"Look at the inscription," Alyssa prompted.

"What?"

"It was written by Raimondo di Sangro himself," she teased.

"So?" I asked. Aside from the fact that it seemed a bit self-promoting, heralding di Sangro as "gifted," "extraordinary," and "famous," I had no idea what she was getting at.

"The inscription on this tomb was produced chemically. To this day, nobody knows how. He must have used some form of acid, or something similar, but it's not documented. What is clear is that it was not chiseled."

Alyssa then pointed to the floor beneath the tomb, and I noticed for the first time how anachronistic it was in this setting. The contrasting light and dark shapes reminded me of an M.C. Escher pattern, something totally out of place among the baroque style that was prevalent throughout the chapel.

"Are those... swastikas?"

"Alternating with concentric squares," Alyssa said. "The swastika in ancient tradition symbolized cosmic movement. The concentric squares refer to the tetragon of the elements-earth, fire, wind, and water.

"This pattern, which in di Sangro's time covered the entire floor, represents the difficulty of the path that one must follow to gain knowledge."

Alyssa led me toward a staircase, and we began to descend. "Raimondo di Sangro was brilliant," she said, "and, apart from the Church, his contemporaries acknowledged this, but many of them feared him. He was ahead of his time and, on top of that, absolutely secretive about his actions. Not a good combination for building trust or dispelling myths. He gained a reputation fairly comparable to Victor Frankenstein."

We entered a small basement beneath the chapel, and I understood why.

Two display cases in a small round underground chamber each held a human corpse. Both bodies stood erect. One was a man. The other a pregnant woman.

Their entire circulatory systems were wrapped, immobile, around their skeletons, having emerged from hearts forever frozen to their open chests. The skeletons stood intact, and the intricate networks of tiny veins and arteries crossing their faces reminded me of the netting I had just seen carved from marble and covering the Disillusion figure.

"Oh, my God," I said, venturing closer. "Are they real?"

"The skeletons are definitely real," Alyssa said. "The fetus in the woman's womb was most definitely real, until it was stolen a number of years ago."

"Stolen?" I asked, feeling a sudden wave of nausea.

I redirected my gaze again to the webbing of veins over the male corpse's face, and I wondered how it could have been achieved in the eighteenth century.

About a decade ago, a traveling scientific exhibit passed through San Diego. The exhibit was called Bodies. It featured anatomical models similar to those one would observe in a high school science class, except that they were real. One could wander through the various sections of the exhibit and observe, in situ, the entire circulatory system, the respiratory system, the reproductive systems of both males and females-even neurons.

The bodies of the exhibit were preserved using a technology called plastination, a brand new preservation technique that had been invented at the turn of the twenty-first century for the specific purpose of preserving the bodies. As I stood in the basement beneath Raimondo di Sangro's chapel, I realized the Bodies exhibit had precedent more than two centuries prior.

"How did he do this?" I asked incredulously.

"Legend held that these were two of di Sangro's servants who had angered him. The belief was that he preserved the circulatory systems by injecting the victims with mercury while they were still alive."

"Is that part true?" I asked.

"He certainly did have an affinity for science, as you have seen. And he also had an affinity for using mercury, as I mentioned about the scrolls. But how he made these, nobody knows. Chemical analyses have yielded evidence of all sorts of organic substances associated with the capillaries and veins, including beeswax. So it appears that these models are, um, partly real. The rest is a mystery.

"Di Sangro's palace was adjacent to where this chapel was built. He had a laboratory in the basement of the palace. His contemporaries documented strange noises and strange flashes of light coming from the laboratory at all hours of the night. It's really no wonder they were afraid of him. And he moved secretly between his lab and the outside world through an underground tunnel connecting the laboratory under the palace to this chapel basement.

"Officially, the tunnel no longer exists."

"And unofficially?" I asked.

"Where do you think we're going?" Alyssa said and pushed aside the display case containing the pregnant female.

I had begun to feel like I was in a dream, but reality quickly returned when we emerged from a short tunnel and into a modern laboratory. I felt a deep breath force its way into my constricted airway, and I suddenly relaxed in the familiar environment.

"Wow," I said. The equipment was brand new. There were no damaged linoleum floor tiles or discolored countertops-the ghosts of chemical spills-or piles of dust bunnies behind computers. At 2:15 a.m., the lab was unoccupied. Rarely had I seen a lab so new entirely devoid of activity. Had it not been for the characteristic hum of a functional laboratory, the objects before me might have been theater props.

"This is the laboratory I have set up dedicated solely to work on the nardo document," Alyssa said. "Before I contacted Jeff, I wasn't sure what needed to be done or who was going to run the project. I knew roughly what types of studies we'd want to do but had no idea how to do those studies myself. However, I knew I'd get someone to lead the effort if not Jeff.

"The equipment is brand new and is just now almost in place. Jeff only began hiring scientists over the last couple of weeks. A few people have been qualifying machines and developing protocols."

I ran my eyes once again over the gleaming machinery. Of course, I thought, as the realization struck me, but I asked anyway. "Where did all the money for this come from?"

Alyssa looked surprised. "Well, most of it came from you!"

A basic biological laboratory costs millions of dollars in set-up expenses alone. The six-figure salaries of Ph.D.-level staff and the exorbitant costs of consumables can easily reach millions per year.

I now understood where our money had gone.

Together, Jeff and I were incredibly wealthy. But to build and maintain a research facility without the help of additional investors would quickly drain our collective life savings.

Jeff had gambled it all on the Vesuvius isotope.

"Gosh, where are those trash bags?" I asked, the events of the day finally taking their toll.

"You read my mind," Alyssa said. "I can give you a proper tour tomorrow, but right now I'm hitting a wall. I need a bath and a good night's sleep."

"That makes two of us," I said, bending one arm to assess any residual pain from the bends.

We each grabbed a handful of large black trash bags and re-entered the tunnel. We walked through it in silence, the dim lighting along the walls guiding our way, each of us deep in thought and too tired to speak. We stepped into the underground chamber containing di Sangro's mysterious corpses, and Alyssa pushed the female back into position before we ascended into the chapel.

As we walked back through the chapel, something caught my eye that made me forget my exhaustion. I could not believe I had not noticed it the first time through this area. Among the statues of the virtues, and not far from the netted Disillusion I had observed earlier, stood another veiled sculpture, a counterpart equally as impressive as The Veiled Christ.

In sharp contrast to the Christian Savior, this statue depicted a woman very much alive and standing erect. Her posture was both self-confident and defiant. She leaned against an enormous plaque, which was broken across the corner where her arm rested. The thin veil enveloping her form did nothing to conceal her body; her breasts were thrust forward, her shoulders back, and her face was cocked to one side. The woman's eyes were half closed. Over her hips was casually slung a garland of roses.

Alyssa must have noticed me staring. "The inscription on the plaque refers to a Gospel story. Christ appears to Mary Magdalene dressed as a gardener."

"This statue is Mary Magdalene?"

"The statue is called Modesty." It was a non-answer. "It's the third in di Sangro's triad of artistic excellence."

"She hardly looks modest," I said.

"Exactly. Just as The Dead Christ hardly looks dead. This statue is an allegory of wisdom. It represents a veiled Isis. This chapel was erected on the site of an ancient Temple of Isis. Di Sangro had this statue placed in the exact location where a statue of Isis once stood. This one is making the statement attributed to the veiled Isis for centuries."

"What statement?"

"Nature loves to hide."

She paused to allow me to fully absorb the meaning of the sentence and then continued. "Like I said before, di Sangro was very selective about what messages he left behind for posterity. One of his most public pursuits was a quest for an 'eternal flame.' Near the end of his life, he claimed to have actually invented one, but of course he never published the details of the science so nobody can verify today whether or not the flame was real. The claim might have been a chemical reference exclusively-a chemical element or mixture that could burn without ever dying. But I don't think so.

"This statue, the veiled Isis, is exactly where it belongs. But the statue of The Veiled Christ is misplaced. It was intended to go in the underground chamber. Di Sangro detailed in his plans for this chapel that The Veiled Christ-the Christ not really dead, but merely resting-would go in the center of the underground chamber. Beside it would be di Sangro's eternal flame.

"The metaphor is obvious. Di Sangro was seeking immortality. He was seeking a substance that could restore life to the dying, a substance capable of doing exactly what our nardo document describes.

"What if di Sangro found the first evidence of his 'eternal flame' in the Villa dei Papiri? Or what if he found it at another one of the secret locations in which we know Cleopatra hid documents? That might have been his reason for exploring the villa, once it was rediscovered, with such a passion in the first place. It might have been his reason for following Cleopatra's example of burning his own research notes. It might have been his reason for erecting a tribute to her patron goddess, on the site of a former Temple of Isis. What is clear is that his quest for immortality led di Sangro to those papyrus scrolls.

"Now, consider the nardo document. Put it in the context of the 1750s when the Villa dei Papiri was being excavated. Had di Sangro discovered a similar text, there is no doubt he would have pursued it in secret.

"An extensive network of Herculaneum document hunters grew up out of the discovery of the scrolls in the villa. I am talking about some of the most powerful leaders in the world. Certainly, they sought treasure-the statues, bronzes, coins, jewels. All of those things were pillaged rampantly when Pompeii and Herculaneum were discovered-you saw a large collection of the recovered pieces in the archeological museum. But they also sought the science that had been introduced to the world by the Ptolemy leaders in Alexandria.

"And remember, any science considered too radical in di Sangro's time was thought to be magic or witchcraft or the work of the devil. One had to hide not only from the Church but also from anyone else who was pursuing the same goals. A competitor could either usurp the work or simply turn the rival in to the Church authorities.

"Katrina, I think this rivalry is still active today. I am trying to sort out the details of exactly who knew about di Sangro's work and who else has known about the papyrus scrolls in general over the centuries. It's a daunting task. But I can tell you this, the more I look into it, and the more I learn who has been involved with this discovery since the 1750s, the more I feel that... I'm not losing my mind. Someone really is trying to kill me."

I looked over at the woman who had just that afternoon saved my life, and I decided that I owed it to her to return the favor. "I know who it is," I said.

Since, therefore, it cannot be doubted that this is a true light, similar to our candles or lamps, and has burned three months and some days without any reduction in the material used for fuel, it can rightly be called perpetual, much more so than those imaginary lights which can sometimes be found in the ancient tombs and any other light which does not have the same properties as mine, i.e. all the qualities of other natural flames, does not deserve to be called eternal.

-Letters of Raimondo di Sangro (17101771)

Chapter Fifteen.

Jeff is lying on his back. He is naked. He is dead. A pool of red ripples outward from his body, spreading quickly over the deck of my yacht. From my vantage point on the terrace of our bedroom, I scream.

I turn and run. I tear through the bedroom, down the hallway, and onto the staircase. I descend the stairs two at a time, but it is dark, and the farther I run the more disoriented I become. When I reach the lower floor, I fumble in the dark until I find a light switch. When I flip it on, a brilliant light fills my vision. I shield my eyes.

But then my eyes adjust, and I realize that the light is not blinding after all but soft and comforting. And I am not in my house but in a beautiful underground chamber.

And Jeff is not dead. He is sleeping.

Jeff lies in the center of the space, illuminated gracefully by a single eternally burning flame. It is not a red pool of blood surrounding him but a soft veil, spun from a delicate silk of the purest white I have ever seen.

I approach him. He awakens and smiles at me. His smoky blue eyes shine gently up at me through the translucent veil. Slowly, he slides the veil down over his body. Its thin, iridescent folds puddle at his feet.

"Morning, love," he says and sits up.

I begin to sob uncontrollably, and a look of confusion darkens Jeff's countenance.

"What is it, Kat?" he asks with concern.

I can barely speak. "I thought... I thought you were... you were dead!"

Jeff wraps a comforting arm around me. I bury my face in his chest and throw my arms around his shoulders. I can feel the bullet hole in the center of his back. But I also feel him breathing.

"Come with me." Jeff takes my hand and leads me out of the chamber.

When we emerge, we are in the depths of a beautiful private garden. Slowly, lazily, we stroll through, silently enjoying the fragrances and the beauty of the lush foliage around us.

"Open-toed shoes are OK," Jeff says, and across his face spreads an enormous mischievous grin.

I stare up at him for a moment, questioning. Huh? Open-toed shoes? Did I hear that right? Then I feel a similar grin crossing my own countenance. "That's good," I say. "I'm so glad to hear that because I have lots of cute ones that are very comfortable this time of year." I pause to think before asking, "What do I wear them with?"

Game on.

We walk.

Jeff is no longer naked, but he still bears the bullet hole through the center of his chest that somehow does not kill him.

I ponder his latest puzzle. It is about open-toed shoes. But in the end, it will have very little, if anything, to do with shoes. And I already know everything I need to solve it.

"Hmm," Jeff says. "What to wear them with? Nothing too revealing. Nothing flashy. Nothing tight. You don't want to call attention to yourself. It's a different culture."

Jeff leads me to a climbing vine and wraps one of its tendrils around a finger, staring at the winding plant with fascination. "Isn't she amazing?" he asks.

"Who?"

His response is a single word. "Nature."

I frown. "Sometimes she's a bitch."

Jeff chuckles. "Yes," he says. "She loves to hide. But you can find her."

"How?" I plead, with tears once again springing to my eyes. "I don't understand any of these things! Chemistry is not my area! Egyptology even less so!"

"You're wrong," he says. "You are exactly in your element. The answers are right in front of you. Just open your eyes and see them."

We come to a gentle river flowing lazily through the vast garden. There is no bridge across it. Jeff releases my hand and smiles at me, and then he winks and dives into the water.

I want so badly to dive in after him, but something holds me back. Instead, I watch in silence as my husband swims across the flowing river. When he reaches the far bank and emerges, he is naked again, his wet skin glistening in the brilliant sunlight. He looks back across the water and blows me a kiss. Then he turns and disappears into the lush greenery along the river bank.

I turn around. Before me stands my house, and I suddenly realize that the garden I am standing in is the one in my own backyard.

My hotel room's alarm clock blared. I struggled not to hear it, to stay asleep, because to wake would be to lose him again. But waking was inevitable, as it always is at such beautiful moments, and I finally conceded.

I awoke with tears in my eyes. It had been so nice to be with Jeff again. It was now so painful, so cold, so harsh to be alone in reality once more.

For a few moments, I lay staring at the hotel room ceiling, reflecting on the dream. It had felt so real. But it was nonsense. How could The Game exist in a dream? How could Jeff taunt me with a secret in a dream?

I shook off my confusion, sad beyond description that it was only a dream, and that he was still gone.

Beside me, I heard my purse vibrate. I reached toward the nightstand and rummaged through my purse until I found one of the iPhones. It was Jeff's.