The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries) (11 page)

“Why not
New York
or LA?”

“Because
Illinois
is right in the middle. Easy to fly to either coast if you have to and it’s not going to be the first target in an invasion. Remember who got hit on September 11th?”

“I see your point. You’ve got all this valuable stuff collected
—
centuries’ worth. So why are you hiding it and hiding yourselves? Isn’t it about time you went public and set the record straight?”

Maddie was uncharacteristically silent. She looked down at the coffee table before replying. “That may be your best question yet, kiddo.” She sighed. “Every generation or so we rehash the issue about whether the time is right.” She made air quotes around the last four words. “Even though the world isn’t changing fast enough to suit me, it is heading in the right direction. For now, though, there are still loads of people out there who would be scared out of their wits by our version of history. And it’s the kind of scared that leads to killing. They would try to eradicate us and destroy everything we’ve recovered.” She shook her head. “No, it isn’t quite time yet for us to take center stage and brag about our finds.”

Both of them remained bleakly silent for several moments, contemplating how traditional minds might react to the Arkana. Then a new thought occurred to Cassie. “I haven’t seen much of it yet, but if this is a global operation, how do you afford it? I mean, who pays for everything?”

“I do,” Maddie replied grimly. “I keep this merry little ship of fools afloat.”

The girl looked at her blankly and she relented. “Forget that part. That’s just me feeling pinched when I have to sign checks. I hate letting go of money. That’s why they put me in charge of it.” She grinned. “Truth is we have hefty cash reserves. Sometimes we come across artifacts that don’t interest us but are worth a fortune to collectors. We sell them on the private market or to museums. It’s enough to fund our operations and then some.”

Maddie reached for her lighter again. “Sorry,” she said, a cigarette dangling between her lips. “Can’t help myself. If I didn’t smoke I’d be three hundred pounds by now.”

Cassie’s brain was beginning to feel overloaded with too many new facts. She didn’t want to ask about anything else that required a major explanation so she settled for something small. “One last thing. When I came in, I noticed a big round table in the middle of the schoolroom downstairs.
Griffin
didn’t really explain what it was for.”

 
“That’s for meetings of the Concordance.”

“An answer that leads to another question,” she thought to herself ruefully. “And what is a Concordance exactly?”

“It’s the governing council for the whole global enchilada. Sort of like the United Nations except that we actually get stuff done.”

“I counted thirty chairs. That’s a lot of people. Isn’t it kind of a free-for-all if everybody starts talking at once?”

“Thirty is only a fraction of the people involved. The wall seating is for the rest. As for a free-for-all, Faye keeps things moving.”

“What’s her title?”

Maddie chuckled. “She’s the glue that holds everything together. The lynchpin of the entire operation.”

Cassie waited silently.

“Oh all right. If you insist on being so serious, her official title is the Memory Guardian. We think of ourselves as a collective. We don’t like the idea of somebody at the top barking orders but if the Arkana had a leader, Faye would be that person.”

“Who appointed her?”

“The Memory Guardian gets elected by the rest of the Concordance.”

“And how long does she keep the job?”

Maddie shrugged. “Until she decides to retire or if she loses the confidence of the Concordance and they vote her out. I really don’t see that happening. Everybody loves her.” She was about to elaborate when she noticed the look on Cassie’s face. “Are you all right, kiddo?”

The girl rubbed her temples. “I’m starting to get a headache. If I tilt my head, I think some of this new info will leak out of my ears. Can we stop now?”

The older woman laughed. “You think this was bad, wait until
Griffin
gets started.” She hesitated for a moment, weighing her next words. “Before you leave, I’ve got a question of my own to ask.”

Maddie reached out for the paper on the coffee table and turned it over. A sketch of a man’s face stared up at the two women. “Is this your guy? Faye said you saw what he looked like when you dreamed about Sybil’s death.”

Cassie felt the breath catch in her throat. It was the cowboy or almost. “How did you figure out what he looked like?”

“Erik caught a glimpse of him when he followed him out of the apartment.”

“Oh, so his name is Erik. He never exactly introduced himself.”

“He’s part of the security team here. You’ll meet him another time.” She picked up the page and handed it to Cassie. “Did we miss anything?”

Cassie recoiled for a second before taking the paper. She studied it briefly. “In my dream…” she began hesitantly. “When I saw him in my dream, his eyes were narrower. Light colored and kind of mean. He took his hat off so I know his hair was dark brown and he wore it combed back like somebody from the 1950s.”

“You mean wavy and high, like a pompadour?” Maddie asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I guess that’s what it would be called. His lips are thinner than this and his nose is a little bit longer.” She exhaled a deep sigh. “Otherwise, that’s him. That’s the guy who decided a stupid piece of rock was more valuable than my sister’s life.”

Maddie’s expression was grim. “We’ll find out who he is. Don’t worry. He won’t slip away from us. Just give us a little more time, OK?”

The girl nodded mutely, unconvinced. It could take years.

Sensing her visitor’s skepticism, Maddie added, “A guy like this has made a career out of shoving people around to get what he wants. He’s left a trail somewhere for us to follow. But I’d be willing to bet that in all his years as a professional bully he’s never come up against a goddess before.” She gave a harsh laugh. “I don’t like his odds this time.”

Cassie noted the sharp gleam in Maddie’s eyes and her doubts faded away.

Chapter 19
– Conjugal Wrongs

Daniel let himself into his wife Annabeth’s chamber unannounced. He caught her sitting at the small table waiting, her hands jammed into her apron pockets, no doubt to keep from biting her nails. At the sight of him, she sprang out of her chair and ran to the mirror above the dresser. She smoothed her hair and tried to pinch some color into her pale cheeks before nervously turning to face him.

He paused at the threshold, feeling confused. “What is it, Annabeth? Is everything all right? Is our daughter sick? I received a message that you needed to speak to me.”

Tugging lightly at his sleeve, she drew him into the room and hastened to reassure him. “Everything is fine with the child, Daniel. Don’t worry.”

“Then what?” The young man asked, still puzzled.

Annabeth looked at him expectantly for a moment and then rushed toward him. Flinging her arms around his shoulders, she attempted to kiss him.

He recoiled as if bitten by a snake. “Annabeth!” he exclaimed in shock. “What are you doing?”

She hesitated for a moment and then tried to twine herself around him again.

He pushed her away. “Stop that. What’s gotten into you?”

Annabeth looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

Daniel relented. “Come over here and sit down and you can tell me what this is all about.” He led her to a chair and winced as he caught a glimpse of his formal portrait hanging above the table. It reminded him of the portrait of his grandfather that hung in his father’s prayer closet. He couldn’t bear the comparison.

She sat on the edge of her chair and looked at him beseechingly. “I don’t know what to do. You must help me, Daniel. I don’t want to lose my place in the Kingdom.”

Daniel was growing ever more bewildered. “Lose your place? What are you talking about, Annabeth?”

She couldn’t speak for several seconds. Her lips were quivering as she dabbed away the tears streaming from her eyes. “The thought of being separated for all eternity—from my baby, from my kin, from you, from everybody I ever loved.” She shook her head emphatically. “No, no. I can’t even think about something as terrible as that. I don’t want to go to hell. I don’t want to be damned.”

“Who said anything about you being damned?”

She ignored his question. “Do you find me domineering? Am I a bad wife?”

“A bad wife,” he echoed uncomprehendingly. “Where would you get such an idea?”

She didn’t answer him immediately. Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder at the bed. “It’s been a long time since you visited me
—
since we had relations. What have I done to displease you?”

Her words had the effect of an electric shock. He sprang out of his chair and began to pace around the center of the room. “Nothing, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Then why?” Her voice was plaintive.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind. You can’t understand the kind of pressure I’m under. Father has charged me with a grave responsibility and I fear the thought of disappointing him.”

“But it’s been almost four years, Daniel,” she said softly.

He stopped pacing as a new thought struck him. “Who have you been speaking to?”

She didn’t want to meet his gaze.

“Annabeth, tell me who,” he commanded.

She raised her watery eyes. “The Diviner came to see me.”

The sound of that name chilled him to the bone. He had hoped this moment would never come but had secretly dreaded it. Daniel knew it was inevitable ever since his father had remembered he was alive and singled him out for attention.

“He…he said he was concerned.” She began twisting the hem of her apron into knots. “He said we should have more children by now. And he told me…” she struggled to go on. “He…he…told me,” she started to sob. “That I was an overbearing wife and that maybe I don’t deserve to be among the Consecrated.” The words tumbled out in a rush before she began sobbing in earnest.

Daniel knelt down next to her chair and shook her arms gently. “Listen to me, Annabeth. Listen.” He shook her again until she stopped sobbing and sat limp and quiet. “You are a good wife. A very good wife.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “Then why?”

He avoided giving her a direct answer. “If my father asks about the matter again, you are to tell him that we are trying to conceive another child.”

“You want me to lie to the Diviner?” Her pasty face drained of color completely.

“It isn’t a lie.” He tilted her chin upward. “We will try again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another baby?”

She nodded, sniffling a bit. “Why else did God create woman? What else am I fit for? Without a husband and children, I have no place in the world. No place in the Kingdom.” Annabeth hesitated. “I…I don’t want to lose my place in the Kingdom. Daniel, if I don’t have more children soon then your father will cast me out.”

He put his arms around her lightly, in part to hide his tense expression. “Don’t worry. I’ll come to visit you very soon to try to increase our family.” He felt a flood of revulsion at the thought and instantly condemned himself for it. He released her and looked directly into her eyes. “For now, just remember what I told you to say if my father asks. You will remember, won’t you?”

She nodded again and wiped her eyes on her apron.

“You’re a good girl, Annabeth.”

Chapter 20
– Underground Intelligence

Cassie gave herself a few days to let her head stop spinning from her dizzying conversation with Maddie. When she felt that her brain had absorbed all the new facts that had bombarded it, she drove back out to the schoolhouse. “A glutton for punishment,” she thought to herself ruefully. She didn’t understand why Faye was pushing her to learn the basics so quickly. Sybil had been given years to understand the Arkana and how the organization worked. Something else was going on here. Something to do with the cowboy and the key but she didn’t know what. All she knew for sure was that she was taking the crash course in Pythia 101. She pulled into the clearing and walked up to the schoolhouse door. A familiar face peered around it just as she reached the top step.

Startled, Cassie asked, “Why is it that I never get a chance to knock before you pop out like some kind of Jack In A Box with a necktie?”

Griffin
gave her a slight smile. “We have security cameras monitoring the grounds. I was alerted and came out to meet you.” He opened the door wide. “Please do come in. Are you ready for your grand tour of the vault today?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said guardedly, remembering Maddie’s warning. “Wait until
Griffin
gets started.”

He seemed a bit less ill at ease in her presence this time as they walked through the main schoolroom. It was just as quiet and empty as during her previous visit. When they entered the short corridor at the back of the building,
Griffin
stopped in front of what appeared to be a janitor’s closet. He pulled the door open to reveal another door immediately behind it. A modern steel elevator door. When he swiped a key card into a slot next to the door, Cassie could hear the elevator ascending to meet them.

Reading her surprised expression,
Griffin
gave her a knowing look. “I would respectfully remind you of the adage about appearances and deception.”

The elevator doors parted and they walked inside. There were no buttons to push for the floor they wanted. Instead Cassie saw a keypad on the inside of the door.
Griffin
punched in a code and they began to descend.

Nothing could have prepared Cassie for the sight that greeted her when the elevator doors opened again. They were standing in an underground room that was the size of a school auditorium. There were desks. Row upon row of desks. And they were staffed by people of every nationality, race, gender and age. Over a hundred of them. Some people were working at computers, some were consulting books. Others were on the phone engaging in heated discussions with unknown people on the other end of the line.

The ceiling was twenty five feet above them and light glowed overhead from some unseen source. Even though they were below ground, it felt like sunlight on Cassie’s skin. She was about to ask
Griffin
but he anticipated her question.

“You like our lighting system? It’s quite clever, actually. Full spectrum illumination that mimics the progression and intensity of natural daylight.”

She looked at him skeptically. “You mean you have a sunrise and sunset down here?”

He nodded. “The duration and angle of light is calculated to match the time of year outdoors. It’s brighter on the east side of the room in the morning and on the west side in the evening. Once our artificial sun goes down, people can use their desk lamps, of course, but we also have an artificial moon rise that corresponds to the actual phase of the moon. While our daylight sky is opaque, our night sky is transparent, complete with constellations appropriate to this latitude and longitude at any given time of year. We want to preserve a natural environment as much as possible.”

“Speaking of which…” Cassie pointed to a dog which was lying patiently next to the desk of a middle-aged woman in the front row. On another desk, a cat slept curled up in an out box. A third desk held a birdcage with a cockatiel inside.

“People are encouraged to bring their pets to work. The more nature we can incorporate into the environment, the better.”

“I guess,” Cassie commented as her eyes wandered around the space. There were potted trees around the perimeter, some nearly reached the ceiling. Waterfalls trickled and splashed in the far corners of the room.

In addition to noticing every detail of her new surroundings, Cassie also noticed a new vibe coming from
Griffin
. She couldn’t detect any of the wariness he’d exhibited when they first met. Maybe he relaxed when he was in his natural element down in the basement. Whatever the reason, Cassie liked the change.

“Is that a breeze I feel on my face?” the girl asked incredulously.

At her question about the breeze, he bounced a bit on his heels, delighted that she had noticed. “Right you are. It mimics the prevailing wind at any given time of year, except winter of course. We keep it to a gentle breeze at all times. Don’t want papers getting blown every which way now, do we?”

“No, I suppose not.” Cassie’s eyes were wandering again. On the wall to the right of all the desks, she could see six doors spaced equally apart. The sign on the first one read “Africa, the second one read “Asia,” the third one “
Australia
,” the fourth one “Europe,” the fifth one “North America,” and the final one read “
South America
.” Each door represented an entire continent. Cassie noted that there was no door for
Antarctica
.

On the back wall beyond all the desks was a huge map of the world. There were pins stuck in various locations. Her eyes continued traveling around the perimeter to the wall on her left. It contained three doors. The closest one read “Operations Division,” the middle one read “Scrivener’s Office” and the farthest one “Security Division.”

”This is some place you’ve got here!” she exclaimed.

Griffin
chuckled. He clapped his hands loudly. “Everyone, may I have your attention please?”

Immediately the cacophony of sounds in the room quieted. People who had been speaking on the phone paused in their conversations and looked up inquiringly.

“It is my very great pleasure to introduce to you Sybil’s sister Cassie. Our new Pythia.”

Suddenly a wave of humanity was rushing toward her. Cassie braced herself for impact. Hands reached out to shake hers, to pat her on the shoulder. Voices told her how happy they were to meet her at last. How much they had liked her sister. Everyone was offering encouragement, offering assistance with anything she wanted to learn, any time, any place. They all seemed to understand why she was here. They all seemed to know what she was supposed to do better than she did herself. They all seemed pleased to see her. She felt like Dorothy in Oz. The ruby slippers were on her feet and they were a perfect fit. “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like…”

“Do you still think our vault is, as you put it, an empty schoolhouse with fancy bleachers and a big table?”
Griffin
asked with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

 
“Wha…” was the only sound Cassie could manage to utter.

He waited for the initial hubbub to die down and then he addressed the throng of well-wishers. “All right now, everyone, back to work if you please. Give the young lady a chance to breathe. I fear you’ve quite overwhelmed her.”

He steered her toward the right side of the room and the doors labeled with the names of continents. Behind her, she could hear the echo of excited chatter. She allowed herself to be led without protest. Her senses were still reeling from all these new sights, people and sounds.

“Why don’t we start with a peek into one of the records rooms,” he suggested.

 
“Is that what’s behind Door Africa?”

“Yes, as well as the other five. Let’s go to the one you’d find most familiar, shall we?”
Griffin
swiped his key card, punched in a code and opened the door marked
North America
. “This way, please.” He gestured for Cassie to walk in first.

Once she stepped inside, she was reminded of those nested Russian dolls, one inside another, inside another. A door within a door within a door. The space was narrow and deep, more like a tunnel than a room. She couldn’t see to the opposite end. A long central corridor stretched off into the gloom lined on either side with yet another series of doors. They seemed to run in alphabetical order. “
Aleutian
, Athabascan…” she read.

“All the way to Zuni,”
Griffin
added. “The indigenous tribes of this continent.”

“So where are the states? Where’s
Alabama
and
Alaska
? This is
North America
, isn’t it?”

He laughed. “It wouldn’t make much sense to use modern geographical divisions to track ancient artifacts, would it? The names assigned by a conquering overlord culture have no relevance to our pursuits. When we speak of North America, we mean pre-Columbian
North America
. You must remember that we are recovering the historical record of the original inhabitants of this land.”

She walked up to a door marked Anasazi and tried to open it. It was locked. She looked at
Griffin
quizzically. “Do you keep the Anasazi relics behind this door?”

He shook his head. “No, this is a file room. We keep the records of our relics here. Oh dear, I’m going about this backwards. A proper definition of terms is in order. We are standing in what is called the Central Catalog. Its function is to account for the relics we’ve retrieved. The relics themselves are stored in places we call troves.”

Cassie looked up and down the corridor. “So where are the troves?”

“Not here obviously.”
Griffin
sighed. “It’s a major undertaking to keep track of them all. New ones are forever cropping up in the most unlikely of spots. Each continent has many of them scattered about. Individual countries have their own as well. Wherever a cache of important artifacts has been discovered, we attempt to build a collection site around it.”

She tried to hide her disappointment at not seeing any actual relics. “Who manages the troves?”

“The person who is charged with the responsibility for a particular group of treasures is called a trove-keeper though she or he also has many assistants.”

Cassie wrinkled her brow. “So let me repeat this to see if I have it straight. The Catalog is the records department and it keeps track of all the items in a trove?”

Griffin
nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And this catalog we’re in keeps track of everything you’ve found in
North America
?”

“Not exactly,” the young man hedged. “While each trove has its own version of a records department there is only one catalog. One place that contains records of the objects in all the troves. Maps, photographs, finder’s journals and written descriptions of each item recovered. The purpose of this facility is to keep track, at a summary level, of what’s in all the troves around the world. We call this the Central Catalog, or simply the vault. The one and only.”

Returning her attention to the door before her once more, Cassie asked, “So what’s behind the Anasazi door?”

The young man shrugged. “Something quite mundane, alas. A great many filing cabinets that hold the trove locations of our various Anasazi finds.”

“I don’t get it,” Cassie said abruptly.

“Excuse me?”
Griffin
appeared taken aback.

“I see a bunch of doors with the names of Indian tribes. Anthropologists and archaeologists have been crawling over this continent for at least a hundred years now. They have museums full of artifacts. What’s the difference between what you’re doing and what they’re doing?”

The young man gave a thin smile. “As much as anthropologists and archaeologists may protest to the contrary, their work is highly subjective. Their observations are tainted by whatever beliefs they carry with them into the field. That was especially true a century ago. Many if not all of them drew highly inaccurate conclusions about the objects they were collecting and the cultures they were observing. As the old saying goes, a fish cannot see water.”