He’s right about that. But in our case, with the coffin, there was a body in—
My heart lurches, leaping up to my throat.
Double crap.
I need an airline ticket.
80
Orchard Lake, Michigan
Judge Felix Wojtowicz wasn’t a fool. Electrified from the moment he saw it, he knew the power of history. And ritual. And even the ceremonial value of a blood rite.
He knew—thanks to his own family’s diaries—that the blood sacrament was what delayed his brethren at the Cave of Treasures all those years ago. So with Ellis’s body at his feet, already wrapped in plastic, he knew he wouldn’t make the same mistakes here.
Most of all, the Judge knew the stories from times past.
He knew that dating back to 3500 BC, Mesopotamian women used to wear cylinder seals—carved stone cylinders no bigger than the cork of a wine bottle, but with a hole through them, like pieces of ziti—around their necks to ward off nightmares and evil spirits.
He knew that early archaeologists mistakenly thought the seals were jewelry. But the true secret of the seals was what was carved on them. Indeed, when the seals were rolled in blood—like a roller stamp—they’d reveal pictures and stories.
And he knew that the best of these pictures even had their own narratives.
Like a book.
For decades, the archaeological community had overlooked so much. In 1899, The New York Times reported on the British Museum’s unearthed cylinder seals that dated to 4000 BC in Babylonia. So many of them, when rolled in wet clay, revealed what the Times called “biblical incidents,” including vivid carvings of the “Genesis stories of the creation, of the fall of man, the flood, and others.”
Archaeologists at the time didn’t know what to make of it.
But the Thules did.
Just as they understood that long before Babylonian times, man hid ancient secrets by carving them onto everyday objects—like the horns of goats or rams. Or sheep. Abel was a herder of sheep.
“I’m confused,” the sixty-year-old named Kenneth asked, carrying a wide cookie sheet of wet modeling clay to the glass bar. “All the carvings on the weapon—they’re faded and cracked away. Look at it, it’s practically smooth. There’s gonna be nothing to see.”
The Judge laughed to himself.
Again, he wasn’t a fool. He knew—even anticipated (especially with a beast like Ellis)—that would be the case.
If this really was the weapon that murdered Abel—if the ivory-and-gray animal horn was indeed the true Mark of Cain—a Book of Truth—carved with God’s greatest secrets and passed to Adam, to Abel, and eventually as a sign to Cain—surely the carvings would have faded over time.
But the Coptic monks who first unearthed it in the late sixteenth century? They weren’t stupid, either.
Which was why they kept a backup copy.
The Judge stuffed his hands into a pair of white cotton gloves, then held the animal horn in one hand and picked up a brand-new X-Acto knife in the other. Just touching it, gripping it—Lord, to finally have it after all these centuries—this wasn’t just a find. It was a reawakening for the whole movement. Thule revived!
Like a surgeon, he edged the knife underneath the lip of the tanned flap of leather that covered the wide end of the horn.
“You knew all this time, didn’t you?” Kenneth asked as his partner looked on behind him. “You knew the monks hid something inside.”
“I couldn’t possibly know,” the Judge admitted. “But I had faith.”
With a sharp slice of the knife, the leather gave way, opening with a silent burp and delivering a rancid stench that wafted from the innards of the horn and smelled like vinegar and foul eggs. It stung the Judge’s nose and made his eyes water. But he didn’t look away.
Without a word, Judge Felix Wojtowicz peered inside. His eyes narrowed, searching—then grew wide again.
“What? What’s it say?” Kenneth asked.
The Judge didn’t answer.
Panicking, he turned the horn over and shook it to double-check. Nothing but a cloud of fine dust rained out.
“I-It can’t be,” he stammered. “Someone . . . they . . . someone already took it.”
81
October 17, 1931
Cleveland, Ohio
You okay with this, yes?” Mitchell Siegel asked in his heavily accented English.
His youngest son, Jerome, sat on the radiator, his foot anxiously tapping the floor, his eyes locked on the thick, oversize Bible that rested like a cinder block in his lap. He was a restless, gangly kid with a weak, pointy jaw, a bush-top of thick black hair, and oversize glasses that came off only at bedtime, during showers, and for yearbook photos.
“I can’t, Pop. This is yours.”
“And now yours,” Mitchell insisted, his big voice bellowing from his big body.
Jerry was tempted to argue, but the truth was, he didn’t want his father to take the book back.
“You keep it, then, yes?”
Jerry nodded, brushing his fingertips along the fine, tan leather. Smooth as skin. “Can I just ask you . . . the object inside—”
“The totem,” his father said.
“The totem inside,” Jerry repeated, his foot still tapping as his knee rocked the book like a seesaw. “Do you even know what it is?”
Mitchell’s eyes went dark. “You think that matter!? All that matter is men gave lives for it. Men died for it, Jerome!” Mitchell cut himself off, thinking back to how his own father used to raise his voice. He took a heavy breath through his nose. “Is your gift now, Jerome. Yours to protect.”
Shifting his weight on the radiator, Jerry glanced over his shoulder and stared out the second-story window, where his two older brothers played skully in the street. “Why didn’t you give it to Harry or Leo—or even Minerva?” Jerry said, referring to his older sister. “I mean, I’m the smallest.”
Standing over his youngest son, Mitchell knew Jerry was right. Of his six children, Jerry was the smallest. And weakest. And least popular. When his siblings came home from school and raced out to play games in the street, Jerry regularly stayed inside, scribbling stories and drawing daydreams.
Just as Mitchell used to back in Lithuania when he was the same age.
“You argue with your father? Show respect!” his dad insisted, seizing Jerry’s shoulder in his meaty mitt.
Still staring outside, Jerry nodded, knowing better than to fight.
For an instant, his father’s grip softened and Jerry thought his dad was about to say something else.
But he never did.
In a slow, heavy shuffle—Jerry always thought he was hiding a limp—Mitchell Siegel headed for the door.
“Oh, say, Pop—can I ask one last thing?”
His father turned, framed by the threshold.
“What you said about those men—the ones in the cave, with the cloaks and the blood and the—”
“What’s your question, Jerome?”
Jerry looked at his father. “They tried to kill you, didn’t they?”
Mitchell didn’t say anything.
“What if they try again?” Jerry asked, his foot tapping faster than ever.
“They won’t,” Mitchell promised. “They can’t. There is no way they know where I am.”
Jerry nodded as though he understood. “But still . . . when you were there . . . do you really think they were trying to create some kind of monster?”