Destiny

EIGHTY-TWO

After walking for more than a minute in silence, Father Davon stopped. He looked up at a grand stained-glass window and pointed to it. “If you look to the right of the window, about half way up from the bottom, you might make out a small, clear spot. It’s no larger than a nickel. But it’s all that’s needed.”

“Needed for what?” asked Alicia.

“For the light.” Father Davon smiled.

Marcus looked at the window, the reds and blues lustrous from the rising full moon. Then he lowered his eyes to the floor where he spotted a nail protruding from a rectangular stone, the only one of its shape in the entire floor. The stone was the color of pewter, and looked much older than those around it.

Father Davon said, “Some people believe that whoever designed the Saint Appolnaire window did so with the summer solstice in mind.” He stepped toward the rectangular stone. During the summer, June, at the Summer Solstice, there is a period, less than thirty seconds when the sun’s light comes through a clear spot in the window and strikes the nail in that unique stone. No one alive is sure of the significance.”

“But this isn’t June,” said Alicia.

“Indeed. I believe there is more meaning in what happens only one other time a year, and that time is tonight. Each November, when the full moon rises and aligns with the portal, that tiny spot in the window, something happens. Very few people know of it. And no one knows what it means.” Father Davon pointed to the window. “Look.”

The moon inched higher in the sky and a milky light poured through the window in a single shaft, striking the nail.

“Wow,” Alicia whispered. “How’d they ever…?”

Marcus stepped closer, kneeling down. He studied the long shadow cast by the nail. He looked up, the milky light streaming through the small opening, and then he looked in the direction the shadow fell. “It’s indicating due west.”

Marcus measured the length of the shadow using his forearm as a gauge. It went from the tip of his finger to his elbow. He looked back in the direction the shadow pointed, and then he touched the head of the nail with the tip of his right index finger. Warmth, a sense of energy, ran up his arm, transmitting to every part of his body. He looked at the priest, then at Alicia. They seemed distant, as if he was looking at them through opaque water. Marcus heard a whisper. ‘The truth is found fewer than two hundred shadows of the moon.’ His heart hammered in his chest, vision blurring. He stared at his finger on the nail, his hand heavy, his hearing so acute he thought he could hear the photochemistry of the light pouring through the window. The light striking his finger seemed to be encircling the entire room. Marcus couldn’t blink. Eyes wide. He lifted his finger and his vision returned.

“Paul, are you okay?” Alicia asked.

He stood slowly, sweat beading on his forehead, heart pounding. He looked to the west in the cathedral, and then he stared at the nail, the moonbeam fading at his feet. He whispered, “For now we see through a glass, darkly…”

Alicia held her hand to her lips. “The poem…General Patton.”

“It’s originally from Corinthians,” Father Davon said, his voice subdued.

Marcus looked back to where the shadow had pointed. “The truth is found fewer than two hundred shadows of the moon, for the shadow is to the seeker as the seeker is to the shadow.” He looked at Alicia, his eyes on fire. “Now, I know what it means.”

Marcus began walking west, counting his steps. The direction led him across the heart of the cathedral to the western portico exit. He stopped at the door and whispered, “One hundred eighty nine.” He tried to open the door. It was locked. “Father, can you open it?”

“Yes, of course. What is it you’ve found?” He pulled a key ring from his pocket and flipped through the keys, inserting a large, bronze key in the discolored lock, turning it.

“I don’t know just yet.” The doors swung opened. Marcus walked outside, counting under his breath.

Alicia followed right behind him, the priest behind her.

Marcus stopped in front of the far right side of the entranceway and said, “One ninety nine.” He looked up. The statue of the ancient philosopher, hunched over his writing table, staring down at him, stone eyes animated in the moonlight.

“Paul, what is it?” Alicia asked. “What have you found?”

Marcus looked from the statue to the stone faces in the portico, his eyes searching for clues. “The truth is found fewer than two hundred shadows of the moon, for the shadow is to the seeker as the seeker is to the shadow. That shadow cast by the moon on that nail is a cubit long, the sacred geometry. Following the direction the shadow fell, west, by one hundred ninety nine cubits, led me to this spot — directly to the image of the philosopher’s stone. Some refer to him as the truth seeker. The truth is found fewer than two hundred shadows of the moon…. So you see, the shadow cast by the nail to this point is one hundred ninety nine lengths, just under two hundred. For the shadow is to the seeker as the seeker is to the shadow.”

“What do you think that means?” asked Father Davon.

Marcus scanned the faces of the statues. “It’s called the Golden Section, a reference to the Golden Ratio, the measurements of the sacred geometry that built Solomon’s Temple…and this cathedral. It’s defined by the number pi.” Marcus pulled out a small notepad and used a pen to figure the measurements. He made quick, bold strokes. “It can be found by using a geometric shape, such as a triangle, circle, square or rectangle. That nail was in the center of a stone carved as a rectangle. So if I use a rectangle as a base, divide a line segment at a unique point where the ratio of the whole line, line A, for example, to the large segment, B…the ratio to the larger segment…B…to the small segment…C….”

“You’ve lost me,” Alicia said.

“In other words, A is to B as B is to C. The shadow is to the seeker as the seeker is to the shadow.” Marcus’s eyes followed an invisible line from the figure of the philosopher to the statue holding the spear. He looked at Father Davon. “You said the figure up there…the man with the spear, his name was Saint Theodore.”

“Yes, as far as we know.”

“I think his identity has been mistaken. I believe he’s really Saint Longinus.”

“You mean the soldier turned saint after he pierced the side of Jesus Christ?”

“Yes!” Marcus looked around the area and saw the painter’s ladder propped up where the worker had left it. He ran to the ladder and brought it back.

“Paul, what are you doing?” Alicia asked.

“Searching.” Marcus set the ladder in front of the sculpture and climbed the ladder. He used the tiny flashlight on his phone to search around the statue. He slowly moved the light over the sword, scabbard, across the statue’s face, up the spear shaft to the head of the spear. He looked in the fissures and gaps between the sculpture and the wall. Nothing. Then a large white moth emerged from a crack in the cathedral behind the figure’s head and flew into the night. Marcus pointed the light at the opening.

An object.

Marcus held the flashlight with one hand and reached into the crack, pulling out the head of a spear.

Alicia hugged her arms. “Oh…my…God!”

With a trembling hand, Marcus examined the spearhead, slowly turning it over. There was an inscription on one side, text very small and precise:

Marcus stepped down from the ladder, his legs weaker. He turned to Alicia. “Paul, you found it! You’re holding the Spear of Destiny in your hands. Is there an inscription on it?”

“Yes.” He handed the spear to her and she examined it.

“So this was the actual spear, the point, that pierced the side of Jesus Christ…I can’t believe I’m holding it.” She turned over the spear and studied the text for a few seconds. “What’s it say?”

“May I see?” asked Father Davon.

Alicia angled the inscription toward him. He ran his finger across it. “If this is truly the spear that entered the side of our Lord, it is priceless.” He made the sign of the cross. “Chartres is where the clothing worn by his mother, Mary, is to be viewed by those seeking a greater connection to a physical union with Christ. And, now this…I am speechless. May I borrow your light to read the inscription on the blade?”

Alicia looked at Marcus a moment. Neither one spoke. Marcus held the phone above the spear, pressing the button that engaged the flashlight. Father Davon read silently for a moment. “I’m astonished. It’s Hebrew and makes a reference to apocalypse, maybe a chapter and verse in the Book of Revelation. I think it says—”

Father Davon’s head jerked backward. A bloody hole opened in the center of his forehead. The back of his head exploded, the bullet splattering blood over the stone eyes of the statue that held the spear. A second bullet slammed into the old wooden door of the cathedral. A third shattered a piece of limestone from the image of an angel.

Alicia stumbled and fell, dropping the spear.

“Go, Alicia! Now!” Marcus scooped up the spear, grabbing Alicia by the arm. “Run!” She stared in horror at the dead priest. “Run!” Marcus pulled her down the worn marble steps. “Move!” he shouted, pulling her off the cathedral steps while bullets slammed into the thousand-year-old marble and granite.

They bolted down the ancient streets of the town. A cloud covered the full moon, the cathedral a silent witness to their escape into darkness.

They ran for blocks, darting down alleys, finally stopping to listen for someone following them. “I have to catch my breath!” Alicia said, looking over her shoulder. Clouds passed and the radiance of a full moon drenched the sleepy town of Chartres in an illusion of sanctuary. “Father Davon — he’s…he’s….”

“He’s dead. They were, no doubt, trying to kill us all.”

“Who’s trying to kill us?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Circle of 13?”

Marcus, sweat dripping down his face, said nothing.

Alicia shook her head. “Maybe it’s the Iranians. Maybe Brandi’s been—”

“Why the Iranians? They have no reason—”

“Paul, they don’t need one!”

Marcus looked at the head of the spear in his right hand. “Maybe this is the reason. Maybe they want this. What’s it worth to the powerbrokers in Tehran? Cairo? Russia? China? Or how valuable would it be to the Circle of 13?”

“But none of them know we’ve found it? I wonder what the inscription on the spear means.”

“They might be aware we were searching for it. Before we found the bug in our room, we were talking about it.”

“And, we were talking about Jonathon Carlson. What if he knows? What if he sent the killers?”

“Someone knows — we can speculate all day about who? The real question is why? How much do they know, and how have they been following us? But, right now, we have to figure out how to lose them.”

Alicia blew out a long breath. “You’re right, they could have heard us making plans to come here.”

“We need to get out of Chartres undetected and soon. Maybe there’s a train leaving for Paris.”

“Paris? Why should we go back to Paris?”

“It’s the quickest way to get to Jerusalem. That’s the direction this spear is pointing us. But we have to send this spear on its own Fed-Ex flight.”

“Where can we send it?”

“To Jerusalem, the place its journey started. It’ll arrive at a little coffee shop in the heart of the Old City.”