by Madyson Rush
He caught a blurry glance of the fishermen and ran to the railing. His eyes were swelling shut. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see at all. “What are you doing?” he shouted.
They had cut the towlines. The fishing boat was disappearing behind the monstrous tide. Its engine roared to life, propelling them further from David.
There was nothing he could do. He rubbed madly at his eyes. The blurred vision of Patmos’s rocky crags was only a few feet from the Abaddon’s stern. Herculean waves were pushing the yacht ashore.
A shadow moved behind him on the deck.
Something heavy smashed against his skull. Sharp pain silenced his thoughts.
Chapter 47
Thursday 3:40 p.m.
Stenness Basecamp
Orkney, Scotland
Thatcher rounded the corner to Hummer’s office. She took in a deep breath and gave the door a sturdy knock.
“Come in,” his gruff voice sounded irritated.
She opened the door but stayed in the doorway. Her posture was perfect. It was the only exactness she could maintain.
“Take a seat.” He motioned to the cushioned chair beside his desk and flashed an unusual smile.
Thatcher tried to mask her uneasiness. Hummer smiling? It was disconcerting.
“What’s our status?” He loosened his tie.
“We evacuated the Highlands.” She searched the room for an explanation of his civility, and noticed a bottle of whiskey on an empty bookshelf. Brilliant. Hummer was drunk. He was one of the few battle-axes for whom sobriety bred hostility and alcohol elicited joviality.
She cleared her throat. “Banffshire, Kincardineshire, and Morayshire have been evacuated. All of the islands within a 300-km radius of Stenness are currently being cleared. We’ve taken preventative measures in Ireland and Wales, clearing out anyone near active grave sites.”
“What’s the public’s response to this whole bloody mess?” Hummer tapped his fingers lightly on his desk.
“Well, just that, sir,” she answered. “It’s a mess. A controlled panic. The press is mad for it. They’re reporting the Hanta virus is plaguing the nation.”
Hummer shook his head. “Chaos always works in our favor.”
“They’re scared.”
Hummer leaned back in his chair and smoothed his eyebrows with his forefinger. “What about you, Brynne?”
“Sir?”
“Are you scared?”
“Should I be?” The pit in her stomach deepened when Hummer looked away.
After a moment, he stood and faced the live feed on the screen behind her. There was a map of the active passage graves, and Marek’s oval-shaped estimates on areas that should be evacuated.
This was too strange: the silence, his drunkenness. Hummer knew something important and couldn’t tell her. He wanted her to figure it out.
He staggered across the room and helped himself to the whiskey, pouring the last few ounces into his glass. “Fancy a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Good, ‘cause I’m plum out.” He lifted the glass toward her then returned to his chair. For a moment, his anxiety mingled with indigestion, giving his cheeks a purplish color. He pulled a handful of antacids from his drawer and tossed them into his mouth. “Quite a combination,” he murmured, taking a swig. He set the glass on his desk. “Thank you, Dr. Brynne. That’s all.”
Dr. Brynne?
Thatcher started for the door.
“Brynne?”
She faced him.
“You’ve acted admirably in this whole mishmash.”
She forced a tight smile. “Thank you.”
He nodded and watched her go. She shut the door behind her.
What the hell was that all about?
Chapter 48
THURSDAY, 9:03 p.m.
Aegean Sea, Greece
The darkness penetrated his eyelids.
His eyes were too swollen to open, but he could tell it was night. The rain had stopped.
As the world and his surroundings slowly came together, he realized he was curled up in the bottom of a rowboat. The wooden slats felt rough against his cheek. Water lapped against the sides as the boat rose and fell in the current.
Prickly bindings held his wrists and feet together. The rope was strange, made of sharp metallic twine. When he twisted, the bindings became tighter. The material dug into his flesh. He stopped struggling and listened for his captor instead.
Someone’s strained breathing was barely audible over the wash of waves. A person was at the stern, a good foot or so beyond David’s legs. Paddles dipped into the sea and propelled them forward. David could hear seawater crashing against the shore a short distance ahead.
They were nearing land.
He tried to speak. His throat was too dry.
There was no response, just methodical rowing.
He tried to sit up.
Vertigo flooded his brain. His head pounded so loudly that his ears began to ring. Dizzy, he collapsed against the stern, and the world went dark again.
Chapter 49
THURSDAY, 10:48 p.m.
Stenness Basecamp
Orkney, Scotland
Worry and wait. Worry and wait.
She was too tired to think about anything but David. There was no focus. Even her vision was hazy, especially under the dim blue lights. Her brain was drowning in an overcast fog. She looked at her watch. When was the last time she’d slept?
If Hummer had time to get pissed, she had time for a nap.
She stopped at her personal quarters and dropped onto her bed, pulling her pillow underneath her head. Something jabbed her ribs. She pulled a pile of paperwork out from under the sleeping bag.
Passage Graves: The Transportation of Faith
In the rush, she’d completely forgotten about Brenton’s paper.
She switched on the bedside lamp and flipped through the pages. There were diagrams of passage graves, a cross-sectional illustration of Maeshowe. The ruin seemed so innocuous in photographs. David had called it a dead monument. Silent. Unthreatening. Harmless.
Midway through the paper, a set of colored pictures provided a panoramic view of the petroglyphs and Viking graffiti inside Maeshowe’s inner chamber. A tiny spiral symbol had been carefully hand-drawn in marker over the northeast wall.
Strange.
The spiral wasn’t in the same place as the actual glowing petroglyph, but the fact that someone drew it in at all was perplexing.
Had Brenton known it would appear?
The caption beneath caught her attention.
“Eternal stones,” she read. “See glossary.” She found the term at the back of the paper.
Eternal Stones: Spiral petroglyph symbols of ancient unknown origin expressed by numerous, diverse, and seemingly unrelated cultures throughout antiquity. The symbol represents the eternal nature of mankind—a circle that winds in upon itself without end—and can be likened to the soul of man: everlasting.
Four unique eternal stones are believed to exist within lost or unknown ruins. Unlike their common prehistoric cousins, these bear a circular cavity at the centermost point of each spiral. The hole symbolizes the end, an apocalyptic extinction similar to that predicted by the Mayan Tzolkin calendar.
The author believes these four stone pictograms act as locks. The cavity (or keyhole) will be unlocked per Christian eschatology, by four of the seven seals prophesied in Saint John’s Book of Revelations. When unlocked, each eternal stone will unleash a curse: Conqueror, War, Plague, and Death, also known as the powers of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Thatcher turned the page and found a penciled illustration of Brenton’s theory. The spiral petroglyph with a hole at its center was labeled “keyhole,” and a small round stone underneath was labeled “key.” An arrow pointed from the “key” to the “keyhole.” It made sense.
“‘Insert here to begin Apocalypse,” she read the instructions with tired amusement. “He must be joking.”
Thatcher skimmed the next few pages and then skipped to the end of the manuscript. “So how does it all end, Dr. Hyden?”
She stopped midway through the last chapter, pausing at a drawing of a man sinking into the sandy floor of a passage grave’s inner chamber. Half his body was swallowed by the earth. The caption read: For Believers, portal tombs can be literal passage ways to other sacred monuments.
She tossed the manuscript to the ground and shut off her light.
“You’re right, David,” she whispered. “The man was a nutter.”
Chapter 50
THURSDAY, 10:55 p.m.
Al Kebabish
Northhampton, England
At the end of the hallway, lamplight bent underneath the Rabbi’s door.
The hall felt darker than usual. It was as if some demonic vapor haunted the building. Perhaps it was simply a consequence of reading the Beb’ne Hoshekh.
Ian stumbled over something on the floor and caught himself against the wall. His cane bounced across the tile. The sudden movement caused the mark in his palm to bleed again. The stubborn sores wouldn’t close. Blood perpetually seeped out of the Hebrew lettering, leaving his fingers tingling cold. He tightened the handkerchief covering his wound and searched the darkness for his cane.
A chair scooted across the floor in the room ahead.
“It’s just me, Rabbi,” Ian called out, groping along the floor for his cane. His hands stopped at a much smaller metal object instead.
There was a rubber grip, a six-inch metal barrel.
He held it into the light.
God!
Ian dropped the gun. He limped to the door, pushing it open. “Rabbi?”
Blood was everywhere. There were puddles on the desk and floor. The walls were splattered with red.
“Are you looking for this?”
Ian turned to see Javan sitting in an armchair beside the window. His porcelain teeth looked sharp like a viper. His silver hair was molded over his scalp, covering the scar that was once his ear. His neck was open with hideous sores.
Javan held up the fragments of Beb’ne Hoshekh.
“Where’s the Rabbi?” Ian could barely find his voice.
“Communing with Jehovah.” Javan smiled. “Or so you’d like to think.”
The smell of blood turned Ian’s stomach. “You killed him?”
Javan nodded at the gun in the doorway. “You killed him.”
Ian retracted in horror, stepping towards the door.
“Did you really think no one would notice the bizarre new habits you’ve developed? Running off to London these last few nights…and to a curry house of all places.” His lips turned upward in a thin smile. “Dettorio,” he called out.
Javan’s driver stepped behind Ian into the room. There was a can of petrol in his arms.
“You’ve made this far too easy,” Javan said. “Four pounds twenty are missing from the church tithe, used to purchase fare into London. The gun is registered to David, stolen from your brother’s apartment.”
He clicked his tongue as Dettorio kicked the weapon to him.
Javan pulled a black glove from his pocket and examined the trigger. “Your prints are all over this. They’re also all over this room, along the windowsill, the desk, the walls--even the rubbish skip on the street below which now contains the body of your decaying friend. Scotland Yard is on their way as we speak.”
Ian couldn’t breathe.
It was over. Javan had won.
“I’ll tell them about the Beb’ne Hoshekh.” Ian leaned against the desk to stay upright. “I’ll tell them everything.”
Javan nodded to his driver. Dettorio poured gasoline across the floor. The vapors suffocated the air. Petrol spilled over the desk, soaking the papers, the Torah, the other Hebrew scrolls.
“No.” Ian grabbed Dettorio’s arm.
Javan raised David’s gun. “Shall we make this a murder-suicide?”
Ian slunk back against the desk. There was nothing he could do.
“I was prepared to give you justice. All I asked was that you trust me.” Javan’s eyes narrowed. “Was it worth it? Whatever the Rabbi told you? Did you uncover the location of the first seal? The identity of the Firstborn Chosen?”
Ian clenched his teeth. Javan was toying with him now.
“You never questioned why the Beb’ne Hoshekh would be in his possession in the first place?” Javan’s upper lip quivered. His every movement was painful. “The man was a traitor. To you, to Brenton, to Abaddon. He needed you. He wanted the power of Horseman for himself.”
Ian’s lungs tightened as the intoxicating stench of gasoline overwhelmed the room.
“He needed me?” Was it true? Was he the Firstborn Chosen? Had he just been a pawn in the Rabbi’s game, too?
Dettorio emptied the can and tossed it the floor.
“A priest has murdered a rabbi.” Javan handed the gun to Dettorio. “What is this world coming to?”
Dettorio cocked the gun. A bullet fell into the chamber.
Ian sputtered. “But I’m the Chosen One!”
They couldn’t kill him. He was the only one that could retrieve the seal. Sacred blood pumped through his veins prophesying of his entitlement.
Javan pulled a lighter from his coat pocket.
With a flick of his thumb, it came alive. A yellow flame danced above the colorless butane. He held out the Beb’ne Hoshekh. The document caught fire. Blazing orange consumed the Hebrew text.
“Haven’t you learned yet, Ian?”
The Beb’ne Hoshekh dropped to the ground. The floor crackled with a fanning inferno.
“I can kill anyone. I am Belial.”
Chapter 51
THURSDAY, 11:58 p.m.
Islet of Arkii, Greece
His eyes were dry and heavy, his eyelids swollen shut with crusty, grainy paste. He had no idea where he was. The world was dark. He knew that much. But there was no sense of time. Water was not lapping against the sides of a boat. In fact, there was no boat, no roar of waves, no ocean at all. The only thing he could hear was his own strained breathing. He was lying on his side, a dirt floor beneath him. The ground was cool to the touch and moist. There was a rock wall behind him.
Something wet dripped over his legs. He reached for it, but stopped, suddenly aware of the sharp pain in his wrists. He was bound with prickly metal. Somehow he had forgotten that.
Water droplets spilled over his face, stinging his eyes. He opened his mouth to drink.
The object was placed into his hands.
“Keep it on your eyes,” a gruff voice echoed off the walls, displacing the source.
Too parched to speak, David studied the texture with his fingers. It was a sponge of some sort, squishy and misshapen, oblong and saturated with fresh water. He lifted the sponge over his eyes and let water run down his face into his mouth. The cool moisture permeated his sandpaper eyes. He worked them open, and a blurry world came into view.
They were in a cave. Pervading darkness was kept at bay by a few flickering candle stubs set into fissures within the rocks. The ceiling and walls were stained with soot. The grime blotted out most of the gold-plated artwork that decorated the cave. Each image of piety had worn away over the centuries, leaving only a hint of the frescoes of Christ and His martyred saints that had once extended across the length of the wall.
David rubbed at his eyes.
“Leave them alone and they will get better.” Across the room, his captor sat cross-legged, concealed by a long black robe. The small visible portion of his face was hideous. Skin bubbled across his cheeks. His beard was reduced to stubble. Beneath the melted abstraction was a familiar prominent nose.
“Vanderkam?” The dryness of David’s throat made him choke.
The man refilled the sponge and pressed the water to David’s lips.
“Are you David?” Vanderkam sounded as though his larynx was partially paralyzed. His German accent was ravaged.
David nodded. Pain coursed throug
h his head, and he immediately regretted moving. He resorted to speaking but could only manage a few words.
The man examined David’s face. “Does anyone know you are in Greece?”
David cleared his throat. The water was helping. “No.”
Vanderkam trembled as he clutched the sponge.
“How is Brenton?”
“Dead.”
“Gottes willen…” Vanderkam turned away. “And the seal?”
“Huh?”
Vanderkam looked confused. “He didn’t send you to get it?”
David tried to sit up. The bindings cut into his flesh. He lifted the twine around his arms in complaint.
“A precaution.” Vanderkam pulled a knife from his belt.
“Where am I?” David managed to speak more than one word.
“The Islet of Arkii. An abandoned island, unpopulated. It’s a safe place.”
David flinched as Vanderkam worked through the bindings. The rope slowly unraveled.
Vanderkam sat back and stared at him grimly. “Do you know of Abaddon?”
“The yacht?”
Vanderkam exhaled in annoyance. “The Book of Revelations. Apocalyptic prophecies were placed into seven casements and locked with seven seals. This was thousands of years ago, inside a cave eight miles south of us.”
“Patmos.” David knew the location. Brenton had studied these places obsessively. Most of David’s childhood had been spent in the waste places of biblical lands.
“Abaddon protects these writings and seals.” He collapsed the knife and clipped it to his belt. “Well, they were supposed to protect the seals. The faith of our fathers has long been corrupted. The purpose of the seals and their eternal stones were forgotten until Brenton’s discovery.”
David had no idea what Vanderkam was talking about.
“Your father found the lost ending to the War Rule.”
“The Dead Sea Scroll fragment?” It was almost laughable, if he wasn’t in such pain. “That was discovered decades ago, and not by him.” David’s voice was hoarse.
“The original War Rule is a torn fragment. The ending to the scroll was torn away and lost for centuries. Your father found the missing ending—the lost words of the Beb’ne Hoshekh.”