by J. F. Penn
Jake looked over at Naomi as she examined the place, her darker skin unrepresented even though the city was filled with people of color whose faith sustained the church.
She turned at his gaze and pointed behind him. “At least they have a woman in here.”
Jake spun around and looked up at a statue of Saint Jeanne d’Arc. She wore the armor of a French nobleman, a standard clutched in her hand as she stared toward the altar, a challenge in her eyes.
“They certainly like fire in this city,” he said softly, ideas beginning to swirl in his mind as to what dark secrets lay beneath the veneer of this elegant house of prayer.
He noticed a Bible in a glass case at the foot of the plinth, a thick tome opened to an illustrated page. Jake stepped closer to see the text. Ezekiel chapter 37, the Valley of Dry Bones. Skeletal figures crawled from the earth around the edge of the page, blank eyes fixed on the prophet as he stretched out his hand to call the dead from the grave.
“It’s a copy of the Bible of St Louis.” Naomi read from the plaque next to it. “Illustrated between 1226 and 1234 in Paris, it’s also known as the Toledo Bible. The original is in the Cathedral of Toledo in Spain.” Her eyes darkened, a frown deepening between her brows. “The Catholic Church purged Toledo during the Reconquista. The streets ran with the blood of the Jews they slaughtered.”
“A dark history, indeed. Perhaps they were hiding something there. These images don’t look medieval, and look at that.” Jake pointed to the stylized image of a cross surrounded by the wind in one corner of the page. “The mark of the Brotherhood of the Breath.”
Naomi put her finger on the glass case, as if trying to touch the symbol through the barrier. “This is just a copy, perhaps there is something different in the original? But we can’t go to Toledo, not now. We have too much to investigate here.”
Jake took a deep breath. “I might know someone who can help us.”
Madrid, Spain.
Morgan wandered through the streets of La Latina. She had dropped Dinah back to the hotel and then headed out again, restlessness keeping her from sleep. She walked alone, surrounded by the nightlife of the vibrant city. Her stride was that of a predator, not a victim, and as she pulled the night around her, she lost herself in tiny passageways, emerging into plazas dominated by the ever-present churches, the power of faith still pervasive even in modern Spain.
The smell of sweet churros hung in the air from the night market stalls as the sound of vendors hawking their wares filled the balmy night. The sound of music wafted from bars and Morgan glimpsed friends drinking together, and the dance of courtship between strangers that was obvious in any culture. Her scars throbbed, but the pain of her burned flesh helped her think, grounding her to the earth as she walked on.
Morgan glimpsed her own history in the features of those passing by. She had inherited the Sephardi Jewish looks of her Spanish father, Leon Sierra, murdered as one of the Remnant. He was buried in a Kabbalah cemetery in Safed in Israel, safe now from those she had pursued in vengeance through Moorish Spain not so long ago. She shivered as she remembered the Gates of Hell, but what she had seen that final night was the fuel that drove her now. She could not un-see the darkness that some would try to bring into the world, but her life had no meaning unless she tried to stop them.
Morgan brushed a dark curl back from her face, noting how much she fitted in here, easily passing as a Madrileña, a native of the city. Perhaps she should move over, leave the stifled sensibilities of Oxford for the laid-back freedom of Spain. She smiled to herself. Whenever she was restless, she thought about moving in the hope that it might help tame the wildness that lay within her. But moving only quietened it for a time, before something rose to drive her on to something new.
Would she ever find peace? Would there ever be a place that she could call home, somewhere to put down roots and build a life she could share with another?
Once she had thought it would be Israel, but when her husband Elian had died in a hail of bullets on the Golan Heights, she had left the country she had grown up in for a new life. Perhaps she had been running ever since.
The scream of a siren suddenly split the air.
People looked around with concern, bodies poised for flight. Madrileños still remembered the commuter train bombings of 2004, the threat of terrorism remaining in a country with so many from far corners of the earth. But the siren passed by and smiles returned, the life of the night market continuing. Another sip of wine. Another flirtatious smile. Another moment of life.
Morgan felt the vibration of her phone in her pocket and stopped in the entranceway of a church to pull it out.
Jake. Her heart beat a little faster as she saw his name.
There was a moment when she considered not answering it. Did she want whatever he offered?
Morgan looked around, recognizing the mundanity of life here, just as it was in every place she ran to. There was only one way to escape the turmoil inside her, to live a life of freedom. She had to embrace the chaos.
She answered the phone.
6
Morgan took a deep breath as the line connected. “Hi, Jake.”
“Sorry to call so late.” His voice was hesitant. “I didn’t know if you’d be awake.”
“Madrid only wakes up around ten pm, so we’re just getting started.” Morgan could hear sounds of a saxophone and the chatter of a crowd at the other end of the line. “How’s New Orleans?”
“You’d like it here.”
“You’d like it here, too.”
A beat of silence between them.
“Since you are there,” Jake continued. “I wondered if perhaps you wouldn’t mind jumping on a train to Toledo.”
Morgan leaned back against the cool stone of the church behind her, the wall hard and unyielding, just like the faith it represented. “It’s only an hour away. What do you need?”
“There’s a Bible in the cathedral. We need to compare the original Ezekiel chapter 37 with the copy here in New Orleans.”
Morgan took another deep breath. “I’ll need special access. Permissions.”
“I’ll get Martin to meet you there tomorrow.”
Morgan could hear the smile in Jake’s voice and found herself grinning in return. “It will be good to see him.”
Charity Hospital, New Orleans, USA.
Behind the labs and holding cells, beyond the reach of beeping monitors and the struggle to synthesize life, there was a private wing of the hospital, a series of luxury apartments for those guests who came to the clinic in secret. There was no illegality in what they did here, but sometimes the line blurred between what was legal and what was ethical.
Luis walked down the long corridor past frosted glass doors, the sound of low voices inside. Clients paid handsomely for guaranteed privacy on top of the treatments they sought – a regimen that wound back the clock on their biological lifespan. Luis smiled to himself as he recalled the names of notable people inside, the millions that poured into his bank accounts daily.
A doctor walked down the corridor pushing a cart with a red box on top marked Blood Products in Transit. The doctor nodded respectfully at Luis and paused by one of the luxury suites, entering a code on the door before stepping inside.
The idea of taking blood from the young and injecting it into the old was first postulated by the natural philosopher Robert Boyle in the seventeenth century. Once considered ethically abhorrent and even vampiric, there were now Silicon Valley start-ups that provided the service from private blood banks. There were rumors of clandestine clinics in Latin America that offered blood from those too young to give consent, but here in New Orleans, Luis made sure they were legally above board. Many wanted to try the service and paid handsomely for it.
Life extension had become an obsession for those wealthy enough to satisfy every desire. As bio-technology leapt ahead, radical life extension was becoming a possibility, driven by Silicon Valley billionaires who were arrogant enough to want to beat
death. Some researched backing up their consciousness onto quantum computers, others investigated using shell bodies, or clones; others still at regeneration at the cell level. These men, and they were mostly men, were not willing to fade away, to let death rob them of their power and make them equal to any pauper dying in the gutter.
Some questioned whether humans should tinker with lifespan and Luis had even watched a live stream of a debate at the Vatican on the ethics of life extension. One of the speakers argued that longevity had a Biblical basis: ‘Methuselah lived 969 years according to Genesis chapter five. Death comes to us all, but it doesn’t have to come in three score years and ten.’
There were ethical issues, of course, around sustainability of the planet with an undying population, but most acknowledged that life extension was a valid pursuit.
Unfortunately, it had a fatal flaw.
Accidents happened, and unless you spent your life cocooned in a padded cell, no one could stop death from arriving around a blind corner. When a billionaire’s beloved son died in a car accident, the grieving father found his way to Luis’s door.
The first Reys had sought the Hand of Ezekiel for religious purposes, but Luis had recognized its commercial potential. Bringing back the dead for some kind of divine army was unnecessary in a world of drones and cyber-terrorism. But bringing back the dead for those who could pay for it was an entirely different matter. The hunt for the relic suddenly had unlimited funding.
They had made little progress, but now the bone box and its map might change everything, and Luis could only hope they would find it in time. He had his own reasons to find what could turn dry bone into living flesh again. He walked on down the corridor, his footsteps quickening, each step matching a heartbeat toward the inevitable end.
Beyond the luxury apartments, Luis had his own private suite. He paused at the door and bent forward, leaning his forehead against the wall. The coolness soothed him for a moment as he struggled to turn his expression from concern to confidence. He breathed deeply and inhaled the floral scent that overlaid the antiseptic smell. The cloying fragrance reminded him of a funeral home, and he almost gagged at the thought that he might have to visit her in such a place. It wasn’t right for someone so young.
He stood upright again, as upright as he could with his twisted spine, and plastered a smile on his face. He pressed the button by the automatic door and it swished to the side.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
Elena Rey sat in the hospital bed, propped up by pillows. Her mahogany hair hung like a curtain around her face, her olive skin pale. A drip fed into her left arm and monitors surrounded her, leads attached to sensors on her skin, continually monitoring her condition. Her dark brown eyes opened and she smiled to see him.
“Morning, Papa.”
Her voice was so weak, and her eyes betrayed a deep exhaustion. Luis wished he could take her out of here, back to the beaches of southern Spain where she could run and dance with other teenagers, in love with life. But instead, she was here, waiting to die. Luis knew she was ready to go – but he wasn’t willing to give her up.
Elena was born thirteen years ago, the result of a casual relationship. Luis had never cared much for her mother, but when his little girl entered the world, he had fallen in love for the first and only time. His lawyers made sure he had full custody and his baby girl had everything.
But one day, his sweet Elena had fallen and bruised herself. As the muscle ossified, the look in the doctor’s eyes that day told him everything.
His own genetic code damned his daughter to an early death. Her variation of Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva was particularly aggressive and even stretching a muscle too much could cause acceleration of bone development. Elena’s body was soon covered in the tumor-like lumps that characterized the disease, and she became bed-ridden before her tenth birthday.
Some in his family called it God’s will. Some said it was unfortunate that the disease had developed so young, but he would have more children. There would be more Reys to carry on the family line.
But Luis would not let Elena go so easily. He worked with every specialist he could find in the world until they all said there was nothing left to do. That he should prepare for the end. So, Luis brought her to the lab, his determination renewed. He would find the Hand of Ezekiel, and it would bring life to the bones that crippled his beloved.
He picked up the tablet computer that monitored Elena’s condition, tapped it to find the latest results and reviewed the most recent scans. The chart showed a marked increase in bone formation around Elena’s ribcage. It wouldn’t be long until the ossification process stopped her breathing altogether.
Luis kept his smile in place. “It’s looking better, sweetheart, and I have some exciting new possibilities that are going to help you.”
Elena looked up at him, deep purple shadows under her eyes. She spoke in a halting whisper. “It hurts, Papa. I’m so tired. Can’t I just rest?”
Luis knew what she meant. They had talked about her end of life choices, and when she said enough was enough, he would respect her decision to sleep without pain. He would help her transition and make sure she didn’t feel a thing except peace and love at the end.
But he couldn’t let her go just yet.
Luis blinked back the tears that pricked at his eyes. He sat down on the side of her bed and gently took her hand in his.
“Of course, I want you to rest. But I need you to hang on. I really do have something that might change things. Will you give me a little more time?”
Elena looked up at him, devotion in her eyes. She sighed. “A little more time, Papa. But only a little.”
Luis bent to kiss her forehead, hiding his tears as he placed his lips against her skin. She was soft and warm, still alive. At least for another day. He reached for the controller to the pain meds that dripped into her arm. He pressed one of the buttons, releasing a tiny dose.
“I’ll let you sleep now.”
Luis walked to the door, then turned back. Elena lay with her eyes closed, her skin as pale as a corpse, her petite frame already made of so much bone. It was a wonder she still breathed.
There wasn’t much time left.
He needed the Hand of Ezekiel to turn her dry bones back to life again. Luis clenched his fists. Nothing would stop him finding that relic.
Back in his office, he picked up the bone box and looked at the intricately placed rubies. He compared the positions to a map of the Spanish Empire, then he called Julio.
“It’s time. The first location is Toledo.”
7
Toledo, Spain.
Morgan stepped out of the taxi and looked out over the entire city on the other side of the valley. The clouds parted, and the sun shone down on the Alcazar dominating the skyline with its four turrets and thick walls. It overlooked closely packed houses below that ran all the way down to the waterline in a riot of terracotta roofs, grey stone and green trees.
Toledo was the perfect defendable city, built on a mountaintop, surrounded on three sides by the rush of the Tagus River. It was formidable indeed, and Morgan felt the chill of what it represented for her ancestors as she got back in the taxi and they headed in toward the city gates.
Although small in size, the ancient city of Toledo loomed large in history. Originally a Roman town, it became the capital of the Visigoth kingdom for centuries. Synods, church councils, had been held in Toledo for the first thousand years of Christianity, turning the city into a center of learning.
But when the Moors took the Iberian Peninsula in the early eighth century, Toledo entered a period of decline. Re-taken by the Christian king, Alfonso VI of Castile, in 1085, its cultural center was revived and later, Toledo was the first concrete step in the Reconquista, as the Christian monarchs took Spain back from Muslim rule.
But the medieval years were hard for the Jews of Toledo. They were persecuted and killed, forced to convert, and in 1492, forced from their homes and driven into e
xile. When Toledo became home to the court of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, it was known for embracing elements of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, but the Catholic Church still ruled here even now.
Morgan stepped out of the taxi at the city gates and walked into the pedestrianized streets. The main thoroughfare was a tourist trap with shops selling jamon, the ubiquitous cured ham of the region, bad replicas of Toledo steel swords and plastic Madonnas. It was disappointing, a medieval theme park with no sense of the history that Morgan had glimpsed from the outer city.
But then she turned a corner into a narrow alleyway that led into the oldest part of the city. Clouds gathered above, the sky darkened, and as it began to rain, the tourist crowds disappeared into coffee shops. Morgan walked alone at last, and a glimpse of the old city revealed itself in the stone walls that loomed high around her. A canopy of faded red cloth hung down from above with embroidered floral decoration, wreaths of flowers draped at intervals along it. A walkway for the faithful as they came to pray, leading to the cathedral gate.
Martin Klein stood at the entrance, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet. His shock of rough-cut blonde hair spiked in different directions, his wire-rim glasses and eager gaze made him look like an escaped professor. Morgan smiled to see him. ARKANE’s archivist was far more than his job title, and Martin had joined the team on a number of missions, although he still hadn’t quite learned to navigate the real world as well as his virtual one.
“Morgan, so lovely to see you.”
Martin bobbed toward her a little and then ducked away. She didn’t try to hug him, respecting his need for physical distance, an integral part of his personality.