Another crash startled her. Nina’s heart went wild from the sudden slamming that sounded like a blunt, heavy object, a sound she had not yet heard this night. “Christ!” she gasped, clutching her chest. The din continued with sweeping sounds, distracting her from her focus on solving the mystery of the dead men. “Hey! Can you keep it down just a wee bit, please?” she hollered to the staff.
“Sorry, ma’am!” she heard back from the dreary, old reception room where the register was kept for new arrivals.
“Fucking hell, man! I’m trying to think,” she said softly, replacing her glasses to open another window on her laptop for research. In checking her resources on the Knights Templar Nina could not find any information pertaining to the element names, and all the sigils’ wording included the entire slogan. Not one instance was ever reported not to have the name of Christ in the sigil of the Templar Knights, bar no era.
Nina wracked her brain trying to put the pieces together. Her reputation was at stake, as well her insatiable need to unravel mysteries, leaving her in a furious debate with herself. The same symbols presented over and over, no matter where she sought them, no matter how deep she went. At wit’s end, and hammered by painkillers, concentration, and too much caffeine, an epiphany happened.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, ripping her glasses from her face and falling on her arms to take a moment’s rest. Inside the darkness of her folded arms, she started smiling. A moment later, with the careful racket of the considerate night staff in the background, Nina grabbed the phone handset and dialed a number hastily.
As it rang, she felt her heart race, mostly because she was feeling guilty for the nocturnal bother, but also for the clarity she would no doubt attain from the man she was calling. A sleepy answer forced itself over the phone.
“This had better be a matter of heaven and hell,” he said.
“I am so very sorry to bother you at this hour, Father Harper,” she said, “but I am onto something amazing and I have to have some answers by morning.”
“Who is this?” he yawned. “Someone who needs counsel? Or a watch, perhaps?”
“Again, Father, I am terribly sorry. This is Nina Gould. I’m calling from a morgue in London, so a personal visit would have been out of the question,” she reported as amicably as she could, hoping that he would merit this a valid reason for her ridiculous timing.
“Nina! Oh, what a pleasant surprise! It’s no trouble at all,” he cried, suddenly sounding very forthcoming. “My favorite heathen!” he jested. “What can I do for you that has you calling for informa… wait, you are calling from a morgue?”
“Aye,” she chuckled. “I was called out to consult for something odd they came across when a group of bodies were brought in. Same incident caused all their deaths.”
“Accident?” he asked.
“I suppose you could call it that, Father. They were run over by a car. It killed them all,” she informed him, electing to put the phone on speaker so that she could make coffee while talking, “during the practice of lapidation.”
“My Lord!” he gasped. “And the woman they were stoning?”
“No trace,” she shrugged.
Nina was a little surprised that Father Harper knew about such terminology and practice, but she did, after all, call him because he was well versed in all things religious. In any event, it would be easier to explain the conundrum to someone who already knew the traditions involved.
“So, she was not also delivered to the morgue?” he persisted.
“Um, truthfully, Father, I never even thought of the woman. Nor did I ask. I guess what we found on the men occupied my attention entirely. The medical examiners said nothing about her, actually,” Nina explained. “As far as I know she’s not dead, or at least not here at this facility.”
“I see,” he said, finally accepting her elucidation. “What is so peculiar then, about these men, that you think I could advise on?”
“It’s too intriguing, but I have come to a dead end as to the origin of a sigil they all have tattooed on them,” she explained. “A Templar Knight sigil. Are you familiar with the order, Father? I mean, most people know who they are, but do you perhaps know more about them?”
“Because I’m a priest?” he inquired in amusement.
“Aye,” she hesitated.
Father Harper had a bit of a laugh before clearing his throat and replying dramatically. “You are in luck, Dr. Gould,” he announced, “for I know of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ.”
Nina chuckled as she stirred her strong black coffee, trying not to spill it while she hobbled back to Dr. Victor’s chair. “I am elated to hear that, Father, but the symbol on these lads does not include Christ’s name.”
A long pause ensued on the other side of the line. Nina hoped that Father Harper would not think her a fool. “I know it sounds silly, but unless you advise otherwise, I’m willing to assume they just had their bodies marked from ill-researched sources.”
There was no reply.
“Father Harper?” Nina prompted.
“I’m here, Dr. Gould,” he said. “Anything criminal, perhaps ties to extremist groups, you could find on them? Surely the medical examiner took their fingerprints?”
“Oh,” Nina remembered, “I was about to add that part too. They have no names, only pseudonyms…”
“Chemical elements, by chance?” he asked.
A dark shadow appeared in to Nina’s left, racing toward her with stealth precision and malice in mind. Bare handed, he struck her down onto the hard floor, knocking her cold. Behind him, the bodies of a security guard and an assistant was left in his wake.
“Nina?” Father Harper called, having heard the commotion. “Nina! Answer me!”
All Father Harper could hear was a ruckus of drawers and the historian’s groaning as the assailant picked her up. He threw her hard into the chair and slapped her until she regained consciousness.
“Nina!” Father Harper bellowed into the speaker. “I am on my way.”
“Don’t bother,” the attacker told Harper. “She will be long gone.”
Having overheard the whole conversation, the attacker knew that Nina had been speaking to a clergyman, he knew his name and just before he hung up the phone, he mocked Nina’s friend. “Harper, stay in your foxhole and hide behind your ash and salt, Brother. Ecce sacerdos magnus, qui in diebus suis, placuit Deo.”
The line was cut, leaving Father Harper astonished, terrified for Nina, and furious with vengeful need. The man’s response had not not random, but specific to Father Harper in ways he could never disclose. In a twisted way, the priest was grateful that Nina had not heard the attacker’s address to him, or else she may have uncovered why the phrase was so demeaning to his personal ego.
Back at the morgue, Nina gradually came to under the forceful hand of her attacker. Blurry and hazed, her vision slowly returned to observe a line of men before her, only in silhouette. Her head was pounding and her ankle was hurt a second time when she fell, but she was too disoriented to do much for now. The black figures, like a congregation of shadowy monks, swayed and faded until Nina’s sight adjusted.
“Wake up!” she heard in the echo of her half-asleep mind. “Wake up… Nina!”
They all knew her name now that they had heard the conversation on the phone. They also knew who she held allegiance to, and yet she was still alive. That was, at least for the time being, a positive fact. “Are you awake? Or do you want us to hasten you to the consciousness in less patient ways?”