Sacrifice In Stone Read online

  Sacrifice In Stone

  By Patricia Mason

  (Copyright 2010 and 2012)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Author's Note

  More from Patricia Mason

  Amazon Edition, Licensing Notes

  Chapter One

  Mara’s fingertip stroked his forearm, tracing the hard bulge of the muscle. Finally! After five excruciating years of searching, she’d found him. The knot that had been a fixture in her chest for so long unfurled and she breathed deeply. Her fingers played along his wrist and then down the hand. She couldn’t help touching him over and over.

  “Wow.” Her friend Lucy spoke at Mara’s side. “He’s magnificent in all his naked glory—well, semi-naked anyway. Too bad the sculptor didn’t lose the pants. I bet the rest of him is wow to the second power.”

  “Yes, wow,” Mara said absently, barely registering her friend’s bubbly tone.

  A statue of a man, with a body rivaling Michelangelo’s David, was positioned in profile, a block of marble at his back. His outstretched right hand grasped at the air. A dagger was gripped in his left hand at waist level. Below the knee, the figure’s legs were mired in marble. The figure seemed to strain to emerge from the block, as if at any second he would step out and continue to walk across the room.

  Displayed in a dimly lit back corner of the art museum, far from the traffic of patrons viewing a visiting exhibit, the statue stood virtually hidden. A spotlight shone down from the overhead track, illuminating the shoulder.

  Only by a chance reading of a magazine article extolling the little-known tourist sites in Savannah, Georgia, had Mara figured out where he was. Even then, she had not been certain she’d found him until five minutes ago when she’d walked through the door.

  “‘Sacrifice in Stone. Unfinished sculpture in marble. Age unknown. On loan from an anonymous private collection.’” Mara read out loud from the plaque on the wall. She knew Mr. Anonymous was her uncle, the patriarch of her wealthy family, Hobart Rushworth.

  “Now what?” Lucy asked.

  Good question. Mara couldn’t bring herself to tell even her best friend the crazy tale of how her obsession with this statue had begun.

  “Now we go back to our hotel.” Despite her words, Mara couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. “I grew up with the statue at our family’s estate. Then one day he was gone and my uncle wouldn’t explain what had happened to him.”

  After a few moments of silence, Mara glanced at her friend. Lucy was staring at her with a glare that screamed, You are so full of it.

  “Really,” Mara said for emphasis. “I just wanted to see Sacrifice again one more time.”

  “Come on. Try to sell that line to someone who doesn’t know you.” Lucy perched her hands on her hips. “You didn’t drag me all this way just to look at a statue for five minutes and then go home. You’re up to no-good. You’ve got ‘caper’ written all over you.”

  Dang. She should have known she couldn’t bullshit her best friend.

  “All right,” she said. “You’re going to go back to the hotel. I’m going to hide in here and stay overnight.” This was Sunday and the place would be closed Monday. Time enough to accomplish what she wanted to do.

  “Kumquat.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I thought we were just spewing out nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense. The security in this place is minimal. They don’t even have interior motion detectors.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Do you see any mounted in these rooms? No. The only sensors are on the doors and windows. I won’t get caught.”

  “That’s not the point.” Shaking her head, Lucy pulled Mara to a seat on a bench at the center of the room. “Spill, girl. I’ve waited a long time to hear what it is about this thing that fascinates you.”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “No I won’t. I may think you’re brave, loyal, compassionate, caring, and that you can be reckless and foolhardy when you’re trying to protect someone you love, but I won’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Yes. You will.”

  “Have I ever said you were crazy for standing up to your uncle? That guy is a monster.” The feeling in Lucy’s eyes touched Mara. “I saw the bruises he left on you after your parents died and he became your guardian. I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

  Mara ignored the choking sensation thinking of her parents could still raise in her throat.

  “Okay then. Here goes.” She took a deep breath. “When I was seventeen, I think I saw Sacrifice—at least part of him—come to life,” she blurted.

  “You were right. I think you’re crazy.” Lucy placed her hands on her hips. “In fact, you’re the mayor of crazy town.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Sorry, but how am I supposed to believe this?”

  “I know, I know. Don’t you think I’ve wondered if I imagined the whole thing? Some sort of delusion brought on by wishful thinking? Congenital insanity? Some explanation other than a statue came to life?”

  “I vote for wishful thinking over congenital insanity,” Lucy said wryly.

  “This explains where Sacrifice came from.” Placing the oversized messenger bag she carried onto the floor beside her, Mara opened the flap, extracted a journal and handed it to Lucy. The journal’s brown leather cover was worn and cracking with age. Opening it to the center, Lucy ran a finger over one of its parchment pages covered in calligraphy-style writing in a reddish-brown ink.

  Flipping back to the first page, Lucy read the title aloud. “Transfero Vita.” Slamming the volume shut, she handed it back to Mara. “Just tell me what it says. You know I didn’t pass Latin class.”

  “Maybe a demonstration would be better.” Mara jumped off the bench and strode to the statue. Glancing around to assure herself she and Lucy were still alone, Mara scraped the palm of her hand along the tip of the marble dagger gripped in the statue’s hand. Blood welled in the cut.

  Lucy gasped.

  Mara squeezed at the cut, forcing out more blood.

  “Stop,” Lucy whispered furiously as she leapt from her seat and raced to Mara’s side. “You’re hurting yourself.” Lucy tried to grab Mara’s injured hand but she jerked out of reach.

  “No, let it bleed.” The bright red continued to well and flow. Mara turned her palm and grasped the statue’s stone hand, smearing the blood on its surface.

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital…a mental hospital,” Lucy gasped.

  “Patience,” Mara said, inclining her head toward Sacrifice. “Do you see his hand?”

  “I see a bunch of your blood all over it,” Lucy muttered.

  “Really look at him, Luce.”

  The tips of the tapered fingers of the statue went from rigid alabaster to a pink and then took on a healthy golden complexion. The color change gradually spread from the fingertips back across the hand to the wrist and then up the forearm. As it spread, Mara’s blood seemed to seep in and disappear.

  “I must be crazy too,” Lucy said with a sputter.

  Mara smiled. “Feel his skin. It’s warm and alive.”

  Just then, the dagger dropped, clattering on the hardwood floor. “You’ve broken it,” Lucy said, scooping up the weapon.

  The fingers on the statue’s hand moved, jerky and uncoordinated. Then his fingers turned to caress Mara’s hand. The caress turned into a grasp.

  Lucy screamed.

  Instinctively, Mara jerked her hand from the grip of the statue. “Shhhh,” Mara said. “Do you want us to get caught?”

  As she said the
words, a woman entered the room. “What’s going on back here?” The middle-aged matron in sensible heals had a voice only a couple of octaves higher than James Earl Jones. “Oh my. You’ve cut yourself.”

  Mara glared briefly at Lucy. She was relieved to see her friend had at least the sense to hide the stone dagger behind her back. Mara turned her attention to the woman. “Yes. I’m afraid it startled my friend.”

  “Can I get you a bandage?”

  “No, I’m all right,” Mara said.

  “Really? It looks like a nasty cut.” The woman’s gaze abruptly fixed on the statue. “Hmm. That’s strange.”

  “What?” Lucy croaked, earning herself a glare from Mara.

  “I could have sworn this statue was holding a dagger in his left hand…and his other hand was in a different position.”

  Mara glanced at Sacrifice and saw the hand, now returned to marble whiteness, had fixed with fingers open and palm up. As the woman stared at the statue, Lucy thrust the stone dagger into Mara’s hand. Mara shoved it into the deep pocket of her cotton dress.

  “It couldn’t have moved,” the matron said almost to herself.

  “Ha,” Mara tried to laugh and failed. “He couldn’t have moved. That would be unbelievable.”

  The matron turned back and centered her gaze on Mara. “Don’t I know you?”

  “I don’t think so.” There was something about the woman that made her want to back away, but she stood her ground.

  “I’m Eliza Allen, the museum’s director. Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

  “No. I mean, yes I’m certain.”

  A flutter of change crossed the woman’s expression. “Ah yes. I remember now.” The woman smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Hobart showed me your photo. Does he know you’re here?”

  Damn and crap. Mara had no idea this woman knew her uncle. This could seriously undermine her whole plan. “Yes, of course.”

  Of course he didn’t, but she couldn’t tell this woman that.

  “Uncle Hobbie and I are like this.” Mara twisted middle finger over index. “You know? My uncle did tell me about you. He said to say hello and give you his best regards.”

  The woman blushed. “He did?” Smiling, she straightened her skirt. “Maybe I should give him a call.”

  Double crap with chocolate on it. Mara didn’t want a phone call, at least not yet. “You definitely should call him. He’d love to hear from you. But I would wait until Tuesday. He’s negotiating a business deal until then.”

  “All right.” The woman giggled. “Let me know if you change your mind about that bandage or if I can get you anything else.” The director walked out of the room with a schoolgirl grin on her face.

  Mara returned her stare to the statue.

  Lucy placed a hand on her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “No, Lucy. I’m staying. I’ve got to free Sacrifice.”

  “You really think there’s someone in there?”

  * * * * *

  Garrick heard the voice called Lucy speaking from where he was trapped inside his stone prison.

  “Yes, and his name is Garrick Lawson,” Mara said.

  Mara knew his name. His Mara. Garrick had clung to thinking of her as belonging to him in the last years. Years when he’d been locked away in this museum.

  He’d heard Mara for the first time when she was just a child. She’d been playing a game of tag with her father. He heard them laughing as they ran around him.

  “How do you know?” Lucy asked.

  “That’s what it says in the book,” Mara answered.

  He heard them open the Transfero Vita and page through it.

  “Where did that book come from?” Lucy said.

  “I found it years ago in my uncle’s study where the statue was kept.”

  Garrick remembered the moment Mara found the journal, because at that instant something changed after more than two hundred fifty years. He was still trapped inside the marble. His skin was still petrified, still solid stone. Yet something inside quickened and came alive.

  Mara’s voice was so delicate. A treat for the only sense left to him. “This’ll sound crazy.”

  “Why not. We’re doin’ crazy today,” Lucy said.

  “Anyway, I had a dream about the journal, and somehow I knew it was in the study.”

  “There are thousands of books in there. How did you find it?”

  “I don’t know. It just drew me,” Mara said.

  A connection had been forged between them that day. He didn’t know how. For the first time in centuries he had hope. Hope that someone would be able to release him from this prison. He’d heard them talking over the years and so he’d known her name, but it wasn’t until that day that he’d felt her. She had the book. Freedom was suddenly possible. Then her uncle had discovered her.

  “I want that book,” Hobart Rushworth had demanded.

  “What book,” Mara had asked. Garrick admired the bravery of her tone even as he heard the slight quiver beneath it.

  The scuffling sounds that followed had frustrated Garrick. He strained against the stone, striving to break free. What was Hobart doing to Mara? Then a cracking sound. A sound like a tree breaking under the weight of a winter ice storm. As he heard Hobart stride out, Mara stumbled against his marble prison and rested there for a moment.

  Miraculously, Garrick's forehead, his brow, his eye, his cheek seemed to loosen and live again. He’d struggled so long to open his eyes and now one lid shot upward. For a few seconds, perhaps minutes, he’d seen Mara.

  She’d gaped at him. Barely six inches away. Her blue eyes wide. Long, blonde hair flowing in waves over her shoulders. She was tall, as tall as he. Her wide lips had been open in a shocked moue, pinkened with the same blush that was on her cheeks. No, that was wrong. One cheek was red; a dark, blotchy handprint still stained it. A trickle of blood leaked from a cut in her bottom lip and smeared on her chin as if she’d swiped at it.

  The tips of her fingers still pressed against his forehead. He couldn’t speak. His lips were fixed and remained unmoving. He could only blink. In reaction, Mara had gasped and stumbled back. Her hands outstretched as if warding him off. Garrick saw blood—her blood—on her hand. It must have been her blood that had allowed that small part of him to live again.

  He’d longed to tell her he’d never hurt her.

  Mara stuttered, “W-w-wait!”

  Then the miracle had faded, his eye fixed in place, his vision obscured by what seemed like a marble cataract.

  “I’ll come back for you,” she’d whispered.

  The next day he’d been spirited away from the Rushworth estate to languish as a prisoner not only within his stone enclosure but in this obscure place. Waiting. Forever waiting for Mara.

  “I still don’t understand how you know his name?” Lucy said.

  “It’s there, toward the end of the book.”

  “There are six names here and the rest of the text is written in some other language.”

  “Most of the book is written in Latin,” Mara said. “Five years ago I found my uncle’s hiding place for the book and I translated it. The Transfero Vita lists three names in the first column and three names in the second column. According to the text, the lives, the fortunes, and the destinies of the three in the first column are transferred to the names in the second column. Garrick Lawson is listed in the first column with a line connecting his name to my ancestor Henry Hobart Rushworth.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You can’t transfer someone’s life away in a book. I don’t get it,” Lucy said.

  Unfortunately, Garrick got it. He understood all too well how his life had been transferred away that day. He still felt the dagger piercing his side and the dipping of the pen into the wound to use his blood as ink in the book.

  “Put aside logic and listen.” Mara began to read aloud. “Transfero Vita—An excerpt from the Gospels of St. Francis of Wycombe—”

  “Just a minute,” Lucy interru
pted. “There was no St. Francis of Wycombe. I’m a Catholic. I know these things.”

  “You’re so impatient,” Mara said in a stern tone.

  Garrick heard footsteps move away and a rustling of paper.

  “Where was I? Ah yes. An excerpt from the Gospels of St. Francis of Wycombe faithfully transcribed by Brother Thomas, to the glory of the goddess Ariadne this twenty-first day of June in the year of our god Dionysus, 1758 in Buckinghamshire, England.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt again,” Lucy said, “but I have to say, WTF?”

  “I had just that reaction when I first read this. Then I did some research and I think I know where this came from. Back in the mid-eighteenth century there was a group who fancied themselves pagans. Some said they were Satanists. Anyway, it was started by this guy, Sir Francis Dashwood who had an estate in England. They called themselves the Order of the Knights of West Wycombe or the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe. Today they’re known as the Hellfire Club.”

  “I’ve heard of that. Weren’t they just a group of spoiled aristocrats looking to get wasted on wine and have orgies, so they pretended to have black masses and conduct rituals?”

  “That’s what some of the histories say, but this gospel—and Sacrifice in Stone—would seem to indicate they were deadly serious. Let me read you the rest of this.”

  Garrick imagined Mara concentrating on the yellowed pages of the journal. “To begin the ritual, the brothers chanted the sacred maxim three times. Fais ce que tu voudras.”

  “That’s French,” Lucy crowed. “It means, ‘do what you will’.”

  “That’s right,” Mara said. “Then it says that the priestess was ushered into the temple’s inner sanctum while the brothers began the chant of the ritual.”

  More pages rustled. “There’s a bit here that seems to be in some other language and I haven’t been able to translate it.” He heard footsteps pace and then stop. “Here’s where it picks up in Latin again,” she said. “The priestess was brought to a halt before the three marble blocks, the three sacrifices and the three receivers. The priestess pronounced them all suitable to the purpose.”

  Priestess? Witch was more what Garrick recalled. With her wiry black hair, cold black eyes and red gown. She’d been beautiful but repellent at the same time.