by Lynn Sholes
As Cotten remembered, it was coal black and softly lit—the walls bore large lightning bolt designs. In the center sat the long, glass-enclosed sarcophagus. Only this time, there was a major difference.
It was empty.
Cotten’s heart sank as she stared at the place where Lenin’s body had lain. The side of the glass enclosure was swung up and over, resting on the top of the structure.
“Where is . . .” Markov stood rooted at the sight of the empty sarcophagus.
“I don’t believe this,” Cotten said. She moved cautiously to the enclosure and extended her hand inside, running it along the satin-like material where the body of Vladimir Lenin had been in repose since 1924. There was no Holy Lance. Only the small, white pillow remained—a slight indention marked where Lenin’s head rested.
“Is this what you seek?”
They turned at the sound of the voice.
“Dear God,” Markov whispered, taking a step backward. He looked spellbound by the sight of the man standing in the corner of the mausoleum.
John’s mouth dropped open, his eyes wide in disbelief.
For a moment, Cotten thought her heart had stopped. The air became hot and suffocating. She doubted her own senses as she watched the man walk toward her, the Spear of Destiny held tightly to his chest.
The man was almost completely bald, and his eyes were small and dark. He donned a mustache and goatee. His suit was black, his shirt white with a dark tie. And he spoke with a thick Russian accent. She knew who it was.
The mausoleum remained so hushed that Cotten could hear the blood rushing in her ears.
Then Markov whispered, “Comrade Lenin? Is it really you?”
“It’s an illusion, Captain,” Cotten said, trying to maintain control over her senses. To John, she said, “He is the Beast. Remember Axum?”
At the sound of her voice, John seemed to shake off the shock. “He took the form of the guardian monk, and now he tries to trick us again.”
“You are quite observant, priest,” Lenin said, his body surrounded in a pale ruby aura. “I can take any form that suits me.”
The air in the Tomb became sweltering. “Give me the Holy Lance,” Cotten said, summing up as much courage as she could.
“Did you not learn your lesson, daughter of Furmiel? I told you in the treasury church to go home. Why didn’t you take my advice and save yourself so much disappointment?”
“Give her the relic,” John said. “We have come face-to-face before. You lost that time, and you will lose here, too. You can’t win against God. I can exorcise you, just as I did before.”
Lenin held up his hand. “Do not speak again, priest. Your God is not my god.” He tauntingly extended the Spear of Destiny. “Whoever possesses this Holy Lance and understands the powers it serves, holds in his hand the destiny of the world.” Lenin proudly held it high. “Now I am the power it serves. I will determine the destiny of the world.” He took a step toward Cotten. “Daughter of Furmiel, you have failed.”
“No,” John said. He made the sign of the cross and lifted the gold crucifix he wore around his neck. “In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee bands of enemies. May Thy mercy descend upon—”
“We cast you out.” The voice came from the hall leading from the storeroom and tunnel.
Cotten and John turned to see two figures emerge. Their bodies were clothed in cloud-like white robes giving off an indigo blue radiance that filled the room. Cotten suddenly remembered the painting of the two archangels guarding the southern portal entrance to the cathedral. Could these be the same figures?
One came forward to stand before the apparition of Lenin. “How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, morning star, son of the dawn.” The archangel stretched forth her hand and took the Spear of Destiny. “Begone from this place, you and your vile black army. For God has cast you into the abyss.”
The apparition of Lenin staggered.
As the archangel took hold of the Spear, the form of Vladimir Lenin collapsed onto the floor. It became rigid and waxen as Cotten remembered when first seeing it. She looked at the angel. “Who are you?”
The archangel gave the Spear to Cotten. “Be not afraid, daughter of Furmiel, for destiny lies in your hands.” The archangel turned and rejoined her companion. Then the light surged in brilliance, causing Cotten, John, and Markov to cover their faces.
When she opened her eyes, Cotten saw that the two angels were gone. Her heart raced—her body was drenched in sweat. She stared at the Spear of Destiny gripped in her hand. The relic seemed to tingle as she looked at John. “Are you all right?”
Before he could answer, voices came from the hall, calling her name. Cotten could not believe what she saw. Tera and Devin ran toward her. She bent and took them in her arms, tears streaming down her face.
Right behind them were Alan and Lindsay, along with a half dozen Russian soldiers. All were winded.
“How did you . . . ?” Cotten asked.
“Tera and Devin jumped from the helicopter just as it took off,” Lindsay said. “You were already running toward the gate. So we jumped out, too.”
“We tried to get the pilot to come back,” Alan said. “But he was in the air, and there were bullets flying everywhere.”
“The children followed you as if they knew exactly where to go,” Lindsay said. “What happened here?” She glared at the body of Vladimir Lenin on the floor.
Cotten smiled as she hugged Tera and Devin, feeling as if they were two angels in her arms. She stood and handed the Holy Lance to Alan. “Go and stop this madness.” Turning to Markov, she said, “Captain, please take him to Mr. Wolf.”
She looked at John and spoke softly as she wrapped her arms around him. “Do you think the children . . . were they the ones?”
“Maybe they have revealed to us who they really are,” he whispered through her hair.
“Then maybe this battle is finally over.”
finished
The chill was what Mace noticed first. Sure, it was winter in D.C., but this cold, freezing air that stung his nostrils and burned in his lungs was not because of the season. It was a cold that smoldered like heat—an unnatural, aberrant phenomenon that could only mean one thing.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and wheezed out a cough as he turned the corner. The ice storm that encapsulated the Nation’s Capital suspended in time and motion even the smallest twig within a glistening, clear cast. The ice crystals on the sidewalk crunched beneath his shoes. Now, at dusk, the city mystically twinkled in radiant prisms with the last vestiges of the sun bouncing off the shards of ice.
Mace paused at the granite lion appearing to be locked inside its own hoarfrost tomb. The statue and its twin posed silently, guarding the building’s entrance. Mace took the three levels of steps one at a time, safeguarding his balance on the slippery surface. The building was closed, as was everything since the Hades Project got into full swing. He slid his key inside the lock, and the heavy wooden door whined open.
Inside he glanced at the elevator, but decided against it. The power could go off at any minute. Wouldn’t that be a hell of a note, to be stuck in the god damn elevator? The Old Man would never listen to such an excuse.
Mace gripped the brass banister and stared up at the winding stairs. Seven flights to the enclosed courtyard seemed eternally distant. He re-wrapped his neck with the black wool muffler and started up, listening to the creak of the steps as he climbed.
By the fourth flight he could hear his every breath wheeze on the outflow. It seemed colder in here than outside—the fucking heat was off, and by his own god damn doing. He found humor in that, and a spontaneous laugh rasped from his chest.
Finally, at the seventh floor landing, Mace waited, catching his ragged breath. The bastard knew he would have to climb all seven flights, and that’s why he d
emanded they meet here. It would have been just as easy to meet in the comfort of Mace’s living room. Tea by the fire. But this wasn’t going to be a pleasant meeting, and he knew it would be freezing in the courtyard.
Mace’s footsteps echoed as he approached the door to the courtyard. Opening it, a gust of arctic cold burst through, making his eyes sting and water. He sniffed up the congestion that dripped from his nose.
“You are on time, Pursan,” the Old Man said, speaking from the center of the courtyard. The crescent moon cast skeleton shadows of the leafless trees across the stone floor.
“Did you think I would be late? Have I ever been?” Mace asked.
The wind whipped through the Old Man’s ashen hair, blowing it back, but came in the opposite direction at Mace, and threads of his hair thrashed against his face. He used a gloved hand to push it back to no avail.
“You know why I have summoned you, Pursan?” The powerful voice rumbled across the space between them. He paused and smiled. “Of course you do.”
Mace’s fingertips were numb, even with the protection of the gloves, and his nose and cheeks had also lost feeling, along with his toes.
“It is over. You have failed me. A sad disappointment. I gave you such power, such position. But you were not appreciative, nor heedful. You were once a favored general in my legion. What has become of you?” He turned his back on Mace and seemed to be absorbed by the night. “What should I do, Pursan? What do you suggest?”
“I will make it up to you,” Mace choked out.
The Old Man looked back, his face illuminated by the faint light—stony, pale, chiseled—eyes that penetrated. “You cannot make it up to me.”
“Please,” Mace said. “I have served you well, with only this single failure. We can regroup, build stronger weapons. The Hades Project was just the first idea. The next one will—”
“Stop. Can you not see even a second into the future? We have been tricked from the beginning. As I suspected, the young girl is a soldier of God. She is Furmiel’s other twin daughter, and one day will lead God’s army against us. That is her heritage. She was sent in disguise so that we might not identify her. Now she stands at Cotten Stone’s side.”
“How was I to know?”
“Because I gave you that responsibility, Pursan. You were to stop her. Must I tend to every minute detail? It is so exhausting. That is why I depended on you.” He glanced down at the circle and pentagram carved into the stone floor of the courtyard. “And the other child, the boy—he, too, has our enemy’s blessing. He will lead the army with the girl. Together they will rise to power. In time, they will command the Indigo army and wage war on the Rubies. That is their destiny. Ironic, isn’t it, that the CyberSys quantum computer is called Destiny?”
Numbness crept up Mace’s legs. “All I ask is just one more chance.”
The Old Man raised his hand, and a blast of icy air roared through the courtyard. “I am finished with you.”
the oak
The sound of the backhoe’s grinding metal gears was stiff competition for conversation.
Lindsay stood with Alan where her house had once been, while they watched Devin and Tera pilfer a pile of building materials for items they could use to build their fort.
“They don’t seem fazed at all by everything they went through,” Lindsay said.
“No, they don’t. That’s the beauty of being a kid,” Alan said.
“Lucky for them they can’t imagine what the world would be like today if Max hadn’t been able to get the Destiny computer up and running, and start shutting down the Hades worm. I really think we’d have been thrown back to the Dark Ages if he hadn’t. The kids wouldn’t be searching for scraps to build a fort, we’d be scrounging for survival.”
“Worse than that. We’d all be killing each other.”
“I gotta say, it was so gracious of the Russians to return the Holy Lance to the Vienna museum. The presentation by the Russian president with Cotten and John standing beside him was amazing.”
“Now that it’s the real thing, I’ll bet they put the relic under much tighter security this time around.”
“Look at them,” Lindsay said, gesturing toward Devin and Tera. “They are such innocents, yet they’ve touched billions of lives.”
Alan smiled. “Speaking of innocent, I guess poor Ben Ray’s name has been redeemed. In the end, his family has something good to hang on to. He sacrificed his life for Devin’s. Little by little Devin is revealing everything that happened—it’s a bit disjointed—but I’m putting the pieces together. I have to remember to listen to my son and fill in the blanks for him. I almost missed the radio station numbers he kept repeating. And that was what helped the FBI zero in on the location of the Hades facility. Between Max doing his thing and them storming the facility in Arkansas, we are waking up today on a safer planet.” Alan grinned as Tera tossed Devin a piece of particle board. “I didn’t know little girls were into building forts.” Alan said.
“Cotten and I had one. Actually it was more of a tree house. It was in the big oak that used to be right over there,” she said, pointing to a charred trunk. “Such a magnificent tree. What a shame.”
“I wish we could bring everything you had back to the way it was before the fire, but under the circumstances, all we can do is leave something behind—a memorial of some sort.”
“What you are doing for us is very special,” Lindsay said.
“It gives me great pleasure. There should be something here in memory of what happened. Once they’re built, the Jordan Apartments will at least carry on your name.”
“I suppose,” Lindsay said. “No, I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m so lost, Alan. Thank God you’re here or else I would have nowhere to turn.”
“I know you hate to see your homestead buried under. It has to be painful. But you and Tera, Devin and I, have to go underground. If our kids are easy to locate, the Rubies will hunt them down and hurt them. I’ll find a place—I’ve got the money and resources to take us out of sight. I understand that you don’t like to accept handouts, but you have to realize this is not a handout. This is a necessity if we’re going to survive.”
Lindsay bowed her head in thought. “Okay.”
“I’ve had Max step in for me so I can spend some time getting you on your feet.”
“I guess it won’t be so hard,” Lindsay said. “I don’t have many friends and neither does Tera. We can start anew, anywhere in the world, I suppose. Living in a hut in Sumatra is better than being afraid that Tera is going to be hurt.”
“Good,” Alan said.
“That brings Kai to mind. What do you suppose she is doing now in her new life?”
“You mean who is she fleecing next?”
“You couldn’t see because you were on the phone, but I was watching her when you were speaking to security. When she heard you tell them to escort her out of the building, I thought fire would shoot out of her ears.”
“She’ll get over it,” he said.
The sound of a diesel engine coming up the drive made them turn.
A huge flatbed trailer threw clouds of dust and ash into the air.
“What is this?” Lindsay said.
“Something to mark the spot where your farm once stood. A living reminder of what happened here after you and Tera are gone.”
Lindsay’s hand went to her mouth when she saw the truck’s payload. Chained to the deck was a huge sprawling oak.
_____
The sky looked polished, spit-shined blue, not even a tiny puff of a cloud. The sun shone through the car window, along with the heater keeping it toasty inside, considerably different from the 23 degrees outside. Cotten had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the console where John’s hand was wrapped around hers.
“I wish we’d had time to look at Christmas lights,” she said as she drove in
to the Louisville International Airport parking garage.
“Guess it wasn’t high on our list.”
“No,” Cotten said. “Still, it seems we never have time to just catch up. Time alone. I know I should be grateful you had business in New York and were able to fly out here for a couple of days to bring in the New Year, and it meant a lot to Lindsay and Tera.”
“I’m glad I came, too. I’d like a little time together—even better than looking at holiday lights.” John glanced at his watch. “Unfortunately, there are only a few moments left before I have to check in,” he said.
“I don’t want you to go,” Cotten blurted, twisting in the seat so she faced him. She heard the slight crack in her voice and was certain he did, too.
“I’ll miss you, as I always do,” he said. “You’re a special lady.”
Cotten hung her head and wiped a tear from her cheek. “I promised I wouldn’t do this,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She fumbled for her purse, took out a tissue, and dabbed her nose. “Okay,” she said, looking up and tossing back her hair. “Glad I got that over with and out of the way.”
He smiled at her. “You don’t always have to be such a tough cookie.”
“You know what I think?”
“No, what?”
“Timing is everything,” Cotten said confidently.
“What do you mean?”
“What if we’d met years ago, before you decided to do the priest thing?”
John smoothed her hair back. “But we didn’t, and we can’t change that.”
“I know.” Her voice was shallow and quaking.
“We are lucky people, you and I. Blessed really, that we did meet.”
“Why does this have to be so damn hard?” She felt the tears swell again. “You bring out the worst in me. Nobody likes a gal on a crying jag. And it makes my mascara run. I must be a real sight.”
John laughed, then held her face with both his hands. “You’re beautiful. Even when you cry.”
Cotten stared into his deep blue eyes, the bluest she had ever known. “I didn’t really mean it. You don’t bring out the worst in me. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” She glanced at the clock on the instrument panel and heaved out a loud sigh. “You better get going or you’ll miss your flight. I’d walk you in, but I’d really make a fool of myself blubbering away as you disappear down the concourse.” She said it almost whimsically, then hesitated before she spoke again. This time her voice was strangled and serious. “I just can’t watch you walk away.”