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He gave Aussie a hard stare. In return Aussie drummed his fingertips against his weapon, letting Savage know he had the power and wasn’t afraid to use it.

“Bow your heads,” said Savage.

They did. And for two minutes he ranted how good the man was, and why the good Lord should embrace him, love him, and spoke words that didn’t draw praise or criticism when he was finished.

When everyone dispersed he turned to Alyssa. Her face was clear: Is there anything about you that’s real?

When he raised his arms in a what-did-you-want-me-to-do manner, she turned to gear up.

Savage lowered his arms in defeat and stared at the body of Red. Slowly, he reached up, removed the white band of his Roman collar, and placed it within the crux of Red’s fingers as if he was holding it. Hopefully this will serve as a price of admission, he thought. But I doubt it.

The team gathered at the far end of the chamber. In the glimmer of light cast by the lamps lying by Red, the crystal bull shined iridescent spangles of dazzling light.

“Ms. Moore, how long will the lanterns last?” asked Carroll.

“They have lithium batteries. So let’s say about two weeks before they burn off.”

“Will the light keep them away?” He sounded completely distant and monotone.

She knew he was referring to the lizards. “Yes,” she told him. “The light will keep them away.”

But everybody knew that Red would be gone by the end of the day.

In silence, they pressed onward to the center of Eden.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They had circled the carcass in the Chamber of the Bull, the meat decaying to a softer texture, easier to rip, tear, devour and digest. But the light of the lamps kept them at bay — beyond the fringe, hurting the retinas of their eyes, having lived in the darkness for the entirety of their lives.

They paced back and forth, their olfactory senses deducing the best way to secure Red’s body. Whereas some spat at the circle of light as if it was a living source, trying to scare it into submission, others pawed at it with a swipe of their clawed foot, their mind clearly unable to register the light as something intangible.

Tapping commenced, metered measures denoting aggravation, causing lizards to climb and spill over one another, driving others to expand their frills in agitation, anger and frustration. In their agitated state, one lizard had swung its tail wildly and clipped the bull’s foreleg, smashing it into fragments so small along the floor that they looked like a cache of diamonds spread over black velvet.

A second swipe of the tail, ten feet long and as thick as a log, took out the lamp posted at Red’s feet, smashing it, the light gone. Several additional attempts finally took out the last lamp, immersing the chamber in complete and utter darkness.

Within moments they eclipsed Red’s body and ripped it apart with ease, then traipsed off into the shadows with whatever bounty they were able to tear free.

Even with the light, Red hadn’t lasted more than an hour.

* * *

The mood was a depressing one. For Hall’s team, it was the loss of Red. For Hall, it was the fact that everything was moving too slowly for his needs. For the rest, it was the realization that a dark fate was racing toward them at the speed of a freight train.

They had entered the Chamber of the Boar and the Chamber of the Lizard, a chamber her father had mentioned as one of the three chambers in the copied pages of his journal, but had omitted the lizard as the crystal carving, and mentioning the bull and the boar, instead.

“Is this what we’re up against?” Aussie asked rhetorically, circling the reptilian sculpture.

They circled the figure in wonder. It was a perfect rendition of the Megalania Prisca and like the other sculptures, it sat upon a plinth of black silica with its foreleg raised, its mouth open, and its frill extended around its head in sheer agitation — much like the bull and the boar. Why the creatures’ anxiety was so clearly stated was beyond Alyssa’s speculation.

The creature was twenty foot in length with a ten-foot tail that looked like a formidable weapon, serrated teeth, and a raptor-like claw bearing the means to rip and tear with the ease of a scalpel edge.

“This thing is huge, if they made it to scale like the others,” said Butcher Boy.

“It’s to scale,” confirmed Alyssa.

Hall stepped forward and raised his lamp. “I hope you have enough bullets,” he said blankly.

The eight of them stood around the structure, not sure whether to admire it or be afraid of it. “Let’s get moving,” said Butcher Boy. “I want the two Turks taking point with the lamps, Savage behind them, and Moore behind Savage. Keep your lamps high, people. If anything’s out there, then let them see the light.”

Of course Eser and Harika didn’t understand initially, but with a prodding with Aussie’s weapon, they understood fine. They made their way out of the chamber, the last before discovering the room containing the Crystal Wall.

It was as her father described it in her copies. Three walls of black silica with the fourth wall constructed of clear crystal quartz that looked like sheer glass. The chamber was huge, the room once serving as the temple’s communication center.

The wall was as large as the screen of a movie theater. It was a diagram of a Mesoamerica-type pyramid with three steps; the surrounding landscapes a depiction of rich fauna supported by a flowing river with creatures roaming the territory. The pyramid, if scaled in accordance with the surrounding landscape, was massive, maybe even larger than Khufu.

Clearly defined on the upper level, which was their level, they deduced was the temple cap that depicted the Chambers of the Bull, the Boar, the Lizard, and nine others, which they had yet to discover; making a total of twelve chambers.

This was the Central Chamber. Hall’s mind was already working out the details to have the wall removed. There was so much to choose from, he considered. So… much.

As they moved closer, they realized that they were dwarfed by the size of the wall. While Aussie, Butcher Boy and Carroll maintained a protective guard and John Savage kept his barometer in high tune, Alyssa, Hall and the young Turks touched the wall with the careful act of paying homage, that of stroking the wall calmly and gently, its feel as smooth as a thick pane of glass.

When Alyssa stepped back to study the images further, she realized that the Central Chamber was the entry point to the levels below. Savage joined her — her new found alliance that she had little confidence in. “It’s a map, isn’t it?” he whispered, making sure Hall was out of earshot.

“It’s a schematic,” she corrected. “This is a massive pyramid — should the scale model of the sculptures and cuneiform depictions is correct — that may be larger than Cheops. For such a structure to be built 12,000 years ago is…” Her words trailed.

“That’s all very nice,” said Savage. “But I need you to look for a way out. If you haven’t noticed, the closer we get to the main point, the quicker our lives end.”

Her eyes immediately shifted to the schematic of the second level and studied the floor plan. She saw rooms of every geometrical shape and figure, passageways that seemed to lead to nowhere and floors where none should be.

She shook her head. “The second level is a complete puzzle. Nothing makes sense. But there are passageways. Where they lead to, however…”

“What about the lowest level?”

She pored over the wall. The lowest level featured outer chambers of no particular significance with the exception of the burial chamber, which contained what appeared to be pods.

She clicked her tongue, another mystery. She could read ancient cuneiform and script created 10,000 years before Christ ever set foot on this planet, but this was not script, it was the schematics of a structure derived by the minds of ancient engineers. Panels, doorways, floors, ceilings and other configurations seemed geometrically illogical, their placements odd.