Destroyer of Worlds (ARKANE Book 8)

by J. F. Penn

  A moment later, the lock clicked and the door popped ajar.

  "What does that stand for?" she asked.

  "Marietti's favorite Bible quote. Romans, the fifty-second book of the Catholic Bible, chapter 12 verse 21."

  Morgan tilted her head to one side as she recalled the words.

  "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

  Jake grinned. "Show-off. Bet you didn't know that he has it tattooed on him as well."

  Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

  Jake nodded. "But if I told you where, I'd have to kill you." He reached for the door of the safe. "Now, let's see what's inside."

  He pulled the door fully open to reveal a pile of paper that reached almost to the top. Morgan pulled off the first sheet.

  "It's a list of names." She scanned the page. "The names of the dead. It makes sense to have them here behind the Memorial."

  She thought of the Holocaust memorials around the world. In the ghetto of Prague, the names of the dead were written on the walls and a voice read them out all hours of the day. In Jerusalem at Yad Vashem, the names were read by candlelight. Here they were kept hidden, but it didn't make them any less real.

  Jake leaned forward and lifted the pile of paper out. "There's something behind."

  Morgan reached in and pulled out a package wrapped in layers of plastic. It was rectangular, the right size for the missing part of the sculpture base. She tugged open the edge of the plastic to reveal the dull bronze sheen of the final piece.

  A huge weight lifted as she realized that Ben would be OK, even though she could see by Jake's face that he considered it a mixed blessing.

  "We've got it, Martin," she said.

  "Thank goodness," Martin replied over the phone line. "Now you can get Marietti and Father Ben back. Speak soon."

  The phone line went dead.

  "But what will happen when the statue is put together again?" Jake whispered.

  They put the papers back into the safe and closed the door, then rehung the plaque in its original position. It was as if they hadn't even been there, but Morgan knew that she would never forget this place. Her anger at Marietti had dissipated in the face of the past atrocity and if he was worried about this scale of possible death in India, then they still had a fight ahead of them.

  Morgan stopped to say goodbye to the guide on the way out and then they walked back to the taxi together, the piece of the sculpture safe in Morgan's backpack.

  As they sped back to Kigali, she texted the woman from the Kali temple with a photo of the sculpture piece.

  A few minutes later, she received a text in return.

  Bring it to Mumbai for the exchange. 12 o'clock tomorrow at the Gateway of India.

  Then Morgan texted Martin with an idea. There was a way that they could keep the piece out of Asha's hands and still get Marietti and Ben back. She only hoped it would work.

  Mumbai, India. 11.52am

  Morgan and Jake stood under the great arch of the Gateway of India, built in the British era to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary when they visited in 1911. Jake paced up and down, looking at his watch every few seconds but Morgan stood still and leaned against the stone, concentrating on breathing and waiting.

  The Gateway perched on the edge of the harbor looking out towards the Arabian Sea. Some would have torn down any symbol of the British Raj but the triumphal arch had symbolic resonance. The final British troops had left through it after India gained independence in 1948 and it was now a symbol of the death of an Empire.

  The water was choppy as the wind whipped the waves into peaks. High above, the clouds darkened, heavy with a hint of rain. Tourists thronged the wide courtyard, snapping photos while street vendors hustled with cheap souvenirs. The smell of frying vada-pav filled the air and Morgan found her stomach rumbling at the thought of the spicy potato patties served with green chutney. The cry of gulls pierced the air as they wheeled above the harbor diving for scraps, and then a horn blared a deep sonorous note as a ferry docked from the island of Elephanta.

  This busy junction had been chosen for its visibility and it gave Morgan hope that she would see Ben and Marietti again soon. Her backpack was heavy on her shoulders, doubly so because it now contained two bronze sculpture pieces. She had sent Martin the dimensions and photos of the final piece and he had contacted a sculptor in Mumbai who had produced the copy as they had flown back. It really was possible to get anything in India.

  The sculptor had delivered it to them this morning, the only difference being that the inscription was not complete. And of course, the radioactive signature would be different. But Morgan carried it next to the original piece with the hope that the fake would pass an initial test, and she was counting on a quick exchange.

  She looked at her watch, anxious as the minutes ticked by. They should be here soon.

  At exactly twelve o'clock, a limousine pulled up alongside the central archway and two huge bodyguards got out the car. One of the tinted windows wound down with a whirr.

  The woman from the temple sat inside, perfectly made up and dressed in an expensive silk sari, her dark hair lacquered. She was the very model of a Mumbai socialite but Morgan knew the reality behind that charming smile.

  She beckoned from the window. Morgan walked forward and pulled the fake package, wrapped in brown paper, from her pack.

  "Give it to me," the woman said, her bright eyes fixed on the wrapped piece.

  "Where are Ben and Marietti?" Morgan demanded.

  "Show me the sculpture piece and I'll show you your friends."

  Morgan peeled open the edge of the package, enough to reveal half of the bronze base. Her heart beat faster as the woman's eyes narrowed a little.

  "It truly is the final piece," the woman whispered. "Oh, you have excelled yourself."

  She nodded to the bodyguards and one of them went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He hauled Ben and Marietti out and they crumpled to the ground, blinking in the daylight. The bodyguard stood over the two men, his hand on his belt to indicate a hidden weapon. Tourists around them ignored the exchange. Just another human drama in a city of millions.

  The woman held out her hand. "I keep my word. Give me the package, take your friends and leave India."

  Morgan's eyes darted to Ben as he kneeled on the dusty ground. His eyes were pale and unfocused and his hands shook a little. Marietti's broad shoulders slumped and his face was still crusted with blood. They only needed a few minutes to get away.

  She handed over the fake package.

  The woman barked an order. The bodyguard walked away from the two men, got back in the vehicle and they began to pull out into the traffic.

  Morgan and Jake rushed to Ben and Marietti. Morgan threw her arms around Ben and kissed his cheek.

  "It's alright, Morgan," he whispered. "I'm OK."

  Jake helped Marietti to his feet and the Director stood on shaky legs. But he straightened his back and towered above them, casting a shadow in the midday sun.

  He looked down at Morgan, his dark eyes piercing like an Old Testament prophet. He shook his head. "You don't know what you've done."

  "Wait," Jake said. "We need to get away from here and then I'll explain–"

  His words were cut off by a squeal of brakes.

  Doors slamming.

  The sound of boots on tarmac.

  Morgan spun around to see the bodyguards running from the halted limousine, faces like thunder, hands on their weapons.

  There was no time.

  She sprinted into the crowd, away from her friends, the backpack with the final piece heavy on her shoulders. If she could just lose them in the busy downtown Mumbai streets …

  Angry shouts came from behind her, but no gunshots. They couldn't risk it in such a heavily populated area.

  She darted down an alleyway, winding in between shops and insistent vendors, throngs of tourists and colorful merchandise that flashed past as she ran.
<
br />   Suddenly she was hit from behind, a massive weight bearing her to the ground. The wind was knocked out of her and she gasped for breath.

  A fist drove into her side and she retched with pain.

  "Stay down," a rough voice whispered. "You're lucky that's not a bullet."

  The man pulled the backpack from her and strode off.

  People around bent to help Morgan up, chattering in Hindi and pointing after her assailant. But it was too late. She had lost the final piece.

  Morgan hung her head as desolation spread through her. Somehow she had believed that they could keep the pieces apart, but now the statue could be put back together. Could it really be used as a weapon?

  She limped back to the Gateway.

  Jake ran to meet her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I lost you in the crowd. But we'll get it back, I promise."

  Together they walked to Ben and Marietti, who sat on a bench near the Gateway as tourists milled around them.

  Marietti looked up on their approach. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the backpack was missing. "So they really have it now?"

  Morgan nodded.

  "Jake, get me away from here." Marietti's voice was cold and Morgan stung with the force of his rejection.

  "Wait," Ben said. He reached out and put his hand on Marietti's shirtsleeve, still stained with the blood of Sister Nataline. "There is something that might help. While we were held in the temple, I remembered an ancient story. The Nine Unknown Men swore to protect the most dangerous knowledge of ancient India. It is said that one of their books has the power to stop the greatest weapon, even the Brahmastra."

  Hope welled inside Morgan at Ben's words but Marietti laughed, a bark of ridicule. "The books of the Nine Unknown have been hidden for centuries. There's no way we could find even one of them, let alone the right one, in time."

  "But it's worth a try," Jake said. "We have nothing left to lose at this point. And…" He held up his phone. "I took a picture of the car. We can trace the number plate and find out who this woman is. Perhaps we can stop her in the old-fashioned way." He looked at Marietti.

  The Director's face softened and then he put his hand up to his head as he swayed on his feet. Jake grabbed him around the waist. "But first, we need to get you inside."

  The four of them staggered over the road to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, opposite the Gateway of India. It was one of the most luxurious hotels in Mumbai, a fitting place to recuperate. They were greeted by attentive staff and shown to their respective suites.

  Inside his room, Morgan helped Ben into one of the easy chairs by a wide window that looked out into the harbor. She rang room service and ordered chai.

  "I'm not staying here," Ben said. "I want to help you."

  "You've already done enough," Morgan said. She knelt by the chair and pulled him into a hug, feeling the frailty of his bones under her fingers. "I can't risk your safety again. Look at what happened to Sister Nataline."

  Ben pulled away from her embrace and Morgan could see the glint of tears in his eyes. "She was calm in the moments before it happened," he said. "Her faith was so strong, not that God would somehow stop the blade from coming down, but that she would see Him soon after. She wasn't scared of death." He paused and stared out the window at the sea beyond. "I only hope that I can meet my end with such peace."

  "And I hope that will be a long time," Morgan said. "Which is why I don't want you to stay. So please, go home to Oxford. Jake and I need to finish this ourselves."

  Ben looked at her and Morgan felt his eyes search her own. "I'm afraid for you," he said softly. "And not just for you, but for India. These people mean to discharge the Brahmastra and they don't care about individual human lives. They think on a cosmic scale about a sacrifice so big that the gods cannot ignore them." He reached out and stroked her cheek. "I promised your mother that I would look after you and Faye and little Gemma. I fear that leaving you here will break that promise."

  "Something changed for me in Rwanda," Morgan said as she stood up. "I understood why Marietti is how he is. He has seen into the heart of mass murder and he can't bear for it to happen again. If I leave with you, the chance of a disaster happening seems much greater. This may be my last ARKANE mission, because I'm not sure that the Director will ever forgive me, but I must stay."

  Ben nodded. "Then I'll go home and pray for you, but you had better come back to me, Morgan."

  In the next room, Jake helped Marietti to the bed. The Director sat on the edge of the soft sheet, wincing as he folded his body down. The shadows under his eyes had deepened and his hair had more white in it than Jake had noticed before. Had he aged that much in just a few days?

  "I'll ring for the doctor," Jake said. "You should be back in hospital."

  Marietti shook his head. "I'm not going back there until this is over." He looked at Jake with sorrow in his eyes. "You should have stopped Morgan from retrieving that last piece. You know what we're up against. There are those, even within ARKANE, who move against me now and try to hasten disaster. This sculpture summons the end ever closer."

  "You and I are shadowed men because of what we've seen, but Morgan still has hope." Jake sat down next to Marietti on the bed. "She sees a different world. The years of ARKANE have ground hope from us. We need her, we need a new perspective … We can't beat the darkness in the old ways anymore."

  Marietti sighed. "Perhaps you're right. But it's getting worse, Jake. The nights I worked in the lab before the attack, I mapped a global shift in supernatural events. Signs and portents foretold for generations across many cultures are coming together, colliding and building. I fear the end of days, the great battle, may be soon upon us. We have kept so much from being revealed, but soon we will not be able to stop it spilling over."

  "But we're not there yet," Jake said.

  His phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  "It's from Martin. He's traced the limousine." Jake stood up. "You need to rest, but I'm going with Morgan. We'll stay in touch."

  Chapter 23

  Jake rapped on the door of Ben's room and Morgan opened it, her face expectant. Jake smiled. He had missed her even in the few minutes they were apart.

  "Martin traced the limousine to a company based here," he said. "Kapoor Industries."

  Morgan frowned. "That's the company of Vishal Kapoor, the man who discovered the statue with Marietti in the first place."

  "Yes, and there's a daughter. Asha." Jake held out his phone so Morgan could see a picture of her face.

  "It's her alright," Morgan said. "Let's go."

  They headed out of the hotel and hailed an Ambassador cab. The driver darted through the downtown Mumbai traffic, Bollywood music blaring, and pulled up outside Kapoor Towers soon after.

  "Martin called ahead and got us an interview with the brother," Jake said, as they walked towards the glass revolving doors into the skyscraper. "Apparently he's running the place now."

  They walked into the lobby and up to reception, where a smartly dressed young woman showed them to a private lift. It zoomed them upwards and at the top they were shown into a penthouse office. Wide glass walls looked out over the dense city in one direction and out to the sea in the other.

  "Magnificent, isn't it?" Mahesh Kapoor stood to greet them, walking out from behind a wide mahogany desk. "It reminds me of how insignificant we really are."

  He was tall, with the looks of a Bollywood movie star and Morgan noticed how his tailored suit emphasized his muscular stature. There was a photo of his father, Vishal, on the wall, and on the desk, a framed image of a lovely young woman, presumably his wife. There was no evidence of Asha anywhere and Morgan wondered about the relationship between the siblings.

  "I hear you have some information about my sister?" Mahesh said, indicating that they should sit in the leather chairs opposite his desk.

  "Many years ago," Jake explained, "your father was part of an archaeological dig. They found an ancient statue of Shiva Nataraja inscribed with a sacred mantra that
can invoke the Brahmastra."

  Mahesh frowned. "That's a mythological weapon, only an allegory."

  "No," Morgan said. "We have evidence that it has the potential to inflict mass casualties. The statue was broken apart and your father hid two pieces. The other two were hidden by Elias Marietti, his partner on the dig. Your sister has been seeking the statue and now has all four pieces. We believe she intends to invoke the weapon, but we don't know where or when."

  Mahesh paced the room, his forehead creased. His frown deepened.

  "Asha has been behaving strangely of late and I dismissed it as grief at our father's death." He turned to them, his arms folded, concern on his face. "But it's more than that. It's the influence of the Aghori, an extremist she follows as a guru. He has no respect for human life, believing all is illusion. He must be the one behind this."

  "Either way, we need to find them. Is Asha still here?" Jake asked.

  Mahesh shook his head.

  "They've gone to the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad," he said.

  Jake looked blank at his words.

  "The Kumbh Mela is a Hindu mass pilgrimage," Morgan explained. "The largest peaceful gathering of people in one place in the world. Millions bathe at the confluence of the holy rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati to wash away their sin. It's said that Lord Vishnu spilled drops of Amrita, the elixir of immortality, at four places while transporting it in a pot, known as a kumbh."

  "It moves locations between those four sites and last time 120 million people visited the Kumbh," Mahesh continued, his voice soft as he realized the potential horror ahead. "Thirty million of them bathe on the most auspicious day."

  The numbers were staggering. Morgan couldn't even imagine that many people in one place. But if Asha wanted a dramatic sacrifice, the Kumbh Mela would be the perfect place for it.

  Mahesh bent to his computer and tapped at the keys.

  "The best time to bathe is calculated by astrological positions," he said. "It will be the day after tomorrow at dawn. The sadhus, the holy men, will go first and then the mass bathing will begin. It would be carnage if a weapon were set off then. A stampede in a crowd of millions would be just as dangerous as some kind of explosion."