Veil of the Goddess

by Rob Preece

  "Maybe some day they'll come to the deserts in Iraq, too."

  "Not if the Foundation has any say about it. I'm not sure what their plans are, but I'm pretty sure they're intent on something that will make Iraq look like a Sunday picnic."

  "I take it we're going to Gallipoli?"

  Zack shielded his eyes with his strong hand. It was nearly noon and it seemed like they'd been on the move, on the run, forever. Still, his hand was rock-solid, without a bit of the trembling that seemed to come over Ivy and shake her like a child with a rattle.

  "I think it's called Gelibolu now. Maybe it was then, too and the Brits just got it wrong. But yeah, that's where we're going. From there, we figure out how to get to Italy."

  "Just keep driving."

  He smiled. “I guess that'll do it. We've made it through one international border so far. If we can make it across to Greece, getting to Italy should be easy. Lots of shipping across the Ionian Sea."

  She heard what he didn't say. “You think getting into Greece will be tough?"

  "The Turks and the Greeks have only hated each other for a thousand years or so. I don't think there are going to be any border areas we can just walk across. First, though, we have to figure out how to get across the Dardanelles into Gallipoli.

  Figuring out how was easy. A regular ferry ran from Lapeseki on the Asian side to Gelibolu on the European side and Zack and Ivy simply merged into the line of cars and trucks waiting for the next boat.

  Given the chickens and goats hanging out of many of the vehicles, the balks of timber sticking out the back of the Opal barely got a second glance from the toll collectors. After a brief negotiation, Zack pulled the car onto the deck of the ferry, turned off the engine, and yanked up the parking break.

  "How far do you figure it is across?” Ivy asked after the ferry pulled away from the dock and plowed through the choppy waters of the straits.

  Zack squinted at the European shore as the ferry plowed through the water. “Four miles, maybe. At most."

  "Good."

  "Why?"

  She gestured at the sky. “I think we're going to have company."

  A navy fighter roared overhead, making a high circle over the ferry.

  Zack opened the car door and stepped out.

  "Let's be ready to jump if they take out the ferry."

  Ivy had to hope, even if the Foundation ordered them to fire into the crowded civilian ferry, that Navy pilot would refuse. She was pretty certain that the Foundation wanted to create a war between Islam and Christianity. In such a war, Turkey would be on the other side. But Turkey had been a part of NATO for half a century and the Navy pilots would know that.

  The fighter shrieked overhead, flying upside down and barely above the ferry's radio antenna to get a better view of its target. She caught a quick look at the pilot's face.

  Although his eyes were covered by mirrored sunglasses, his jaw was set in fierce determination.

  Like a quick strobe, her eyes caught that image, then he was gone. At five or six hundred miles an hour, the fighter would be somewhere over the Mediterranean before it could turn around and head back.

  The ferry captain shook a fist at the departing jet and kept on his route. He probably thought this was a routine training flight, a hotshot Navy pilot causing troubles for his fearful cargo. Only Zack and Ivy had any idea how close the captain had come to having his ferryboat blown up underneath him.

  Zack muttered a couple of numbers.

  "What?"

  "Trying to calculate how long before a helicopter can get here."

  A chopper full of Foundation Agents wouldn't be so reluctant to shoot, or they might just hold the ferry until the naval taskforce arrived and took control. Either way, a chopper would be a lot more dangerous to Ivy and Zack than was the fighter.

  "Well, what do you figure?"

  "It's going to be close."

  * * * *

  The ferry looked like it might be a survivor of the Gallipoli battles, and its ancient diesel engines cranked enough horsepower to push them through the water barely faster than Zack could have swum it.

  No amount of his willpower managed to move it any faster.

  But they only had a couple of miles and a helicopter would have well over a hundred, assuming the aircraft carrier had stayed in Istanbul harbor. If it had upped anchor and steamed the moment Zack and Ivy had started west, the Agents could be a lot closer.

  The navy fighter flew back overhead, then began making long circles high overhead, marking the ferry for whatever was coming.

  "You speak English?"

  He had been so intent on the jet that he hadn't noticed the elderly woman who approached.

  "Yes. Zack Hererra, from Texas."

  "Apologies. With your dark hair and all, I thought you were a local."

  He guessed it had been a while since he'd had the blond highlights added. “With your accent, I'm guessing you're from Australia."

  "You'd be right about that, young man."

  "Here to see the memorial?"

  "Me mum was pregnant when da’ got killed here but I always said I'd come some day. Almost waited too long."

  If her father had died in World War I, that would make the woman at least ninety. Zack suspected he wouldn't survive until ninety.

  "It was a horrible battle."

  She poked him in the chest with a twisted finger. “It was a war. All war is hell. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

  "But some wars—"

  He wouldn't have guessed her lined face could get more wrinkled but it did. “People always say that. Some wars are different, they say. Some wars have to be fought. Maybe they're right. The only problem is, people can always find reasons to fight this war. And both sides are always certain they have the right on their side. The human mind is infinitely capable of justifying evil."

  "There's some truth to that.” Zack believed some battles had to be fought: he wouldn't have decided to make a career out of the Army if he hadn't. But he recognized he wasn't going to persuade a ninety-year-old woman of anything. Especially not a woman who had lost her father to war before she was even born.

  "My mother never married again,” the elderly woman continued. “Weren't enough men to go ‘round back then. War wiped a clean slate of the whole generation. Just women and children and sheep over most of the country. And cripples. Those lucky enough to come home from the war mostly didn't come home in one piece. Ever see those old newsreels with all the soldiers missing a leg marching together with their crutches? Thousands with no right leg, then thousands more with no left?"

  Military medicine had made dramatic improvements since the days of World War I. But with improvements in body armor, injury still often meant loss of a limb or loss of sight. Too many of Zack's friends had been injured in Iraq. “It must have been horrible."

  "Now you Americans are running around the world starting wars. Dragging the rest of us into them, too."

  Back when he'd fled the streets of Dallas to join up, he would have argued with her, would have told her that America would never launch a war without provocation, without extreme need. But could he really say that any longer?

  "As Tolstoy reminds us, ‘all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing,'” he said.

  "And you Americans are always so certain you're some of those good people, aren't you?"

  She turned on her heel and stumped back to her car.

  "That went well.” Ivy was laughing at him.

  He got back into the Opal. “Yeah. And Australia was part of the coalition in Iraq. Good thing we didn't run into someone from France. They lost soldiers here too, but they don't have to come this far to see their graveyards. Their whole country is covered with them."

  The ancient ferry wheezed into its dock a few minutes later and Zack started the car's engine. “Looks like we made it."

  "Maybe."

  He didn't like the sound of that. “Trouble?"

  "There's a who
le flock of helicopters heading this way. Looks like the rest of the Navy sailed too because I think I see a couple of destroyers heading this way at a speed that's illegal in crowded waters.

  He looked at the line of cars waiting to exit, then at the helicopters.

  "Keep your fingers crossed."

  Ivy nodded. “Think about where we're going to go if we make it off. Because there's going to be a second invasion of Gallipoli any minute now. And this time, the Turkish military and police are likely to be on the same side as the invaders."

  Zack roared off the ferry as soon as the cars in front of him cleared a path and headed for the village of Gelibolu.

  Ivy rolled down her window and leaned out, giving him a blow-by-blow of the arrival of the helicopters.

  "I wonder why they're not heading straight for us,” she said after he'd spent ten minutes trying to get lost in the narrow streets of the town. “We know they have sensors that can track the Cross."

  "This place is chock full of war memorials, graveyards and chapels,” Zack said. “Lots of prayer. Should be plenty of power spots to disguise us. Can you sense them?"

  She went still, examining their surroundings by that inner sight the Cross had given her.

  "You're right. Maybe there's enough power here to confuse them for a bit. Let's keep moving."

  Zack concentrated on driving, letting Ivy navigate.

  She gave him directions using a cheap map they'd bought from a tourist shack and even more often, using her second sight.

  Five times in the next couple of hours, she directed him off the road to nearby Mosques, chapels, or the ancient marble bones of what might have been Byzantine churches or possibly the ruins of even older pagan temples going back to the days when Alexander the Great had set off from this region on his quest to conquer the world.

  Others had tried to emulate Alexander's quest. Crassus, The Emperor Julian, Richard the Lion Hearted, Barbarosa, Napoleon, Hitler—all had failed in their attempts to impose the sway of the west over the east. Most had been destroyed by that destructive goal.

  It occurred to Zack that the Foundation might be following that same dream. Alexander had pulled it off and it was possible the Foundation could match his accomplishments. No one could stand against the U.S. military in open battle. Already, they occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and had powerful bases in Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman as well as an aggressive and warlike ally in Israel. The True Cross had led the west into battle before. Could a new crusade be more successful?

  "There's something weird ahead.” Ivy's voice broke through Zack's concentration. “Get ready to slow down."

  "Dangerous?"

  She shrugged. “Isn't everything?"

  * * * *

  They'd just passed through the city of Kesan when Ivy spotted the pale lavender power glow.

  Unlike the red of the Cross or the blue of the Veil, this power was more dispersed but it was definitely strong.

  "Turn right here.” She directed Zack into a grove on the side of the road.

  "What is it?"

  She checked her Kalashnikov. With no bullets left, it might serve as a threat, but she'd learned one thing from her military training—never threaten if you aren't prepared to follow through.

  Zack followed her directions, weaving the Opal through the grove until he emerged into a clearing.

  Wooden carts, a huge bonfire, and a troop of children practicing acrobatic moves told Ivy they'd stumbled across a gypsy caravan.

  "Perfect,” she said. “We'll blend in with them."

  "What makes you think they're going our way?"

  She smiled. “We'll persuade them."

  Although the gypsy children pretended not to see them, Ivy noticed they didn't come too close to the car. She was pretty sure there must be adults around too, but she didn't see any. No one lingered around the fire. No mother supervised her children.

  They got out, moving slowly. “Hello. Do any of you speak English?"

  After a brief discussion, one of the children, a girl of maybe twelve, was appointed the spokesperson.

  "Take my picture, then pay,” she suggested. “Maybe have fortune said?"

  "I have a bad feeling I know my fortune,” Zack whispered. “If I'm right, I definitely don't want to find out for sure."

  The girl grabbed Ivy's hand, stared at her palm for a moment, then dropped it and screamed.

  "They'll probably try to sell you something to eliminate your bad luck.” Zack was being cynical. Maybe he'd had bad experiences with gypsies before. To Ivy, they seemed incredibly romantic and old-fashioned.

  One thing for sure, she didn't think the girl's scream was anything planned. The other children had huddled around the girl and were speaking a mile a minute, but using whatever language gypsies use when they don't want strangers to understand them.

  After considerable screeching and a lot of hand-pointing, a boy of maybe six separated from the group and ran off into the trees.

  "Summoning adult supervision,” Zack said. “I wonder if we shouldn't get back in the car and get out of here while we still can."

  "That might have been wise.” The voice was heavily accented, male, and positively threatening, although not as threatening as the over-under shotgun he pointed at Zack. “But it is too late for that decision."

  "We are looking for some help crossing the border into Greece.” Ivy forced down her fear. “It's important that we get away from here."

  "Important to an American does not necessitate important to the Romany."

  The girl who'd grabbed her hand ran up to the man, being careful not to step between Zack and the shotgun, and started blabbing something.

  It must have been convincing because after twenty seconds of listening, he shifted the shotgun so it pointed at Ivy.

  "Who are you and what are you looking for?"

  "As I said, we're looking for a way out of Turkey. Into Greece, if possible."

  He narrowed his dark eyes into a squint. “Why would a vampire want to go to Greece?"

  Where had that come from? “I'm not a vampire."

  "Yolanda has the second sight. She says your lifeline is broken in the recent past. You were dead, then alive again. Who else but an undead would have such a line?"

  "Are you Christian?"

  He shrugged. “I ask the questions here."

  "I just wondered because all Christians know the story of Lazarus, how he was dead and then came back to life. I've never heard he was a vampire."

  The gypsy squinted. “Did you hear that he wasn't?"

  Okay, he had her there. She thought the point of the Lazarus story was just about how Jesus brought him back, not about what happened once he'd been brought back, although presumably he had comforted his grieving relatives and got on with his life. Still, Ivy didn't think the Bible would have played up the story quite so much if he'd come back and started killing and drinking blood.

  "Come on. You can touch me. Feel my pulse. Feel that I'm still warm. Oh, and I'll eat something with garlic.” What did gypsies eat? Ivy was hungry enough to give just about anything a try, although she might draw the line at human blood.

  The gypsy ran a hand through his long greasy hair and then barked a question at the girl.

  She nodded cautiously.

  "This is beyond me. I will summon the Queen."

  Ivy had noticed the second man sneaking up on her from behind. As he reached for her, she shifted her weight and let him stumble past.

  Zack's fists knotted and the muscles on his neck tensed as he prepared to go into white knight mode and probably get both of them killed.

  "It's okay, Zack. They probably just want to make sure we're not carrying."

  The first gypsy nodded. “My friend gets sometimes over-ambitious. Please allow the tapdown."

  Ivy anticipated some extra groping, but the quick search was professional and impersonal. “She's clean. And she's warm. Feels alive to me."

  "Take her to the Queen."


  Hidden in a dry wash a few hundred yards beyond the traditional carts of a gypsy caravan were the modern versions. Truck-pulled trailers, the aluminum dull and pitted, had been pulled in a circle reminiscent of old western movies showing wagon trails under Indian attack. Possibly, Ivy reflected, the gypsies would see themselves as continually under attack, just as the neighboring communities would see themselves as threatened by the gypsies.

  The shotgun-wielding gypsy gestured them to open the door to one of the smaller trailers. “In there."

  Ivy had collected the veil from Zack, but felt a bit naked with the Cross out of her sight. Still, the lavender haze of the gypsy camp would hide both Cross and veil from the Foundation. If she could win the gypsy Queen over to help them. If she couldn't, physically dragging the thing around with her wouldn't help.

  She opened the door and stepped into the unlit interior.

  The door slammed into her butt the instant both her feet were inside, shoving her forward and turning the dim interior into complete darkness.

  Physical darkness, anyway. Because the power glow was strong inside. Incense smoldered on little alters devoted to otherwise forgotten gods and provided multicolored energy light that her newly developed senses picked up.

  Behind her, she heard the sounds of a brief struggle, of fist hitting flesh.

  "It's okay, Zack,” she called to her partner through the closed door. She sensed that this was a place reserved for women, that Zack would be making a horrible mistake if he tried to force his way into the trailer.

  The struggle subsided, although she could practically smell the testosterone exuded by the males outside.

  What appeared to be a heap of clothing in the center of the room shifted slightly and Ivy recognized the heap as something human. The Gypsy Queen.

  The Queen looked as old as the Australian woman on the ferry, although Ivy suspected the strains of her office and of living on the road, rather than merely chronological years had created much of that sense of age.

  "They told me we needed to see you,” she said.

  "And do you see me?” The Queen's voice was harsh, like a rusty gate that had been too long without oil. “It is dark in here."