Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2)

by Robert Storey

A cold breeze ruffled her hair and she suppressed a sense of unease that prickled her senses.

  Where is everyone? she wondered, clicking on the light. How long did I sleep for?

  Pain lanced through her chest and the image of a tattooed face flashed before her eyes.

  ‘Konstantin,’ she whispered. Is he here? Fear grasped her heart.

  She shone her flashlight in every direction, but there was no sign of the crazed maniac, or any of his cloaked disciples.

  Scared, but focused, she headed for the main tent and entered to find it empty. The interior lights buzzed against the backdrop of silence and she made a beeline for a half-eaten energy bar left on a nearby desk. Picking it up, she broke off the end and popped it in her mouth to chew.

  She sucked at a piece lodged in her front teeth, and then frowned, as she caught sight of a map of the dig site spread out on a desk positioned in the centre of the room. She walked over to it, surveyed the area and touched a section at the outer edge. Someone had made a note. ‘Pit five point two,’ she murmured and touched the two words next to it, written in black ink. ‘Anomalous structure.’

  A sound from outside made her pause.

  Folding up the map, she stuffed it into her jacket then opened the door of the tent.

  Nothing stirred outside and she listened for what she’d heard before, her breath coiling up into the freezing air.

  A distant scream pierced the quiet.

  ‘Trish?’ she said, starting forward. The scream came again and Sarah found herself running towards the sound.

  She clattered down a wooden walkway, leapt over a narrow trench then slowed down as she tried to pinpoint the location the scream had come from.

  A clamour of raised voices echoed through the fog to her left and she angled towards it.

  A wooden structure constructed over a large pit emerged out of the gloom. A Swiss guard stood outside and he raised his visor at her approach and held out an armoured arm, while his other hand went to his weapon. ‘I wouldn’t go inside,’ he said, his expression grave.

  Sarah thought he looked scared, which she thought was strange as he held the gun. She pushed past him and threw aside the plastic sheet that acted as an entrance.

  There was no sign of Trish, only Chen and Avery occupied the interior. The Irishman held the Australian explorer in his arms as she sobbed into his shoulder.

  It was Chen who screamed, Sarah thought, realising it hadn’t been Trish after all. Her heart sank.

  Sarah frowned. As she approached the two figures, she saw there was a third person present. He lay in the middle of a deep pit, spreadeagled on a stone structure at its bottom; a structure she assumed must have been Anakim in origin.

  Sarah recognised the man as one of Chen’s team and as she peered down into the shadowy hole, she realised why the soldier had cautioned against entering. The man had been sliced open from navel to neck. Blood soaked into the cracked foundations around him and his empty chest cavity was devoid of organs, as if he’d been hollowed out with a giant spoon.

  Sarah grimaced and turned away just as Chen grasped her jacket.

  ‘You said it would be okay if we wore gloves!’

  Sarah stared into her tear streaked face. ‘What?’

  ‘You said wearing gloves would stop it, you lied to me!’

  ‘Stop what?’

  Chen forced her to the edge of the pit and Sarah glanced down with anxious eyes at the steep drop just inches away.

  ‘The infection!’ Chen said.

  Avery grasped the Australian explorer’s arm to try and break her hold. Chen resisted for a moment, and then let Sarah go.

  ‘Infection, what infect—’ Sarah stopped mid-sentence in realisation. Chen was referring to the journal entries they’d read before Konstantin had infiltrated the camp.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Sarah said, looking from Avery to Chen.

  Chen wiped away her tears and pointed down into the pit. ‘That’s what happened.’

  ‘Two people have gone missing,’ Avery said.

  Chen jabbed a finger at herself. ‘My people!’

  ‘Two more are in comas, and the fifth,’ – he nodded toward the pit – ‘you’ve seen for yourself.’

  ‘You lied to us about the artefacts,’ Sarah said.

  Avery held up his hands. ‘You have to believe me, if I’d known what was going to happen I would never have brought us here.’

  ‘Am I infected as well?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Am I?’ she said, fearing the worst.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  Sarah held Avery’s gaze for a moment and then glanced down into the pit. ‘What happened to him?’

  Chen looked at the cardinal, her face grim. ‘She doesn’t know?’

  Avery shook his head.

  ‘Doesn’t know what?’ Sarah looked from Avery to Chen.

  ‘Someone’s been inside the camp,’ Chen said, avoiding her gaze, ‘messing with our heads.’

  ‘Konstantin?’ Sarah eyes darted around the enclosure.

  ‘We don’t think so,’ Avery said. ‘A woman has been sighted the last two nights. We’ve tried to capture her, but so far with little success.’

  ‘And you think this mysterious woman did that?’ Sarah said, trying not to let her gaze linger on the corpse.

  ‘It’s the only explanation,’ Avery said. ‘We found him lying here a few hours ago. His head must have hit the ground when he fell, but when we came back to remove the body this had happened.’

  ‘His name’s Cavendish,’ Chen said. ‘Saul Cavendish.’ She stared down at her friend. ‘I’ve worked with him for ten years; we used to ... you know, see each other now and then.’ She wiped at her eye. ‘He was the best of us.’

  ‘He was talking of visions and voices in his head,’ Avery said. ‘Like the others.’

  Sarah knew she should care, but for her, Trish and Jason were the priority. Whatever was happening here would have to wait. ‘Where’s Zinetti?’

  ‘He’s investigating the site.’ Avery frowned at her in suspicion. ‘Why?’

  ‘He has my friends.’

  ‘Sarah, I don’t like the man, but I can assure you he’s had no hand in your friends’ disappearance.’

  ‘That’s not what Konstantin told me.’

  ‘And you believe his word over mine?’

  Sarah opened her mouth and rubbed at her temple. She didn’t know what to think. She just wanted her friends back. Was that too much to ask?

  Jason had once told Sarah she was the force that drove them forward, but Sarah knew that was a lie. Without them she was lost. She hung her head. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

  Chen took one last look at her fallen companion, then turned and walked away. The plastic sheet fluttered in the wind as she pushed it aside, leaving Sarah and Avery alone with the body.

  Sarah tried to remember what she’d overheard when she’d listened in on Avery and Zinetti’s conversations. ‘I heard him,’ she said. ‘I heard Zinetti say you’re not here to find Agartha. It probably doesn’t even exist. Everything you’ve said is a lie. The Anakim canister didn’t lead you here, it was my drawings. I led you here. I led us all here.’ She stared down at the body and her thoughts returned to Trish and Jason. ‘It’s just like Sanctuary all over again. I’ve led us here to die.’

  ‘Not here to find Agartha?’ Avery said. ‘If that’s what Zinetti said, he’s wrong.’ He touched her arm. ‘The drugs you’re taking have side effects, Sarah. Paranoia, memory loss and hallucinations aren’t uncommon.’

  ‘Hallucinations? You think I imagined it?’

  ‘You’re confused. It’s understandable, you just experienced a horrific ordeal. You nearly lost your life.’

  ‘No, that’s not it. I know what I heard.’ Sarah touched her chest and shook her head. ‘Konstantin showed me the drawings.’

  Avery sighed. ‘I was hoping to keep this from you. Agartha does exist, the Golden Scroll confirms it, but, for my sins, Alexa
nder Konstantin was telling you the truth. The drawings did lead us here.’

  ‘So you did lie to me,’ she said, outraged.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea, please believe me. It was agreed by the conclave against my better judgement. It was thought it was better you didn’t know.’

  Sarah moved away from the pit to think. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’ She turned to face him. ‘Why would they think that?’

  Avery gave her a sad look. ‘Do you remember why you drew them?’

  She shook her head as he came to stand before her.

  ‘And there’s your answer. You hold the key to this place in your mind, Sarah, but you have no recollection of how or why.’

  ‘There’s something you’re still not telling me.’ She grasped his arm. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.’ Avery put his hand on hers. ‘When you activated the Anakim device in Sanctuary, as you told Dagmar Sorensen, your friends said you were clinically dead ...’

  Sarah felt her anxiety rising. ‘Go on.’

  ‘That’s when we think it happened.’

  ‘What? When what happened?’

  Avery stared into her eyes. ‘There’s something inside you, Sarah, something that doesn’t belong.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘No, that can’t be. I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you? What about the seizures, the drawings, the headaches and the nausea? You know you’ve changed. You must have seen the signs. You must have questioned your sanity.’

  A flurry of images flew through Sarah’s mind. The Anakim orb and its ability to talk to the Pharos, the entity within the crystal wall inside the Anakim sphinx, the intricate drawings of symbols and constellations she had no right to know, the shadow in the bathroom in Costa Rica. Had the giant known, too? Sarah wondered, as she remembered the Anakim woman grasping her head in its massive hand.

  ‘Why do you think we gave you the drugs?’ Avery said. ‘The same drugs given to the people who excavated this site. The same drugs designed to suppress the symptoms they experienced, symptoms that can only mean one thing.’

  Sarah touched her chest and the Anakim metal she knew resided within.

  ‘When you died, something came back with you from beyond the veil.’ Avery drew the sign of the cross on his chest. ‘Sarah, you are possessed, possessed by something not of this world, and do you want to know the worst thing of all?’

  She shook her head; the movement feeling like it belonged to someone else.

  ‘Oh, child, the worst thing is, you don’t even know.’

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Possessed? The word repeated over and over like a death sentence. I’m possessed? She refused to believe it.

  She wouldn’t believe it.

  She didn’t know why she’d drawn the images of constellations and strange symbols, but it wasn’t because something was inside her. Was it?

  I am my own person! she thought. I CONTROL MY OWN MIND!!

  ‘Do you?’ said the voice within. ‘Do you really?’

  Avery Cantrell glanced behind and lowered his voice. ‘There’s something else. The person who did this,’ – he gestured towards the gruesome body – ‘the woman who did this, we think ... we think ...’

  Sarah stared into his eyes. ‘You think what?’

  Avery touched her arm. ‘Oh, dear God, Sarah, we think it might be you.’

  Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Six

  The words Avery had just spoken reverberated around Sarah’s head like a curse: ‘... you are possessed, possessed by something not of this world ...’

  The plastic sheets, that enclosed the wooden scaffold and excavation pit rustled in the icy wind, and Sarah found her eyes drawn back to the deep hole and the unmoving form of the man from Chen’s team who lay at the bottom of it.

  She looked at the Irish cardinal in disbelief. ‘You think it might be me?’ She let out a hysterical laugh, but her forced smile vanished as Avery’s expression remained unwavering in its sincerity.

  She looked down at her fingernails, still caked with congealed blood; blood she’d assumed was her own. She glanced at the body and shook her head.

  ‘That’s why they drugged you while you were asleep,’ her traitorous inner voice told her. ‘They did want you weak. They wanted to make sure you didn’t kill anyone else!’

  Two Swiss guards entered the wooden scaffold and Sarah noticed they both held their rifles at the ready and were staring at Sarah with an unholy malice.

  ‘But you said he killed himself,’ Sarah said, in a daze.

  ‘No. I said we found him before, before he was gutted. We don’t know if he was pushed, or if he threw himself to his death. Either way, what happened afterwards was done by a second party.’ Avery reached out and inspected the blood on her hand. ‘Do you remember anything of the last three days?’

  Sarah thought back and wondered if that’s why Ruben hadn’t returned to the tent. Is he frightened of me? She looked at the two soldiers in their lustrous red armour. Do they all fear me?

  Sarah recalled Chen avoiding her gaze just a short time before. What had she said? ‘She doesn’t know?’ The Australian’s voice echoed in her mind. ‘She doesn’t know?’

  Sarah looked back at the body, and then doubled over and vomited.

  She retched again and spat out the dregs of the food she’d just eaten, the taste of bile thick in her mouth. ‘Chen knows?’ Sarah said as she gasped for air.

  ‘She doesn’t blame you,’ Avery said. ‘She thinks you’re a victim, like the rest.’

  ‘She’s scared of me?’

  ‘We all are,’ said another voice.

  Sarah turned to see Zinetti enter the tent, with Ruben by his side.

  The monk, who’d only recently been kissing her, avoided her gaze and looked down into the pit and the body within. He grimaced and pulled up the cowl of his robe to conceal his face.

  Sarah kept looking at him, searching for some comfort in a crazy world, but she was to be disappointed, as Ruben’s face remained cast in shadow, his demeanour once more an impenetrable wall of silence.

  She pointed at the dead body with a shaky finger. ‘I didn’t do this.’ She looked from Avery to Zinetti and then to Ruben. ‘Tell them, Ruben. Tell them I didn’t do this!’

  No one spoke. Sarah wiped a string of spittle from her mouth, stumbled past the soldiers and out into the night.

  Someone grasped her arm and swung her round.

  ‘You no longer go anywhere alone, Morgan,’ Zinetti said. ‘We know what you’re capable of.’

  Sarah grasped his coat. ‘Where are my friends?!’ She pulled him close, her eyes bulging wide. ‘WHERE ARE THEY?!’

  The soldiers dragged her off and threw her to the ground.

  ‘I don’t know where your friends are, you stupid girl!’

  Sarah scrambled to her feet in the snow. ‘You’re a liar! You’re all liars!’ She pointed at Zinetti. ‘I heard you, I heard you say you weren’t here for Agartha. You’re not looking for an underground world. You’re looking for a gate, Heaven’s Gate.’ She turned to Avery who came to stand by Zinetti’s side. ‘You can’t trust him, he’s deceiving you! He took my friends. I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘Deceiving him?’ Zinetti glowered at her. ‘Can you hear yourself? Where am I supposed to have hidden your friends?’ He opened his arms wide. ‘There’s nowhere to hide them!’

  Wild-eyed, Sarah looked around and then ran to the next tent. She burst inside, then came back out and ran to the tent after that, while outside, the soldiers shadowed her every move.

  She opened a flap to reveal a dull light within empty living quarters. With no sign of Trish and Jason anywhere, she went back outside to find the two cardinals and Ruben had also followed her.

  ‘There’re here,’ she said, her breath spiralling up into the freezing air. ‘Somewhere in the camp,’

  ‘Sarah.’ Avery stepped toward her. ‘Remember what I said about the drugs, th
e paranoia.’

  She withdrew the pouch. ‘Take them.’ She threw it to the ground. She never wanted to see it again. ‘I don’t want them.’

  Avery stooped and plucked it out of the snow, then held out his other hand to her. ‘Come, take my hand.’

  Sarah stared at him, she felt like crying. ‘I feel so alone,’ she said, struggling to keep back the tears.

  He moved closer and drew her to him. She buried her face into his shoulder, but the tears didn’t come.

  Avery stroked the back of her head. ‘Sarah, forget what you think you know. We’ve received a communication from Vatican City; your final test results came back from the doctor. They’ve told us whatever is happening to you has caused more damage than they first thought, especially to certain regions of your brain.’

  Sarah let him go and stood back. ‘What do you mean?’ She was so confused. She just wanted to get away, but the Swiss Guard weren’t about to let her go anywhere. She drew her gaze away from the armed men and back onto Avery.

  ‘I mean, you’ve got brain damage. It’s a miracle you’ve been able to function as you have. We were obviously hoping for better news, but the drugs you are taking, you’ll be needing them for a very long time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘For the rest of your life.’ He tucked the drugs pouch into a pocket in her Deep Reach jacket.

  She didn’t resist. What was taking a few drugs every day? Her mind was still trying to take in the reality of brain damage and the very real possibility she’d butchered a dead body and didn’t even remember it. And, worse still, she might have been responsible not only for the murder, but for the disappearance of Chen’s other teammates, as well. What if I killed them, too? she thought, before another shocking truth hit her. What if I’ve hurt Trish and Jason? The idea made her feel like throwing up again. What if I’ve killed them? The only two people that meant anything to her, dead by her hand. She stared down at the blood on her fingertips.

  ‘You’re in shock,’ Avery said, and guided her back into the large tent she’d just been searching. ‘I wouldn’t have told you, only it’s important you keep taking the drugs; your life depends on it.’ He touched her cheek. ‘You must keep them with you at all times, do you understand?’