Except for one item.
A massive book, bound in thick leather, rested in the center. It stretched a foot wide, just as thick, and two feet long. It looked perfectly preserved. Most likely the tome hadn’t been disturbed since it was first closed up and sealed with wax.
Gray reached for it.
“Careful,” Wallace warned, his voice hushed. “You don’t want to damage it. We should be wearing gloves.”
Gray hesitated, sensing the age of the text.
Despite his words of caution, Wallace waved impatiently at Gray. “What are you waiting for?”
Swallowing, Gray gingerly placed two fingers on the edge of the book. Surely Father Giovanni had already opened it at least once. As Gray lifted the heavy cover, the book’s binding, likely sinew and long dried, resisted opening.
“Gently now,” Wallace urged.
Gray pulled the cover fully open and leaned it against one wall of the stone chest. The first page was blank, but it was transparent enough to see through to the rich colors of the next page.
Wallace shifted closer. “Dear God…”
The professor reached down himself and pulled back that first page. “It’s calf vellum,” he said, pinching the paper. But his eyes grew wider as he revealed what lay below.
Under the beams of their flashlights, the ink on the next page glowed like molten jewels. Dark crimsons, golden yellows, and purples so rich they looked damp. The illustrations on the page were meticulous and dense, depicting stylized human figures tangled with knots and wrapped in intricate scrollwork. In the center of the first page, surrounded and supported by the intensity and force of the artwork, sat a crowned and bearded man on a gold throne.
It was clearly meant to represent Christ.
“It’s an illuminated manuscript,” Rachel said, awed by its beauty.
Wallace turned a few more pages. “It’s a Bible.”
His finger hovered over the crisp lines of Latin text that ran tightly over the pages. The calligraphy was ornate, with fanciful images folded into the capital letters. The pages’ margins were equally decorated with a riotous mix of mythical animals, winged children, and tangles and tangles of knots.
“The iconography reminds me of the Book of Kells,” Wallace said. “An illuminated treasure of Ireland that dates back to the eighth century. It was the result of decades of labor by sequestered monks. And that book only covered the four gospels of the New Testament.”
Wallace’s voice trembled. “I think this book is the entire Bible.” He shook his head. “If so, it’s priceless beyond imagination.”
“Then why was it left here?” Seichan asked. Even she had drawn closer to see the book.
Wallace could only shake his head. But he carefully pulled back a few more leaves of the Bible, and an answer appeared.
The turn of a page revealed a gaping hole in the center of the book. The hole sliced straight through the pages and formed a cubby three inches square and one deep.
Wallace gasped at the destruction.
Gray leaned closer. The hole was plainly meant to hold something, to keep it hidden and preserved. Without turning, Gray held his hand out to Rachel. She reached to a pocket inside her coat.
They all knew what must once have been hidden there.
A moment later, Rachel placed the leather artifact in Gray’s palm. The satchel looked to be made out of the same leather that bound the book. He held the object over the cubby. It fit perfectly into the hole.
“Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but left the Bible,” Gray said, picturing the mummified finger inside the pouch. “Why?”
The one word held many questions.
Wallace added another. “Why didn’t Marco tell anybody about this?”
“Maybe he did,” Seichan said coldly. “To be hunted and murdered, he had to have told someone.”
“She’s right,” Gray realized. “Maybe Marco didn’t reveal all he knew—like the discovery of the Bible—but he told someone enough to get himself killed.”
“Oh, God…” Wallace suddenly blurted.
Gray turned to him.
“About two years ago, Marco contacted me. He needed money to continue his travels. I told him that my sponsor, the Viatus Corporation, might be willing to finance any ancillary research connected to my dig. I gave him my contact’s name. A head researcher there. Magnussen was her name.”
Seichan stiffened beside Gray, but she remained silent.
“But I never heard back from Marco after that.” Wallace looked sickened. “I assumed he never bothered. I forgot about it until now. Oh, God, I may have led him directly to his killers.”
Gray ran the scenario through his head. It made sense. Viatus would have hired Marco, especially if he had proposed looking for a potential counteragent to whatever killed those mummies. How could they say no? But then somewhere along the way, Marco found something that frightened him enough to make a run for Rome, to meet with Vigor Verona, to expose all he knew. His employers must have grown wise to what he was planning and taken him out.
Wallace held a hand pressed over his mouth, still shocked. With his other hand, he pushed the loose pages back over the hole in the Bible, hiding the book’s violation as if that might lessen his own guilt.
Rachel spoke as she accepted the satchel back from Gray. “Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but the bigger questions are who left it here to begin with and why?”
Her words drew them back to the heart of the mystery. Her life depended on discovering those answers.
“I may be able to answer the question of who left the Bible,” Wallace said and took a deep breath to steady himself.
Gray turned to the man, surprised. “Who?”
“Possibly the owner of the Bible.”
Wallace pointed back to the book, toward the inside surface of the leather cover. A page of vellum had been glued there.
Earlier, Gray had been too focused on the book’s contents to note the one page shadowed by the cover. He examined it now. It was as densely illuminated as the rest of the work, but the content centered on a stylized name, possibly the owner of the priceless book.
Wallace read the name so dramatically illustrated. “Mael Maedoc Ua Morgair.”
The name meant nothing to Gray. His lack of knowledge must have been plain on his face.
“You can’t live in these parts without knowing that name,” Wallace explained. “Especially in my profession.”
“Who is it?”
“One of the most famous of Irish saints, second only to Saint Patrick. His given name was Mael Maedoc, but Latinized it’s Malachy.”