The Book of Lost Fragrances

Forty-seven

As the two men looked into the shadows, their helmets illuminated the scene. Jac watched shock register on their faces as they understood she was in grave danger.

“Ani? What are you doing?” Robbie asked. “Let go of my sister!”

“I need you to give me the shards. Now.”

“I thought I knew you.”

Ani shrugged as if his comment didn’t matter. But the woman’s body trembled against Jac’s back.

“This doesn’t have to end in disaster. I have a gun and I have a rope. Which I use is your choice. Let’s consider the most civilized scenario: I take the treasure, tie you all up, leave you here, and then once I’ve delivered the gift intended for His Holiness, I’ll call the police and tell them where you are.”

“There are three of us; one of you,” Griffin said in a voice that was as sharp as a knife’s edge.

“There may be two of you. But I have her. And I have the gun.”

Jac felt the air waving around her again. The scent of antiquity. Of icons turning to dust with one slight touch. The smells of the Nile Delta. Palm fronds. Women heady with power. Men thick with lust. The smell was making her sick. There was no question. Her sanity was being stolen by the scent.

She breathed through her mouth. Focused on her brother. He was pressing his sleeve against the flow of blood and looking at Ani with an expression of such confusion it made Jac’s heart hurt for him. She shifted her gaze to Griffin, who was breathing hard and trying to send her some silent message with his eyes.

Jac looked back at Robbie. “Give her the pottery. It’s worthless,” she told him.

“It’s not. You know it’s not. I saw your face, I saw-”

“Robbie!” Griffin shouted. Jac knew he was interrupting him to keep him from giving away information.

“Your time is about up,” Ani said. “I guess you need some incentivizing.”

Suddenly Jac felt the cold nose of Ani’s gun pressed into her temple.

“A gun going off down here could set off an avalanche. We’d all get trapped. Even you,” Griffin said to Ani.

“I’ve taken worse chances.”

“If you hurt us, how will you find your way back?”

The nun laughed. It was low and guttural, and Jac felt it in a hot breath on the back of her neck.

“I marked our trail with infrared ink. I won’t have any trouble getting out. Robbie, please give me the pottery.”

Griffin turned to Robbie. “Do what she says. Put the pottery down. There on the floor. Then back up, away from it.”

Robbie shook his head. “I know her. She won’t hurt Jac. She’s not capable of doing something like that.”

Jac felt the woman shudder.

“We can’t trust she’s who you think she is.” Griffin pointed to a spot on the ground. “Put the pottery down. There.”

The nun’s grip on Jac tightened. Jac stared at her brother. Robbie took a step forward and gingerly placed the silk pouch on the dirt floor.

“Get back now, out of her way,” Griffin instructed.

Robbie stepped backward. As he did his face caught in Griffin’s headlight, and Jac could see that her brother had tears on his cheeks. She wanted to go to him and hold him. Comfort him they way they had consoled each other as children. Instead she looked at Griffin. His eyes were on her again. But his attempt at silent communication was failing. Whatever he wanted was impossible for her to glean.

Ani moved. Inched toward the pouch, pulling Jac with her.

Griffin had been so specific about where Robbie should put the pouch. Scanning the ground, Jac tried to figure out why Griffin had chosen that spot. There had to be a reason. What did he know about the cavern that she didn’t? What had he noticed that she’d missed?

As she neared, the pottery’s scent grew in intensity. Reached out to her with its accents of smoke. A cloud of pungency. Even from a few feet away, even under these circumstances, she felt the pull of the strange and elusive ancient aroma. A river of sadness. A desert of promise. The decipherable spicy notes and undecipherable ones that worked on her mind beckoned. Determined to remain conscious and present, she pushed back. Refused to give in to the scent. Surprisingly, at least for a time, she remained on the other side of it.

Jac judged they were two and a half feet from the pouch. Once they reached it, Ani was going to have to bend over to get it. Or she was going to make Jac get it for her. Either way, the nun was going to have to loosen her grip. What should Jac do when she did? Grab the gun? What it if went off? An explosion down here, as Griffin had warned, could cause a cave-in.

Her brother was still hovering near the pouch, unable to leave.

“Robbie.” Griffin’s voice was softer as he tried to pull her brother away with his words. “Let it go. Just let it go.”

Robbie seemed unable to leave the object.

In the midst of these terrifying moments, with Ani’s arm wrapped tight around Jac, digging into her, with a black gun shoved into her temple, with a hundred things to be worried about, what Jac thought about was the miracle of her brother’s belief. What must it be like to care about something so much, to believe so deeply-that even faced with this kind of danger, you still had trouble giving up? It was ironic. Her only conviction was a commitment to nonbelief. To seeing stories as being nothing but stories. To deconstructing them to metaphor and nothing else. She was a realist: man created faith to light up the darkness. To gain a foothold into the crater of nothingness.

The pouch was within reach now. Jac felt Ani hesitate. Was she figuring out how to get it?

Across the room, Griffin’s eyes bored into Jac. What the hell was he trying to tell her to do? He tilted his head to one side. What was he saying?

She was only going to have one chance to-

Ani’s grip loosened. Jac wrested free. Backed away as fast as she could.

Ani reached down.

Griffin leaned forward. Picked something up off the ground. In the dark, Jac couldn’t see what it was. He raised his arm. Then a loud crack reverberated in the chamber.

Ani fell. Sprawled on the ground. Her gun skidding.

Griffin’s weapon, a hollow-eyed, yellowed skull, rolled toward Jac.

Then Griffin was on top of Ani, pinning her down, grabbing her hands and pulling them behind her. His knee on her back.

The nun fought hard. Griffin fought harder. She bucked. He pushed her back down. Got her by the neck.

“Jac, grab the gun!” Griffin shouted.

She reached for it, groping in the dark.

“Robbie, get the-” He didn’t have to finish. Robbie had already scooped up the silk pouch.

Ani fought wildly. He yanked her arms behind her. She kept struggling. He increased his pressure. She came out of her jacket. She bucked again. Tried to kick him. Griffin wrenched her arms farther behind her. The nun let out a piercing cry. In seconds, beads of sweat dotted the woman’s upper lip and forehead. He’d hurt her badly. Maybe dislocated a shoulder.

“Jac, look through her robe. She said she brought rope with her to tie us up.”

“Don’t bother,” a voice boomed out from the far side of the vaulted chamber. Angry. Strident. “She brought me with her, too. So let her go. And step away.”