"How are they?" Chris asked Alexandra Styles when she re-appeared in the parlour where Orin Travis was holding court with his daughter, Chris, Vin, Buck and Ezra in the aftermath of the latest Erran attack.
This time, Chris was convinced the Erran wouldn't be returning, at least for the next few hours which meant they had to come up with a plan of how to proceed next. The Erran had acquired the Heart and despite scoring that little victory, the fanatics could not hope to carry out their plan of unmaking the world without the remaining Pillars, still in the possession of the Professor and Alex Styles.
After rescuing Alex from the Erran at her home and realising they might have a possible lead on where her father might have hidden his cryptex, it was decided by Chris, much to Vin's relief, Alex could not be left alone lest the Erran tried to abduct her again. When it was daylight, they would return to the vicinity of Seton Village and track down this mound dwelling William Styles was so interested in. Chris's gut instinct told him the Pillar was there.
"They're all sleeping it off," Alex explained after attending to the three men who were heavily drugged when she arrived at the Travis's home with Vin and his friends. Grateful she had taken her father's doctor's bag with her when she left the house, Alex found herself with three patients once the Erran were driven from the home. "They've been dosed with what might be Henbane. Normally its ingested but in this instance, it was injected through the bloodstream."
"They were using a blowgun," Ezra spoke up, having returned his arm to its sling now that it was no longer required to shoot. "I narrowly missed being struck by the wretched darts myself."
"What's it doing to them?" Vin asked, recalling the state they'd found Josiah, Nathan and JD, all muttering incoherently in their delirium. Whatever they were seeing, didn't sound pleasant.
"It's a powerful hallucinogen," she explained. "I think it comes from Arabia if my toxicology studies are correct. Fortunately, my dad kept a bottle of Antilirium in his bag, so I've administered a dose to all three of your friends. That should help them recover from its effects. Give them a few hours to let it pass through their system and they should be okay."
"Thank you, Miss Styles," Chris said with appreciation. Aside from Vin's obvious pleasure at being in her company, Chris was grateful they had Alex with them. Especially with the perilous condition, they found Josiah, Nathan and JD. While he could not be certain what nightmares they were experiencing in their delirium, he also knew those were the least of a hallucinogen's side effects. Chris had seen people die from such poisoning.
Alex had recognised the danger immediately and set to work, making Chris grateful they had a healer in their midst, especially if Nathan was himself incapacitated, even a fourth-year medical student.
"Please call me Alex," Alex gave the leader of the seven a little smile, which Chris found to be radiant. At that moment, Chris could see why it had affected Vin like a bullet to the brain.
Alex had now turned to Mary who was sitting on one of the wing chairs, holding a cold compress to her cheek. "Mare, how's that compress feeling?"
"Oh better," Mary said gratefully, lowering the cloth from her cheek, revealing the ugly bruise on her face.
The sight of it made Chris Larabee's spine stiffen in rage once more. As much as she was a pain in the ass, that lovely skin had no business being marred by such an ugly bruise and the ex-soldier was not at all impressed by anyone who would do that to a woman. When he had battled the Erran female earlier, he had loathed to strike her until his life was in jeopardy but the rough handling of Mary and Alex to intimidate both women had properly inspired his dislike.
"Mr Standish, is your arm alright?" Alex noted Ezra's sling with concern. It appeared she was not the only one who suffered at the hands of the Erran tonight, not after seeing all the injuries sustained by the group of people who had entered her life since meeting Vin Tanner.
Ezra exchanged a glance with Vin, who was trying not to stare at Alex but appeared unable to help himself, making the cynical gambler smile a little. If this was the young lady who had ensnared their unflappable Mr Tanner's affections, he could well understand the attraction. She was exceedingly beautiful and more refined than expected for a minimalist like Vin. However, he did note the affection was mutual, which pleased Ezra to no end.
Like Chris and Buck, Ezra still remembered the scrawny young boy who had scoured the ruined landscape of Northern France to find him a medic when he was bleeding into the mud. Whether or not Vin knew it, the five men he served with would always feel a little protective of him, no matter how old or capable he was.
"Yes, I shall survive Miss Styles," Ezra answered Vin's paramour. "Mr Jackson attended to it earlier in the evening but I was forced to discard the sling to deal with our ‘guests'."
"Alright," she nodded. "I can give you a hydrocodone tablet for the pain if you like."
"You are an angel, my dear," Ezra remarked, "but I prefer to medicate with cognac."
"He does his best work that way," Vin added helpfully, impressed with her doctoring. When they had spoken on the roof, he merely thought her beautiful and funny. Now he was seeing she was also kind and highly educated. Although her credentials should have intimidated him, since Vin's schooling was nowhere that extensive, Alex looked at him as if he were special and that overcame his fears regarding their compatibility.
"Very droll Mr Tanner," Ezra said good-naturedly and raised his glass to Vin, before taking a sip in confirmation of the sharpshooter's point.
"Alexandra, I'm glad you're safe," Orin Travis said gratefully before leaning back into his chair, relaxing after the day's trials. "I had hoped to warn you of those men tonight, but it appears I was too late."
"It's alright Orin, you couldn't have known they were going to come after me," Alex said taking the empty spot next to Vin on the leather sofa. The sharpshooter shifted to give her room, his hand covering hers when she was settled next to him.
"Unfortunately, this doesn't change the fact, we need a plan," Chris spoke up. The leader of the seven was leaning against the mantle above the fireplace, trying to decide what to do next. It was obvious, everyone in this room was in danger, especially now they were all known to the Erran. "They've got the heart and to make it work, they'll need the remaining cryptices."
"Which means, they'll be back," Buck grumbled.
"It gets worse than that," Ezra volunteered. "I believe Doctor Styles's anxiety regarding the mythology of the Tablet has a direct bearing on the daughters of the men who uncovered the artefacts in the first place. It is most likely the reason he took such great pains to conceal his own artefact and why he was so interested in the mythology surrounding it."
"What do you mean?" Chris asked, not liking the sound of this one damn bit.
"Part of the ritual to access the Heart's power involves sacrificing them," Ezra explained.
"Hell," Buck cursed out loud. "You mean they're going to need Mary and Alex?"
"It appears so," Orin replied. "No wonder Will was so worried about keeping the artefacts out of the Erran's reach. Without the complete list of artefacts, they can't initiate the ritual."
"Would they need all of the ladies?" Buck asked, not liking the idea that any woman in their company would be in danger that way. Like Chris, each time Buck saw the bruises on the faces of Mary and Alex, he had to grit his teeth to stave off his rage. Growing up in a bordello where his mother Rose was a working girl, Buck had grown to loathe any man taking their fists to a woman after seeing how some customers behaved.
"I'm not sure," Orin answered truthfully, casting a look at both Mary and Alex respectively, his concern for their safety apparent on his face. "Your father was the expert on the Tablet." He said to Alex.
"All right," Chris nodded, absorbing all the new intelligence presented to him and quickly formulated a plan of attack. "In the morning, assuming the kid is in any shape to think straight, me, Vin and JD are going to head back to Doctor Styles's place in Seton Village. I want JD to go over his research on the Tablet and the details about the ritual. My hunch is, they don't need all your daughters to make it work. If so, they'd be already in trouble."
"How so?" Alex had to ask, being the only one in the room not aware of Chris's past.
"Hank Connelly's daughter Sarah was my wife," Chris said quietly, "she's been..." he paused a moment when the word caught in his throat. "Gone for five years," he continued after a second. Even after all these years, Chris couldn't bring himself to say the word ‘dead’. He just couldn't.
Alex was dismayed by the sorrow she saw in the man's eyes and immediately felt guilty for inadvertently surfacing such an obviously still open wound. Sensing he would prefer she not well on it, she opted to push past the moment. "I'm sorry Chris," she said obligatorily. "But yes, that does make sense."
Chris realised what she was doing and gave her a little smile of appreciation, noting Mary's eyes fixed on him at that moment as well, an enigmatic look on her face as she studied him. Shaking off her scrutiny because he couldn't get a bead on it, Chris returned to their discussion. "While JD's doing the research, Vin and me will go try and track down the Pillar. Alex you’ll have to come with us. You know where this place is."
Alex nodded. "Alright," she replied and felt Vin's hand squeezing hers and felt a surge of warmth at how good it felt.
"What about the Professor?" Ezra inquired. "Neither he nor Miss Travis can remain here. The Erran were chased off because of your untimely arrival but they are proving to be increasingly persistent. I do not doubt they will be back and soon."
"Ezra's right Chris," Vin added, looking at Orin. "They'll try to grab you and Miss Travis, not just for their ritual but for leverage. Chances are they'll need to use her to try and force you into giving them the Pillar."
"Wonderful," Mary grumbled. "If we don't give it to them, they're going to keep coming after us and if we do, they'll snatch either me or Alex."
"Maybe Vin is right," Buck sighed. "Maybe we need to destroy one of the pieces to make it impossible for them to carry out the ritual at all.
"Destroy?" Orin's expression showed his abhorrence to that idea. Like all scholars, the idea of destroying an ancient relic was horrifying to him but his distaste soon withered into understanding when he realised what the stakes were and how conclusive this action would be to ending the threat of the Erran.
"I don't think that would help," Chris replied. "I get the feeling if we did that, they'd kill us all out of spite. First things first, we get you and your daughter out of here. We need to hide you out someplace they won't think to look."
"They've been watching us for a long time, Chris," Orin sighed unable to ignore that reality. "For years as a matter of fact. I don't know where we could hide they might not know about."
The man's face was glum. His fears, Chris suspected, were not for himself, but for his daughter.
"I got a place," Chris replied after a moment, his expression unreadable and his decision not to elaborate was telling. "Pack a bag, tell the university you won't be coming in for at least a week. Miss Travis, I suggest you do the same. In the meantime, Buck when Nathan and Josiah are on their feet, we need to retrieve the Professor's cryptex. Where is it, Orin?"
"Well, I decided to keep it in the best place you keep anything valuable, in a vault at the bank." Orin volunteered.
"That sounds safe enough," Buck agreed. "No way they would try to break into a bank to get the damn thing."
"I am not so certain," Ezra shrugged not about to discount the possibility. “The actions of the Erran so far have proven they had little regard for our institutions or how much collateral damage they are willing to do to gain what they want. They attacked a museum full of the city's most illustrious citizens, with the intention of slaughtering them all to get their hands on the Heart. To say nothing of the fact, they managed to regroup after their initial failure to launch another attack on the same night. While it might seem beyond their reach to make the attempt, I would not put it past them."
"Ezra's right," Chris agreed with a frown. "We can't assume they won't make a run for it but the moment, they don't know where it is. That's the best thing we got going for us but Ezra's also right about how fast they put together another attack."
"What do you know about these Erran?" Vin asked. "I mean aside from the fact they're a bunch of murdering bastards who want to remake the world or something."
"William is the real expert..." Orin started to say when Mary interrupted.
"The Erran existed from the first century," she explained, giving her father a look to let him know she could take it from here. Since Orin took her into his confidence about the Erran and the Pillars, Mary had conducted her own research into the cult and uncovered a wealth of information regarding the history of the Erran. "According to what I was able to uncover, they were worshippers of the ancient Mesopotamian deity Erra, who is the God of Chaos and Destruction, but were either wiped out or driven underground in the 6th century by the rise of the Muslim caliphate."
"It would make sense," Chris replied, hiding how impressed he was with her at having this information. Of course, she was probably still an opinionated pain in the ass, but still pretty to look at. "The caliphates weren't too tolerant of false gods once Islam entered the mainstream. They would have definitely placed any cult-like that under persecution."
"Charming," Ezra frowned. "Because extreme behaviour has such a proven track record of stamping out the followers of such religions. I am certain the Romans thought they had seen the last of those pesky Christians when they fed the poor souls to the lions."
"Exactly," she flashed Ezra a smile.
Chris bristled inwardly, feeling a surge of irritation when the gambler returned it with his trademarked dimpled smile. For some reason, the idea of Ezra around Orin Travis's daughter rubbed him the wrong way, even if Chris had no interest in the woman at all, not in the slightest, even if she did have the most magnificent legs he'd ever seen and equally captivating eyes. Absolutely no interest at all.
"Go on," he said brusquely, shooting Ezra a look of annoyance for interrupting her when he wanted to hear what else she had to say. Yeah, that was the reason, an inner voice chided in sarcasm.
From where he was, Buck Wilmington stifled the shit-eating grin of knowing that would have surely landed him a knuckle sandwich if he chose to make comment about his observations of Chris’s behaviour.
"Well it's probably why they disappeared for nearly twelve hundred years," Mary resumed speaking, noting the flash in the man's icy blue eyes, she couldn't understand. "In the late 1800s, they showed up in England as the Children of Erran, led by a man called Narseh Shah. Narseh was an Arabian professor who claimed to be the descendant of Adashir Shah, the first ruler of the Sassanid Empire. He managed to successfully convert a lot of rich aristocrats from London society, the kind that used to follow Aleister Crowley around."
"The psychic? Alex exclaimed, wondering if this story could get any more bizarre. Leaning into the sofa, she found herself resting in the crook of Vin's shoulder, feeling bewildered because she had no idea the tales her father had been telling her had so much to do with his death.
"Yes," Mary nodded, the same. "In any case, it was Narseh who first introduced the idea of remaking the world using the old legend of Enki and the Tablets. These followers were devoted enough to fund him and so the movement grew. Now, I have very little about the specifics of the cult beyond that, but I do know that Narseh died, leaving the Erran in the hands of his two children. His son Adashir, after the Sassanid king and a daughter Aisha. They were born in the 1900s."
"Chris," Vin spoke up. "He could have been the son of a bitch who escaped through the window when I got to Alex."
Upon mentioning it, Vin felt Alex shudder slightly at the memory of the encounter. She pressed her body closer to his, prompting him to wrap an arm around her shoulder in comfort.
"And the gal with the fancy chemicals you and Ezra tangled with could be the daughter," Buck pointed out.
"She did appear to be giving the orders," Ezra agreed with Buc’s assertion.
"Well you can't stay here," Chris declared, even more convinced they needed to leave the place tonight. "You need to get packing," he turned to Orin. "I don't think we should wait around here until they make another attempt to get their hands on you. The Pillars you have in your possession is all that stands in their way of carrying out their ritual."
"And I guarantee you," Ezra said grimly, "the next time they appear, they will be coming back in numbers to abduct either Miss Travis or Miss Styles, possibly even both. If they wish the Professor to produce his cryptex, they will require the leverage."
Orin stiffened at the thought, casting an anxious glance at Mary who seemed no happier at the prospect. She'd seen what the Erran had been willing to do at the museum and her throat still throbbed from where that behemoth had almost choked the life out of her. She had no wish to be in their power for an even more sinister purpose.
"Let's get moving," Chris noticed the fear in her eyes. "We'll get all three of you somewhere safe and then decide how to deal with the Erran."
This time his tone was nowhere as harsh as it had been, especially when he saw the vulnerability beneath the self-assured mask Mary wore to reinforce her ability to take care of herself.
"Where do you plan to keep us, Mr Larabee?" Mary asked, indicating more than just herself and her father, but Alex too. It seemed both she and Alex were going to be the price for their father's youthful follies.
"At the ranch," Chris replied, not meeting the gazes of any one of his friends.
"The ranch?" Buck exclaimed, staring at Chris in nothing less than shock. He hadn't heard Chris mention the place in years, not since Adam and Sarah had died.
"Yeah," Chris shrugged uncomfortably and noted both Vin and Ezra staring at him in puzzlement. "I own a ranch. I just haven't spent a lot of time up there, that's all."
Buck shot both men a silent order not to pursue the matter and take Chris's explanation at face value. Vin and Ezra caught the look and took the advice, perfectly aware if Buck was giving the warning, it was for good reason. It most likely had to do with the one subject Chris Larabee would not discuss with anyone, despite their camaraderie. The death of his wife and son. After four years together, the rest of the seven knew that topic was absolutely off limits.
Later on, when time and discretion permitted it, Buck would explain to them about the Larabee ranch located between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
Shortly before the tragedy, Chris had bought the place, intending to move the family there from the military housing provided by Kirtland Army Base where he had been stationed. Sarah had hated not having a home of her own and Buck knew Chris and Sarah had discussed expanding their family, so they would need the space. His father left him an inheritance after the man's passing and he'd bought it as a surprise for Sarah.
It was a surprise she would never see because two days after Chris signed the papers, Sarah and Adam died in a house fire. Chris had never gone back to the place, even though he owned it. Buck supposed it was a good sign, Chris had even mentioned it, let alone offer it as a safe house for the Professor and the two ladies. Besides, Orin Travis had given them purpose when they were at the lowest points in their lives and strengthened their frayed bonds of brotherhood into something transcendent.
They owed him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
MOUND
It was still dark when they arrived at the ranch some two hours later.
When Chris suggested it as a hiding place for Orin Travis, his daughter Mary and Alexandra Styles, he had no idea how difficult it would be coming back to the twenty-acre ranch he bought almost five years ago. Although he told himself on numerous occasions, he should sell the place, something always held him back. Perhaps it was knowing if he got rid of it, he’d be ridding himself of the last vestiges of his life as a husband and father. It was ridiculous of course, it was just a place and neither Sarah nor Adam had ever set foot on it.
Chris bought the twenty-acre property, with the five-bedroom Pueblo adobe home, days before the house fire that would take their lives. The death of his father a few years earlier left Chris with enough money to buy the place since he and Sarah had talked about having another child and she hated army housing. It was a surprise he never had a chance to unveil because she died before he could show it to her and since then, Chris had been unable to come anywhere near it.
Yet for all his protestations, he still maintained the property, ensuring the grounds were tended to and the house was kept ready for his return as if prescience told him, staying away indefinitely was a finite state of affairs. One day, he would marshal up the courage to come back here and take up residence, when he was finally tired of the apartment he occupied in town.
“Nettie still coming in twice a week?” Buck asked as he and Chris helped the still unconscious Josiah to one of the empty bedrooms to let their resident mechanic and former seminary student, sleep off the effects of the drug he, Nathan and JD were poisoned with.
“Yeah, she and Casey,” Chris nodded, using one hand to open the door to the room, while the other kept hold of Josiah’s arm around his shoulder. Nettie Wells was an army nurse they met following the Oise-Aisne Offensive when they nearly lost Ezra and first met Nathan. She was the only one who treated the medic with any kind of respect, even though he performed the battlefield treatment that allowed Ezra to survive long enough to get to a hospital.
When Buck was forced to head out to California for work, having remained at Chris’s side for as long as he could after the fire, it was Nettie who retired in the area, kept him from relapsing into despair again. Nettie helped him recover from his six-month drinking binge and kept a vigil on him when Buck could not. In gratitude, Chris gave Nettie an acre of land on the property, so she could raise her recently orphaned grand niece Casey. Of course, Nettie, being Nettie, insisted on paying her way by volunteering to maintain the house when she learned he was looking to hire someone for the job.
True enough, when the door swung open, Chris and Buck were able to put Josiah down on a bed that was made up with fresh linen in a room that smelled recently aired. There was even cut wildflowers in a vase by the window. The little touches of femininity made Chris smile until a pang of sorrow hit him once again, wondering what Sarah would have done to this house if she had been alive to live in it. Forcing away the pain because it would do him no good, Chris focussed his thoughts on helping Josiah onto the mattress. No doubt, Vin and Orin were doing the same to Nathan in one of the other five bedrooms.
“She’s kept it up real nice,” Buck complimented as he pulled off Josiah’s shoes and lay them on the floor next to the bed. “How are you doing?”
Chris met Buck’s gaze. “Fine I guess,” he looked around the empty room and let out a sigh. “Never thought I’d be coming back like this.”
“Sometimes the circumstances don’t give you much of a choice,” Buck stated as they straightened up, preparing to leave the room, perfectly aware how difficult this was for Chris. As it was, the pilot was rather amazed Chris had volunteered the use of the place at all. Buck had been with Chris when he first looked the property over with the intention of buying it for Sarah.
“Buck,” Chris said quietly, with such profound sadness in his voice it made the pilot pay attention immediately. “I can’t remember what it was like to hear Adam call me Pa anymore. I can’t remember how Sarah’s hair felt against my fingers. I used to know every line and curve on her face and now I need to look at a picture just to remember what she looked like.”
Buck’s heart tightened in his chest hearing that admission, seeing the anguished look in Chris’s eyes revealing how much this bothered him. “Maybe it’s time, Chris.”
Chris grew cold at the thought. “I can’t. If I do that, it’s like they never existed.”
“You know better than that Chris,” he countered gently. “Life goes on, as hard and painful as it is, it just does. You’ve been the rock that’s held us together these four years. You made us a family when we had none. Just like it was in France, you’ve done that for us now, but you’ve got to move on. It’s time to let them go.”
“No,” he shook his head unable to stomach the thought. “I can’t. I wouldn’t know how.”
Buck didn’t press because Chris could be stubborn about such things. Even as children in Arizona, fighting bullies in the playground together, Chris had a stubborn streak running through him that bordered on obstinate. He would fight the tide of change washing over him until the absolute last moment.
A sudden snort from Josiah broke the silence between them, prompting Chris to step away from the bed, the moment of vulnerability vanishing into the night. Leaving Josiah to sleep off the effects of the drug, they stepped into the hallway, with Chris closing the door quietly behind him. They had no sooner stepped onto the terracotta tiled hallway, when they heard the clacking of heels against the stone, preceding the appearance of Mary at the end of the corridor.
She was still wearing the pink gown from the evening at the museum with her hair hanging loose and Chris had to admit, even slightly dishevelled, she was a stunning beauty.
Until she spoke.
“Mr Larabee, please tell me you have a telephone somewhere in this place.”
Chris stiffened, able to guess right away how this conversation was going to go. He was in no mood for complaints, especially when he had invited her and her father to take refuge in this house of all places. While it had been necessary at the time, the emotional toll it was taking on him was significant. Coming back here was making short work of his temper.
“Sorry,” he said indifferently as he and Buck approached her. “I ain’t been here long enough to need a line being run out to the property.”
“Well I cannot be out of contact with my newspaper indefinitely,” she huffed, seemingly oblivious to his brusque manner. “I will need to tell them where I am.”
“Chris I can run the lady to a phone booth...” Buck offered, not about to waste the opportunity to spend some quality time with a gorgeous blond, not to mention head off any arguments before one got started.
“No,” Chris said firmly. “The reason I’m letting you and your dad stay here is that none of those crazy sons of bitches knows about this place and that’s not going to change by you calling your newspaper and telling them where you are.”
“My editor....” she started to protest but he cut her off abruptly.
“Can be tortured and made to talk like anyone else. You’re staying put.” He tried to make her cower with the infamous Larabee glare.
It did not work.
Buck saw the woman’s blue-grey eyes light up with the same white-hot fury in Chris’s icy blue ones, taking great exception to being spoken to in such a manner. Eyes narrowing, her hands flew to her hips and she looked prepared for battle. “Mr Larabee, I am not one of your men, do not speak to me like I am a child.”
“Then stop behaving like one,” Chris retaliated, more than ready to cross swords with her if she intended on challenging him in his own house. “It isn’t safe for you to go telling anyone where you are so why don’t you run along,” he gestured with his fingers in possibly the most condescending manner known to all womankind, “and find a comfortable spot for that pretty little butt of yours because you’re not going anywhere, any time soon.”
Buck almost slapped his face with his palm at that statement, but instead closed his eyes in a wince, bracing himself for the storm about to descend. He almost stepped back to get out of range until he noticed something about the exchange that made him reconsider his next move.
“First of all,” Mary glared at Chris in barely concealed outrage, fighting to remind herself not to throw his hospitality back in his face. “My butt though extremely pretty is none of your concern. Secondly...”
“Okay, okay,” Buck intervened before this became any more heated or blood was spilled. “It’s been a long night and we’re all a might bit testy. Why don’t we talk about this in the morning, after we get a good night’s rest?”
In the last few minutes, watching the confrontation between the two, preparing to face each other, across the battle lines of their stubborn will, Buck realised the tension being generated by the duo was not entirely out of animosity. It dawned on Buck now that perhaps the reason why Chris was so damned intent on protecting the woman, had more to do with his own feelings about her rather than any obligation to the Professor.
“Fine,” Mary pulled away first, deciding she was not about to get into a shouting match with this sexist pig, especially when he was offering her, Alex and her father refuge from the Erran. However, if he thought for one instant, she was going to submit like some helpless female, requiring his protection or for that matter permission, before she acted, Mr Larabee was in for a big disappointment. “This discussion is not over.”
With that, she spun on her heels and went back the way she came. Chris said nothing for a few seconds, staring after her, muttering under his breath before Buck broke the silence.
“Next time try flowers.”
Chris almost punched him.
******
If Chris thought he had Mary Travis handled, he was wrong.
In fact, he was learning all that it took to ruin a perfectly good plan was to throw a dame into it.
Men, you could rely on. You could give them orders and they would obey it, because men were rational, disciplined creatures while dames, they weren’t. Dames were like monkey wrenches in the works. They acted on impulse, questioned your orders, gave you lip at every turn and still managed to be completely distracting with their great legs and long, gold hair.
The dumb ones weren’t too bad, you could reason with them, a little sweet talk and dinner at a fancy joint, that’s all she wrote. The smart ones? They were always pains in the asses. Those were the ones who didn’t come from Adam’s rib, but rather the burr the man sat on butt naked in the Garden of Eden. Occasionally you’d get lucky and find a woman who was smart and reasonable like Sarah used to be and possibly Vin’s Doctor Alex.
Mary Travis was in the pain in the ass category.
As far as he was concerned, everything had been decided the night before. Chris, Vin and JD would head back to Seton Village with Alexandra Styles, so she could show them the Aztec mound that so interested her father. Chris suspected Styles hid his cryptex within its confines and only a physical inspection of the site would allow them to determine exactly where. He had enough experience around Mesoamerican sites to have a rough idea of what he was looking at, even without the benefit of JD’s perusal of the doctor’s notes.
Of course, when it was time to head back to Seton Village, Mary insisted on joining them and no amount of arguing (and there had been quite a bit) would dissuade her. The Professor merely shrugged his shoulders in indifference. Chris thought Orin had the look of a punch-drunk fighter who had gone too many rounds with this opponent and simply didn’t care anymore.
In any case, when they left his ranch, Mary was with them.
******
With the Rocky Mountains running a jagged line over the horizon, they found the site easily once Alex pointed them in the right direction.
Located several miles away from the small community, the ancient Aztec mound stood in the shadow of the large hills running along the spine of the Cibola Forest. On first sighting, there was nothing to distinguish it from the others slopes and hills covering the sparsely vegetated plain. The mound was overgrown with grass and wildflowers, specifically lemon scent, fringe sage and saltbush. Judging by the lack of trails through the grass once you left the dirt road, Chris guessed no one had come calling for quite a while.
As Chris approached it with Vin, leading Mary and Alex, who had the good sense to be wearing pants and boots, he had to confess it was probably one of the largest mounds he’d seen outside of South America. The lay of the terrain also told him that while it might be of significant size above ground, the underground catacombs beneath it might be even larger. Chris had to admit the doctor had selected a good hiding place for his cryptex. Only Alex knew about their visit here and if he took care to hide the artefact in the structure, the Erran might never find it.
“When was the last time you were here?” Vin asked Alex as they started up the grass hill leading to the edge of the mound. They had left JD at the Styles’s home with all the research William Styles had conducted on the Tablet of Destiny, mostly because the young man was still a little shaky from the ordeal the night before. The lack of complaint from JD on this point seemed to prove it.
“Not for a long time,” Alex admitted, scanning the terrain and feeling a pang of sadness remembering the first time she and daddy had discovered this place. “I’ve only been here once or twice since we found it, during a trip to visit Orin and Mary. Dad was the one with the real fascination for the place.”
“Well, I can understand why,” Chris spoke from the head of the group. “Judging by the way its constructed, it’s not a dwelling. It’s way too big for that. If I had to take a guess, I’m gonna say we’re only seeing a small part of the structure. I’ll bet money when we get inside, we’re going to find it’s a lot bigger than we thought. It could be a community hall, a temple or possibly even a burial site.”
Both Mary and Alex shuddered at the thought.
“Have you any archaeological expertise Mr Larabee?” Mary asked, begrudgingly forced to admit that while the man was an insufferable chauvinistic pig, she was fascinated by his expertise. As far as she knew, Chris Larabee had no academic background but having followed the activities of him and his group, he seemed quite knowledgeable about the ancient world and its artefacts.
“No,” Chris remarked, not offended by the question at all. It wasn’t the first time someone had made the inquiry. Besides her voice lacked the derision or sarcasm of their earlier conversations and he suspected the question came from a genuine place of interest. “But I’ve always had an interest in it. Picked up a few things during the war and I’ve learned enough the last four years to get by.”
“Yeah right,” Vin snorted at Chris’s downplay of his skills. Every member of the team was aware Chris did a hell of a lot of research for their jobs. Anyone who’d visited Chris’s digs in the city, would see it didn’t look too different from Orin Travis’s office and library, with all its books, drawings and old maps. Until JD had come along, it was Chris who did the reading about the artefacts they were hunting and the cultures they were most likely to encounter doing it.
“I’m impressed,” Mary remarked, guessing the same from Vin’s comment.
Chris’s response was a grunt since he wasn’t certain how to take compliments from the woman. Not based on their relationship so far.
Deciding she had no wish to listen to these two bicker again, especially after the car ride from the ranch, Alex chose to run interference. “Well if it helps, from what I remember there was one main chamber, with adjoining smaller ones. We found a few artefacts, you know old arrowheads, pots, a few pieces of jewellery, that sort of thing. I think the place has been looted over the centuries,”
“So, it’s a maze,” Mary frowned. “We could be searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“You could have stayed in the car,” Chris quipped, throwing her a smirk when they came to a set of rough stone steps that circled the mound and led to the top.
Mary’s eyes narrowed as he started up the steps. “You are not going to change my mind, Mr Larabee. Continuing to sulk about it, isn’t going to help.”
“I’m not sulki...” Chris started to snap and took a deep breath, deciding he was not going to get into another argument. “Fine, whatever.”
It didn’t take long for them to get to the top of the mound and upon reaching it, found someone had installed a door over the existing entrance, sealing it with a formidable looking padlock and chain.
“Someone was determined to keep trespassers out,” Chris remarked, staring at it.
“Someone,’” Vin came up alongside him. “You mean Alex’s pa.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, glancing at the young woman. “I doubt a lock would have stopped the Erran, but your father might have put this here to keep trespassers from stumbling into what he might have hidden in here.” Turning to Vin, he asked, “can you shoot it off?”
Vin’s expression said no. “I wouldn’t try. It might ricochet. A better bet is the chain.”
“Alright,” Chris nodded and took a step back. “Ladies, stand back, I don’t want either of you getting hit if Vin’s aim is off.”
“Screw you, Larabee,” Vin said sweetly, offended by the notion. “Sorry Alex, Mary.”
“It’s alright,” Mary said before Alex could. “I share the sentiment.”
****’
After Vin’s mare’s leg obliterated one of the links on the thick chain keeping the entrance of the mound sealed, they descended a short flight of steps to the main chamber inside it. While some daylight penetrated its inner recesses, the rest of the windowless dome was almost pitch black, prompting the quartet into switching on their flashlights, to navigate the darkness.
It was as Alex described. The main chamber was a circular shaped room with doorways running along the walls to other parts of the mound. Scattered across the floor, was the detritus of a people long gone into the mists, with only the tools of their living scattered across the floor, to give any indication of their civilisation. No doubt the ancient dwellers of this mound had been absorbed into the Pueblos tribes who dominated this part of the country at one time or wiped out altogether.
In the centre of the room was a flat slab of stone which Chris had no doubt was the altar. He only hoped the Aztecs who occupied this place did not use it for sacrifices which were more than possible. With the beams from their torches bouncing off the walls, Chris suddenly spotted something that certainly did not belong to ancient Aztec culture. It was a half bag of cement resting against the wall and a wheelbarrow full of very modern tools.
Just as he made that discovery, he heard Vin call to him. “Hey pard, I think you need to look at this.”
Chris turned around immediately and saw Vin’s torch, now joined by Mary and Alex’s, aimed at what was a doorway, except this one had been bricked up using very modern construction materials.
“Your pa’s been busy,” Vin said to Alex when Chris reached them.
“I had no idea,” Alex said shaking her head, once again bothered by the fact William Styles had hidden so much from her. “I wish he had told me...”
“He was just trying to protect you,” Mary said squeezing her shoulder gently.
Chris reached the wall and ran his finger along the newly sealed doorway. No doubt the cement and tools he just discovered had been used for this purpose. The job was quite rough, obviously undertaken by someone with little or no experience with menial labour, as Ezra would have put it. Bits of cement were smeared across the brick, flaking off easily when Chris brushed his palm against it. One of the stones appeared loose. Pushing against it, he could feel the grind of stone and knew it would not take much to break it down.
“Vin, there’s a wheelbarrow back there, see if there’s anything we can use to break through,” Chris asked still studying the sturdiness of the wall. “I’ve got dynamite in the car, but I don’t want to use it unless we have to. “
“You have dynamite in your car?” Mary exclaimed horrified. “The same car we came in?”
“I like to be prepared,” he remarked, not really listening to her, more interested in the wall and what may be behind it. He had a pretty good suspicion if William Styles’s paranoia was any indication.
“You think the cryptex is in there?” Alex asked, wondering what else her father had done to keep the secret and the riddle of the Tablet hidden from the Erran.
“I can’t see any reason why he’d go to all the trouble otherwise,” Chris looked over his shoulder at her, just in time to see Vin returning.
“Try this,” Vin announced himself, carrying a sledgehammer. Despite their good fortune at finding such a useful tool for what they planned, Chris had to wonder why on Earth Styles would need such a tool. It certainly wasn’t necessary for bricklaying.
He had a feeling they would find out soon enough.
With their torches aimed at the wall and Vin ensuring the women were a safe distance away, Chris swung the hammer over his shoulder and struck the wall hard. Vin had offered to do the work and Chris might just take him up on it if he needed relief, if the wall proved harder than it looked to demolish. Fortunately, Styles’s lack of skill as a bricklayer meant it only took a few good swings before the bricks broke free of the cement holding them in place and falling backwards into the dark.
Chris kept up the pace for a few more minutes, sweating in the humid heat inside the mound, with no one trying to speak over the sound of breaking rock. Finally, enough of the brick wall had been dislodged and the whole thing crumbled in a large heap, sending cement dust into the air and bricks spilling through the opening, inside and out.
However, instead of another room, Chris found a set of steps descending into the darkness beneath the mound.
“Looking at Vin,” he said with a sigh. “I guess we’re going down this rabbit hole.”
CHAPTER TWELVE:
CHAMBER OF THE GODS
The smell was familiar.
After four years of sneaking into ziggurats, catacombs, mausoleum and old sewers, Chris Larabee knew immediately the smell of death. Whatever the original purpose of this construction, death had been a large part of it. Even if those interred here had been buried hundreds of years before, the stench of a post-decomposing body was unmistakable. Taking the lead, he descended the rough stone steps, carved hundreds of years before he or William Styles’s was born and took the path the good doctor was so determined to hide.
Musty air assaulted him as he stepped through the doorway of crushed brick, leaving the main chamber behind. Perfectly aware that any entreaty to the women to stay behind would result in ten minutes of ear bashing about chauvinism, Chris opted to avoid the topic entirely and tell Vin to take up the rear. Using his torch to light the way, since the steps were narrow and steep, not to mention the walls flanking them were barely five feet apart. The texture of the surface was brittle and only slight contact with his duster caused them to break away and drift to the ground as loose dust. Overhead, cobwebs dangled from the ceiling in long threads or hung like streamers across their path.
In the dark, he could hear the universal sounds to make any woman twitch in revulsion, the skittering of insects as their hard carapaces scraped across the rock during movement. Once again, Chris cursed Mary Travis’s presence here. Because he could feel her acutely, whether it was her breath against his neck, the accidental brushes of her body against his back or the slight whiff of whatever perfume she was wearing. It was damned distracting.
“I wonder how much there is of this place underground,” Mary remarked, trying to ignore her discomfort at being in this stygian place with conversation.
“Difficult to say,” Chris answered, “we’ve been in a few structures, especially in the Middle East, where the ground level structure was just the entrance into a larger dwelling underground.”
“Like that place in Turkey,” Vin remarked. “Hell, we almost lost Ezra in there. He was convinced there had to be treasure in every room.”
“Was there?” Alex asked, fascinated by what Vin did for a living. Despite sharing an almost spiritual connection with the handsome sharpshooter she met barely a day ago, she realised she knew little about his life.
“Nah,” Chris replied. “We were there to map the place. Some English university wanted to go exploring but didn’t want their kids to get, so they paid us to go look at it. It was in Nevsehir and it was an underground city of eight levels, capable to hold 5000 people when it was occupied. We didn’t get paid much for it, enough to cover our costs and time but we didn’t mind. It was a favour to the Professor.”
“Well he thinks very highly of all of you,” Mary commented, sensing the affection in Chris’s voice for her father.
“It’s mutual,” Vin replied, aware Chris wouldn’t say it. “Gave us a purpose when we needed it and pulled us together again. I guess after hearing about how he lost his friends, I can understand why.”
“Yes,” Mary said sadly. “He misses them deeply. He and William were very close. Especially after what happened with Donald Avery and then Hank.”
Chris didn’t say anything to that because his recollections of Hank Connelly was not one of affection. The man never thought him good enough for Sarah and merely tolerated him. After her death, toleration became animosity and they barely spoke after that.
“I thought he moved up this way to be closer to your father,” Alex said softly. “I was pleased because when I went to college, I didn’t want him to be alone, wrapped up in his books.” Instead, it had never been about being near to Orin Travis, but closer to this place, where he could keep watch on his cryptex. “I just wished he hadn’t kept all this from me. I knew he always had an interest in the mythology of the Middle East, but I had no idea there was more to it than that.”
A part of Alex was furious at her father for not telling her about the Erran and the danger they posed, even though she understood his desire to protect her. They always shared everything and she wished he told her if only to share its burden with him.
“He was trying to keep you safe,” Mary said kindly, understanding Alex’s chagrin. “It took ages for me to convince my dad to tell me what was going on. Once he did, I was able to do some investigation on my own into the Erran.”
“Well we’re going to have to deal with the situation eventually,” Chris remarked as he aimed the torch and saw only more steps below them. Unsurprised by this because the builders had probably wanted their dead to be as far away from the main chamber as possible, he continued down the stone steps. “So far we’ve been reacting. If we’re going to end this, we got to start acting.”
The illumination of the flashlight in the narrow passageway seemed to cut into his vision when reflecting against a particularly smooth surface. Chris blinked away the spots and narrowed his eyes at where the offending gleam originated. It didn't take him long to find it. What he saw was one of the steps had been reinforced with a slab of flat dark stone. Due to its polish, light from the flash had reflected back enough to catch his attention.
At first, Chris thought this was where Doctor Styles had chosen to hide his cryptex, however, it seemed like too obvious as place.
“Hold up,” he ordered, halting immediately.
“What is it?” Mary asked automatically.
Chris didn’t answer her right away, he studied the sections of wall flanking that slab of stone. While it was just as rough and uneven as the rest of the carved passageway, his keen eyes spotted micro fissures in the rock. If one did not know better, they could have been small holes pockmarking the wall to be result of insects burrowing or even air holes. However, Chris was starting to buy into William Styles’s paranoia and if the man was hell bent on protecting his daughter, he might have prepared for every contingency, including the possibility of the Erran finding this place.
“It seems Doctor Styles was prepared for unwanted visitors.” He aimed the torch at the slab of rock.
“Whatever you do, do not touch that step,” he instructed the others. “I’ve got a feeling we won’t like it much.”
“Oh my God!” Alex exclaimed aghast. “Are you saying my father built a trap?” It was so far removed from the kind man she knew all her life, not to mention the healer who hated violence.
“Your pa was trying to protect you Alex,” Vin squeezed her hand gently.
“I know,” Alex shook her head with disbelief. “But a death trap?”
Chris didn’t blame the lady’s surprise but nevertheless stepped over the slab and took a few more steps down and waited for the others to join him. Mary followed suit, her face scrunched in concentration when she stepped over the slab which was obviously the trigger mechanism of whatever resided into those bore holes on the wall. Chris offered her hand instinctively and to his surprise she took it without going on some feminist rant about chivalry being an outdated concept and most women in this day and age could take care of themselves.
She was awful pretty, he thought, but loud.
Once they were past the offending slab, they continued further down the passageway which seemed to take them deeper underground. This time however, Chris kept his eyes peeled because he wasn’t convinced the trap they avoided was the only one of its kind. In fact, Chris was starting to develop a healthy respect for William Styles which made him doubly intent on taking the Erran to account over the man’s death.
After what seemed like an eternity, the steps that felt like they led into the very depths of the world, came to a stop and instead of the crudely constructed chambers of earlier, they were confronted by something a great deal more sophisticated. Gone were the rough, mudbrick walls and floors. What lay before them now, could have been constructed by Montezuma’s best artisans. The floors were now paved with sandstone slabs carved with the familiar geometric patterns favoured by the ancient Aztec.
The walls were similarly ornate, almost every surface adorned with the circular carvings etched from jasper, depicting aspects of Aztec symbolism, from their sun calendar to images of cosmic fire and fertility. At the centre of each one was a red jewel, like a blood red eye looking at them. At the end of the long hallway, was a smaller door that led to the rest of the place, a honeycomb of tunnels buried beneath the New Mexican earth.
In the corners, Chris recognised the gargoyle like statues of various Aztec deities. Tlaloc the god of fertility whose worship demanded the sacrifice of children, Quetzalcoatl the Serpent God, Tlaltechutli the monstrous earth goddess and finally, Huitzilopochtli the god of sun, war and sacrifice. They stood at each corner of the rooms, their mouth agape as if they were in silent exclamation at the intrusion of the new arrivals.
“Chris,” Vin was shining his torch at the dust covered floor. It was thick enough to offer confirmation this underground catacomb had not been in use for centuries yet not entirely devoid of trespassers. The sharpshooter studied the patterns in the dust and recognised the swirls and indentations, for what they were. Footprints.
The tracks, indiscernible as they were to all but the Navajo trained tracker, travelled through the length of the hallway before disappearing beyond the range of his flashlight, presumably through the doorway Vin could see at the other end.
“Someone’s been through here. Not too long ago, the dust ain’t completely covered it up yet. Give it a couple of years or even months, it would probably be gone too.”
“Styles,” Chris guessed, glancing at Alex briefly. “They head through there?” He waved his torch towards the doorway.
“Yeah,” Vin nodded. “He came down here alright and then through there. Probably did it before he walled this place up.”
“I suppose if he wanted to hide the cryptex, this place would serve,” Alex said, looking around the hallway with its grotesque and rather disturbing carvings in the sand stone walls. Seeing them made her shudder and she took an instinctive step closer to Vin. The sharpshooter saw her discomfort and slid the fingers of his free hand through hers, something Alex was inordinately grateful for.
Meanwhile, Mary was conducting observations of her own. She found the chamber quite fascinating, especially when it was such a departure from the chambers above. While those had been crude and unsophisticated in their design. This hallway was anything but. She could imagine ancient cultures, far more civilised than the Native Americans the first settlers encountered, moving about this underground community.
She approached one of the circular carvings and knew from her studies of Mesoamerican art, this was a sun calendar of some kind. A sun stone, the name surfaced in her mind and still found the carvings, depicting their deity, jaguar warriors and serpents quite hideous. Once again, the blood red stone, no doubt constructed of red beryl, had been chiselled to form the mouth of some Aztec god. Reaching for it, Mary only intended to feel it’s texture.
What happened next, would be hers to suffer for years to come.
No sooner than her fingers contacted the red stone, it seemed to retreat further into the wall at the contact. Mary had barely exerted any pressure but even that light touch was enough. Later she would marvel at how efficiently the mechanism worked, despite the age of it. The stone signalled its retreat with a clarion call of grinding stone. Suddenly slabs of petrified wood descended so quickly across each doorway, Mary didn’t know if it was its abrupt appearance or the startling sound of rocks slamming against the sandstone floor that made them all jump, but they did.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Chris bellowed once he realised what she had done.
“Nothing!” Mary looked blankly at him, horror cascading over her face as she realised she might have inadvertently triggered some ancient death trap. “I just touched this rock!”
Vin, who had made a run at the door, hoping to get to the other side it before it trapped them completely, reached it a fraction of a second after the loud,, teeth chattering sound of rock slammed against the floor. As they stood there, stunned by their sudden change of circumstances, a low, groan moved through the air, as an ancient mechanism, prompted to life from years of slumber, voiced displeasure with every grind of stone.
“I’m sorry!” Mary stuttered, feeling supremely stupid for her mistake.
“You’ll be sorrier in a minute,” Chris growled, shooting her a glare of genuine anger because what was coming next would not be pleasant. He was sure of it.
He wasn’t wrong. A new sound invaded their prison and this one was all too familiar. From the open mouths of the pantheon of deities, strong jets of water spurted out in cascades of froth, quickly spreading water across the floor.
“Aw hell,” Vin groaned, realising they were going to drown in the middle of a desert. God sure had a funny sense of humour.
“Did my father put this here?” Alex asked horrified as the water reached her boots. She shrank from it, almost as if preventing the contact would also lengthen her rapidly dwindling life span.
“I don’t think he knew,” Chris declared, thinking this was too elaborate even for Styles. No, this trap had been set long before anyone of them had been born, as a warning to anyone who attempted to desecrate the place by looting it. “If he did,” he glared at Mary, “he wasn’t stupid enough to trigger it.”
Mary glared back at him. “I said I’m sorry!” She barked, angrier at herself than at this insufferable ass. “You’re the expert! Do something!”
Chris whirled around about to tell her what she could go do with herself when he realised she was right. Goddamnit! They were not going through those doors and these things always had an escape, he just had to figure out what it was.
“You got any ideas pard?” Vin asked, aware by the silence, Chris was trying to figure a way out of this situation.
“I’m not sure,” Chris asked, trying to ignore the swirl of water around his ankles and focus.
The water was rising quickly, swirling around their ankles but there was nowhere to go. Other than the statues, there was nothing in the room, nothing for them to stand on while the flow became a deluge around them.
As Vin tried unsuccessfully to move one of the statues, hoping to break its connection to the water source or at least create a fissure in the wall they could exploit, Alex waded next to him to offer him her help. Together, they tried to shift the ancient monument to no avail. The water was already up to their knees and showed no signs of abating.
“Where the hell is this water coming from anyway? We’re in the middle of the desert!” She grimaced, examining her palms, stinging from where the rock had bit into her skin. .
“Could be ground water or an artesian basin,” Vin suggested. “Doesn’t really matter, it’s still going to drown us if we don’t get out of here.”
Alex made a face at his stark assessment of their situation. “How is it, since I’ve met you, I’ve been kidnapped, shot at and now about to drown in an ancient Aztec whatever this place is?” She waved the torch around her. Still, despite her rising panic at what was happening, Alex was also starting to develop an odd sort of faith in Vin Tanner and his friends, not to mention their adeptness at being able to extricate themselves from perilous situations.
Vin who was still trying to move the statue of Tlaloc without much success looked up at her with a grin. “Well, you can’t say it ain’t been dull.” He winked at her as she aimed the torch in his direction so he could use both his hands.
Shaking her head with a mixture of exasperation and affection, Alex managed a smile. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
***
The water was flowing faster.
Chris was convinced somehow it knew he was attempting to work the problem and increased the intensity of the flow into the chamber to prevent them from escaping. By now, they were waist deep in it, with no signs it was stopping anytime soon. He had a feeling that a lot of people met their ends in the same way over the centuries and supposed Styles was damned lucky to have not fallen into this trap. Then again, he didn’t have a nosy dame with him either.
Speaking of said dame, she was standing next to him, trying not to show she was scared even though he could see through the glow of the flashlight she was holding, she was. He had to admire her attempts to keep her head despite the situation (which she caused), and not be reduced to panic like most women.
“Tell me what exactly did you do?” He demanded after he ordered her back to the carving that began this mess in the first place.
“Nothing!” She burst out and then felt supremely stupid because clearly, she did something. “Don’t answer that!” Mary shot him a warning as she saw him about to respond. “I just touched the stone in the middle.”
Chris turned to the sun stone or calendar as it was more commonly known. Aiming the torch at it, he saw the carved image of Tonatiuh, the Sun God, whose mouth was depicted by the stone Mary had inadvertently pushed. Clearly this was the mechanism to trigger the trap into springing.
“Okay, okay, so this is Tonatiuh,” Chris thought quickly, “He’s possibly their most supreme deity, god of the sun, fertility and sacrifice. This is the guy they killed all those virgins for. Makes sense that he’d be the one they used to trigger this trap.”
Mary looked around her, starting to feel the chill of more than just water running up her spine. She had been fighting her fear but it was starting to get the better of her. “Okay, so where’s the off switch then?” She challenged impatiently.
Chris gave her a look as Vin approached them with Alex following close behind.
“Any luck pard?” Vin asked, hoping Chris had some idea of how to get out of here because he could find no other way out.
“Just let me think!” Chris snapped, conscious of the water swirling around his ribs as he scanned the room and saw the other carvings on the wall. There were thirteen of them, he realised, which wasn’t unusual. If JD were here, the kid would have rattled off a whole treatise about how the Aztec considered that a lucky number.
“Okay, thirteen carvings,” he started thinking out loud. “Thirteen is a lucky number, each number had meaning. Some kind of magic, they believed.”
“You think one of these carvings is the way out of here?” Vin asked, prompting Chris’s thought processes further. After four years together, Vin had learned Chris was smarter than most people knew and could figure things out. You just had to give him room and a kick up the ass to get there.
“Yeah,” Chris nodded and looked at Mary. “You pushed the carving for number two, that’s water.”
“So, what’s escape?” She asked, still bristling in annoyance at her foolishness.
Chris shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that! Spread out all of you! Go to each one and tell me what you see. I need to know what the centre carving is! For Christ’s sake if there’s a stone,” he glared at Mary, “don’t touch it!”
Mary made a face at him before she scattered like Vin and Alex, spreading across the room to study the carvings on the wall even as the water level was now past their breast bones. The flow was even stronger now, refusing to be denied the victims in its snare. As they scanned the carvings now half submerged in water, Chris heard them calling out their discovery.
“Two guys sitting across each other on what looks like a cross!” Vin shouted from the far end of the room.
The deluge was up to Vin’s neck by now while Alex was clinging to one of the statues to keep herself afloat. Likewise, Mary was doing the same to the top edge of the carving nearest to her. The ceiling was looming closer and when the water pushed them up against that stone barrier, they would be out of time.
A cross? Chris stared at Vin for a second before his mind grasped what the sharpshooter was trying to describe to him. Two men seated across each other.... a cross, no, not a cross but the crisscrossing lines that indicated direction, north, south, east and west. Facing each other, as equals. Balance. It was about balance and harmony, about travelling the correct path.
“PUSH IT VIN!” Chris shouted over the roar of water and winced when the stuff sloshed into his mouth. “Push the stone!”
Vin’s eyes widened and dove under the water, since the stone in the centre of the carving was submerged by now. The torch no longer worked once the moisture got to it and in virtual darkness, the sharpshooter had to feel his way across the grooves that made up the carving, until he found the smooth blue stone, most likely of azurite and pushed. It retreated into the rock and suddenly the thunderous sound of the cascade, muted by the water, ceased.
Vin emerged to see the water flow had been cut off and the statues no longer spewed death from their open mouths. He met Chris’s gaze and both started laughing, grateful for this victory, even if they still had to figure out how to get out of the chamber they were presently sealed in.
And then without warning, the floor beneath them opened.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
AMBUSH
There were many things Chris wanted to do in his life before the end came. Getting seats behind the dugout at Yankee Stadium, taking a walk through the Forbidden City without getting his head handed to him by the Imperial Guard and maybe getting laid by Garbo and Crawford, preferably at the same time. There was a laundry list of things he wanted to do, some impossible, some lacking opportunity and others just too plain crazy to expose to the light of day.
Riding the rapids down the drain of an ancient death trap wasn’t one of them.
There was only a split second to register the sudden hollow opening in the floor after Vin pushed the stone trigger that brought an end to the deluge minutes away from drowning all of them. Almost immediately, the whirlpool caused by the draining water created powerful currents tearing them away from the wall. Both men were barely able to keep from being dragged away as the water escaped through the newly created opening.
“VIN!” Alex uttered a short scream behind him before she lost her grip on the statue she was clinging to and disappeared into the darkness. The flashlights they brought into the place was dying one by one, plunging them into literal blackness, as they short-circuited in the water.
“Alex!” Vin shouted back but she was beyond hearing him, not with the flood creating a dull roar as it drained, losing his voice in the rush of swirling water. Casting Chris a look, he signalled his intentions and Chris knew then, the younger man was going to go after his girl. Everything Vin had done since meeting Alexandra Styles told the older man Vin was in love and Chris wasn’t so jaded he didn’t recognise something special when he saw it.
Struggling to maintain his own footing, he saw Vin dive under the water, presumably down the drain Alex was swept into. For his part, he searched the ever-darkening walls of the chamber for Mary when yet another torch finally succumbed to the deluge. He saw her silhouette against the wall, a shadow clinging to the handholds on one of the stone engravings, fighting to keep from being borne away.
“MR LARABEE!” Mary raised her head through the diminishing light to see him searching for her. Her fingers were aching as they pressed against the rock, trying to maintain her grip despite how slick the stone was becoming. She had seconds she imagined before her grip gave way all together. “Do something!”
Did she ever stop bossing him around?
Chris thought with irritation and made his way to her by edging along the wall. The water was draining fast and taking with it any chance of making a swift exit out of this sealed chamber. He had no idea if where it would deposit them could be any worse than being entombed in this room. However, at the moment, their options were limited. Reaching the waterlogged woman, he could see her face through the remaining light and knew, she was a little afraid, though trying not to hide it.
“Mary!” He grabbed her arm, not wanting to lose her when the lights finally went. “There’s only one way out of this chamber!”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I just knew you were going to say that!”
“Yeah Alice,” he slipped his arm around her waist. “Let’s see where this goes!”
She said nothing for a moment when he pulled her to him, but Chris swore she blushed and had to admit, despite the cold and danger of their situation, he enjoyed seeing those pale cheeks fill with colour. Once again, he was struck by his first impressions of her, when he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen since....
The memory of Sarah had a more sobering effect on him than the flood they were in. Shunting the thought aside, he ignored how it felt to have her arms around his neck. She met his icy blue eyes and Chris saw her anxiety, as well as her trust.
“I hope you know what you’re doing Mr Larabee.”
“Me too,” he said maintaining his grip on her and realising he wasn’t talking about just their present circumstances but something deeper he wasn’t yet to address. “Take a deep breath.”
Both took a big gulp of air as Chris pushed himself into the current, taking her with him.
******
JD Dunne was impressed.
The books Doctor William Styles had in his library rivalled the ones the young man saw at the university and JD felt a little uncomfortable handling them with bare hands. When the Professor had claimed the doctor had made it his life’s work to understand the nature of the Tablets and the Cult of Erran, JD doubted the Professor knew how thorough the man had been in his research. Styles had amassed an impressive collection of ancient scrolls, artefacts and texts the Erran would have pillaged if they weren’t interrupted by Chris, Vin and Buck when they rescued Alexandra Styles.
As it was, evidence of the previous night’s violence was apparent by the bullet wounds across the walls and the breakage throughout the house. In the study itself, he could see walls riddled with holes and the floor covered in debris comprising of chipped mortar, shattered glass and broken objects. Fortunately, the bodies were gone. After the police were notified and the scene cleared, the local sheriff, a friend of Doctor Styles, had granted them access to the house following Alex’s ordeal out of respect to her father.
Since Chris left him here to study Doctor Styles’s research on the Erran and the Tablets of Destiny, JD had been diligently working through the material and filling up the notebook he brought with him, with scribblings regarding the legends of the Tablet. The notebook was mostly for Chris’s benefit because he knew the leader of the seven would be interested in what he’d disseminated from his research. In truth, JD had very little need of notebooks to remember anything. He had an eidetic memory which was part of the reason why he had done so well in college.
Considering what Ezra told him this morning before setting out, particularly the sacrificial element of the Erran’s ritual to bring about a new creation, JD had focussed much of his attention on learning all he could about it. According to the mythology subscribed to by the followers of Enki, the ritual needed to be performed at the Cradle of Creation on Mount Dilmun where Tiamat had first gave birth to the world. If so, it made sense the ancient site was where she would be resurrected.
Once the Erran had locked the four Pillars into the Heart of Enki, they would open and reveal the incantations for the resurrection ritual, which had to be performed at the Cradle, presumably with their sacrifice. Obviously, with the death of Sarah Conley, the Erran did not need all four daughters to make the ritual work. They would only need one. It could be Mary Travis or Alexandra Styles since Donald Avery’s daughter was in the wind.
JD continued to jot down notes when suddenly, he heard movement beyond the doorway. Chris Larabee who had to be the most paranoid human being in the world had required JD to be armed and it was to his surprise that after months in the company of the Seven, he reacted with equal alertness. Closing the notebook, he stepped over to the window and dropped it into the bushes outside. Expecting trouble and not wanting his research of the last few hours going to waste if that noise had sinister origins, JD stepped away from the sill and drew his gun.
“Hey, guys?” He called out. “Is that you?”
There was no answer.
The man who stepped through the door was easily taller than Buck. In his exotic red robes and dark skin, he seemed even more imposing if that was possible. JD immediately recognised him as the man who had tussled with Josiah at the museum. He was one of the Erran, his mind quickly warned him. Nor was the behemoth alone. With him, were four other men, no longer armed with blades but were now carrying an assortment of guns. JD had just enough time to get behind the desk before they opened fire.
He leapt over the flat surface of the desk, sending everything on it tumbling to the Persian rug beneath the desk. The ancient books and scrolls he had been perusing earlier were now an unruly heap across the floor. Crouched behind the oak desk, JD reached for the gun tucked in its holster under his arm. Returning fire, he was painfully aware he had only a finite number of shots before he was empty. It had never occurred to him the Erran would come back after last night’s mischief.
JD glimpsed one of the Erran taking refuge behind an armchair, with just enough of his head visible over the top of the chair for JD to squeeze off a shot. Since joining the team, both Vin and Ezra had put him through his paces so he not only knew how to handle a gun, he was getting to be a pretty good shot too. The explosion of blood and brain matter against the wall behind the chair, proved it as the Erran tumbled backwards, the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, still smoking.
Putting down one of their number had increased the ferocity of the others and they were firing blindly, sending so much lead against the desk, the oak was starting to disintegrate with each new bullet. JD returned fire as best he could but with his killing of the Erran behind the chair, the others had smartened up enough to stay out of his crosshairs. Instead, they were assailing him with a barrage that was allowing their leader to close in on the youngest member of the seven.
Gunfire was turning the books still on the desk to pulp and the scholar in him felt his stomach hollow with dismay. The thought of these precious texts being destroyed after moving through history, undamaged made him fume. Returning fire out of pure outrage instead of self-preservation, JD managed to bring down another Erran, this time shooting him in the shoulder. Unfortunately, even with this minor victory, JD knew he couldn’t hold out for long. Without more ammo, he knew it wouldn’t be long before he was overrun.
Somehow, he knew the Erran were aware of this too.
No longer able to see where the head Erran had gone, JD had a premonition if he didn’t start moving soon, he was going to find out in less than ideal circumstances. He was pinned in and without help, they were going to capture or kill him. Neither of those possibilities sat very well with JD and the most prudent course was to get the hell out of the room. At least out in the open, he’d have a chance of escape. In here, they were going to overwhelm him with numbers and bullets. Glancing at the window, it was close enough for him to make a run for it.
Firing another round, he didn’t look up to see where the bullet had gone but flinched when a vase shattered above the credenza resting against the wall. Fragments flew in all directions and one sharp piece penetrated his shirt to bite at his skin. Keeping his head down as he headed towards the window, he wished Buck or Josiah was here to cover his back. He was too new at this to know if he could make his escape without being cut down, knowing only that he had to try. He fired one more shot, having been conservative with his ammunition but to get out alive, he needed to risk it.
It was a risk that didn’t pay off.
The bullet that struck him, entered his flesh just above the knee and while he was saved from that crippling injury, the pain that coursed through JD was enough to distract him from seeing the big man closing in on him. The pain was white hot and it occurred to JD this was the first time he had ever found himself shot. Absurdly, he thought of all the occasions where he and Chris had gone traipsing through ancient monuments and catacombs, avoiding all manner of perilous traps and hostile natives. It felt almost embarrassing to be finally downed by anything as a bullet.
Nevertheless, despite the pain, JD was not about to surrender to the Erran, not without a fight. He tried to stand, ignoring the agony of putting weight on the legs or the damp sensation of blood soiling his pants. The window was still in reach and JD was determined to make his getaway. Suddenly, he heard the audible crunch of boots against the fragments of debris across the floor and looked over his shoulder to see the Erran’s formidable leader, inches from him.
Without hesitation and focus that would have done Chris Larabee proud, JD swung around sharply prepared to put a bullet in the man’s head, no matter how big he was. Squeezing the trigger, he expected to hear the reassuring sound of a gunshot, only to be disappointed by the click of an empty chamber. The sound felt like the slamming door of a jail cell and drove home to JD his impending captivity.
Before JD could think of what came next, the man snatched the gun out of his hand and swatted him so hard, JD saw stars when he hit the ground. However, there was still fight left in him and JD ignored the disorientation to continue towards the window, still seeing escape despite the haze of pain and shock. However, he got no further than a few feet when he was pinned to the floor like a bug on a windshield. Uttering a groan of pain, JD felt a boot press hard against his spine.
“You’re not going anywhere boy,” Krestos sneered. “Not until we get what we want.”
******
When Adam’s goldfish Goldie died, Chris remembered being immediately sent out by Sarah to the pet store to replace the animal before Adam made the discovery. Meanwhile Goldie the First, as Chris called the deceased floater, was hastily flushed down the toilet with Adam being none the wiser about the imposter in its place. Later, Chris wondered if that was fair to Adam, who had taken care of the little fish with all the devotion a five-year-old could bestow upon a beloved pet. Shouldn’t the kid at least be allowed to mourn Goldie and did Goldie deserve to be flushed away with such disregard?
Thoughts like this ran through Chris Larabee’s mind as he and Mary were swept through the darkness, away from the sealed chamber as if someone had flushed them away like they were offending matter. Chris wondered if this was some form of karmic retribution for his treatment of Goldie.
With Mary still clinging to him, he could hear her gasps and cries through the rush of water sweeping down what appeared to be a long, dark shaft on a steep incline that seemed to take them deeper into the earth. Chris prayed it did not deposit them into a worse situation because no one knew they were down here and if they were trapped, it was going to be an exceedingly unpleasant way to die. Fortunately, the water had not filled the shaft and there were enough pockets of air for them to snatch a breath when they managed to fight the current long enough to raise their heads above it.
Sliding down the dark shaft, the turbulent passage caused them to impact against the side of the hard rock, with only the cushion of water between them and the walls, preventing serious injury, even though he felt every scrape and shudder through his skin and bones. While Mary’s arms remained firmly around him, the closeness of her body created its own problems as they were constantly slamming against each other. While this might be pleasant under any other circumstances, at this moment it was downright dangerous.
Their ride through the rapid went on for almost a full minute with Chris thinking it might never end when suddenly, the world exploded with the vibrancy of sky and they were free falling. The shaft around them disappeared and through the kaleidoscope of colour, Chris realised they were out in the open. He could feel the wind against his damp face and took deep breaths of fresh air. There was another moment of clarity when Chris saw the ground rushing up to meet them and the realisation it wasn’t quite solid.
Mary’s indignant cry as they were tossed into the slurry of mud and water that almost swallowed them whole on impact, made him wince in annoyance . Chris didn’t care if they were tossed in shit, just if it wasn’t some deep chasm where death was a certainty. Besides, he and Vin had spent almost three years surrounded in mud during the war, this was not the worst outcome to their situation he could imagine.
“You know, I’m starting to think giving you those sugar babies was a bad idea!” Alex complained as she sat up in the mud, her lower half still submerged. She was soaked to the skin, aching from her rough journey through that underground shaft and now splattered in mud.
Vin got to his knees, attempting to wipe mud out of his face as he looked at her with a smirk. “Come on Darlin, you know I’ll make it up to you.” He extended a muddy hand at her.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” she said with a wry smile as she took his hand and stood up.
“Are you okay?” Vin asked, his tone becoming serious. Like Chris, Vin had worried their journey through the darkness might have deposited them into some place worse than this muddy hole at the bottom of the gully they’d escaped. Looking over its edge, he could see the entrance to the mound some distance away.
“Yeah,” she nodded, wiping the mud off his cheek. “I’m fine? You?”
The question immediately prompted her healer’s instinct and Vin thought with a little smile, in that way she was just like Nathan, when she turned her attention to Chris and Mary.
“You two okay? Anything broken?”
Chris looked up at Mary who had lost her grip of him when they were spat through the side of the gully. She was sitting in the mud, wiping the stuff off her face with a mixture of distaste and an emotion he could not decipher. He braced himself for more complaining when her blue grey eyes caught his scrutiny and she turned to him.
“Well Mr Larabee,” she said with a laugh, “I’ll say this for you. You certainly know how to show a lady a good time.”
Chris stared at her.
“Come on, that was a hell of a ride. You couldn’t go to a movie and have that much fun.” She nudged his boot.
It was at this moment, Chris realised with a sinking feeling, he was almost certainly going to fall in love with her.
******
As it turned out, once they trudged back to the mound, they could take the same route back through the underground temple once again. The room which had almost been the death of them had also unsealed, with the door Vin had spotted before their entrapment, awaiting their entry. Ensuring no one touched anything, Chris personally escorted Mary through the chamber, while Alex and Vin listened with fraying patience as the duo bickered incessantly about everything.
Once through the doorway, they were led to another smaller chamber, this one filled with earthenware pots of every size and description. It took them almost thirty minutes to search through each one but once they did, they were met with success. William Styles’s Pillar slipped into Vin’s hands, swaddled in burlap and a thin length of hessian cord. Until now they had only heard about the Pillar but none of them had seen the fabled cryptex, one of two still not in the hands of the Erran.
“We better get JD and get back to the others,” Chris said as they drove back to the doctor’s home after leaving Seton Village. “The sooner we get this to safety, the better.”
“Well I’m not going anywhere until I have a bath,” Alex stated from the back seat of the car, looking at her mud encrusted hands with distaste. “I think I’ve got half of New Mexico’s desert in my hair.”
“Yeah you do look kind of messed up,” Vin teased, looking at her from the front passenger seat of Chris’s car.
“Very amusing Mr Tanner,” Mary grumbled, wishing she had been able to wash her face at least. She swore she could still taste mud.
Anything he was going to say in retaliation was suddenly halted because Chris’s voice cut through the conversation with its hard edge. Vin immediately faced front and stiffened in his seat. Both men were tense as boards and both Mary and Alex exchanged looks, wondering what new calamity was being visited upon them. It didn’t take them long to find out what had captured their attention so completely.
The column of smoke rising through the air, looked like someone had slashed at the sky and tore a hole through its fabric. Even though they were still on the highway and had yet to take the turn off onto the Styles’s property, everyone in the car knew without having to utter a word, the smoke was coming from the residence Alex shared with her father.
Five minutes later, their worst fears were confirmed.
The house where William Styles kept his research was ablaze.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
PALAVER
In truth, Aisha Khan was nowhere the devout follower of Erran as her brother Dash believed her to be.
The Children of Erran was her family’s obsession, passed on from generation to generation, along with the bloodline of each male child, from the very first high priest in their ancient past to the present day, where her brother now ruled. Although she would never dare voice it out loud, Aisha didn’t even believe they were descended from the first Sassanid king, Adashir the First, as claimed by their family. Aisha was convinced it was a bloodline appropriated for the purpose of solidifying the family’s rule of the Erran by divine right.
Whether or not the Uncreation the Erran were determined to carry out was real, mattered little to Aisha. She stood at Dash’s side because he was her brother and she loved him more than anything in the world. It was he who protected her from the mores of their Persian upbringing when they were children. As a female growing up in the centre of the Islamic world, her options were limited, her freedom restricted. It was a situation not aided by the fact that neither she nor Dash were believers of the faith and for some, there was no greater sin.
Fortunately, as head of the household, Dash ensured she was educated and sent abroad as soon as it was possible, so she would acquire the knowledge and skills that made her such a formidable weapon in her brother’s arsenal. To him, she was equal because a daughter of Sassanid kings could be nothing less. Although she did not seek to rule the Erran with him, Dash did partake of her counsel when it was needed.
While Dash chose the course for the Erran, it was Aisha, along with Krestos, who ensured his plans were carried out and their goals achieved. With the tall Namibian warrior at her side, they were a formidable team and the path towards Uncreation was assured under their direction. Until recently, the purpose of the Erran had been to observe and acquire when the opportunity presented itself, the Four Pillars, unearthed at Ur so many years ago.
Since her father’s time, the Erran were aware of the four infidels who desecrated the ancient city and took the Pillars as their spoils. It was her father who gave the order to acquire the first Pillar from Donald Avery through murder, a decision Aisha now considered poorly thought out since it revealed their existence to the remaining bearers of the cryptices. Realising further action might lead to exposure to the authorities, her father pulled back, but it was too late.
The prey had caught their scent.
Dash took more caution, approaching the second bearer only because the man’s mind had disintegrated in the aftermath of his daughter and grandchild's death. Hank Conley’s mind was trapped in a prison of bitterness, anger and regret, needing only a nudge to reveal what he knew. A number of well-placed questions during their interrogation and Conley had given Dash everything needed to retrieve his Pillar.
Then Dash had sent Conley to his daughter. Her brother could be merciful.
Retrieving the Pillar from William Styles proved to be more complicated, however. Styles understood the nature of the Pillars, it’s connection to Enki and Tiamat. He understood the Pillars held the location to the Tablets of Destiny and once revealed, could be used to recreate the world. While he may have considered the belief in the Uncreation as superstitious nonsense, he had not underestimated the danger the Erran represented and that made coercing him difficult.
Still, there was no need to press the issue, not when the Heart was still lost to them. The Erran had focused their attention on its retrieval and Dash was patient. Time made men careless and her brother assumed such would be the case for the good doctor. If they waited long enough, Styles might even shed the mortal cloak as old men tended to do, leaving his Pillar to his daughter. A young woman alone was easy prey.
While he was not the expert that William Styles had been, Orin Travis, the final bearer, was aware of the Erran and better yet, was someone who dealt in artefacts and might have the expertise to locate the Heart. Thus, they kept their distance from Travis while continuing to watch him closely to see if the man’s connections in the antiquities world could lead them to their prize. Then, Dash had stated, they would have Travis’s Pillar and the Heart of Enki.
It was a gamble that paid off because the Heart did surface and the Erran’s time had come.
Styles was the first to be reached but despite their best efforts, the doctor to his credit went to his death without revealing the location of the Pillar in his possession. After reviewing his library, Aisha understood why. Styles had made himself an expert in the ritual of the Uncreation and knew what fate awaited his daughter should it be performed. The man had more than just some ancient artefact to protect, he was willing to die to save his child, and he did.
Turning their eyes to Orin Travis, the Erran descended on the professor with every intention of acquiring his Pillar as well as the Heart. Dash was convinced with all her father’s friends gone and no understanding of the Pillar or the Erran, Alexandra Styles would be easy to coerce into giving them what they wanted. Then they would use her as their offering to Tiamat, as the ritual demanded. After all, who was to stop them?
As it turned out, it wasn’t a ‘who’ but rather a ‘them’.
The seven men who meddled in their recovery of the Heart at the Museum were no ordinary bystanders. By the way they fought, they were men accustomed to danger and the number of dead left in their wake infuriated Aisha. In their hubris, the Erran had gone to the museum, not expecting to face such formidable resistance from a room full of privileged elitists, sipping champagne while they lorded over the plunder of another land. The seven had not only prevented the Erran from reclaiming the Heart, but they also interfered with Dash’s attempts to interrogate Styles’s daughter about her father’s Pillar.
If not for the decision to converge upon Travis at his home, the Heart would have remained out of reach. While they had retreated after acquiring the vital piece of the Uncreation, Aisha knew nothing could be achieved without the remaining two Pillars.
Suspecting Travis would flee, one of the Erran were ordered to remain behind and observe in secret, Travis’s movements. It was a precaution that yielded success and they were able to follow him back to his new hiding place. It seemed Travis and his daughter, the blond witch who assaulted her and whom Aisha would personally repay the insult at a later time, had taken refuge on a ranch some distance from town.
Instead of a frontal assault, Dash ordered them to hold back and continue their surveillance. When the leader of the seven men whom she’d faced the night before departed with two of his number and the daughters of Travis and Styles, Dash gave the order to proceed. This time, there would be no need to coerce either Travis or Alexandra to hand over the Pillars, they would do it willingly or pay the price.
******
“I feel like I got run over by a milk truck,” Josiah Sanchez complained as he sat at the table in the kitchen of Chris Larabee’s ranch, feeling as if someone was playing kettle drums in his head. His body ached as if he had run a marathon and despite the fact he had slept through the night, Josiah still felt exhausted.
“Here, have some of this,” Buck handed him a cup of coffee in sympathy. “It’s fresh and hot, and it will wake you up.”
Judging from the looks of Josiah, Nathan and even JD who headed off with Chris this morning, the poison the Erran dosed them with was still taking its toll. His friends looked as if they were suffering a hangover through no fault of their own. The dark circles under Nathan’s eyes and the way Josiah was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, trying to get his muscles to settle was a clear indication of the drug’s after effects.
“Thank you, brother,” Josiah said gratefully, taking in the aroma of the coffee with relish, to say nothing about the way his stomach rumbled with interest at the scent of bacon and eggs.
“Anytime,” Buck smiled and turned back to the stove and the pans spitting with heated fat.
With a little smile, Josiah decided some things about Buck Wilmington would never change, no matter how much time had passed. Just like when they were in the trenches in France, the man’s prescription for chasing all ills away, aside from the most obvious, (women and lots of women), was food. Buck loved to cook. Between Buck’s ability to turn rations into a good meal and Ezra’s penchant for acquiring contraband food supplies, their team had eaten well and staved off the malnutrition threatening many of the soldiers on the line.
It was mid-morning and they were all gathered around the pine table in the Larabee kitchen, waiting in anticipation for the late breakfast Buck was preparing for them. The air was thick with the enticing scent of sizzling bacon and aromatic coffee as Buck held court over the stove after having driven out early this morning to get some supplies. He anticipated they’d all need a good breakfast after the difficulties the night before.
“So, who fixed us up again?” Nathan asked, taking a sip of the piping hot coffee in his mug and had to admit strong, black coffee was the only thing they needed more than vengeance on the Erran who had done this to them.
“Will’s daughter Alex,” Orin answered. “She’s a fourth-year medical student. She was able to help all three of you last night. Apparently, you were poisoned with Henbane but not at levels high enough to be dangerous. Fortunately, she had Will's doctors bag with her, so she was able to give you all antilirium.”
Nathan made a face, perfectly aware of what Henbane was capable of doing to them and supposed he was grateful they were only dosed with enough of the stuff to give them hallucinations. Miss Styles was correct, a higher dosage could have been fatal. Furthermore, the treatment of antilirium was one he would have administered himself which made Nathan doubly grateful Miss Styles was here and apparently knew what she was doing.
“She fixed my shoulder too,” Buck added as he picked up the top plate from a short stack within reach of the stove and began peeling strips of bacon from the pan for serving.
“What is she like?” Josiah inquired, lifting his chin just enough to see if there was toast to go with the meal. He pleased to see there was. Buck liked cooking breakfast with all the trimmings, he thought appreciatively.
“Extraordinarily beautiful,” Ezra commented, looking up from the paper Buck had gotten him at the local store. The gambler had admired the lady the night before and would have taken an interest himself if it were not painfully obvious she only had eyes for Vin Tanner and the sharpshooter was equally enamoured. Considering how Vin raced out of the Professor's office when learning the girl might be in danger, Ezra had an idea of how deeply he felt for her.
“Vin’s awful sweet on her,” Buck revealed as he approached the table and slid a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs at Josiah’s direction, complete with buttered toast. “And I think the feeling’s mutual.”
"I thought he just met her," Nathan declared, having never met any woman who could affect him so strongly after a brief first meeting.
“Sometimes it just works out that way,” Josiah commented after swallowing the bite of toast in his mouth. "When the right girl comes along, you best pay attention." A bittersweet smile stole across his face at the thought.
Last night's ordeal had made him remember Emma and a fresh stab of pain, not felt since that terrible night so many years ago, made itself felt most acutely. In any case, Josiah was glad Vin had found someone he cared for. Thanks to his dysfunctional upbringing, the younger man always seemed a little shy around women. He was by no means socially inept, just lacking confidence when it came to dealing with them.
“Thanks, Buck," Nathan said gratefully when Buck handed him his plate of food. He took a deep breath of the heavenly scent and his appetite jumped a few notches from insistent to urgent. Besides, after last night, Nathan felt hollowed out. “Well it’s about time the boy found a girl he liked, he’s spent too much time alone.”
“For that matter, so has Alex,” Orin agreed, having seen how the couple regarded each other since their return to the ranch the night before. “Will was her only family. She’s alone in the world now, except for Mary and me of course.”
“Where is Miss Travis?” Josiah asked, realising he hadn't seen the lovely blond woman all morning.
“She went with Chris,” Buck remarked, a smarmy smile peeking through his thick moustache, as he served Ezra who nodded in thanks.
“Oh, that would have gone down well,” Josiah chuckled having heard the two bickering at the museum the night before and during their discussions about the Erran in the Professor’s office.
"That's one way to put it," Orin couldn't help grin, perfectly aware of how headstrong his daughter could be. Faced with an equally stubborn personality like Chris Larabee, the Professor was somewhat grateful he was in this peaceful surroundings than in a car with the duo. "Mary doesn't like to take no for an answer."
“Yeah and that’s Chris’s first answer to everything.” Nathan laughed, catching the smirk the Professor was wearing and perfectly aware of what was in the man's mind.
“I dare say Mr Larabee may have met his match,” Ezra commented before taking a bite of his scrambled eggs and having to admit Buck hadn’t lost his touch when it came to his culinary expertise. "Mr Wilmington, you exceed yourself again. This is excellent.”
“The special ingredient is love,” Buck winked at the gambler as he returned to the table, with a plate of food for himself and the Professor.
“Now you done gone and made it weird,” Nathan complained.
Josiah took a taste of the eggs and then threw in. “I think the special ingredient might include whiskey...”
Anything Buck was going to say next was loudly interrupted by a gunshot coinciding with the ear-shattering noise of a window breaking.
The sound drove all five men to the floor in an instant, with Buck taking refuge behind the stove while Ezra grabbed Orin with his good arm and dragged the scholar beneath the table. The shot was followed by another, this one breaking a pitcher of juice on the table, splashing the surface with a liquid that dribbled off the edge and onto the floor. Josiah and Nathan remained crouched, trying to remember where they’d left their guns. Only Ezra and Buck were armed.
Another shot impacted against the wall, putting a ragged hole in the pretty floral wallpaper that Chris must have thought Sarah would have liked. Buck saw the damage and winced because Chris was going to be madder than hell when he found out his special place for Sarah had been violated. The next to go was the vase and Buck started moving towards the window, determined to see how many of them there were. He didn’t even bother wondering who they were, it was a foregone conclusion the Erran had found them even here.
Just as suddenly as it began, the gunfire ceased.
Buck took advantage of the situation, looking across the floor at Ezra who was crawling towards him. They both took up flanking positions on either side of the broken window, with Josiah and Nathan taking charge of the Professor, intending to get him out of the room and reach their guns so they could better protect him.
Buck exchanged a quick glance with Ezra, indicating his unspoken intentions to see who was out there as he peered past the edge of the window sill. In the front drive of the house, he felt his heart clench at the formidable force gathered outside against them. There were at least a dozen Erran and leading them was the beautiful woman who stole the Heart the night before.
“Professor Travis!” She called out. “Show yourself.”
Ezra and Buck looked instinctively at Orin who froze in his steps when his name was mentioned. He was still on his hands and knees, crawling towards the door to avoid being hit if the shooting resumed.
“Like hell he will!” Buck shouted back, not about to trust these fanatics under any circumstances.
“If you and your friends ever wish to see young Mr Dunne alive, the Professor better make himself available to us.”
Buck’s reaction was instant, as it always was when it came to JD.
“You’re lying!” Buck snapped, refusing to believe JD could have let himself get caught but almost immediately considered the possibility it could be true. JD had learned a great deal from the six of them since circumstances forced him to become one of their number but he had started out a scholar, who had never even held a gun before. Sure, he was good in a fight and he was becoming a decent shot but Buck remembered the ferocity of the Erran. If they got the drop on JD, the kid may not have been able to stop them from taking him.
“Shall we send him to you in pieces for confirmation?” The woman asked coldly.
Ezra met Buck’s eyes across space beneath the window and knew without a doubt, the woman wasn’t lying. As impossible as it might be for Buck to accept, they had to start taking her seriously if they wished to see young Mr Dunne alive again. Buck’s face was etched in worry, still trapped between disbelief and fear for the young man. None of the former members of K-Troop was blind to how much Buck had taken to JD since he entered their lives. In fact, it wasn’t just Buck who cared greatly for JD, but all of them.
When JD had joined the team only a year ago, each one of them had felt something. It was undefinable and if put to task, none of them would be able to verbalise it even if the feeling was one they all shared. It was a sense of completion as if the missing component of their fellowship had finally returned to the fold. It was Josiah who said it over a couple of drinks after their first adventure with JD had concluded, that finally, they were seven.
It had felt so right. Seven. They were seven as if that was what they were always meant to be.
“Mr Wilmington, I think we must consider the possibility they might be telling the truth,” Ezra whispered.
“It’s impossible!” Buck snapped, refusing to believe it. “He was with Chris and Vin!”
“Gentlemen,” Orin spoke up. “It doesn’t matter how it may have happened if there is a chance of it being true I must speak to them.”
“Professor, that ain’t a good idea,” Nathan warned as he saw the Professor moving towards the window where Ezra and Buck were guarding.
“Good idea or not, they’re still out there and after what we saw at the museum, I absolutely believe they will hurt JD if I do not cooperate.”
Considering it was his idea for JD to join Chris Larabee and his team in the first place, Orin felt it his responsibility to ensure the young man’s safety. The Erran and the danger they posed were the result of his youthful foolishness, one he was certain Will would understand if the man were alive to stand with him. But Will was gone, just like Donnie and Hank.
Orin thought of how they’d been in their youth, how fearless and reckless they’d been. They’d sailed across the world to find adventure and returned with a curse. Ultimately, it would destroy each and every one of them, himself included. Sure, he was alive, but there was no victory in being the last man standing on a battlefield when all your friends were dead.
“They’re not storming the place,” Josiah commented. “They want something so we best answer them if we’re going to get JD back.”
“Agreed,” Ezra replied getting to his feet and inching towards the window.
“Ezra what are you doing?” Buck hissed, prepared to drag the gambler back to cover if necessary.
Ezra ignored the big man and stepped in front of the window, poised to move if he saw anyone preparing to violate their temporary ceasefire. The woman was out there, in her exotic clothes, her cultists flanking her, brandishing their cruel scimitars as well as guns. The behemoth who had been a staple of their attacks was nowhere in sight and that made Ezra anxious because if the man was not here, was he with JD?
“I believe discussions can be conducted from here.” He answered her
By now, Buck was on his feet, taking up position next to Orin Travis who was stepping up to the window to join Ezra. Buck’s expression showed his unhappiness at the situation but at least Nathan and Josiah were now armed. The two men were fanning out to the other windows in the kitchen to cover them in case the Erran decided to pull a double cross.
“Alright,” Orin spoke finally, facing the Erran female. “I’m here. What do you want?”
The woman’s smile of triumph made Ezra bristle in annoyance and despite his chivalrous manner where the ladies were concerned, he badly wanted to wipe that smirk off her face.
“You know what we want,” she replied. “We want the Pillars. Both of them. Deliver them to us or we’ll send the boy to you in pieces.”
“You’re bluffing!” Buck snapped.
“Are we?” She didn’t reply and nodded at one of her minions, who promptly handed her something that made Buck’s heart freeze in his chest.
It was JD’s satchel. The kid carried it everywhere with him when they were out on jobs. Normally, filled with notebooks, pencils and any bit of relevant information they needed, it was seldom out of JD’s reach because it was a gift from the boy’s dead mother. Every one of them had heard over the past year how the lady bought it for him to carry his books at college. JD never went anywhere without it.
“Recognise this?”
“We do,” Orin replied, able to tell just by the look on Ezra and Buck’s faces, the satchel did indeed belong to JD Dunne.
“Good,” she said confidently. “Rest assured, we do have Mr Dunne but whether or not he survives the day, is entirely up to you. We want the Pillars. You will bring both of them to us tonight or you’ll never see your friend alive again.”
Yet even as she spoke those words, Ezra knew without question, JD’s fate would be sealed even if they did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
ARTEFACT
“Maybe we ought to wait for Chris,” Josiah commented as he brought his Buick Roadmaster to a halt in front of the First National Bank of Santa Fe, where Orin Travis kept a private lockbox in its vault.
“We can’t wait, you heard them. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll kill him.” Buck declared hotly, hating the idea himself they were doing this without Chris’s input but the Erran hadn’t given them much choice in the matter. Listening to that woman make her demands, Buck was convinced of one thing just as surely as Ezra had been, she wasn’t bluffing. If they did not produce the Pillars, JD would be killed. As it stood, the Erran had proven time and time again, just how ruthless they were in the pursuit of their goals.
Buck knew he was running high on emotion but frankly, he didn’t much care for the thoughts of the others on this point. In the last year since JD Dunne joined their number, the kid had become important, not just to the dynamics of the group but each man saw something in JD that touched them all. It was reminiscent of the feeling they felt in the trenches of France when the scrawny twelve-year-old Vin Tanner had been, was presented to them as their latest recruit.
They’d all taken to Vin, Chris especially. Their leader had kept Vin at his side throughout most of the war and that connection remained just as binding, even now. Buck had seen it and never understood the intensity of the friendship until JD Dunne entered their lives. Watching this young man struggling through life on his own, needing so much to have someone give a damn about him had touched Buck on a very personal level. Having grown up with similar isolation, Buck quickly developed an almost paternal affection for JD.
Ezra glanced sideways at Josiah a look, implying he ought to let it go. Everyone in the vehicle knew how Buck felt about JD and only Chris could rein in the big man when his emotions were running this hot. Unfortunately, their fearless leader was not here and after leaving word with Nettie at the ranch about their intentions, they had come here to retrieve Orin’s piece of Erran folklore.
While they had no intention of giving the Erran the artefact, for this exchange to work, they needed to produce the Pillar to have something to bargain with.
“Buck is right,” Orin Travis who was wedged between Buck and Nathan during the journey, was now shifting in his seat to leave the vehicle. “I will not let any harm come to young Mr Dunne, not on my account. The foolishness of my youth has caused enough harm, I won’t add JD to the death toll.”
“This ain’t your fault Sir,” Nathan who was already on the sidewalk, held the door open for the older man. “People get in their heads to act all crazy, you’re not to blame for their beliefs.”
“Perhaps,” Orin was not about to let himself be exonerated so easily. “Will, Hank, Donnie and I trampled across a foreign land and desecrated one of their temples. Would we be as forgiving if someone had done that to one of our churches?”
“Perhaps not,” Josiah could not argue there but he wasn’t going to let the Professor feel any worse than he already did. “But it’s a long way from plundering churches to what these folks intend on doing with the Pillars.”
“Come on,” Buck said impatiently, not wishing to get into this debate. Christ knew Chris was going to have plenty to say on the subject when he got back. And none of it good.
****
“Your brother was right,” Krestos said eyeing the men as they climbed out of the vehicle. “They behaved exactly as he assumed they would.”
Aisha smiled from the backseat of the Cadillac Cabriolet following a discreet distance behind the Roadmaster. Now parked in an alley across the street from the bank. As the five men emerged from the vehicle, their destination clear, Aisha marvelled at how astute her brother had been in his deductions. The threat to the boy’s life had driven them straight to the location of the Pillar in Orin Travis’s possession. While they were certain the Pillar hidden by William Styles was almost certainly in the hand of these men’s leader, the location of Travis’s artefact had been a mystery.
Now instead of wasting their time with exchanges and pointless bargains, the Erran knew where the remaining Pillars were and go retrieve them, as well as doing away with these meddlesome infidels once and for all.
“Tell our people to move in on the building,” Aisha replied. “We’ll take it from them as soon as it's in their possession.”
******
While Buck and Josiah kept a vigil on the Professor while he was being escorted through the bank clerk into the vault, Ezra and Nathan remained in the main floor of the premises. As it was a weekday and approaching lunch, the bank was busy and visited by an assortment of individuals, from regular joes carrying out normal day to day transactions, secretaries making deposits into commercial accounts and senior citizens needing the intricacies of their passbook explained by weary tellers. Despite this, however, the chatter in the bank was kept to a minimum, as if the worship of money required the same reverence as a church.
Nathan’s presence in the bank appeared to be the cause of intense scrutiny, not only from the tellers behind the counter but also the security guard at the door. It rankled Ezra to no end that Nathan who had an impressive fiscal worth would receive nothing but prejudice in the establishment where if he were a white man, would be welcomed as a worthy customer. Even though Ezra was a southerner, he despised the Jim Crow laws affecting his best friend on a regular basis.
“The sooner we get this thing, the better I’ll feel,” Nathan grumbled as he noted the sharp stare of the grizzly looking security guard aimed at his direction. Thank Christ the man didn’t know he was packing.
Ezra glanced in the direction of Nathan’s gaze and gave the guard an equally venomous glare in solidarity with his best friend. He disliked the bigoted thinking that still existed even though a war had been fought to settle the whole matter less than a century before.
“I do not blame you,” Ezra replied sympathetically, not even trying to offer a useless epithet like he understood when there was no way he ever could. The two men were trying to remain unobtrusive as they took up position near one of the marble column in the main floor, staying out of the way of patrons and the traffic coming through the door. “Hopefully the Professor will conclude his business quickly and we can be away from here. There are far too few egress points for my liking.”
Nathan stared at Ezra, aware by the tone in the man’s voice, he was worried. “You think the Erran may try to ambush us, here?”
Ezra didn’t look at him, his sea-green eyes were fixed instead on the main entrance, which the guard was flanking but paying little attention to, more focussed on Nathan.
“They have proven before they have no compunctions about where they choose to attack, no matter what the collateral damage.”
Nathan swept his gaze across the floor and noted just how many people there were in the bank today. Men, women, children and senior citizens were out in force and if the Erran chose to appear, they would have plenty of targets. Concern for their safety suddenly overrode the discomfort he felt at being in the place as Ezra’s worry infected him too.
“Fortunately, if they do appear, we are armed,” Ezra remarked, reassured by the feel of the derringer beneath his sleeve and the Remington in his shoulder holster beneath his coat.
“Let’s hope it don’t come to that,” Nathan frowned, completely convinced if there was a gunfight in the bank, he was going to be the first one the guard shot.
******
Buck never had enough money until recent years to ever have the need to visit the vault inside a bank. To him, the secret place behind the counters, where only tellers and stolid-looking men with steel-rimmed glasses and bow ties inhabited, was a place of forbidden mystery. Just like the changing room of a ladies store or one of their powder rooms. When Mr Heidegger, the German bank manager of the First National Bank led them through the wall of steel bars, to the vault where the lock boxes were kept, Buck eyed the place with interest.
Leaving Ezra and Nathan at the door because after the Erran’s discovery of their hiding place earlier that morning, none of them were leaving anything to chance as they went to retrieve the Pillar kept in this bank by Orin Travis. Heidegger had greeted Orin as if they had a personal relationship and Buck had to wonder when the Professor had met a Kraut. Had Heidegger come here after the war. A part of Buck still had difficulty hearing that accent, especially with the way things were going on in Germany right now.
Once Orin was shown to the area where the lock boxes were kept and allowed to retrieve the elongated metal box, sealed with a key possessed only by himself and the bank, the bank manager took them to an adjoining room where they could view their valuables in privacy. Only after Orin had thanked the man and he left them to their own devices, did the Professor finally turn to the box.
“I had hoped to never lay eyes on this thing again,” Orin frowned. “I wanted to be dead in the ground first.”
“I’m sorry you had to see it now Professor,” Josiah said kindly. “With any luck, once we get JD back we can put it somewhere you’ll never have to think of it again.”
Personally, Buck thought that viewpoint was being rather optimistic. He was already reminded of what Vin had said in the car on their way to Doctor Styles’s home, that the Erran were fanatics and would never stop coming after Orin and his daughter if there was a chance to conduct their crazy ritual. Following JD’s abduction, the abhorrent notion of destroying the Pillars and the Heart suddenly did not seem so terrible..
“I hope it is that easy,” Orin said as he inserted the key into the slot beneath the lid of the lockbox and twisted. It turned easily and Orin let out a breath as he lifted the lid. Still concealed within a red velvet pouch, both Josiah and Buck waited patiently as Orin removed them from it, the artefact that was the cause of some much grief to him and the friends of his youth.
Fashioned out of polished bronzed, it still gleamed beneath the hard, white light overhead. The ornate carvings along the side, what Chris or JD would have identified immediately as cuneiform, spoke a language neither man understood. Josiah studied the object, thinking that a craftsman had created this object two thousand years before Christ was born. It wasn’t just ancient, it was priceless. History marked every scratch in the meta and in every wear of ceramic along its shaft. It was humbling to be in the presence of the thing, to know it had survived millennia and touching it was feeling some part of its immortality.
“It’s beautiful,” Josiah stated and saw Orin nod in agreement.
“We never saw it as any more than a way to make a fortune,” Orin said shaking his head, feeling ashamed by the short-sightedness he and the others had displayed back in the day. “We went to the Middle East, expecting to make a fortune and when we found the Pillars, we thought it would make us rich. Of course, all it did was ruin us.” He picked up the cryptex and stared at it hard. “I’ve lost all of them because the Pillars and I would give anything to change that.”
Buck saw the sorrow in his eyes and understood all too well the man’s feelings on the matter. He thought of Chris, Vin, Josiah, Nathan, Ezra and JD, all of them who had become a family, starting from their service in France, right up to this moment. They had become such a part of each other’s lives, the idea of losing even just one of their number felt unimaginable. Just as it must be to Orin Travis, who had lost his friends in William Styles, Hank Connelly and Donald Avery, because of the Erran.
“We’ll get justice for them, Professor,” Buck patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. “Somehow, we’ll make the Erran pay for this.”
Yet even as he said the words, Buck knew for Orin, it would never be enough.
****
Ezra hated being right.
When he heard the familiar voice of Buck above the quiet conversations across the main floor of the bank, Ezra instinctively turned his attention to their approaching comrades, just like Nathan beside him. With the guard still eyeing them, convinced the two well-dressed men with no business with the bank lingering about, were in fact casing the joint for a robbery. Gratitude filled him, because with Buck, Josiah and the Professor’s return, they could finally get out of this place.
“About time,” Nathan grizzled, giving the guard an equally derisive look before he turned towards their party, stepping through the short wooden gate separating the main floor of the bank from the rest of the premises. “We don’t get out of here soon, that guard is likely to call the Feds and accuse us of getting ready to rob the bank like Dillinger or something...”
“Dillinger?” Ezra rolled his eyes. “I am certainly dressed better than him.”
Nathan shook his head, “well as long as we’re keeping our priorities in check...”
No sooner than he said those words, the main doors flew open, allowing the sounds of the street to break the hallowed atmosphere of the bank. Nathan glanced over his shoulder just as an afterthought and did a double take when he saw the Erran, led by the behemoth and the women, striding through the doors. Their faces were partially concealed with a red sash tied over their nose and mouth, immediately prompting Ezra’s memories of mustard gas.
It was an apt association because no sooner than the words had crossed his mind, the woman who had reached beneath the cloak over her shoulder was throwing those glass orbs into the air. They spread out like ball bearings, shattering against the marble floor and filling the room with a noxious green gas, that had everyone gasping in seconds.
“Jesus Christ!” Nathan exclaimed and grabbed Ezra’s arm, “come on!”
“I concur,” Ezra replied hastily and didn’t waste time arguing with him as the Erran spread out quickly, determined to keep them from leaving. The two men hurried across the floor as pandemonium broke out, their time in France giving them the ability to react better to the threat of gas with more speed.
One only had to see the effects of mustard gas in a field hospital to know whatever the woman was poisoning the air with, was something neither of them wanted to breathe.
Around them people were starting to wheeze and cough, a few were trying to make their way to the exits but were hindered by the cultists. The security guard who had been eyeing him had dropped to his knees, his face turning purple as he started to foam at the mouth from the effect of the gas. The healer in Nathan wanted to help but right now the imperative to get to the Professor overrode that compulsion. As they hurried towards their friends, Nathan looked over his shoulder long enough to see the Erran searching for them.
It took less than a second for eye contact to be made.
“THERE!” The woman shouted, pointing a finger at Nathan and Ezra, before her larger companion, the giant surrounded by a cadre of Erran started running towards them, drawing weapons.
“Get back! Get back!” Nathan warned Josiah and the others, casting a glance at the bank guard who was no longer moving, his mouth stained with spittle. Other patrons had also succumbed to the gas and Nathan knew if they did not leave now, they weren’t getting out at all. “We’ve gotta get out of here before that gas gets to us too!”
“I agree but I am certain they would have placed their people at the rear exit of this establishment!” Ezra remarked, revealing his derringer from beneath his sleeve and firing two bullets at the approaching Erran. Both bullets met their mark as the two cultists providing him with the best targets, fell down dead. One fell face first, the blood oozing out of his punctured forehead in dark, thick rivulets.
Seeing one of their own dead by Ezra’s hand, the Erran opened fire, increasing the panic already running through the place into pure pandemonium People were screaming, some from the noxious fumes poisoning them and others who were struck by stray bullets. Everyone was simply terrified by being caught by the crossfire.
“Watch out!” Nathan warned as he returned fire as he and Ezra kept their head down and motioned wildly at Buck, Josiah and the Professor to retreat the way they came.
“There’s no exit back there!” Buck declared as Nathan ushered them towards the vault again. Even if they did reach it, Buck knew as well as Nathan the probabilities were high there would be reception committee waiting to ambush them. Then again, staying where they were, was not an option either.
“My God,” Orin exclaimed watching the effect of the gas on the innocent bystanders, to say nothing of the bodies lying on the floor of the bank, having been caught in the shootout between them and the Erran.
“Come on Professor,” Josiah said gently, accepting the man’s horror at the callous disregard the Erran showed for others standing in their way. “We need to move.”
“Move where?” Ezra demanded having switched to the Remington, now that he’d exhausted the derringer. They were cut off from reaching the other exit and even if they did manage to reach it, it was almost certainly covered by the Erran unless they were complete fools, which Ezra did not think they were. The gambler had no doubt they would be cut down the minute they stepped through the doorway since the Erran only wanted the artefact and did not need any of them alive.
Nathan didn’t answer until they reached an intersection in the corridor. One led to the vault and the other led to a dead end, with only a large grate on the floor to mark its purpose. As the building was old, the healer quickly surmised that it was a disused drain for a time when the structure was used as something other than a bank. It was wide enough for a man to fit through, even if it was a bit of a squeeze.
“Wait,” Nathan hurried down the corridor and drop to his knee the instant he reached the drain. He slid his fingers through the holes, feeling the corrosion and dust from years of disuse press into his skin as he heaved. Meanwhile, Buck and Ezra had taken flanking positions along the corridor, certain the Erran would soon be appearing in pursuit. The gunfire had paused a moment since the Erran lost sight of them but it would not last long.
“What are you doing?” Josiah called out.
“I want to see if this goes anywhere!” Nathan declared as the grate came loose finally, shaking off years of grit and dust as it did so, the weight of it forcing Nathan to fall backwards.
“Whatever you plan on doing, do it fast!” Buck hollered and Nathan looked up just in time to see him squeezing off a round. The bullet sounded even louder in the narrow hallway and was soon returned in kind as Ezra told the Professor to get back.
Nathan scrambled quickly to the grate and peered through it. It was old and musty, covered in cobwebs but wide enough for them to traverse. With any luck, this connected to the main drains beneath the street, giving them a way out of the building.
“This way!” He shouted at them, waving them over.
“Come on Professor,” Josiah guided Orin towards the open drain, not looking forward to climbing into the small space but deciding it was better than trading gunfire at a bank. No doubt, the police would soon be drawn by all this commotion, if they weren’t on their way already. Another run-in with the law would require explanation and without even hearing the man say it, Josiah knew this would not sit well with Chris Larabee.
“Yes, yes,” Orin nodded. “Before anyone else gets hurt!”
Before Orin could descend, Josiah stopped him. “I’ll go first.”
They had no idea where the drain would empty into and Josiah was not about to let the older man endanger himself by going first. Climbing into the drain, his broad shoulders scraped the grimy walls Fortunately, his coat spared his skin any injury. It reeked of stale water and blunted acrid aromas but nothing he could not handle for a short time. Reaching into his coat, Josiah pulled out a lighter and flicked it alight. The illumination of the flame revealed the passage was quite lengthy, given credence to Nathan’s hope it might lead beyond the walls of the bank.
“Alright, let’s go.” Josiah started crawling and the Professor followed closely.
“Buck! Ezra!” Come on!” Nathan shouted at the two.
No sooner than he said that, another orb of glass was flung into the narrow hallways, shattering loudly against the stone floor. Once again, that terrible smoke began to fill the room., prompting the two men into movement. Ezra covered his mouth with a handkerchief as he followed Buck, trying to outrun the noxious smoke snaking up the hallway like an insidious fog. For a moment, he thought of some moody horror movie with Boris Karloff.
Once Orin was gone, Buck jumped into the drain, scowling unhappily because he was barely able to keep his head from hitting the roof of the passage, given how tight a fit it was going to be for him.
“I swear, I’m going to enjoy putting down these bastards for good!” Buck cursed.
“No kidding,” Nathan declared, agreeing with him wholeheartedly. “Get in there!”
Uttering another curse which Nathan didn’t quite hear, Buck disappeared as the healer raised his eyes to Ezra. “Come on Ezra! Don’t dawdle!”
“I do not dawdle!” Ezra shouted and closed the distance to the drain. Peering down the hole he glared at Nathan, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “What do you have against me and my clothes? Every time we embark upon any plan of yours, it inevitably ends with my throwing out another good suit.”
“I’m your best friend ain’t I?” Nathan asked as Ezra climbed into the drain.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Ezra tossed him a begrudging look. “Although I fail to see the correlation.”
Nathan followed him down and replied grinning, “well I know how much you like buying new clothes. I do this so you can go shopping.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
UNDERESTIMATED
If there was one thing JD hated more than anything, it was being underestimated.
All his life, from the time he was old enough to understand what contempt meant, JD knew people looked at him and saw less. Whether it was because he was the son of the housekeeper at the fancy school his mother worked at or the fact he was small for his age and he had no father to speak of, he always felt the outcast. When he was younger, he would get into fights all the time because of this and the bloody nose he often gave the bullies who came at him, proved quite conclusively, he was nowhere an easy a mark as they believed.
It was why he felt similarly incensed as he sat in the train car on the far side of town, slightly battered and bruised, listening to his captor, Adashir Shah, the leader of the Erran, boast of his plan to use him as a pawn to gain the remaining two Pillars.
After ambushing him at the home of Alex’s father and burning the place to the ground, an action which infuriated him as much as it would devastate the lady when she discovered the fire, JD had been sufficiently subdued and spirited away. Looking through the glass as he left the burning house behind him, JD’s rage had been fuelled by the thought of all those precious books having survived the centuries only to be destroyed at the hand of these fanatics, to say nothing of how they had razed to the ground, the home Alex had shared with her father.
They drove for almost a good hour, with the Erran making no effort to hide where they were going, telling JD most unequivocally they had no intention of letting him go, even after they got what they wanted. With his fate painfully clear, JD knew he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by escaping. Furthermore, it rankled him that Chris and the others would have to surrender the Pillars to get him back. While it felt good to know they cared for him so much, JD had no wish to be the reason the Erran succeeded in their insane plans to uncreate the world, even if the whole thing was superstitious nonsense.
“You know it’s a shame you destroyed all of those books at Doctor Styles’s place when you sent your goon squad to come to get me,” JD commented from the wing chair he had been forced into inside the luxurious train car, Shah had converted into study and parlour. Standing over him, was an Erran guard, ensuring he behaved while the leader of the Erran sat behind an expensive oak desk, studying a parchment rolled across the felt covering.
“I have no interest in what an infidel may have gathered over the years,” Shah did not look up as he continued his examination of the parchment, scrutinizing the faded letters through the lens of the magnifying glass in his hand.
“Okay,” JD shrugged. “But I’m sure he gathered a lot of stuff about the Pillars and the Heart that you might not have seen.”
Curiosity piqued, Shah lifted his head and stared across the room, with its expensive rugs and ornate Bric a brac adorning shelves and display cases. “Like what?”
“Well for starters, once you get the Four Pillars and open the Heart, it’s not a simple matter of retrieving the Tablets from its Cradle, wherever that might be. In the text I saw, one your gorilla torched, there was an Akkadian translation of Ninurta and the Turtle where most of the legends regarding Enki come from. It talks about the trials that must be crossed by the worthy before the Tablet can be claimed.”
“There is no Akkadian translation of that text,” Shah declared, but JD had learned enough from Ezra to know the man’s tone was slightly less superior than it had been.
“Sure, there is,” he said confidently. “Apparently, Doctor Styles found another portion of an Anzu poem unearthed in an old temper near the northern Euphrates. It was a part of something called the Books of Bel.”
“Bel?” Shah sat up even straighter. “There is...”
“Bel is what some Babylonians called Marduk, who took the Tablets away from Tiamat’s chosen during the battle with her chosen,” JD explained almost smugly.
“And you’re saying that Styles has a copy of this translation?” Shah stared at him.
“Had,” JD emphasized. “It was in the house and it’s up in smoke now. So good luck when you find the Cradle.”
Shah glared at the boy, convinced he was being played but with the Heart now in his possession, not to mention two of the Pillars, the gulf between uncertainty and absolute had widened considerably. Perhaps it had been a mistake to destroy the doctor’s collection. No, he shook his head. This boy was playing him.
“You’re lying,” Shah declared.
“If you say so,” JD said indifferently. “You can see it for yourself, the trials are inscribed on the side of the Pillars.”
Shah blinked and glanced at a picture frame on the wall. Convinced the young man was no threat to him, especially since Shah planned on killing him the instant the other Pillars were acquired, he went to the painting, a portrait of Adashir Shah the First, hanging on the wall. Behind it was safe. JD turned away, pretending to pay no attention but kept it within his view. He watched as Shah turned the dial. With his eidetic memory, JD memorised every turn and pause, confident the man would not think him capable of remembering the combination.
He was wrong.
A few minutes later, Shah produced one of the Pillars and once again, JD remembered everything Ezra Standish taught him this last year about maintaining a poker face, feigning nothing but disinterest when the man took the artefact back to his desk. Once again, JD didn’t look at him as Shah scrutinized the Pillar, mostly because JD feared Shah might guess his intentions if he paid too much attention.
No sooner than the thought crossed his head, Shah placed the lens and the Pillar down on the table again. He stared at JD hard. “This translation is ambiguous. The trials mentioned, could be interpreted in two different ways, it could mean physical trials or it could mean keeping the faith with Tiamat. Foolish infidel,” Shah snorted. “You assume too much.”
“No skin of my back, I just said what I read but you want to be sure in case there ain’t no flesh-eating beetles waiting for you when you get there. This isn’t the first treasure hunt I’ve been on, it’s the details that end up leaving you at the bottom of a pit, full of spikes.”
“I’m sure,” Shah sneered and stood from the desk, replacing the Pillar back in the safe. “For your sake,” he added viciously. “Your friends better give me the other Pillars or else I will be happy to see you end up that way.”
The young man said nothing, feigning a little fear for effect. In truth, JD had too much faith in the six men who had taken him under their wing since he joined their number. There was no way in hell they would let him come to harm. He felt it in his bones.
Shah was on his way back to his desk when the revving of engines filled the air, making the man cross the floor to the nearest window to peer out. JD was uncertain what he saw, but it did not please him in the slightest. A dark scowl crossed his face as he straightened up, allowing the curtain over the glass to fall back in place once more. Regarding the guard keeping an eye on JD, Shah offered a single stern warning.
“Watch him.”
Counting down silently, JD let exactly twenty seconds pass before he swung back hard in his wing chair, causing the heavy piece of furniture to fall against his guard who stumbled backwards. Ready for the fall, JD flipped over the armrest before it landed entirely on the Erran. Moving swiftly, JD knew what he would be reaching for the instant the moment allowed it. Practically sweeping the heavy marble statue off the side table, he smashed it into the jaw of the Erran who went for his gun but never had the chance to pull the trigger. A jaw bone shattered as he careened to the floor, with the young linguist bringing down the statue once more, this time against his skull.
The man slumped to the rug unconscious without a sound and JD tossed the statue against the upended wing chair, certain he was not getting up soon. Leaving the Erran behind him, JD crossed the floor quickly, about to make his own introduction to Adashir Shah the First.
******
“Am I surrounded by incompetents?” Shah bellowed as he faced his sister and Krestos who were returning with half the men he had to send them out with.
Once again, they had returned to him empty handed and Shah was seriously beginning to consider perhaps the men that surrounded Orin Travis was more than either Aisha or Krestos could handle. Being bested seemed to be becoming a regular occurrence. While Aisha and Krestos did not seem any worse for the experience, the same could not be said for the group of Erran that had gone with them. At least a handful had not returned.
“They found an alternate exit out of the bank and we could not stay too long to conduct a search,” Aisha explained. “Perhaps we should have waited until they left the premises but the bank appeared self-contained and we had men stationed at the rear exit.”
“This is getting tiresome!” Shah snapped. “We have waited a thousand years for this day and you two are being bested by infidels!”
“Forgive me for speaking out of turn,” Krestos spoke up as Aisha felt silent, her head drooped in shame at failing her brother once more. “Master, these men are not simple infidels. They’re soldiers and men who have been blooded by far more blood than our own have seen. They are skilled.”
“That boy in there claims they are treasure hunters,” Shah gestured to the railway car a short distance away. The line of track in this area was private and normally used for freight cars delivering cargo that would be bound for the Rio Grande, a short distance away. “Perhaps you ought to interrogate him,” he looked at Aisha. “I think it is time we got to know our adversaries a bit better.”
“He will tell me everything he knows before I am done with him,” she said confidently.
Turning his back on her, Shah stomped back to the railway car, his mood so dark he almost left a trail of smoke behind him. As always Aisha followed a few steps behind, for her brother had the bloodline of a king and she was still a woman. Throwing a sidelong glance at Krestos, the tall servant kept pace with her, but his eyes showed his sympathy at her brother’s rages towards her. Krestos had been Shah’s loyal protector since he assumed the mantle of the Erran from their father and though it was never spoken, she knew he kept her safe too.
Around them, the other Erran were helping their injured comrades out of the vehicles they had returned in, with the intention of taking them to the other carriage where they had been hiding since coming to this accursed land. They offered no judgement on the failure of the quest today, keeping their heads low as they passed their master’s sister and the captain of his guard. Aisha only looked ahead, her eyes fixed on Shah’s back as he made his way up the steps into the rail car he called his private sanctum. He was ready to extract his pound of flesh from the young man whose older comrades had complicated the retrieval of the heart and the remaining Pillars
“HE’S GONE!”
Shah’s enraged bellow rose over the raspy wind blowing across the dry afternoon of the New Mexican day. Both she and Krestos jumped at the sharp, almost animalistic cry of fury and hastened their pace into the train car. What they arrived there to find was worse than just an escape and Shah’s expression was damn near murderous.
Her brother was standing next to the safe where the Pillars belonging to Hank Conley and Donald Avery were kept, along with the Heart of Enki, stolen less than a day before. It was wide open like a mouth agape with shock, its contents gone. On the floor nearby, lay the unconscious, if not possibly dead body of the guard left behind to watch over the prisoner. His red robes had been stripped off his body.
“That little bastard took the Pillars and Heart!” Shah screamed. “FIND HIM NOW!”
Krestos did not even need him to finish the sentence, having guessed what had happened the instant he saw the half-naked guard. Hurrying to the door, he paused and scanned the area just in time to see a red robe figure climb into one of the cars they had just vacated.
“STOP HIM!” Krestos shouted to anyone who was near enough as the cars engines roared to life. He leapt ofF the platform, not bothering to take the steps down to the ground, his gun brandished as his stunned Erran brothers tried to discern what was happening.
Inside the Caddy, JD didn’t look up when he heard Krestos sound the alarm.
The youngest member of the Seven was too busy getting the car started. Putting it into gear, he released the clutch and jammed his foot against the accelerator, sending it lurching forward. Spinning the wheel around in a sharp turn, the tyres screeched loudly against the gravel road, spitting bits of grit and dirt into the air in a small earthen wave.
So loud was the roar of engines, it drowned out the voices shouting after him furiously until the first burst of gunfire eclipsed everything. JD kept his head down as the back window exploded with the bullet continuing on, exiting the windscreen dead centre. Only a tiny webbed crack remained behind as JD floored the accelerator and left a cloud of dust behind him as he sped away. The gunfire continued and he didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know the other vehicles the Erran had at their disposal would soon be in pursuit.
Especially after what he had taken.
As he sped away from the Yards, JD was confident he could lose them in the streets of Albuquerque, because after Josiah’s driving lessons, JD had become very well acquainted with its streets. Tossing back a final look at the Erran, JD had only this to say.
“Ambiguous translation my ass.”
*****
To say that Chris Larabee was incensed was putting it mildly.
Nothing affected the former captain of K troop and now leader of the Seven as much as fire. After Sarah and Adam’s death, his reaction to fire was visceral. It sent a chill of fear down his spine and provoked a rage almost as red hot as the flames that had set his life ablaze that terrible night while he and Buck were in Mexico. While fire no means paralysed him, it did provoke an extreme reaction when he saw it. It was even worse when he knew it was no random act of fate but a calculated move of malicious intent.
His first thought after the shock of seeing the billowing cloud of smoke rising from the pyre of William Styles’s home was JD. The horror of having to search through the rubble of ash and wood in search of the boy’s burnt body was more than he could stand. Fortunately, he had been spared that nightmare with his family, since the bodies were well and truly removed from the scene when he arrived at his gutted home. The idea he might have to face that nightmare almost made him gag but then Chris remembered, the body to be recovered was JD’s.
Cursing himself for leaving JD alone here, Chris had forgotten that as much as JD had learned from them in the past year, he lived an ordinary life before this, a student-driven by circumstances to work for them to finish his studies. He had fight and spirit but the violence and exposure to people like the Erran were still new to him. Chris had no doubt he would have put up one hell of a fight before he was taken down but Chris doubted if he could fend off the Erran if they came in the same numbers they had during previous encounters.
“JD!” Chris shouted into the air, hoping against hope the kid might have somehow managed to defy his expectations and escape.
There was no answer.
“JD!” He tried again but only silence followed and Chris knew there was no JD to hear him.
“Chris!” Vin hollered after him. The sharpshooter was scanning the dirt around the house, in particular, those leading from the front door.
“What is it?” Chris asked quickly, “What have you found.?”
“I think JD made it out,” Vin gestured to one particular footprint among the overlapping tracks in the dirt beyond the patch of green surrounding the house. The prints were leading towards the driveway and the one Vin focused on, appeared to be flanked by others. “I know his shoe thread and this is about his size. They took him alive Chris,” Vin assured his best friend quickly, perfectly aware of what effect a fire had on Chris Larabee’s psyche.
Thank Christ for that, Chris thought silently.
As the relief flooded him for that bit of consolation, he saw Alex staring into the fire and a surge of cold hatred for the Erran surfaced again when he saw her anguish at the sight of the destruction. She stood there, like one of Euripides’s tragic women, watching the fire turn everything that was her father, into ash. There were no tears but Chris saw the grief as if the fire was making her lose him all over again.
“Alex,” Mary said gently, standing next to her. “I’m so sorry.”
Even as she spoke, Vin was crossing the space between them, capturing Alex in an embrace when he reached her.
“Alex, we’ll make them pay for this,” Vin said holding her when she finally came into his arms. Holding her close to him, Vin saw no tears but her pain was like a knife in his heart and he could only look up at Chris helplessly, wishing the older man could teach him like he had taught Vin so many other things in life, how to deal with this.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered tonelessly. “They’ve taken everything of him from me, there’s nothing left.”
Mary turned away, unable to stand the knots in her stomach. She felt Alex’s grief because her own fears for Orin surfaced sharply at that moment. He was the last one left of the original four who went to the Middle East for their adventure only to return with this doom over their lives. Her blue-grey eyes scanned what remained of the house, the thickest concentration of flames seemed to focus on the study. Unsurprising of course, Mary thought bitterly. There was no reason to burn the place down, none except spite and focussing on that room, no doubt where he kept a lifetime’s research on the Erran, seemed fitting in their twisted worldview.
At least they knew JD was alive.
While they had yet to process the ramifications of what this could mean, Chris knew one thing for certain. He didn’t just intend to stop the Erran and their continued attacks on the people he cared about, he wanted to wreak bloody vengeance on every last one of the fanatical sons of bitches. Not just for taking JD, no doubt for blackmail, but for the men they had killed. Hank Conley, Donald Avery and most of all William Styles who understood better than anyone what they all risked.
He was about to turn away from the fire when his keen eyes caught sight of something in the bushes outside the window where Styles’s study was continuing to burn. The olive bush closest to it was beginning to smoulder as live embers from the blazing house found fresh fuel to burn. Walking towards its almost on reflex, Chris tightened his gaze to focus on what exactly was beckoning him from its hiding place amongst the soon to be incinerated leaves.
It didn’t take him long to find out what it was. Suspended above the ground, in between a fork of branches was JD’s notebook.
“What is it?” Mary asked coming up alongside him.
Chris reached for the thing and quickly brushed off the ash covered dust jacket. “It’s one of JD’s notebooks.” He flipped it open and saw the scribblings inside the pages. While Chris couldn’t translate all of it yet, he recognised the information relating to the Erran. JD must have jotted down his findings of Styles’s research after his perusal and tossed it out here when the Erran had come for him.
“The kid’s got a memory of a steel trap,” Chris stated, raising his eyes to hers. “He left this for me.”
“What’s in it?”
“I’m not sure,” Chris answered honestly “but if it was important enough for him to toss it out here, I plan to find out.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
FLIGHT
If Chris Larabee had been in a venomous mood after leaving the burning wreckage of William Styles’s home, what he learned upon returning to his ranch made him positively homicidal with rage.
It was bad enough the Erran had abducted JD and would almost certainly use him as a hostage in order to acquire the remaining Pillars but to learn the sons of bitches had violated the sanctity of the home he’d bought for Sarah and Adam, heightened his fury to volcanic levels. The ranch was inviolate and the idea it had been sullied by the Erran stoked his desire to see every one of their kind put down for good.
They’d returned to the ranch house in the mid-afternoon, only to find the place reeking of a stink that would have raised the dead buried in the Great Pyramids. Not to mention having to endure an unholy level of complaining from Ezra Standish regarding the destruction of yet another suit. It appeared Buck, Josiah, Nathan and Ezra had escorted Orin Travis to the bank where his Pillar was kept and in the course of retrieving it, were forced to take a turn through the sewers of Albuquerque, to escape the Erran who had followed them there.
Fortunately, Nettie who played housekeeper to the premises had come to the rescue by ensuring their ruined clothes were taken away and laundered, resulting in Chris’s living room resembling the locker room of a men’s gymnasium. Leaving Chris and Vin to deal with his comrades, Mary and Alex had opted to freshen up after their ordeal in the mound, themselves needing baths after their unceremonious landing in a mud puddle.
“I honestly don’t know what’s worse!” Chris growled, schooling his team, even though Professor Travis was in the room like they were errant school children. Vin simply offered them looks of sympathy, allowing Chris to go on a tear until it was time for him to step in. The sharpshooter always seemed to know the best time to stop in and remind Chris he was among friends when he was in this kind of mood.
Like now.
“Take it easy pard,” Vin said gently, understanding what had motivated the others, even though like Chris, he wouldn’t have gone after the Pillar either.
“Take it easy?” Chris growled and shot Vin an annoyed glare, suspecting the younger man was attempting to handle him. “Are you kidding me?” Chris snapped and face the others again. “Why the hell didn’t you just stay put until we got back?”
“Hell Chris!” Buck jumped to his feet, clutching the towel that was hanging precariously around his hip, feeling his own ire raised. It wasn’t Chris who had gone trekking through the sewer like rats. “They got JD! What were we supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to use your head!” Chris retorted sharply. “Not go running after the Pillar which was exactly what they wanted you to do. They knew the minute they made the demand for JD, we were going to have to retrieve the Pillar to get him back. It’s what they were waiting on. They don’t plan on keeping any bargain they made with us Buck. The minute they get within sight of the other Pillars, they’re going to kill us all, if they haven’t already killed JD.”
Buck’s eyes widened at the thought and so did the dread in his face at the possibility. At that instant, Chris saw just how fearful Buck was for the young man’s welfare and immediately felt bad for pushing so hard.
“Mr Larabee,” Ezra winced at the harsh rebuke as deeply as their pilot. Secretly, he had also wondered whether the decision to retrieve the Pillar had been made too hastily. They had simply reacted when they learned about JD’s situation without considering all the angles. It was a testament to Ezra’s affection for the young men that he, who should have seen the duplicity, missed it. “Despite the outcome, we did elude them and we still have the Pillar.”
“Yeah, just because we didn’t exactly take the scenic route didn’t mean it ended up worse than it could have been.” Nathan pointed out. It had been his idea to take the sewer and though it had been a filthy trip through those tunnels and wide drains, at least they had escaped with their skins intact and the Pillar still in their possession. Besides, the sight of Ezra slipping into knee-deep sewage had made him smile.
“It was my call Chris,” Orin spoke up, his voice taking on the same authority he used when he commanded them all in France. “I decided we should go and get the Pillar.”
Any further rebuke Chris was about to make, died in his throat following the Professor’s statement. Orin Travis was the only person Chris Larabee would not raise a voice to. Even though it was years past, Chris still saw Orin as the commanding officer who led him and K-Troop through the battlefield of France. His conditioning to obey the man was not merely out of respect and loyalty but affection because the scholar had saved him in more ways than one, during the worst time of his life.
“Well it’s done now,” Josiah added. “The question is, will they honour their agreement now that we managed to sidestep their double cross.”
“I don’t know,” Chris sighed, deciding both Orin and Josiah were right. There was no point arguing over what had taken place but instead focus on what came next. “We still have two Pillars, which means we have something to bargain with.”
“Or not.”
Chris had heard a door creak open and assumed it was the girls moving through the bedrooms or Nettie coming back. Except the voice who had spoken wasn’t any of the women.
It was JD.
The kid looked hot and tired. He had lost his jacket and his white shirt was stained with dust and sweat stains. A satchel of eastern origin was slung over his shoulder and he was breathing hard as he stood by the doorway, one arm propped up against the frame. He was trying to catch his breath following the announcement of his return, temporarily oblivious to the burst of surprise and elation at his sudden appearance.
“JD!” Buck’s voice boomed first as he got to his feet and strode across the floor, arms open as if he was about to envelop the young man in a big bear hug of relief.
“Buck, don’t you dare hug me until you put a shirt on!” JD cautioned with a smile of amusement when he saw the pilot on approach. Now that he had time to survey the room, JD’s brow wrinkled in confusion as the number of his friends in various states of undress before turning to Vin who was nearest to him at the door. “Why isn’t anyone wearing any clothes? What the hell have you all been doing while I was escaping those kooks?”
“Long story,” Vin chuckled. “How did you get here?”
“Yeah, how did you escape? And don’t think just because we’re happy to see you I won’t kick your ass.” Buck retaliated, still wearing a happy grin as he paused short of hugging the boy because, well it did feel kind of strange when he wasn’t wearing anything but a towel. “We thought those bastards still had you.”
“I escaped,” JD explained, walking into the room after noticing a pitcher of water on the coffee table and headed straight for it. He’d go for something a little stronger a bit later. Like the whisky in the decanter, he could see at the other end of the table.
“You escaped?” Ezra stared at him incredulously. “How in Perdition’s Fire did you manage that?” The gambler was genuinely surprised. While JD was intelligent enough, the young man was still new to the life and that level of resourcefulness was something none of them had seen him display so far.
“What do you mean how did I manage that?” The boy stared back at him with an expression that was part hurt and part offence. Bristling inwardly, he supposed it was exactly this kind of thinking that allowed him to get past the great Khan.
Next to Ezra, Nathan rolled his eyes and swatted the back of the man’s head at his tactlessness, something Ezra should have been practised enough to avoid. “Nice Ezra.”
Ezra cursed himself inwardly at the remark and quickly tried to explain himself. “I simply meant...”
“I can take care of myself,” JD sulked, somewhat hurt by Ezra’s lack of faith when it was the skills he learned from the gambler that served him most during his escape.
“JD, continue,” Chris spoke up, his patience reaching its limits because he wanted to hear how JD had escaped. Such miracles didn’t happen without a considerable price tag and Chris suspected, they would be paying for it soon enough.
Remembering himself as well as the danger he had placed them with his escape, he resumed speaking. “After they took me from Doctor Styles’s house and set the place alight,” JD’s expression darkened in correspondence with Vin, who was still angry at how Alex’s family home had been burned to the ground in vengeance. “They took me to the Yards near the river. The Erran have a private train or something stationed there.”
The older men in the room exchanged silent glances with each other, the same thought running through all their minds though no one was speaking it. The Erran never had any intention of releasing JD if they had been so free with letting the young man see where they were holed up.
“Go on kid,” Buck prompted, his jaw ticking as genuine anger filled him. Buck never let the emotion get a grip on him the way it did Chris, but knowing what the Erran had planned for JD, allowed Buck to make an exception.
“Anyway,” JD resumed quickly because whether or not they knew it, they were on the clock. “The guy in charge, they call him the Shah. He thought I was some stupid kid. It made him think I couldn’t take care of myself so when he had to leave when some of the Erran ran into trouble, they only left one guard with me. I managed to get the drop on the guy. Once I laid him out cold, I took those red robes he had on and got lost in the crowd long enough to reach a car.”
“Not bad,” Vin complimented, glad to see JD was proving himself. As the youngest member of the group, until JD came along, Vin remembered what it was like to be in a similar position.
“They follow you?” Josiah asked, unwilling to imagine JD’s escape would be that easy, not after the lengths the Erran had gone so far to achieve their ends.
“They did but first chance I got, I ditched the car and the robes. I saw a bus and jumped on before anyone saw me. As soon as I got to the depot, I called one of my pals from school to come get me and give me a ride out here. I got them to drop me off the main road, near the trees, so I could sneak in here on foot without anyone seeing me.”
“Good job young man,” Orin complimented, mirroring the approval of everyone else in the room.
As nice as it was for JD to hear the compliments, he knew they were running out of time. The Erran were coming and he had to tell them why now. Standing up, he looked at Chris. “Chris, we have to leave here right now. If they’re aren’t here yet, they soon will be.”
The intensity of that delivery made Chris’s spine stiffen and the urgency spread around the room like wildfire.
“Why?” Chris was almost afraid to ask.
“Because I didn’t just take some goon’s robes, I took something else.” He unslung the satchel around his shoulder and emptied the contents onto the coffee table with a loud clunk, stunning everyone into silence.
“Good God,” Orin Travis was the first to break the silence, staring at the objects, two of which he hadn’t seen in almost fifty years.
“Jesus Christ,” Buck’s voice chimed in soon after. “Is that...”
“The other two Pillars and the Heart,” Chris grinned, never prouder of the kid than at this moment even though he fully understood the danger they were now in. JD was right, they had to leave and right now.
“How the hell did you manage to get your hands on that?” Nathan asked, unable to believe the Erran and more importantly, Shah could be careless enough to let JD get his hands on the artefacts.
“I told you,” JD smiled, revelling in the admiration he was receiving from everyone in the room. “He thought I was a stupid kid, I proved I wasn’t.”
****
Less than thirty minutes later, with everyone armed and dressed in still damp clothes, they left the ranch after ensuring the Erran were nowhere in sight and headed out to the only safe place left to them. On board the Darlin’ Millie, 25’000 feet in the air.
Buck contacted the West Mesa Airstrip where the Millie awaited them in a private hangar during the period between jobs, to lodge a flight plan and get clearance to leave while Chris ensured Nettie and her niece were safely out of harm’s way. Though annoyed at having to leave, Nettie understood the situation and headed off in her Ford pick up to collect Casey from school. She intended on visiting with Agnes Doherty, an old friend who was still in the service and stationed at the army base in White Sands. At least Chris was assured of her safety there.
He doubted even the Erran could get past the US Army.
In light of JD’s dazzling display of deceit resulting in their acquisition of all the pieces needed to open the cryptices and revealing the location of the Tablet, Erran would be on their way and they would be doing it in force. Thanks to a nineteen-year-old dropout who wasn’t even old enough to drink, the purpose to which the Erran had devoted themselves for centuries was literally stolen from under them. If the Erran caught up with them before they could get to safety, Chris had no doubt the fanatics would kill every last one of them.
“We got clearance,” Buck stepped out of the house, grateful the afternoon sun was drying the damp clothes they’d been forced to wear due to their hasty departure. “Damned if I know how. Fastest clearance I ever got. I didn’t even have to sweet talk Gloria into working her magic for me. Anyway, we can leave as soon as we get there.”
In front of the house, both their cars were parked and waiting. Josiah was behind the wheel of his Roadmaster, with JD in the back seat with Orin Travis and his daughter. Nathan and Ezra were in the back seat of his Oldsmobile, no doubt bitching about something like a bunch of hens. Chris shook his head as he heard their argument, wondering at what point did he miss the wedding.
“Well don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Chris remarked. Buck was wearing his shoulder holster, his Remington pressed against his rib. “You drive straight there and get Millie ready for take-off. Vin and I will be right behind you.”
“Where are we headed?” Buck asked needing to lodge an actual flight plan. He’d gave Gloria some half-assed destination, just in case anyone came calling after they’d left.
Chris thought quickly. “I don’t care as long as we’re wheels up as soon as possible. We need somewhere we can put down for a few hours without the Erran interrupting us.”
“I gotcha,” his old friend nodded and looked over his shoulder at Vin, who was engaged in talk with his new girl. “He’s really gone, ain’t he?”
Chris tossed a look over his shoulder and noted the duo, unable to keep a smile from tugging at his lips, despite the urgency of their present situation. “All it takes is the right girl.”
“I prefer it to be any girl,” Buck grinned. “Hey Vin, we’ve gotta get moving!”
“You’re a lost cause,” Chris laughed shaking his head.
Vin gave Buck a look and turned to Alex who was now wearing jeans and a loose shirt, her hair pulled into a ponytail. Even though he had met her less than two days ago, it astonished the young sharpshooter how hard he had fallen for her. Yet when he looked into her eyes, he was convinced she felt just as deeply for him. While they weren’t going to be parted for long, Vin still felt this tug knowing she was going to leave him, even for a little.
“I’ll be right behind you. Me and Chris are just gonna make sure none of them Erran bastards try to follow us to the airstrip.”
“You will be careful right?” Alex asked quietly, trying not to sound like some needy woman but the truth was, he’d caught her completely by surprise and since meeting him on that rooftop above the museum, Alex could no longer imagine her world without Vin in it. After losing her father, she had resigned herself to being alone. She never expected her life to change just because she shared a box of sugar babies with a stranger.
“Always,” he grinned and leaned in for a kiss.
“For crying out loud!” Chris tugged him by the collar, impatient to get moving. “We’re just driving to the airport, not retaking the Marne. Buck needs to get going to get the Millie ready.”
Vin shot him a look. “You get surlier every year pard,” Vin grumbled and turned back to face Alex who giggled softly. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’ll see you soon.”
Chris shook his head as Alex started towards the Roadmaster, with Buck holding the door for her. As Chris headed towards the driver’s side door, he looked at Vin over the top of the vehicle.
“You know, you could play a little hard to get.”
“Kiss my ass, Larabee,” Vin glared before getting into the car.
******
They spotted the Erran coming towards the ranch the instant they drove into Coronado Highway.
As anticipated, they were at least three cars approaching them from the other side of the road, no doubt on their way to the ranch where they intended to retrieve their stolen property. The Roadmaster was in the lead because Chris wanted JD who was carrying the artefacts and the girls safely on board the Millie first and foremost. With all the Pillars out of hiding and ready to be opened with the Heart, the last element of the Errans’ ritual of unmaking, were the sacrifices for Tiamat’s resurrection.
He had no idea if it was Alex or Mary who was intended for this purpose, but he was not about to find out.
The trio of cars screeched to a halt the instant they passed each other on the road, with Chris seeing the face of the tall man JD told him was called Krestos. Wasting no time, Chris swung the wheel around, providing a temporary barricade between the Erran and the Roadmaster. As the tyres screeched, filling the air with the scent of burnt rubber, Vin was already winding the window down on his side of the Oldsmobile, raising the fully loaded Tommy gun that had been tucked between his legs while he rode shotgun
Sliding the barrel past the window, Vin wasted no time unleashing a deadly barrage of ammunition across the windscreen of the lead car. Glass shattered and the vehicle swerved sharply after he put a bullet through the head of its driver. He followed the wide arc of the vehicle as it veered through wards the shoulder of the road, continuing to fire until its doors were similarly covered with bullet holes. While he wasn’t certain he had put down all the men in the vehicle, he had definitely shot out their tyres enough to ensure it would not be in pursuit.
However, the Erran in the remaining two cars were not idle either. Krestos opened fire on Vin, driving the sharpshooter back into the vehicle, while at the same time, creating an opening to allow the third car to go after the Roadmaster. Still, even as Vin was driven back into the Oldsmobile for cover, Ezra had emerged to start shooting. The gambler concentrated his fire on the car attempting to catch up with Josiah, aiming for the tyres. Chris almost heard the bullets rushing past his ears through the window. Ezra, who was almost a good a shot as Vin, with a lot more chatter, hit one of the tyres, which exploded with a loud depression of gas.
The car, a Buick, dipped sharply to one side, the tyre deflating so quickly, the chrome rims ripped it apart against the tar and forced the vehicle to the other side of the road, facing oncoming traffic when it happened by. In either case, it was going nowhere and the Roadmaster continued ahead, un-accosted, maintaining its lead on the rest of them.
As the back windscreen shattered, Chris kept his head low while shouting at Nathan. “Let them have it!”
“Alright, Lieutenant!” Nathan grinned, producing the stick of dynamite he had stashed into an old duffel bag on the floor of the car. Lighting a stick, he peered through the shattered rear window, at the car, a Caddy, so close he could almost see his reflection in the grill. Staring across the distance, his eyes made connection with the driver before he revealed what he was about to toss out.
“Just like playing chicken.” Nathan grinned as the fuse began to burn and his intention made plain to his Erran opponent.
“Will you just throw the infernal thing?” Ezra shouted as he saw the strand continued to shorten with each second.
“You sure you don’t want to hold it?” Nathan smirked wickedly at the gambler.
“MR LARABEE! MAKE HIM THROW IT!”
“I swear to Christ if you two don’t knock it off, I’m stopping the goddamn car!” Chris shouted at them with exasperation as Vin Tanner rolled his eyes and continued his assault with the Tommy gun.
Grinning, Nathan tossed the stick of dynamite which promptly bounced off the trunk of the Oldsmobile to land directly in front of the pursuing vehicle. The Erran driver, not about to risk driving over the thing when it exploded, hit the brakes so hard, the car swung in a neat arc and then tipped onto its side and began to roll.
The healer saw at least one man tossed out of the vehicle and judging by the size of him, it was Krestos. Meanwhile, the caddy flipped over twice before tumbling down the embankment at the side of the road, while the dynamite it tried to avoid to such detrimental effect, exploded, and created a small crater in the middle of the road.
As Chris peered through his rear mirror, he could see Krestos getting to his feet, glaring at them as the gap between the Erran and the Tablets widened further. By the fury that must have been in his eyes, Chris did not think the Erran would be far behind for long.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
FOUR CORNERS
It was a ghost town.
It had breathed its last in the first decade of the new century when its residents moved to greener pastures and its stories weaved into legend or forgotten. While it lived, it battled dust storms, outlaws and ranch wars. It was home to settlers of every colour and somehow managed to avoid the racial unpleasantries that affected so many communities in the Territory, as it was known in those days. Most of all, it was home to outcasts, pulled together by circumstances to be better.
The town was called Four Corners.
Buck had set down here once before and felt struck by a sense of deja vu although, for the life of him, he did not know why. In any case, it always stayed with him, that this town with its boarded-up buildings, dust-covered boardwalks and tumbleweeds rolling down the main streets like its final citizens, had once been something important.
When Chris had demanded they get in the air as soon as he got clearance to take off, he decided Four Corners would be the temporary refuge they needed. Buck was still rather surprised they managed to do it, considering how busy the airstrip was that morning. The flight took less than an hour and he put down in the main street of the town, flanked by rickety and dilapidated buildings on either side. Still, they were assured of cover from anyone who might spot them from the air, or on the ground. The freeway was some distance away from the place but Buck saw no reason to take chances.
“Where the hell is this Buck?” Chris had to ask as he peered through the window into the dust blown scene outside.
“Town called Four Corners,” the pilot explained as he emerged from the cockpit. “Got engine trouble a few years ago and had to put down here. I was flying this old O2U and I had a loose fuel line. I knew I wouldn’t make it to an airstrip to fix it so I searched for someplace to land and came across this place.”
“Charming,” Ezra remarked peering out through the window. “Mr Wilmington, I hope you treat your paramours much better than this when you take them out.”
“Ezra,” Buck tossed him a smirk as he walked by, “my women don’t care where I take them, as long as I just take them.”
“Oh God,” Alex uttered in disgust. “Who are these women who date you?”
“He finds them at the local Five and Dime,” Vin quipped, from the seat next to her.
“Well we all can’t hang out on rooftops like you, kid,” Buck smirked, giving Alex a playful wink. The duo had developed an interesting friendship since Alex had been forced to treat him after they rescued her from the Erran.
“It’s a good spot,” Nathan complimented standing up. “No one around for miles and we can figure out what we do next without those crazy bastards chasing us down like dogs.”
“Exactly,” Chris agreed. “Thanks to JD, we’ve finally got a chance to get ahead of them.” He gave JD a smile as the young man exited the cockpit. For the last three months, Buck had been teaching JD how to pilot the Darlin’ Millie. Thanks to JD’s amazing memory, he learned remarkably fast and while not capable of flying on his own yet, retained enough to occupy the co-pilot’s seat.
“What are you planning Chris?” Josiah asked as the big man stepped out into the aisle between the row of seats.
“We have all the pieces,” Chris answered, having decided on a course of action the instant he learned JD had brought them the remaining Pillars and the Heart. “I say we find the Tablet ourselves and destroy it.”
“Destroy it?” Mary stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I agree,” Orin said surprising them all by his agreement with Chris’s extreme solution. From the beginning of this entire affair, the scholar had been the one most resistant to any harm coming to the artefacts. However, with the bodies piling up and the lengths the Erran were willing to go, to reach their goals, to say nothing of the danger to Mary and Alex, he had reason to reconsider his point of view. “Destroy it.”
“Dad...”
“Mary,” Orin stood up as the gust of wind penetrated the inside of the fuselage after Buck had unlocked the main door of the craft. The cool air from the upper altitudes was immediately replaced by the warmth of the New Mexico sun. “I have spent fifty years hiding from the Erran, watching my best friends die, one after the other. The Erran have shown they’re willing to kill anyone to get what they want, from innocent bystanders to the people I care about.”
The Professor glanced at the faces around him before facing her again.
“This ritual of theirs will almost certainly need you or Alex to complete. I’m not risking any more lives on some high-minded principle about historical preservation. Without the Tablet, they can’t perform their ritual. It’s that simple.”
“Mary,” Alex added her voice to it because one of the Pillars was hers by birthright. “I want it destroyed too.”
To Alex, the Tablet had always been a ghost story, a curiosity to occupy her father’s time when he wasn’t being a father to her or a doctor to his patients. Now she understood why it had preoccupied his mind so much and what had driven him to keep secrets from her when their relationship had always been an open book. While she understood his desire for secrecy, she hated being shut out from the truth, especially since her existence depended on knowing the danger lurking in wait for her.
“They took my father from me, Mary,” her eyes became as hard as flint. “Even if I don’t believe the Tablet is capable of doing what they believe it can do, I want it destroyed so they never get a chance to try. I want them to live whatever is left of their miserable existence knowing the one thing they’ve been waiting to do for centuries, is beyond their reach. I want them to live with their failure.”
Vin squeezed her hand and she looked down at him, feeling a little ashamed at the hatred that suddenly surfaced in her heart at what the Erran had taken from her, but not enough to feel regret.
“Alright then,” Chris said exchanging glances with Vin and his men, deciding no further discussion needed to be made on the matter. “We’ll get to the Tablet first and then we destroy it.’
*****
The saloon like the rest of the town had been abandoned long ago.
It was covered in a thick layer of dust, with cobwebs hanging suspended from the wagon wheel chandelier and the corners of the room. The wallpaper, yellowed and stained clung to the walls in noticeable furls, revealing wood and plaster beneath. What pictures still remained hanging on the wall, were crooked, their frames split or broken or their glass face shattered and cracked. There were still a few intact tables and chairs left, in equally poor conditioned and the bar of chipped and faded wood, offered a half-hearted welcome to travellers that would never come.
“Interesting place,” Ezra said scanning the room with its broken shelves, empty bottles and filth covered glasses. He imagined this establishment sixty years ago, full of cowboys, gamblers, saloon girls and outlaws, with the piano with its missing keys, sitting in the corner, playing clunky music to undemanding patrons.
“Yeah,” Buck nodded looking around the place with similar interest, once again swept with an odd feeling of nostalgia. “Must have been a hell of a joint once upon a time.”
“Must have been,” Josiah agreed, finding a seat next to one of the dirt covered windows, so he could keep an eye on the street.
“I’m going upstairs. I want to keep an eye on the area, just in case.” Vin indicated the rickety steps leading to the upper floor of the building. He was carrying his Tommy gun with spare cartridges and his rifle. Even if Buck’s choice of hiding place was inspired, Vin wasn’t about to let his guard down. Too many times, the Erran had caught them off guard and considering what they were about to do, he wasn’t taking any chances in the unlikely event they were discovered.
“I’ll join you, Mr Tanner,” Ezra offered, interested in seeing the rest of the place while at the same time offering the sharpshooter some backup. There were some situations Ezra was happy to take a gamble, but the possibility the Erran may appear unexpectedly was not one of them. “After our dealings with these fanatics, I am inclined not to underestimate their resourcefulness.”
“Nathan, why don’t you and me take a walk around town, just in case,” Buck suggested, glancing through the swing doors into the street outside.
Mary approached the dusty felt covered table surrounded by Chris, Alex, Orin and JD. Lying against the table, were the Four Pillars and the Heart of Enki, together for the first time in four thousand years. She thought of the Erran, who had been waiting just as long to be able to complete the task they were about to undertake and imagined the fury of the cultist at being usurped by the people in this building.
“So how does it work?” Mary asked Chris, unable to deny the depths of the man fascinated her. While he was undoubtedly a chauvinistic ass, he revealed surprising depths in being able to navigate the ancient world without formal qualifications, using nothing but instinct and research. At the moment, he was leaning across the table, slicing up candles with a pocket knife, after marking the stems with a ruler.
“Well according to the notes JD took before Doctor Styles’s library went up,” Chris said meeting Alex’s eyes to see the lady’s lips turn into a slight pout at the mention of the destruction, before continuing what he was doing again. “The Pillars have to be inserted into their slots in the Heart.”
“And the candles?” Orin asked, similarly fascinated. While he knew about the legends surrounding the artefacts, the specifics about how the Pillars and the Heart went together eluded him.
“Well according to the texts, I managed to transcribe,” JD explained. “When the Pillar is open the Heart will come alive with the Four Fires of Creation and reveal where the Tablet’s final resting place is.”
“And that translates into candles?” Alex asked sceptically. Of everyone here, she had the greatest difficulty believing in all this superstition. While she accepted in the mania that caused the Erran to behave the way they did, her understanding of the world was steeped in the sciences. She knew her father worried about the threat the Erran posed to her and Mary, but she could not bring herself to believe William Styles actually thought the Erran could succeed in unmaking the world.
“I think so,” Chris explained handing the candles out, now that he had finished preparing them. “We usually find that with a lot of these interpretations, it’s the most obvious explanation that fits, once you get past all the fancy riddles.”
“I’m afraid Chris is correct,” Orin agreed. “People tend to forget when they’re interpreting ancient texts, especially those ritual based, the original writers are trying to pass on information, not mask it.”
“Okay,” Chris straightened up. “We’re ready.”
Mary took a step back and watched as Chris, JD, her father and Alex, take up different corners of the table before lighting a candle with the silver lighter Chris handed them. One by one, they allowed the wick to burn a little, melting enough wax to let a drop spill onto the table so they could secure the candle in the space in front of them. From where he was playing sentry, Josiah watched with interest, even though his eyes darted every now and then to the window to ensure no one was coming.
“You first Sir,” Chris gestured to Orin.
Orin studied the Heart lying against the table with four slots for each Pillar, awaiting insertion. The old man swallowed, scanning the three faces around him and Chris knew, without having to hear Orin say it, he was morning the absence of the friends who should have been here to fulfil his ritual with him. Thinking of the six men who were such a big part of his life, Chris couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be the last one of them still standing.
Orin slid the ornate tip of the Pillar towards the slot and to no one’s surprise, it fit perfectly with a soft click, almost as if it had been oiled recently for the purpose. Perhaps the Erran had made some effort to prepare it when the Heart was in their possession. It did not matter, the Pillar hit into the Heart, finally achieving the purpose for which it was created when civilisation was new and the world was young.
Straightening up when it was done, he turned to Alex and nodded. As William’s daughter, the Pillar was his legacy to her, for all its perils and history. The soon to be doctor did not speak but like Orin, Chris saw her brown eyes fill with sadness and wished Vin was here to offer her comfort. Although it was only a few days since he met her, Chris liked the girl and like how happy she made his best friend. Nevertheless, despite her sadness at her father’s absence at this moment, Alex performed the task, sliding the Pillar William Styles had taken such great pains to hide, into the slot waiting for it in the Heart.
Once that audible click was heard, Chris knew it was his turn.
He thought of Hank Conley and supposed if there was some consolation to be had in all this, Sarah was out of the Erran’s reach forever. Faith was not something he subscribed to but Chris had to believe she and Adam were someplace better. If she were here, he knew she would want him to stand for Hank Conley, no matter how acrimonious their relationship had become. In some ways, he weathered the loss of his wife and child a great deal better than Hank, who had apparently deconstructed in his absence. Learning how Hank had died made Chris wish he had reached out to the man and perhaps help him through his grief. But it was too late now. The man was gone, like his daughter and grandson and all Chris could do was play his part in this ritual.
Upon sliding the third Pillar into the slot, Chris raised his eyes to JD who would play proxy for Donald Avery, the first to be killed by the Erran and the only one whose family was unaccounted for. He wondered if Avery’s wife had recognised the danger her daughter was in and chose to disappear into the ether to avoid the doom that Mary and Alex now faced. Chris supposed they would never know. If all went well, the Erran would never have a reason to seek Donald Avery’s daughter out. JD leaned forward and slid the Pillar into place.
As the last click was heard, the Heart suddenly spun around once, as if the insertion of the four Pillars had set into motion a mechanism inside the object. As it spun, it gleamed against the flicker of candlelight. Then with a soft whirr of ancient gear being forced into movement, the Heart opened wide, like the petals of a flower, in four equal segments. As it did so, simultaneous clicks were heard from each one of the Pillars and the cryptex splayed open, spreading out a length of parchment no more than a foot long, each with markings of charcoal and oil.
Taking place so quickly, no one in the room had time to do anything but stare in awe as the Heart finally carried out the task for which it was created. As the golden petals opened, it revealed a piece of amber cut like a jewel. No sooner than the honey-coloured stone appeared before them, it was hoisted upwards on a small length of metal, extending like a collapsible spyglass. The gem was lifted no higher than the length of the candles surrounding the Heart but it was enough.
The amber caught the glow of all four candles and produced a small beam of light that rested on one of the parchments as if it were a finger pointing all eyes to the destination it wished to reveal.
“Oh my God,” Orin exclaimed, realising what the markings on the newly exposed parchments were.
“What is it dad?” Mary asked, gripped by what she was seeing.
“It’s a map,” Orin declared, leaning over the parchment in front of him.
“They’re all pieces of one map,” Chris added, making a further observation. “JD, take note of where the light is pointing to. That’s where the Tablet is.”
“Right Chris,” JD nodded, his photographic memory already committing the image to his mind, however, he still marked it on the parchment with a pencil. X marks the spot, he thought absurdly.
“Can we tell where it is?” Alex asked, feeling completely out of her depth. Her expertise was in the biological sciences, not the histories.
Chris was already scanning the different pieces of the map, trying to see if he recognised anything familiar. From a historical point of view, he suspected it was somewhere in Asia Minor, but they would need to piece it together to know definitively where it was. “I’m guessing it would be somewhere in the Middle East, depending on how far the ancient Erran managed to travel.”
“Agreed,” Orin nodded. “I doubt they would take the Heart outside the boundaries of the Sasanid Empire, but that’s still a considerable area. Their empire stretched from Ephesus to India.”
“Large area to pinpoint,” Josiah rumbled from where he was.
Chris did not respond; his steely gaze was fixed on the pieces. Once JD had marked the spot on the parchment extending from Alex’s Pillar, the leader of the seven quickly collected them and took them away from the table.
“What are you doing?” Mary asked, following his progress to where Josiah was seated.
“I need the light,” Chris answered, not looking at the others. “Josiah, see if you can’t clean that window. The charcoal they used for ink back in the day is pretty faint. I need to see this clearly.”
“You recognise where it is Mr Larabee?” Mary asked.
As Josiah wiped down the window with his handkerchief, removing years of dirt in a matter of seconds, more light poured against the table where Chris had spread out the parchments. Dust danced like embers in the light as the illumination gave him the clarity he needed. As they surrounded him, careful not to crowd in and cast shadows, Chris studied the markings on each piece of parchment. He always had an eye for ancient maps and before JD came along, relied upon this skill to find the artefacts Orin sent them to hunt.
“I think so,” Chris said not looking up, manipulating each parchment as he started to see the larger picture, sliding it gently across the old wooden table, to avoid damaging any of them. “This here,” he gestured to what might have been a lake. “I think that’s Lake Hammar, which is about 400 miles from the Persian Gulf.”
JD came over to Chris and leaned over the man’s shoulder. “You’re right. It is.” The young scholar exchanged a look with the Professor, both impressed by Chris’s ability to see what they couldn’t.
“If that’s Lake Hammar, then the Cradle, when the Table is being kept,” he indicate the pencil mark he had made, “is Eridu.”
“Eridu?” Alex asked, “Where is that?”
“Southern Mesopotamia,” Orin explained. “That actually makes sense, Eridu is considered to be the oldest city in the world and its only seven miles from Ur, where we found the Pillars fifty years ago. It also supposed to be the city founded by Enki, the Sumerian supreme deity.”
“So, we’re going to Persia?” Mary was smiling, already delighted by the idea of going to an ancient city.
“It isn’t simply a matter of going to the city,” JD told her, remembering how he had managed to trick the Shah into showing him the location of the Pillars and the Heart in the Erran leader’s possession.
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, wondering what other turns this whole escapade was going to take next.
“Before your dad’s library got burned up, I had a look at some of his research. He had texts that aren’t even in our university, Professor Travis.”
Orin nodded in understanding. “It became Will’s obsession. I think once he learned about the ritual to raise Tiamat, to unlock the power of the tablet, he was obsessed. He used the fortune we brought back from Ur to track down everything he could about the Tablet.”
“One of those was an Akkadian translation of the Ninurta and the Turtle, it’s a poem chronicling the legend of Enki. Anyway, in this poem, it lists these trials that have to be overcome before anyone can get their hands on the Tablet in the Cradle.”
“Trials?” Mary didn’t like the sound of this. “You mean....”
“Probably traps,” Chris finished off.
Alex groaned. “Oh, I just know I’m going to get dirty again.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
ERIDU
“When kingship from heaven was lowered, the kingship was in Eridu.”
It was a humbling thing for Chris Larabee to know these words were spoken about a city built seven thousand years ago. Eridu was the first city of the world, the jewel of the first human empire. Here, it was claimed the god Enki had done battle with Tiamat, cleaving her body in half to create the great river Tigris and the clouds in the skies above. Even if the desert had claimed Eridu for its own, the power of what she once was, remained in every grain of sand covering the place where she stood.
The Tigris no longer ran across the land before him. Time, changing weather patterns and harsh desert winds had shifted the path of the great river, leaving behind dry river beds and baked earth, where there was once water and loamy soil. The land once capable of sustaining everything from wheat and barley to garlic and dates, was now empty desert and the verdant fields where goats, oxen and sheep once roamed had withered away, leaving behind the hardier desert creatures like the spider, scorpion and snake.
Ahead of them, perched on top of a hill, looking nothing like a majestic city of ancient times, Eridu waited. What remained of the impressive temple ziggurat, once surrounded by small buildings covering almost the entire plain, was a nub worn down by time and erosion. Only faint edges of the construction could be seen, the geometric shapes blunted by history. I
It had taken them the better part of a week on the Darlin’ Millie to circumnavigate the globe and find themselves here at last, at the foot of Eridu, located in what was now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Once Chris had determined the location of the city where the Tablet was found, they left Four Corners immediately, refusing to linger in the event the Erran was able to trace their location.
After the cult’s amazing ability to ferret out their hiding places, Chris was taking no chances. Not only were the Pillars in their possession, but they now knew the location of the city. The leader of the Seven had no doubt, the Erran would kill them all for usurping their holy crusade from right under them. Buck mapped out a route that would take them a little longer to reach the Middle East but would be obscure enough to ensure even the Erran would be left scratching their heads at the Millie’s fight plan.
Instead of heading to the East Coast, Buck had instead chosen to fly north, leaving the North American continent via Canada and the Hudson. Crossing the freezing waters of the Labrador Sea, they set down briefly in Greenland before continuing onto Europe through Norway and the Ukraine, before finally descending over the Black Sea into Turkey and finally Riyadh. The journey had been exhausting even with the brief intervals of freedom when the Millie needed refuelling.
They landed in Riyadh in a private airfield recommended by one of the Professor’s contacts in the city. Before Orin Travis enlisted the seven to procure his antiquities, the scholar had travelled widely across the Middle East, forging friendships with his peers in the antiquities world. Orin assured them the Millie’s entry in the Kingdom of Saudi was entirely anonymous.
It was just as well because the politics of the region made Chris wish to conduct their business and depart as soon as possible. A short three years ago, the House of Saud had unified the country and its prosperity was evident in the urban sprawl Chris saw when they were flying above the city. Still, it was an uncertain place for foreigners, who not too long ago, had exploited the country and its people. Furthermore, he was painfully aware of how easily the Erran could hide in the crowds, now that they were in their native regions.
During the journey, Mary revealed what she knew of the Erran, beyond what they had discussed about the cult itself. Her investigations had revealed a vast network of operatives, not all warriors like the ones the seven had been encountering since the museum. The fanatics had infiltrated branches of governments and had a supply of paid informants that could easily give them away if they were not careful.
Thus, when formulating the plan to reach Eridu, Chris had opted for an unconventional approach. While it would have been expedient to simply race across the desert to reach their destination like tourists, Chris had a feeling if the Erran’s reach was as vast as Mary indicated, then chances were likely they had agents in most of the cities across the Middle East. He had no desire to give themselves away by using familiar methods of travel to reach the city.
Instead, they’d surrendered the creature comforts of cars and with the aid of one of the Professor’s acquaintances, had set out from Riyadh in the dead of night, on camels, wearing native dress and looking like just another local caravan journeying across the desert. As usual, Ezra Standish had little difficulty procuring what they needed, even though he was none too happy at being forced to travel this way, even if it was for the best of reasons.
“Mr Larabee,” Ezra grumbled as he shifted in his saddle, still trying to wrap his mind how the Bedouins could stay on the infernal creatures for hours on end without suffering permanent back injury. “I wish it known that as former men of the cavalry, this method of transport is completely undignified.”
Offended by the remark, the camel Ezra was riding promptly spat on the desert floor.
“You stay out of this!” Ezra snapped, giving the creature a dark look.
“You’re just pissy because you have to hide your Abercrombie and Fitch under all those robes.” Nathan teased, finding it highly amusing to see Ezra struggling to control the beast beneath him. Like all cavalry men, Ezra found the notion of a camel, beneath him. Nathan couldn’t claim to feeling the same attachment. During the war, he had been with the 92nd, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who were strictly foot soldiers. It was only after Chris, with Orin Travis’s pull behind him, had him transferred to K Troop, did he come into contact with the animals and even then, he was always a medic, not a rider.
“I hate you,” Ezra glared at him, “I cannot believe I consider you my best friend.”
Chris rolled his eyes and exchanged an amused look with Vin, accustomed to listening to Ezra bitch over the years. Just like it had been in the aftermath of the Oise-Aisne Offensive when Nathan had become a part of their number, the healer seemed to be the only one who knew how to diffuse Ezra’s verbal rages. When Vin dragged Nathan across the muddy trench to save Ezra’s life, it had been the start of an unlikely friendship, considering the origins of both men.
Although no one ever voiced it, Chris suspected their friendship thrived because Nathan appeared to be the only one who could tolerate Ezra’s sometimes overbearing manner, perhaps because in life, he was accustomed to people talking down to him, or regarding him as less. Since Ezra thought the same of just about everyone, colour notwithstanding, Nathan was able to give as good as he got.
Of course, unlikely friendships were what the seven was about, Chris thought as he faced front again. Vin Tanner was a scrawny child when Chris met him, wearing a uniform all too big for him, looking terrified because his plan of joining the army to flee the orphanage had not prepared him for the utter carnage of the Western Front. The recruiter had thought him to be at least twelve, but he was just past ten. Chris had almost sent him back until he realised Vin’s situation would not be improved and a part of him knew even then, Vin’s place was at his side.
At the moment, the sharpshooter was riding a double saddle on the camel, dressed in flowing white robes that revealed his cobalt coloured eyes, while behind him, Alex Styles had her arms wrapped around his waist, looking like any young native couple. Like the rest of them, Alex was forced to adopt the traditional costume of a female Bedouin, with light coloured fabrics that covered her hair and body, with a thin veil across her face. It was a testament to the lady, she still managed to look lovely in such exaggerated clothing.
“Is he always like this?” Mary asked as she was seated behind him in the double saddle, her arm wrapped around his body, as they saw Eridu approach, resembling a man-made plateau, perched on a hill. Like Alex, she was dressed like a local, although Chris thought the veil made her blue grey eyes stand out even more.
“Yeah,” he drawled after a moment. “You should have heard him when we were in India, having to ride elephants.”
“Elephants?” Mary glanced at the gambler who was having a heated discussion with the dromedary ferrying him across the desert, about the proper conduct of a steed, which had little to do with the ejection of bodily fluids wherever one pleased. The idea of the pernickety gambler seated on a howdah made Mary smile.
“Oh yeah,” Chris grinned. “I usually leave him to Nate, who’ll either shut him up or shoot him, whichever comes first.”
Mary uttered a short laugh and Chris had to admit, when she wasn’t being a pain in the ass, it was quite a nice one and made her look radiant.
Despite himself, he liked how it felt having her ride double with him, even though Chris told himself it was because he wanted to keep an eye on the woman. The way she tended to stick her fingers in everything, she’d probably violate some local custom which would end up getting herself thrown in to a Saudi jail. Best he kept her close so that he could save her from herself.
Yeah right, an inner voice snorted with derision.
******
From a distance, Eridu looked like a moderately sized hill with a few terraced steps running the length of one slope. No more than thirty feet high, it was obvious in its day, the base of the hill supported a higher structure now vanished thanks to time and the harsh desert winds. Indeed, one could see what remained of the baked brick wall that made up its foundations. Where there might have been a stone path leading to the main entrance of the structure, there was only a gradual ramp of broken stone and gravel leading to the peak.
From what Chris, JD and Orin learned during their journey across the globe, having reviewed what texts they were able to acquire regarding the city, the unimpressive and somewhat denuded hill was once 18 levels deep beneath the ground. Chris was convinced if the Tablet was here, it would most likely be kept at the lowest level of the building where the original temple was constructed in the earliest days of its existence. Over time, the Sumerians would build more floor above it but if this city was where the god Enki had begun, then it stood to reason the Tablet would be placed there.
Buck Wilmington stared across the parched, desert landscape surrounding Eridu and saw nothing but emptiness and yet his gut told him, just like it had told Chris when Chris, Vin, JD, the women and the Professor headed into the ruined city, the Erran would be coming. Even though they had taken every precaution to ensure otherwise, Buck just knew that the sons of bitches would ferret them out.
This part of the world was their home. Their religion had probably risen from the sands of this very desert. Back in the States, they were limited to how many men they could bring into the country without raising too much notice. But here, there was no telling how large the cult was and their singular purpose for being had been stolen away by infidels who were intending to claim the Tablet for their own. Of course, they were coming.
The question was how many there would be when the axe descended.
Across the eroded plateau of the city, he saw the others getting ready for a fight. Josiah was stretched across the ground, checking the sight on the sniper rifle he had poised on its tripod, ready to take out long distance targets when they presented themselves. Next to him was a FN M2HB machine gun, with enough ammunition to take out a small army, which Buck hoped wasn’t what they were facing. Buck himself wish he was in the air, being able to offer air support but the Millie wasn’t made for that kind of combat.
Buck was cradling his own Breda 30 light machine gun, his shoulders heavy with the ammunition belt of additional rounds and noted Nathan setting up a space behind one of the few walls still standing, with his first aid equipment. While Nathan was good in a fight like all of them, with him it was always keeping them alive that commanded his attention first. Then again, hadn’t it been that way during the war. It saddened Buck that Nathan never got a chance to be a real doctor because the man would have been a damn fine one.
“Mr Wilmington, I have a confession to make.”
Buck shot Ezra a look. “We ain’t dying up here Ez, you don’t need to make any confession.”
Ezra returned Buck’s look with one that was equally withering. “If I felt the need to make that kind of confession, you would not be the person to whom I would seek absolution. I am needing a second opinion and Mr Jackson is preoccupied at the moment.”
“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a bunch, what do you want to get off your chest?”
Suppressing the urge to call the man an idiot, Ezra spoke up. “I was considering buying Paloma’s.”
Buck stared at Ezra in surprise. “No kidding. You got that kind of money lying around?”
“Mr Wilmington, did you forget what I did for a living prior to our current situation?” Ezra asked, a little offended by the assumption he would make such a suggestion without the capital to make it happen.
“Yeah,” Buck nodded and then added with a smirk. “I also recall Chris having to bail you out of jail because you lost your shirt in the crash.”
“Do not remind me,” Ezra grumbled, remembering the humiliation of that entire period. He’d been good at stock broking but the truth was, no one could have seen the catastrophe coming. Maude perhaps, but then he hadn’t spoken to her in years at that point, so she wouldn’t have been able to warn him, even if she had the foresight. “As a matter of fact, I have been making good investments from our earnings and you recall Roberto had some difficulty in ‘32?”
Buck did remember. The man was on the verge of losing the place. Fortunately, at the eleventh hour, their favourite watering hole had been saved by a secret investort. Suddenly, Buck realised what Ezra was implying.
“You?” His tone was almost an accusation.
“Yes, I own forty-nine percent of the establishment,” Ezra shrugged. “I had no desire to see the place meet its demise, so Roberto and I came to an agreement. I would be a silent partner and he would continue to run the place as normal.”
“So, what happens now he’s gone?” Buck asked, uncertain if he liked the idea of Ezra having a stake in Paloma’s but supposed it couldn’t be any worse than having some stranger come who would come in and try to change everything around. Besides Ezra had been content to let Roberto run things without interference so Ezra might continue to do the same, if he owned the place outright.
“I was considering buying the place outright from his heirs.” Ezra explained.
“Does he have any family?” Buck couldn’t recall Roberto ever mentioning anyone. Of course, Roberto had been a quiet sort, much in the way Josiah and Chris were, keeping things pretty close to the chest.
“I do believe so,” Ezra nodded. “I am hoping I can convince her to sell me her share in the business when this affair is done.”
“Her?” Buck’s baser instinct kicked in.
“Yes,” Ezra rolled his eyes, unsurprised by the reaction. “A daughter. I think her name is Inez.”
*****
If the mound they had entered to find the Pillar belonging to William Styles was ancient, then this place felt positively biblical. As they slipped through the triangular shape doorway leading into the top most level of the structure, they were confronted by pitch black darkness. Once again, they came prepared and torches lit the way down the slowly descending staircase of hard brick, covered with dust and sand. There was enough wind to reach down the throat of the stairwell, ensuring what cobwebs there were, did not remain long enough to become overwhelming.
By the time they penetrated two levels of the construct, punctuated by smaller chambers that were either newer altar rooms or additional priestly chambers, the arid winds had slowed into stale, musty air. The cobwebs regrouping without the assault of strong air currents began to create a canopy of dust over their heads as they moved along. Naturally neither Mary nor Alex were too fond of this situation after their previous experience in the mound. In truth Chris would have preferred both women were kept far away from the Tablet, considering their role in the ritual of uncreation. However, the risk they might be abducted by the Erran was one Chris or Vin for that matter, was unwilling to take.
“So, what are these trials we have to face Mr Dunne?” Mary asked, trying to distract herself as she brushed away another strand of cobweb from her face. Even though Mary was braver than most women, she did not much like the skittering sounds she could hear in the darkness.
“Oh, you can call me JD, ma’am,” JD said politely, feeling uncomfortable at being addressed so formally.
“Alright JD,” she flashed him a little smile through the light of the torch she was carrying.
“Yeah come on JD,” Vin urged, noticing how Alex was clinging to him every time something scurried along the ground, he just knew had more than four legs. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
The Professor laughed shortly. “Go on young man, your audience awaits.”
Despite the situation, Orin Travis was exceedingly pleased with how well JD fitted into Chris Larabee’s team. When he first recommended the boy take up the position of linguist, it was because he had no wish to see a brilliant mind go to waste, simply because of Mariette Nichol’s desire for vengeance. Peter, who had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth, had sorely deserved the trashing he got and if Orin could have pinned a medal on JD for it, he would have. The best Orin had been able to do was give JD an alternative, but it appeared he’d given the boy something infinitely better.
He’d given JD a family.
“Well the translation I got from Akkadian texts says ‘Only the worthy, those who have been touched by Enki, close in heart to his spirit may breach the mid realms between creation and entropy. And he who walks through this nightmare realm, with pearls of wisdom granted to the first man, may escape the stark horror of Tiamat’s mad children to claim the Tablet of Destiny.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Vin had to ask. t was Chris, JD and the Professor who were the experts. His entire purpose on this expedition was to keep everyone safe and watch their backs. Of course, he was also greatly motivated by his feelings for Alex but he had more faith in the weapons he carried than the clues provided by ancient riddles.
“Well the mid realms sound like what existed before the Ea, where the world was neither tangible but not completely air either.” Orin explained. “A plane of existence before the gods got together to make the world.”
“And we have to walk through it?” Alex was still having trouble wrapping her mind around all this. To her it sounded like superstitious nonsense and she couldn’t believe how much effort had gone into the belief of such a fable.
“I don’t like this business of a nightmare realm,” Mary said unhappily. “That sounded most ominous.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Chris replied, concerned about the quality of air the further they descended into the tomblike structure. They could see the eroded inscriptions on the walls, records of days from a time so far back in history, it was hard to imagine it was able to survive into the present. “I’m pretty sure, whoever decided to hide the Tablet here, wanted to make sure it didn’t fall into wrong hands, so everyone keep your eyes open.”
“Chris, I’m concerned about these torches,” Alex spoke up as they continued moving through the dark. The smell of something acrid and sickly sweet was growing gradually stronger in her nostrils and Alex really had no wish to know what it was, however the healer she was couldn’t help but try to identify it. In the process of the attempt however, Alex reached a rather unpleasant observation. “We don’t know how much air is down here. The further we go, the thinner it might get. The torches are going to burn it up a lot faster.”
“Darlin, it ain’t wise to go wandering around here in the dark,” Vin pointed out even though he understood what she was saying.
“She’s right though,” Chris had to give the lady the point and he could smell something too, it was acrid but with a sharp, sweet tang that was also unsettling. “We should reduce how many torches we use. Vin, you and me will keep our torches lit, everyone else put it out. Between the two of us, that should be enough light.”
“If something crawls into my hair, I blame you.” Mary shot Alex a look.
“Don’t even joke about something like that.” The healer grumbled as they entered another chamber, this one occupied with two stone columns, with cuneiform engravings that were barely readable, thanks to erosion and time.
“Don’t worry Mary,” Chris couldn’t help but tease. “If something crawls on you, It will probably bite you long before you can worry about it getting into your hair.”
And as it was whenever Chris Larabee chose to throw down a gauntlet at Fate, she chose to answer with spectacular results. The first of the hand-sized scorpions, chose that moment to crawl into the glow of the torches, their black gleaming bodies heading toward the intruders in a swarm.