Bodie fell on a box, ravenous.
“And...” Cassidy held up a thick paper bag. “I have beer.”
Another hour passed, Bodie sat in a corner with his legs outstretched. The last of the day disappeared, bringing with it the long night.
Jemma took a turn around the block, using the shadows to make sure there were no suspicious characters hanging around. Or at least, no more suspicious than those that had been around all day.
Bodie was used to Lucie announcing her results in just a few hours but, this time, she remained wrapped in her research for another long night.
*
After breakfast, and with the four walls starting to feel like another dungeon, Lucie spoke up.
“I’m researching the Illuminati, the Ishtari they spoke of. The crucible. And the ten sanctums. Also, Hades and this so-called reward. You remember the prophecy?”
Jemma turned away from her position at the window. “Ten sanctums to seek along ancient causeways. Five vile and five worthy, their purest life-blood to the crucible, to reap the reward of the Ishtari, and reign through His glorious power.”
“Good.” Lucie nodded. “That’s how I remember it too. The poem—or prophecy—read in isolation is probably indecipherable, but when studied alongside some of the other comments that Bacchus made, it starts to make sense. He spoke of the sanctums—or shrines—and the crucible, of the Ishtari and who they were. Or are, I guess. And we know those lunatics are, above all, Satanists.”
“What have you found?” Jemma asked, staring out the window.
“Where to start? Well, despite all the advances over time, and especially the past hundred years, innumerable things on our planet are still not understood by experts. I could lecture you about that all day—”
“Please don’t,” Cassidy said.
“. . . but I’ll save that for another time.” Lucie continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted, affecting her usual school-teacher-like manner. “Our earth is beautiful, not least because—even now—it is still shrouded by incalculable veils of mystery. Now, there are ten points on earth where the laws of physics don’t apply. Ten points where seemingly random, unexplained energies govern. These so-called ‘earth points’ have another, more showy kind of a name. They are called vortices, and I think these are the sanctums in the Illuminati prophecy.”
“Five vile and five worthy?” Yasmine asked.
“That’s correct. There are five vile sanctums and five worthy ones. Now, I hear you say—so what? Any idiot can point to ten places around the world and label them with some fancy moniker.”
Lucie looked up expectantly. Bodie gave the obligatory answer. “Of course. Why are these ten so special?”
“Because, incredibly, the ten earth points are equidistant to each other, and together form a precise skew decagon, which, in science, is a polygon with ten vertices not existing on the same plane. Obviously, some of these vortices are more famous than others but all are distinguished by unexplained anomalies.”
“So the vortices are vertices?” Bodie asked, his face a mask of confusion.
Lucie sighed. “Yes. The earth points are vortices—some kind of focus or whirlpool of energy of some description—and they lie at the vertices—or angles—of the polygon. Is that clearer?”
Bodie ignored her pedantic tone. “Are there not enough mysterious places on the earth to draw a line between and force any kind of conclusion? I read that somewhere once.”
“Maybe,” Lucie said. “But then you’re factoring in churches and places of little interest too. And there’s one other huge difference I found to prove the existence of these ten vortices.”
“Which is...” Cassidy said as Lucie drew breath.
“Ley lines.”
Bodie frowned. “Weren’t they ancient astrological markers, or something?”
“Yes, pretty much. Ley lines are products of the earth’s magnetic field. The magnetic currents resulting from that field are ley lines. Now, in ancient times, these lines were also called dragon lines.”
Bodie blinked. “What, as in the Great Dragon?” He shuddered, remembering Bacchus’s livid rantings.
“The Illuminati probably think so, but that isn’t really relevant. Ancient megaliths and sites were built along all of these magnetically charged paths.”
“Surely it’s all disputed,” Jemma said. “All these fanciful notions.”
“Of course,” Lucie agreed. “But everything is disputed, isn’t it? What one person sees on the nightly news is different to what another person sees. Chiefly, it’s the way each person interprets it. Anything can be twisted, amended, turned to suit a different view. But Feng Shui is now widely recognized as a genuine art, and Feng Shui is born of ley marker positioning. Every object, stone and tree is planted along the dragon lines, or magnetic currents, to allow oneself to live in harmony with the natural world.”
Jemma nodded. “I knew that.”
“Good. The largest ley line in England and perhaps the most famous in the world, is Saint Michael’s Ley, aligned along a path that intersects with The Hurlers, Glastonbury Tor, Avebury, Saint Michael’s Mount and Silbury Hill, from which you can see the largest stone circle in the world. Of course, there are hundreds more lines, all around the world.”
“Going back to the prophecy,” Bodie steered their historian back on track. “How does this help?”
“It’s the first line,” Lucie said. “Ten sanctums to seek along ancient causeways. The ten sanctums are the shrines built on these vortices, and the ancient causeways are the ley lines. And some of these ancient causeways still exist. Mostly buried now, people in times past built paths along the lines, possibly to make some kind of pilgrimage when the stars aligned, or the sun set at a certain astronomical time. It may be a case of identifying the shrine and then the ancient causeway itself, the path of the ley line. I don’t know.”
“Five vile and five worthy,” Bodie said. “Those are the shrines, which can be any kind of
