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Dr. Abernathy’s cell phone rang early Friday morning, waking him from a deep sleep. He groped for it on the nightstand, almost knocking over the lamp. He pushed a button, but it just kept ringing.
“The one on the top left,” Grace mumbled from her pillow.
He found the right button. “Abernathy here.”
“I’ve been released.” Thomas’s voice flooded his ear.
“Thank God.” He turned to Grace. “Thomas is out of prison.” “What a relief.” She sat up and grabbed his arm.
“Where are you?” Dr. Abernathy asked.
“In Lhasa still. We’re still waiting for our flight plan to be approved. We’ll be in New York tomorrow, I guess, or maybe Sunday. I’ll call you when I know exactly.”
“Are you all right?”
“Not a scratch, but they were about to start in on me when somebody interrupted them with a telegram. How did you get me out so fast?”
“Your mother,” Dr. Abernathy said, his voice warm. “God bless Katherine. She called her senator friend, the one who toured China last year.”
“Mother comes through once in a while.”
“You should call her immediately. I’ll bet she hasn’t slept.”
“I will. There’s one more thing. I’m concerned about the Rinpoche I visited in the Samye Monastery. He may be in danger just because I went to see him.” Thomas emphasized these last few words.
There’s something he’s not telling me. “We’ll look into it.”
“Good,” Thomas sounded reassured.
“Can you send me an e-mail with the particulars?”
“If I get my computer back.”
“I see. Is this line secure?”
“Steve scrambled the signal.”
“Tell me his name.” Dr. Abernathy looked around for something to write on. Grace handed him a pad of paper and a pen. He took down the information. “I was scheduled to fly down to D.C. this morning. Perhaps I need to take the trip after all.”
“Definitely,” Thomas said, his voice firm.
“I’ll get right on it.” Dr. Abernathy took a deep breath. “I’m very glad you’re all right.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
“Good-bye.” Dr. Abernathy looked at the clock. Five o’clock glowed in green letters. “If I lie back down, I’ll never get up again.”
Grace kissed his shoulder. “I’ll make coffee while you’re in the shower.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I know.”
☥☥☥
On Saturday evening close to midnight, Anne and Michael stood in the dark entrance to the Great Pyramid, ready to complete their last initiation. Tahir had invited Maria to join them. They numbered four key holders, but only three crystals.
“I feel like I’m missing a limb.” Michael leaned against the massive stones.
Anne put her hand on his shoulder. “I think Tahir’s right. They’ll bring your crystal the night of the alignment.”
“Then why steal it to begin with?”
“So they can perform weird experiments?”
Michael’s eyes widened.
“Who knows?” Anne regretted her attempt at a joke. “They won’t harm it permanently. They want to open the room as much as we do.”
Michael prodded the ground with his foot.
“At least Thomas was released.”
“True.” Michael made an effort to sound cheerful.
“How’s your arm?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I’ll bet it still hurts.”
“Just a dull ache. I’m fine, really.”
Tahir climbed the steps to the entrance with his daughter Shani and a guard. This man pulled out a large key and opened the gate to the pyramid. Tahir handed him a wad of American dollars and whispered some instructions in Arabic, then turned and gestured for the group to enter.
“After you, ladies.” Michael bowed slightly.
Anne followed Shani through the doorway. Crouching down, she started the climb. “Are we going to the King’s Chamber?”
“Yes, although it’s really the Central Chamber. No one was ever buried in here.”
“So you don’t believe the tomb was raided?” Anne’s voice echoed in Mamoun’s tunnel just inside the door.
“No original burial has ever been found in any pyramid.”
“Ever?”
“No, but the archaeologists keep insisting they were all tombs.”
Anne ducked down to enter the three-foot, eleven-inch-high ascending passageway. They climbed in silence. Shani stopped at the Grand Gallery and waited for Anne, who stretched her back, then climbed the wooden steps.
At the top, Shani said, “You first.”
Anne bent low and entered the King’s Chamber, a large granite rectangle with a long stone box at one end. Shani followed behind her, their footsteps loud as they walked to the center. When Michael and Maria joined them, Tahir began to speak.
“Welcome to the Central Chamber of the Great Per-Neter.” His voice reverberated off the walls of the chamber. “Per-Neter means ‘house of nature.’ Pyramid comes from the Greek word pyramidos, meaning ‘fire in the middle.’”
Anne shifted her weight, curious that Tahir was lecturing before the ritual.
“Per-Neters vibrate in harmony with the Earth’s basic frequency. When they were fully functioning, they amplified that vibration to create a resonant harmonic field that assisted in the opening of human consciousness. The temples, the Per-Bas, were located around the pyramids. The people gathered there to open their awareness fully.”
He paused. When the reverberations of his voice died down, he looked at Maria and said, “The pyramid also created energy for the civilization, as well as radio and microwaves that kept our planet connected to other worlds.”
Does he think there was interstellar contact or is he just being polite? Anne wondered.
“When the Earth was falling into the age of darkness once again, an accident or natural cataclysmic event occurred that shut the pyramids down. You can see the cracks in the ceiling here and here.” He pointed.
Anne looked up and saw repairs reinforcing the area around the cracks.
“During this age of darkness, the pyramids have been used as initiation chambers by those who struggled to remain in higher states of consciousness.” Tahir looked at Michael. “Your metaphysical traditions are correct, but they do not realize that the pyramids were used differently during the age of light, the age of Aten.”
Michael nodded.
“We are standing in the most highly vibratory environment on the planet. This entire structure was built to enhance vibration. This room floats on a bed of crushed crystal. The ceiling and chambers above receive the energy and further amplify it. Tonight we will use this great vibration to complete your initiation.” He gestured for them all to join hands. Tahir closed his eyes, visibly gathering himself, then started to chant in his ancient language.
The sound awakened the pyramid. That was the only way to describe it. Anne felt the structure take her measure, like a doctor diagnosing a patient. Her crystal grew warm against her skin. She knew Michael must feel the loss of his. The chant went on, reaching beneath the pyramid, resonating the whole plateau. Anne started to feel light-headed. After what seemed like a long time, Tahir stopped his chant and waited for the echoes of his voice to quiet. But Anne felt a hum continuing just beneath hearing range.
“Everyone sit,” Tahir said.
The sound of scraping feet filled the chamber. Anne wedged a small pillow she’d brought from her room beneath her and crossed her legs lotus style, leaving her spine straight and relaxed.
“We’re going to turn the lights out now so the sound of the generator won’t interfere with our work. The darkness will open your eyes to the higher dimensions. Everyone will have a turn in the box. When I touch you on the shoulder, follow me. Don’t worry. I know my way around. Meanwhile, relax and allow yourself to tune into the energy of this site.”
Tahir began his chant again, and this time Shani joined him, creating a harmonic. They sang louder and the sound reached inside Anne’s skull and vibrated her very bones. The sensation was so deep she almost panicked, but she forced herself to keep breathing. A river of energy flowed up her spine, bringing an inner light.
The Sphinx turned around and smiled at her. But it wasn’t the Sphinx of today. The statue had the face of a lioness crowned with the solar disk and she was surrounded by water. Rounded green hillsides sloped in the distance. Nine pyramids gleamed white in the sun. Above the flat top of the Great Pyramid, a glowing white crystal hovered, but it was not physical. Somehow Anne knew this stone completed the pyramid in a higher frequency.
Two men stood on a hill nearby, staffs in their hands. She recognized Michael and Joe Whyte in a previous life, two of the priests who ran the site. Her vision telescoped and she saw that the ends of the sticks they carried were similar to the staffs held by some of the Neters. Vril sticks. The name was instantly supplied. Through these wands, the priests amplified and directed energy that ran up their legs from the earth and entered their crowns from the etheric dimensions. As soon as Anne’s attention went into the crown chakras of the two men, her own activated. She looked up through layers and layers of worlds, all pulsing in harmonic frequencies. Just at that moment, Tahir tapped her on the shoulder.
Anne stood and, to her surprise, she remained in this altered state. She felt as if she were fourteen feet tall. The room was full of light now, a soft, glowing light that revealed other faces, other bodies, all crowded together in the Central Chamber. The granite box gleamed white. Anne lay down in it. Cynthia stood at her feet, smiling down at her. At her head stood a radiant being, her eyes shaded with powdered lapis, her lips red as coral, holding an ankh to Anne’s nose.
Isis.
Yes, daughter. It is time.
Tahir leaned over the box and directed sound into her heart chakra. At the same instant, Isis raised her wings. Anne’s chest blossomed like a red rose. The whole pyramid became one pulse of overwhelming energy.
The Sphinx reached back through the ground and up through the pyramid. Where do you want to go?
Before Anne could think, the great cat grabbed her and launched her into space. Anne streamed through the galaxy, her energy like the stars around her.
A memory surfaced. She sat inside a two-story crystal looking out at her pod, the other workers in the Crystal Matrix Chamber of Atlantis. It was the end, and they were leaving in exactly the same way she’d just been hurled into space. She watched herself attune to one frequency of the rainbow of colors that was the crystal and travel along it back to a planet deep in space. Once there, she looked down at her body and found fur, four legs. She stretched her arm and it unfurled, a wing. Other beings exactly like her surrounded her on all sides, purging her system of any dissonance.
Anne hovered in space, at the spot where the past and future connect, feeling the flow of the galaxy. It was pure bliss. The enormous, overpowering intelligence watched her. Then she saw herself hovering over her mother while Katherine writhed in labor. Two tall beings of light stood next to her, whispering. You will find the stone. You will restore the flow. The return of the Age of Light depends on this work.
She understood her mission. She knew there were hundreds more coming in with her, thousands of souls thronging into bodies ready to contribute their light to the Great Return. Ready to embody and heal the deepest wounds, ready to bring love to the darkest hates, ready to lose and then rediscover themselves. All to bring back the light.
Remember, remember, the light beings sang as she was pushed through the birth canal into a room with harsh lights and grating noises.
Still hovering in space, Anne watched as a stream of energy flowed from the center of the galaxy down through chakras far above her crown, chakras she’d never known existed, into a point arm’s length above her head where it sat like a dove on a chalice, waiting. She knew what she was to do.
As Anne reentered her body, Isis looked into her spirit eyes and smiled. The Sphinx purred, the sound a rumble under the ground. Cynthia stood at her feet. Thomas stood beside her, radiant in his astral body.
It was worth the sacrifice, Annie. It was all worth it, he said.
Where did you come from? she asked, but he only smiled.
Anne opened her physical eyes to see Tahir bending over her, still lit by the glow of spirit. He nodded his approval and offered her a hand out of the box.
Michael was next.
☥☥☥
Paul Marchant bowed his head to allow Karl Mueller to take off his blindfold and opened his eyes to the sight of the front of the underground temple. Mueller pushed him toward the passageway into the Blue Room, as Marchant had started to call it. Once through the passageway, Marchant stopped, but Mueller kept walking. Anubis glared after him, but Marchant could see that Mueller was oblivious. Marchant silently asked permission to enter the temple and received a nod from the great being. He apologized for the ignorance of those accompanying him.
Soon they will not be welcome, the jackal sent.
The “they” Anubis was referring to included a small cluster of men who stood in front of the blue curtain of energy talking among themselves. One of them turned when Marchant and Mueller approached. He was dressed in a blue designer suit and expensive leather shoes. The others wore military uniforms, some Egyptian, some American. The man in the blue suit addressed him. “Mr. Marchant, we meet at last. My name is Spender. I’m in charge of this mission.”
Marchant shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” He pushed some firmness into his voice.
“We’ve devised a little experiment tonight. Your first effort to open the room produced some result, but it seemed to me, based on the tapes, that you simply couldn’t produce enough energy with just one crystal.”
Tapes? Marchant schooled his face to remain calm. What if they taped me when I came alone? What if they’re going to open the Hall now and dispose of me? No, he thought, if they’d recorded my visit, they’d have done something by now.
“So . . .” Mr. Spender pulled something out of his pocket with a flourish. “. . . we’ve secured a second crystal.”
Marchant stared at the stone dangling from Spender’s fingers. He’d only read about the other keys, never seen one. Not even Anne’s. His whole being burned to examine it.
“In due course,” Spender said, as if aware of his thoughts. He put the crystal back in his pocket. “Our research tells us the stones are tuned to the DNA of certain families, so we’ve secured some genetic material from the bearer. We want you to do what you did before, but this time I will join you using the second key.”
“We can try that,” Marchant said. He hoped his voice sounded normal.
As Spender talked, Marchant tried to get a glimpse of the crystal’s setting. This might give him a hint whose it was. He doubted it was Anne’s. He couldn’t imagine these men getting past that hulk who guarded her to get a sample of her DNA, much less steal her crystal. He’d read in an ancient manuscript that the settings of all the stones were different, indicating their lineage. His own was topped with the was symbol, signifying authority. But before he could get a close look, Spender draped a piece of dead muscle over the top of the crystal and tied it in place.
Marchant recoiled, then caught himself, trying to suppress his revulsion.
“Ready?” Spender smiled slightly at his pale face.
“Certainly.” Marchant took his own crystal out and tried to collect himself.
“Well?” Spender asked.
“We need to meditate for a moment,” Marchant said. “We can’t just launch into it like we’re opening a can of Spam.”
“Then proceed.” Spender laid stress on this last word.
Marchant closed his eyes, fighting the panic rising in him. He had to control this situation. A second crystal could very well bring down the curtain, but he didn’t want this to happen. They’d barge in and disturb things. No one else should enter the room before the alignment. As the Orion crystal holder, it was his place to be first.
Calling on his years of study, Marchant steadied himself. He placed his awareness on his breath, allowing the natural rhythm to steady him, then started to breath deeper and faster, focusing his attention on his solar plexus. After about thirty seconds, his stomach glowed. Marchant opened his mouth and started to chant. Spender joined in, slightly off key. Out of an offended aesthetic, Marchant turned his head and chanted into Spender’s ear, correcting his pitch.
In response to the correct sound, specks of gold began circling inside the blue energy field. Marchant held his crystal out toward the curtain and the dark blue started to lighten. Spender mimicked his gesture, holding the flesh-swathed crystal to the field. The curtain immediately darkened.
Spender frowned and started to chant louder. The gold specks slowed. He turned to Marchant. “What’s wrong?”
Suppressing his irritation, Marchant pulled Spender’s hand back about a quarter of an inch. He held his own crystal up, showing Spender how the stone needed to be grounded at the root in the energy center in the palm, the point an extension of the index finger. He started the chant again. Spender adjusted his grip on the crystal and added his voice.
Again the gold specks circled, but Marchant could tell already it wouldn’t work. The decaying muscle draped over the crystal was dampening its energy, not activating it. He also knew Spender wouldn’t accept his word for it, so he continued chanting. The DNA had been a good idea and if he were handling both crystals, he could energize the piece of flesh enough to make it work. But he wasn’t going to tell this man what to do.
After a few more minutes of chanting, the curtain lightened again. Spender, getting excited, pushed his crystal forward, and the energy field darkened. They tried again. And again. Marchant’s head throbbed with the unreleased energy he was holding.
☥☥☥
While Anne lay in the stone box in the Great Pyramid, Michael tried to feel what was happening to her, but he couldn’t make the connection. Ever since the theft, he’d felt flat and clumsy, his consciousness wooden, his psychic abilities wrapped in layers of thick wool. He never imagined he depended on the stone so much. Without it, he was second-rate, maybe third.
Anne thought maybe they’d drugged him, used some new compound Arnold didn’t know about. But Michael knew deep in the core of his being he couldn’t open the Hall of Records without his key. The mission would fail. Instead of ascending into the light, the Earth would fall into a deeper darkness. Even though Michael knew the dangers of succumbing to despair, he couldn’t fight it off.
I’m sorry, Mother, he sent to the Sphinx.
No comforting voice answered back.
Michael jumped when Tahir touched his shoulder. Michael unfolded himself and walked over to the stone sarcophagus. For him, it might as well be a tomb. But as soon as he lay back in the stone box and Tahir leaned over him, directing his chant into Michael’s heart, his consciousness spread out in a flash along the entire grid line.
A deep vibration rumbled through the plateau and the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur started singing in a double frequency that mimicked the harmony Tahir and Shani still chanted. Next the Red Pyramid added its voice. Then the complex of harmonics wove an intricate pattern into the land as pyramid after pyramid chimed in, some of them still standing, some existing now only on the etheric plane. A violent surge of energy shook Michael’s spine, knocking out any remaining blockages. He became a channel of pure, white light.
And then he found it. His crystal. It was somewhere beneath him, just to the southwest. He heard chanting. He reached for his key and found something dead and wet wrapped around it, dampening its clear, sweet vibration. He recoiled from the touch.
What the hell?
He probed deeper. Beneath the barrier, the stone was intact, still singing its song in a faint pulse. Then the answer came to him. The crystal was wrapped in a dead scrap of his own flesh, the piece of his arm they’d punched out. They were trying to activate the key using his DNA pattern. Someone was breaking into the Hall of Records. He had to stop them.
From a lifetime of habit, Michael sent a stream of awareness to the crystal and made contact. The crystal answered with a surge of energy.
☥☥☥
Suddenly, Paul Marchant felt the crystal in Spender’s hand spring to life.
The curtain in front of him turned from robin’s egg blue to sky blue and then a bluish white. What had happened? He shifted his awareness from his own key to the one in Spender’s hand and found Michael.
You’ve got to get out of here, he sent.
What the hell is going on? Michael asked.
Get out of here before you bring down the curtain.
Isn’t that what you want?
No, not now. They’ll destroy everything. We can’t let them succeed.
Marchant felt Michael’s awareness withdraw like a wave back into the ocean. The curtain darkened again.
Spender turned to him. “What are you doing wrong?”
“Me?” Marchant’s nerves were frayed. “I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s that slab of dead meat. No energy can flow through that.”
Spender regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Your life is in my hands, Mr. Marchant.”
Marchant stood perfectly still. This man was a killer, not personally, but his Doberman was right behind him in the form of Mueller. “Yes, sir,” he said automatically.
“That’s better. Now what are you doing wrong?”
Marchant took a breath to say something, anything to assuage this man, then stopped. He had to be careful. He didn’t want to antagonize Spender further, but he desperately wanted this experiment to fail. He took a breath. “The DNA sample was a good idea. The crystals do seem to be keyed to certain genetic strands.” He paused. He thought this was true, but he still wasn’t certain. “But the sample itself is dead. There’s no energy in it. The DNA is not functioning. It can’t respond to the sound.”
Spender studied him through narrowed eyes. “Try again,” he commanded.
Trying not to betray any emotion, Marchant centered himself and started to chant again, deeper this time. Spender joined in slightly off-key, and this time Marchant didn’t bother to correct him. The curtain remained a dark blue, as unperturbed as a remote mountain lake.
With a growl of frustration, Spender stabbed his crystal into the energy field. Without breaking, the curtain curved around the stone, coalesced, and snapped back into place, sending Spender flying. He landed heavily a few feet back. Mueller jumped to his side and offered him a hand up, but Spender ignored him. He stood and dusted himself off, taking his time.
Marchant stared at the ground, avoiding his eyes.
Spender walked back to his side. “Now what?” he asked, his voice harsh with controlled fury.
Marchant looked up from the dusty floor to see the curtain had turned an ominous dark blue, the color of a brooding thundercloud.
“I asked you a question, Mr. Marchant. You are our resident expert.” Spender’s voice suggested he thought otherwise.
“The energy field cannot be opened by force. It will absorb any violence directed at it and send it back tripled.” His voice trembled. “Surely your engineers tried that already or I wouldn’t be here.”
“We hadn’t tried with the keys.”
“The keys work through establishing a harmonic resonance with the curtain. Clearly, two crystals aren’t enough.”
“How about two crystals with two Keepers?”
Marchant blanched. Perhaps Spender had felt Michael. Marchant studied his face, but saw only a well-bred mask. Almost in a whisper he said, “Why not wait for the alignment? Even if we get the force field to come down, this room may not open into the actual Hall unless the planetary alignment is exact.”
“May, Mr. Marchant? I deal in certainties.”
“I am certain that . . .” He groped for a word that wouldn’t antagonize Spender any further. “. . . your sample won’t work.” He pointed to the decaying muscle.
Spender studied him for a full minute, his eyes glacial. Finally, he said, “Then we’ll try with a live specimen.”
Marchant stared, trying to imagine what the man meant.
Spender turned to Mueller. “Escort our guest back to his room.”
☥☥☥
Michael opened his eyes to see Tahir leaning over him, a quizzical look on his face. Michael started to speak, but Tahir gestured him to silence. The ritual was not finished. Maria still had to go into the box. Michael took his place in the circle and tried to settle back into meditation.
At last, Michael heard Maria climb out of the box and take her place in the circle. After a few minutes, Tahir and Shani stopped chanting and the group sat in silence a bit longer, allowing everyone to return to this time and place.
Michael heard the hum of the generator and squinted against the harsh white light that invaded the nurturing womb they’d been sitting in. When he could open his eyes again, he found Tahir staring at him. “I’d like to hear from Michael first.”
Michael recounted his experience.
“Now we know why they took your stone,” Tahir said, his voice serene.
Michael was glad the rest of the group was still in such an expanded state. The experience had shaken him.
“We know something about Marchant’s intentions,” Anne said. “It seems his loyalties are divided.”
“Between the Illuminati and himself,” Shani said. “I don’t think he wants us to succeed either.”
“What does Marchant think we’re doing?” Anne asked.
Michael sat up straighter, easing his back. “I’m not sure. He said he was afraid of them opening the Hall of Records and destroying things. He thinks the alignment is crucial to opening the Hall correctly.”
“He wants control of what is in the Hall,” Tahir said. “He’s still thinking materialistically.”
“What is in it?” Anne ventured.
Tahir gave his standard answer. “Some things must be experienced.”
“You won’t tell us, even now? When the Earth’s future hangs in the balance?”
Tahir regarded her for a long minute. She felt like the Sphinx was looking deep into her soul. “There can be no telling. It is an experience. Trust yourself and the universe.”
Anne sighed, exasperated. “What should we do?”
“Talk to Marchant,” Maria said. “Try to wake him up. Get him to realize what is at stake.”
“I doubt he’ll come over to our side,” Anne said.
“You have to talk to him.” Michael pointed his index finger at her. “He’s made overtures to you. Get him to show you the room.”
“Why me? He’s contacted you now.”
“He might assume I was asleep and connected with him on the astral plane. He may think I won’t remember.”
“Paul can tell us who has your crystal. Perhaps he’s open to a deal,” Tahir said. “Anne is our best chance.”
“I’ll try.”
Maria spoke up. “My vision took me back to my ancestors of long ago. I saw the ancient cities before the deluge. I might be able to figure out where we need to go, but I’ll need time to do the calculations.”
“Would a computer help?” Shani asked.
“I’m not familiar with computers.”
“I can help you,” Shani said.
“Good,” Tahir nodded and looked around at them. “Remember your visions. Our hope lies in them. We’ll meet at my house tomorrow night.”
☥☥☥
Around noon, Paul Marchant slumped in a chair in front of Spender’s massive mahogany desk. His eyes kept straying to the gold-leafed statue of Horus elegantly displayed beneath a single spotlight. It was an original, at least thirty-three hundred years old, most likely just one of many artifacts the man had gleaned for his own personal collection. His head ached from last night’s effort. He tried not to rub his temples.
Spender watched him with his usual crocodile smile. Mueller was nowhere to be seen.
“Sleep well?” Spender asked.
“Not really,” Marchant admitted. “I never sleep well after doing psychic work.”
“I slept like a top.” Spender stroked a cigar, but made no move to light it.
That’s because you didn’t do a goddamn thing, he thought. If Spender was the best the Illuminati had to offer, then he’d badly overestimated the enemy.
“Last night didn’t go well, Mr. Marchant. I hope you won’t make us regret bringing you on board.”
Marchant shifted in his chair. “I can only assure you I did my best. We simply didn’t raise enough energy to bring down the curtain. We’ll control the situation during the alignment.”
“I want to get in before that, Mr. Marchant.”
“I understand.” He shifted again, irritated by how Spender kept drawling out his last name.
“I’ve brought you here today because I want you to have an even better understanding that any plans you may have made behind our backs will come to nothing.”
“What plans?” Marchant asked. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to try to double-cross the Illuminati?”
Spender pushed a button on a panel near his right hand and pointed to a bank of monitors. The wall filled with images of Michael unzipping Anne’s dress. Marchant’s stomach clenched as he watched Michael deposit kisses down her naked back, then pull the dress down over her hips. The two moved together. Spender cocked his head for a better view.
Finally, the images stopped. After a minute of heavy silence, Spender looked at him. “Just in case you were harboring any illusions, Mr. Marchant.”
He tightened his jaw, saying nothing. Had he only imagined Anne’s interest in him, or was she playing him for a fool, dropping crumbs to entice him to reveal his secrets while giving herself shamelessly to that overrated Jewish mystic? It wasn’t that he was interested in Anne sexually. He was just sick of playing second fiddle to the Rosicrucian Order.
Spender interrupted his reverie. “Let’s make sure we don’t have any more failures, shall we?”
Marchant fought the urge to wipe the smug look off Spender’s face.
“That will be all for now.”
☥☥☥
That evening, Anne made her way across the grounds of the Mena House in search of Paul Marchant. Her head ached from the extremes of awareness she’d passed through in last night’s ritual, the euphoria of her vision, the chill of fear about the Illuminati opening the Hall. She remembered her training with nostalgia. Dr. Abernathy had insisted she get plenty of rest between such heightened states to keep her balance. Now she felt like an athlete in the middle of playoffs. There was no time to integrate her experiences, weave her visions into her ordinary consciousness. She had to roll out of bed and perform again.
Anne opened the door of the restaurant and flinched at the noise. All the conference participants seemed to be shouting at the top of their lungs. She took a breath to steady herself and walked in, looking for Marchant. She found him alone by the windows, tucked behind a potted plant, drinking coffee. His face had a pinched look and his shoulders were hunched. He wasn’t feeling any better than she was.
She stepped up to the table. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Marchant brightened visibly when he saw her. “Just the person I wanted to talk to.”
“I’m flattered.” Anne tried to sound energetic. She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.
This is too easy, she thought. What’s he up to?
He leaned across the table and said in an undertone, “I’ve made arrangements for tomorrow night.”
“Isn’t Monday cutting it a bit close?”
“Couldn’t be helped.” Marchant’s eyes darted around the restaurant, then back to her. “They’re watching me pretty closely.”
“Who, exactly?”
“I think you know the answer to that.” He looked around again. “Let’s get some privacy.” He stood without waiting for an answer and walked toward the door.
She could only guess last night had shaken him and he was willing to take chances.
He held the door. “This way.” He headed for the pool. Once they’d gotten some distance from the building, he sat on a chair beneath a tree. Anne sat next to him.
Marchant looked around again, then said, “We’ll meet at midnight near the Sphinx. It’s closer that way, but be prepared for walking. Bring your crystal, but leave your bodyguard behind.”
“Bodyguard? What are you talking about?”
Marchant pointed to Bob, who was sitting on the grass nearby, looking for all the world like an enthralled tourist.
“I don’t know that guy,” Anne said.
“Then why is he always around you, him or that big wrestler guy?”
“He’s attending the conference. What wrestler guy are you talking about?”
“The other one who’s always around you, who followed us to the restaurant that night.”
Anne sat for a minute, not knowing what to say.
“Sneak away. Surely you can do that.”
“I’ll come alone.” She couldn’t imagine how she could accomplish this. How was she going to work Michael’s crystal into this conversation?
“Good,” Marchant said. “Let’s not be seen together any more. We’ll meet—“
“There they are.” Rita’s voice rang out. She stopped in front of them, breathless. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Did you hear the news?”
Debbie arrived just after her cohort. She nudged Rita. “Told you they’d get together.”
“We were just discussing my theories,” Marchant began, clearly flustered.
“Right.” Rita rolled her eyes. “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” Anne asked, giving up on a cover story.
“The Illuminati did a blood sacrifice in the Great Pyramid last night.”
Anne just stared, so Rita continued. “It was to prepare for the alignment, to ensure the Earth stays enslaved to the Anunnaki lords.”
“A blood sacrifice,” Anne repeated. “I thought they were going to do that during the planetary alignment.”
Rita shrugged off this objection.
How these two could guess anyone had done a ritual in the Great Pyramid last night was beyond her, but where did they get these ridiculous ideas? This sounded more like the gruesome ceremony performed in front of the Hall with the dead slice of Michael’s flesh.
“It was a double sacrifice,” Debbie said.
“Double?” Anne frowned.
“Yes, Thomas Le Clair was killed in a plane crash just last night.”
Anne felt as if the all the air had been sucked out of her.
“—blown up, I’ll bet. CNN says it was an accident. Pilot error or something. But I think the Illuminati killed him, just like Princess Diana.”
Anne couldn’t breathe.
“Anne? What’s the matter?” Rita asked.
Anne turned and ran. She heard Marchant say, “Thomas Le Clair is her brother, you idiot.”
“Her brother?” Rita’s voice was fading.
Bob was beside her in a flash. “What happened?”
She grabbed Bob’s hand. “Where’s Michael? I have to find Michael.”
Bob turned Anne toward him and put both hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the face. “What happened?” he repeated firmly.
Anne stared into Bob’s brown eyes, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“Anne.” He shook her. “What happened?”
“Thomas. He’s dead.”
“What?”
“A plane crash.”
“That can’t be. We would have heard.”
They both looked up to see Arnold approaching them. The look on his face said it all.
“No!” Anne pushed against Bob. “No. Not Thomas.”
Anne allowed herself to be led back to the room. Within minutes, Michael was at her side. “I just heard. I’m so sorry.”
Arnold and Bob left them alone.
“It can’t be. How can it be?” Anne searched Michael’s face for an answer.
Michael shook his head.
“But I just saw him.”
“What?” Michael’s eyes sharpened.
“Last night. I saw him. He was standing at the bottom of the box, with Aunt Cynthia.” Anne dropped into a chair as she realized what she was saying. “Oh, my God!”
Michael knelt on the floor beside her.
She looked at him, her face bewildered. “He said it was worth the sacrifice.”
“What?”
“He said it was all worth it.”
“What did he mean?”
“That we’ll succeed.” Anne stared at Michael, white with shock. “My brother is dead. They killed Thomas.” Her face crumpled.
Michael picked her up and carried her to the bed where he cradled her as she wept. She cried fiercely for a long while, then lay limp and silent.
A knock on the door roused her. “You’d better answer it,” she whispered. “It might be Arnold with news.”
Michael walked to the door. “Yes?” he called.
“Miss Anne, por favor?” A thick Spanish accent revealed the identity of the visitors.
Michael opened the door to the two Mayan priests.
“Por favor, have you seen Maria?” Enrique’s eyes scanned the room.
“No.” Michael opened his mouth to ask for privacy, but the anxious eyes of the two men stopped him. He tried to step outside to speak with them, but Anne sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “Please, come in.”
Jose and Enrique stepped inside the door.
“What’s happened?” Michael asked.
“Our room, it has been broken into. Everything is on the floor. The furniture turned over.”
“Is anything missing?”
“Si, señor. Maria is missing. And her crystal.”