by K. T. Tomb
An hour and a half later, Phoenix waved goodbye to her departing guests. They had shared a delicious dinner of sushi, barbecued brisket, pulled pork and had destroyed several bottles of the Italian wine Thalia had acquired from her admirers in the Vatican. As she stepped away from the door, allowing Jennifer to swing it shut and secure it, she sighed heavily.
It had been nice to see everyone again. It had been even nicer to finally make her return to the real world, her world; the one that held her dearest friends and family. She had asked them not to disturb her ‘grave’ in Taos. She wanted it to remain as it was for several reasons. When her mother asked her why, she had replied, “I’ll explain it one day, Mom.”
“I have to admit that it says, ‘Thalia Phoenix’ on it.”
“That is exactly what it should say, Mom. That’s me.”
With her reverie coming to an end, Phoe turned to Peter and Eric and smiled a big smile.
“I’m so glad you guys agreed to come along with me. It’s been very lonely and I have a feeling I’m going to need some help with the next few jobs. I’m not ready to stop my jet-setting yet.”
The three laughed heartily as the jet backed out of the hangar and taxied to the runway.
“All clear for takeoff, Ms. Phoenix. Would all passengers please buckle your seatbelts? Flight attendant, please cross check in preparation for takeoff.”
Jennifer checked the door and opened the window shades from the front to the rear of the jet where she took her seat and buckled her seatbelt. She pressed a button on the wall beside her and said, “Cross check is complete. All passengers are secure and ready for takeoff.”
“Roger that!”
“So, where to, Phoe?” Eric asked as the nose of the Beechjet lifted into the air.
Chapter One
During his twilight years, American author Mark Twain noted that “life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.” Twain’s quip was only one of many complaints about aging that have been recorded for as long as humans have dreaded the downside of a long life. The ancient Greek poet Homer called old age “loathsome,” and William Shakespeare termed it “hideous winter.” —Willie Drye
***
Phoe woke up from a restless slumber to the sounds of the city below. Her new house had creaked and groaned in odd ways all through the night, waking her up several times. It gave her the strange feeling that someone was trying to climb in through her bedroom window. This new house would take some getting used to. She missed her old apartment and her store much more than she wanted to admit.
Two years ago, a fire had destroyed her store, Simple Treasures, as well as the attached apartment. She and her best friend Charlotte had lived and worked there. The fire had destroyed not only the amazing and rare artifacts and antiques she had traveled all over the world to find, it had destroyed the way of life she so passionately loved. Her business selling beautiful replicas of her artifacts was gone. She had left the insurance money and the deed to the property to Charlotte and had heard that she had rebuilt the place entirely; as if it had never been destroyed at all.
Phoe had money to spend now; between her handsome payment for the last two investigations she had done for Simon Kessler and the proceeds from a very valuable artifact she had sold, she owned her own jet, her own private limousine and now, this old but beautiful townhouse. It was an impressive penthouse apartment in a 17th-century corner house building located on the unique and prestigious Grand Canal. The property had a private terrace facing the canal with a water door, separate staff apartments and views on four sides. At that point, she couldn’t quite make anything she might want to appear by magic, but she was damn close to it. So, she didn’t have the patience for the feelings of self-pity that she awakened with that morning. Still, her new house was not quite right. She was angry with herself for feeling like a crybaby and angry with the world for destroying those simpler things that she loved.
She’d recovered a few artifacts that were thousands of years old, things any serious collector would ransom their soul to possess. Phoe—as she had insisted people call her—had risked her life in order to find those things. Her adventures had rivaled those of Indiana Jones; in fact, those old movies were her favorites, and she liked to watch them whenever she needed some cheering up. After all, her life was filled with adventures that were a lot like his. Those were just the few undertakings she had done for Simon. Since then she had traveled to every continent on the planet and tracked down several more rare, even lost, treasures. Her most noted sponsor had come to be the Vatican itself. That was how she had found her amazing new digs. They had even been influential in removing some of the red tape that had threatened to block the sale of such a historic property to a foreigner.
Thalia had been relieved at the prospect of setting down some new roots after being on the road for two straight years. After the Lair of Beowulf adventure, she had never returned to Taos, New Mexico. Her family and friends had assumed she died in the video game and had even had a memorial service in her honor. She’d had no desire to go back home to pick up the pieces of her old life and she had explained it all to her friend, Peter Kellerman. Her decision to travel and seek out adventures on her own had filled the years with new friends and colleagues and new lessons and experiences.
She had learned three languages and now spoke Italian, French and German. She planned to learn Spanish next and had started taking a few lessons. It was progressing well. At the time she decided to settle in Venice, she’d had no assignment or new adventure to go on and realized that the time had come to make things right with her family and friends back home. It had been a liberating decision. Eric returned to Venice with her and so had Peter. She had already decided that she enjoyed having company again.
Thalia crawled out of bed and stumbled out to the kitchen. Despite the beautiful restorations, the luxurious modern amenities and the opulent furnishings, the place still felt all wrong. For instance, right now it sounded like a cat meowing. Or was it crying? A child crying? Why would she be hearing a child crying? This was a luxury community dominated by aging billionaires and their non-baby toting, eye candy girlfriends and trophy wives. Each house had precariously high balconies that sported barely-there railings and sheer drops into the canals below. None of her neighbors were likely to have children, at least not of an age where crying was still a viable a means of communication. It must be a cat; a loud hungry alley cat. Thalia turned the coffee maker on. The noise didn’t stop; if anything, the crying was getting louder and it was definitely coming from just outside her front door. She went back to her bedroom and threw a robe on over her nightgown.
“Oh, all right. I’m coming. But if you’re some sort of door to door salesman, so help me...”
She unlocked her door and saw nothing. She looked up the street and down the other way. Nothing, not even a leaf was there. Then, a small voice cooed, “Señora?” On the doorstep at her feet was a plastic laundry basket, cracked and broken from much use, and sitting inside the basket, surrounded by a pile of dirty old blankets and clothes, was a small child. Really, a toddler.
“What the...” Thalia Phoenix slammed the door in shock. She put her back against the door and took a deep breath.
What the hell is going on?
Then, she opened it again, mumbling all the while. “This is an illusion. It has to be. There really just can’t be a child sitting on my doorstep! It’s 2014, for Christ’s sake. Who the hell does this in 2014?”
She peered across the shared courtyard and over to the closed front doors of her neighbors’ homes. The people who lived in that part of town all had plenty of money. None of them would have left a child in a broken laundry basket on her doorstep. Even the people who worked for them doing the housekeeping and taking care of the immaculate courtyards and gardens were most unlikely to leave their children on random doorsteps.
The child stood up in the basket and lifted its little arms. Phoe took a fe
w steps back and shouted loudly into the house.
“Peter, Eric! Get out here now!”
The little one called out to her, “Señora! Señora!” several times, pleading with her to pick it up and take it inside. Unable to move, she looked at him for a few moments longer before she picked him up and carried him inside. She sat him down on the living room floor and went back to get the basket. It didn’t look as though it could have anything of any value in it, and the first thing she wanted to do with it was toss the whole mess into the trash. It smelled of old diapers. However, there might be something in it that would tell her where the child had come from, so she took it into the laundry room to sort out later.
The child sat on the floor, looking around with large, dark eyes. He did not appear to be upset, only curious. Thalia thought he was adorable. His head was covered with thick dark curls, reminding her of gypsy children she had seen throughout her travels in Italy.
“Señora. Leche, por favor,” he said, asking for milk.
She had to smile at that. How many small children actually said please to their elders these days? This one nearly broke her heart. She picked him up and carried him into the kitchen.
“What’s your name, sweetheart? Cual es tu nombre?”
She wasn’t sure whether her Spanish made any sense. She’d only taken a couple of lessons so far. Even though her teacher had praised her incessantly for her ability, she knew that so far, she hadn’t put much work into the training. She had tried to learn the language before in high school, but that was just before her older brother Eric had disappeared. Back then, she had idolized him. She used to think he could do almost anything, and he always knew how to make her laugh when she felt frustrated or sad. He had eaten breakfast with her that last morning before she went to school, but when she came home, he was gone, and no one would tell her why, or where he had gone. She went to his room that night and found that all the things he loved most were gone with him. Her mother refused to even talk about him, except to say they would likely never see him again.
Thalia Phoenix had taken lessons in self-defense, almost from the time she could first walk. But right after her brother left, her mother insisted she study everything from kickboxing to jujitsu, along with every variation on the art of defense that had been devised, until the girl was a walking lethal weapon. “The last thing you need to be is a helpless female,” her mother would growl at her when Thalia came home particularly battered and bruised. She grew to hate it, and everything her mother stood for. It was only within the last few years, when she began to search the world for strange and wonderful artifacts, that she discovered she could use every bit of the training her mother had insisted she get. Thalia Phoenix definitely was not a helpless female. Yet, she was feeling extremely helpless now.
“Mi nombre es Angelo,” the toddler said, introducing himself as Angelo.
“Why are you speaking Spanish and not Italian?” she asked rhetorically, knowing she wouldn’t be able to explain why a child abandoned on her doorstep in Venice wasn’t even speaking the nation’s primary language.
Angelo’s only response was a beautiful smile.
“Well, you are a little angel. Let’s see what we have for you. I don’t think I have any milk, but I do have some juice. Would you like juice?”
She opened the refrigerator and found a bottle of grape juice. Angelo looked like he was interested, so she poured out a small cup for him. He grasped it in both his hands and took large, hungry gulps, spilling some down the front of his already dirty shirt. Phoe looked around the kitchen and realized that neither of her companions had shown up downstairs as yet.
“Peter! Eric! Where are you two? Get your asses into the kitchen! Pronto!”
Just then, her cell phone rang. Thalia swung the child around to her hip so she could answer it. Simon Kessler was on the line.
“Listen, Phoe. I know you’re just getting settled into the new place and kind of taking a break before you get back on the adventure horse, but I needed to inform you of something the minute I found out myself.”
“What’s happened, Simon? Is everything okay? I kind of have my hands full right now, like literally, so if it’s about a new job, I am interested, but I’m going to have to call you back in a few minutes.”
“This can’t wait, Phoe. It’s really important. I just got a call from Monsignor Alvaro in The Holy See. Friar Batista has gone missing. He had notified Alvaro that he was going with that group of Buryat historians into Tibet to look for a legend.”
“What do you mean he’s disappeared?”
Oh shit! What the hell could have happened to Angelo?
“Simon, did he give the Monsignor any details about what exactly he was going looking for in Tibet?”
“Yeah, he did. But the man didn’t take him seriously at all. In fact, he told Batista in no uncertain terms to get his ass back to Rome. When he didn’t turn up, they launched a search. He’s disappeared without a trace. The four historians too.”
“What were they after, Simon?”
“The Fountain of Youth.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? What do you want me to do about this? Did Alvaro ask you to send me in on this? To find Angelo and the others?”
“They did. You need to leave immediately! I can’t say it enough, Phoe. This is important. This is very important. The sooner you get on it, the better.”
“What’s in it for you, Simon?”
“I’d think you’d have figured that out by now, Phoe. Don’t fail either of us on this. Bring back Angelo and the others for the Monsignor and bring back the water from the Fountain for me. I don’t even need a location. Just bring me that water.”
Then it hit her.
Oh damn!
She looked down into the big dark eyes that were looking up at her from the child in her arms.
Angelo? She shook her head. No, it can’t be.
Thalia put the phone away and turned around in time to see Peter Kellerman walk into her kitchen. He was stretching his arms over his head and yawning with both eyes shut tightly.
“What the hell are you hollering for?” he asked before he spotted the child seated on the kitchen counter in front of Thalia. His jaw dropped.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been hollering for you and Eric for a half an hour!”
“Phoe, what the hell have you got there? Where did that come from?” he asked, ignoring her question altogether as he pointed at Angelo.
“I found him on the doorstep in a dirty old laundry basket when I came in to make the coffee this morning.”
“You’re shitting me, right? You’re babysitting for a neighbor or something. Right?”
He pressed her to agree with what he was saying but the look on Thalia’s face said that she couldn’t do that.
How the hell had someone just strolled into the courtyard and left a kid at the door? It couldn’t be that easy.
“We need better protection.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of anyone making designs on abandoning children at the door when I bought this house. I was just looking for peace and quiet, you know. This one seemed decent enough.”
She handed the toddler to Peter so she could make a start on fixing some breakfast.
“I wonder if he’s eaten yet. I’m freaking starving. Let’s see. We’ve got a few things here. I could scramble some eggs, or make pancakes. There’s coffee in the pot.”
Peter took the child in his arms. Then, he held it out at arm’s length and said, “You smell. No offense, Phoe, but this kid needs a bath and some clean clothes.”
“I don’t think he has anything fit to wear. Everything in the basket he came in looks filthy. I want to put it all in the trash, but all things considered, maybe I should run them through the washer and dryer.”
Peter filled the kitchen sink with warm water and stripped the child down. He threw the filthy diaper into the bin and sighed when he could breathe again. Then he took the little boy’s shirt
off and stepped back. There was a large black, red and orange tattoo of a phoenix in flames across his back.
“Whoa, Phoe. Would you have a look at this?”
Thalia turned around from the pancakes she was making. She gulped in surprise. The spatula fell from her hand and clattered to the floor.
“Oh, my God! That’s not possible. That just can’t be real! That crazy fool! He fucking found it!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Phoe. But this shit looks pretty bad if someone would really do this to a toddler.”
“He isn’t a real toddler, Peter.”
“What the hell do you mean? I can see him right here in front of me. In all his dirty, stinky baby-ness. He’s real and so was the smell coming out of those diapers.”
“I’ll explain everything over breakfast. This is way too much to process without burning the fucking pancakes to charcoal briquettes. I’m gonna call down to Gregorio’s store to get some stuff delivered for him right away.”
While Phoe conversed animatedly with Gregorio and recited the strange grocery list, Peter patiently washed the child. She hung up the phone and continued attending to the pancakes while he dried the child off and struggled to wrap him up just so in the towel, so it wouldn’t tumble off him to the floor.
“Just wrap it around his middle or leave him naked, Peter. The delivery boy won’t be long with the supplies. I told Gregorio to step on it.”
As Peter tucked a hand towel around the child’s waist, the doorbell rang.
“See? Go get that, would you?”
Peter breathed a sigh of relief, put Angelo down on the floor and went to answer the door.
Chapter Two
The Ichthyophagi then in their turn, questioned the king concerning the term of life, and diet of his people, and were told that most of them lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age. They ate boiled flesh, and had for their drink nothing but milk. When the Ichthyophagi showed wonder at the number of the years, he led them to a fountain, wherein when they had washed, they found their flesh all glossy and sleek, as if they had bathed in oil—and a scent came from the spring like that of violets. The water was so weak, they said, that nothing would float in it, neither wood, nor any lighter substance, but all went to the bottom. If the account of this fountain be true, it would be their constant use of the water from it which makes them so long-lived. —Herodotus, Book III: 23