Mercy's Chase Read online

  Bode pointed northwest, where the sea was consuming a strip of land only as wide as the road on top of it. “You can see it from here. That house on the other side of the road? The Ness of Brodgar dig is directly behind it. Not even a quarter of a mile away, though with the tide coming in, it won’t be passable for much longer.”

  Salem took off running toward the disappearing road.

  33

  Ness of Brodgar

  Orkney Islands, Scotland

  Ness of Brodgar’s earliest structures were erected in 3300 BC. Built of carved and painted stone, they were too finely wrought to be a domestic settlement. In 2003, the then-underground complex was accidentally discovered when a farmer plowed up a slab of it. Archeologists began digging. To date, five massive buildings had been uncovered, surrounded by a wall 5 meters wide and estimated to be 100 meters long, though much remained to be dug up.

  On top of the uniquely decorative stonework, archeologists had uncovered spatulas, spoons, pottery, and hundreds of animal bones. The accepted theory was that Ness of Brodgar had been a religious complex.

  Bode yelled all of this to Salem as she ran across the land bridge, the wind provoking the waves. Freshwater on one side and sea water on the other licked and sucked at her, drowning her socks and shoes. She did not slow down or she would succumb to the fear.

  It helped that she could see Bode and hear Charlie charging behind her.

  “It’s in the shed, over there!”

  Salem’s breath dragged at her lungs, but she pushed through. Leaning against the shed, she took stock of the massive dig site. What she could see consisted of stone-lined holes in the ground, most the size of three-room houses, some covered in tarp.

  Bode unlatched the shed’s door and gestured for Salem and Charlie to enter ahead of him. Salem happily agreed. She’d been standing in the wind for so long that it took her a moment to knock its conch-shell echo out of her ears.

  Bode stepped in and flicked on a light. An anemic yellow illuminated the room. The shed was no larger than ten feet by ten feet. Labeled bins ringed the walls. It smelled of dirt floor and the sea. A large, tarp-covered object dominated the center.

  Bode removed the covering to reveal the Flower Stone.

  “It was discovered in 2013, covering an empty crypt. They haven’t figured out whose museum it’ll end up in yet, so it lives here for now. It’s the largest complete Neolithic piece of art yet discovered.” He pointed at the designs, turning on his flashlight to better illuminate them. “The back of it is carved with the same pattern as the front. That identical design has been found here on smaller slabs, etched into some of the walls and buildings, but none of them look as much like a flower as these. At least that’s what they tell me. I don’t see it, unless maybe they’re thinking tulips?”

  Charlie stepped forward, cocking his head. “I don’t see a flower, either. It’s more of a repeated chevron pattern.” He stepped aside. “What do you think, Salem?”

  She counted thirteen triangles on the face of it. Some were rough isosceles triangles, shaped like a V with a wide top. Others were double triangles, more diamond-shaped with an inner chamber replicating the outer shape. All of them were covered in cross-hatching. It was plain to her as the hair on her head what the patterns represented. Yonic, Vida would call them. The sacred feminine. If Bel were here, she’d say the stone looked like a map to Cooter City, Iowa.

  How could she say that out loud? Charlie had laughed at her at Stonehenge when she’d shared her theory about the clamshell of birth control pills. It had not been mean-spirited, but neither had it been supportive. Being mocked for this observation would bury her.

  She asked a question to stall. “This pattern is replicated all around this area?”

  Bode nodded, studying the stone.

  Charlie wasn’t so easily distracted. “What is it, Salem? What do you see?”

  Lotsa vaginas, Charlie. You?

  But no words came. Now both Bode and Charlie were staring at her. Her mortification and self-doubt grew. If they couldn’t see what she saw, it was probably because it wasn’t really there.

  A fierce gust of wind slammed the door closed. Its breath scared up the spicy odor of the sachet at her belt. She was overcome by a punch of grief as she envisioned Mercy somewhere dark, alone.

  Remember the water, the flowers, and the power of women.

  What she thought she saw on the stone wasn’t just a hunch, she told herself. It was a code—a different kind than she’d ever seen before, but a cipher nonetheless. She had nothing else to go on, nothing to lose by looking for what this rock meant to point her toward.

  Still, her knees trembled and her cheeks burned. She dropped her eyes and sucked in a shaky breath. “Bode, is there anything around here, anything near water, that reminds you of … a woman’s genitals?”

  She cringed at his bark of laughter, squeezed her eyes shut. Her shoulders slid up toward her ears, trying to shield her ears from the ridicule.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” He stepped toward her but stopped short of touching her. “I thought you were making fun of me.”

  Shock made her stare at him straight on. “Making fun of you?”

  “You really don’t know?” His eyes were wide. “Man, have I got something to show you.”

  34

  Arcaibh Inn

  Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, Scotland

  Bode would drive them to the Gloup as soon as the storm passed.

  The collapsed sea cave was a half an hour journey south and then east of Kirkwall, perched on the farthest east edge of the Orkney Mainland. Depending who you asked, it had either been named after the sucking sound it made when you stood atop it or gluppa, the Old Norse word for “chasm.”

  But when Bode showed Salem a photo of it, she understood where locals had come up with its nickname: the fud, which roughly translated to “where the sun don’t shine.”

  Truly, it was impossible to look at the image and not feel like you were upskirting Mother Nature. Carved into the earth and separated from the sea by a narrow land bridge, the sea cave was modestly sized, approximately 130 feet long and 80 feet deep. Bode said it was a popular spelunking spot because it had been used as a garbage dump a hundred years earlier and so, depending on the whims of the sea, you could make the odd discovery down there. Nothing great, but still exciting, like a mossy wagon wheel or a horse femur.

  “There’s even a rumor of a pirate’s booty in the cave, though I’ve never unearthed anything more precious than sea glass. Even without finding treasure, it’s a beautiful place, though. Peaceful.”

  “We’d have to climb into it?” Salem asked doubtfully.

  “Depends what this storm leaves behind.” Bode clicked off his phone and shoved it into his car’s console. He’d pulled over to research their options. “If the wind keeps this direction, we’ll be able to steer a small boat in from the sea. If the wind switches, which it does a lot around here, we’d have to climb down.”

  “You will have to climb down,” Charlie said to Salem. “You’re the only one who knows what to look for.”

  Salem frowned. A hunch she’d been batting around moved to the forefront, but she didn’t want to embarrass Charlie in front of Bode.

  Bode mistook Salem’s pause for fear at climbing, an inevitable emotion she hadn’t had time to arrive at yet. “It’s not difficult at all,” he said. “With those strong arms, I bet you’ll be great at it. Women are the best climbers, everyone knows that. Lower center of gravity, plus they have practice relying on brains over brawn. Thinking all you need is strength gets a lot of new climbers in trouble.”

  “Thanks,” Salem said, “but I still hope we can take the boat.”

  Bode smiled and pulled in front of a small Kirkwall inn. He’d promised the owner wouldn’t mind the hour at all. “I’ll get us there one way or another. You two grab some shut-eye, and
I’ll meet you back here at eight AM. This place offers a rad breakfast. Best in Kirkwall.”

  Salem exited the car and grabbed her bag and the B&C. Her eyes were sticky and sludge-coated. She felt twitchy, like her bones had been replaced with electric power cords, but she knew Bode was right. She and Charlie needed sleep.

  Charlie held open the door to the inn. He looked like she felt. “I’ll book the room.”

  She nodded, dropping into the only seat in the lobby while Charlie strode to the front counter and pushed the buzzer. She clicked on her phone, drawn to the folder she’d created for Bel’s incoming texts. It was pulsing, stamped with a blue “72.”

  Salem’s ribs tightened over her heart. She would save Mercy and Bel surely would forgive her. Then they’d talk. But what if Bel had information on Mercy? It’d be irresponsible to ignore her because she couldn’t handle Bel’s justifiable anger. A happier thought pushed that aside: What if Mercy had already been saved and Bel was trying to give her the good news?

  Salem opened the folder before she could talk herself out of it. She started with the most recent text.

  I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT VIDA SAID!! EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH YOU!?!

  The message landed like a punch to her gut. She closed it and exited the folder, but the damage was done. She couldn’t blink without seeing Bel’s accusations on the inside of her eyelids. Salem’s carelessness had resulted in Mercy’s kidnapping, and without a doubt, Bel knew that awful truth.

  The pain of Bel’s words still hot in her belly, Salem needed to acknowledge two hard truths. First, she was dealing with the Order. They’d kidnapped Mercy because something important loomed at the end of the Stonehenge train, something that would damage the cause of women. Well, she didn’t care if there was a damn Bible at the end claiming Jesus Christ was a woman. She would hand it over to Mercy’s kidnappers for them to destroy if it meant they’d return the girl.

  And that brought her to the second realization. Once Salem cracked the ultimate code, they’d have no need for her, or for Mercy. They were certainly following her and Charlie, ready to snatch the information the moment they got their hands on it. If she was truly going to save Mercy, she needed to be vigilant, and she needed to be smarter than them.

  She also needed to have an uncomfortable conversation with Charlie. She’d been paying only peripheral attention to his dealings with the grumpy Scotsman behind the counter, who’d obviously been woken up to check them in. The men were arguing. The Scot apparently won.

  Charlie slid some money across the counter in exchange for a key. The innkeeper watched Charlie walk back toward her, his hands flat and firm on this counter, his mouth set.

  “They only have one room available. I had to tell him we were husband and wife to get it, but he refused me a cot. Said if we’re married, we can share the same bed. No worries, though. There’ll be a comfy chair in there. Besides, one of us should stay awake to keep watch anyhow. It’s no good to let down your guard on a case like this.”

  Salem could not have agreed more, not to mention the fact that she was so tired she would have slept in a baby sling strapped to the crabby Scot’s chest if it meant she could close her heavy eyes. “Works for me.”

  She followed Charlie to a first-floor room. Its interior was clean and plain: a double bed, nightstand on each side, armoire in the corner next to the bathroom door, and a rocking chair near the television. Charlie whisked the curtains open to reveal a glorious view of a brick wall.

  “Perfect,” he said. “The bed is all yours.”

  She should shower. It would feel like heaven to rinse off the tacky salt the sea air had painted on her skin and to scrub days’ worth of grit and grease out of her hair, but once that bed was in sight, she toppled onto it like a felled tree hitting the forest floor.

  Charlie chuckled. “Way to put your shoulders into it. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  She was more asleep than awake when she heard the humph of his rear hitting the chair cushion, followed by the mouse-quiet, rhythmic squeak of the chair rocking. Their uncomfortable conversation would have to wait.

  “Wake me up halfway through so I can take over the watch?” she said. Or at least she thought she did. She may have only grunted.

  The tickle of dust and the lavender odor of laundry soap scratched at her nose. The right side of her face was tingling. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth. It came away wet. She’d been sleeping so hard that she’d drooled.

  Her right eye was buried deep in the comforter and she was not yet ready to move, so she opened her left eye. It felt swollen. Daylight, true daylight, was peeking around the curtain.

  She blinked.

  She was in Kirkwall, Scotland, sprawled on a bed at the Arcaibh Inn. Charlie must not have woken her as he’d said he would. No sounds emanated from the room. He must have left the rocking chair, and that cessation of noise had woken her. She heard nothing, not even movement outside their door. Surely the hotel had other guests.

  Thirsty for sleep, her body tried to drag her back down, but some internal alarm was too loud. Something had woken her.

  Her heart thick-thudded as her brain finally shook her body awake.

  She’d slept for too long. There was danger in this room.

  Adrenaline shot through her veins and she leapt off the bed. Blood rushed to her head, and the room shifted. She tried to turn toward the rocking chair but the swift moment erupted an agony in her neck so searing that she dropped to the floor.

  She could see the rocking chair from this position. It was empty.

  The bathroom was also vacant.

  She had to turn her whole upper body to peer at the corner nearest the curtains, a shadowy spot brushed with grays and blacks.

  That’s when she saw him.

  A stranger.

  Watching her.

  35

  Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, Scotland

  Jason sat in a rental car across the street from the Arcaibh Inn.

  He was fuming.

  He’d done plenty of stakeouts before. Plenty. That’s not what was bothering him. He’d also been trained to modulate his emotions. Not just on the surface, but to erase them completely through meditation and distraction. This was a standard stakeout. The only twist was that the building was set up in such a way that someone could sneak out the back without setting off an alarm. Jason had secured the back door with a shovel and parked out front.

  Problem solved.

  Yet, he found himself frozen with a rage so cold that he imagined he would shatter like ice if he moved too quickly.

  The issue was that the Grimalkin had known Salem Wiley would end up at the Gloup—just like he’d known she would travel to

  Blessington—before Salem Wiley herself knew. Jason didn’t like that. It wasn’t that he needed to know all the ins and outs. In fact, he preferred to avoid the politics and the debates and be told only the desired end goal. Rather, the problem was that the Grimalkin was playing.

  The Grimalkin was toying with Jason, leading him forward inch by inch rather than telling him where to go, and he was downright clowning with Salem. The Grimalkin had ordered Jason to keep watch on this hotel, to follow Salem if she should unexpectedly leave her room.

  The Grimalkin wanted to hide a present for her. It was unprofessional. Dangerous.

  “A present?”

  The Grimalkin had giggled. Nodded. Like they were kindergarteners rather than assassins for the most powerful organization in the world.

  Jason had scowled. “Is the Gloup the end of the Stonehenge train? Is she about to solve its mystery?”

  The Grimalkin answered the question with a command. “Let me watch you do it.”

  They’d both been sitting in the rental car at that point, parked near the hotel, as conspicuous as aliens in this small town under this unnatural sky
. Jason’s eyes narrowed. He knew what the Grimalkin was asking. Jason gripped the steering wheel. His hands seemed to be trembling, but that could not be. Steadiness was his calling card.

  “I will not,” Jason said. A childish retort reached his tongue but did not make it past his lips: And you can’t make me. What was the Grimalkin doing to him?

  “You will. Change the shape of your face. I want to see it.”

  “No,” Jason said. The tremble had reached his voice. His knives weighed heavily against his chest. How fast could he draw them? Fast enough to kill the legendary Grimalkin?

  “Yes.” Like a playground taunt.

  The unfamiliar, uncontrolled rage caught Jason off guard. It was so powerful that it popped his Scottish nose out of joint. The shape he’d taken care to create flattened as if it had just been smashed by an invisible fist.

  “Marvelous!” The Grimalkin had clapped.

  Jason had stewed in fury.

  “That’s all for now, but I’ll need to see more later. An entire face change.” The Grimalkin stepped out of the car. “But first, I must run this errand. It’s important to leave gifts for women so they know that you see them and appreciate them. Watch the hotel. I don’t think she’ll leave, but if she does, track her.”

  Jason followed the Grimalkin’s command for thirty minutes. Then, his almost religious dedication to the Order took over. The Grimalkin was costing them something important, Jason knew that, and he needed to inform them, even if it violated the chain of command.

  He decided to phone the remaining Barnaby brother.

  Cassius’ brother Carl had hired Jason, mentored him, almost became a father to him. All of Jason’s directives had come from Carl. He’d felt a weakening of his personal discipline since Carl was jailed. Maybe Carl’s brother could stabilize the imbalance Jason was experiencing?

  The inside of the car was hovering near 50 degrees. Jason lifted the collar of his coat to keep his body heat close. He dialed the phone.