The Demas Revelation

by Shane Johnson

  She followed the drive around the classically styled residence, enjoying its inherent antiquity, and found Roberto’s van and a pair of rental cars parked in back, just where she expected them to be. Pulling alongside, she shut off the engine, gathered her keys and phone, and climbed out. Her gym bag, journal, a hand-cranked light, and maps remained on the passenger seat.

  There was no sign of movement. No voices.

  She walked up the slope of a low grassy hill toward the dig, a spot more than one hundred feet behind the house. Though she could see the team’s equipment stacked and waiting as she approached, there was still no sign of anyone.

  “Roberto?” she called. No response.

  She drew near the site, stepping over the edge of the foundation. Much of it had been cleared of the overlying sod and soil, exposing a familiar masonry. Tools were scattered on the ground near the distinct rectangular hole that led to the ancient stairway.

  And there, lying next to a shovel encrusted with red earth, was a blue-shelled phone she immediately recognized.

  “Roberto!” she called again. But all she heard was the wind in the overhanging trees.

  She picked up the phone and looked at the screen. It read “9 MISSED CALLS.”

  “Four of those were me,” she whispered to herself.

  From the top of the stairway, she called down into the darkness. Her voice carried an echo, but no answer came. Stone dust wafted within the tunnel.

  No, not again!

  She hurried down the steps, but the increasing gloom made the way treacherous, the visibility nil. With one hand on the stone wall of the passageway, she finally stopped and called out again.

  “Roberto! Neil!” More echoes. No answers. “Beth! Craig!”

  Oh, Lord! Please let them be all right.

  She spun around and scurried back up the steps. When she emerged, the sunlight seemed brighter than it had before. Finding no flashlight on the ground around her, she took off in a dead run for her car and the hand-cranked light she had left on the seat.

  Nearing the car, she glanced toward the house. It was dark.

  Could they be there? Maybe Signora Verducci offered them a cool drink or a meal while they waited for the excavation dust to settle.

  With a deep breath, she fought back the panic that had been trying to claim her. Quick steps carried her to the back door of the house.

  She knocked. No response.

  With a slight push, she found the door open.

  “Signora Verducci? Anyone? It’s Anna …”

  Please, Father!

  She entered the kitchen and noticed several glasses on the table, and a pitcher of what appeared to be lemonade. Her mind ran through the more benign possibilities of where they might be, shoving the dire ones from her mind.

  Maybe she’s just showing them around …

  “Hello?” she called again, louder this time. “Signora Verducci? It’s Anna Meridian.”

  She paused, her ears pricked by a sound.

  Voices. Muffled.

  “Hello?” she tried, louder now.

  Again, voices. Followed by a single masculine voice uttering one word.

  Her name.

  “Roberto?”

  “Down here.” Faint but intelligible.

  “Where’s ‘here’?”

  “The wine cellar!”

  Anna backtracked through the kitchen and down a narrow hallway. At the end stood a heavy wooden door, its sliding latch closed.

  “Roberto?”

  “Here,” he replied, joy in his voice. Then came a pounding from the other side of the door. “We’re locked in.”

  “Coming!” Anna said, rushing forward. Her hands flew to the large iron latch and slid it away with a thunk. Then she gripped the door handle, twisted, and pulled.

  The door swung heavily aside.

  “It was Raphael,” Roberto said, in answer to the question on Anna’s face.

  “Is everyone all right?” she asked, looking past him at the others, who were hurrying up the stairs. Below, near the bottom, Maria Verducci smiled up at her.

  “Are you all right, Signora?” Anna asked her.

  “Yes,” she replied, keeping her tone light. “A bit shaken, perhaps.”

  “We’re fine,” said Craig from just behind Roberto. “But I doubt the dig is.”

  “They had guns,” Beth said, apparently still shaken.

  “Who did?” Anna asked, alarmed.

  “Six men altogether,” Neil answered. “They surprised us about two hours ago. Took us at gunpoint into the house. Locked us up down there.”

  The professor, her eyes glistening, spread her arms and embraced each of her charges. She knew the stakes that dig-site looters played for—her students’ very lives had been in great danger.

  “I’m so glad you’re all okay,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Thank you, dear Father.

  “It was Raphael,” Roberto repeated. “He kept his distance, but I saw him. His hair was a little different than in the photo you showed us, but—”

  Realization dawned, and Anna spun around, rushing back to the door. Roberto, Neil, and Craig were on her heels. Beth whispered something to the old woman, who smiled and pointed down a hallway.

  “Thank you,” Beth said, hurrying away. Maria went to the back door and watched the others as they headed for the dig.

  “I will call the police,” she called to them.

  “No,” Anna shouted back. “Not yet. Let us see what we’re dealing with first.”

  “Very well, signora.”

  Anna broke into a run up the low hill. “I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I tried to call several times …”

  “They made us drop our phones,” Roberto told her. “For all I know, they took them.”

  “I saw yours,” Anna said. “On the ground up here. No others.”

  “Terrific.”

  “I started down the stairway you excavated,” she went on, stepping back onto the foundation, “but there was so much dust, I couldn’t see.”

  “There was no dust before.”

  Bad sign, Anna knew. Really bad sign. Dust meant force, and force usually meant …

  Neil, trailing them, spoke up. “You don’t suppose they’re still down there, do you?”

  “They’re long gone, Neil,” Anna assured him, frustration in her voice as she picked up a flashlight. “And we’ll never know what they took with them.”

  “We excavated the entirety of the stairs. There’s a door at the bottom … Looks like bronze covering wood. We decided to wait for you.”

  “I appreciate that,” she replied, switching on the light as they started down the stairs. “I just hope that whatever was down there, still is.”

  Roberto drew a breath of relief. “I’m really glad you’re back, dottoressa.”

  “Me, too,” she said, smiling.

  The stairway stretched below them. As they continued to make their way down the steps, Anna’s beam cut a hard swath through the tawny cloud of dust. She noted the red stone beneath her feet, a gleam of silver tracing its surface. She counted each step she took.

  Finally, Anna and her students found themselves on a lower landing. A floor. They had reached the bottom.

  “Thirty-three,” Anna said aloud, her heart pounding in her drying throat. “Thirty-three steps of red stone …”

  “With silver inlay,” Roberto added in amazement. “Is it possible?”

  “Is what possible?” Neil asked, holding his shirt over his mouth as a crude dust filter.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” Anna said, stepping forward, one hand extended and sweeping from side to side. After crossing a distance of ten feet, something glinted in the throw of her fl
ashlight. She reached up.

  Silver hinges.

  And hanging from them were the shattered remains of a very heavy reinforced door.

  “Explosives,” she said. “The idiots! They’re lucky they didn’t bring down the whole tunnel.”

  “Are we safe?” asked Craig.

  “I think so. But I’d rather not go any farther until this dust settles.” She sniffed the air anew. “No scent of black powder or dynamite. Plastique, I’d guess.”

  “They blew it up?” Neil asked, anger in his tone. “Why? Who were they?”

  “Looters,” Anna said, barely maintaining a calm comportment. “I’m just glad you’re all okay.”

  Roberto shook his head. “Let’s hope they didn’t destroy whatever was on the other side of that door.”

  “Did Beth bring that high-powered fan of hers?” she asked.

  “As warm as it’s been?” Roberto said. “I’m sure.”

  “Have her run power and bring it down here.”

  “Got it,” Neil said, flying back up the stairs.

  Craig followed. “I’ll get the generator going.” His footsteps faded, and he, too, was gone.

  “It looks like you found it, dottoressa,” Roberto said, grinning. “The legend was true.”

  She nodded, the thrill swelling deep within her. “I dreamed of this more than once over the past several months. I saw this doorway, but it was closed. And every time I reached out to open it, I woke up.”

  “Really? It looked like this and everything?”

  “Really.”

  Roberto studied the door frame. “They denied that such a place existed, even unto death in the arena. They protected their brethren. I wonder whether I’d have had the courage to do the same.”

  “When the time comes, you’ll find out.”

  “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Probably.” She smiled, letting the statement hang in the particulate air. “But what I mean is, we all go through times of trial. And if our faith means anything to us, if it’s genuine, it proves to be a source of strength.”

  Roberto fell silent for a moment, then said softly, “I hope so.”

  Anna coughed, the dust finally too much. She peered for a moment into the darkness beyond the violated doorway, then turned. “Let’s go back up.”

  The blower motor roared halfway down the stairs, its work almost done as its focused tempest forced the impure air upward. Anna and Roberto stood at the top of the stairs, readying themselves for an exploration of the waiting chamber.

  “Getting dark,” Anna observed. “Looks pretty well clear now. We should go on down.”

  “Before we do,” the student said, “let me show you something.”

  He led her to another part of the expansive foundation and pointed out a square depression in the floor, its bottom lined with shattered red and black mosaic tiles.

  “The impluvium,” he noted, but Anna already knew. A feature common in the houses of ancient Rome, such reflecting pools were fed by equal-sized holes in the roof above, through which channeled rainwater would cascade.

  “The crew from the university had cleared half the foundation when we came upon the stairway,” he went on. “But when I saw that red stone, I paid them and let them go.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Anna said. “You found no other artifacts?”

  “We found there was nothing here to be found. Other than the coins I told you about, which turned up on the first day. The soil was like fill dirt, uniform and empty. And that’s another thing …”

  “Tell me,” Anna calmly said.

  “The coins. They were all identical, scattered in a tight cluster. Silver denarii, minted under Nero.”

  “And?”

  “There were exactly thirty of them.”

  She looked into his eyes, and for a moment neither spoke.

  “Interesting parallel,” she finally commented.

  “Isn’t it.”

  The exposed part of the foundation, some sixty by ninety feet, stretched around them, warmed by the sun for the first time in almost two thousand years. Here and there, flooring tiles of vivid color remained, though none were fully intact.

  “So this was the atrium.” Anna nodded, playing a nail against the flat of her left thumb as she looked at the floor immediately around her. “And this”—she gave a broad sweep of her hand—“was a noble’s villa. Given that the city limits were about half a mile north of here at the time, it would have been in the country … nicely secluded.”

  “No doubt.” Roberto pointed to another section of the dig site. “There are definite signs of a peristyle over there, and an indoor well. Only the wealthy had gardens and direct water sources within their walls.”

  “A noble,” she thought aloud. “Someone of importance. Someone beyond reproach, who wouldn’t be suspect.”

  Anna walked slowly around the pool’s perimeter, studying the broken tiles, thinking it through. “Suppose he is a man of power. Perhaps an equite, or even a senator. He has an impressive house in the country, surrounded by vineyards and groves of fruit trees. Dozens of slaves, servants. Beautiful wife, sons, daughters. Everything a man of the time could want. But inside him, something is missing.

  “Then one day he hears of this ‘Chrestus,’ who had caused such a stir in Palestine. Quietly he seeks out those who follow him. As he listens to their witness, something happens. He changes.”

  Roberto watched her as she spoke, fascinated by her train of thought. “I love it when you do this.”

  With romance still afire in her heart, Anna couldn’t help but speculate about the realms of the past as she so often did. Such speculation was grossly unscientific and greatly frowned upon in her profession—facts should be allowed to speak for themselves, with no emotional or personal biases—but Anna’s love of the more quixotic aspects of ages gone by drove her to more colorfully imagine the lives of the dead, to try to see and taste and smell the worlds they lived in.

  “And soon,” she went on, “the noble finds himself a believer. But few of his station believe as he does. He must tread carefully. He avoids the subject whenever someone around him brings it up. He knows of the persecutions of Nero … knows what danger his fellow Christians face each and every day. They’ve secretly been gathering in one home after another … the homes of the poor, who are less comfortable and more likely to embrace Christ. But getting word out about each new location is dangerous, and he knows they take a risk every time they attempt to share the gospel or invite anyone to hear Paul.”

  “So,” Roberto interjected, “he decides to give them a safe haven.”

  She nodded, a soft smile on her burgundy lips.

  He gazed at the foundation around him with new eyes. “But something happened,” he offered. “Something went wrong.”

  With a cant of her head, Anna scrutinized him. “What do you mean?”

  “There are definite marks in the stone all throughout the foundation,” he pointed out. “Not tooling marks but gashes … harsh, deliberate blows, as if chisels were taken to it. Chisels and far worse.”

  She had seen the many scars in the stone, brutally inflicted wounds endured by a once beautiful edifice. Their antiquity was apparent, though she seized upon the opportunity to tease her top pupil.

  “I was hoping the university boys hadn’t done that.” She adjusted her collar. “So … what do you conclude?”

  “This house didn’t erode over the centuries,” Roberto said. “The elements didn’t do this. It didn’t gradually fall into ruin. It was demolished, and I’d say in a big hurry. Nero must have finally found it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Anna said, considering the stone. “Demolished, yes. You’re quite right about that. But by Nero? If he had, why are the steps still there at all? Why was th
e door down there intact, at least until these brutes got ahold of it today? And why isn’t there a historical record of Nero finding and destroying this place? Surely he’d have boasted of that no end.”

  As they stood pondering, the powerful fan below went quiet.

  “All clear.” Beth emerged with the fan and set it on the top step. “Breathe away.”

  Anna pulled her ever-present work gloves from a cargo pocket in her vest and slipped them over her lovely, sculpted hands.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Lead on,” Roberto gestured.

  She gathered her students at the rectangular portal and made sure each of them had a flashlight. “Neil, bring one of the light stands and plug it into the cord Beth ran. Craig, make sure you have a good battery in the camera.”

  “Will do,” said Neil, who sprang for the equipment van.

  Craig silently showed Anna the digital camera hung around his neck, his smile a guarantee. His T-shirt, dirty and battle weary and bearing the forgotten legend Vote for Pedro, inspired less confidence.

  In a moment Neil had returned with a folded tripod, atop which was mounted a quartz light. “All set.”

  They descended the stairway. For the first time, Anna was able to see its every detail as it wound gently counterclockwise before them. The stones lining the passage were precisely cut out of black marble, their faces contoured perfectly to follow the path of descent—those on the left hand slightly convex, and those on the right concave.

  “Isn’t it something?” Beth said, running a hand along the smooth stone. “We were so excited … we couldn’t wait for you to see it.”

  “Something,” Anna replied, her throat tight.

  A delicate pattern in silver—Roman, yet not quite Roman in design—was set into each step beneath their feet. Its Judean influence spoke of a spirit beyond that of the Caesars, beyond that of Jupiter and Minerva and Apollo.

  And in the pattern, Anna saw the heart of one man who had been shown the way.

  She was grateful that the looters hadn’t allowed themselves time to excavate the steps, though there was a sign of damage done—some of the silver on one of the steps had been dug away, crudely and with haste.