The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (15 page)

 The Iraqi night was warm and
clear. The mercury lights were so bright that it was difficult to see beyond
them.  Fayd was down with Marcus in the trench, trying to get an appropriate
angle on the next level of digging.  The two of them worked in somewhat
pregnant silence, not entirely uncomfortable, but odd just the same. Fayd was
genuinely curious about Marcus, whereas Marcus couldn't help the jealousy he
felt over a man who had once had a crush on his wife. Still, professionally, he
put his differences aside for this project.

 No one could guess how long
Kathlyn had been standing there, watching them work. In the dirty clothes that
she had traveled and slept in, she stood just outside the glare of the lights,
looking rather sickly as she observed the activity. Lynn was the first one to
notice her; catching Marcus' attention, he gestured towards Kathlyn. Marcus
looked up, saw it was her, and immediately shut down his drill.

"Hey, sweetheart," he
leapt out of the trench, pulling off his gloves. "How are you
feeling?"

She looked at him with huge,
dark-circled eyes. She didn't look at all well. "Like crap," she
said. Then she looked back down into the trench. "I see you've come a long
way."

Marcus wanted to touch her, hold
her, but he was dirty and sweaty and didn't want to get his filth all over her.
"Far enough that I think we might actually remove this thing in the next
couple of days," he said. "Lynn and I are going to turn the duty over
to Mark and Dennis in a little while so we can get some sleep. Why don't you go
back and lie down? I'll join you in a bit."

She shook her head. "I'm not
tired."

He tried not to sound like he was
scolding her. "Hell, after drinking a fifth of Old Jack, I'd still be
passed out." He couldn't help but reach out and touch her arm. "Want
to tell me what prompted you and Juliana to drown yourselves like that?"

His warm hand on her arm felt
good.  "I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He recalled their conversation
earlier, how she had expressed her reservations about this dig. She could get
very emotional about things. But they had progressed tremendously and he wanted
to show her how much. Maybe it would change her view. "The GDT data came
back pretty solid and we were able to chart the exact position of the relic.
Want to see?"

She just nodded. Marcus led her
over to a corner of the trench were several computer graphics were laid with a
rock on them to keep them from blowing away.  Marcus removed the rock and
handed her the first computer imaged picture.

"You can see how the body is
laying on its extensions," he began.

"Wings," she put in.

"Wings," he allowed her
to correct him.  "Actually, they're all bunched up underneath the body.
It's going to take forensic archaeologists years to unravel this one. All in
all, however, we can remove it in a fairly neat block."

"And the protrusions on the
skull?"

He was reluctant to tell her.
"There was another one above the left socket," he finally said.
"It was nearly four inches long.  It looks as if the right one, the one we
could see at first, was somehow broken off."

Kathlyn just looked at him.
Putting the paper down, she turned away. Marcus was right on her tail.

"Kathlyn," he reached
out and grabbed her with his dirty hands. "Come on, get a grip on
yourself. It's a skull with two bony protrusions and nothing more. There have
been other recorded incidents of such a thing."

"Please, Marcus," she
was weakly trying to pull away from him. "Don't try to rationalize this
with science. My head is killing me and I don't want to deal with it right
now."

His hands dropped from her.
"Look, honey, I know you're a Biblical Archaeologist. I know you believe
what the Bible says, implicitly. But don't you think you're carrying this a bit
too far?"

The hurt in her eyes was evident.
"No, I don't. That's the difference between you and I, Marcus; I take
things seriously and you just look at everything through a microscope.  You
have to have a little faith."

He'd heard that phrase from her
too many times. "I have faith in a lot of things, but believing
doubtlessly in a two thousand year old book of parables written by men who
believed in things like witches and ghosts and oracles just isn't something I'm
inclined to do. I'm sorry, but I just can't believe in this gloom and doom
story that you're giving such credence to."

"I don't care what you
believe. I'm going to talk to Fayd. We need to stop this dig."

"Fayd isn't going to stop.
I've never seen anyone so excited about a dig."

Kathlyn's head wagged back and
forth. "This is wrong. We shouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry we were ever
called here in the first place. This isn't Biblical Archaeology."

"Then what is it?"

Her long, dusty lashes cast
shadows against her cheeks in the glow of the mercury lamps. "God didn't
lead me here.  I don't feel good about this, like I have His approval. I told
you when we came here that I felt darkness; I feel it even more now, like a weight
I can't get free of. I just feel like we're treading into something ugly here
and I don't want to be responsible for releasing Armageddon."

"Those are pretty powerful
thoughts," he said. "Is that what you really think?"

"I don't know. But I can't
shake the feeling."

He didn't care if he was dirty or
not. Pulling his wife into his embrace, he held her tightly against him. She
was strangely cold in the heat of the evening.

 "I've never known you to be
scared, Kathlyn," he murmured against the top of her head. "You're
the most fearless woman I've ever met."

"I'm goddamn
terrified."

"Then let's just take it one
day at a time. If we can't stop the excavation, maybe we can control it
somehow. Make sure it doesn't end up in the wrong hands or something."

All she could do was nod. He
kissed her and turned back into the glare of the vapor lamps. Fayd handed him
the drill once again and Marcus went to work.  But instead of watching Burton,
Fayd found his attention on Kathlyn.

***

Marcus had a difficult time convincing
Kathlyn to go back to bed.  Once involved, she didn't want to leave the trench.
She was obsessed by the protrusions on the skull and spent most of her time
excavating the head area, elaborating on the work Lynn had already done. She
had put aside her pounding head and reservations and tried to focus on it with
the clinical attitude that Marcus had. But Marcus was exhausted from twelve
hours of jack-hammering and it was Kathlyn who finally convinced him that he
should go to bed without her. Dennis and Mark were taking over the excavation
duties and Kathlyn would be in good company. With Lynn's encouragement, Marcus
did as his wife asked. He went back to the small tent where Juliana was still
passed out on a cot, collapsed on the air mattress Kathlyn had occupied, and
fell into a deep sleep.

Fayd had retired about a half
hour before Burton. Once Marcus was gone, he decided to return.  His
collaboration was with Dr. Trent, after all, and not her husband.  They had yet
had the opportunity to truly work together. In the glare of the mercury lamps,
Kathlyn never noticed him until he was standing right next to her.

"Dr. Trent, good to see you
doing what you do best," he smiled and knelt beside her. He noticed what
she was working on. "I saw those protrusions, too. Very unusual."

Kathlyn didn't look up. "I'm
surprised that's all you have to say about them."

"What more should I say?

She did look up, then. "The
obvious, I would think."

Fayd looked at her a moment.
"We should not jump to any conclusions as of yet. There is still much
excavation and reconstruction work ahead to determine what these people
were."

Kathlyn shook her head and looked
back to her work. "You're a Biblical Archaeologist, Fayd. You know as well
as I do what these are and I must say, I'm not happy that we're doing
this."

"Doing what?"

"Releasing them."

"Releasing them?" Fayd
repeated. "Kathlyn, we're excavating four skeletons and nothing more.
We're not releasing anything."

She was silent as she carefully
brushed at the larger of the two protrusions. She had a difficult time looking
at the skull as a whole, the facial sockets where the eyes and nose had once
been.  The teeth were unnaturally large and overall, the thing was creepy and
disturbing.  Her beautiful angel had turned ugly and unsettling.

"You're not recalling your
Bible," she said quietly. "I think all of this is pretty
apparent."

"I remember my Bible very
well. What in particular are you referring to?"

She brushed as she spoke.
"'And the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from
the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel
who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great
river Euphrates." And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very
hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The
number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. The
horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were
fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled
the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A
third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that
came out of their mouths.'"

Fayd's expression was thoughtful
and grim. "But you neglect to place the context of this scripture in the
proper place. It came before the battle between Michael and Lucifer; it was a
preface to their war."

"So what's your
theory?"

"That we're not about to
release anything, rather that we're looking at the remains from the war for
heaven."

"So these are the defeated
angels of darkness?"

"Frankly, yes."

Kathlyn chewed on that. It was
good to have someone who knew prophesies. Marcus just beat her down with
science, while Fayd could at least help her rationalize because he knew what
she was talking about.

 "You realize, of course,
that only the Christians will even remotely believe this," she gave him a
lop-sided smile. "The critics will say we're conveniently twisting the
Bible to explain these relics.  It's far-fetched, to say the least."

"But most religions believe
in some sort of greater battle between good and evil."

"Then if that's the case,
then we should find more remains, not just four.  According to the Bible,
hundreds of thousands were involved." She looked back at the skeleton.
"But this...  it's just too coincidental with the scripture."

"I think you're wrong."

"I really hope I am."

Fayd watched her brush and pick.
"Then if you believe so strongly in the evil of this, remember the rest of
the prophesy. There was a woman who bore a son who would do battle against
Satan."

Kathlyn stopped brushing,
recalling that portion of the scripture. "'A great and wondrous sign
appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet
and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain
as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an
enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his
heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the
earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so
that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son,
a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child
was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a
place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for one
thousand two hundred and sixty days.'"

Fayd cocked a dark eyebrow.
"Very good. That also came before the battle in heaven. Then Lucifer is
hurled to earth and he goes in pursuit of the woman."

Kathlyn sat up, her mind whirling
as she recollected more of the book of Revelation.  She wasn't sure what he was
driving at. "'Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them.
But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you. He is
filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.'" She shook her
head in confusion. "What are you getting at?"

Fayd's eyes glittered like the
blackest onyx.  He passed a long glance over his shoulder at The Vatican
representative, still seated near the trench with the original angel. The man
hadn't moved for fourteen straight hours.  He just sat and watched,
occasionally making notations in a small notebook. But his presence was
nonetheless felt by all like a heavy weight.

"If you really want to
hypothesize, then let's do so," Fayd said quietly, "To further
elaborate on your theory, we could say that, given the context, by all
interpretations you could be the woman in the scripture who defeats the forces
of darkness."