The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  He took them to the reading room, but motioned them to continue on. He led them further to a creaking metal lift with shiny steel doors, out of place amongst the frescos and vaulted ceilings. The metal lift connected different floors, all part of a temperature and humidity controlled subterranean bunker system.

  Hidden behind the dun-colored walls of these bunkers, millions of documents catalogued in 1,300 parchment-bound inventories dating back centuries. It was these centuries ago that the Vatican had the foresight to realise what so often common people do not, knowledge is power and to this extent judging by the size and scale of the bunkers below, they had amassed a large amount of it.

  He produced a pass card from his chest pocket which he used to start the elevator. Xavier and Tasha stepped in and stood across from him as the doors shut and the elevator jolted to life with a flicker of lights and a low whirring sound.

  He looked at them casually and then leaned slightly to press the emergency stop button, simultaneously producing a small pocket pistol from its sheath behind his back. He lifted the pistol pointing it directly at Natasha.

  Seeing the pistol pointed at her Xavier fumed “what are you doing? How dare you hold a gun to a lady.”

  Barnabas lips parted in a crooked smile “I’m not a fool, with the size of you, I would not be able to do enough damage with a gun like this before you could get to me, the girl on the other hand…” Barnabas was shrewd and could see Xavier's affection for her.

  Xavier seethed with rage “you are making a very big mistake.”

  Barnabas cocked one eyebrow and his thin nostrils flared. “We’ll see. Who are you, who sent you?”

  “My Uncle, Dr Eugene Barrow. You were expecting him.”

  His eyes narrowed a little “and you know this how?”

  “Because, he’s my Uncle!” Tasha blurted out, “and he’s dead.” The finality of that statement made it finally real for her.

  “Dead?” Barnabas's face softened a little and the gun lowered slightly “Dead, how?”

  “He was murdered. Before he died he told us we needed to get something to you, something of importance.”

  “How do I know you are who you say you are?” he still remained cautious, his grip on the pistol unwavering.

  “My Uncle gave me this” she said lifting her hand up slowly, palm upwards showing him the face of the ring, which she had turned to face towards her rather than display outwards.

  Barnabas lowered his gun. “So you have it?” he probed. Tasha nodded. “But Eugene is dead?” she nodded in confirmation again. He seemed to lose his composure for a moment, and then regained it. “Your Uncle was a friend of mine. I’m sorry for your loss.” He looked at her more closely, realising there was some family resemblance there. “You may have also know my father” Tasha continued “Malcolm Burrows?” He looked at her, examining her face again.

  “You are the daughter of Malcolm?” he asked and answered his own question. He looked a little surprised and then his face changed. “It is truly an honour to meet you.” He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing it. Xavier stepped forward slightly, becoming possessive and drawing himself to Barnabas’s attention again.

  “And you, who are you then?” Barnabas turned to him.

  “Nobody in particular, I was originally employed by Eugene, and then I helped Natasha get here.”

  “Then you must be somebody. Eugene would not trust his niece to just anyone.” He turned back towards Tasha “are you aware of what the ring can do?”

  She shook her head sideways back and forth “No, my Uncle told me it was important and that I needed it, but he didn’t have the chance to tell me why.”

  “Then let me show you” said Barnabas taking her hand again. Xavier was starting to wish that he would stop touching her.

  Barnabas raised her hand to the elevator wall. Above the floor selection buttons was a glass panel, it looked decorative, but as soon as she placed the ring against the panel it activated, and a ray of light appeared to scan the ring.

  “The ring has a micro laser inscription on it, a hidden code, invisible to the naked eye, it can only be picked up by a scanning electron microscope.” She looked at Xavier astonished. He was wearing a similar ring on his left hand. He lifted it and placed his hand turning the ring to face against the glass. It scanned his ring and confirmed his identity via fingerprint I.D.

  “So what happens now?” Natasha asked her eyes widening in wonder.

  “You are about to find out.” The elevator whirred to a start again, and they descended, the lights showed the floors as they passed, until there were no more lights and no more floors but the elevator kept going. There appeared to be a hidden floor and the ring was the key.

  The elevator jolted to a stop and Barnabas ushered them towards the door.

  “Now you will have to prove yourselves.”

  “What?” asked Tasha slack-jawed and suddenly nervous all over again.

  “You did not think it would be that easy did you?” The doors creaked open and a man stood before them, robed holding a golden chalice.

  “What kind of weirdness is this?” Xavier questioned Barnabas without receiving an answer.

  “It looks like the Chalice they use in church, the cup they use to hold the sacramental wine during the Eucharist, or Holy Communion.”

  “Only those who speak the truth may drink from the cup and live” said the cloaked man in a monotonous tone.

  “Well that's comforting” Tasha looked at Xavier and then turned extending her hand to take the cup.

  “Wait” Xavier put his hand on her arm to stop her, “are you sure you want to do this?” She nodded and took the cup.

  “May the truth set you free” said the hooded man.

  “Well that's not in the least bit creepy” Xavier said, stating the obvious. Tasha took the cup to her lips, hesitantly she sipped from the liquid inside. It tasted a little like warm licorice. She handed the cup back to the man, her arm shaking slightly.

  “What is your purpose in coming here?” asked the man in a deep voice that vibrated through the small chamber.

  “We are here to give you the orb, we are doing it on behalf of Eugene Burrows, my Uncle.”

  There was an ominous silence. “Well” Barnabas smiled “it would appear that you have passed.” Xavier breathed a sigh of relief. He had unwittingly held his breath the entire time.

  “What would have happened, if I was.. .well lying?” Tasha asked curiously.

  “Like a poisonous lie, the liquid that you drank would have turned to poison, boiling up inside your belly and consuming your organs.” Tasha gulped, he didn’t paint a pretty picture. But since that is now done, please meet Brother Gabriel. Brother Gabriel, meet Natasha and Xavier.” The hooded man removed his hood gently.

  “Pleased to meet you” Brother Gabriel bowed his head slightly. “Please, follow me” and he disappeared with a wave of his hand.

  “Where did he go?” queried Natasha. It was dim in the room and she couldn’t see where he had disappeared.

  “There is a door at the end of the room, it is an optical illusion” Barnabas led them to the doorway, almost naked to the visible eye for those who did not know it was there.

  “I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but I think he’s definitely part of the Ginger League” whispered Xavier as they passed through the door. Brother Gabriel’s skin was strangely white, almost pearlescent, and up top he had a shock of flame red hair. He could have passed as an albino without it. “I don’t think he gets much sun.”

  Natasha was ignoring him, spellbound by the cavernous room they had entered. “What is this place?” Natasha looked around basking in awe.

  “This is the world beyond worlds, once home of apothecaries and alchemists, it is now the keeper of iniquities, bearer of the egregious abominations of man and gods.”

  She looked curiously around at rows upon of shelves, housing artifacts and boxes, books and trinkets of varying sizes. There were jars with strange things
preserved inside them, and what looked like a locked vault at the end of the room.

  There were several workbenches at the front of the room, where two robed men sat both working on something she could not determine what. They looked up with interest as they entered. Along the side of the room there were several metal slabs brightly lit with Klieg lights clustered around them, at first glance leaving the impression of an operating theatre, but on a second more likely to be where autopsies and dissections were conducted.

  “Is that - is that what I think it is?” asked Natasha pointing to a jar containing what looked like a mummified head, there was one large eye prominent in the middle of its head.

  “A cyclops, no sadly not” Barnabas replied. “Unfortunately for this poor young fellow, the natives thought he was and took off his head. It was a birth defect, a very curious and rare one indeed called Cyclopia. He was hidden by his mother from birth. We’ve kept it, seems a shame he lost his head for no reason. It is such a shame, they normally don’t live very long. But that one next to it….” he pointed to a skull with what looked like two large elongated teeth, “is what remains of the head of a vampire as you would call it.”

  Tasha shuddered in disbelief. “To dispense with pleasantries however, I hear you have something we have been wanting to obtain for a very long time.”

  Tasha looked at him, he looked like a kid in a candy store, impatient like a five year old on Christmas morning shaking all the presents under the tree. His lips were pursed and his hands clasped together expectantly.

  “Yes, we have it” she said, unrolling it from her scarf.

  He swooped in on it, like a seagull on a chip. “It’s perfect” he crowed holding the orb between his forefinger and thumb, rushing to examine it up against one of the harsh fluorescent lights they had at one of their workbenches. “I can’t believe we finally have it. He turned to one of the seated men. “This will be easy to replicate.”

  “Replicate?” Tasha repeated.

  “Yes, we will make a copy for you.”

  “Whatever for?” she was now genuinely confused.

  “Your Uncle was commissioned to retrieve the orb and in the process draw out the very people who are looking for it. We need you to lay a trap.”

  “No” said Xavier immediately without any hesitation. “You have put her in enough danger as it is.”

  Tasha looked at Xavier “I think we should do it.”

  “You can’t be serious” he looked at her incredulous. “Just think of the danger you have been in, finding this thing and getting it here. No, you cannot put yourself in harms way like that.”

  “You are obviously competent enough” said Brother Gabriel, “you got it this far. Your uncle was well respected around here, and he trusted you with this task.”

  “I don’t think he would be happy for her to endanger her life any further.” Xavier chimed in.

  “But it's my decision” Tasha responded. “What makes you think they won’t continue following me anyway? My uncle put me into this danger and I won’t fully be out of it until the people who are looking for this orb are located and shut down. At least this way I will have the support of The Brotherhood.”

  “Ok then, just what is the support of The Brotherhood then? What are you going to do with the people that are looking for this orb?” he looked pointedly at Brother Gabriel.

  “Why eliminate them of course” said Brother Gabriel innocently.

  “By eliminate, you mean assassinate don’t you?” Xavier responded.

  “Yes, I mean exactly that”

  “What, you kill people?” Tasha was shocked.

  “My dear, this is a war, not a game or an act. We are fighting a war that we must win.”

  “Are you comfortable with that?” Xavier looked directly at Tasha.

  “Not entirely, but I have seen what the orb can do, and in the wrong hands I believe it has the potential to cause a catastrophe that could end our entire existence on this planet.”

  Brother Gabriel's eyes widened noticeably, “you have seen it, work?”

  “Yes, it has great healing power. We don’t know how we got it to work and we can’t replicate it, but it can heal a person who is close even to death.” Tasha looked at Xavier not wanting to tell them it was him, in case they decided they wanted to do tests or other crazy things to him.

  “That's incredible” spouted Brother Gabrielle. “I have seen many, many things, but I believe this is, by far, the most amazing.”

  Brother Gabrielle could not believe his luck. He had indeed seen many things, but having the orb right there in his hands, the others would be so jealous of him. Yes, they would secretly pretend that they were happy, but they would hide the fact that they were envious of him being able to present the Elders with such a sought after treasure. He had been a Protector for many years, but this certainly was even greater than the day he uncovered the Atlantean Portal. He guessed that didn’t really matter now after all these years, especially since no-one could get it to work.

  The Atlantean portal was one of the greatest mysteries he had ever uncovered. It was rumoured that the portal was a gifted to us, left by the Atlanteans, dwellers of the over for us to join them one day. An invitation of sorts, to come and join them in their paradise. The pragmatic ones believed in reality the story probably went a little differently. It was suspected that it was more likely that it was left by mistake, abandoned or lost when the Patriarch's arrived and the Atlanteans fled back to the realm from whence they came.

  From what they knew of the old Atlantean texts there was an over and an under, but not in the traditional sense that people would expect heaven and hell to be. Rather the over and under were alternate dimensions seated over and under us. The over was where the Atlanteans lived and the under, it was postulated was a realm of monsters and the unknown. There was a warning in the old texts to never go there. It was all rather a moot point anyway because they could never figure out how to get the Atlantean portal to work. It seemed that it needed to be genetically activated, a safeguard designed by its previous owners. Since no-one knew genetically what an Atlantean was, it was eventually mothballed away, in the vault where the other significant treasures lay.

  He started leading them back towards the door from whence they came. “Come back tomorrow, we will have a copy for you then.”

  “Where.. .where are you going to put it?” Tasha asked indicating to the orb.

  “For now it will go in the vault” Brother Gregory assured them, “where the most dangerous and special objects go.” She nodded and left feeling a bit uneasy about letting the orb go.

  “Do not worry” he looked at her reassuringly “this is the safest place the orb could be.”

  She glanced over to one of the walls. Inside was a long staff, carved from a tree. It was encased in heavy glass.

  “What is that?” she asked curiously “It looks like an withered old stick.”

  “That” Brother Gregory raised his eyebrows “is actually one of the most dangerous things in here.”

  “What is it?”

  Brother Gregory looked at her unsure whether to disclose its secrets. He considered it, and decided they already knew of the orb, they would either need to be neutralised or brought in as Protectors with the knowledge that they now had. He figured it would do no harm. “It’s a staff, carved from heart of the Tree of Good and Evil, of knowledge and everlasting life. It is the same staff that Moses used to part the red sea and the very staff he threw on the ground and it turned into coppery snakes.”

  “So the plagues, it was not all just the orb?” she asked.

  “Who told you that?”

  “My Uncle, he said the ten plagues, the ten calamities that befell Egypt were due to the Orb.”

  “Your Uncle misunderstands. The Orb was meant for creation, the staff is something different altogether. It sucks up the evil from this world and dispenses it, a form of Horcrux if you like. It can only be wielded by one pure of heart. Kings have fought over
this for centuries, great Kings and Princes of Persia and Assyria thinking it would allow them to control the world.” She looked at the stick and how deceptively decrepit it looked. It had the appearance of a twisted old stick, one you would throw on the fire at night, not something you could use to strike down entire nations with, smiting them with great pestilences and disasters.

  “Well I’m glad it's there then.” she remarked, and they left through the way they came in, out and past the barrage of guards all watching silently from above.

  The elevator squealed open and an old man slowly stepped out. He shrugged off the aid of his assistant, his walking stick scratching heavily across the marbled floors. His robes hung off his bony frame, but his face, the recipient of numerous procedures as oddly smooth. His nose was sculpted, oddly pointed and he carried a napkin with him wherever he went to wipe the almost continuous line of spit emanating from the left corner of his mouth.

  A little like the silvery trail left by a snail, the paralysis was the result of several dead nerves, cut through and never properly healed due to multiple plastic surgery procedures. In stark juxtaposition, his hand was wrinkled and covered with liver spots, large unsightly ebony marks that told a more accurate story of his true age.

  Brother Gabriel bowed his head with respect.

  “We have it?” his voice was nasal and thin. He looked exultant, triumphant like someone who had just won the lottery. “Where is it?” Brother Gabriel presented him with the orb. He regarded it lustfully, wiping away more saliva that came running slowly down his chin. He held it so close to his eyes it fogged over from his breath smelling of old moldy cheese. He was visually panting, fawning over it like a boy with a date on prom night.

  “It’s hard to believe that everlasting life is encased in this unassuming ball” he croaked. “How does it work?”

  “I don’t know yet” said Brother Gabriel a little nervously. The old man’s pious face dropped and a look of thinly veiled anger took its place.

  “It’s….it’s only a matter of time before we figure it out” he mumbled hurriedly, bumbling over his words like an awkward teenager asking a girl out on a date. There was no confidence in his eyes, no spark, which did not go unnoticed by the old man.