by R. D. Brady
“Then don’t tell anyone,” Patrick said quickly. “It will put you in danger, and I’d rather avoid that.”
Cain watched him for a few seconds before nodding. “I will agree to that for the moment. But if it comes to a choice between my safety and Victoria’s, I will choose hers.”
“Understood,” Patrick said. “Now, the tome. What can you tell me?”
“It exists, obviously.” Cain paused. “You’re certain Samyaza will go for it?”
“That’s what we think. Besides, we have no other leads; she’s covered her tracks too well. We’re hoping we can either grab the book ourselves, or better yet, put a tracker on it and let it lead us to her.”
“That’s not a great plan.”
Patrick gave a small laugh. “No, it’s not. And we’re still trying to come up with another option. But right now it’s the best we’ve got.”
Cain was quiet for a moment. “The tome—it was highly regarded in ancient times, long before history books were ever written. Lilith—she drew people to her. And soon, people began chronicling her life. Each generation would add to the book. Her followers would search the globe for traces of her after each of her deaths, trying to find where she would appear next. They rarely found her during her life, but everyone once in a while they would. And they would watch her grow and transform from an innocent child into the mother of all.”
“There was a group that followed her?”
“They called themselves the followers of the Great Mother. For thousands of years, their duty was to follow her, chronicle her, spread the tales of her good deeds. In the fight between good and evil, they were a weapon. What we would call today a massive PR campaign. And for a while, the message spread. It flourished.”
“The Divine Feminine and the Great Mother.”
Cain nodded. “Eventually that’s how she become known, as her message spread beyond the initial followers. The tales of her seeped into cultures across the globe. She became Cybele in Greece and Rome, Maia in Greece, Yum Chenmo a Tibetan deity, and host of other mother goddesses.”
“What happened to her followers?” Patrick asked.
“They were destroyed.”
“By Samyaza?”
Cain shook his head. “No—by man. The same forces that argued a woman could not be the true way to understanding tamped down any voices that called for the Great Mother.”
“And the books on the Great Mother?”
“There were six copies. Most were destroyed. The last two copies were held at the Imperial Library of Constantinople.”
The Imperial Library of Constantinople was one of the last great libraries of the ancient world. It had been created by the son of Constantine in the fourth century AD, and was responsible for transferring many ancient texts from papyrus before the original parchment they were written on disintegrated. They saved many texts—at least until the Ottoman Empire destroyed the library in 1453.
Patrick’s spirits dropped. “So, then. They are lost.”
Cain shook his head. “No. Two were secreted away by the followers of the Great Mother.”
“Where?”
“The rumors spread for years. Different places, different times. But I went in search.”
“You did? Why?”
Cain was quiet for a moment. “Lilith—she is my home. She is the one being in all the world who knows me from the beginning. She is my constant. We have fought throughout time, but I loved her. I love her still. I mourn her loss every day. And I could not abide the idea of her history being lost for all time.”
“All that you put us through when you knew she was going to sacrifice herself—you were frantic because you knew it meant losing her again.”
Cain looked away, his chin wobbling, and he let out a breath. “It meant I was alone again. And there was no guarantee I would find her in the next lifetime. It could be centuries before I saw her again.”
Patrick sat back, taking a good long look at the immortal in front of him. He had been through so much, but at his heart he, like everyone else, just wanted a place where he belonged. Victoria had been that place. “I can understand that.”
Cain’s head turned toward him, inspecting him. “I think you can. Laney is your home. And now you’re adrift too.”
Patrick felt the truth of his words. All his doubts about everything were because his foundation had been ripped out from underneath him. Laney was his home. It didn’t matter where they were, or where they lived: they were family. And without her, without knowing if she was hurt, or alive or dead, he couldn’t function the way he used to. Because nothing was like it used to be. “Yes.”
“Lilith and her daughter are amazing women who inspire fierce love and loyalty in those they care about.”
“And fierce hate in those they go against.”
“That is true as well.” Cain let out a breath. “Now, I think we’ve gotten off the topic. You were asking about the book. Rumor has it one copy is held in the Vatican archives.”
Patrick’s shoulders slumped. The Vatican archives were believed to hold everything from the petition to annul King Henry the VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon to the transcripts from the trial of Galileo; from the final message from the Mother of God to the three children in Fatima in 1917, to every other mystery attached to the Catholic Church. The archives covered an astounding fifty miles beneath Rome.
The archives were created in 1621 and remained closed to the public until 1881. At that point, Pope Leo XIII began to allow select Catholic scholars in. And even then, scholars were only allowed to examine the specific files they were interested in; there was, sadly, no browsing. There was also a bit of a catch-22—you must request a specific file in order to see it, but in order to do that, you had to know the file existed. And there was no table of contents.
And in any case, they were certainly not going to let Patrick, a priest currently on suspension, into their sacred holdings.
“You said there were two copies,” Patrick said.
Cain nodded. “The second could have been destroyed by the elements or time. It’s been hundreds of years since anyone has mentioned it.”
“Where is it?”
“A group of women took it, protected it, and brought it to the New World.”
Patrick sat back in shock. “The New World? It’s in America?”
“Yes. I believe it may still be here, although forces did almost uncover it. But the women, they would not reveal its location. They died rather than reveal it.”
“So there’s a chance?”
“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”
“Where?”
Cain’s gaze met Patrick’s. “Salem, Massachusetts.”
CHAPTER 52
Jake put down the phone and stared off into space. Salem, Massachusetts? Seriously?
Shaking his head, he strode down the hall. He knew about the witch trials, of course. Everyone knew about the witch trials: between 1692 and 1693, over a dozen women had been unjustly accused of being a witch in Salem. Those accused were hanged, drowned, even burned, all on the hysteria built from a preacher.
But if the tome of the Great Mother was there, as Cain said, did that mean there was more to the story? Were the accused women the last of the Great Mother’s followers? And who, then, wiped them out?
Jake’s money was on the Council.
The Council had been around since the time of the Inquisition. They had chased down artifacts from Atlantis and Lemuria, using them to build their bank accounts and the power of those within the Council’s membership. Had they gone after the tome?
The Great Mother… Jake knew very little about the religious or spiritual aspects of Laney’s mother. In Egypt, she had brought him back to life through her blood. And in China, she had sacrificed herself to keep the Fallen from gaining immortality. Those were just two examples of the power hidden within the woman. What might the tome hint at?
It wasn’t her power that drove him to find her—nor the fact that sh
e was Delaney and Henry’s mother. Nor even the fact that she had saved his life in Egypt. No—he wanted to help her because she was a child in danger. And these bastards had put dozens of other children in jeopardy because of her.
A picture of Mary Jane McAdams floated through his head. Mary Jane was strong. She would hold the family together. But how much more could that family take? And what if Susie wasn’t returned to them? How would they survive that? How could anyone?
He called Jordan and had him get a strike team together. They discussed details for a half hour, then Jake made another few calls. They would leave in two hours.
His phone rang, and he answered it without looking at the screen. “Yeah?”
“Um, Mr. Rogan? Jake?”
Jake glanced at the screen, not recognizing the voice. “Mary Jane?”
“Yes. I know you said you’d call if there was anything, and I know it’s too soon, but I just—” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re in the middle of something.”
Jake pulled out a seat and sat down. “No. I’ve got time. But no, we don’t have any leads that specifically lead to Susie. We did learn about something that might help us, and I’m going to run that down. Hopefully, I’ll have something by tomorrow.”
“That’s great. I should let you—”
Jake cut her off. “You okay?”
“I’m good. You know how it is.”
And Jake did. Mary Jane was shoving all her feelings aside to focus on her family, to be strong for them. But who was strong for her?
“Mary Jane, it’s okay to admit you’re scared.”
She was silent for a moment. Finally she spoke, her voice filled with emotion. “No, it’s not. Everyone here looks to me. I’m the last barrier against us all sinking into an abyss. I cannot bend. I cannot break. I stand tall so everyone around me can collapse. That’s my job. And I will stand until Susie is back. She is my heart.”
“I’m not looking to you for that. You can tell me.”
“No—thank you. If I open these floodgates, I’ll never be able to close them again.”
The silence stretched between them. Jake knew he should get off the phone—there were still some details to handle—but instead he scrambled for something to say. “Then tell me about Susie. What’s she like?”
He could hear the smile in Mary Jane’s voice, along with the tears. “She lights up a room.”
Mary Jane and Jake spoke for an hour, and during that time, Jake let himself forget his fear for Victoria, his fear for Laney, his fear for all the children caught up in this mess. He just listened to the love in Mary Jane’s voice as she spoke about her youngest child.
A knock sounded on the door, and Jordan peeked his head in. “Jake, we need you.”
Jake nodded. Be there in a minute, he mouthed.
“Oh,” Mary Jane said. “You have to go. I’ve talked your ear off. I am so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. You have an amazing family.”
“Yeah, as much as they make me crazy some days, I wouldn’t trade them for anything.” She paused. “Thank you, Jake.”
“Take care, Mary Jane.”
“You too.”
Jake disconnected the call and sat back, the phone resting against his chin. It was strange. He needed to move. They were waiting on him. But he let himself sit for another moment and enjoy the peace, the family he’d felt in that one phone call. How strange that one phone call could have such an effect.
Finally, though, he stood. The love Mary Jane felt for her family was a tangible thing, and Jake promised himself he would do everything in his power to bring her little girl back to her.
Time to get to work.
CHAPTER 53
Patrick disconnected the call after speaking with Jake, his mind whirling. He’d spent some time researching the Salem witch trials, but that had been years ago. To him, they had seemed to be a perfect example of religious hysteria run amok.
He retook his seat next to Cain’s bed. “So the women accused of witchcraft, they were followers of the Great Mother?”
“Most of them. Not all. And some men were also accused of witchcraft, too.”
“I don’t get how they managed to land in the New World. And why.”
Cain sighed. “The Great Mother’s followers were loyal. They were dedicated to her. And it wasn’t just her they followed, but her views as well. They were believers in the equality of all people, in the need to treat the lowest members of our society no different than the highest. Compassion and love were their ruling motivations. Those were the Great Mother’s beliefs, and they held on to them even as the world turned away from those beliefs.”
Though nowadays those views might not seem controversial, Patrick knew that for hundreds, if not thousands, of years they had been. It wasn’t until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century that man began to question whether biology was destiny. With the dawning of the Enlightenment, it began to be understood that through logic, rationality, and education, man could raise himself above the station in life he had been born into.
Cain continued. “The followers… at times they stood out. Not just because of their beliefs, but because as women, they were supposed to be subservient to their husbands, their fathers. They weren’t. And they were hunted.”
“By whom?” Patrick asked.
“At first the Fallen, but then they tried to hide their ways. That’s when the Council began to track them. The Council were organized. Their searches lasted generations. At one point, they even teamed up with the Fallen, working under the guise of the Inquisition.”
Patrick shook his head. “That’s a dark stain on the church’s history.”
Cain nodded. “The last time the followers were recorded performing their ritual was in Madrid. The Council broke into their meeting place. But they weren’t alone. They were working under the guidance of Samyaza.”
“Were the followers killed?”
“No. They were prepared. They all escaped, save one: their leader, Marguerite. She was taken. Samyaza himself interrogated her for days. But she never revealed where the rest had escaped to, and for almost two hundred years, there was no sign of them. I had begun to think that perhaps they had been killed off. Then I heard about the witch trials in England.”
Patrick was familiar with that piece of English history. Prior to the witch trials in Salem, similar trials had occurred across the pond. Demonology had taken hold of society at that point; when people committed criminal acts, it was attributed to the demon residing within them. And the punishment involved removing that demon, often painfully.
As in Salem, the witch trials in England focused on women. Women weren’t equals in society at that time, so it had always seemed odd to Patrick that they had been the target.
“When I heard about the trials, I recognized the signs of a search for the Great Mother’s followers,” Cain said.
“Are you sure the Council was behind it?”
Cain nodded. “Matthew Hopkins, who led the charge in England, was a member of the Council, as were some of the other names associated with the witch trials. Hopkins had nineteen people hanged in one day for witchcraft. And he got paid by the towns for rooting out their witches. But really, he was looking for the followers. When I heard about the number of ‘witches’ he had found and killed, I knew that the followers had survived.
“Fortunately, by the time the witch trials began, most of the members had moved on to the New World, where they had become the antithesis—at least in public—of the followers. They had become Puritans.”
The Puritans, Patrick knew, were a religious sect that broke away from the English Protestant church. They believed the Protestant church hadn’t done enough to regulate the abuse of the church and its members. They called for a stricter interpretation of the Bible and supported a severely restricted set of behaviors for its members, particularly with regard to sex and pleasure.
Patrick frowned. “If I’m remembering correctly
, the key figure in the beginning of the Salem witch trials was Reverend Samuel Parris. Was he a Council member?”
Cain shook his head. “No, not from what I could tell. I think he was a true believer, and the Council manipulated him into believing that witchcraft was the reason for his daughters’ fits.”
“Why do you think the fits occurred?”
“Parrish was a greedy, self-important, strict man. I have no doubt that his strictness crossed over into abuse. Then again, perhaps his daughters were simply acting out. And instead of being punished, they were rewarded. They received attention. Their father listened to them. “
“And all they had to do was point the finger at three other women.”
“The three women first charged were viewed by the town of Salem as women of no consequence: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. A destitute woman, an ill woman who had not attended church in years, and a slave.”
“But it didn’t stop with them.”
“No, it continued. And I believe that by accident, Parrish actually stumbled across one of the followers with that first set of accusations.”
“Which one?”
“Sarah Good.”
Patrick sat for a moment, reviewing in his mind what he knew of the woman. She had been raised by a wealthy father who had given his daughter a sizeable dowry. But when she married, her husband blew through the dowry, and after his death, she was left with debt and multiple children. She remarried to a good man, but they weren’t able to make ends meet, and she was reduced to begging—and was reported to be rather unpleasant to the people who did not provide to her.
But now Patrick looked at Sarah a little differently. She had been hanged as a witch. Perhaps, once that happened, her personality had been retroactively reimagined to fit that designation, to make her death more palatable. After all, she was described as an old hag with white hair and a stooped frame, yet at the time of the trials she was pregnant, suggesting she was much younger than the “old hag” description indicated.
But why would Cain think she was a follower?
Then it came it came to him. “At her death, as the undertaker was about to hang her, she said the judge would die if he went through with this.”
