The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  “I want to go,” Cotten said. “After what he said, I’m compelled.”

  “Are you sure?” John touched her arm.

  She closed her eyes and relished his touch for a moment. “Yes. Maybe I’ll learn something about my father—if nothing else, that he’s finally at peace.”

  The guardian monk spoke again to Cotten.

  John gave her a questioning look.

  “He said he will show me the Book of Emzara—that it will reveal all we seek.”

  “I don’t feel good about this,” John said.

  “I’m a big girl.” She smiled. “Let me go get what we need and be done with it.”

  With obvious reluctance, John stepped back. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  As she followed the monk through the church door, she glanced over her shoulder at John before the door closed with a sense of finality.

  Cotten realized that twilight had quickly embraced the countryside. The pale moonlight and the glow from the town combined with the African star-filled sky, now cloudless after the passing weather system. The treasury church was a short walk along a path through a thick stand of trees. The building loomed out of the darkness, a boxy stone structure about fifty feet square. A tall brick wall topped with iron fencing surrounded it.

  The monk unlocked a barred metal gate and led Cotten a few yards farther to the treasury entrance—an imposing wooden door on which was painted a portrait of St. Mary surrounded by saints and angels, Joseph, and the infant Jesus. He inserted a key into the lock and pulled the massive door open.

  As Cotten followed him, she was struck by the intense fragrance of candle smoke and incense. Around the perimeter of the large room hung hundreds of candle lanterns suspended from heavy wooden beams by chains of varying lengths—each flame encased behind red glass lenses. The room glowed with a shimmering ruby red light that constantly moved like sunbeams through water.

  Shelves lined the walls, reminding Cotten of what her mother called pigeonholes and cubbies. Each varied in size and held books, scrolls, piles of paper and parchment, and other small objects. There were thousands.

  In the middle of the room stood a marble altar on which sat a collection of what appeared to be hundreds of antique objects—crowns, crosses, daggers, ancient books bound in thick leather and encrusted with jewels, and many more items Cotten could not fully identify through the smoky haze.

  As she stood mesmerized by the uniqueness of her surroundings, a hot breeze brushed past her, causing her to wonder where it came from in the closed building. In the distance, through the haze, Cotten saw a thin veil of gauze-like cloth hanging from ceiling to floor—the breeze had moved it just enough for her to distinguish it from the smoke.

  In English, the guardian monk said, “Do you wish to go beyond the veil and cast your eyes upon the Ark of the Covenant?”

  Stunned, Cotten spun around. “You speak English?”

  “I speak many languages.”

  A chill enveloped her. A shudder moved through her like the first tremors of an earthquake. Maybe coming alone was a bad decision. Feeling lightheaded, Cotten braced herself against a wooden bookcase. Her sight narrowed like looking through a tunnel. Darkness squeezed in, blurring her peripheral vision.

  “Something wrong?” the monk asked, his form becoming less distinct as he drifted in and out of the smoke.

  She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “No. I’m fine.” A buzzing sound filled her ears, and the violent thumping of her heart slammed against her sternum.

  “I asked if you wish to look upon the Holy Ark.”

  “No,” Cotten said, fighting to keep her equilibrium. “I’m here regarding a different Ark—Noah’s Ark. And the Book of his wife, Emzara. I need to see . . .”

  She fought to focus her thoughts. Keep talking. Keep your mind on task. “We have to search the Book of Emzara for any reference to objects that could have been forged or shaped from the Tree of Life. I need to know if there is a manifest.”

  She looked at the monk and saw a twisted smile on his face. When he spoke it came to her ears as an echo.

  “Since you do not desire to look upon the Holy Ark, it is all the more reason that you must. For within it lies your destiny. Let it reveal the secrets concerning your father, Furmiel.”

  Mindlessly, remarkably lacking any self-will, Cotten followed him until they stood before the thin veil of cloth—a slightly transparent barrier protecting what she guessed was the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant.

  Cotten noticed light coming from the other side. More candles, intensely red, lit the chamber behind the sheer material.

  Using the tip of his prayer staff, the monk separated a seam of the veil. Holding it aside, he motioned for Cotten to proceed.

  Like the main sanctuary, this one also had dozens of hanging candle lanterns, their ruby light glittering. In the middle of the chamber, a long canopy of silky gauze hung from the ceiling and flared at the bottom. The monk moved to the canopy and slipped his hand into a space dividing two seams. Reverently he pulled back the material, exposing a golden chest resting upon a low marble stand.

  Cotten gasped as her eyes filled with the reflection of the flickering candlelight. It was as if the object had trapped the stars. The golden sides were embossed with the image of a spreading tree, and atop the chest were two kneeling cherubs. They faced each other, and their outstretched wingtips met in the center. The air thickened and her breathing became labored. Beads of sweat gathered and dribbled down her back and between her breasts—her legs wobbled.

  “Come forward,” the monk whispered. “Bear witness to the wonder.”

  Cotten stepped within inches of the golden chest. She extended her hand and held it over the relic, somehow feeling its energy flow into her. Like the faint tingle of electricity, it stimulated her skin.

  The monk grasped the hinged top of the Ark, swinging open the lid with its shimmering cherubs. Like the outside, the interior was lined with gold. Cotten leaned over and gazed inside. What she saw made her reel backward, and she realized in that instant that she had made a terrible mistake.

  ashes

  When Cotten gazed into the Ark of the Covenant, she did not see the expected tablets of the Ten Commandments. Instead, she stared into the eternal fires of Hell.

  The sickening odor of sulfur replaced the aromatic incense, and a blast of blistering wind slammed her onto the floor. Like a magician’s flash paper, the silky gauze canopy that enclosed the Ark erupted into flames. An instant later, the ashes of the loosely woven fabric floated through the air like black leaves from a diseased tree.

  Screams of tormented souls filled the church, a sound resembling the scraping of giant metal machines colliding. Cotten pressed her palms to her ears to block out the piercing noise. Spinning in wide arcs above her, the ruby candle lanterns blazed like exploding stars.

  As if glaring into a blast furnace, the glow from the Ark intensified until the priceless artifact melted into a molten mass.

  Squinting, Cotten realized that the guardian monk had transformed. Standing over her was a gray-haired man—old, but not stooped or bearded or toothless. The wrinkles in his face were not folds of weary flesh, but rather finely chiseled lines, and his eyes raged with fire deep within the dark irises.

  He was dressed in a suit the color of raven feathers. In his hand he held a book—its cover and bindings ancient and worn like an old leather glove, its pages starting to crumble into tiny pieces and rain down.

  “Is this what you seek?” he asked.

  His words cut through the screams and cries coming from the depths of the Ark, even though Cotten had covered her ears. She tried to focus on the book, but the maddening effect of the spinning candle lanterns made her dizzy.

  “The Book of Emzara.” He extended it to her.

  Like fighting against a raging river current, she tri
ed with all her strength to take the book. As her fingertips touched its surface, it ignited just as the gauze canopy had done—a momentary flash before it vaporized. She watched its ashes drift away, and knew the source of the answers she sought had just vanished forever.

  “Go home, daughter of Furmiel. Your task has ended—you are too late, and too weak.”

  As quickly as the tumult began, it was over. The vision of the Old Man faded, becoming part of the smoke-filled room.

  Cotten lay breathless on the church floor as the heat receded, the voices of the damned died away, and the frantic motion of the lanterns stilled. Slowly, she rose to her knees, then stood on shaky legs—the odor of incineration everywhere.

  In the middle of the floor, the remains of the Ark of the Covenant had become a pool of smelted gold. As she stumbled away from the Holy of Holies, she saw that piles of ashes filled the thousands of pigeonholes. Upon the altar, the ancient relics were nothing but unrecognizable heaps of cremation. A pall of gray haze settled over the interior of the church while Cotten made her way to the entrance. Pulling on the heavy door, she stumbled into the clear African night. Breathing deeply, she tried to clear her lungs of the stench, her mouth of the bitter taste, and her head of the terrible cries.

  Looking up through a cloud of confusion and blurry eyes, she saw a man rushing toward her, and she suddenly fell into the arms of John Tyler.

  _____

  “Where am I?” Cotten asked, looking at John’s face. She lay on a bed in a sparsely furnished room—the only light was a lamp on a bedside table.

  “A room at the African Hotel,” John said, sitting on the side of the bed. “You passed out, and Berhanu and I brought you here. I wanted to take you to a medical clinic, but he said the closest one is across the border in Asmara, about seventy miles away.”

  Cotten slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. As if a great revelation came flooding over her, she said, “The church, the Ark of the Covenant, all those priceless objects and documents, all burned to ash.”

  John gave her a confused look. “Burned?” He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  the archives

  “Cotten, nothing burned down.” John handed her a wet cloth. “Here, use this to wipe your face. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Where is the guardian monk?” she asked, taking the cloth.

  “At the monastery, I assume. He followed you out of the church and said you were overcome from the smoke of the candles. He suggested we take you someplace to rest.”

  Cotten recalled the transformation of the monk, his taunting her with the Book of Emzara, and his warning to go home. She put her face in her hands. He hadn’t been the guardian monk at all—the man who led her into the treasury church was evil incarnate, her mortal enemy, the Son of the Dawn—Lucifer. He had lured her inside to terrorize her with a dramatic display of his power and to let her know that he had the secrets to the Book of Emzara, and that she never would—that she could never defeat him. Now she also understood what he had meant when he said he knew her father, Furmiel, the Angel of the Eleventh Hour. He referred to knowing her father before he had repented—eons ago when Furmiel and Lucifer were both a part of the legion of the Fallen Angels. Lucifer abhorred Furmiel—the only Fallen Angel to ever beg for God’s forgiveness. Most of all, Lucifer hated Cotten—the living reminder of Furmiel’s betrayal.

  “If this is all of my needs for this tonight, I will be gone home to my family,” Berhanu said.

  It was the first time that Cotten had noticed the guide sitting in a chair nearby.

  Berhanu glanced at his watch. “Will there be more of my services?”

  “No, nothing else,” John said.

  Berhanu bowed, and John walked him to the door. The guide stepped into the hall, but then turned, his palms together like he was praying. “I hope with sincerity that Cotten Stone will feel much fine and have a pleasant trip back to America.”

  “Thank you, Berhanu,” John said, blessing him. “We wish you and your family well.”

  John closed the door and returned to Cotten’s bedside. “I’m sorry you had to go through this for no reason.”

  Cotten stared at him.

  “The monk told us that as he retrieved the Book of Emzara from a pile of ancient scrolls, it literally disintegrated to dust in his hands. He said he offered to search through other books in the church library, but that’s when you became dizzy and wanted to leave.”

  Cotten slowly shook her head.

  “He said that when you first entered the church, you asked to see the Ark of the Covenant, but he had to refuse. No one is allowed to see it but the guardian monk. He told us you demanded to look see it.”

  “I did see it, John. He showed it to me.” She whispered, “I witnessed it melt and burn . . .”

  “You saw what burn? What are you talking about?”

  Where to begin? she thought.

  But she knew where to start.

  From the moment she had looked into the eyes of the Beast.

  _____

  They sat in the waiting area of the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Their British Airlines flight to Rome was about to board.

  “Then it’s obvious that the Book of Emzara is extremely important to the Fallen Ones,” John said. “We can assume that an item made from the Tree is noted in that book, either in narrative or on a manifest. The big questions are—do any of those objects still exist, and if so, what and where?”

  “And they already have the book,” Cotten said, “which means they have a head start in searching for what might be the only source of thodium left in the world.”

  She still experienced the effects from the incident in the treasury church the night before. She was unsteady and lethargic, even after a restful sleep in the African Hotel. A native breakfast of injeera—a baked flatbread similar to pizza—covered with local meats and cheese—helped her regain some of her energy before she and John flew back to the Ethiopian capital.

  “You’re right,” John said. “Why else would the Fallen stage such an elaborate illusion?”

  “Even if we identify a possible object from the Ark, what are the chances that it is still around after five thousand years?” She rubbed her forehead—a dull headache had persisted through the night and refused to go away. The faint odor of sulfur still lingered in her nostrils even though she had taken a long, steamy shower. “… not to mention that we’ll never find another copy of the Emzara text.”

  “Our chances are better than you might expect. I’m convinced that a copy survives somewhere. I’ve got the Venatori research division looking in two places—the Coptic Museum in Cairo where the Nag Hammadi Library is housed and also in the Secret Archives of the Vatican where they should find transcripts that originated from the First Council of Nicaea. In both cases, early Christian Gnostic texts had references to Noah and Emzara. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I’ve heard the term, Gnostic,” Cotten said, “but I don’t know what that means.” She watched a group of tourists wander by, their conversation washed in a heavy French accent.

  “Gnostics were religious groups that existed in the first couple of centuries AD. They considered themselves Christians, but tended to base their beliefs outside the mainstream. The term is Greek for a type of understanding or consciousness gained from personal transcendental experience. The Gnostic Gospels are ancient texts that contain details on the life of Christ not included in the New Testament—texts such as the Gospels of Mary Magdalene, Philip, Sophia, Thomas, and others. But they also include transcripts from the writings of Old Testament characters such as Adam to his third son, Seth, including a prediction of the Great Deluge. There are a few partial documents that refer to Noah and Emzara. Some are no more than fragments of crumbling papyrus, but at this point, it may be all we’ve got.”

  �
��So even though some of the texts from the Council of Nicaea were lost or destroyed, there’s still documentation on them?”

  “There were many books of supposed prophets floating around up until the year 312 when the Council bishops took it upon themselves to decide which were keepers and which ones were tossed. But someone was always in the background taking notes during every proceeding. I believe many of those notes are still around.”

  “So they picked and chose what fell into step with the Church teachings and threw out the rest?”

  “Pretty much. One of the most notable is the account of the raising of Lazarus, which was removed from Mark’s gospel on the instructions of the Council bishops. They felt that the way he wrote it had overtones of a mystical cult. It still wound up in Luke and John.”

  “Are you kidding? The whole Bible has mystical overtones,” Cotten said.

  John smiled. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Sorry, Your Eminence,” she said, grinning. “Didn’t mean to ruffle the cardinal’s feathers.”

  “Mystical overtones or not, the problem we’re going to face is that the Vatican archives are huge. There are more than thirty miles of shelves, the majority covered with books and boxes of still uncatalogued records and documents—tens of thousands of documents gathered by the Venatori and other Vatican secret agents, envoys, and diplomats spanning more than a thousand years. Many secrets that were determined by the church fathers to be buried would take lifetimes to find—if they exist at all.”

  John’s cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his belt clip. Looking at the caller ID, he said, “It’s the Archives prefect.” He listened intently for a moment before snapping the phone shut. With a smile he turned to Cotten and winked. “You must be living right.”

  _____

  The black S550 Mercedes slipped through the Porta Sant’Anna entrance to Vatican City. It sped past the Vatican Bank and the Apostolic Palace. Turning right, it pulled up in front of a gated courtyard about fifty feet beyond the Vatican Library. The driver and front-seat passenger, both Venatori agents, got out and held open the rear doors for Cotten and John. Two members of the Swiss Guard stood beside the gate and saluted as John motioned Cotten into the courtyard. A dozen paces beyond was the nondescript, easily overlooked entrance to the Secret Archives.