Sunrise on the Mediterranean (73 page)

“There is one thing,
chérie
,” he whispered to his unconscious bride. “One way to save you, if God shows His mercy.” He gathered her in his arms and ran
to the edge of the outer wall, then up the walkway, up the hill, up the plateau, ever leading up. To God.

Fabric walls shielded the space, and a gold-encrusted tabernacle graced the center of the flat-topped hill. Priests must be
close by, but Cheftu knew the grounds better than they. A wooden trapdoor concealed an entrance to the tunnels beneath the
Temple Mount, but Cheftu found it. Opened it and stepped down inside with Chloe.

It slammed shut above him.

Sealing him inside the catacombs.

Pain stabbed at his body, but he ignored it. Engorged blisters on his arms and legs, what felt like deafness in the cool silence
of this cavern, were nothing to him. “It’s been so long since we’ve been here,
chérie
,” he said to her. Years since they had chosen to stay in this place, to make Jerusalem home. A mistake, he knew now. Cheftu
swallowed painfully. Thank God she still breathed. Raspy, but alive.

He adjusted her head on his shoulder to straighten her neck. Cheftu leaned against a smooth-carved wall, waiting for his eyes
to adjust to the night all around him. “I don’t remember where the chamber is,” he said. He began to discern the shadows of
archways and passages. “But we can find it.”

For hours he walked, looking into every room, following the warren of walkways ending back on himself again and again. The
wound on her head had scabbed over, but all the other wounds had gotten worse. He’d never felt so helpless, so powerless.
It was divine will, what happened next.

She hadn’t murmured; it hurt him to speak. Blinded by the sweat of his efforts, he sagged against the wall.
“Bon Dieu,”
he whispered.

When he opened his eyes later, the halls were filled with a faint blue glow. It bounced off the limestone walls until the
whole space looked as though it were submerged in tropical, paradisical waters.

Cheftu staggered to his feet and picked up Chloe. Heart pounding, he searched for the source of light. “We found it,
chérie.
”

The archway glowed, a familiar fire. Safe. A healing flame. He laid Chloe’s body beneath it. She still inhaled and exhaled,
but barely.

“I know it is not the correct time,” he whispered to the One he believed listened. “You have set times and appointments in
place, and abide by them.” He looked into the face of his beloved wife. She must have hit her head, fallen, and somehow started
the fire. With her as its fodder. A terrible accident; a slap from the hand of fate.

“I don’t ask special compensation because I think I am a good man. I ask because I know you are a good God. You love this
woman far more than I, in mortal flesh, can.” He looked at her body. Ruined. “She still has so much to give. Let her live,
let her find purpose.” His voice broke. “Let her know matchless love.”

Nothing happened. “Give her another chance. Give her life.”

The blue light of the chamber continued to flicker, glittering along the sides of the true Ark of the Covenant— hidden there
to protect the people from its terrifying power—the curved ceilings of limestone, but there was no roar of wind, no mighty
thundering voice. Cheftu spun when he heard the scamper of claws. A rat watched him inquisitively, upright on its hind legs,
the reflection in its glassy eyes, blue.

Chloe’s breath caught.

It stopped.

Cheftu watched her, waited, his hand on her ravaged chest. It didn’t move. He closed his eyes, his head bowed. Almost of their
own volition, his lips moved. “Thy will be done.”

It seemed his heart should stop also, but it plodded on for moments and minutes and quarters and halves and an hour. He remembered
the first time he’d seen her, green eyes flashing with excitement and life. Chloe, named for the freshness of a green field.
How vibrant she was, springtime every day. Even in the past years when sorrow had licked away at her until he feared there
would be nothing left.

No child, no family, no career, no passion.

I’m so sorry
, he thought.
I lost focus. Each day your eyes were rimmed with red from weeping was a day I knew I had failed you. I couldn’t get you pregnant,
I couldn’t get you a career, I couldn’t get you to be happy. Then I stopped trying. Forgive me. I wasted our days.
Inside him, he felt a crack, a gap inside, and he knew that nothing mattered anymore. Chloe was gone; he would stay here
until he was gone, too.

Her chest seemed to sink.

He opened his eyes.

Before him her body was melting into clay.

He reached to close her eyes, but a green fire sprang from them. Cheftu ducked away.

The wax and dust of her flesh and the fire of her soul danced and swirled in the blue light until all that was left of Chloe
Bennett Kingsley Champollion was a scrap of bloodstained wool, a melted wedding band, and a shocked, charred, hopeful husband.