by Jay Stringer
Hass pulled on the stick, angling them downward.
“Might as well try and control it,” he said, almost sounding like he wasn’t having a panic attack.
They were out of the path of the water. The western slope seemed untouched so far. So now all they had to deal with was an urgent meeting with the ground. It was coming up fast. There was a rip cord on the harness. Chase pulled it, pretty sure whatever happened next, it wasn’t designed for someone hanging on the outside of the harness. They came loose from the drone. A parachute opened out behind Hass. He wrapped his arms around Chase, tight enough that she couldn’t breathe, but that was the least of her problems.
Down.
Down.
Down.
The ground coming up.
Chase threw up on impact. She couldn’t help it. One minute she was in the air; the next second the ground had punched the contents of her stomach out of her. They rolled down a steep hill, wrapped up in the tangle of the ropes, then the chute itself. They eventually skidded to a stop, wrapped close together, pinned to each other. With some effort, Hass got his arm up to the release on the harness, which gave them a little slack. Then he pulled his knife and started cutting the ropes. Chase pulled at them, too, working the ropes loose. It took ten minutes, but soon they got out and lay panting on the ground. They were still, technically, on the mountain, low on the western slope. They could see the devastation, still see the wall of water and debris rolling out to the north, flattening everything in its path. Way up above them, the clouds seemed to have parted, getting the hell out of the way, and they could see Kibo, the unexploded volcanic cone, now completely bare of glaciers. Or anything. A completely clean rock surface.
The ground shook again. This time, the rumbling seemed to be moving more than the earth. It raced up the mountain. And then the most amazing, the most terrifying thing. The north face of Kibo started to collapse. A large gray cloud rushed out aggressively around the moving rocks, racing up to the sky.
“Holy shit,” Nash said quietly.
“There she blows.”
The cloud was billowing outward in all directions. Its shadow moved down the mountain toward them.
“Uh.” Chase climbed to her feet, unsteady against the shaking ground. “Pyroclastic cloud.”
“Death cloud,” Hass corrected. They turned and started to run. It would be a pointless gesture. There was no way to outrun that thing on foot, and when it reached them, they would be turned to dust, or encased in it, like the people of Pompeii.
Chase saw it first. Off to their left, coming around from the west, was a helicopter. Some idiot was gunning straight for them, ignoring the onrushing cloud. Chase and Hass continued to run, putting distance between them and death, as the chopper drew near. A ladder unfurled from the helicopter, and the machine slowed just long enough to make sure they both had a foot on the bottom rung before picking up speed again.
Neither of them had the strength to climb. They just hung on to the bottom and each other and watched the eruption and the fearsome cloud that was trying to reach them. And then, just like that, they were clear. The cloud had slowed, seemingly more focused on rising and scattering ash in its wake. In the far distance, through the dust and the clouds, they could see a red glow.
The chopper kept going for another ten minutes, eventually coming to a stop and giving Chase and Hass time to drop off and run clear of the blades before coming down to land. Chase was on all fours, shaking with every wave of emotion that she’d experienced in the past hour.
Hass got to his feet to embrace the woman who ran toward them from the chopper, wearing some kind of official uniform and a very pissed-off expression.
Freema Nkya held on to Hass for a long time, whispering and crying. Eventually, she pushed him away to address both of them.
“I told you not to go to Kilimanjaro.”
Chase rocked back on her haunches. Smiled, shook her head, and tried to speak. It took two goes before her voice wanted to work.
“Your girlfriend really is a babe.”
FORTY
Chase waited at the back of the synagogue as everyone filed out. This was all still new to her. Her childhood memories filled in some blanks and she followed the lead of the people in front for everything else.
This was the third sabbath since coming down off the mountain. The first had been at a synagogue in Addis Ababa, where she’d spent a few days being debriefed by a United Nations task force. She’d been made to sign a load of paperwork before spending some time relaxing with Hass and getting to know Freema better. The two of them seemed closer since the incident. They looked like they might finally try a real relationship, whatever that was, and Chase was determined to be part of their family.
Freema had explained that the eruption went as well as possible. It was being recorded as a high four on the Eruption Index, roughly the same as Mount St. Helens. All things considered, that was good. Part of the north face of the Kibo cone had collapsed, and there was still an active, and very dangerous, lava lake on the north side of the mountain. Ash and debris had fallen for two thousand miles in all directions. It would be some time before it was safe to measure, but experts were guessing Kili had lost two thousand feet off its peak. Still, though it was going to be close, they thought Kili was still the highest peak in Africa, beating out Mount Kenya by a few hundred feet.
A few towns and villages had been completely wiped out, including Tarakea, where Chase and Hass had spent the night before their ascent. But the evacuation had gone almost perfectly. Chase heard word through Conte that Steve was fine. There was rebuilding to do, but Kenya and Tanzania were pledging to work together to come back stronger, and the international community was rallying to their support. And one other detail. Whispers and rumors. Ever since the eruption, there had been an increase in sightings of Mngwa. Authorities ignored the stories, but Chase hoped a few had survived.
The second sabbath had been spent in Glasgow, with Chase’s grandmother, her aunts and uncles, and their children. She’d promised to visit more often. After that, she’d spent a couple of days with Mason. Whatever spark had been there once was gone, but that was fine. They were friends, they were chosen family, and that’s all they needed to be. They held a private service for Ashley Eades. Chase told Mason what Lauren had said, about a secret state waiting to make a move on her.
Mason smiled it off. “Let them come.”
And now she was here. Her chosen home. New York. Sitting at the back as the sabbath service finished, letting everyone else leave. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep.
Was there something here? Was this air different than outside? Was there something in her that she hadn’t been in touch with before?
She’d come back from the dead. Or the near-dead. She’d decided it was easier to believe the latter. The alternative was just too difficult to think about. People don’t come back from the dead.
As she’d said to herself on the mountain: Dead is dead. Past is past.
But you can keep people, and history, with you. As long as you know when to hold it, when to let go. She knew now she’d had that the wrong way around.
She opened her eyes, looked up at the ceiling, breathed in again. The air here did feel different. Because it was hers. Was there anything else above that? Did she really have any faith?
Hass had come down from Eden with cast-iron belief. What they’d seen, what they’d been through, was a test. And they’d both passed. For Chase? The answers felt somewhere just above rational. There could be an explanation. If the valley had still existed, scientists might have found a retrovirus in the plants, or the soil, or the water, or some combination of all of them. A virus that was transmitted upon contact with any one of those things, rewriting the DNA it encountered, healing wounds, repairing damage. Something that had survived in that exact spot, at that exact altitude, throughout history. A valley that had played home to the earliest humans, who left due to some large climatic shift that passed down into my
thic memory, and to other civilizations who came later. Each had taken a shot at taming that place, and each had failed. That all made a kind of sense, almost logical, almost rational. But without proof, it required almost as much faith to accept as it did to look to the supernatural. Whatever the reason, Chase had come down off the mountain looking, and feeling, younger. The water had washed away a decade, and with it, she could let go of a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong turns. This was a second chance, and she didn’t want to over think it.
There were other questions that needed answering.
Why had the statues there matched up so closely with the Ark? And with things she’d seen two years before, beneath Alexandria? Who were the people connecting them? There was a new version of history, just waiting for the right person to come along and find it.
But the one question she didn’t care about? The biggest one. Did she have faith? When she closed her eyes and breathed in, was that thing she felt the air touching, deep down, a connection to a higher power?
For Chase, for who she was now, that didn’t matter. Believe, don’t believe, she didn’t care enough to worry either way. What she did care about was who she was. Where she’d come from. A long line of people, going back thousands of years. Traditions that meant something.
She stood up once everyone else had left and took one more look around. Feeling a connection and a responsibility to be involved.
She stepped out into the Saturday morning air and was hit instantly by the sounds and smells of New York City.
“Hey.”
She turned to the speaker.
Aster Bekele was leaning against the wall, smiling. In jeans, a jacket, and a Mets cap pulled low, she was doing her best to fit in. Chase had wondered how she would react when she saw Bekele again. The last night in the hotel room aside, Bekele’s betrayal was still a wound.
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
Bekele shrugged. “I’m good at my job.”
“I remember.”
Bekele pushed off from the wall, took a few steps closer. “Yeah, I deserve that.” She paused, letting a few people pass by. “But that’s why I’m here. I talked them around. They believe me.”
“They being…?”
“You said you’d shoot me if I told you.”
Chase smiled then. Relaxed. Seeing where this was going. “Yeah.”
“But they agree, is the important part. They want to announce the Ark to the world. Let everybody know we have it. Let them see it. Let everyone know that it’s ours. But they want you to get the credit for finding it. To be the public face. It stays in Ethiopia, but if you want to study it, to announce it, the job is yours.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I need to get this off my chest. For Marah Chase and the Conqueror’s Tomb, I forgot to thank Ray Harryhausen. The whole underground section of the book is a love letter to his work, and I’m not sure I’d be a writer now if I hadn’t spent hours as a child watching his movie magic.
Thanks, Harry.
Okay. Guilt atoned for.
I owe a huge amount to my agent of the past ten years, Stacia Decker, for helping me raise my game as a writer and finding homes for my characters. And a literal home for my family. And additionally, a quick mention for Arielle Datz at DCL for putting up with me.
Thanks to Jacque Ben-Zekry, Chantelle Aimee Osman, and Johnny Shaw, all of whom I leaned on during the writing of the book. Marah Chase owes quite a lot to JBZ, probably even more than I do.
Part of this book was written at a writer’s retreat in Colorado, and I owe hugs to Blake Crouch, Joe Hart, Matt Iden, Ann Voss Peters, and Steve Konkoly for being sounding boards in the mountain air.
Thanks to D Franklin, the best bookseller in this town or any other, for all the work they do to push authors. And thanks to Chris, Mike, Alan, and Gillian of Improv Killed My Dog, the best improv comedy group in Glasgow (I only watch one improv comedy group in Glasgow) for helping me promote Chase. Thanks to Tommy Pluck, Eric Beetner, Josh and Erica Stallings, Dan and Kate Malmon, and Lesa Holstine for shouting about the book. I see the work you do.
And the crew who actually put the book together. Thanks to Katie McGuire at Pegasus for buying into Chase’s crazy adventures. It’s not many book projects when you get to discuss the existence of bigfoot in the margins of the edit. The interior design of this lovely package was done by Sabrina Plomitallo-González, and the cover was cooked up at Faceout Studio. Thanks to Erica Ferguson and Andrea Monagle for cleaning up my mess.
My wife, Lisa-Marie, is awesome and makes excellent tacos.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed Chase’s story so far. What happens next?
We’ll see.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAY STRINGER is the Anthony-nominated, McIlvanney-shortlisted author of the Eoin Miller trilogy, Ways to Die in Glasgow, and How to Kill Friends and Implicate People. Marah Chase and the Conqueror’s Tomb is also available from Pegasus Crime. Jay lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
MARAH CHASE AND THE FOUNTIAN OF YOUTH
Pegasus Crime is an imprint ofPegasus Books, Ltd.148 West 37th Street, 13th FLNew York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by Jay Stringer
First Pegasus Books hardcover edition July 2020
Interior design by Sabrina Plomitallo-González, Pegasus Books
Jacket Credit: Faceout Studio, Molly von Borstel
Art Credit: Shutterstock and Neostock
Author Photo Credit: John Keatley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-64313-430-7
ISBN: 978-1-64313-431-4 (ebook)
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
