Pentecost (27 page)

 
“And my sister and niece?” She dared hope they would be spared.
 

 
“I don’t have any orders for them,” he said. “Clearly they’re not important.”

 
They are to me, Morgan thought, breathing a sigh of relief, despite the pain of her throbbing shoulder. It wasn’t over yet. The stones were never the important thing for her; it was always about her family.
 

“Enough talking. Let’s get the stone and get out of here.” He indicated Jake’s prone body to the other men. “Tie him up and leave him in the corner. We’re keeping him for interrogation later. He has valuable information about the other ARKANE projects and they’ll trade handsomely to get him back. This one’s coming with us.”

 
He knelt and pulled up the trapdoor. It creaked on aged hinges to reveal a staircase spiraling down into the darkness. The men put on headlamps and dragged Morgan down into it. Her last glance above ground was at Jake, tied and unconscious by the door, blood trickling down his pale face to pool in the carpet beneath him.

 
The first man forced Morgan ahead of him. She stumbled in the dark, a cry of pain escaping her lips.
 

 
“Why do you need me, anyway? You can find the final stone yourself now.”

 
“We heard about the traps in Tunisia, so we may need you to interpret any symbols along the way.”

 
“Then what?”

 
He laughed, pushing her faster down the stairs. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. There are plans for you as well as Timber.”
 

 
They finally reached a small circular chamber at the bottom of the staircase. Again, there were three doors, a choice, just as in North Africa. But this time there was nothing carved on these doors, they were just plain wood. Morgan felt apprehensive about the choice. She had made a mistake in Tunisia and it had cost a life. There was too much at stake, so she was desperate to get it right.
 

 
“Which door?” the leader said. All eyes were on Morgan. She hesitated.

 
“Your friend Jake could have a bullet in the back of his head with one word into this radio,” he threatened.

 
Morgan awkwardly pulled out the mandala picture she had taken from the room upstairs. When she studied it more closely she could see it was slightly different from the original, with layers of information not present on the first version of the image. The mandala curled in on itself, the lines of the spiral colored like a map, with breaks that could indicate choices in the maze. If she followed the openings to the centre, perhaps it would lead them to the stone. The wasp sat in the bottom right of the picture, a beautifully painted tiny nightmare from the mind of Wolfgang Pauli. Her mind raced as she clung to her knowledge of Jung, the doubts swirling about her. But there were no other clues.
 

 
“It’s the middle one,” she said, looking up from the mandala.

 
“If you’re lying to us ...”

 
“Look,” Morgan snapped. “I want to get the stone and save my family so let’s just get this over with. Quit hassling me.”

 
He raised his hands in mock surrender, and nodded to one of the men.

 
“You heard the lady. Open it.”

 
The door swung open easily to reveal a twisting corridor.

 
“OK, double time.”

 
The group moved swiftly down the corridor into the blackness. It seemed to go on a long way. Morgan wondered where it would end up and what was above ground here. Why was the stone hidden in this way? Why was Pauli’s nightmare pointing them in this direction?

 
The passage ended in a final door, with the sound of a buzzing hum behind it. An image of the twelve stones was carved into the door with wasps flying around them, weaving a complicated pattern. Stylized flames were engraved at the bottom of the door, reaching up towards the stones.

 
“This has to be the place,” she said, examining the imagery.
 

 
“What’s that noise?” One of the men said. “It sounds like a generator.”

 
“I think I know what it might be,” Morgan pointed to the wasps on the mandala painting and the door. Pauli’s weapon was protected by his own nightmare.
 

“A few wasps won’t stop us getting the Pentecost stone,” the leader said, “but to be on the safe side, you and I will wait here.”

 
The leader motioned for the other men to go inside. They pulled open the door and entered in formation, guns held high as they walked into the buzzing room. Morgan caught a quick glimpse inside before the heavy door swung itself shut behind them. She saw a plinth in the middle of the room lit from a skylight above. There were dark shapes hanging from the ceiling and a floor that seemed to be crawling with insects.
 

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then the buzzing grew louder and the sound of gunfire and shouting came from inside. It quickly turned to screaming. The leader grabbed Morgan, and held his gun to her head.

 
“What’s in there?” he shouted as the screaming slowly died, and the buzzing calmed again to a gentle hum. Now there were just the two of them in the corridor, gun held to her head and the man’s hand shaking. Morgan’s shoulder throbbed with the bullet wound but she felt a strange sense of calm descend as she contemplated what waited beyond the door.

 
“Maybe they bred an unusual strain of wasps to protect the stone. There are killer wasps in Africa, larger and more vicious than we have here, and guns would have little effect. One of Jung’s disciples was a genetic engineer; perhaps they have a hybrid wasp of sorts protecting his secret.”

 
The man pushed her towards the door, gun still pointed at her head. “Well, we have to get that stone, so it looks like you’re going in next.”

 
Morgan took a deep breath and thought through her knowledge of Jung and Pauli. There must be a way to get the stone out, because all these devices were meant to allow the true disciple through unharmed. It was only a trap for those who didn’t have the right knowledge, the true gnosis. The corridor was a feature in Pauli’s dreams, and so was the wasp, but there was something she was missing.
 

She focused on the circle around the wasp in the carving on the door, racking her brain for the right information. Maybe it represented a way to contain the wasps, or surround the seeker with protection, so the stone could be reached. The mandala seemed to indicate the door itself was a key of some kind. Inspired, she felt around the door frame. On the right hand side was a slight opening: she reached inside and found a key.

 
Pulling it out, she showed the leader.

 
“The door wasn’t locked. Why the key?” he said.

 
“The Keepers surely designed some fail safe. Perhaps this activates it somehow.”

 
“Great theory, crazy woman, but I’m not going in there. You go in, get the stone and I’ll be waiting here. If you don’t come out, then, hey, it’s all over anyway.”

 
Morgan swallowed. She didn’t like wasps, but then who did? It was a rational human fear. They weren’t the stuff of her nightmares but the screams of the dying men who had entered before her still echoed round her head. A trickle of sweat ran down her back as she clenched her fists in determination. She had to face this fear head on because her own life was at stake now, and if she died, Faye and Gemma didn’t stand a chance. She took a deep breath, gently pushed open the door, and slid into the room.

Inside, the buzzing noise filled her head and Morgan gasped as she saw what the room held. Wasps’ nests draped from the ceiling and dripped down around the walls, hanging almost to the floor. Above them was a distant skylight and she realized this place must be under the botanical gardens where they could feed, even as they protected their secret. The air was thick with flying insects although many lay dead on the floor with the bodies of the soldiers.
 

The men had been stung to death, the reaction to the sting bloating the bodies already. It must be potent venom or the volume of stings that killed them with anaphylactic shock. Wasps still crawled over the bodies, crowding on any exposed skin. Morgan could see one of the men’s faces frozen in a drawn-out scream as a wasp emerged from his swollen mouth. She shuddered, trying not to imagine the pain of his death but she noticed that the wasps were bigger than normal, with longer stings and the sheer number of them was astonishing.
 

 
The buzzing increased at her entrance but the wasps kept their distance for now and Morgan wondered what made them attack. Her eyes darted around the room. She felt the door on her back realizing that there was nowhere to go except forwards into the room. She could see the stone plinth in the middle, similar to the one from the wadi in Tunisia. There was a box on top of it. The Pentecost stone must be in there, but how to get to it?
 

Morgan clutched the key in her hand and looked away from the seething mass of writhing gold and black bodies. If it didn’t open the door, it must fit in a different place. Then she saw it. On the wall to her right, a good few paces away, three mandalas were carved, each with a keyhole in the center. It was the final test of the seeker. If she moved towards the wall, the wasps would be alerted and would attack. She would have seconds to place the key before they reached her, so there would only be time to try one of the mandalas. She needed to decide which before she moved or she would die here like these men, stung to death, overtaken by toxic shock and venom.
 
Morgan breathed quietly. The wasps still didn’t move against her which was puzzling. She looked down and saw a semicircle of light around her from the grille above. It was as if this protected her until she stepped outside the light towards the keyholes. More confident at the task now, she looked again at the mandalas. What was the difference between them and which was the right keyhole?
 

Each mandala was a highly decorated carving with an image at the center. The paint had faded but Morgan could see that the keyholes were part of the intricate design of each central figure. On the right, a glorious rainbow of color illuminated the Sephiroth, the tree of life. It was a Kabbalistic image that Jung used in his writings and drew in the Red Book. The center mandala was a dark vortex of swirling shades in grey and black with slashes of vermilion. It was a destructive and almost cruel image, the keyhole a dark void at its heart. On the left, a many-legged crocodile spun around the keyhole, its limbs dropping off into a pool of blood below as a man chopped at them with a sword. Morgan shook her head. Even years of study in Jungian symbolism made this a difficult choice because they were all valid in some way. She closed her eyes and focused within. Doubts and fears flooded her mind, images of Faye and Gemma crying, Jake’s bloodied face, the bodies they had left in their wake, and then Elian’s bullet riddled body. In the maelstrom of emotion, she knew what it must be.
 

Having made her decision, Morgan took one last look at the wasps and ran forward with the key outstretched in her good hand. As she stepped outside the light circle, the buzzing became loud and angry as the wasps took flight. She reached the wall and plunged the key into the center mandala as she felt the brush of tiny furred bodies against her skin and winced at the first sting. The mandala represented the shadow self, the dark side of the psyche that Jung believed must be embraced in order to become whole. It had to be the correct one.
 

A flash of doubt entered her mind as the key plunged in. Then there was a cracking sound and the cavern filled with light. A high-pitched noise made her hunch over and cover her ears. She turned to see the bodies of the wasps drop out of the air, stunned or dead. Morgan wasn’t waiting to find out if they recovered. She ran to the center plinth, stepping around the bloated corpses and fallen wasps. She opened the box, took out the final Pentecost stone and ran for the door.

 
The silver-haired man was waiting, and as she came through, he sprayed a cloud of suffocating fumes into her face. She coughed and fell to the floor, feeling him take the stone from her. Her vision narrowed and she sank into inky unconsciousness. The last thing she saw was the pale horse tattoo, a witness to her failure.

Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
 
May 26, 4.19pm

Morgan came to in a groggy state, her mouth dry and head throbbing. She tried to sit up, reaching for her gun instinctively. Then she saw Jake.

 
“It’s OK. You’re safe. Relax now,” he said.

 
Morgan realized she was lying on a couch in the study. Jake was looking down at her, his head bandaged. He offered her a glass of water and helped her to sit up.

 
“What happened? What time is it?”

 
“It’s thirteen hours until Pentecost dawns, and we’ve got the men from Thanatos restrained outside. We’re leaving them for the authorities. While you were down in the tunnels, Jared and I had our own little adventure but how are you feeling?”