by Brenda Drake
Two women, maybe in their fifties, one with short silver hair, the other brunette, hold hands as they stare at the floor-to-ceiling artwork by Paulo Veronese titled The Wedding Feast at Cana. It’s so large the artist had to use a ladder or something to paint it.
The next one I pause at is The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter. It’s the image that Marek and I thought for sure would hold the clue. It’s of a young girl being raised from the dead.
Someone stops to the right of me. I don’t look right away. “I was there.” His voice is soft, but it still makes me flinch. “It wasn’t as dramatic as that. The girl simply awoke.”
“Why are you following me, Ares?” I finally take a look at him.
“I’m only curious,” he says. “The shadows have eyes, even during the day. They inform me of your whereabouts.”
“Why do you want the pieces to the talisman?” I turn my best glare on him. “Don’t you already have power? There’re wars all over the world.”
His head tilts a little as he watches me. “Good question. It’s only a fraction of my power. I need all of it for there to be a war between the immortals. A war mortals have never seen before. One that will return glory to deities around the world. I’m not a selfish god. I want all of us to rule as we did in the beginning.”
Lugh and Oyá wouldn’t let him do that, and I bet other gods and goddesses feel the same way. I decide to tell him just that. “I doubt you can get them all on your side.”
“You doubt my ability to influence others. I’ll demonstrate.” He steps behind the two women standing in front of the marriage painting, leans forward, and whispers.
The brunette says something to the woman with short silver hair, and they argue. It gets heated, arms flail, then they stomp off in different directions.
Ares comes back to my side. “With my full power, I can do that to the immortals. Do you believe me, or would you like me to demonstrate it again?”
“No, I don’t want you to demonstrate it again.” I glance from one woman to the next. “Are they going to keep arguing?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It will end their relationship. If you asked them later in life why they went their separate ways, they wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
I didn’t think I could get any sadder after saying goodbye to Marek, but another wave of it hits me. Crashing. Stinging. Because of me, because Ares felt a need to show me his powers, a couple is breaking up.
I tighten my hands into fists, trying to keep them from shaking. “What do you want?”
“Analiese, I’ve already let you know my intentions. I just thought I’d come and keep you company. Now that the Conte boy is gone.”
I need an escape. Sliding my eyes left, then right, I search for an exit.
“I see you’re up to your old ugly tricks, Ares.” A woman’s voice comes from behind us. I’ve heard her before, and she usually carries a syringe full of poison.
Whirling around on my heel, I almost collide with Inanna. “H-how? Where…?”
“At a loss for words?” She grins like a cat about to stick its claw into a birdcage. “Ares doesn’t believe in love.”
“Now that’s just hateful,” he says. “What do you call what we had a millennium ago?”
“Lust. There’s a big difference. Excuse me, I have to clean up Ares’s mess again.” Inanna saunters over to the woman with silver hair and says something. Inanna’a smile deepens as she passes us, crossing the room to the other woman. Another whispered word, and she returns to us.
“There,” she says.
The women are still ignoring each other.
“What did you do?” I ask. “Nothing’s happening.”
Stay calm. Find a way out.
Inanna’s smile turns into a smug look. “Wait for it.”
Ares chuckles. “You’re losing your touch, my dear. I had them arguing within a second.”
The woman with silver hair looks over her shoulder.
Not too long after, the brunette does also.
With tears in their eyes and longing expressions on their faces, they dart for each other and collide into a hug.
Inanna crosses her arms and gives Ares a disdainful look. “See. Love takes longer to coax than hate.”
I take the opportunity their arguing gives me to slip away and stand next to the tour guide and her group. Safety in numbers. I sneak a glance at Inanna and Ares. Their body language suggests they’re arguing—her foot tapping impatiently, his arms flying up in frustration.
I have to get out of here.
“Yes, some say that,” the tour guide’s confirms. “In 2005, Lisa Gherardini, married name Lisa del Giocondo, was identified as the model for the Mona Lisa. Leonardo was commissioned by her husband to paint her portrait.”
That’s it. What was it? Marek said his grandfather told him there’s always another story behind a painting, not just what you see on the canvas. The clue isn’t the Mona Lisa. It’s the model used for the image.
I need a computer. Or a library. And I definitely need to ditch the stalkers.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The tour guide is giving her group directions when I return my attention to them. “We should make our way to the exit. The museum will close soon. Follow me.”
I move into the crowd, keeping a large man between me and Ares and Inanna. Once we’re out of the room, I jog down the corridor, ignoring comments that I don’t understand because they’re in French. Most likely, it’s to slow down.
My new shoes slip across the marble floor. I’m not going to the pyramid entrance. I don’t have a ride back to the hotel. And Inanna and Ares will think I went that way.
I head for the inverted pyramid and turn right. Through a small underground shopping strip, up two escalators, and I’m at the Metro station. The platform is like its own museum, adorned with replicas to simulate art from the Louvre. My eyes stay on the entrances until the train arrives and I’m safely on it.
I sit on a seat closest to one of the doors, near an older man, leaving an empty one between us. Gray curly hair, button-down sweater, and leather loafers. Probably someone’s grandfather. He seems less threatening than the group of guys in their twenties on the other side. The aroma of liquor and cigarettes surrounds them.
“Your judgment’s a little skewed, Analiese,” the older man says.
“What?” I move another seat away from him.
Okay, breathe. You’re okay. Know your surroundings. What do you see?
A guy carrying a long narrow box. A woman on her phone doesn’t look too happy with whoever is on the other side of that call.
“You’ve become quite the popular girl. Everyone…or should I say, every immortal knows of you.” He crosses his legs. He’s wearing purple-and-grey argyle socks. “The Keres love spreading rumors—true or not. I had to come and see for myself. Another Riser. What powers do you hold?”
The train pulls up to the next station, and I’m out of my seat before the doors open. As soon as they part, I push my way through and charge up the stairs to the street. A woman with straight dark hair falling around her shoulders and carrying a grocery bag matches my steps.
“You can’t get away from me that easily,” she says, her voice melodic and accented.
“What?” I pick up my speed, and she keeps up with me. “Leave me alone.”
You’re okay.
“I can be anyone you want me to be. A fox in sheep’s clothing.”
“Who are you?”
The woman gives me a confused look and says something I don’t understand. She stops, letting me get ahead of her.
Now this guy with short dark hair and a beard with a silver stud piercing in each cheek and one in the middle of his bottom lip is marching next to me. “Maybe this is more your style.”
I stop. “Okay, I give. Who are you and what do you want
from me?”
“Good,” he says. “Because I have about one good change left in me for the day. We should talk somewhere private.”
“No. Talk here.” There’s absolutely no way I’m leaving this crowded street.
His lips spread into a slow grin. “If that’s how you want it. Seeing that you won’t go somewhere private, our talk will have to wait for another day.”
“I’m not thickheaded enough to go somewhere alone with you.”
His eyes bug out, and he backs away. “I say nothing to you.”
“Sorry, I was talking to the other guy.” I rush off. That was beyond freaky. Think. What god can body-hop? Think. Think. Think. Okay, a few come to mind.
Wait. He said a “fox in sheep’s clothing.” It’s Kumiho. He has nine tails and can change bodies. Usually, he transforms into beautiful women to lure men. When he has them, he turns back into a fox and eats their hearts and livers.
Perfect. He could be anyone.
When I get back to the hotel, I go straight to the business center and do a search on Lisa del Giocondo. I go through several sites, searching for information on her.
After her husband’s death, Lisa lived in the Convent of Saint Ursula and died there. Nearly an hour searching, I now have two possibilities. Adam Conte either hid his family’s piece of the Divinities Keep in the Convent of Saint Ursula, where Lisa was buried, or Santissima Annunziata Basilica, which held her family’s crypt.
I scribble down the addresses to both on the hotel’s paper, rip it from the pad, and shove it into my purse. Next, I search for the fastest, soonest way to get to Florence. It’s ten hours on a train and about two hundred dollars for a flight, which only takes an hour and forty minutes.
No matter what I do, I’m in trouble. Safta gave me her credit card information to buy the clothes, but just thinking about using it is causing welts to form on my chest.
I fill in my information for the flight, enter Safta’s credit card information in the required fields, and stop before hitting send.
“Safta, what would you do?”
She’d put the fate of the world first before herself. So what if I’m grounded forever, or I’m thrown in a foster home because Jane doesn’t want me anymore. At least we’d all be alive. I hit enter and instantly have buyer’s remorse. I hope Safta forgives me. I print out the tickets.
I go to the room, call my grandparents, and tell them I’m okay. Safta says to order room service and get whatever I want. Which makes me feel even shittier for using her credit card to buy the plane tickets.
My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I need to eat. I’ll just have to feel guilty later when I get back. Since I can’t figure out how to order room service, I decide to go down to one of the dining rooms.
Coming off the elevator, I pause in the middle of the door track.
I’m not sure whether what I’m seeing is actually real or my tired brain playing a trick on me.
“Marek?”
The door starts to close, and I step out before it hits me.
“Hey,” he says, as if it’s no big deal he’s standing in the middle of a fancy hotel lobby instead of being on Flight 56.
“What are you doing here?”
He takes two long strides and tows me into a hug. “He said…said you were in trouble. There’s no way I could leave you.”
I pull back and gaze up at him. “Who told you that?”
“We should go somewhere less open.”
For a minute, I forget where I was going. Then my stomach decides to remind me. “I was on my way out to get something to eat. I can’t read the menu here, and it’s all too fancy.”
A smile lifts his lips. That kind of smile you do when you know you should respond to something but your mind is too preoccupied and you give it half an effort.
“Okay, where to?” he asks.
Marek and I stroll down Rue Boissy d’Anglas and find a cute place with sandwiches, salads, and a yummy macaron desert with basil and raspberries. We decide to wait until after we eat to talk about any of the messed-up stuff going on around us.
I place my spoon beside the remains of the macaron desert, which is pretty much the cream I couldn’t scrape off the plate. “So who told you I was in trouble?”
He takes a sip from his water glass. “I know this sounds messed up. It was several people, but I think it was someone, or whatever the hell it was, hopping from body to body. Like the damn thing was possessing people. Using them to talk to me.”
Him, too? Suddenly everyone in this café becomes a potential danger. The face of evil comes in all shapes and sizes. The least suspect could be the most threatening. The couple in the corner with their heads together and feet tangled, the three couples in their thirties sitting together on our left, two men ignoring each other as they scroll on their phones—any one of them could be a host for whoever or whatever it was trying to talk to me on the street earlier.
It can’t be Kumiho if he’s warning Marek. I thought the Korean god was evil.
Marek’s hand covers mine resting on the table. “Ana, what is it?”
“We need our bill.” I raise my hand, flagging the man serving us. “I know where your grandfather hid the next clue. I have to get you a ticket.”
“Where are we going?”
I glance around. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the hotel.”
I hold back the fact that it may be illegal and involve crypt digging. After all, the shadows have ears.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Florence seems frozen in time. The narrow streets away from the city center are obscure; the old buildings squeezing them hold shadows and secrets of the past. Like living in history.
I’m on the edge of my seat. I haven’t relaxed since leaving the hotel earlier. Marek and I made sure we were at the Louvre right when it opened. We went there before the airport to throw off anyone following us. After entering through the pyramid entrance, we immediately exited by way of the Metro and went straight to the airport.
The bus we got on nearby the Florence airport stops a building away from the Santissima Annunziata Basilica. Our driver tells us it’s considered the mother church of the Servite Order. We nod politely as if we understand what that means and exit.
Its facade is in the same Renaissance style of the buildings surrounding it. Marek holds the wooden door open, and I enter. He comes in behind me. The chapel is decorated in a heavy and dark baroque style with an abundance of marble and gilding adorning its walls.
We ask a man polishing the benches where we can find the crypt of Francesco del Giocondo, and he graciously takes us to it. The tomb is beneath a floor stone. A design of swirly lines, fleur de lis, stars, flowers, and what look like butterflies are etched into the sandstone.
“It’s not here,” Marek says assuredly.
A woman in her late thirties or early forties, blonde and wearing a black dress and suit jacket, sits in one of the pews, watching us. I grip the strap of my purse. Not to keep it from falling but because I’m anxious.
I look at the stone but keep darting glances at the woman. “How do you know this isn’t it?”
“My grandfather wouldn’t disturb a chapel. Also, he’d have a difficult time putting it in that crypt. He’d worry I couldn’t get it out.”
“Okay, so we go to the convent.” I turn to leave, and the woman in the pew is gone.
It’s a ten-minute walk through the tight streets. There are so many motorcycles and Vespas lining the roads it looks like a dealership. The Convent of Saint Ursula’s windows are bricked off, the walls gray and stained with graffiti. It’s a shell of what it must’ve been back in Lisa Gherardini’s lifetime. The building almost takes up the entire block.
“Great,” I say, glancing up the three-story building. “How are we getting in there?”
Marek backs up as if it’ll
help him see over the top of the building. The street is so narrow it wouldn’t fit three Vespas lined up tire to tire. “There has to be some way.”
“An illegal way.”
He lifts a shoulder. “We’ve faced worse.”
“That’s encouraging,” I say.
Acting like tourists, we roam the streets surrounding the convent. By the looks we’re getting, I think they don’t get many visitors.
I slip my arm around his and lean close. “I don’t like this. Where are we?”
“We’ll be fine,” he reassures me.
I see it then, above one of the grates at the bottom of the building, written like the other graffiti: Keram Etnoc. I point at it. “That’s your name backward.”
A guy gets on a Vespa and drives down the alley. When it’s clear, Marek squats and sticks his fingers through the grate. “Keep a lookout,” he says.
He tugs and tugs on it, and the bottom moves slightly. Another pull, metal scraping against concrete until it’s up. “Wait here.”
“Be careful.”
Dropping to his belly, he slides inside. “Come on,” he calls.
I shove my purse in and follow it, inhaling dirt, scraping skin because my shirt rises a little as I go through. My eyes water from the dust floating around us. Marek pulls the grate back into place. The convent looks to be under construction.
“Do you think this was going on when your grandfather hid the clue?” I slip the strap of my purse over my head and wear it across my body.
“Yeah,” he says, his steps careful as if the ground’s going to cave under his feet. “I’ve seen a picture of this before. It was a selfie of my grandfather in front of dug-up graves. He texted it to me with others from his and my grandma’s Europe trip. Come on, let’s find the crypt and get out of here.”
Scaffolds cling to the walls encircling a courtyard with piles of construction materials. There’s a large octagon-shaped hole in the middle the size of the Trevi Fountain. Not sure what it was used for, but I can see the basement down below. Moving along the perimeter of the courtyard, I can almost see what it looked like all those years ago when Mona Lisa was here.