The Phoenix Apostles

by Lynn Sholes

  THE PHOENIX APOSTLES: A SENECA HUNT MYSTERY

  by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore

  The Phoenix Apostles © 2011 by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore. All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  DEDICATED TO

  Jayne Ellen

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The authors wish to thank the following for their assistance in adding a sense of realism to this work of fiction.

  Dr. Ken Muneoka, PhD

  Department of Cell & Molecular Biology Tulane University

  Dr. John Gore, PhD Director of Imaging Science Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Vanderbilt University

  Special thanks to Chris Fineout

  "Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."

  -MATTHEW 24:28

  "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

  -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ALMOST EVERY CULTURE AND religion throughout history has had a doomsday prophecy. Probably the most well-known predictor of such an apocalypse is the ancient Mayan calendar. Archaeology has revealed that most Mayan locations had astronomical observatories that enabled them to predict events based on equinoxes and Venus cycles. They possessed such advanced knowledge of time and space that their calendar was more precise than any in use today.

  The Mayan calendar is three calendars in one: a solar calendar based on 365 days which is ten-thousandths of a day more accurate than the currently accepted Gregorian calendar; a ceremonial calendar based on 260 days, the same as human gestation; and the combination of the two where the number of days and months only repeat every fifty-two years. The ancient Maya and other Mesoamericans used this same fifty-two-year pattern, or a cycle called the Calendar Round. The Maya also had what they called the Long Count that began measuring time elapsed since their beginning-August 13, 3114 BC-and ending 5,121 years later. December 21, 2012. The Aztec calendar had a date very close to the Mayan. The same date can also be calculated using the ancient classic Chinese text, I Ching. And there have been other similar prophecies and predictions of doomsday from the Hopi, Nostradamus, Mother Shipton, and Cumaean Sibyl, along with many interpretations of various legends, scriptures, and numerological constructions.

  So what might occur on the predicted doomsday? A rare cosmic alignment that happens every 26,000 years when, on the winter solstice, the sun lines up with the center of the Milky Way. At the same time, the Earth completes a wobble on its axis and a pole-shift takes place-the North and South Poles reverse. The resulting cataclysmic effect on life as we know it could be beyond imagination.

  The next time this galactic phenomenon will come together is exactly on the date predicted by the ancients.

  December 21, 2012.

  …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

  RESURRECTION 1876, NORTHERN SONORA, MEXICO

  BILLY GROVES DIDN'T KNOW if he was dead or alive. His lungs were starving. He attempted to draw in a breath like it was the first in a long time, but the dirt choked him.

  He clawed at his face and suddenly realized what was wrong.

  He was buried.

  Panicked, he scuffed away clods of soil and debris, fighting to breathe, to take a single life-saving breath.

  Which way was up? Was he digging in the wrong direction?

  Scratching and plowing, he pushed with his legs, trying to squirm free of the blackness. The panic grew and his body convulsed. He would have cried out but there was no air to power his lungs.

  Finally, his fist broke through. He pushed at the heavy layer of gravel and earth until he saw light. The heat from the sun struck his skin as he opened his mouth and gulped in the air.

  Spitting grit, he crawled out of his would-be grave and collapsed beside it. Groves brushed the dirt from his eyes and looked around. He saw what was left of the valley floor and suddenly started to remember everything-the cave, the gold, the Apaches, the earthquake.

  And the arrow.

  Groves forced his gaze to his torso. The arrow was there, it had run him through nearly to the fletching, entering his chest at an angle and exiting from his side. He twisted and looked at it in fearful anticipation of what he would find at the end of the shaft. But there was no arrowhead. It had broken off.

  Gripping the arrow protruding from his chest, he grimaced and yanked. The shaft tore free of his flesh.

  The arrow should have killed him. He inspected the hole in his chest. It was there but it wasn't bleeding-

  What the hell is going on?

  The wound seemed to be already healing as he watched.

  Some kinda miracle?

  He'd been shot with an arrow and buried by an earthquake.

  And he just rose from the dead.

  THE RELIQUARY 2012, MEXICO CITY

  "WHAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE?" Seneca Hunt stood under the protective tent covering the archaeological dig site and watched the images appear on the video monitor.

  Daniel Bernal, the dig master, who was also Seneca's fiance, wrapped his arm around her waist as he called to the video tech, "Mueva la camara a la izquierda."

  "Si." The tech adjusted the joystick, panning the probe to the left. Mounted on a flexible neck, the tiny camera was fed down a hole drilled through the stone floor. The LED collar on the camera bathed the sealed tomb below their feet with light.

  Seneca leaned into Daniel. "What do you see?"

  He pointed to the monitor. "There's the altar where the remains should be. But there's no funerary jar."

  A few other members of the Mexican dig team crowded around for a better look.

  "Grave robbers?" Seneca raked her russet hair away from her face, missing one highlighted coppery strand that fell across her cheek. She pulled away and stepped back, immediately missing the feel of him next to her. "Let me get a couple of shots." Raising the Nikon D3 hanging around her neck, she snapped o
ff several pictures, trying to capture the look of concentration on Daniel's face.

  Seneca was a staff writer working on assignment for Planet Discovery Magazine and making double use of her time in Mexico. Tomorrow morning she and Daniel would fly to Playa del Carmen to marry and spend their honeymoon on the white sands at The Tides Riviera Maya. Soon, she would be Mrs. Daniel Bernal, wife of the noted archaeologist and professor of Mesoamerican Studies at the University of Miami.

  "No," Daniel said. "Pot hunters wouldn't take the ashes and leave behind all those valuable grave goods. It would have been the other way around. Just look at all the artifacts and jewelry, the gold, the jade..."

  His slightly accented words, which Seneca found quite sexy, died off to a whisper as his finger tapped the monitor.

  She moved behind him to frame the video screen over his shoulder and purred next to his ear. "I adore the way you roll your Rs."

  "You're shameless." He spoke low enough that only she could hear.

  Seneca steadied the camera on his shoulder. She had written articles on other archaeological digs, and like always, she felt the flutter of excitement in anticipation of what was about to take place-a glimpse into an ancient world and all its grandeur.

  "The tomb appears dry and undisturbed. If the Aztecs built this city in the middle of a lake, why isn't it flooded?" She paused from taking pictures.

  "The burial chamber was never under water. At one time it was level with the base of the temple, but like everything else, the Spanish built over it." Daniel motioned to the monitor. "Now that's interesting. See that small chest resting on what appears to be a wooden table to the right of the altar? The silver one about the size of a cigar box?"

  Seneca strained to see, then nodded.

  "Definitely not Aztec. I would guess European-very ornate surface design. Maybe a reliquary."

  "A container used to hold religious relics, correct?"

  He nodded.

  "How would a European reliquary get inside the tomb?" She started snapping pictures again.

  "Most likely a gift from the Spanish, and something the emperor wanted to take with him into the afterlife." He turned to the video technician and instructed him to zoom in on the object.

  The man manipulated the remote controls.

  As the object grew larger on the screen, Daniel said, "There's an inscription. It's in Latin."

  an you read it?"

  He concentrated on the image. "I can make out the word sudarium which means sweat-cloth. And the word facies which is face. The lighting is just too weak to read the rest."

  "Do you think Cortes might have given it to the emperor?"

  With a shrug, Daniel said, "Maybe. Obviously, it was something Montezuma treasured enough to want it in his tomb. Compared to the condition of the other objects, it's aged especially well. I'd have expected much more tarnishing. It looks as if it were placed there in more recent times."

  "Is that possible?"

  "Doubtful. The tomb was probably sealed right after the burial. Judging from the video so far, it hasn't been touched in five hundred years."

  Daniel leaned back and stretched, dropping into what she called his classroom voice. "These people lived surrounded in opulence beyond what most of the world had ever seen before. And then, within a blink of time, the Spaniards destroyed it all. Except for a chance discovery like this-one that appears to be in such pristine condition-all we ever see is the rubble of crumbling ruins. It's a shame how so much has been obliterated throughout history because of what I think of as the double-G factor-gold and God."

  Seneca continued snapping pictures as she listened to Daniel express his fascination with what he and his team had discovered. He was so passionate about his work. When he talked about it, she loved how his face seemed to grow even more handsome. His dark eyes became sparkling black diamonds surrounded by thick black lashes. His tan skin glowed. It was all so magical to him. It brought out the boy-child, a part of him that always charmed her.

  The previous afternoon she had conducted her formal interview with Daniel on the history and culture of the Aztecs, and particularly the significance of his discovery. But today was the money shot-the actual look inside the tomb, even if it was only by video. This was the first finding of an Aztec leader's burial site, but not just any Aztec leader's tomb. Daniel had discovered the resting place of the infamous Montezuma II, the man whom some historical re cords accused of killing more than eighty thousand people in the span of four days.

  Whenever Seneca made a proposal to the editor at Planet Discovery, often his response was, "That's not enough for a story, yet. Keep digging." This was going to surpass even his expectations.

  To her excitement, not only was she going to get an intriguing story, but there appeared to be a bonus-an additional mystery unfolding.

  "So, what do you think happened?" she asked Daniel. "Where are Montezuma's ashes?"

  "My guess is that maybe there is no funerary jar because there was no cremation.

  "But I thought you said it was their custom."

  "Yes." He stared back at the monitor. "Wait! See that?" He turned to the video tech sitting nearby. "Pare ahora mismo. iMira!"

  The technician froze the image.

  "That's very strange." Daniel tapped the screen.

  Seneca lowered her Nikon.

  Flattening his hands together as if to pray, Daniel touched his forefingers to his lips. "Mi dios, no puedo creer lo que veo." He kept staring at the monitor, a pallor chalking his face.

  Seneca's flesh prickled. "What is it?" She only caught the Spanish Mi dios-My God.

  "Sorry, sorry. I can't believe what I see. Look." He used his fingertip to zero in on an object on the screen. "There's the funeral shroud."

  Seneca saw what appeared to be a large piece of material lying on the floor. "What does it mean?"

  "The Aztecs bundled their dead in a burial shroud before cremation. But look at this one. It's untied and crumpled on the ground. Like he shed it as if there was no need."

  Seneca leaned in closer. "Almost as if Montezuma got up and walked away."

  TREASURE TROVE 1876, NORTHERN SONORA, MEXICO

  ON SHAKY LEGS, BILLY Groves stood beside the hole that should have been his grave, unsure of why he was even alive. He heard the distant sound of water rushing over rocks and followed it until he found a nearby creek. He knelt and washed his face. As the spring water cooled his skin, the memory of what had happened continued to play out in his head.

  It had all started the previous day while he was on the run, coming up from Santa Ana after killing a man in a cantina fight. He figured he had lost the Mexican banditos tracking him and decided to bed down for the night on a high ridge overlooking a mountainous ravine called Renegade Pass. He remembered being jarred awake by the sound of hooves on the rocky floor of the wash below. Drawing his pistol, he crawled to the edge of the rock ledge and peered over.

  Expecting to see his pursuers in the pale light of daybreak, instead he spotted a dozen Mexican Federales riding into the pass, followed by at least twenty pack burros. Canvas tarpaulins covered the backs of the animals, and judging by the way they moved over the uneven terrain, he figured their loads were heavy.

  Soon the entire column had entered the narrow pass. As he watched the slow-moving procession snake through the ravine, the air sprang alive with the whoosh of arrows. The hair on his neck bristled.

  Apaches!

  Fierce yelps of the Apache warriors echoed off the rock walls drowning out the screams of the trapped Mexicans.

  Indians streamed into the pass from each end, attacking until every soldier lay dead or dying.

  He watched the Apaches dismount and move from body to body. Placing a knee between the shoulder blades of the victim, they sliced a long arc in the front of the soldier's scalp. Even as the survivors begged for mercy, the Apaches pulled back the hair and ripped the scalp from the skull.

  Sickened, he turned and crept away from the ledge. Covering his ear
s, he waited until the shrieks finally faded. Warily, he crawled back for another look.

  One of the Apaches, a barrel-chested brave wearing a blue Union Army jacket that hung down to his knees, gave an order. Another moved to a burro and lifted the tarpaulin exposing leather saddlebags. He untied one and reached inside, pulling out a canvas sack, heavy enough that he seemed to need both hands to lift it. He slit a small hole in the bottom with his knife. A stream of gold dust spilled onto the blood-stained earth. The leader held out his hand and let the gold flow through his fingers, then made a bold gesture with his arm, and his fellow braves whooped.