Eight Days to Live

  “Billions?” Caleb repeated thoughtfully. “Millions I can understand for ancient gold coins. But not billions. Why?”

  “There were certain rumors.” She met his gaze. “That there were other coins in the chest. Coins brought by Cira’s slave when he came from Jerusalem.”

  Caleb stiffened. “Jerusalem.”

  She nodded. “The Judas coins.”

  “Shit.”

  “It was my first thought when Jane told me what Roland was after. Strange coincidence.”

  “Even stranger that Jane didn’t make the connection.”

  “When the dreams stopped, she went into denial about those dreams of Cira. It’s more comfortable for her that way. She prefers to block them out.”

  “The chest was never found?”

  She shook her head. “Cira ran away from Herculaneum during the eruption of Vesuvius and traveled here to Scotland. She and her husband took on new identities and moved to the Highlands.”

  “What new identities?”

  She smiled. “MacDuff.”

  He nodded. “Of course. It’s rather annoying that everyone here at the Run must know about it but me. Sometimes being the outsider is an uphill struggle. But it’s all coming together now. Except for that chest of coins. Are you sure that MacDuff hasn’t found it?”

  “I’m sure. It’s driving him crazy that he can’t convince Jane to help him search for it.”

  “Too bad.” He was frowning. “The Judas coins. If they’re in a chest somewhere in Scotland, then Hadar’s Tablet isn’t going to help us much.”

  “Or maybe it will,” Eve said. “I told you, it’s only a rumor that the coins are in that chest.”

  “Connections. Jane dreams about a chest that may contain the Judas coins. Years later she starts to dream about the face of a man who could be Judas. Then she’s hunted by members of a cult who worship Judas. It’s all bound together.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  “I choose to believe that there’s a connection.” He rose to his feet. “It pleases my analytical soul.”

  “It won’t please Jane’s pragmatic approach on life.”

  “Then one of us will have to bend.” He started for the door. “And I may have an advantage. Every time she closes her eyes, I may have an ally come out and whisper in her ear.”

  “Judas?”

  “I don’t know. Judas, the devil, an angel trying to set things right? It’s a mystery.” He glanced back at her as he opened the door. “Thank you for helping me. I know you have some serious doubts.”

  She nodded. “And I don’t want you messing with Jane’s mind or will. I only trust you so far.”

  “But I trust you to Hell and back. It’s nice being able to feel like that about someone. Good-night, Eve.”

  She stood there as the door closed behind him. Those last words had been oddly touching and unexpected. Caleb was always surprising, but she was usually aware of mockery running beneath his words. There had been no mockery tonight.

  Particularly when he spoke about Jane. He had been unsure, bewildered about his own emotions toward her, and that had made him seem more vulnerable. His willingness to admit that vulnerability to her had drawn her inexplicably closer to him.

  Of course, that could have been pure sham.

  But she didn’t believe that was the case. Which made her shifting relationship with Caleb all the more disturbing. She was aware of the ephemeral beginnings of a tentative alliance.

  And who in hell wanted to have a vampire for an ally?

  IT WAS CLOSE TO NINE that night when Jock knocked on Jane’s door. “Coffee.”

  Jane pushed back away from the computer and rubbed her eyes before she got up and crossed the room to open the door.

  Jock stood there with a tray. “Coffee and a sandwich. Mrs. Dalbrey said you didn’t eat much of her stew. She’s very disapproving. But even if you don’t want to eat, I figured you’d still need the coffee.”

  “You didn’t have to do this.” She stood aside to let him into the room. “But coffee sounds good.”

  “I thought it would.” He set the tray on the small table by the window. “You’re sure you won’t have the sandwich? I’m not going to let you get ill. That would cause me all kinds of trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t want that.” She sat down in the chair. “I’ll have the coffee. I had enough of that stew to satisfy me. You eat the sandwich.”

  He shook his head. “I had a fine meal at dinner. Mrs. Dalbrey’s stew was magnificent, wasn’t it? Though MacDuff would have preferred I eat crow. He’s still not pleased with me.”

  “Did he give you a hard time?”

  “Moderate. He felt better after I let him interrogate me for a while. He always feels more in control once he knows all there is to know about everything. To be out of control is MacDuff’s prime bugaboo.”

  “You told him everything?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? We may need him soon.” He paused. “You mean did I tell him what a strange bedfellow you have in Caleb?”

  “Strange bedfellow.” The common slang phrase applied to Caleb caused a ripple of shock to go through her. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I decided it was time to break it to MacDuff gently before we ran into a situation where Caleb was slinging bodies down in front of him and making people scream with agony. It might come as a slight surprise.”

  “I was a bit surprised,” she said dryly. “To put it mildly.”

  “But you haven’t sent him on his way.”

  “No.” She had tried, but somehow she hadn’t been able to get him to go. Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough. Maybe she hadn’t really wanted him to go. “No, I haven’t done that yet. When MacDuff met him, he didn’t give any indication that he thought Caleb was . . . unusual.”

  “I’m not sure if he really believed everything. He’s probably taking everything I said with a grain of salt and making his own judgment.”

  “That sounds like him. He and Caleb were definitely searching for flaws and weaknesses.”

  “Well, MacDuff won’t find that a lack of determination is one of Caleb’s weaknesses.” He looked at the pile of Bibles that were strewn on the bed. “I see you’re going through all your holy books. Do you have enough?”

  “More than I need.” She took a sip of coffee. “You believe in overkill.”

  “Have they helped?”

  “I haven’t started to go through them yet. I’ve been too busy searching the Internet for information. It’s mostly repetitive, but some sites have more than others do.” She finished her sandwich. “But I’m almost ready to start on the Bibles.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  She shook her head. “Not unless you’re an expert and can fill in some of missing chinks in these passages.”

  “No, my mother always saw that I went to church, but I don’t remember a lot of biblical details.”

  “Neither do I.” She swallowed the last of her coffee. “Sorry to kick you out. But if you can’t help, then all you can do is leave me alone so that I can get back to work.”

  “I was going anyway.” He turned to the door. “I have to get a tray and take it to Lina. It seems my present duty is just to be a waiter.”

  “You do it very well. You’re taking care of everyone.”

  He smiled as he opened the door. “Not Caleb. He can get his own tray. I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t draw it before you brought mine. That caffeine is making my brain start to function again.”

  He studied her face. “I don’t think that your mind is too dull at the moment. You’re excited.”

  She nodded. “I’m learning things. That’s always exciting.” She got to her feet and started toward the computer. “Thank you, Jock. I’m glad you’re checking on Lina. Though she may kick you out.”

  “I’ll risk it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes, good-night.”

  The door closed softly behind him, but sh
e wouldn’t have heard it anyway. She was already absorbed in the theories surrounding the man whose face had haunted her until she’d been forced to put it on canvas.

  Thirty shekels of silver.

  Judas hanging from the willow tree.

  The field of blood . . .

  FIFTEEN

  IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT, BUT there was no way she was going to be able to go to sleep, Jane realized. She was too wired. Too much coffee. Too much adrenaline.

  And she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to talk, to discuss, pour out all she had learned and brainstorm. She started to reach for her phone to call Eve or Jock, then stopped. She should be considerate and let anyone who could sleep do so.

  To hell with it. She quickly dialed a number.

  “Trouble?” Caleb asked.

  “No, I can’t sleep, and I want to talk to someone, anyone.”

  “And I take it I’ve been chosen.”

  “I didn’t want to wake Eve or Jock.”

  He chuckled. “And I don’t matter.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Where? Your room or mine?”

  Too intimate. “Neither. I’ll meet you in the courtyard in five minutes.”

  “I’ll be there.” He hung up.

  She went to the bathroom, washed her face, and ran a comb through her hair. Then she was out the door and running down the grand staircase.

  Caleb was standing by the fountain in the middle of the stone-paved courtyard. He was dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt open at the throat. The bright moonlight caught glints of the silver threading his temples.

  She stopped short as she came out the front door.

  He was waiting for her.

  Of course, he’s waiting for me, she thought impatiently. Why had the sight of him brought that sense of alarm?

  Because she had the strange feeling that the waiting was not just for this night, this moment.

  Nonsense. Her head was still swimming from hours spent on the computer.

  “You can’t change your mind,” Caleb said. “You dragged me from my bed and didn’t even flatter me that you did it because I’m special.” He smiled. “In fact, I got the opposite impression just as you wanted.” He sat down on the edge of the fountain and patted the stone rim beside him. “Now come and talk to me. After all, I did risk my life wandering around this courtyard in the dead of night. MacDuff’s guards don’t like midnight callers.”

  She hadn’t thought about the security guards. She had only wanted to avoid the intimacy with Caleb that always disturbed her. “They challenged you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I handled it.”

  She started across the courtyard. “I didn’t mean to cause a problem. I just thought it would be best if—”

  “I know why you wanted to meet me here. It’s all right, Jane. I take what I can get.”

  “And most of the time you take more than is offered,” she said tartly.

  “Not from you.” He suddenly chuckled. “Well, not usually. For instance, you see me patiently waiting for you to tell me what you learned from those dozens of Bibles Jock brought you.”

  Waiting. Again that word brought a frisson of uneasiness.

  She instinctively lifted her shoulders as if to shrug it off. “Actually, I found out more from the Internet. April first is supposed to be Judas’s birthday, hence the Offering.” She sat down beside him on the fountain’s rim. “And you’d be surprised how many scholars have been intrigued by Judas over the centuries.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. The greatest betrayal of all time. Greed. The struggle of evil and good. It would fascinate most sinners and angels alike. For a scholar, it would prove irresistible.”

  “But most of them ended up with suppositions and theories. There’s just not enough written about Judas. In Mark, Judas is an enigma. His entire purpose in Mark’s writings is to hand over Jesus to the authorities. He has no character beyond the act itself and no clear motives.”

  “Thirty pieces of silver.”

  “That wasn’t mentioned in the Gospel of Mark. It was all very vague. It’s Matthew who talks about the money Judas received for the betrayal . . . and the field of blood.

  “Field of blood?”

  “After Judas returned the money he’d received from the priests, they decided they couldn’t put it into the treasury. It was blood money. So they decided to buy a potter’s field in which to bury strangers. They gave the silver to the owner of the field.”

  “Then that’s the end of the story of the Judas coins. The chances of the pouch of coins still being kept intact is practically nil.”

  “It would seem that’s true.” She frowned. “But Roland must have known all this. And he’s certain those coins weren’t scattered to the four winds. Part of it is because of all the research he’s done over the years, but it’s mostly the rumors and stories handed down through the centuries in Hadar’s cult.” She nibbled at her lower lip. “Is he right?”

  He was studying her expression. “You tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps there was no field of blood. Maybe Matthew just wanted everyone to think that the priests had realized what a sin they had committed. After all, those disciples were only men, and memory fails. I understand that many times their stories didn’t agree.”

  She nodded. “Luke wrote in his Gospel and the Book of Acts that it was Judas who bought the field with money he’d received as reward for his wickedness.” She made a face. “And according to him, Judas didn’t hang himself, he fell headlong in the field and his middle burst open and all his bowels gushed out. When the people of Jerusalem heard of it, they began to call the field Akeldama or Field of Blood.”

  “Very different.”

  “Yes, even the terms for the field aren’t the same. Matthew referred to it as agros of blood because it was bought with the price of the blood of Jesus. In Acts it was referred to as chorin of blood because Judas supposedly committed suicide there. But they both talked about a field of blood. And a couple generations later, Papias wrote still another version. According to him, Judas died of a painful, shameful disease on his own property. The stench of him still lingers over the land to this day.” She looked at him. “Another field.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that no matter how the stories change, there’s always a field of blood.”

  “But no other mention of the coins.”

  “They could still be there.”

  His brows rose skeptically.

  “It’s possible.”

  “If it even exists.”

  “The tour guides in Jerusalem say it exists. It’s on their regular tour.”

  “What?”

  “Or what they claim is the Field of Blood. It’s a field south of the city. But there appears to be some doubt among the scholars that their potter’s field is the actual place mentioned in Matthew.”

  “Since there’s controversy about the field’s existence, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “And if it did happen, we don’t actually know what happened to the coins after they were given to the owner of the field.”

  “I doubt if he’d treasure a traitor’s ill-gotten gains.”

  “But we don’t know. Unless Hadar’s tablet can tell us something.”

  “Or Caiaphas,” he said quietly. “There’s always that possibility, isn’t there?”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  “Who would know better than the high priest?”

  “I told you that it was all guesswork. There wasn’t any more mention in the testaments about Caiaphas’s disbursement of the thirty shekels of silver.”

  “Not in the testaments. By the way, did you verify that Caiaphas was the high priest’s name?”

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “Yes.”

  “And it didn’t strike you as curious that you already knew his name?”

  “I’m not a heathen. I could have run across it somewhere.?
??

  “Stop fighting, Jane. You know where you ran ‘across’ it. Eve said you went into denial after your experience with dreams of Cira years ago, but it’s too dangerous to do that now.”

  “Eve?” Her eyes widened with shock. “Eve told you about those dreams? No, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “Because you wouldn’t tell me? It wasn’t a breach of faith. She’s ready to try anything to keep you safe, and she trusted me.” He grimaced. “In this single instance. I didn’t let it go to my head.”

  She was silent a moment. “I’m not in denial. I just have to believe that what appears extraordinary may be ordinary if we knew everything behind it. That’s how I have to think. That’s who I am.”

  “And I believe that what appears extraordinary may well be only the tip of the iceberg and entirely out of the realm of the ordinary.” He smiled. “And that’s how I have to think. That’s who I am.”

  Yes, that’s how Caleb would have to think since he dealt with the extraordinary and bizarre every minute of his life. “Then we’ll have to disagree. I couldn’t live like that.”

  His smile faded. “Yes, you could. I can teach you.” He looked away. “But we won’t go into that. You’ve got to accept the dreams and use them. It’s a valuable weapon, and you shouldn’t ignore it.”

  “Even if I did accept that there was some validity to what you’re saying, it’s not something I can control. It’s smarter to rely on what’s real and predictable.”

  “Think about it. You’re a very strong woman. There’s not much you can’t control if you put your mind to it.”

  “I don’t want to put my mind to anything but what I’ve learned about the Field of Blood. I want to do something about it.”

  “What? You said yourself that you’d read that the field in Jerusalem where they take all the tourists isn’t necessarily the real place.”

  “That’s what I read.” She paused. “I want to go there. I want to see for myself.”

  His gaze narrowed on her face, but his tone was light. “Why not? But could we wait until Millet isn’t on our heels trying to crucify you?”