By her compass navigation Nina ascertained the location of the wall she was to breach and used her climbing rope to secure her canoe to a protruding buttress. The monks were frantically busy taking in people at the main entrance, as well as relocating their food stores to the higher towers. All the chaos benefitted Nina’s mission. Not only were the monks too busy to pay attention to intruders, but the din of the church bell made certain that her presence would never be detected by sound. In essence, she did not have to sneak about or be quiet while she made her way to the cemetery.
Rounding the secondary wall, she was delighted to find the graveyard just as Purdue had described it. Unlike the rough map she’d been given containing the section she was supposed to find, the cemetery itself was considerably smaller in scale. In fact, she found it easily on first glance.
This is too easy, she thought, feeling a bit uneasy. Maybe you’re just so used to having to burrow through shit that you can’t appreciate that thing called a lucky break.’
Perhaps her luck would hold long enough, just until the Abbot who saw her breach captured her.
29
The Karma of Bruichladdich
With her latest obsession with fitness and strength training, Nina could not argue with the benefits now that she had to utilize her conditioning to keep her from getting caught. Most of the physical effort was quite comfortably executed as she scaled an interior wall barrier to find her way into the lower section adjacent to the hall. Stealthily, Nina gained access to the narrow trench-like row of graves. It reminded her of a row of macabre train cars in sequence, lying lower then the rest of the graveyard.
What was peculiar was that the third grave from her, the one demarcated on the map, had a remarkably new slab of marble over it, particularly when compared to the obviously worn and dirty covers of all the others in the line. She suspected that it was an indication of access. When she came to it, Nina noticed that the head stone read Ephippas Abizithibod.
“Eureka!” she said to herself, gratified that the find was right where it was supposed to be. Nina was one of the best historians in the world. Although she was mainly an expert on World War II, she also had an affinity for ancient history, apocrypha, and mythology. The two words chiseled in the antiquated granite did not represent the name of some monk or canonized do-gooder.
Nina sank to her knees on the marble and ran her fingers over the names. “I know who you are,” she sang cheerfully while the monastery started taking on water from the crevices in the external walls. “Ephippas, you are the demon King Solomon employed to raise a heavy cornerstone of his temple, a great big slab much like this one,” she whispered as she scrutinized the headstone to find some sort of device or lever to open it. “And Abizithibod,” she announced proudly, dusting off the name with a wipe of her palm, “you were the naughty fucker who helped the Egyptian magicians against Moses…”
Suddenly the slab started moving under her knees. “Holy shit!” Nina exclaimed as she fell back, looking straight up at the giant mounted stone cross on the main chapel roof. “Sorry.”
Note to self, she thought, give Father Harper a call when all this is over.
Though there was not a cloud in the sky the water continued to creep higher. While Nina was apologizing to the cross her eye caught another shooting star. “Oh, for fucks sake!” she moaned, crawling in the mud to get out of the way of the evenly animate marble. It was so thick in breadth that it would crush her legs instantly.
Unlike the other grave markers, this one bore names of demons bound by King Solomon, irrefutably declaring that this was where the lost diamonds were kept by the monks. As the slab grated its way into the casing of granite, Nina winced thinking of what she would see. True to her fears, she was confronted with a skeleton lying on a purple bed of what was once silk. Upon the skull a golden crown gleamed, encrusted with rubies and sapphires. It was pale yellow, true crude gold, but Dr. Nina Gould could not care less about the crown.
“Where are the diamonds?” she frowned. “Oh God, don’t tell me the diamonds have been taken. No, no.” With as much respect as she could afford at the time and circumstance, she started to examine the grave. Lifting the bones one by one and muttering with worry, she did not notice the water flooding the narrow channel of graves where she was busy searching. The first grave filled up with water as the fence wall gave way under the weight of the rising lake. Prayers and laments coursed from the people on the higher side of the fortress, but Nina was adamant to obtain the diamonds before all was lost.
Once the first grave was filled, the loose ground it was cradled in turned to mud. The casket and headstone sank under the water, allowing the stream free passage to the second grave, just behind Nina.
“Where the fuck do you keep your diamonds, for Christ’s sake?” she shrieked in the din of the maddening church bell.
“For Christ’s sake?” someone said above her. “Or for Mammon’s?”
Nina did not want to look up, but the cold end of the gun barrel coaxed her to obey. Above her a tall young monk stood, looking positively furious. “Of all nights to desecrate a grave for treasure you choose this one? May the Lord have mercy on you for your devil’s greed, woman!”
He was dispatched by the abbot, while the head monk concentrated his efforts on salvaging souls and delegating for evacuation.
“No, please! I can explain everything! My name is Dr. Nina Gould!” Nina shouted, throwing up her arms in surrender, having no idea that Sam’s Beretta, tucked in her belt, was in plain sight. He shook his head. The monk’s finger played on the trigger of the M16 he held, but his eyes widened and froze on her body. It was then that she remembered the gun. “Listen, listen!” she implored. “I can explain.”
The second grave sank into the loose quicksand formed by the wicked current of muddy lake water, stalking the third grave, but neither Nina nor the monk realized.
“You explain nothing,” he cried, looking decidedly unstable. “You keep quiet! Let me think!” Little did she know that he was staring at her chest, where her buttoned shirt parted and revealed the tattoo that also fascinated Sam.
Nina dared not touch the gun she bore, but she was desperate to find the diamonds. She needed a diversion. “Watch out for the water!” she shouted, feigning panic and looking past the monk to fool him. As he turned to look, Nina leapt up and cold cocked him with the Beretta’s butt, hitting him at the base of the skull. The monk fell to the ground with a thump and she frantically fumbled through the bones of the skeleton, even whipping at the satin fabric, but nothing came of it.
Furiously she wept in defeat, lashing about the purple rag in rage. The motion dislodged the skull from the spine with a grotesque cracking sound that swiveled the head bone askew. Two pristine little stones spilled from the eye cavity onto the fabric.
“No fucking way!” Nina groaned happily. “You let it all go to your head, didn’t you?”
The water swept away the limp body of the young monk and claimed his assault rifle, pulling it to the muddy tomb below, while Nina gathered up the diamonds, chucked them back inside the skull and wrapped the head in the purple fabric. As the water spilled into the third grave bed, she thrust the prize into her satchel and flung it back onto her back.