards them, towards warmth, towards life. Within its depths, **outlines** began to form. Not of an eye. Of two eyes. Greenish. Glowing. Familiar.
*The Guardian.*
It was here. Not behind a seal. Not behind a door. Here. In its essence. In its hunger. And it was free. For a moment.
Behind Simon and Olsen, in the darkness of the warehouse, the safety catch of a pistol clicked loudly, mockingly.