Into The Jaws Of The Lion (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 5)

by N. S. Wikarski

  Daniel glanced down at his distressed leather bomber jacket. He’d just bought it and was quite proud of the purchase. Then he noticed that Chris was wearing an almost identical jacket himself.

  The librarian sighed. “Danny Boy, I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but you’ve got to stop copying my look. People at work are asking me if we call each other up to decide what to wear every day.”

  Daniel blushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize....” He trailed off helplessly.

  Chris patted the empty chair next to his. “I think it’s great that you ditched your mortuary chic ensemble but it’s important for you to develop your own style. It has to fit your personality. Let it be an expression of who you are.”

  “I don’t know who I am,” the Scion observed mournfully.

  The librarian darted him a wry glance. “In more ways than you can possibly imagine.” He gave a comforting smile. “I suppose it just takes time. You’ll figure it out. I’m sorry if I’m being a beast this morning. I got two hours’ sleep last night, woke up with the mother of all hangovers and I’m still caffeine-deprived.” He lifted a tiny cup of dark brown liquid to his lips. “This is my third and it won’t be my last.”

  Daniel noticed an identical cup sitting on the table between them. Chris slid it toward him.

  “I ordered you a shot too. It’s time to broaden your horizons.”

  Daniel peered into the little cup. “What is it?” he asked warily.

  “Espresso. Try it.”

  “Caffeine?” Daniel asked in shock. “My father forbids—” He cut himself off when he noticed Chris rolling his eyes.

  “Really? We’re going to have this conversation again after the Great Ale Debate last month?”

  “Alright,” the Scion agreed hesitantly.

  “Don’t sip it. Just swallow it in one gulp,” Chris advised.

  Daniel did as instructed and immediately wished he hadn’t. He coughed and spluttered. “Good God in heaven! It tastes like dirt! Very bitter dirt!”

  A few other patrons turned to stare at him.

  In a lower voice, he asked, “How can you stand to drink that?”

  Chris laughed. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist making you down it straight. Consider that as payback for waking me up so early. Or if you prefer, call it a sadistic hazing ritual to initiate you into the mysterious Saturday morning customs of the urban Fallen. You can doctor espresso up with cream and sugar to make it taste better. It’s not about the taste anyway. It’s about what it does to amp up your brain cells. Nothing beats it for problem-solving.”

  “This substance is supposed to help my thought process?” Daniel asked, unconvinced.

  “Wait for the buzz. You’ll see.” Abruptly changing the subject, Chris asked, “So is this your first visit to Boystown?”

  “Boys Town?” Daniel enunciated the name carefully.

  “One word—Boystown,” Chris corrected. “That’s the name of this neighborhood.”

  The Scion felt puzzled. “Why on earth is it called that?”

  The librarian gave a cryptic smile. “Because a lot of boys live here.”

  “That makes sense.” Daniel nodded. “I did see an unusual number of good-looking, well-dressed young men in this neighborhood.”

  Chris’s gaze narrowed. “You noticed that, did you?”

  “I was struck by how they seem to take care of their appearance. Nobody was wearing the sloppy attire I’ve observed in men elsewhere. This is just the sort of place I’d like to live myself if I ever had the chance.”

  “Out of the mouths of babes,” the librarian observed softly. Then he seemed to catch himself and switched topics yet again. “Now what’s this urgent problem you’ve got?”

  “Oh, yes.” Daniel reached for the laptop which he’d placed on the floor next to his chair. As it powered up, he rifled through his folder of notes. “Yesterday evening I was reviewing my translation file and realized I’d made a terrible error.”

  “Define terrible.”

  Daniel leaned over the small table so as not to be overheard. He needn’t have bothered. The agitated rumble of conversation from the caffeine-soaked patrons of the coffeehouse drowned out every other sound. “I mistranslated a line of the clue. Originally, I thought it read: ‘The stones behind, on an island tower she alights to drink’. But it wasn’t ‘the stones behind’. It was actually ‘the sands behind’.”

  Chris shrugged. “Stones, sands, what’s the difference?”

  “It makes all the difference in the world. Don’t you see?” Daniel noticed he was talking more quickly than usual and his heart seemed to be beating a bit faster. He also felt an unusual sense of mental clarity. Could this be the buzz Chris had mentioned? What an exhilarating sensation. Perhaps coffee wasn’t so bad after all. “If the stones are behind, then we would be searching in Africa and Arabia. If the sands are behind...” He trailed off.

  For the first time that morning, Chris sat up straight in his chair. “Well, color me surprised. That does put a whole new spin on things!”

  “You see it now, don’t you?” Daniel asked excitedly.

  “I sure do. We haven’t been searching far enough east.”

  “It seems to me that the first geographical area east of Napata which wouldn’t be a desert is India. Is that correct?”

  Chris nodded. “Why don’t you pull up a map and we’ll take a look.”

  Daniel complied. His monitor displayed a map of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and India.

  Chris leaned over to study it. “So if we were to draw a straight line...” He traced the latitude directly east from Napata. “Once you cross the Indian Ocean, Mumbai would be the first landfall.”

  “The rest of the clue says the dove alights on an island tower which would mean the location can’t be very far inland. Let me run a search on islands in the vicinity of Mumbai.”

  Chris watched as the results popped up onscreen. “The whole damn city is built on a bunch of islands. Let’s see if we can’t narrow that down a bit.”

  The two men took turns refining search results for another half hour with only limited success.

  Finally, Chris shook his head. “This is getting us nowhere. We’ll have to pick up the trail at the library on Monday. I can pull all the reference books we have on ancient Mumbai and narrow down possible island locations that way.”

  “Very well,” Daniel conceded. “At least we’ve made some progress this morning.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Chris was squinting at the computer monitor intently. He typed in another search string and flipped back to the map of the area. “I just had a thought. Do you have a copy of the riddle that led you to Napata in the first place?”

  “Yes, I should have it with me.” Daniel spent several minutes combing through his notes. “Ah, here it is.” He handed the page to Chris.

  The librarian read the riddle aloud. “One dove flies to wake the helmsman. The course he sets reveals his fate.” He scowled at the paper. “The first line refers to the dove and the second line to the helmsman. There’s nothing in this riddle that says the dove filed a flight plan from Napata.”

  “What do you mean?” Daniel looked at him askance.

  “I mean there’s some ambiguity about where she was positioned before she started her trip east. It’s possible she flew directly from Nabta Playa which would mean the latitude we’re trying to find is farther north.”

  Daniel scrutinized the earlier clue. “Oh, dear.” He gave Chris a stricken look. “I was so sure we had it figured out.”

  “Take your finger off the panic button. It’s no big deal. Instead of one place in India, you end up with two spots to search. That still narrows the sub-continent down considerably. All we have to do is figure out what’s east of Nabta Playa that might have caught the interest of the Minoans.”

  Daniel dived for the keyboard once more.

  Chris unexpectedly rose from the table. “I need more rocket fuel to get through
this. I don’t suppose you want anything while I’m up?”

  Daniel ducked his head guiltily. “Maybe another one of those espresso drinks but this time with lots of cream and sugar added.”

  Chris tousled the Scion’s hair. “I knew you’d see the light.”

  While the librarian was getting their order, Daniel continued to experiment with various search strings. What he found surprised him. When Chris returned, he said, “I’d forgotten how important the Tropic Of Cancer was to ancient peoples. They frequently built religious sites along that line of latitude because the sun casts no shadow there at noon on the longest day of the year. Some of those religious sites even contained astronomical markers for all the solstices and equinoxes.”

  “Is there a place like that on the west coast of India?” Chris asked, resuming his seat.

  “Yes. A ruined city in the northwest corner of the country located precisely on the Tropic Of Cancer. It’s called Dholavira and you could draw a straight line to it from Nabta Playa.”

  The librarian cocked an amused eyebrow. “So much for today’s translation crisis, Danny Boy. Between us, we managed to crack that unsolvable clue of yours in just over an hour.”

  The Scion blushed with embarrassment. “When I called you this morning I was flustered and I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  Chris handed him his cup of espresso. “Hence the need for copious quantities of caffeine—in your case, liberally diluted with cream and sugar. After a few more cups of this, you and I might even be able to figure out where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.”

  “Jimmy who?”

  “Never mind. Just drink up.”

  Chapter 33—Silent Night

  Annabeth rolled over in bed and consulted the digital display on her alarm clock. 3:30 AM. Thank goodness the baby had taken his 2 AM feeding and gone straight back to sleep. She might get at least two hours of rest herself. He’d become increasingly fussy during the past few weeks, especially in the middle of the night. She slid out from under the covers and tiptoed toward the bathroom to answer the call of nature, luxuriating in the fact that it was HER bathroom. No more late night trips down a drafty hallway to visit the shared facilities.

  She paused next to the crib to gaze down tenderly at the little miracle that had been responsible for her elevation in status and its ensuing privileges. A blue nightlight glowed softly on the wall beside his tiny bed. It cast a gentle indigo radiance over his features. Annabeth fancied that his lips were tinged a deeper shade of blue than the rest of his face. She laid her hand gently on his abdomen as she adjusted his coverlet. A shock wave traveled up her fingers when she could feel no movement of breath in his chest. He remained perfectly still. Panic constricted her throat. She shook him roughly, not caring if he woke up crying so long as he woke up. But he still didn’t stir. Fumbling for his wrist, she couldn’t find a pulse. Annabeth gripped the rail of the crib, staring stupidly at the motionless baby—postponing the inevitable moment when the sickening truth would hit her full-force.

  ***

  Daniel found himself immersed in a surprisingly pleasant dream. He sat next to the banks of a slow-moving river, reveling in its tranquility as he watched the current flow by. He was waiting for Chris to arrive to share the picnic they’d planned for that afternoon. From out of nowhere, a strange sound interrupted his reverie. In the midst of this green paradise he thought he detected the persistent wail of an ambulance. Where could it be coming from? He turned his head this way and that to catch its direction but it seemed to be echoing from all sides at once—he could even feel the clamor reverberate inside his head. It eventually jarred him out of his dream and into consciousness.

  He sat up, groggily rubbing his forehead. Then his eyes flew open in alarm. He’d managed to identify the noise. It was a woman screaming. Her voice cascaded down the marble corridor—traveling fast toward his room. He jumped out of bed and quickly donned a robe. The shrieking culminated in the sound of fists hammering at his door.

  “Daniel, Daniel, wake up!”

  He recognized the voice. It was Annabeth.

  The Scion swung the portal open just in time to catch his wife as she collapsed sobbing into his arms.

  By this time, the hallway outside his room was clogged with several dozen members of the community—their voices buzzing like a swarm of alarmed and confused bees.

  Annabeth continued to wail incoherently despite Daniel’s attempts to elicit an explanation. He sat her down in an armchair and ran to the bathroom to fetch a glass of water.

  Her shrieks had apparently carried all the way to his father’s chambers in the other wing of the compound because Abraham’s voice could be heard bellowing above the collective uproar.

  The old man stormed into Daniel’s room like Moses parting the Red Sea. Gawkers shrank against the walls, allowing him to pass. “What’s the meaning of this disturbance!” he demanded. It wasn’t a question.

  Daniel glanced up at him helplessly while trying to coax Annabeth to drink some water. “I don’t know, sir. She’s still too upset to speak.”

  Glaring down at his son’s principal wife, the Diviner held his peace as Daniel patted her on the arm and admonished her softly to calm down.

  Annabeth eventually peeped up at all the faces hovering nearby. Her mouth tried to form words but no sound came out.

  Daniel sat down on the edge of her chair and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder. “Annabeth, take a deep breath and tell us what happened. We can’t help you if we don’t know what the trouble is.”

  She cast a stricken look at her husband before burying her head against his chest. Between renewed sobs, a few words managed to escape. “It’s the baby... He’s dead!”

  Chapter 34—False Gods

  Annabeth creaked back and forth in her rocking chair, oblivious to the passage of time. She refused to move the chair from its position next to the empty crib. Her chronic mental stupor was only interrupted by the periodic appearance of one of the Consecrated Brides silently bearing a food tray. The women avoided speaking to her as if her grief might be contagious. Hours after its appearance, each tray would be noiselessly collected—its contents untouched. Annabeth felt no appetite. Whenever she forced herself to take a few bites, the food invariably tasted like sawdust in her mouth.

  Aside from the food deliveries, the only other intrusion of the outside world came in the form of her husband Daniel. He paid regular visits in a pointless effort to engage her in conversation. They would pass a few uncomfortable hours together each morning before he gave up and fled to his beloved library.

  A sharp rap at the door cut her musings short.

  “Come in,” she said languidly, not attempting to rise. The smallest motion cost too much energy.

  Mother Rachel entered. Judgment cascaded from her tall form in waves of mute disapproval. “How are you today?” she asked curtly. It was a pro forma statement that held no trace of personal concern.

  Annabeth glanced vaguely in her direction. “I don’t know. Most of the time I feel numb. What day is it?”

  “It’s Thursday. A week to the day since we buried your son.”

  Without waiting for an invitation, the old woman dragged a wooden chair across the room and placed it squarely in front of Annabeth’s rocker. She sat down and unabashedly scrutinized the younger woman’s face. “Hmmff,” she sniffed. “You look thinner and paler than usual. Have you been eating?”

  Sparing herself the effort to speak, Annabeth merely shook her head.

  “This isn’t acceptable,” the elder woman said flatly. “You need to rouse yourself and do something useful to take your mind off things.”

  “Things,” Annabeth echoed bleakly. Her dead son was now being described as a “thing” she needed to get over.

  “The Diviner has indulged your moping long enough, Annabeth. You’re an able-bodied member of this community and you should be doing your part like the rest of us.”

  Without showing any sign that she had heard, Annabeth�
��s mind drifted to another topic. “Mother Rachel, have you ever lost a baby to crib death?” she asked instead.

  “No.” The old woman drew herself up. “I’ve always found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” There was a hint of self-congratulation in her tone.

  Annabeth scowled briefly. “I don’t think I’ve ever found favor with the Lord.”

  “Of course not,” came the abrupt reply. “Just look at your behavior.”

  Rousing herself from her torpor, Annabeth peered at Mother Rachel with an attitude approaching interest. “What makes you say that?”

  A grim smile formed on the old woman’s lips. “It’s no secret that you idolized your boy. Everybody commented on it. And God, in his righteous anger, has chastised you.”

  Annabeth blinked once in puzzlement.

  Mother Rachel elaborated. “Read your bible. It’s all right there in the commandments. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ You certainly adored that child as if he was a god and your behavior was an insult to Our Lord. Remember what He says in Exodus Twenty, Verse Five. ‘You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’”

  The old woman crossed her arms with an air of finality. “Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. The Lord made good his promise that the child would pay for the sin of the parent.”

  Annabeth recoiled in shock. The thought hadn’t occurred to her that she, herself, might have brought this terrible fate down on her son. “But surely God wants us to show affection to our children,” she murmured in disbelief.

  Mother Rachel rolled her eyes. “Who’s been filling your head with that rubbish? Back in the days when I was young, Consecrated Brides were discouraged from coddling their children. It puffs the young ones up with a false sense of self-importance. Only your husband or the Diviner himself has a right to bestow praise—and only if it’s earned!”