He brought the stick down again, this time on Jouhanneau’s neck. Marcas and Jade both struggled to free their hands as Sol shrieked, “Are you going to tell me what you experienced?”
Jouhanneau was lying on the ground, straining to hold his head up. Marcas could tell he was gathering his last bit of strength for the final blow.
“I will die like my father and like my master before him, Hiram. It is an honor. As for you, you could never understand. You must have a pure heart, or…”
The grand archivist stretched out his hand.
“Antoine, my brother. I am not afraid. That is the secret of the shadow ritual. If you knew, Antoine… I crossed through the darkness, and then there was… No, not the Grand Architect, no, just me. I am no longer afraid. Never again.”
Sol was laughing like a madman. He raised the stick the final time and brought it down on Jouhanneau’s skull.
“Why? Why him and all the others?” Marcas cried out. “Why the same way Hiram was killed?”
Sol strode over to him.
“It’s an ancient custom. Nobody knows who devised this blood ritual. The founder of our order, Count von Sebottendorf, called on us to use it. When the Thule chose to become invisible during the rise of Nazism, we decided to send a chilling message. Maybe no one could see us, but we were there, in the shadows. What finer way to demonstrate our secret power than to kill you Masons the same way Hiram was slain? But I’m wasting my time. I have much to do. I’m fulfilling my destiny.”
He staggered and looked drunk. Klaus reached out to support him, but Sol pushed him away. Joana moved toward him too, but the old man spit at her feet.
“It’s nothing. I’m going to sit down now. Take care of those two. I am no longer afraid. That’s what he said. ‘I am no longer afraid.’”
Before anyone could act, Sol keeled over. He twisted on the ground and foamed at the mouth. His voice was filled with anguish, “No! Not them! They’re all around me. Not that! Can you see them? Can you see them? Don’t let them get near me. Get back. I’m an SS officer. You must obey me. No!”
Joana rushed to Sol. His henchman pulled out a gun and pointed it at Marcas and Jade.
Marcas turned to Jade. “I’m sorry,” he said. He shoved her out of the way and closed his eyes. “I’m no longer afraid.”
A shot rang out, then another. Marcas collapsed on the ground. His last image was Sol writhing nearby, like a rabid beast.
THE ORIENT
76
At the Hospice de la Charité outside Paris, the old man in the padded room suffered day and night. The nurses pitied him. Like a child afraid of the dark, he begged them to keep the lights on. He cycled between uncontrollable anguish and tears of despair, when he would say “I’m sorry” over and over. Even the strongest anti-anxiety medication couldn’t calm him. The psychiatrists had no cure.
The nurses had put him in a straightjacket to make sure he didn’t harm himself.
77
He woke up with his mind muddled and his vision blurry. He blinked. Jade’s face appeared above him.
“Don’t move.”
“Where am I?”
“Safe in Bordeaux, at the Arche-Royale Clinic. You got lucky.”
“I’m thirsty.”
Jade handed him a bottle of mineral water. He poured it down his throat as if he hadn’t had a drink in days. An agreeably cool sensation filled him. He wanted to sit up, but pain shot through his right side.
“I told you not to move. The bullet almost sent you to the beyond. The docs have ordered two weeks of rest in this room and then a month of convalescence.”
“What happened?”
Jade wiped his forehead.
“We owe our lives to your friend Jaigu, as hard as it is for me to say that. Somehow, Darsan found out we were at Lascaux. How do you damned Freemasons always know everything?” she said with a smile.
“Ah, yes. You see, we’re not all bad. When I called my worshipful master to see if we could get into the cave, I gave our code word for danger and let Jaigu’s name slip.”
“Darsan sent Jaigu, since he had been in on the mission from the start. When he got there, he saw us go into the cave with Jouhanneau. He followed and killed Klaus just as he got a bullet off.”
“And Sol?”
“Captured, with Joana. She was transferred to a special-ops prison, where she’s being interrogated for information on Orden and its network. Sol is in a psychiatric hospital.”
“Why?” Marcas said, feeling himself drift away and Jade’s voice become distant.
He fell asleep.
78
The Hospice de la Charité-Dieu had grounds that no gardener had domesticated. Century-old trees spread their branches alongside the building. There were no bars on the windows. Most of the patients were harmless, lost in their silence or their imagination. The real world was little more than a distant memory.
A linden tree, planted when the hospice was built, had branches reaching to the second-floor rooms. In the coolness of evening, the scent of the flowers filled the silent halls. After climbing through the window, a man took a white lab coat out of his bag, put it on, and clipped on a hospital identification badge. Now he just needed to find room 37.
When he did, he smiled at the patient’s name: François Le Guermand. The past always caught up with you. As did Thule with those it had sentenced to death.
79
Antoine Marcas walked into the room just as a nurse was preparing the body to be taken away. The hospital director had immediately informed Darsan, who had contacted Marcas.
The man who had called himself Sol lay on the bed. Marcas could make out his emaciated body under the sheet. His hands were strapped to the sides of the bed. An unpleasant odor was rising from it.
The worker blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t finished. Are you family?”
“No.”
“You understand. They can’t take care of themselves.”
Marcas nodded. He showed his badge. “Call the head doctor, please,” he said.
The nurse hurried out while Marcas contemplated the former SS officer’s face. It had stiffened into a grimace. His eyes were still open, fixed on the ceiling, as if in terror.
The doctor, a young man, walked into the room.
“What did he die from?”
“Are you familiar with his file?”
“A little bit.”
“The patient suffered from obsessional psychosis due to irreversible brain lesions.”
“What kind of psychosis?”
“Fear, sir.”
The nurse was back. She tried to close the patient’s eyes but couldn’t.
The doctor shrugged. “Some go into death with their eyes open. If we can’t get them closed, we cover them with a headband.”
Marcas went outside. The warm air under the trees felt good. He took out a cigarette, but his hands were trembling.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
He turned around. Jade was sitting on a bench under the linden tree. Its leaves were rustling in the breeze. Marcas put the pack back in his pocket.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Darsan told me.”
He looked at her, and refrained from asking why she was there. He just smiled.
She stood up, and they started walking toward the gate.
“I have a question,” Jade said.
“Yes?”
“What’s the secret of the shadow ritual?”
Marcas’s eyes wandered over the hospital walls.