by J. F. Penn
Contents
Title page
Quote
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Want more adventure?
Author's Note
More books by J.F.Penn
About J.F.Penn
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Destroyer of Worlds
An ARKANE Thriller Book 8
J.F.Penn
"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."
Bhagavad Gita
Chapter 1
London, England. 5.13am
Tendrils of crimson dawn touched the Thames and turned the river to blood as it heralded a new day. The city was quiet, a magical place at this time when millions of people lay still in their beds. The ancient buildings rested before another crazy morning in the maelstrom that was London.
A ray of light caught the face of Big Ben as its hands ticked each second past, marking another cycle in the city. A block away, between Westminster and Soho, pigeons picked at the remnants of last night's revelry in Trafalgar Square, overlooked by the grand facade of the National Gallery. A black cab curved past St Martin-in-the-Fields church, heading towards the Mall and down towards Buckingham Palace. It swooshed through a puddle and muddy water sprayed up onto the pavement as it passed.
The air was chill, the night had not yet left. The square was still in shadow as a squeak of wheels pierced the air. A man in a high-visibility orange jacket pushed his rubbish cart between the fountains under the shadow of Nelson's Column. As he wheeled the cart through the square, he picked up litter with a slow stoop and glide: sandwich wrappings, a lost teddy bear, flyers for the next activist march, the discarded flotsam of the city. He had seen it all over the years since immigrating here, but the treasures people threw away still surprised him. Back in India, most of this would be reused and even sold on.
But he would never see his homeland again now.
Sweat beaded on the man's brow, dripping down into the deep lines around his eyes. He whispered a mantra, over and over, as he took those final steps, his lips forming and reforming the sacred words.
Security cameras, ever watchful, tracked his progress across the square. But his cart had a Westminster City Council logo on the side and he wore the uniform of a street cleaner, so he remained unseen. This was the city of many faces and his brown features were nothing special here in London, a place he called home. No matter now though – the gods called for blood and he had been chosen.
He inhaled the cool air and looked up at the bronze lions guarding Nelson's Column, their regal faces composed as they stared back. A skeletal horse stood high above him on the Fourth Plinth of the square, the modern sculpture on this spot changing over time to reflect the shifting city allegiances. A jaunty bow tied around the horse's front leg displayed the electric lights of the stock exchange ticker tape that ran around it. Its sparse rib cage reminded the man of home, the dried bones that washed up on the shore after floods. At least his family would never go hungry again after this.
He wheeled his cart closer to one of the fountains and looked at his watch.
One more minute.
The man bent and put his hands into the water. The coolness on his skin calmed his mind and he splashed some on his face as he whispered a final prayer. He looked up to the sky to see the last stars of night fading into the dawn and smiled. It was still a beautiful world. Perhaps in his next life, he would return to this great city in a different guise.
The man turned back to his cart, lifted the lid of the bin, reached in and pressed a button. There was a moment of stillness, when a shimmer seemed to hang in the air.
Then, the light exploded.
The bomb blast echoed around Westminster, the impact immediately destroying both fountains and blasting a hole in Trafalgar Square. The giant marble column topped with Nelson's statue shattered. The proud bronze lions melted in the blast and the memorial plaques made from enemy cannon tumbled into the crater.
As the echo from the blast died, the shrill sound of sirens broke the air. Alarm bells went off in every building in central London as Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament went into lockdown.
Above the sound of panic, the chop chop chop of a helicopter drew closer. It flew from the south, low along the Thames, emerging over the central city like a wraith. It was black with no markings, and those who saw it thought it was a military response to the bomb.
Seconds after the blast, it hovered over Trafalgar Square, directly above the crater. Dust from the blast swirled about it like fog, cloaking it from the cameras. The side doors opened and three men rappelled down thick ropes that snaked into the hole beneath them.
The bomb had laid open hidden levels beneath Trafalgar Square. These levels were not on any official maps, and few were aware of them. They had never been breached.
Until today.
Inside the crater, the men unhooked themselves from their lines, turned head-torches on, and quickly made their way through the smoking rubble to the door of a vault. It was made of thick metal, overlaid with ancient wood and inscribed with occult patterns. It was also criss-crossed with modern steel bars and protected by a high-level electronic security system.
But the lights on the door were flashing orange, blinking from the blast damage.
One of the men attached a magnetic device to the vault control panel. He pressed a key on the pad, his foot tapping as they waited. It wouldn't be long before the scene crawled with military and police. They had to get out of here quickly.
A whirr and a click.
The door opened.
For a moment the men stood at the entrance, their hesitation betraying a moment's doubt about their mission.
Then the leader stepped inside.
He pulled a Geiger counter from his bag and walked into the vault. It stretched into the distance with separate opaque rooms for books, religious artifacts and unknown objects hidden inside, a cornucopia of hidden knowledge.
But they were only here for one thing.
The device beeped and the man turned towards one of the rooms.
"Quickly now!"
The other two men rammed the door with a short metal post, the grating thump echoing through the vault. Once, twice, and then the door crumpled, shuddering on its hinges as they pushed it open.
The leader stepped inside, the light from his head-torch piercing the gloom.
There was a box on a low shelf painted with scenes from the Mahabharata, one of the great Sanskrit epics of ancient India. The man smiled with relief. He picked it up and placed it in his bag.
Together, the men ran from the vault, clipped themselves back onto the lines and were hauled up into the helicopter. They flew off over the city, leaving destruction in their wake.
Chapter 2
Mumbai, India. 10.35am
The massive statue of the god dominated the room. Its golden surface glinted, reflecting the light of the candles before it as
Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance, ushered in the next cycle of destruction and renewal. A wreath of bright orange marigolds, their petals still wet with dew, lay around his neck and the thick smell of them permeated the room, hemmed in by heavy curtains that kept the city out. The calm gaze of the god rested on the dying man in the bed before him. The room was luxurious, a fitting place for the final hours of one of the richest men in Mumbai. But death came for the rich in their towers as well as the poor crouched in the slums down the road, and Vishal Kapoor couldn't buy any more time.
Asha Kapoor stood by the bed, watching her father. She counted his breaths as his chest rose and fell in slow motion. Her fingers lightly stroked the aquamarine silk sari wrapped around her slim body. She had dressed as a good Hindu daughter to please him but his eyes hadn't even opened today.
She walked with soft footsteps to the shrine and looked up at Shiva, his features serene as he gazed into eternity. Mankind was nothing to the divine and yet she had a plan that would cause a ripple in history.
Even the gods would take notice.
The candlelight flickered and she trailed her fingers through the flame, the edge of pain sharpening her senses. Fire represented the end and a new beginning. Her father's body would soon be on the pyre and she would see a new world created after he was gone.
A rattle came from the bed and her father's breath caught in his throat. Asha's fingers tightened until her nails dug into her skin. Could this be the end? Her heart beat faster and a smile played at her lips in anticipation. He had lingered long enough.
The handle rattled on the locked door behind her, then a brisk knock on the wood.
"Asha, are you in there?"
Her brother's voice held a note of concern. Asha took a deep breath. Mahesh had hired the best doctors in Mumbai, but none held out any hope for their father's survival. Vishal had given up on life in the last days, choosing to succumb to his disease. It's karma, he had whispered one night as she had read to him from the Mahabharata of the battles of ancient India. His lungs were riddled with cancer caused by chemicals he had inhaled in his years of digging up the earth, first on archaeological digs and later in the mines as he had expanded his business empire.
But Asha was still angry at him for giving in. Despite her ambition to take the business further, her Papa was still the only man she loved. She brushed tears from her cheeks.
Once he was dead, she would take over and make the company greater than he ever had. He would be proud.
She composed her face into that of the concerned daughter. Her long dark hair hung about perfect features, her light coffee skin inherited from her mother, Rani, a Bollywood actress her father had wooed and won. Mahesh had both the looks and the weakness of their mother but Asha had inherited her mind and ambition from her father, and for that she was glad. She opened the door.
"It won't be long now," she whispered, as her brother strode inside the room. "I couldn't bear to have the doctors poking him with needles anymore. He never shied from death and now he will go to the gods peacefully, without all those tubes."
Mahesh reached for her hand and squeezed it.
"You're right. It's how he would want the end to be."
Together they walked to the bedside and looked down on their father. His head faced east according to Hindu custom and, above it, a lamp flickered soft light across his features. Vishal's expression was composed and there was no suffering on it even as he wheezed his final breaths. The Hindu priest had placed a mark of ash on his forehead and his arms lay on top of a simple white sheet. Asha knew that her father would be pleased. Despite his wealth, he preferred the simpler things from the days of his youth.
She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. His skin was dry and cool against her lips. The prick of tears stung her eyes again but she brushed them away. He would want her to be strong.
Mahesh bent to his father's right ear and whispered a mantra. If his party-boy friends on the Mumbai circuit could see him now, Asha thought. Suddenly the religious good son. Mahesh's movie-star looks and endless money had made him popular before his marriage and many of his friends had tried their chances with Asha. Of course, there had been dalliances in the dark, but none of those men understood her ambition and she had shunned their marriage proposals, much to her father's chagrin. He had tolerated her choice of independence, wanting her to have a love match as he had. There was one man she respected, one whose company she sought. He awaited her now, but she couldn't go to him empty-handed and she shivered a little at the thought of his displeasure.
Asha walked to the window and pulled back the curtain to let some light in. The wall of glass overlooked Back Bay and the Girgaon Chaupati beach on one side, while the other looked out towards the Arabian Sea. From up here in the Malabar Hills, she could see the ocean and endless horizon. The tower was testament to what her father had achieved, working his way up from a young laborer on archaeological digs to one of the richest men in India. His wealth stretched from the ship-breaking yards of Bangladesh to the mines of Karnataka and West Bengal and into the digital age. This very building contained cutting-edge scientific labs and the hub of their e-commerce division.
As Mahesh whispered his mantra, Asha turned back to the statue of Shiva, the god's golden face promising something even more remarkable than what they had already achieved with the company. There had always been rumors about the discovery that propelled her father from obscurity to extreme wealth. Of course, there would always be those who spoke ill of success, but she had seen a look in her father's eyes that told of a darker truth. When he had fallen sick, she had pored through his old diaries from the time before and discovered what he had given up in exchange for money and power.
But that secret was worth much more than everything they had now, and Asha wanted it back.
A gasp came from the bedside.
She turned quickly and strode to the bed, her sari brushing the floor. Vishal Kapoor opened his eyes and stared at the statue of the god as he breathed his last. Asha saw wonder in her father's gaze as Shiva Nataraja began his dance of death, and he slipped into the beyond.
Mahesh wept, silent tears running down his cheeks as he mourned his father.
Asha took a deep breath and as she stepped back towards the window, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out to see the text she had been waiting for.
It is done. The package is on its way.
Chapter 3
Dr Morgan Sierra stood on the edge of the bomb crater at the center of Trafalgar Square. The air was still thick with dust and she coughed a little, trying not to inhale too much. She ran her fingers through her dark curls and shook her head as she looked down at the destruction below.
The red alert code had beeped on her phone just after dawn and it had taken her less than two hours to get here from her home in Oxford. In that short time, an enormous tarpaulin had been erected over the scene, protecting what lay beneath from the prying eyes of the media. The military guarded the perimeter of the crime scene and the central city was in lockdown. After all, Buckingham Palace and the government buildings of Westminster were only a block away.
The sound of helicopters buzzed overhead with the incessant desire for more news. The media reported a terrorist attack, but Morgan knew it was more than that.
This was a raid on a place that few knew existed, hidden in plain sight although it wasn't on any official plans. Even the Prime Minister wasn't privy to its secrets. Below Trafalgar Square, wound between the foundations of ancient buildings and the modern Tube lines, lay the labyrinthine global headquarters of ARKANE, the Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience Institute. The public-facing side consisted of academic papers on religious artifacts and dry conferences in dusty universities, but in reality, ARKANE was a secret agency investigating supernatural mysteries around the world. There were secrets held here that the world wasn't ready for and the vault below the city protected artifacts that could destroy civilization itself. The secrets ARK
ANE kept below were more than just a threat to a single nation, they could be used for power on a grander scale.
Now the vault had been breached.
Morgan felt the scar on her side throb, and she rubbed at it through her shirt. It pulsed sometimes when she drew close to the darkness, reminding her of the battle with the demon in the Bone Church of Sedlec. The Devil's Bible was down in the vault. Could that have been what was stolen? What else was down there? Part of her desperately wanted to know, while another part wanted to delay that moment of truth just a little longer.
Her stomach churned at the possibilities. Agents had died to bring items here for safekeeping, to hide them from the world and prevent them being used for evil deeds. She had personally added items to the vault, expecting never to see them again, and she still had nightmares of what she had seen in Houska Castle, unleashed from the Gates of Hell. But it seemed that her short leave for recovery was over. As a specialist in the psychology of extremist religion, and with military experience from the Israeli Defense Force, Morgan knew that she would be back in the field as soon as they could get a lead on the bombing.
"Coffee?"
Morgan turned to see her ARKANE partner, agent Jake Timber, holding two steaming cups.
"I think we're going to need a lot more of this today," he said as he offered her one. Jake gave a rueful smile, the corkscrew scar over his left eye crinkling a little, but his dark eyes remained hard as he surveyed the damage to the iconic square.
Morgan lifted the cup to her lips, taking a sip of the bitter black before sighing deeply.
"I can't believe it," she said, shaking her head. "Who did this? Do we know any details yet?"
"Not much," Jake said. "There's bad news, though. Marietti's in hospital. The Director's tough, but he's unconscious and badly injured. Apparently he was working in the lab nearest the vault."
