Ten minutes later, standing on the point at the river’s edge, the old man lifted the rod into the air. Staring down at the water lapping against the thin lip of beach, he called, “Rise! Rise from the south! Bring the fresh water to the north!”
As he lowered the rod, he felt contentment.
CHAPTER 52
Curt, Tolen, and Fawn sat at the island bar in Tolen’s kitchen. Tolen was preoccupied with the letter Ed Leedskalnin had sent to Cora Sawyer.
“I still can’t believe a snake-like creature ate Rifold,” Fawn said. “Are you sure that’s what happened to him?”
“Fawn, you’ve asked me that same question about a dozen times now. The answer is still yes,” Curt responded. “By the way, you realize it must have been the same creature that got the Tinney brothers, right?”
“Yes,” she let out a disturbed sigh.
“And probably the rest of the people who went missing or whose remains have been found,” Tolen added. He placed the letter on the counter. Curt could read his eyes. He had something more to say.
Tolen began, “The downed obelisk I found on the riverbed at Fort Caroline had been placed there by the ancient Egyptians with a purpose. It was not to pay tribute to Queen Hatshepsut, but to warn of the evil that was upriver.”
“Um, yeah, I think I ran into that evil,” Curt said, “but where in God’s name did it come from? And if the Egyptians brought it over 3,500 years ago, where has it been? In hibernation?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Tolen said. “Let me start by saying that I believe the stick in the cave that Ed Leedskalnin mentioned is a most unusual piece of history. To be more precise, I believe it’s the Staff of Moeshe.”
The room fell quiet. Curt looked at Fawn. He saw the same baffled look.
“Who’s Moeshe?” Fawn asked.
“Moeshe is the Hebrew name for Moses,” Tolen responded.
“You’re saying it’s Moses’ Staff? Burning-bush-on-Mount-Sinai-talking Moses?” Curt asked, trying to comprehend the significance.
“Yes,” Tolen responded, “allow me to explain.”
“Please do,” Fawn said, her eyes growing wide with wonder and curiosity.
“As someone interested in the history of theology, I’ve spent extensive time studying not only stories from the Bible, but details concerning the related civilizations—their religious beliefs, customs, livelihood, folklores—associated with the Old and New Testament. By analyzing the cultures, it’s been my experience that hard historical evidence can frequently be unearthed to substantiate the accuracy of the scriptures, especially some of the more interesting stories.
“Anyone who has ever seen the movie The Ten Commandments can vividly recall the scene where Charleton Heston throws the staff on the ground, and it turns into a serpent. This is an account straight from the Bible.”
Curt interjected, “So you’re saying, what I witnessed, that thing that ate Barton Rifold and others, is the Serpent transformed from the Staff of Moses?”
“Are you aware that the Serpent of Moses’ Staff is also thought to be the Serpent from the Garden of Eden?”
“Based on what?” Curt asked.
“A Midrashic work composed by the school of Rebbe Eliezer ben Hycanus depicts the origin of the Staff as, and I quote, ‘Created at twilight, before the Sabbath, it was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden.’ ”
“So Moses’ Staff turned into Satan?” Curt asked.
“I found that this misrepresentation of Satan has been perpetuated for centuries.”
“What misrepresentation?” Fawn asked.
“That the Serpent in the Tree of Knowledge was, in fact, Satan, when, in reality, it was evil that ruled the Serpent; it was not the actual embodiment of Satan himself.”
“As I previously mentioned, the Midrashic work by the school of Rebbe Eliezer ben Hyrcanus provides considerable insight into the Staff’s history. After being created and given to Adam, Adam gave it to Enoch, who gave it to Methuselah. He, in turn, passed it on to Noah. Noah bequeathed it to—”
“Noah?” Curt cut him off.
“Yes.”
They’re lucky the Fish didn’t eat it, Curt thought to himself.
“Noah bequeathed it to his son, Shem.”
Curt reflected back to the Isla de la Palma cave wall where he and Lila discovered the visual manifest of the animals that traveled aboard Noah’s Ark. Shem’s brother, Ham, had been the artist and had signed his name there. The thought of his ex-wife, and whatever fate had befallen her, brought a measure of sadness.
“Shem transferred it to Abraham. From there, it went to Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Upon Joseph’s death, all his possessions were removed to Pharaoh Linor’s temple. One of Pharaoh’s advisors, Jethro, took it and stuck it in the ground in his garden in Midian. After Jethro placed the Staff in the ground, no one was able to remove it until Moses came along. Upon reading the letters on the staff aloud, he pulled it out readily.”
“Sounds like the King Arthur tale,” Curt remarked.
“Actually, there’s considerable debate that this was, indeed, the origin of the Arthurian legend,” Tolen continued. “Records of the Staff’s whereabouts are sketchy at best, following the accounts of Moses after he led the Israelites through the desert for 40 years. When he died, records suggest that the reigning Egyptian pharaoh, Tuthmose, acquired the Staff after a raid on a temple near Eta-Kahkit. As you might imagine, the pharaohs and queens that ruled upper and lower Egypt following Moses’ exodus did not hold Moses in high esteem, and acquiring the Staff of Moses gave Tuthmose a great degree of vindictive satisfaction. Still, the Egyptian royalty were so fearful of the Staff that, from the moment it was found in the temple, it was placed in a burlap sack by a man whose hands were wrapped in cloth. The Staff was then hidden away in Pharaoh’s temple and never removed from its sack. It was never once touched by human hands. After that point, it was lost, and there is no mention of the Staff in any historical or biblical references. Quite frankly, it disappeared.”
“You know,” Curt exhaled, “if Hatshepsut’s stepson was really behind sending Hatshepsut’s mummy away from Egypt because of his hatred toward her, it seems logical he would entomb her with something that the Egyptians considered to be a vile object.”
“I read an article several years ago about a man who claimed that a staff in a British museum was the Staff of Moses,” Fawn said.
“That’s right,” Tolen said. “Author Graham Phillips believes the staff, on display at Birmingham Museum, is the staff that the Bible asserts Moses used to perform the miracles of the Exodus. Mr. Phillips’ research revealed that the staff was found in a tomb in southern Jordan in the 1800s before being bought by a British collector and later acquired by the museum. Phil Watson, principal curator of human history at Birmingham Museum, believes the claims linking the staff to Moses were tenuous. Furthermore, the staff was acquired by the museum in 1952, and its history before then is somewhat problematic. I’m convinced that the staff on display in the British museum is not the Staff of Moses, which is described quite differently than the staff on display. The long staff was said to be adorned with jewels. In some descriptions, it had many, in others, it had only two.”
“Ed mentioned the two round stones, one green and one red, at the end of the stick,” Curt said in an enlightened voice. It was starting to make sense. “And per the letter that Fawn found in the church, Ed mailed one of the stones back: the one we believe the Cult of the End now has after murdering Sawyer.”
“That stone, based on Ed’s story of seeing green and red light in the cave, is an emerald, I believe, because the red stone, or ruby, is still affixed to the Staff.”
“What are you basing this conclusion on?” Curt asked.
“Biblical scholars theorize there is a dichotomy between the emerald and the ruby. The emerald, or green stone, represents good, while t
he ruby, the red stone, represents evil. If the stick Ed mentioned truly is the Staff of Moses, and he removed the emerald, it left the Staff out of balance, with only the evil stone remaining. That would explain why Ed wrote to Cora to ask her to return the emerald to achieve balance. Somehow, he understood.”
“The notes I had from Lindsey McSweet mentioned something about, ‘When in balance, the creature is the way’,” Fawn said.
“The way to what?” Curt asked.
Fawn shrugged her shoulders. “No idea.”
Tolen rose, walked to the window, and looked out over the backyard and to the river. The tide had peaked two hours ago and was now heading out. The watermark on the piles of the dock was dropping. He turned and began, “What I’m going to say next is going to be the hardest part to believe.”
“Crap,” Curt said, before Tolen could continue. He suddenly connected the dots, “the serpent that attacked me, the creature in the wave that came after Scott’s son on the dock….it had a single, offset red eye.”
“I believe the ruby and the emerald are the Serpent’s eyes,” Tolen said, “and now it only has the ruby, and thus a single red eye. Without its emerald eye, it’s out of balance and skewed toward evil.”
“Lindsey’s notes also mentioned ‘jeweled eyes see all in the sun’s light’,” Fawn said, “but that still doesn’t explain why the Serpent is targeting people who were in the church the day Jack and Tonya Turner disappeared into the floor.”
“Yes it does.” Curt recalled the conversation with Barton Rifold before the creature attacked. “It all makes sense now. ‘Jeweled eyes see all in the sun’s light:’ the serpent can see through the emerald even when it’s detached from its body. Rifold mentioned Lawton Sawyer held something up in the church pew that reflected green light toward the back of the sanctuary where volunteers such as Jack and Tonya Turner, Joe Redman, and the Tinney brothers were working.”
“The sunlight came through the stained glass windows and struck the emerald,” Fawn exclaimed.
“Yes, and it appears that anyone struck by the green reflected light was seen by the Serpent. That’s why it’s targeting them,” Tolen remarked.
“That would explain why other people such as the pastor and Sally Nordstrom weren’t attacked,” Fawn mused. “The pastor wasn’t in the sanctuary at the time, and Sally Nordstrom was at the front, near the altar, so the light’s reflection didn’t reach her. It also explains why I wasn’t attacked at the Tinneys’ house, and why you weren’t attacked, Dr. Lohan, at the Military Museum.” She paused, deep in thought. “So we know what triggers the creature. What we don’t know is why.”
“My assumption is that the Serpent is looking for its other eye. It knows that those people have been near it, so it hunts them down hoping to find the emerald.”
Curt exhaled. “Do you know how outrageous this all sounds? I’d be laughing at this whole notion right now if I hadn’t seen the Serpent with my own two eyes. The thing was massive.”
Tolen looked to Curt. “I had a feeling it was, based not only on the size of the tooth we pulled from Dr. Falls’ boat, but also, if you recall, the tunnel leading down to the caves on the point which had been bored out by something round with tremendous girth.”
“Which brings up the question: what really happened to Clarence Little that his organs ended up being expelled from the Earth via the spring at Green Cove Springs? And what about my ex-wife and Kira Compton? None of them were in the church, nor were they struck by the emerald’s reflective light.” Curt swallowed hard, not certain he wanted to know the answer to the next question. “Were they victims of the Serpent, too?”
“I found Clarence Little’s downed plane in the swamp on Bayard Point, not too far from the opening to the tunnel,” Tolen said. “There was blood in the cockpit and on the door. Little must have suffered engine failure and crashed there sometime Thursday evening. His radio was damaged, and he was unable to call for help. As a drug trafficker, he’d disabled his beacon, so there was no signal to alert authorities his plane had gone down. Even though he was injured, I believe he headed for the rise and high ground when he found the tunnel, possibly even slipped down it by accident. In any event, he found the Staff. I believe he touched it to the stream where it dispensed the red toxin into the water.”
“Red toxin?” Fawn asked.
“Yes, that’s what was in the water with Clarence Little’s remains, not blood.”
Curt spoke, “Ed Leedskalnin said the Staff became warm in his hands, and he also touched it to the stream to try and cool it. He described a red fluid flowing from it.”
Tolen nodded, “Somehow, the Staff turned into the Serpent, and it consumed Clarence Little, expelling his organs into the cave stream where they flowed underground all the way to Spring Park, eventually coming up through the spring boil.”
“Where did the red toxin come from?” Fawn asked.
“The Staff,” Tolen responded. “If you recall from the Bible, Moses touched the Staff to the Nile, turning the river to ‘blood’ and killing all the fish. It may have been the color of blood, but it was actually a toxin that caused the massive fish kill.”
It was a grim thought, but Curt felt compelled to say it, “When Lila and Kira explored Bayard Point looking for evidence of an Egyptian structure on the plateau, they must have happened upon the tunnel entrance…and the Serpent. That’s what Lila meant when she said on the phone, ‘It’s gaining on me.’ They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Like Clarence Little, they were victims of circumstance,” Tolen said with a compassionate tone that surprised Curt. “I believe they came across the Serpent down in the caves after using the rope we found tied to the tree. Kira Compton’s baseball cap proves they were there. The Serpent must have chased them up the shaft, enlarging it as it burrowed upward. This is why the shaft was bored in a perfect circle and why there was fresh dirt at the bottom. It’s also why, when you found the rope, it was gathered in a pile in the bushes away from the opening. The creature’s girth pushed it upward as it climbed, and it eventually flung the rope into the bushes when it reached the surface as it continued chasing one or both women.”
Curt hung his head as the reality set in. His ex-wife, Dr. Lila Falls, was dead. He’d known it for awhile now but wouldn’t allow himself to admit it. Hearing it said aloud by Tolen now confirmed his fears.
“What I want to know is how this Cult of the End plays into this,” Fawn said.
“I know this is hard to hear, Fawn,” Tolen began, “but they appear to be on some sort of mission. Chances are, once they found out your friend, Lindsey McSweet, was a reporter and that she had acquired certain information in their possession, they killed her.”
Tolen pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen for a long second. “I just got a text from my assistant, Tiffany Bar. I had a run-in yesterday with two men who did not survive.”
Curt gave Tolen a sidelong look.
Fawn appeared just as surprised.
“I noticed some sort of text underneath the man’s hair. The coroner verified it was script tattooed to the top of his head. After shaving his head, the coroner sent a photo of the text to my assistant, and she’s verified that it’s ancient Aramaic script. She had someone translate it. Fawn, you mentioned your reporter friend’s notes referenced ‘God Tools.’ Does this look familiar?” He turned the screen toward Fawn and Curt who drew closer.
Mankind’s curiosity will lead to the first God Tool.
Two strong hurricanes will see it placed in the ocean.
Its voracity is fueled by fresh water.
It will seek the others.
“That’s exactly what Lindsey’s notes said. It’s word for word,” Fawn said.
“There’s not much doubt it’s referring to the Fish you told us about,” Tolen said to Curt.
“What in the hell is going on? Who
are these people you…killed?” Curt asked.
“For the record, it was self-defense. My guess is these are Cult of the End members, but I have no idea of their motive. My belief is that they’re after these so-called ‘God Tools.’ As a member of the Blue Council, Lawton Sawyer was probably killed by the Cult of the End after they came to see him for information related to the first God Tool: the Fish, or the Serpent, or both.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“I don’t mean to be morbid, but why is it that the Serpent eats some people whole, like Rufus Tinney and Tonya Turner, yet expels only the organs of others like Reggie Tinney, Jack Turner, and Clarence Little?” Fawn asked. “I witnessed it with the Tinneys. I’ll probably never forget it as long as I live.”
It was a question that Curt had not considered.
Apparently neither had Tolen. “Pardon me for a moment,” he said turning. “I’m going to make a call to my assistant.”
****
With all they had discovered through their discussions, two things deeply troubled Samuel Tolen. One, if the creature targeted those in the reflection of the sunlight Friday afternoon in the church and had only killed Clarence Little, Dr. Lila Falls, and Kira Compton as a result of their intrusion into the Serpent’s domain, why had the creature gone so far out of its way to attack Cody Marks? Two, what were the people who ransacked the riverhome—which he assumed was the Cult of the End—after?
Tolen dialed Tiffany Bar.
“I was just about to call you. Interesting text, huh?” Bar said.
“In more ways than you know.”
“Joe Redman, the retired man who went missing from his dock the other night may have been found. Remains, primarily organs, badly decomposed and ravaged by wildlife, washed up on shore near his house. His DNA wasn’t on file, so there’s no way to confirm that the remains are Mr. Redman, but it’s a pretty safe bet. Oh, and it appeared the organs were partially charred, as if briefly subjected to intense heat.”
Evil in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 2) Page 25
