Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle
In The Alchemist’s Secret, ex SAS member Ben Hope is recruited to locate an ancient manuscript which could save a dying child. It turns out to be the deadliest quest of his life.Ben Hope is running for his life in The Mozart Conspiracy. Enlisted by the beautiful Leigh Llewellyn – opera star and Ben’s first love – to investigate her brother’s mysterious death, Ben finds himself caught up in a centuries-old puzzle.The Doomsday Prophecy sees Ben Hope in a risky mission searching for a missing biblical archaeologist. What is the ancient secret she uncovered? And just who is willing to do anything to protect it?
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SCOTT MARIANI
Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle
SCOTT MARIANI
The Alchemist’s Secret
To Marco, Miriam and Luca
‘Seek, my Brother, without becoming discouraged;the task is hard, I know, but to conquer withoutdanger is to triumph without glory.’
The Alchemist Fulcanelli
Contents
France, October 2001
Father Pascal Cambriel pulled his hat down tight and his coat collar up around his neck to protect against the lashing rain. The storm had ripped open the door to his hen-house and the birds were running amok in a panic. The sixty-four-year-old priest herded them back in with his stick, counting them as they went. What a night!
A flash of lightning illuminated the yard about him and the whole of the ancient stone village. Behind the wall of his cottage garden lay the tenth-century church of Saint-Jean with its simple cemetery, the crumbling headstones and ivy. The roofs of the houses and the rugged landscape beyond were brightly lit by the lightning flash that split the sky, then plunged back into darkness as the crash of the thunder followed a second later. Streaming with rainwater, Father Pascal pushed home the bolt of the hen-house door, locking the squawking birds safely in.
Another bright flash, and something else caught the priest’s eye as he turned to dash back to the cottage. He stopped dead with a gasp.
Visible for just an instant, a tall, thin, ragged figure stood watching him from across the low wall. Then it was gone.
Father Pascal rubbed his eyes with his wet hands. Had he imagined it? The lightning flashed again, and in the instant of flickering white light he saw the strange man running away across the edge of the village and into the woods.
The priest’s natural instinct after all these years as pastor to his community was to try immediately to help any soul in need. ‘Wait!’ he shouted over the wind. He ran out of his gate, limping slightly on his bad leg, and up the narrow lane between the houses, towards where the man had disappeared into the shadows of the trees.
Father Pascal soon found the stranger collapsed face down among the brambles and leaves at the edge of the woods. He was shaking violently and clutching at his skinny sides. In the wet darkness the priest could see that the man’s clothes were hanging in tatters. ‘Lord,’ he groaned in sympathy, instinctively taking off his coat to wrap around the stranger. ‘My friend, are you all right? What’s the matter? Please, let me help you.’
The stranger was talking to himself in a low voice, a garbled mutter mixed with sobbing, his shoulders heaving. Father Pascal laid the coat across the man’s back, feeling his own shirt instantly soaked with the pouring rain. ‘We must go inside,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I have a fire, food and a bed. I will call Doctor Bachelard. Are you able to walk?’ He tried gently to turn the man over, to take his hands and help him up.
And recoiled at what he saw in the next lightning flash. The man’s tattered shirt soaked in blood. The long, deep gashes that had been cut into his emaciated body. Cuts on cuts. Wounds that had healed and been slashed open again.
Pascal stared, hardly believing what he was seeing. These weren’t random slashes, but patterns, shapes, symbols, crusted in blood.
‘Who did this to you, my son?’ The priest studied the stranger’s face. It was wizened, gaunt almost to the point of ghoulishness. How far had he wandered in this state?
In a cracked voice the man muttered something: ‘Omnis qui bibit hanc aquam…’
Father Pascal realized with amazement that the man was speaking to him in Latin. ‘Water?’ he asked. ‘You want some water?’
The man went on mumbling, staring at him with wild eyes, clawing at his sleeve. ‘…si fidem addit, salvus erit.’
Pascal frowned. Something about faith, salvation? He’s talking nonsense, he thought. The poor soul was deranged. Then the lightning flashed again, almost directly overhead, and as the thunder roared an instant later he saw with a start that the man’s bloody fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt of a knife.
It was a knife like no other he’d ever seen, a cruciform dagger with an ornate gold hilt set with glittering jewels. The long, slim blade was dripping with blood.
