“Are you OK Ben? We’ve got to go.”
Ben looked up groggily, then back at his office door. Smoke poured out as fragments of paper and ash floated on the toxic breeze. They could hear increased gunfire in the quad, people screaming and trying to escape. Then the echo of footsteps could be heard on the staircase below, running up towards them.
“It must be about the stones,” Morgan said. “We have to get away before they find us. Is there another way out?”
“Over there.” Ben pointed towards the end of the corridor. “It’s a back staircase the abbot constructed in the time when mistresses were tolerated. Few know it’s here.”
He seemed to pull himself together then and Morgan found herself rushing to catch up with him as the old man hurried down the passage. He pulled back one of the tapestries on the wall to reveal a narrow doorway and fumbled at his waist for a key.
“I’ve used it a few times over the years. The last abbot gave me the key as my office is so close to it. Here we go. Bother, it’s sticky. Give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute, Ben. Hurry.”
Morgan had no weapon on her, so she stood facing the stairwell, listening to the running feet coming ever closer. She moved into a Krav Maga fighting stance, slowed her breathing and began to focus completely on the energy to fight. She would not go easily, even in the face of firepower.
“It’s open. Let’s go.”
Ben’s voice broke her concentration. She turned and edged through the tiny doorway after him, pulling the tapestry down and the door almost closed just as feet hammered up the stairs. She dared not pull it shut completely as the creaking would give them away. So they waited, hardly breathing. They could hear voices outside the door muffled by the heavy tapestry.
“They’re not here. There must be another exit. Search the other rooms.”
A pause, then they could hear the frantic voice of a petrified monk as he was dragged from his hiding place down the hall. Ben’s hand found Morgan’s in the dark and he squeezed it, neither daring to move. She knew that they would hurt the man and she felt torn between her need to escape with Ben but also not to let this monk suffer for her sake. The monk began to pray aloud.
“Where are they?” the voice said.
There was a thud as something connected with the monk’s body and he coughed with a cry of pain. The fleshy thuds began again. Ben was gripping her hand tighter now, seemingly urging her not to move. But Morgan couldn’t listen to it any longer, she needed to get the men’s attention.
“Get ready to run,” she whispered.
She pushed against the door, sending the tapestry billowing into the corridor, clearly showing the hiding place and then she pulled it shut again, slamming it hard behind them.
“That door will hold them for a few minutes” Ben said. “It’s so thick they can’t blast through it easily.”
Morgan held out her cell phone to light the small stairwell and they raced down the two flights to the bottom. Ben was doing well, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up once they were out of the building. She needed a plan to hide him so she could escape alone.
“Where does this come out?”
“Behind the Ashmolean Museum,” he panted. “There’s a service entry at the back.”
“OK, I need you to get inside the museum and stay somewhere public. Make sure you’re safe. They’re after me, so I’ll make sure I’m followed and not you.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs as they heard the top door slam open and feet begin to descend. Morgan heard the first man radio for backup, so she knew there would be others coming. One of the first rules of Krav Maga was that running away was always more preferable to fighting. Sometimes she had railed against the truism, but this was indeed a battle she needed to run from, not try to fight. Pushing open the door, she pulled Ben out into the bright day, propelling the tired old man across the gravel to the back entrance of the Ashmolean.
“Go, I’ll find you later.”
He briefly touched her face. “Be careful.”
Then he scurried into the museum, a haven of academics, tourists and security guards. She hugged the side of the building and turned to look back into Blackfriars quad. There were a couple of bodies lying on the grass, and two men were standing there with guns. The sirens of the Oxford police could be heard in the distance and would soon arrive. She knew the men had already been there too long. She could avoid them for now but she had to stay away from the police as well as there were too many questions and there was no time to waste with bureaucracy. This was her turf, she knew the labyrinth of the college back entrances.
Keeping low, she ran around the back of Blackfriars, through the thick trees and into St Cross College, which adjoined it to the north. She had escaped for now, but the men from Thanatos would soon be after her again. Morgan thought back to Ben’s words about ARKANE and wondered if she was making a deal with the Devil in order to save her sister.
***
Father Ben eventually returned to his office, after running the gauntlet of the police and the questions of his superiors in the Order. He had clutched his chest and wheezed at them, indicating that he needed to rest. Age was always a convenient excuse, as people expected him to be weak and unable to cope but his body was a shell for a mind sharper than most around him. Ben had hidden his abilities well over the years, relaxing into this Order of life, camouflaged by habit and ritual.
As he stepped into the room, he clutched the doorframe in horror. The room was torn apart, both from the grenade which had shredded most of the books, but also from human hands that had ripped through his belongings, clearly looking for something. But it was the image nailed to the bookcase that made him gasp in recognition. It was a pale horse’s head, drawn in thick black lines and colored chalky white. A flash of memory and he was back in the ancient ruins of Ephesus half a lifetime ago, an archaeology student watching as a man on the edge of insanity sketched this very symbol. A man who must surely be dead but whose past was entwined with ARKANE and whose heart was black with murder.
“Thanatos,” he whispered. “Be careful Morgan.”
ARKANE Headquarters, London, England.
May 19, 11.30am
Jake used the elevator from the vaults below up the eight floors to the penthouse of the ARKANE Institute and stood silently in the doorway to the grand office. Dr Elias Marietti sat at his desk gazing out the bay window, the grey London light giving his face an unhealthy pallor. Even at the beginning of summer, the sunlight had an ashen pall from the pollution of the great city. The study light was on and papers were strewn across the large mahogany desk. Marietti had told him the desk had been the property of George Frederic Watts, an English painter in Victorian times, who had seen visions of God but rejected religion in his own life. The Director had seen the irony in that. One of Watts’ paintings also hung on the office wall, a loan from the Tate Gallery: ‘She shall be called woman,’ a powerful vision of the creation of Eve, a life force blown from above into a figure surrounded by nature and cloud. Jake knew that Marietti lived a solitary life, so he surrounded himself with culture as an intellectual escape.
Jake coughed to get his attention. Marietti turned in his chair but didn’t get up. He waved to the facing chair and skipped the small talk.
“This is an important mission, Jake. The celestial events associated with the Resurgam comet are accelerating and we cannot have those stones loose at the height of the comet’s trajectory. I’m also concerned by the timing of the advent of Thanatos.”
“Martin wasn’t able to provide much information about the organization,” Jake said, “but I’ve heard some ugly rumors about what they’re capable of.”
Marietti sighed, leaning back in his chair. Jake could almost see the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. He also saw the veiled look in Marietti’s eyes as the Director spoke, as if he hid some deeper secrets.
“Thanatos was formed after the Second World War, a splinter group searching for powerful occult objects based on the research of the Nazis. They used perversions of ancient prophecy to proclaim the end of days. I thought we had defeated them then, but clearly they went underground. Their return now means events will accelerate from here for Thanatos has no regard for the lives of individuals, only a blind pursuit of what they define as religious truth.”
He paused. Jake knew there was more Marietti wasn’t telling him.
“So what about the stones of the Apostles?” he asked. “Does that mean they really do have power of their own if Thanatos want them so badly?”
Marietti looked grim, his brow deeply furrowed.
“After Varanasi we collaborated with the Vatican to verify the miracles. From the preliminary investigations, it looks like they were real. The stones are made of a certain kind of radioactive material with magnetic and other properties not seen in any other rocks known on earth. We don’t know how they are used or how Varanasi happened, but they certainly have some kind of power. You have to ensure they don’t reach the hands of these fanatics because even without the miracles, they are a potent symbol that will unite fundamentalist groups.”
Marietti passed a photo across his desk.
“While Thanatos are the primary threat, we also have Joseph Everett, a businessman and rising star in Arizona politics. His father was a freelance biblical researcher and stole one of the stones. It seems Joseph is carrying on the tradition and aims to collect them all.”
Jake took the photo.
“Kidnapping Morgan’s family seems like a desperate attempt to speed up the process, but why does he want the stones?” Jake asked.
Marietti handed him another photo.
“We think this is his motivation. It’s his brother Michael, a mentally and physically ill twin held in a local psychiatric hospital. Joseph visits almost every day and after the power demonstrated at Varanasi, we think he believes the stones will help heal his brother.”
“Do you think he’s working with Thanatos?” Jake asked, studying the photos.
“No, Everett seems to be entirely focused on his brother but Thanatos want the stones for a larger purpose and we’re only seeing a small part of their plans. I think they will take his stones too before this ends.”
Marietti looked away, his dark eyes black in the dim light, bushy eyebrows overshadowing a craggy face that had seen so much. He was silent for a moment. Jake knew this man had paid a high price for the position he now held and shared little but he didn’t want to know the secrets that Marietti kept hidden. The Director stood and walked around his desk. Jake pushed back his chair, realizing the interview was over.
“Your focus must be on retrieving those stones, Jake. They haven’t been in the same place since Pentecost over two millennia ago. Alone the stones are powerful: together with the comet they could be catastrophic.”
Marietti put his hand on Jake’s shoulder and Jake felt the weight of responsibility and trust this man had in him.
“I need them back here, but I’m too old for this now. It’s time for you to step up, Jake, a new generation of ARKANE. We’re coming into an age where the spiritual and supernatural are embraced again. These are dangerous times to have any artifact revealed to the world that gives credence to a particular faith. So you must bring them back here … at any price. No individual is worth more than this. Remember that.”
Jake left the office and walked out onto The Strand, one of the busiest hubs of London traffic and tourism. He merged into the crowd and was carried along back towards Embankment tube station. As he walked, he considered how he was going to work with Morgan Sierra. He felt a strong attraction to her, both physical and through a sense of kinship for their disjointed lives, but his loyalties ultimately lay with ARKANE.
He remembered when he had been recruited by Marietti while in Africa, overseeing aid in Sudan. His British special military team had been ordered to stand by and hold as the National Islamic Front had slaughtered Catholics, including children. It was a political decision, and there was nothing they could do but wait it out. Marietti had been sent from the Vatican as a representative of the Holy See during the hideous war that raged senselessly for years. Late one night they had both been awake and stood on a verandah together in the dark listening to screams in the distance. Jake had cursed God that night, feeling their blood on his hands, and Marietti had explained to him how it was not God but man who twisted faith into something evil. Religion had torn humanity apart for millennia and it would never stop but there was a way to be part of the solution.