by Jackson, Pam
“Wait, how did she know that it was Claudius?”
“I’ll tell you that right now.” Andie flipped backed a few pages in the worn diary. “There is an earlier entry made on June 8, 1777. She’d first encountered Claudius at a farmer’s market in the town of Sidman’s Cove—which is now Suffern, New York. Claudius had flirted with her incessantly and secretly returned to see her on the days he knew she would be at the market selling her family’s jarred jams and honey. At first it was benign, just a smile here and there, but then it became more of a courtship for Claudius. He would drop off small gifts at her market stall when her father wasn’t looking, and he even left her a book of poems written by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.”
Clay scrunched his nose. “Who was that?”
“Mmm, yes. He was a seventeenth century poet with a talent for erotic detail. Very, very risqué for that time.”
“You’ve read that? The poems, I mean?” he asked, his expression piqued with interest.
Wearing a foxy grin, Andie nodded at Clay and then continued about Katherine’s encounters with Claudius. “Anyway, Katherine wrote that Claudius even had the audacity to gently remove a red silk ribbon from her round-eared cap, and she was ‘mortified’ when he refused to return it—he even used it to tie back his own long, dark hair.”
“Sounds like an unhealthy obsession,” Clay said.
“Yeah, I agree, but it seems that he excited her in a bad boy kind of way because she made several references to her own growing desire for him, and how if her father or brothers found out about their little rendezvous, they would surely murder Claudius. Katherine’s family were staunch Patriots, and several of her brothers were serving in local militias. At that time, it was well known that Claudius was a Loyalist working for the crown. And on a side note, not that it was relevant back then, but Katherine was only nineteen, and our bad boy Claudius ... well, he was a healthy forty-three.” Andie smiled, tucking a dangling strand of hair behind her ear.
Clay blew out a cat-call whistle.
“Getting back to her abduction, Claudius tried to seduce her with the lure of all that gold and silver he’d strewn about the cave. However, being somewhat educated for a farmer’s daughter, she was more enticed by his book collection and not by the shiny baubles he had to offer.” Andie’s eyes gleamed with her approval of Katherine’s preference for the book collection rather than the bling.
“Katherine made a specific reference to a ‘splendid book.’“ Andie cleared her throat and read the passage: “‘A heavy book, bound in copper and tarnished green, with an unearthly raised etching. ‘Tis a serpent, entwined upon itself in the shape of a figure eight. A body of a serpent with the head of a beastly wolfhound. And a tail, naught of a serpent, ‘tis a plumed head of a bird, ‘tis a feathered peacock. The wolfhound, with gaping mouth and jagged teeth, anxious to devour the head of the precious bird.’“
Clay interrupted, squinting with confusion. “What? But how in hell ... ?” His questioned trailed off to a murmur under his breath. He straightened and twisted his body slightly reaching for his shoulder blade, and then he quickly pulled it back to resume his cool demeanor. “Did you just describe an ouroboros?”
“Yes, that’s what it is, an ouroboros symbol, and I’m getting to what it means.” Andie hushed him and read on. “She states that when she looked inside the book, the language was not English. It was similar to Latin, with some words that looked Greek, but she wasn’t positive. And only once had she seen an old prayer book from her minister that’d been written in Greek. When she asked Claudius about the book, he stated it was an ‘ancient book of spells, you can acquire fulsome wealth and power by reciting the passages.’ He also told her that he could place her under a love spell, and it would make her ‘mad with a haunting desire’ for him. This seemed to frighten poor Katherine, because she picked up a jeweled pen knife and threatened to cut her own throat if Claudius came an inch closer.”
“Talk about comin’ on too strong. I guess he overdid it with the eye of newt and wing of bat thing, huh?” Clay shook his head and blew out a sigh in sympathy for Claudius.
“Yes, and he knew it, too. Claudius backed away from her and begged her not to harm herself. He said that he would rather ‘die than witness her distress’ and that he would return to her when she was in a more ‘mirthful spirit.’ She would never see him return.” Andie closed the diary. “A few hours later, her older brother, Rem Onderdonk, entered the cave through the iron hatch in the ceiling with a rope and a sidearm. He made her swear that she would never tell another living soul about her experience and that it would be a secret between them until death. Well, poor Rem was killed in a skirmish along the Hudson months later, and Katherine’s diary ends there. This diary is the only proof of the tale.”
Clay ran his fingers across his smooth jawline, stroking at facial hair that was no longer visible due to his recent shave. I guess he misses his mountain man look, Andie thought.
“All right,” Clay said. “So if I were to believe that Katherine’s diary isn’t a fake, what’s in this strange book that has everyone so crazy? And how did Claudius know what it was?”
“Trust me, the diary is authentic, and the book she discussed ... well, let’s just say that it is one of the most sought-after tomes in the occult world.”
Andie pulled another book from her backpack, a bulky textbook titled, Ancient Symbols of the Occult. She turned methodically through the pages, stopping at a black and white sketch. She leaned in closer to Clay. She could feel the warmth of his body radiating from under his black thermal Henley shirt. He had removed his down vest earlier, and now she wished he’d kept it on. She could see the outline of long, sleek muscles that bulged in his arms. She should’ve moved back to her previous position, but she found herself enjoying the heady scent of his hair and skin way too much.
She handed the textbook to Clay, and she pointed to a sketch of a large serpent in a figure eight. The top and bottom portions of the eight were a serpent’s body, and as it rounded at the middle, the head of the serpent was that of a large wolf with an open, snarling mouth, ready to eat its own tail. But instead of a serpent’s tail, it was a delicate peacock head with feathered plumes.
She watched as Clay’s long fingers traced the outline of the figure eight. A visible shudder ran through his muscles, and he met her gaze with confusion. Or was it fear?
But why would he fear anything?
“This is a sketch of an ouroboros, a figure eight that represents eternity and is used in alchemical literature. It’s a reproduction from a rare and lost book.” She sighed heavily and paused to look into Clay’s eyes. She’d once had a sweet and trusting German shepherd with those same chocolate-brown eyes. Caesar was his name, and Andie remembered how fierce that dog could be if anyone came near her or her sisters.
Why was it so difficult for her to trust him? She wanted nothing more than to place her faith in this rugged man who had saved her life and who felt compelled to stand guard on a frigid night to protect her from the sinister hand of Tivoli.
She had to believe in her heart that he was here to help her and not to harm her. But trust was something she hardly believed in anymore, not since Roger Gleason. It had been too long, and she was tired of carrying the pain and guilt of Roger’s death on her shoulders. Roger was the last man she’d ever trusted with her secrets and her heart. And he had taken his own life because of her.
It was her fault; she had never meant to fall in love with Roger. She was only supposed to seduce the older, introverted archaeologist, get information from him about the Lost Dutchman Mine in Arizona, and pass it along to Tivoli. She downloaded all of Roger’s files, but she never sent them to New York. Content with her newfound happiness in the arms of this sweet and trusting man, Andie had sent her resignation to her office the same day Roger had asked her to marry him.
She knew she needed to tell Roger the truth about their relationship before they set a wedding date. She returned home from the g
rocery store, ready to make an intimate dinner for two, intending to tell him everything and beg for forgiveness that evening. She prayed he would find that forgiveness in his heart, but it was too late. She entered their home to find his lifeless body face down on the floor, his crimson blood spattered high along the stark white walls of their living room, her laptop computer in the background opened to all the files she’d stolen from him. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide. Roger had found out about her deceit and had killed himself over being duped and played as a fool by a callous, selfish woman. Andie had vowed she would never involve herself with love again. Her work would be the most important element in her life, and it would never let her down or break her heart—until now.
“Let me in, Andie,” Clay whispered, breaking her away from her tortured memory. He stared deeply into her eyes and made a movement to take her hand again, but then stopped.
Strong alpha male, a man who never walks away from a promise, she thought.
“Have you ever heard of Nicholas Flamel?” she asked, moving the conversation away from her personal demons.
“Yeah, I think so. I remember being bored out of my mind in a philosophy class during my freshman year of college. My professor was all jazzed up about some ancient, esoteric knowledge and spoke volumes about that guy. French scribe during the fourteenth or fifteenth century, changed lead to gold, had the king in a tizzy. Right?”
“Well, that is definitely a concise version of his history. Not only was he a scribe, but he was also a bookseller. One day a mysterious man came into his shop and requested to sell a beautiful book bound in brass. And since Flamel dabbled in alchemy, he realized the importance of this rare and special book. He described the pages as heavy and thick like tree bark, rather than the parchment or vellum used during that time. There were mysterious symbols etched or burned into the pages, and parts of it were written in Greek. There were other languages, too, including Hebrew, but he couldn’t translate the entire book since some of the language was composed of foreign symbols mixed in with the text.”
Clay nodded. “I remember this now. The name of the book was Abraham ... something or another. It was used by occult groups to spread their philosophy. Aleister Crowley was influenced by works based off of that book, and he was freaking crackers.” Clay opened his eyes wide and crossed them with a playful, crazed glare in imitation of the outlandish British occultist of the early twentieth century.
A loud laugh escaped from Andie. It felt good to laugh, and sadly, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a good laugh—especially in the company of an attractive, intelligent man. A giddy schoolgirl feeling washed over her, and she squeezed it back down, reminding herself that she was a professional and that Mr. Clayton was just a man who had helped her get through the woods without freezing to death. Girl, just focus! Besides, a guy like Clay must move through women at breakneck speed. She enjoyed flirting with him, but that was as far as it would go. She had to hold back those feelings that could easily turn into desire.
“You’re right,” she said. “It was called Abraham the Jew. This book was used as a reference for certain occult groups, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The legend states that Nicholas Flamel traveled to the Holy Land, including Greece and Turkey, to have it deciphered, but he only brought a few copied pages from the original book, which was safely stashed in his bookstore in Paris. He stated under oath at a tax hearing that from his pilgrimage to the Middle East, he gained enough knowledge to return home and understand the text. Within three years, he had changed an amalgam of cheap metals into gold. He only did this three times, but almost overnight he became a very rich man. He made many contributions to hospitals and churches with his newfound wealth, and he was perhaps one of Paris’s best known philanthropists for his time.”
“Are you saying this is the same book from Claudius’s cave?” Clay asked, reaching up to push dark hair away from his brow.
“No, the book in Claudius’s cave is a different book.” Her expression grew serious. “Copies were made of Nicholas Flamel’s book, Abraham the Jew, and the translation he supposedly completed after his journey. But no one was able to recreate the kind of wealth he gained from this knowledge. Which is why it has become a fantastic legend over the centuries, a story that basically holds no water. But two years ago, Tivoli and I were in Turkey visiting the Gordium archaeological site—that was the capital city in the twelfth century. Tivoli set up a meeting with an illicit antiquities dealer from the region, and for a very high price, he sold us a scroll that was found in one of the desecrated burial mounds of the area.”
“You know, Andie, some of these places you are visiting aren’t the safest for an attractive American woman with a chip on her shoulder. I can clearly see your boss doesn’t give a damn about your safety, only his greed.” His expression turned sullen.
She smiled at his comment, realizing he was being a bit protective—something Tivoli considered his bodyguards’ concern. She felt a tumbling five hundred-pound butterfly bounce in her stomach at the thought of Clay protecting her, but she squelched the feeling. “The text of the scroll was in ancient Phrygian, a language that disappeared sometime in the sixth century AD. Only a few people today can translate, Tivoli being one of them, and it told of a sacred tome or book that had been handed down through time since before recorded history. It was said to have been written directly by God, and it was only meant to be handled by the most pious of men. Wealth and power were granted to the master of this book, and he would have the vision to control the world. The scroll described what the book looked like, and it matched the ouroboros cover of the book given to Flamel in the fourteenth century. The difference was, the cover and pages of the book described in the scroll were green from age, the same way copper tarnishes over time. Flamel’s book was covered in polished brass with thick, papyrus-like pages.”
“But you said Flamel’s book was a legend?”
“Yes, I did. The polished brass book titled Abraham the Jew was the book Flamel toted around and passed on to wacky occultists, but it wasn’t the same book that gave Flamel his power.”
Andie took a deep breath and lowered her voice as though they were seated in a crowded cafe with multiple eavesdroppers listening in on their conversation. “See, when Flamel came home from his pilgrimage, he brought back with him another ancient book on magic. Clay, don’t you get it? There were two books. One was Abraham the Jew, and the other one—much older—was known as the Atros Fallis, or dark key. In order to make an abundance of gold, you need both books. The Atros Fallis deciphers the symbols and codes in Abraham the Jew. Nicholas Flamel knew this knowledge was way too powerful for one man to possess, so he split the books up. The brass tome was passed on to fellow alchemists, but the tarnished copper volume he willed to an obedient and God-fearing servant with special instructions never to release it for public knowledge. The time would come when only a true follower of God would claim the Atros Fallis, but until that time, it had to remain hidden so it would never fall into the hands of evil men.”
Clay gave Andie an incredulous look. “C’mon, do you really believe this? Nicholas Flamel could’ve been a charlatan. Maybe he inherited the money and created this scheme for the fun of it.”
She smirked, a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “There was no documentation in any of the French courts that Flamel was bequeathed money or gold of any kind. Just think about it; he receives the first book, and for twenty-one years he tries to decipher its meaning, but nothing happens. He then shows the book to scholars and men more familiar with the alchemical arts than he was, but still nothing. Finally, he journeys throughout Israel and the Mediterranean and comes home with enough knowledge to make him one of the wealthiest men in Paris. And all within a brief three years.”
“Well, how did he get this Atros Fallis? And how do you know it’s the same book that was mentioned in the old scroll Tivoli bought?” Clay delivered his query with the authority of a seasoned federal
investigator.
“Flamel kept a diary of his journey. He never mentioned receiving a second book, but he made a short journal entry of a stay in Gordium, Turkey. This was the same place where the scroll was found, and the same location of a burial mound of one of history’s most famous and wealthiest kings, King Midas.”
Clay’s jaw went slack. “Wait a second, I thought King Midas was a fictitious character from an old nursery story.”
“No, he was a very real and powerful king. And like the old nursery story says, everything he touched turned to gold.”
“C’mon Andie, it’s a coincidence.” Clay scoffed, shaking his head. “And as for Claudius, how did he know what this book was? He never left the colonies ... and I’m guessing he was not a very pious guy. The scroll was a fake. Face it, you and Tivoli were conned.”
“Well, the royal seal of King Midas on the scroll that Tivoli bought says it’s real, and it’s been authenticated!” Andie was beaming with excitement. “Okay, so let’s tie this in with Claudius. You know the gentleman who Claudius robbed?”
“Yes. Abimal Young.” He nodded.
“Abimal Young was a descendant of Nicholas Flamel’s faithful servant who was entrusted with the Atros Fallis. Claudius had no idea what he’d taken, but he most likely figured that it was a very important book. Look at it from Claudius’s point of view. It was a very old copper book with a strange serpent etching on its cover, written in a language he’d never seen before. Claudius was an educated man. I can only guess he didn’t know precisely what it was, but spinning the truth and creating lies so the situation could lean in his favor ... well, I can see that happening with a crafty thief. He created drama. He knew what made people tick, knew their fears and hopes. You said it yourself; he wasn’t evil, he was an opportunist. Abimal Young knew what it was, and he even asked for it back when Claudius stood on the gallows. Claudius, of course, refused, and the book was never found. And old Abimal was never mentioned again in any historical accounts.”
