The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  Battleground

  Montiagro muted the sound on the television.

  “I don’t understand, Your Excellency,” Wyatt said.

  “You will soon enough. Thomas, we are at war. Every moment, every second, every breath we take, we are fighting for our lives—our souls. As real a war as those being fought in a dozen other terrible, painful, bloody places on this planet. The war we are engaged in started a long time ago. And it will not end until one side—those who believe in the goodness of man or those who see only the blackness in human hearts—wins.”

  The nuncio gazed at the live coverage on the TV screen. “You would never know it, but we are in the midst of a battleground. The Church is the center of the war for human souls.” He looked at Wyatt. “We need someone like you to help fight this battle. You understand human behavior. One way that our enemy wins a battle is to cause a soul to commit the ultimate sin against God—the sin of suicide. The army we fight is led by Satan. The Nephilim have meticulously planned for the day they will strike back at God and take away the one thing he treasures most, his prized creation—man.”

  “Nephilim?”

  “Offspring of the Fallen Angels, the rebel angels cast out from Paradise after the Battle of Heaven.”

  “You think that all suicides are some kind of demonic possession?” Wyatt asked. Actually, he’d like to think that was the explanation, though devils and demons were more on the periphery of what he believed. But it would lessen the weight of failure he felt about the Virgin Atlantic incident. Talking down a man from committing suicide would seem a whole lot different from talking down a demon.

  “Not all,” Montiagro continued. “But we believe the war is escalating.”

  “Why?” Wyatt asked.

  Archbishop Montiagro pointed to the TV. “Because, Mr. Wyatt, the signs are escalating as well.”

  The Prediction

  “Noah’s Ark? In Peru? You’ve got to be kidding,” Cotten said, beer sloshing from the bottle she waved in reaction to Edelman.

  “That doesn’t compute,” Paul said as Nick nodded in agreement.

  Edelman pasted that same tolerant smile on his lips and looked at Paul before turning to Cotten. “No, Ms. Stone, I am not kidding. But maybe I did mislead you. Let me qualify. The Great Flood story is common amongst many cultures, usually passed on from generation to generation through oral tradition and then later turning up in written language. Even the Inca had a flood myth. The Incan legends profess that the early Andes people were survivors of the Great Flood and that they then populated the region. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of flood myths around the world—Scandinavian, Asian, African, Australian, Near East, Pacific Island. Not a corner of the planet is without a flood story.

  “Theologians are always happy to point out that fact because those cultural legends and early texts corroborate the event recorded in biblical scripture.” Edelman paused, staring at the artifact. “But the inscriptions on this crystal do not chronicle the account of a Great Flood.”

  “Didn’t you just say it did?” Paul asked.

  “Not exactly,” Edelman said. “You see, the inscriptions on this tablet predict a massive flood. It reveals that a flood is going to occur, and it spells out specific directions for how to prepare.”

  “You mean as in build the boat and gather up the animals two by two?” Cotten asked.

  Edelman traced his finger beneath some of the glyphs as he spoke. “It gives specific instructions for building a vessel, yes—an ark, if you will.”

  “Look, I was brought up in the Bible Belt,” Paul said, “and we tend to lean toward the fundamentalist side. I remember being taught that the whole point of the Flood was God cleansing the earth of sinners—everyone but Noah and his family.”

  Cotten set her bottle down. “But this would mean there was more than one Noah.”

  Paul smacked his lips after taking a slug of his beer. “You said these people moved all around the world. How do you know this wasn’t a crystal given to Noah? Or maybe he created it or had it made. Like an instruction manual or something. Then someone brought it here.”

  “The glyphs,” Edelman said. “They were not part of Noah’s writing or reading repertoire.”

  Paul shrugged, a pinch of embarrassment in his expression.

  “If the inscription proves to be a prediction of the Great Flood here in Peru,” Cotten said, “the multiple-Noahs thing is going to fly in the face of the Bible story of Noah.”

  “Fundamentalists aren’t going to be happy if this screws up Genesis,” Paul said. He turned to Cotten. “Just the opposite of your creation-fossil story.” With a caring smile, he said, “Sure you want to go down that road?”

  “It’s the only road I’ve got right now.” Cotten looked at Edelman. “Paul has a point about the multiple-Noahs thing, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Edelman said. “But even more than that. It is not just what is written here. We have an object thousands of years old inscribed in a language encompassing a variety of symbols, none of which are native to any one culture. By the best estimates, it would have taken an ancient scribe at least a lifetime to complete, and that is if he had precise diamond-cutting tools and the like. And its message predicts an event that tradition says occurred over five thousand years ago.” He gestured toward the crystal tablet. “So the big question is not what it says, but who wrote it?”

  Cotten felt her heart stutter. “Maybe we’re looking at the handwriting of God.”

  The Mist

  It was pitch-black and cold as Edelman, Cotten, Paul, and Nick sat around the large folding table and ate a special farewell dinner in the mess tent.

  “We should have hired an American cook instead of a native,” Paul said. “I don’t know if I can ever get into eating guinea pigs.”

  “Don’t think of it as guinea pig,” Cotten said. “Call it by the Peruvian name, cuy—it might help. I find it pretty tasty, actually.”

  “It is all in what you are used to,” Edelman said before taking a fork of potatoes. “You know, women are more likely than men to perceive something as disgusting. Disgust is nature’s way of protecting us from disease. It follows that women would have a higher sensitivity—they are the child bearers and the caretakers. Interesting fact from research done in the UK: as reproduction ability declines with age, so does the sensitivity to disgust.”

  Paul thumped his fork on the butterflied cuy, hesitating to take the first bite.

  “If we were in Korea, you could have a marvelous soup called bosintang,” Edelman said.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” Paul said.

  “Rover,” Cotten said, and gave a little barking sound.

  Paul groaned.

  “I can give you the URLs of sites that post recipes for exotic foods,” Edelman told him.

  “Pass,” Paul said, poking the cuy with his fork.

  Nick leaned over to Cotten and whispered in her ear. “You getting as tired of that know-it-all-prick as I am?”

  She acknowledged the question with a slight nod. Cotten had grown weary of Edelman’s constant encyclopedic mind as well, but she knew they should respect their host. She turned to Paul. “Go on. Don’t be such a wuss. Take a bite.”

  “Yeah, man, do it,” Nick said. “As for me, I’m starving. Shit, I’d eat the south end of a northbound llama about now.” He jammed a chunk of meat in his mouth. “Mmm, mmm, mmm.”

  Paul lifted his fork. “You’re gonna tell me it tastes like chicken, right?”

  “Doesn’t everything?” Edelman said.

  “Maybe I was a—what’d you say, child bearer or caretaker—in my other life,” Paul said. “I can’t even get past frickin’ tofu, and now I’m expected to eat . . . cuy.” He cut off a piece and slowly lifted it to his mouth.

  Nick grinned as much as he could while chewing some more, then gulped and washed it down
with bottled water. “Pretend you’re on a reality show and there’s a million bucks at stake.”

  Paul slipped the meat past his lips. He held the fork in the cave of his mouth for a tentative moment before scraping the guinea-pig meat off with his teeth. His nose flared and wrinkled, his jaw muscles working slowly. “Not too bad, I guess,” he said, still chewing. Finally, he swallowed.

  Edelman raised his bottled water. “Here is to living on the edge, young man.”

  Cotten heard a yelp from the direction of the dig team’s campfire, though its faint glow was no longer visible in the ever-thickening mountain mist. She knew they too were celebrating, as they did every night, but with something stronger than water—a concoction they home-brewed daily.

  “I’d like to propose a toast,” Nick said. “Here’s to the discovery of Doc’s crystal artifact, along with Paul’s new sense of culinary adventure.” He held his water bottle high, reciting, “Some Guinness was spilt on the barroom floor when the pub was shut for the night, when out of his hole crept a wee brown mouse and stood in the pale moonlight. He lapped up the frothy foam from the floor, then back on his haunches he sat. And all night long, you could hear the mouse roar—bring on the goddamn cat!”

  Paul and Edelman laughed while Cotten shook her head. “Cheers,” she said, raising her water.

  “What we need,” Nick said, “is some of that stuff our friends drink every night.” He motioned in the direction of the dig team’s laughter and hollering.

  “Then go ask José to share,” Paul said. “He told me earlier they just whipped up a new batch.”

  “Think I might,” Nick said, standing. He brushed off his pants and trotted into the mist.

  Cotten pulled her Elph camera out and snapped a few pictures of Paul finishing his guinea-pig dinner. “Now you’ve really got something to write home about,” she said to him, putting the Elph in the pocket of her cargo pants. “And I’ve got the evidence.”

  A few moments later, Nick returned with a whiskey-type bottle encased in a dark leather sheath. As he held it up for all to see, Cotten admired the multicolored markings. On one side were the words Lineas de Nazca and several drawings of the famous Nazca lines—a monkey, spider, and bird. There were also depictions of a distant snow-capped mountain and a colorfully dressed native woman.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” Nick said, smiling broadly. He passed out paper cups, pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured a small amount into each. “Doc, José said this shit will make those markings on the tablet crystal clear in no time. Get it? Crystal clear.”

  When everyone had a cupful, Paul raised his. “Here’s to the Great Flood. Oh, and to Noah—one hell of a shipbuilder.”

  “Cheers,” said Edelman. “To all the Noahs.”

  Cotten took a small sip and immediately fought back a gagging reaction. Rather than the smooth velvet taste of her favorite Swedish vodka, this was more like drinking razor blades. The first swallow was a struggle, but she discovered a distinctive pepper aftertaste that was somewhat pleasant. And it was strong, heating her insides all the way down.

  “I must say, this isn’t bad—after the first shock, anyway,” Edelman said. He finished his cup.

  “There’s plenty left, Doc,” Nick said, holding out the bottle.

  “Well,” Edelman said, “one more couldn’t hurt.”

  “Yes, to all the Noahs,” Cotten said, raising her cup. She turned to Edelman. “What about what’s on the rest of the tablet, after the Flood prediction—those lines and dots? What does it say?”

  “I can only muddle through the top half of the tablet,” Edelman answered. “I was lucky with the semi-recognizable glyphs, and of course being familiar with the story of the Flood helped. But the glyphs stop midway down the tablet with the remark that God will cleanse the earth a second time, but not by flood. Then the whole language of the tablet changes—no more glyphs. Those dots and lines look like a graphic rendering of a form of khipu, and that is not my field if it is being used as a language. But I imagine, since the first half describes the Great Flood and how to survive, the other half might do the same—maybe something dramatic like how to stop Armageddon. The last that I can make out of the glyphs says something like the second cleansing is still to come and will be led by the daughter of an angel.”

  * * *

  Cotten Stone staggered into her tent, finding it hard to remain on her feet, hard to breathe. After only one cup of the native brew, her head had spun. But what she had just heard Edelman say overshadowed the effects of the potent local drink.

  Led by the daughter of an angel.

  A burning sensation started in her abdomen and moved in throbbing waves through her body. Her vision blurred, and her fingertips tingled as if she’d touched a light socket. Cotten cupped her hands over her nose and mouth and breathed in and out to ward off hyperventilation. She focused on easy breathing and relaxing, slowing her heart rate.

  Even over her panic, she still heard Edelman, Paul, and Nick in the distance—their laughter and blather sounding more like gibberish than speech.

  Cotten dug through her bag, finally latching onto the plastic pill bottle. She struggled with the childproof cap, cursing it. At last the cap popped off, and Cotten dumped the Ativan into her palm. She took one and threw it onto the back of her tongue. She swallowed hard, getting the pill down her throat. Then she put the rest back in the bottle and dropped onto her cot, pressing her palms to her temples. They throbbed like kettle drums. She wondered if the tightness growing in her chest meant she was having a heart attack.

  Cotten lay motionless for what seemed like an hour, until the throbbing in her head subsided. Even in the chill of the mountain air, she was bathed in sweat—unable to stop Edelman’s words.

  Led by the daughter of an angel.

  She heard Edelman in the distance, his proper English accent distorted and slurred. Were the guys still awake? Still partying?

  Edelman called out her name—asking if it was Cotten who approached from the mist.

  Then he screamed.

  Fireflies

  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.

  —1 PETER 5:8

  Cotten sat up and swung her feet onto the dirt floor, blind in the blackness. Was she sure she’d heard Edelman scream? It had to be a mistake, she thought.

  She stood and brought her hand to her face—her skin cold and clammy, her hair sodden, her balance shaky.

  She felt under the cot for her flashlight. Flipping the switch revealed the thick mist filling her tent. The beam barely penetrated the distance to the entrance flap a few feet away. She was enveloped in a cloud—droplets of moisture moving slowly in the shaft of light like plankton in the depths.

  Cotten reached for the tent flap. She stepped outside and felt a chill beyond what could be attributed to the altitude.

  “Dr. Edelman?” she called. “Paul? Nick?”

  No answer.

  The fools had gotten sloppy drunk and decided to spook her. She didn’t find it funny. Of course, they couldn’t have known how Edelman’s translation had traumatized her. If they had, they wouldn’t be pulling this stupid prank. She’d done her best to hide her reaction, excusing herself from the party, claiming she’d had too much to drink and wasn’t feeling well. They were probably too loaded to conclude anything else was wrong with her.

  She saw a faint glow approaching in the distance. The idiots were creeping up on her, but their flashlights gave them away. She didn’t want them to realize how much their practical joke scared her.

  “All right, guys. I know what you’re up to,” she called out.

  The glow brightened, turning from light orange to vibrant rose to brilliant red. And with it came the disturbing sound of flapping—like sails in a gale.

  Suddenly, José bounded out
of the thick mountain mist—at least she thought it was José, but the flames engulfing him made it difficult to tell.

  “José!” she screamed as he ran past before disappearing back into the night. This was no prank. “Oh Jesus, what’s happening? Paul? Nick?” Where were they?

  Then other screams ripped through the encampment. One sounded like Nick, but she could not be sure.

  Again, from out of the mist, Cotten realized something was approaching—a radiance emerging from the dark wall of clouds.

  Fireflies.

  Here in the high mountains, Cotten saw thousands of fireflies. In a flickering mass, they moved toward her until they orbited her in swirling light. Spiraling, they coiled tighter, so near she could feel the air stir against her skin. Their motion seemed to radiate heat. She sensed the distinct odor of sulfur as she clamped her hand over her mouth and nose. Frantically, she batted at the tiny points of light. They swarmed as if they wanted to penetrate, to find a way inside her. Though she willed her feet to move, they didn’t, and her hands suddenly came to rest at her sides, her flashlight dropping to the ground. Not even her eyelids had the power to close. Paralyzed. Had the fireflies done it, or had she scared herself into this state? For a moment, she wondered if she was breathing.

  Then, in an instant, they were gone—a streak of light in the darkness.

  Cotten blinked as if coming out of a trance, her faculties returning.

  More screams of terror—someone shouting in Quechua. One of the dig team?

  Picking up her flashlight, Cotten tramped through the camp, afraid to run, afraid she would stumble and fall. As if fulfilling her own prophecy, her foot snagged, and she fell prone on the ground, mouth in the dirt, arms flailing, knees thudding. Immediately, she scrabbled up on her left elbow and shone the light toward her feet to see what had tripped her. Paul’s body lay in the dirt, his throat slashed and gaping. In his hand was a large, bloody knife.

  “Oh God. Oh shit.” She kicked herself away from Paul’s body, scooting backward. Had he slit his own throat?