Solomon's Grave (21 page)

He reached for his burger. “Don’t tempt me.”

She touched his arm. He put down the burger and held her hand in both of his. Her eyes were clear; a deep Irish brown, bordering on hazel. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. The affection in her words—words which in any other situation might have been misconstrued as a rejection—touched his heart. He knew what she meant. She was serious, and had given him an unspoken promise. It was an agreement made years before, but it was reassuring to hear it repeated now, with their new lives.

His cell phone rang again.

In the nightmare that followed, he would look back often to this one moment in his life, the moment before he answered the call. He would see it frozen like a snapshot, play the last few seconds of normalcy over and over in his mind. Her hand in his. Before everything changed forever.

He didn’t reach for the phone, never broke eye contact with her. “I’ve got voicemail,” he said.

She playfully slapped his hands away. “You have to answer it, Nate. It’s part of your calling now—pun fully intended. I’m going to have to get used to it.”

He pulled the phone out reflexively, basking in the glow of the implied promise in her statement.

“Reverend Dinneck.”

Elizabeth whispered “
Pastor
Dinneck, you moron...”

He smirked.

“Reverend, this is Brother Armand.” Something in the man’s voice told Nathan that the call was going to be a bad one, even before the monk said, “I’m afraid I have some terrible, terrible news.”

Part Three: Solomon’s Grave

Constantinople, 1204 A.D.

Sister Danelis Raoulaina emerged from the lower-level Chapel of Saint Mark with silent, hesitant steps. Voices of men, some distant, others frighteningly close, wound their way along the corridor from every direction. For a moment it seemed as if the laughter and angry shouts, sounds of breaking glass and other unidentified objects were almost upon her, only to recede again. Even from a distance, the tenor of the voices and savagery of their inflection made the small woman shake with terror. She and her sisters had watched, briefly, what transpired in the streets outside. When the crusaders arrived, the eighteen nuns in her order had been reciting late morning prayer in the main cathedral. Before that moment, there had been blessed silence, save the penitent whispers of the nuns, the occasional click of rosary stones against the marble benches and the background clop of horses along the main square outside.

Then
they
arrived, like a tempest blown in from the sea. A storm no longer content to stop at the breakers. A heavy wave of violence, of men lost to their animalistic natures pulled forth by Satan himself.

It happened as it had in her dreams, in the Lord’s vision. The devil had come to the Church of the Twelve Apostles. Sister Danelis berated her lack of faith, for she had hoped the visions were in truth only nightmares. Still, she’d taken the steps outlined for her by the Man of Light, the one who spoke to her in the Holy visions. He instructed her how to prepare. Two months, long enough to carry out His wishes and to hope that God’s will would not have to be done.

But they came, and the evil tempest now rampaged above her in the holy cathedral. Demons, taking everything within reach of their bloody fingertips. Defiling the women of Constantinople, sparing no one, not even blessed nuns. This they had seen from the large windows above the square, but only for a moment, until the Mother Superior’s face went rigid and she instructed them to move into the catacombs. They would follow the route known as the Path of Saint Peter toward a secluded dock on the rocky shoal below the church. It was a path taught to all sisters, in the event the Turks should attempt yet another siege of the city.

This time, God forgive them all, the invading hordes were their own soldiers in Christ.

Sister Danelis had twelve novices under her direct charge. Early on she chose five from their ranks who were most suited for manual exertion. When the soldiers moved into the square, she and her sisters, led by the Holy Mother, moved as one toward the Path of Saint Peter. Danelis held back, gesturing to the five to stay at her side. After sending the remaining novices along the Path with prayers for their safety, she moved along a different corridor. They needed to reach the Chapel of Saint Mark three levels below, retrieve two objects, then follow a path she had traveled only in her dreams.

At the moment, the hallway outside the Chapel of Saint Mark was deserted. She waved her sisters to follow, then heard the footsteps. She whispered, “Back, quickly,” and joined the five horror-stricken faces as they faded into the room’s darkness. The footsteps slapped along the corridor. Danelis prayed that whoever was coming would pass by and not see their shadows cringing in the doorway.

Bishop Georgios Palaiologos ran past so quickly he had nearly rounded the far corner before Danelis could step from the room and call, “Your Eminence!”

Georgios spun at the sound of her voice and almost stumbled. His large face was bathed in sweat, his very pores bleeding with the effort of escape. She noticed that his feet were bare.

When the bishop saw who had spoken, he managed a relieved but brief smile. The expression lifted her heart. He gasped, “Oh, thank God you’re still safe. Please, Sister, leave here now.”

She took a step toward him. “Father, there is something I need to tell you.” He was the bishop, after all. Certainly they were meant to cross paths in this moment. He would help them. The heavy man clutched something against his chest, stumbling sideways as he prepared to continue along his chosen path. Surely he would not leave them here alone?

“Your Eminence, wait. We need to—”

“You need to leave now!” he interrupted. “Come this way; you can reach the Path of Saint Peter if the way is not already blocked.”

Please, God, don’t let him leave us
. “I cannot, Father! There is something we must do first!”

Bishop Georgios Palaiologos did not wait to hear. He disappeared down the corridor, calling, “Forgive me, Sister, but I must go
now
. I cannot explain. God pro—” The words faded into the distance, blending with those of the demon crusaders drawing ever closer.

She found it hard to breathe. They were alone again. Completely alone.

“Sister?” A voice behind her. Novice Rhea peered from under her pale blue habit. “Sister, what should we do?”

Danelis cursed her weakness. These were children of God. They needed her faith. They were not alone. They would
never
be so long as she followed His command.

No longer whispering, she said, “Come, this way. You have the staffs?”

Two other novices stepped forward, each holding long smooth poles before them. Danelis had ordered them carved to the angel’s specifications weeks ago and laid them in the corner of the chapel, trusting they would not be tampered with. He had promised as much. Surely if this was possible, so too would be the rest of her task.

“Follow me,” she said, careful to show only confidence in her voice. “We have much to do for the glory of the Lord.”

She grabbed a torch from its sconce outside the chapel door and turned in the direction from which the bishop had come. She did not look back to see if the others followed. The sounds of their steps and the occasional rap of the staffs along the stone walls told of their obedience. Down more flights of stairs, the way at times so narrow they were forced to travel in single file, walking nearly sideways. They did not stop. She had seen this way dozens of times in God’s vision. The further they went, the more sure she became that they would succeed.

Even so, as they reached the end of one corridor and saw what lay beside a rock-filled entrance to a chamber that had not been in any of her visions, the shock was too much. The women froze. Like the crusaders whose bones lay crushed beneath the stones spilling into the passageway, they fell prostrate before the Ark. It was tilted at an awkward angle, as if carried into the narrow hall by the very stones themselves.

Slowly, Sister Danelis raised her face. She shouted at the novices to get up, move quickly. She knew where they needed to carry it, to the end of the next passage where one last boat was waiting for them at Saint Peter’s dock. There would be no one to steer it to safety but she and her sisters. After that their lives, and the safety of their burden, would be in God’s hands.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Elizabeth watched Nate turn sideways in his chair, phone pressed against his ear. Regardless of the rift which had opened between them in the past, she never failed to marvel at how strong his convictions were. The word commonly used was “faith”, but that was just a word. He
believed
, and would follow that belief all his life. Now and then, she had considered giving herself over to the God he served, become “born again” to coin an over-used and, she guessed, often misunderstood phrase. Do it for Nate, give him some hope that she wasn’t going to burn up in the netherworld when she died. In a way, she’d considered acting as a wife might, supporting her husband in his passionate ventures.

Of course, she knew it would be the most hypocritical thing she could do. Nate had freely given himself to the Christian life. Because he believed. Her faith would be a sham, a charade. If Nate’s God wanted her to believe in him, then he would know her nature required something more tangible than words in a book or preachers crying on an altar, begging her to come forth and receive a mysterious holy spirit. Those might be extreme examples, but they were part of the nature of Nate’s world. Concrete evidence wasn’t necessary for him, outside of his own consideration for how God works. He was someone who believed—who
needed
to believe—in things in a certain a way. She was certain if God ever tried doing anything tangible like speak to him through a burning bush, Nate would have a nervous breakdown on the spot. She smirked at that image.

A burning bush, however, or a quick parting of the Wachusett Reservoir, was exactly what Elizabeth needed. She didn’t think she deserved it, nor was she asking for anything of the sort. All she wanted, right now, was Nathan Dinneck by her side. She knew this, all of it, was a mistake. Sly comments across the table tonight, pledging her love without saying anything specific. The overwhelming pull she felt for this man, after all these years, was too strong to resist. Strong enough that she’d broken up with Josh over it. Stupid reason to do so, considering Nate had been out of her life at that point, presumably forever. Now, she was glad it happened.

Maybe they’d been meant to be together, she and Nate. Or, maybe this evening together was nothing more than the work of fate. Not the three-hags-toiling-over-a-cauldron kind of fate, but simple
good fortune
. Of course, Nate would call it an act of God.

The phone call didn’t sound like it was going well. Nate was pale, looked like he was going to start crying. Not sure if she was stepping over some invisible line—he
was
doing church business, after all—she nonetheless reached over and took his hand. He did not look at her, but squeezed her hand in return and did not let go. A lone tear dropped from his eye. This definitely wasn’t good. She decided to pay more attention to the conversation.

“Thank you,” Nate whispered into the phone. “I’ll come over tonight. I’m sorry, what? OK, then. I—” He paused, closed his eyes tightly, sending more tears down his face. “I’m sorry. That’s fine. I’ll come by first thing in the morning.”

With a shaking hand he thumbed the cell phone off. Teardrops fell onto the number pad before he closed the cover. He let go of her hand and fumbled to return the phone back to his coat, apparently thought better of it and flipped it open again.

“Nate, what happened? What’s going on?”

“I have to call someone. I’m not sure. I mean, oh God....” He turned until both elbows were on the table then put down the phone and covered his face. His shoulders shook as he cried. He made no sound. Elizabeth shifted her chair sideways and put an arm awkwardly around his shoulder. She wanted to shake him, ask what had happened, but didn’t. He’d tell her. He’d certainly tell her before making any other calls. She lifted the discarded phone from the table and moved it out of his reach.

He was a minister now, the man in charge. He needed to get his emotions out with
her
first until his head was clear.

She thought all this reflexively, realizing with only a touch of irony that she was already falling into the role of Pastor’s Wife.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Nathan felt empty. When he thought he might be able to pull his hands from his face and talk rationally to Elizabeth, he pictured Reverend Hayden’s face. The quiet, almost sorrowful look when the minister had gotten into the car and been driven off three days ago. Then the wave of sorrow was too strong, too painful. He cried again. He never was one to do this loudly, even as a child. He simply shook behind his hands. The dampness of his tears fell down his face and dripped into his open collar.

He lowered his hands and sighed, long and heavy. Elizabeth’s arm, draped across his back, was more comforting in this moment than he could ever explain to her. He didn’t have to, since she squeezed him harder.

Reverend Hayden was dead.

How could such a horrible thing happen?
Why
did it happen?

“Nate?”

He wiped his face with a handkerchief from his coat pocket. He kept one handy, used for various despondent parishioners with whom he might speak. He took another deep breath, then said, “Reverend Hayden was found this evening. He’d dead.”

“What? Nate, what...” She didn’t finish, only stared wide-eyed, waiting for further explanation.

And the explanation was simply too terrible to accept.

“The police are saying, um, well, that he was murdered. Someone shot him and left him at the edge of the property.” Saying these words caused his body to seize up, assaulted by a renewed attack of shock.