by Joanne Pence
He picked up the bronze, took hold of the lid, and tried twisting it, but it refused to open.
Michael held it up close to the light. It was tiny for a bronze, no larger than a ripe apricot. The three legs, he saw, had been cast separately. He fiddled with them and found that he could twist them. But still, nothing happened.
Then, quite by accident, he simultaneously twisted two of the legs, and with that, the lid began to rotate. It split into five leaves that separated much like a shutter opens over a camera lens. The opening grew larger as he continued to turn. He had never seen such a mechanism in any early Chinese craft. A tiny pillow of black silk lay directly under the opening. He lifted it by its black tassel. Beneath it, nestled in more black silk was what looked and smelled like soil, like earth. He lightly brushed some aside with the tip of his finger, and buried within it, he found a small red stone.
He placed the stone in the palm of his hand and held it under the desk lamp. It was the shape of a perfectly round pearl, but that was where the similarity ended.
He knew what it was.
He had seen a stone similar to this once before, a red philosopher’s stone, the source of alchemy, the prime agent needed to perform an alchemical transformation. He had seen it in Idaho … before his life went to hell.
Now he understood why the old priest had sought him out. But how did the priest know?
The blood of alchemists flowed in Michael’s veins going back to Edward Kelley, a 16th century Irishman who claimed to be able to transmute cheap metals into gold. He was popular in Elizabeth I’s court, but was later imprisoned by the Emperor of Bohemia when he failed to enrich the empire’s wealth. Kelley died trying to escape, but his bastard son seemed to have inherited his abilities, as did a grandson. Those abilities could be traced through historical records, from one generation to another, down to Michael himself.
If alchemists did nothing but turn lead into gold, Michael could easily live with that. But alchemy in its purest state was about power, including power over life and death.
Michael had seen men do terrible things because of it, and he didn’t want it back in his life.
But it seemed he had no choice.
As he held the pearl, it began to glow. The lights died in the apartment. All turned black around him except for a faint radiance from the small orb in his hand. Despite the darkness he saw a mist, a black mist, swirling around him. His breathing quickened, and his head began to spin.
The priest’s words that when you looked at the pearl it looked back at you filled his mind before he fell, unconscious, to the floor.
Chapter 2
Malibu, California
Gene Oliveros stood on the deck of his multi-million dollar, contemporary Malibu home atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, and watched his daughter play with her birthday presents. The sun was shining, the temperature warm, but the air was absolutely still. Californians called days like this earthquake weather. His nerves tightened. He glanced out at the Pacific. No seagulls, no pelicans, not even a pigeon scavenging for food.
It was a bad omen. The thought came unbidden. He believed in omens, although he wouldn’t let anyone know that. Gene paid close attention to the hurricanes, typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes, to any strange natural phenomena that could potentially be dangerous. Maybe that was because of his work. Producing horror movies, where everyday objects turned into deadly missiles to dispatch people to their eternal reward in the most gruesome ways possible, had to have some effect on a person’s psyche. Or so Gene liked to tell himself.
Now, he tried to tell himself the weather was, in fact, a good omen. Good because it made him appreciate all he had, and to appreciate it even more than he normally did. That was the trouble with omens, who knew what they meant? Who cared? The day was gorgeous, and he wanted it to be gorgeous, just like his little girl. His princess.
She was five today, the apple of his eye, which was saying a lot given the beauties that buzzed around his studio every day in Hollywood. Not that his films would ever be nominated for an Academy Award. They weren’t that kind. They were moneymakers, the kind of movies kids went to on a Friday night. Special effects, blood, and gore.
Amberly, his “third-time’s-the-charm wife” as he called her behind her back, was looking young and radiant today, as always. The rumors about her … he tried to shake them from his mind. He didn’t believe any of them. They were jealous, those bastards who went running to the gossip pages with any little thing. Let her go to the dentist, and they’d say she was having an affair. Gene didn’t go for any of that crap.
She was devoted to him, and his age didn’t matter to her. He was thirty years older than she was. So what? He gave her their daughter, didn’t he? Besides, those who didn’t know his age and didn’t know his filmography always took him for a good ten to fifteen years younger than he really was. His peers wanted to know where he got his Botox and facelifts, but he never used any of that shit. Didn’t believe in it. Didn’t need it. He smiled. Didn’t even need to touch up the gray. Good genes, he’d say. Gene of the good genes.
But he shouldn’t think of all that here; not now on his baby’s birthday.
His chest swelled with pride as he looked around at all that his money had bought. Who would have thought a nobody like him, who used to pick grapes in the fields as a kid with his father and uncles, would now have so much? It was a miracle, no doubt about it.
His daughter’s birthday party, held on the deck, had just ended. The house had been built atop a cliff, and the deck hung out over a rocky beach far below. Ocean waves rolled onto the beach under their feet. It was magical, as if one were on a ship. Of course, ever since the baby was born, the walls of the deck had been built higher, and there was even a little ledge around the outside of them so that if she ever did crawl over, she would fall onto the ledge which was also railed. Gene tried to think of everything.
The ocean had served as a glimmering backdrop to balloons, glitter, cake, candy, and clowns who had made Lake’s birthday perfect. Lake Oliveros—yeah, weird name. Sounded like a place to him, not a person. He was almost used to it. Amberly had insisted on a “different” name, a name she thought had ‘class.’ Class was important to Amberly, maybe the most important thing. He didn’t see how giving his kid a name that sounded like a pond was classy, but he loved both his girls, so he agreed. What the hell.
He heard a woman’s voice inside the house. “I’m sorry I’m so late.” The voice was breathless, but mellifluous, the kind that sounded good in movies, and Gene found himself listening. “Verity couldn’t make it to the party, but I wanted to be sure your daughter received a present from her. Something special. I’m sure Lake will enjoy it.”
“How nice,” Amberly said. “Verity is a lovely girl. I’m sorry you and I haven’t met before.”
“Me, too. My name is Dana. I’ve got to hurry now, but maybe we can have lunch one day soon. Where is Lake?”
“On the deck, I’ll show you.”
The two women joined Lake.
Gene watched. There was something oddly familiar about the stranger. She must be connected with the film industry, he thought, and if she wasn’t, she should be. Her hair was long and thick, a luscious brown with auburn highlights. After a few moments with Lake, she turned to leave. As the family’s housekeeper showed her to the door, she glanced over at him and smiled.
Her eyes, he noticed, were fabulous—a sparkling, brilliant green, the color of emeralds.
He, who prided himself in never forgetting a face, was perplexed as he smiled back and nodded in response.
She tilted her head and then mouthed a word.
He stared, stunned for a moment, he was no lip-reader, for cryin’ out loud … but then he understood. The word was “Egypt.”
Everything rushed back at him.
It had been long ago, another time, another world. The smile he wore vanished into horror, and under his perpetual Hollywood tan, his skin paled to ash. “No. This can’t be.”
>
His gaze fixed on the wrapped present Lake was about to open.
The sounds of war broke out all around him. An aircraft carrier’s shrill whistle blasted, warning all hands to take cover, to prepare for attack. He looked up. The putt-putt of a decades-old Army helicopter sounded, coming closer. It was a movie, he told himself. That’s all. A movie suddenly playing in his brain. He covered his ears as he gaped in horror at his daughter. “Noooooo!”
“Gene,” his wife called, alarmed by his cry, his expression. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t hear a word she said as he began to run towards Lake.
She glanced up and gave him one of her darling smiles.
He felt as if his legs wouldn’t move, as if he were in a dream where he was trying to run, but couldn’t. His legs were numb, his throat so tight he could no longer speak, couldn’t cry out a warning as his little daughter reached for the ribbon wrapped around the gift. He saw her pull on it.
When the box exploded, the force of the blast tore the deck from its moorings and shoved it away from the house. Then, like a car that careens off a mountainside, it hung suspended out over the water a long moment before it dropped like a stone, falling hard onto the rocks and waves below.
Chapter 3
Florence, Italy
Michael awoke hot and sweaty at seven to the sound of matin bells from the Basilica Santa Maria Novella, a thirteenth-century cathedral that would be famous were it anywhere but Florence where more magnificent structures overshadowed it.
He sat up, oddly dazed and disoriented, his pillow on the floor and the bed covers twisted and yanked out from the mattress.
The night before, he saw four a.m. before he was able to quiet his mind enough to sleep. He was troubled by the way he had passed out. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before.
When he finally did go to bed, he slept fitfully with anxiety-filled, terrible dreams.
He headed for the shower. An old memory came to him of Magda, his nanny after his mother’s untimely death. She was Romanian, and he used to believe she was a gypsy. She told him to beware and to never invite a witch, warlock, devil or demon into his home. That if he did, it could possess him.
He felt better as he dried off. Renewed. Clearly, the strange old priest with his absurd stories of an evil pearl and Marco Polo, and seeing what looked like a philosopher’s stone, had triggered memories and fears deep in his psyche. In turn, they, along with an overzealous imagination, and probably a bad clam or two in his dinner, caused him to imagine flickering lights, dark swirling mists, and to briefly black out. Now, he was fine.
Surely, the bronze wasn’t from the Shang dynasty, but was a very clever fake. And the pearl wasn’t a philosopher’s stone, but just an amalgam produced in some laboratory—and probably filled with plastics and phosphorescent materials so it seemed to glow in the dark. He should laugh about it.
Marco Polo, indeed!
That the old priest mentioned Marco Polo at all was either a lucky guess on his part, or came about thanks to someone who knew Michael well. Michael’s fascination with Polo began at an early age. In fact, he often suspected learning about Polo’s adventures in China was one of several reasons he became an archeologist. The mere mention of the “Old Silk Road” sent him into a reverie of the stories he had read in The Travels of Marco Polo. He wanted to have similar adventures in his own life. He was living proof of the old saw, “be careful what you wish for.”
Several of his archeological travels had taken him to portions of the Silk Road around the Central Asian cities of Tashkent and Samarkand. Most of the road was gone now and warring governments and fierce tribal peoples made what little remained difficult to traverse.
One of the recurring themes in history was how other nations would ignore that part of the world until its inhabitants rose up in unstoppable fury and mercilessly attacked rival states—states they regarded as soft, degenerate, and arrogant in believing themselves immune to falling. The Huns, whose origin is disputed to this day, when led by Attila hastened the Roman Empire’s final collapse. Centuries later, again out of seemingly nowhere, the Mongols under Genghis Khan rose up, crossed the steppes, and extended their empire to the gates of Vienna. Even today, Michael thought, much unrest in the world traced its roots to that same rugged area, fingering into ethnic conclaves from around the Caspian Sea eastward to the deserts of Western China.
He walked to his combination living and dining room. The bronze receptacle still sat on the dining table, the bulging eyes of its monster design seemed to follow him, as if to say it would not be ignored. Maddeningly, to his trained eye it looked like the real thing. An uneasy feeling crept through him once more. He had hoped that moving to Italy would free him of these “feelings.” It hadn’t happened.
He paced back and forth, running thin fingers through his black hair, pushing it back off his forehead, all the while trying to rid himself of a horrible feeling of relentless, approaching doom. He had come to Italy to study, and if he were being completely honest, to hide amidst the antiquity here and lose himself in its museums and universities. He wanted nothing to do with anything else.
That damned bronze was the problem. He needed to find the priest and return it. He could not, would not, take this on. Too much danger lurked along that path. A lesson he had learned well.
The rain had stopped, but dark clouds covered the sky as he left his apartment. Cold morning air cut through his jacket, and he hunched his shoulders, hands in his pockets as he took long-legged strides to the corner café. He bought the morning paper, La Nazione, and ordered a cappuccino, paying extra to sit at a table rather than stand at the counter to drink his coffee, a common requirement in many Italian cafés. His smattering of Italian plus a lot of Latin—which he had studied along with classical Greek and Syriac for his archeological pursuits—helped him understand the gist of the news stories he read.
He flipped to the last page of the news section, about to sip his cappuccino, when he jolted, sloshing some coffee onto the paper. A photo of Father Berosus peered up at him. The headline read “Who is this man?” It went on to say that “this stranger” was at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, and the administrators asked that any relative, friend, or other person who had information on him, to contact them.
There wouldn’t have been time since last evening for the hospital to have put the request for information into the newspaper, so the news story had to have been placed a day or so earlier. Most likely, the priest had recovered and was released.
Once Michael got over the shock, he realized this was a break. The hospital would know how to contact the man.
He gulped down the rest of his cappuccino, rushed back to his apartment, put the bronze in his pocket, and then rode his Vespa motor scooter through the chilly streets to the hospital.
Santa Maria Nuova was the oldest active hospital in Florence, dating back to 1288. At one time it had housed beautiful frescos, paintings, and statues, most of which had been moved to museums. Leonardo da Vinci was said to have learned anatomy there by dissecting corpses. At the reception counter, Michael pointed at the newspaper article and said he had some information.
The reception nurse raised her eyebrows. “The doctor who attended him last night is still on duty. I’ll page him for you.”
“Last night?” Michael asked, confused. Ah! She must mean the doctor who released him. He took a seat and waited.
After some fifteen minutes, a harried physician ran to the nurse. She pointed at Michael. The doctor wore a peculiar expression as he approached. Michael stood.
“I am Doctor Orrecchino,” the man said in Italian as he held out his hand. Up close, Michael could see he was younger than he seemed at first glance. Weariness and dark circles below his eyes aged him.
They shook hands. “Michael Rempart.”
“I understand you know something about our mysterious patient.” The doctor switched to English.
“His name is Yosip Berosus, and he’s a Cha
ldean priest, although I assume you’ve learned who he is by now. In any event, he gave me something valuable to hold, and I need to return it.” Michael decided not to tell them he knew the priest had been released. “It’s very important that I give it back to him.”
The doctor’s expression turned grave. “Are you family?”
Something was very wrong here. “I’m a friend.”
“Would you be able to identify him?”
The question jarred. “Are you saying Father Berosus came back here last night and died? Is that what happened?”
The doctor’s lips tightened. “He came to us three days ago, signore. He was catatonic, unmoving, unaware. In the end, he slipped into a coma. Last night, he passed away very quietly without ever regaining consciousness.”
Michael told himself it couldn’t be the man he saw. The two looked alike, that was all. Or perhaps the hospital or newspaper had mixed up the photos.
“Tell me, Doctor, what was the cause of death?”
The doctor looked uncomfortable. “He was an old man.”
“And?”
“His heart stopped. He died.”
“Why the coma?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know. We found no trauma. No signs of a stroke. But, at his age …”
“So you don’t know.”
The doctor frowned, clearly not liking being questioned this way. His tone was abrupt. “As I said, he was very old. Sometimes, that’s the only reason a person dies.”
“Will there be an autopsy?”
“There is no need,” he said sternly. “In any case, if you could identify the body to be sure it’s the man you named, that would be helpful. He was taken to a mortuary for indigents since he died with, apparently, no family and no money. The nurse will give you the address. Perhaps, with your help, someone will claim the body.”
