The Demas Revelation

by Shane Johnson

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Look at that armor they’re wearing … They certainly aren’t Roman. But they’re not Greek, either.”

  In complete wonderment, Anna stepped farther into the room, letting it surround her. It was roughly rectangular, its walls curvaceous in form with deep horizontal recesses cut in groups of three throughout. A raised, circular platform with tapered sides, something like an altar, rose in the center of the room.

  “These could be loculi,” Dyson said, indicating one of the recesses. “Except—”

  “Except for their length,” Anna finished. “They aren’t long enough for a human body. At least, not one over four and a half feet tall.”

  Another rumble sounded, so low as to be felt more than heard. The floor, for an instant, shuddered beneath them. Anna’s discomfort quickly grew.

  Qumran …

  “So,” Dyson pressed on. “What are they? They’re all empty.”

  “I don’t like this, Jack,” Anna said. “We should go. I’m not risking a cave-in. I’m not risking losing you.”

  “Just a few more minutes, Anna,” he insisted. “Please.”

  With a terse nod she assented but wasn’t happy about it.

  “The notches in the wall?” he asked again.

  “Display alcoves of some sort, I’d guess. But what was meant to go there, I haven’t a clue.”

  “Funerary urns?” Dyson ventured.

  Anna shrugged. “Let’s just get some pictures and leave.”

  “We already got a few general views. If you see anything you want detailed shots of, focus on those.”

  She reached into her bag, fishing for her camera. As her fingers probed, her interest in the altar mounted.

  “It’s amazing, Jack,” she said, slowly circling the structure as she continued digging blindly in her bag. “This altar definitely isn’t Roman. The whole place, whatever it is, doesn’t seem to belong here. It’s as if—”

  She screamed and jumped back, her attention locked on something low and in shadow. Dyson reflexively lunged forward, placing himself between Anna and whatever she had seen.

  It was a skeleton, clothed in the tattered remains of a robe.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It startled me is all.”

  “We didn’t see it before,” he apologized. “We just gave the place a quick once-over. We mostly focused on the temple upstairs.”

  She stepped forward, holding her light toward the skeletal remains. The man had huddled in a niche, a hollow formed where the wide base of the altar flowed into the wall. Beside him, on the floor, rested an oil lamp of bronze, its original luster long since lost to a green and gray patina. In his lap rested an object Anna immediately recognized. It was approximately one square foot and crafted of leather, with a shoulder strap that hung loosely on the floor. She lowered herself to one knee, set her gym bag aside, and, foregoing her gloves, carefully picked up the artifact.

  “This is a writing pouch,” she said, turning the tooled antiquity in her hands. “He was a scribe.”

  She looked at Dyson.

  “Open it,” he suggested. “It is Christmas.”

  She lifted the cover flap, wary of its brittleness. Peering inside with her flashlight, she saw a small bronze inkpot and split-nib pens of both reed and bronze.

  “Pens and ink,” she told him. Pulling an inner flap forward, she saw many sheets of papyrus tucked neatly away.

  They all had writing on them. In Greek.

  Anna gasped.

  “What is it?” Dyson asked, directing his light toward the site so she could work with both hands. Reaching into the bag, Anna pulled the leaves free of the pouch and gently returned it to the man’s lap.

  She stood, her light spilling onto the tawny pages, and began to read. Just a few lines in, tears began to stream.

  “Anna?” he asked. “What is it?”

  She stared at the papyri, her hands shaking, and felt a warmth clutch her heart, knowing something precious had been returned to her. In one searing flash it swept her, filling her even as her fingertips filled deep imprints wrought by cruel iron nails.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said, her voice breaking as she reached for her bag. “Right now.”

  “Anna …?”

  “Now!”

  She rushed toward the stairs, the papyri in her hands. Dyson was close behind.

  “Anna! What is it?”

  She stopped abruptly. Someone suddenly was there, standing before them.

  “Neil?” Anna asked, surprised to see her former student at the foot of the steps. “What are you doing here?”

  The ground rumbled as Neil Meyer stood before them, blocking the way.

  “Hello, professor.”

  “I don’t understand,” Anna said. “How did you know where I was? And why are you here in the first place? You went home back in May.”

  “I came back,” he flatly stated. “Unfinished business.”

  “This whole area is closed off, son,” Dyson said, sensing something very wrong. “How did you get through?”

  “We need to leave here,” Anna said, but Neil didn’t move.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Gunshots rang out in the temple above, the echoes repeating down the stairway. A shadow appeared at the top of the stairs. A figure descended, one Neil didn’t seem surprised to see.

  Raphael.

  Anna backed away a step or two, coming to rest against Dyson. She clutched the papyri to her chest, then tried too late to hide them behind her. They had been seen.

  “Ah, Dr. Dyson,” the tall man said, smirking as he leveled a gun at them both. “How lovely to see you again. How is the shoulder holding up?”

  Dyson glared, working to contain the hatred bubbling within him.

  “You’re with him?” Anna asked the student, incredulous.

  “This young man has been quite a help,” Raphael said. “Every move you’ve made the last year or so has been relayed to me. And every move you planned to make as well.”

  “What?”

  “I tapped your phone,” Neil bragged. “Soon after I joined your class. I heard every call you placed or received.”

  “Why?” Anna demanded. “Why would you do that, Neil?”

  Neil took a step forward, glaring at her.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?” he said. “You never did. You have no idea.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course, I know you.”

  “Look closely,” he said angrily. “You should know me, but you don’t.”

  “Neil,” Anna said, “that’s enough. You’re making no sense.”

  “No?” He stepped closer still. “Here’s a clue. You killed my father.”

  What?

  “You’re crazy, kid,” Dyson said.

  “Hardly,” the boy insisted. “My last name wasn’t Meyer then. It was Grant.”

  Anna, shocked, stared into the face before her, finally finding a likeness hidden by the years.

  “Scooter?” she asked, barely able to believe it.

  “It was Neil, always,” he said. “You never even bothered to ask my given name.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Dyson asked Anna.

  “His father,” she said. “He died with Sam at Qumran.”

  “You killed him,” Neil said. “You took him out into the desert, and you killed him. I’d already lost my mother. Then you took him away from me. He should never have been in that cave at all. We were supposed to have spent that day together.”

  “It was an accident, Neil,” Anna said, her heart breaking for him. “I lost my husband too. I liked your father very much. He was a good man.”

  “He was all I had!” Neil shouted.r />
  For more than a decade, an irrational hatred had festered and grown in Neil’s heart, untethered by rational thought. It was a rage feeding upon itself, growing, burning hotter as the years passed.

  “Do you know what it’s like to grow up in a strange city with someone you hardly know?” he asked. “Someone who only took you in for the social-security check, whose husband resents your being under the same roof? I was abused. I was beaten. All because you robbed me of my father. When I got old enough to leave and found out you were still at Oldefield, I had to find you. I had nothing, but my grades were good enough to get me enrolled on a hardship grant, using my mother’s maiden name.”

  “Neil,” she said with curtained eyes, “I’m so sorry. It must have been terrible, what you went through. But what happened to your father—”

  “Wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t dragged him out into the desert!” The more Neil shouted, the angrier he became.

  “All right,” Dyson said, lightly gripping Anna’s shoulders as he stared past her at the student. “Enough!”

  “Shut up!” Neil snapped, his eyes fixed on Anna. “You think you’re so smart, but you never suspected a thing. Never! I was the one who told Raphael about the dig at Rome. I stole the papyrus from the box that first day, after you kicked us all out of the lab and went to make a phone call.”

  “You couldn’t have. The lab was locked.”

  “I overrode the access code with an electronic gizmo Raphael gave me. I gave him the leaf and told him about the second set of scrolls in Pompeii.”

  “So, why didn’t you just take them all?” Anna demanded.

  “I would have … but I was interrupted by that stupid security guard. I’d paused to look at one of the leaves when suddenly there he was, at the door. I’d left it open. I ducked down and was afraid he’d seen me. But he hadn’t, and after he came in I managed to slip out behind him. I was lucky to get the one scroll shoved into my shirt.”

  “So,” an amazed Anna said, “this has all been about some twisted vendetta against me?”

  “Not just you!”

  “Who else, then? Who else have you hurt?”

  “God!” he seethed. “He let my father die. He let you kill him! So when those scrolls appeared, I couldn’t let you hide them away. With those, I could destroy you and God and all those who believed in him, with one fatal blow. It was perfect!”

  “Oh, Neil,” Anna mourned, crushed that hatred had so fiercely consumed him.

  At that moment a brief tremor, more powerful than the others, shook the chamber.

  “We should get out of here,” Dyson said. “The quakes are getting worse.”

  “You aren’t leaving,” Raphael said, recentering the aim of his gun.

  “She deserves to die,” Neil said. “In a cave-in. Like my father.”

  “Trifles,” the robber gloated. “Ancient history. First, I must thank you, dear lady, for the lovely silver cross we found in that room you excavated. Fetched a pretty penny. Too bad we failed to look behind the rotas square … Could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  Anna glowered at him, her anger rising. “It was you! You stole the Aztec calendar at Oaxaca.”

  Raphael only smiled.

  “Sam knew,” she went on. “He found proof. I found a notation in his journal, written the morning he died.”

  Raphael laughed. “And where is this proof?”

  Anna looked down. “I don’t know. But it was there. He wrote that he had it with him at Qumran …”

  “Ah …” The thief smiled with glee. “‘I don’t know.’ The eternal excuse of the almost-great.”

  And then, looking into those cold eyes, she knew.

  “It was you.”

  “Was it now?”

  “At the cave. You knew he’d found you out. You followed him …”

  “Hardly. I was in a Mexican jail at the time for, shall we say, an unconnected indiscretion.”

  “And Sam knew that, didn’t he? If he’d gotten that evidence to the Mexican authorities with you already in custody …”

  “You see? I was indisposed … thousands of miles from Qumran.”

  “You sent men,” Anna accused him in an even tone, her eyes wide. “They followed him. They stole the evidence from him before he could use it against you, and then …”

  A visible shudder ran through her, and Dyson held her more tightly. Anger burned as the horror clawed at her flesh.

  “They caused the cave-in!”

  “Did they now?” Raphael toyed.

  “You killed Sam and Grant!”

  A laugh burst from the man’s throat. “If true, I’d imagine the plastic explosives used in the cavern would have made for an impressive display, wouldn’t you think? Such a clever bunch might even have made it look like an accident, so no suspicion could possibly fall on … well, whoever it was who sent them.”

  Anna looked up at Dyson, her eyes glistening even as anger flared behind them.

  “I must say,” Raphael added, “I’m grateful to whatever kind soul devised that mission of mercy. Being where I was at the time, it would have gone very badly for me had your dear departed husband’s evidence come to light.”

  “You?!” Neil shouted. “All along, it was you?”

  He charged at Raphael. The gun fired, its report echoing sharply throughout the chamber, and Neil crumpled to the floor.

  “Neil!” Anna cried, dropping to the young man’s side. She cradled his head as he shook, spasms rocking him. Blood spilled from beneath him, spreading in a wide pool.

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” he said weakly, his eyes searching, unable to find her face.

  She felt him die in her arms.

  Raphael leveled the gun at Dyson. “Please back away, Doctor. A nice comfortable distance.”

  “Do it, Jack,” Anna said.

  “But …”

  “It’ll be okay,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “I beg to differ,” Raphael said.

  Dyson stepped back and to the side, stopping at a point as far from her as Raphael was. Suddenly the professor jammed his hand into his jacket pocket and pointed it toward his enemy.

  “Drop it, Raphael,” he barked.

  “Very dramatic, Doctor,” the man said. “But I happen to know you don’t have a gun. My sources tell me you haven’t carried one since Pompeii.” He aimed squarely at Anna. “Shall I put my information to the test?”

  After a tense moment, Dyson pulled out his hand to reveal a closed pocketknife.

  “I’m sorry, Anna.”

  “And now, Miss Meridian,” Raphael said, “I’ll take those papyri.”

  She rose to her feet, her eyes widening in horror.

  “Now, if you please,” Raphael insisted. “Obviously, you were trying to protect them … How important you must consider them to be. If they are what I think they are, were they to become public, they would cost me millions. And, suffice it to say, some of my more unforgiving buyers would seek a very unpleasant retribution for my having provided them with false antiquities.”

  He held out his hand, but Anna didn’t budge.

  “The papyri,” he said with calm venom.

  “No.”

  He stepped forward, lifting the gun higher.

  “The papyri,” he demanded again, more chillingly. “Please don’t make me shoot you. I would so hate to ruin such a lovely face.”

  She knew he could just kill her and take the leaves from her lifeless fingers. But she also knew he wanted her to surrender, to yield to him, to lose to him one final time. He wanted that final victory. She clutched the papyri more tightly and, that merciful fire rekindled, silently prayed.

  He stepped forward again, pressed the tip of the gun barrel against her forehead, and coc
ked it.

  “Last chance,” he said.

  Anna stared into his cold, unfeeling eyes.

  “No,” she repeated, the word final, tears coursing.

  “Pity,” he said.

  Dyson lunged. In that instant a tremor violently rocked the chamber, knocking them all off their feet. The hammer of the gun slammed home, the report swallowed by the din as the bullet harmlessly struck overhanging stone and ricocheted away. Dyson fell hard into one of the wall alcoves before struggling to his feet. Anna clung to a pillar, hanging on for life as the floor buckled violently beneath her, undulating like the ocean’s surface. The rumble was deafening, the upheaval prolonged, as if the world itself were coming apart. Rock and dust rained down. Raphael, unable to regain his balance, lost the gun, stumbled over Neil’s body, and landed sprawled upon the altar.

  The air was a choking haze. Dyson ran through the shower of debris and found Anna. The papyri were no longer in her hands.

  “We have to go!” he shouted, though she couldn’t hear him. She whirled to see a mass of stone fall from the ceiling, pinning Raphael to the altar, crushing him. With a seemingly defiant spasm of dying muscle, he clutched at nothing and went still.

  Dyson grabbed her hand and pulled her up the stairs. No daylight shone from above. Struggling to keep their footing, they were thrown repeatedly against the walls of the passageway.

  They burst into the temple above, only to find it, too, crumbling under the strain. To one side, amid the cloak of dust and falling debris, Anna saw a robed figure, huge in stature and surrounded by light, his upstretched arms holding a massive beam that alone now supported the heavy ceiling above. The stone glowed red where his hands gripped it. He turned amid the chaos, and his piercing eyes met Anna’s.

  Those eyes. That smile. The face, no longer crowned by a time-worn fedora, was one she knew.

  You answered the call, she somehow heard him say, though his lips never moved.

  Her mouth fell open, and again she became aware of being pulled roughly toward the crumbling doorway. Time seemed to slow, to flow like thickened oil. When they were finally through and into the open air, they saw it had grown dark.

  Too dark, too soon.

  The temple completely collapsed behind them, tiny fragments of shattered stone pelting their arms and legs. The guards they had met on the way in were lying on the ground, dead from gunshot wounds. Running for their lives and barely able to see, Anna and Dyson barreled ahead, toward the Vespa. He focused on the scooter, pulling her behind him. She glanced upward.