Eight Days to Live

by Iris Johansen

  “Nothing that concerns you. We have it under control.”

  “Everything that occurs here concerns me. You’re in my space, Caleb.”

  “Of course, it concerns her,” Jane said. “Stop being soothing. We were followed, Lina. Caleb caught him. We’re calling someone to come to get him.”

  She was silent, then slowly lowered the weapon. “How soon?”

  “Right away. Immediately.”

  “Then I suppose it will be all right.” She paused. “But I want you off my property as soon as possible. You’re as close to a friend as I have, Caleb, but you’re not welcome here right now.”

  “We understand,” Jane hesitated. “In the meantime, could you finish that translation?”

  Lina studied her face. “You’re pushing.”

  “I want to live. I want the people I love to live. I have to know what I’m up against. These people are crazy.”

  Lina nodded. “After translating the last of that ledger, I don’t have any doubt of that.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Which means anything to do with you. I know men who would kill their own families for the chance to get their hands on something this priceless. People would claw at each other, destroy everyone around them to touch it. I won’t be caught in the middle of that madness. I want my peace.”

  Jane frowned, puzzled. “You’re talking about the tablet?”

  “No.” She set the weapon on a chair by the door. “The tablet is valuable. It’s not priceless.” She moved toward her easy chair, sat down, and flipped open the computer. “And these fanatics are already destroying each other. They’ve been killing for centuries.” She glanced up at them. “Adah Ziller became very precise, very explicit in the last section of this ledger. It wasn’t disjointed or vague like the rest of the book. I think perhaps she may have known what thin ice she was skating and instinctively wanted to make sure someone would know what had happened if she didn’t survive.”

  “How explicit?” Jane asked.

  Lina smiled without mirth. “She talked about the Offering. Evidently, that’s the height of betrayal. It’s strictly forbidden to speak of it. Do you want to know what it is?”

  A small boy screaming as the knife descended.

  “Human sacrifice,” Jane said.

  “You knew?” Lina asked.

  She moistened her lips. “Offering. The word is close enough in meaning.”

  “Not to human sacrifice.” Caleb was gazing at Jane searchingly. “But you jumped at it.” His glance shifted to Lina. “A cult of some sort?”

  “A religion.” Lina looked down at her computer screen. “They would be insulted to be called a cult. Though that’s exactly what they are. It’s very old and as powerful in its way as the Catholic Church. Not as well-known, of course. Particularly since they advocate sacrifice and have no problem with murder. It wouldn’t do to let outsiders know they exist. The faith has been passed down through the centuries from father to son and has members all over the world. No new members are accepted unless they’re connected by blood to a member. They regard themselves as the only true religion.”

  “A religion that makes human sacrifices,” Jane said dryly.

  “Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son,” Lina said. “The Aztecs and Mayans used sacrifices as a regular course.” She held up her hand. “I’m only saying that it’s not that unusual except in present day.”

  “This is present day. And killing children isn’t—”

  “Children? I didn’t mention children,” Lina said, puzzled. “According to Adah, they rarely sacrifice children these days. They used to do it in early days because they were more easily obtained. Parents were pressured to offer their children to gain status and secure their place in paradise. Adah said sacrifices were chosen from lists of candidates submitted by members.”

  “Candidates?” Caleb asked.

  “In the present day there’s only one offering every year, and members of the faith were urged to submit a name of a person whom they wished sacrificed. It was a mark of respect if their submission was chosen for the kill.”

  “Who did they submit?”

  “An enemy, a business rival, a member of the family,” Lina said. “The family member was considered the purest of all the sacrifices. It gave instant status.” She paused. “Millet submitted his mother as a candidate. Her death won him a position as Guardian of the Offering.”

  Shock upon shock. A man so callous he would put his mother on that altar and take her life. “Exactly what is a Guardian?”

  “He heads up a sort of guard of honor at the Offerings. He’s custodian of holy artifacts and presides at the sacrifices.” Lina’s lips twisted. “Adah admired his strength of will as well as his sexual techniques. She envied his star status in the Offerings. In short, he was her kind of man.”

  “You mean she watched him kill and got off on it.”

  “Power,” Lina said. “Yes, but she might have been content to obey the rules if Roland hadn’t offered her a new and golden ladder to climb.”

  “You said she met him at one of these Offerings? He’s a member?”

  “Oh, yes. Or he would have ended up as a sacrifice if he’d shown up there. The ceremony and religion itself are top secret.”

  “And I was supposed to be scheduled to be a sacrifice at this Offering?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lina said. “Adah didn’t mention you. She was very self-absorbed and evidently you didn’t enter into any of her plans.”

  “I can’t think of any other reason why Millet would want to wait until April 1 to kill me.”

  “April 1?” Lina nodded. “Then you’re probably right. April 1 is the traditional day of the Offering.”

  “And what is this Hadar’s Tablet? You said it was one of the holy artifacts that Millet protected?”

  “Yes, Hadar was the founder of the cult. He was a scribe and an artist. The tablet supposedly describes his journey from Jerusalem and his philosophies. He’s looked upon as a great prophet.”

  “ ‘Supposedly’? Don’t they know what’s in the tablet?”

  She shook her head. “There are rumors about it that have been handed down over the centuries, but Hadar commanded that no one open the gold box where he’d placed the tablet. It was forbidden to see the light of day after his death. It was placed in a special cabinet of honor near the altar in the Offering room.”

  Caleb gave a low whistle. “Then Millet’s letting the tablet be stolen would have been regarded as a mega sin by the members.”

  “And so would Alan Roland’s involvement. Adah had them both by the throat.”

  “According to Weismann, Millet thought I was guilty of blasphemy. It must have been against their great holy man.” Jane looked at Caleb. “That’s crazy. I tell you, any resemblance of anyone to my painting was purely coincidental.”

  “Blasphemy?” Lina repeated. She was silent a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I don’t think that your crime was against Hadar.”

  “Who else? You said he was the founder of their blasted religion. And you said his tablet was priceless.”

  “No, I didn’t say the tablet is priceless. I only told you that Hadar’s Tablet is valuable and held in reverence by the members of this cult.”

  Caleb shook his head. “You referred to a priceless artifact.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the tablet.”

  “Then what were you talking about?” Jane asked impatiently.

  “I’m speaking about the rumors that have been handed down through the centuries about what was in Hadar’s tablet. He was supposed to have knowledge about a very special treasure.”

  “What treasure?”

  “A handful of ancient coins.”

  Jane stiffened, her gaze narrowed on Lina’s face. “Go on.”

  “You didn’t ask me to what deity they make their sacrifices,” Lina said. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Satan?”

  “No.”

&n
bsp; “Tell me, dammit.”

  “Their religion is dedicated to the glorification and redemption of the man who they say sits at God’s side, who is beloved by all the angels of heaven.”

  Jane looked at her in bewilderment. “Jesus?”

  Lina shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “Judas Iscariot.”

  ELEVEN

  “JUDAS,” JANE whispered. “Incredible.”

  Or perhaps it wasn’t, she thought. Why was she surprised that a religion that lauded death and murder would also worship the most treacherous betrayer the world had ever known.

  “I thought you would be surprised,” Lina said. “Of course, I was not raised in your religion, but I know what Judas stands for in your culture.”

  “Judas is almost a universal symbol,” Caleb said. “But Lucifer would have been my guess. A religion that worships power would more likely choose the devil than a mere traitor.”

  “Not according to Hadar. Judas was not a traitor, he was a martyr.”

  Jane made an impatient gesture. “Whatever. At the moment, I don’t care why he was elected to sainthood by those monsters. I need to know why Millet wants to kill me and how I can stop him.”

  Caleb shrugged. “If it was Judas, not Hadar, you supposedly painted, then you can see how fanatics would react. You painted Judas as tormented by guilt.”

  “According to their religion, Judas had no guilt in the crucifixion of Christ,” Lina said. “He was just obeying the wishes of God in the betrayal. Jesus was destined to die on the cross, and someone had to hand him over to the soldiers to make that happen. So Judas sacrificed himself and his place among the disciples to further the will of God.”

  “That’s what Hadar said in this tablet?” Jane asked.

  “How do I know?” Lina said. “But Adah said there were other Hadar tablets and teachings handed down over the centuries that weren’t on the forbidden list. That’s their doctrine.”

  “Twisted,” Jane said. “And this handful of coins that’s so priceless that everyone is after them. Is it what I’m thinking it is?”

  “Adah said that it was the pouch of coins that the priests paid Judas for betraying Jesus.”

  “Yes, I’d say that would be priceless,” Caleb said. “It would electrify the Christian world. The ultimate symbol of the worst tragedy the world has ever known.”

  “Or the proof that the greatest miracle really happened,” Jane said. The idea of those coins still existing stunned her. “Providing that there’s proof and documentation.”

  “Adah said Alan Roland was too smart to follow a trail unless there was some proof that it was going to pay off. Roland had been searching for the coins for years. It had become an obsession. He not only had gone over all of Hadar’s teachings but traveled the world investigating every bit of information that had anything to do with the Judas coins. If he was excited about the prospect of what was in Hadar’s Tablet, then Adah thought it was worth latching on to a shooting star. She was willing to risk Millet killing her to find a way of negotiating a partnership with Roland.”

  “We found two coins in Adah’s bedroom. Could they be part of the Judas coins?”

  Lina shook her head. “Adah bought those coins on the Internet. They had no value. She deliberately left them around where Weismann would find them to lead him down the path she wanted him to go. She did the same thing with the bank keys. She knew that no one but her could access the box.” She added, “It was a kind of test. She actually loved him. All the men in her life, and she had never loved any of them. But Weismann managed to touch something in her. She couldn’t believe he would betray her.”

  Jane remembered the look of incredulous horror on Adah’s face. “She believed it in that last moment.”

  “For the little good it did her,” Caleb said. “Anything else, Lina?”

  “No. That’s all.”

  “I think that we have to find out a good deal more about Alan Roland,” Jane said. “He seems to be the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes.”

  “Do what you like.” Lina snapped her computer shut. “Just do it somewhere else. I’ve given you what you asked. Get someone else to translate that tablet. Now get Weismann off my property, and all of you go with him.”

  “I’ll go check to make sure that Jock was able to get through to Venable.” Jane headed for the door. “I’m sorry we brought this down on you, Lina. We’ll try to get out of your hair as soon as possible.”

  For an instant the hardness in her expression softened a trifle. “I’m sorry, too. But I’m not angry with you. You’re a victim, and I’ve been in your place. I just have to protect myself.” She added briskly, “I’ll have the printouts ready to take with you in fifteen minutes so that you can examine them more carefully.” She glanced at Caleb. “And you owe me. This was more than I bargained for.”

  “Name your price.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.” She got up from the chair. “Now get out. I have to get these translations printed. Then I’m going to blow away the file. I want my mind and my house clear of you.”

  “Understandable.” Caleb followed Jane out of the cottage. “We’ll try to oblige.” He turned to Jane as he closed the door behind him. “Judas. You seemed to have stirred up a hornet’s nest.”

  “I didn’t stir up anything. Hadar is the crazy bastard who decided to found an equally crazy religion. I was only guilty of painting a face that resembled Judas.” She shook her head in frustration. “And how do we know that it actually looked like Judas? That was almost two thousand years ago. And how could Judas’s blood money have survived all these centuries?” “Lots of questions. Shall we see if Weismann knows any of the answers?”

  She stiffened as she glanced at him. She had been so absorbed in the information that Lina had been imparting that she had forgotten the wariness she had felt with Caleb’s attitude toward Weismann. Perhaps she had hoped that it had been dispersed by the distraction.

  It had not dispersed. The fire was not unleashed, but it was still there, smoldering.

  “It’s not that easy,” Caleb said, as if reading her mind. “It doesn’t go away. Let me have him.”

  “No.” She looked away. “You did what you promised. You found Weismann for me. Now I think it’s time we parted ways.”

  “Too late. I’m in too deep.” He smiled faintly. “I scared you, didn’t I? I knew I probably would before this was over. You had a glimmer of what I could be, but you hadn’t actually seen it. I was hoping you might not have to see it.” He shrugged. “But it may be a relief. I am what I am. I told you that you had to accept me.”

  “Do you really know what you are?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I don’t. Sometimes I think I do, then you change. You’ve shown me too many facets to your character for me to be sure.”

  “But you don’t like this particular facet.”

  “Hell, no.”

  He turned away. “Then I’d better not accompany you to the toolshed to see Weismann and Gavin. I’m frustrated and edgy, and he’s not technically mine. I know I don’t have a good enough reason to override you since I promised you Weismann.” He started down the road. “I’ll see you in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to try to find a good enough reason.”

  She watched him walk away. What kind of answer was that? The only kind of answer she could expect from him. She should have learned that by now. He walked his own path and was as uncommunicative as the Sphinx. He was right, he had frightened her tonight. Caleb had revealed a violence and bloodlust that had been shocking. She had instinctively tried to edge away from him.

  And he had refused to let her go. When he had said those words, she had felt helpless. It had been ridiculous to feel that powerless. He could not dominate her. She had her own will. Yet for that moment, she had felt . . . caught.

  She shook her head as she started across the garden toward the toolshed.
The sooner she sent him away and out of her life, the better. Just keeping alive was difficult enough without having to worry about controlling Caleb.

  Control wasn’t even a concept he would deal with if tonight was any example. Yet he would argue that he’d shown the ultimate control. He’d been savage but not lethal. Was that control in his view?

  She couldn’t spend time trying to decipher the dark nuances of Seth Caleb. The revelations of the night had been too mind-boggling to comprehend, and she was still trying to put together the pieces Lina had thrown out to them.

  “I finally reached Venable.” Jock had opened the door of the toolshed and stepped outside. “He said he’d send someone to pick up Weismann, but it would take a few hours.”

  “That’s not good. Lina wants us out of here.”

  “Who can blame her? She heard Weismann screaming?”

  “Yes, he wasn’t exactly quiet.”

  “He was hurting,” Jock said. “I confess I didn’t really believe what you told me about Caleb. I’m not even sure I believe what I saw him do tonight. He’s a very dangerous man, Jane.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to send him away.”

  “That might not be easy.” He was silent a moment. “Tonight, all the gloves were off. When he threw Weismann down before you in the dirt, he was pure, raw emotion. It was a gift that wasn’t easy for him to give you. But he did it, and I think that he’ll collect.”

  “Then it’s not a gift.”

  Jock shrugged. “You’re probably right. You know that I’d rather you send him packing. I’m just saying that we may have trouble doing it.”

  “Not you, Jock. I’m the one who asked him to come.” She saw he was about to argue and changed the subject. “Lina translated the last of the ledger. Close the shed door. I don’t want Weismann to hear this. He seems to think he can make a deal with Venable, and I don’t want him to have any more information than he has already.”

  “That was the only reason I agreed with Caleb that it would be better to rid ourselves of him.” Jock closed the door. “I take it that Adah had something interesting to tell us?”