CHAPTER I — THE INCAN SPHERE AND THE BLACK GLASS BISHOP

ONE | Bad Breeding

Ridley Woodward had hidden five deadly weapons around the cabin. Astrid was looking straight at one of them.

“I think I love you,” Astrid said, turning on her heel to face him. Her back was to the mantle now. The elephant gun was snuggled down into its rest above the fireplace. Hardly hidden at all.

Nevertheless, as determined to follow in her father’s footsteps as Astrid was—the old man had cursed the Kaiser with his dying breath—Ridley had never seen the woman take the gun down from above the fireplace. It had begun gathering spiderwebs. Hadn’t it? Ridley had taken caution to mimic the spiders’ architecture after silently loading the gun the night before.

Caught off guard by Astrid’s words though, he could not find himself. There was a tickle in his throat and lump in his chest. He perspired under the afternoon sun. It rolled in the window in a fiery hymn.

His disobedient eyes moved off her after she spoke, the words hardly finished.

FIVE | Held Close

It took some effort for Theresa to brush away the roots hugging the casket.

Operating on instinct, Niall kept his head swiveling on his neck, as though houskeeping, or police, or ghosts might come around a corner and inquire with harsh language.

A wooden crunch brought him back. Theresa wrenched open the lid. Inside was Arthur Remington’s decayed body, stiff as a movie prop. Numb or drunk, Niall found himself getting in for a closer look.

“This here,” Theresa said, inches from the corpse and not missing a beat. She indicated toward the medallion around the corpse’s neck. “Peruvian. Gold. This is Arthur Remington III, for sure.”

She passed the medallion to Niall. The body’s arms were folded around a flat, square chest. Theresa tugged the chest from Arthur. She grunted from the weight, again, passing it to Niall. She re-examined the body.

THREE | The Remington Mansion

Each step was an intrusion. Desperation put a corkscrew to Niall’s brain. Walking, he kept opening his mouth to speak, then not. He kept testing different smiles to catch Theresa’s attention. He had settled into a resting state at his age. He moved like a young man faking maturity—chin up, nods to confirm understanding, bit of a smile for confidence. His suit jacket and pants were too big, frayed and ripped up its right side. A patient expression roosted on his face, noticing the approaching wood and saying nothing. He nearly lost a shoe in the eroded shoreline path. His pant-cuffs were stained black up to his shins. The bend in the bay seemed only a persuasive nudge from tumbling into the sea.

The path sent them through the indomitable heath and thorny Scottish gorse into the trees. Deeper, where the wood grew thicker, a fountain welcomed them to the hidden humanity. The fountain could fit in at a city park with its size. Leaves choked its basin. The fat angel atop its center spout was missing half its face, shorn off in some mediocre vandalism.

Past the fountain, Niall and Theresa came to the mansion’s front door. He was glad he had not attempted to drive his BMW. Not to mention the loamy road, the mansion’s welcome-way that might have once greeted automobiles—or perhaps even carriages—was snarled with vines.

Seaspray’s salty grip and green algae attacked the mansion’s every available surface. More decapitated cherubs and iron barred windows made the building a self-devouring mausoleum.

CHAPTER I — BURIED IN THE CAGE GARDEN

ONE | The Water Dog

On orders from her employer, Theresa Leone spent a month breaking, entering, and ransacking the most storied estate on the Scottish coast. In that time, the locals hadn’t spared a care. Theresa sprinkled bribes into any conversation she couldn’t fib through. Hearsay suggested the mansion’s eccentric owners, the Remingtons, were a dead bloodline, or at least timezones and hemispheres away, perhaps drinking life away on a yacht off Ibiza.

Despite her diligence, Theresa’s efforts remained fruitless. The precise object of her desire remained hidden in the mansion’s deep corridors and limitless rooms.

One still morning, when it seemed the sun could not rise above some gray zenith, Theresa was elbow-deep in a space behind a library bookshelf when an animalistic yelp came into earshot. It shot forth again over the crash of the morning surf. Downstairs, Theresa exited onto the rear terrace. She listened.