Oracle

by David Wood

  “Maybe we should go look for her,” he prompted one of the security men.

  The man gave him a blank look, but before he could answer, his face screwed up in consternation. He reached into a pocket and took out a cell phone. “Hello?” A pause. “I’ll put him on.”

  He passed the phone to Dorion. “Yes?”

  The voice on the other end belonged to Chapman—Professor, he thought, that’s what Jade calls him. “Paul? How goes the search at your end?”

  Dorion wasn’t sure what to say. “Ah, Jade is meeting with someone right now.”

  “That’s okay. I was actually hoping to talk to you. It’s about Delphi. Were you aware that the oracle only entered the sanctuary on the seventh day of each month?”

  Dorion was having trouble concentrating on the question. “I don’t recall. Why would it matter?”

  “The Greeks used a lunar calendar. The first day of each month always corresponded to the appearance of the first crescent moon. The seventh day would always fall on the first quarter moon.”

  “So?”

  “You said that dark matter is influenced by gravity. The phases of the moon affect the earth’s gravity. New and full moons exert the greatest influence because the earth, moon and sun are all aligned. The tidal effect is most pronounced at those times. When the moon is in its quarter phases, the tidal forces are weakest.”

  Dorion finally saw what Professor was driving at. “And the Delphic oracle was active only when the gravitational field was at its weakest.”

  “Maybe that’s why you never felt anything at Delphi. Maybe you were there at the wrong time. What I can’t figure though is why the effect would be stronger when the tidal forces are weakest. Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”

  “Not necessarily. The effect works because close proximity to the dark matter field causes a relativistic change. You are literally traveling at a different speed, relative to the rest of the universe, when you are near a dark matter field. During the full moon, the gravitation effect is so strong, it probably cancels out the dark matter field.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Are you saying there might still be a dark matter field there at Delphi?”

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s still there after sixteen hundred years, but it might explain how the oracle was able to continue making accurate prophecies hundreds of years after the Omphalos was stolen.”

  “I will tell Jade. We will come there as soon as we can.”

  Dorion rang off and handed the phone back to the security man. “Where is she?” he said, more to himself than to the other man. “We need to get to Delphi as soon as possible. This search for Dr. Dee’s crystal ball is clearly a dead end.”

  Jade calculated the distance between herself and Roche. She kicked herself for having retreated at the first sight of the pistol. “Mr. Roche, I don’t want to steal anything from you. I’ve told you the complete and honest truth.”

  “My visions have never led me astray,” Roche said. He twisted the gun slightly in his hand, swiping off the safety catch with his thumb.

  “You actually saw me steal that crystal ball in a vision?” she asked, trying to sound incredulous, even as she shifted her weight, priming herself for action. “Did it look something like this?”

  She stepped toward, spinning on her outstretched foot so that, at the critical moment, she was turned sideways and no longer in his sights. The pistol banged loudly and she felt the hot eruption of gases from the barrel, but the round sizzled harmlessly past her, shattering the glass on one of the display cases. It had been a reflexive shot and Roche hastily tried to aim the weapon again, but she was already inside his reach. She threw her left arm out in a rising block that knocked the gun hand away, and then followed through with a solid punch to his lower jaw. Dazed, Roche flew back, rebounding off another display case, dropping the pistol and inadvertently flinging the crystal ball away.

  Jade kept advancing and snatched the orb out of the air. It was heavier than she expected. As her fingers closed over the smooth quartz globe, she wondered if she would be hit by a vision. Instead of a warning from another dimension however, she heard a shout from the top of the stairs; the bodyguard, asking if there was a problem. Roche’s wild shot might not have hit her, but it had still done some damage.

  She bolted for the stairs, the only way out of the basement gallery. As expected, Roche’s bodyguard was on his way down. Jade didn’t slow or try to evade him, but instead drove forward, cutting the man’s legs out from under him and plowing through as he tumbled down the stairs behind her.

  Because the house was unfamiliar territory, Jade bypassed the first floor and kept ascending, back to the patio where she had entered. Before she reached the top of the second flight, she heard footsteps on the stairs below. The bodyguard had recovered and was giving chase.

  She darted through the house and reached the door to the balcony just as her pursuer reached the top of the stairs. Damn, he’s fast, she thought, glancing back and jamming the crystal ball into an empty pocket.

  She didn’t bother with the stairs down to the river walk, but instead vaulted over the patio rail and into the open air. As soon as her feet touched the lawn, she rolled forward into a somersault, trying to redirect some of the energy from the impact. It must have been the right thing to do, because instead of breaking her legs, she somehow wound up in what could almost pass for a sprinter’s crouch.

  The bodyguard appeared at the railing above, but instead of attempting to imitate her, he simply aimed his gun.

  Jade erupted from her crouch, running headlong toward the river’s edge, knowing even as she did that every step was taking her further from Dorion and Ophelia’s security team. Unfortunately, getting back to Mortlake High Street meant running the gauntlet with Roche’s man.

  But if I can reach the river….

  She crossed the sandy bank and splashed out into the water until it came up to her knees, and then launched into a headfirst dive. Her hands split the chilly water like the tip of a harpoon, and she plunged into the murky depths, dolphin kicking to propel herself as far from the shore—and the man with the gun—as she could go on a single breath. When she finally broke the surface, she was more than a hundred feet out into the river.

  “Are you okay?”

  She turned toward the voice and found a young man, sitting astride a sleek torpedo-hulled scull, drifting in her direction. She paddled toward him. “Just out for a swim.” She tried to sound casual, but the cold water made her teeth chatter.

  “That’s probably not a very good idea.”

  “No kidding. I don’t suppose you could give me a ride back to shore. Preferably, that way.” She pointed to the north bank, which was at least two hundred feet away.

  The man opened his mouth to reply, but at that instant, the sound of a gunshot rolled across the water. He jerked in surprise and tumbled out of the boat.

  Jade whipped her head around and saw a figure on the patio she had just fled. It was Roche, and although she couldn’t see him very clearly, she could tell that his arms were extended and holding a small black object. There was a flash of fire from the object and a moment later, another report.

  If that’s Roche, where’s the bodyguard?

  There was no time to find the answer to that question.

  The scull’s owner was swimming away frantically. Jade thought he had merely panicked; at this distance, Roche’s accuracy with the pistol was non-existent, and the only way he could have hit anything was if blind luck was on his side. Still, luck was a funny thing, and Jade thought the rower probably had the right idea.

  Still, no sense in letting a perfectly good boat go to waste.

  She gripped the end of the scull and tried to heave herself up onto the rapier-thin hull, which proved to be about as easy as climbing onto a greased log. The boat threatened to roll over, forcing her to go slow and move in very slight increments. She had never been on a craft like this, but she had practically grown u
p on the water, surfing and paddle-boarding and this didn’t seem much different. Straddling the narrow hull, distributing her weight to maintain balance, she inched toward the center seat, and then carefully twisted around until she was set.

  So far so good.

  The process of getting situated had taken at least thirty seconds, during which time she had not heard another shot. Maybe Roche had come to his senses; not only were his chances of hitting her virtually nil, but in England, where gun laws were considerably more strict than in the United States, shooting up a posh neighborhood was bound to attract attention that Roche probably didn’t want. There also the very real possibility that, if he killed or even injured her, the Shew Stone would be lost in the Thames. She did not allow herself to believe however, that Roche was going to just let her go.

  She curled her hands around the oar grips and pushed down, raising the long paddles out of the water. Despite the balance of the rig, the oars felt heavy and unwieldy. She pushed them forward keeping the blades flat and parallel to the water, then twisted them, letting the blades dig into the river. Planting her feet, she pulled on the oars with all her might. The seat rolled back beneath her, allowing her to straighten her bent legs and amplifying the energy of her body as she hauled in the oars.

  The scull shot backwards like a rocket.

  Unprepared for the success of her first attempt, Jade’s follow-through was sloppy. As she tried to get the oars back to forward position, she dragged one tip through the water, which caused the scull to turn sharply and suddenly, nearly capsizing. She froze, waiting for the craft to settle, and that was when she heard the mosquito-buzz sound of a small outboard.

  Roche and his bodyguard had found a boat. It was just a little dory, maybe fifteen feet with a little outboard, but it was more than a match for the scull.

  Jade breathed a curse and focused on the task at hand. She had only a few seconds before they caught her, but if she could make the scull do what she wanted, there was a chance she could get to the far shore, and from there escape on foot.

  “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” she muttered to herself, like a mantra. It was something Maddock had often said—damn, she didn’t want to think about him right now—but it was sage advice. She exaggerated every movement, making sure that the blades were exactly where she wanted them before trying to move the oars.

  Push forward. Dip. Pull back.

  After just a couple cycles, she got the hang of it. The only problem was that she was arrowing through the water at an oblique angle; she needed to turn, aim for the shore, or Roche would catch her.

  On her next cycle, she held back a little on her right side, and the scull gradually swung in that direction.

  Close enough.

  She dug in again and again, repeating the mantra like a military cadence. “Slow is—” Lift the oars. “Smooth, and—” Roll forward and recover. “Smooth is—” Drop the oars and pull. “Fast!”

  Not fast enough. The dory shot toward her, then veered away, cutting a wide circle around her. She thought she might still be able to reach the shore, but then the boat’s wake hit her and nearly rolled her over. When she finally got the scull on an even keel, the dory was between her and the shore. She felt the scull shudder as someone—Roche’s bodyguard, leaning over the side of the idling motorboat—grabbed hold of it. Roche stood next to him, wearing an exultant grin. He held the pistol in his right hand; his left was extended, palm up.

  “Give it back, and I’ll let you walk away.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Maybe I’m not being clear,” Roche continued. “This is a one-time offer. Give me the crystal ball or I will kill you.”

  He’s bluffing. But what if he isn’t?

  She let go of the oars, raised her hands as if in a show of surrender, and then brought them to rest on her thighs. She could feel the outline of the contents of her pockets through the fabric of her slacks. Slowly, more to avoid further upsetting the boat, she wormed her hand into her left pocket, curling her fingers around something smooth and round. She drew it out and held it out over the water.

  “You shoot me and I might drop it,” she retorted.

  The gun twitched in Roche’s hand but he did not lower it. “I don’t want that to happen, but if you leave me no choice, I will take that chance. The crystal will be recovered, but you will be dead. Is that what you want?”

  Jade looked down into the murky water. “You think you can find it down there? Be my guest.”

  She opened her hand and let the orb fall. It hit the water with a loud plop, and vanished.

  Roche’s reaction was almost primal. He leaped from the boat, reaching out as if he might somehow be able to catch the transparent globe before the water claimed it. The dory began bobbing violently from the abrupt shift in its mass, and the effect was magnified when Roche hit the water, throwing up a spume of water.

  The bodyguard threw up his hands in a reflexive grab for a handhold, releasing the scull, but not before Jade got a hand on the dory. She rolled over the side, dropping into the motor boat, and before the bodyguard could recover his wits, she brought her joined fists down in hammer blow that caught him in the back of the head. The strike didn’t knock him out, but it was enough to daze him. He barely resisted at all as Jade got her arms under his torso and heaved him up and over the side.

  Jade scrambled back to the outboard and twisted the throttle to ‘full.’ The boat lurched forward, throwing out a rooster-tail of white water. She glanced back and saw the bodyguard thrashing in the wake but there was no sign of Roche, who had evidently made a deep dive to retrieve the sunken orb.

  She turned the boat toward the south shore and ran it up onto a sandbank not far from where she had gone in. She was a little worried that someone might have called the police, so despite her eagerness to be away, she ran back up toward Roche’s flat and skirted along the apartment buildings until she found a narrow alley leading back to the main street. Then with as much nonchalance as possible given her sodden appearance, she stepped onto the sidewalk and began strolling toward the waiting car.

  “Jade?” Dorion leaped out of the car. “Where did you go?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Your friend Professor called. They’ve made an amazing discovery in Delphi. We have to hurry if we’re going to catch our flight.” He stopped, looked at her. “Why are you all wet?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you after I dry off.”

  “Were you able to make the switch? Did everything go as you planned?”

  Jade dropped a hand to her pocket and brought out her prize. She thought about Roche groping in the mud at the bottom of the river, rooting around like a catfish. How would he react when he finally found what he was looking for, only to discover that the orb she had dropped into the Thames was not Dr. Dee’s Shew Stone, but a cheap reconstituted quartz crystal ball she’d picked up at an occult bookstore a few blocks from the British Museum?

  The thought brought a smile to her face. “Almost exactly as planned.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Delphi, Greece

  Professor gazed up into the darkening eastern sky, and found the moon, a misshapen white disk that looked more like an over-inflated football than a sphere. The technical name for the current phase was ‘waxing gibbous’ but in a few more days it would be completely full. If Dorion was right about tidal forces cancelling out the dark matter field, then they might have already missed their opportunity.

  After his conversation with the physicist, it had occurred to Professor that there might be another explanation for the oracle choosing to speak only on the seventh day of the lunar month; the timing of moonrise and lunar zenith. The first quarter moon would be in the sky during midday, when the oracle was active. As the month progressed, moonrise would come later and later, until in the latter half of the month, the moon would only be overhead in the middle of the night. Perhaps it wasn’t the alignment of sun and moon that mattered, but simply having the moon overhead. That too was som
ething they could test, which was why he and Ophelia had been cooling their heels at the hotel until after dusk.

  He turned to Ophelia. “Ready to play oracle?”

  She returned a playful smile. “You know, according to tradition, we should ritually bathe first.”

  “We also should have spent the last few days fasting,” he replied, evenly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t make a difference.”

  She laughed and seemed content with his answer. Professor waited until she had turned away to roll his eyes in frustration. At first, he had thought perhaps he was misreading her, but after a while, it had been impossible to miss the signals; the sly glances, the comments thick with innuendo, and perhaps most significant of all, the fact that she was trying her damnedest to impress him with how intelligent she was. He had been flattered, and then he had grown suspicious. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that every woman swooned in his presence, and since Ophelia was both beautiful and wealthy, it seemed unlikely that she was desperate for suitors, especially someone so far outside what he assumed was her normal social circle. So why was she trying so hard to get his attention?

  He decided that, despite her seemingly confident manner, Ophelia was either a narcissist, in which case what she really wanted was for every person in her life to worship her; or deeply insecure, which essentially meant the same thing. Either way, nothing good could come of indulging her. He had decided it was better to feign being oblivious to her advances; this was a partnership of convenience, nothing more, and it would be over soon enough.

  “Okay, but if this doesn’t work, it’s your fault.”

  “Fair enough.” He donned his hat and headed for the door. He wasn’t, in truth, prepared to accept any kind of blame in that regard. As far as he was concerned, the visit to Delphi had already borne fruit. If he or Ophelia actually experienced some kind of precognitive vision at the ruins of the sanctuary of Apollo, well that would just be icing on the cake.

  Flanked by Ophelia’s security detail, they headed out through the bustling streets, toward the archaeological site. The site was technically closed for the day, but years of generous donations from the Doerner Charitable Trust had earned her “special access.”