Victory of Coins (The Judas Chronicles, #7)

by Aiden James

  “Oh my God—you found it!” Rachel enthused, startling me from behind. She and Roderick must have either sensed or finally noticed my preoccupation off the beaten path.

  “It certainly fits the scant criteria you were given,” I said, annoyed that hers and Roderick’s guides couldn’t better define something blatantly obvious as a gold ring—especially one likely belonging to Dr. Cirillo. But at least Roderick was busy checking out the disturbed soil nearby.

  “Kaslow was here... digging and then he stopped,” he said, bending down to take a handful of sand and let it drift through his fingers. “Something distracted him... I sense his disappointment.”

  “And, so he left? What in the hell does that have to do with Cirrilo’s ring? I doubt he dropped it by accident,” I said, in disgust. “It seems more logical for him to cast it aside, either as a comment about his coin search or as a ploy for us.”

  I have to admit to some satisfaction at Rachel’s surprised expression, as if my theory of how the damned ring ended up at Qumran made perfect sense and the summation of her previous suppositions had turned to shit.

  “That’s not all of it, Judas,” she said, seeking to regain her edge. “He did plant it.”

  “Which means he knew we would be here,” said Roderick, finishing her latest line of reasoning. “And, if he arranged that much, then he has been likely more aware of our plans than we’ve assumed. Perhaps he even knew what time of day we would be here, and long before today’s earlier unfortunate event....”

  A sudden shadow filled the air above, and for a moment I expected to see a horde of Kaslow’s demons—Bochicha’s Emissaries—hovering above us like birds of prey ready to swoop down upon us in our unguarded state. But it was just a dark cloud, though unusual for a lone storm cloud to float through the desert’s shallow sky.

  I assumed it was only an odd coincidence... until Roderick’s phone rang.

  “What in the hell?” he muttered, pulling it out from his pocket to read the display and glancing toward an unseen satellite in the sky beyond the cloud. “It’s Michael.”

  “Lavoie?” Rachel sought to confirm

  Roderick nodded and took the call, stepping away from us while I scanned the area again, on the alert for anything suspicious among the human visitors to Qumran. No one paid us any attention, or so it seemed.

  Roderick cursing under his breath drew our attention as he rejoined us, and he motioned for us to hurry back to the car.

  “What in the hell’s up?”

  “Well, Judas... it does appear your observation about this scene being a set-up is spot on,” he said, removing his sunglasses to massage his eyes—a sure sign of surprise by my druid friend. “Another historian—one previously unbeknownst to us—was found shot to death by a crossbow a few hours ago in Athens, Greece. Michael says the carbon arrows are an initial close match to those used to injure Cedric and kill Dr. Anderson.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “How quickly can we get there?”

  “Michael advised for us to stay away,” he replied.

  “And?” I persisted.

  “You already know we can’t do that,” he said, and turned to Rachel. “Stay here if you prefer, especially if you would rather not incur the wrath of your American employer.”

  “You two aren’t going anywhere without me,” she said, glaring mostly at me, as if the suggestion to stay behind had come from me instead of Roderick. “If you’re heading to Athens, then I’m coming along.”

  “Then so be it,” he said. “For better or for worse, we’re headed for Greece.... God help us if it’s another trap.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kaslow’s latest victim—at least the latest victim that we knew of—was an American. Dr. Kyle Drummond had taught several years ago at Athens University in an exchange situation with the University of Michigan. He and his wife, Marie, had returned to Athens two days ago to celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  Both were killed in the same manner.

  Details that were sketchy at first became clearer during our flight to Athens. Using the same plane that Rachel had previously arranged from Cairo, we were scheduled to arrive at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport at Spata at 5:05 p.m. that evening. By the time we left Israel’s airspace, the crime scene photographs from the professor’s rented villa had made it to Rachel’s laptop, along with copies of the initial forensic and witness reports. Proprietary information that would normally be off limits without prior proof of ‘need to know’ privileges, Rachel’s active CIA contacts carried more international pull than Roderick had with his buddies back in Washington.

  Michael Lavoi, the man who was once my boss at the CIA, remained Roderick’s and Rachel’s chief liaison in Washington, but I now had something new to tease Roderick about. Rachel apparently could attain access to International information much quicker than Roderick could. They enjoyed a playful sparring match of words while I studied the images and documents, following Roderick’s examination of the same.

  “Do you see it?” he asked me, when I was halfway done and had lingered for a few minutes on the photographs of the couple, both bound by twine to kitchen chairs and their hearts pierced by what were listed as ‘carbon arrows fired at close range’.

  “Other than the sloppiness involved here? No... I’m afraid not,” I confessed. “Maybe I’m having a harder time getting past this monster’s need to kill nearly every human he encounters. He was always a bad man, but in the past Kaslow killed to make a point. Now he behaves as if he’s getting extra credit for every person he takes out.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as you suppose, and is still striving to make a point, first and foremost.... Would you like for me to point out a curious thing to you?”

  Roderick leaned toward me against his seatbelt’s restraint, since technically we hadn’t landed yet, and the plane was making the final approach to the runway.

  “Why not, since apparently I’m as a blind as a frigging bat,” I retorted. “Be my guest.”

  He shook his head at my testiness. “Don’t take it personally, Judas. Every one of us loses their edge—immortal or not—when we move on to other interests. I still dabble in this shit, so I should be better at it.... Just remember there are those who can run circles around me, too.”

  He nodded toward Rachel, who responded with a smile that was slightly smug and all kinds of naughty. They were chumming up more than I cared to consider.... But for the moment I wasn’t sure if this was based on my previous resentment towards her, or if it was a byproduct of my own loneliness. Seeing any kind of happiness, including the sparks of mild flirtation as it was in this case, reminded me of what I had lost with Beatrice.

  I looked away in hopes the sorrow and its attendant surge of weakness in my limbs would leave me.

  “Let me see the MacBook for a moment,” he said, pulling back from my private revelry of sorrow.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m going to highlight the image I’m talking about with a light blue halo that is barely detectible,” he advised, sitting down again. “By the time we land you should see it, and realize the figure barely visible in a corner of the living room mirror is in reality plain as day, though easy to miss at first glance.”

  He had my curiosity piqued, and I took the laptop back from him. Three of the photographs were open on the main screen, and using a program to enhance the image he spoke of, the mirror in question was highlighted in blue for each frame. I soon disagreed with Roderick’s assertion that the shadowed face in attendance was ‘plain as day’. Even so, if it had been clearly visible without the color enhancement, the creature to which the face belonged might’ve provided one hell of a scare to the detectives and forensic team processing the crime scene.

  “I see the face now... the long teeth and hollow eyes make it look like one of the demons we saw in Bolivia a few years ago—Bochicha’s Emissaries,” I said. “However, I don’t recall them being translucent like this one is.”

/>   “Silly man, do you know nothing about demons and other mischievous spirits in this world?” Rachel taunted. The intensity of her gaze made it hard to tell if this was a playful jab or not.

  “Apparently not,” I told her, accepting her verbal gauntlet. “Except for one most regrettable mistake in my lifetime, they’ve never been bedfellows of mine.”

  “Oh, and by that you’re implying what?”

  “Be nice, children,” said Roderick, lightheartedly. “Keep the shots above the waist.”

  “Okay... the fact this demon was there at all is an important clue,” said Rachel, after smiling coyly at Roderick and shaking her head at me. “The camera inadvertently caught the demon’s presence, and I am reasonably certain that those in attendance were largely unaware of it being there. It wasn’t present physically—just its spiritual essence—and if anything, they might have felt the entity’s hostility.”

  “If Kaslow had disposed of the professor and his wife after obtaining what he came for, then why would he bother having one of his cronies stick around? Surely not to simply gloat, right? ” It didn’t make sense to me. Unless....

  “Unless, Kaslow didn’t find what he was looking for from Dr. Drummond,” said Roderick, finishing my thought. “We will be visiting the crime scene shortly after we arrive, and maybe something will jump out at us. For now, all we have to go on is what a general background check into Dr. Drummond’s life as an academic tells us.”

  “And it isn’t much,” Rachel added. “He hasn’t actively researched the Damascus Coin in more than three decades. He was never considered an expert on it, which adds to the mystery of why he was targeted—especially to die.”

  “Except for one possible clue,” said Roderick, and I admit that it was becoming a strange thing to be tag-teamed like this by the two of them. “Dr. Drummond spent almost a full year studying this particular coin and its rather gruesome history while working on his Master’s thesis. Actually, the paper dealt with a sorcerer from the sixth century A.D. who had taken on the name of Trophonius—the same moniker that belonged to a sorcerer from the mythical period of Grecian history. To save time, let me summarize this particular magician’s resume by saying he was a precursor to Krontos Lazarevic, and may have been the first of several sorcerers to possess the coin that was passed through Syrian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Grecian hands. As we’ve discussed before, the violence that has followed this coin through medieval times has been every bit as bloody during its most popular era as any of the other coins have been. Everyone that relied on its power to enhance their magic perished horribly—at least that’s the assertion of Dr. Drummond’s dissertation.”

  “And, somehow Kaslow found out about the professor’s research?” I sought to confirm, to which they both nodded. “I guess I should no longer be amazed at what can turn up in a Google search.”

  “We don’t know if that’s how Kaslow tracked him down, or not,” said Rachel. “My contact in Greece told me there are two journals that were found inside Dr. Drummond’s briefcase. While there is evidence that our Russian friend confiscated some of the professor’s belongings, his briefcase was left intact.”

  “Which could be a message in itself from Kaslow... or maybe not,” I said. “Will we need to visit the police headquarters in Athens to view the contents?”

  “No... only the forensic evidence and the couple’s passports and other ‘billfold’ items are in police possession at the moment,” said Rachel. “I now have a favor to repay to a good friend at the embassy. He is allowing us time to view the items before everything else is turned over to the police later this evening.”

  It didn’t take long to learn the specific details of what she advised. Soon after the plane landed and the Athens Custom authorities confirmed our security clearance, a pair of US Embassy employees greeted us on the tarmac. They looked like brothers, dressed in dark blue suits with dark hair and eyes.

  “Roderick and William, this is Alexis and Dimitris.” Rachel indicated for us to show the pair our passports after this introduction, in order to get the main formalities out of the way. We then followed our escorts to a black Mercedes parked nearby. Rachel hung back with us. “Dimitris is the friend I told you about on the plane, Judas. In their presence, I will use your chosen American alias to avoid confusion, since William J. Barrow is what your passport shows.”

  “I suppose it would be a can of worms otherwise, eh?” I whispered in return, appreciating her thoroughness—something that wasn’t one of her strong suits back in the day.

  “He and Alexis will accompany us to the crime scene, and afterward they’ll bring us to the hotel where we will be staying tonight,” she advised. “Hopefully, we will know where to travel next by tomorrow morning.”

  I shot Roderick a look, as I had not been informed of anything other than viewing the villa that the Drummonds had rented. Nothing had been mentioned about remaining in Greece overnight, although it was possible we might not finish scouring the crime scene for clues about Viktor Kaslow and the next place to search for the Damascus Coin until very late.

  “We have reserved accommodations at the King George Hotel tonight, and to be honest, I could use a night’s rest in something other than an airplane,” said Roderick. “Hopefully, as Rachel said, we’ll have a definitive answer on where to go next by morning.”

  “And, if Kaslow strikes again before then, we’ll cancel the reservation and immediately fly to wherever he has moved on to,” she promised. “Do not worry, Judas—fulfilling your quest will remain our priority.”

  The view of the city’s skyline and famed landmarks in the early evening sunlight were almost breathtaking in their brilliance, and I found myself reminiscing about the times Roderick and I had traveled here... sans our present immortal company. Of course, much had changed down through the centuries. But some of the modern architectural changes surprised me in a good way, though I wasn’t sure what to think of a few of the more modern works of art on display. The internal debate between tolerance and loathing, in response to some of the newer sculptures, still raged when we reached the villa.

  A luxurious compound with a rental cost that would normally far exceed the per diem funds granted the most celebrated visiting scholars, Rachel had told us on the plane that a benefactor sitting on the university board had paid for Dr. Drummond’s use of the property. Exquisite marble fountains and what appeared to be koi ponds dotted the courtyard’s generous expanse. The place would’ve seemed extravagant even if the entire Drummond clan from Michigan had come along for this visit.

  Stepping into the main living areas, the opulence continued to be the main focus... until we reached the cordoned off area that surrounded two bloodstained chairs positioned side by side. Twin pools of congealed blood surrounded the legs of the chairs.

  “It has changed very little since what the chef and housekeeper discovered today, when they returned from a trip to a local market,” the man named Dimitris explained. “The main floor has been processed for evidence.”

  He didn’t need to add a remark for us to be careful to not disturb the scene laid out before us. Having removed the bodies of Kyle and Marie Drummond made things easier. If we needed a physical reminder of the victims’ state, Rachel’s laptop contained the photographic evidence collected that afternoon.

  “Thank you, Dimitris,” said Roderick. “You have been most helpful.... Now if you don’t mind, we would like time for the three of us to explore this area alone.”

  Roderick offered a cordial smile, and Rachel added that we would update Dimitris and Alexis in the event we found anything of possible interest to the police. Whether that remained true for me as well would depend on what we discovered.

  “Don’t be too clever,” Rachel advised, as I waited for our two embassy employees to move into a large dining room on the other side of the kitchen. “I made a promise to share anything of note.”

  Not the wisest thing to do, but I held off judging her for it. Meanwhile, Roderick examined the b
loody puncture holes in the chairs’ upholstery... likely to confirm the distance from where Kaslow executed husband and wife. I tried not to picture the terrifying moment when whatever sweet-tongued promise was reneged upon and Kaslow prepared to systematically kill them both.

  Why? He left them alive while he looked for something... the medium twine speaks to him tying them up to keep them from fleeing.... It means he had use for them being alive until he was ready to dispatch them....

  They served a purpose that went beyond mere torture.

  “Where are the journals?” I asked Rachel.

  “Dimitris? Do you have the briefcase in there with you?” she called out to the dining room, when neither of us could detect its presence.

  “It is in here... I will bring it to you,” he advised, and a moment later stepped into the kitchen, setting the briefcase next to a grill on a large marble island. He opened the case and turned it toward me. “There are two journals... one is from thirty-two years ago, and the other is less than a year old.”

  The older journal was obvious from its dog-eared, yellowed pages, and it was the one I gravitated to first. Meanwhile, Roderick and Rachel looked on. I could tell from Roderick’s expression that he was content for me to go through the journals first, and he cautioned Rachel to wait when she reached for the newer one.

  Nearly everything in the first journal was information Roderick and I had long known about, and appeared to mostly be the professor’s dissertation notes. Most of the focus was on sorcery and the coin was mentioned as a side legend to Trophonius’ history as a sorcerer who practiced human sacrifice.

  “Hey, it’s better than you being referred to as the world’s first vampire?” Roderick teased.

  “Perhaps,” I sighed, worried that we might be running into another dead end, with a vague prize like a Vatican Cardinal ring. I moved on to the next journal.

  This one was started the previous November, its initial pages were filled with hastily written references to the Damascus Coin being a genuine item and not something from folklore, as Dr. Drummond previously assumed. He mentioned having a colleague named Baros, and it was this other Athens University academic who discovered the coin—a man who claimed to have seen it and held it in his hands!