Valley Of Dry Bones

Chapter 2

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 supernatural 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 on 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.

But the world was changing.

The digitalization of the Vatican Archives was a godsend to a white-hat hacker, as Martin considered himself. The project had begun in 2014 with the aim of putting the vast collection of Vatican Library manuscripts online for anyone to read. The team had started out with obvious texts of no significance – Renaissance Bibles, illustrated manuscripts, classical Greek and Latin works, papal bulls and ecclesiastical letters. But most of those working on the digitalization could not read what they scanned and photographed. As they accelerated the program, other texts began to slip through, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design. Valuable manuscripts with secrets that those with the right knowledge could access.

Martin had found some real gems while sifting through the millions of pages with his custom algorithm. He made sure to change the metadata afterwards so no one would know of his incursions – and it was doubtful that people would ever find the texts again in the mass of data.

The Vatican Library was one of the grandest collections in the world, but it was also one of the most useless because no human could possibly encompass the breadth of what lay inside. No single mind could process what lay inside the secret archives, or even the more accessible ones. Handwritten indexes had been copied from one to another as pages crumbled to dust. All it took was for one scribe to make a mistake on where a document was, or a deliberate mis-copying designed to hide a secret in plain sight. A scholar might spend years applying for access and finally make it to Rome, only to never find what he searched for. But with digitalization, it might be possible to fathom what truly lay within those hallowed halls.

Martin aimed to collect the sum of all human knowledge in the ARKANE databases, his job title as Librarian an understatement for his life’s work. An accumulation of every form of arcane and hidden knowledge the world had, from all cultures. With every year that passed, he gained access to more, and with the increasing possibilities of machine learning, he was able to delve deeper, finding links between disparate histories, surprising connections that explained ancient mysteries.

Once the original digitalization process had demonstrated its value, the Vatican had in recent months embraced new technologies with a project named In Codice Ratio, which used a combination of optical character recognition with artificial intelligence to search neglected texts going back to the eighth century. The aim was to take the fifty-three miles of corridors stacked with crumbling manuscripts and turn it into searchable text that could be used in a twenty-first-century Catholic faith.

It was in this maelstrom of knowledge that Martin finally found the symbol of wind swirling around a cross of bone. It was buried deep in the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, surrounded by dire warnings of what had been discovered in a bloody dungeon almost three hundred years ago. As Martin read the translation, his frown deepened, his eyes darkening in horror.