The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set

by N. S. Wikarski

  He dusted himself off and walked over to examine the portion of the grave that had been unearthed so far. The skeleton it contained was a chieftain of some sort. His remains showed signs of trauma. A gaping hole in the skull suggested he hadn’t died peacefully in his sleep. An occupational hazard, Stefan thought grimly, for those who lived by the sword.

  He shifted his attention to another part of the grave. Prominent Kurgan chieftains never died alone. Their burial rites demanded the death of others. A female body posed in a crouched position to his left suggested this was his wife. Quite possibly a bride captured from a neighboring tribe who didn’t care for her role in the funeral ceremonies. Her leg bones had been broken to keep her from running away, and her throat had been cut prior to interment. Her function was to serve her lord in the afterlife. Slavery in this life meant slavery in the next.

  Stefan removed his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He fanned his face with the brim for a moment before kneeling down to continue his inspection of the grave goods. They were, for the most part, exactly what he expected to see. Items emphasizing the martial nature of the male buried here. Wooden bows and flint-headed arrows. Bone knives and spears. A stone mace. The skull of a slaughtered horse -- probably the chieftain’s favorite. The artifacts spoke of a life steeped in blood. A voracious need to subdue everything within reach.

  Stefan shook his head. He would much rather be working on one of the Arkana’s other digs where the artifacts were less grim. But, he reminded himself, as the Kurgan trove keeper, his work was vital to their understanding of this anomaly in human behavior. How and why it all went wrong. The jumping off point when peaceful nomads became overlord invaders. His work might someday answer those questions. At the moment, he had more questions than answers. He looked down again at the object in his hands. It baffled him. An obsidian knife with an antler handle. What on earth was it doing here? Obsidian was volcanic glass, and the nearest volcano was a thousand miles away.

  Even if the object had been obtained by trade or conquest, obsidian weaponry had become obsolete in the millennium prior to the burial of this chieftain. If that weren’t odd enough, its sheath presented another mystery. A hammered gold scabbard ornamented with lions. The decorative style of the sheath was consistent with the dead chieftain’s culture, but the knife was not. The combination was as anomalous as someone storing a medieval French dagger inside a gun holster from the American West.

  He jammed his hat back on his head in exasperation. What was this knife doing here? His speculation led nowhere. He simply couldn’t answer that question. He paused as a thought struck him, and a slow grin spread across his face. Perhaps he didn’t know the answer himself, but he had just thought of the one person in the world who might be able to help him.

  Chapter 3 – Tabling the Talk

  Cassie Forsythe was running late for lunch. As always, finding parking in the trendy but highly-congested Gold Coast neighborhood took longer than she expected. She rushed through the revolving door of the restaurant only to be escorted back outside by the hostess who seated her at a bistro table overlooking the sidewalk.

  She hadn’t wanted to be late, but it appeared she was early. Relaxing a bit, she tried to smooth her hair. It was dark brown, straight, and had a tendency to hang over half of her face like a curtain. Pulling a compact mirror out of her purse, she scrutinized her appearance. To a casual observer, she would have seemed like any other college student. A petite frame clad in jeans and cotton T-shirt. Nondescript features, or at least Cassie thought so, but people always commented on her eyes. They were an unusual opaque grey. She rubbed away a smudge of mascara that had fallen on her nose. Slipping the compact back inside her purse, she surveyed the passersby. It was the typical upscale Chicago crowd of lawyers, stockbrokers, and high maintenance spouses but she couldn’t see Rhonda anywhere.

  Cassie was nervous about this interview. She mentally repeated the word—interview. It really wasn’t that. She had agreed to meet her sister’s former business partner for lunch. That was all. A simple meal with a friend.

  “More like the third degree,” Cassie muttered under her breath. Given the strange events which had unfolded after her sister’s death two months earlier, there were too many things she couldn’t tell Rhonda. She would have to waltz around the truth like a debutante at a cotillion, and she’d never been a good dancer to begin with.

  “Hi, sweetie, how are you?”

  Cassie jumped at the soft pressure of a hand on her shoulder. Rhonda had walked up behind her while she’d been busy with her internal monologue.

  “Hey Rhonda,” she replied shakily, rising to hug the plump older woman. She didn’t know why but every time she saw that concerned maternal look in Rhonda’s eyes, it made her want to cry. It would have been such a relief to pour out all her cares to a sympathetic ear, but she couldn’t allow herself to do that. Instead, she blinked back a few tears and resettled herself in her chair.

  A brisk waiter arrived to fill their water glasses. They sat patiently while he regaled them with the day’s specials. Once he had retreated back inside, they took a long look at one another.

  “So?” Rhonda began tentatively.

  “So?” Cassie echoed warily.

  “So, how are you?” her friend added. “I haven’t seen you since that one time you stopped by the shop, and it’s been nearly two months. What have you been doing with yourself?”

  There it was. Out in the open. How could she answer that very innocent and entirely awkward question? Cassie’s mind flashed back to the night her sister died. How she had wakened from a nightmare that showed her every detail of the crime as it was being committed.

  “What have I been doing?” She repeated the question to buy time. “Oh, I found a few things to keep me busy.” Busy didn’t begin to describe it. Cassie had discovered her sister was part of a secret organization called the Arkana and that its mission was to collect ancient artifacts that revealed human history to be radically different than the version being taught in schools.

  “Care to elaborate?” Rhonda urged.

  Cassie shrugged. “Nothing earth-shattering.” That’s a lie, she thought to herself. Her sister Sybil had stumbled across an artifact which a fundamentalist cult known as the Blessed Nephilim killed her to get. If that wasn’t enough, Cassie discovered she, herself, could touch a relic and instantly receive visions about the object’s past. Her sister had possessed the same gift, and Cassie had been persuaded to step into Sybil’s role as the Arkana’s seer—their “pythia.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to avoid giving me a straight answer,” the older woman teased.

  Cassie smiled nervously. “That would be silly,” she demurred. “What have I got to hide?” What have I got to hide, she asked herself. Absolutely everything! For starters, there was the trip to Crete. Together with two other agents, she’d been sent to retrieve a vital artifact, and they were all nearly killed by a Nephilim and his henchman. Now she and her team were on the brink of finding another relic somewhere in Turkey which the Nephilim coveted too. It was quite a lot for your average co-ed to juggle between classes.

  Rhonda was giving her a quizzical look.

  Cassie rolled her eyes, trying to breeze through the interrogation. “OK, mom. If you need the details, I got to know some of Sybil’s friends in the antique trade, that’s all.”

  “Really? I’m glad,” Rhonda commented encouragingly.

  The waiter returned to take their order. Cassie’s digestive system was churning so violently that all she wanted was a bowl of soup and iced tea.

  “I know Sybil was active in the antiquities market, but she was always very close-mouthed about who she worked with.” Rhonda stirred cream into her coffee. “Are they nice people?”

  Cassie mentally reviewed the staff that ran the Arkana. Faye: a mild-mannered granny by day, the head of an international secret organization by night. Griffin: the mentally hyperactive w
underkind who managed the global catalog. Maddie: the frizzy-haired chain-smoking Amazon who controlled worldwide operations. And Erik: the annoyingly handsome smart ass who arranged security for the team when they were in the field.

  The pythia paused and stirred a packet of sugar into her tea before replying. “Yes, they’re very nice,” she answered noncommittally.

  Rhonda reached into her purse, drew out an envelope and handed it to Cassie.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your share of last month’s profits from the store.”

  “Oh, right.” Cassie had forgotten that since her sister’s death she was now Rhonda’s business partner in the antique shop she co-owned with Sybil.

  “Last time we spoke, you mentioned that you wanted me to buy back your interest in the store.” Rhonda hesitated. “Do you still want that?”

  Relieved to be away from touchy topics, the pythia answered decisively. “Actually, I don’t. I mean, if you don’t mind, that is. Sybil wasn’t an active partner anyway. She just put up the front money, didn’t she?”

  Rhonda nodded. “Yes. I ran the store, and we divided the profits.”

  Cassie shrugged. “Why mess up a good thing, right?”

  The older woman seemed relieved. “Honestly, I’d prefer it that way. It would take years for me to buy you out.”

  The pythia sipped her iced tea, her stomach calming down a bit. “No worries, then. We’ll just keep it like it is.” She opened the envelope to take a peek at the size of the check. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Wow. You must have had a good month!”

  Rhonda smiled. “Not especially. That’s about average.”

  Cassie couldn’t see a downside to collecting a tidy sum every month for doing nothing, especially now that she had become so deeply involved with the Arkana that the idea of a job was out of the question.

  “I expect you’ll be going back to school in the fall,” Rhonda hinted gently.

  Cassie knew that the older woman was worried about her lack of academic interest. “I’ll be going back at some point,” she hedged. Given her intense involvement with the relic hunt, college wasn’t an option for the foreseeable future.

  “Then what will you do in the meantime?” Her friend sounded mystified.

  “I… uh…well, those people I told you about. Sybil’s friends in the trade. They asked me to help them with something.” It was the closest she dared come to the truth.

  “Asked you?” Rhonda frowned in puzzlement. “Why on earth would they ask you for help?”

  Cassie took a large gulp of tea. “Um… uh… because of some antique that Sybil had at her apartment. I knew a few facts about it, so I was able to give them the history. They want me to help them sort out some other things of hers.”

  “How well do you know these people, Cassie?”

  The pythia avoided eye contact. “They’re OK, Rhonda. Like I said, they’re really nice.”

  Her companion reached across the table and squeezed the pythia’s hand. “I’m not going to pry but, whatever you do, please be careful. The antiquities market can sometimes attract a bad element.”

  Cassie smiled weakly. “I will be careful. I promise.” The pythia flashed on the memory of Leroy Hunt pointing a gun at her head. A bad element. Rhonda had no idea how right she was.

  Chapter 4 – Heavenly Mansions

  Abraham Metcalf turned in a circle to survey the landscape around him. He stood in the center of what appeared to be a dark valley ringed by hills. For some strange reason, he was holding a trowel. A bucket of mortar and a pile of bricks lay at his feet. He picked up a brick and attempted to fit it into a wall that stood knee high. He worked frantically to slap mortar between the layers and stack brick after brick, but his wall sagged and buckled. He could barely see what he was doing. It was a moonless night, and the stars afforded him scant light to work by. He paused to rest, breathless from his efforts, when he saw something bright approaching in the sky. It was a glowing orb which grew brighter as it drifted near him. It came to a stop and hung suspended above his ill-made wall.

  He shielded his eyes from the glare.

  Unexpectedly, the orb began to speak. “Abraham, I bring you tidings from our father.”

  Metcalf fell to his knees. He cast his eyes downward, afraid to gaze directly at the light. “What are you?” he asked in wonder.

  “A messenger.”

  Abraham glanced furtively at the glowing orb. It seemed to be metamorphosing into a young man with flowing golden hair. He was dressed in a long white robe and wings sprouted from his shoulders. On his feet were golden sandals.

  The angel spoke. “The Lord of Hosts bids me tell you that your house needs a firm foundation, or it will crumble.”

  The old man gaped open-mouthed at the seraph.

  “Observe,” the messenger instructed.

  Metcalf fixed his gaze upward to see an image of his son Daniel forming in the night sky. Daniel held the granite key in his hands. The key that would lead him to the location of the Bones of the Mother and give Abraham all he needed to remake the Fallen world in God’s image. The angel floated behind Daniel and lifted a halo above the young man’s head. Then the scene dissolved into blackness.

  ***

  Metcalf twitched awake and heaved himself upright in bed. He clicked on a reading lamp and glanced at the alarm clock. Two-thirty AM. He had awakened for a reason. This dream was a portent. As the diviner of the Blessed Nephilim, Abraham’s dreams were never ordinary. They were the voice of God whispering in his ear. On this night, the Lord had shouted rather than whispered, but Abraham felt frightened at his own incomprehension. What did his vision mean? He dreaded the thought of failing his Master. Rubbing his hands across his face, he tried to clear his mind.

  Metcalf cast a brief glance at the woman slumbering peacefully beside him. She was one of his older wives. Was she his tenth? He couldn’t remember her rank. No matter. His mind drifted as he gazed detachedly at the woman’s face. He noticed the grooves forming around her mouth, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She was nearing the change of life. Soon her body would be impervious to his efforts to build the kingdom through her. The thought that female nature could thwart his will so easily annoyed him.

  Abraham fidgeted and pulled the covers around his shoulders. He felt chilled and, for the first time in his seventy-odd years, he felt old. This was no time to fret about his age, he reminded himself sternly. There was great work yet to be done. He was on the brink of laying the entire world at the feet of his Master. The means would shortly be at his disposal. Daniel was instrumental to the fulfillment of his plan.

  Then a troublesome thought struck him. What if he were called from the fray early? What if he were asked to follow the example of his divine brother Jesus in an act of blood sacrifice? Who would carry on the fight after he was gone? Who would finish the job of remaking the world? He snapped to attention.

  “Your house needs a firm foundation, or it will crumble.”

  There was the connection. Daniel was meant to be that foundation. Abraham paused to consider the idea. It had been generations since a diviner had designated a scion during his own lifetime. When Abraham’s father had died, he was forced to contend with his brothers for the mantle of diviner. It had cost several years of struggle and confusion in the church hierarchy for him to emerge victorious. Given the plans he was about to set in motion, Metcalf couldn’t afford a lapse in strong leadership. It was distasteful to contemplate his own mortality, but there was no help for it. He must name Daniel as the scion before the entire congregation so there would be no question of who would succeed him as diviner.

  Another alarming thought followed fast on the heels of the first. Daniel had three wives, each of whom had produced only one child—disappointingly female in each case. This would never do. The diviner’s dynasty could not be built on such a feeble foundation. Daniel must father sons. Abraham stroked his beard contemplatively. Perhaps to
do so, he only needed the right stimulus. The old man smiled and switched off the lamp. He lay down and pulled the quilt up to his chin. He believed he knew exactly what God wanted him to do.

  Chapter 5 – Revelations

  The bell had been ringing for at least ten minutes. Everyone in the compound had heard it. They were all hurrying to the Worship Hall. A nondescript twentyish blond woman named Annabeth scurried along too. She didn’t want to be late. The rule was strict. Every adult member of the Blessed Nephilim who could be spared must answer the summons immediately.

  It had to be something very important for the diviner to call them together in the middle of the week. She could hear voices around her speculating, but nobody seemed to know what this was about. Annabeth tried to catch her breath and smooth her hair when she entered the hall. Nearly everyone but she had already found a place.

  The men in their black suits and white shirts sat together in the forward rows. Behind them sat rows of women clad all alike in grey dresses and white aprons, their hair chastely braided and coiled around their heads. Annabeth dove for the first open seat toward the back of the room. She stammered an apology as she stepped on someone’s toe before sinking into a chair. She didn’t like to stand out. Nobody wanted to be singled out for the diviner’s attention.