Part 1 - This is a Dark Ride (read me first)

Prologue

 

“Death sometimes finds itself wound about life, Julian, and you just need to learn how to pluck them apart,” she said. A horrific image of the rescuers plucking the living from the dead popped into his mind. She had called because of the accident, the railway accident at Lagny, just outside Paris. The Nancy train had ploughed right into the Strasbourg Express, which had slowed from the overload of holiday passengers anxious to get away for the three-day weekend. They still hadn’t a death count. They were still plucking.

That had been last night and she had sounded tinny and far away.

Home never felt so far.

Julian Mercado closed his eyes and imagined the scroll on his desk plaguing him long into his own afterlife. He picked up the phone and the receiver grew slippery in his sweat-soaked palm while he waited for the operator's familiar click. The fireplace burned low in the corner and offered little warmth. Julian's breath blew out in puffs of cold. His assistant would be in shortly to remind him to put on a sweater.

It was Christmas Eve, 1933, and Paris sat with a broken spirit, trying to feign interest in a Christmas that had been ruined by tragedy. Carolers sent ribbons of “Joyeux Noel” curling through the dense fog and into the black and white toile scene that patterned his office curtains. Julian heard the tinkling laugh of a small child and thought of his daughter. By tomorrow, he would be back in Manhattan, in the arms of his wife and child.

“Operator.”

“America, Darkfield7-8857,” he said into the receiver. His pencil thumped rapid fire on the desk.

“A moment, please, monsieur.”

“Merci.” He waited endless moments and stared at the scroll before him.

“Monsieur, I beg your pardon, but that number is for New York City.” Her accent irritated him in a way he could not absolve.

“Of course the number is for New York, I’ve been trying to reach New York all damned day.” He pulled a thread in his tweed suit until a button came off, and then swore under his breath.

“New York City is experiencing an electrical storm. I'm afraid the telephone lines are all down. Would you like me to keep trying and ring you when I get through?”

“No, that won't be necessary. I have a plane to catch.” He sighed and hung up.

Julian took off his glasses and cleaned them with a square of cloth that had materialized from the recesses of his tweed jacket. Surrounded by a mass of books and scrolls littered atop his immense desk, he might have looked scholarly but for the shock of red hair and baby-faced freckles scattered across his now scrunched up nose.

His glance dropped to the Tartarian again and he shook his head. Pidge would know what to do, if he could only get through to her. She had been so certain last night on the phone.

More importantly, she had been right.

His thumb ran along his finger, fidgeting with his wedding band. Pidge knew so much more about obscure Greek prophecies. Julian felt ill equipped to deal with such a curiosity.

However, he did know one thing.

A Tartarian Prophecy scroll should not exist. Prophecies belonged in Pidge's world of fantasies and daydreams. This scroll had somehow become tangible and now glared up at him – daring him to deny its existence.            

The scroll had been brought to him in urgency, an effort to keep it safe from Germans bent on collecting rare occult artifacts. For nights on end, he had struggled with the translation and had not been able to comprehend the unfamiliar Greek style. Hellenistic, but it had a completely foreign dialect.

Last night, he had missed his train when he made the decision to stay and work. He rode the Nancy train every night to the suburbs of Paris where he stayed at his wife’s family chateau. The scroll had saved his life.

Lying across his leather couch and tossing his baseball in the air, he stared for hours at a copy of the scroll he had pasted to the ceiling, completely oblivious to the chaos that was happening just seventeen miles from him. Julian had nearly given up on the text when the word “muse” disentangled itself from the foreign dialect, causing him to slip off the couch and onto the floor.

Realization stippled him like snow – this scroll had not simply wandered into his hands. Muse. Pidge’s specialty.

The name “Hades” fell into place in his puzzle. The context proved to be talking about the god, Hades, and not merely the name for the Underworld. With the reluctance of a scientist, Julian finally comprehended what he had stumbled upon.

Tartaric Greek.

This scroll had been brought up from Tartaros, the Ancient Gods' Hell. Tartaros was a customized Hell for the greatest villains of Ancient Greece. It simply could not be fiction, the format was all wrong.

Ridiculous, old ace, try again. Fiction? The only fiction the Greeks delved in at this time was playwriting and there ain’t no “Dram-eye-tis Purse-oh-nay” as Aunt Camille would say.

It was a prophecy.

            Or a warning.

Julian's slim certainty of everything he believed in slipped from his hands and landed on the hardwood floor next to the forgotten baseball. That had been last evening, the evening he should have died on a train to Lagny.

He worked through the night to interpret the rest of the text. Now the Paris sky drifted in through his open windows, distracting him with traffic and music, reminding him he had to leave for the airport in a few minutes.

The scroll had to be a fake, and after the holidays, Julian would prove it. Until then, he would take it to Pidge and they would laugh and laugh over his ludicrous translation. That seemed the only course of action that would quiet the admonishing scholars arguing inside Julian’s mind.

His glance dropped upon the prophecy sitting atop his mahogany desk and with sudden clarity, he recognized the enormity of this new knowledge.

He ran his fingers through his hair, frustration consuming him. If only he could explain the scroll in rational, scientific terms, everything would return to normal. The despicable scroll would not seem so imposing.

If Julian went to the museum’s board of directors with what he had, he would surely be laughed out of Paris.

No. Best we just keep this to ourselves, old ace.

To protect the scroll and his translation notes from the rain, Julian slid them into a large brown envelope and wound the string tightly around the clasp.

A dark head poked into the doorway. “You’ll miss your plane, Dr. Mercado.” She hugged her middle and glanced at the smoking wood in the fireplace. “Put a sweater on, it's freezing in here.”

She glared at him. Meg’s way of showing concern was anger and she had spent the entire evening believing he was dead, that he been killed in Lagny. Julian knew he would never live that down.

Meg had a secretary’s title, but he was convinced her translating skill compared very nearly to his own. She worked hard for him to find the correct translations of dozens of scrolls that found their way day after day onto his already-overloaded desk. He knew he would never be able to replace her and he dreaded the day she graduated from the University.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “It's Christmas Eve, Maigret, don't you have a home?”

Her pale finger pushed her glasses up and she mashed her crimson lips together. “Who else would finish this mess you leave every holiday?” The scroll unfailingly caught her attention. “Is that the Tartarian? Did you work it out? Can I see it? What does it say?”

He sighed. She sounded like a child on Christmas morning. Her excitement about the mythical scroll was contagious. Julian flopped onto the couch, careful with the envelope.

“Do you want to see it?”

Her stockings ran at the knees from her abrupt drop onto the seat. Small white hands smoothed the dark wool of her skirt and she looked to him. Her gaze lingered on the envelope.

Julian teased her with it for several moments before he gave in and let her snatch it away.

Her lip wrestled between tiny white teeth as she unwound the clasp. Gingerly, she slid the contents from its envelope. She gave cursory attention to the notes, but stared at the prophecy for a long moment.

Julian glanced down at his watch and cleared his throat.

“Does this mean what I think it means?”

“Well, according to that,” he pointed at the scroll, “at the dawn of the next millennium, a muse will bring about the fall of Hades, and begin a twenty-year war for the Underworld.”

“A muse?”

Julian shrugged his shoulders. “I know it’s completely inane. I feel like I’m a borderline loony.”

“Who wrote it?” Beads of sweat speckled her top lip.

“I'm not sure yet, but I think it was supposed to be written by one of the Graeae, once I get this back to New York I can compare it with some samples we have there.”

“You’re taking this with you?”

“Of course I am, you didn’t think I would leave it here, did you?”

“But you’ll never make it through customs,” she said, her voice raising an octave.

“Pardon me?”

Her hands were shaking. “You’ll never get this through customs. You don’t know what Lieberman went through to get this to you. It’s not safe to travel, take your copies and notes, if you must.”

“Okay, that's enough. Put it away.”

Meg tied the envelope shut and sat with it in her lap. Julian reached for it and found himself in a tug-of-war.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“You can’t take it with you, I’ll call the board if I have to, Dr. Mercado, but this scroll stays in France.”

His mouth screwed up to argue with her and then he sighed. “Fine. You’re right.”

“I am?” She looked surprised.

“The scroll stays here. But you put it into the lockbox on Tuesday, and it stays in the safe here in my office until then.”

“I promise. Into the bank the moment it opens.”

He handed her the envelope.

After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Aren’t you going to want your notes?”

“I’ve stared at the damned thing so long I have everything I need right here.” He pointed to his head. “I don’t see why you deserve this.” His fingers slipped into his pocket and drew out a small box wrapped in festive colors.

“For me?”

“Just open it.”

Her gaze landed atop the box and dragged its way back to his face. She took it with some hesitation. “I didn't get you anything.”

“Nonsense, I didn't expect you to. Open it.”

Meg opened the box and withdrew a chain with a tiny gold scroll dangling from it. “It's beautiful,” she said. Her eyes met his and held.

“I have to go. Have a Merry Christmas, Maigret.”

“You too, Dr. Mercado.” She stood with the envelope crushed to her chest. “I’m glad you weren’t on that train.”

“So am I.”

His fingers grazed the soft wool of his coat before he picked it up and made for the door. “Meg?”

“Yes?” It took a moment for her to meet his gaze.

“What do you think it means? ‘ The Fall of Hades?’ ‘A twenty-year war for the Underworld?’” The text had bewitched him, and he hated to part with it, but she was right, he didn’t dare try to take it through customs.

“I don't know. They were protecting this from the Nazis?”

He thought of the absurdity of it and chuckled. “For the life of me, I couldn't imagine who would be interested in such an obscure prophecy. Remember then, utmost care.”

“Dr. Mercado?”

Julian turned to her. Meg flipped him a coin that caught the light and glinted in the air. He caught it with his free hand.

“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” she said.

It was an ancient Etruscan coin. Julian shook his head, smiled, and moved towards the door.

“Bye, now,” he said and waved his hand back as he exited.

He opened his car door, tossed in his briefcase and hat, and slid in behind the wheel. With a troubled frown, he considered going back in for his lucky ball and then checked his watch again.

No time.

 

---

The carolers must have been moving farther down the avenue now for their voices seemed to be fading. Meg hoped that were the case, it was either that or the sound of her heartbeat drowning them out.

She swallowed around her dry tongue and fingered the pendant dangling about her throat. The phone rang and she let out a sharp scream. Her fingers rested on the receiver and she picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Meg. Has Dr. Mercado left yet?”

“Yes, Mrs. Mercado, you just missed him.” Meg bit her lip and looked at the clock on Julian’s desk.

“Hmm. That’s strange, he said he would ring before he left. Well, that’s alright. Merry Christmas to you.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too. Good bye.” She replaced the receiver.

Her breathing sounded ragged to her own ears. She looked at the clock again and then to the open window. He would be down by now, just getting into the car.

She tossed the envelope beneath the desk and ran for the window.

“Julian!” She called, “Julian!”

It was too late, he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see her five stories above him waving like a madwoman from the open window.

Panic gripped her and she dropped to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the split second the curtains were sucked out the window as the bomb in Julian’s car took a deep breath and exploded into a ball of flames.