Map of Bones

14 GOTHIC

DIRECTOR PAINTER Crowe knew he was in for another sleepless night. He had heard the reports out of Egypt of an attack at the East Harbor of Alexandria. Had Gray’s team been involved? With no eyes in the sky, they had been unable to investigate through satellite surveillance.

And still no word had been passed from the field. The last messages had been exchanged twelve hours ago.

Painter regretted not relating his suspicions to Gray Pierce. But at that point, they had only been suspicions. Painter had needed time to finesse some further intelligence. And still he wasn’t certain. If he proceeded more boldly, the conspirator would know he’d been discovered. It would put Gray and his teammates in further jeopardy.

So Painter worked his end alone.

A knock on his office door drew his eyes from the computer screen.

He turned off his computer monitor to hide his work. He buzzed the lock. His secretary was gone for the day.

Logan Gregory entered. “Their jet is in final approach.”

“Still headed into Marseilles?” Painter asked.

Logan nodded. “Due to land in eighteen minutes. Just after midnight local time.”

“Why France?” Painter rubbed his tired eyes. “And they’re still maintaining a communication blackout?”

“The pilot will confirm their destination, but nothing else. I was able to worm out a manifest through French customs. There are two passengers aboard.”

“Only two?” Painter sat straighter, frowning.

“Flying under diplomatic vouchers. Anonymous. I can attempt to dig through that.”

Painter had to work carefully from here. “No,” he said. “That might raise some alarm bells. The team wants to keep their activity cloaked. We’ll give them some room. For now.”

“Yes, sir. I also have requests from Rome. The Vatican and the Carabinieri have not heard anything and are getting anxious.”

Painter had to offer them something or the EU authorities might react harshly. He considered his options. It would not take long for the authorities in Europe to ascertain the jet’s destination. It would have to do.

“Be cooperative,” he finally said. “Let them know of the flight to Marseilles, and that we’ll pass on further intel as we learn more.”

“Yes, sir.”

Painter stared at his blank computer screen. He had a narrow window of opportunity. “Once you contact them, I’ll need you to run an errand for me. Out to DARPA.”

Logan frowned.

“I have something that I need personally couriered over to Dr. Sean McKnight.” Painter slid over a sealed letter in a red pouch. “But no one must know you’re headed over there.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed quizzically, but he nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” He took the pouch, tucked it under his arm, and turned away.

Painter spoke to him. “Absolute discretion.”

“You can trust me,” Logan said firmly, and closed the door with a click of the lock.

Painter switched back on his computer. It showed a map of the Mediterranean basin with swaths of yellow and blue crisscrossing it. Satellite paths. He laid his pointer over one. NRO’s newest satellite, nicknamed Hawkeye. He double-clicked and brought up trajectory details and search parameters.

He typed in Marseilles. Times came up. He cross-referenced with NOAA’s weather map. A storm front swept toward southern France. Heavy cloud cover would block surveillance. The window of opportunity was narrow.

Painter checked his watch. He picked up the phone and spoke to security. “Let me know when Logan Gregory has left the command center.”

“Yes, sir.”

Painter hung up the phone. Timing would be critical. He waited out another fifteen minutes, watching the storm front track over Western Europe.

“C’mon,” he mumbled.

The phone finally rang. Painter confirmed that Logan was gone, then stood up and left his office. The sat-recon was down one floor, neighboring Logan’s office. Painter rushed down there to find a lone technician jotting in a logbook, nestled in the arced bank of monitors and computers.

The man was surprised by the sudden appearance of his boss and jerked to his feet. “Director Crowe, sir…how can I help you?”

“I need a tap feed into NRO’s H-E Four satellite.”

“Hawkeye?”

Painter nodded.

“That clearance is beyond my—”

Painter placed a long alphanumeric sequence in front of him. It was valid for only the next half hour, obtained by Sean McKnight.

The technician’s eyes widened, and he set to work. “There was no need to come down here yourself. Dr. Gregory could’ve patched the feed to your office.”

“Logan is gone.” Painter placed a palm on the technician’s shoulder. “Also I need all record of this tap erased. No recording. No word that this tap ever occurred. Even here in Sigma.”

“Yes, sir.”

The technician pointed to a screen. “It’ll come up on this monitor. I’ll need GPS coordinates to zero in on.”

Painter gave them.

After a long minute, the dark airfield bloomed onto the screen.

Marseilles Airport.

Painter directed the feed to zoom down onto a certain gate. The image jittered, then smoothly swelled. A small plane appeared, a Citation X. It sat near the gate, door open. Painter leaned forward, obscuring the view from the technician.

Was he too late?

Movement pixilated. One figure, then another stepped into view. They hurried down the stairs. Painter didn’t need to magnify their faces.

Monsignor Verona and Kat Bryant.

Painter waited. Maybe the manifest had been false. Maybe they all were aboard.

The screen shuddered with a wave of blocky pixels.

“Bad weather coming in,” the technician said.

Painter stared. No other passengers left the jet. Kat and the monsignor vanished through the gate. With a worried frown, Painter waved for the feed to be cut. He thanked the technician and stepped away.

Where the hell was Gray?

GRAY SAT in the first-class cabin of the EgyptAir jet. He had to give the Dragon Court credit. They didn’t spare expense. He glanced around the small cabin. Eight seats. Six passengers. One or more were probably spies for the Court, keeping an eye on him.

It didn’t matter. He was cooperating fully…for now.

He had picked up his plane tickets and false ID from a bus locker, then proceeded to the airport. The four-hour flight was interminable. He ate the gourmet meal, drank two glasses of red wine, watched some movie with Julia Roberts, even power-napped for forty-two minutes.

He turned to the window. The gold key shifted against his chest. It rested on a chain around his neck. His body heat had warmed the metal, but it still hung heavy and cold. Two people’s lives weighted it down. He pictured Monk, easy mannered, sharp-eyed, bighearted. And Rachel. A mix of steel and silk, intriguing and complicated. But the woman’s last call haunted him, so full of pain and panic. He ached to the marrow, knowing she had been captured under his watch.

Gray stared out the window as the jet made a steep approach, necessary for landing in the city nestled among the towering Alps.

The lights of Geneva glittered. Moonlight silvered the peaks and lake.

The plane swept over a section of the Rhône River that split the city. Landing gear engaged with a whine. Moments later they were touching down at the Geneva International Airport.

They taxied to their gate, and Gray waited for the cabin to empty before gathering up his one carefully packed bag. He hoped he had everything he would need. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he headed out.

As he exited the first-class cabin, he searched for any sign of danger.

And one other. His traveling companion.

She had been in the coach seats. She wore a blonde wig, a conservative navy blue business suit, and heavy black eyeglasses. She carried herself with a subdued demeanor, her left arm in a sling, half hidden under her jacket. The disguise would not pass close inspection. But no one was expecting her.

Seichan was dead to the world.

She exited ahead of him without a glance.

Gray followed a few passengers behind her. Once in the terminal, he queued up for customs, showed his false papers, had them stamped, and was on his way. He hadn’t checked any baggage.

He strode out to the well-lit street, which was still crowded. Late travelers scurried for cars and taxies. He had no idea what was expected of him from here. He had to wait for some contact from Raoul. He shifted closer to the taxi line.

Seichan had vanished, but Gray sensed she was near.

He had needed an ally. Cut off from Washington, from his own teammates, he had made a pact with the devil. He had freed her with his hacksaw after exacting a promise from her. They would work together. In return for her freedom, she would help Gray free Rachel. Afterward, they would part ways. All debts forgiven, past and present.

She had agreed.

As he treated and bandaged her wound, she had looked on him most oddly, stripped to the waist, breasts bared, unabashed. She studied him like a curiosity, a strange bug, with an intensity of focus. She said little, exhausted, perhaps in slight shock. But she recovered smoothly, a lioness slowly waking, cunning and amusement lighting her eyes.

Gray knew that her cooperation was less out of obligation than fury at Raoul. Cooperation suited her immediate need. She had been left for dead, a slow agonizing end. She wanted to make Raoul pay. Whatever contract had been agreed upon between the Court and the Guild was over for her. All that was left was vengeance.

But was that all?

Gray remembered her eyes upon him and her dark curiosity. But he also remembered Painter’s earlier warning about her. It must have been plain on his face.

“Yes, I am going to betray you,” Seichan had said plainly as she pulled on her shirt. “But only after this is over. You will attempt the same. We both know this. Mutual distrust. Is there a better form of honesty?”

Gray’s sat-phone finally rang. He freed it from his bag. “Commander Pierce,” he said tersely.

“Welcome to Switzerland,” Raoul said. “There are train tickets waiting for you at the city-center terminal, under your false name, headed to Lausanne. It leaves in thirty-five minutes. You’ll be on it.”

“What about my teammate?” Gray said.

“As arranged, he’s on his way to the hospital in Geneva. You’ll have confirmation by the time you board the train.”

Gray headed to the taxis. “Lieutenant Verona?” he asked.

“The woman is being well accommodated. For now. Don’t miss your train.”

The line went dead.

Gray climbed into a taxi. He didn’t bother searching for Seichan. He had piggybacked a chip on his phone, tied to her cell phone. She had overheard the conversation. He trusted her skill to keep up with him.

“Central train station,” he told the driver.

With a curt nod, the cabby sailed out into traffic and headed toward downtown Geneva. Gray sank back into his seat. Seichan had been right. Upon learning of his summons to Switzerland, she had told him where she suspected Rachel was being kept. Some castle up in the Savoy Alps.

After ten minutes, the taxi swept alongside the lake. Out in the water, a giant fountain sprayed more than a hundred yards into the air. The famous Jet d’Eau. It was lit up by lamps, a fairy-tale sight. Some festival was under way near the piers.

Gray heard an echo of singing and laughter.

It sounded like it was coming from another world.

In another couple of minutes, the taxi offloaded him in front of the train terminal. He crossed to the ticket counter, gave his false name, and showed his papers. He was given tickets to the lakeside city of Lausanne.

He strode toward his gate, keeping a wary watch for anyone nearby. He saw no sign of Seichan. A worry nagged. What if she simply took off? What if she double-crossed him to Raoul? Gray drove down such worries. He had made a choice. It was a calculated risk.

His phone rang again.

He pulled it free and adjusted the antenna.

“Commander Pierce,” he said.

“Two minutes to satisfy yourself.” Raoul again. A click and hiss of a transfer sounded. The next voice was more distant, echoing a bit, but familiar.

“Commander?”

“I’m here, Monk. Where are you?” Gray was sure the conversation was being eavesdropped on by more than just Seichan. He had to be careful.

“They dumped me at some hospital with this cell phone. Told me to expect your call. I’m in the emergency room. Doctors are all speaking goddamn French.”

“You’re in Geneva,” Gray said. “How are you doing?”

A long pause.

“I know about your hand,” Gray said.

“Goddamn bastards,” Monk said with an edge of fury. “They had a doctor on board their ship. Drugged me, IVs, sutured my…my stump. The docs here want X-rays and such, but they seem satisfied with the other doctor’s umm…handiwork, so to speak.”

Gray appreciated Monk’s attempt at levity. But his voice was hard-edged.

“Rachel?”

Pain intensified his words. “I haven’t seen her since they drugged me. I have no idea where she’s at. But…but, Gray…”

“What?”

“You have to get her away from them.”

“I’m working on that. But what about you? Are you safe?”

“Seem to be,” he said. “I was told to keep my mouth shut. That I’ve done, playing dumb. The doctors, though, have called the local police. Security is posted.”

“For now, do as they ordered you,” Gray said. “I’ll get you out of there as soon as I can.”

“Gray,” Monk said, voice strained. Gray recognized his tone. He wanted to communicate something, but he also knew the others were eavesdropping. “They…they let me go.”

The connection fritzed again. Raoul came back on the line.

“Time’s up. As you can see, we honor our word. If you want the woman freed, you’ll bring the key.”

“Understood. What then?”

“I’ll have a car waiting for you at the Lausanne station.”

“No,” Gray said. “I won’t put myself into your custody until I know Rachel is safe. When I arrive in Lausanne, I want confirmation that she is alive. Then we’ll make arrangements.”

“Don’t press your hand,” Raoul growled. “I’d hate to have to chop it off, like your friend’s. We’ll continue this conversation when you’re here.”

The connection ended.

Gray lowered the phone. So Raoul was in Lausanne.

He waited for the train. It was the last train heading out. The deck was sparsely crowded. He studied his fellow travelers. No sign of Seichan. Were any spies for the Court here?

Finally the train arrived, clattering up the track. It glided to a stop with a piercing sigh of air. Gray climbed into the middle car, then hurriedly moved between cars toward the rear, hoping to shake any tail.

In the gap between the last two cars, Seichan waited.

She did not acknowledge him, except to hand him a long leather duster. She turned and shouldered out an emergency exit that opened on the opposite side of the track, away from the deck.

He followed, dropping down. He tugged on the jacket and pulled up the collar.

Seichan hurried across another track and up onto a neighboring deck. They left the station, and Gray found himself at the edge of a parking lot.

A BMW motorcycle, black and yellow, stood a step away.

“Climb on,” Seichan said. “You’ll have to drive. My shoulder…” She had abandoned the sling to ride here from the rental office, but it was another fifty miles to Lausanne.

Gray hopped in front, kicking back the tail of his jacket. The bike was still warm.

She climbed behind him and put her good arm around his waist.

Gray gunned the engine. He had already memorized the roads from here to Lausanne. He raced out of the parking lot and throttled up once out on the street. He zipped toward the highway that led out of Geneva and into the mountains.

His headlights speared ahead.

He chased the light, faster and faster, winds whipping his jacket edge. Seichan leaned tighter against him, arm around him, hand under his jacket. Fingers clutched his belt.

He resisted the urge to force her arm away. Wise or not, he had made this bed. He blasted up the narrow highway. They needed to reach Lausanne a half hour ahead of the train. Would it be enough time?

As he wound up into the heights that bordered the lake, Gray’s mind drifted back to his conversation with Monk. What had Monk been trying to tell him? They let me go. That was plain enough. But what had Monk been implying?

He considered his earlier assessment, back in Egypt. He had known the Court would let Monk go. The release was done to ensure and lure Gray’s cooperation. And Raoul still had Rachel as a bargaining chip.

They let me go.

Was there more to his release? The Court was ruthless. They were not known to give away potential assets. They had used Monk’s torture to ply Rachel into talking. Would they give up such an asset so readily? Monk was right. Not unless the Court had an even better hold on Rachel.

But what?

RACHEL SAT in her cell, numb and exhausted.

Any time she closed her eyes, she again relived the horror. She saw the ax swinging down. Monk’s body jerking up. His chopped hand flopping across the deck like a landed fish. Blood spraying.

Alberto had yelled at Raoul for his action — not for his brutality, but because he wanted the man still alive. Raoul had waved away his concern. A tourniquet had been applied. Alberto had Raoul’s men drag Monk down to the ship’s galley.

Later, she had been informed by one of the Guild women that he still lived. Two hours later, the hydrofoil had sailed up to an island in the Mediterranean. They were transferred to a small private jet.

Rachel had spotted Monk, groggy, his severed wrist bandaged to the elbow, strapped to a stretcher. She was then locked in a back compartment. Alone. No windows. Over the course of another five hours, they landed twice. She was finally let out.

Monk was gone.

Raoul had blindfolded and gagged her. She was transferred from plane to truck. Another half hour of twisty driving and they arrived at their final destination. She heard the wheels bumping over wooden planks. A bridge. The truck braked to a stop.

Dragged out, she heard a cacophony of growling and barking, loud, angry, large. A kennel of some sort.

She was led by the elbow through an opening and down steps. A door closed behind her, shutting off the barking. She smelled cold stone and dampness. She had also felt the pressure elevation as the truck drove up here.

Mountains.

Finally she was shoved forward and tripped over a sill. She landed hard on hands and knees.

Raoul grabbed her rear with both hands and laughed. “Already begging for it.”

Rachel leapt away and crashed her shoulder into something solid. Her soggy gag and hood were pulled off. Rubbing her shoulder, she stared around the small stone cell. Again no windows. Her sense of time was beginning to slip. The only furniture in the cell was a steel cot. A thin mattress rolled up on one end. A pillow rested on top. No sheets.

The cell had no bars. One wall was a solid sheet of glass, except for a rubber-sealed door and fist-sized ventilation holes. But even the holes had tiny lids that could be swung over the openings, for soundproofing or a way to slowly suffocate the prisoner.

She had been left down here for over an hour.

Not even any guards. Though she did hear voices down the hall, probably posted at the stairwell.

A commotion sounded. She lifted her face and stood. She heard Raoul’s coarse voice, orders barked. She backed from the glass wall. Her clothes had been returned to her on the boat, but she had no weapons.

Raoul appeared, flanked by two men.

He did not look happy.

“Get her out of there,” he spat.

A key opened the door. She was dragged out.

“This way,” Raoul said. He led her down the hallway.

She spotted other cells, some sealed like hers, others open and stacked with wine bottles.

Raoul marched her to the stairs and up to a dark moonlit courtyard. Stone walls towered on all sides. An archway, sealed by a portcullis, led out to a narrow bridge that spanned a gorge.

She was in a castle.

A row of trucks lined the wall nearest the gateway.

Along a neighboring wall, a long row of twenty chain-link cages stretched. Low grumbles rose from that corner. Large shadows shifted, muscular, powerful.

Raoul must have noted her attention. “Perro de Presa Canario,” he said with a note of savage pride. “Fighting dogs, an ancestral line from the 1800s. Perfection of breeding. Pure pit fighter. All muscle, jaws, and teeth.”

Rachel wondered if he was also describing himself.

Raoul led her away from the gate and toward the central keep. Two tiers of stairs led up to a thick oak door. It was brightly lit by sconces, almost inviting. But they didn’t go that way. A side door led to a level beneath the stairs.

Using a touchpad, he unlocked the lower door.

As the door swung open, Rachel caught a whiff of antiseptic and something darker, more fetid. She was forced into a square room, brightly lit with fluorescent bulbs. Stone walls, linoleum floor. A single guard stood before the one door that led away.

Raoul crossed and opened it.

Beyond stretched a long, sterile hallway. A series of rooms opened off it. She glanced into a few as she was marched down the passage. Stainless-steel cages filled one. Banks of computers tied to rows of plates occupied another. Electromagnets, she guessed, used to experiment with the m-state compounds. A third chamber held a single steel table, shaped in a rough X. Leather straps indicated that the table was meant to hold a man or woman spread-eagled. A surgical lamp hung above it.

The sight chilled her to the bone.

Another six rooms stretched beyond. She had seen enough and was happy to stop alongside a door on the opposite wall.

Raoul knocked and pushed inside.

Rachel was surprised by the contrast. It was like stepping into the turn-of-the-century parlor of a distinguished Royal Society scholar. The room here was all polished mahogany and walnut. Underfoot spread a thick Turkish rug patterned in crimson and emerald.

Bookshelves and display cabinets lined all the walls, filled with neatly arranged texts. Behind glass, she noted first-edition copies of Principia by Sir Isaac Newton, and beside it, Darwin’s Origin of Species. There was also an illuminated Egyptian manuscript spread open in one case. Rachel wondered if it was the one that had been stolen from the Cairo museum, the forged text with the encrypted stanzas that had started this whole murderous adventure.

Everywhere she looked there was artwork. Etruscan and Roman statuary decorated the shelves, including a two-foot-tall Persian horse, the head broken off, a masterpiece stolen from Iran a decade ago, supposedly representing Alexander the Great’s famous horse, Bucephalus. Paintings stood above cabinets. She knew one was a Rembrandt, another a Raphael.

But resting in the center of the room was a massive carved mahogany desk. It rested near a stacked-stone, floor-to-ceiling fireplace. Small flames flickered in the hearth.

“Professore!” Raoul called, closing the door behind them.

Through a back door leading to other private rooms, Dr. Alberto Menardi entered. He wore a black smoking jacket trimmed in crimson. He had the gall to be still wearing his clerical Roman collar above a black shirt.

He carried a book under one arm and shook a finger at Rachel. “You haven’t been totally honest with us.”

Rachel felt her heart stop beating, her breath became trapped.

Alberto turned to Raoul. “And if you hadn’t distracted me with the need to mend that American’s wrist, I would’ve discovered this sooner. Both of you, come here.”

They were waved to the cluttered desk.

Rachel noted her map of the Mediterranean spread out on the top. New lines had been added, circles, meridians, degree marks. Tiny arcane numbers were inscribed along one edge of the map. A compass and T square rested beside it, along with a sextant. Plainly, Alberto had been working on this puzzle, either not trusting Rachel or figuring she and her uncle were too obtuse.

The prefect tapped the map. “Rome is not the next place.”

Rachel forced herself not to flinch.

Alberto continued, “All the subtext to this geometric design signifies forward motion in time. Even this hourglass, it segments time, marching forward one grain at a time, to the inevitable end. For this reason, the symbol of the hourglass has always represented death, the end of time. To have an hourglass show up here can only mean one thing.”

Raoul’s frown deepened, indicating his lack of understanding.

Alberto sighed. “Obviously, it signifies the end of this journey. I’m sure that wherever this clue points, it marks the last stop.”

Rachel felt Raoul stir beside her. They were close to their end goal. But they didn’t have the gold key, and for all Alberto’s intelligence, he hadn’t solved the complete riddle yet. But he would.

“It can’t be Rome,” Alberto said. “That’s moving backward, not forward. There is another mystery to solve here.”

Rachel shook her head, feigning exhausted disinterest. “That’s all we could calculate before we were attacked.” She waved around his room. “We didn’t have your resources.”

Alberto studied her as she spoke. She stared, unflinching.

“I…I believe you,” he said slowly. “Monsignor Vigor is quite sharp, but this riddle is layered in mystery.”

Rachel kept her features dull, allowing some fear to show, acting cowed. Alberto worked alone. He’d plainly ensconced himself in here to solve the Court’s mysteries. Trusting no one else, conceited in his own superiority. He would not understand the value of the wider perspective, a diversification of viewpoint. It had taken the entire team’s expertise to piece the mystery together, not the work of one man.

But the prefect was no fool. “Still,” he said, “we should be sure. You kept hidden the discovery of the gold key. Maybe there’s more you kept hidden.”

Fear edged higher. “I’ve told you everything,” she swore with mustered conviction. Would they believe her? Would they torture her?

She swallowed hard, trying to hide it. She would never talk. Too much was at stake. She had seen the power displayed in Rome and Alexandria. The Dragon Court must never possess it.

Even Monk’s life would be forfeit from here. They were both soldiers. Back on the hydrofoil, she had given the information about the gold key not only to spare Monk, but also to engage Gray, to give him a chance to do something. It had seemed a reasonable risk. Like now, the Court had still been missing a vital piece of the puzzle. She had to hold on to the discovery of Avignon and the French papacy.

Or all would be lost.

Alberto shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out if you know more. It’s time we ensured the complete truth from you. Take her next door. We should be ready.”

Rachel’s breathing grew quicker, but she could not seem to get enough air. She was manhandled by Raoul back out the door. Alberto followed, shedding his jacket, ready to get down to work.

Rachel pictured again Monk’s hand flopping on the ship’s deck. She had to gird herself for worse. They must not know. Not ever. No reason would be good enough for her to reveal the truth.

As Rachel stepped out into the hall, she saw that the far room, the one that held the strange X-shaped table, was lit up much brighter. Someone had turned on the overhead surgical lamp.

Raoul partially blocked the view. She spotted an IV bottle on a stand. A tray of long surgical instruments, sharp-edged, corkscrewed, and razor-toothed. A figure was strapped to the table.

Oh God…Monk…?

“We can stretch this interrogation all night long,” Alberto promised, stepping past to enter the room first. He crossed and donned a pair of sterile latex gloves.

Raoul finally dragged her forward into the suite of surgical horrors.

Rachel finally saw who was strapped to the table, pinioned, limbs stretched and tied, nose already dripping blood.

“Someone came snooping where they shouldn’t have,” Raoul said with a hungry smile.

The captive’s face turned toward her. Their eyes met with recognition. And at that moment, all will left her.

Rachel lunged forward. “No!”

Raoul grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged Rachel to her knees. “You’ll watch from here.”

Alberto picked up a silver scalpel. “We’ll start with the left ear.”

“No!” Rachel screamed. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!”

Alberto lowered the blade and turned to her.

“Avignon,” she sobbed. “It’s Avignon.”

She felt no guilt in the telling. She had to trust Gray from here. All hope rested on him. Rachel stared into the terrified eyes of the bound prisoner.

“Nonna…” Rachel moaned.

It was her grandmother.

THE CITY of Avignon glowed, shouted, sang, and danced.

The annual Summer Theater Festival ran each July, the world’s largest showcase of the music, drama, and art. Youth crowded into the city, camping in parks, flooding hotels and youth hostels. It was an around-the-clock party. Even the lowering skies did not discourage the festival-goers.

Vigor turned from a couple in full fellatio on a secluded park bench. The woman’s long hair hid most of her effort at pleasuring her male companion. Vigor hurried past with Kat at his side. They had chosen to pass through the high park to reach the Place du Palais, the Palace Square. The pope’s castle sat atop a spur of rock overlooking the river.

As they passed a lookout spot, a curve of the river appeared below. Jutting out into it was the famous bridge of French nursery rhymes, Le Pont d’Avignon, or St. Benezet Bridge. Built in the late twelfth century, it was the only bridge to span the Rhône River…though after so many centuries, only four of its original twenty-two arches remained. The partial span was lit up brilliantly. Partiers danced atop it, traditional folk dancers from the look of it. Music trailed up to them.

In Avignon, the past and present mingled as they did in few other cities.

“Where do we begin?” Kat asked.

Vigor had spent the flight here in research, trying to answer that exact question. He spoke as he led them away from the river and toward the city. “Avignon is one of the oldest townships of Europe. It can trace its roots back to Neolithic times. It was settled by the Celts, then the Romans. But what Avignon is most famous for today is its Gothic heritage, which flourished during the century of the French papacy. Avignon boasts one of the largest ensembles of Gothic architecture in all of Europe. A true Gothic town.”

“And the significance of that would be what?” Kat asked.

Vigor recognized the stiffness in her voice. She was worried about her teammates, cut off from them, sent here. He knew she felt a deep-seated responsibility for the capture of his niece and Monk. She carried that burden despite her own commander’s insistence that she had done the right thing.

Vigor felt an echo of her concern. He had dragged Rachel into this adventure. Now she was in the hands of the Dragon Court. But he knew that guilt would do them no good. He had grown up with faith. It was the cornerstone of his being. He found some solace in placing his faith in Rachel’s safety into the hands of God — and Gray.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be proactive himself. God helps those who help themselves. He and Kat had their own duty here.

Vigor answered her question. “The word ‘Gothic’ comes from the Greek word ‘goetic.’ Which translates to ‘magic.’ And such architecture was considered magical. It was like none seen at the time: the thin ribbing, the flying buttresses, the impossible heights. It gave an impression of weightlessness.”

As Vigor stressed this last word, Kat understood. “Levitation,” she said.

Vigor nodded. “The cathedrals and other Gothic structures were almost exclusively built by a group of masons who named themselves the Children of Solomon, a mix of Knights Templar and monks of the Cistercian Order. They retained the mathematical mysteries to build these structures, supposedly gained when the Knights Templar discovered the lost Temple of Solomon during the Crusades. The Knights grew rich…or rather richer, as it was said they had already discovered King Solomon’s vast treasure, possibly even the Ark of the Covenant, which was said to have been hidden at the Temple of Solomon.”

“And supposedly the Ark is where Moses stored his pots of manna,” Kat said. “His recipe for m-state metals.”

“Don’t discount that possibility,” Vigor said. “In the Bible, there are many references to strange powers emanating from the Ark. References to it levitating. Even the word levitate is derived from the caretakers of the Ark, the Levite priests. And the Ark was well known for being deadly, killing with bolts of light. One fellow, a carter named Uzzah, sought to stabilize the Ark when it tipped a bit. He touched it with his hand and was struck down. Scared poor King David enough that he at first refused to take the Ark into his city. But the Levite priests showed him how to approach it safely. With gloves, aprons, and divesting oneself of all metal objects.”

“To keep from getting shocked.” Kat’s voice had lost some of its stiffness, the mystery drawing her out.

“Maybe the Ark, with the m-state powders stored inside, acted like an electrical capacitor. The superconducting material absorbed ambient environmental energy and stored it like the gold pyramid had. Until someone mishandled it.”

“And got electrocuted.”

Vigor nodded.

“Okay,” Kat said. “Let’s say these Knights Templar rediscovered the Ark and possibly these m-state superconductors. But can we know if they understood its secrets?”

“I may have an answer. Commander Gray originally challenged me to trace historical references for these strange monatomic powders.”

“From Egypt to the biblical Magi,” Kat said.

Vigor nodded. “But I wondered if it stretched further. Past the age of Christ. Were there more clues left to find?”

“And you found them,” Kat said, reading his excitement.

“These m-state powders went by many names: white bread, the powder of projection, the Paradise Stone, the Magi Stone. To my surprise, looking forward from biblical times, I found another mysterious stone of alchemical history. The famous Philosopher’s Stone.”

Kat frowned. “The stone that could turn lead into gold?”

“That is a common misconception. A seventeenth-century philosopher, Eiranaeus Philalethes, a well-respected Royal Society Fellow, set the record straight in his treatises. To quote him, the Philosopher’s Stone was ‘nothing but gold digested to its highest degree of purity…called a stone by virtue of its fixed nature…gold, more pure than the purest…but its appearance is that of a very fine powder.’”

“The gold powder again,” Kat said, surprised.

“Can there be any clearer reference? And it wasn’t only Eiranaeus; a fifteenth-century French chemist, Nicolas Flamel, described a similar alchemical process with the final words, and I quote, ‘It made a fine powder of gold, which is the Philosopher’s Stone.’”

Vigor took a breath. “So clearly some scientists at the time were experimenting with a strange form of gold. In fact, the entire Royal Society of scientists was fascinated by it. Including Sir Isaac Newton. Many don’t know that Newton was a fervent alchemist and also a colleague of Eiranaeus.”

“Then what became of all their work?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know. Many probably reached dead ends. But another colleague of Newton, Robert Boyle, also researched alchemical gold. But something disturbed him, something he discovered. He stopped his research and declared such studies dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that he said its misuse could ‘disorder the affairs of mankind, turning the world topsy-turvy.’ It makes one wonder what scared him. Could he have touched upon something that drove our lost alchemical society deep underground?”

Kat shook her head. “But what does the Philosopher’s Stone have to do with Gothic architecture?”

“More than you’d think. An early-twentieth-century Frenchman named Fulcanelli wrote a best-selling treatise titled Le Mystère des Cathédrales. It elaborated on how the Gothic cathedrals of Europe were coded with arcane messages, pointing to a vein of lost knowledge, including how to prepare the Philosopher’s Stone and other alchemical secrets.”

“A code in stone?”

“Don’t be surprised. It was what the Church was doing already. Most of the populace at the time was illiterate. The decorations of the cathedrals were both instructional and informative, biblical storytelling in stonework. And remember who I said built these massive Gothic story-books.”

“The Knights Templar,” Kat said.

“A group known to have gained secret knowledge from the Temple of Solomon. So perhaps, besides telling biblical stories, they incorporated some additional coded messages, meant for their fellow Masonic alchemists.”

Kat wore a doubtful expression.

“One only has to look closely at some of the Gothic artwork to raise an eyebrow or two. The iconography is full of zodiac symbols, mathematical riddles, geometric mazes right out of alchemical texts of the time. Even the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo, spent a whole chapter decrying how the artwork of Notre Dame was contrary to the Catholic Church. Describing its Gothic art as ‘seditious pages’ in stone.”

Vigor pointed ahead, through the trees. The park ended as they neared the Palace Square. “And Fulcanelli and Hugo weren’t the only ones who believed something heretical was involved with the Knights Templar’s artwork. Do you know why Friday the thirteenth is considered unlucky?”

Kat glanced to him and shook her head.

“October 13, 1307. A Friday. The king of France, along with the pope, declared the Knights Templar to be heretics, sentencing them to death, and crucifying and burning their leader. It is well believed that the real reason the Knights were outlawed was to wrest power from them and gain control of their riches, including the secret knowledge they possessed. The king of France tortured thousands of Knights, but their storehouse of riches was never discovered. Still, it marked the end of the Knights Templar.”

“Truly an unlucky day for them.”

“The end of an unlucky century, really.” Vigor led the way out of the park and along the tree-lined street that led toward the center of town. “The division between the Church and the Knights started a hundred years earlier when Pope Innocent III brutally wiped out the Cathars, a sect of Gnostic Christians with ties to the Knights Templar. It was really a century-long war between orthodoxy and Gnostic belief.”

“And we know who won that,” Kat said.

“Do we? I’m wondering if it wasn’t so much a victory as an assimilation. If you can’t beat them, join them. An interesting paper turned up in September 2001, titled the Chinon Parchment. It was a scroll dated a year after that bloody Friday the thirteenth, signed by Pope Clement V, absolving and exonerating the Knights Templar. Unfortunately, King Philippe of France ignored this and continued his country-wide massacre of the Knights. But why this change of heart by the Church? Why did Pope Clement build his Avignon palace here in the Gothic tradition, constructed by the same heretical masons? And why did Avignon become in fact the Gothic center of Europe?”

“Are you suggesting the Church did an about-face and took the Knights into their fold?”

“Remember how we’d already come to conclude that some aspects of the Thomas Christians, Christians of Gnostic leanings, were already hidden inside the Church. Perhaps they convinced Pope Clement to intervene to protect the Knights from King Philippe’s rampage.”

“To what end?”

“To hide something of great value — to the Church, to the world. During the century of the Avignon papacy, a great surge of building occurred here, much of it overseen by the Children of Solomon. They could have easily buried away something of considerable size.”

“But where do we begin looking?” Kat said.

“To the work commissioned by that wayward pope, built by the hands of the Knights, one of the largest masterworks of Gothic architecture.”

Vigor waved forward, where the street emptied into a large square, populated by merrymakers from the festival. Colored lights framed a dancing area, a rock band on a makeshift stage pounded out a riff, and young people writhed, laughed, and yelled. Along the fringes, tables had been set up, crowded with more festival participants. A juggler tossed flaming brands into the night sky. Clapping encouraged him. Beer flowed, along with paper cups of coffee. Cigarette smoke billowed, along with special hand-rolled herbs.

But backdropped against this party rose an immense, dark, and looming structure, framed by square towers, fronted by massive archways of stone, and set off by a pair of conical spires. Its stone face was a sober contrast to the merriment below. History weighed it down…and an ancient secret.

The Palace of the Popes.

“Somewhere within its structure lies some seditious page of stone,” Vigor said, stepping closer to Kat. “I’m sure of it. We must find it and decode it.”

“But where do we begin looking?”

Vigor shook his head. “Whatever had frightened Robert Boyle, whatever terrible secret finally forged an alliance between heretical Knights and the orthodox church, whatever mystery required a Mediterranean-wide treasure hunt to solve…the answer is hidden here.”

Vigor felt a sharp wind blow up from the river. Avignon was named after the constant breezes off the river, but he sensed the true storm to come. Overhead, the stars were gone. Dark clouds lowered.

How much time did they have left?

"THAT’S HOW we calculated it was Avignon,” Rachel finished. “The French Vatican. That’s the next and last stop.”

She was still on her knees on the linoleum. Her grandmother remained strapped to the table. Rachel had told them everything, leaving out no detail. She had answered every one of Alberto’s questions. She had attempted no prevarication. She could not risk the prefect testing her veracity upon the flesh of her grandmother.

Monk and Rachel were soldiers. Her nonna was not.

Rachel would not let any harm come to the old woman. It was up to Gray now to keep the gold key from the Court. She had turned all hope and trust over to him. She had no other choice.

During her dissertation, Alberto had jotted notes, stepping back into his office to get pen and pad, along with Rachel’s map. He nodded once she was done, obviously convinced.

“Of course,” he said. “So simple, so elegant. I would’ve eventually figured this out, but now my efforts can best be put to unraveling the next mystery…in Avignon.”

Alberto turned to Raoul.

Rachel stiffened. She remembered what had happened last time. Even though she had told them the truth about the gold key, Raoul had still chopped off Monk’s hand.

“Where are Monsignor Verona and the other American now?” Alberto asked.

“Last I heard, they were heading to Marseilles,” Raoul said. “In their private jet. I thought they were following orders. Staying close, but clear of Italy.”

“Marseilles is only twenty minutes from Avignon,” Alberto said with a scowl. “Monsignor Verona must already be en route to work on the mystery. Find out if his plane has landed.”

Raoul nodded and passed the order to one of his men, who ran down the hall.

Rachel slowly gained her feet. “My grandmother…” she said. “Can you let her go now?”

Alberto waved a hand, as if he had forgotten about the old woman. Clearly he had grander things on his mind.

Another of the men stepped forward and ripped free the leather straps that held her grandmother. With tears streaming down her face, Rachel helped her nonna from the table.

Rachel silently sent out a prayer to Gray. Not just for herself and Monk, but now also for her grandmother.

Her nonna shakily gained her feet, leaning one hand on the table for support. She reached out and wiped Rachel’s tears. “There, there, child…enough with the crying. It was not all that awful. I’ve been through worse.”

Rachel almost laughed. Her grandmother was attempting to console her.

Waving Rachel aside, her grandmother stalked toward the prefect. “Alberto, you should be ashamed of yourself,” she scolded, as if speaking to a child.

“Nonna.…no…” Rachel warned, reaching out an arm.

“Not believing my granddaughter was capable of keeping secrets from you.” She hobbled over and gave Alberto a kiss on the cheek. “I told you Rachel was too clever for even you.”

Rachel’s outstretched arm froze. The blood iced in her veins.

“You must trust an old lady sometimes, no?”

“You are right as ever, Camilla.”

Rachel could not breathe.

Her grandmother motioned for Raoul to give her his arm. “And you, young man, maybe now you see why such strong Dragon’s blood is worth protecting.” She reached up and patted the bastard’s cheek. “You and my granddaughter…you two will make bellissimo bambini. Many beautiful babies.”

Raoul turned and weighed Rachel with those cold, dead eyes.

“I will do my best,” he promised.

15 HUNTING

GRAY FOLLOWED Seichan up the pine-studded mountainside. They had abandoned the motorbike at the bottom of a narrow gorge, hiding it among some flowering Alpine rose shrubs. Prior to that, they had ridden the last half-mile in the dark, headlamp off. The extra caution had slowed them down, but it couldn’t be helped.

Seichan led the way now on foot, no lights, climbing up a slope of loose scree toward a sheer rockface. Gray tried to pierce the weave of pine branches. Earlier, he had caught a glimpse of the castle as they rode up out of Lausanne and into the surrounding mountains. The chateau had sat like a hulking granite gargoyle, square faced, eyes glowing with lamplight. Then it had disappeared as they passed under a bridge that spanned far overhead.

Gray stepped up beside Seichan. She held a GPS device before her as she climbed. “Are you sure you can find this back entrance?”

“They had me hooded the first time here. But I had a GPS tracker hidden”—she glanced to Gray—“somewhere private. I recorded the approach’s position and elevation. It should lead us to the entrance.”

They continued to the towering cliff face.

Gray studied Seichan. What was he doing trusting her? In the dark forest, worries mounted. And not just about his choice of teammate. He began to doubt his own judgment. Was this the action of a true leader? He was risking everything in this rescue attempt. Any tactician would have weighed the odds and gone straight to Avignon with the key. He was placing the entire mission in jeopardy.

And if the Dragon Court won…

Gray pictured the dead in Cologne, the tortured priests in Milan. Many more would die if he failed.

And for what?

At least he knew the answer to that.

Gray continued up the hillside, lost in his own thoughts.

Seichan checked her GPS unit, then moved to the left. A crack in the cliff appeared, half hidden by a tilted slab of granite, covered in moss and tiny white snowbell flowers.

She ducked under it and led the way up into a narrow tunnel. She clicked on a penlight. A short way inside, an old grate blocked the way. Seichan quickly picked the lock.

“Any alarms?” Gray asked.

Seichan shrugged and pushed open the gate. “We’ll find out.”

Gray searched the walls as they entered. Solid granite. No wires.

Ten yards past the gate, a set of crude stairs led upward. Gray took the lead from here. He checked his watch. The train from Geneva should be pulling into the Lausanne station in another few minutes. His absence would be noted. Time was running out.

He sped faster up the stairs, but he kept a watch for any surveillance or alarm devices. He climbed the equivalent of fifteen stories, tension mounting with each step.

Finally the tunnel dumped into a wider room, a domed cavity in the rock. At the back wall, a natural spring spattered and flowed down into a cut in the rock, flowing toward the roots of the mountain. But in front of the spring stood a large slab of cut stone. An altar. Stars were painted on the ceiling. It was the Roman temple Seichan had described. So far, her intel was spot-on accurate.

Seichan stepped into the room behind him. “The stairs up into the castle are over there,” she said and pointed an arm toward another tunnel leading out.

He took a step toward it when the darkness at the mouth of the tunnel shifted. A large shape stepped into the meager light.

Raoul.

He bore a submachine gun in his hands.

Light flared to his left. Two other gunmen rose from hiding behind the slab. Behind Gray, a steel door slammed shut across the lower passageway.

But worse, he felt the cold barrel of a gun at the base of his skull.

“He’s carrying the gold key around his neck,” Seichan said.

Raoul strode forward. He stopped in front of Gray. “You should be wiser in your choice of companions.”

Before Gray could respond, a meaty fist slammed into his belly.

Gray coughed out his air and fell to his knees.

Raoul reached to his throat and grabbed the chain. He yanked the key free, ripping the pendant from Gray’s neck with a snap. He held it up to the light.

“Thank you for delivering this to us,” Raoul said. “And yourself. We have a few questions for you before we leave for Avignon.”

Gray stared up into Raoul’s face. He could not hide his shock. The Court knew about Avignon. How…?

But he knew.

“Rachel…” he mumbled.

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s alive and well. Catching up with family at the moment.”

Gray didn’t understand.

“Don’t forget about his teammate at the hospital,” Seichan said. “We don’t want to leave any loose ends.”

Raoul nodded. “That’s already being taken care of.”

UNABLE TO sleep, Monk watched television. It was in French. He didn’t speak French, so he was not really paying attention. It was white noise as he thought. The morphine fogged the edges of his mind.

He kept his eyes off his bandaged stump.

Fury kept the pain reliever’s sedation at bay. Not only for his mutilation, but for being the fall guy in this operation. Pulled out of the fight. Used as a goddamn bargaining chip. The others were in danger, and he was locked down in a private room, guarded by hospital security.

Still, he couldn’t deny a hollow pain deep inside him, one that morphine could not touch. He had no right to feel sorry for himself. He lived. He was a soldier. He had seen buddies pulled off the field in far worse condition than him. But the ache persisted. He felt violated, abused, less a man, certainly less a soldier.

Logic would not soothe his heart.

The television droned on.

A commotion outside his door drew his eye. Arguing. Raised voices. He shifted higher in his bed. What was going on?

Then the door burst open.

He stared in shock as a figure strode past the security guards.

A familiar figure.

Monk could not keep the shock from his voice. “Cardinal Spera?”

RACHEL HAD been returned to her cell, but she was not alone.

A guard stood outside the bulletproof glass.

Inside, her grandmother sank to the cot with a sigh. “You may not understand now, but you will.”

Rachel shook her head. She stood against the far wall, confused, dazed. “How…how could you?”

Her grandmother stared up at her with those sharp eyes of hers. “I was once like you. Only sixteen when I first came to this castle from Austria, escaping as the war ended.”

Rachel remembered her grandmother’s tales of her family’s flight to Switzerland, then eventually Italy. She and her father were the only members of her family to survive. “You were escaping from the Nazis.”

“No, child, we were Nazis,” her nonna corrected her.

Rachel closed her eyes. Oh God…

Her grandmother continued, “Papa was a party leader in Salzburg, but he also had ties to the Imperial Dragon Court of Austria. A very powerful man. It was through that fraternity that we made our escape, underground through Switzerland, through the generosity of the Baron of Sauvage, Raoul’s grandfather.”

Rachel listened with growing horror, though she wanted to cover her ears and deny it.

“But such safe passage required a payment. My father granted it. My virginity…to the baron. Like you, I resisted, not understanding. My father held me down the first time, for my own good. But it would not be the last. We were hidden here at the castle for four months. The baron bedded me many nights, until I was heavy with his bastard child.”

Rachel found herself sinking down the wall, settling to the cold stone floor.

“But bastard or not, it was a good crossing, mixing a noble Austrian line of Hapsburgs with a Swiss Bernese line. I grew to understand as the child grew in my belly. It was the way of the Court, strengthening pure lines. My father pressed it upon me. I grew to understand that I carried a noble bloodline back to emperors and kings.”

Sitting on the floor, Rachel tried to comprehend the brutality done to the young girl who would become her grandmother. Had her grandmother validated that cruelty and abuse by couching it in a grander scheme? Brainwashed at that fragile age by her father. Rachel sought to find sympathy for the old woman but failed.

“My father took me to Italy, to Castel Gondolfo, the home of the pope’s summer palace. I gave birth to your mother there. A shame. I was beaten for it. A male child had been hoped for.”

Her grandmother shook her head sadly. She continued, relating an alternate history of their family. How she was married off to another member of the Dragon Court, one with ties to the Church in Castel Gondolfo. It was a marriage of convenience and deceit. Their family had been assigned to seed their children and grandchildren into the Church, as unwitting spies for the Court, blind moles. To maintain their secrecy, Rachel’s mother and Uncle Vigor were kept unaware of their blasted heritage.

“But you were meant for so much more,” her grandmother said with hard pride. “You proved your Dragon blood. You were noticed and chosen to be drawn back into the full fold of the Court. Your blood was too valuable to waste. The Imperator chose you personally to cross our family line back upon the ancient Sauvage line. Your children will be kings among kings.”

Her nonna’s eyes shone with the wonder of it. “Molti bellissimo bambini. All kings of the Court.”

Rachel had no strength now to even raise her head. She covered her face with her hands. Every moment of her life flashed past her. What was real? Who was she? She thought back on the number of times she had taken her grandmother’s side over her mother, even her nonna’s advice on her love life. She had revered and emulated the old woman, respecting her hard, no-nonsense edge. But did such solidity come from toughness or psychosis? What did that imply about herself? She shared this blood-line…with the grandmother…dear God, with that bastard Raoul.

Who was she?

Another concern arose. Fear pushed her to speak. “What…what about Uncle Vigor…your son?”

Her grandmother sighed. “He has served his role in the Church. Celibacy ended his bloodline. Now he is no longer needed. Our family’s legacy will carry forth through you, gloriously into the future.”

Rachel heard a trace of pain behind these last words and glanced up. She knew her grandmother loved Vigor…in fact, more than Rachel’s own mother. She wondered if her grandmother had resented that daughter she had given birth to, a child of rape. And was that same trauma carried down to the next generation? Rachel and her own mother had always had a strained relationship, an unspoken pain that neither could surmount, neither understood.

And where would it stop?

A shout drew her attention to the door. Men were coming. Rachel climbed to her feet, as did her grandmother. So alike…

Down the hall, a troop of guards marched past. Rachel stared in despair at the second in line. Gray, hands bound behind his back, trudged past. He glanced into her cell. Spotting her, his eyes widened in surprise. He tripped a step.

“Rachel…”

Gray was shoved forward by Raoul, who leered into the cell and held up something on a chain as he passed.

A gold key.

Despair settled completely over Rachel.

Nothing now stood between the Court and the treasure at Avignon. After centuries of manipulation and machination, the Dragon Court had won.

It was over.

KAT DID not like any of this. There were too many civilians around. She marched up the steps toward the main entrance to the Pope’s Palace. There was a flow of people into and out of the gateway.

“It’s a tradition to hold the play inside the palace,” Vigor said. “Last year, they did Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John. This year it’s a four-hour production of Hamlet. The play and party lasts well into the morning. They hold it in the Courtyard of Honor.” He pointed ahead.

They fought their way through a group of German tourists exiting the palace and crossed through the arched entry. Coming from ahead, voices echoed off the stone wall in a mix of languages.

“It will be hard to conduct a thorough search with all these people,” Kat said with a frown.

Vigor nodded as a snare-beat of thunder rumbled across the sky.

Laughter and clapping echoed.

“The play should be nearly over,” Vigor said.

The long gateway ended at an open-air courtyard. It was dark, except for the large stage on the far side, framed by curtains and decorated like the throne room to a great castle. The backdrop was in fact the very wall of the far courtyard. To either side rose lighting towers, casting spots upon the actors, and towering speakers.

A crowd gathered below the stage in seats or sprawled on blankets on the stone floor. From the stage, a few figures stood amid a pile of bodies. An actor spoke in French, but Kat was fluent.

“I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!”

Kat recognized one of the last lines of Hamlet. The play was indeed rounding toward the end.

Vigor drew her to the side. “The courtyard here divides two different sections of the palace — the new and the old. The back wall and the one to the left are a part of the Palais Vieux, the old palace. Where we stand and to the right is the Palais Neuf, the section built later.”

Kat leaned closer to Vigor. “Where do we begin?”

Vigor pointed to the older section. “There is a mysterious story connected to the Pope’s Palace. Many historians of the time report that at dawn on September 20, 1348, a great column of fire was seen above the old section of the palace. It was noted by the entire town. Many of the superstitious believed the flame heralded the Great Plague, the Black Death, which started about the same time. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was some manifestation of the Meissner field, a flux of energy being released when whatever secret was sealed here? The appearance of the flame might mark the exact date the treasure was buried.”

Kat nodded. It was something to follow.

“I pulled down a detailed map from the Internet,” Vigor said. “There’s an entrance into the old palace near the Gate of Our Lady. One seldom used.”

Vigor led the way to the left. An archway opened. They ducked inside as a great peal of lightning split the sky overhead. Thunder boomed. The actor on the stage stopped in mid-soliloquy. Nervous laughter tinkled through the audience. The storm might end the play early.

Vigor motioned to a stout door off to the side.

Kat dropped and set to work with her lockpicks, while Vigor shielded her work with his body. It did not take long to free the latch. Kat clicked it open.

Another flash of lightning drew Kat’s eye back to the courtyard. Thunder cracked and the skies opened. Rain fell heavily from the low clouds. Cries and cheers erupted from the audience. A mass exodus began.

Kat shouldered open the door, held it for Vigor, then closed it behind them.

It bumped closed with a solid snap of the latch. Kat relocked it.

“Do we have to be worried about security?” she asked.

“Sadly, no. As you’ll see, there’s nothing really to steal. Vandalism is the greater concern. There might be a night watchman. So we should be cautious.”

Nodding, Kat kept her flashlight off. Enough light filtered through the high windows to illuminate a ramp leading up toward the next level of the castle.

Vigor led the way up. “The private apartments of the pope lie in the Tower of Angels. The rooms were always the most secured area of the palace. If something was hidden, we should probably wind our way there.”

Kat pulled out a compass and kept it fixed in front of her. A magnetic marker had led them to Alexander’s tomb. It might here, too.

They traversed several rooms and halls. Their footsteps echoed hollowly through the vaulted spaces. Kat now understood the lack of real security. The place was a stone tomb. Denuded of almost any decoration or furniture. There was no evidence of the opulence that must have once frilled the palace. She tried to picture the flow of velvet and fur, the rich tapestries, the lavish banquets, the gilt and the silver. Nothing remained but stone and timbered rafters.

“After the popes left,” Vigor whispered, “the place fell into disrepair. It was ransacked during the French Revolution, serving eventually as a garrison and barracks for Napoleon’s troops. Much of the place was whitewashed and destroyed. Only a few areas still retain some of the original frescoes, such as the papal apartments.”

As Kat walked, she also sensed a strange conformation to the place: halls that ended too abruptly, rooms that seemed oddly small, staircases that dropped to levels without doors. The thickness of walls varied from a few feet to some eighteen feet thick. The palace was a true fortress, but Kat sensed hidden spaces, passages, rooms — features common among medieval castles.

This was confirmed when they entered a room Vigor designated as the treasury. He pointed to four places. “They buried their gold under the floor. In subterranean rooms. It was always rumored that other such vaults were yet to be discovered.”

They crossed other rooms: a large wardrobe, a former library, an empty kitchen whose square walls narrowed down to an octagonal chimney over a central firepit.

Vigor finally led them into the Tower of Angels.

Kat’s compass had not twitched a beat, but she concentrated more fully now. Worry mounted. What if they didn’t find the entrance? What if she failed? Again. The hand holding the compass began to shake. First her failure with Monk and Rachel…

And now this.

She gripped her compass tighter and willed her hand steady. She and Vigor would solve this. They must. Or all the sacrifice by the others would be for nothing.

Determined, she climbed from one level to the next of the papal apartments. With no sign of any caretaker, Kat risked switching on a small penlight to help illuminate their search.

“The pope’s living room,” Vigor said at the entrance to one room.

Kat crisscrossed the length of it, studying her compass. The walls here were decorated with swirls of peeling paint, and a large corner fireplace dominated the room. Thunder echoed through the thick walls.

Once finished with her pass, she shook her head.

Nothing.

They moved on. One of the most spectacular rooms came next: the Room of the Stag. Its frescoes depicted elaborate hunting scenes, from falconry, to bird nesters, to frolicking dogs, to even a rectangular fish-breeding pond.

“A piscarium,” Vigor said. “Fish again.”

Kat nodded, remembering the significance of fish to their own hunt. She searched this room with an even tighter pattern of surveillance. Her compass refused to budge. With no clue, she waved Vigor onward.

They climbed another level.

“The pope’s bedroom,” Vigor said, sounding disappointed and worried now, too. “This is the last of the rooms in the apartments.”

Kat entered the chamber. No furniture. Its walls were painted a brilliant blue.

“Lapis lazuli,” Vigor said. “Prized for its luster.”

The rich decoration depicted a nighttime forest, hung with birdcages of every shape and size. A few squirrels scrambled among the limbs.

Kat searched the room, from one end to the other.

Still nothing.

She lowered her compass. She turned to find the same understanding in Vigor’s eyes. They had failed.

GRAY WAS shoved into a stone cell. It was sealed with Lexan glass, bulletproof and an inch thick. The door slammed shut. He had spotted Rachel in a cell two spaces down…along with her grandmother.

It made no sense.

Raoul growled at his men and headed away, gold key in hand.

Seichan stood at the door, smiling at him. With his hands still bound behind his back by plastic ties, he threw himself bodily at her, crashing into the glass wall.

“You goddamn bitch!”

She only smiled, kissed her fingertips, and pressed them to the glass. “Bye, loverboy. Thanks for the ride here.”

Gray fell away from the door, turning his back, cursing under his breath, calculating. Raoul had confiscated his pack, given it to one of his underlings. He’d been patted down, his weapons taken from his shoulder and ankle holsters.

He overheard talk by Rachel’s cell. A door was opened.

Raoul growled to one of his guards, “Take Madame Camilla up to the trucks. Have all the men ready. We’ll be leaving for the airport in a few minutes.”

“Ciao, Rachel, my bambina.”

No response to her grandmother. What was going on?

Footsteps marched away.

Gray still sensed a presence by the other door.

Raoul’s voice spoke again. “If only I had more time,” Raoul whispered icily. “But orders are orders. It all comes to an end in Avignon. The Imperator will be returning here with me. He wants to watch as I take you for the first time. After that, it’s just the two of us…for the rest of your life.”

“Fuck you,” Rachel spat back at him.

“Exactly right.” Raoul laughed. “I’m going to teach you how to scream and properly pleasure your superior. And if you don’t bend to everything I demand, you won’t be the first bitch Alberto lobotomized for the Court. I don’t need your mind to fuck you.”

He stalked away with a final order to a guard. “Keep a watch down here. I’ll radio when I’m ready for the American. We’ll have a short bit of fun before we leave.”

Gray listened as Raoul’s footsteps faded.

He didn’t wait any longer. He kicked the toe of his boot hard against the solid rock wall. A three-inch blade sprang from the heel. He crouched and sliced free the ties that bound his wrist. He moved quickly. Timing was everything.

He reached into the front of his pants. Seichan had shoved a thin canister past his belt buckle when he’d thrust himself against the glass wall. Her left hand had passed through an air vent, while her other hand distracted with her feigned kiss of good-bye.

Gray pulled the canister free, stepped to the door, and sprayed the hinges. The steel bolts began to dissolve. He had to give it to the Guild. They had cool toys. While Gray could not contact his superiors, nothing had stopped Seichan from coordinating equipment from hers.

Gray waited a full minute, then yelled to the guard stationed a few steps down the hall. “Hey! You! Something’s wrong over here.”

Footsteps approached.

Gray retreated back from the door.

The guard came forward.

Gray pointed to the smoky sizzle billowing by the door. “What the hell?” he yelled. “Are you assholes trying to gas me?”

With a crinkled brow, the guard stepped closer to the door.

Good enough.

Gray leapt forward, slammed into the door, popping the hinges. The plate of hard glass slammed into the guard. He crashed against the far wall, striking his head hard. As he slumped, he tried to free his pistol.

Gray shoved aside the door and pivoted off it to swing around. He planted his boot-heel blade into the man’s throat, then ripped it free, taking out most of the man’s neck.

Bending, he liberated the pistol from the guard’s holster and a set of keys. He ran to Rachel’s cell.

She was already up and at the door. “Gray…!”

He keyed the lock. “We don’t have much time.”

He yanked the door open — and she was in his arms. She wrapped tight to him, lips at his ears, breath on his neck.

“Thank God,” she whispered.

“Actually, thank Seichan,” he said. Despite the urgency to keep moving, he held the embrace a bit longer, sensing she needed it.

And maybe he did, too.

But finally they both separated. Gray pointed his pistol toward the end of the hall. He checked his watch. Two minutes.

SEICHAN STOOD at the foot of the stairs that led up to the main keep. She knew the only escape was out the front door. Steel blast doors sealed the back exit under the castle.

In the brilliantly lit courtyard, a caravan of five SUVs was being loaded. Men yelled orders. Crates were shoved into the backs of the trucks. Dogs barked in kennels.

Seichan studied it all from the corner of her eye, tracking one man among the throng. Maximum mayhem would be needed. She had already confiscated a set of keys to the last Mercedes SUV. A silver one. Her favorite color.

Behind her, a door opened. Raoul stepped out, along with an old woman.

“We’ll take you as far as the airport. A plane will get you back to Rome.”

“My granddaughter…”

“She’ll be taken care of. I promise.” This last was said with an icy smile.

Raoul noted Seichan. “I don’t believe we’ll be needing the Guild’s services any longer.”

Seichan shrugged. “Then I’ll head out with you and be on my way.” She nodded to the silver SUV.

Raoul helped the old woman down the steps and strode toward the lead vehicle, where Dr. Alberto Menardi waited. Seichan continued to track her target. Motion along one wall of the courtyard drew her eye.

A door opened. She spotted Gray. He had a pistol. Good.

Across the courtyard, Raoul lifted a radio to his mouth. Most likely calling down to the cells. She could wait no longer. The man she’d been tracking wasn’t as close to Raoul as she’d hoped — but he was still in the thick of things.

She fixed her eyes on the soldier who still carried Gray’s pack over one shoulder. It was always easy to count on avarice among the foot soldiers. The fellow was not letting his booty out of his sight. The pack was stuffed with weapons and expensive electronic gear.

Unfortunately for the soldier, the bottom lining of the pack also had a quarter kilo of C4 sewn into it. Seichan pressed the transmitter in her pocket, hopping over the balustrade of the front staircase.

The explosion blew out the center of the caravan.

Men and body parts flew into the dark sky. Gas tanks ignited on two of the cars. A ball of fire rolled upward. Flaming debris scattered to all corners of the courtyard.

Seichan moved quickly. Waving to Gray, she pointed her pistol at the silver SUV. Its windshield was cracked, but it was otherwise intact. Gray and the woman dashed out. The three zeroed in on the vehicle.

A pair of soldiers tried to stop them. Gray took out one, Seichan the other. They reached the SUV.

The rev of an engine drew her eye toward the castle gate. The lead truck jumped forward. Raoul was making his escape. Gunfire pelted toward them as soldiers tumbled into a second truck. Its engine was already running.

Raoul popped up out of the sunroof of the lead truck, facing back toward them. He raised a massive horse pistol in his fist.

“Down!” Seichan barked, dropping flat.

The gun sounded like a cannon. She heard the windshield collapse and the back window blow out. The thick slug passed completely through the vehicle. In plain sight, she rolled toward the rear, keeping the truck between her and Raoul.

Gunfire spat from the other side. Gray, on his belly, in a better position to snipe, shot at Raoul as the lead truck fishtailed toward the exit. The second truck followed.

Raoul continued to shoot, fearless of the hostile fire.

A slug slammed through the front grille of the SUV.

Shit.

The bastard was taking out their truck.

The front headlamp exploded. From her viewpoint on the ground, Seichan watched a stream of oil flow out of the engine compartment and pool on the stones.

The slide of Gray’s pistol popped open. Out of ammo.

Seichan crab-crawled to join him, but it was too late.

One truck, then the other, shot out of the gate. Raoul’s laughter carried back to them. The portcullis gate dropped behind the last vehicle, its teeth slamming into the stone notches, sealed tight.

A trundling noise penetrated the echo in her ears.

She rose to a crouch. Steel shutters dropped over all the windows and doors to the castle. Modern fortification. The Court took their security seriously. They were trapped in the courtyard.

A new sound followed.

The click of a series of heavy latches.

Seichan turned along with Gray and Rachel. She now understood the trailing laughter by the escaping bastard.

The gates to the line of twenty kennels rose up on motorized wheels.

Monsters of muscle, leather, and teeth stalked out, snarling, frothing, driven mad by the thunder and blood. Each pit-dog stood chest-high, massing close to a hundred kilos, twice the weight of most men.

And the dinner bell had just rung.

KAT REFUSED to concede defeat. Holding despair at bay, she stalked the length of the blue bedroom atop the Tower of Angels. “We’re looking at this the wrong way,” she said.

Unlike her, Vigor remained stock-still in the room’s center. His eyes were somewhere else, calculating. Or was it worry for his niece? How focused was he on the task at hand?

“What do you mean?” he mumbled.

“Maybe there’s not a magnetic marker.” She held up the compass, drawing his eye, attempting to engage him fully.

“Then what?”

“What about all that talk earlier? The Gothic history of the town and this place?”

Vigor nodded. “Something built into the structure of the building. But without a magnetic marker, how are we to find it? The palace is huge. And considering the state of disrepair, the clue might have been destroyed or removed.”

“You don’t believe that,” Kat said more firmly. “This secret society of alchemists would’ve found a way to preserve it.”

“Still, how do we find it?” Vigor asked.

Lightning crackled out the nearby window. It lit up the gardens below the tower and the spread of city below the hill. The dark river snaked past below. The rain had begun to fall harder. Another fork of lightning scintillated across the belly of the black clouds.

Kat watched the display and slowly turned to Vigor, conviction firming with sudden insight. She pocketed her compass, knowing it was no longer needed.

“Magnetism opened Saint Peter’s tomb,” she said, stepping back to him. “And it was magnetism that led us to Alexander’s tomb. But once there, it was electricity that ignited the pyramid. The same might lead us to the treasure here.” She waved a hand at the dazzle of the storm. “Lightning. The palace was built atop the largest hill, the Rocher des Doms, the Rock Dome.”

“Attracting lightning strikes. A flash of light that illuminates darkness.”

“Is there some depiction of lightning that we missed?”

“I don’t recall.” Vigor rubbed his chin. “But I think you’ve struck a significant chord. Light is symbolic of knowledge. Enlightenment. It was the primary goal of Gnostic faith, to seek the primordial light mentioned in Genesis, to reach out for this ancient font of knowledge and power that flows everywhere.”

Vigor ticked off on his fingertips. “Electricity, lightning, light, knowledge, power. They’re all related. And somewhere there is a symbol of this, built into the design of the palace.”

Kat shook her head, at a loss.

Vigor suddenly stiffened.

“What?” She stepped closer.

Vigor quickly knelt and drew in the dust. “Alexander’s tomb was in Egypt. We can’t forget to carry that forward, one riddle to the next. The Egyptian symbol for light is a circle with a dot in the center. Representing the sun.

“But sometimes it’s flattened into an oval, forming an eye. Representing not only the sun and light, but also knowledge. The burning eye of insight. The all-seeing eye of Masonic and Templar iconography.”

Kat frowned at the drawings. She had seen no such markings. “Okay, but where do we begin looking for it?”

“It’s not going to be found — but formed,” Vigor said, standing up. “Why didn’t I think of this before? A feature of Gothic architecture is the mischievous play of light and shadow. The Templar architects were masters of this manipulation.”

“But where can we—?”

Vigor cut her off, already heading out the door. “We have to go back down to the first floor. To where we already saw the potential for a flaming eye within a circle of light.”

Kat followed Vigor. She didn’t recall any such depiction. They hurried down the stairs and out of the Tower of Angels. Vigor led the way across a banquet hall and ended up in a room they’d already explored.

“The kitchen?” she asked, surprised.

Kat stared again at the square walls, the central raised hearth, and overhead, the octagonal chimneypiece. She didn’t understand and began to say so.

Vigor reached out a hand and cupped it over her penlight. “Wait.”

A brilliant bolt of lightning shattered outside. Enough illumination traveled down the open chimney to shine a perfect oval upon the fire pit. The silver light flickered, then went dark.

“As it is above, so it is below,” Vigor said in a hushed voice. “The effect is probably more evident when the noon sun climbs directly overhead or lies at some precise angle.”

Kat pictured the firepit ablaze, bright with flames. A fire within a circle of sunlight. “But how can we be sure this is the right place?” Kat asked, circling the hearth.

He frowned. “I’m not entirely sure, but Alexander’s tomb was under a lighthouse topped by a fiery flame. And considering the usefulness of both a lighthouse and a kitchen, it makes sense to bury something beneath a location that serves a good function. Successive generations would preserve it for its utility.”

Unconvinced, Kat bent down and slipped a knife free to examine the central hearth. She dug at the rock that lined the firepit, exposing an orange-hued stone at the base. “It’s not hematite or magnetite.” If it had been either one, she might be convinced. “It’s just bauxite, an aluminum hydroxide ore. A good thermal conductor. Makes sense for a fireplace. Nothing unusual.”

She glanced over to Vigor. He wore a large grin.

“What?”

“I walked right past it,” Vigor said, joining her. “I should have considered that another stone would point the way. First hematite, then magnetite, now bauxite.”

Kat stood, confused.

“Bauxite is mined right here in this area. In fact, it’s named after the Lords of Baux, whose castle lies only ten miles from here. It sits atop a hill of bauxite. This stone points a finger back at them.”

“So?”

“The Lords of Baux had an uneasy relationship with the French popes, their new neighbors. But they were best known for an odd claim they asserted most vehemently. They claimed to be descended from a famous biblical figure.”

“Who?” Kat asked.

“Balthazar. One of the Magi.”

Kat’s eyes widened. She turned back to the hearth. “They sealed the opening with stones from the Magi’s descendants.”

“Do you still doubt we’ve found the right spot?” Vigor asked.

Kat shook her head. “But how do we open it? I don’t see any keyhole.”

“You already told us. Electricity.”

As if emphasizing the point, thunder boomed through the thick walls.

Kat shed out of her pack. It was worth a try. “We don’t have any of those ancient batteries.” She pulled out a larger flashlight. “But I have some modern Duracell Coppertops.”

She cracked open her flashlight and used the tip of a knife to tease loose the positive and negative wires. With the power switch off, she twisted them together, then lifted her handiwork.

“You’d better stand back,” Kat warned.

Reaching out, she brought the flashlight’s wires into contact with the bauxite stone, a weakly conductive ore. She flicked the flashlight’s switch.

An arc of electricity stabbed to the stone. A deep bass tone responded as if a large drum had been struck.

Kat darted back as the tone faded. She joined Vigor by the wall.

Along the edges of the stone hearth, a fiery glow spread, scribing the entire firepit.

“I think they’ve cemented the blocks with molten m-state glass,” Kat mumbled.

“Like the ancient Egyptian builders used molten lead to cement the Pharos Lighthouse.”

“And now the electricity is releasing the stored power in the glass.”

Other traceries of fire jittered across the face of the hearth, outlining each and every stone. It flared brighter, searing a crisscrossed pattern onto her retina. Heat washed out toward them.

Kat shielded her eyes. But the effect didn’t last long. As the glow faded, the stone blocks of bauxite began to fall away, no longer cemented, tumbling down into a pit hidden below the hearth.

Kat heard the crash of stone on stone. A rattling continued as the blocks tumbled deeper. No longer able to restrain her curiosity, she stepped forward and shone her penlight. The edges of the hearth now outlined a dark staircase leading down.

She turned to Vigor. “We’ve done it.”

“Heaven help us,” he said.

A QUARTER mile from his castle, Raoul lowered his cell phone and stalked away from his truck. Fury narrowed his vision to pinpoints. Blood dripped from a scalp wound. That Asian bitch had betrayed him. But he would get his satisfaction. His dogs would make short work of all of them.

And if not…

He crossed to the second truck. He pointed to two men. “You and you. Return to the chateau. On foot. Stand guard at the portcullis. Shoot anyone you see move. No one leaves that courtyard alive.”

The pair piled out of the truck and set a fast pace back to the castle.

Raoul returned to the lead vehicle.

Alberto waited for him. “What did the Imperator say?” he asked as Raoul climbed into the front passenger seat.

Raoul pocketed his cell phone. The Guild betrayal had surprised their leader as much as it did Raoul. But Raoul had left out his own treachery back in Alexandria, leaving the bitch to die and lying about it. He should’ve expected something. He pounded a fist on his knee. When she handed the American to him, he had let his guard down.

Stupid.

But matters would be rectified.

In Avignon.

Raoul answered Alberto, “The Imperator will be joining us in France, along with more forces. We push ahead as planned.”

“And the others?” Alberto glanced back toward the chateau.

“They no longer matter. There’s nothing they can do to stop us.”

Raoul waved the driver forward. The truck headed for the Yverdon airfield. He shook his head at his losses here. Not the men. The bitch. Rachel Verona. He had such bloody plans for her….

But at least he had left her a little parting gift.

RACHEL GATHERED with Gray and Seichan on the steps to the main castle, their backs to the metal shutters over the doors. Moving stealthily, they had retreated from the pack of dogs to this relative shelter.

They still only had the one gun. Six bullets.

Gray had attempted to scrounge another weapon amidst the fiery carnage in the courtyard, but all he found were two damaged rifles. Gray carried Seichan’s weapon. She was busy with a GPS unit, concentrating fully, trusting Gray to watch her back.

What was she doing?

Rachel kept a step away from the woman, closer to Gray. One hand clutched his shirttail. She didn’t know when she had grabbed it, but she didn’t let go. It was all that was keeping her on her feet.

One of the pit-dogs padded silently past the bottom of the stairs. It dragged a limb of one of the dead soldiers. Twenty of the monsters roamed the yard, tearing at bodies, snarling and spitting at one another. A few fights broke out, savage, lightning-fast tussles.

It wouldn’t be long before their pig-eyed attention turned to them.

Any noise drew the beasts. The moaning injured died first. They all knew that once the first shot was fired, the entire pack would be upon them.

Six bullets. Twenty dogs.

Off to the side, movement…

Through the oily smoke, a thin figure rose among the debris, wobbly, unsteady. A breeze blew the haze away, and Rachel recognized the shape, teetering on thin legs.

“Nonna…” she whispered.

Blood caked the old woman’s hair on the left side.

Rachel had thought her grandmother had escaped with Raoul.

Had the explosion knocked her down?

But Rachel supposed otherwise. Raoul must have pistol-whipped her out of the way, leaving her behind, useless baggage.

A moan rose from the old woman. She lifted a hand to the side of her head. “Papa!” she called feebly in a strained voice.

The blow, the confusion, the looming castle must have dislocated her grandmother, drawing her into the past.

“Papa…” Pain beyond her head injury keened in her voice.

But Rachel wasn’t the only one to hear the pain.

A few meters away, a dark shape rose from behind a flaming tire, stalking out of the smoke, drawn by the frail cry.

Rachel let go of Gray’s belt and stumbled a step down.

“I see it,” Gray said, stopping her with a hand.

He raised his gun, aimed, and squeezed the gun. The pop was explosive in the silent yard, but the yelp of the target was louder as the dog pitched over and rolled. Howls rose from it. It gnashed at its wounded back leg, attacking the pain. Other dogs swooped down upon it. Drawn by the blood. Lions on a wounded gazelle.

Rachel’s grandmother, startled by the beast, had fallen on her backside, mouth frozen in an O of surprise.

“I have to get to her,” Rachel whispered. It was an instinctive reaction. Despite the treachery, her nonna still had a place in her heart. She didn’t deserve to die like this.

“I’ll go with you,” Gray said.

“She’s dead already,” Seichan said with a sigh, lowering her GPS unit. But she followed them down the stairs, sticking close to the only gun.

In a tight knot, they traversed the edge of the courtyard. Pools of flaming oil lit the way.

Rachel wanted to run, but one massive brindled beast eyed them, hunched over a headless body, hackles raised, teeth bared, guarding its catch. But Rachel knew if she ran, the brute would be upon her in seconds.

Gray covered it with his pistol.

Her grandmother scooted away from the trio of dogs fighting over their injured brethren, ripping and tearing at each other to the point it was impossible to tell which beast Gray had shot. Her movement was tracked by another two beasts, coming at her from opposite sides.

They would be too late.

Another two shots and one beast collapsed, sliding on its face. The other bullet only grazed the second dog. The injury seemed to pique its bloodlust. It lunged at the fallen woman.

Rachel ran forward.

Gray’s gunshots had drawn more dogs. But committed now, there was no choice. He shot as he ran, dropping another two dogs, the last from only a yard away.

Before Rachel could reach her grandmother, the lunging dog struck. It snatched her grandmother’s arm, raised in defense. It bit clean through thin bone and withered flesh and tugged the old woman to the ground.

There was no cry.

The dog slammed on top of her, striking for the throat.

Gray fired near Rachel’s ear, half deafening her. The impact knocked the beast aside, off the old woman’s chest. The dog’s body writhed and convulsed, a clean head shot…also their last.

The slide on Gray’s pistol jacked open.

Rachel dropped to her knees, reaching her grandmother. Blood pumped from the old woman’s severed arm. Rachel cradled the body.

Gray crouched with her. Seichan dropped too, lowering their silhouette.

Dogs fought all around them, and they were out of bullets.

Her grandmother stared up at her and spoke weakly in Italian, eyes glazed. “Mama…I’m sorry…hold me…”

A crack of a rifle and her grandmother jerked in her arms, shot through the chest. Rachel felt the bullet exit, grazing a line of fire under her own arm.

She stared up.

Thirty yards away, two gunmen stood beyond the iron portcullis gate.

The new blast drew off a few of the dogs.

Gray sought to use the distraction to retreat to the castle wall. Rachel followed, not letting go of her grandmother, dragging her along.

“Leave her,” Gray urged.

Rachel ignored him, tears flowing, angry. Another rifle blast and a slug sparked off the stone a few feet away. Seichan reached down and helped carry her grandmother. Working together, they retreated faster.

At the gate, a pair of dogs struck the bars, gnashing at the gunmen, blocking their aim. But it wouldn’t last for long.

Reaching the relative shelter of the castle’s wall, Rachel collapsed over her grandmother’s body. They were still in direct view of the gate…but the entire courtyard was exposed. One of the dogs was blasted away from the portcullis. Another bullet pinged off the metal shutter of a window overhead.

Rachel, bent over her grandmother, finally freed the purse still hooked over her nonna’s shoulder, a permanent fixture to the old woman. Rachel snapped the clasp, reached inside, and felt the butt of cold steel.

She pulled out her grandmother’s heirloom.

The Nazi P-08 Luger.

“Grazie, Nonna.”

Rachel aimed toward the gate. She fixed her stand and let cold anger steady her grip. She squeezed the trigger…followed the recoil and fired again.

Both men fell.

Her focus widened — too late to stop the slavering beast leaping out of the smoke, muzzle snarled, teeth bared, going for her throat.

GRAY STIFF-ARMED Rachel to the side, knocking her down. He faced the monster and lifted his other arm. In his hand, he clutched a tiny silver canister.

“Bad dog…”

He sprayed the beast point-blank in the nose and eyes.

The dog’s weight struck him, flattening him on his back.

The beast howled — not in bloodlust, but searing agony. It rolled off Gray and writhed across the stone, grinding its face into the cobbles, pawing at its eyes.

But its sockets were already empty. Eaten away by the acid.

It rolled another two times, mewling.

Gray felt a twinge of discomfort. The dogs had been tortured into this savage state. It wasn’t their fault. Then again, perhaps any death was better than being under the thumb of Raoul.

The dog finally quieted and collapsed to the pavement.

But its tumult drew the eyes of a dozen others.

Gray glanced to Rachel.

“Six more shots,” she answered.

Gray shook his canister. Not much left.

Seichan had her eyes on the skies. Then Gray heard it, too.

The thump-thump of a helicopter.

It winged up over the ridge and castle walls. Lights blazed down. Rotorwash stirred a whirlwind.

Dogs scattered in fear.

Seichan spoke above the roar. “Our ride’s here!”

A nylon ladder tumbled out an open door and struck the stones only a few yards off.

Gray didn’t care who it was as long as they were free of this bloody courtyard. He raced forward and waved Rachel up the ladder. One hand held the flailing ladder steady, the other took Rachel’s Luger.

“Up!” he ordered, leaning close to her. “I’ll hold ’em off.”

Rachel’s fingers trembled as he freed her gun. His eyes met hers. He recognized a well of horror and sorrow that went beyond the bloodshed here.

“You’ll be okay,” he said, making it sound like a promise.

One he meant to keep.

She nodded, seeming to draw strength, and mounted the ladder.

Seichan went next, scrambling up behind her like a trapeze artist, even with her injured shoulder.

Gray followed last. He hadn’t needed to use the gun again. He shoved the Luger into the back of his belt and fled up the rope ladder. In moments, he was clambering into the cabin of the helicopter.

As the door was slammed behind him, Gray straightened to thank the person who had given him an arm and helped him inside.

The man wore a shit-eating grin. “Hi, boss.”

“Monk!”

Gray grabbed him in a bear hug.

“Watch the arm,” his partner said.

Gray let him loose. Monk’s left arm was strapped to his body, and a leather guard sheathed the bandaged stump of his wrist. He looked well enough, but paler. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.

“I’m fine,” Monk said, motioning him to sit and strap in as the helicopter sped away. “Just try keeping me out of the action.”

“How…?”

“We locked on to your emergency GPS signal,” he explained.

Gray pulled his seat harness over his shoulder and snapped it in place.

He stared at the other occupant of the cabin.

“Cardinal Spera?” Gray said, confusion in his voice.

Seichan sat next to him and answered, “Who do you think hired me?”

16 THE DAEDALUS MAZE

AS THUNDER boomed beyond the palace, Kat waited for Vigor. The monsignor had gone down the firepit’s dark stairs fifteen minutes ago.

To take a peek, he had said.

She shone her light down the stairs.

Where was he?

She considered following him, but caution kept her at her post. If he was in trouble, he would’ve yelled. She remembered the ramp sealing and trapping them under Saint Peter’s tomb. What if that happened here? Who would know where to look for them?

She maintained her post, but she dropped to a knee and called below, trying to keep her voice soft at the same time. “Vigor!”

Footsteps answered her, hurried, coming up from below. A glow suffused, then focused down into a flashlight. Vigor climbed to within a half-dozen stairs. He waved to her.

“You must see this!”

Kat took a deep breath. “We should wait for Gray and the others to call.”

Vigor climbed another stair with a frown. “I’m as concerned as you, but there are surely other mysteries to solve down here. That is our purpose in being sent as an advance team. That is how we help the others. The Dragon Court, Gray, and the others are all in Switzerland. It will be hours before they can get here. We should put the time to good use and not squander it.”

Kat considered his argument. She checked her watch again. She also remembered Gray’s admonishment about being too cautious. But she was also damn curious.

She nodded. “But we check back up here every quarter hour for any contact from Gray.”

“Of course.”

Kat shouldered her pack and waved him down. She left one of her cell phones by the firepit, to pick up any call coming in — and to leave at least one breadcrumb to follow if they became sealed and trapped below.

While she’d bend about being too cautious, she wasn’t foolhardy.

She left that to Gray.

Kat ducked below, following Vigor. The stairs led straight down for a fair shot, then turned upon themselves and headed even deeper. Oddly, the air smelled dry, rather than dank.

The steps ended at a short tunnel.

Vigor’s pace hurried.

From the hollow echo of the monsignor’s footsteps, Kat sensed that a larger cavern lay beyond. It was confirmed a moment later.

She stepped out onto a three-meter stone ledge. Their two lights cast wide swaths across the domed and vaulted space, stretching above and below. It must have once been a natural cavity in the granite, but a great undertaking had transformed it.

Kneeling, Kat ran her fingers along the stonework underfoot, precisely fitted blocks of raw marble. Straightening, Kat shone her flashlight to the sides and down.

Skilled craftsmen and engineers had built a series of twelve bricked tiers, descending from their perch and on down toward the distant floor. The space was roughly circular in shape. Each level below was smaller than the next, like a vast amphitheater…or an upside-down step pyramid.

She shone her light across the yawning space contained within these tiers.

It wasn’t empty.

Thick arches of granite spanned out from the tiered footings in a corkscrew pattern, supported by giant columns. Kat recognized the arches. Flying buttresses. Like those that supported Gothic cathedrals. In fact, the entire interior space had that lofty, weightless feeling of a church.

“This had to have been built by the Knights Templar,” Vigor said, moving along the tier. “Nothing like this has ever been seen. A sonata of geometry and engineering. A poem in stone. Gothic architecture at its most perfect.”

“A cathedral underground,” Kat mumbled, awed, reverential.

Vigor nodded. “But one built to worship history, art, and knowledge.” He swept his arm out.

But there was no need.

The stone framework served only one purpose, to support a convoluted maze of timber scaffolding. Shelves, rooms, ladders, and stairs. Glass glittered. Gold shone. It all held a storehouse of books, scrolls, texts, artifacts, statuary, and strange brass contraptions. Each step around seemed to open new vistas, like some vast M. C. Escher painting, impossible angles, dimensional contradictions supported by stone and timber.

“It’s a huge library,” Kat said.

“And museum, and storehouse, and gallery,” Vigor finished. He hurried to the side.

A stone table, like an altar, sat not far from the entry tunnel.

A leather-bound book spread open under glass…gold glass.

“I was afraid to touch it,” Vigor said. “But you can see fairly well through it.” He shone his light down upon the exposed pages.

Kat peered at the book. It was heavily decorated in oils. An illuminated manuscript. Tiny script flowed down the page. It appeared to be a list.

“I think this is the codex for the entire library,” Vigor said. “A ledger and filing system. But I can’t be sure.”

The monsignor’s palms hovered over the glass case, plainly fearful of touching it. They had seen the effects of such superconducting material. Kat stepped back. She noted that the entire complex glittered with similar glass. Even the walls of the tiers had plates of the glass dotted along them, embedded like windows, set like jewels.

What did it mean?

Vigor still bent over the book. “Here it lists in Latin ‘the Holy Stone of Saint Trophimus.’”

Kat glanced back to him for explanation.

“He was the saint who first brought Christianity to this area of France. It is said he had a visitation of Christ during a secret meeting of early Christians in a necropolis. Christ knelt on a sarcophagus and his imprint remained. The sarcophagus lid became a treasure, supposedly invoking the knowledge of Christ upon those who beheld it.” Vigor stared out at the vaulted cathedral of history. “It was thought lost forever. But it’s here. Like so much else.”

He waved back to the book. “Complete texts of forbidden gospels, not just the tattered fragments of those found near the Dead Sea. I saw four gospels listed. One I had never even heard before. The Brown Gospel of the Golden Hills. What might it contain? But most of all…” Vigor lifted his flashlight. “According to the codex, somewhere out there is stored the Mandylion.”

Kat frowned. “What’s that?”

“The true burial shroud of Christ, an artifact that predates the controversial Turin Shroud. It was taken from Edessa to Constantinople in the tenth century, but during periods of marauding, it vanished. Many suspected it ended up in the treasury of the Knights Templar.” Vigor nodded. “Out there lies the proof. And possibly the true face of Christ.”

Kat felt the weight of ages…all suspended in perfect geometry.

“One page,” Vigor mumbled.

Kat knew the monsignor was refering to the fact that all these wonders were listed on just one page of the leather-bound book — which appeared to have close to a thousand pages.

“What else might be found here?” Vigor said in a hushed voice.

“Have you explored all the way to the bottom?” Kat asked.

“Not yet. I went back up to fetch you.”

Kat headed to the narrow stairs that led from one tier to the next. “We should at least get a general layout of the space, then head back up.”

Vigor nodded, but he seemed reluctant to leave the book’s side.

Still, he followed Kat as she wound back and forth down the switch-backing stairs. She gazed up at one point. The entire edifice hung above her, suspended as much in time as space.

At last they reached the top of the last tier. A final set of stairs led to a flat floor, hemmed in by the last tier. The library did not extend below. All the treasure piled above, held suspended by a pair of giant arches, footed on the last tier.

Kat recognized the stone of these arches.

Not granite or marble.

Magnetite again.

Also, directly beneath the crossing of the arches, rising from the center of the floor, stood a waist-high column of magnetite, like a stone finger pointing up.

Kat descended more cautiously to the floor below. A lip of natural granite surrounded a thick glass floor. Gold glass. She didn’t step out on it. The brick walls around it also were embedded with mirrored plates of gold glass. Twelve she counted, the same as the number of tiers.

Vigor joined her.

Like Kat, he took in all these details, but both their focuses fixed to the lines of silver — probably pure platinum — that etched the floor. The image somehow fit as an ending to this long hunt. It depicted a twisted maze leading to a central rosette. The stubby pillar of magnetite rose from its center.

Kat studied the space: the maze, the arches of magnetite, the glass floor. It all reminded her of the tomb of Alexander, with its pyramid and reflective pool.

“It looks like another mystery to solve.” She stared at the treasures hanging above her head. “But if we already opened this ancient storehouse of the mages, what’s left to find?”

Vigor stepped closer. “Don’t forget Alexander’s gold key. We didn’t need it to open anything here.”

“That means…”

“There’s more than just this library.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know,” Vigor said. “But I recognize this maze pattern.”

Kat turned to him.

“It’s the Labyrinth of Daedalus.”

GRAY WAITED to interrogate the others until they were airborne again. The helicopter had flown them all to the Geneva International Airport, where Cardinal Spera had a private Gulfstream jet fueled and cleared for immediate takeoff to Avignon. It was surprising what a high-ranking official in the Vatican could accomplish.

Which posed Gray’s first question.

“What is the Vatican doing hiring a Guild operative?” he asked.

The five of them had swung their seats around to face one another.

Cardinal Spera acknowledged the question with a nod. “It was not the Holy See itself that hired Seichan.” He motioned to the woman seated beside him. “It was a smaller group, acting independently. We heard of the Dragon Court’s interest and activity. We had already used the Guild to investigate the group peripherally.”

“You hired mercenaries?” Gray accused.

“What we sought to protect required less-than-official means. To fight fire with fire. The Guild’s reputation might be ruthless, but they’re also efficient, honor their contracts, and get the job accomplished by any means.”

“Yet they didn’t stop the massacre in Cologne.”

“It was an oversight on my part, I’m afraid. We were unaware of the significance of their theft of the Cairo text. Or that they would act so swiftly.”

The cardinal sighed and twisted one of his gold rings, then another, back and forth, a nervous gesture. “So much bloodshed. After the murders, I approached the Guild again, to directly plant an operative among them. It was easy to do once Sigma had been called into play. The Guild offered its services, Seichan had had a run-in with you already, and the Court took the bite.”

Seichan spoke up. “My orders were to discover what the Court knew, how far their operation had progressed, and to thwart them however I saw fit.”

“Like standing by while they tortured priests,” Rachel said.

Seichan shrugged. “I came late to that little party. And once under way, there’s no discouraging Raoul.”

Gray nodded. He still had her coin from Milan. “And you helped us escape then, too.”

“It suited my purpose. By helping you, I was serving my mission to keep the Court challenged.”

Gray studied Seichan as she spoke. Whose side was she really playing on? With all her double and triple crosses, was there more she kept hidden? Her explanation sounded good, but all her efforts could merely be a ruse to serve the Guild.

The Vatican was naive to trust them…or her.

But either way, Gray owed Seichan another debt.

As planned, she had arranged to have Monk whisked out of the hospital before Raoul’s goons struck. Gray had assumed she would employ some of her Guild operatives — not call Spera, her employer. But the cardinal had got the job done, declaring Monk a Vatican ambassador and shuffling him out of there.

And now they were on their way to Avignon.

Still, one thing bothered Gray.

“Your group at the Vatican,” he said, eyeing Spera. “What’s their interest in all this?”

Spera had folded his hands on the table. Clearly he was reluctant to speak further, but Rachel reached across to him. She took his hands and splayed them out. She leaned forward to study them.

“You have two gold rings with the papal seal,” she said.

The cardinal pulled his hands back, covering one hand over the other. “One for my station as cardinal,” he explained. “And one for my position as secretary of state. Matching rings. Its traditional.”

“But they don’t match,” she said. “I hadn’t noticed until you folded your fingers together like that. With the rings on each hand side by side. They aren’t the same ring. They’re mirror images of the other. Exact reflected copies.”

Gray frowned.

“They’re twins,” Rachel said.

Gray asked to see the rings himself. She was right. Reverse images of the papal seal. “And Thomas means ‘twin,’” Gray mumbled, staring up at the cardinal. He remembered Spera’s comment about how only a small group within the Vatican had hired the Guild. Gray now knew which group.

“You’re a part of the Thomas Church,” he said. “That’s why you’ve been trying to stop the Court in secret.”

Spera stared for a long breath, then slowly nodded. “Our group has been an accepted, if not promoted, part of the Apostolic Church. Despite beliefs to the contrary, the Church is not beyond science or research. Catholic universities, hospitals, and research facilities advocate forward thinking, new concepts and ideas. And yes, a certain part is steadfast and slow to respond, but it also contains members who do challenge and keep the Church malleable. That is a role we still serve.”

“And what about in the past?” Gray asked. “This ancient society of alchemists we’re hunting? The clues we’ve been following?”

Cardinal Spera shook his head. “The Thomas Church of today is not the same as before. That church vanished during the French papacy, disappearing along with the Knights Templar. Mortality, conflict, and secrecy separated it even further, leaving only shadows and rumors. The true fate of that Gnostic church and its ancient lineage remains unknown to us.”

“So you’re as in the dark about all this as we are,” Monk said.

“I’m afraid so. Except we knew that the old church existed. It was not mythology.”

“So did the Dragon Court,” Gray said.

“Yes. But we’ve sought to preserve the mystery, trusting in the wisdom of our forefathers, believing it was hidden for a reason and that such knowledge would reveal itself when the time was right. The Dragon Court, on the other hand, has sought to uncover its secrets through bloodshed, corruption, and torture, seeking nothing more than a power to dominate and rule all. We’ve opposed them for generations.”

“And now they are so close,” Gray said.

“And they have the gold key,” Rachel reminded them, shaking her head.

Gray rubbed his face in exhaustion. He had handed it over himself. He’d needed the key to convince Raoul of Seichan’s renewed loyalty. It had been a gamble certainly, but so had the whole rescue plan. Raoul was supposed to have been captured or killed at the castle — but the bastard had escaped.

Gray stared at Rachel. Feeling guilty, he wanted to say something, to explain everything, but he was saved as the pilot came over the radio.

“You all might want to secure your seatbelts. We’re coming up onto some bumpy weather ahead.”

Lightning flashed across the clouds below.

Thunderclouds stacked higher ahead, lit up momentarily by the crackling bolts, then vanishing into darkness. They were flying into the teeth of a real storm.

VIGOR WALKED along the stone lip that circled the glass floor — and its etched labyrinth. He had been studying it for a full minute in silence, fascinated by the mystery here.

“Notice how it’s not truly a maze,” he finally said. “No blind corners or dead ends. It’s just one long, continuous, sinuous path. You can find this exact same maze done in blue and white stones at the Chartres Cathedral outside Paris.”

“But what’s it doing down here?” Kat asked. “And why did you call it the Labyrinth of Daedalus?”

“The Chartres labyrinth went by many names. One was le Dedale. Or ‘The Daedalus.’ Named after the mythological architect who constructed the maze for King Minos of Crete. The labyrinth was the home of the Minotaur, a bull-like beast that the warrior Theseus eventually defeated.”

“But why put such a maze inside the Chartres cathedral?”

“It wasn’t just Chartres. During the height of church-building in the thirteenth century, when Gothic construction was at its most ardent, different mazes were placed in many cathedrals. Amiens, Rheims, Arras, Auxerre…all had mazes as you entered their naves. But centuries later the Church destroyed them all, deeming them pagan artifacts, except for the one at Chartres.”

“Why spare Chartres?”

Vigor shook his head. “That cathedral has always been the exception to the rule. Its roots in fact are pagan, built atop the Grotte des Druides, a famous pagan pilgrimage site. And to this day, unlike any other cathedral, not a single king, pope, or famous personage is buried beneath its stones.”

“But that doesn’t answer why the maze was repeated down here,” Kat said.

“I can imagine a few explanations. First, the Chartres maze was based on a drawing from a second-century Greek text of alchemy. Fitting symbol for our lost alchemists. But the labyrinth at Chartres was also representative of journeying from this world to paradise. Worshippers in Chartres would crawl on hands and knees along this tortuous path from the outside until they reached the center rosette, representing symbolically a pilgrimage from here to Jerusalem, or from this world to the next. Hence the maze’s other names. Le Chemin de Jerusalem. ‘The Road to Jerusalem.’ Or le Chemin du Paradis. ‘The Road to Paradise.’ It was a spiritual journey.”

“Do you think it’s hinting that we must make this journey ourselves, follow the alchemists to solve their last great mystery?”

“Exactly.”

“But how do we do that?”

Vigor shook his head. He had an idea, but he needed more time to think about it. Kat seemed to recognize that he was not speaking freely, but she respected him enough and didn’t press.

Instead, she checked her watch.

“We should head back up. See if Gray has attempted to make any contact.”

Vigor nodded. He stared back one more time, pointed his flashlight across the space. It reflected off the glass surfaces: the floor and the embedded plates in the wall. He pointed it up. More reflections glittered, jeweled ornaments in a giant tree of knowledge.

There was an answer here.

He needed to find it before it was too late.

WHY AREN'T they answering?

Gray sat with the jet’s air-phone fixed to his ear. He was trying to raise Kat. But so far with no luck. Maybe it was the storm, interfering with the signal. The plane bucked and rolled through spats of lightning and sonorous rumbles of thunder.

He sat near the back of the cabin for privacy. The others, strapped to their seats, were still deep in discussion.

Only Rachel glanced back periodically, concerned to hear about her uncle. But maybe it was more. Since their rescue in Lausanne, she’d never been more than a step away from him. She still refused to discuss in detail what had happened at the castle. A haunted quality hung about her. And since then, it was as if she sought some solidity from him. Not to cling to — that wasn’t her. It was more simple reassurance, grounding herself in the moment. No words were needed.

And while Monk had also been severely traumatized, Gray knew they’d eventually talk. They were soldiers-in-arms, best friends. They would work through it.

But Gray didn’t have that patience with Rachel. A part of him wanted an immediate solution and answer to what troubled her. Any attempt to discuss what had happened at Lausanne had so far been rebuffed, gently but firmly. Still, he read the pain in her eyes. And as much as his heart ached, all he could do was stand beside her, wait until she was ready to speak.

At his ear, the phone’s incessant ring finally stopped as the other line was picked up. “Bryant here.”

Thank God. Gray sat straighter. “Kat, it’s Gray.”

The others in the cabin turned toward him.

“We have Rachel and Monk,” he said. “How is everything over there?”

Kat’s voice, usually so stoic, rang with relief. “We’re fine. We’ve found the secret entry.” She went on to briefly explain all they’d discovered. Occasionally the transmission broke up and he missed a word here and there, due to the storm.

Gray noted Rachel’s intense stare at him and nodded his head to her. Her uncle was fine.

She closed her eyes in gratitude and sank back to her seat.

Once Kat was finished, Gray gave a short account of events in Lausanne. “Barring any delay from the storm, we’ll be landing at Avignon Caumont Airport in about thirty minutes. But we don’t have much lead time on the Court. Maybe half an hour if we’re lucky.”

Seichan had given them intel on the Court’s means of transportation. Raoul had a pair of planes stored in a small airfield half an hour outside of Lausanne. Calculating the airspeed of the Court’s planes, Gray knew they had a small lead on the Court. One he meant to keep.

“With all teammates secure again,” Gray told Kat, “I’m going to break the silence with central command. Contact Director Crowe. I’ll have him coordinate ground support with the local authorities. I’ll call again as soon as we land. In the meantime, watch your back.”

“Roger that, Commander. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Gray hung up. He dialed the access number to Sigma command. It rang through a series of scrambled switchboards and finally connected.

“Logan Gregory.”

“Dr. Gregory, it’s Commander Pierce.”

“Commander—” The irritation rang in the one word.

Gray cut off an official scolding for his lack of communication. “I must speak to Painter Crowe immediately.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Commander. It’s nearly midnight here. The director left command about five hours ago. But no one knows where he went.” Aggravation clipped his words again, even harder-edged than his irritation at Gray.

At least Gray understood the man’s frustration. What was the director doing leaving central command at a time like this?

“He may have gone over to DARPA, to coordinate with Dr. McKnight,” Logan continued. “But I’m still ops leader for this mission. I want a full debriefing on your whereabouts.”

Gray suddenly felt uncomfortable speaking. Where had Painter Crowe gone? Or was he even gone? Ice chilled through him. Was Gregory blocking him from reaching the director? Somewhere there was a leak at Sigma. Who could he believe?

He weighed the odds — and did the only thing he could. Perhaps it was rash, but he had to go with his gut.

He hung up the phone, disconnecting the line.

He couldn’t risk it.

He had a jump on Dragon Court. He wouldn’t give it away.

EIGHTY AIR miles away, Raoul listened to his contact’s report over his plane’s radio. A grin slowly spread. “And they’re still in the Pope’s Palace?”

“Yes, sir,” his spy said.

“And you know where they are inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Raoul had called from his castle upon learning of Avignon. He had coordinated with some local talent on the ground in Marseilles. They had been sent to Avignon to hunt down the two operatives: the monsignor and that Sigma bitch who had speared his hand. They had been successful.

Raoul checked the plane’s clock. They would be landing in forty-four minutes.

“We can take them out anytime,” his spy said.

Raoul saw no need to delay. “Do it.”

KAT’S LIFE was saved by a penny.

Standing beside the firepit, she had been using the coin to pry open the battery compartment on her penlight. It flipped out of her fingers and to her toes. She bent to pick it up.

The crack of the pistol coincided with a shatter of stone from the wall beside her head.

Sniper.

Still bent over, Kat shoulder-rolled to the floor, pulling out her holstered Glock. She landed on her back and fired between her knees toward the dark doorway where the shots had come from.

She shot four times, a splay of fire to cover all angles.

She heard a satisfying grunt and the clatter of a gun to stone. Something heavy followed with a thud.

Rolling across the floor, she reached Vigor. The monsignor crouched near the top of the firepit tunnel. She handed him her gun. “Down,” she ordered. “Shoot anybody that comes into view.”

“What about you?”

“No, don’t shoot me.”

“I mean where are you going?”

“Hunting.” Kat had already extinguished their flashlights. She unhooked her night-vision goggles and pulled them over her eyes. “There might be more.” She freed a long steel blade from her belt.

With Vigor tucked down his hole, Kat moved to the door and checked the passage. The world was all shades of green. Even the blood. It was the only movement in the hallway, spreading in a pool from the prone body.

She sidled up to the man dressed in camouflage gear.

Mercenary.

Her shot had been lucky, clipping the man through the throat. She didn’t bother checking for a pulse. She grabbed his gun and crammed it into her own holster.

Staying low, she worked from passage to hall to room, circling the kitchen area. If there were any others, they’d be near. The aborted gunplay would’ve sent them into hiding. Foolish. They placed too much faith in firepower, counting on the sniper to do the work for them.

Kat worked the circuit efficiently. She came across no one.

Right.

She reached behind to the side pocket of her pack and removed the heavy plastic-wrapped package. She broke the seal with her thumb and lowered her hand to her hip.

Twisting around a corner, she stepped into the single hallway that funneled back to the kitchen. She stood taller and strode confidently, marching ahead.

Bait.

She balanced the blade in her right hand. Her left emptied the contents of the package across the floor behind her.

Rubberized ball bearings, coated with NPL Super Black.

Invisible to night-vision.

They littered the floor behind her, bouncing and rolling silently.

She headed to the kitchen, her back to the bulk of the palace. She didn’t hear the second man’s approach, but she heard his tumbled step behind her.

Dropping and twisting, she pivoted on a knee and threw her dagger with all the strength of her shoulder and skill of her wrist. It flew with deadly accuracy, piercing straight through the man’s mouth, open in surprise as his right heel slipped on one of the rubber bearings. His gun went off, the shot high, digging into the timbered rafters.

Then he was on his back, convulsing, pithed through the base of his skull.

Kat crossed to him, staying low, skating through the ball bearings.

By the time she reached him, he lay still. She yanked out her knife, confiscated his weapon, and retreated back to the kitchen. She waited another two full minutes for any sign of a third or fourth assassin.

The palace remained quiet.

Thunder rumbled in greater intensity beyond the walls. A series of blinding lightning flashes came through the high windows. The full brunt of the storm crashed across the high hill.

Finally confident they were alone, Kat called the all-clear to Vigor. He climbed back into view.

“Stay there,” she warned in case she was wrong.

She crossed back to the first body and searched it. As she feared, she found a cell phone.

Damn.

She sat there a moment, his cell phone in her hand. If the kill order had been given to the assassins, she knew for sure that their position in the palace must have been already relayed.

Kat returned to Vigor. She checked her watch.

“The Court knows where we are,” Vigor said, also assessing the situation.

Kat saw no reason to acknowledge the obvious. She freed her own cell phone. Commander Pierce needed to know. She dialed the number he had left, but she failed to pick up a signal. She tried closer to the window. No luck.

The storm had knocked out reception.

At least to the jet in the air.

She pocketed the phone.

“Maybe once they land,” Vigor said, recognizing her failed attempt. “But if the Dragon Court knows we’re here, our headway just got narrower.”

“What do you propose?” Kat asked.

“We gain it back.”

“How?”

Vigor pointed to the dark stairs. “We still have twenty minutes until Gray and the others get here. Let’s put it to use. We’ll solve the riddle below, so once they arrive, we’re ready to act.”

Kat nodded at the logic. Plus it was the only way to make up for her lapse. She should never have allowed the spies to get so close.

“Let’s do it.”

GRAY HURRIED with the others across the storm-swept tarmac. They had landed at the Avignon Caumont Airport only five minutes ago. He had to give Cardinal Spera credit…or at least his Vatican influence. Customs was cleared in the air, and a BMW sedan waited to ferry them to the Pope’s Palace. The cardinal had also left and gone into the terminal, to raise the local authorities. The Pope’s Palace had to be locked down.

That is, after they reached there, of course.

Gray ran with his cell phone, attempting to reach Kat and Vigor.

No answer.

He checked his signal strength. Free of the plane, the reception was another bar stronger. So what was the problem?

He let it ring and ring.

Finally he gave up. The only answer lay at the palace. Drenched, they all climbed into the waiting sedan as a brilliant display cracked across the sky, illuminating Avignon, nestled along a silver stretch of the Rhône. The Pope’s Palace was visible, the highest point in the city.

“Any luck?” Monk asked, nodding to the cell phone.

“No.”

“It could be the storm,” Seichan said.

No one was convinced.

Gray had attempted to get Seichan to stay behind at the airport. He wanted only those he fully trusted at his side. But Cardinal Spera had insisted she go, placing full faith in his contract with the Guild. And Seichan reminded Gray of his own contract between them. She had agreed to rescue Monk and Rachel in order to exact her revenge upon Raoul. She had met her end of the bargain. Gray had to meet his.

Rachel took the driver’s seat.

Not even Monk objected.

But his partner kept his shotgun on his lap, pointed at Seichan. Taking no chances either. The weapon had been recovered by Cardinal Spera in the Scavi below St. Peter’s. Monk seemed relieved to have it returned, more than his own hand.

With everyone seated, Rachel whipped the car around and headed away from the airport, aiming for the city. She took the narrow streets at breakneck speeds. At this early hour with a fierce storm blowing, there was little other traffic. They flew up some steep grades that had become rivers and planed around corners.

A few minutes later, Rachel wheeled them into the square before the palace. She side-swiped into a pile of chairs. Streamers of lights, now dark, draped the plaza. It looked like an abandoned party, waterlogged and deserted.

They piled out of the vehicle.

Rachel led the way to the main entrance, having been here before. She rushed them through a gateway, to a courtyard, then to a side door, the one Kat had mentioned.

Gray found the latch sawed off and the locking mechanism ripped out.

Not the fine handiwork of a former intelligence officer.

Someone else had broken inside.

Gray waved everyone back. “Stay here. I’ll check it out.”

“Not to be insubordinate,” Monk said. “But I’m not into the whole separating thing again. That didn’t work out so well last time.”

“I’m coming,” Rachel said.

“And I don’t believe you have authority over my comings and goings,” Seichan said.

Gray didn’t have time to argue — especially if he couldn’t win.

They set off into the palace. Gray had memorized the layout. He scouted ahead in a series of steps, cautious but swift. After coming upon the first body, he slowed. Dead. Already cooling.

He checked. Okay, this was the handiwork of a former intelligence officer. He moved on and almost landed on his face as his heel slipped on a rubber ball bearing. He caught himself with a hand against the wall.

Definitely Kat toys.

They continued, shuffling through the bearings.

Another body lay near the entrance to the kitchen. They had to step through the pool of blood to get inside.

Voices reached him. He held the others to the hallway and eavesdropped.

“We’re already late,” a voice said.

“I’m sorry. I had to be sure. All the angles needed to be checked.”

Kat and Vigor. In mid-argument. Their voices echoed up from a hole in the center of the kitchen. A glow grew brighter, bobbling a bit.

“Kat,” Gray called out, not wanting to startle his teammate. He had seen enough of her skill splayed in the halls here. “It’s Gray.”

The light went out.

Kat appeared a moment later, gun ready, pointed toward him.

“It’s safe,” Gray said.

Kat climbed out. Gray waved the others into the room.

Vigor emerged next from the hole.

Rachel rushed to him. He opened his arms and hugged her tight.

Kat spoke first and nodded to the bloody hallway. “The Dragon Court knows about this location.”

Gray agreed. “Cardinal Spera is rousing the local authorities right now. They should be here soon.”

Vigor kept one arm around his niece. “Then we may have just enough time.”

“For what?” Gray asked.

“To unlock the true treasure below.”

Kat nodded. “We solved the riddle here.”

“And what’s the answer?” Gray asked.

Vigor’s eyes brightened. “Light.”

HE COULDN’T wait any longer.

From the terminal concourse of the tiny airport, Cardinal Spera had spied on the group as they departed in the BMW sedan. He waited five minutes as the commander had requested, giving the team time to reach the palace. He stood up and crossed to one of the armed security personnel, a blond young man in uniform.

In French, he asked to be taken to the man’s on-duty superior. He showed him his Vatican identification. “It is a matter of utmost urgency.”

The guard’s eyes widened, recognizing who stood before him.

“Of course, Cardinal Spera. Right away.”

The young man led him off the concourse and through a card-coded security gate. Down at the end of a hall lay the office of the head of airport security. The guard knocked and was gruffly called inside.

He pushed the door, holding it open. Looking back to the cardinal, the guard failed to see the pistol with a silencer raised toward the back of his head.

Cardinal Spera lifted a hand. “No…”

The gunshot sounded like a firm cough. The guard’s head snapped forward, followed by his body. Blood sprayed into the hallway.

A door off to the side opened.

Another gunman appeared. A pistol jabbed into Cardinal Spera’s stomach. He was forced into the office. The guard’s body was dragged inside behind him. Another man scooted a towel over the floor with his foot, sopping up the gore.

The door shut.

Another body already decorated the room, lying crumpled on its side.

The former security chief.

Behind his desk, a familiar figure stood.

Cardinal Spera shook his head in disbelief. “You’re part of the Dragon Court.”

“It’s leader in fact.” A pistol rose into sight. “Clearing the way here for the rest of my men to arrive.”

The gun lifted higher.

The muzzle flashed.

Cardinal Spera felt a kick to his forehead — then nothing.

RACHEL STOOD with the other four around the etched glass floor.

Kat stood guard up above, equipped with a radio.

They had descended the tiers to the bottom level in almost reverential silence. Her uncle had offered commentary about the massive museum nested within this subterranean cathedral, but few questions were posed.

It truly felt like a church, engendering whispers and awe.

As they had climbed down, Rachel gaped at the myriad wonders that must be stored here. She had spent all of her adult life protecting and collecting stolen art and antiquities. Here was a collection that dwarfed any museum’s. To catalogue it would take decades and a university full of scholars. The immensity of age contained within this space made her life feel small and insignificant.

Even her recent trauma, the revelation of her family’s dark past, seemed trivial, a minor blotch against the long history held suspended here.

As she descended deeper, her burden grew lighter. Its hold loosened around her heart. A certain weightlessness enveloped her.

Gray dropped to a knee to stare at the glass floor and the labyrinth drawn in platinum upon it.

“It’s Daedalus’s maze,” her uncle said, and briefly explained its history and ties to Chartres Cathedral.

“So what are we supposed to do here?” Gray asked.

Vigor walked around the circular floor. He had cautioned them to remain on the lip of granite that surrounded the glass labyrinth. “Plainly this is another riddle,” he said. “Besides the maze, we have a double arch of lodestone above us. A pillar of the same in the center. And these twelve m-state gold plates.” He indicated the windows of glass that pocked the wall around them, formed by the last tier.

“They are positioned along the periphery like the markings on a clock,” Vigor said. “Another timepiece. Like the hourglass that led us here.”

“So it would seem,” Gray said. “But you mentioned light.”

Vigor nodded. “It’s always been about light. A quest for the primordial light of the Bible, the light that formed the universe and everything in it. That is what we must prove here. Like magnetism and electricity before, now we must demonstrate an understanding of light…and not just any light. Light with power. Or as Kat described it, coherent light.”

Gray frowned, standing up. “You mean a laser.”

Vigor nodded. He pulled free an object from his pocket. Rachel recognized it as a laser-targeting scope from one of the Sigma weapons. “With the power of these superconducting amalgams coupled with jewels like diamonds and rubies, the ancients might have developed some crude form of projecting coherent light, some type of ancient laser. I believe knowledge of that craft is necessary to open the final level.”

“How can you be sure?” Gray said.

“Kat and I measured these twelve plates of mirrored glass. They are very subtly angled to reflect and bounce light from one to the other in a set pattern. But it would take a powerful light to complete the entire circuit.”

“Like a laser,” Monk said, eyeing the plates with concern.

“I don’t think it would take a strong amount of coherent light,” Vigor said. “Like the weak Baghdad batteries used to ignite the gold pyramid in Alexandria, only some small force is necessary, some indication of an understanding of coherence. I think the energy stored in the plates will do the rest.”

“And it might not even be energy,” Gray said. “If you’re right about light being the base of the mystery here, superconductors not only have the capability of storing energy for an infinite period of time, they can also store light.”

Vigor’s eyes widened. “So a little coherent light might free the rest?”

“Possibly, but how do we go about starting this chain reaction?” Gray asked. “Point the laser at one of the glass plates?”

Vigor stepped around and motioned to the lodestone pillar, about two feet thick, resting in the middle of the floor. “The pedestal out there stands the same height as the plate windows. I suspect whatever device the ancients used was meant to rest atop it while aimed at one particular window. Our proverbial twelve o’clock marker.”

“And which one’s that?” Monk asked.

Vigor stopped beside the far window. “True north,” he said. “It took a bit of fancy footwork to calculate with all this lodestone around. But this is the one. I think you set the laser down, point it at this plate, then get clear.”

“Seems simple enough,” Monk said.

Gray began to step out toward the central pedestal when his radio buzzed. He placed a hand over his ear, listening. Everyone stared at him.

“Kat, be careful,” Gray said into his radio. “Approach cautiously. Let them know you’re not hostile. Keep silent about us until you’re sure.”

He ended the call.

“What’s the matter?” Monk asked.

“Kat’s spotted a patrol of French police. They’ve entered the palace. She’s going to investigate.” Gray waved the group toward the stairs. “This will have to wait till later. We’d better head back up.”

They filed out from around the glass pool. Rachel waited for her uncle. He looked reluctantly toward the glass floor.

“Maybe it’s best,” she said. “Maybe we shouldn’t fool with what we barely understand. What if we did it wrong?” Rachel nodded to the massive library of ancient knowledge already contained here. “If we’re too greedy, we could lose it all.”

Her uncle nodded, put an arm around her as they climbed up, but his eyes still occasionally glanced below.

They worked their way up four tiers when a commanding voice bull-horned down to them from above.

“TOUT LE MONDE EN LE BAS LÀ! SORTEZ AVEC VOS MAINS SUR LA TÊTE!”

Everyone froze.

Rachel translated. “They’re calling for us to exit with our hands on our heads.”

A new voice bellowed through the bullhorn in English. It was Kat. “COMMANDER! THEY CONFISCATED MY RADIO, BUT IT IS THE FRENCH POLICE. I’VE VERIFIED THEIR LEADER’S IDENTIFICATION.”

“Must be the guard sent by Cardinal Spera,” Monk said.

“Or someone called in a burglary, noting the lights in here,” Rachel added. “Or the broken door lock.”

“SORTEZ TOUT DE SUITE! C’EST VOTRE DERNIER AVERTISSEMENT!”

“They certainly don’t sound happy,” Monk said.

“What do you expect with all the dead bodies upstairs?” Seichan said.

“Okay,” Gray ordered. “Up we go. We need to prepare them for the arrival of Raoul and his buddies.”

They all marched up the remaining tiers. Gray had them holster or set aside their weapons. Not wanting to spook the police, they obeyed the command and went upstairs with their hands on their heads.

The kitchen, empty before, was now crowded with uniformed men. Rachel spotted Kat, back to one wall, hands on her head, too. The French police were taking no chances. Guns were raised.

Gray attempted to explain in stilted French, but they were separated and made to stand against the wall. The leader shone his light down the passageway, nose crinkled with distaste.

A commotion by the hallway marked the arrival of a newcomer, someone with authority. Rachel watched a familiar family friend enter the kitchen, out of place here, but welcome. Had Cardinal Spera called him?

Her uncle brightened, too. “General Rende! Thank God!”

It was Rachel’s boss, the head of her Carabinieri unit. He cut a striking figure, even out of uniform.

Uncle Vigor tried to step forward but was forced back. “You must get the gendarmes to listen. Before it’s too late.”

General Rende eyed her uncle with an uncharacteristic sneer of disdain. “It’s already too late.”

Out from behind him marched Raoul.

17 THE GOLD KEY

GRAY SEETHED as his wrists were secured behind his back and snugged tight with plastic fast-ties. The other mercenaries, masquerading as French police, stripped weapons and secured the rest of them. Even the bastard Raoul wore a policeman’s uniform.

The giant stepped in front of Gray. “You’re damn tough to kill,” Raoul said. “But that’s going to end. And don’t hope for a rescue call from the cardinal. He ran into an old friend at the airport.” He nodded to General Rende. “It seemed our leader here decided the poor cardinal was of no further use to the Court.”

Gray’s heart clenched.

Raoul grinned, a savage and bloody expression.

General Rende marched up to them, dressed in civilian clothes, an expensive black suit and tie, polished Italian shoes. He had been in discussion with another man, one wearing a clerical collar. It had to be the prefect, Alberto Menardi, the Court’s resident Rasputin. He had a book tucked under one arm and a satchel in hand.

The general stepped to Raoul. “Enough.”

“Yes, Imperator.” Raoul backed a step.

Rende pointed down to the tunnel. “We don’t have time to gloat. Take them below. Find out what they’ve learned. Then kill them.” Rende stared around the room, his blue eyes icy, his silver hair slicked back. “I will make no pretensions of your survival. Your only choice is to make your deaths slow or quick. So make your peace in whatever manner you see fit.”

Vigor spoke by the far wall. “How could you?”

Rende strode over to him. “Fear not, my old friend, we will spare your niece,” he said. “That I promise you. You’ve both served your duty by keeping the Court abreast of archaeological and art history treasures. You’ve served the Court well these many years.”

Vigor’s face went cold, realizing how he’d been used and manipulated.

“Now that role comes to an end,” Rende said. “But your niece’s blood-line goes back to kings and will produce kings to come.”

“By mating me with that bastard?” Rachel spat back.

“It is not the man or the woman,” Raoul answered. “It’s always been the blood and the future. The purity of our lineage is as much a treasure as what we seek.”

Gray stared at Rachel, trussed up next to her uncle. Her face was pale, but her eyes flashed with fury. Especially when Raoul grabbed her by the elbow. She spat in his face.

He cuffed her hard across the mouth, knocking her head back and splitting her lip.

Gray lunged forward, but a pair of rifles shoved him back.

Raoul leaned closer to her. “I like a little fire in my bed.” He dragged her forward. “And this time, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Get what we came here for,” Rende said, his face unperturbed by the violence. “Then we’ll start unloading as much as we can before the storm ends. The trucks will be arriving in another fifteen minutes.”

Gray now understood the uniforms. The masquerade would buy them time to clear a good section of the treasure below. He didn’t fail to note the barrow full of silver incendiary grenades wheeled into the room as they were tied up. Anything that the Court couldn’t carry away would be destroyed.

Alberto joined Raoul.

“Bring the axes, the electric drills, and the acid,” Raoul said, and waved his men forward.

Gray knew the tools were not meant for heavy construction.

They were tools of a true sadist.

Prodded by guns, separated by soldiers, the group was led back down into the tunnel. Once below, even the guards, smirking and hard-edged, grew quiet, eyes widening.

Raoul stared at the spread of Gothic arches and the treasure. “We’ll need more trucks.”

Alberto walked in a daze. “Amazing…simply amazing. And according to the Arcadium, this is just the dregs left at the true doorstep to a greater treasure.”

Despite the danger, Vigor glanced over to the prefect in shock. “You have Jacques de Molay’s last testament?”

Alberto clutched his book tighter to his chest. “A seventeenth-century copy. The last known to exist.”

Gray stared at Vigor, meeting his eyes questioningly.

“Jacques de Molay was the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, tortured by the Inquisition for his refusal to reveal the location of their treasure. He was burned at the stake. But there were rumors of a Templar text, a final treatise by de Molay before he was captured.”

“The Arcadium,” Alberto said. “In the possession of the Dragon Court for centuries. It hinted at a treasure. One independent of the mass of gold and jewels of Knights Templar. A greater treasure. One that would put the very keys to the world into its discoverer’s hand.”

“The lost secret of the mages,” Vigor said.

“It’s here,” Alberto said, eyes almost aglow.

They descended the tiers toward the glass floor.

Upon reaching the bottommost tier, the soldiers spread out atop it, taking up positions all along the rim. Gray and the others were forced to their knees. Alberto went down alone to the glass floor, studying its labyrinth.

“One last riddle,” he mumbled.

Raoul stood with Rachel near the top of the last terrace’s stairs. He turned to face the group on their knees. “I think we’ll start with the women,” Raoul said. “But which one?”

Swinging to the side, he grabbed a fistful of Rachel’s hair, at the back of her neck. He bent over her and kissed her hard on the mouth. Rachel squirmed, gasping, but tied up, there was little she could do.

Fire narrowed Gray’s vision. He knelt down and stamped the toe of his boot against the stone. He felt the hidden blade snick out of the heel, the same one he had used to free himself in the castle cell. He hid the knife behind his tied wrists. With minimal movement, he cut the ties on the razored edge. Though free, he kept his hands behind his back.

Raoul pulled back from his embrace. His lower lip bled. Rachel had bitten him, but he simply grinned. He shoved her hard in the center of her chest. Off balance, she fell to her backside with a teeth-jarring impact.

“Stay,” Raoul said, palm out, as if commanding a dog.

A rifle at Rachel’s skull firmed the order.

Raoul turned back to the group. “I’ll save my fun for her later. So we’ll need another woman to start with.” He strode over to Seichan, stared down at her, then shook his head. “You’d probably enjoy it too much.”

He turned next to Kat and waved to the guards that flanked her to drag her in front of the others. Raoul bent down and picked up the ax and a power drill. He stared between the two, then lowered the ax. “Already did that.”

He lifted the drill and pressed the trigger. The buzz of its motor echoed across the chamber, hungry with the promise of pain.

“We’ll start with an eye,” Raoul said.

One of the guards yanked Kat’s head back. She tried to fight, but the other kicked her hard in the belly, knocking out her breath. As they held her in place, Gray saw the tear roll from the corner of Kat’s eye. Not scared. Angry.

Raoul lowered the drill toward her face.

“Don’t!” Gray yelled. “There’s no need for this. I’ll tell you what we know.”

“No,” Kat said, and was punched in the face by one of the guards.

Gray understood her warning. If the Dragon Court gained the power here, the “keys to the world,” it would mean Armageddon. Their own lives here, their own blood, were not worth that price.

“I’ll tell you,” Gray repeated.

Raoul straightened a bit.

Gray hoped to lure him closer.

But Raoul remained where he was. “I don’t seem to recall asking any questions yet.” He bent over again. “This is only a demonstration. When it comes to the question-and-answer period of this conversation, we’ll get more serious.”

The drill growled louder.

Gray could wait no longer. He would not sit idle as another teammate was maimed by this madman. Better to die in a firefight. He leapt to his feet, driving an elbow into the groin of the soldier guarding him. With the man’s attention fixed to the torture, Gray caught his rifle, pointed it at Raoul, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing happened.

RACHEL WATCHED Gray be clubbed to the ground by a soldier behind him, using the butt of a rifle.

Raoul laughed, revving his drill.

“Take his boots off,” Raoul ordered. He stalked up to Gray as he was manhandled around. “You don’t think I failed to have the security tapes reviewed after your escape, do you? When I didn’t hear from the two men I sent back to assassinate you at the castle, I sent another team to investigate. Nothing but dogs in the yard. They found out how you escaped and radioed it to me.”

Gray’s laces were sliced and the boots tugged off.

“So I let you have your little hope,” Raoul said. “It’s always best to know an enemy’s secret. Keeps surprises to a minimum. I figured you’d eventually go for a gun…but I’d hoped you’d have a bit more stomach. Waited until things got really bloody.” Raoul lifted the drill and turned away. “Now, where were we?”

Rachel stared as Gray was trussed up again. His face was hollow and hopeless. This scared her more than the threat of torture.

“Leave the others alone,” Gray said. He struggled to his feet. “You’re wasting time. We know how to open the gate. Harm a single one of us and you’ll learn nothing.”

Raoul eyed him. “Explain and I’ll consider your offer.”

Gray searched the others, looking forlorn. “It’s light,” he said.

Kat groaned. Vigor hung his head.

“He’s right,” a voice called up from the floor below. Alberto climbed a few steps. “The mirrors on the wall are reflective and angled.”

“It takes laser light,” Gray continued, revealing all. He went on to explain what Vigor had related.

Alberto joined them. “Yes, yes…it makes perfect sense.”

“Well, we’ll just see,” Raoul said. “If he’s wrong, we’ll start chopping limbs.”

Gray turned to Rachel and the others. “They would’ve found out eventually. They already have the gold key.”

Raoul ordered his men: “Bring the prisoners down below. I don’t want to take any chances. Stand them against the lower wall. The rest of you”—he eyed the ring of soldiers that stood guard atop the tier—“keep a constant bead on each of them. Shoot anyone that moves.”

Rachel and the other five were led below and forced to separate, to spread out along the wall. Gray stood only three steps from her side. She longed to reach out to him, to hold his hand, but he seemed lost in his own misery.

And she dared not move.

Soldiers lay flat on the tier above, rifles aimed at them.

Gray mumbled, staring at the glass floor. His words reached only her own ears. “The Minotaur’s maze.”

Her brow crinkled. Standing in place, he glanced at her, then back to the floor. What was he trying to indicate?

The Minotaur’s maze.

Gray was referring to one of the names for the labyrinth. Daedalus’s maze. The mythic labyrinth that was home to the bullish Minotaur, a deadly monster in a deadly maze.

Deadly.

Rachel remembered the trap at Alexander’s tomb. The deadly passageway. To solve these riddles didn’t require just the technology. You had to know your history and mythology. Gray was trying to warn her. They may have solved the technology, but not the entire mystery.

She now understood Gray’s hope. He had only told Raoul enough to hopefully get the man killed.

Raoul freed a laser scope and stepped toward the central pedestal. Then he seemed to think better of it. He pointed the scope to Gray.

“You,” he said, plainly suspicious. “You take it out there.”

Gray was forced away from the wall, away from her side. His arms were cut free. But he was hardly free. Rifles tracked his every step.

Raoul shoved the laser into Gray’s hand. “Set it up. Like you described.”

Gray glanced to Rachel, then headed across the glass floor in his socks.

He had no choice.

He had to enter the Minotaur’s maze.

GENERAL RENDE checked his watch. Thunder rumbled beyond the walls of the palace. What he had sought for so long was about to come true. Even if they failed to open whatever secret vault lay below, he had taken a brief look. That storehouse alone was a treasure to dwarf all others.

They would escape with as much as they could and destroy the rest.

His demolition expert was already going over the incendiary charges.

All that was left was to wait for the trucks.

He had arranged for a caravan of three heavy-duty Peugeot trucks. They would run in shifts to a huge warehouse at the outskirts of town near the river, unhooking their load, mounting an empty container, and returning.

Back and forth for as long as they could.

The general frowned at his watch. They were running late. He had had a call from the lead driver five minutes ago. The roads were a mess, and even though dawn had already broken, it remained a perpetual twilight under the thunderclouds and torrents of rain.

Despite the delay, the storm served to shelter them, to cover their actions, to keep any interest here to a minimum. Outlying guards were ready to eliminate anyone who became too curious. Bribes had been paid.

They should have half a day.

A call came through on the radio. He answered it.

“First truck is climbing the hill now,” the driver reported. Thunder boomed in the distance.

Now it began.

SCOPE IN hand, Gray crossed to the short pillar of magnetite. Overhead, double arches of the same stone stretched. Even without touching anything, Gray sensed the power that lay dormant.

“Hurry up!” Raoul called from the edge.

Gray stepped to the pedestal. He placed the scope atop the pillar, balanced it, and pointed it toward the twelve o’clock window. He paused to take a deep breath. He had tried to warn Rachel to be ready for anything. Once this was activated, they were all in danger.

“Turn on the laser!” Raoul barked. “Or we begin shooting out kneecaps.”

Gray reached to the power switch and thumbed it on.

A fine beam of red light shot out and struck the gold glass plate.

Gray remembered the batteries at Alexander’s tomb. It took a moment for whatever charge or electrical capacitance to build, then the fireworks began.

He had no intention of standing here when that happened.

He turned and strode rapidly back to the wall. He didn’t run, no rash actions, or he’d be shot in the back. He regained his spot on the wall.

Raoul and Alberto stood at the base of the stairs.

All eyes were on the single strand of red fire that linked scope to mirror.

“Nothing’s happening,” Raoul growled.

Vigor spoke from the other side. “It may take a few seconds to build enough energy to activate the mirror.”

Raoul raised a pistol. “If it doesn’t—”

It did.

A deep tonal note sounded and a new ray of laser shot out from the twelve o’clock plate and struck the five o’clock one. There was a half-second dazzle.

No one spoke.

Then another beam of red fire blazed out, slamming into the ten-o’clock marker. It reflected immediately, springing from mirror to mirror.

Gray stared at the spread before him, forming a fiery star, waist high. He and the others stood between points of the display, knowing better than to move.

The symbolism was plain.

The Star of Bethlehem.

The light that had guided the Magi.

The humming note grew louder. The star’s fire blazed brighter.

Gray turned his head, squinting.

Then he felt it, some threshold crossed. Pressure slammed outward, shoving him to the wall.

The Meissner field again.

The star seemed to bow upward from the center as if shoved up from the floor. It reached the cross of magnetite arches overhead.

A burst of energy crackled across the vaulted archways.

Gray felt a tug on the metal buttons of his shirt.

The magnetic charge of the arches had grown tenfold.

The star’s energy was repelled by the new field and slammed back down, striking the glass floor with a loud metallic chime, the strike of a giant bell.

The central pillar blasted upward as if jarred by the collision. It struck the center of the crossed arches — and stuck there, two electromagnets clinging tight.

As the chime faded, Gray felt a pop in his ears as the field broke. The star winked out, though a ghost of its blaze still shone across his vision. He blinked away the afterburn.

Overhead, the short column still clung to the intersection of the archways, pointing downward now. Gray followed the stone finger.

In the middle of the floor, where the column had stood before, lay a perfect circle of solid gold. A match to the key. At its center—the center of everything—was a black slot.

“The keyhole!” Alberto said. He dropped his book, opened his satchel, and pulled out the gold key.

Gray caught a hard glance from across the floor, from Vigor. At that moment, Gray had handed them not just the gold key, but the key to the world.

Alberto must have suspected the same. In his excitement, he stepped out onto the glass floor.

Bolts of electricity shot upward from the surface, piercing through the man, lifting him off his feet and holding him suspended. He screamed and writhed as fire licked into him. Skin blackened; his hair and clothes caught fire.

Raoul tripped back to the stairs in horror, landing on his backside.

Gray turned to Rachel. “Get ready to run.”

Now might be their only chance.

But she didn’t seem to hear him, transfixed like the others.

Alberto’s cry finally cut out. As if knowing its prey was dead, a final bolt of energy tossed the man’s corpse to the shoreline of the glass pool.

No one moved. The smell of burnt flesh wafted.

Everyone stared at the deadly labyrinth.

The Minotaur had arrived.

GENERAL RENDE retreated back up the steps to the kitchen. He had been called down by one of his soldiers when the brilliant star had ignited below. He wanted to see what was happening — but from a safe distance away.

Then the light had expired.

Disappointed, he had turned away as a tortured wail erupted.

It stood the small hairs on his neck on end.

He fled back up to the kitchen. One of his men, wearing a French uniform, rushed up to him. “The first truck is here!” he said hurriedly.

Rende shook off the momentary anxiety.

He had a job to do.

“Radio everyone who’s not on guard duty. It’s time to empty the vault.”

RACHEL KNEW they were in trouble.

Raoul roared back to his feet, swinging toward Gray. “You knew this!”

Gray backed a step down the wall. “How could I know he’d be fried?”

Raoul lifted his pistol and pointed it. “Time to learn a lesson.”

But the gun was not pointed at Gray.

“No!” Rachel moaned.

The pistol blasted. Across the floor, Uncle Vigor clutched his belly with a shocked groan. His feet slid out from under him, and he sank to the floor.

Seichan moved to his side, slipping to him like a black cat. She kept Vigor’s feet from touching the glass.

But Raoul wasn’t done with them. He pointed his pistol next toward Kat. She was only three meters away. The gun pointed at her head.

“Don’t!” Gray said. “I had no idea that would happen! But I now know the mistake Alberto made!”

Raoul turned to him, anger in every muscle. But Rachel recognized his fury was not at the loss of Alberto, but due to the fact that the sudden and dramatic death had frightened him. And he didn’t like being scared.

“What?” Raoul growled.

Gray pointed to the labyrinth. “You can’t just walk out to the keyhole. You have to follow the path.” He waved to the twisted maze.

Raoul’s eyes narrowed, the fire ebbed. Understanding lessened the fear.

“Makes sense,” Raoul said. He crossed to the corpse, bent down and broke the fire-contorted fingers, still clutched around the key. He freed the length of gold and wiped the charred flesh from its surface.

He waved one of his men down from above. He pointed out to the center. “Take this out there,” he ordered, and held out the gold key.

The young soldier balked. He had seen what had happened to Alberto.

Raoul pointed his pistol at the man’s forehead. “Or die here. Your choice.”

The man reached out and took the key.

“Get going,” Raoul said. “We’re on a timetable here.” He kept his pistol pointed at the man’s back.

The soldier crossed to the entry point of the maze. Leaning back, he placed one toe on the glass, then yanked it back. Nothing happened. More confident, but wary, he reached again and placed his foot down on the surface.

Still no electrical display.

Clenching his teeth, the soldier stepped fully out onto the glass floor.

“Stay away from the platinum etchings,” Gray warned.

The soldier nodded, glancing appreciatively toward Gray. He took another step.

Without warning, a stab of crimson fire jetted out of a pair of windows. The star flickered into existence, then died again.

The soldier had frozen in place. Then his legs sagged under him. He fell backward out of the maze. As he struck the ground, his body split in halves, sheared across the waist by the laser. A tangled nest of intestines snaked out from the upper half.

Raoul backed away, eyes flashing fire. The pistol again lifted. “Any more bright ideas?”

Gray remained stock-still. “I…I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s a timing thing,” Monk called over. “Maybe you have to keep moving. Like that movie Speed.”

Gray glanced to his teammate, then back again, unconvinced.

“I’ve had enough with losing my own men,” Raoul said, fury building. “And I’m done waiting while you piece this puzzle together. So you’ll have to simply show me how it’s done.”

He motioned Gray forward.

Gray stood in place, obviously attempting to find some answer.

“I can always begin shooting your friends again. I know it helps my stress.” Raoul pointed the gun again at Kat.

Gray finally moved, stepping over the prone body.

“Don’t forget the key,” Raoul said.

Gray bent to pick it up.

It then struck Rachel. Of course.

Gray straightened and moved to the entry point of the maze. He began to step out, bunching up a bit to run, ready to follow Monk’s advice.

“No!” Rachel called out. She hated to help Raoul reach his goal. She had been prepared to die to keep the Court from gaining what lay hidden here. But she couldn’t watch Gray die either, cut in half or electrocuted.

She remembered Gray’s whisper about the Minotaur. He refused to give up. As long as they still lived, there was hope. She believed him. And more importantly, she trusted him.

Gray turned to her.

In his eyes, she saw the same trust shining there.

For her.

The weight of it silenced her.

“What?” Raoul barked.

“It’s not speed,” Rachel said, startled. “Time is valued by these alchemists. They left clues, from an hourglass to this mirrored clockface. They would not use time to kill.”

“Then what?” Gray asked, eyes still heavy upon her. But it was a burden she was willing to bear.

Rachel spoke quickly. “The mazes in all the cathedrals. They represented symbolic journeys. From this world to the next. To spiritual enlightenment in the center.” She pointed to the dead body, cut in half at the waist, the height of the mirrored windows. “But to reach there, pilgrims crawled. On hands and knees.”

Gray nodded. “Below the level of these windows.”

Across the floor, her uncle groaned, seated on the floor, blood seeping between his fingers. Seichan sat with him. Rachel knew it wasn’t the pain that elicited the moaned response. She saw it in her uncle’s eyes. He had already figured out this last riddle, too. But he had kept silent.

By speaking, Rachel had betrayed the future, risking the world.

Her eyes found Gray. She had made her choice. With no regret.

Even Raoul believed her.

He waved for Gray to hand over the key. “I’ll take it there myself — but you’re going first.”

Plainly Raoul did not have full trust in her idea. Gray passed him the key.

“As a matter of fact,” Raoul said, pointing his gun at Rachel, “since it’s your idea, why don’t you come along, too? To help keep your man honest.”

Rachel stumbled forward. Her hands were cut free. She crouched down with Gray. He nodded to her, transmitting a silent message.

We’ll be okay.

She had little reason to feel confident, but she nodded back.

“Let’s get going,” Raoul said.

Gray went first, crawling out onto the maze without hesitation, fully trusting in Rachel’s assessment.

She was held back by Raoul until Gray was a full body-length away.

The glass floor remained quiet.

“Okay, now you,” she was ordered.

Rachel set out, following Gray’s path. She felt a vibration through her palms. The face of the glass was warm. As she moved, she heard a distant hum, not mechanical or electric, more like the murmur of a vast crowd across a distance. Maybe it was the blood rushing through her ears, pounded by her worried heart.

Raoul yelled behind her to his men. “Shoot any of the others if they move! The same goes for the two out here. Upon my orders, take them out.”

So if the maze didn’t kill them, Raoul would.

Rachel continued onward. With only one hope.

Gray.

RENDE PLACED a hand on the demolition expert’s shoulder. “Are the charges primed?”

“All sixteen of them,” the man answered. “Just tap this button three times. The grenades are daisy-chained on a ten-minute fuse.”

Perfect.

He turned to the row of sixteen men. Other wheelbarrows stood out in the hall, waiting to be loaded. Five handtrucks also stood ready. The first truck had been carefully backed to the main gate, and the second was on its way. It was time to empty the vault.

“Get to work, men. Double time.”

GRAY’S KNEES ached.

Three-quarters around the maze, it became torture on his kneecaps. The smooth glass now felt like rough concrete. But he dared not stop. Not until he reached the center.

As he made his turns around the circuit, he crossed alongside the neighboring paths with Rachel and Raoul. It would only take a hip check to knock Raoul off his path. Even Raoul suspected this, pointing his gun at Gray’s face as they passed.

But there was no need for the caution. Gray knew if he crossed the platinum etched lines with even a hand or a hip, he’d be killed as quickly as Raoul. And with the glass face activated, Rachel would probably be electrocuted, too.

So he let Raoul pass unmolested.

When he crossed paths with Rachel, their eyes remained fixed upon each other. Neither spoke. A bond had grown between them, one built on danger and trust. Gray’s heart ached with every pass: to hold her, to comfort her. But there was no stopping.

Around and around they went.

A droning grew inside his head, vibrating up the bones of his arms and legs. He also heard a commotion above. In the cathedral. Soldiers involved in some activity up there.

He ignored it all and crawled onward.

After a final turn, a straight shot led to the center rosette. Gray hurried forward, glad to reach home base at last. With his knees on fire, he lunged the last distance and sprawled onto his back.

The droning grew into a murmuring just beyond the range of the audible. He sat up, his hairs vibrating with the noise. What the hell…?

Rachel appeared and crawled toward him. Staying low, he helped her into the center. She slipped into his arms. “Gray…what are we—?”

He knelt with her and squeezed her silent.

There was only one hope.

A slim one.

Raoul appeared and crawled over to them. He wore a huge grin. “The Dragon Court owes you both for your generous service.” He pointed his gun. “Now stand up.”

“What?” Gray asked.

“You heard me. Stand up. Both of you.”

With no choice, Gray tried to pull himself out of Rachel’s arms, but she clung to him. “Let me first,” he whispered.

“Together,” she answered.

Gray met her eyes and saw her determination.

“Trust me,” she said.

Gray took a deep breath, and the two of them stood up. Gray expected to be cut in half, but the floor remained quiet.

“A safe zone,” Rachel said. “In the center of the star. The lasers never crossed this part.”

Gray kept his arm around Rachel. It fit like it belonged there.

“Keep back or you’ll be shot,” Raoul warned. He stood up next, stretched a kink, and reached into a pocket. “Now to see what prize you delivered to us.”

Raoul pulled out the key, bent down, and shoved it into the keyhole.

“A perfect fit,” Raoul mumbled.

Gray pulled Rachel tighter into his arms, fearful of what would happen next, certain of only one thing.

In her ear, he whispered the secret he had been holding from everyone since Alexandria.

“The key’s a fake.”

GENERAL RENDE had come down to oversee the first load of treasure. They could not take everything, so someone had to perform triage, pick the choicest bits of antiquity, art, and ancient texts. He stood near the landing with inventory pad in hand. His men crawled along the topmost tier of the massive structure.

Then a strange rumble vibrated through the cavern.

It wasn’t an earthquake.

More like something shook all his senses at once. His balance shifted a few degrees off kilter. His hearing roared. His skin chilled like someone had just walked over his grave. But worst of all, his vision shimmered. It was like the world became a bad television picture tube, fritzing the screen image, playing with perspective. Three dimensions dissolved to a flat two.

Rende fell back to the stairwell.

Something was happening. Something wrong.

He felt it down to his bones.

He fled up the stairs.

RACHEL CLUNG to Gray as the vibration worsened. The floor under them pulsed with white light. With each beat, arcs of electricity raced outward along the lines of platinum, crackling and flaring. In seconds, the entire labyrinth shone with an inner fire.

Gray’s words echoed in her ears. The key’s a fake.

And the labyrinth responded.

A deep tone chimed beneath them, ominous and foreboding.

Pressure again built, closing and squeezing.

A new Meissner field grew, strangely skewing perception.

Overhead, the entire complex seemed to vibrate, like a flickering filament of a lightbulb.

Reality bent.

A meter away, Raoul straightened from where he crouched over the inserted key, unsure of what was happening. But he must have sensed it, too. An overwhelming sense of wrongness. It nauseated the senses.

Rachel clung to Gray, glad for the support.

Raoul swung toward them and brought his pistol up. He came to the truth too late. “Back at the castle. You gave us the wrong goddamn key.”

Gray stared at him. “And you lose.”

Raoul pointed his gun.

Around them, the fiery star shattered back into existence, blasting forth from all the windows simultaneously. Raoul crouched lower, fearful of being cut in half.

Overhead the stone pedestal broke free from its magnetic attachment to the lodestone arches. It plummeted back to the ground. Raoul looked up too late. The edge of the stone caught him in the shoulder and crushed him to the floor.

As the pillar struck, the glass shattered like ice under them, skittering out in all directions. From the cracks, a blinding brilliance erupted.

Gray and Rachel remained standing.

“Hold tight,” Gray whispered.

Rachel sensed it, too. A rising vibration of power, under them, around them, through them. She needed to be closer. He responded, turning her to face him, arms crushing her to his chest, leaving no space. She pulled hard to him, feeling his heart beat through his rib cage.

Something was rushing up from below.

A bubble of black energy. It was about to strike.

She closed her eyes as the world exploded with light.

ON THE FLOOR, Raoul’s shoulder flamed with white-hot agony. Crushed bones ground together. He fought to escape, panicked.

Then a supernova exploded under and through him, so bright it penetrated to the back of his skull. It spread through his brain. He fought its penetration, knowing it would undo him.

He felt violated, splayed open, every thought, action, desire bared.

No…

He could not shut it out. It was larger than him, more than him, undeniable. All his being was drawn out along a shining white thread. Stretched to the point of breaking, agonized, but it left no room for anger, self-hatred, shame, loathing, fear, or recrimination. Only a purity. An unadulterated essence of being. This is who he could be, who he was born to be.

No…

He didn’t want to see this. But he could not turn away. Time stretched toward the infinite. He was trapped, aflame in a cleansing light, far more painful than any Hell.

He faced himself, his life, his possibility, his ruin, his salvation…

He saw the truth — and it burned.

No more…

But the worst was still to come.

SEICHAN CLUTCHED the old man to her chest. Both kept their heads bowed from the blinding eruption of light, but Seichan caught glimpses from the corner of her eyes.

The fiery star blasted skyward on a fountain of light, rising from the center of the labyrinth and spinning upward into the dark cathedral above. Other glass mirrors, embedded in the vast library, caught the starshine and reflected it back a hundredfold, feeding the rising maelstrom. A cascade reaction spread through the entire complex. In a heartbeat, the two-dimensional star unfolded into a giant three-dimensional sphere of laser light, spinning within and around the subterranean cathedral.

Energy scintillated and crackled out from it, sweeping the tiers.

Screams bellowed and rang.

Over her head, one soldier leapt from the tier above, trying to get to the floor below. But there was no sanctuary for him. Bolts struck him before he ever hit the ground, burning him to bone by the time he crashed to the labyrinth floor.

But most disturbing of all, something had happened to the arched cathedral itself. The view seemed to flatten, losing all sense of depth. And even this image shimmered, as if what hung above her was merely a reflection in water, not real, a mirage.

Seichan closed her eyes, afraid to watch, terrified to the core.

GRAY HELD Rachel. The world was pure light. He sensed the chaos beyond, but here it was just the two of them. The droning hum again rose around them, coming from within the light, a threshold he could not cross or comprehend.

He remembered Vigor’s words.

Primordial light.

Rachel lifted her face. Her eyes were so bright in the reflected light that he could almost sense her thoughts. She seemed to read him, too.

Something in the character of the light, a permanence that could not be denied, an agelessness that made everything small.

Except for one thing.

Gray leaned down, lips brushing hers, breaths shared.

It wasn’t love. Not yet. Just a promise.

The light flared brighter as Gray deepened his kiss, tasting her. What once droned, now sang. His eyes closed, but he still saw her. Her smile, her flash of eye, the angle of her neck, the curve of her breast. He felt that permanence again, that ageless presence.

Was it the light? Was it the two of them?

Only time would tell.

GENERAL RENDE fled with the first screams. He didn’t need to investigate further. As he clambered out of the stairwell into the kitchen, he had seen the sheen of energies reflected up from below.

He had not gotten this far in the Court from being foolhardy.

That he left to lieutenants like Raoul.

Flanked by two soldiers, he retreated out of the palace, winding toward the main courtyard. He would commandeer the truck, return to the warehouse, regroup there, and strategize a new plan.

He needed to be back in Rome before noon.

As he exited the door, he noted that the exterior guard, still in police uniforms, maintained the gate. He also noted the rain had slowed to a drizzling mist.

Good.

It would hasten his retreat.

Near the truck, the driver and another four uniformed guards noticed his approach and came forward to meet him.

“We must leave immediately,” Rende ordered in Italian.

“Somehow I don’t see that happening,” the driver said in English, pulling back his cap.

The four uniformed guards raised weapons at his group.

General Rende took a step back.

These were real French police…except for the driver. From his accent, he was obviously an American.

Rende glanced back to the gateway. More French policemen stood guard. He’d been betrayed by his own ruse.

“If you’re looking for your men,” the American said, “they’re already secured in the back of the truck.”

General Rende stared at the driver. Black hair, blue eyes. He didn’t recognize him, but he knew the voice from conversations over the phone.

“Painter Crowe,” he said.

PAINTER SPOTTED a flash of muzzle fire. From the second-story window of the palace. A lone sniper. Someone they had missed.

“Back!” he yelled to the patrol around him.

Bullets chewed across the wet pavement, strafing between Painter and the general. The police scattered to the side.

Rende fled back, yanking out his pistol.

Ignoring the automatic fire, Painter dropped to one knee, lifting two weapons, one in each fist. Aiming instinctively, Painter pointed one pistol toward the upper window.

Pop, pop, pop…

The general dropped to the ground.

A cry sounded from the second story. A body tumbled out.

But Painter noted it only from the corner of his eye. His full focus was on General Rende. They both pointed guns at the other, both kneeling, weapons almost touching.

“Back away from the truck!” Rende said. “All of you!”

Painter stared hard at the man, judging him. He read the raw fury in the other’s eyes, everything falling apart around him. Rende would shoot, even if it meant forfeiting his life.

The man offered him no choice.

Painter dropped his first pistol, then lowered the second gun away from Rende’s face, pointing it at the ground.

The general grinned triumphantly.

Painter squeezed the trigger. An arc of brilliance shot out from the tip of the second pistol. The taser barbs struck the puddle at the general’s knee. The jolt of electricity blew Rende off his legs, slamming him onto his back, gun flying.

He screamed.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Painter said, snatching up his regular pistol and covering the general.

The police swarmed around the fallen man.

“Are you all right?” one of the patrolman asked Painter.

“Fine.” He stood. “But damn…I really miss fieldwork.”

DOWN IN the cavern, the fireworks had only lasted a little over a minute.

Vigor lay on his back, staring up. The screaming had stopped. He had opened his eyes, sensing at the primitive level of his brain that it was over. He caught the last spin of the sphere of coherent light, then watched it collapse inward on itself like a dying sun.

Above stretched empty space.

The entire cathedral had flickered and vanished with the star.

Seichan stirred from where she had sheltered beside him. Her eyes were also fixed above. “It’s all gone.”

“If it was ever there,” Vigor said, weak from blood loss.

GRAY BROKE the embrace with Rachel, the acuity of his senses fading with the light. But he still tasted her on his lips. That was enough.

For now.

Some of the shine remained in her eyes as she searched around. The others were stirring from where they had flattened themselves against the ground. Rachel spotted Vigor, struggling to sit up.

“Oh God…” she said.

She slipped out of Gray’s arm to check on her uncle. Monk headed in the same direction, ready to employ his medical training.

Gray kept guard, staring at the heights around him.

No shots rang out. The soldiers were gone…along with the library. It was as if something had cored out the center, leaving only the amphitheater-like rings of ascending tiers.

Where had it all gone?

A moan drew his attention to the floor.

Raoul lay crumpled nearby, curled around his trapped arm, crushed under the fallen pillar. Gray stepped over and kicked his pistol aside. It skittered across the glass floor, now a cracked and scattered jigsaw.

Kat came over.

“Leave him for now,” Gray said. “He’s not going anywhere. We’d best collect as many weapons as we can. There’s no telling how many others might be up there.”

She nodded.

Raoul rolled onto his back, stirred by Gray’s voice.

Gray expected some final curse or threat, but Raoul’s face was twisted in agony. Tears rolled down his cheeks. But Gray suspected it wasn’t the crushed arm that was triggering this misery. Something had changed in Raoul’s face. The perpetual hard edge and glint of disdain had vanished, replaced with something softer, more human.

“I didn’t ask to be forgiven,” he keened out in anguish.

Gray frowned at this statement. Forgiven by whom? He remembered his own exposure to the light a moment ago. Primordial light. Something beyond comprehension, beyond the dawn of creation. Something had transformed Raoul.

He recalled the naval research done on superconductors, how the brain communicated via superconductivity, even maintained memory that way, stored as energy or possibly light.

Gray glanced to the shattered floor. Was there more than light stored in the superconducting glass? He remembered his own sensation during that moment. A sense of something greater.

On the floor, Raoul covered his face with one hand.

Had something rewired the man’s soul? Could there be hope for him?

Movement drew Gray’s eye. He saw the danger immediately.

He moved to stop her.

Ignoring him, Seichan lifted Raoul’s gun. She pointed it at the trapped man.

Raoul turned to face the barrel. His expression remained anguished, but now a flicker of raw fear lit his eyes. Gray recognized that shine of black terror in the man — not for the gun, nor for the pain of death, but for what lay beyond.

“No!” Gray called.

Seichan pulled the trigger. Raoul’s head snapped back to the glass with a crack as loud as the pistol shot.

The others froze in shock.

“Why?” Gray asked, stunned, stepping forward.

Seichan rubbed her wounded shoulder with the butt of her pistol. “Payback. Remember we had a deal, Gray.” She nodded to Raoul’s body. “Besides, like the man said, he wasn’t looking for forgiveness.”

PAINTER HEARD the echo of the gunshot through the palace. He motioned the French patrol to pause. Someone was still fighting in here.

Was it his team?

“Slowly,” he warned, waving them forward. “Be ready.”

He continued deeper into the palace. He had come to France on his own. Not even Sean McKnight knew he had undertaken this assignment, but Painter’s Europol credentials had gotten him the field support he needed in Marseilles. It had taken the entire length of a transatlantic trip to track General Rende, first to a warehouse outside Avignon, then to the Pope’s Palace. Painter remembered his mentor’s warning that a director’s position was behind a desk, not out in the field.

But that was Sean.

Not Painter.

Sigma was now his organization, and he had his own way of solving problems. He gripped his gun and led the way.

Upon first hearing of a possible leak from Gray, Painter made one decision. To trust his own organization. He had put the new Sigma together from the ground up. If there was a leak, it had to be an unintentional one.

So he had done the next logical thing: followed the trail of intel.

From Gray…to Sigma…to their Carabinieri liaison out in Rome.

General Rende had been kept abreast of every detail of the operation.

It had taken some careful prying to follow the man’s tracks, which included suspicious trips to Switzerland and back. Eventually Painter had discovered one thin tie back to the Dragon Court. A distant relative of Rende who had been arrested two years ago for trafficking in stolen antiquities, in Oman of all places. The thief had gained his freedom from pressure by the Imperial Dragon Court.

As he’d investigated deeper, Painter had kept Logan Gregory out of the loop, so the man could continue his role as Sigma liaison. He hadn’t wanted to spook Rende, not until he could be sure.

Now that his suspicions had been verified, Painter had another concern.

Was he too late?

RACHEL AND Monk secured her uncle’s temporary belly wrap, using Gray’s shirt. Uncle Vigor had lost a fair amount of blood, but the bullet had passed clean through. According to Monk, nothing major seemed to have been hit, but he needed immediate medical attention.

Uncle Vigor patted her hand once she was finished, then Monk helped him to his feet and half carried him.

Rachel hovered alongside them. Gray joined her, putting an arm around her waist. She leaned a bit into him, drawing strength from him.

“Vigor will be fine,” Gray promised. “He’s tough. He’s come this far.”

She smiled up at him, but she was too tired to put much emotion behind it.

Before they even reached the first tier, a booming voice echoed down to them, using a bullhorn again. “SORTEZ AVEC VOS MAINS SUR LA TÊTE!” The command echoed away, to come out with their hands up.

“Déjà vu,” Monk sighed. “Pardon my French.”

Rachel lifted her rifle.

A second command in English followed. “COMMANDER PIERCE, WHAT’S YOUR STATUS?”

Gray turned to the others.

“Impossible,” Kat said.

“It’s Director Crowe,” Gray confirmed, shock in his voice.

He turned and cupped his mouth and yelled back.

“ALL CLEAR DOWN HERE! WE’RE COMING UP!”

Gray then turned to Rachel, eyes bright.

“Is it over?” she asked.

As answer, he pulled her to him and kissed her. There was no mysterious light this time, only the strength of his arms and sweetness of his lips. She sank into him.

Here was all the magic she needed.

GRAY LED the way up.

Monk helped Vigor, carrying him under his good arm. Gray kept an arm around Rachel. She leaned heavily against him, but she was a burden he was happy to bear.

Though relieved, Gray kept them armed this time. He was not walking into another ambush. Rifles and pistols in hand, they began the long trek up to the kitchen. Bodies, burned or electrocuted, littered the tiers.

“Why were we spared?” Monk asked.

“Maybe that lower level sheltered us,” Kat said.

Gray didn’t argue with her, but he suspected it was something more than that. He remembered the suffusing glow of the light. He sensed something more than random photons. Maybe not an intelligence. But something beyond raw power.

“And what happened to the treasure house?” Seichan asked, staring out at the empty expanse. “Was it all a hologram of some sort?”

“No,” Gray answered as they climbed. He had a theory. “Under powerful conditions, flux tubes can be generated within a Meissner field. Affecting not only gravity, like the levitation we’ve already seen, but also distorting space. Einstein showed that gravity actually curves space. The flux tubes create such a vortex in gravity that it bends space, possibly even folding it on itself, allowing movement across.”

Gray noted the looks of disbelief. “Research is already being done on this at NASA,” he pressed.

“Smoke and mirrors,” Monk grumbled. “That’s what I think it was.”

“But where did it all go?” Seichan asked.

Vigor coughed. Rachel stepped toward him. He waved her away, only clearing his throat. “Gone where we can’t follow,” he said hoarsely. “We were judged and found wanting.”

Gray felt Rachel begin to speak, to mention the false key. He squeezed her and nodded to her uncle, urging her to let him speak. Maybe it wasn’t all the fake key. Could Vigor be right? Had they brushed against something they weren’t ready for?

The monsignor continued, “The ancients sought the source of primordial light, the spark of all existence. Maybe they found a doorway into or a way to ascend up to it. The white bread of the Pharaohs was said to have helped these Egyptian kings shed mortal flesh and rise as a being of light. Maybe the ancient alchemists finally achieved this, moving out of this world and into the next.”

“Like traveling along the labyrinth,” Kat said.

“Exactly. The maze may be symbolic for their ascension. They left this gateway here for others to follow, but we came—”

“Too early,” Rachel suddenly blurted, interrupting.

“Or too late,” Gray added. The words had just popped into his head, like the flash of a camera bulb, leaving him dazed.

Rachel glanced to him. She lifted a hand to rub her forehead.

He saw a similar confusion in her eyes, as if the words had come unbidden to her, too. He glanced over the lip of the tier down to the shattered glass floor, then back to her.

Perhaps Raoul was not the only one affected by the light.

Had an echo been left inside them? An understanding, a final message?

“Too late…or too early,” Vigor continued with a shake of his head, drawing back Gray’s attention. “Wherever the ancients fled with their treasures — into the past, into the future — they have left us with only the present.”

“To create our own heaven or hell,” Monk said.

They continued in silence, climbing tier after tier. Reaching the top level, a group of French police waited, along with a familiar face.

“Commander,” Painter said. “It’s good to see you.”

Gray shook his hand. “You have no idea.”

“Let’s get all of you topside.”

Before they could move, Vigor stirred from Monk’s arm. “Wait.” He stumbled away, one hand on the wall.

Gray and Rachel stepped after him.

“Uncle…” she said, concerned.

A short distance away stood a stone table. It seemed everything had not vanished with the library. A leather-bound book rested on the table. Its glass case, though, was gone.

“The ledger,” Vigor said, tears welling. “They left the ledger!”

He attempted to pick it up, but Rachel motioned him aside and collected it herself. She shut it and tucked it under an arm.

“Why leave that behind?” Monk asked, helping the monsignor again.

Vigor answered, “To let us know what awaits us. To give us something to seek.”

“Dangling the proverbial carrot before the mule,” Monk said. “Great. They couldn’t leave a chest of gold…okay, maybe not gold…I’m damn sick of gold. Diamonds, a chest of diamonds would be fine.”

They hobbled toward the stairs.

Gray glanced back one more time. With the space empty, he noted the cavern’s shape, a cone-shaped pyramid balanced on its tip. Or the upper half of an hourglass, pointing down toward the glass floor.

But where was the lower half?

As he stared, he suddenly knew.

“As it is above, so it is below,” he mumbled.

Vigor glanced back to him, rather sharply. Gray saw the understanding and knowledge in the old man’s eyes. He had already figured it out, too.

The gold key was meant to open a gateway. To the lower half of the hourglass. But where? Was there a cavern directly beneath this one? Gray didn’t think so. But somewhere the cathedral of knowledge waited. What had hung here was a mere reflection from another place.

Like Monk said. Smoke and mirrors.

Vigor stared at him. Gray remembered Cardinal Spera’s mission: to preserve the secret of the Magi, trusting that the knowledge would reveal itself when the time was right.

Maybe that’s what life’s journey was all about.

The quest.

To seek the truth.

Gray placed a hand on Vigor’s shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

With Rachel under his arm, Gray climbed the stairs.

Out of darkness and toward the light.