by Nancy Madore
Watching her, Beth felt an unusually strong craving for a drink. She poured herself a cup of coffee, and moved away from Isabella. She sat on the edge of the table that served as Wayne’s desk.
It wasn’t until Isabella finished her coffee that she finally turned her attention back to Beth.
“That was delicious,” she said, and her plaintive tone created another craving in Beth.
“There’s more,” said Beth, motioning toward the pot on the tray.
“I’ll have some toast first,” said Isabella. She had the look and manner of a woman who always got her way. Perhaps that was the secret behind her strange calm. She simply couldn’t fathom anything bad happening to her.
“I don’t know if you realize this,” said Beth, “but we’ve got a problem here.”
Isabella smiled. She took her time in replying, chewing her toast completely and then swallowing it before she spoke. “I see why he stayed with you,” she remarked.
This brought Beth up short. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded.
Isabella shrugged. “Well…you’re not the most beautiful woman in the world,” she said. “But you’re strong. And smart. You have character…and something else I can’t quite pinpoint.” She tilted her head sideways, as if pondering what it might be. After a moment she gave up with another little shrug. “Very few women have that.”
This remark was delivered so matter-of-factly that it struck Beth with the force of a physical blow. It was almost as if the woman had invaded her mind and discovered her most vulnerable places. Beth reached beneath Wayne’s desk for the bottle of vodka she had stashed there and poured a little of it into her coffee cup with trembling hands.
“The drinking part confuses me,” added Isabella thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine…Wayne going along with that.”
Beth stopped what she was doing and stared at her. “Why do you say ‘Wayne’ like that?” she demanded.
Isabella drew back in surprise. “What?”
“You say his name like it’s a joke or something,” insisted Beth.
Isabella was clearly taken aback, but she recovered quickly. “I keep underestimating you, Beth,” she said with a sly smile. “I didn’t even realize I was doing that.”
“So why are you doing it?”
“Because it’s not really his name,” she said simply—so simply that Beth believed her.
“What is his name?” Beth’s voice was so weak it was barely more than a whisper.
“That’s not for me to tell you,” said Isabella. “It is forbidden.”
“Forbidden by whom?” asked Beth.
Isabella smiled again. “I can’t tell you that either,” she said. “Even if I did tell you, you would never believe me. You will not be ready to believe any of it until you see for yourself what’s inside that ring.”
This statement convinced Beth that her instincts about the ring were right. It must be very powerful and dangerous, because Isabella was pulling out all the stops to get Beth to give it to her. Meanwhile, she hadn’t even asked to be set free. All she wanted was the ring. It was as if it were the solution to all of her problems—one of which had to be the fact that she was a prisoner here. And yet that didn’t even seem to faze her. It suddenly occurred to Beth that Isabella wasn’t acting like a prisoner because she wasn’t a prisoner. She had no intention of leaving here without the ring.
Beth noticed that Isabella was studying her again, as if trying to guess her thoughts. “You don’t trust me,” Isabella observed.
“It’s nothing personal,” said Beth. “I blame the hunting knife.”
Isabella laughed. “It’s always been my favorite weapon,” she admitted. “Ever since I was a little girl.”
Beth could do little more than gawp at her. “What…did you grow up on a farm?” she asked.
“Something like that,” replied Isabella.
“Why aren’t you afraid right now?” asked Beth.
Isabella shrugged. “You want answers and I want the ring,” she said. “Why don’t we negotiate?”
Beth couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Where would we start?”
“I don’t know,” replied Isabella, growing serious. “And I may not have all the answers that you seek. But hopefully I’ll have enough that at some point I’ll say something that will convince you that I’m telling the truth.”
Beth could find no argument for this, so she reached under the desk again for a little more of the vodka.
Chapter 32
Long Island, New York
“I’m in no mood for this,” warned Nadia when Clive pretended to forget her hazelnut cappuccino.
“Jeesh!” he said. “Who pissed in your cheerios?”
“I’m just tired,” she admitted ruefully. “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Pulled an all-nighter, eh?” said Clive. “Hmph! I wouldn’t have thought Will had it in him.”
Nadia smiled in spite of herself. “You’re way off base, Clive.”
“Oh?” he shot back. “So…just so we’re clear…you’re saying he doesn’t have it in him?”
Nadia turned imploring eyes to Gordon. “I really don’t have the energy for this,” she complained.
Gordon laughed.
“The reason I was up all night,” she said, adding for Clive’s benefit—“if you must know…is that I couldn't get Jeremy Nasterson out of my head.”
“That’s disgusting!” exclaimed Clive.
Nadia ignored him. “Did you find anything on him?” she asked Gordon.
Gordon fished through his notes. “Rich Texas kid. Father owned Nasterson Oil of Rockwell, or NOR., as it’s better known as. Jeremy went to Harvard and then inherited the family business. Later, in the eighties and nineties, he started buying up alternative energy companies, all of which took substantial losses and then eventually went bankrupt. It’s almost as if he’s doing it for the tax breaks. Pretty typical stuff, really, for your average, run of the mill billionaire. He avoids taxes like the plague.”
“What is there, some special major in tax evasion at these Ivy League colleges?” asked Clive.
“Must be,” said Gordon, shaking his head. “In the decade just before Nasterson became a billionaire, he reported almost no income to the IRS. His best year showed an income of fifteen thousand dollars. Most of them showed no income at all. In that entire ten year period he paid less than ten thousand dollars in taxes. But suddenly he’s a billionaire, with so much money he decides to buy a bank.”
“NOR Financial,” finished Clive.
“Yep,” said Gordon.
“Ten thousand dollars in taxes in ten years?” echoed Clive. “Can I get the name of his accountant?”
“Would you really want it?” asked Gordon.
“I guess not,” replied Clive. “If the middle class stops paying taxes, then who’s going to pay my salary?”
“What else?” asked Nadia.
Gordon shrugged. “Not much. The holdings of NOR financial include banks, energy companies, brokerage companies and an investment management company. It has a market value of approximately six point three billion, which is about half the amount of his personal wealth, which is estimated at twelve point five billion.”
“Okay, so Jeremy Nasterson fits the profile of most of the people in the top one percent,” said Clive. “He’s born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s educated in an Ivy League college. He dodges taxes. And he buys up companies just to put them out of business. How’s he different from any of the others? What makes him one of Wessler’s ten?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that all of the companies Nasterson bought—with the exception of the banks and other financial institutions—were in alternative energy?” asked Nadia. “Or how about how his banking and financial holdings have flourished while all of his alternative energy companies have gone bankrupt?”
“Strange?” asked Gordon. “Not at all. Not when you consider that his bread and butter is in oil.”
/> Clive narrowed his eyes at Nadia. “Where’ve you been the last twenty years?” he asked. “Big oil has been buying up patents for alternative energy for years—for the sole purpose of burying them.”
“But are those other companies getting government funding to do it?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Gordon. “And the oil companies aren’t just the first in line for the energy stimulus programs either. They get the best tax breaks too.”
“Hey, I just thought of something!” said Clive. “That whole Renergy thing was Nasterson, wasn’t it?”
“Yep,” said Gordon. “And typically, the whole thing was buried beneath a huge political scandal, with both parties arguing over whether or not Nasterson’s campaign contributions were the reason he got the government funding. Ultimately it just became one more thing for the parties to use to try and get elected. Nobody thought to ask Nasterson what he did with all that money or why the company went bankrupt.”
“It seems like they could’ve at least gotten him for providing false information on a loan application,” said Nadia. “He had to do something to qualify for that loan.”
“Unless he flat out sabotaged the company after he got the money,” said Gordon.
“Either way, it seems like it should be a crime,” said Nadia. “Here he is, a billionaire who doesn’t pay any taxes, and meanwhile, those of us who are paying taxes had to pay back that loan.”
Gordon nodded. “Not to mention the nearly two thousand people who lost their jobs when Renergy went down. Or the investors who were unfortunate enough to have Renergy included in their portfolio.”
“This is all very nice,” said Clive. “But aside from pissing me off, what’s the point? Everything Nasterson is doing is the same as every other billionaire who cheated their way to the top. What does it have to do with Wessler’s plot to hit that fault in Japan?”
“I think the alternative energy issue has something to do with it,” said Nadia.
“Oh?” inquired Clive. “Tell us more, Nancy Drew.”
Nadia gave him a look. “You don’t have to be so impertinent,” she said.
“I don’t really know what ‘impertinent’ means,” he replied. “So I’m just going to assume it means ‘complimentary.’”
“Really?” said Nadia.
“Yes, really,” he insisted, serious all of a sudden. “Nancy Drew was possibly the greatest detective that ever lived, so when I compare you to her, I’m paying you a tremendous compliment.”
Nadia burst into loud laughter. “Do you even know who Nancy Drew is?” she asked when she was finished laughing.
“I just told you,” he said. “She’s the greatest detective who ever lived.”
“She’s a character in a book,” said Nadia. “It’s a series for young girls.”
“I find that remark extremely discriminatory,” objected Clive. “Are you saying young boys can’t read Nancy Drew?”
Nadia looked at Gordon, who would normally have interjected by this time, but who seemed genuinely interested in where this was going. She turned back to Clive.
“Are you saying that you’ve actually read Nancy Drew?” she asked.
“My favorite is The Secret of the Old Clock,” he replied reverently. “She was absolutely brilliant in that one.”
Nadia just stared at Clive, momentarily nonplussed. She did seem to recall something about a clock in the Nancy Drew collection she had read as a young girl, but how would Clive know about it—unless he had actually looked up the collection online in anticipation of a moment just like this? Nadia couldn’t contain a smile.
“Anyhoo,” continued Clive. “I believe Nanc—I mean, Nadia—was about to offer us a fresh clue relating to alternative energy.” He turned to her with wide, expectant eyes. His expression was one of the utmost interest.
Nadia chuckled. “I just thought it might be connected,” she said, having completely lost her train of thought by this time.
“Nadia may be right,” said Gordon. “The Ibaraki Prefecture is one of Japan’s key industrial areas. They specialize in nuclear energy, but there’ve been some whispers in the environmental sector that they might be conducting some top secret research on other alternative energy sources.”
“What kind of alternative energy sources?” asked Nadia.
“I don’t know,” said Gordon. “It could be another, more sophisticated form of nuclear energy, for all I know. Japan has always been a strong proponent of nuclear energy. In fact, many people consider it the solution to our energy problems.”
“God help us all,” said Clive.
“Why?” asked Gordon. “It’s the cleanest form of energy we’ve found to date!”
“Says who?” demanded Clive.
“Says the history books!” said Gordon. “All you have to do is look at the facts!”
“I once read a story about a place called Hiroshima,” said Clive. “Is that the history you’re referring to?”
“It’s not the same thing,” said Gordon. “I’m talking about nuclear energy, not nuclear bombs.”
“Yeah, well, if they’re that different they should give them different names. That word ‘nuclear’ gives me the creeps.”
“That area in Japan has something Wessler’s ten want, according to Poseidon,” said Nadia. “Could it be a new source of energy they want to buy—that Japan is refusing to sell?”
“It’s possible,” said Gordon.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of speculation about oil reserves running low,” said Nadia. “I usually don’t pay attention to that kind of doomsday-conspiracy stuff but…what if it’s true? Do you suppose there could be some kind of energy race to find the next big source?”
They all contemplated this in silence.
“And how is this connected to Asmodeous’ warnings about Armageddon?” wondered Nadia. Her desire to contact her father persisted, but she couldn’t bring herself to suggest it to Gordon and Clive.
“Maybe we should start looking into that,” said Gordon. “Ornias said we had as much information to go on as they did. Remember? He said it was all in the book of Revelations. Maybe we can find some clues there.”
“In The Bible?” laughed Nadia.
“Have you ever read it?” asked Clive. “It’s pretty damn educational.”
“You’ve read it?” she asked incredulously.
“I quoted it to you on the plane!” he said. “Remember? The Book of Joshua.”
“Oh yeah,” said Nadia. “I forgot. What prompted you to memorize the scripture like that?”
“It was part of our training,” he said. “We’ve had to familiarize ourselves with every piece of literature relating to the djinn—no matter the source. You can learn a lot about the Nephilim from The Bible.”
“They’re mentioned in Genesis and Numbers too,” said Gordon. “But I don’t remember ever reading Revelations. Was that part of our training?”
“No,” said Clive. “And as far as sources go, I consider most of The Bible sketchy, at best. Its authors are too prejudiced to be reliable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get some useful information from it. But Revelations…wow! Talk about your freak show. Historically speaking, I always thought the most we could learn from Revelations was that, even all those years ago, people were using LSD.”
“Many people have tried to interpret it…and failed,” agreed Gordon.
“My father figured it out,” mused Nadia.
“Maybe,” said Clive. “Don’t forget…these djinn might think they’re gods, but the reality is that they’re not that much higher on the food chain than we are. You know what I mean?”
Nadia did. The djinn were as flawed as the angels and the humans that made them. And yet, she wouldn’t mind hearing Asmodeous’ take on this.
“We need to hear more from Poseidon,” said Gordon. “If we can figure out who captured him, we might be able to find whatever it is that’s behind all this.”
“You think it could be another d
jinn?” asked Nadia.
“Could be,” said Gordon. He and Clive exchanged glances. “Or maybe something even bigger.”
“If I believed that I don’t think I would be able to do this,” said Nadia.
“Let’s just take this one step at a time,” said Gordon, handing out the masks. “It could be that Wessler stumbled onto Poseidon accidentally. That’s the best case scenario—and the one we’re hoping for. But let’s not forget that Uranus didn’t go back to wherever he came from after that incident with Cronus. He stayed on that island in the Mediterranean, remember? He could still be out there, for all we know.”
Nadia looked from one to other. “If we are going to be fighting angels,” she said, slipping the mask over her head, “you two better have a few more tricks up your sleeves than what I’ve seen so far.”
Chapter 33
Ancient Greece
Twenty-first century, BC
Though Zeus was the undisputed leader of the Olympian army, he shared his authority with eleven of the others. The order of rank seemed directly proportionate to their connection to him. His siblings were given the highest position, followed by his children and then, finally, the cousins who had defected from the Titan army to fight with the Olympians. These eleven were Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Artemis, Apollo, Athena, Prometheus, Ephimetheus and Aphrodite.
The war against the Titans would cost all of them their original bodies before it was over. In fact, human bodies were in constant demand, as Poseidon and Hades were the only two gods that fought without a physical body. In Poseidon’s opinion, they were the only two soldiers that were making any headway in the war. But then again, neither side was making much progress. Even Poseidon’s power to wipe out a multitude of warriors with one storm couldn’t stop the Titans from coming back. All he was doing was killing human bodies. The vast majority of the souls escaped. They were hard to capture, and it got even harder as their souls grew stronger.