Salem's Cipher

by Jess Lourey

  Mrs. Molony nodded. “Here’s where I was talking. The well I was to dig. That’s where I uncovered the symbol that brought you here.”

  Salem pushed a loose curl from her eyes. “You dug a well by your grandmother’s grave?”

  The woman shrugged. “That’s where the water is.”

  Salem didn’t meet Len’s glance. Instead, she focused on the story she’d relay to Bel—Bel, who was in physical therapy and learning to navigate the world without workable legs, who’d threatened to drug Salem and tattoo Loser on her forehead if she didn’t take the Black Chamber job, who’d joked that it was easier to land dates in a wheelchair because all the women she met wanted to take care of her.

  Salem was smiling when the bird swooped at her. “Gah!”

  She swung wildly at the air, ignoring Len’s startled laughter. The magpie flapped and squawked before taking off for the copse of trees.

  Salem straightened her jacket and glanced around, embarrassed. Muirinn was staring at her, her rheumy eyes suddenly clear. Her smile was gone. Salem’s stomach clenched uncomfortably.

  A ripple passed across Muirinn’s lined face. She pointed a bent finger at Salem, and then the bird. “Tip your hat at it, or you’re destined for a life of bad luck.”

  Lady, you don’t know the half of it. But Salem made a tipping motion with an imaginary hat. Len coughed.

  Muirinn’s smile returned just as a cloud scudded over the sun. “That’s all right, then. Here it is.” She stepped to the fresh-dug hole and indicated that Len and Salem should do the same. “When I first saw the symbol, it put the heart crossways in me. Thought it was a tiny set of graves right next to me Maimeó’s.”

  Len reached the hole first. He went completely still.

  Salem stepped beside him.

  She followed his gaze.

  Her breath turned to dust in her throat.

  There, in a divot of dirt as thick and fresh as blood, someone had first dug and then scraped away an area the size of a manhole cover. In the center, a diorama jutted like teeth from the ground.

  It was an almost perfect replica of Stonehenge.

  Constructed over four thousand years ago, the original Stonehenge was made up of enormous rocks, some of them bluestones transported more than 200 miles. How the stones were moved was shrouded with as much mystery as the purpose of the stone ring. Some archeologists argued that it was a burial site. Others, citing the unusual number of deformities and the broad ethnic diversity in the human remains found at the site, contended that the original Stonehenge was a place of mystical healing. Still others were sure that it was a type of astronomical calendar.

  The original Stonehenge was different from the miniature Mrs. Molony had uncovered in only two regards: the size, and Mrs. Molony’s had an extra piece.

  And if archeologists could see what Salem was looking at now, they’d have no question what Stonehenge was built for. But that’s not why Salem’s heart was thudding in the cage of her chest.

  No, what had her suddenly feeling like a hunted animal was the tiny letters carved on that extra piece, their edges dull but still legible: mercy.

  The same three initials found on the locket worn by Bel’s mother the night she was murdered.

  Former FBI agent Clancy Johnson sat across the table from the connection, surrounded by the clamor of Rome. Clancy’d been on the move since he’d bungled the assassination of President Gina Hayes. He was tired of running. “It’s got to happen in London.”

  The connection’s brow furrowed. “Her security detail will be even higher outside of her regular routine.”

  “Yes and no.” Clancy patted his shirt and tugged out a pack of Camels. He’d quit six years earlier but had decided that as a dead man walking, the least he deserved was to smoke.

  “More security, less certainty,” he continued. “It’ll be chaos at the convention. Protestors. Media. That girl has the world on fire. Everyone will be watching her. Plus, we have someone the president trusts on our side.”

  “Who?”

  Clancy grabbed the sleeve of the waiter passing by. “Light?”

  The waiter scowled but flicked a matchbook out of his pocket. The one good thing about Rome was that everyone smoked. That, and the pepper cheese pasta dish they served. Clancy could bathe in the stuff, it was that good. He inhaled the soothing fingers of smoke, letting them caress his lungs from the inside. “Before I give up that information, I’m going to need verification you’re with the Hermitage.”

  Across the table, the man’s face started twitching. Clancy first thought the connection was going to smile. Then it looked like the guy was on the north side of a seizure, which’d be a damn shame because it would mean Clancy’d have to get dressed up and sell this story to someone else. A half second later, the twitches rode deeper, and a sound like wishbones snapping came off the guy’s face.

  Clancy wondered if he was on some weird hidden camera show.

  Or maybe he was asleep, dreaming this whole time?

  Then the man’s face shifted entirely. Suddenly, he was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. If Clancy’d had any food in his body, he’d have shit himself.

  The man spoke, his eyes watering from pain, his face an angel’s. “In Europe we don’t call ourselves the Hermitage. Here we’re the Order.”