Icefall (Dane Maddock Adventures) Read Free Page A

last thing he said? ”
    “ Ewige. It translates to English as eternal, perpetual, everlasting . ”
    “ He didn ’ t get the last word out. ” Angel folded her arms across her chest. “ It started with an “ l ” though. ”
    “ What ’ s the German word for life? ” Bones asked.
    “ Leben. ”
    “ You mean like Chris Leben? ” Angel grinned. “ Chris Life doesn ’ t really suit that guy. ” When Otto frowned she shrugged. “ Sorry. He and I are in the same line of work. ”
    “ If he was trying to say ‘ eternal life, ’ that would make sense, wouldn ’ t it? ” Bones asked. “ He ’ s a priest and this is a church. ”
    “ If I was dying, ” Angel added, “ that would certainly be on my mind. ”
    Otto shrugged. “ I just cannot believe this. Why would someone kill these poor men, and why would they want the bones of the Magi ? ”
    “ Why would they bust open the sarcophagus and not take the bones? ” Jade asked. “ Unless these skulls were not what they expected to find. ”
    “ I do not think anyone expected to find skulls like...that. ” Otto took a dee p breath and, as he exhaled, seemed to deflate a little bit. “ It is all too much. I do not understand why this has happened. ”
    Dane chewed on his lower lip. The gears in his mind were turning at a rapid clip. He had a sixth sense about secrets and mysteries, and something told him there was more to the priest ’ s final words than mere confusion.
    “ As long as we ’ ve got to wait here until the police come, we might as well do a little searching. See if we can make sense of what the priest was saying. ”
    “ Great, ” Bones deadpanned. “ Another Maddock mystery. ”
    “ I ’ m game. ” Angel headed straight for the Milan Madonna and looked it up and down. “ What exactly should I be looking for? ”
    “ Maybe the three rabbit thing? ” Bone s said, coming up to join her. “ He did make a point to mention it. ”
    Dane turned and scanned the seven chapels. The priest had said “ Mailänder Madonna ” but he had pointed to the left side of the chevet – the side opposite the Madonna. He carefully stepped around the shattered bulletproof glass that lay scattered around the altar and moved into the chevet.
    Each chapel was a recessed area containing works of art. He inspected them one by one, looking fo r... he didn ’ t know what exactly . He thought Bones was on the right track in searching for the three hares. It was the sort of out-of-place symbol that might bear significance in a place like this.
    His eyes were drawn to a large, busy painting. As he drew close, Otto joined him.
    “ The Adoration of the Magi . It depicts the donors being presented to the Madonna. ” He indicated the figures in the foreground. “ In the back are shown scenes around the birth of the Christ child. ”
    “ The title is promising. ” On either side of the painting, a figure knelt before a draped table, and on ea ch drape a symbol was rendered – a dark background with three shapes. His heart racing, Dane moved closer, but was disappointed to find that the symbols were fleur-de-lis, not hares. He took hold of the frame and pulled, but it did not budge. He gave it a push, which made no difference either.
    Jade sidled up to him and peered at the painting with keen interest. “ You think there ’ s something here, Maddock? ”
    “ I don ’ t know. Just checking it out. ” He ignored the foreground for the moment and examined the background images. The world swam in his peripheral vision, and he was about to give up when something caught his eye. “ Otto, what is this scene? ”
    “ That is the Christ Child being presented in the temple. ”
    He could clearly make out the scene in the temple, but the artist had slipped some odd images into the scene: a child performing a handstand, a flock of birds, and animal that could have been a cat, or perhaps a rabbit, and... ”
    “ What is this here? ” He indicated a brown