Walker glanced at Wyn, who shook her head.
“I think that’s a bad idea,” she said.
Walker turned and hurried off in the direction the student had gone.
“All right, Father,” Wyn said. “Let’s get you to your quarters. Maybe you’re just overtired, but I want Dr. Dwyer to take a look at you.”
Father Cornelius didn’t argue. He dropped the plastic curtain back into place, endured the kind, concerned gazes of the three women around him, and let Wyn lead him away. But even as he left his work behind, he could feel the horned thing watching him go, could feel the pressure of its regard, the malevolence of the dark shadows that stirred in the empty orbits of its eyes. He had never believed in tangible, physical demons. Though he had trouble confessing it aloud, that had changed.
A malignant aura surrounded the cadaver, poisoned the air around it and the people who breathed that air. Father Cornelius knew the truth of it, felt it in the trembling of his hands and the sweat upon his brow.
Thank God it’s dead, he thought. Nothing but the memory of evil now.
Thank God.
TEN
Walker ran a hand through his hair, using a thumb to massage his temple. He’d had a low-level headache since waking up, and nothing that had happened so far this morning had done anything to make it go away. The current of hostility running under the surface of almost every interaction in the cave could have been ascribed to any number of origins. Most of these people had been crammed together inside the ark for weeks, unable to get truly warm or comfortable enough for a deep, restorative sleep. The Kurdish guides and workers shot one another suspicious glares, some kind of fracture within their own group. The project foreman, Hakan, seemed to hate pretty much everyone on general principle. And that whole stew of animosity existed even before they brought religion into the mix.
“This cannot happen,” Mr. Avci said, lecturing Walker like some 1950s private school headmaster. He had little rectangular glasses and a thick gray caterpillar of a mustache. The gun at his hip should have looked ridiculous on this man, but instead it seemed very much a part of his wardrobe. A part of him.
Walker knew many such men. In truth, he was such a man. His own pistol sat snugly in a holster clipped at the inside of his waistband, at the small of his back, hidden by his sweater and jacket. He’d rarely been without it since arriving on Ararat, but he wasn’t going to show it off, mainly because there would be questions and objections, and it might jeopardize his presence at the ark. As far as anyone knew, he was here for the National Science Foundation. If the Turks knew he worked for DARPA, they would pack him off home immediately.
“Should I assume that you forgot to instruct the priest that he was included on your team as a linguist and historian and not for his spiritual affinities?” Avci went on. “That you neglected to pass along our explicit instructions that no prayers or rituals were to be performed outside of private quarters, and that any claims asserting the primacy of one religion’s doctrine over any others’ would be unwelcome?”
Walker had his arms crossed, leaning back in the same chair Father Cornelius had been using to examine the broken pieces of the bitumen encasement. He glanced at the coffin lid, which still stood against the wall. Meryam had led them all down here, into the cold recesses at the back of the ark, because no one else was supposed to come here. It would be quiet, and they could shout at one another in peace.
“Something spooked him, that’s all I can say.” Walker uncrossed his arms, throwing up his hands. “Did I pass along those conditions, give him those cautions? You know I did. But come on, Avci… right now people all around the world are fighting over the idea that this might actually be Noah’s ark. Did you believe you could get this project completed without the staff doing the same?”
Avci raised his chin and stared down his nose. “Several of the Turkish archaeology students have voiced their objections. They find the presence of Father Cornelius troubling. It suggests to them that their work serves a Christian purpose as opposed to a purely archaeological one. They’ve asked that the priest be sent away.”
A harsh laugh erupted from Meryam, but she cut it off abruptly.
“Come on,” she said. “Where the hell is he supposed to go?”
The monitor’s nostrils flared as if he’d just caught wind of raw sewage. “He could go wherever your two missing workers vanished to last night, I suppose. Though I don’t guess he’s in any condition to make his way down the mountain.” Avci turned to Walker. “Remind Father Cornelius that he is here on an indulgence from my government. If he cannot manage to restrict himself to nonreligious inquiries, then you and he will both be leaving when the storm has passed.”
Avci turned on his heel and marched away, clicking on a flashlight to push back the shadows that pooled in the distances between the work lights strung along the wall.
“He’s a very angry man,” Walker said when he was gone.
Zeybekci snorted laughter and then quickly composed himself, shooting Walker an admonishing glance. “If you tell anyone I laughed at that, I’ll deny it.”
“Understood.”
Meryam smiled. “It does make us love you a little bit, though.”
Zeybecki rolled his eyes, then turned and walked to the plastic tenting around the coffin. He reached out, but his fingers hesitated, and he lowered his hand without parting the curtain.
“No matter what brand of god we believe in, I think we’d all like very much to believe that thing in there is not what it appears to be.”
Seconds ticked past as all three of them stared at the thick plastic sheeting and the dark shadows within the tent.
“I disagree,” Walker said at length, crossing his arms again and leaning back in the chair.
Zeybekci frowned. “I’m sorry?”
Meryam cocked her head. “You’re saying you want that thing to turn out to be an actual demon?”
Walker smiled. “So do you. You said so yourself. I’ve been an agnostic most of my life, but I’d be lying if I said it held no allure, the idea that something could confirm the existence of God.”
The trio went quiet again. His headache had dulled a bit, but he wanted fresher air, a blast of the storm. He intended to follow it with a couple of shots of whatever liquor he could lay his hands on, but even without the cold air and the booze, he couldn’t deny he felt a little better.
With all that had been going on, it was easy to lose focus. DARPA wanted to know what the thing in the coffin could be, if it might be something other than human. They wanted blood and tissue samples and a translation of the writing on the box. If it was inhuman in some way—monstrous, or somehow altered—they wanted him to determine if there was any way its monstrousness could be weaponized and used against them, or used by them against the enemies of the United States.
So far, Walker didn’t know what the hell he would write in a report on the ark and the horned thing in that box. He hoped Father Cornelius could keep his shit together long enough to translate it all.
He started to walk away.
Meryam called him back. “If this storm gets as bad as it’s been predicted, there’s no telling what’s going to happen in here. Supports could come down, never mind the sheeting and tents. We could have plenty of snow blowing in. The worst of it is supposed to hit by tomorrow afternoon. By then, I want our friend wrapped carefully so he can be properly preserved for transport when the storm’s over.”
Walker nodded. “Which gives us until, say, noon tomorrow before you pull him out of the box?”