by I. T. Lucas
“It’s a compact design, but I wouldn’t call it small.” He handed her the coffee and then pulled a polished silver band out of his pocket. “I also have the key.” He pulled it out from his other one. “Don’t lose it.”
“I won’t.” She took the cuff and put it on her wrist. “It’s not so bad. It looks like jewelry. Is it activated?”
“Yes. You can come up to the house now, but first let’s have breakfast.” He removed the lids from the two plates.
She smiled. “Thank you for joining me here.”
Kalugal took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed the back of it. “I enjoy your company, and I’ve gotten so used to dining with you that it feels weird to eat without you.”
When he said things like that, Kalugal stoked the flame in her heart and melted her resolve as if it was a wax candle.
How was she supposed to respond to that?
Jacki couldn’t tell him that she felt the same. Sleeping in her old room in the bunker, she’d felt alone, and she’d missed knowing that he was near, just across the bathroom they shared.
Instead, she changed the subject. “As we are already here, you can show me the rest of your collection. You only showed me a fraction of it before I freaked out over your godly genealogy, and you took me to your office.”
“I’d be delighted. But first, let’s finish breakfast.”
67
Kalugal
Kalugal stifled a smile.
When he’d told Jacki that he loved dining with her, her heartbeat had sped up. It was the honest truth, and maybe that was why she’d reacted to it so strongly.
Jacki had a healthy bullshit radar, probably developed from dealing with countless males who had tried to seduce her.
And that was why his slow approach was working so well. He was merely hinting at his interest in her, not coming on to her at all, and letting her dictate the pace.
She was softening toward him, and soon he would be able to move to the next stage and coax a kiss out of her.
Kalugal had never invested so much time and effort into seducing a female, but surprisingly, he was enjoying it. He was getting to know Jacki, which he’d never bothered to do with other women, and the more he discovered, the more he liked her.
If he'd had doubts before about her suitability for him, they were gone now. She was intelligent, eager to learn, and had a unique personality. Unlike most gorgeous women, Jacki wasn’t stuck-up or full of herself, and she didn’t expect every male around to drool over her. In fact, she'd seemed annoyed by Rufsur’s flirting even though he’d been perfectly cordial.
Kalugal could actually see himself spending his life with her.
“I’m done.” Jacki put her plate back on the tray. “Atzil seems to think that I can eat as much as you guys.” She looked at the plate and shook her head. “This was enough to last me an entire day. Can I save it for later? I hate throwing food away.”
Jacki sounded like someone who’d gone hungry before and had to ration her food, and just the thought of her living like that wrested a growl out of his throat.
She lifted her hands in the air. “It was just a suggestion. If it makes you so angry, you can throw it away.”
Shaking his head, he took both of her hands in his. “I’m not angry at you. I’m furious about every day that you had to go without or with not enough.”
“That’s sweet. But you’re jumping to conclusions. I was never hungry, I just had to be careful with my money and make sure that I had the necessities covered. Besides, I didn’t want to get fat.” She smiled and patted her flat belly.
It was a half-truth, but he wasn’t going to press her. Jacki was a proud woman, and she didn’t want to admit to having lived in poverty.
“I don’t think there was any danger of that.” Kalugal put his plate on top of hers and pushed to his feet. “Ready to continue the tour?” He offered her a hand up.
“Ready.”
As she put her hand in his, he had a strong urge to tug harder and bring her against his chest and kiss the living daylights out of her. But this wasn’t the right time. Jacki wasn’t ready, and he didn’t want to blow it by moving too fast.
In the display room, he walked over to the tablet with Inanna’s hymn, which was where they had stopped the tour the day before, and then continued to the one next to it.
“This is a hymn to Ninkasi, the goddess of wine. As you can imagine, she was a very popular goddess.” He moved to the next display. “This is an assortment of figurines. Some represent gods and goddesses, but several are just of regular people.”
“How can you tell the difference?”
“Gods and goddesses have special headgear that symbolizes what they are in charge of. The others do not. So those without hats are just regular humans.”
“Or maybe immortals.” Jacki leaned over the glass display. “I’m surprised at the level of detail. I would have thought that figurines that old would be cruder. But these are really good.”
“The Sumerian civilization was very advanced. Thanks to the gods, naturally. Those who came after didn’t enjoy the benefits of having gods live among them and guide them. They inherited the symbolism and the stories, but with the passage of time, there was inevitable erosion, and the civilizations that came later were less and less advanced. It has taken humanity thousands of years to regain what it lost.”
68
Jacki
As one figurine in particular caught Jacki’s attention, she leaned even closer, her nose nearly touching the glass. “This one looks so familiar.” She tapped her finger over the spot. “She looks a lot like Wonder. There are even traces of the blue-green color of her eyes. The resemblance is uncanny.”
“Wonder. That’s a peculiar name. Who is she?”
“I think that she’s an immortal, but I’m not sure. Wonder was part of the group that came to snatch Jin away from the program.”
“Is she a Guardian?”
Jacki shook her head. “Her boyfriend or husband is. She came along on the ski trip that was supposed to double as a reconnaissance mission and ended up with our escape.”
Kalugal frowned. “Is her mate a tall, buff redhead?”
She turned to look at him. “How did you know?”
He chuckled. “That’s one hell of a coincidence. I met them in Egypt, or rather saw them. They didn’t see me because I shrouded myself. I suspected that they were part of Annani’s clan. But the interesting part is that I noticed the woman because of her resemblance to the figurine.”
“That’s really weird. Maybe it’s a statue of Wonder’s ancestress?’
“Do you want to hold it?”
“Can I? I mean, it’s an ancient artifact. I’m afraid to touch it.”
Smiling, Kalugal opened a drawer under the display and pulled out two sets of surgical gloves.
“Put these on.” He handed her one pair and then snapped the other over his hands. “Hold it gently,” he warned while lifting the glass cover.
“That goes without saying.”
“Here you go.” He handed her the figurine. “Careful.”
“I won’t even breathe on it.”
Except, as soon as Jacki’s gloved fingers touched the statue, a vision started, so vivid that it was like watching a movie.
A horror movie.
A young man, who looked a lot like Wonder, was riding a wagon when a massive earthquake shook the desert. A chasm opened in the ground, and the wagons in front of him started toppling into it, people and donkeys tumbling to their deaths. The young man jumped, his speed and strength clearly that of an immortal. He caught one of the men and flung him to safety, and then reached for another, but the ground kept shaking and the wagon he’d been riding in rolled on top of him, sending him to his death.
Shaken up, Jacki thrust the figurine at Kalugal. “Take it!”
The entire thing lasted no more than a couple of seconds, but it was the worst thing Jacki had ever experienced.
“What happen
ed?” He put the statue back and closed the glass lid.
“It was horrible.” Jacki pulled the gloves off and flung them over the display. “They all died. The desert swallowed them.”
“You are trembling.” Kalugal wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest.
Grateful for the warmth, Jacki let him rock her gently.
“Did you have a vision?”
“Yes. Terrible, terrible vision. The worst I've ever had.”
“You can tell me about it in my office.” He lifted her into his arms and started walking. “You look like you need a drink.”
“Put me down. I can walk.”
“You don’t look like it. What would Kian think if you fell and broke something? I promised to take good care of you.”
It was just an excuse to keep carrying her, but Jacki didn’t mind. It felt good to be in Kalugal’s arms. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with Kian.”
He smiled down at her. “Thank you.”
Out in the corridor, Shamash arched an eyebrow but said nothing. He opened the office door for Kalugal and then closed it behind them.
“I can’t believe that I freaked out again. At this rate, I’m never going to see your entire collection.”
“Maybe we should wait with the next tour.” Kalugal deposited her gently on the couch. “Would you like me to make you the same drink as yesterday?”
“Yes, please.” She chuckled nervously. “I feel weird about drinking so early in the day.”
“This is not for fun. This is for medicinal purposes.” He walked over to the bar and started on the drinks.
“I wonder who the guy in my vision was. It must have been Wonder’s forefather. Given how strong he was and how fast he moved he was an immortal.”
Kalugal handed her the drink and sat next to her. “You said something about the desert swallowing them all up.”
She shook her head. “I thought that I told you what I saw. My head isn’t working right.”
“You had a scare. Can you tell me now?’
She nodded. “There was a long caravan, and a guy that looked like Wonder’s twin brother was riding with an older man in one of the wagons. Then an earthquake started, and a big chasm opened in the desert floor. It started small but grew wider by the moment. The donkeys panicked and started running, and the wagons in front of Wonder’s twin toppled into the chasm. He tried to save people, flinging them up and away, but then his own wagon slid forward, and he lost his hold. By the end of the vision, there was no one left.” She started trembling again. “They all died, the people, the animals, everyone.”
Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, Kalugal brought her against his solid form. She huddled closer to him, thankful for his warmth and his strength.
“Do you get visions like that often?”
“Never. My visions are always about the future. This was in the past. And they were never triggered before by touching an object either. Psychometry is not one of my talents.”
69
Kalugal
As Kalugal held Jacki close, he tried to focus on what had just happened and not on how good it felt to just sit with her like that and comfort her.
The closeness was more than physical. The sense of intimacy and familiarity was surprising, given the short time they had spent together, and yet it felt incredibly right.
Still, there was a mystery to be solved. And to help Jacki, he needed to understand what had triggered the strange vision, and whether Jacki had witnessed actual events.
“I don’t know much about psychometry, but what you’ve experienced doesn’t make sense. If the guy who looked like Wonder died in the desert, he couldn’t have imparted the memory to the figurine. The only way it would make sense is if someone who witnessed the events carved that figurine. But then why would he make it a female?”
“And what’s the connection to Wonder? It’s not like she and I became besties or even spent a lot of time together. I barely know her.”
“The physical resemblance might be a coincidence. I’m just trying to understand how you could have gotten that vision from touching the object.”
Jacki shrugged. “My other visions were about future events, and they were connected to people I knew. The director called them micro visions because they weren’t about big events. They were always about something that was going to happen to a single person.”
“Good or bad?”
“It was a mix. Some were about good things, like a girlfriend of mine falling in love with a guy she was going to meet on a trip. Or a bad one, like another friend of mine getting into a serious car accident. That was the only one that was kind of connected to an object. As soon as I saw that old clunker, I got a vision of it lying crumpled on its side in a ditch, and then of my friend going through rehab for her injuries. That vision kept coming back, and I kept warning her, but she wouldn’t listen. I also had a vision about Jin’s sister coming for her, and that one came true, but there was no object involved.”
“We should ask Kian about Wonder’s ancestry.”
“That’s a good idea.” Jacki frowned. “You are right that it doesn’t make sense for the figurine to have triggered the vision, though. First of all, because the statue is not of the guy I saw, and secondly because no one survived that earthquake to later sculpt it and imprint his memory on it. The vision I had might not have been triggered by my touching it. It just floated down from the ether at the same time for some reason.”
Kalugal pulled his phone out. “Since Kian is expecting you to call with your daily report, we can call him together.”
His call got answered right away. “Good morning, Kalugal. Is Jacki there?”
“Yes. She is here, and I have the phone on speaker.”
“Hi, Jacki. Did you get the cuff?
“I’m wearing it. Thank you for sending it over so fast. But this is not about that. Something very weird just happened, and I hope you can shed some light on it.”
“What is it?” Kian’s tone turned gruffer than usual.
“I had a vision.”
Kalugal listened as Jacki told Kian about the figurine that resembled Wonder, and about the guy who’d looked just like her, and the terrible tragedy that had befallen him and the rest of the caravan. It seemed that with each retelling, Jacki remembered more details from her vision, but it was also possible that her mind was filling in the blanks and embellishing on what she’d actually seen.
When she was done, it took Kian a long moment to respond. “What you have just told me is so unbelievable that it’s shocking.”
Frowning, Kalugal was about to tell Kian to mind his manners when his cousin continued.
“Once I tell you Wonder’s story, you will understand why. You see, Wonder is ancient. She spent thousands of years in stasis and has woken up quite recently.”
“Thousands of years? That’s impossible.” Kalugal had never heard of an immortal surviving so long. Warriors could go into stasis after sustaining grave injuries, but they usually revived in a few minutes, or hours, or at the most days.
“What’s stasis?” Jacki asked.
“Kalugal can explain it later. But the fascinating part is that what caused her severe injury was exactly the earthquake you described, and the young man you saw in your vision was actually Wonder. She joined the caravan disguised as a man.”
Jacki and Kalugal exchanged glances.
“Wow. That vision is even more bizarre than I thought. How long ago did that happen?”
“Five thousand years, more or less. It happened shortly before Mortdh dropped the bomb on the gods’ assembly.”
Jacki let out a breath. “Unbelievable is right.”
Kalugal rubbed a hand over his jaw. “What I wonder is who made that figurine. It must have been someone who knew Wonder. I assume that she had a different name back then?”
“Her name was Gulan, and she was Annani’s servant and best friend. She fell in love with a guy who didn’t love her back, and
when he got engaged to be married to someone else, she was broken-hearted and decided to run away. She joined a caravan heading toward Egypt. The earthquake must have hit when the caravan reached today’s Alexandria, which was where she woke up from her stasis.”
“Fascinating story. I didn’t know immortals could survive so long in stasis.”
“Neither did I,” Kian admitted. “Now we know, though. Wonder is proof that it’s possible.”
70
Jacki
Throughout the call, Kalugal had his arm wrapped around Jacki’s shoulders, but now that Kian was no longer on the line, it was time to pull away even though it was comforting, and she would have loved to stay.
“Wonder, aka Gulan, must have had a secret admirer.” Jacki reached for her glass. “Someone must have carved it before the earthquake.”
Kalugal shook his head. “I had the figurine tested, and it’s not five thousand years old. Dating items is not a precise science, but the range I was given was half of that. Also, I found it in a dig in Egypt, not Iraq.”
Jacki frowned. “So it’s just a statue of a lookalike?”
“Not necessarily.” Kalugal got up and walked over to the bar. “I like your theory of a secret admirer.“ He refilled his glass. “Someone who knew Gulan before she escaped Annani’s court carved that lovely figurine of her, but since it was made only twenty-five centuries ago, that someone must have been an immortal who survived the bombing.”
“So he might be still alive.”
“Precisely.” Kalugal sat next to her and unceremoniously wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve always suspected that some immortals survived the disaster. I found it inconceivable that Annani and her descendants and my father’s people were the only ones left.”
“How did they survive?”
“Annani left before the bombing. I don’t have the details, but I assume that after her husband was murdered, she was heartbroken and wanted to get away from it all. My father’s people were up north, in the area of today’s Lebanon, and the nuclear wind blew east, so they were spared.”