by J. F. Penn
But the world was changing.
The digitalization of the Vatican Archives was a godsend to a white-hat hacker, as Martin considered himself. The project had begun in 2014 with the aim of putting the vast collection of Vatican Library manuscripts online for anyone to read. The team had started out with obvious texts of no significance – Renaissance Bibles, illustrated manuscripts, classical Greek and Latin works, papal bulls and ecclesiastical letters. But most of those working on the digitalization could not read what they scanned and photographed. As they accelerated the program, other texts began to slip through, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design. Valuable manuscripts with secrets that those with the right knowledge could access.
Martin had found some real gems while sifting through the millions of pages with his custom algorithm. He made sure to change the metadata afterwards so no one would know of his incursions – and it was doubtful that people would ever find the texts again in the mass of data.
The Vatican Library was one of the grandest collections in the world, but it was also one of the most useless because no human could possibly encompass the breadth of what lay inside. No single mind could process what lay inside the secret archives, or even the more accessible ones. Handwritten indexes had been copied from one to another as pages crumbled to dust. All it took was for one scribe to make a mistake on where a document was, or a deliberate mis-copying designed to hide a secret in plain sight. A scholar might spend years applying for access and finally make it to Rome, only to never find what he searched for. But with digitalization, it might be possible to fathom what truly lay within those hallowed halls.
Martin aimed to collect the sum of all human knowledge in the ARKANE databases, his job title as Librarian an understatement for his life’s work. An accumulation of every form of arcane and hidden knowledge the world had, from all cultures. With every year that passed, he gained access to more, and with the increasing possibilities of machine learning, he was able to delve deeper, finding links between disparate histories, surprising connections that explained ancient mysteries.
Once the original digitalization process had demonstrated its value, the Vatican had in recent months embraced new technologies with a project named In Codice Ratio, which used a combination of optical character recognition with artificial intelligence to search neglected texts going back to the eighth century. The aim was to take the fifty-three miles of corridors stacked with crumbling manuscripts and turn it into searchable text that could be used in a twenty-first-century Catholic faith.
It was in this maelstrom of knowledge that Martin finally found the symbol of wind swirling around a cross of bone. It was buried deep in the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, surrounded by dire warnings of what had been discovered in a bloody dungeon almost three hundred years ago. As Martin read the translation, his frown deepened, his eyes darkening in horror.
3
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
An army of skeletons overran the last of the living. They slaughtered the remnant of humanity with scythes and swords, drowning them, hanging them, carving them up. Two bony warriors rang a huge bell, tolling the death knell of the world as a haze of smoke burned across the ravaged, blackened land.
Morgan Sierra stared into Bruegel’s Triumph of Death, wondering at how the Dutch painter had managed to capture his apocalyptic nightmare onto such a large canvas. How could he bear to turn his imagination into reality when it meant facing the horror anew every day, preserving it for all to behold. Morgan didn’t think she could face her own nightmares like this. She had seen demons emerge from the Gates of Hell, the scar on her side throbbed from the fight in the bone church of Sedlec, and the burns on her legs sustained in the battle with the great serpent ached. And her mind … well, her mind was definitely still on edge.
Tourists stood around her, listening to a museum guide explain the symbolism of Bruegel’s sixteenth-century work. The skeletons were just a metaphor to show how death came to kings and paupers alike. But when Morgan looked at images like this, or at the Hieronymus Bosch nightmares in the room beyond, she knew that aspects of them were true. She half-expected the skeletons to emerge from the painting, swords raised high to slaughter those around her. Perhaps she was losing her ability to tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Her mentor, Father Ben Costanza, had known how to balance the mundane routine of daily life with supernatural experience. He had been a man of faith, able to hold both realities in his mind, even as most people walked the earth with no clue as to the battle that waged in other realms. Tears welled up as Morgan thought of Ben and how she would never be able to ask his advice again.
A familiar voice broke into her thoughts. “There you are!”
Morgan turned from the painting to be enveloped in an expansive hug, the scent of wildflowers filling her senses as she embraced her dear friend, Dinah Mizrahi. Dinah was a clinical psychologist, Director of the Ezra Institute based in Israel. She specialized in those with Jerusalem Syndrome, who believed themselves to be prophets or other biblical figures. The pale horse of the apocalypse had shadowed Morgan and Dinah’s steps when they had worked together once before – and it had been some time since they had caught up. When Dinah mentioned speaking at a conference in Madrid, Morgan had jumped on a plane to join her, glad of the chance to escape for a few days.
Dinah tilted her head to one side as she looked over at the painting. “That looks like your kind of fun.” She laughed and took Morgan’s hand. “Yalla, habibi. Let’s go get a drink and some tapas.”
They jumped in a cab and headed to one of the squares in the heart of La Latina, the oldest part of the city where tapas bars bumped up against ancient architecture and medieval streets. They found a table outside in a lively square tucked behind Iglesia de San Andrés Apóstol. Dinah called for wine and a selection of small plates – artichokes, asparagus and hard manchego cheese.
Morgan relaxed into the balmy evening as the familiar lilt of Spanish conversation rose around them. People catching up after work. Laughter. Normal life. No trace of skeletons with scythes. Morgan couldn’t help smiling at herself. Clearly, she just needed a break.
Dinah held her glass up. “L’chaim. To life.”
“To old friends and no drama,” Morgan said. They clinked glasses and sipped at the full-bodied Ribera del Duero.
“So, what’s been happening?” Dinah asked. “I heard you were in Jerusalem when that crazy serpent stuff was going on.”
Morgan shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe what went on under the Western Wall that day.”
Dinah held her hand up. “And I don’t want to know. It’s probably classified anyway. But why aren’t you out in the field now?”
Morgan took another sip of the wine, letting the heady scent of blackberries and spice relax her. “I walked out of ARKANE after the mission, and I don’t know if I can go back. My friend …” Her voice hitched as she bit back tears. “Well, he was more than a friend. More like a mentor. Father Ben Costanza.”
Dinah nodded. “The monk who helped you so much at Oxford University.”
“Yes. He died to protect an ancient seal. He tried to stop the End of Days – and even from beyond the grave, he saved my life and many others.”
“And you feel guilty.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m surrounded by destruction. That I bring pain and death to my loved ones by being with ARKANE. Look at what happened with you and Lior in Jerusalem, and Faye and Gemma with the Pentecost stones. Even my father was killed for his beliefs as one of the Remnant.”
“All of that’s true, but you keep going back. Something is guiding you.” Dinah put out a hand and took Morgan’s. “For I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
“The book of Jeremiah,” Morgan said, recognizing the sacred text. “But my faith remains on a knife-edge between science and the supernatural. I don’t believe in the Judaism of
my father, or the Christianity of my mother. I can’t see the whole truth in either of them.”
“But you’ve seen into the heart of evil, Morgan. I know that – and I know you haven’t told me all that you’ve been through. Did Father Ben understand?”
Morgan nodded. “Yes, he did. His faith was strong and he died with the sure knowledge of where he would go next. Ben never shied away from facing evil.”
She smiled as she remembered Ben’s actions in India on the hunt for the weapon of Shiva Nataraja. Even as an old man, he had joined them to stop the Destroyer of Worlds.
Dinah swirled the red wine around her glass. “Exactly. He chose his life – as you have chosen yours. He wouldn’t blame you for his death.” She lifted her glass in a toast. “Father Ben.”
Morgan raised her glass in turn. “To Father Ben.”
Dinah leaned back in her chair. “So, what are you going to do next? Return to the university and your psychology practice?”
Morgan thought of her office tucked away near the Turf Tavern between Holywell Street and New College Lane in Oxford. When she left the Israeli Defense Force after the violent death of her husband, Elian, she had specialized in the psychology of religion. She had spent her first years at Oxford shuttling between the Theology faculty where divinity was uppermost, and the scientists of the psychology lab who had no patience for her religious leanings. Ben helped her marry the two as Morgan carved out a niche psychology practice helping cult survivors, but once she caught a glimpse of the world of ARKANE, she left all that behind.
After what she had seen beyond the veil of what most knew as reality, could she really go back to the mundane world of university politics and individual therapy?
She shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s still a place for me, but increasingly, it doesn’t feel like home. Even my cat prefers the sitter these days.”
“Adventure has its pros and cons.” Dinah topped up her wine glass. “And what about your old partner, Jake Timber, wasn’t it? Hot South African, I seem to remember.” She gave a cheeky smile. “How’s he doing without you?”
Morgan thought of Jake – his easy grin that twisted the corkscrew scar at his temple. His ferocity in battle and his unspoken tenderness.
Perhaps it was all about Jake. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him as she had lost so many others. But had she lost him anyway by leaving ARKANE? He was in America now, on a mission with another agent – another partner. Did he even think of her?
St Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, USA.
This was more like it, Jake thought, as he followed Naomi through a narrow walkway between tightly packed vaults. New Orleans conjured many images in the minds of those who hadn’t visited – jazz, Mardi Gras, floods – and of course, the graveyards, cities of the dead that remained at the heart of the old town.
A few palm trees grew, casting shade across the tombs but mostly the sun burned down from above onto stony ground. The majority of vaults were functional, rectangular, some with stone cladding crumbling away to reveal brick beneath, some fenced with spikes on top to keep people out – or perhaps to keep the dead in. Others had filigree crosses or statues of angels. Most were in a state of disrepair, but some were pristine, a beacon of white marble against the grey stone of old tombs. Fresh flowers adorned one grave carved with the names of a prominent family, whose most recent burial was just a year ago.
Jake thought of his own family, buried together as they had died, hacked to death in a raid gone wrong. He hadn’t visited their grave in so long, preferring to stay away from South Africa and the memories he kept locked there. Back-to-back ARKANE missions meant that he never had time to think much about his own past – and that was fine. The living were his priority.
Naomi stopped in front of one tomb covered in hand-drawn ‘X’s with offerings of trinkets and plastic flowers lying in front.
“This is said to be the tomb of Marie Laveau, known as the Voodoo Queen.”
“In a Catholic cemetery?”
“You’d be surprised how much of voodoo is related to Catholicism.”
Naomi pointed at another tomb, an ostentatious white pyramid with the Latin inscription, Omnia Ab Uno, Everything From One. “That’s the actor, Nicolas Cage’s tomb, bought for when he dies.”
“Put the bunny back in the box,” Jake drawled in a terrible imitation of a southern accent.
Naomi looked confused.
Jake shrugged, a wry smile on his face. “Con Air. One of my favorite Cage movies.”
“Must have been before my time,” Naomi said, making Jake feel desperately old. “The collapse is at the back of the cemetery. This way.”
They rounded the corner of a tomb to find a gaping hole with a mound of broken rock that led down into darkness surrounded by warning signs and safety rope.
“This is why the police called ARKANE,” Naomi explained. “Traces of blood from the ground down there matched the body at Saint Roch. The monk was killed here, and then his body dumped – perhaps as a warning.”
Naomi walked toward the hole, her footsteps sounding suddenly loud in the deserted cemetery.
Except it wasn’t deserted.
Jake sensed something more here than the dust and ashes of the long-dead. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, his jaw tightened, and his skin tingled even though the sun still beat down with intensity. In his years with ARKANE, he’d become attuned to energy beyond the visible.
Usually, he felt at peace in cemeteries, an acceptance of the passage of life that ended in eternal rest after a lifetime of struggle. But here, there was a twisting sensation, like the earth had been wrung out. The suffering and violent death of so many had trickled into the ground, filtering down to something beneath, festering in the dark. Now it had been disgorged.
Naomi turned around. “You coming?”
Jake followed and together they clambered down into the chamber.
Industrial standing lights lit up the scene below, reflecting off a ceiling of skulls, glancing off piles of bone, glinting from a sword held by a skeleton lying in battle pose. But what did it protect?
Jake caught his breath as the place brought back a memory of the battle with the demon in the bone church of Sedlec. He was a long way from the Czech Republic now, but that day, Morgan had saved his life. He looked over at Naomi as she gazed up at the walls. She was a good agent but new to the game, and he missed his partner. This trip was already turning into more than he had expected.
“How did they not know about this place before?” Jake asked.
Naomi walked toward the altar, carefully picking her way through the prone skeletons. “The surveyors swear it wasn’t here. It just appeared somehow.”
“Or it was built recently.” But Jake’s cynicism faded as he bent to the nearest skeleton, its skull coated in the patina of time. This was no modern re-creation of an ossuary. This had been constructed many years ago with the bones of slaves, the bones of the plague dead, the bones of those who went to death willingly – and those who resisted the darkness as it came for them.
Jake thought back to the chamber under New York City, a place shown on no map, with no way to find it again. A place somehow separate in time. He knew there were pockets in the world where energy warped and hidden things waited for the right time to emerge. So, what had emerged here?
“Look at this.” Naomi pointed to the top of the altar. “There’s a dust mark, an outline of a box that’s been removed.”
Jake came to stand next to her. “But who took it, and why?”
His phone rang, the tone a sudden intrusion.
Jake glanced at the screen. Martin Klein from ARKANE HQ. The connection was weak, so he walked back toward the opening so they could hear each other clearly.
“Hey, Spooky, what did you find?”
“Jake, this is much bigger than one murder. The symbol belongs to the Brotherhood of the Breath, a shadow organization that has protected a sacred relic for hundreds of years.”
Jake looked around the chamber of bones. “What kind of relic? We have a few choices right here.”
“The Brotherhood protect the Hand of Ezekiel, said to be able to raise the dead.”
4
“The Hand of Ezekiel?” Jake frowned. “Sounds like some kind of freaky mummified body part.”
Naomi came to stand next to him, and he put the phone on speaker so she could hear Martin.
“It’s unclear exactly what it is from the records but it’s definitely in five pieces, and it refers to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 37, in verses known as the Valley of Dry Bones. The breath of God is summoned, and enters a vast army of the dead, bringing them back to life.”
Jake shrugged. “I’m not an expert on biblical texts, but it sounds like a zombie story. A load of dead people coming back to life is pretty weird.”
“Not so weird,” Naomi said. “It’s a metaphor for resurrection and new life.”
A beat of silence.
“But what if it’s not a metaphor,” Martin said quietly. “What if it’s actually real? After all, there are resurrection stories in many ancient religions, and zombies are accepted as a part of specific voodoo rituals.”
Naomi looked puzzled. “I know Catholicism and voodoo have close ties, but what could possibly link a religious relic with zombies?”
“The history of Europe, Africa and the New World are entwined with the blood and suffering of millions,” Martin explained. “The Spanish acquired the Portuguese territories of Africa at the Treaty of El Pardo in 1778, but they were exploring territory there well before that. Even now, Spanish is the national language of Equatorial Guinea.”