God help her, she could not return it. She knew he never meant to harm her, but that didn’t mean she forgave him.
He was a whore for the black market. Everything she loathed and everything she fought against. He’d lost her respect and trust when she found out about his other life, and without those two pieces, there was no love. If he’d left his life behind, she might have forgiven him, loved him. But he’d made his choice.
And it wasn’t her.
Michael froze, as if he could read her every thought. He cupped her cheek in his hand. The gesture was as familiar as breathing. Veronica squeezed her eyes shut for a split second, remembering how eager she used to be for his touch.
His touch changed, the pressure increased until he pushed her away. Once again, his gun was aimed at her face. “You can’t forgive me, can you?”
She shook her head, knowing it was useless to lie. He knew her too well.
His full mouth twisted. “Let’s go. The others are waiting.” He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her bicep as he yanked her along.
When they reached Simon, he shoved her down beside him, and she fell to the stone floor.
“You okay?” Simon asked. “Did he hurt you?”
“Hurt her?” Michael barked. “That bitch has a heart of stone. Short of killing her, I don’t think she can be hurt.”
Simon’s eyes narrowed, and he looked like a bull ready to fight.
Veronica grabbed his hand. “Let it go.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed, and she knew that whatever part of him that once cared for her was gone. “I see you’ve made your decision.” He picked up Lily, ripped off the plastic wrapping, and aimed it at Veronica. “Good thing you won’t have to live with it.”
The door behind them slid open, and Deacon stumbled out.
Chapter 18
Deacon held his hands out, palms facing them, his smile wide and almost beatific except for the Glock holstered at his thigh.
This isn’t good, Veronica thought, and in the same instant, Simon grabbed Michael at the knees. The men hit the stone floor with a thud, and all hell broke loose.
Veronica rolled out of the way and stayed in a crouch as she waited for Deacon to start firing. But the only sounds that broke the silence of the great Temple were those of the fistfight in progress.
She searched for Deacon. Far from caring about Michael, he was skirting the fistfight and walking toward the golden statue of Thalassa.
What was he up to?
Simon grunted in pain as Michael’s fist connected with his wounded shoulder. There wasn’t time to find out. She had to help Simon. Michael was on top of him and Simon barely held Michael’s gun hand at bay with his good arm.
Lily was next to them, and she scrambled over to grab her, but the men rolled again and the shotgun was punted out of reach toward Deacon. “Damn it!” she shouted, trying to grab Michael instead and missing.
Grimacing, Simon twisted Michael’s hand, and the Glock dropped to the stone floor then skittered away as the two men rolled on top of each other.
Veronica dove for the weapon before it was knocked out of reach and, this time, was rewarded with the feel of cool metal in her palm.
She cocked it. It wasn’t Lily, but it would work. She edged closer to the fight, hoping for a clear shot. She didn’t want to be the girl in the movie who stood around wringing her hands while her man got the crap kicked out of him.
She also didn’t want to shoot the wrong person.
They almost ran into her, and she jumped aside.
“Get out of the way,” Simon shouted, rolling over and on top of Michael. He smashed his fist into Michael’s jaw again and again until he stopped moving.
With a groan, Simon rolled off him and Veronica helped him to his feet.
She barely spared Michael a glance. “You okay?” She went to touch Simon’s shoulder and stopped herself.
He nodded. “Sure, I’m fine.”
She knew he was lying. He hid it well, but his face was paler than before. He was going into shock.
“Michael is the least of your problems.” Deacon’s comment boomed through the Temple.
He stood next to Thalassa, his flashlight on the ground, pointing upward and illuminating the scene. “I can’t believe it’s mine.” He reached for the Stone.
“No!” Veronica and Simon shouted in unison.
Deacon held the Stone and yelled in triumph as he held the Stone up like a primal hunter might hold a prize pelt toward the sky. Veronica saw Deacon’s eyes were almost glowing. She and Simon both took a step back.
Deacon laughed again, and it prickled over her skin like an army of fire ants. Still laughing, he picked up the flashlight. The light winked out.
Veronica corrected her earlier assessment. Deacon didn’t seem to glow. He was glowing. His hands, to be specific. They had an aura about them that was unmistakable. Like the sun’s halo during an eclipse.
“I’ll be damned,” Simon whispered, and flipped on his flashlight. He pointed it toward Deacon.
Their adversary still stood beside Thalassa. In his right hand, his fist clenched the Midas Stone.
In his other hand was a solid gold flashlight. Deacon hooted. Crowed. Did a single twirl of triumph like a giddy drunk.
His smile almost split his face. “Thank you, Veronica. I would never have found this if it wasn’t for you.”
Veronica covered her mouth and swallowed to keep herself from retching. What had she done?
With her other hand, she raised Michael’s gun. He couldn’t be allowed to keep it. She’d started this and now she’d finish it. “Put it down, Deacon.”
Deacon’s smile faltered. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, Pumpkin?”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Deacon,” she shouted, her hand shaking.
Deacon laughed and she knew he would never give up the Stone. Not while he was alive. Her hand shook harder.
“Give me the gun, Veronica. This is my expertise,” Simon said, his hand gripping her wrist.
She couldn’t seem to unclench her fingers, and Simon sounded a million miles away. She only saw Deacon, the man she was going to kill.
“Veronica, love. Let it go.” Simon sounded closer now. His hand slid up hers, his palm on the back of her hand. “He’s not worth it. Let’s just get out of here.”
He leaned in closer, his breath caressing her skin as if it was breathing life into her, and the world came back into focus. “Simon?”
“The tide is coming in,” Simon whispered in her ear.
She heard the sound of trickling water. Tides were slow to make a difference on an expanse like a beach, but when entering a relatively small, contained area like the Temple, it wouldn’t take long before they all drowned.
“Now, give me the gun,” Simon said. His hand was warm against hers as he pressed the weapon downward. She let her arm relax.
“We’re going, Deacon,” Simon shouted.
“Keep the damned Stone,” Veronica finished.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Deacon held up the Stone. “You want this. Admit it.” Dropping to the ground, he placed his hands palms down on the floor of the Temple. “You can have it.”
The glow emitting from his hands was as bright and blinding as the sun and filled the Temple with its light. It was both horrible and compelling in its magnificence.
Around Deacon, the floor turned to gold in a circular wave that rippled up the wall, across the ceiling, and then toward her and Simon, moving as fast as man could walk.
He meant to kill them by turning them to gold.
She raised her hand and fired, but the gun clicked on an empty chamber. She squeezed the trigger again. The clip was empty. “Crap!” She threw the gun to the floor.
“Run!” Simon shouted, pulling her backward and toward the antechamber. She pressed her hand into the indentation, and once again the door opened. “Go,” he said, trying to push her through the opening.
She resisted. Something was h
appening to Deacon. To the wave of gold that was eating the floor. “Wait.” She grabbed Simon’s arm. “Look.” Simon swung the flashlight around and illuminated the Temple.
The oncoming tide of gold was slowing.
Deacon screamed. A shrill, violent cry unlike anything Veronica had ever heard. Her attention shot back to him.
Something was wrong. The light from his hands grew dimmer with each passing second. Suddenly, his body jerked violently, as if he were trying to free himself from where he touched the floor but couldn’t.
Even as he screamed, Deacon’s face distorted, shriveled and seemed to collapse inward. The macabre scene was both horrifying and compelling and neither Veronica nor Simon could look away.
The glow from his hands flickered out, but Simon’s light was like a spotlight on Deacon’s smoking, shriveled corpse.
“What was that?” Simon whispered.
“I don’t know,” Veronica replied, horrified. “It’s as if the energy were sucked from his body. His life force. Something.” She realized she still had a death grip on Simon’s arm and let go, shaking the blood back into her hand. “Do you think it’s safe?
“Let’s find out.” He rolled the flashlight where stone met gold. The flashlight reached the edge of the gold and kept on rolling, unchanged. Simon collected their knives and handed her one, sheathing the other. “Give me a minute, then we need to go,” Simon said.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Veronica asked. “If we leave this place intact, who knows what might happen. Who might find it.”
Simon shook his head. “No one found it for a thousand years. It’s safe. And even if they did, it’s just a Temple. It can’t harm anyone.”
Veronica wasn’t convinced. This place was more than just a Temple. It was now also Deacon’s tomb. “If someone finds it, they’re going to ask questions.”
“Right now, this Temple is the least of my worries. What matters is that we’re going to die if we don’t leave. Now.”
His jaw looked as inflexible as his command sounded, but Veronica refused to give in so easily. “I wish we could stay. Learn more,” she said. Despite all that happened, leaving such a perfectly preserved Temple seemed like sacrilege. But she could see his point. If they drowned, this conversation was moot. “We’ll talk more about this. I’m not letting it go.”
“Fine, but let’s do it up top,” Simon said, his eyes leveling her. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What about Michael?” she asked. “Do you want to leave him?”
“Your call.”
“I’ll get him. Can you give me a minute?”
“Alone?” Simon’s eyes darkened.
She nodded, and squeezed his forearm. “He can’t hurt me. Not anymore.”
Simon lay his hand over hers. “Hurry. I’ll gather the weapons.”
Veronica’s footsteps were noiseless as she approached her former lover. She stood over him. She’d grown up with Michael, and while she loved the boy he once was, that boy was gone. She despised the man who lay at her feet. This man didn’t deserve mercy, and he sure didn’t deserve forgiveness. He’d tried to kill her with her own gun.
Still, she couldn’t leave him to drown. If she did, she’d never forgive herself. That didn’t mean she had to make it easy. She pushed him with her foot. “Wake up.”
He groaned. She pushed him again. “Michael, you ass. Get up or you’re going to drown.”
His eyes flickered open, and he stared up at her with nothing but malice.
“That’s enough,” Simon said, suddenly by her side and taking her by the arm.
She pivoted on her foot, not bothering to give Michael a second glance. “Right.”
Trailing the detonation wire behind them, they stopped at Thalassa’s statue and Deacon’s shriveled, lifeless body. “We should leave the Stone,” Simon said.
Veronica didn’t hear him. “Oh, Lily,” she cried. The shotgun was turned to gold. She picked her up. She weighed a ton, but there was no way she was leaving her down here.
“Veronica,” Simon said softly, taking Lily from her. “The Stone. Do we leave it or take it?”
She wiped her eyes. “Can’t leave it. Michael.”
Bending down, Simon hesitated, then picked the Stone up and closed his fist around it. There was no glow. Nothing. He opened his hand. “Just a rock. Whatever Deacon did, it must have killed it.” He tossed it to Veronica.
She caught it in midair, and the instant it touched her hands, she knew it was anything but a simple rock. Her breath hissed in at the sudden steady, familiar pain that burned through her veins and came to center on her hands.
“Veronica?” Simon reached for her.
She leapt out of the way, horrified. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”
“What’s wrong?”
She heard the worry in his voice and took another step back. “The wine. It was in the wine.” She’d all but forgotten it in the chaos.
“Wine?”
“From the antechamber.” Her voice was sharper than she intended. Her hands glowed from the heat. Power flowed through her like electricity. It was heady, consuming, to know she could transmute material, anything, to pure gold.
This was what godhood feels like, she thought. And it was good.
It was also horrifying. Overwhelming and uncontrollable.
She took another step back, wanting to drop the Stone but scared to do more than stand there. How was she supposed to turn this damned thing off?
“Veronica!”
She and Simon turned at the screech. Now fully awake, Michael stumbled toward them. “Veronica!” He screamed her name despite his broken jaw.
Michael stretched his hand out in demand, shouting louder as he came at them.
Simon stepped in front of him, his larger body blocking Michael’s progress like an unmovable wall.
But Michael was wiser now, and he went directly for Simon’s shoulder, sending him to his knees with a single punch.
Then Michael turned and came toward Veronica, his hands clenched, mouth twisted, and madness in his eyes
Godhood felt more like hell as she realized what he was going to do. “No. Michael! Stay away!”
Before she could drop the Stone or run, he grabbed her hand and was dead before he could clench his fingers around her wrist—a perfect golden statue.
“Oh, my God.” Veronica dropped the Midas Stone and then joined it on the floor as fatigue roared through her. What was happening? Through bleary eyes, her focus was on Michael’s face, now frozen for eternity into a madman’s mask.
What had she done? What had she done?
The only sound was the water as it began to fill the cave. The only sensation? The coolness of the golden floor against her cheek.
Then there was warmth. Skin. Simon. He knelt next to her. Woozily, she let him help her to her feet. For a moment, she swayed and it took all her strength to remain upright.
She touched the gold statue that was once Michael. Her fingers traced the mouth she once kissed. Soothed the hair she once ran her fingers through. “He’s dead. I killed him.”
“No. His greed killed him,” Simon corrected her. “We’ll be dead, too, if we don’t get out of here.”
“The Stone?” she asked.
“Got it.” He patted his dive bag.
For the last time, she touched the statue that was once Michael. Friend. Lover. Enemy. “You got everything you wished for,” she said, her voice breaking. “Was it worth it? Was it?”
Then she and Simon ran, hesitating when they reached the entrance to the Temple. The water was to the top stair now and lapped onto the Temple floor.
She tried to walk, but her muscles refused to cooperate, and she sagged against Simon. “Go. I’ll follow.”
Simon’s finger dug into her arm. “You move or by God, I will carry your ass out of here and then we’re both dead, since, as I pointed out earlier, you’re not a small woman.”
Her jaw dropped and she stiffened a
s angry energy surged through her. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
He gave her a fast, hard kiss. “Not at all. I’m saying that you’re beautiful and can we go now?” He took her hand.
He was playing her like a fiddle—pissing her off on purpose just to get her riled and ready to fight. She yanked her hand from his. “You lead.”
As they sloshed through the waist-high water, every step felt as if her feet were weighted with bricks. They made their way to the stone stairs, the incoming tide turning them into a slippery waterfall.
By the time she reached the top of the ten steps that led to the small courtyard, Veronica was barely able to breathe, and she knew her sudden weakness had something to do with the Stone and how it used her to transform Michael into gold.
Simon stopped, letting her catch her breath.
She leaned against the wall. “I don’t think I can make it,” she explained. “However the Stone works, it used my energy to do it.”
Simon pressed his lips tighter. “Fine. You stay, then I stay.”
“You’ll die,” Veronica tried to shout, but it came out as a whine. “Go.”
He pressed a hand to the wall on either side of her head, his eyes bored into her. “No.”
“Bastard!” She just wanted to be left alone. She was tired, and not just in body, but to the depths of her soul. King Midas had said the Stone was a curse. She knew exactly how he felt. She’d thought the Stone was going to save her career. Bring her the fame, recognition and respect she craved. Instead, it brought death, bitterness and heartache. She wished she’d never seen the Midas Stone, and now it was her responsibility.
“I get that a lot.” Simon pulled away and took her hand in his. “Now let’s get out of here.”
His touch was warm, and somehow gave her the strength to put one foot in front of another.
The tears came even as she cleared the first step.
Veronica was sure she was going to die. Her legs were as useless as putty. Her lungs burned.
Simon didn’t sound much better. With each step, he winced, and she knew his shoulder bled freely.
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