David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

He had left Waxman and Helen at home to continue working with the psychics. He’d told them that realistically, poring over the fragments, taking the pictures, scanning them into the computer and playing with the resolution could take days before a translation was possible. But the real reason he had come by himself was that he didn’t care to share space with Waxman. The man still got under his skin, and of course he had never quite accepted Waxman’s role in his mother’s life. Caleb liked to think he had become more tolerant, but this was one instance where he had reverted to the petty emotions of a child. He just didn’t like the man. He respected that his mother saw something in him, although what that was Caleb couldn’t tell. There never seemed to be any real affection between them. They acted like business partners, and maybe that was part of the problem; Caleb didn’t make an effort because Helen never acted like he was her husband.

So Caleb convinced Waxman to stay in Sodus while he made the trip, promising to call as soon as they discovered anything significant.

He rushed down empty halls, pounding each step as hard as he could, relishing the sound of his echoing shoes, as if he were trying to banish any malevolent spirits lingering about. At the end of a long corridor, he took the stairs down three flights, past eerily blinking hallway lamps, then through the fourth door on the left.

Inside, Phoebe sat in her work chair in front of a laptop on a long table. The other interns were gone, sent home hours ago. Four binocular microscopes were set up along the table, and a large glass strip covered the unrolled fragments of the blackened scroll. Observing the shreds and scattered pieces, Caleb marveled that anything could be salvaged from of it.

“About time, big brother.” She had her hair in two pig tails, and she wore a red turtleneck with little reindeer embroidered on the collar. “Come on, see the fruits of modern technology.”

“Tell me you have a translation.” He walked around the table and pulled up a chair.

“Not yet, but I’ve scanned all the photographs taken at different wavelengths and uploaded them onto my laptop. I think I’m close, but need your help in interpretation.” She pointed to her screen and clicked with the mouse to shrink the image. “There are fifteen of these fragments. Here’s the first one.” She called up a tattered-looking strip. The lettering appeared blue, with the background now in white.

Caleb grinned. “Perfect! Thank Mother Nature for preserving this for us in volcanic ash.”

“Yeah, never mind all her children that she killed in the process.”

“Cycle of Life, sis.” He jabbed her with an elbow, hoping she knew he was kidding.

“Anyway. Here’s the symbol for Lead, and there’s the one for Tin.”

“And there,” Caleb pointed, “near the one for lead… a cone drawn around a figure of a man who looks like he’s praying.”

“Right, the next section is badly torn, and not much could be recovered, but next to the sign for Water we see the figure again, bound with two chains.”

Caleb’s excitement mounted. “So far, this scroll is two for two. Whoever drew this at least got that far. Wait, was this how the scroll began? Wasn’t there any introduction, any words to the reader?”

“Nothing,” Phoebe said. “Nothing but the word ‘Pharos’ and then that symbol…”

“The one for Exalted Mercury.”

“Yeah, that. Well, it seems more like a cheat sheet to be used by someone who already knew how to get into the chamber and what they were supposed to do once they got there.”

He tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Then Cagliostro, having seen only the first inch, knew this for what it was.”

The lights flickered for an instant, and Caleb’s eyes darted to the door, a window set in the middle. Did someone just walk by?

“So the third symbol,” Phoebe continued, “Iron…”

“It shows a man suspended above the floor.” Caleb quickly filled Phoebe in on what the psychics had just discovered.

“Three for three. So far so good.” Phoebe clicked again, and enlarged a section. “Fourth. Copper. Here, it’s like the writer couldn’t draw what’s going to happen, so he wrote, ‘Go below.’”

Caleb leaned back and rubbed his temples. He had a fleeting thought that maybe it meant the seeker was supposed to go down the stairs to the external vents and wait, but that didn’t make sense. There wouldn’t be enough time to then get to the next stone.

“What if-?” He began, but saw movement to his left. A face at the window, looking in, then it was gone just as quick. Caleb leapt to his feet.

“What is it?”

“Somebody’s outside.” He started toward the door.

Phoebe grabbed his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Evening classes are letting out.” She tossed her hair and batted her eyes. “I’m sure it’s just one of my many admirers.”

Caleb took a breath and sat down again. Something about that face

… the white hair, narrow, hawkish eyes… He had seen it only for a second, but he knew who it was.

Nolan Gregory.

“Keep working on it,” he told Phoebe as he stood up again. “I need to check something.”

“You’re going to leave me in here all alone?”

“I’m sure you can handle yourself, along with any ‘admirers’ who might come looking for you.”

“Fine, I’ll solve all the puzzles myself. You just go. Have fun chasing shadows.”

Caleb tore open the door and stepped into the empty hallway. He stopped and listened. To his right, up the stairs, a door closed. He took off in that direction, bolted up the stairs and out into the lobby, where he saw someone dressed in gray rushing out the front door.

The walls seemed to close in, narrowing as he ran. Caleb slammed into the door and burst outside. Four steps at a time, then onto the street. He chased the fleeing man across Elmwood Avenue. A black Lexus screeched to a halt just as he hurdled the front fender, before being blocked by a passing transit bus. “Come on, come on, come on!”

Seconds later he was across the street and racing up the hill. Caleb bounded the waist-high stone fence the other man had just climbed, and tore through the cemetery in pursuit. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, a driving sleet from the wintry evening sky. The shadows had grown long and jagged, and the tired elms sloped longingly towards their departed leaves. He chased Gregory through the older section of the cemetery, weaving around worn monuments and moss-covered stones, side-stepping miniature obelisks and urns, crosses and pillars. For an older man, he was in great shape. Caleb, on the other hand, was wheezing and cramping up his left side within minutes. But adrenaline kept him going.

Gregory looked back once, then sprinted toward the eastern boundary.

“Mr. Gregory!”

He connected with the path and lost his footing on the icy pavement, slick with scattered leaves. Caleb was almost upon him, but he dodged him and ran out through the gates.

He raced into the street, onto Mount Hope Avenue.

“Mr. Gregory, please!” The old man turned, and in an instant Caleb saw his eyes shining their defiance — and then he disappeared in a flash of white batted against the grillwork of a Ryder truck. The air split with the sickening sound of crunching bones, followed by a squealing of tires. Caleb’s heart lurched but he kept running, now chasing the flopping, rolling body twenty feet away. Nolan Gregory lay twitching in the gathering snow.

Caleb held up a hand and shouted, “Call 911!” and then knelt beside Nolan. His face was clean on one side, a bloody, shredded mess on the other. One eye was missing and his nose had been crushed. His mouth opened and a dripping cavity full of shattered teeth tried to speak.