“No problem,” Barry replied. “Are you alright, pal?”
“Just been sick since last night, man,” Glen complained. “Fever, oh, and I puked my guts out three times today. I just don’t feel well.”
“I was going to remark on that earlier, actually. That wan complexion of yours could get you shoved into a fridge here if you fall asleep for too long,” Barry jested.
The two physicians heard some excitement in the other room where the cadavers were to be prepared. Echoing voices from the morgue attendants drowned in the sharp hammering of thunder, especially when the lights flickered from the force of the gales outside.
“Doctor Hooper! Could you have a look here, please?” James cried from the hollow walls.
“Be right there!” Barry answered. “Probably saw one twitching again.”
Glen snickered, “Take him some holy water. The flickering light is bound to be a sign of evil spirits, Barry, don’t forget.”
“Oh yes, the flickering lights,” Barry laughed as he exited the office.
Moments later Glen heard Barry call him to the slabs. Feeling thoroughly under the weather, Glen did not rush for fear of upchucking again.
“Are you coming?” Barry hollered through the rumbling of the heavens.
“Yes, yes, keep your pants on,” Glen muttered.
He entered the room, finding the young morgue assistants looking less terrified than he had anticipated. In fact, they actually looked intrigued, much like Barry.
“Glen-o, this is rather interesting, but I’m not sure. Need your expertise here,” Barry told him, his face reflecting amusement and fascination.
“What is it?” Glen moaned.
“They all have permanent tattoos, doctor,” James chimed in.
Glen frowned. “So what? Depending on Sunni or Shi’a, mostly tattoos are allowed, I think.”
“You know, for someone who loathes this culture, you certainly know more than most,” Barry teased under the blinding pale white light that made him look like a blue alien under a UFO beam.
“Only when you know much about a subject can you truly judge, my friend,” Glen retorted. “I decided I detest all of it. I fail to understand people killing each other over speculative historical figures who allegedly order them to be miserable.”
“Well, it’s not that that they have tattoos that makes this interesting, Glen,” Barry explained. “It’s that they all have the same tattoo. Do Muslims have gang ink?”
“Who knows?” Glen sighed as he nudged in closer to his colleagues to get a better look. “Nothing about these fellows would really surprise me.”
Although each man had his marking in a different place, the symbol on all was the same. One corpse had his on his iliac crest, while the next had his on the skin between his thumb and index finger. Another had it on his foot and so on, fascinating the educated eye of the intolerant physician.
“Well?” Barry asked suddenly, startling Glen.
Glen uttered some sort of confused murmur that had the rest of his company convinced that he, too, had no idea what it meant. However, this was not the case. “Uh,” he mumbled as he scrutinized the symbol with a surreptitious shake of his head, “it’s not the symbol that baffles me, mate.” He looked at Barry with a perplexed frown. “What’s odd is that this is the mark of an ancient order that has quite the opposite creed from what we thought these blokes were about.”
“What the hell does that mean?” James uttered inadvertently, eliciting a hard look of reprimand from his superior, forcing him to correct his address with some respect. “I mean, what the hell does that mean… Doctor?”
“I could be mistaken, but I’m almost ninety-nine percent certain I am not,” Glen reported. “This symbol has its origins in the Templar Knights.”
“Ha!” James laughed, clapping his hands together and wringing his entwined fingers. “Pull the other one, sir!” Reluctantly the other assistants chuckled nervously in the ominous rumble of the thunder, unsure if the doctor was serious.
“I’m serious, boys,” Glen replied. Barry knew his colleague very well. They’d come a long way together, even since their college days. He knew when Glen was genuinely sincere and by the looks of him, there was no humor in his response.
“Wait a minute,” Barry frowned, “do you mean to tell me that these men are affiliated with a Christian order of knights from Jerusalem?”
“This is so cool,” one of the dieners whispered as he nudged James.
“They were protecting 12th Century pilgrims who visited the Holy Land, yes, but they were not necessarily from Jerusalem,” Glen corrected his colleague. “From what I know, and I am no expert, the Knights Templar were mostly from France…” he gave it some thought, “…well, the man who founded the order was French, I believe.”
“And this is their symbol?” James asked.
“It deviates slightly from what I remember, but yes, the cross and the crown was known to be one emblem, while many variations of these red Maltese crosses have served as their emblem,” Glen said in retarded words as he realized the omission in the actual pictograms he had seen.
“What’s the matter, then?” Barry inquired.
Glen shrugged and sighed. “You see, half is missing from these markings, even though the emblem is entirely that of the Templars. That is a bit peculiar.”
“Then maybe they’re not from the order of Templars, sir?” James speculated. “Maybe they just have a similar badge?”
“Makes sense,” Barry muttered.
“I’m practically positive that these red Maltese crosses represent the Templar Knights,” Glen protested, sounding rather defensive at it. “It’s just that… there are omissions in the wording around the emblem.”
“What exactly is missing? Is the red cross not enough?” Barry asked under the flickering lights of the mortuary. “It seems that anything more should be considered an appendix, no?”
“I understand what you’re getting at, Dr. Hooper,” Glen replied as calmly as he could muster the words, “but what I’m saying is that the slogan is, well, wrong.”
“What does it miss, Doc?” James asked.
“It is a Crusader’s Cross, but the Latin on it says something different to the Templar’s most prominent slogan, Sigillum Militum Xpisti?” he said hastily as the intrigue possessed him more and more. He looked up and was met with blank stares all round. Impatiently, he clarified, “It means ‘Seal of the Soldiers of Christ’ or something to that effect. But here,” he pointed out with a shivering index finger as the apprehension mounted among them, “it says simply ‘Sigillum Militum’, which means that, either they are wannabe Templars who know bloody nothing about authenticity, or they…” he shrugged, trying to find an explanation.
Young James leaned in to look at the markings and said softly under the guide of thunder, “Or these Templars are soldiers of something entirely else.”
6
The Rowback
Sam arrived in Edinburgh just before midday of the day following his visit to the hospital where the nameless woman had put him off. Without reservation, he inhaled a long and deep breath when he stepped off the plane, as if reacquainting himself with the foggy air of his city. She was always pregnant with rain and pollution, but Sam wouldn’t exchange her for the world. He knew every neighborhood, every graveyard, every warehouse, and most certainly every pub worth its salt… and whisky.