Spirit Heart


Spirit Heart


Spirit Heart

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I had a lot of questions, but not many answers. The only thing I was sure of, as we walked back through the city’s streets at night toward my apartment building, was that the answer to some of those questions would likely be inside myself.

And they probably wouldn’t like what I found. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know who I am—or rather, what I was. But it felt as though it’d be something worse than just knowing: it might destroy me. “How do you feel about the possibility of being the next Spirit Heart?” I asked.

“Like it means death,” she said with a shrug. We were on the top floor of our building now and I could hear an argument in progress from down below. “But if it comes to that … well, then so be it.”

We stood outside for a minute before I remembered the envelope. She took her purse off my shoulder and opened it up. Inside was a letter and several pictures from her father, and a few bills and receipts.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“He died three days ago,” she said. “In his sleep.”

She handed me the photos one by one. One was of him standing behind his desk at home; another showed a couple of people I couldn’t identify; and the last was of a beautiful woman wearing sunglasses.

A caption under the photo read, ‘The spirit of the city.’ “It’s a joke,” he explained when I looked over at him in confusion. “A play on words. He used to say he was the spirit of this town because he was born here and raised here.”

I smiled slightly despite how sad I suddenly felt. “Do you mind if I keep these?”

“They’re yours as long as you don’t sell them or use them for any commercial gain.” She held out the envelope to give me back her father’s business cards.

“Thank you.” She nodded, but we both knew it wasn’t just those things she was thanking me for. She put her arms around me again before we headed back inside, and I let myself get lost in the sensation of her warm body against mine.

When I turned to head back into my room, she grabbed hold of me once more, wrapping herself tightly around my arm and burying her face in my neck. “You smell good,” she whispered.

I ran my fingers through her hair. “And you smell even better.”

As much as I wanted to kiss her, there was no time. “If you need anything,” I said, looking over my shoulder at her, “please call.”

Her response was a smile so bright that I thought it might blind me. “Goodnight.” She released my arm and hurried away toward the elevator. At first, I thought she’d already been upstairs, but then I saw her disappear between two buildings before she came out on the sidewalk. As she crossed the street with a purposeful stride, she looked directly at me, and I swear she gave me a wink.

I stared at the empty intersection where she had vanished, wondering what exactly she was trying to tell me. That I was a fool to think I could walk away? Or maybe that I hadn’t given her enough credit and she believed I could handle whatever came next? Either way, it seemed like a warning to me. She’d been right: I did have power, and I’d be damned if anyone or anything tried to take it from me.

***

I woke up on Sunday morning to see an unfamiliar name scrawled across the bottom corner of the message board near the front door. I picked it up and saw it was from someone named Janae, and it read as follows:

Dear Mister Mathers,

Please call the number listed below or email me at janeeko@hotmail.com for inquiries regarding the item listed above. Thank you.

—Janae

Well, that certainly was a lot less cryptic than the other messages I’d seen. But what did it mean?

After showering and getting dressed, I pulled up the email address in case she preferred phone calls and called right away. An hour later, I was sitting in a diner a block from where the woman lived, eating pancakes while waiting for a response.

Within five minutes of opening my message window, Janae responded to my inquiry with a simple yes. I quickly confirmed her identity by calling her from another line. She answered with a soft voice, and as soon as she identified herself, I asked her if she would consider selling me the item. “I’m afraid that is not possible,” she told me, sounding disappointed.

“Why?”

“Because I am not yet ready to part with it. There are times when things should remain untouched.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but I suspected she had something bigger planned. It was too bad because I really liked her; she reminded me a bit of my grandmother, only younger, prettier, and a hell of a lot sexier. The idea of having a piece of her made me excited, but I also knew it couldn’t happen.

She asked if I wanted to come to visit her and try to convince her otherwise.

“I’d love nothing more,” I told her.

The problem was, I needed time to do some research and plan our next step. So, after taking several bites of pancake and sipping some coffee, I thanked her and ended the call.

I was still feeling good when I went to the office that afternoon, though I knew I shouldn’t let myself get distracted. My job was important and I had a responsibility to the people who counted on me to help keep them safe.

Still, I found myself smiling whenever I thought of Janae’s voice on the other end of the phone. And the fact that we both knew exactly who each other was now wasn’t all that bad either.

While working in my office, I received a text message from my contact in New York telling me he was ready to talk to me about the items. We set up an appointment for the following Tuesday evening.

Once again, I arranged for a car to pick me up in the lobby of my apartment building, and this time I was determined to leave without any trouble. If there was anything else to discover in my past life or the future, there were plenty of ways for me to find out about it.

A few days later, I received an email with a detailed description of two new items from the list I’d compiled. They were different from most of the others, as they seemed to be relics from ancient Rome rather than Egypt.

Both of these objects have been stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art since last year, and the museum has put up a sizable reward for their return: Two million dollars to the person or persons who provide the information that leads to the recovery of such artifacts.

These pieces have been missing from their original home for many years, and the museum is offering a substantial reward for their retrieval.

These items are quite valuable: The gold mask of Senenmut was made during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenamun, and it is one of the finest examples of Egyptian art known to exist anywhere. Also, the dagger has been used extensively over time to symbolize the Roman Empire, especially within religious works associated with Julius Caesar.

However, despite its importance, neither artifact appears to have ever been seen publicly outside of the museum, leaving me to believe it may very well be in private hands instead.

I immediately began to worry how the thieves would react if I approached the museum with my own claim to the objects. Even though there would be no doubt who actually owned them if I could prove my ownership, the thief might still attempt to reclaim his property if I came forward and threatened to reveal him.

I didn’t want to cause any problems for anyone, so I decided to give myself an extra day to think about things before deciding what to do. After talking it over with Lola, she suggested that maybe I should make contact first and see if I could get an interview with the curator.

That sounded like a great place to start, so I took a taxi downtown, walked into the museum, and asked for directions to the curator’s office.

It turned out to be much closer to the center of the museum than I had expected, as he sat alone behind a desk in an open office. He looked to be about fifty-five years old, bald, and wore glasses, though it was hard to tell through all the smudges on them. I explained that someone had recently contacted me saying he wished to sell an item that belonged to the museum.

“And which piece would that be?” the man asked as he leaned back against his chair.

He was trying to sound nonchalant and cool, but it obviously didn’t work. “Sorry,” I said, “but I need to confirm your identity before I discuss anything at all with you.”

I placed the envelope down on the table in front of him and opened it. It contained a picture of my face and the name and address of my company, along with my cell number and email.

As he read over the information, he frowned slightly, but then smiled and said, “You don’t look like the people usually contact us about selling their treasures. But it doesn’t matter because I can assure you we’ll never allow any of these items to leave the premises again.” He pulled a piece of paper from a drawer, scribbled something on it, and handed it across to me.

That night, I called to speak with my contact in New York again, and he agreed to meet me for lunch at a restaurant a few blocks from my office. There we met a young woman named Taryn, who introduced herself as an executive assistant for Dr. David Crayford, who also worked out of our building.

She told us a little more about Dr. Crayford, including that he specialized in archaeology and was currently leading a dig in Peru.

The next morning, Dr. Crayford arrived just as I stepped off the elevator after walking into the office, and he seemed surprised to see me so soon after we’d spoken on the phone.

“Hello,” he said while shaking my hand firmly. “My research team’s doing great over there, as far as I know. You’ve found some fascinating things, so I’m sure this won’t come as a shock to you when I say I’d like to talk to you about it all. How would you feel about coming out to the site?”

“What exactly is the topic of study in Peru?” I asked.

Dr. Crayford looked at me carefully. “We’re looking for evidence of an ancient civilization that flourished there long ago, but nothing more specific than that.”

I tried to hide my disappointment, but I couldn’t help but let out a slight sigh. “Well, I hope you find something spectacular, and I wish you luck.” Then I turned to leave, but he reached out and grabbed my arm to stop me. “Wait,” he whispered.

“Oh, sorry,” I said with a quick smile. “What did you need?”

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to be offended by what I said yesterday, that’s all,” Dr. Crayford replied.

“Why should it bother me?” I asked.

He chuckled softly and shrugged. “I just didn’t want you to think we were being disrespectful or insensitive because of our focus. We’re working on this project purely because we have an interest in it, not because we’re searching for answers to a mystery.”

“Of course,” I said quietly. “But I really am curious about your work and how you can possibly expect to find any clues to an entire ancient civilization in such a remote area. That’s pretty impressive stuff, so good luck to you guys.”

We shook hands once more and then I walked away. It took all of my willpower not to look back at his face or follow him around as I left the building.

***

I got a call a couple of days later from Dr. Crayford, and a couple of hours later, my plane landed in Lima. I hired a driver who picked me up at the airport and drove me to where we planned to conduct the interview, which was a five-minute drive from the hotel we’d rented near the city center.

Once we arrived, we entered the large, two-story building, and Dr. Crayford gave me directions to his office, which was located down a corridor to the right. The room itself wasn’t very big, but it contained several shelves lined with books, journals, and other reference material. There was also a small kitchenette area and a large table where we could sit and chat while eating lunch.

I noticed that all three of the pictures in one corner of the room depicted the same thing: a stone carving of what looked to be a giant snake or worm creature standing in the middle of an open space, holding up an object in its mouth. “Interesting,” I said to Dr. Crayford, pointing at the image.

He stood from his chair and walked over to join me beside the wall of images. “Yes, it certainly is an unusual piece,” he agreed. “And we believe it represents what may be the oldest representation of mankind ever discovered.

It’s a part of an enormous statue, but we’ve only been able to recover a portion of that because of our excavation techniques. So if it had actually been recovered intact, we’d likely never see anything more spectacular in all of history.”

His words made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t know why, considering I hadn’t known anything about any of it before he called. And then he opened his briefcase and took out a stack of papers and spread them out across the table.

The first one contained a single sheet of paper and a picture of the sculpture, along with a rough sketch of the object it was holding, which appeared to be a ball-like device. He pointed at the image.

“That’s what we’re calling the core,” he explained. “As you can tell, it’s quite large, and we don’t know what the purpose of the item is. But here are the results of our preliminary scans.” Dr. Crayford handed me one of the sheets of paper and the photo, both of which showed various close-up views of the artifact.

There were numerous lines running through the object, including vertical lines that intersected each other, horizontal lines that went from top to bottom, and diagonal lines that ran across the middle horizontally.

I looked closely at the photos and the drawing, trying to figure out what they might show us. “What do these different lines represent?” I asked.

“They’re the most recent measurements we conducted,” Dr. Crayford told me. “The cross-sectional profile shows the interior volume of the object, which is approximately four feet in diameter.”

I nodded and took another look at the diagram. “So the cross-section is like the length of the object, but divided into sections?”

Dr. Crayford chuckled slightly. “No, no. Actually, it’s exactly the opposite. Each of those lines means something, and they all relate to what we know about the artifact, as well as to what we’re looking for. The diagonal lines show the width of the opening between each set of parallel lines, or ribs.”

“Ribs? Is it some sort of bone structure?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “At least, not until we have more data. We still need to run more tests, but it looks like it will probably turn out to be some sort of organic material. Like a shell perhaps.”

My mind flashed back to something I’d read earlier today and realized what he was talking about. “Like an armadillo?” I guessed.

He laughed. “Exactly! And the horizontal lines are what we call the bony plates we found on either side of the spine.”

I looked at the photo once again. “So this object has a shell, but no legs?”

“Correct,” Dr. Crayford confirmed. “But what we’re really looking for now is what sits inside the shell—or whatever this object is, rather than what sits outside of it.”

“You mean the core?”

“Yes, we’re hoping to get confirmation that the core contains an embryo or some sort of fetus. That would make it possible to identify whether it’s a human or animal.”

“An alien,” I suggested. “A species we haven’t seen before.”

“We think so,” he said, taking a sip of coffee and smiling faintly. “But we want to wait for the results of further testing before making any definite assumptions. At present, however, we’re certain that there is indeed some kind of embryo hidden inside that shell.”

My eyes widened as my mind replayed what he’d just said. What did he mean by that?

“How do you know it’s an embryo?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be some sort of plant life instead?”

“Well, it could be, but if it were, then we should be finding evidence of photosynthesis.”

“Or maybe a fossilized egg?” I ventured, but Dr. Crayford shook his head.

“Nope,” he insisted. “This is a young specimen—probably less than a few months old. If we weren’t positive of that fact, we wouldn’t bother excavating it and we certainly wouldn’t waste any time on such a small sample.”

He paused momentarily to take another sip of coffee. “In fact, we’ve been working very quickly to get these preliminary findings into your hands as soon as possible.”

“Why?” I questioned.

“Because of the timing, as I’m sure you understand,” Dr. Crayford replied. “It’s already March, and the first day of spring is fast approaching.”

I felt myself tensing up. I had heard rumors that something strange was happening, and that scientists all over the world had suddenly begun excavating ancient sites. But I never imagined that it was something so incredible as this…

“Are you saying that there are creatures living deep under the surface of the Earth?” I asked, stunned.

Dr. Crayford smiled at me kindly and patted my shoulder lightly. “Let’s hope not, dear lady. At least, let’s hope that’s not true.”

The End

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