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The gray sky had deepened by several shades during their brief tour of the museum, and Maddock knew that the full dark of night wasn’t far off. A persistent drizzle that didn’t quite qualify as rain continued to dampen the world, but the waves crashing against the nearby Mount Batten breakwater hinted at a storm yet to come. He studied the turbulent sea for a few seconds and then turned to appraise the boat that Black was preparing for launch. The 21-foot Zodiac Pro Open 650 rigid-hulled inflatable was an excellent platform for diving and other recreational and utilitarian activities, but not ideally suited for the current weather conditions.
“Maybe we should wait until morning,” he said.
“Ordinarily, this is where I would make a comment about Maddock being a wuss,” said Bones, hugging his arms close to his chest as if remembering the chill of Antarctica anew. They were all a little soggy from the short walk to the harbor, but that was nothing to the soaking they would get out on the water. “But just this once, I happen to agree with him.”
Black did not look up from his task. “We only have to go a little ways,” he said, and pointed out across the harbor to a land mass. “Drake’s Island. Just there. It’s only about half-a-mile. The weather is only going to get worse, so if we don’t go now, we might have to wait days.”
“Why there?” Jade asked.
“That’s where the Magna of Illusion is kept. We have a...” He paused as if trying to find the appropriate word. “A secure facility there. A private place where initiates can practice without distraction.” He clambered over the inflated pontoons, to the pilot’s bolster situated amidships, donned an orange personal flotation collar, and then settled in behind the wheel. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”
Maddock exchanged a look with Bones, then with Kismet. Both men just shrugged. Of course, they were going; what choice did they have? Black was calling the shots and he did not seem inclined to postpone the journey. Moreover, he was right about the weather. As SEALs, Maddock and Bones had both conducted boat operations under less favorable conditions, using rigid-hulled inflatable boats nearly identical to Black’s Zodiac.
When they were all aboard and wearing life preservers, Black started the outboard and cast off, motoring slowly away from the pier until he was in the channel route. Once he was in the clear, he increased the throttle until the Zodiac’s V-shaped polyester hull was plowing through swells. Under sunnier skies, it would have been an exciting experience, but with the gray drizzle, it seemed merely like an ordeal to be endured.
The seas calmed a little as they approached the north side of the island, which faced back toward Plymouth, but the sky continued to darken, prompting Black to bring out a flashlight to illuminate the way ahead. The crossing took about ten minutes, during which time Black told them a little about their destination.
Named for the famed explorer and privateer, Sir Francis Drake, the island had historically served as a defensive gun emplacement to safeguard Plymouth Harbor until, following World War II, such measures were deemed unnecessary. The city had used the island, with its abandoned military barracks, as a boy’s adventure camp for a while, but eventually it had been sold off to a developer who had never quite managed to develop anything there. Although Black didn’t come right out and say it, Maddock got the impression the real estate developer was either an initiate in the occult movement, or at the very least, getting a pay-off to maintain the status quo.
“What was it you called the mirror?” Jade asked. “Something about an illusion?”
“The Magna of Illusion,” Black said. Despite the fact that he was nearly yelling to be heard over the roar of the outboard, his tone was reverent. “Discovered by Geronimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo del Rio in the Pyramid of Tezcatlipoca in the Yucatan, in a chamber of jade, with only one way in and no way out. Captured by Sir Francis Drake and brought to England where Queen Elizabeth bestowed it to her astrologer, Dr. John Dee.
“Dee chose the name. It is a reference to St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ In this mirror was revealed the word of angels, a vision of things to come and places unseen, but prophecy is only an illusion of what may come to pass, a possible future glimpsed in the dark glass.”
The Zodiac drew up to the long pier jutting out from the island, Bones reached out with one long arm and caught the floating dock, steadying the boat while Maddock quickly tied the mooring line to a cleat. With the boat secure, they climbed out and followed Black up to the slick concrete pier.
At the end of the pier, they entered a stairwell passage cut into the cliffside. A short flight of moss-covered steps rose to a path that led them past dilapidated structures that had once housed and fed the artillerymen manning the island’s defensive stations. Black led them through the midst of the abandoned complex without stopping, following the path as it curved back into the shadowy woods that dominated the crest of the island.
Rose caught up to Maddock as they left the barracks behind. “Maddock,” she whispered. “I think we’re close.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, but then realized that she probably couldn’t see the gesture. “I just hope this isn’t another dead end.”
“That’s what I mean,” she replied. “The orb. It’s reacting to something. I can feel it moving in the pack. Shifting whenever we change directions, like a compass needle. I think it senses the mirror.”
Maddock recalled how they had used the adamantine-infused tomahawk head like a dowsing rod to find the orb in Antarctica.
“The Apex is doing the same thing,” Kismet whispered. “I think we’re definitely in the right place this time.”
As if overhearing their conversation, Black announced. “It’s just in here.” He shone his light toward a squat concrete building which Maddock guessed was a bunker or shelter built beneath an old gun emplacement. There was no door in the doorway and no glass in the windows, but otherwise the structure appeared solid enough. Black went inside, his body briefly eclipsing the light as he passed through the doorway. Maddock and the others filed in after him.
The bare floor was littered with beer cans, food wrappers and old blankets—the detritus of urban explorers and thrill seekers looking for a place to party. Black ignored the evidence of trespassers, and moved to the far wall to stand before a metal door with peeling yellow paint. The doorknob had been removed, leaving only the escutcheon. The door itself was secured with a rusty iron crossbar and serviceable padlock. The security measures might thwart vandals and trespassers, but it was hardly the level of security one would expect to safeguard a purportedly supernatural artifact.
Black produced a key and opened the lock, and then moved his hand to the missing door knob. He gave the escutcheon a twist, as if removing the lid from a jar of pickles, and it swiveled out of the way to reveal a small numerical keypad that looked anything but dilapidated. He punched in a code, and with a faint hiss of depressurization, the metal door began to move, swinging outward, and Maddock now saw that the door was actually just a façade hiding a heavy bank vault-type door.
Black darted inside the vault and reappeared a moment later with his flashlight tucked under one arm and a velvet-lined wooden box held reverently in both hands. Nestled inside the box was something that looked like a small, perfectly round window into another dimension. Even without the confirmation from the other elemental relics, Maddock would have known it was the real deal just by looking at it. Or into it.
Kismet seemed to know it as well. He met Black’s gaze. “May I touch it?”
“Please do,” Black said, his voice quavering in anticipation. “You are Adam Garral’s heir. This should be quite spectacular.”
Kismet reached out a tentative hand, touched the black mirror... And then drew back his hand as if he’d been shocked.
He looked over at Maddock and then the others. “Did you see...?” He let the question hang. Maddock hadn’t seen anything unusual, but Kismet evidently had.
“What did you see?”
Kismet opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it again and shook his head. He turned to look at Black, who continued to regard him with a mixture of excitement and reverence.
“Kismet?” Maddock said, and then repeated the unanswered question. “What did you see?”
“I was somewhere else.” He frowned. “Only I was here, too, at the same time. Everything was jumbled together.”
“Amazing,” Black said. “Most initiates must meditate for hours before the mirror reveals anything. And even then, it’s rarely so vivid.”
The Apex is giving him an assist, Maddock thought, but kept it to himself. No sense in volunteering that information to Black.
“Try again,” Jade prompted.
Kismet nodded and did so, tilting his head forward to focus his gaze on the dark glass. His forehead creased in concentration. After a moment, he raised his head again and began looking around the abandoned bunker, but when he began speaking, it became apparent what he was seeing was not in the same reality.
“Pyramids,” he whispered, turning a half-circle and craning his head around for a full 360° view. “Four of them. Jungle. Ice. Desert.” He hesitated. “Sky.”
Bones leaned close to Maddock and whispered, “A pyramid in the sky?” Maddock expected his friend to make a joke, but instead Bones took it a different direction. “Could be describing a UFO?”
“I’ve seen something like this before,” Kismet went on. “I think it’s the Tower of Babel.”
Maddock got the reference immediately. According to the Bible book of Genesis, the descendants of Noah had come together to build a city and tower so high that it would reach the heavens. Their hubris had prompted God to intervene, disrupting the project before completion by confusing the languages of the builders, which caused them to scatter across the globe.
“Of course,” Black said, his voice still full of awe. “You are seeing the elemental temples. The jungle temple. That would be the pyramid temple where the Magna of Illusion was found. A symbol of earth. The desert pyramid... Is it Egyptian?”
Kismet nodded slowly.
“Fascinating,” Black went on. “That would certainly represent the element of fire. The Tower of Babel, a ziggurat meant to reach the heavens, would symbolize air. And ice? Well that can only signify water. I wonder where that one is?”
Maddock shot the others an urgent look, willing them all to keep silent about their discoveries.
Kismet continued turning his head, looking around at places and things only he could see. All of a sudden, he threw his arms out to the sides as if trying to regain his balance. His upper torso tilted back and forth for a few seconds before stabilizing. “Moving now. There are lines connecting the pyramids. Like wires or... A web? I’m moving along them. Jungle... Whoa!
“I’m inside now. It’s disorienting. Like being in an Escher painting. The walls... Angles...” He trailed off for a moment then nodded. “The mirror. It’s here. It was here. It was always here.”
“Until it wasn’t,” Jade said.
Maddock nodded. “He’s seeing the past.”
Kismet swayed silently for several more seconds then lifted his hand away. “That’s the real thing, all right.” He gave Maddock a knowing look that said, We got what we came for, then met Black’s gaze.
“Thank you.” Kismet extended his right hand, offering the hand painted Magus card. “It’s yours, as promised.”
Black smiled, but there was neither humor nor gratitude in the expression. The indirect light rising from his flashlight gave him a ghoulish appearance. “You can’t leave. Not yet.”
Maddock experienced a shiver of apprehension, but then Black clarified his statement. “You’ve experienced a revelation. You must tell me what you beheld.”
Kismet managed a patient smile of his own. “I already told you what I saw.”
“I do not think you did,” said another voice from behind them, a female voice that did not belong to Jade or Rose.
Maddock whirled to face the newcomer, an exotic-looking raven-haired woman who gazed at them from the door to the bunker. Behind her stood several more figures; it was impossible to tell how many, but there were at least three, all male, all dressed in black. All holding guns.
“Aliyah,” Jade said, hissing the name like a curse.
Maddock recognized the name from Jade’s account of her initial meeting with Kismet. Aliyah Cerulean, the widow of Alexander Cerulean who had stolen the Apex from Kismet’s father, and died in a fall from the Great Pyramid.
Aliyah took a step forward, entering the concrete bunker and clearing the doorway for the others, who immediately began swarming inside. Not three, but a dozen, all armed with pistols. Maddock and the others were surrounded in an instant, at least two guns trained on each of them. Everyone but Black who was still smiling.
Aliyah’s eyes never left Kismet. “You haven’t told us everything. But you will.”