The Midnight Watch: A Sigma Force Short Story by James Rollins Read Free Book Online Page B

reached the next crest as the sun sank away, filling the valley below with shadows. Slowing, he descended more cautiously, warily, especially as the wolves had gone silent now. He ducked low, sliding from shadow to shadow, staying downwind of the pack, careful of each step so as not to snap a branch.
    At last he could spy the bottom of the valley, noting the stirring of darkness below. The wolves. One of the beasts shifted fully into view, revealing a shape unlike any wolf. Its mane was heavily matted. Scars marked its massive bulk. Lips rippled back to reveal long, yellowed fangs.
    Though his heart pounded in his throat, K’ruk remained crouched, waiting for the masters of those monstrous beasts to show themselves.
    Finally, taller shadows folded out of the trees. The largest stepped into view and revealed the true face of the enemy for the first time.
    K’ruk went cold at the sight, terror icing through him.
    No, it cannot be. . .
    Still, he tightened his grip on his spear and glanced over his shoulder.
    Run, Onka. Run and never stop.
    Spring 1669
    Rome, Papal States
    Nicolas Steno marched the young emissary through the depths of the museum of the Collegio Romano. The stranger was heavily cloaked, his boots muddy, all a plain testament to both his urgency and secrecy.
    The German messenger had been dispatched by Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor to the north. The package he carried was intended for Nicolas’s dear friend, Father Athanasius Kircher, the creator of this museum.
    The emissary gaped at the many curiosities of nature found here, at the Egyptian obelisks, at the mechanical wonders that ticked and hummed, all crowned overhead by soaring domes decorated with astronomical details. The young man’s gaze caught upon a boulder of amber, lit behind by candelight, revealing the preserved body of a lizard inside.
    “Don’t tarry,” Nicolas warned and drew the messenger onward.
    Nicolas knew every corner of this place, every bound volume, mostly works by the master of this museum. Nicolas had spent the better part of a year here, sent by his own benefactor, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to study the museum’s contents in order to construct his own cabinet of curiosities back at the duke’s palazzo in Florence.
    At last he reached a tall oak door and pounded a fist on it.
    A voice responded. “Enter.”
    He hauled the door open and ushered the emissary into a small study, lit by the coals of a dying fire. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Reverend Father.”
    The German messenger immediately dropped to one knee before the wide desk, bowing his head.
    A long sigh rose from the figure bent amid the piles of books atop the desk. He held a quill in hand, the tip poised over a large parchment. “Come to rifle through my collection yet again, dear Nicolas? I should tell you that I’ve taken to numbering the books shelved here.”
    Nicolas smiled. “I promise to return my copy of Mundus Subterraneus once I’ve fully refuted many of your claims found therein.”
    “Is that so? I hear you’re putting the final flourishes upon your own work concerning the subterranean mysteries of rock and crystal.”
    He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Indeed. But before I present it, I would humbly welcome a similar searing analysis from one such as yourself.”
    After Nicolas had arrived here a year ago, the two had spent many long nights in deep discourse concerning all manner of science, theology, and philosophy. Though Kircher was thirty-seven years his elder and deserved respect, the priest appreciated anyone willing to challenge him. In fact, upon their first meeting, the pair had argued vigorously concerning a paper Nicolas had published two years previously, declaring that glossopetrae or “tongue stones” found embedded in rocks were actually the teeth of ancient sharks. Father Kircher held a similar interest in bones and pieces of the past locked in stratified stone. They had hotly debated the origin of such mysteries.