by Amy Lignor
Finally, he cleared his throat. “What do you mean you’re not coming?”
Leah winced at the clipped tone. She could feel his anger brewing right below the surface.
“It’s not a good time for jokes, Leah.”
“I’m not joking, Gareth.”
“This is my family we’re talking about,” he said quietly. “Our family. Emmanuel’s missing. Why? We have no idea. My pregnant sister is scared to death. They need us.” His gaze was direct; his eyes didn’t blink. “And you’re…not coming?”
Leah ordered herself to keep her head on straight. “I have to go to Kissamos first.”
Gareth rolled his eyes and released a sigh that sounded like one of frustration, as if the conversation had been nothing more than a waste of time they didn’t have to spare. He walked towards her, reaching out to carry the duffel holding the ancient spear. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing there, Leah. It was just a dream.”
“Gareth…”
He started talking faster, as if wanting to drown out any speech she could make to justify her actions. “Leah, I know what you’re thinking. But nothing mystical or biblical ever happened there. It wasn’t like it was the Devil’s summer home. The Rotunda has nothing of value; there are no clues there to be found.”
“I need it to save your lives,” Leah spoke quickly, trying to get a word in edgewise. “I need it to save our family.”
“Need what?” Gareth’s voice reached the next level on the aggravation scale.
Leah shook her head. “I don’t know. But it’s there.” Taking a step closer, she handed him the duffel and watched Athena’s armament poke through the worn fabric. “Take this with you, just in case.”
He remained stoic.
“You have to trust me, Gareth. More than you ever have before.”
She wanted to scream, sob, throw herself into his arms and apologize for the rest of time when she saw the look he wore. It was the coldest thing she’d ever seen.
“Trust you?” Gareth said. “When haven’t I?”
“Right,” Leah replied.
He held up his hand. “But unless God, himself, is sitting in Kissamos eating a burger and fries waiting for us to show up so He can save us all, than we go to Knossos first and help Kathryn.”
Leah shook her head. “I can’t.”
His voice grew louder. It was as if he were a volcano, spewing the first warning signs of black smoke and ash into the air. “Family comes first with you, Leah. That’s one of the things I love about you. No one in my entire life ever showed the kind of loyalty you do to the people they claimed to love. No matter what was going on, or what stupid artifact I wanted to find and hide from these psychos, you risked your life to save people. You never cared about all that other crap. Remember?”
Leah nodded her agreement. “You’re absolutely right. But this isn’t crap, Gareth. Whatever’s there, I have to go get in order for us to save people from being hurt.”
“You want to abandon the people we love for something you saw in a dream?”
“I don’t want to; I have to. It’ll only take a couple of hours at most, and I’ll be right back by your side.”
“I need you now.”
She paused. “I’m sorry.”
Clutching the duffel bag, Gareth walked slowly to the door. Reaching out, he set his hand on the knob. “So am I.”
Leah fought to stop herself from running after him. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t explain it to him. Even she didn’t know what was going on. All she knew was that something was waiting for her and she needed it more than air…more than her true love, in order to stop the nightmare from coming true. Her voice cracked under the pressure. “Don’t leave us like this.”
When Gareth looked back over his shoulder she could see it in his eyes. He looked like he was staring at a complete stranger. “Breaking up our team could cause pain to everybody. We learned that lesson already.”
She swallowed, knowing he was absolutely right.
“You said you would never have anything in common with Neith. Yet here you are, putting your family second behind some far-fetched idea.”
Her heart was racing from both anger and awareness. Her skin grew numb under his cold stare, listening to the judgment being handed down.
When the door shut behind him, Leah fell into the chair. It was like an anvil had been dropped on her chest. Closing her eyes, images flooded her brain.
In the dim light was the face of her enemy, smiling as he lifted the cup of poisonous silver to her lips. This time around, however, Gareth was there, writhing on the floor in a pool of his own blood. As he looked up at her from his violent deathbed, she heard his whispered words, “How could you let this happen?”
Opening her eyes, Leah ran to the window. Throwing the curtains aside, she watched Gareth haggle with the bus driver down below.
She tried to raise the window. He needed to come back up and talk to her, but the wood was painted shut. Leah screamed his name, hoping that her voice would carry through the unyielding object, but Gareth didn’t turn. Instead, he pulled out his wallet and presented the driver with a thick wad of crisp green bills.
The driver looked around quickly as if searching for the law. When the man had come to the obvious conclusion that a great sting operation wasn’t being played at his expense, he snatched the money from Gareth’s hand and stood to the side, pointing up the steps of the bus, welcoming his lone guest on board.
Leah watched from the hotel room as the doors of the sickly-looking vehicle closed behind them. A puff of black smoke issued from the exhaust, and the transport limped away from Lion’s Square.
She could barely breathe. Trying to think of what the mighty warrior would’ve done in this horrible situation, Leah felt sick to her stomach when she realized that she already knew the answer. Athena was the Hero’s Companion. She would have stayed by the side of her hero no matter what the cost and watched out for him, keeping him safe with her power and weaponry.
Which means my choice is dead wrong.
The pain she felt in her soul told her that. She, and not some maniac, had made her heart break and Lowery’s soul burn. Not only did she leave her own hero’s side, but she was now running towards something unknown, completely unprotected.
For the first time in their battle of good versus evil, Leah Tallent had no idea which side she was on.
CHAPTER 37
The rancid fumes were so stifling that Gareth began to wonder if the exhaust pipe of the dilapidated tour bus was actually sitting directly underneath him. The cracked vinyl seat had been re-covered more than once, and a wad of duct tape was digging into his spine. Worst of all, the happy southern driver was droning on and on behind his battered steering wheel.
“Where’s that pretty lady of yours I saw yesterday?”
Gareth rolled his eyes at the man’s accent. Figures, he thought. Not only do tourists get a horrible ride on this piece of crap, but they also miss the Greek experience by having to listen to a character from “Gone with the Wind.”
The bus hit a bump on the rocky terrain and unleashed stray coils from the worn seat. The rusted springs pierced his shoulder and Gareth winced at the sudden pain. He felt sick. For the second time in his life, his heart hurt.
He should feel elated right now. After all, Leah’s love and support had brought him to a place where his parents had been brought back to life—magically resurrected in his mind. But all he felt was shock and disappointment at Leah’s betrayal.
She didn’t betray you, he yelled at himself. Gareth knew that thought was totally absurd, and when he remembered the mean words that he had flung at her, disappointment drained from his soul, leaving only guilt behind.
He thought about all the years Leah had been by his side. She’d fought so hard, putting her life on the line to save him, Kathryn, Emmanuel, and the list went on. Gareth knew that the mercury had to have gotten to her. Quicksilver was the only explanation for her sudden weird
behavior, because he knew at his very core that Leah would never walk away from him without a damn good reason.
Gareth pressed his body back against the seat. He suddenly wanted to receive pain. I deserve it, his mind chastised him. He couldn’t believe he’d questioned her loyalty. It was only an hour ago she’d trembled in his arms, and now he’d walked out on her like some inferior man. He should’ve rushed to Kathryn, retrieved his family from Knossos, and stolen a goddamn plane if that’s what needed to be done just to get them all back to America so Leah could have the care of a doctor she obviously needed.
Trying to figure out what to do, Gareth surveyed the rows of green hills outside the window. Flowers bloomed bright and beautiful. Luxurious vegetation spanned as far as the eye could see, and the Kairatos River gleamed under the brilliant sun. Gareth swallowed even more guilt as he witnessed the body of water that exactly matched the color of Leah’s beguiling eyes.
The bus hit another bump and exhaust fumes filled his nostrils. Gareth was so angry he wanted to beat the hell out of himself.
“You know…the lady? That beautiful redhead standin’ next to you at the fountain yesterday?” The obnoxious driver rattled on.
Gareth wanted to strangle him. Instead of focusing on the road ahead, the man was busy staring back at him in the large rearview mirror. He assumed the man was hoping extra politeness would earn him even more money. After all, that was the way the world ran.
Money, Gareth thought. Which is all I’ll have left if I keep acting like an ass. Well, the driver could have it all, Gareth decided. He’d give the guy every dime if that’s what it took to get Leah back at his side.
He saw the driver shrug his shoulders and glance back at the road, but silence was still a lost cause. “Name’s Bernie.”
Gareth nodded.
“Came from the U.S. of A. to explore and…well, stayed for the ladies. Beautiful they are. Dark hair, dark skin, exotic—”
“Can you please watch the road?” Gareth’s voice rang out loud and annoyed.
“Sure thing,” Bernie responded. “Not supposed to take anyone out here, though. Told you that. There’ve been some people excavatin’ out here and no tourists been allowed. But they’ve packed up for the most part. Think just a handful are left. They got a few more days at the place before Nessie has to hightail it outta here.”
“They’re called UNESCO,” he corrected the man.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing.” Gareth had no energy to explain the organization that his sister and Emmanuel were a part of. “It’s not a problem, anyway. I work for them.”
The driver smiled in the mirror. “You an adventurer, are ya? Lots of priceless treasures buried in that palace.”
Gareth just stared into the man’s greedy little eyes.
“Well,” Bernie said, smiling wide. “Paid a pretty penny for it, so you might as well get the whole tour.”
Gareth pinched his forehead with his fingers, trying to stop a migraine from exploding behind his eyes. “I don’t need it.”
The man, of course, didn’t listen. Instead, he winked in the mirror as if Gareth was his new best friend. “Knossos ain’t too far. Just minutes away. Hey, did you know a Minuet is buried in a maze out here?”
Gareth shook his head in disgust. He felt frightened for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who were learning history from this idiot. He was reminded of something Leah had told him long ago: The scariest thing in the world is watching ignorance in action. She’d never been so right in her whole life.
He snarled at the ridiculous man. “Not Minuet; Minotaur. And it wasn’t a maze, it was a labyrinth.”
The man’s eyebrows rose on his forehead. “Same difference, ain’t it?”
Biting his tongue, Gareth kept his focus out the window.
Bernie seemed determined to redeem himself. Clearing his throat, he sat up straighter in the seat. “Guy named Evans first dug up the place, but he didn’t want to just find out what was under the sand; he wanted to bring it alive again. Cement, timber…he even had professional artists come in and copy the pictures on the walls before the originals were taken down and put in the museum.”
“And destroyed pieces of ancient history by doing it,” Gareth grumbled. He was one of many who never understood why an archaeologist—a man of history and science—would wish to rebuild an ancient monument. Who knew what Arthur Evans might have destroyed by painting over things; or, God forbid, what he might have buried under new layers of cement.
The old bus swayed and lurched down the Minoan road. Gareth fumed. “Why didn’t you just use the main route to get out here?”
“Fences. Barricades. Like I said, site’s been closed off.” Bernie grinned. “Besides, you deserve to really see it, sir. And this is part of the effect. This here is the back alley, as I like to call it. This is the actual lane the royal family would walk during their cult worship parades.”
Gareth sighed. The amount of knowledge this man possessed could be placed inside a thimble with room to spare.
When they broke through a small grove of trees and the bright red pillars and polished stone finally came into view, Gareth felt his pulse begin to race. He knew they’d arrived the second he saw the black nylon ropes that led tourists on a path directly up the steps to stand in front of a pair of horns set above one of the doorways. The Horns of Consecration decorated the flat rooftop as if a reminder to visitors to think twice before entering the world of the terrifying Minotaur.
Thankfully, the journey ended as Bernie pulled to a stop in front of the huge portico. Rising from his seat, Gareth practically ran down the aisle and jumped off the bus like a thrilled schoolboy starting his summer vacation. But it was too much to hope for. The driver followed him right out the doors and kept pace with him to the north entrance.
Gareth stopped in front of a relief fresco and eyed the huge bull leaping into the air. Its deadly horns were a bright yellow and stuck out boldly against a rich, azure sky. The creature’s head was down; its mighty hooves raised. And when Gareth noted the alarming smile that’d been painted on the bull’s face, he shuddered.
“They call this the control bastion,” Bernie spoke this fact quickly, smiling with pride at, what Gareth assumed, was his unending font of Greek history.
Avoiding him, Gareth walked to the ledge to stare out over the site. There were cavernous doorways everywhere; some wide open, some closed up tight. Staircases traveled in and out, around and down—connecting numerous porches and porticos as they went. The red pillars were scattered across the site, standing tall as if they were warriors guarding this ancient world from trespassers who dared to step inside.
Gareth scanned everything, hoping that with some luck his sister would be waving at him from atop one of the many structures. He turned in circles, looking down at the sanctuary of the central courtyard, praying in the back of his mind that Kathryn would show herself. But he spotted nothing. Only the sacred horns seemed to mark the landscape.
“Walk around to the northwest,” the irritating voice continued, “and you’ll find the Lustral Basin entrance. Might be open. That’s where Nessie was excavating early on. It’s really a sight to see. You walk down the steps into this sunken area that some people thought was a bath. You know…a tub?”
Clenching his fists, he turned on the man. He wanted nothing more than for Bernie to take a hike so he could run, yell out for Kathryn, test all the entries. But with Bernie by his side, Gareth knew that acting like he was on a life or death mission would cause the man to panic, drive back to the city and tell the law that some psycho was out here.
Gareth summoned all the patience he had left to flash his award-winning fake smile. “I know the way around, my good man. I work for Nessie, remember?” He continued briskly, “Been all over this place with a fine-toothed comb.” Laughing, he chucked the driver on his shoulder like they were two old pals. “I may just know this place better than King Minos, himself. But I was so intrigued by your informative to
ur.”
The driver’s beady little eyes shifted warily around the site. “You sure you’re one of them?”
Gareth heard a curious note in the man’s suddenly soft voice. “Them?”
Bernie paused. “There are funny things about this place.”
Gareth reached for the wallet in his back pocket, already knowing that cash was the only way he’d get the man out of his life for good. “And what funny things are those?”
Shrugging, Bernie lowered his voice even further. It was almost as if he was thinking that the mighty Minotaur would overhear him tell his secrets and claim him as his next victim. “Just…stuff.” He leaned closer to Gareth. “Offbeat stuff. Locals don’t like it.”
Gareth waited, trying to be patient with the man whose neck he was about to choke with his bare hands.
Bernie took another look around before turning back to Gareth. “Short while back, I brought a couple of newly engaged folk out here who wanted to get married. It was closed to tourists, like now. These young people were scoping out the place with a man from the city council. Pretty rich, I’d say. Groom was real elegant looking, you know? Said he was a Count.”
A haunted feeling began to claw at the back of Gareth’s brain, as if he’d heard this story somewhere before.
“He was way older than his soon-to-be-bride, though. She was young…pretty little thing with big—” he put his hands out in front of his chest in order to describe the woman’s apparent assets. “Good lookin’, she was. But a little snotty, if you ask me. Like the northerners back home. I wouldn’t have dated her.”
News which would have made her very grateful, Gareth thought. “So they came out with a councilman to see if they could have a wedding here. What’s so strange about that?”
The driver raised one thick eyebrow so high into his hairline that it looked to Gareth like a small animal was racing to be free of the man. “Wanting to begin your life in a place where tons of kids were slaughtered by a monster? Ain’t that strange enough?”