Relics

by K. T. Tomb

  “Not a problem,” Kessler responded. “I wouldn’t have awakened you at all if I didn’t have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

  “Okay?” Peter responded. His mind was racing ahead, trying to figure out what Phoe’s boss would want to discuss with him, urgently.

  “First of all, let me ask if you have heard from Miss Phoenix or had any contact with her recently.”

  “It’s been a couple of days,” he said. “I think she called me about something a couple of nights ago after she’d settled into the hotel in New York. Why? What’s up?”

  “I spoke to her the same night, but I haven’t spoken to her since,” Simon replied.

  “Well, Phoe can be kind of weird with her phone at times.” Peter’s first thought was to pass it off as not being a big deal, but as soon as he did, his mind rebelled against the idea. “Do you think…”

  “I have contacted the hotel and discovered that neither she and Casey nor any of their personal items are in the suite. For all appearances, they checked out of the hotel, though they failed to make the front desk aware of their departure.”

  That didn’t bode well and Peter knew it instantly. He also knew that the project that Simon had assigned to her wasn’t one that ought to have drawn anyone’s attention or put her in any sort of danger. It was the main reason that Phoe had been okay with allowing Casey to tag along with her. She certainly wasn’t a wallflower that went anywhere without notice, but surely a trip to the Met with her cousin wouldn’t tip anyone off to what she was doing. “It has to be something else, Mr. Kessler. There has to be some other explanation.”

  “I hope that you are correct. However, I know that she would have checked in with me by now unless something sinister was amiss.”

  ‘Something sinister amiss’ was a phrase that took root in Peter’s mind. Not only because it was a rather odd expression, but because he was beginning to wonder the very same thing. Unless there was something bad going on, Phoe would have talked to someone the afternoon after they left the Met. He was sure of it.

  “I can certainly start poking around a bit,” Peter responded. He was still trying to downplay everything, though his gut was already telling him that there was cause for concern. If Simon Kessler was calling him then…

  “I’d rather that you did a little bit more than just poke around.” Simon’s tone was a little sharper than usual. “I will be making use of some of my own assets, of course, but since you are more familiar with her personal idiosyncrasies, you are more apt to be able to find her than they are.”

  Though he did not work for Simon Kessler, Peter knew that he had just received something of a direct order from someone who was not going to allow him to do anything other than follow it. “I will do what I can,” he replied.

  “All of your expenses will be taken care of. I will have an accountant set that up with you later in the morning.”

  “I understand,” Peter responded. It sounded weak, but he wasn’t sure how else to respond.

  “Very well,” Simon said. “Please let me know the instant you have even the slightest clue as to where she might have gotten to.”

  “I will,” he responded. The words had barely left his lips when he heard the call disconnect on Simon’s end.

  The most logical call that he might have made would have been to any one of three people: Charlotte, Eric, or Phoe’s mom; however, calling them at 3:30 a.m. and asking for Phoe might set off some unnecessary panic. So, instead, he called Kadan, the most illogical choice that he might have made.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Kadan’s groggy voice came on the line after nearly a dozen rings.

  “Yeah,” Peter replied. “It’s 11:30 a.m. in Italy.”

  “Why the hell would I give a damn?” Kadan responded in the same groggy tone and then suddenly became more fully awake. “Jesus, Peter, did you call me just to tell me that?”

  “No, I called you because Simon thinks that Phoe’s gone missing,” Peter responded.

  “So, naturally, instead of calling members of her family who might have spoken to her recently, you called me and woke me up.”

  “Yeah, well, I might need your help to find her.”

  “Do we even know that she needs to be found?”

  “Just help me, damn it!”

  “Okay, fine, don’t get your shorts in a wad.”

  Peter could hear Kadan fumbling with something on the other end of the line. No doubt, he was retrieving his computer. It was probably in the bed beside him. It was the only known occupant to ever take up that position in Kadan’s bed.

  “Okay, so where was she the last time that anyone saw or spoke to her?”

  Before Peter could get out a response, Kadan was already speaking.

  “I have the last GPS coordinates of her phone at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City, but those coordinates are from early yesterday morning; 7:56 a.m., to be precise. Her phone has been destroyed or turned off since. Was she in New York City?”

  “Yes, and she was staying at the Carlyle Hotel. She and her cousin, Casey, were going to go to the Met to do some research.”

  “The Met doesn’t open until 10:00 a.m.,” Kadan informed him.

  “You know Phoe,” Peter replied. One of the things that had impressed him the most about Phoe from the moment that he met her, other than her refined attractiveness, was the drive that she had when it came to her work. She would have been up early studying whatever notes she had and preparing how she was going to proceed with her research. No doubt, she would have had Casey up too.

  “Yeah, I know Phoe,” Kadan replied. He too had clashed with her about early mornings on several occasions, being one who had a tendency to stay up until all hours of the night tapping away at his keyboard. “That’s it, Peter. I got nothing else that I can tell you.”

  “Doesn’t help much, but at least we know what time she went incommunicado,” Peter answered.

  “Wait,” Kadan said. An idea had come to him suddenly and he started hammering at the keyboard more vigorously. “I’m going to see if I can hack into the Carlyle’s security cams. Maybe I can come up with something there. I’ll call you back.”

  There was nothing but silence on the phone the second that Kadan finished speaking.

  “Everybody seems to be hanging up on me this morning,” Peter mumbled.

  Chapter Seven

  Being assigned to keep an eye on Thalia Phoenix wasn’t all that bad of a job to have. She was pretty easy to look at. She dressed casually, but that dress spoke of elegance, style and grace that went well beyond average. She was well kept and, on those few occasions when he saw it, she had a very attractive smile. For Engel, being polite to her and making certain that she wasn’t harmed had become the part of his assignment that he preferred to think about, rather than focusing on the fact that she was his captive.

  She had been much calmer about the entire ordeal than he had expected. In the first phase, of course, she’d had no choice, but even after the effects of the ether had worn off, she didn’t seem to be in any sort of panic. He had to admire that in her, especially since it defied that outward appearance of refined elegance.

  To say the least, Engel was enamored by her and kept a steady eye on her, not only out of duty, but as a matter of pleasure as well. He, essentially, studied every inch of her. There was no doubt that her attractive appearance had already captured his attention, but as she began to go to work with Stefan, another side of her began to appear as well. It was as equally appealing as the first.

  Kraus was a hard man to work for and Engel didn’t particularly care for the way that he treated some of the people who worked for him, but he took good care of those who were loyal to him, so Engel had a tendency to balance out the good with the bad whenever he thought of his employer. As time had passed and Engel had shown his undivided loyalty and had become more and more efficient, things hadn’t been quite as bad. He certainly couldn’t complain about his most recent assignment.

  With Mis
s Phoenix engaged in the conversation that Stefan had drawn her into, Engel decided that it was a good time to step back for a moment and make a phone call to check in. It wasn’t like Miss Phoenix could go anywhere anyway. Reluctantly, he pulled himself away from her and back out into the hallway. The doors clicked shut behind him and he heard the mechanical clunk of the deadbolts snapping into place. No one was going in or out of that room unless the controller, whose job it was to watch the door on closed circuit TV, pressed the button to unlock it.

  “Everything has worked out well?” Kraus asked as he answered the phone.

  “She is already engaged in the work,” Engel responded.

  “I knew she would be,” Kraus replied. Engel could hear a smile in his voice. “I would like to keep her around, if I can. I want her to stay, somewhat of her own free will, though I don’t suppose kidnapping her helped my cause. Perhaps we can make things very pleasant for her?”

  “We will do our best, sir.”

  “Her room is set up as I ordered?” Kraus asked.

  “We actually haven’t visited her room yet,” Engel admitted. His first thought had been to get her to the research lab and show her around before getting her settled in. He hadn’t counted on her becoming quite so engaged in conversation with Stefan.

  “You took her to the lab first?” The smile in Kraus’ voice was gone. “That is certainly not the way to win her over to our team. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking of giving her a tour and then—”

  “I don’t care what you were thinking.” The tone of Kraus’ voice became much louder. “She is to be treated well, given whatever she needs, within reason, of course, and shown that I am an amiable employer. I expect you to make certain that she is happy. Do anything and everything in your power to make it so. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Engel answered. It really made no difference; he was speaking to a dead phone line. He looked through the small glass in the door that led into the lab. The curves of the toned body of Thalia Phoenix was alluring, as was the way that her facial features changed as she thought through each argument that Stefan was presenting to her. It would be a distinct pleasure for him to make her happy and keep her around.

  Not often given over to romantic feelings, Engel had begun to have some very strange thoughts enter his mind since he’d first looked upon her after she collapsed from the effects of the ether. Though he was in the middle of an operation and focused on his duty, there had been a momentary pause when he felt her body go limp in his arms and saw her face relax entirely. His eyes had been drawn to her soft, full lips. For an instant, he had wanted to press his own lips against them. He’d snapped out of it quickly, of course, but images like that one had returned to him several times since.

  Engel had been orphaned due to an automobile accident when he was twelve years old, right when he was really in need of someone to guide him into adulthood. It was at that time that Brendis Kraus had come into his life. Kraus was a younger cousin of Engel’s mother and took on the role of the adult male in his life from that point forward. To say that he had become a father to Engel would have been a stretch, but he had certainly provided for his needs; the physical ones, at least.

  As Engel became older, he also became much larger, especially due to the fact that he passed most of his days in the gym, meticulously working on each muscle group of his body. He had developed perfect tone throughout his body and had even considered making a run for the Mr. Universe title, but Kraus had come into his inheritance and was looking for someone who would be his head of security. His loyalty to his mother’s cousin prevented him from saying no.

  Kraus hadn’t treated him a great deal differently than he did any of his other employees, something that Engel had reasoned away as simply being a part of becoming better at your job. He was provided for in every possible way—even on occasion with a young, attractive woman to tend to some of his additional needs—but beyond that, there was still a deep emptiness that had gone unmet. That emptiness had started to turn into an ache when he encountered Thalia.

  As he looked through the window, he noticed that she turned and looked in his direction. She noticed him watching her and directed her gaze toward him for several seconds before turning back to her conversation with Stefan. Had there been something in that look or had she been casually searching for an escape? Engel hoped that it was the first. There would be nothing more pleasant than to hold Thalia in his arms again, but of her own free will, of course.

  He shook off the thought. It was his duty to keep her happy, but it was also his duty to keep her safe and keep her from escaping. He had to consider that she would be considering escape even while she seemed happy. He couldn’t be taken in by her to the point of not doing his primary duty. He took a deep breath and steeled himself against the softness that he had momentarily experienced.

  There was nowhere for Thalia to go, really. The facility where she was being kept took up the entire available surface of a volcanic rock in the North Atlantic. In every direction, the ocean stretched away to the horizon. Most of the time, that horizon was severely limited by a thick fog, but on occasion, if everything was just right, a person might look across the expanse of water toward Greenland and make out some semblance of landfall, which was perhaps nothing more than imagination, given the distance.

  Having gotten his wits gathered together again, Engel pressed the button that would let the controller know that he was ready to reenter the lab. The heavy clunk of the deadbolts sliding back and the buzzing sound let him know that the door was ready to open. He pulled on the handle and entered the lab.

  Chapter Eight

  “Saint Joseph of Arimathea, as he is now known by the Eastern Orthodox Church, had gone to Pilot and asked permission to bury the body of Christ. He purchased the linen to wrap the body in and along with Saint Nicodemus, who brought spices, the two of them were responsible for the burial in the tomb that Joseph had previously purchased.”

  The scripture references appeared on the large overhead screen and Phoe read along as she listened to Stefan present his argument.

  “Now, it was Mary Magdalene, who among others that first went to the tomb on the first day of the week following Jesus’ death and noted that the stone had been moved from in front of the entrance of the tomb. It was the disciples Peter and John, who actually discovered that the body of Christ was no longer there. They, of course, began telling everyone that Jesus had resurrected. There is no doubt that after hearing of that, Joseph and Nicodemus, as well, would have gone to the empty tomb to investigate.

  “But Joseph has only been connected to grail lore, though he might have been connected with the preservation of the Shroud of Christ as well had he not been arrested and imprisoned by the Jewish leaders for burying the body of Christ. Now, Joseph was a rich man and would certainly have the means of preserving the shroud, if such a means existed, right?”

  “Okay,” Phoe conceded.

  “However, since, according to the Gospel of Nicodemus, he had been arrested and imprisoned, he wouldn’t have been able to keep and preserve the shroud. It was no doubt Nicodemus, who took possession of both the shroud and the napkin, as it were.”

  He looked at Phoe as though he was expecting an awestruck expression. Not seeing one, he continued.

  “Having Nicodemus in possession of the shroud actually makes it more likely that the shroud was preserved.” Stefan put another text of scripture up on the overhead screen.

  After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. (John 19:38-40)

  “That sounds like something similar to what the Egy
ptians did,” Phoe whispered. “But not the full process. But if they were strips of linen and not a shroud, then maybe the shroud doesn’t exist at all.”

  “A shroud like the one at Turin certainly doesn’t,” Stefan replied. He put the verse from John 20 back up on the screen.

  And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. (John 20:7)

  “Think about it for a minute,” Stefan continued. “The linen clothes were lying in a heap, as it were, because that linen had been torn in strips and he’d been wrapped in them, though the complete embalming process hadn’t been done. But his face had been covered by a napkin, which was folded neatly and set aside from the others.”

  “So, are you saying that only the face shroud might be in existence?” Phoe asked.

  “Is in existence,” Stefan corrected. “But yes, it is the only thing that would be found.”

  “You said that you had proof that it survived and was intact. How do you know that?”

  Stefan put another text up on the screen. “This,” he grinned.

  These are the divine and sacred mysteries which we saw and heard. I, Charinus and Lenthius are not allowed to declare the other mysteries of God, as the archangel Michael ordered us… (Nicodemus 21:1)

  Phoe looked at the text and saw nothing in it that indicated that the shroud, even the face napkin would have been preserved. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me, because I don’t see anything about the shroud.”

  “No, but do you see the two names listed there, besides Michael and God, of course.” He was enjoying his position of knowledge over her a little too much.

  “Charinus and Lenthius?”

  “Exactly,” he beamed. “They were two sons of Simeon, the devout man who met Mary and Joseph in the temple to perform the Jewish rites when they presented Jesus to him. He is now known as Saint Simeon and his prophecy is still used liturgically in Catholic and Protestant churches alike. These two sons were only allowed to return to the earth for three days and communicate certain things, much of which is what Nicodemus records concerning what took place in hell when Jesus arrived to take Adam and other saints away from Satan. However, they each wrote and sealed up a text of their own before they departed this earth.”