by K. T. Tomb
“Run!” Emilijus screamed suddenly, and as if on cue, all four of them sprang into action. Chyna felt the heat rise as the flames began to rapidly consume the library. The fire had spread quickly to all the wood and paper that was strewn around. She held on to Emilijus and started to help him out when she saw the pre-war document that Ethan had been showing them. The table it had been on was on fire.
“Hold on, wait here!” Chyna told Emilijus.
She took off toward the table and kicked the burning frame apart. She did not even think twice as her hand went through the flames and grabbed the diary. It would be blistered later, but the diary was much more important. She secured the diary inside the back of her jeans and went back to Emilijus.
Escape, however, was not so easy. The doorway to the library and the living room itself was a fiery inferno. Mark kicked the burning shelves out of the way and led them out. Another shake through the house stopped all of them dead. They all knew what that meant.
The building was coming down fast.
Suddenly, Chyna felt someone brush past her and into the library. Mindlessly, she ran after Ethan.
“What are you doing?!”
“My books, my diaries! I can’t lose them!” He shook his head, sweat dripping out of his hair as he did so.
“Are you crazy?! The house is going to come down at any moment! Let them go!” Mark shouted at the middle-aged historian. “Chyna, come on! We need to get out!”
“Ethan, come on! You can’t go in!” Chyna insisted.
“No, it’s my life’s work! I have to get it!”
“Ethan!” Chyna screamed, as the historian ran through the doorway of the library, which immediately collapsed in front of her.
“Chyna, no!” She had just started to go in when strong arms secured her to her spot. “It’s too dangerous!”
“No, let me go! He’s going to die!” Chyna screamed and struggled to free herself from Mark’s hold. “ETHAN!”
“CHYNA! LISTEN TO ME!” Mark screamed in her ear. “It’s too late. We can’t help him!”
Chyna blinked silently and saw that the library was already being devoured by treacherous flames. Mark was right: there was no way Ethan would have survived. He would have come out by now if he had.
As Mark dragged her out by the arms, Chyna thought she saw a burning figure move inside the library and then collapse on the rug just as the library ceiling caved in.
Chapter Three
“Tony,” Chyna said after she picked up the phone on the first ring. The relief in her voice was palpable, even for Tony.
“Chyna, are you okay?! Are you hurt?!” Tony was frantic on the other end. Chyna could just imagine him pacing up and down in their bedroom.
“Yes, I’m okay. Luckily, we all are.”
Chyna limped into the kitchen to get some privacy from the others in the living room, who were all attending to Mark and Emilijus. She held the phone in her good hand; the other one had been covered in salve and wrapped up to keep the blistering to a minimum, “Who told you?”
“Oscar did, of course. He called me as soon as you talked to him. Chyna, what the hell happened?”
Of course Tony was enraged. He had expected that Chyna would have called him as soon as she and the others had gotten out the house, but she had called Oscar to ask him to quickly set up a first aid station at Emilijus’ house. There had been no waiting around and talking to the police or for the medics to get to the scene; Ethan was already dead and the authorities would come asking questions. Furthermore, there was no telling if whoever had bombed the house has waiting to ambush them as they came out of the burning wreckage.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, but I thought I should get the others prepared for our return. We needed medical attention,” she explained in a quiet voice, and that seemed to have an effect.
“I know... I just, I’m sorry too. I freaked out a bit, that’s all.” Then she heard Tony ask, “Are you really okay?”
Chyna didn’t speak for a moment. She hopped up to the fridge, took out a bottle of chilled water, leaned against the counter and took a sip. The dizzying effects of the fire had not waned yet, and she was still a bit unsteady on her feet. That, coupled with the image of Ethan on fire made Chyna very unsettled. She didn’t say that to Tony though, instead she replied, “Yes. Yes, I’m okay.”
There was something else nagging her and she decided it was too late not to share it with Tony. “I think you might be right about Mark.”
There was silence on the other end. Tony said nothing, but Chyna knew he was still there, listening; she could hear him breathing.
“How so?” he said after a long time, and his voice seemed to resonate, as if he were in a bathroom and no longer in the bedroom of their Istanbul house.
“That’s the thing. I don’t know for sure, it’s just a hunch.” Chyna shook her head, “What I do know is that someone is trying their damndest to get to us. I mean, who could have known that we were at Ethan’s place? We had a little run in with the LNDP, but why would they feel threatened by a historian hosting a bunch of foreign citizens? It just wasn’t possible for them to put a tail on us so soon.”
“You think there’s a mole in the group, and that it’s Mark?” Tony asked, and Chyna almost hated herself for agreeing with him.
“I’m not sure yet. But yes, whoever attacked us must have had some information from the inside, since I don’t think it was possible for anyone to catch up with us that fast,” she said. “I’m just going to keep a closer eye on Mark, just in case.”
“Okay, I’ll do what I can from here,” Tony offered, and then after a short silence, he spoke again, “I have something to tell you as well. It’s about the bow.”
“What’s that?” Chyna straightened herself up to listen.
“I’ve been doing some research of my own, and I found something about a rumor that Christina of Sweden actually passing through Lithuania during her exile,” Tony said, and Chyna guessed he was out in the living room since she could hear the sound of papers shuffling.
“What would she have been doing in Lithuania?”
“No idea whatsoever, but according to this old document I found on one of the websites dedicated to her, she spent quite some time in the country as Count Dohna before moving on. I think Wiligut knew about this as well. He must have mentioned it in his diary, but the problem is that we don’t have any other entries from his memoirs except the two that we have right now.”
“So,” Chyna’s fingers drummed on the counter, “you’re saying that it might be here in Lithuania? But I thought that Wiligut had passed it on to the Freemasons?”
“He did, but they must have hidden it somewhere. With all the mystery that surrounds them, only the Lord knows what other tricks they could have up their sleeves?” Tony sighed.
“Where do you think the bow is, then?”
“The information says it might be in the Trakai Island Castle,” Tony told her. “But I should warn you, I found this on an enthusiast’s website; I don’t know how much truth there is to it. But I still think you should look into it.”
Chyna thought hard for a moment. If the bow really was in Lithuania, it could explain the attacks on her and her team. Someone clearly did not want her to get to it; but then that would just be the biggest mystery for her to solve: who was trying to stop them and why?
“Okay, I will. Trakai Island, you said?”
“Yup, that’s the place. It’s been through a lot of renovations in the past few years, so you might be looking at a lot of red tape. I’ll try to get you in, though.”
“Thanks, Tony.” Chyna smiled into the phone.
Even that far away, Tony was doing all he could to help with her work.
“Be safe, Chyna,” he finally said, and she imagined him smiling as well.
She could not wait to get back home to him.
***
Chyna had no idea what to do next; where was Lana when she needed her?
Tony’s suspicio
ns and her own concerns about Mark were growing steadily, and she was having trouble figuring out how to go about this possible new discovery. A part of her didn’t want to act on anything unless she had solid proof, but the other part did not want to compromise the mission and her team’s lives. Everything that had happened to them since they had arrived in Lithuania had only exacerbated the condition, and Chyna knew that she could very well cost her entire team their lives if she did not act fast.
She limped back into the living room to find Emilijus all patched up and talking to Oscar and Sirita. Mark stood away from the group near one of the windows, looking outside and whispering into his phone, only serving to reinforce her earlier conclusions.
She had approached the group when Mark joined her, his blonde hair now clean of the smoke and grime from the fire. His eyes looked troubled.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Chyna replied. “Who was that you were talking to?”
“Thyri,” Mark replied. “I was just updating her on recent events.”
“Okay,” Chyna nodded, not sure if she believed a word he said.
She turned to the group, who were bent over the diary she had managed to save from the fire. Chyna grimaced. Clearly, she was completely off her game; she should have kept the diary to herself and not let Mark see it. If he really was a mole, then it was better to keep sources and clues away from him.
“What’s going on?” She sat down on the sofa, and her body screamed at her as every tired and sore muscle was flexed.
“We found something.”
Emilijus looked like he was trying to contain his excitement given the circumstances they had retrieved the diary in. Chyna motioned for him to go on.
“Well, it was all Mark, really. He’s a genius, I tell you.”
He praised Mark, who looked a little sheepish in the face of all the attention.
Of course he does; he has a façade to keep up, Chyna thought.
“What did you find?” Chyna insisted. In her periphery, she saw Mark look at her strangely, but paid him no mind.
“Well, there seemed to be some markings and symbols in the diary that you saved, Chyna. We figured them out to be page and paragraph numbers of jumbled entries in the diary and what we have found is simply fascinating! It says here that the Ivory Bow was taken by a member of the Illuminati. Can you believe it? The Illuminati!”
Chyna knew who the Illuminati were, of course, but she didn’t for one minute believe what Emilijus was saying could be true. Just like the Freemasons, The Illuminati were one of the most secret societies in the world, locked in a perpetual war with the Church. They had gained much prominence after the fourteenth century, when the field of science and logic had started gaining power on the back of various important discoveries and the church had resorted to punishing those who they believed ‘were on the path to sin.’
The Illuminati were famous for their love of science, arts and advanced knowledge, and many prominent personalities over the years had been rumored to be members of the group. Unlike the Freemasons, whose existence was validated and confirmed by various sources, the Illuminati had always been shrouded in a cover of mystery, blood and awe; and varied speculations about the Illuminati’s supposedly bloodthirsty and terrible nature. Many believed they could very well kill to get what they wanted. There had never been any credible sources in the world to prove that they really existed. Some said they dissolved many years ago after being obliterated by the Church; others believed that they were still going strong.
As an archaeologist, Chyna had never brushed aside their existence as a mere rumor, but she also did not have a shred of evidence to prove or disprove their existence and neither had it ever interested her to research the group. As Chyna watched Emilijus drone on about this new development, she couldn’t help but think that the allusion to the Illuminati in the diary was a false lead.
“Emilijus,” she interrupted him, “I know you want to believe it, and I’m sorry to tell you, but I don’t think that where this is leading us is correct.”
There was a dead silence in the group after that.
“Chyna?” Mark was the one to break it.
“Oh, come on! The Illuminati? How can this be possible? We are talking about a society whose very existence is a doubt. How can the bow be with an Illuminatus? It’s obviously a false lead.”
“But Chyna, we decoded it ourselves. It’s all in Ethan’s records,” Mark protested, but did not say anything further even though Chyna got the feeling that he wanted to.
“With all due respect, Mark, Emilijus, it is possible that Ethan might have been wrong. I mean, he was clearly an enthusiast who was obsessed with it.”
Chyna felt bad saying this, but she had never been one to mince words. That, and Mark’s presence was now exasperating her.
“Chyna!” Oscar protested, “This guy died saving his books! His books! Does he sound like a simple enthusiast?”
“Ethan Vitrak was a great historian, Chyna Stone. You will not berate a great friend of mine like that.” Emilijus joined him.
“I am not berating him!” Chyna retorted, “I just don’t think that the Illuminati is where we should be looking. It’s logic really, guys. Oscar, Sirita, back me up on this. Emilijus, you don’t know how we do things and Mark is still a rookie. We don’t jump to conclusions and we don’t get slap happy and waste time chasing down ghost theories; we look at the facts. The truth is, when it comes to this Illuminati theory, there are no facts to follow. Did any of your fancy decoded passages tell you what the next move was?”
Chyna stood so that she could get a better look at all of them. No one answered her question.
“You see, it’s probably just a false door. Whoever put it there knew that anyone who was too eager would end up spending a lot of time chasing down the theory and getting absolutely nowhere.”
“Well, then what do you suggest we do?” Mark crossed his arms and Chyna resisted the urge to slap him.
“I actually have a lead. While you were busy decoding, a little birdie told me that Christina might have actually come to Lithuania during her exile, it’s also been suggested that she was here for quite a while. My source believes we might find the bow at Trakai Island Castle and also thinks that Wiligut might have known about this, but we can’t prove that because it’s not mentioned in the portions of his diary that we have,” Chyna explained her side of the story to them.
“Nonsense! The bow was taken by the Freemasons!” Emilijus huffed.
“They could have hidden it in the castle. For what it’s worth, I think we should go there. If Christina really stayed in Lithuania, the castle seems like a plausible starting point.” Chyna shrugged and limped toward the bathroom, “I’ll be ready to leave in ten minutes.”
***
Trakai Island Castle did not look like anything that Chyna Stone had expected it to. Where were the black, soot-stained, huge walls of ancient stone and gargoyles? Where were the moats and bridges? What she saw looked like something out of a Disney princess story.
The whole place was finished in shades of orange and gold, lending an air of regalia to it that Chyna had only seen in a few other places. Sparkling azure waters surrounded the castle, making it look like the perfect holiday destination for anyone who was looking for seclusion, luxury and beauty at the same time. At any moment, Chyna thought she would see Rapunzel letting down her hair for Mother Gothel, or Snow White opening the windows to sing to birds gathering on her windowsill in the rising sun. Yes, it really was that beautiful.
She only wished she had better company than she did at present. As they walked through the castle grounds and toward the Upper Palace, which was where Tony had hinted the bow might be located, Chyna could feel the cold aura that Mark radiated, along with the looks that Emilijus was currently giving her. She knew she had been disrespectful, but it had seemed like the only way to get their attention and as they walked through the castle, she made a mental note to apologize to both of them, especially E
milijus. She couldn’t help but think of Lana again; somehow Chyna knew that if she was with them on this investigation, things would never have gone so off track. In any case, she wasn’t there so regardless of what had already happened, it was time for Chyna to regain full control.
Found History was her company and on this mission, as with all the others before, it was her reputation on the line. At the end of the day, Emilijus was just a source and the others were her employees. They worked for her and that meant her job was to do everything in her power for them to succeed and do so safely and their job was to do what she told them to.
Even though it was almost the weekend, the castle seemed awfully quiet. There were only a few people around, and Chyna wondered whether that was because the weather was too hot for sightseeing. She saw a hat vendor lingering near the entrance and absentmindedly thought she would buy something from him before she left.
After asking for some directions, Chyna and the two men finally found themselves on the stairs that led to the Upper Castle. Chyna looked around carefully and shook her head in distaste at the thought of the castle having fallen into disrepair. This was a beautiful specimen of architecture that had been built in three phases, but had been almost completely disregarded after it had lost its importance as a military fort. What a shame!
They were now inside and almost close to the main part of the Upper Castle, where they had decided they would start looking. Chyna could have continued thinking about the castle, but a sudden metallic clank interrupted her. It sounded like a metal grate or door was being opened or closed somewhere nearby. Why was it suddenly so dark?
She did not get a minute more to think about it, as a bullet whizzed past her and hit the wall to her left, sending dust and chips of stone flying into the air. Adrenaline kicked in, and as she turned to see where it had come from, her hand reached inside her jacket. She drew the pistol just as she looked up and saw it.
The Swastika.
It was printed boldly on the back of the black jacket she saw ducking behind a wall for cover. So that’s why the castle had been virtually deserted: it was a trap. Damn it.
