Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  David took a pull on his own cigarette and had to smother a cough as the burning tobacco seared a trail down his throat. The filterless cig left a bitter taste in his mouth, along with a few stray bits of tobacco, making him wonder why anyone would want to smoke in the first place. He hadn’t smoked since he was a teenager, and that brief habit had quickly ended when his father caught him and beat the shit out of him.

  “Everything has gone as planned,” he answered when he finally caught his breath. “I signed on at the dig site and even got my work location reassigned to an area close to the German encampment.”

  “That’s great. What have you been able to observe?”

  “Plenty.” David went on to describe the German camp, their movements, and practice sessions.

  Frank’s Italian might be atrocious, but he had a mind like a steel trap. Anything David told him would be committed to memory and relayed verbatim back to headquarters. He had been assigned as David’s counterpart for just that reason. Written notes on the Germans would be an instant death sentence if found on either of them.

  Frank was tan, just like David, helping him blend in with the locals. The short cut on what was left of his hair hid the fact that he was once a blond surfer-boy from California. A little boot polish and a dark gray cap covered the rest. If he appeared to be a little better fed around the middle than most Italians, no one seemed to notice.

  “… and that’s about it,” David finished, dropping his half-smoked cigarette with its three inches of ash on the cobblestones and crushing it beneath his heel.

  “Any sign of stashed munitions?”

  “None that I’ve seen, but I haven’t had a chance to search all the ruins yet. It’s a bigger place than I thought, with lots of out-of-the-way places to hide guns and artillery.”

  “Well, the informant swears they’re hiding them in the ruins somewhere. You need to find out where, and soon.”

  “I know. I know.”

  A long silence hung between them. Both men had learned early on that a friend made today could be shipped home in a pine box draped with the stars and stripes tomorrow. But that hadn’t prevented the two of them from becoming as close as brothers.

  “So, what’s the problem?” Frank finally asked, taking a last drag on his cigarette before he sent the butt flying down the alley with a flick of his fingers.

  “Nothing. Like I said, everything is going as planned. It’s been almost too easy.”

  “Almost?”

  Damn Frank, he was always observant, and after their two years in the service together, he knew David too well.

  “Well, there might be one small problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “Her name is Serafina Pisano.”

  Frank’s expression changed from one of concern to one of sly interest. “Oh, a woman. That figures.”

  “No, no. You got it wrong. She’s my partner at the dig site. Well, actually, she’s my boss.”

  Frank’s smile crinkled his face in a dozen creases, evidence of his years spent in the sun. “Now, this is getting interesting.”

  “She’s one of the archeologists. She’s young, but she seems to know her stuff.”

  “So, what’s the problem? I wouldn’t mind working next to a beautiful signorina every day instead of a bunch of smelly guys who’ve been wallowing in the trenches.”

  “I doubt that.” He rubbed at his shoulder, the muscles clenched in a constant bunch of knots. “She has me digging holes and hauling dirt from sun up ‘til sun down. I haven’t done this much hard labor since I spent summers baling hay on my uncle’s farm.”

  “You break my heart,” Frank laughed, obviously not believing David’s tale of woe. “So, whose side is she on?”

  “Definitely not ours.”

  “Well, that just means you need to stay on your toes.”

  “You got that right. One slip, and she’ll have me trussed up and handed over to the Germans before I know what’s hit me.”

  “Wow, is she that hard-assed?” Frank pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

  “You better believe it.” He declined Frank’s offer of a second cigarette. He still had an incredible urge to brush his teeth after the first one. “She’s already tried to have me fired once. I’m just glad there’s an old guy working there who seems to have taken a liking to me. He wouldn’t let her do it.”

  “Sounds like he should be your new best friend.”

  David chuckled. “He is a neat old guy. Sera, on the other hand. One minute she seems to be pissed off at the whole world, and the next she’s…”

  Frank leaned in and prodded him to continue. “She’s what?”

  “Nothing.” David shook his head. “She’s hard to figure out. Sometimes, I think she might suspect me. Every now and then, I’ve caught her looking at me in a weird way, like she’s trying to figure me out or something.”

  Frank elbowed him in the ribs and winked. “Maybe she just wants to get to know you a little better, if you know what I mean.”

  Thinking of Sera, he recalled the strange way she’d looked at him after he nearly hit her with the rock.

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s something else.”

  It was almost as if she already knew him, in more ways than he wanted her to.

  *

  If David Corbelli thought Serafina’s mood would improve with a good night’s sleep, he had another thing coming.

  She hadn’t slept much at all as the events of the past two days kept replaying through her mind. First, losing her first significant artifact, then losing her excavation site on the whim of a dirt digger who didn’t know the first thing about archeology. The very idea still irritated her.

  The rising sun had already warmed the early morning air as she pedaled her bicycle toward the ruins, wondering about him. There was something strange about Corbelli, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  His tendency toward violence unnerved her. She could overlook the incident with the knife —almost. After all, she had intentionally snuck up on him, and in these uncertain times of war, you never knew who was friend or foe. Some people tended to be jumpier than most, some less likely to trust a stranger. Heaven knew, she didn’t trust him.

  His constant wandering off from the dig site was what bothered her most. Was he lazy and trying to avoid doing the work? Or was there something more nefarious behind his frequent disappearances?

  Serafina’s imagination began churning out a dire scenario.

  Were his forays around the city for criminal reasons? Was he scouting artifacts already unearthed in order to steal them later? She shuddered at the possibility.

  Pompeii had been plundered and her treasures stolen for nearly two hundred years since her rediscovery. Precious artifacts were often sold on the black market to unscrupulous collectors for tiny fortunes. Anger at the rape of history made her blood boil. Thieves had no respect for the history of Pompeii. They’d even gone so far as to hack precious frescos off the villa walls on several occasions.

  Unfortunately, the Archeological Society had no money to hire guards for the site, and the Italian government had to deal with the small issue of a war. That left the archeologists to protect Pompeii and her artifacts—and her to keep an eye on that scoundrel, David.

  By the time she reached the east entrance just after dawn, she had all but convinced herself that he was a thief.

  Serafina often came to the site early before the others arrived. Besides being the coolest time of the day to work, it was also the quietest. She liked working alone with just the ancient stones for company. Sometimes she could swear she heard them speak to her, telling her stories of a time long ago.

  Feeling better as the familiar ruins surrounded her, she walked quickly to the new dig site, eager to get some work done before she had to deal with David Corbelli again.

  And that’s where she found him.

  David had beaten her to the site. He was already pulling up clumps of grass and tossing rocks and stones int
o the wheelbarrow. From the sweat stains under his arms and down the V of his shirt, she could tell he’d been working hard for quite some time.

  She walked up to him slowly, careful this time to make sufficient noise so that he knew she was coming. He looked up as she neared, resting one arm on the handle of his shovel and wiping the sweat from his brow with the other.

  “You’re late, Sera.”

  “No, you’re early. And I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t like it.”

  He sent her a cocky smile. “Well, in that case, consider ‘Sera’ my pet name for you from now on.”

  She scowled at him. Was he deliberately trying to make her hate him?

  His smile broadened.

  “Your dirt piles await. Shall we get to work…Sera?”

  Yes, apparently, he was.

  He nodded in the direction of her tent, folded and leaning against the stone wall.

  “I forgot exactly where the rock landed yesterday, so I haven’t set up the tent yet.”

  A vision of her lying on the ground with David hovering above her, his warm brown eyes filled with concern, instantly came to mind. But instead of the rush of anger she felt yesterday, an unsettling feeling pooled in her belly.

  Where had that come from? She was supposed to be angry at the man, not harboring intimate fantasies about him. Serafina ducked her head to hide her face behind the wide brim of her straw hat, hopeful it would conceal any hint of the conflicting emotions plaguing her.

  Finally, she looked up. Clearing her throat, she pointed to a spot near where they fell yesterday.

  “I think it was somewhere around there.”

  David looked surprised that she was actually going to let him choose the spot. Either that, or he was shocked that she had a sense of humor—enough of one to call him on what had transpired yesterday.

  “I was just kidding. I figured you would know the best spot to start.”

  She nodded at his deferral and walked around, getting a feel for the area. Before, her superiors had always told her where to dig. But she knew the signs and knew what to look for.

  Previous excavations in this area had only gone a fraction of the way down through the earth and volcanic ash before the digging stopped. The area had been virtually untouched in over eighty years, ever since serious archeologists had taken over where the treasure hunters left off.

  They stood at the end of what had once been a small side street lined with merchant’s shops. To the untrained eye, it was probably hard to tell because now only the top portion of the second story walls of the buildings peeked out of the earth. The rest was still buried nearly ten feet down under ash and volcanic stone.

  Finally, she came back to where the rock had landed yesterday.

  “Yes, this is the spot.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite.”

  David shrugged and went to get the tent poles. She stopped him as he dragged them over to where she stood.

  “No, set the tent up over there.” She pointed to a flat spot near a three-foot section of wall jutting out of the ground. “A lot of sterile dirt needs to be removed before we reach the artifact levels.”

  “Sterile?”

  “Sterile earth means the ash, lapilli, and pumice from the eruption that contains no artifacts. Over twelve feet of it buried Pompeii, and from the looks of things, probably around nine to ten feet are still left to be removed here.”

  His mouth dropped open. “You mean we have to dig down ten feet before you can even start?”

  “No, you have to dig down ten feet before I can start.” Serafina smiled sweetly at him. “You picked the spot, remember?”

  He tossed down the tent poles and stalked back to the supplies. No doubt he was looking for another rock to throw at her.

  She bent to examine the ground David had just cleared outside one of the walls. She heard his footfalls behind her as he approached, and she braced herself for whatever smart comment he was about to make. She felt him squat down behind her, and a bunch of wildflowers appeared under her nose.

  They were the kind that grew all over Pompeii. Vibrant red petals on tall weedy stalks sprouted in patches all over the ruins, even growing in the cracks and crevices of the stones in the walls.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. What was he doing?

  “Peace offering?”

  He smiled, and for the first time, she really noticed his face. The skin at the corners of his brown eyes crinkled, and two small dimples appeared in his tanned cheeks. His teeth were white and straight, and wisps of black curls jutted out from under his hat.

  Her mouth went dry as she looked at him, his face so very close to her own, and her heart began to pound.

  How had she not noticed it before? David Corbelli was a very handsome man—and the last thing she needed in her life right now.

  She reached out and took the small bouquet from him, the wildflowers already wilting in the heat. She stared at them, not really sure what to say. How dare he do something so sweet when she was all geared up to hate him?

  “Gr-grazie.”

  David stood, putting some much-needed space between them, and shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets.

  “So, what is this lapilli and pumice stuff?”

  Grateful for the change of subject, she set the flowers down and scooped up a handful of small pebbles. She shifted through the stones and pointed at a few tiny fragments.

  “Lapilli are small pieces of glass-like volcanic ash.” She picked up a slightly larger stone, not much bigger than a marble and riddled with tiny holes. “And this is pumice. If rock can be like a sponge, this is it. Some pumice is even light enough to float on water. Along with tons of ash, this is what covered everything when Vesuvius erupted.”

  He peered into her cupped hand.

  “They all look like rocks to me.”

  Dropping the pebbles back to the ground, she dusted her hands off as she stood.

  “Well, they’re not just rocks, but I guess that’s what makes me the archeologist. I know the difference.”

  She looked at David, expecting him to smile at what she meant to be a humorous remark. He wasn’t. Instead, he stared at her with intense chocolate-brown eyes.

  “So teach me.”

  Surprised, Serafina returned his gaze.

  “Do you really want to learn?”

  “Certainly. Since we’re going to be working together every day, I should probably learn the difference between a rock and an artifact so I’m not shoveling away something that might be important to your work.”

  Her work. The words sounded oddly flattering to her. It was rare that an outsider validated what she did as work. Most women who dabbled in archeology did it only as a hobby—young girls from rich families playing at the excavations until the heat and hard work got to them or something more interesting came along.

  She squinted at him in the sun.

  “Fine. I… we should probably start by putting up the tent before we both wilt like these poor flowers.” She touched the toe of her shoe to one of the pitiful red petals lying on the ground. “After that, I’ll show you how to grid off the area we will be excavating.”

  After setting up the tent, he started removing clumps of overgrown grass from the center of what used to be the road while she sketched on paper a plan of the buildings surrounding the site.

  They worked in a silent truce throughout the day. He dug where she told him to and she didn’t comment when he took a break now and then to climb the tower and rest, even though she thought it odd that he would do something so strenuous to relax.

  Once her anger faded, Serafina had to admit that being in charge of her own dig site was exciting. She chose where to dig, she would document every inch of the excavation, and she would get credit for any artifacts they discovered.

  She was almost grateful David had forced her into this situation. Almost.

  Chapter 9

/>   As the sun sank into the Bay of Naples, David and Sera packed up the supplies under the tent and headed toward the east gate. On their way out of the ruins, they passed Heberto going in the other direction. He was struggling to push a wheelbarrow down the cobbled road. Inside was a large clay jug nestled in a bed of straw.

  “Heberto, you’re working late this evening,” Sera said. “Maria will be upset if you’re not on time for dinner.”

  “Sì, but we just finished unearthing this at the thermopolium, and Professore Moretti wants it stored in the horrea.”

  “Let me take it there for you. No need for you to eat cold leftovers because Maria is angry at you again.”

  Chuckling, the old man eased the wheelbarrow down on its back legs.

  “I would be very grateful. The last time I was late for dinner, she made me eat dry toast on the back porch.”

  “Well, we can’t have that. Go on, get home while your supper is still hot.”

  “Grazie.” Heberto tipped his cap at them. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  Sera adjusted her pack and reached for the wheelbarrow, but David beat her to it.

  She stepped back, her brow furrowed.

  “I said I’d take it.”

  Ignoring her affronted look, he tossed her his pack and lifted the wheelbarrow by the handles.

  “I’ll help. Besides, I’m getting pretty good at pushing one of these things around.”

  She shrugged and heaved his pack over her other shoulder.

  “Suit yourself. Do you know where the horrea is?”

  “Nope.”

  She huffed out a heavy sigh, then started down the road. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  David followed behind, intensely aware of her stiff back in direct contradiction to her shapely, round backside. How could a woman who looked so soft on the outside be so cold and standoffish on the inside?

  “So, what is this thing?” he asked, glancing at the large vessel to make sure it didn’t topple out onto the street. “Some kind of wine jug?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, but kept walking. “Yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s called an amphora. We’ve found many of them at the thermopolium.”