The Dark Rift: The Supernatural Grail Quest Zombie Apocalypse (The Last Artifact Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

Gibraltar, Europe.

Amir stood on his balcony,
looking out over the sunny rooftops of Gibraltar and enjoying his favourite pastime. He tilted his head to move his dreadlocks aside, and then took a deep haul from his pipe. It was an authentic ninth century chillum, the shape and size of a carrot, and covered in ancient Vedic carvings. He had obtained the piece years ago while on an expedition in Thanjavur with Gabriel. It went everywhere with him, and just as the wandering Hindu monks had done a thousand years prior, Amir had packed it with a specially prepared mixture of hashish and kief. It was not for the novice smoker.

Amir squinted back at the flat over his shoulder. His computer had just chimed an alert. Smoke lingered around his princely features, which were offset only by a slightly protruding brow. His skin was the colour of dark honey, and he had intelligent eyes that were always bright and alert, despite his constant smoking. He held the vapours in a little while longer and then released a billowing cloud, lazily watching it float out into the open air. When his computer chimed again he groaned and turned to go inside. Someone was messaging him. He bent over the computer.

—Amir. Something terrible has happened.—

It was Amir’s cousin Abida who wrote. He sat down and began to type.

—Abida, you shouldn’t be contacting me like this. It leaves traces. What happened?—

Abida was the sister of Bahadur. She lived in Tangiers, and was constantly under the surveillance of Moroccan authorities, her family being directly connected to the smuggling cartel.

 
—Men came late yesterday night and took Bahadur. They took the whole family along with him.—

—Are you absolutely sure of this?—

—I speak with them every day, you know that. When I had not heard from them, I went to their house, but it was empty. The neighbour told me what had happened. She said that Nasrallah’s men had taken them all away.—

—Was anyone hurt?—

—No. The neighbour said she saw them get loaded into a van. Even Jadda.—

—Even Grandmother? Did she have her heart medicine?—

—I do not know. If it was the government, we could ask about them, but it was Nasrallah. The neighbour is sure of it. What should we do?—

—Abida, listen carefully. I’ll take care of this now. Don’t speak of it to anyone. You will do nothing. Do you understand?—

—Yes, Amir. Thank you. I know you will fix this.—

—OK. Get some rest. Everything will be fine.—

Amir rose from his chair and produced his phone. He paused a moment to think, and then pushed the speed dial for Gabriel. It went directly to his voice mail.

“Boss,” he said, stepping out onto the balcony. “There’s trouble. Give me a call when you get this.”

Rome, Italy.

The firelight played
on the old Bishop as he sat there before Natasha and Gabriel. Their eyes were glued to him as he spoke, his silvery beard and mustache picking up the hews of the fire that crackled behind them. Before him on the archaeologist’s worktable lay the Professor’s tattered journal. On its leathery cover could still be seen the remains of a tattered, gold embossed stamp.

The Cube of Compostela

Reality or Myth?

Fra and Suora had both fallen asleep by the fire. They had brought their chairs together so they could share the same blanket, and now sat cuddled, the nun’s head resting on the Brother’s shoulder. Bathed in the warmth of the firelight, the two old figures seemed to embody the objective of what the nunnery tunnel had attempted to accomplish so long ago: to unite what was always meant to be together.

Shackleton was laying in front of them, his proud head held high as he gazed almost pensively into the flames of the hearth. There was a consciousness in his eyes that seemed at odds with his species; a quiet wisdom that appeared almost divine. Within Shackleton’s soul there was none of the conflict so common to the human condition, only a pristine desire to serve humbly and to protect. He turned his noble head and looked at the three who sat there at the table, focusing his amber eyes on the speaking Bishop. Entirely unconcerned with what was being said, Shackleton’s satisfaction lay in seeing that everyone was safe, and getting the rest they so much needed.

“You see,” said the old Bishop, “if it were not for a legend, it is very unlikely that we would ever have found you.”

“I do not understand, Uncle,” said Natasha, snuggling into the smoky dark wool of her jacket. “What does a legend have to do with it? I was very sick when I was a baby. Father Franco told me that he had arranged for the church to adopt me when they could not care for me at the orphanage.”

“That’s more or less what the Professor told me as well,” said Gabriel, looking at Natasha and then back to the Bishop. “After that he ended up taking a liking to me, and decided to keep me.”

“These stories are not lies, my children,” said the old Bishop, “but they also leave out much truth. Before I proceed, I must repeat that it was our intention to keep all the details surrounding your early months from you until we were certain of the facts. You must try to understand things from our perspective. We had recently taken on the responsibility of raising two beautiful children, and we wanted to ensure that the life we gave them was as rich and nurturing as possible. Of what good could it be to fill your heads with uncertain stories?”

“What stories?” asked Natasha.

Her face was earnest in the firelight; her eyes almost childlike.

“You mentioned a legend. Uncle Marcus, please.”

The Bishop smiled.

“I apologize,” he said. “Be patient with me. There is much to convey, and I will start at the beginning. All I ask is that both of you never lose sight of who you are now, at this very moment. The things that happened in your past do not define you. They only explain how you came to be.”

The Bishop looked at each of them in turn, and proceeded only after he was convinced that they were ready.

“As you know,” he began, “I have, for many years now, held an office pertaining to church investigations of events that are often labeled paranormal. For me this term seems a contradiction to the truth, because things such as apparitions, demonic possessions, and other spiritual manifestations are indeed very normal, in that they have always existed, as opposed to the above-and-beyond meaning that the prefix
para
implies.”

“Uncle Marcus!” cried Natasha, stamping her feet.

Gabriel was temporarily fixated despite himself. Natasha’s little tantrum had displaced a lock of hair. He watched it play around her pretty lips for a moment before she absently tucked it away behind an ear.

“Yes, very well, my child,” continued the old Bishop. “I will get to the point. Thirty-three years ago I received a phone call. I was at my desk, and as it so happened, Gabriel, your father was there with me. The call came from a deacon who was assisting me at the time.

‘I have received two separate calls relating to suspected cases of demonic possession,’
he had said.
‘A girl in Argentina, and a boy in Taiwan.’

“Now, while it was not uncommon to receive calls such as this from time to time, the remarkable thing was that in both cases, the children were newly born; something that I had never heard tell of before.”

“Possessed babies?” coughed Gabriel.

A twisted scene of a demon-infested infant was playing out in his mind.

“That’s pretty damn creepy.”

Natasha’s eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and concern.

“It was the first case I had ever encountered,” continued the Bishop, clearing his throat with a barely detectable wince. “An abomination of Satan. The two children had spent their first month in a coma, only to regain consciousness in severely agitated states.”

The Bishop paused, taking hold of the Professor’s journal as if to open it, but refraining from doing so.

“Now if this were not already strange enough,” he said, folding his hands over the weathered book, “I would soon learn from the deacon that the babies had not only been born on the same day, but also at precisely the same hour.”

The Bishop sat back in his chair.

“Now although I thought it a great coincidence, I would most likely have left it at that, were it not for the fact that Professor Metrovich had overheard our conversation.

“
‘Where exactly were they born?’
he asked, and I saw him take up a globe that was sitting on my desk.

“
‘The boy, on an American military base in Taiwan,’
I repeated aloud, as I was given the information.
‘The girl, in the village of La Quiaca, in Northern Argentina.’

“The Professor had then juggled the globe around until he had found Taiwan, and then proceeded to locate the village, on the very opposite side of the globe.

“
‘There could be more to this than mere coincidence,’
he said, and I will never forget the expression of concern that suddenly came upon him. I told the deacon I would speak with him shortly, and hung up the phone.

“
‘The military base is directly on the Tropic of Cancer. Up here,’
the Professor said, pointing to the place on the globe.
‘La Quiaca, is directly on the Tropic of Capricorn. Down here. And what is more, if you can see, they are exactly on opposite sides of the planet.’

“I took the globe and looked for myself. I was amazed, for it was just as he said. The Professor clearly knew something that I did not.”

“And I was the little girl in Argentina,” said Natasha timidly.

“Yes, my child, that was you,” said the old Bishop smiling. “And the boy on the military base was you, Gabriel.”

“I pretty much figured,” said Gabriel, looking at Natasha and then back to the Bishop. “So what became of us?”

“Why we went out to get you!” said the Bishop, smiling. “We brought both of you back to Rome, and Father Franco and myself laboured for fourteen months exorcizing the demons that were in you.”

“Demons?” asked Natasha, aghast. “There were more than one?”

“There were fourteen in total, my child,” said the Bishop rather plainly. “Seven in you, and seven in Gabriel. And as that particular ritual could only be conducted on the night of a full moon, it took us fourteen months to liberate the two of you. In the end we were successful, and miraculously, you only suffered minimal injuries.”

“Injuries?” asked Natasha, leaning forward.

The old Bishop nodded.

“Burn marks at the energy centres of your body,” he explained. “These were the places where the demons were extracted.”

“Burn marks?” asked Gabriel and Natasha in unison, turning to look at each other.

Gabriel was the first to speak. He turned to look at the old Bishop.

“My father told me that my scars came from someone who had abused me in the orphanage before he found me.”

Natasha was still looking at Gabriel.

“That is what they told me too,” she said.

Natasha reached over and pushed aside some of the shaggy brown hair that covered Gabriel’s forehead. His scar was in the exact same spot as hers. Gabriel looked into her eyes, confused, and just then Natasha pushed aside her bangs to show him. He had to bend close to see it in the firelight. The scar was barely recognizable but it was nevertheless there.

“I’ve got them all over my body,” he said, and then he turned back to the Bishop with a frown. “Why were we lied to?”

The Bishop looked down at the table.

“I know that lying to you both was a sin, but telling you the true story would have been extremely destructive. Knowing that you were mutilated as infants has been a cross you have both had to bear all your lives, my dear, dear children, but the truth…”

The old Bishop’s eyes became glassy with tears.

“We could not possibly have told you the truth.”

Natasha fought back her tears.

“It is alright, Uncle,” she said quietly. “You were right not to tell us. I always suspected that there was something more to the scars than I was told. When I was twelve I learned about the seven Hindu chakra points, and I saw that all my scars aligned perfectly with them. It was not long after that I found the one on the crown of my head.”

“There’s another one on our head?” asked Gabriel, searching through his messy hair with the tips of his fingers.

The Bishop gave a single nod.

“That was from the last demon to be extracted,” he said matter-of-factly. “He was by far the most tenacious.”

“Lovely,” said Gabriel. “Thanks so much for letting us know all these little details about our early childhood. Very nice.”

The Bishop only shrugged.

“Do not let it trouble you, my son,” he said. “Let us continue with the tale.”

Gabriel settled back in his chair, looking over at Natasha to find that she was already looking at him. She smiled and then turned to the Bishop as he began to speak again.

“‘Is there something more that I should know about this coincidence?’
I asked the Professor. He had become very quiet since he had last spoken, as though he were lost in thought. He continued to hold the globe between his two fingers, one upon each of the locations. At length he began to speak, and I was truly amazed by what he said.

“The Professor told me of an obscure medieval artifact called the
Cube of Compostela
. Unknown to but a handful of scholars, its story had grown to become a legend among certain monasteries in Northern Spain. The Cube was believed to be the true Holy Grail; a receptacle carrying the living blood of the Christ, which to the ancients was a metaphor for knowledge
,
or more specifically,
Gnosis
.”

“Gnosis?” asked Gabriel.

The Bishop nodded.

“The secret alchemical knowledge of liberation and transmutation,” he said. “A mystical, intuitive knowledge that can only be known when it is directly experienced, as opposed to the kind of knowledge that is gained through rational thought, or theoretical conjecture. It was said that within the Cube were stored the keys to the cosmos. There was also a prophecy; one that the Professor found to be based on an ancient Egyptian creation myth.”

“And what myth is that?” asked Natasha.

“A rather obscure one, my child,” replied the old Bishop. “Originating from a pre-dynastic period. The myth tells the story of how the god Atum willingly sacrificed himself, and let himself fall into the underworld so as to plant the Seed Of Truth for all mankind.”

“Atum was the Egyptian god of completeness,” said Natasha. “He was the embodiment of the Divine Androgyne, or the Alchemical Marriage; the merging of male and female
forces. He was a hermaphrodite.”

The Bishop nodded.

“The myth goes on to say that from the seed that Atum planted sprung the Tree of Life. There are many such trees to be found in cultures around the world, but in our myth, the gods Osiris and Isis were said to have emerged from the tree in a state of earthly mortality.”

“
Tep Zepi
,” said Gabriel, remembering his Egyptology. “Also called
First Time
. The age of Osiris, when Egypt was believed to be ruled by gods in human form.”

“Exactly,” said the old Bishop, glancing into the flames of the fire. “According to the myth, Osiris and Isis each represented one half of what had formerly been the god Atum. In other words, his male and female aspects. They now resided in a dualistic world, where unity had been fractured into opposing states: Birth and death, high and low, light and darkness, good and evil, and so on.”

“But what does the creation myth have to do with the Compostela Cube?” asked Gabriel. “And more importantly, with us?”