Stones of Fire

59

‘I mean you no harm,’ Stanford MacFarlane said as he ushered her into the room.

Edie snorted, the memory of her near rape all too vivid. ‘Yeah, and British beef is safe to eat. Guess you’re unaware of the fact that your henchman sexually assaulted me.’

MacFarlane stared at her. She guessed him to be in his mid- to late-fifties, the sharply defined widow’s peak in the greying buzz cut being the giveaway. At one time he had probably been handsome, but years spent in the sun had turned age lines into deeply incised creases, giving him a stern gnome-like visage. A man of medium height, he had an erect military posture and an air of command that bordered on the egomaniacal.

‘You lie,’ he said dismissively.

‘I should have known you’d stand by your man.’

‘I will always stand by a man of God.’

So much for sowing the seeds of dissent.

Shot down, Edie glanced around her, taking in what appeared to be an old mill, the metal cogs and wheels of the original machinery still in place on the other side of the room. Able to hear water running beneath the floorboards, she figured the mill was located on a stream or river.

She turned her gaze back to the man standing across from her. ‘Just answer me this: what are you going to do if you actually get your hands on the Ark?’

‘That’s between me and the Almighty,’ Mac-Farlane replied.

‘What if the Ark of the Covenant turns out to be nothing more than a gold-plated box?’

MacFarlane smiled. ‘And God said to Moses, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”’

Clearly he considered the Ark some kind of God box, so Edie decided to try a different approach. ‘There’s no question in my mind that you’re a God-fearing man. Which means that we have a lot in common. You may not know this, but I go to church every Sunday and… well, I don’t have to tell you what the Bible says about mercy and compassion. “Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they shall see God,”’ she recited, tossing out a Bible verse of her own, figuring the only way to fight fire was with more of the same.

MacFarlane’s gaze narrowed. ‘Like many of your ilk, you’ve hijacked the Bible in order to advance your left-wing, feel-good agenda. According to people like you, the carjacker will not steal your vehicle if you show some compassion, nor will the killer pull the trigger as he is an intrinsically good man.’

Turning away from her, MacFarlane walked over to the kitchen counter, the stone-walled room a big open space with matching sofas on one side, a dining table in the middle and a kitchen area at the far end. She watched as he took down two mugs from a shelf. He opened two packets of instant cocoa. That done, he added hot water from an electric kettle.

Even as he handed her one of the mugs, he glared at her. A dark, impassioned glare that sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t dare refuse the cocoa.

‘I know you and your kind, Miss Miller. You think that by putting your carcass in a pew every Sunday, God will look kindly upon you, perfect church attendance equalling a free pass to salvation.’

‘You’ve got me mixed up with some other person. Personally, I think it’s important for —’ she searched for the right word ‘— the betterment of one’s soul to engage in good works. Christian charity being the touchstone of —’

‘Spare me the secular sermon. As if volunteering at some inner-city soup kitchen will gain you entry into heaven. Faith, not deeds, will secure you a place among the righteous.’

‘Don’t you mean the self-righteous?’ she retorted.

‘You and your kind are anathema unto the Lord.’

‘Then we clearly worship two different gods.’

‘At last, something we can agree upon.’

And as Edie knew full well, it was an agreement based on a bitter divide.

Truth be told, she was taken aback at how much Stanford MacFarlane reminded her of Pops, her maternal grandfather having held to a very conservative interpretation of the Bible. At the time she’d thought it a stifling interpretation. But when espoused by a man like MacFarlane, it went from stifling to scary. Put a black robe on him and Stanford MacFarlane would have made the perfect Spanish inquisitor.

‘Speaking of entry into heaven, if you think finding the Ark is your stamped ticket, think again,’ she said, refusing to go quietly to the stake.

About to raise his mug to his lips, MacFarlane lowered it. For several seconds — seconds that conjured up images of burning bodies — he stared at her.

‘Unlike you, I will die and rise with the Old Testament saints.’ Then, as though he’d simply made a passing comment about the weather, he calmly took a sip of his cocoa.

Edie was silent.

There’s no way you can argue with a zealot. The years spent with Pops had taught her that, the memory still weighing heavy. Like a giant millstone on her heart.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a gossamer strand of cobweb dangling from the wood-beamed ceiling. Staring at it, she suddenly felt very much like the fly ensnared in the deceptively beautiful trap.

But unlike the ensnared fly, she had an out. Cædmon.

She knew he would come. If not to rescue her, then to find the Ark.