Valley of Dry Bones Read online

  “It’s not safe yet. Wait until we rig some ropes.”

  Luis looked up at Julio, his jaw set, his dark eyes almost black in the dawn light, a promise of future rage.

  Julio took a step back, biting his lip. “Of course. Right now. I can help you down myself.” He turned to the workers. “Stay back. Don’t stress the ground. But be ready with ropes just in case.”

  He picked up a head-lamp and put it on, slinging a pack with safety gear onto his back.

  Julio stepped down onto the rubble of the tomb, lifting up his arm as support. Luis placed his walking cane carefully down onto the first stone and took his first step.

  “Stop in the name of the Lord!”

  A tall, thin man stepped from the shadows behind a tomb. He wore a brown monk’s habit, tied simply at the waist with a piece of rope, the hood up obscuring his features. A heavy bronze crucifix hung around his neck.

  “You trespass against God in this place.”

  The man’s voice was deep and slow, like the languid movement of the waters in the Louisiana bayou. He pushed his hood back, revealing pale skin and grey eyes that echoed the stone of the tombs around them. His flesh hugged tight against his skull, his head shaved close and nicked in places, leaving patches of dried blood. He looked as if he subsisted on air alone.

  The monk strode toward the hole, his right fist clenched around the crucifix.

  The workers drew back, eyes looking away, unwilling to challenge a holy man. Some of them crossed themselves as he passed.

  Luis stood his ground, Julio holding strong beside him, as the monk pushed to the edge of the hole.

  “What right do you have to desecrate this holy ground?”

  Luis tilted his head to look up at the monk. “The right of my ancestors who have sought this place for generations.”

  The monk’s eyes widened. “Then you are–”

  His words were cut off as Julio grabbed the monk and forced him to his knees. He tried to shout but the noise was muted by the stone and the rain and the rag they stuffed in his mouth.

  Luis looked down at the monk kneeling before him. “Push his head forward.”

  The man struggled, but Julio pushed him down and pulled down the robe revealing a stylized tattoo of wind swirling around a cross of bone on the base of his neck.

  Luis spat in the monk’s face, barely hearing the audible gasp from the men around him. “You are Brotherhood of the Breath, one of the traitor Père Antoine’s bastard breed. But it ends here. Your very presence confirms this is the true resting place and your sacrifice will begin a new cycle.” Luis stepped away. “Bind him and lower him down.” He looked out at the wakening city. “Then guard the perimeter. No one must come down here until we are finished.”

  Julio’s men wound guide-ropes around the monk and lowered him into the darkness. When the rope went slack, they threw the end in after him. Luis began the slow journey down, relishing each step on the stones of history as Julio helped him climb into the chamber.

  When they reached the bottom, Luis paused for a moment, listening to the darkness. Was there a faint rattling, like bones against a casket?

  The moans of the bound monk echoed around the chamber, the sound revealing a bigger place than expected. Luis shook his head. There was no way he could have missed this with the radar. It was as if it had appeared overnight, some opening into another world that slipped through the shadows of time.

  Julio unpacked his bag, bringing out stronger lights. He flicked on a powerful flashlight and shone it around the chamber, his hand shaking a little as it revealed what lay ahead.

  The floor was layered with bones, some full skeletons with rusted swords in their hands, some arranged in intricate designs, others piled high like a mass grave. Julio crossed himself as he raised the light higher. Pelvis bones and femurs lined the walls while a ceiling of skulls gazed down with empty eyes.

  “We need to go deeper. The Hand of Ezekiel must be here.” Luis took the flashlight from Julio and started forward, shrugging back at the bound monk. “Bring him.”

  Luis walked on, his thin ray of light lancing through the darkness, illuminating the long dead, their dull-white bones reflecting the glow back at him. Julio walked behind, carrying the bound monk, and together they formed a slow procession toward their final goal.

  An altar made from criss-crossed leg bones fused with skulls and on top, a casket made from tiny bones fitted and fused together, inlaid with exquisite gold filigree.

  Luis exhaled slowly and walked to it, putting his hand on what his family had sought for generations. Was there a vibration from inside, or did he imagine it? His heart pounded in expectation at what lay within.

  The monk twisted and moaned more loudly as Julio dropped him on the floor near the altar.

  Luis leaned closer.

  He opened the lid and gasped. “No, this can’t be right.”

  Inside, there was only a faded crimson silk cushion with five compartments, empty of the relics he so desperately sought.

  Luis spun around and ripped the gag from the monk’s mouth. “Where is it?”

  The monk laughed with triumph. “You will never find the Hand of Ezekiel.”

  Luis grabbed the box from the altar and smashed it into the sneering face.

  Blood spurted from the monk’s mouth as he fell sideways to the ground, coughing, moaning. A spasm of pain shot up Luis’s arm, a righteous punishment for his failure.

  He leaned over the bleeding man, the box held high as a weapon. “Tell me where it is, and you will join me in glory.”

  The monk spat blood in Luis’s face. “Never. I curse you and your crippled family as the Brotherhood has cursed all those who came before you.”

  Luis hammered the box down, battering the grinning face until all that was left was a bloody maw. His pants of exertion echoed around the bone chamber as the dead bore witness to the sacrifice.

  After a last bubbling breath, the monk exhaled a final sigh.

  Luis stood over the corpse, breathing heavily, the box in his hand covered in blood. His limbs ached, and he could feel the crack of his injuries hardening already. But it was worth it.

  Julio put his hand out, pointed at the box. “What’s that?”

  Luis looked down. Blood had soaked into the joins of the tiny bones forming what looked like a map. He bent and dipped it into more of the monk’s blood, using the life force to outline the path ahead.

  Luis smiled. Of course, the Hand of Ezekiel would not be held in one place. But the Lord rewarded the faithful, and he had passed the first test.

  He looked down at the dead body. “Get rid of that. Mark it and leave it somewhere public as a warning to those who might come after us. The Brotherhood of the Breath is broken but not finished yet.”

  Luis turned and walked back through the chamber. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds lighting the way ahead as he climbed out of the tomb into a new day, the bloody box of bone clutched tightly to his chest.

  2

  New Orleans, USA.

  As the taxi pulled up to the gates of the cemetery, Jake could see agent Naomi Locasto waiting outside in the shade of a turreted, brick building topped with the sculpture of a praying angel. Above her stretched an arch with decorative scrolls and the name of the place in filigree script – Saint Roch’s, Campo Santo.

  The area was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and a few officers walked the perimeter. Naomi stood apart from them wearing a cream linen suit that set off her dark skin. Somehow, she managed to look cool and serene even though the sun baked down and it was already sweltering hot. Naomi was truly a modern American citizen, her family a blend of African-American, Native American, and Eastern European immigrants. Proud of her heritage, she was a linguist, one of the finest they had working at ARKANE, and Jake wondered why she had chosen to work on this case – and why she had asked him to join her once more.

  The Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience (ARKANE) Institute investigated s
upernatural mysteries around the world, working in a realm beyond law enforcement, where the line between reality and the supernatural blurred. The last time they had worked together in New York, Naomi had killed her first man as they had fought to keep the blood of an angel from those who sought to use its power for evil. Jake wondered whether that death still haunted her, even as the shades of all those he had left behind still wandered his nightmares. By day, he could deny their power, but by night, their echoes remained.

  Some of the things he had seen remained seared into his memory, but Jake couldn’t step away, aware of what still lay out there threatening humanity. He was wary of this mission, unsure of what was to come, and if he was really honest, he was worried. His usual partner, Morgan Sierra, wasn’t here with him and he wondered whether she would ever be again.

  Jake paid the taxi driver and stepped out of the car with a sigh of relief. It was good to stretch his legs after the long flight from London. The heat hit him like a blast from an oven, and he felt a trickle of sweat down his spine under his white linen shirt. The light-headedness of jet lag swirled in his brain, but he pushed it aside, sharpening his focus as he strode over to Naomi in the shade.

  “Welcome back, Jake. It’s good to see you.” Naomi smiled and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. He held her briefly, her skin cool under his touch. They had been through a great deal together, although she still didn’t know what he had seen under New York that final day. Perhaps he hadn’t even seen it himself.

  “It’s good to be back.” He smiled, the corkscrew scar above his left eye twisting up to his hairline. “I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I hope we get a chance to have a look around.”

  “This city will get under your skin, I promise. No one forgets The Big Easy. But first, I hope you can help with this case.”

  Naomi pointed up the wide path toward the chapel, and they walked together along the gravel, footsteps crunching, as they passed stone tombs ranged either side. Bright purple bougainvillea curled around the graves, scarlet hibiscus flowers blooming at the edges while the scent of waxy frangipani filled the air.

  “Why are you working this case?” Jake asked. “I thought you preferred to be based in the New York office.”

  Naomi paused. She looked up at him, and Jake saw hesitation in her dark eyes. “It feels strange to say it out loud, but I think you’ll understand.” She took a deep breath. “I got bored.”

  Jake laughed. “Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I go stir crazy if I’m not out on a mission. Director Marietti has given up trying to make me do office-work.”

  Naomi smiled, encouraged by his understanding. “I was lost before in all the books and relics and sacred objects and symbols and languages and, oh, so much paperwork. I could delve into a manuscript for days without thinking of the people behind the mystery. Those who died in the search for it. Or those lost because we didn’t find it in time.”

  She pointed out the graves around them, some with colorful flower wreaths, others hung with plastic beads. “Besides, I know this place, these people. When the body was found, and ARKANE notified, I volunteered for the case. With my heritage, I’m a good match for this area. Saint Roch has always been racially mixed, home to one of the largest populations of free people of color since before the Civil War.” She looked up at Jake. “But I don’t think this is just a simple murder. I wouldn’t have called you all the way over here otherwise.”

  They walked on to the chapel. It was simple compared to many Catholic churches, a cream facade with gold-painted trim and a tall arched window stretching up to a cross silhouetted against the bright, blue sky. A plaque dedicating the shrine to Saint Roch was carved above the door:

  To the patron saint of miraculous cures, in fulfillment of a sacred vow.

  Jake glanced up at it as Naomi explained.

  “There was a yellow fever epidemic here in 1867. A German priest, Reverend Thevis, prayed to Saint Roch, a fourteenth-century saint who cured plague victims in Italy. Thevis promised to build a shrine if no one in the parish died of it.”

  Jake grinned. “Let me guess. No one did.”

  “Exactly. So this place was built, and people still pray for healing here today – in a slightly macabre way.”

  They entered carefully, their footsteps echoing in the sanctuary as they walked down the aisle. Jake took a breath, the cool atmosphere refreshing after being outside. The air reeked of disinfectant but underneath, Jake could smell blood. Something shocking had torn the peace from this place. It was a sanctuary no longer.

  The church was simple. Wooden pews lined up to face an altar flanked by paintings of the saint’s life and a figurine of Saint Roch himself, a wide hat shading his eyes and a staff in his hand to guide the faithful onward. By his feet, a little dog looked up with soulful eyes, a piece of bread in its mouth.

  “It’s said that the dog saved his life,” Naomi explained. “Roch nursed many plague victims, but eventually fell sick himself, and his dog brought him bread in the darkest moments.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow. “Everyone loves a happy dog story, right?”

  Naomi laughed, the sound echoing in the space, a moment of levity before she glanced over to another door. “The body was found in there.”

  Jake walked over, opened the door and looked around at the strange scene. The room was filled with life-sized limbs, representations of the body parts that supplicants needed healing. There were plaster casts of feet in different sizes and shades, some flaking in the heat. Several legs were propped against the wall next to metal braces and crutches. Other objects cluttered every possible space on the shelves and window ledges – hearts, praying hands, crucifixes, coins, statues of saints and toys. A box with a pair of fake eyeballs sat on a shelf. At least Jake assumed they were fake.

  The smell of blood was stronger in here. Flies buzzed as they thudded against the windows trying to escape. Nothing left to feed on now.

  A sprayed outline of a body lay on the floor and within it, darker stains of blood that couldn’t be scrubbed clean. Jake hunkered down next to it.

  “The police took the body already?”

  “They had to move it. The heat, you know.” Naomi shrugged. “It’s in the morgue.” She handed Jake her smart phone. “These are the crime scene photos.”

  Jake scrolled through the pictures, noting the position of the dead man in the orientation of the room. His face had been beaten to a pulp, his body broken and bruised. There were occult markings carved into his skin, bloody lines forming distinct geometric patterns, crosses, stars and hearts. Jake noted the monk’s robes, the emaciated body. This man didn’t care much for his corporeal life, but clearly, faith sustained him.

  “Do you know who he was?”

  Naomi shook her head. “No trace of him so far. No prints. No dental records. We’re searching through European databases as well.”

  “So apart from the fact that this guy was a monk, why is this an ARKANE case?”

  “The occult markings, for a start.” Naomi scrolled through the photos, zooming in to show the markings more clearly. “Some of these are veve, religious symbols of voodoo loa, or spirits. This is Baron Samedi’s. This one for Maman Brigitte. They were done post-mortem, so they didn’t bleed much. That’s why the lines are so clear.”

  Jake shrugged. “We’re in New Orleans. Surely this kind of thing is pretty normal?”

  “You’ve been watching too many zombie movies.” Naomi pointed back to the pictures. “But that’s not all. Check out his tattoo.”

  Jake scrolled further to a shot of the man’s neck: a stylized tattoo of wind swirling around a cross of bone.

  “It’s certainly not a veve,” Naomi said. “And it’s not from a known gang. That’s why we’re here. The city is wary of religious killings, and with this political environment, they want to rule out extremism on any side.”

  Jake looked at the tattoo. If Morgan were here, she would probably know what it represented. But for now, he could always rely o
n Martin Klein back at ARKANE HQ in London. “I’ll get Spooky on it. If there’s something to be found, he’ll find it.”

  Jake forwarded the photos onto Martin, knowing it wouldn’t be long before they had a response. He looked at Naomi, eyebrows raised.

  “It still doesn’t explain why you consider this an ARKANE case. One body in a church with a symbol we’ll probably trace within the hour?”

  Naomi tilted her head to one side, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “I wanted you to see this place first – but wait until you see the hidden bone chamber discovered under the oldest cemetery in New Orleans.”

  Jake’s eyes widened. “Now that sounds like my type of place.”

  ARKANE Headquarters, London, England.

  Martin Klein examined the photo Jake had sent over. The straight bold lines of the bony cross. The curling wind giving it a sense of movement. He pushed his glasses up his nose, stretched his fingers out and delved into the world he loved best. The world of code and knowledge beyond the realms of the human brain. From this tiny office in the underground labyrinth hidden beneath Trafalgar Square, he could access a digital powerhouse.

  Having recruited Martin from Cambridge University with a Doctorate in Computer Science and Archaeology, ARKANE Director Marietti had charged him with making sense of the chaos of data about religion and the supernatural. Over the years, Martin had raided archives from museums, libraries, private collections and secret societies around the world. An unseen relic hunter, leaving no trace of his digital fingerprints. It was spooky how fast he could find information, hence the nickname that Jake had given him, and that Martin not-so-secretly loved. But he could only steal what was available in bits and bytes, and so much of human knowledge lay in physical objects and hand-written scrolls stored in dusty libraries or carved into the walls of hidden tombs.

  The everlasting search for knowledge drove ARKANE agents out into the field, solving mysteries, for sure, but also bringing back occult talismans, ancient manuscripts and objects of power for further study. Martin thought of the vault that lay beneath him, the security fully updated since the bombing that led them on a mission to India not so long ago. It was full of such artifacts gathered at great cost.