“No doubt, Weez. Those are the same seven characters from the pyramids-the big and the little.”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” she said, pulling out her camera. “Each of the seven sides of the pyramid had one of these glyphs. Each of the Other Names is composed of the same seven glyphs, so, in a way, each member of the Seven had his name chiseled on the pyramid.”
She fiddled with the lens as she returned, then leaned in next to Jack and flashed a photo. When she checked the display, she frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Jack said as he and Eddie angled in on either side for a look.
“Blurred,” Eddie said, then grunted. “Huh. Master of the Obvious.”
“Maybe you’ve got some schmutz on the lens,” Jack said.
Weezy gave him a cockeyed look. “Schmutz?”
“Abespeak for dirt. Enough of it down here.”
Weezy checked the lens. “No. Clean. I always keep the lens cover on and-oh, crap.”
“What?”
“Just remembered something.”
She snapped another photo with the same result.
“Damn!” she said. “The pyramid wouldn’t photograph either, remember?”
Now that she mentioned it…
“Right-right-right. Neither would the box it came in. And since this is the same material…”
Weezy returned to her backpack and traded her camera for a yellow pad and one of her Sharpies.
“That never stopped me from drawing them before.”
Less than a minute later she displayed her work.
“I now present the One’s Other Name.”
Jack made a quick comparison with the sigiclass="underline" a damn near exact copy.
“We hope.”
Her smile faltered. “Yeah… we hope.”
“Whether it is or not,” he said, “it’s a beautiful name… so euphonious.”
“Okay!” Eddie said, clapping his hands. “Our work here is done, so let’s get the hell out.”
Jack couldn’t argue with that.
Eddie led the way up. Jack followed with Weezy’s backpack, then helped her up to the basement level. He was about to unplug the spotlight they’d used below-he’d leave that and the shovels as a gift to the Lodge-when he heard footsteps on the basement stairs. He turned to see two men in suits step into the room from the stairwell.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” said the one in the lead.
Jack had left his Glock in the backpack while he was digging. Neither of these two seemed to pose much of a threat but that didn’t keep him from slipping his hand inside to find its comforting polymer composite.
“We were hired to excavate the subbasement.”
“I know who was hired,” the guy said, “and you aren’t he.”
Ooh… you aren’t he… a grammarian.
Without missing a beat Jack changed the story: “The One told us to check out the work.”
Both men frowned.
“The one what?” said the second.
Either they weren’t high-ups or were pretending not to know. He bet on the former and figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep them off balance by changing the subject.
He jerked his thumb at the opening in the floor. “We found an interesting variation on the Order’s sigil down below.”
Weezy was nodding. “Really interesting. Like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
The Order guys glanced at each other. Both looked dubious but finally the first said, “I’ll go see.” He pointed at Jack. “No games, all right?”
Jack put on a wounded look. “I assure you, this is not a joking matter.”
He turned to the second. “Watch them.”
He headed for the opening, descended the ladder, and was down maybe half a minute when his excited voice echoed up.
“Hey, Lee! Get down here. You’ve got to see this!”
Lee gave them a look as he approached the opening. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“As if,” Jack said. “That’s our find and don’t you guys even think about stealing credit.”
He waited for Lee to descend then stepped over to the opening. Both of them were out of sight, so he grabbed the ladder and quickly hauled it up.
Ignoring the cries of “Hey!” and “What the fuck?” from below, he signaled Weezy and Eddie to follow him up the stairs.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Let’s roll.”
Jack glanced at him. Let’s roll? Really?
Well, at least they had a name-whether the right name or not, no one could say, but the only name available. It would have to do.
But something about the glyphs and the feel of that sigil continued to gnaw at him.
6
Ernst ended the call and closed his phone. Just ahead, the Manhattan skyline loomed above the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel, while his impatient passenger waited behind.
They had heard from the Manhattan brothers who investigated the Connell woman’s apartment. Neither she nor the Compendium had been in evidence.
And now word from New Jersey. Some of the information was puzzling, and even a little disturbing.
“That was from the brothers who checked the Johnson Lodge. They found two men and a woman in the basement. The woman’s description fits Louise Connell. Descriptions of the men are vague, but they easily could have been Jack and the woman’s brother.”
“What were they doing?”
Here was the puzzling part.
“According to the brother I just spoke to, they were digging.”
“Were they.” A statement rather than a question.
“Yes. They appeared to have been digging in an excavation beneath the basement of the Lodge.”
“That would put them in the ruins of the buried town.”
The One had been very interested in the town when he had quizzed Ernst about Jack’s boyhood.
“Yes. The brother told me that the High Council had authorized the dig and sent an emissary named Kristof Szeto to initiate it.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Someone-they don’t know whether it was Jack and his friends or the workers Szeto hired-but someone unearthed the large, damaged sigil that has been down there longer than the Lodge.”
It had been largely forgotten over the years. Ernst hadn’t thought about it in a long, long time-not since the 1980s when he’d researched the Johnson Lodge before visiting it. The sigil had been found in ancient times. The brothers back then had no use for a damaged symbol of the Order but did not feel right discarding such a relic. So they stored it away.
“Then we must assume the Heir saw it.”
“No assumption necessary: He directed the brothers to it.”
The One made no reply. He remained silent as they entered the Midtown Tunnel. Ernst glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him staring out the window, his expression unreadable.
“Does that particular sigil have a special significance?”
His voice seemed to come from far away. “It belonged to me back in the First Age.”
Ernst stiffened in his seat. What a remarkable revelation. That explained the One’s interest in it when Ernst had mentioned it during his quizzing about Jack.
“If only we’d known, it would have been displayed all these centuries in a place of honor.”
“I am glad it wasn’t. I had thought it lost forever.” He seemed full of sudden determination as he leaned forward. “When we reach the city, turn downtown.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ernst knew better than to ask why. But then the One answered his question.
“I must feed.”
7
“‘It may never happen, Weez,’” she said, quoting. “‘This may all be wasted time and chatter.’”
Jack, behind the wheel, stared straight ahead and said nothing as they cruised north on the New Jersey Turnpike. She’d called shotgun for the trip home. She was too rattled about what lay ahead to concentrate on the Compendium.
She studied Jack. He’d been strangely silent since leaving the Lodge. Something was bothering him. Endangering the baby? She doubted it. That was her worry.
“But, since it is going to happen,” she added, “I guess it wasn’t just wasted chatter. Not that I have veto power.”
He glanced at her. “We all respect your feelings, Weez. There’s just…”