Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘No.’ Cleena kept backing up, dividing her attention between the doorway, the professor and the area behind them.

‘We can find someone else to read the book, Professor,’ Qayin called.

‘Right,’ Lourds whispered. ‘As if they haven’t already been trying. I bet I’ve been the only one they’ve found.’

‘Kind of high on yourself, aren’t you? You seemed to be struggling with that translation.’

‘I read part of it. In twenty minutes, I might add. Under pressure. And without my resource material.’

‘You’re really modest, too.’

‘I’m good at what I do.’

‘They’ll put that on your tombstone,’ Cleena whispered.

‘I thought the objective was to get out of here alive.’

‘Ah, so you are listening.’

Lourds cursed.

‘Professor?’ Qayin called. ‘Do we have an agreement?’

Cleena thought desperately, then seized on an idea. She glanced at Lourds and the Zippo he held in his hand. The lighter had to be getting hot.

‘Set fire to the book,’ she said.

Lourds baulked and looked startled. ‘What?’

‘Set fire to the book. If they care about it as much as they seem to, they’ll be more interested in saving it than in pursuing us.’

Lourds wrapped his arm tightly around the book and held it to his chest. ‘I’m not going to burn this book.’

‘It’s not your book.’

‘It’s not their book.’

A fresh wave of irritation swept through Cleena. ‘You don’t know if that book is even a real artefact. It could be a fake.’

‘I don’t think someone went to all the trouble to fake an artificial language based on outdated Greek for an April fool’s joke. We don’t know what we have here.’

‘Is that book worth our lives?’ Cleena asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

Qayin spoke again. ‘Professor, if I’m prepared to try to have another linguist decipher that book, then you have to know that I’m also prepared to shoot you and the woman at this point. I’ll take my chances with finding another translator, but I won’t lose that book.’

‘Set fire to the book,’ Cleena commanded again.

‘No. I have a responsibility as a scientist to protect it.’

‘So you can get your name on an article in some dusty science magazine?’

‘That’s not what this is about.’

Cleena cursed. ‘Are you really this stupid?’

Lourds suddenly yelped in pain and dropped the Zippo. The lighter hit the ground and the flame went out. Darkness immediately surrounded them.

‘Oops.’

Unbelievably, Lourds bent down as if to search for the dropped lighter. Cleena jerked on his shirt collar to get him moving.

‘Come on!’ she yelled, then threw a hip into him and knocked him to one side.

Lourds staggered and almost fell. He gagged as she kept hold of his shirt collar and guided him towards the door she’d seen on the other side of the room.

‘I can’t see,’ Lourds protested, and struggled to slow their headlong pace.

‘Neither can they. Keep moving.’

‘We’re going to hit a wall.’

Qayin and his men opened fire behind them. Bullets ricocheted from the stone walls, trailing sparks in their wake.

‘Okay. I see your point.’ Lourds stepped up his pace so he was dragging her after him.

Behind them, Qayin’s followers retrieved their lanterns. Streams of fluorescent lights bounced over the wall ahead of them in time for them to correct their direction before they smashed into stone. Cleena and Lourds sprinted into the next room and took advantage of the partial lighting from the lanterns of their pursuers.

The gunshots echoed inside the chamber and the sound was enough to let Cleena know that the area was immense. Several stone pillars stood out in the darkness ahead of them and created a maze of obstacles. She pulled on Lourds’ collar to slow his breakneck pace.

‘To the left,’ she ordered.

Immediately, Lourds veered to the left. He rounded a thick pillar and halted when she pulled him against it. She fell into hiding beside him and took time to reload her pistol with a fresh magazine. She only had one left after that. The odds weren’t in their favour.

‘What are you doing?’ Lourds asked. ‘Shouldn’t we be running?’

Cleena peered round the pillar and took a two-handed grip on her pistol. ‘Running sounds fantastic to me. Do you know where to run?’

‘Haven’t you been here before?’

‘This is my first time.’

‘At least you were conscious when you were brought in.’

‘I was somewhat distracted getting to know all my new friends and trying to work out if they were going to double-cross me. Which they did.’

‘You obviously stink at measuring character…’

Cleena lost the rest of what he was saying when one of Qayin’s followers exploded through the doorway. The swinging lantern he carried made him a perfect target. She aimed for the centre of the man’s body and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession.

At least two of the bullets caught him and pushed him backwards. He sat down hard and his lantern rolled away. Thankfully, the light played over the doorway so Cleena could see if anyone else approached. Just as she realized the light was going to play in her favour, Qayin or one of his followers realized the same thing. A burst of gunfire shattered the lantern. Cleena waited a moment and fired at where she remembered the doorway was just to keep their opponents on their toes. Almost immediately, a hailstorm of bullets struck the pillar they were hiding behind. Stone chips stung her face as she ducked to safety.

‘Well, that’s narrowed the odds to four to two,’ Lourds whispered. ‘Those odds are a lot better.’

‘Really?’ Cleena responded. ‘Which two did you want to take?’

The professor sighed. ‘Okay, four to one.’

‘Now be quiet. I’ve got to listen. I’d suggest that you do the same before they creep up on us in the dark.’

‘They’re going to be just as hampered by the darkness as we are.’

‘Not if you keep talking. Shut up!’ Cleena turned slightly away from the direction of the door to better use her peripheral vision. She held the pistol ready in her hands and tried not to think of Brigid alone in the world.

Beside her, Lourds suddenly started.

Angry with him even though that noise was not enough to alert Qayin and his followers to their position, Cleena said, ‘Be still.’

Before she could say anything else, someone clapped a rough, calloused hand over her mouth. She twisted and tried to bring the pistol up, but even as she did someone grabbed her wrists. Instinctively, she fired at the shadow that stood out in the darkness round her.

Her body and the body of the man who held her trapped the muzzle flash between them. The hard white-yellow light illuminated the man who held her. A dark robe swaddled his body and his face was a pallid oval within a peaked cowl.

Catacombs

Yesilkoy District

Istanbul, Turkey

17 March 2010

‘Please, Professor Lourds, don’t be afraid.’

After what he had been through since arriving in Istanbul, Lourds couldn’t believe anyone would actually say that. The echo of Cleena’s shot still rang through the large chamber. Now his imagination was in overdrive as he confronted the cowled man.

Many of the documents Lourds had translated over the years involved myths and legends of monsters in places like the catacombs under Istanbul. In fact, some of the work he had done involved stories of horrors during the Ottoman invasion and the fall of Constantinople.

Lourds was prepared to fight for his life, but then something happened that he didn’t expect. The man holding him spoke the same plea – except this time he spoke in Ancient Greek. The dialect was a little off, but it was easy to distinguish the root.