Then she remembered what had been painted beneath the mural at Edward Kelly’s house, the one showing a mountain lake and all hell breaking loose. Elizabeth had translated the Czech writing below: vernal equinox.
Perhaps that was the answer, but she wanted confirmation. She frowned, remembering seeing Latin words painted on the ceiling. She half-ran, searching anew, stirring up the straw on the floor. She felt eyes on her, both from her party and those that glowed a deep crimson. Finally, she found the inscription, one painted in red on the eastern side of the church, the other in blue on the western side.
Two words.
Aequus and Nox.
She closed her eyes with relief.
Equinox.
She joined the others, her legs shaking. “It’s the spring equinox. That’s the date.” She waved her notebook to encompass the star map. “So I have to figure out where in the world this particular night sky is visible during tomorrow’s equinox.”
From his back pocket, Jordan pulled out his cell phone, slipping it from a waterproof plastic bag. “I’ve got an app for that. Any good soldier keeps a means of navigation handy.”
Erin glanced to Hugh to make sure it was kosher to use this technology.
He shrugged.
She held her page open for Jordan. “Can you map this?”
“I’ll try.” He took a snapshot with his phone, then spent some time fiddling with the application program, apparently trying to find a match. “Already I can tell that the constellation of Leo is in the wrong place up there. At least for the skies over France.”
“Then find out where it’s right,” she urged.
She noted Hugh looking quizzically at her, as if she were missing something.
So the teacher wants me to earn extra points.
She pursed her lips and returned her attention to the ceiling, picking through the constellations, especially focusing on the spring ones. Three of the lesser spring constellations were connected together, woven by flowing lines.
Hydra, Crater, and Noctua.
“The snake, the cup, and the owl,” she mumbled, naming the shapes they represented. She had no trouble understanding the significance. The snake likely represents Lucifer, the cup could easily be the Chalice mentioned in the prophecy, and the owl had been the symbol of knowledge across many cultures, going back eons.
She glanced to her pack. The Blood Gospel was prophesied to have all the knowledge of the universe locked between its covers. She returned her attention above, noting the smaller lines that formed fanciful curlicues and whorls around the three constellations, weaving them together.
“They’re connected together into one whole,” Erin said.
A glance revealed a broad, congratulatory smile on Hugh’s face. She wanted to smack that smug look off him and get some real answers.
Luckily Jordan interrupted, holding up his phone. “Got it!”
She moved closer.
“Here’s the night sky over France.”
She looked at the screen, seeing that he had labeled the constellation Leo.
“We’re at about latitude forty-three,” he explained. “This time of year, Leo should be at the westernmost edge of the sky, but clearly it’s not in the star map on the ceiling.”
She looked to the roof, recognizing how different that star map was up there. “Then where on the planet does it match this sky?”
“Far to the east, about twenty-eight degrees north latitude.”
“Could it be Tibet?” Erin asked. “Or maybe Nepal?”
Jordan whistled his appreciation and held up his phone for her to see, revealing the name that his phone app had pulled up.
KATMANDU, NEPAL
27°30'N 85°30'E
“Keep in mind,” Jordan cautioned, “this is a rough approximation. But that’s the region of the world referenced above. Basically it could be anywhere in the Himalayas.”
Erin pictured the mural painted on Kelly’s wall, showing a trio of mountains surrounding a dark lake. It must be somewhere in the Himalayan range of Nepal.
But where?
“How did you already guess Nepal?” Rhun asked her.
“Because of the wheels and the stars on the ceiling. They’re Buddhist symbols. Of all the cultures depicted above, they’re the most numerously represented.” Erin talked quickly now, certain of what she was saying. “That wagon wheel over there is Buddha’s wheel of transformation. The rim is limitation, the hub represents the world, and the eight spokes are the Noble Eightfold Path, which is what you need to tread to end suffering.”
Erin turned to Hugh, challenging him. “That’s where you learned your meditation techniques, wasn’t it? You went east, during your travels before you settled in France. You learned these techniques from Buddhists monks.”
Hugh bowed his head in acknowledgment.
Rhun frowned. “But how could Buddhists help you deal with your cursed nature?”
“Because the monks were strigoi themselves.”
Shock rang through the Sanguinists’ faces, even Elizabeth’s, but hers settled into a look more curious than horrified.
Hugh looked up at the lit windows. “After I left the Church, I wandered for many years, trying to make sense of what I was. I followed legends of eternal monks rumored to reside in the Far East, immortals like ourselves. I endured great hardship to find them, but always I was directed onward, until eventually I reached a valley between three peaks where I would learn much about my nature and the nature of the world.”
Into the stunned silence that followed, Elizabeth spoke. “And you left a record of that, didn’t you?”
Hugh lifted his brows in surprise, likely a rare expression for the man. “I did.”
Elizabeth turned to Erin, as if she should know this, too.
Then she did.
Three peaks.
Everything fell into place in her head.
March 19, 5:43 P.M. CET
Pyrenees Mountains, France
“What is Elizabeth talking about?” Jordan asked Erin, noting a familiar expression dawning over her features, one of understanding. She had figured something out.
She took the phone from his fingers. “You have copies of my photos on here, don’t you? From back in Venice.”
“Yeah . . .”
She flipped through the files, pausing at one recent picture that showed her half-naked, stepping from the bathroom. He had secretly snapped it when they were at Castel Gandolfo. He couldn’t resist taking it.
I mean, look at that body.
She glanced over to him, giving him a quick smile, but that wasn’t the picture she was looking for. Finally, she found it and lifted the phone. “There were three peaks painted on Edward Kelly’s wall. At the time, it reminded me of something Elizabeth had shown us in Venice, but then things got a little crazy in Prague.”
Erin faced Hugh. “There’s a famous mosaic at the cathedral in Venice, which I understand from your history was your favorite city in Italy. You spent a lot of time there.”
“How could I not?” he admitted. “It is a rare city, one blended into the sea itself. It speaks to the dichotomy of man’s relationship with the natural world. Venice is an example of man’s struggle to both circumvent nature and be a part of it.”
“And the basilica there,” Erin continued. “St. Mark’s. Elizabeth said that this particular mosaic was commissioned by alchemists in Prague, the very men to whom you gave your green diamond.”
Erin showed everyone a picture of one of the basilica’s mosaics. It showed a triptych of a black devil confronting Christ in three different ways.
Jordan remembered it himself now. “The Temptations of Christ.”
“You were behind this commission, weren’t you?” Erin said. “The three peaks of that valley of the monks, that’s what Kelly had painted on his wall, something you must have shared with those alchemists when you gave them that diamond, something you also had represented in a mosaic of a timeless city, in a basilica that w
ould stand for centuries. You made a record of that valley in the gold glass tiles.”
Jordan still didn’t understand what she meant.
Erin zoomed in on the third temptation—it’s always the number three—and expanded the view under Christ’s sandals. He was standing on a set of mountains, with a snow-globe-shaped bubble under his feet, like he was walking on water.
“You are correct,” Hugh said. “Such knowledge could not be lost to time. It is too important.”
“What’s so important about it?” Jordan asked Hugh.
Erin answered instead. “That dome of watery light under Christ’s legs, it holds three chalices.” She stared hard at Hugh. “Those three chalices represent the three stones, don’t they?”
“They do,” said Hugh.
“That’s where you first saw them,” Erin said, “where you found them. Arbor, Aqua, and Sanguis. The gems of Garden, Water, and Blood.”
“It is indeed. In that most holy valley, one of divine enlightenment.”
“Enough riddles,” said Rhun. “Where are these mountains?”
Hugh ignored him. “You have proven yourself adept enough, Woman of Learning. Those mountains surround a place known as the Holy Hidden Valley of Happiness.”
Erin closed her eyes and gave an amused shake of her head.
“Do you know this place?” Sophia asked.
“Only by reputation. I wish I could say that such knowledge came to me from study and research, but it actually came from reading an article in a travel magazine. A pure coincidence.”
“No,” Hugh said. “There are no such coincidences.”
“So what then?” Erin asked disdainfully. “My coming upon this article was fate?”
“No. There is no such thing as fate. We are masters of our own destinies.” Hugh waved to encompass the shadowy audience, stirring the raven still perched on his shoulder to an irritated ruffle. “It was your awareness and inquisitive nature that made you see and read that article, when others might have skipped it. It was your mindfulness that made you remember it. You have always been that way, Erin Granger. I suspect that was what drove you to abandon your family, to take a path away from one of blind obedience to the father’s faith, to discover your own road to knowledge and wisdom. Fate, luck, coincidence . . . none of these matter. You are simply a Woman of Learning. That is your true nature. That is what brought you to me.”
Erin had shifted closer to Jordan during this revelation, plainly shaken not only by this man’s knowledge of her past, but also by how quickly he exposed the essential core of her being.
Jordan pulled her closer, feeling her tremble, beginning to understand how even monsters and beasts could bow down to this guy.
“Where is this valley?” Rhun pressed.
Erin answered, “Tsum Valley in Nepal. It was only recently opened to tourists due to its sacred history. It is said to be the home of Shambhala, a legendary Buddhist kingdom. Or as it is more commonly called in Western culture: Shangri La.”
Jordan knew that story, but only from movies. “That’s supposed to be a place lost in time, where no one ages or dies.”
This made him wonder: were these strigoi monks the basis for that legend?
“But there’s a more important story about Shambhala that bears more directly on our situation,” Erin said. “I read that the second Buddha, Padmasambhava, blessed the valley as a place that would be rediscovered when the earth was nearing it destruction, when the world grew too corrupted to survive.”
“That pretty much sounds like right now,” Jordan said.
“And this valley truly exists?” Rhun asked.
“It does,” Erin said. “The valley has long been a sacred Buddhist place. Monks and nuns still live there, and all killing is forbidden on its slopes.”
“Like here,” Jordan added, wondering if Hugh had set up this hermitage as his own personal Tsum Valley.
“The monks who taught me,” Hugh explained. “They lived in a monastery in that valley, built between two great trees, trees as eternal as the monks themselves. Under one bower the monks sat to meditate. That tree was called the Tree of Enlightenment. Under the other, the monks drank their wine. That tree was called the Tree of Eternal Life.”
Erin stepped free of his arm. “In other words, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. From the biblical story of the Garden of Eden.”
Even Elizabeth looked aghast. “Are you claiming this place—Tsum Valley—is the actual location of the Garden of Eden?”
Sophia scowled. “How could the Garden of Eden be in the Himalayas?”
“There is a school of thought that places it there,” Erin told her. “Some scholars think that the legends of Shambhala are similar enough to the stories of Eden that they might be the same place. Like Eden, Shambhala was said to be a garden where there was no death and only the pure could remain.”
“The Nazis sent an expedition to Tibet in the 1930s,” Jordan added, drawing upon his knowledge of World War II. “To look for the origin of the Aryan race, a race of supermen. Those immortal Buddhist strigoi would definitely fit that bill, too.”
All eyes turned to Hugh for confirmation.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I am merely saying that the valley has two trees. I cannot presume to know where the Garden of Eden was, or if it ever existed.”
“Still,” Jordan said, drawing them back to the more pressing issue, “from Edward Kelly’s mural, that valley is also where all Hell is supposed to break free.”
He pictured that lake and the dark shadows boiling out of it.
Hugh gave him a small nod. “The monks told me that this garden was at an intersection between good and evil. That they were guardians of that gateway.”
“And what about the three stones?” Erin asked.
“According to my teachers, that trio of gems hold the power to open and close that portal between worlds. But as modern man began to encroach farther and farther into their territory, threatening to expose them, the monks feared that they might not be strong enough to guard those stones. So they gave me two of the gems, to disperse them apart in the wider world.”
“In other words,” Jordan said, “don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.”
“Timeless wisdom,” Hugh concurred.
“But why did you hand such a powerful artifact to John Dee?” Elizabeth asked.
“A foolish conceit in hindsight,” Hugh said with a sigh. “As the world of scientific inquiry rose out of the ashes of the Dark Ages—as alchemy became chemistry and physics—I thought I could discover more about the stones myself.”
Jordan knew Cardinal Bernard had fallen into the same trap just recently, dabbling with those drops of Lucifer’s blood. It was no wonder these two characters had once been best buds. They shared a similar nature.
“John Dee was a wise man and a good one,” Hugh continued. “I thought that he was using the stone to contain evil, imprisoning it drop by drop. I could not fathom where that might lead. After he died, I tried to recover the gem, but the greed of Edward Kelly drove the man to sell it. From there, I lost track of the stone.”
“So our goal must be to take your stone and the one in Jordan’s pocket and bring them back to that valley,” Erin said. “Where the monks are still safeguarding the third one. But why?”
“I only know what I have told you,” Hugh said. “Perhaps the monks will know more.”
“And don’t forget,” Jordan reminded everyone, glancing to the windows, happy to see the sunlight still shining through the waterfall, “we’re not the only ones looking for those stones.”
Legion was still out there.
“But why does that demon care?” asked Sophia. “What is his role?”
Rhun looked dour. “With those stones, he could possibly open the portal in that valley and unleash Hell’s forces upon the world, freeing Lucifer in the process.”
Erin nodded. “And apparently it’ll be up to us to use those same stones to find a way to secure that
demonic horde in its place, to bottle Hell back up.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Jordan said with exaggerated bravado. “Of course, first we’ll need that gem you hid here, Hugh.”
The man opened his arms wide. “You are free to seek the stone in my church.”
“If Erin passed the test,” Elizabeth asked, her eyes flashing angrily, “why not simply give her the stone?”
“She must find it on her own.”
Jordan stared at Erin. “Sorry, babe, looks like it’s time for part two of your test. So take out a Number Two pencil and begin.” He looked to the shine of the lowering sun, knowing they had about an hour of daylight left.
And you’d better hurry.
6:04 P.M.
Erin scowled at Hugh de Payens.
No wonder he and Bernard were such close friends.
They both were masters of secrets and manipulation.
She faced her challenger. “Let me guess. Aqua, the stone of Water, is still up at that mountain lake. Which means you possess Sanguis, the gem of Blood. It only makes sense the monks would send that particular one with you, a Sanguinist.”
“The gem was never meant for me,” Hugh answered. “You must decipher the riddle so that you may retrieve the stone that belongs to you.”
Belongs to me? What did that mean?
She shoved that thought aside for now and turned to face the church. If Hugh had hidden it somewhere in here, it would be somewhere significant.
“Sanguis . . . blood . . .” she muttered to herself.
Rhun watched her, his worried fingers rising to touch his pectoral cross. The crucifix rested over his silent heart, the silver burning his skin, the pain meant to eternally remind him of his oath to Christ and the Church. She stared a moment at his bandaged stump.
Was that not enough pain for any god?
She returned her attention to the church, recognizing it was laid out as a cross.
Like Rhun’s crucifix.
A thought rose inside her. She paced it off, striding through the straw. She moved to the center of the church’s cross, to where the transept intersected with the nave.
She stared back at Rhun, seeing the burn over his heart.
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