by Joanne Pence
Stepping inside, he saw he’d been right to worry. The apartment had been ransacked, everything overturned and scattered, including his books and papers. Whoever had done this had worked fast, but still managed to open up the back of his computer. It meant whatever was being sought was small. Perhaps the size of a bronze vessel. Or a red pearl.
The landlady entered behind him. He had a spare key, but asked her to have his lock changed as soon as possible, adding he would pay. She soon left, glad to be of some help.
He walked into the living room and sat on the sofa, his head throbbing. If this had been a normal mugging and robbery, they would have taken his watch and cell phone, and once inside the apartment, his laptop, tablet, TV, and cameras. But they took nothing of that, which left him assuming the attack had to be related to the dead priest’s strange gift. The attackers probably watched him go to the hospital or the mortuary and when they didn’t find the bronze and pearl on him, they’d come to his apartment. His driver’s license gave them the address.
Three ibuprofens later, Michael straightened up his apartment, re-shelved books and papers, and put his computer back together. He wanted everything the way it had been. An inner voice laughed at him—ain’t gonna happen, fella. Any normal person would have dismissed the priest’s conjecture of demonic forces at work. But “normal” wasn’t in his lexicon.
Because of his ancestors, he had studied quite a bit about alchemy. Modern man dismissed it as a sham, but for over five thousand years, people from China to Europe had practiced it. Men who weren’t exactly stupid or gullible, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton, believed in alchemy and its spiritual tenets, including its path to immortality.
And, if alchemy could deal with spirituality and immortality, it could also deal with demons.
Maybe the blow to his head was worse than he first thought? He took his spare motor scooter key to retrieve his Vespa.
By the time he returned, despite his head and shoulder vying for attention as to which ached worse, he took out the photo of the American sailors he had found among Berosus’ clothes. Seven young men wearing Navy whites and caps smiled into the camera. He saw no medals or badges to indicate they were anything more than young seamen, probably second or third class. Directly behind them loomed the Great Pyramid of Egypt—Egypt, the birthplace of Western and Arabian alchemy.
He assumed one of the men in the photo must have been the padre’s close friend or relative. He found a magnifying glass and used it to study the features of each man. He didn’t know why, but as he studied it, he felt a presence. He put down the glass.
When he was young, he managed to ignore the peculiar sensations that afflicted him. And afflicted was the right word. Unwanted, they washed over him like an illness. In fact, he had become quite adept at discounting feelings of any kind until the situation in Idaho forced him to listen to them.
Going to the hospital to find the priest had been a mistake. He should have known better. The last thing he wanted was that sort of trouble in his life again.
He couldn’t stop studying the photo. None of the men seemed to have features similar to Berosus, but the priest was old, the men were young, and the photo was grainy. If he could find out who those men were, that might lead to knowing who should inherit the bronze Berosus entrusted to him. And move it from his life to theirs. Lucky devils!
He scanned the photo at high resolution, and emailed it to his assistant, Li Jianjun.
Jianjun had been born thirty-six years earlier in Beijing, China, and left at the age of eight when his family moved to Hong Kong. At fourteen, the family immigrated to Vancouver. He landed a good job with Microsoft in Seattle and married the woman his parents chose for him.
Michael met him after Jianjun discovered he enjoyed recreational hacking far more than his programming job with Microsoft in Seattle. For some reason, they clicked, and Michael offered him a new kind of job and a life of constant change. Michael didn’t do typical, university-supported archeological digs where masses of students were sent out with tiny brushes to clean the dust off of pottery shards from some ancient civilization. Instead, he followed legends. Using a combination of history, migration patterns, ancient tales, and Jianjun’s clever computer skills, he had found buried treasure, hidden tombs and, once, a sunken galleon.
Someday, Michael hoped to return to such archeological adventures. But for now—or at least until last night—he had found peace in Florence and had sent Jianjun home with a generous stipend. After Idaho, Michael was hesitant to plunge into a new endeavor. Fear of the unknown filled him—exactly the sort of fear that was anathema to someone whose career was built on excavations and venturing into dark and mysterious areas.
He hated the idea of delving into Father Berosus’ life and the people in this photo, but at the same time, he felt obligated to return a potentially valuable old bronze to its true owner.
He phoned Jianjun.
The time difference was nine hours, with Florence being nine hours ahead of Vancouver. Although it was 11:00 a.m. there, Jianjun was still sleeping. Like Michael, he preferred to stay up late into the night, and to sleep in the morning. Michael’s call woke him up.
Michael told him about the photo he had emailed and asked him to find out who the sailors in it were.
“You’re asking me to hack into old U.S. Navy records?” Jianjun asked, his voice thick with grogginess.
“Why else would I be bothering you at this ungodly hour?” Michael quipped. Jianjun could be nervous, whining, and at times a royal pain, but he was also extremely smart, and as true and loyal a friend as anyone could hope for.
“Good question, boss. But what you want is easy. Anyone can do it. You don’t need someone with my skills.”
“In that case do it for fun. And, by the way, good morning.” Michael hung up and poured himself two fingers of single malt Scotch. He usually drank wine, but the day he’d had called for something a lot stronger. He stepped out his back door and sat on the stoop.
A few steps led down to the garden he shared with four neighbors. It sat barren now, but in summer it thrived with herbs and vegetables.
He listened to the night sounds of Florence: cars, scooters, buses, people calling to each other, arguing, singing, children playing, babies crying, and nearly constant peals of laughter. He had come to love Florence and yet felt as if his time here was coming to an end. Berosus and his accursed pearl threatened to take him away. He took a sip of Scotch as he continued to listen to the cacophony all around him. He found it strange that after traveling and living alone in some of the most remote corners of the world, it was here in this crowded city, filled with people entwined in each other’s lives, that he felt the most alone.
His drink finished, he headed back into his apartment, but then stopped in the doorway. The night had gone stone silent, as if all of Florence had simply vanished.
A flicker of a shadow overhead caught his attention.
On the moonlit roof of his building he glimpsed the silhouette of a dog or a jackal. He viewed it only for a second before it disappeared into the night.
Somehow, he knew it was evil.
Chapter 7
Anyang, China 1150 B.C.—during the Shang dynasty
“I have not traveled all this way to simply turn around and return to the palace.” Zhou Xin felt good about the raucous reception the people of Shen-dao had given him in his first visit as their new king. He was young and arrogant, filled with his own self-importance. The old king had recently died, and although Zhou Xin was the third son, the former king’s counselors had chosen him over his brothers because of his strength and daring. Now, he needed to convince his people that he was worthy of their love. The day’s festivities were an excellent start.
He wore heavy silk clothes in bright colors and was surrounded by a group of aging ministers. They expected the king to climb into his carriage to return home, but instead, he continued to walk along the town’s main street.
“I understan
d the Snail Goddess loves and protects this area above all others,” King Zhou Xin said when he reached a stone wall surrounding a holy place. “I wish to see the temple of this so-called goddess.”
His ministers dared not deny him anything, and so King Zhou Xin and his retinue entered the temple of the goddess Nüwa.
It was large and beautiful with meticulously tended gardens. The statue of the goddess was kept behind a drape, it being said that mere mortals should not look upon one such as she. Zhou Xin walked deep into the grounds, and as he neared the statue, a breeze caught the drape and blew it to one side, revealing Goddess Nüwa to the king.
“Ah! Look at her!” He gasped with awe. “She is no snail; she’s beautiful! I have never seen such perfection in a woman. In fact, she is”—he chuckled—”fit for a king.”
“Please, King Zhou Xin,” the chief counselor said as he bobbed his head several times. “You must not speak such thoughts.”
“Oh?” Zhou sneered at the old man. “I am above all other men, and no one can tell me what I can and cannot do.” He smiled as an idea came to him. “Bring me ink and a writing brush.”
His servants scrambled to do as he commanded. When he received the supplies, he proceeded to write a poem on the wall of the temple for all to see. In his poem, he not only spoke of Nüwa’s beauty, but that she should come alive and join him in his palace, in his bed, and that she would greatly enjoy becoming the lucky recipient of his kingly favors.
His advisors were horrified. They said it was blasphemy to write such a thing, and when the people saw it, they would believe that their king was without virtue.
Zhou Xin refused to listen. He announced that his poem not only praised the goddess’ beauty and female charms, but that he would be admired for writing it. He insisted it be left on the temple wall.
Later, when the Goddess Nüwa walked through her temple grounds and came upon the poem, she was shocked and insulted. Never had any human shown such vile disrespect towards her.
Outrage, complete and boundless, surged through her. Her first thought was to strike down the lecherous king, but then, a better idea came to her.
“Death is too easy for him. I will make his lust a thing of complete derision, something that will cause the name Zhou Xin to be reviled until the end of time. Only then, will I feel vindicated!”
She immediately called for three demons to attend her. The first, the leader, was known as the Thousand-Year Vixen. It was a black, female, green-eyed fox. Next was the Nine-Headed Pheasant, and the weakest of the demons was called the Jade Pipa—a pipa being an ancient lute-shaped instrument much beloved by Nüwa. “You three will go to earth. There, you will form yourselves into women to tempt and seduce the too lustful king. Once he is in your power, you will pervert and defile him, make him depraved, and after that, you will cause his complete and total destruction.”
And then she added. “Beware that, in doing this, you do not harm anyone else.”
The three demons bowed and nodded, promising to do as she wished.
“If you follow my orders, I will give you the one thing you, and all specters, most long for—to be reincarnated as humans.”
The Thousand-Year Vixen fell to her knees. “We will obey you, Goddess Nüwa. The Shang dynasty will come to an ugly end, and will be destroyed so completely that it will vanish into the mists of time.”
Chapter 8
Los Angeles, California
A shudder ran through Kira as she stood at the sliding glass door of Oliveros’ large family room and looked out. The area beyond had once been a deck and was now a horrifying drop to the ocean. Far below, the wooden planks and pillars ripped from the house lay in a jumbled, burned heap in the water.
The bulk of Kira’s job involved talking to people who knew the victims of a crime as well as the potential suspects. When the situation allowed, she also went through victims’ and suspects’ homes and belongings to make some psychological assessments. Once, diaries were a great source of behavioral clues, but fewer people kept them. Now, the online “social media” du jour and e-mails to friends were the most common passages to a person’s inner thoughts. Even looking at TV viewing history for anyone with cable or satellite internet could be helpful in finding a pathology.
She put on rubber gloves and went into Oliveros’ den. Her search began at his desk. It contained amazingly little personal information. An accountant handled his business and household finances, and a personal assistant took care of his business paperwork, publicity, and fan correspondence. He also paid a cadre of others. Exactly what all of them did was a mystery to Kira.
She wasn’t searching for anything involving the crime or potential crime—that was being handled by the LAPD’s homicide and crime scene investigators. Her job was to look for clues that might lead to a psychological understanding of Gene Oliveros.
When she reached the desk’s bottom left drawer, it was locked. A quick search didn’t turn up the key.
She turned on his computer. It opened without a password and she quickly read through his email and saved files. Nothing worrisome jumped out.
Facebook opened onto Gene Oliveros’ personal page. She scrolled through his postings and those of his friends. He most likely paid someone to post for him since the majority of postings were promotional. A few, however, were personal.
She discovered him to be a man with a strong sense of self-worth. He had achieved fame and fortune, was proud of it, and thought he deserved every bit of it. Also, he was extremely vain about his looks and his youthfulness. She smirked—her father was the same way.
When Oliveros wrote about his wife, he focused on her physical appearance—figure and jewelry—to the extent she had no personality. He treated his daughter differently and seemed to post every gurgle she ever made. Although he had two prior wives, Lake was his first child. He had been too busy for children in the past and, until he became a father, couldn’t tolerate the little darlings.
She could understand such sentiments. In her own life, she had pretty much accepted that she would never have children. She actually would have liked kids, and even thought she’d be a good mother, despite her own strange upbringing—or because she’d learned, first hand, what not to do. But after her unhappy marriage to Ben, and now in her mid-thirties, motherhood was very likely not on her agenda. No potential father was in the picture nor likely to be given how busy her work life had become. She loved criminal profiling, and the more she became involved with the FBI, the better the cases she was given, and the more all-consuming the job became. Ironically, a major part of her work came about because her clients had miserable childhoods and even worse parents. Tell me about it, she thought, and found it all kind of sad.
Finding nothing interesting anywhere else, her attention returned to the locked desk drawer. She hunted through the den for a key, but couldn’t find one.
She searched the house. In the nightstand, she found a small one typical of the type used in a desk. She carried it to the den, and sure enough, it fit.
In the drawer were a number of newspaper clippings.
The first was about an electrical and mining company called Powermore Industries, second only to General Electric in size. Several articles about Powermore successes followed, and then the announcement of the retirement of Powermore’s founder and CEO, Stuart Eliot. She flipped through the stack to find more articles about energy sources, as well as about the success of JV Global Energy hedge fund. She guessed Oliveros was an investor.
The next item in the drawer stunned her. She stared a long moment at it: a news article announcing that her father, Daniel Holt, had been selected as a judge for the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. Why in the world would Oliveros care about her father?
She dug deeper.
After her father’s announcement came an article from years ago about the new U.S. Senator from California, Kevin Wilson. Kira was surprised at the date of the article. She had no idea Wilson was old enough to have been a senator for o
ver twenty-four years now.
Another article announced the purchase of the Los Angeles Post by its managing editor, Scott Jones.
And finally, a news article on the sale of VaultGuard, the top internet security company in the world whose security systems were used by the U.S. government. It was sold by its founder and company president, Hank Bennett. More than ten news clippings followed, discussing the disappearance of Hank Bennett, followed by an announcement that he was alive, but wanted no contact with the world.
At that, Kira reached the bottom of the desk drawer. This was a strange collection of news clippings, but she saw nothing here that needed to be locked up. And why, in particular, was her father’s judgeship appointment included? He had never mentioned that he knew Oliveros.
But then, he never talked about any acquaintances outside of his work. Dan Holt was completely defined by his profession, much as she was. A family trait, she supposed. In fact, he never mentioned friends at all. All the people he talked about were colleagues at best.
In that, too, she thought wryly, she and her father were alike. She had plenty of people she liked, but no one she felt really close to—which had been a reason her marriage failed and a second try was pretty unlikely.
Kira stacked the news clippings neatly and was about to put them back in the drawer when she stopped. Again the troubling question: why the lock? What was Oliveros hiding? She put the clippings on top of the desk, knelt down and pulled the drawer all the way out, and then peered into the opening. Nothing.
