by David Wood
Professor offered a dubious frown. “That sounded more like an optical effect to me.”
“Maybe, but how did Dee know about the orbs under the Pyramid? We need to get a look at that crystal ball. You said it’s in the British Museum, right?”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Professor looked at Dorion again. “When you visited Delphi, you didn’t really know what to look for. Maybe that’s why you didn’t find anything. I think it might be worth a second look. There may be something there that supports the hypothesis that the original Omphalos was a sphere, taken by the Phoenicians.”
Ophelia leaned forward. “If I may make a suggestion, why don’t we do both? Paul and Jade…”
She reached across the table and laid a hand on Jade’s forearm in what seemed like a calculated move. “May I call you Jade?” She pressed on without waiting for an answer. “Paul and Jade, who have both experienced the space-time effect, can go to London an investigate Dee’s crystal ball. Dr. Chapman and I can go to Delphi and look at it from a fresh perspective.”
Oh, he’s Dr. Chapman, but we’re BFFs? Jade bit her lip to keep from saying it aloud. She looked to see what Professor’s reaction would be.
“I’m not sure splitting up is such a good idea,” he said, though Jade thought he sounded reluctant to disagree with Ophelia. “There are people trying to kill us, after all.”
“I don’t think we need to be too concerned about that,” Ophelia said. “As you may have noticed, my security team is up for any challenge.”
Professor turned to Jade. “It’s your call.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jade replied quickly. “I can take of myself.” Why did I just say that?
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
No, she wanted the scream. What I want is for you to take charge, to tell me that you don’t want to let me go off on my own. But I’m too proud to admit it.
Instead, she just shrugged.
“Then it’s settled,” Ophelia announced, rising from the table. “I’ll call ahead to my pilot and tell him to get the jet ready.”
PART TWO: WINDOWS
FOURTEEN
London, England
Jade stared up at the decorative pediment above the entrance to the British Museum, and for the first time since arriving in London, felt her mood start to lighten. The triangular relief, which featured sculpted figures and sat atop a row of Ionic columns, looked as it might once have decorated a Greek temple. What Jade found most interesting about the piece was the central figure, which stood tallest of all; a woman who Jade thought might be the goddess Athena. In her outstretched left hand, she held a golden orb.
She pointed it out to Dorion. “I think we’re on the right track.”
The physicist gazed up at the sculpted figure. “She is the embodiment of science. The sculptures tell the story of the progress of civilization. You see primitive man hiding behind a rock there on the left. He receives enlightenment from the angel and then learns art, poetry, drama and music, until he becomes educated man, the master of his world.”
“I was talking about the sphere in her hand. It seems like a good omen.”
Dorion gave a pragmatic shrug.
His ambivalence did not dampen her rising spirits.
Ophelia’s private jet—a Gulfstream V—was in most respects more luxurious than the hotel room Jade had been forced to abandon in San Jose—the only thing missing was a hot bath—but no matter how it was dressed up, Jade always found air travel to be an exhausting experience. Her funk had only increased when they had arrived at Biggin Hill field, a small airport on the southeastern edge of the Greater London area. Just as she and Dorion were about to depart, Professor had asked, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
She felt like screaming. Instead, she had managed a confident smile. “I’ll be fine. You and Ophelia enjoy your Greek holiday.”
He frowned. It was a reaction, but not the one she’d been hoping for. “It’s only going to take a couple hours to check out the museum. Maybe we should just wait for you.”
For such a smart guy, he can really be clueless sometimes. “It might take longer. You guys stick to the plan. Paul and I will catch up as soon as we’re done here.”
And that had been the end of that. Jade and Dorion, accompanied by a four-man security detail, climbed into a big gas-guzzling—and probably armor-plated—SUV and headed north toward London proper. She wasn’t even sure why the thought of Professor running off to Greece with Ophelia, who was about as real as a vintage Barbie doll, bothered her; it wasn’t like she and Prof were an item. She had contemplated telling their driver to skip the museum and take her to a hotel; maybe that long awaited soak and some room service would lift the dark cloud. Now, she was glad she had kept the idea to herself.
The museum was spectacular.
After passing under the auspicious personification of Science, with her golden orb, Jade found herself in what looked at first glance like an open plaza, surrounded by elegant Old World buildings. In fact, the entire space was indoors, enclosed by a glass roof, which spread out like an umbrella from a circular structure in the center. The round building was the Reading Room, all that remained of the old British Library, which had been badly damaged by bomb attacks during World War II. The other “buildings” were in fact just facades, and each one led into a different wing of the museum. The British Museum was the first ever public museum, and boasted what was arguably the finest collection of art and history in the world. With more than eight million pieces in all, Jade almost felt guilty for being so interested in just one.
Almost.
They made their way into the Enlightenment Gallery, a long room on the eastern side of the Great Court. The Enlightenment Gallery was in the original 18th century museum building, and was a tribute to spirit, which had led to the creation of the museum. Its shelves and display cases contained a large and diverse assemblage of items gathered from around the world by famous British explorers and champions of enlightenment like James Cook, Charles Darwin, and Howard Carter. The collection even included a clockwork brass orrery from the 1750s.
Another good omen.
The Shew Stone and other relics once used by Dr. Dee, were located in the Religion and Ritual section of the room. The red painted display case featured a large mirror of polished obsidian, a seal stamped on a sheet of what looked like gold, and three wax tablets, engraved with pentacles, seven-pointed stars and other occult symbols. The small globe of smoky quartz sitting on a plain black tripod, looked disappointingly ordinary by comparison.
Jade placed a palm against the glass cover and closed her eyes. Nothing. She turned to Dorion. “Let’s find a curator and see if they’ll be willing to extend us a little professional courtesy.”
It took an hour for them to finally meet the principal curator of the Enlightenment Gallery, a woman who introduced herself as Dr. Allenby.
Jade extended a hand. “I’m Dr. Ihara,” she said, resisting the impulse to adopt a friendlier, less formal posture. “I’m currently working with the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico at Teotihuacan.”
It wasn’t technically a lie; she had not resigned her position, nor to the best of her knowledge, had she been fired. Presumed dead is not the same as terminated, she told herself.
“This is my colleague Dr. Dorion.”
Dorion extended a hand to Allenby, and when she reached out, he took hers and made a gentlemanly bow as if to kiss it. “A pleasure to meet you, cherie.”
Jade recalled how awkward her own first meeting with Dorion had been, and had to suppress the urge to giggle. “We were hoping you could help us with some research.”
Allenby, still smiling in response to Dorion’s charms, spread her hands. “I make no promises, but I’ll help if I’m able.”
“We’d like to have a look at some of the relics in your Religion and Ritual collection, specifically an obsidian mirror and a crystal globe, both of which are believed to have originated in Mexico.
”
“You’re talking about the Dee artifacts? I knew that the mirror was an Aztec piece, though I wasn’t aware that the origin of the crystal had been determined. Its provenance has always been a bit dodgy.”
“That’s actually what we’re hoping to establish,” Jade said. She was winging it, but it seemed to working. The obsidian mirror gave her a plausible connection to the Dee artifacts. “Not formally, you understand,” she added hastily. “Not yet at least. We just want to have a quick look.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, thought I’d rather prefer it if you could wait until after hours. If word got out that I let you have a look at it, there’d be no end of trouble.”
“Trouble?”
Allenby rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe how many people want to put their hands all over Dr. Dee’s magical crystal ball. It’s an obsession for them. And not just the kids. I’ve had businessmen, actors, MPs even, offer me thousands of pounds if I’d just let them have it for a night.”
Jade cast a surreptitious glance at Dorion. “Is that so?”
“And the really daft bit is that the diabolical Dr. Dee probably never even touched it.”
Coming on the heels of the previous statement, that revelation hit Jade like a physical blow. “He didn’t?”
Allenby quickly backpedaled. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have said that. You must know how it is with acquisitions. These things pass through a lot of hands before they come to us. The Dee artifacts came from the collection of Horace Walpole, who lived more than a century after Dee. Lord Walpole was a collector, so he could have got that crystal anywhere. We actually found it in the gem collection. We put it with the Dee items because of his reputation for using crystal balls, and who knows? Maybe we got it right.”
Jade pondered this for a moment. It had never occurred to her that the crystal ball in the display might not be the same orb Gil Perez had used to read Dee’s manuscript. “Were there other crystal balls?”
“Quite a few of them, I should imagine. But I know of only one other. It’s in the collection at the Science Museum. It’s my understanding that the provenance of that piece is rather better established than this one.”
“We’re going to have to have a look at that one too.”
“I’ll ring the curator at Science,” Allenby volunteered. “Tell him to expect you.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that very much.” Jade turned to Dorion. “It looks like this is going to be more work that I expected. So much for good omens.”
Two hours later, Jade’s dire forecast took an even more discouraging turn.
With the museum closed for the day, Allenby let them have a look at the artifacts in the Enlightenment Gallery. Jade made a show of examining the authentic Aztec obsidian mirror, which Dee had actually used in his divination rituals, and then inspected the ball of smoky quartz. Whether or not the occult scholar had used it, Jade could not say, but she felt nothing—no sense of distorted space-time, not even the strange tingling of the sphere on Isla del Caño. She dutifully took a few pictures and notes, and did her best to hide her disappointment.
“Any chance of getting a look at the crystal in the Science Museum?”
“Ah, that.” Allenby sighed. “I’m afraid I have rather a bit of bad news. The Dee crystal ball has been removed from the permanent display. It’s now in the archives at Blythe House. Inventory number A127915.” She handed Jade a sheet of paper. “Here. I wrote it down for you. You can take this to Blythe house in the morning and request a viewing.
“I should warn you though,” Allenby went on. “About ten years ago, that item was stolen. The thief smashed the display case, grabbed it and ran. The police later apprehended the thief and recovered the item, but…” She sighed. “There’s some question about the authenticity of the item that was returned.
“Just between you and me, there are some who suspect that the theft was engineered to cover the fact that the original had been replaced by a fake years before. Remember what I told you about people wanting to get their hands on those artifacts? It’s possible that an unscrupulous curator switched it with a fake decades ago, and sold it off to a wealthy occult enthusiast. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.”
Jade felt her disappointment give way to ire. This was turning into a wild goose chase. There has to be a better way to go about this than bouncing from one museum to the next, asking for permission to fondle John Dee’s crystal balls.
She shook Allenby’s hand and put on her most winning smile. “Thanks so much for following up on that for us, and for letting us inspect these artifacts. I’m curious about one thing: If, as you suggest, the crystal ball from the Science Museum was replaced with a fake…who, in your professional opinion, would be the most likely suspect?”
Allenby seemed astonished at the question. “Why, I haven’t the slightest. I make it a habit to avoid the criminal element whenever possible.”
“Of course,” Jade said quickly. “I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. It’s just…” She recalled something Allenby had said earlier. “Well, you know how it is with acquisitions. You know who the collectors are, and who has a reputation for…questionable dealing.”
“I honestly have no idea.” Allenby still seemed a little ruffled by Jade’s inquiry. “Occult enthusiasts are a different breed than most art collectors. They care nothing for the intrinsic or artistic value of a piece; only whether or not it has,” she waggled her fingers dramatically, “strong juju. They are also very secretive.”
“Just point me in the right direction.”
Allenby sighed. “Well, there is this one fellow…”
According to his website, Gerald Roche was the world’s leading authority on the life and career of Dr. John Dee. He had not merely written the book on Dee, he had written several.
To his legions of devotees, Roche was a visionary and a crusader, piercing the manifold veil of deception that had been thrown over the eyes of the world by a diabolical conspiracy intent on enslaving the masses. His supporters claimed he had accurately predicted the international banking crisis, the near-collapse of the European Union, and even accurately foreshadowed, nearly a decade in advance, groundbreaking theories about quantum physics and the true nature of the universe. His suggestion, which had seemed at the time ludicrous, was that the universe was a holographic projection, like something from Star Trek, controlled by an omniscient computer that had been misidentified as “God.”
According to most reputable news agencies, he was both deluded and dangerous. Roche preached a strange blend of conspiracy theory and New Age mysticism, which included the evidently sincere belief that world leaders, bank executives, and captains of industry were all renegade computer programs he called ‘changelings’—so named for the demonic faerie creatures of folklore that were substituted for human children—engaged in an ongoing plot to control humanity.
“Never heard of him,” Jade said, when Dr. Allenby had supplied Roche’s name.
Allenby had mentioned Roche’s enduring fascination with Dee and hinted at the man’s somewhat volatile nature; Jade had learned the rest for herself.
“I can see why this guy tops the list of suspects,” she told Dorion as they researched Roche on the Internet that evening at their hotel. “He’s obsessed with Dee. And he definitely has the money to get whatever he wants.”
Roche did not occupy the same tier of wealth as Ophelia Doerner, but the former Minister of Parliament, turned professional conspiracy theorist, netted a hefty annual income from his publishing empire, syndicated radio show, and personal appearances. Among those who either worshipped or feared him, he was a household name, but as was the way of such things, outside of that niche, few knew of his existence. Those who had merely heard of him dismissed him as a kook.
Even among his supporters, there was some debate about whether his more extraordinary claims were meant to be taken literally. Some averred that the “changeling” plot was merely a me
taphor for the fact that rapacious bankers and deceitful politicians had relinquished all trace of their humanity in their quest for wealth and power. Jade thought that explanation probably made a lot more sense; Roche was too successful to be completely “off his nut,” to quote Allenby.
That he was obsessed with Dee was evident, not merely from the numerous books he had written, but also from the fact that Roche was known to be a collector of Dee memorabilia and had for more than a decade lived in Mortlake, not far from the site of Dee’s summer house—the very place where Perez had used the crystal Eye to interpret the manuscript describing the chamber beneath Teotihuacan.
“How do we find out if he has Dee’s crystal?” asked Dorion.
“I thought I might just ask.”
“You’re just going to walk up to him and say ‘Please, may I look at you stolen property?’”
“Something like that,” she smiled, and then stretched. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I am seriously jet lagged. I think I’ll turn it.”
Dorian rose from the table. “I don’t suppose you would care to join me for a nightcap?”
The invitation caught Jade completely off guard, and for a moment, all she could do was gape at him. He seemed to sense her discomfort and quickly backpedaled. “Or if you’re not feeling up to it, I understand. It has been a long journey.”
Jade was still trying to process what she was hearing. Dorion was a nice enough guy, smart and charming, and completely different from…him. She had even gotten past that awkward first impression; given their shared experience with the dark matter-fueled premonitions, they had a lot in common. Yet somehow, he just wasn’t the sort of man she could see herself with.
I haven’t exactly had much luck with the kind of guys I can see myself with.
