by P. W. Child
They left the other two members of the group behind in hopes of hearing from them soon. Purdue reluctantly drove away from the warehouse, genuinely hoping that the two men would be unharmed.
***
Overhead, above the slanted roof of the warehouse, the thick clouds wept onto the Czech soil where the scent of fresh mud filled the air. Inside the structure, Heidmann was searching Costa’s jacket pockets, turning up nothing but useless cashier slips and chewing gum wrappers. The failed artist turned collector steadily grew more impatient as he rummaged yet was left unrewarded for his trouble.
He had no idea if Costa had what he wanted on his person, but it was worth searching him for it nonetheless. Finally, he just patted down the unconscious Costa, wishing he had rather killed him, a feat he intended to accomplish once he had obtained the information from Costa himself. When Heidmann ran his hands along Costa’s side, he felt nothing. His left hand wandered across the cataleptic professor’s chest and felt a lump under his shirt. Heidmann caught his breath in excited anticipation, tugging carelessly at the seam of the black turtleneck to lift it up over the object between Costa’s pecs.
Heidmann looked around at the mutilated remains of the guards as if wary of their resurrection. It made him chuckle. His own panic was amusing, perhaps because he was so close to claiming the very thing he had been chasing for so many years. Costa’s sturdy hand fell on his just as his fingers found the elusive marble relic that had been secured as a pendant around Costa’s neck.
“That does not belong to you, you greedy bastard!” Costa seethed.
Heidmann was horrified, trying to quickly rip the heavy donut-shaped stone from his adversary’s neck, but it was too late. Costa’s back eyes blazed with hatred as he latched his powerful hand onto Heidmann’s. Scuttling furiously like a trapped rat, Heidmann retreated with all his strength and inched them both closer to the edge of the platform. The scaffolding was but one story high, but in his predicament, Heidmann just needed to separate himself from the keeper of the stone.
Kicking and tugging with all his might, Heidmann could not free his hand from Costa’s. With one last valiant effort he used his entire weight to pull free, but Costa, having anticipated the move, suddenly released Heidmann’s hand. The momentum flung the collector from the platform, and he fell hard on his side onto the dirty, blood-stained floor. It knocked his lights out for a second, but he came to just as the Greek professor leapt from the scaffolding.
Heidmann did not waste time crawling to the nearest body to seize a firearm from the corpse’s hand. While he checked the chamber, he heard the light foot Costa land. Heidmann turned and got back on his feet, aiming dead center at Costa’s forehead.
“You know I won’t hesitate,” Heidmann sneered gleefully at the stand-off. He was grateful for the gun he never thought he would be able to get in time.
“Mrs. Fidikos told me about the men you sent to kidnap her and Professor Barry. All the while I had the stone, not Soula,” Costa smiled.
Heidmann looked confused, but he had little time to conclude his business with Costa and so proceeded with his own claim. “Give me the Stheno stone! If you give me Stheno, I might leave you alive.”
Costa rolled his eyes. “In what sick little world would I give you the Stheno, James?”
“I can just shoot you right here and take it from you,” Heidmann retorted, bouncing the barrel of the gun up and down in his grasp to remind Costa of his bullets. “And then you may as well tell me where the Medusa is.”
“You did not do your homework, James,” Costa said plainly. “You cannot shoot me while I have Stheno. Unlike Medusa, her sisters were immortal, and while I hold her, so am I.”
Heidmann’s heart raced as Costa started moving opposite him, reaching for the round stone under his shirt. “Besides, nobody knows where the Medusa stone is. Not even me. It was just a strange coincidence that I ended up on the search for the Medusa with the very man who has possession of her sister stone,” Costa revealed. “Why are you not using yours, Heidmann?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Heidmann shrugged impatiently.
“We all know you have been blackmailing Soula, threatening to expose her roots to the world if she did not give you Stheno. We also know that you have Euryale, Stheno’s sister stone, in your claws. You are trying to assemble all three Gorgons, James. We all know that,” Costa cleared the confusion for Heidmann, eradicating any false pretenses of the collector.
“Why else do you think you ended up on this excursion, idiot?” Heidmann growled. “I was the one who suggested you to Helen Barry for Purdue’s party! Me! I knew if we were together on this trip in the godforsaken lands of Eastern Europe, I might get a moment alone with you so that I can take what belongs to me. I deserve this more than anyone! And by the way, I never orchestrated any abduction. What the hell would I want with Helen Barry or Soula Fidikos? Maybe you should check your own backyard for that snake you think I am.”
In his frantic, self-righteous speech, he did not notice Costa lifting the virgin marble relic to his left eye. Looking through it, the power of the Gorgon started to surge through him. When Heidmann realized, he did what any frightened and hopeless man would do. Five shots rang out from his barrel, but he was too late. The slugs penetrated Costa’s clothing, but his body had the resistance of solid stone, impervious to the onslaught of the lead. Behind Costa’s dark brown eyes an ancient fire grew, not one of flame and color but a fire as old as lightning.
“No! I’ll make you a deal, Megalos! I’ll make you a deal! You can share the riches with me. When I am done with Soula and her husband, I will be a billionaire, and I’ll cut you in on it. We can find the Medusa stone together!” Heidmann pleaded and suggested anything he could think of to appease Costa, but in vain.
A sharp light of purest white formed in Costa’s eyes as the power of the stone directed itself through him. Heidmann realized that he had but moments to evade attack, as the energy in Costa’s stare grew to immeasurable temperatures within seconds. He raced for the exit, but felt his feet, ankles and calves grown ice cold. Heidmann could not move anymore.
Shocked he looked down. Under his knees his legs grew grey and solid in his shoes and socks. He even took a moment to wonder why the deadly heat felt like ice, but soon realized it was the solace of burned nerve endings mercifully sparing him the sensation of the real temperatures.
“Where is Euryale, James?” he heard Costa ask behind him, as he felt his knees refuse movement.
“Oh, Jesus!” he cried as he felt the blood clot and his heart started to palpitate irregularly from the lack of circulation. “Oh, Jesus!”
Aware that looking in Costa’s eyes would turn his head and brain to stone, James kept his eyes on the professor’s torso. “This is not the Bible, Dr. Heidmann,” Costa growled in a deep rattle that lacked all humanity. “Here you cannot call on the Nazarene for mercy. Here is only a selfish king called Zeus and believe me he is no god. The only god present is me.”
“I’ll never tell you where Euryale is, you son of a bitch!” Heidmann spat furiously at Costa, making the inadvertently mistake of addressing him face to face.
He never even had time to realize his error. Soon to be the late Dr. James Heidmann, he screeched in pain as his tissue was instantly calcinated by intense heat. His flesh dehydrated so rapidly that his skin became papery before growing hard and cold.
With the swell of Stheno’s energy, Costa’s eyes shone like lightning streaks, filling his body with such immense magnetic power that his long dark tresses lifted around his head like a halo of snakes.
Moments after his opponent was effectively reduced to six feet of screaming rock, Costa pulled the Stheno stone away from his eye. Gradually, the light faded, and the magnetic force relented, returning him to his usual appearance.
“Ah! Finally you got the Stheno stone, James,” Costa coughed as he fixed himself up and replaced the pendant. “Just not in the way you expected, eh?”
/> The Stheno stone, named after one of the three mythological monsters, Gorgons from Greek mythology, was a sought after relic in the underworld of secret organizations. Soula had gifted it to her lover 11 years before when she acquired several artifacts from a dig where James Heidmann was leading the excavation. However, he never met the millionaires he worked for while supervising the excavation in the sub-cavernous site at Mount Olympus. Upon learning that he would not receive credit for her discovery, apart from a hefty sum of money, Heidmann had been left deeply outraged.
He had stolen one of the items, the Euryale stone and when he had accidentally killed a workman by looking through the hole at him, Heidmann had realized what it was. Ever since then, he had indirectly accosted Soula and blackmailed her family, threatening to expose the effects of the stones to the world. After stealing the two pieces for his exhibition from Soula’s Ukrainian associate, Oleg Bantra, Heidmann had hoped to sell the pieces for a small fortune,
But he never imagined that the effects of the stones would reveal themselves through a so-called act of God, of all things.
Chapter 25
Claire woke up in a well-furnished bedroom. Dazed, she sat up on the bed where she woke. Looking around, she could see barren walls which were only broken in their monotony by bright dark green drapes, lined with a golden meander motif along the edges. A large potted palm decorated the corner in a gilded pot and on her bedside table stood a jug of water with a tall upturned glass.
“Anyone here?” Claire called into the corridor past her open doorway. “Hello? Where am I?” There was no answer and the place was deathly quiet save for the buzz of a refrigerator in the kitchen a few feet from her door. But Claire was reluctant to explore. After all, she was well aware that she was being held somewhere by the men who had seized her and Professor Barry.
“Oh shit,” she said to herself. “Professor Barry.”
Claire had absolutely no idea what to do. The circumstances were just too strange to derive a conclusion from. How was it that as a captive, her door was left open? Why was she not gagged or restrained? From her clothing and lack of injury, she found that she had not been harmed or handled with any sort of disrespect at all. Her shoes had been removed and her purse were missing, though. Those were the only tell-tale signs that she was held captive at all.
On her tip-toes, she snuck along the lavish house’s corridor to the next room and found Helen Barry lying on the bed of the equally fancy bedroom.
“My God, Helen!” Claire cried and lunged forward onto the bed in her pants suit, her unkempt hair flopping about her slender face. The professor appeared to be sleeping off the effects of the Rohypnol, taking considerably longer than Claire to metabolize the sedative drug. “Professor? Professor Barry? Helen?” Claire persisted, lightly nudging her boss not to cause alarm in the poor disorientated woman.
Helen’s eyes fluttered a little at first, but she fell back into her slumber.
“Helen! You’re going to be late! Get up!” Claire exclaimed next to her, opting for the panic induced wakening technique she so frequently used on drunk roommates in college. It seemed to work. The professor started mumbling incoherently and tried to pry her eyes open.
“There we go!” Claire egged her on. “That’s a good girl! Come on!”
Helen’s eyes opened and she scowled heavily, trying to make sense of what she saw. “Claire?”
“Yes! Yes, Professor,” she smiled.
“What the hell are you doing in my room?” Helen asked with a groan. She did not realize, at first, that she was not home. But as she woke slowly the events at the British Museum came back to her. At the recollection of the abduction and the locker room, the large black car and the jet, her eyes widened suddenly.
“Oh, God! Where are we?” she shouted.
“Shh! We are safe. Just don’t make too much noise until we know what is going on,” her assistant implored.
“Alright. Alright, what is all this? Where are we, Claire?” Helen asked, still very confused. She was incessantly running her hands through her dark blond hair, looking obsessive, until Claire took her hand from her hair and held it between hers.
“Listen, I just woke up now too. But look, our doors are open, we are not bound or hurt,” she informed her boss.
“That is weird,” Helen remarked.
“Yes, but it is good, isn’t it? It’s not like they threw us in a stinking dungeon with rats, tied us to a rack and raped us, Professor,” Claire smiled. “I think we are not being held by a monster.”
Helen looked around, took a moment to listen and her eyes trailed the ceiling and windows. Slowly she nodded. “You know what? Usually they treat women well before selling them to the highest bidder. Remember that,” she said. “When they treat you well it is because you will be serving another, usually more sinister, purpose later.”
“Great,” Claire sighed. “You just made this much scarier than it should be, Professor.”
“Trust me, Claire,” Helen said.
“Look, they did not even lock our rooms,” she smiled at Helen, pointing to the open door. “We are not imprisoned.”
“Not in our rooms, sweetie pie,” Helen said indifferently. “I bet it would be a different matter if we tried to walk out the bloody front door. You see, we are not being kept captive in our rooms. We are held in this house. The house is our prison.”
Claire did not like the sound of that at all. Professor Barry only twisted the knitting needle she was shoving into Claire’s positivity. “Besides, they are giving us the illusion of freedom only because they have utmost control over our every move already. Look for surveillance cameras. Worry about what they put in your food. There are many ways to keep someone from leaving. I bet you this house is far away from civilization. They don’t need to gag you where no-one can hear you screaming, love.”
“Oh my God,” Claire moaned. “Oh my God, Professor, you are right!”
“Don’t panic,” Helen comforted her young assistant. “There is no use in losing your mind. Just accept your fate and keep an eye out for signs of a way out. Pretend that you are content with the conditions, otherwise, they might get rid of you.”
“We will do no such thing, Professor Barry,” a man said from the doorway, scaring both women into a yelp of fright.
In the door stood a tall, muscular old man, about 65 years of age, dressed in a loose white shirt and black pants. Around his waist he wore an expensive, elaborately woven belt of black leather with a silvery sheen to it. He had a well-groomed beard and black and grey hair in a ponytails. His voice was deep and his piercing eyes were dark, just like his eyebrows. Claire looked at her boss and whispered, “Sean Connery meets Dumbledore.”
The man laughed. “I shall take that as a compliment.”
“She did not mean anything by that,” Helen defended her assistant.
“Oh rubbish,” he smiled. “She meant every word. And since one is the personification of wisdom and the other is a ladies’ man, I cannot find fault in her assessment at all.”
“Well, she does speak her mind,” Helen chuckled sheepishly.
“I have come to invite you ladies to have dinner with me. Just the three of us, if you do not mind? You must be famished,” he said.
Both women almost jumped up at the invitation. They were indeed, starving.
“And you are?” Helen asked cordially.
“Oh! Where are my manners?” he laughed. “I am Deon. Deon Fidikos.”
“You are Soula’s husband,” Helen gasped. She had never met him before, having only dealt with Soula as one of the biggest benefactors of the British Museum. “It is good to finally meet you.”
As Helen instructed her assistant, she kept her cool, playing along as if she were a guest. Nothing merited the mistreatment of a prisoner like someone behaving like one.
“Claire, this is Soula’s husband, would you believe?” Helen told Claire, who nodded profusely to play into her boss’ ruse.
“You look nothing lik
e I imagined, Mr. Fidikos,” Claire smiled. “Oh, and that really is a compliment.”
He shook their hands and smiled. “Come ladies. If you do not mind walking on your stockings. I prefer it so. Don’t ask.”
“Of course. It is after all your house,” Helen agreed.
“One of many,” he noted unceremoniously as he led them down the hallway, down carpeted steps into a large dining room. Helen had a bad feeling about it all. There was just too much trust. There was just too much freedom. It was almost as if this man was so powerful that he needed no protection or guards to watch his prisoners. Such power was never good. People like that had to be feared.
Chapter 26
The place was modest, but lavish. It was a proper dining hall with paintings on the walls of magnificent mountainous landscapes and adorned with marble statues of gods and warriors. Some were covered, velvet and silk draped over them to prevent atmospheric damage. If this was but one of Fidikos’ houses, they could only imagine in their wildest dreams what his own home looked like.
Large chandeliers hung in gold and porcelain from the ceiling, three in number. Even the ceiling sported the Greek motif of the drapes in the bedrooms. It was peculiar that the room had no windows, but the art made up for it. The floor was covered with a large Persian rug, covering the pattern fashioned by mosaic tiling.
“I took the liberty of serving, how shall I say, normal food. A lot of people might not enjoy traditional Greek food, you see?”
“I have meant to ask, Mr. Fidikos,” Helen dared what she had been reluctant to find out. “Where are we?”
He smiled as he pulled out a chair for her, “A few kilometers outside Athens, Prof. Barry.”
Claire almost swallowed her tongue. “You mean we are in actual Greece right now?”