Arkana Archaeology Mystery Box Set 2

by N. S. Wikarski

  The librarian didn’t try to reopen the topic of his feelings for Daniel as they rode the elevator together in silence. Nor did the scion speak while he waited for Chris to unlock the exhibit door. Without needing to consult one another, they took their customary places on the circular bench in the center of the room.

  Once they were settled, Daniel slumped forward and clasped his hands. “A lot has occurred since the last time we were here.” He launched into the story of his encounter with Erik in the parking garage, his enlistment as an accomplice to free Hannah, and the ensuing disastrous rescue attempt.

  “Wow,” was Chris’s monosyllabic response. He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a gigabyte of data to take in. So, what happened afterward?”

  “Nothing,” the scion replied curtly. “I was able to get Hannah safely back inside her room before anyone suspected she was gone.”

  “And the guy who came to rescue her?” Chris urged.

  “At first, I assumed he slipped away before the guards caught up with him. There was no gossip the next morning about an attempted break-in. So, I waited for Erik to call me. I was sure he’d want to try another rescue. I waited and waited.” Daniel sank his head into his hands. “And then yesterday Hannah told me the whole story.” He sighed and straightened up. Turning to face Chris, he added, “Erik’s dead.”

  The librarian blanched. “What?”

  “I only found out because Joshua has been harassing Hannah to get her to talk. She’s been pretending that she lost her voice to avoid interrogation. The people all think she’s afflicted, so they’re walking on eggshells and not bothering her—except for my brother. He believes she’s hiding something and yesterday he stepped up his attack. He told Hannah that a Fallen man had been discovered trying to get into the compound, probably to rescue her. The guards shot him dead.”

  “Maybe Joshua was lying to try to rattle her,” Chris suggested hopefully.

  “I don’t think so. His physical description of Erik was accurate. He wouldn’t have known what the intruder looked like if Erik had escaped. Besides, if Erik really was alive he would have contacted me by now.”

  “Have you tried to call him yourself?” the librarian suggested. “You said he gave you a burner phone to use.”

  Daniel reached into his attaché case and produced the phone. He contemplated it forlornly. “Frankly, I’ve been afraid of what I might find out.”

  “With your brother on the offensive, you can’t leave Hannah where she is!”

  The scion rubbed his head wearily. “I know. I’ve dragged my feet long enough. Joshua is pressuring my father to send her to an asylum. I have to get Hannah out of there before something really bad happens to her. At the same time, I can’t bear the idea of putting any of the others at risk.”

  “You mean Erik’s allies?”

  Daniel nodded grimly.

  The librarian reached over and squeezed Daniel’s forearm lightly. “Don’t you think that’s a decision they ought to be allowed to make for themselves?”

  The scion didn’t recoil at his friend’s touch. He couldn’t resist the comforting sensation and its unspoken assurance that someone was on his side. And on Hannah’s side too.

  Chris gently removed the cell phone from Daniel’s hand. He powered it on. “You need to make that call right now.” He pressed the programmed number and handed the phone back to the scion.

  Daniel placed it on speaker and set the phone on the bench between them. It rang several times. Each ring was a sharp confirmation that its owner wouldn’t be picking up. The scion was on the point of disconnecting the call when he heard a wary male voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Uh, hello. Who’s this?” Daniel began tentatively.

  “Who’s this?” the suspicious voice countered. “Nobody is supposed to have this number.” The voice didn’t sound like Erik’s. It sounded like that of a teenager.

  “Erik gave me this number in case I needed to reach him.”

  “He did?” The voice faltered. “This phone was stuffed inside his backpack. When I brought his gear back to the vault, I set it in a corner and forgot about it. That is, until the pack started ringing just now. You say Erik told you to call this number?”

  “Yes, he did. My name is Daniel and I—”

  An involuntary gasp cut off his explanation. “Daniel? Not crazy cult Daniel?”

  The librarian leaned over and whispered, “He’s not wrong, you know.”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” Daniel replied stiffly. “My name is Daniel Metcalf.”

  “Yup, that’s the one. This is Zach,” the voice volunteered.

  “Zach? You mean Hannah’s Zachary? She’s told me about you.”

  The girl’s name opened a floodgate of questions. “Hannah? You’ve seen Hannah? Is she OK? Is anybody hurting her?”

  Chris chuckled at the boy’s reaction.

  “Zachary, please calm down. Hannah is fine—at least for now. I’m calling to find out what happened to Erik. I didn’t hear from him after our rescue attempt, and I need further instructions about how to proceed.”

  There was a long pause and a heavy sigh. “Erik’s dead. He was shot by a Nephilim goon squad while he was trying to escape. I was his lookout, so I saw it all go down with my own eyes.”

  “Apparently, your brother Joshua can tell the truth when it suits him,” Chris observed sardonically.

  “I’m so sorry,” Daniel told the boy. “So very sorry.”

  “We all are,” Zach agreed in a subdued tone.

  “I’d like to try to free Hannah again. She may be at risk if she remains in the compound. Is there anybody I can speak to on your end about that? Perhaps you know how I can get in touch with a woman named Cassie.”

  “It just so happens I do.” Zach sounded elated. “Hold on a minute. Don’t hang up.”

  Chris and Daniel could hear muffled sounds as the phone was stuffed into a pocket. Then they heard running footsteps.

  “Cassie!” Zach was shouting. His voice echoed off what sounded like a marble corridor. “Cassie, where are you?” the boy demanded.

  From a greater distance, Daniel and Chris could hear a female voice responding. “Jeepers, Zach! What are you bellowing about? I’m in my office. The door’s open. C’mon in.”

  There were more running footsteps and then a thud as the phone was slammed onto a hard surface, presumably the woman’s desk.

  “Cassie.” Zach was gasping and out of breath. “You’re gonna want to take this call. You won’t believe who’s on the other end of the line.”

  Chapter 5—Of Mies and Men (and One Woman)

  Cassie and Griffin crossed Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago and advanced warily across the granite flagstones of Federal Plaza. It was too early in May for vendors to have set up their farmer’s market stalls, so the open expanse was empty except for a few stray pedestrians taking a diagonal shortcut. Daniel had agreed to arrange a meeting between his father and the Arkana agents. After some deliberation, all the parties involved had settled on Federal Plaza as their rendezvous point. Cassie and Griffin felt reassured by the fact that the plaza offered 360-degree visibility. There were no dark corners where an attacker might lurk in order to abduct or shoot them should negotiations take a bad turn.

  “I don’t see anything that looks like a trap.” Cassie scanned the surrounding high rises. “Unless there’s a sniper on a rooftop somewhere.” She immediately regretted the offhand comment.

  “I must say, I’m beginning to appreciate Mies van der Rohe’s fixation on glass curtain walls.” Griffin pointed to the Federal Building to their left. It was a boxy black skyscraper much admired by fans of modernist architecture.

  “Yeah, and the fact that the lobby is staffed with armed guards who can peek out the wall-to-wall windows and see everything that’s happening in the plaza,” Cassie added. “I’m finding that level of scrutiny oddly comforting today.
Plus, look over there.” She pointed to the one-story, glass-walled Post Office directly ahead of them, also designed by Mies. “Security guards in there too. Not to mention a couple of postal workers who might be packing heat because they’re about to go, you know, postal.”

  They both stiffened as they saw a man rounding the corner of the Post Office and heading straight toward them. It was Leroy Hunt dressed in his usual Stetson hat and matching cowboy attire. He had apparently spied them long before they were aware of his presence since he displayed no surprise. Instead, he ambled forward, clearly not in a hurry, a toothpick protruding from the corner of his mouth. Stopping a few feet away from the pair, he removed the toothpick and placed it in his jacket pocket.

  Tipping his hat with elaborate mock courtesy, he said, “Miss Cassie. I see you’re still alive... for now.”

  “Leroy,” she replied through gritted teeth.

  “And you brought the Limey,” he added, transferring his attention to the scrivener.

  “As I mentioned during our last unfortunate encounter, my name is Griffin.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Leroy’s eyes narrowed. “Well, Grif, I got a bone to pick with you seein’ as how you’re still holdin’ my piece.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Griffin peered at him.

  “My piece, boy. My piece. You still got your hands on it.”

  “What are you on about? I assure you I have no desire to place my hands on anything of yours.”

  “I think he means his gun,” Cassie whispered to her partner.

  The scrivener still looked puzzled. “What gun?”

  “The one you stole off me in China, that’s what gun!” Leroy muttered indignantly. “My favorite Glock too. I went to a heap of trouble to smuggle that pistol over there.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Griffin with dawning recognition. “So, you want me to return a weapon that you’ll most likely use to shoot us at some point in the future?”

  “It ain’t like I can’t find another gun to shoot y’all with if I take a mind to.”

  “He’s got a point.” Cassie shrugged. “You might as well give it back. Keeping it will just tick him off worse.”

  “As if that were possible,” the scrivener murmured. “Very well, Mr. Hunt, I’ll have it sent round to your apartment.”

  “That’s more like it.” The cowboy seemed mollified by the concession.

  Changing the subject, the pythia asked, “Where’s your boss?”

  Hunt cast a glance over his shoulder. “He’ll be along with Brother Dan’l in a minute or two. Now that the old man is gettin’ on in years, it takes some doin’ to pry him out of a car. I came on ahead to make sure you two wasn’t gonna pull any funny business like you usually do.”

  “We’ve got no reason to,” Cassie retorted. “Nobody’s trying to kill us today.”

  “Nope, not today...” Hunt trailed off, allowing the implication to hit home. He transferred his attention to his surroundings, casually scanning the plaza until his eyes came to rest on the fifty-foot steel sculpture that dominated the public square. “What’s that piece of scrap metal called?”

  “The Flamingo by Alexander Calder,” the scrivener informed him.

  The cowboy let out a whistle of disbelief. “Flamingo? The feller who slapped that thing together must of been smokin’ some powerful loco weed if he mistook that bird for a flamingo.” He stepped past the Arkana agents to study the sculpture at close range. Not satisfied, he walked to the far side to examine it further. Eventually, he returned shaking his head. “That ain’t no flamingo. That’s a ostrich spray-painted red and the poor critter sunk his head into the ground like to die from the shame of it all.”

  Cassie and Griffin exchanged a dubious look.

  “I tell you what.” Hunt snorted in derision. “The Windy City has got some crazy notions about what is and what ain’t art. Take this here ostrich, for example. Then a couple blocks yonder, you got the lady with the fork in her head and the cross-eyed horse. And don’t even get me started on that giant lima bean over by the lake.”

  “I’m sure Calder, Miro, Picasso, and Kapoor would love to hear your reductive assessment of their work,” Griffin observed archly.

  “Dogs playing poker would probably be more your speed,” the pythia quipped.

  “Hell, yes!” the cowboy agreed without a hint of irony. “At least I don’t need no goddam sign to tell me what I’m lookin’ at. A body can see that the dogs is dogs, not three-eyed lizards.”

  “And the fact that the dogs are playing poker doesn’t trouble you at all?” Griffin asked.

  “Course not. The poker chips ain’t made to look like flyin’ saucers with beetle wings. Modern art!” he growled. “Ain’t nothin’ in nature that looks natural once a modern artist gets his paws on it.”

  Griffin turned to Cassie and confided, “I can’t believe this is the same fellow who’s attempted to murder us in cold blood on more than one occasion.”

  “What?” Hunt seemed offended by the comment. “I ain’t allowed to have interests outside my job?’

  “Your job is killing people,” Cassie declared flatly.

  “Yeah and I’m damn good at it! But that don’t mean I ain’t got opinions about other stuff.”

  Cassie groaned in frustration. “Why do I bother talking to you?”

  “It’s just as well if we terminate this discussion,” Griffin said. “We have company.”

  All three turned toward the Clark Street side of the plaza where Daniel was ushering his father to meet them. Abraham Metcalf leaned heavily on his son’s arm and on a cane for additional support.

  Cassie had never seen the diviner of the Blessed Nephilim in person before. In her mind’s eye, she’d always pictured him as Charleton Heston parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. The reality was far less impressive—a frail old man crumbling to dust with every step. As he approached and glanced dismissively at each of them in turn, his blue eyes glowed with hostile fire under heavy white eyebrows. They were the only part of the diviner’s anatomy that exhibited any spark of life.

  Abraham and Daniel came to a halt in the center of the square. An awkward silence engulfed the five as they sized one another up. Cassie found herself wondering what a good opening remark might be. “Hi, pleased to meet you. Thanks for trying to kill us every chance you get.”

  Eventually, Abraham spoke. “My son says you have a matter of importance to discuss with me.” He directed his comment toward Griffin, but it was Cassie who replied.

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re all after the same thing—the Sage Stone.”

  Instead of acknowledging the remark, the diviner scrutinized the pythia. “You must be the one they call ‘Cassie.’ You’re rather bold for a girl so small.”

  “Small but mighty,” she rejoined. “Just ask Leroy.”

  The cowboy shuffled his feet in embarrassment, obviously remembering their previous encounters. In an effort to change the subject, he gestured toward the scrivener. “And this here’s Grif.”

  “Griffin,” the scrivener enunciated emphatically.

  Ignoring the introduction, the diviner directed his next comment to Cassie. “You were saying something about the Sage Stone.”

  “We want it. So do you. Only one side can win.”

  “And you think that will be you?” Metcalf gave a mirthless bark of a laugh. “You seem quite confident for someone who doesn’t have the final artifact which points to the Sage Stone’s location.”

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” Griffin averred quietly.

  The old man stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying?”

  “That the one you’ve got is a fake,” Cassie informed him curtly.

  “Impossible! You’re a liar!” Metcalf wheeled on his son who took a step backward. “These people know nothing, and they’re attempting to trick us! Why did you bring me here? This is a complete waste of my time.” The old man’s pallid co
mplexion had flushed to an angry shade of purple.

  “Take it down a notch, gramps, before you have a stroke.” Cassie eyed him dispassionately.

  The old man gasped as if she’d struck him. Metcalf was obviously unused to any response other than deference.

  The pythia smiled thinly. “You’re forgetting that you’re in our world now and nobody here is scared of you.” She tilted her head slightly in Daniel’s direction. “Except maybe for him.”

  The cowboy turned aside and cleared his throat, attempting to mask a chuckle.

  Cassie forged ahead. “We’re not lying. We have the real relic. Yours is a copy.”

  “How is that possible?” Daniel sounded baffled. “Mr. Hunt and I arrived only minutes after you entered the cave. You wouldn’t have had time to create a copy and substitute it!”

  “That would be true if we’d only found the artifact minutes before you arrived.” Griffin paused to regard his bewildered listeners. “We actually retrieved it a week earlier. Just long enough for us to have a duplicate made and place it inside the cave. It was our bad luck that you arrived before we’d had time to put the replica in its hiding place.”

  Leroy tilted the brim of his hat back and scratched his head. “What the hell...”

  “Why would you go to such lengths?” Daniel challenged.

  “Because you’d get off our backs if you thought you had the real relic,” Cassie said.

  “We would have been free to conduct our own search without harassment from you,” the scrivener added.

  Turning to his son, the diviner asked, “Does our artifact contain a complete coded message?”

  “Yes, Father. It’s very short, but I believe complete. It says: ‘Past the golden road of Boreas, where his islands kill the sea. Seek the great river’s mother. Her crypt holds the key.’”

  “Not crypt,” Griffin interjected. “Reliquary.”

  “Really?” Daniel appeared intrigued.

  “A minor distinction but pivotal nonetheless.”

  “That’s very interesting. I—”

  What difference does it make!” Metcalf stamped the ground impatiently with his cane. “Creating a replica was pointless if we have the entire clue!”