Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set by F. Paul Wilson, Blake Crouch, Scott Nicholson, Jeff Strand, Jack Kilborn, J. A. Konrath, Iain Rob Wright, Jordan Crouch

forgeries from this mysterious source.”
    Kesev couldn’t back up a word of that threat, but he knew the specter of a search of the premises would strike terror into the heart of any serious antiquities collector.  They all dipped into the black market now and then.  Some bought there almost exclusively.  If Miss Szobel followed true to form, a search might result in the seizure of half her collection; maybe more.
    Miss Szobel’s pointing arm faltered and fell to her side.
    “Wh-why?  On what grounds?  Why does Domestic Intelligence care—?”
    “Oh, it’s not just the Shit Bet.  The Mossad is involved too.”
    She paled further.  “The Mossad?”
    “Yes.  We have reason to believe that these scrolls are merely the latest in an ongoing scheme to sell worthless fakes to wealthy collectors and funnel the money to Palestine terrorist organizations.” 
    Amazing how facile a liar he’d become.  It hadn’t always been this way.  As a younger man he’d insisted on speaking nothing but the truth.  But that youth, like truth, was long gone, swallowed by time and tragedy. 
    He sighed and rose to his feet.  “Please do not leave the house, Miss Szobel.  I will return in—”
    “Wait!” She motioned him back toward the couch.  “I had no idea terrorists were involved.  Of course I’ll tell you where I bought it.”
    “Excellent.”  Kesev removed a pen and a note pad from his breast pocket.  “Go ahead.”
    “His name is Salah Mahmoud.  He has a shop in Jerusalem—the old town.  In the Moslem quarter, off Qadasiya.”
    Kesev nodded.  He knew the area, if not the shop.
    “Thank you for your cooperation.”  He bent and lifted the scroll and its lucite box from the table.  “I’ll need to take this back to Shin Bet headquarters for analysis.”
    “Must you?” She followed him to the door.  “ I will get it back, won’t I?”
    “Of course.  As soon as we are finished with it.”
    He waved good-bye and headed for his car.  Another lie.  Miss Tulla Szobel had seen the last of her forged scroll.  He’d take it with him to Jerusalem for his visit to a certain Salah Mahmoud.  The dealer couldn’t plead ignorance if Kesev held the scroll under his nose.  Threats probably wouldn’t suffice to loosen Mahmoud’s tongue.  Kesev might have to get rough.  He almost relished the thought.
     

 
     
    I asked the brother why he had come to me with this miracle.
    He said to me, Because it has been told to us that you are to guard her, and protect her as if she were your own mother and still alive.
    I told him, Yes.  Yes, I will guard her with my life.  I will do anything you ask. 
     
    --from the Glass scroll
    Rockefeller Museum translation
     
    SIX
     
    Manhattan
    The Gothic, granite-block bulk of St. Joseph’s Church sits amid the brick tenements like a down-on-her-luck dowager who’s held onto her finer clothes from the old days but hasn’t the will or the means to keep them in good repair.  Her twin spires are alternately caked black with city grime and streaked white with the droppings of the pigeons that find perches on the spires’ remaining crockets.  The colors of the large central rose window over the double doors are barely discernible through the grime.  She’s flanked on her left by the rectory and on her right by the Convent of the Blessed Virgin.
    From his room in the rectory Father Dan saw the hungry homeless lining up next to the worn stone steps in front of St. Joe’s, waiting to get into the Loaves and Fishes for lunch.  He dearly would have loved to sit here and read the translation of the scroll Hal had given him, but duty called.
      He left the wooden box on his bed and hurried down to the rectory basement.  From there it was a quick trip through the dank, narrow tunnel that ran beneath the alley between the church and the rectory to the basement of St. Joe’s.  As he approached the door at the far end, the smell of fresh bread and hot soup drew him