The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set

by N. S. Wikarski

  Hannah leaped off the bed and circled her arms around the weeping woman. “I don’t think that’s so crazy. Sometimes I get strange ideas too.”

  Annabeth stopped crying and gawked at her in surprise. “You do?”

  The girl nodded solemnly. “Sometimes I imagine I’m running away. And I run and I run until I find my mother again. And then she takes me into her arms just like she did when I was little. And I feel safe and I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.” Hannah paused. “Those ideas make me happy when I think them.” She gazed at Annabeth earnestly. “Whatever is in your mind is yours to keep. Nobody else can know what you’re thinking unless you tell them. I guess maybe that’s the only place where anybody can really be free.”

  Annabeth gazed back at the girl with mixed feelings of fear and admiration. “I wish I was brave enough to want to be free,” she said. Then she frowned as another thought struck her. “But my ideas are never happy. Just awful things. That’s how I know they come from the devil and I can’t trust myself any more.”

  “But you trust the diviner?” Hannah asked uncertainly.

  “Oh yes! He knows what’s best for us.”

  “He wasn’t there! He didn’t see how it was. But I was there and so were you. What makes the diviner right and us wrong?”

  For one mad second, Annabeth felt an impulse to rebel surging up inside her. She saw herself telling the diviner exactly what he could do with his opinion about the state of her marriage. Then, just as quickly, the feeling passed. The devil was playing tricks with her mind again. She knew that disobedience was the first sin. Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise because of it. Lucifer was sent to the pit for disobedience and pride. Annabeth had no right to assume she knew more than the diviner. She looked at Hannah and shook her head. “Satan has the power to make us believe anything. Even something that seems very real to us. We have to be always on our guard.” Hastily terminating the conversation, she stood up. The girl followed her lead.

  Annabeth opened the door. She tried to give her visitor some final reassurance. Placing her hand on the girl’s arm, she advised, “You must do as the diviner says. He won’t lead you astray. Don’t try to speak to me again if he says you mustn’t.”

  Hannah gave a dispirited nod and left.

  Annabeth leaned her head against the door, her mind racing to process a whole new set of possibilities. From her own perspective, Hannah’s reassignment was far from bad news. She considered the implications. Perhaps she still had a chance to rekindle Daniel’s affections. If she produced a second child, she would be elevated to the rank of principal wife. Then the diviner might look more favorably on her. She could hold her head up in the community as a person of consequence. She dared to give a little smile. Maybe this was a sign that God hadn’t abandoned her after all.

  Chapter 23 – Relative Proximity

  “I don’t see how you can sit there so calmly and sip your tea!” Maddie protested. She had taken up a position on Faye’s parlor sofa, with one arm slung over the camelsback while rotating a cigarette lighter between her fingers.

  Faye raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s time to hit the panic button just yet. There’s a great deal we still don’t know.”

  “Fine,” sighed the operations director, tossing the lighter on the coffee table and folding her arms across her chest. “Let me recap what we do know. Somehow, some way, against all odds, the Nephilim have managed to dig up the critical missing line of the riddle and are ready to move on to Turkey.”

  “When did we get the information on this?”

  Maddie consulted her watch. “About an hour ago. I figured this needed a face-to-face with you, so I didn’t call first.”

  Faye nodded. “Of course, dear. I understand. You’re distressed.”

  The red-haired woman let out a short bark of a laugh. “The fact that the bad guys are zeroing in on the right mountain doesn’t distress me nearly as much as the way you’re taking the news.”

  Faye allowed herself a brief smile. “What do you suggest I do?”

  Maddie stood up and began to pace. “Something. Anything! We need to move fast on this. Call out reinforcements. Get our team out of the country.”

  The memory guardian set down her tea cup. Her eyes swung back and forth like a pendulum as she tracked her visitor’s movements across the parlor rug. She allowed Maddie to tire herself out before speaking again. “I’m an old, old woman so you’ll have to indulge me, dear. Give me all the facts and don’t leave out any details.”

  Maddie stopped short and whirled to face her hostess. “Fine!” She flounced back down on the sofa. “I got a call from one of our operatives who had been keeping tabs on Leroy Hunt. Apparently, he and this Daniel character are trying to line up a Nephilim contact in Istanbul.”

  “What on earth would have made them want to retrace their steps to Karfi in the first place?” Faye mused.

  “There was another call earlier in the week between Abraham Metcalf and Hunt. He told the old man that the boy had a hunch they were missing something. We didn’t know exactly what that meant, until now.”

  “Indeed,” Faye said. “A Nephilim who trusts his instincts is a rarity.”

  “One who trusts his instincts and totes around a computer is more than rare, he’s dangerous,” Maddie countered.

  Faye reached toward the teapot on the table between them. Maddie declined a refill, but the old woman poured herself another cup. “I wonder how the Fallen Lands will affect him,” she speculated.

  “Huh?”

  “Think about the way that Nephilim children are raised. No contact with the outside world. Minimal education unless it pertains to their scripture. And now we have this young man who is not only given the freedom to travel but unlimited access to computers and the internet. He’s being exposed to all sorts of people and ideas that the rest of his cult will never know about. I’m sure it’s going to change him in profound ways.”

  “Yeah, that’s great,” Maddie replied dismissively. “His quality of life really isn’t the issue now.”

  “On the contrary, it may be the central issue.” Faye raised her teacup to her lips and took a sip. “I suspect the more he learns of the outer world, the harder it will be for him to unquestioningly accept the dogma of the Nephilim. Harder still for him to accept his father’s ruthless obsession to possess the Bones of the Mother.”

  Maddie paused to consider the idea. “Maybe so,” she relented. “But how he changes over time isn’t my main concern. Right now, I’m worried about how fast he’s figuring out the clues to the artifacts.”

  “Have you gotten any recent updates from our own intrepid crew?”

  Maddie sighed deeply. “As of this afternoon, they still hadn’t found anything. They searched some calendar stones on Ida but so far no Bones. For some reason, Stefan Kasprzyk showed up, and now he wants Cassie to tell him about an artifact he can’t identify. The last thing they need is to get sidetracked now!” She paused to stare at the memory guardian in exasperation. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you aren’t worried. We’re cutting the timing pretty close, don’t you think?”

  Faye smiled placidly. “Stefan has appeared with an obscure artifact that requires the assistance of the pythia? Hmmm. I wonder what this can mean.”

  “It means they’re gonna lose valuable time talking to him when they should be out searching the mountain instead!” Maddie flared. “And pretty soon the Nephilim will be breathing down their necks. If Hunt hasn’t already figured out our guys aren’t dead, he’s about to.”

  Faye didn’t appear to have heard the comment. “The Kurgan trove keeper feels impelled to seek out the pythia at this most inopportune moment.”

  Maddie was too nonplussed by her leader’s meandering thought process to speak for several seconds. She stared open-mouthed at the old woman. “Just what are you driving at?”

  “Synchronicity. Odd coincidences that, in hindsight, seem to dovetail.”
She held a plate of lemon squares toward Maddie. “Are you sure I can’t offer you one?”

  The operations director waved the plate away irritably. “You picked a hell of a time to wax philosophical,” she muttered.

  Just then a knock was heard at the front door. It was actually more an insistent hammering following by an impatient jiggle of the doorknob.

  “Are you expecting anybody?” Maddie sprang off the couch.

  Faye shook her head, perplexed. “Please answer it, dear.”

  Maddie flung open the door to reveal a wiry teenage boy. He tilted his head to look up at the Amazon glaring down at him. His hair was blackish brown, spiked out with enough hair gel to make him resemble a porcupine. He wore a faded tee shirt and ripped jeans. A threadbare camo backpack hung off one arm. He gave Maddie a cursory glance and said “Hey” before sliding past her.

  Dropping his backpack on the parlor rug, he threw himself unceremoniously on the couch. “How’s it going, Gamma,” he offered.

  For the first time during the evening’s conversation, Faye actually registered shock. “Zachary?” she asked uncertainly. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  The boy sighed and rolled his eyes. “I can’t stand it anymore. They’re driving me nuts. You gotta let me crash here for a couple of days.”

  Maddie remained standing by the door, witnessing the exchange. “Who is this kid? Why’s he calling you Gamma?” she finally asked.

  The other two turned to her in surprise, apparently having forgotten her presence.

  “Oh, I’m sorry dear. You don’t know many of my relatives, do you? This is Zachary. Gamma is his special name for me. He started calling me that when he was two and still couldn’t say grandma. Though technically I’m not his grandmother. He’s my great-great-great… oh bother, I can’t remember how many greats come before grandson, but he’s—”

  “Run away from home,” the boy cut in. “Lemon squares. Excellent! You guys gonna finish these?”

  Chapter 24 – Twinkle, Twinkle

  The Arkana team sat around a circular table eyeing the dagger in their midst as if it were a poisonous snake. No one made a move to touch it. It was very late in the evening. After a meal in the hotel dining room and a hurried telephone conversation to give Maddie a progress report, the group had adjourned to Stefan’s suite. They wisely concluded that Cassie’s telemetric abilities shouldn’t be on display in the public areas of the hotel.

  “I suppose we ought to begin,” Griffin offered uncertainly.

  “Can you tell me anything at all about this knife?” Cassie asked the trove keeper.

  He shrugged helplessly. “Only that it is out of place where I found it. Such a dagger does not belong in a Kurgan burial mound. I know nothing more than that.”

  “What if it’s a tainted artifact?” Erik challenged. “This could be bad news for Cassie.”

  “I cannot assure you that it is not,” Stefan admitted. “Such a thing is used for killing, no? Knives do not generally have pleasant stories to tell.”

  Cassie sighed. “Look guys. Whatever it is, I think I can handle it. It’s not like my head is going to explode and spatter my brains all over the carpet.” She scowled and turned to Griffin for confirmation. “That isn’t a possibility, is it? I mean you haven’t heard of that happening to a pythia, have you?”

  “Good grief! Of course not!” Griffin protested. “Just try to stay grounded as best you can. We’ll all be standing by to assist you.”

  The pythia laughed nervously. “After that Vinca artifact nearly decapitated me, what have I got to be worried about?”

  Her companions looked grim. No one spoke.

  “Cassie, you don’t have to do this,” Fred reminded her.

  She gave him a brave smile. “I sort of do. It’s in the job description.” She took a deep breath. Sitting forward in her chair, she reached around her neck for the pendant Faye had given her and grasped it tightly in her left hand. Then she stretched out her right. “OK, I’m ready.” Stefan slid the obsidian dagger across the table toward her. She shut her eyes and placed her hand on top of the knife. “Gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts.”

  She went into free fall. She was nowhere and everywhere at once. This was unlike any trance she’d experienced before. Images strobed through her consciousness. The dagger was passing from hand to hand in fast rewind mode as one person after another grasped its antler handle. She didn’t become any of them. The weapon was moving too fast though its impulse was always the same—to appease its rage with blood. She could feel flesh tearing, screams of pain, bodies falling to earth. Too many to count. Backward in time, the dagger traveled for thousands of years, leaving a mountain of corpses in its wake. Finally, the blade stopped moving and settled in the hands of a burly young man. Cassie touched down in his consciousness. She had scarcely caught her bearings before he leaned over a kneeling woman and, with one deft stroke, cut her throat. The woman collapsed on the ground choking. Blood streamed out and covered the snow around her body. The burly man snatched an amulet from her forehead. Fury churned inside of him like molten lava.

  The blood in Cassie’s veins felt polluted. Offal from a slaughterhouse. She tried to disassociate herself from the dagger. Pushing her awareness upward through a sea of gore. she gasped for breath, fighting a wave of nausea at the same time. Someone was calling her.

  “Cass!” the voice reverberated inside her head. “That’s enough. Come on, snap out of it!”

  She blinked several times. Erik was kneeling next to her, shaking her by the shoulders. “Cass! Come back!” he urged.

  “I… uh… I’m.”

  “Are you alright?” Griffin was beside her too.

  She stood up dizzily, leaning on the table for support. “N… n… no,” she finally stuttered. “No, I’m not.” She ran to the bathroom and managed to reach the toilet just as another wave of nausea hit her. She vomited so violently that her head throbbed, and her rib cage felt as if it were broken. She nearly blacked out while one spasm after another shook her body. When she finally caught her breath, she could feel someone placing a warm washcloth on the back of her neck.

  “You’re going to be OK,” another voice said soothingly. She thought it might have been Fred.

  She became aware that a cold slick of perspiration covered her skin, causing her to shiver. Somebody had placed an arm around her shoulder and was guiding her back into Stefan’s sitting room. It was Erik. In an uncharacteristically gentle voice, he said, “Just sit down here for a while and rest. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  She collapsed in a heap on the couch and concentrated on breathing in and out. Even her lungs hurt. When she finally blinked her eyes open, she could see four solemn faces peering down at her. The effect was almost comical. She chuckled weakly. “Guys, don’t worry. Really. I survived.”

  Erik sat down beside her and handed her a glass of water. “Here, drink this.”

  The water helped wash the awful taste of blood and bile out of her mouth. The blood of all those people the knife butchered had oozed into her own veins. She’d been psychically poisoned if there was such a thing, and her physical reaction was just the same as if she’d swallowed something toxic. Her body acted decisively to purge away all that foulness. She wished her mind could purge the memories away that easily.

  Erik scowled at Stefan in reproach. “That artifact wasn’t just tainted. It was the granddaddy of all contaminated artifacts.”

  Stefan looked sheepish. “I am so sorry, Miss Cassie. I did not know.”

  She waved her hand weakly to reassure him. “Don’t worry about it. Comes with the territory. What doesn’t kill me makes me strong, right?” She gave a wan smile.

  Griffin was standing over her looking skeptical. “A cold comfort that,” he observed dryly. “You appear far from well.”

  She drank the rest of the water. Her head began to clear, and she sat upright.

  “You’re still cold.” Erik had n
oticed her trembling hands. He hastened to the closet to retrieve an extra blanket. “Here, put this around your shoulders.”

  Cassie accepted the wrap and bundled herself into it like a cocoon before speaking again. “There’s a lot to cover.” She rubbed her temples.

  “You can’t possibly want to go over all of that now,” Griffin objected.

  “Oh, yes I do. I can’t carry this bad energy around in my head. Better to get it out tonight so I can leave it behind.”

  The scrivener didn’t argue the point. He settled himself on the arm of the couch while Erik seated himself on her other side. Fred and Stefan drew up two chairs. They waited in silence for her to choose her time to begin.

  Cassie leaned her head back against the couch cushions. “This wasn’t like any trance I’ve ever been in before. Blips and flashes of events, of people. Most of them dying on the sharp end of that thing.” Her gaze traveled toward the table where the obsidian dagger rested so quietly. “I was being dragged backwards through its history, so I had to piece together a sense of what it all meant. It was like the knife itself had an emotion associated with it. Mainly anger and the only thing that quieted the anger was spilling somebody’s blood. And then the emotion in the dagger got transferred to everybody who possessed it. It was used for rituals by this Kurgan tribe. Whoever wanted to be the leader of the tribe had to use that dagger to kill the competition.”

  “Although it’s an appalling practice, such trial by combat is not uncommon in patriarchal cultures,” Griffin commented. “Remember the Ottoman sultans who killed their own brothers to claim the throne?”

  “But it wasn’t only men,” Cassie replied. “I don’t think they were all that patriarchal at the time when this dagger was in play. Not all the leaders of this particular Kurgan tribe were males. Everybody had an equal chance to be vicious.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Once a leader died, the successor would be the one who was handiest with the dagger. The tribe passed it on from one generation to the next like some kind of unholy grail. It was a symbol to them. I guess you would call it a talisman. They believed that as long as they had that knife, it made them invincible.”