Chapter Thirty-Two
Bang.
I jerk awake.
BangBangBangBangBang.
I’m alone, and it’s pitch black outside. I can’t see a thing. The Alfa Romeo rocks. My pulse quickens. Both front doors are wide open, and the overhead lamp spotlights me while everything around the car is dark.
I pop open the door and roll out onto the ground. Crawling on my hands and knees, I go around the back of the Alfa Romeo to the driver’s side door, reach in, and turn on the headlights. Lugh and Marek are fighting a large man with a halo of dark curly hair. He’s dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt with red stains.
Blood?
“Quit it, Bacchus!” Lugh shouts. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” the man bellows, effortlessly tossing Marek off his back. “You have your power. I want mine. We need the girl.”
Bastet sits at the edge of a copse of trees. Opportunity. She darts into the woods, disappearing into the dark.
Lugh slams a fist into Bacchus’s side. Bacchus lands in an earth-shaking thump against the ground. “I can’t believe you sided with them,” Lugh says, standing over Bacchus. “You have all you want. Your vineyard. Family. What do you need the power of a god for? Those times are past. Let them go.”
Small dots of light move down the hill between the rows of grapevines. We’re near a vineyard.
“That can’t be good,” I mutter and climb onto the seat. The key is still in the ignition, so I push on the gas and turn. The Alfa Romeo sputters and stops. I try it again. It stalls.
Bacchus struggles to his feet, and Marek hits him with a rake. The man turns and backhands Marek, sending him flying into the tall grasses surrounding the clearing we’re parked in.
Once again I turn the key, and the Alfa Romeo coughs to life. Lugh hurries to the passenger side door, carrying Marek. He drops Marek on the seat and looks at me.
“Guess you’ll be going with him after all,” Lugh says. “Drive east and don’t stop. Get on the train to Paris at the Milano station. Only stop for gas, nothing else. You hear me?”
“Yes, but aren’t you coming?”
“Those aren’t mortals coming down the hill. They’re Bacchus’s sons and daughters. Demigods. I’m going to stall them so you can get away.” Lugh slams the door.
I grip the wheel tight. “No. Come with us. There’re too many of them.”
He bends over so I can see him through the window. “I’m a god of many skills. A warrior. Growing old is just a parlor trick. I’ll be fine.” He winks. “Now, off with you.”
Tires spin when I push on the gas. The Alfa Romeo bounces over potholes in the bumpy dirt road. Marek groans in the seat beside me but doesn’t wake up. Tears pool in my eyes, and I don’t try to stop them. Not daring to take my hands off the steering wheel, I let them run down my face and fall off my cheeks.
He’ll be okay. He’s strong, I reassure myself.
The Alfa Romeo hops onto the pavement. It’s a small road, and I’m not sure which way is east.
“Marek.” He doesn’t respond, so I shout, “Marek!”
His eyes open, and he seems dazed. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know.” The road has a lot of curves, so I don’t take my eyes off it. “Get your GPS. We have to go east. To the station in Milan.”
Wincing, he searches the glove capartment where he stuffed the GPS eariler and pulls it out.
“Where’s Lugh?” He enters our destination.
“That man you were fighting. His name is Bacchus. He’s the Greek god of wine and fertility. He has a lot of kids. Oh, and agriculture. I almost forgot that.” I’m anxious, and when that happens, I get rambly. “Anyway, those kids were coming for us. Lugh’s holding them off.”
Marek frowns at the GPS screen. “You’re going the wrong way. Make a U-turn.”
I slow down and whip the Alfa Romeo around.
“Shit,” he snaps.
I risk a glance at him. “What?” The car swerves a little, and I straighten it.
“My money belt ripped.” He lifts his shirt. “It’s gone.” After looking around him, he searches the back seat. “Where are our jackets?”
“They’re missing?”
“Yeah, must’ve fallen out during the attack. Shit. The money’s gone. Our passports. What’re we going to do?”
My pillbox.
I so want to yell right now, but it won’t do us any good. Stay Positive. Dad’s motto.
“I have money,” I say. We’ll have to make it work.” I’m not sure I have enough, but right now he looks a mess, and I don’t want to worry him.
Shifting my eyes from the road to him then to the road again, I ask, “What happened back there?”
He flips down the visor. The tiny light attached to it barely illuminates his face as he inspects the damage. “We pulled over so Lugh could drain the dragon. That man came out of nowhere. Attacked Lugh. We fought. I went flying. Woke up here. That’s all I know.”
“Bacchus must’ve sensed us. I’ll be glad when this is over.”
Just as I say that, I think it may never be over for me. Not unless someone destroys all the pieces of that talisman. If the gods have no way of getting their power back, they have no reason to fight. That means they have no reason to use me.
A realization hits me. The talisman can’t be destroyed. If it could be, the Keepers would have done it ages ago.
I glance at Marek again. “Do we still have the train tickets?”
Lugh bought them online using the business center at the hotel.
Marek flips the visor shut, opens the glove compartment, and retrieves the printouts. “Got them, Olivia.” He usues the fake name Lugh entered for mine. It’s from one of Mr. Conte’s fake passports.
“How about money. Do you have any on you?”
He gives me a long stare before my question registers, then searches his pockets. Counting the coins in his hand, he says, “Three, four, um…about six euros.”
“I have forty-three,” I say.
“Not enough for a hotel,” he says. “We could stay up all night and go to the museum in the morning.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. See all the places my parents went to on their honeymoon.” I half-laugh. “Sort of like walking in their footsteps. Reenact the photos I have of them. Never thought I’d be going like this.”
I grip the wheel tight. The bumpy road has a lot of curves, and it makes me nervous.
“It’s going to get cold at night,” he warns.
I bite my lip, thinking. “Maybe there’s a thrift shop. We can get some thick jackets on the cheap.”
I make it to a better paved road that actually has directional signs. I’m heading the right way. That’s the only positive thing of the night.
…
At a thrift shop in Paris, we buy a distressed leather jacket for me and a black dress coat for Marek for five euros each, along with one-euro scarves. We head into the labyrinth of Paris streets. The buildings are tall, and their facades are an eclectic blend of medieval, Revolutionary period, and Haussmann-style architecture. We hike backstreets, hidden passages, and arcades.
There are plaques on the walls honoring fighters during World War II and other famous people, and we make a game out of spotting them. Street art is everywhere.
We keep moving.
Stay warm. Awake.
Alert.
“It’s going to be a tough night,” he says. “I’m sorry. I really screwed us. Once we get the clue in the morning, we’ll go to the embassy. Get emergency passports.”
“We’re underage. They’ll contact our parents.”
I’m trying to stay awake, trying to keep warm, wrapping the yellow scarf around my neck twice. It’s not at all the French way, but I’m not going for fashion.
I lag behind. Marek slows his steps.
A mischievous grin curls the corner of his full lips, making my heart take a few skips. “How many strides would it take to cross this road? I bet four.”
He’s trying to distract me so I won’t think about the cold or my tired legs.
“It depends. Who’s crossing the street?”
“I’ll cross.”
“Okay,” I say. “Are you taking short, average, or long strides?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. I need all the variables to make an educated guess.”
He adjusts his bargain jacket. “Okay, then, long ones.”
I study him with newfound interest. His playful side is cute, and I hold back a smirk, but the amusement in my voice gives me away. “So your guess is still four?”
“Yep.”
“My guess is five, then.”
He backs up against the building and makes his first stride. “One,” he calls.
“Two.”
I’m not sure it’s fair. While we were talking, a couple trying to avoid people lined outside a red door crossed the street, and I measured their gaits in my head.
He reaches the other building. “Five.”
When he ambles over, he exaggerates a pouting face. I meet him with a broad smile on mine. “You’re good,” he says.
I glance around the street. “I wonder what time it is.”
He stops and reads the sign beside the red door.
“Come on,” he says. “It’s playing Rio Grande with John Wayne. Special price for those under twenty-six.”
I back out of the way to let an older couple enter the theater. The sign says the movie starts at ten thirty.
Shaking my head, I start to walk away. “No. We can’t waste our money.”
He steps in front of me. “We’re tired. The movie is a few hours long. We can get some sleep and get warm. And it’s not much. A few euros each.”
“I could close my eyes for a bit.”
“Great.” He yanks open the door and waits for me to pass before following.
It’s a small theater with red walls and cushy chairs. We grab a spot in the back, and I’m asleep before the opening credits finish.
“Excusez-moi,” a woman’s soft voice wakes me.
“What?” I glance around, dazed, not sure where I am.
“Oh, you’re American.” The woman’s really put together. Her auburn hair is pulled back in a tight bun. She wears a tight white dress shirt, black pants, and spiked heels. “The movie is over.”
Over? We’ve been sleeping for almost two hours.
Marek is still out beside me, so I shake his arm, startling him awake.
He looks around, eyes half open. “Huh?”
“Time to go.” I stand and side-shuffle down the row.
The woman watches Marek stumble after me before her eyes go to me. “It’s you,” she says. “I saw you would come and you are here.”
Marek grasps my hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I don’t move. “You know me?”
“Mel,” a man with a lot of muscles and hardly any hair calls.
The woman turns to face him. “Oui?”
He says something in French to her.
“They found us?” The look exchanged between Mel and the man makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. “And English, please. I’ve only had four French lessons so far.”
The man continues in English, “Attacked the celebration. Thankfully, you were detained, or they would’ve killed you.”
“Go,” Mel tells him. “Warn Clio and Erato. I’ll get the others. And remember, no phones.”
The man nods and darts out of the auditorium.
Mel’s eyes snap in our direction.
“It’s not safe here,” she says. “We must go, or you’ll meet a great tragedy. They can’t know you are in Paris. Follow me.”
Great tragedy. Who talks that way?
When we don’t follow, she spins around and narrows her eyes on us. “Did you not understand me?”
I whisper, “I think we should go with her.”
A poster on the wall halts me. It’s of a muse in a flowing white dress, her brown hair is curled tight around her head, and she’s wearing a wreath of vines and grapes. She holds a knife in one hand and a tragic mask in the other.
“I’m not going to harm you,” Mel says, pulling at her face and dropping to her knees. “They’re here. It’s too late.”
I pound down the steps and wrap an arm around her back. “Let me help you up.”
We stand together. Marek joins us, holding Mel’s other side.
“Where do we go?”
“The back room.” Her face is distorted, resembling the tragedy mask on the poster.
Marek and I help Mel to the back room.
“Are you Melpomene, muse of tragedy?”
“You know your mythology,” she says and nods to shelving that displays books and old film canisters. “Move it.”
I get on one side, and Marek takes the other. It’s a heavy bookcase, but we’re able to push it enough away from the wall to get behind it.
Melpomene snatches up a crystal bottle from the desk, dumps golden liquid from it into a tumbler, and drinks it down. Her face relaxes, and she straightens.
“We go out this door.” Melpomene wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “It leads to an alley.”
“No,” I snap. “Not until you tell us who we’re running from.”
“Who we’re running from?” she repeats and laughs. “They’re after me. You two were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And about that, how did you happen upon my theater? It’s on an obscure road.”
“We were just walking by,” Marek says.
Just before I say, “We got lost.”
“The Fates.” She smiles. “As they say, they are on our side. They helped you by providing a place to sleep and me by providing a delay so I wouldn’t be at that celebration. Now go.”
I step through the crude hole in the wall and into a narrow tunnel and move down it as quickly as I can. Marek and Melpomene shuffle behind me.
“Who’s after you?” I ask over my shoulder.
She doesn’t answer right away. I’m not sure if it’s for a dramatic effect. We are in a theater, after all.
“The Keres,” she finally answers. “They’re spirits of violent death. Craving blood, they feast on evil mortals’ dead bodies after their souls depart. Keres can’t touch humans while they’re alive, but they can tear gods and goddesses, muses, Keepers, to pieces.”
Now I wish I hadn’t asked.
“Why do they want to kill you?” Marek asks. He grasps my arm and keeps a hold of it.
“Did you not hear her, Marek? Keepers. They attack Keepers.”
“I heard.”
“The Keres are the daughters of Nyx,” she adds. “My sisters and I refused to be the muses for her son, Moros. Such a spoiled and gloomy deity. He’s the god of impending doom. That was thousands of years ago. She holds a grudge.”
This has to be one of the longest tunnels ever. My meds were in my jacket, so I’m going solo on the panic thing. I try to breathe, but the air is thick with mortar dust. I just need to get out.
I need to get out.
I move faster, sliding my feet together, apart, together, apart—
The walls muffle a screeching sound coming from the theater. It’s not one, but many of them—high and low pitched.
Fear punches my gut and chokes my throat. I can’t move, clinging to the wall as if it’s the only thing that can save me.
The screeches are deafening now. Closer. Too Close.
I need to get out!