Angelo stared at the pulsing blue light. “Given everything I’ve seen since I met you, I’m not about to question a story that’s been passed down for millennia. And it makes sense that if that bone,” he nodded down to the shining altar, “came from her, it’s got power. Maybe enough power to beat your father.”
Mouse went still. “We’re just looking for something to protect ourselves, not a weapon to win a war. Right?”
Angelo didn’t answer. Instead, he scooted farther down the side of the rock, looking for a path to the bone. Mouse followed until he stopped at the edge.
“This next one’s going to be too far for you to jump,” he said, handing her his flashlight. “I’ll go down and get the bone and bring it back up.”
She grabbed his sleeve at the shoulder. “Absolutely not.”
“My legs are longer than yours. It’s simple physics. You can’t make it, and I can.”
“None of that looks stable, Angelo.” She looked down at the scattered black stone. “And what did we just say about weighing risks? You’re Humpty, remember?”
“To hell with that,” he said, and he jumped.
He landed solidly on the rock nearest the obsidian ledge. Mouse coiled herself, ready to jump after him, but she could see that he was right. She’d never make it; it was too far.
“Be careful,” she spat.
Angelo eased off the rock and onto the black ledge. He crossed to the altar in two strides, reached down, grabbed the bone, and turned to smile at Mouse, his arm raised in triumph.
And the ledge fell out from under him.
Angelo caught the corner of the altar with his free hand as shards of obsidian fell like arrows into the river, which was much wider and deeper than it had first seemed. Mouse cried out, but her uncanny mind was already racing to juggle the pieces—how long could Angelo hold on, how long would the fragile stone support his weight, how far was the drop, and how could she get to him?
With a squeal, the stone altar cracked along its base at the wall. Angelo looked up at it and then over at Mouse. She saw the fear and resignation in his face.
“Catch.”
She was shaking her head, opening her mouth to argue, but he didn’t give her time. He threw the sliver of bone over to her. She caught it on instinct, dropping the flashlights, which pinged on the rock and plummeted into the dark. She shoved the bone inside her shirt at the same moment she leapt toward the jagged rock, toward Angelo.
Her body missed the rock by more than a foot, but her hand caught one of the serrated edges of stone, spearing it through her palm and anchoring her as she swung her legs up to the flat front of the rock. She was still too far away to reach Angelo, and they’d run out of time.
The obsidian shelf broke away from the wall, tumbling down into the abyss and taking Angelo with it.
Mouse jumped, too, but her hand was still hooked on the stone, which snagged against the bones of her knuckles. She fell back to the rock face, blind with panic, but her mind grasped at the sound of water. The river. The river would save him from the fall. But then it would sweep him away from her. Drown him.
Peace, be still, something inside her whispered almost teasingly.
“Be still,” Mouse said, her head full of her failure to make the bush burn just hours ago. She looked down at the river, her eyes fierce with determination. “Be still!”
She didn’t yell, but the command sank like a stone down the depths of the chamber and into the water. The words were charged with the full force of her power and driven by desperation.
She held her breath, listening until the echo of her voice finally died. In the silence, Mouse could no longer hear the sound of running water. All was still.
She turned to pull her hand free of the jagged rock and jumped. The water stung like thousands of biting ants, cold and hot at the same time. She sank until her feet jammed into the river bottom, and she pushed up, breaking the surface of the water like a shot. She spun, looking for Angelo, the light on her headlamp swirling in the dark.
“I’m here,” he called out. He had his arm wrapped over a rounded bit of stone protruding from the cave wall.
Mouse swam through the still water toward him. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so. Just cut up a little from all the rocks. You?”
She shook her head. “Can you move?”
“I just said I wasn’t—”
“I need to see you move.” He seemed unhurt, but Mouse had another fear she needed to quiet. Every other time she’d laced her words with her power to command something, it had gone terribly wrong. She needed to know that her order to “be still” had commanded only the water. “Angelo, please, just do it.”
Angelo let go of his handhold on the stone and treaded water, waving his hands in the air. Mouse put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
“There’s no place to climb out. It’s too steep. We could just let the river—” Angelo looked down at the water, then squinted as he studied where the river rested against the rock. “It’s not moving.”
He looked at Mouse, his eyes lighting up with awareness. “You did it! Didn’t you?” He laughed. “‘Peace, be still’? And you said the burning bush was cliché.” He swooped his arms around her, splashing water on her face. “You did it, Mouse! I knew you could.” He kissed her. “Can you undo it?”
She leaned down to the river, her breath making tiny ripples in the water. “Thank you,” she whispered as she imagined a ghostly echo of the Rainbow Serpent undulating just beneath the surface. “I release you.”
The river rolled forward once more. The water dancing around the stone and slapping the rock wall sounded like someone laughing as the river carried Mouse and Angelo away.
They weren’t in the water long before the river widened and grew shallow. Mouse and Angelo let their bodies float behind them as they dug their hands into the silt of the riverbed and pulled themselves along. They slipped out from under an overhang, the mountains birthing them back into the world. Exhausted, they dragged themselves up the creek bank. They lay panting, Mouse watching the hazy cluster of the Pleiades make a slow slide down the night sky, a silent prayer of thanksgiving running through her mind. She reached into her shirt and pulled out the bone. It was as long as her forearm and about as thick at its widest end, but it tapered to a fine point, fine enough that it had pierced Mouse’s side when she’d jammed it into her shirt. A thin streak of red, mixed with river water, ran down the iridescent tip.
“It’s not glowing anymore,” Angelo said, pushing himself upright.
“Guess it doesn’t need to, now that we’ve found it.”
“I’m glad. Explaining why you’ve got a bone shard seems tricky enough. Can’t imagine what we’d say if it was a glowing bone shard.” Angelo ran his hand through his hair, raking out some of the water. “What do you think it does?”
“I have no idea. But I bet Ngara will.”
“I guess we know our next stop then. You ready?”
“My body’s not.”
“It’s just a few hours’ hike through the desert and then an hour’s drive back to the outstation. You getting old or something?” He was chuckling before he even got the words out.
Mouse shoved him back down. “What did I tell you about not making any more jokes? You’re just bad at it.” She curled her leg over his, bent down and kissed him, then laid her head on his chest. He played with her wet hair.
“Thank you,” he said quietly after a few moments.
“For?” But she already knew.
“Keeping your promise.”
“Thank you,” she said in answer.
“For?”
“Not dying.”
CHAPTER THREE
Jack Gray loved a good hotel. This one, replete with all the modern luxuries and draped in the old-world exterior of a sprawling baroque palace, exceeded even his extravagant desires. He stood on the terrace, watching the sun spread beh
ind the spires of Prague, and basked in his good fortune. The clean, bright chime of bells called the city to life. He looked down to the streets and watched the people come and go, marveling at how simple they looked from such a height—circles of heads and lines of bodies.
“Jack!” a voice called through the door.
Sighing, Jack turned back toward the penthouse suite. “You need something, sir?” He measured his tone carefully, keeping it professionally detached but bright enough to sound eager to please. Feigned affability was part of the game he had to play when he traveled with his new patron. The Reverend liked smiles and efficient service.
Jack ran his hand over the back of one of the soft velvet dining chairs as he stepped into the room, the bells of Prague still ringing behind him. He figured a little kowtowing and a few “yes sirs” were worth this kind of payoff. Exotic locations and luxury hotels certainly fit Jack’s expectations more than the tiny office in the basement of a yeshiva in Jerusalem, where he’d spent the better part of the past two years. His previous benefactor, Rabbi Asher Ben-Yair, had kept Jack under the glare of a computer screen, sifting through databases. An old man, the Rabbi cared more about comfort than luxury, and his idea of comfortable was a little too sedate for Jack.
But the Reverend liked nice things as much as Jack did, and the Reverend wanted to go places. So did Jack.
“Son, I’ve got something on my lucky tie,” the Reverend said as he came through the bedroom door, his broad Southern drawl drooling over the vowels. He stopped beside the fireplace that divided the living area from the dining room. He wore a crisp pair of suit pants, which rested perfectly against his shined shoes, but he was bare chested, his heavy belly bulging out over his waistband and pulling his shoulders down. “Our bodies are a temple,” he had once said to Jack when he’d caught him looking at his stomach. “Mine’s round and robust,” he’d said, laughing as he slapped at the mound of fat. Then he’d yanked Jack’s shirt up, exposing his slender frame. “You, however, are weak. Pretty and weak.” After traveling with him these past few months, Jack had learned to keep his eyes on the Reverend’s face.
“Kitty’s in here getting her hair done for her women’s meeting, and I’m late to the breakfast. Can you take care of this?” He tossed the tie to Jack and spun back into the bedroom, not waiting for an answer.
Jack snatched the tie from the air, studied it a moment, then headed to his own room on the other side of the living area. He shoved his hand in the outer pocket of his leather laptop bag and pulled out a package of alcohol wipes, specially designed for cleaning silk ties. The Reverend’s various appetites often resulted in stains left for Jack to clean up—some easy, like a spot on a tie, others not so much. Jack liked being prepared, not from a Boy Scout sense of readiness but in a calculated way. He’d always been a good student, in school and in life, though he didn’t really care about learning. He cared about success. He could game any system, figure out what hoops needed jumping in order to get what he wanted, and he had a gift for pleasing the people who could help him the most.
That knack had drawn Jack to the woman who had set him on the path that led him here. He’d known her as Dr. Emma Nicholas, a history professor who accidentally introduced him to the Devil’s Bible. Despite his careful efforts, Jack could never get her to eat out of his hand like he did his other teachers. When he learned from the Rabbi that “Emma Nicholas” was a sham, a false identity, Jack had almost laughed with relief, pleased to have proof that he hadn’t lost his touch. He had just been naïve in taking the woman at face value. He’d been trying to read the mask rather than the person.
He still didn’t know her real name; no one did, as far as he could tell. Not that it mattered—she would always be “Dr. Em” to him. Jack had much to thank her for. She had inadvertently launched his career when his work with the medieval codex known as the Devil’s Bible had drawn the attention of the Rabbi, one of the leaders of the Novus Rishi. And it had been the crazy two days Jack had spent with Dr. Em in Nashville a couple of years ago that had secured his position among the powerful group. They seemed obsessed with his former teacher, though he still didn’t know why. All he knew was that they wanted him because he knew her.
Jack opened the package of cleaning wipes and started to work on the Reverend’s tie under the bathroom’s too-bright lights. That’s just the way the world works, he thought as he smiled and gave himself a little nod. Who you know is always more important than what you know.
The Rabbi, for instance, armed himself with knowledge, and he got nowhere. But the Reverend was a people person, and he was on the move. Unlike his fellow members of the Novus Rishi’s inner council, Reverend Kevin Ayres lived loud. Modestly wealthy from oil on his side, the Reverend had married “up” and into one of the richest tech dynasties in the world. His wife brought all the cash; the Reverend brought all the charm. Together, they had cofounded the Global Council on Righteousness more than ten years ago, achieving instant celebrity among the worldwide evangelical Christian community. The Reverend and Mrs. Ayres had the best of all worlds—they played among the international social elite, pulled politicians’ strings with the power of their religious empire, and, apparently, had God’s ear by command.
Jack reached for the hair dryer and shot the first warm gust at his own thick, wavy hair. He stole an approving glance at the tousled brown locks in the mirror and then bent back to the Reverend’s tie, sweeping the air back and forth to dry the alcohol. He had been satisfied with the perks of living in the Reverend’s orbit, but sometimes he felt like a tethered dog, expected to jump at his master’s command. Technically, he still worked for the Rabbi. The trips he’d taken with the Reverend had also been missions to collect books and artifacts the Rabbi wanted, items the Rabbi felt would be instrumental in the Novus Rishi’s efforts. No one actually told Jack what those efforts were, but he’d pieced enough together to know that it all had to do with Dr. Em. The Rabbi had plans for her, and Jack was beginning to suspect that the Reverend did, too—though not necessarily the same as the Rabbi’s.
The Rabbi was old and recently in ill health and could no longer travel, so he had sent Jack to collect the things he wanted. Most of the books and artifacts were held in museums or private libraries, but Jack wasn’t sent to make copies. He was sent to acquire the originals, whether the owners wished to relinquish them or not—which is where the Reverend came into play. The Reverend’s primary function in the Novus Rishi was to covertly provide the money and influence they needed to grease the wheels of their expansive machine. And if money and power failed to achieve the desired ends, the Reverend seemed willing to do anything to advance the Novus Rishi’s cause. He seemed especially eager to help Jack.
Jack looked up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, squinting and leaning in as he studied himself. He looked tired, worry weighing on him. There was a little more gray peeking out at the temples of his thick brown hair. He needed a trim. The Reverend didn’t seem to mind that Jack let his hair grow long, almost but not quite touching the tops of his shoulders, but if it strayed just a bit too far, Mrs. Ayres was quick to share her disapproval. In tandem, the two of them ruled as if they had a mandate from God that let them righteously judge everything and everyone.
Sit, stay, heel, Jack thought bitterly.
“Where’s my tie, son?”
Jack startled at the sudden appearance of a now-shirted Reverend. As Jack turned, the Reverend pulled the tie out of his hand and leaned past him toward the mirror, tying and adjusting in sharp, sure motions.
“The place you’re going this morning for the Rabbi . . .” the Reverend said, his tone flat, the drawl nearly gone.
“Yes, sir?” Jack’s eyes shot up to meet the Reverend’s in the mirror. They were flat and cold, too.
“Don’t go inside. I have someone who will meet you at the back and take you where you need to go.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Reverend slid his tie tight, the knot biting into his neck and
pushing the excess flesh of his jowls up and over the starched collar. Then he turned to Jack and leaned back on the marble countertop. “I want you to fetch whatever’s there and bring it to me before the others get here.”
Jack knew he meant the rest of the inner council, which was scheduled to meet in the Reverend’s suite once he was finished wining and dining his horde of evangelical foot soldiers. The closing event of the annual conference for the Global Council on Righteousness was a fundraising gala, which would be held that evening in the hotel’s garden.
“Sir, you understand that there’s likely nothing there, and, if there is, it’s almost certainly useless.” A bit of leftover belligerence dusted Jack’s tone. He sounded almost patronizing. “Of all the books and artifacts I’ve researched and gathered for the Rabbi, not one of them has—”
“This one’s different.”
The Reverend reached down and yanked at his belt buckle.
“Why is this one different?” Jack asked as he sat down on the edge of the tub. He tried to purge the skepticism from his voice, but he’d heard the Rabbi and Bishop Sebastian say the same thing about other long-sought-after treasures. Each one was going to be different. Yet all the discoveries ended up the same—powerless old relics and shams. Jack had tried to convince them to go after the Devil’s Bible, the one ancient book he knew held the power they were looking for, because he himself had felt it, had touched it. But the Bishop and the Rabbi were too afraid of it. The book belonged to the enemy, had too much power, was too dark. Jack thought those were just excuses, but he hadn’t had the courage to make the same suggestion to the Reverend. There was something still unpredictable about him, something Jack hadn’t yet figured out.
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