by Andrea Wölk
»Who gave you these pages?« asked Channing with his head still hanging over the texts.
»His name was Alban Heffyn. He was the keeper of the book. He died in the huge fire that broke out here in Seattle in 1889.« Shia gazed off into the distance as if he were reliving it all over again.
»Vampires were discovered living in the basements of the wooden houses in the Business district. They’d hidden there until the fire broke out on the 6th of June 1889. In truth, the fire was set to smoke them out. Alban Heffyn was badly injured when I had the bad luck of running into him that day,« explained Shia in a quiet voice. The warriors were listening as if spellbound, not even interrupting to ask questions, but hanging on every word.
»He took my blood hoping that it would help him, but he was too badly injured. He managed to transform me, most likely with the intention, that as a vampire, I would protect the sacred book. He shoved the three parchment pages into my hands before he died. I’ve kept them under lock and key ever since, all the while trying to figure out where he’d hidden the Diarium.«
Channing rubbed his chin mulling something over. »Hmm, Alban Heffyn is a peculiar name. Are you sure that’s what he said?« »That was the name he used.«
»Maybe he meant it to be a pseudonym.« Shia shrugged uncertainly. »I don’t know exactly. Why do you ask?« »Because Alban Heffyn is the term used in Celtic mythology to describe the summer solstice!«
Sara leaned over the parchment pages and began to read.
»You need half of a hundredth. Which hundredth?« »That doesn’t matter,« said Sunny who’d been standing unnoticed in the doorway for sometime now.
»Important is half of hundred.« She came a little closer and Sara nodded in agreement.
»Yes Sunny, you’re right!« Phoebe grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. »Good. What’s half of hundred? Fifty!« she noted on her piece of paper.
»You really think that this is the number meant?« Jôrek looked on skeptically.
»We’ll see,« said Sara and read the next sentence out loud.
»Keep justice and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come.« »Does he mean God? Or someone else?« asked Ruben. Shia looked up at the warriors.
»It’s from the Old Testament,« mumbled Aragón quietly. »Isaiah 56. Thus says the Lord: Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed,« he said finishing the sentence. »That’s Isaiah 56!« »Yes, write that number down, Phoebe! That has to be it.« She wrote it down and Sara read the next reference out loud.
»33 days remain, 332 have passed.« »Hmm, what now, 33 or 332? Maybe the sum?« Phoebe looked around perplexed.
»No, wait,« interrupted Channing. »33 days remain, 332 have passed. If you use the Gregorian calendar, it’s the 28th. The 28th of November is the 332nd day of the year and there are only 33 more days until the new year.«
»Great, so it’s 28!« They read out the next sentence. »So many squares, which lead to checkmate, lead you to the north.«
»Do any of you play chess?« »64!« Maroush sounded out. »A chessboard has 64 squares.«
Sunny picked up the next piece of parchment and read out to everyone:
»Thou shall not commit adultery! Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s the 6th Commandment.« The others nodded in agreement and she continued reading.
»The Belgae will submit to Caesar and Phraates will confront his creator. Who the hell are the Belgae?« Everyone looked over at Channing and laughed.
»The Belgae were a group of Gaelic tribes living north of the Seine and the Marne rivers, mostly Celts and Germani. Caesar defeated them. I can’t remember which year. Phraates was a Parthian king, but there were a few of them.« »I need a laptop!« shouted Phoebe and Ruben ran off instantly and got one out of Sara’s room. She googled the name and got the date.
»In 57 B.C, the Belgae were defeated by Caesar and Phraates III was murdered. That should do it.« Ruben slapped her on the back in acknowledgement, but when he saw the dirty look she gave him, he immediately let his hand fall.
»Two deaths are celebrated on this day; ›P‹ in front, as they were in their church.«
Phoebe entered ›two deaths and P‹ into Google but only got hits relating to the deaths of two people.
»Let’s go about this a little more logically. This is the language of the church and two ›Ps‹. How about Peter? I’m not very religious, so I’m not sure,« emphasized Sunny. Everyone looked over at Aragón. »Peter and Paul. The Catholic church remembers their death on the 29th of June.«
He got up from his chair and the large cross he wore around his neck moved with a loud clang.
»Good that we have a man of faith among us!« Sara took him in her arms and gave him a hug.
»So, this is the last sentence: The eleventh of the regular primes will lead you there, towards the east!«
Phoebe entered ›primary numbers‹ into the computer with nimble fingers and the numbers immediately popped up onto the screen.
»It’s 31! 31 is the eleventh prime,« she screamed excitedly, but Channing was shaking his head.
»No Phoebe, that would be too easy. It says the eleventh regular prime. Those are numbers in mathematics, which do not divide certain numbers. Enter ›regular primes‹ please.«
Another list of number appeared on the screen. »It’s 41.«
Everyone was starring transfixed at the row of numbers they’d come up with, but no one had any idea what to do next.
»So what do we do with all these numbers now?« Jôrek’s question put a slight damper on all the enthusiasm that had built up amongst them. They went through the numbers again and again in different combinations: 50, 56, 28, 64, 6, 57, 29, and 41! Shia took the piece of paper they were on and copied them onto the large white board on the wall.
»They mean something, but I can’t see the connection.« Shia took the pages again and held them up to the light.
»Look Channing, if you look closely, you can see the outline of a tower. What do you think it is?« He stepped up closer to the paper and held it at an angel in the light. »Yes, towers. I’d say the twin towers of the church.« »Is there a church here in Seattle with towers like this?« Everyone looked over at Aragón. » St. James’ Cathedral, but the towers aren’t so close together and they’re more square. If the drawing is a true copy, it doesn’t look like St. James’ to me.« »Maybe this building doesn’t even exist anymore!«
»There was the First Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1889, but it was torn down in 1908. The rest were built later, so I think they won’t be of any help to us,« thought Aragón out loud.
»No, you’re right, they won’t. Has anyone asked themselves why in relation to 64 and 41, north and east were mentioned?« A slight smile appeared around Phoebe’s mouth, as if she’d reinvented the Pythagorean Theorem.
»If you connect the numbers with north and east and build a coordinate you have a point on a map and I’m pretty sure the church in our drawing will be pretty close to that point!«
Phoebe called up Google maps and using the coordinates zoomed in until everyone could see it. A Cathedral with two towers and a total of twelve doors in the portals, guarding the remains of the Three Magi. The third highest church in the world.
»It’s the Cathedral in Cologne!« shouted Sunny in surprise. »I recognize it. It’s in Germany where I used to live.«
Pink Granite Coast
Chapter 17
Channing woke up in the middle of the night out of a deep sleep. He saw Sara asleep next to him so he got up quietly to avoid waking her. He got dressed and made his way to the cliffs. There was a fresh breeze. The dream had hit him like a bolt of lightning. He’d seen himself standing in front of a small house with a „For Sale“ sign in front of it. He’d recognized the hotel, having spent the night there once while looking for rare artifacts in the French region of Brittany. He couldn’t believe that he still had a memory left from his life as a mortal. He hadn’t had the slightest me
mory of anything from his former life since the moment of his transformation. And now, suddenly, out of nowhere, he’d dreamt about the hotel in Brittany. He turned on his heels and strode back to the house. As expected, he found Phoebe at her laptop.
»There’s something you need to do for us, Phoebe. And by the way, how are our finances?«
Ploumanac’h, a small fishing village on the French coast of Brittany was not only home to the Côte de Granit Rose, the pink granite coast, with it’s towering lighthouses lining a jagged coastline, but also to a little hotel that had been up for sale for years now.
The fact that Channing had remembered it was especially helpful in answering the question of where the warriors should go to hide from Castaway and his hunters.
It hadn’t taken them more than a half a day to find the owner of the hotel and buy the property, and as it is in small towns, it didn’t take long for the rumor to spread that an international real estate company had bought the property as accommodation for its employees traveling abroad.
They weren’t able to take much with them. Except for their luggage, the cars were the only things Shia couldn’t do without, which wasn’t really that much trouble actually. They organized a shipping company to transport the R8 GT, the two Q7s and Sara’s Audi TT to Paris by airfreight.
Phoebe chartered a private jet, which brought them to the Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris. From there they rented three SUVs and drove west, leaving hardly a trace behind them.
Phoebe had organized all the necessary documents for the warriors, thanks to a friend who, she pointed out, had a knack for that sort of thing. As a result there were no problems going through French customs and immigration.
That is how it came to be that two days later a group of real estate agents moved into the little hotel in Ploumanac’h making the northern coast of Brittany their home.
When Cruz Esposito saw the newspaper, it was as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He had the day off and had made himself comfortable at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and a bagel. He had tried to reach Eva on her cell phone again the previous evening, but she hadn’t responded to his call or his text message. He was stunned by the image of a house completely destroyed by fire. The large house had once stood on the cliffs in Blue Ridge and he’d recognized it immediately. He’d looked at the satellite photo in the Internet the afternoon before and, if he hadn’t heard anything from Eva, he would have driven up to Blue Ridge to check out the house belonging to Sara and Shia Keane. He could forget about doing that now.
Three bodies had been found in the ashes. Esposito entered the police department’s number and asked to be connected to the officer on duty.
Next to the reception area, the hotel Granit Rosé had a large sitting room with big easy chairs and small side tables like in a cozy living room. The walls were painted in a warm brown and covered in paintings by Breton impressionists. But Channing and the other warriors were more interested in the basement. There was a large room that would serve as a control center with a door to the back yard, which could function as an emergency exit if necessary. They set up an office for Phoebe with a computer, printer and telephone; a zone only for her which she was responsible for and where she could retreat to if need be.
She’d spent the long flight cowering next to Ruben in the last row of the plane. She hadn’t spoken to him, but his presence had soothed her. So it didn’t seem to be just a coincidence that she’d moved into the room right next to Ruben’s, with adjoining doors that remained locked.
It had broken Sara’s heart as her beloved house on the cliffs in Seattle had gone up in flames.
Tears of anger and disappointment streamed down her cheeks when she lit the fire in the basement. She wouldn’t have let anyone else light the fire because she knew how important it was not to leave a single trace behind. Having Channing’s strong arms around her was only a small consolation. Together, they moved into one of the suites, but it basically didn’t matter to her where because it would never be a home for her alone.
Shia and Eva also occupied a suite and the other warriors each took one of the other rooms.
Sunny chose the smallest room in the entire hotel. She didn’t care if she had a view or if the furniture was nice. It was important for her that it was as far away from Maroush as possible.
Because three other rooms were between them, the distance appeared to be perfect in her eyes.
When she entered her room, she saw Maroush smile as if saying, »You can hide from me, but I’ll still find you,« which strangely enough, gave her a warm feeling, which she didn’t like at all, thus giving him a dirty look in return.
»The cathedral in Cologne is more than five hundred miles from here. We’ll have to think of someway to bridge this distance. Does anyone have an idea?« Jôrek stood up and put his hands on his hips. »Get me an Oryx helicopter and I’ll be happy to fly you there and back anytime.«
»The entire distance by helicopter?« replied Ruben doubtfully.
»The Oryx is built by a South African company and has seats for 14. It has reserve tanks built into the outside of the fuselage. We need a converted helicopter with additional loading tanks, which would give it a flying range of one thousand miles. I figure that would do it.« Channing looked over at Phoebe.
»How much can we spend?« she asked. »Get your hands on one as soon as you can. We don’t have any time to waste!« said Shia.
»I looked at the parchment pages again, but I wasn’t able to find any more clues. The rest of the pieces just tell us things we already know, like the ability to tolerate daylight, our maxims and corresponding soulmates. There are no clues about when warriors meet or where they find their soulmates. There’s also no indication of where to find the sacred book inside the cathedral. The best thing to do is to just go and look around first. The church is a popular destination for tourists, so no one will notice us. I think we should wait until Phoebe has organized our transportation and then go from there.«
Everyone nodded in agreement. »I don’t think that Castaway will find us very quickly here,« added Sara grimacing, thinking back on Seattle.
The group broke up when Ruben said, »I’m gonna get myself something to drink.« »Where? There’s no one around here?« Phoebe looked curiously in his direction.
»I’m bound to find one or two tourists,« he said grinning and walked towards the door.
»Wait. I’ll come with you,« said Phoebe walking up to him. »You?« hollered Shia and Eva. Surprised, Sunny looked over at Phoebe, who normally only left her room to sleep.
»Yes, I feel like I should drink something too.« Ruben looked at her annoyed, striding out of the house without saying a word.
Phoebe followed Ruben at a safe distance down the Sentier des Dousniers, the famous footbath created in the 18th century by Napoleon I, to catch pirates and smugglers. Now it was a big tourist attraction and one of the most popular hiking paths in the area.
»I know that you didn’t want me to come along, Ruben,« said Phoebe quietly as they approached one of the giant granite boulders and then sat down on one of the large stones. The sun had already set and only a few stars could be seen in the night sky.
»I know that you’re more of a loner and I probably get on your nerves following you around like this, but I feel safe when I’m with you.« Phoebe looked over at him pushing her hands deep into her pockets.
»That’s not the reason,« he said curtly.
»Yes it is. You can tell me if I get on your nerves. I’ll just go back and leave you alone. I’m sorry, Ruben.« Phoebe stood up and walked past him. He grabbed her hand to hold her back and then pulled her into his arms close to his body, as if were trying to protect her from the entire world.
»Wait a minute, damn it! Stay, please. It’s not you. I can’t take having you near me. Even when you look at me, I can hardly bear it.« Phoebe nodded. »Right. I get it. If I can’t even look at myself in the mirror, how could someone else stand to loo
k at me?« She tried to pull her hand out of his, but Ruben wouldn’t let her go.
»Oh man, forget it. That’s not what I meant. I can’t get enough of you. You’re beautiful and so sexy that I’m lost for words. I’m just so out of practice. When I see you, I want you. Your scar is part of you just like your beautiful hair and lovely eyes. You are the woman I desire more than any other; so much that it hurts.« She could feel the warmth coming from his hand moving up her arm and into her entire body. His honesty left her speechless and embarrassed.
Phoebe turned away, but Ruben didn’t stop and pulled her back towards him.
»But you said yourself that it would be a mistake and that you’d regret it. What am I supposed to think?« Ruben ran his free hand down his face and sighed. She was putting a gun to his head.
He had to decide. Either he should let her go or he should stop dilly-dallying around and show her here and now that he really is the cool guy he makes himself out to be.
»Yes, damn it! I did say that, but it was a lie. If we hadn’t stopped, I would have attacked you and taken you and your blood just like I want to right now. I wasn’t prepared for something like this. I’m a warrior, not a lover or someone who whispers poetic words in people’s ears. But I know that I want you and only you.«
His heart was pounding in his ears and blood was rushing to his head droning like a motor.
He ran his finger across her face and then kissed her, as if he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Phoebe was speechless and couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She took hold of his hand and kissed the tips of his fingers as gently as the fluttering of butterfly wings.
»But I’m not a warrior and I don’t have a tattoo. I’m not one of you,« she reminded him with a ring of hope in her voice. »I know that, Phoebe. That’s why I can’t make you any promises. I can’t tell you that this will last forever, because I don’t know what my destiny has in store for me. What I can promise you is the here and now. I can give you security, fun and lots of great sex.« He grinned, his open and honest attitude making her laugh.
