Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Robert Liparulo

  “Are you sure you need to get here that quickly?” Jagger asked. “I’m not even sure—”

  “It’s crucial, Jagger!” He fairly screamed it, then said, “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “If the Clan’s involved, I need to be. I’ll explain when I get there.”

  He disconnected, pushed the phone into a pocket, and stood staring at the domes of the church, like candle flames pointing to heaven. Lord, give me the strength to stop Bale and his cohorts. Give me wisdom and help me do Your will . . .

  Fyodor Titov squirmed under his foot, pulled at his pant leg. Owen removed his foot and sat on the man’s stomach, hard. Titov oomphed and looked terrified—so much so that tears were rolling down his temples—all of which lightened Owen’s mood. Just a little.

  He leaned over, pinning the teacher’s arms with his hands. In Russian he said, “No more children. No touching, no photographs. I’ll be back, and if I find out you’ve been up to your old ways . . . well, let’s just say I know some people who would love to get their hands on you. ‘If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.’ Matthew 18. Look it up. It’s one of their favorite ways of disposing of people like you. Understand?”

  Titov nodded vigorously, rambled assurances.

  “And all of the parents you’ve paid?” Owen said. “I think it’s only fair that you should continue paying them.”

  The teacher looked shocked, started babbling about how impossible it was, about his lack of funds.

  Owen simply glared.

  Finally the man nodded, said he’d find a way.

  “I’m sure you will.” Owen climbed off and walked back to the school to retrieve his backpack. As he continued down the street toward the rented Jeep he’d left at the edge of town, he made a mental note to have a millstone delivered to the schoolteacher’s door.

  [ 21 ]

  Jagger lowered the phone and stared out at the compound from the Southwest Range Building’s third-floor portico. Past the mishmash of buildings, smoke drifted off the front wall opposite his position, the courtyard light giving it a spectral appearance. He watched it as he would flames in a fireplace, curious about what form it would take next, awed by its ethereal nature, momentarily distracted from the jumble of thoughts clambering for attention in his head. But the delicateness of the smoke—translucent, wispy—made him think of the suddenly-there, suddenly-gone beings who’d helped him on the rooftop and the similar ones he’d witnessed in the basilica. Were they really angels? He’d come to that conclusion, and apparently so had Ollie.

  “They’re beautiful,” Ollie had said. “The sparks!”

  They’d both had contact with Steampunk, which strengthened his theory that the woman had sprayed or somehow emitted some sort of hallucinogen. But how could any drug cause two people to hallucinate the same thing? And why did the effects wear off quicker with Jagger than Ollie? Had Ollie received a stronger dose?

  And what about the way he’d felt while seeing the things? Real or imagined, the vision had stirred sensations he’d never felt before: elation, peace . . . and unease, apprehension. How could those conflicting emotions coexist? Not going from one to the other, even instantly, but feeling them simultaneously. It didn’t seem possible.

  But as big as that event had been, other things needed his attention, not the least of which was the murder of three monks. It wasn’t fair to them, or right, that he should be distracted from mourning their loss—or analyzing how they died. What had gone wrong? Could he have done something to prevent it? What could he do to make sure it never happened again?

  He could barely see the smoke now, just a wisp catching some light every few seconds.

  Then there was the matter of the attack. Had they come for the rock Steampunk had? If so, why? What was its value?

  Something else was nagging at him as well—as if his mind was too overwhelmed to try managing any of it: What else can I worry about? Bring it on! World hunger? Okay! Global peace? Got it! But this concern was more immediate, more personal: Ollie’s condition. The monks were already tending to him, the air ambulance had been called. Should Jagger be there with him too? There was something he should be doing regarding Ollie. He knew it, but couldn’t get his mind around it.

  He needed Beth. She would help him sort things out; she had the ability to see the big picture and the details. He had a feeling that all the things he needed to spew out would overwhelm her as well. But he couldn’t think of any better way to be overwhelmed and confused than to be overwhelmed and confused with the woman he loved.

  He started toward the end of the walkway, toward the corner where the Southwest Range Building met the structure that housed their apartment. He was thinking about all the things he would tell Beth when the roof above him creaked. He was on the top level, and unlike most of the other buildings in the compound, the flat roof of the Southwest Range Building did not double as a walkway or terrace. He leaned over the railing and looked up, listening. Another creak, quieter. Probably some settling, or the wind giving the building a nudge.

  He heard footsteps and realized they were coming from the stairs at the far end. Someone in a rush. He stepped into a strip of darker shadow from one of the portico’s columns and pressed himself against the wall. He dropped the phone into his pocket and put his hand on the hilt of his collapsible baton.

  A figure appeared, hurrying along the walkway. It stopped. “Jagger?”

  Father Antoine.

  Jagger stepped out from the shadow. “What is it?”

  “Ollie—he’s insisting on speaking with you.”

  Jagger started toward him. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s not looking good. He’s lost a lot of blood. The medevac should be here any minute.”

  Jagger hurried past the monk and started down the stairs. “What’s he saying?”

  “Besides that there are angels all around him?” Antoine said. “Just that he needs to talk to you before they take him away.”

  “The angels?”

  “I think he’s referring to the medevac.”

  Jagger hoped so.

  When he entered Ollie’s bedroom, Ramón was hunched over him, one knee on the bed. He was taping gauze onto Ollie’s chest, where the arrow protruded. Jagger held back, waiting for the man to finish.

  In his midtwenties, Ramón had received combat medicine training as a sabo segundo—the equivalent of a private first class—in the Paraguayan army. He’d been at the monastery only a little longer than Jagger, making him Brother Ramón instead of Father Ramón.

  It was unclear to Jagger at what point brothers became fathers. Leo was only a few years older than Ramón, but he was a father, and Brother Daniel was older than Leo. But then, Jagger didn’t get the titles and positions of the monastery. He’d called Gheronda Father Gheronda for months before Beth pointed out that Gheronda was an honorary title or name, so it was just “Gheronda.” The old man was the monastery’s abbot as well as archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Mount Sinai. To make matters more confusing, the monks called each other brother, regardless of brother or father status. It gave Jagger a headache.

  Beth said it was because he didn’t care, which was true: titles didn’t mean anything to him. When he was in the army, he’d seen corporals with more leadership ability and battlefield savvy than some of the majors and colonels, and he knew teenagers with more compassion and people skills than the pastors he knew. Forget titles: what kind of person are you?

  Father Jeffrey was still at the head of the bed, still patting Ollie’s forehead with a cloth. And Gheronda had made it back, kneeling again at the foot of the bed, praying. Just then, the old monk turned his head to look at Jagger. He mouthed Owen’s name, and Jagger nodded.

  Ramón leaned back and sat on the edge of the bed. “How you feeling, Dr. Hoffmann?” Ollie’s eyes were closed and he didn’t answer. “Hey!”
Ramón said. “Stay with us, now!”

  Ollie rolled his head, opened his eyes. “I’m here.” Slurring a little. He looked around. “So’s everyone. Hey, guys.”

  Jagger had the feeling he wasn’t addressing the monks or anyone else visible to the average person.

  Leo whispered in Jagger’s ear: “Ramón shot him up with painkillers.”

  “’Zat Jag?” Ollie said. “I want to talk to Jagger. Everyone else out!”

  No one moved.

  “Come on,” Ollie said. “I’m not going to die . . . this minute. Out!”

  Ramón stood and walked past Jagger. He said, “Keep him talking.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Jeffrey handed Jagger the cloth as he walked out. Gheronda patted him on the shoulder, went into the living room, and closed the door.

  “Jag,” Ollie said, holding out his hand. Jagger moved in, gripped his hand, and sat on the edge of the bed. “He took it. I tried . . .” He wheezed in a breath. “I tried to stop him.”

  Jagger noticed flecks of blood on Ollie’s lips and dabbed at them with the cloth.

  “I tried to stop him,” Ollie said again. He looked beyond Jagger. “Sorry, guys.”

  Jagger looked at the open safe, the papers and gun strewn in front of it. He said, “What’d he take, Ollie?” He wasn’t about to correct him on the gender of his attacker.

  Ollie’s eyes found Jagger’s, and for a moment the fog seemed to clear. He said, “The Judgment Stone.”

  [ 22 ]

  “The Judgment Stone?” Jagger recalled the thing in Steampunk’s hand. “That’s what he took? What is it?”

  Ollie tried to laugh. It was airy, weak. More blood peppered on his lips. He said, “Something only briefly mentioned in a few ancient texts, hearsay some monk or scholar inserted in passing. A stone that revealed the nature of your heart by showing what surrounds you, angels or demons . . . that unveiled the connection each person has with God.”

  “The blue lights?”

  Ollie grinned. “Some people guessed it was one of the twelve stones Joshua used to commemorate the Israelites’ crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. Others said it was the stone David used to slay Goliath, or even the stone that blocked the entrance to Jesus’ tomb.” Ollie tried to laugh again, but it came out as a cough. “They were wrong.”

  “So what is it?” Jagger asked. “What did they take?”

  “A piece of the first tablets . . . the first Ten Commandments.”

  Jagger stopped breathing. The actual tablets, the first ones God made and Moses destroyed upon finding the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. A piece of them had been Ollie’s quest, an impossible dream; he had called it his holy grail.

  “I thought . . . ,” Jagger started, searching for the words that would express his incredulity. “I thought the pieces were put in the ark of the covenant, along with the second set of tablets.”

  “No, no.” Ollie coughed, depositing more flecks of blood, this time on his chin as well. Jagger blotted them up. “Some people think that.” He panted, three quick breaths. “They just assume that’s what happened to them, or they . . . misinterpret some passages. But 1 Kings says, ‘There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb.’ That’s what I held on to, that’s what I always believed.” Cough, then a whisper: “I was right. I was right.”

  “When did you find it, Ollie? You didn’t tell me.”

  “This morning. I uncovered the piece of stone and started working to uncover the rest.” He paused to breathe and remember, his gaze turning toward the ceiling. “It looked like granite, but then it . . . it shimmered. I took off my glove to rub it. And that’s when it happened. At first I thought the crew had jumped into the pit with me, all these people. Then I thought, ‘These aren’t people, they’re on fire, they have wings’—ha, wings—‘their skin, it’s glowing.’ The angels had come to watch me discover it.” He breathed, smiled. “I was so shocked . . . and scared . . . the most incredible discovery of mankind. I wrapped it up and brought it back here, to my apartment.” He shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s against all the rules of archaeology. But this was no ordinary discovery. This was more about . . . about God than history or archaeology.” He flashed his grin again, blood on his teeth. “So sue me.”

  Jagger pressed the back of his fingers to the man’s cheek. The fever seemed to be subsiding.

  “Jagger, the angels, they’re magnificent.”

  “I know, Ollie.”

  The archaeologist’s eyes grew wide, and Jagger nodded.

  “I’ve seen them too.”

  “Oh! Oh! Then you know!” He grabbed Jagger’s arm, lifted himself a few inches off the bed. Jagger tried to ease him back down. “But how?” Ollie said. “How?”

  Jagger explained about Steampunk, his getting the Stone and losing it again. “I thought I’d just hit my head too hard or Steampunk had gassed me with a hallucinogen. It wasn’t until the basilica that I started thinking angels and . . .” He turned his head, looked at Ollie from the corner of his eyes. “Ollie, are angels all you see?”

  “No . . . no.” Shaking his head, terror crossing over his face. “There are . . . others . . . demons. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You saw them too.”

  “A lot of them.”

  “When I was digging it up,” he said, “the Stone . . . I thought I saw them, things . . . glaring at me from the edge of the hole. As I carried it here, under my jacket . . . they were all around me, but the angels stood in their way. I could barely see the demons through the sparks around the angels.” His eyes darted around the room, stopping for a second at specific points. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

  That got Jagger thinking, and he said, “Where were the angels when you were attacked, when Steampunk shot you?”

  “They got overpowered, demons everywhere, all over them. One of the angels knocked away the first arrow that guy fired at me.” He pointed, and Jagger saw it: in the wall a foot out from the safe and four inches above the floor, a divot of plaster had been chipped out. Pieces of plaster lay on the floor under it.

  “I’d had the Stone with me. When I heard the gunfire, I went to put the Stone in the safe. That’s when he came in. I pulled out my pistol—I keep it in the safe—and got a few shots off, but he moved like a cat.” Ollie’s eyes seemed to vibrate as he remembered the scene. “And you know what? A demon helped him. I saw it. The guy jumped out of my aim, and the demon—a big ugly thing—was shoving him.”

  Jagger wondered if the demon’s shove physically helped Steampunk move, or if it acted like intuition, telling her to move a second before she otherwise would have. He knew they had the power to affect the physical world: he’d seen them deflect Antoine’s bullet, and angels had deflected the arrow aimed at him, broken the crossbow string, helped Antoine aim when Steampunk had her sword poised over him. But the thought of demons with that sort of physical control over humans frightened him as much as anything else had in the past two hours.

  He looked at the arrow beside the safe, and his gaze fell on something on the floor. The excavation’s satphone. He said, “Who did you tell, Ollie? Who did you call about the rock?”

  “The Judgment Stone,” he corrected, as though it was suddenly important to use the name he or someone in history had termed it.

  Ollie was looking around the room again. “Glorious.”

  “Ollie, who did you tell? The people who took it, they knew you’d found it.”

  Ollie stared at him, his lips slack. “I told Bronson Radcliff. Only Bronson, not even any of his people.”

  “From the Ice Temple Foundation?” Bronson was the director of the foundation funding the Mount Sinai excavation. It was the nonprofit arm of Ice Temple Enterprises, the conglomerate of media companies and retail stores that had made Bronson a billionaire.

  Ollie continued: “He said if I found anything extraordinary—that’s the word he
used, extraordinary—I should contact him and only him immediately.” He coughed, causing the arrow to shake wildly. “I couldn’t not tell him. What if something happened to it? What if word got out and . . .”

  “And someone stole it,” Jagger finished, letting the irony hang on his sentence.

  “Besides,” Ollie said, “I promised.”

  Jagger knew Ollie enough to know his word wasn’t something he gave lightly; unless he were dead, he’d keep it. Even a find as incredible as the Judgment Stone couldn’t keep him from fulfilling his promise. Considering what the fragment was, what it represented, perhaps it was even more important than ever that he kept his word about it.

  “What’d he say,” Jagger asked, “when you told him about it?”

  “He said . . . he said . . .” Ollie squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth in pain.

  Ramón hadn’t given him enough painkillers, or the excitement of talking about the Stone had burned it off, adrenaline counteracting it.

  Groaning, Ollie said, “He said he’d send a team to fetch it, that it was safer at their headquarters. I was going to go with it.” He raised his hand and moved it around slowly in the air. “Those sparkles . . . so beautiful.”

  “Ollie,” Jagger said, “after I let go of the Stone, I could still see the . . . the spiritual world for a while.”

  “Like something hot, yes. When you step away from a heater on a cold day, you don’t get cold right away. The warmth fades.”

  “But the vision did fade. I lost it after about ten minutes.”

  “I put the Stone under my pillow. When its power wore off, I’d touch it again. I couldn’t help it.”

  Jagger remembered the aching sense of longing he felt as he watched the angels in the basilica fade and disappear.

  “Are you seeing them now, the angels?”

  “Oh, yes.”