Her cheeks moistened with tears, it took every measure of self-control not to fling herself at her battered warrior. Instead, she stopped a handbreadth in front of Caedmon. Ever so gently, she brushed her fingers against his bruised cheek.
“Worse for wear,” he said matter-of-factly, preempting her inquiry. “Let’s leave it at that.” Then, one side of his mouth quirking upward, “Your bravado gave me quite the scare. I don’t know whether to kiss you or throttle you.”
“I’ll settle for the former. The latter will have to wait until I’m suited up in my fishnet stockings and black leather corset.” She shakily laughed, her emotions all over the map. “Aren’t you the one who said that ‘bluff can move mountains?’ Although”—she glanced at the hole in the floor—“as crazy as it sounds, I wish it hadn’t come to this.”
“I’m afraid that nothing short of death would have stopped him. Survival of the fittest at its most horrific.”
Sidestepping the death trap, she walked over to the niche behind the altar. “All that trouble and he never did take the bait.” She removed the relic and carefully retraced her steps, purposefully not peeking into the hole. “I don’t know about you, but I am ready to blow this joint.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the skin on the back of her neck prickled. In that instant, she intuitively knew… A dark shadow loomed behind them. She warily turned her head toward the entrance to the sanctuary, halfway expecting to see Saviour Panos — Rasputin-like — having survived the deadly plummet.
“Good God,” Caedmon uttered.
Her thoughts exactly, stunned to see an armed white-haired man standing in the entryway.
“I… I don’t… don’t understand,” she sputtered. “We thought you were dead.”
CHAPTER 92
“Still among the living as you can plainly see.”
Caedmon gaped at the resurrected gunman, shocked. “I am as confused as Miss Miller. How can you be both dead and—”
“Alive? A bit of smoke and mirrors, as they say. Or porcelain and bathwater, in this case. Please forgive the subterfuge. A necessary ploy to force your hand. We have not been properly introduced. My birth name is Merkür de Léon. Americanized many years ago to Lyon. Spelled with a y,” he added, obviously amused by the “ploy.”
Still flabbergasted, Caedmon stared at the elderly man who all along had been pulling the puppet strings. The kindly Dr. Lyon. Professor emeritus at Catholic University. Although not so kindly that he didn’t carry a firearm. A Smith & Wesson 9mm revolver. Eight rounds in the clip, one in the chamber. Which meant that Dr. Lyon, professor emeritus, had nine shots available to him. Of course, he only needed two to kill them. An easy enough prospect given that he and Edie were utterly defenseless. Nowhere to hide. And nowhere to run.
“Where is Saviour?” Dr. Lyon scanned the room, his eyes suspiciously narrowing.
Caedmon quickly glanced at Edie. A warning. Whatever you do, love, don’t reveal that his homunculus tumbled into the pits of hell.
“Your neophyte suffered an unexpected bout of claustrophobia, which prompted his early departure.”
“Yeah, he had a real bad case of spelunkphobia,” Edie snickered.
“Since there’s only the one exit, Saviour ordered us to retrieve the relic while he awaits our egress aboveground. I’m surprised you didn’t cross paths.” Caedmon strove for a calm façade, ignoring the searing bolts of pain that continuously pulsed from his battered left hand. Refusing to show any weakness. Smoke and mirrors.
With a nod of the head, Dr. Lyon accepted the deceit as payment in full.
“All in all, well done, sir!” Caedmon congratulated with hale good humor. “We respectfully concede the field and award you the prize. Edie, if you would be so kind as to set the Emerald Tablet on the stone altar where Dr. Lyon may properly examine it.”
“Um, right… be happy to.” Always a dependable teammate, Edie did as instructed.
Like guests summoned to dinner, the three of them gathered at the altar: Dr. Lyon at the head of the table, Caedmon at the foot, and Edie, the hapless diner in the middle. And of course, the silent, uninvited guest Saviour Panos, who’d been cast into the pit just prior to the dinner gong.
Dr. Lyon’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears as he stared at his “dinner plate.” Utterly bedazzled. As Caedmon had been when he first set eyes on the sacred relic.
“I’m admittedly curious as to how you learned of the Emerald Tablet,” he conversationally remarked.
Long moments passed before Dr. Lyon finally tore his gaze away from the relic. “I was approached by Jason Lovett regarding the Paleo-Hebrew inscription that he unearthed in Arcadia.”
“Paleo-Hebrew is an ancient version of the Semitic language,” Caedmon said in a quick aside to Edie.
Like a lover caressing the beloved, Dr. Lyon smoothed his hand over the intricate gold-inlaid design, Edie having set the relic on the altar, backside up. “The Templar inscription proved to be a Latin transliteration. Properly translated, it reads ‘Thoth’s stone.’ ”
“Aka the Emerald Tablet,” Edie said. “Which is how you knew that the Templars had taken the relic to their secret New World colony.”
“No sooner did I read Dr. Lovett’s extraordinary e-mail than I knew it was the Fourth and final Sign.”
Taken aback, Caedmon’s head jerked. “Do you honestly believe that the hand of providence—”
“I am the chosen one!” Dr. Lyon snapped. “It is my destiny to have found the Emerald Tablet.”
Although tempted to point out that he and Edie unearthed the sacred relic, Caedmon held his tongue.
“Oh, puh-leeze! This guy’s clearly delusional,” Edie scoffed, subtlety not her strong suit. “I don’t know why we’re even wasting our breath talking to you.”
“Perhaps because I am the one holding the gun.”
At hearing the ironic riposte, Edie openly glared.
“Do you by any chance know how the Genesis code works?” Caedmon politely inquired, hoping to smooth the rough waters. A calm sea might buy them more time.
“The Emerald Tablet is an ingeniously crafted cryptogram that unlocks the sequences of the Divine Harmonic,” Dr. Lyon replied, back to speaking in a measured professorial tone.
The Divine Harmonic.
He raised a quizzical brow, unfamiliar with the term.
Using the index finger of his left hand as a pointer, Dr. Lyon indicated the circular wreath of intertwined characters. “The pictograph is fashioned from the letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Each letter, when spoken aloud, has a specific tone that generates a unique pulse and vibration. Not only can sound and vibration alter physical matter, but it can create physical matter if correctly sequenced.”
Edie turned to him. “Tell me it ain’t so.”
“I cannot,” Caedmon honestly replied, grappling with this latest revelation. “Dr. Lyon’s claim is scientifically possible. Indeed, there is a branch of science known as cymatics that studies modal phenomenon, specifically examining the interaction of sound, vibration, and frequency. The results of these experiments tend to prove Dr. Lyon’s assertion that sound and vibration can affect physical matter.” He hesitated, well aware that the cymatic research had also proved something else. Something utterly astounding.
Dr. Lyon wordlessly lifted his chin in Caedmon’s direction, silently commanding him to continue.
“Right.” He took a deep breath, worried that rather than dousing the flame with a wet flannel, he was about to splash gasoline onto the fire. “The cymatic researchers also discovered that when the letters of the ancient Hebrew language are spoken aloud, the ensuing tonal vibration alters physical matter. This result could not be replicated with any modern-day language.” He shrugged, forced to capitulate under the onerous weight of the scientific evidence. “One can only speculate that there is a universal harmonic contained within the ancient Hebrew language that has the inherent ability to reconfigure physical reality.”