Disciples of the Serpent: A Novel of the O.C.L.T.

by Williams, Sidney

  As a new tune began, they both looked around a bit. One more turn toward Patty revealed she still watched them. They had to keep moving. Maybe she wouldn’t follow.

  Exiting into a stone corridor, they hurried to a rounded stairway then slipped through an entry arch and through slashes of sunlight from a sliver of a window.

  Would the fates let Patty take an interest in the next song or would she be headed in their direction? They had a timeline, otherwise waiting for a better moment might have been advisable.

  As they put the crowd further behind, the tour guide’s voice carried as he recounted the musician’s credentials which included Julliard. Fascinating, Patty, stay and take it all in.

  On the next floor, they exited. The narrow rectangular lamp blazed over the glass case, illuminating the stone on display, just where brochures said it would be, a few yards from the stairway mouth. As they approached it, the woman saw a small inscription noting that it pre-dated even the first structure on the Castle Cluin site and that its markings, characters that looked almost like etchings of blades, were not fully understood.

  The woman glanced right then left before turning to the man. “It’s clear. Go.”

  The case seemed free of alarms. The man slipped a slender set of lock-picking tools from his pocket and began to work on the simple padlock that secured the lid. The woman stood in a position that partially blocked the view of his efforts, acting as if she were browsing a brochure, just a tour group member thrown off course.

  Just as the lock popped open, a single hard click echoed along the corridor. The woman realized it had to be a shoe heel clicking on the stone floor. They’d been followed.

  Patty stood frozen a short distance along the corridor. The woman looked her way, and for several seconds Patty just stared, looking like her lungs had stopped working.

  The woman smiled. Exploiting Patty’s shock at being caught, she stepped forward politely, keeping her body between Patty and the man. Maybe this could be salvaged.

  “Lost?” she asked.

  “Just looking…”

  She was indeed, past the woman at…

  …her companion. He held the stone now.

  Patty tried to conceal her look of alarm but her eyes betrayed her. She knew she had failed.

  The woman slipped toward her, grasping a lapel.

  “Now, now, no reason to get upset.”

  She slipped her right hand into her coat pocket.

  “We’re on official business. You should get back to the group.”

  Patty’s gaze shifted, moved from eye to contact, tracking downward, lips trembling as she spotted the needle. She froze for a second, breath catching again after it had just re-started.

  She knew what was about to happen.

  Panicked, she lifted a forearm, raking her lapel from the woman’s grasp. Then she spun, hastening toward a connecting hallway, not worrying about her heels clicking anymore. She wanted to get attention.

  She had to be stopped before she cried out.

  The woman bolted after her, and shot a hand forward. For a second, Patty seemed perplexed that her forward momentum had been interrupted. Then she began to thrash against the hold on the folded-down hood of her coat.

  The woman yanked her backward while surprise still offered advantage. She pressed in on her, forcing her against the jagged stone of a wall.

  Patty whimpered. “Please, I won’t…”

  “Hold still.”

  She flailed arms and worked again at a scream as the protective cap on the syringe needle was flipped away with a thumbnail.

  “Wait, I didn’t see…”

  The needle moved past Patty from Paddock Lake’s now-terrified eyes and her cheek, and sent a sting through her neck. In the next second, her jaw sagged.

  Something was coursing through her and she knew it. The jaw closed and tightened. She began to strain for air as the cylinder’s contents flowed into her bloodstream.

  She wouldn’t be telling this story back home for the Junior League. People would read about her, but there’d be no quotes explaining the attack.

  Her husband back at the economic conference would wonder what had happened. So would anyone else waiting back home… The woman used her grip on the lapel to lower her to the floor, letting go without gentleness. Then she looked to her companion, Jaager, with a jerk of her head.

  “It was quick and quiet,” she said, when he looked on without expression.

  Pocketing the stone, he turned to the stairway again.

  Better create a distraction so they could get out of here. She shouted.

  “Help, help, someone has fainted.”

  She was moving then, as footsteps began to clack along the corridor.

  In seconds, she was on Jaager’s heels, taking steps downward two at a time then back to casual for the stroll to the exit.

  “Hold on there, we’re going to ask that no one leave.”

  They were near the arched passage to the parking lot when the shout rolled out from a man in a billowy white shirt and brown breeches. In spite of the attire, he sounded no-nonsense and was big enough to matter. A second later he was joined by another man in period dress.

  Jaager looked to Freya who gave him a slight nod.

  His hand shot under his coat and he pulled out a machine pistol, compact but menacing. He didn’t wave it about long. He aimed it slightly upward and spewed a burst into the air. Slugs bit into stone, sending up bursts of smoke and dust.

  That froze the peasants and sent a titter through the throngs of nearby tourists. Seizing that moment, they hurried through the exit, not looking back but expecting they had a few moments before they were followed.

  Seven

  The crime scene remained cordoned in St. Stephen’s Green.

  O’Donnell slipped on an official baseball cap and a blue jacket with gold markings before leading Bullfinch across the grass toward the lone uniform standing sentinel. The cap served to make her look official and cut through crap but also to contain her curls a bit and help her look nondescript in case any television cameras or anyone who might recognize her as the trigger-fingered officer were looking on. People were keeping back from the crime scene, but the area was well-traveled.

  When they reached the blue-and-white tape that fluttered in the crisp breeze, she swept up an arm to raise it high for Bullfinch’s passage, lifting it over his Homburg and letting him step under. She took the moment to observe his movements. For his age, he didn’t seem too creaky. She wished she could get a better read on what he was thinking. Usually she was good at that sort of thing, but this gentleman was stoic and betrayed little.

  “The body was over here…” she began, but Bullfinch already had his tablet out, using the photo to guide him. After a bit of pacing in the general area, he found the spot he’d seen on the photo and crouched.

  O’Donnell moved to his side and looked at the patch of ground he studied. A lot of people would have dismissed it as a piece of a footprint on ground that had escaped from the grass covering, but distinct lines were clear in a small marking. It looked like a variation on a Greek letter like Xi or one of those, several lines intersected with angles and edges not likely to have occurred by happenstance.

  “Do you think it was left by the victim?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Very likely.”

  “Do you recognize it? Was he trying to say something in a language only professors know?”

  “It resembles markings I have seen,” Bullfinch said, splaying his fingers a bit among blades of grass, peeling them back just enough to snap pictures with his pad.

  Still keeping things close to his chest. If he’d been a suspect in an interrogation room, she’d be ready to take his coffee away about now.

  “Ready to share? If you’re not speculating any longer?”

  She couldn’t be sure if he just didn’t trust her, had a problem with women in general, or thought she was an idiot. She couldn’t help but resent the latter. She’d sweated out her
high school test results, but she’d cleared it and the Garda academy. She might not have been as cerebral as a professor, but she managed.

  She’d have to quell that. He remained too matter-of-fact for her to determine for sure.

  “For the moment, let me say I think this could be cause for great concern. Perhaps we need to talk to someone who’d had recent contact with Professor Burke.”

  Okay, he needed her badge. Maybe that was a start for working together.

  Alison Syn, Inerney Burke’s student assistant at Trinity, poured over a stack of essays in a small cubbyhole with a desk. She looked up when O’Donnell and Bullfinch entered the room and introduced themselves, keeping affiliations vague. O’Donnell conveyed police officer without effort and offered a little glint of her shield before putting it away.

  “Academics must go on,” the girl said, tapping the papers, before she stood to offer a hand.

  She was under twenty-five, not terribly tall with shoulder-length hair somewhere between brown and blonde, and less of a librarian type than O’Donnell would have imagined.

  The girl’s eyes were a pale shade of blue and her nervous smile formed dimples. Firm lips, well-defined features. Smart gray pullover; black skirt; pale, casual jacket. It suggested an effort at being taken seriously while being aware she was attractive. O’Donnell could identify with that.

  “The secretary said you were the last person to interact with Professor Burke the last time he was in the office.”

  “If interact is the right word. He didn’t say much before he left again.”

  “Once he heard strangers had come to see him?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I need you to try to recall impressions, or anything that might help us. Had he seemed upset before that?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Maybe a little agitated. It seemed to start with whatever he got in the morning mail.”

  “And you’d sorted the mail?”

  “The secretary would bring his in. I’d open it for him. It’s all so routine, you don’t hold on to the details, you know? I think I asked if he wanted tea as he went through it, and he waved me off.”

  “Was he usually abrupt?”

  “Usually pleasant coupled with slightly grouchy and, you know, focused on his work. Figured he’d just take his tea at eleven.”

  “Your best impression of him yesterday morning,” O’Donnell said. “Think carefully.”

  The girl’s eyes tilted slightly upward and to one side, searching, then she moved her head a bit, side to side. “Something had caught his attention that morning.”

  “Do you remember anything about the letter that seemed to set him off?”

  She brought a hand to her face, resting it across her mouth as her eyes focused somewhere other than the room. “I didn’t pay it much attention. It was one more piece of postage along with magazines and conference circulars.”

  O’Donnell didn’t really like the gestures she was reading, but she let it slide.

  “Return address?” she asked.

  “Not sure.”

  “He definitely didn’t leave it behind?” Bullfinch asked.

  She chewed her lower lip. “I heard him fumble around before he left. I thought he was straightening up since he had visitors waiting, but he must have been making sure he grabbed some things before he made his exit out our back way, although he never really seemed settled in all morning. Something about it had him agitated.”

  O’Donnell watched her features carefully. Had Burke asked her to withhold something?

  “No mention of where he was going?”

  “I don’t recall him saying anything.”

  “Did he have any usual hangouts?” O’Donnell asked.

  “The library. He loved research. Pub wise? I’m not sure. He was particularly good friends with Professor Shea. He’s one who could tell you more.”

  “Did Professor Burke ever speak of the Nāga? Did you ever hear him mention that or get a research assignment along those lines?”

  O’Donnell studied the old guy as well as she could from the corner of her eye. What did he know? Did she need to give him a good shake?

  “Never a research assignment. Never a mention that I recall. What’s it mean?”

  “Just a myth he might have been interested in,” Bullfinch said.

  “Myth sounds like the kind of thing the professor might take notice of any time, but I never got any word of that.”

  “All right,” O’Donnell said. “We have your name if we need more.”

  Bullfinch seemed focused on something on the desk, a doodle on the edge of a bit of notepaper, a memo from Burke on closer inspection. It might have been a random set of pen strokes or scores from a tic-tac-toe game, but the man studied the lines carefully.

  Slipping his tablet out, he snapped a photo of the mark, and then his fingers danced on the device’s face for a second.

  “What are you doing?” O’Donnell asked softly. “Is that in the same family of symbols from the park?”

  “Possibly. Maybe made absently. We’ll keep a record of it.”

  “You’re gettin’ a lot of clues here. You want to tell me dots are connectin’?”

  “I’m not quite sure yet. Give me just a little while. Professor Burke spoke with me at a conference several years ago. He didn’t elaborate, but he said there was something he was a bit nervous about. He was afraid he or some friends had triggered something.”

  “Years later he’s dead, and you’re noting a bunch of cryptic symbols and saying funny words. What did he think they’d triggered?”

  “He called it a mythological event. He didn’t say more.”

  “People in Ireland dying of snake venom. Does seem mythic. What the hell have we stepped in here, Mr. Bullfinch?”

  “We may be figuring that out together. I know we’re outside the scope of the true Garda investigation, but can you get us street-camera footage to try and trace Professor Burke’s path? Knowing where he was between the time he left his office and wound up dead in the park might be useful.”

  “I could agree with that,” O’Donnell said. “They’re probably scanning Grafton Street cams to see who dropped the body. Let’s see what our Aisteach unit can come up with.”

  Eight

  “You’re gonna to want to see this,” Rees said.

  O’Donnell and Bullfinch had just climbed back into the car when her mobi sounded. Both on her phone and Bullfinch’s tablet, an image materialized a bloated body on a stone floor. The swelling and purple contortions matched what they’d seen before.

  “Where…?”

  “Just in from Castle Cluin.”

  Rees hit another key on his end, and the screens gave way to an unsteady YouTube video stream. Tourists shrieked and a hubbub of voices and chaos rippled through a crowd in a stone hallway. Via a jostled, unsteady lens, a woman in a gray raincoat pushed through a crowd. She seemed possibly to be following another blur, bobbing somewhere ahead of her, opening a path in the throng.

  “This the best we have?” O’Donnell asked. “It’s like Nessie footage.”

  “Analysts are working,” Rees said. “We’ll know in a while.”

  Bullfinch was studying the figures, eyes focused, processing.

  “See anything you like?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Nothing’s clear enough.”

  “We’re searching for other video sources,” Rees said.

  “Interesting you should mention that,” O’Donnell said. “Are you tracing Burke’s path in your shop?”

  “It takes time to consolidate the footage, but yes. They’re trying to pick him up outside Trinity. It’s a game of ‘which way did he go?’ Any thoughts about what they might have wanted at the castle, Professor Bullfinch?”

  “Not at a glance. While your analysts are working, maybe we should have a look around there. Is it far?”

  “It’s not next door, but I’m up for a drive,” O’Donnell said.

  “Off you go then,” Rees said. “I
’ll buzz you when we have something new.”

  Police units blocked the roadway leading to Castle Cluin a little over two hours and a drive through the countryside later. A flash of a badge got them past the perimeter, and in a while Bullfinch was crouched at the crime scene while white-suited technicians continued to work.

  No signs or symbols were evident at this location, and the spot where the victim had fallen seemed to be a less-than-spectacular stretch of hallway.

  “Nothing?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Nothing obvious,” Bullfinch said. “But something brought our venom purveyors here.”

  “It’s looking like the victim just got in their way.”

  “Tourist?”

  O’Donnell nodded.

  “No obvious ties to Burke or other victims. Patricia Dowell. She’s what Americans would call a soccer mom, I believe. Husband’s at a conference in Dublin.”

  O’Donnell had spent a while talking to the local authorities while Bullfinch had moved around the perimeter, scanning the antlers, paintings and tapestries that decorated the ancient walls.

  He straightened from the spot where the body had been found and looked a few feet away to an intersection of hallways. His gaze seemed to calculate the number of steps, then he moved to the corner and turned.

  “Has anyone been up here yet?” he asked, moving to the edge of the glass showcase.

  “An odd bit of stone is missing.”

  Bullfinch and O’Donnell turned to a man with brown hair that brushed the collar of his sports coat. Another scholarly type, O’Donnell thought. She was outnumbered.

  He offered a photograph in a clear protective sleeve.

  “I’d just been checking our records,” he said. “I’m Hayden McKenzie. Curator for the historical exhibits.”

  “Mean anything to you?” O’Donnell asked, passing the photo to Bullfinch.

  “These markings on it, along the edges…”

  “Are undetermined,” McKenzie said. “But the characters do seem to be an arrangement suggesting language, but it’s not Ogham characters.”