by Cherry Adair
“Come inside and see!” Leslie’s voice fuzzed in and out.
Callie had seen hundreds of lava tubes. She didn’t need to swim into one to know what it looked like. Viscous rhyolite lava flows formed knobby, blocky masses of rock throughout the area, under and, in many places, over the city’s various structures. That’s what she wanted to see.
“No thanks. I’m waiting right outside.”
Crackle.
“Damn it. Les, can you hear me? Maura?”
Neither responded. Callie swore again, then swam into the dark entrance, strafing her light to lead the way and illuminating the silver flash of a small school of tiny picarel heading the same way. The cave entrance was a lot bigger than she’d expected. The floor was sandy with a few piles of rocky outcroppings, breakdown from the ceiling. Long streamers of vegetation swayed in her wake. No sign of Leslie, however. Not even the bounce of light up ahead from the other woman’s flashlight.
A few minutes passed as Callie swam through the darkness, lit only by the bright beam of her flashlight. Particles in the water drifted in and out of the beam like dust motes. “Keep swimming,” Leslie’s voice crackled in her ear. “About five hundred feet … there’s a right-hand bend.”
“Leslie, stop and wait for me.” All she got was static in reply. Mildly annoyed, she desperately wanted to get back to the ruins in the open water before daylight began to fade. Callie followed the tunnel almost vertically now before rounding the corner, her powerful light leading the way.
Three Dentex macrophthalmus swam toward her, veering left only when she stayed put. The large-eyed dentex’s pinkish scales looked phosphorescent in the beam. The darkness became less dense the farther she went. She realized that she could see the striations in the magma, see the progress it had made in its slow path as it cooled in the sea. How many thousands of years ago? There was no longer any need for her light, and she switched it off.
The chamber was, if not flooded with light, certainly bright enough for Callie to see Leslie sitting perched on the edge of a rocky outcrop, ten feet above the water, mask in hand.
A grin lit her face. “Whatcha think? A cave! How frigging cool is this?”
What she thought was that her dive partner was wasting productive time exploring and pulling her away from her own work. Callie swam closer, then rested a supporting hand on the rough rock below Leslie’s swinging fins. She lifted her mask. The air was a bit musty smelling, but fresh.
“Impressive.” Her voice echoed in the vastness of the cavern. “But not a cave, a lava tube.” She pointed up at a variety of speleothems, stalactite forms: shark tooth, splash, and tubular. “See the tubular lavacicles?”
“Lavacicles?” The shifting reflection of the water contorted her features ghoulishly as she grinned. “Like icicles? Amazing. We must be really close to the surface, right? This air is pretty fresh for an air pocket, and it’s so light.”
“I agree. How’d you get up there?” Callie indicated the rough, vertical cliff face high above her.
“There are steps cut into the rock over there.” Leslie gestured to the right. “We aren’t the first humans to find this place.”
Callie doubted the steps were human-made, probably the ebb and flow of the water and tides over centuries eating into the hardened lava rock. Drain tubes commonly exhibited step marks on their walls, which marked the various depth the lava had flowed through the tube.
“I didn’t realize I’d come so close to the surface.” The arched ceiling of the cavern was covered with algae and sea creatures. Clearly it filled with water—consistently, as indicated by the intermittent drips from the rough ceiling some thirty feet overhead.
“Did you go farther in?” Sometimes the lava flowed in an unchanneled fan as it left its source. Those tubes tended to be much narrower, and were frequently blocked by debris. Just out of curiosity, she swam to where Leslie had indicated she’d find the “stairs.”
“No, but it looks as though it goes quite a way in behind me. I ventured in a bit, but the rock’s rough as hell. I don’t want to cut my feet.”
“Another time th—Holy crap!” Callie breathed. “These steps are human-made!” There was no mistaking the crudely carved and chiseled steps in the blacked lava rock face. Human-made, and smoothed by the water. Someone had, at some time in the far distant past, used tools to cut seven uneven steps from one level to the next. The number seven had been the perfect number, lucky and magical to the ancient Greeks.
People had known about this entrance to the sea, had used the stairs to access the water. The thought boggled Callie’s mind, and the lava tube was suddenly interesting. Had people centuries after the drowning of Atlantis discovered a path to the Lost City via lava tube? There was certainly no way an average person could have held his or her breath long enough to free-dive the length of the lava tube to this cavern.
Who? When? Why? Most important, how?
“Time,” Maura said in her ear.
Callie, about to remove her fins to start up the steps, mentally cursed. She hadn’t even glanced at the time. “On our way. Leslie?”
The other woman got awkwardly to her feet. “Time already? But this—”
“We’ll come back and explore in a couple of hours.” Had Jonah known about the lava tunnel? Callie wondered as she waited for the other woman to descend the narrow, precariously angled steps, fastening her mask as she went.
“Mind blown?” Leslie asked via the headset as she slipped into the water beside Callie.
“Boggled.” To say the least.
Silently, they swam down the tube and back into the open water. She wanted to stay there all day, now torn between wanting to get back to her newly discovered artifacts, and the tantalizing hint of a street, and possibly a sewage system.
Despite her disappointment, Callie reminded herself it had all been right here thousands of years. It would still be here in a couple of hours.
* * *
“Mr. Cutter, welcome.” Smiling, hand extended, the man strode into the small parlor followed by Tall and Small, and a stunningly beautiful young woman clinging to his arm.
“I’m Kallistrate Spanos—Kall, if you like.” Mid-forties, with a pleasant, craggy face and an open smile, the man extended his hand in welcome. Like the other men he wore enveloping black robes, but he was at least forty years younger than the ones Jonah had seen when they’d been escorted through the small house.
The woman who stood beside Spanos had to be his mistress. Dressed as she was in skintight jeans and a white tank top that hugged her body and bared her shoulders, and black spiky-heeled boots that came almost up to her knees, she was a jarring counterpoint to the black-robbed men.
If the dramatic difference in clothing hadn’t been enough, the large gold hoop earrings, dark eye makeup, long dark-red nails, and abundance of long curly hair certainly made her seem as out of place as a hooker in a nunnery. Or in this case, a hooker in a monastery. She couldn’t have been more overt if she tried, and she’d tried very hard to look as outrageously, overtly sexy as possible. All she needed was a FOR SALE sticker on her ample cleavage.
“This is the light of my life, my little sister, Anndra, and you’ve met Trakas and Eliades. Demetriou will be distressed to have missed you.”
Jonah couldn’t imagine why, but he shook the man’s hand, introducing Vaughn and Saul. Pleasantries exchanged, their host indicated a group of deep, brown leather chairs near a bank of windows overlooking a small enclosed courtyard. The room looked and smelled like an antique book store, with leather-bound books stuffed into ceiling-to-floor bookshelves three deep. The furniture was old, the area rug worn.
The place smelled of musty paper, candle wax, and dust. Dust motes lazily drifted in the streams of sunlight coming through the windows overlooking the stone-paved courtyard. No plants, no fountain, nada. There wasn’t anything green to be seen. The walled yard was the same stone as the floor. Just a ten-by-ten walled nothing.
Not only did the homes her
e have no ocean views, apparently they didn’t want any view.
Trakas and Eliades, both forty or fifty years older than the rest of them, remained standing by the door in the shadows while everyone sat down in the pool of sunshine. Jonah reached for his sunglasses, then realized it might be rude to conceal his eyes and left them in his pocket. Vaughn and Saul also squinted into the brightness.
“Your men made an immediate visit sound imperative,” Jonah told his host, keeping his opinion of their methods to himself. “Refusal of the invitation sounded dire. I was curious.” Not particularly curious, not when he had all sorts of interesting things to uncover on—beneath his ship. But now that he was here, he could see that the ominous threats of yesterday had been no more than theatrics.
Spanos smiled. “Overly dramatic. Still, it’s always pleasant to have company. So few people visit us here on Fire Island.”
“I wasn’t aware that anyone lived on the island. It doesn’t look inhabited at all. Do you and your sister live here permanently?”
“No, we are frequent visitors, however. Our forefathers have always lived on Fire Island. We consider it, even if we are not permanent residents—home.”
“And where is home?” Jonah asked.
“Unfortunately, I spend most of my time in hotels around the world. You can see why coming home to Fire Island’s natural beauty is so desirable.”
“Hotels?” Jonah rested his ankle on the opposite knee, but he was far from relaxed. He still had no fucking idea why he’d been summoned, and for what purpose. He had about ten more minutes of pretending to be interested before he got the hell out of Dodge. “Is that the business you’re in?”
Spanos smiled. “Hotels? No. I am in the cosmetic industry. Product development and some sales. A great deal of travel.”
Jonah looked at the guy’s sister. If those were the cosmetics, the guy must be in the poorhouse.
“Anndra has her own path.” Spanos stroked her knee. “Don’t you, my dove?”
“I’m a student,” she said in an accent that sounded more British than Mediterranean.
Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. “We thought this was a deserted island. There’s no indication of civilization from the sea at all.”
Four more minutes for someone to get to the point and he’d be adios.
“That was by design originally. Our forefathers valued the seclusion, and built this small village away from prying eyes. It’s become a habit for the inhabitants to be equally private, I’m afraid. A sore trial to my dear sister who chafes at the restrictions of a small community such as this.” His gaze slid over to Anndra. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”
Anndra Spanos, perched on the arm of her brother’s chair, one slinky leg crossed over the other, exposing a strip of spiked, buckled leather circling the ankle of each boot, smiled into Jonah’s eyes. He had the oddest impression that the smile was no more than a facade. In fact she, out of everyone in the room, gave the impression of a small, pretty, but deadly spider watching a plump fly flounder in its web. Jonah blinked away the bullshit.
Achaikos Trakas flushed, then stepped back farther into the shadows by the door. “Oxi, Kyria,” he murmured, in a small, sullen voice.
No, mistress?
“Naughty, Anndra,” her brother said, squeezing her jean-clad knee in a decidedly unbrotherly way. “Behave please, agapi mou, we have guests.”
“Vevea, tha simberiforthw, agapimene mou adelfe.” The woman grinned, showing straight white teeth as she flung her arm around his shoulders and rested her cheek on top of his head.
Didn’t look particularly sisterly to Jonah, but then he’d never had a sister, so what the hell did he know? “We’ll be anchored for several months, would it be possible to get fresh produce here instead of going all the way to Crete?” Jonah asked. There was a slightly … off atmosphere in the sunlit room. Something he couldn’t put his finger on, but he trusted his gut and listened.
“Of course,” Kall said, smiling as he reached up to stroke his sister’s dark hair. “We don’t have our own beef here, but sheep and chickens, and of course fruits and vegetables. In fact—” He snapped his fingers. “Bion, make a, how you say, care package for our friends. Include some of those delectable strawberries we had with breakfast.”
Small bowed himself out, sideways because of his girth, disappearing into the shadows before disappearing from the room.
“What is it you do out there, Mr. Cutter?” Anndra Spanos sat up, leaning forward so that the shadow of her cleavage emphasized the firm swells of her breasts. Her eyes were black and deep-set, with long spiky lashes he found a bit distracting. She oozed sexual attraction designed to snare the attention of every man in the room the way a Venus flytrap oozed sweet sticky liquid to trap its victims. Her appearance and actions did just the opposite to Jonah.
He glanced at both Saul and Vaughn. Both men were mesmerized by her overt sensuality. Perhaps they all needed shore leave and some R&R. But since, while waiting for Callie, they’d only been back on board for a few days, he figured they’d all have to take their blue balls in hand.
“Stormchaser is a salvage ship,” he told Kall. “I tracked down a Chinese junk from the twelve hundreds. Since there have been people living on Fire Island for centuries, I’d be very interested in any local legends. Any mentions, actually, that might shed more light on her.”
Kall waved an expansive hand. “You are most welcome to peruse my library. I have many books and scrolls going back hundreds of years, also some that refer to documentation and stories from even further back than that. I haven’t, as yet, read them all, so I have no knowledge of what you might uncover. It would be an interesting pursuit, and one I’d enjoy assisting you with. How did this junk sink, do you know?”
The offer was too tempting to refuse. Perhaps those documents mentioned the city beneath the wreck. Callie would love to get her hands on them, Jonah was sure. And while he was painfully aware of the hands-off nature of their relationship, he’d enjoy having some time alone with her off the ship. A win–win.
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Jonah smiled. “I know our marine archaeologist will enjoy going through any old documents you have.”
Spanos inclined his head. “He also will be made welcome.”
“She,” Jonah said with a smile. “Dr. Calista West is well known in her field.”
“Do you know how this junk sank?”
The man was focused, Jonah thought, answering his repeated question. “From all indications she was caught in the debris of a volcanic explosion, but we’ll know more as we salvage more of her.”
Spanos looked to Achaikos Trakas.
The old man shot him an unfathomable look from rheumy eyes, his heavy jaw clenched as he addressed Jonah and the others. “Our volcano most recently erupted in the early twelve hundreds.” His broken English was clipped. Damn it to hell, Jonah and the others were only here at Trakas’s invitation. If he was pissed they were taking up Spanos’s time, he shouldn’t have insisted Jonah come.
“Ah.” Spanos looked pleased. “Possibly the killer of your ship?”
“Possibly. Your papers may very well answer that question if there were eyewitnesses on the island who kept records.”
“What an exciting project,” Kall said enthusiastically. “I’m very much looking forward to helping you uncover answers, and if not answers, clues. I presume, since you are here, that the ship carried something of great value?”
Jonah was no fool; he’d done his homework, and had a legal team all over the Ji Li and who might lay claim to her. The same attention to detail that Cutter Salvage gave all their finds. The inhabitants of tiny Fire Island couldn’t waltz in and stake their claim. Still, what the junk carried was none of the other man’s business.
“She traded goods from mainland China to Spain and Portugal. We only found a partial manifest of what she carried,” Jonah said. “Let’s leave the speculation until I have something in my hands.”
Anndra’s b
lack eyes gleamed. “Treasure!” She clapped her hands, making the heavy gold charm bracelet on her wrist jangle. She looked to her brother. “That is most exciting. Kall, may I be permitted to go and see what Jonah has discovered so close to our shores?”
Permitted? How about somebody fucking well asking him, seeing as how it was his ship? He tamped down his irritation. “We haven’t found anything other than the junk at present, but you’re welcome to come on board when we have something to show you.”
“Tonight?” she asked eagerly.
“There’s nothing to see,” Vaughn pointed out. “But—” He slewed his gaze to Jonah. Jonah shook his head slightly, and Vaughn finished. “—as Jonah says, it’ll be more exciting to show you the treasures when we have them aboard.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped for a moment, and then she straightened with a smile. “I could come for dinner, no? I could bring you the delicious strawberries Eliades grows in his garden.” She turned back to her brother, grasping the inside of his thigh. “Say yes, Kall, please? I am going mad with nothing to do and no one to talk to with just all these old people about!”
Their host shrugged, spreading his hands. “What is a brother to do? This would be acceptable to you, Jonah? I would not like my foolish sister to impose.”
Crap. The last thing Jonah wanted was strangers on board. Beside the intrusion factor, besides the necessity to remain as low-key as possible about the underwater city, he and his team were still bonding. Not to mention he had a feeling none of the women on board would particularly like overtly sexy Anndra.
“Perhaps in a week or two when we have something worth your whi—”
“The produce has been taken down to the dock, Kyrie.” The little fat guy was back like a ghost, hands inside the sleeves of his robe, plump face glistening, breath erratic as if he’d jogged the distance.
“Knock before entering, Eliades,” Kall scolded gently. “Remember?”
Jonah had had enough. He had work to do, and paying social calls to the locals wasn’t getting it done. He got to his feet as the old man bowed his head obsequiously. Saul and Vaughn rose as well. “Thanks for your hospitality.” Although now that he thought about it, there’d been none. “But we have to get back to our project. I’ll let you know when we have something of interest for you to see.”