The Seventh Plague Read online

  She stared toward the ancient bell tower, rising in crenellated sections and topped by a leaden spike that pointed toward the heavens. She remembered her father taking her inside the church when she was nine years old, showing her the medieval graffiti carved along the walls. Scribblings in Latin and early English described the calamity of the Black Plague as it struck the village in the 1300s. As a child, she had done charcoal rubbings of several inscriptions. While doing so, she had felt a strange kinship with those long-dead scribes. In many ways, those moments may have planted the seeds that inspired her to follow in her father’s footsteps, to pursue a career in archaeology.

  She turned from the window, from the sounds of merriment wafting from the festival, and stared across the attic filled with the shadows of her father. She remembered one inscription from the church, copied from the side of a pillar. This bit of graffiti had nothing to do with the Black Plague, but it felt particularly apt at this moment.

  “Superbia precidit fallum,” she recited, picturing the Latin scratched into the wall.

  Pride goes before a fall.

  Though Jane loved her father, she was not blind to his faults. He could be stubborn, obstinate in his beliefs, and was certainly not free from the sin of pride. She knew arrogance had driven her father into the desert as much as the quest for knowledge. His contrarian position regarding the truth behind the biblical Exodus had left him open to ridicule and rebuke by his colleagues. And while he presented a self-assured and confident face to the world, she knew how the scorn ate at him. He was determined to prove his theory was right—for the sake of history as much as his own pride.

  And look where it led you—and Rory, too.

  She clenched a fist as anger momentarily overwhelmed her grief. But underlying all of that was something deeper, something that had been eating at her for the past two years. Guilt. It was one of the reasons she seldom returned to the family cottage, leaving it empty, the furniture covered in drop cloths. Though the commute from Ashwell to London was less than an hour by train, she had taken a studio apartment in the city center. She told herself it was because of the flat’s convenient proximity to the university, but she knew better. It was too painful to come back here. Only necessity ever drove her back to Ashwell, like this request from Dr. al-Maaz.

  A shout rose from the kitchen below. “I think I found something!”

  Relieved to escape the ghosts up here, Jane crossed back through the shadows to the glow of the open trapdoor that led down into the cottage. She descended the ladder to the second-floor hallway and hurried past the closed bedroom doors to reach the stairs down to the main floor.

  As she passed through the parlor to the small kitchen, she discovered Derek had opened all the curtains. The sunlight made her squint after so long in the attic. She paused to blink away the glare. The brightness seemed too cheerful considering the circumstances.

  Ahead of her, Derek sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by boxes from the attic. At his elbows were stacks of books and journals, along with a scatter of loose papers. He had shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

  The man was six years older than her. Her father had taken Derek under his wing, mentoring him through his years at the university and eventually luring him out into the deserts. Like so many others, Derek had been unable to escape the gravitational pull of her father. He ended up spending many days in the family study, often camping overnight on the sofa.

  Back then, Jane hadn’t minded the intrusion, especially when her mother had become sick. Derek had always been easy to talk to, an ear to listen to her when there was no one else. Unfortunately, Rory did not share this sentiment. Her brother had always bristled at the young protégé in their midst, plainly feeling Derek was a competitor for their father’s attention and, more important, for his accolades.

  At present Derek was bent over what appeared to be a leather-bound archive. From the cracks in the leather, it looked to be far older than anything written by her father. As she stepped over, she noted the day’s worth of dark stubble across Derek’s chin and cheeks. Neither of them had managed to get much sleep since returning from Egypt.

  “What did you find?” she asked.

  He turned and grinned, which served to light up his tanned face and accentuate his sun wrinkles and smile lines. He hefted up the large volume. “I think your dad pilfered this from a library in Glasgow.”

  “Glasgow?” She frowned, remembering her father had made several journeys to Scotland before turning his attention to the Sudan.

  “Come see,” he urged.

  She peered over his shoulder as he opened the book to a place marked with a slip of paper. As she leaned over, she caught a whiff of his cologne, or maybe it was his shampoo. Either way, the scent helped clear her nose of the moldering odor of the attic.

  “According to a catalog tag,” Derek said, “the book came from the Livingstone Archives at the University of Glasgow, where a majority of the explorer’s documents are kept. This particular volume contains copies of his correspondences, starting from his early years exploring the Zambezi River in southern Africa through his later years as he searched for the source of the Nile. The section bookmarked by your father covers letters written by Livingstone to Henry Morton Stanley, the man who so famously found him in the darkest depths of Africa.”

  Curious, Jane pulled a chair over and joined Derek. “What do the letters say? Why was my father so interested in them?”

  Derek shrugged. “Most of the content appears to be innocuous, just two old chums commiserating, but if you look through these marked pages, they also contain pages of biological and anatomical sketches drawn by Livingstone. Your father marked this page in particular. It caught my attention because of the taxonomy of this little bugger. Come look.”

  Jane leaned shoulder to shoulder with Derek to view the hand-drawn sketches of what appeared to be a beetle.

  The detail captured by Livingstone was indeed impressive. The sketch showed the insect both with its wings unfurled and not. She read its scientific name aloud, scrunching her nose. “Ateuchus sacer. I don’t get it. Why’s this beetle important?”

  “Because it was given its name by none other than Charles Darwin.” Derek cocked an eyebrow at her. “He also called it ‘the sacred beetle of the Egyptians.’ ”

  Jane suddenly understood. “It’s a scarab beetle.”

  “Classified nowadays as Scarabaeus sacer,” Derek explained.

  She began to get an inkling of her father’s interest. The ancient Egyptians worshipped this little coprophagous beetle because of its habit of rolling dung into small balls. They believed the practice to be analogous to the actions of the god Khepri—the morning version of Ra—whose task it was each day to roll the sun across the heavens. Scarab symbols could be found throughout Egyptian art and writing.

  She leaned closer to the old book. “If my dad was researching the history behind the talisman given to Livingstone, it makes sense he would’ve been interested in anything related to Egypt in Livingstone’s notes or diaries.” She sat back in her chair. “But why would he steal this book from Glasgow? That’s so unlike him to violate such a trust.”

  “I don’t know. There are other pages marked here, too. He seemed particularly interested in the letters with those sketches on them.” Derek closed the book and pulled over a field journal. “What’s odd is that months before he left for the Sudan, he clearly became fixated on that talisman. Yet, he never mentioned a breath of it to me. He simply tasked me to look for some pattern of illness in the mummies collected from the salvage operation in the Sudan.”

  “Did you find any such sign?”

  “No.” Derek sighed. “I feel like I let your father down.”

  She touched his elbow. “It’s not your fault. Dad always wanted . . . no, needed some proof to support his Exodus theory. He wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.”

  Derek still looked dissatisfied and opened the journal. “Your father took extensive notes about
the talisman. The museum destroyed it after so many inexplicable deaths, incinerating it completely. But he uncovered a charcoal rendering of the object, along with a copy of the hieroglyphics found inscribed on its underside. He recorded it in his journal.”

  Derek showed her the page. She recognized her father’s meticulous handwriting. On the top of the page, he had taped a small photocopy of the original charcoal rendering.

  “It looks to be an aryballos, or oil vessel,” Jane noted. “One with double heads. Looks to be a lion on one side and an Egyptian woman’s face on the other. Strange.”

  “According to the written description, the artifact was composed of Egyptian faience with a turquoise-blue glaze.”

  “Hmm . . . that makes sense. Especially if the vessel was made to hold water.” Egyptian faience was an early type of pottery made from a slurry of quartz, silica, and clay. Once kilned, it was actually closer to glass than true pottery. “How large was it?”

  “According to the account, the object stood about six inches tall and could hold about a pint of liquid. To access the inner chamber, the museum had to chip out the vessel’s stone plug, which had been glued in place with a wad of hard resinous wax.”

  “Making the aryballos watertight.”

  He nodded. “And look here on the bottom of the page. Your father copied down the hieroglyphics inscribed on the artifact’s underside.”

  She recognized the set of figures without needing to consult a book and translated it aloud. “Iteru.”

  “The Egyptian word for river.”

  “Which was also their name for the Nile.” She rubbed her forehead. “I guess that supports the story told by the native who gave Livingstone the aryballos.”

  “That the water came from the Nile.”

  “When it had turned bloody,” Jane reminded him. “The first of Moses’s ten plagues to strike Egypt.”

  “Speaking of that, look at this.” Derek turned to the next page, to where her father had listed those ten disasters.

  The record was written in chronological order, but for some reason, her father had circled the seventh on the list: A thunderstorm of hail and fire.

  Derek noted her deep frown. “What do you make of that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The cottage’s phone rang, startling them both.

  Jane stood with a scowl, irritated, believing it was Dr. al-Maaz calling to pressure them for answers. But so far all they had uncovered were more mysteries. She stepped to the old phone on the kitchen counter and picked up the receiver.

  Before she could even say hello, an urgent voice cut her off. “Jane McCabe?”

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  “My name is Painter Crowe.” The caller spoke in a rush, his voice distinctly American. “I’m a friend of Safia al-Maaz. Someone attacked her at the museum a little over an hour ago.”

  “What? How?” Jane struggled to absorb this news.

  “Others are dead. If this is about your father, they might be coming after you next. You must get somewhere safe.”

  “But what about—?”

  “Just go. Find a police station.”

  “Our village doesn’t have one.”

  The closest constabulary was in neighboring Letchworth or Royston—and she didn’t have a car. She and Derek had traveled here by train.

  “Then get somewhere public,” the caller warned. “Put people around you, where you’re less likely to be assaulted. I have help on the way.”

  Derek spoke from where he stood at the table. “What’s wrong?”

  She stared wide-eyed at him, her mind whirling, and spoke to the caller. “I . . . there’s a pub and diner around the corner. The Bushel and Strike.”

  She looked at her watch. It was after seven, so the place should be busy.

  “Get there!” he urged her. “Now!”

  The line cut off.

  Jane took a deep breath, trying to stave off panic.

  If the caller is right about my dad . . .

  She pointed to the table. “Derek, grab my father’s journal, and that archive from Glasgow, anything you think might be important.”

  “What’s happening?”

  Jane hurried over to help him gather the research into his leather messenger bag. “We’re in big trouble.”

  7:17 P.M.

  Derek held the cottage door open for Jane, struggling to understand what was happening. All of this seemed impossible.

  He waited as Jane paused on the porch. Her eyes searched the overgrown front garden and the narrow street beyond the low brick fence. Though the sun had yet to set, it sat low on the horizon, casting the roadway in deep shadows.

  “What is going on?” he pressed. “Who could be coming after you?”

  With no apparent sign of a threat, Jane headed to the small iron gate that opened onto Gardiners Lane. “I don’t know. Maybe no one. Maybe the same ones who attacked Dr. al-Maaz and the others at the museum.”

  Derek pulled the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder as he followed Jane through the gate and onto the street. Worry for his friends and colleagues at the museum helped harden his resolve to keep Jane safe.

  “Can you trust this caller’s word?” he asked.

  Jane glanced to him, plainly considering this for a breath. “I . . . I think so. The man suggested surrounding ourselves with people. That doesn’t sound like someone leading us into a trap.”

  That’s certainly true.

  “If nothing else,” she said, “I could use a tall pint. Maybe two. To help settle the nerves.”

  She offered him a small smile, which he matched.

  “Since it’s for medicinal purposes,” he said, “the first round’s on me. I am a doctor after all.”

  She looked askance at him. “Of archaeology.”

  “Of bio-archaeology,” he reminded her. “That’s almost as good as a medical doctor.”

  She rolled her eyes and waved ahead. “Then prescribe away, my good doctor.”

  After a short walk, they reached an alley that led to the back patio of the local pub. The Bushel and Strike stood across Mill Street from the massive bulk of Saint Mary’s Church and its surrounding parklands. Beyond the pub, the top half of the church tower stretched into the sky, its prominent lead spike aglow in the last rays of the day.

  Closer at hand, it looked as if twilight had already fallen over the pub’s rear patio. Shadowy patrons occupied most of the tables. Through the open rear doors came the murmur of others in the pub.

  The familiar cadence, punctuated by bouts of laughter, helped dampen Derek’s fear of some faceless menace. He had spent many nights in the Bushel and Strike with Jane’s father, sometimes closing the place down before stumbling back to the cottage.

  Coming here felt like coming home.

  He also heard a woman singing, her voice echoing from the churchyard across the street, reminding him it was the final night of the Ashwell Music Festival.

  No wonder the pub sounded so packed.

  Still, considering the circumstances, maybe that is just as well.

  Drawn by the cheerfulness, he and Jane hurried down the alley and through a gate in the picket fence that bordered the back patio. They reached the rear doors without being molested by any unknown assailants and soon found themselves parked before the bar with two pints of Guinness before them. A few local patrons recognized Jane and offered their condolences. The story of her father’s inexplicable reappearance and death had hit all the major newspapers and was surely the topic of much of the local gossip.

  Jane sipped at her beer, her shoulders hunched, plainly uncomfortable with the attention, by the repeated reminders of her loss. While not impolite, she fixed a false smile on her face or would nod woodenly at some anecdote about her father. Derek eventually shifted to shield her from the others, to give her some measure of privacy.

  He also kept a watch on the front door to the establishment. He judged each person who entered with a wary eye, noting the volume of stranger
s due to the festival. Still, after a full forty-five minutes, he began to suspect the caller must have been mistaken or overly cautious. There appeared to be no threat or any sign of an enemy.

  Then someone burst through the front door, looking frantic.

  “Fire!” he hollered into the pub while pointing outside.

  A beat later, patrons from the back patio piled inside, sounding the same alarm. En masse the packed pub emptied out onto Mill Street. Jane and Derek followed. In the press of the crowd, Derek got separated as they were pushed and pulled by the excited tide of people.

  “Jane!” he called out.

  By now, night had fallen, and the temperature had dropped precipitously. He stumbled into the middle of the dark street and searched around. Down the block, flames licked into the sky, illuminating a thick curl of black smoke.

  It can’t be . . .

  He finally spotted Jane a few yards ahead of him. She stood with her back to him. He shoved and elbowed his way to her side, hooking an arm around her. Her face was frighteningly blank. She also recognized the likely source of the blaze.

  “It’s our house,” she mumbled.

  He gripped her tighter.

  “They set it on fire.”

  Derek searched the surroundings, suspicious of everyone. The glow of the rising flames cast the street and the milling throng in a hellish light. The alarm of fire engines echoed through the village, adding to the sense of dread and urgency.

  “We have to get out of here,” he warned Jane, pulling her back, getting her moving.

  If someone had set fire to the cottage, the intent must have been to destroy her father’s research. The weight of the satchel over his shoulder suddenly grew heavier. Its contents were now even more important, but it remained the least of his concerns. If the enemy wanted to eliminate all ties to Professor McCabe’s life and work, there was one final target surely high on their list.