End of Days

by J. F. Penn

  Morgan heard the concern in his voice. She remembered the explosion they'd been in at the Palermo Capuchin crypt and how his injuries that night had filled her with the same worry. At least they weren't surrounded by broken bits of mummified bodies in here.

  "I can't move my arm," she said. "Any chance you can help?"

  "Just a sec." A tiny light flared and then grew in warmth. Morgan saw Jake's face in the light of the yellow glow-stick. "Good job I still have my pack." Jake grinned and Morgan couldn't help but smile back, despite the pain in her arm and her head. There was something primeval in having light in the darkness. It made everything instantly better.

  He clambered over the fallen rocks towards her. "Right, let's get you out of there."

  It was another four hours before they heard the clunk of stones being removed and the shouts of voices beyond the cave-in. Morgan had fallen asleep, cradled in Jake's arms, but woke again as he moved at the sound. The pounding in her head made her nauseous and her arm throbbed. Thoughts of her family rose in her mind. Faye strapped to a pyre. Gemma unconscious in the arms of a madman. She knew they were safe, but she longed to be with them.

  "Stay there," Jake said, gently stroking her face as he helped her sit back against the cave wall. He rose and went to the pile of broken stone.

  "We're in here!" he called through the cracks.

  A triumphant shout came back, the words unintelligible, but soon they saw torchlight as the rocks at the side of the tunnel were pulled away.

  Jake joined in, hefting stones until he could touch the hand of one of the rescuers beyond.

  "Hang in there," the man said. "Here, I'm passing through provisions." He pushed through a parcel and a flask. "We'll have you out soon. Is anyone injured?"

  "My friend's arm was crushed in the fall and she might have concussion from a minor head injury."

  The rescuer nodded. "We'll hurry."

  Jake took the food and drink over to Morgan, pouring hot coffee from the flask and handing it to her. "Here, drink this." He helped her to sip the bitter black and Morgan felt a wave of relief sweep over her. Coffee always helped.

  They devoured the sweet pastries together and the sugar buoyed them both as they waited for the tunnel to be widened further.

  The rescuers broke through soon after. A medic tended to Morgan's arm, before they scrambled from the cave out into the late-afternoon sun.

  A little while later, Morgan sat in the back of an ambulance. Her arm was patched up and in a temporary sling. Her head was bandaged, and with a full dose of painkillers, plus sugar and caffeine, she was feeling comparatively better. Jake was on the phone to Marietti.

  "Yes, the seals are gone but we're just about OK. I think we can travel." He looked over at Morgan and she smiled back, nodding her head that yes, she was alright. "Where do you want us to go next?" He paused. "Right. Later then."

  He hung up and turned to her. "Marietti wants us back in London. There are too many options for where to go next. And he wanted me to tell you that your family are still safe."

  Morgan looked out at the setting sun over the valley. It was beautiful, a timeless place where so many had come to seek the will of the gods. The smell of olive trees and warm earth lingered on the air. "Let's not rush back."

  14

  ARKANE Headquarters, London.

  Martin Klein walked around his desk to the wall of his office and examined the colored markers arrayed in a rainbow from light to dark. This called for crimson and cerulean blue. He picked up the particular pens and began to draw directly on the office walls, allowing the critical part of his mind to relax as he shaded and cross-hatched and spiraled across the white.

  Despite his many technological tools, Martin had learned that his mind sometimes just figured things out this way. While some people had ideas in the shower, he found inspiration in drawing. It distracted his analytical mind and enabled him to find the most peculiar connections. Of course, his office had to be repainted every few months, or whenever he had solved whatever problem was most pressing. A small price to pay for clarity.

  Most of Martin's time was spent immersed in computer code as part of his role as ARKANE's archivist, although he was basically a hacker on behalf of the agency. He had yet to come up against a system he could not get into. His main concern was the knowledge locked away in physical texts and symbolic objects, that which was not digitalized.

  And that's what haunted him now. Because something was very wrong indeed.

  The hunt for the seals was just one aspect, but there were too many other things happening at the same time. The news reported developments daily, an increase in violence done in the name of religion, a sudden influx of natural disasters and death caused by extreme weather, earthquakes and rising oceans.

  And then there was the series of blood moons, which drove the fundamentalists crazy as they claimed that biblical prophecies were coming true.

  So it had to be one of two things.

  Either it really was the End Times, the final days of Earth as humanity knew it and the imminent beginning of a new order ushered in by celestial trumpets and great destruction by the Almighty …

  Or, someone was pulling the strings from behind the scenes, engineering a growing crisis that could spill over into something unstoppable. God helps those who help themselves, after all. World War Three would not be sparked by one event, but tensions were mounting. All it took was one significant flashpoint to trigger the end.

  Something itched at the back of Martin's mind, and he had grown to trust that feeling. When he had first joined ARKANE, Jake had fondly nicknamed him Spooky for his uncanny ability to find connections in the mass of data and knowledge. Martin was proud of the title and wanted to remain deserving of it. There were few people he valued in the world, and Jake was one of them. Perhaps he would even count him as a friend, although the rules of such a relationship puzzled Martin a little.

  He understood his own condition. He'd spent time researching why his parents had been so disappointed with him despite his incredible academic achievements. A PhD from Cambridge by seventeen years old, and yet they just wanted him to get a girlfriend. Asperger's would have been a handicap in any other era but in this technological age, it was a true gift.

  Martin understood the world of numbers and code and logic, but he couldn't understand why people behaved the way they did, and why they didn't say what they really meant. ARKANE had been a haven and Director Marietti had taken him in, allowing him to push the boundaries of his gift, accepting him for who he was with no pressure to conform to any societal norm. But then ARKANE was a haven for all kinds of misfits. It suited those who wanted an extraordinary life, not those whose idea of fun was watching Netflix on a Friday night with a pizza and a bottle of wine.

  Jake had been friendly from the start, and Morgan … Martin smiled at the thought of her. Morgan seemed to truly understand him. Perhaps there was a touch of his own dysfunction in her fierce independence.

  Marietti, Jake and Morgan were his true family and he sensed they were in danger now. He had to figure out what the hell was going on and for once, his computer couldn't help him. All the hacking in the world couldn't find something that wasn't codified in bits and bytes.

  He stopped drawing and ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. Some of the strands came out in his fingers and he brushed them to the floor. It was a bad habit, but pulling his hair out actually helped him think, and he certainly wasn't bothered by what people thought of his appearance.

  So far, the picture on the wall undulated with the coils of a massive serpent. He began to draw the various clues they had found around it, and then expanded it into the signs that had appeared in the world. The freak weather events, high tides and super storms that rocked every continent. The sarcophagus found in the deepest ocean, thought by some to be the resting place of the Great Serpent.

  But that wasn't all.

  In the last weeks, Director Marietti had been targeted by those
who wished to stop him investigating the Babylonian prophecy of the serpent. Because they knew he would send Morgan and Jake to find out more. They knew he would try to stop whatever had been set in motion. The bomb that had blown open the vault was directed with deadly accuracy and only someone on the inside would know the vault's exact location.

  What if the whole India mission had been planned to keep ARKANE occupied while the End Times progressed towards its inevitable conclusion? If Marietti had been killed, ARKANE London would have been crippled. So, who had known about all of this?

  Something pricked at the corners of his mind.

  Martin went back to his computer and checked the inventory of the vault, recently updated after the damage from the bombing. Amongst the priceless objects and artifacts of supernatural power, there were also records from the earliest days of ARKANE that he had discovered in the aftermath of the explosion. The original annals, the founding documents. Records that were so old they had to be read in a climate-controlled atmosphere.

  Records he had yet to digitize.

  Martin scurried from his office and headed down to the lower levels in one of the lifts. The whole area had been reinforced with extra security, so he scanned his retina and then typed in a passcode to get the lift moving.

  At the basement level, the door opened onto a corridor reinforced overhead. It wouldn't stop a bunker-busting bomb, but it would prevent pretty much anything else getting through.

  Martin walked to the thick metal door overlaid with ancient wood. It was inscribed with occult patterns that once upon a time might have made someone think twice about entering. But now the door was criss-crossed with modern steel bars and protected by a high-level electronic security system updated after the last attack and protected with a steel cage. Martin typed in another code and then placed his finger on a pad. It was sensitized to certain individuals within ARKANE; if their heartbeat was too fast and fell outside the normal range, the system went into security lockdown.

  Martin calmed his breathing. The door clicked open.

  He stepped inside the vault and breathed in the rarefied air as he walked past individual rooms containing treasures that the world thought lost to history. Part of ARKANE's job was to recover powerful artifacts and hide them here, away from the clutches of those who might use them for evil. Morgan and Jake had placed the Pentecost stones here, the Devil's Bible, the staff of Skara Brae and other objects that needed protection.

  Or that the world needed protection from.

  But there were also records of ARKANE, the annals of its birth and growth, lists of Directors and the agents who had given their lives for the secrets down here and yet could never be acknowledged in public. Martin hoped that the Director would never have to inscribe Jake or Morgan's name in these books.

  He walked to the back of the vault to a special area filled with towering shelves loaded with great leather-bound books. He found the right date range and then used the wheeled ladder to climb a meter up. He ran his finger along the cracked spines until he located the book he wanted and then pulled it down. The dates 1880–1900 were etched in gold on the spine.

  The escalating news cycle from Israel had been bothering Martin the most, as biblical prophecies stated over and over again that the Jews must be back in their ancient homeland for the End Time events to occur.

  It could be argued that the Chosen People had been protected over the many generations they had been persecuted, broken apart and spread across the world in a diaspora that spanned the globe. But despite oppression by Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome in ancient times, and from much anti-Semitism, pogroms, death camps and more in modern times, the Jewish people had survived. Perhaps God really did have a hand in their survival, but Martin had his suspicions that there was more to it.

  He found the page he wanted, an account from 1897, when ARKANE representatives had been at the first Zionist Congress supporting Theodor Herzl in the goal of reclaiming the land of Israel. He looked at the names, recognizing the title of a Cardinal from the Vatican. Not unusual by itself.

  But then Martin found something curious.

  Minutes from a meeting between the same Cardinal and the Mufti of Jerusalem, a Muslim. There was nothing concrete, only veiled references to a long-buried cistern and a joint project that would safeguard the future of both religions even as Israel expanded.

  Martin narrowed his eyes. There must be more.

  He climbed the stairs again and pulled down more books, pushing them to the floor with a series of crashes. He clambered down and sat cross-legged, pulling each one onto his lap as he scanned for more such meetings.

  A note from the Imam of Iran thanking the ARKANE Vatican liaison for support. A receipt for services rendered during the Gulf War. A picture of a multi-faith group of men in front of the statue of Laocoon, with the priest and his sons dying in the grip of writhing serpents.

  The more he read, the more Martin realized that the Vatican and ARKANE seemed to be part of a bigger plan that also involved fundamentalists on both the Jewish and the Muslim sides.

  They were sworn enemies, but they also desired a new world order, albeit of a different shade. All wanted to hasten the apocalypse. What if the mortal enemies engineered a world-ending battle together?

  Could anyone stop that?

  Until the thousand years were ended. The words spoken by Cardinal Krotalia echoed around his head. He needed to get this to Marietti.

  Suddenly there was a clunk and a click. The lights went out in the vault.

  Martin spun around, his hands still on the book. The vault door was closed. A hissing came from nozzles above. He had installed the upgrades to the security himself.

  A poisonous gas would flood the vault in the next three minutes.

  15

  ARKANE vault, London.

  Martin scrambled to his feet and ran towards the door, slipping on the polished floor in his haste.

  "Stop. I'm still in here!" he shouted, hoping it was a mistake. Maybe Marietti had come down for something. He reached the massive door and pounded upon it with his fists, but no sound came from outside. Whoever had shut him in was gone.

  The hissing sound grew stronger as the gas escaped from the nozzles above.

  He coughed and covered his mouth, bending lower to the ground to keep his face away. If he succumbed before he could get out, then the ARKANE vault would be his final resting place. As much as he loved it here, that wasn't how he intended to go.

  Jake had told him once of a rumored escape route from the vault, something placed here just in case. Like so much of ARKANE, there was always another way. Nothing was left to chance.

  But where was it?

  Martin wracked his brain trying to remember the offhand conversation. He hadn't paid much attention at the time, but it was something about a curse of kings channeled through a woman of heaven …

  He stumbled to one of the side vaults marked with symbols of ancient Egypt, noticing anew the stylized uraeus cobra on the crown of the pharaohs. The serpent was everywhere and he cursed it now. Dizzy, Martin sank to the floor. He crawled into the vault, willing himself to go on. Jake wouldn't give up, and thoughts of his friend spurred him on.

  The space was filled with boxes covered in stamps and labels, each one containing something precious and powerful. But none of those could help him now. Martin's eyes fixed on the standing sarcophagus against the back wall. The anthropoid inner coffin of Seshepenmehyt, carved from sycamore fig and dated to around 600 BC.

  He dragged himself to the coffin and looked up. The face of the long-dead noblewoman painted in dark green stared down at him. Under the decorated collar, the goddess Nut spread her wings, goddess of the sky and the heavens.

  Doubt flooded Martin's mind but as the opaque gas began to fill the room, he knew it was his only chance. He pulled himself up, desperately feeling for any way to open the sarcophagus. His fingers found a notch in the side and he pressed it. The door swung open.

  He
gasped in horror.

  The mummy stood wrapped in bandages, brown with the patina of age. He imagined scarab beetles crawling through the layers, eating the dead flesh inside.

  But then his logical mind kicked in.

  There was no way a real Egyptian mummy would be kept in the ARKANE vault, even with its special climate control. It must be a fake.

  He grimaced with disgust but steeled himself to reach out and pull the mummy from the case. It crashed down to the floor and he pushed it away with his foot, the spongy corpse making him shiver. The hiss of gas increased its frequency and Martin began to feel faint again. He clambered into the sarcophagus and pulled the door shut with a click, trapping himself in darkness. He could sense the boundaries of the tiny space, the wood only inches from his nose. It smelled of incense and the sweet, cloying scent of death. His breathing grew shallow and he panted and coughed, wheezing with pain.

  He had made a terrible mistake.

  With a horrible dread, he felt for a catch on the inside of the sarcophagus, his fingers desperately scrabbling for something that would get him out of here again. Was he trapped? Would he die here in the vault?

  Martin tried to channel Jake's confidence. What would his friend do? If this was really the emergency way out, it wouldn't be obvious. The mummy was a decoy, of that he was sure, so there must be something else here. He pressed himself back against the rear wall, his fingers sweeping the wood from side to side as he shuffled up and down, desperation rising in his chest.

  Suddenly, he felt a groove in the wood.

  Martin pressed a finger inside and heard a faint click. Relief flooded through him and he let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. The lower half of the mummy case behind him dropped away, creating enough space for him to back out and crawl into a thin, low tunnel. Emergency lighting in the floor meant that he could see a little way into the darkness. The shadows threw an eerie light before him.