Chapter Thirty-Seven
The tour guide is giving her group directions when I return my attention to them. “We should make our way to the exit. The museum will close soon. Follow me.”
I move into the crowd, keeping a large man between me and Ares and Inanna. Once we’re out of the room, I jog down the corridor, ignoring comments that I don’t understand because they’re in French. Most likely, it’s to slow down.
My new shoes slip across the marble floor. I’m not going to the pyramid entrance. I don’t have a ride back to the hotel. And Inanna and Ares will think I went that way.
I head for the inverted pyramid and turn right. Through a small underground shopping strip, up two escalators, and I’m at the Metro station. The platform is like its own museum, adorned with replicas to simulate art from the Louvre. My eyes stay on the entrances until the train arrives and I’m safely on it.
I sit on a seat closest to one of the doors, near an older man, leaving an empty one between us. Gray curly hair, button-down sweater, and leather loafers. Probably someone’s grandfather. He seems less threatening than the group of guys in their twenties on the other side. The aroma of liquor and cigarettes surrounds them.
“Your judgment’s a little skewed, Analiese,” the older man says.
“What?” I move another seat away from him.
Okay, breathe. You’re okay. Know your surroundings. What do you see?
A guy carrying a long narrow box. A woman on her phone doesn’t look too happy with whoever is on the other side of that call.
“You’ve become quite the popular girl. Everyone…or should I say, every immortal knows of you.” He crosses his legs. He’s wearing purple-and-grey argyle socks. “The Keres love spreading rumors—true or not. I had to come and see for myself. Another Riser. What powers do you hold?”
The train pulls up to the next station, and I’m out of my seat before the doors open. As soon as they part, I push my way through and charge up the stairs to the street. A woman with straight dark hair falling around her shoulders and carrying a grocery bag matches my steps.
“You can’t get away from me that easily,” she says, her voice melodic and accented.
“What?” I pick up my speed, and she keeps up with me. “Leave me alone.”
You’re okay.
“I can be anyone you want me to be. A fox in sheep’s clothing.”
The woman gives me a confused look and says something I don’t understand. She stops, letting me get ahead of her.
Now this guy with short dark hair and a beard with a silver stud piercing in each cheek and one in the middle of his bottom lip is marching next to me. “Maybe this is more your style.”
I stop. “Okay, I give. Who are you and what do you want from me?”
“Good,” he says. “Because I have about one good change left in me for the day. We should talk somewhere private.”
“No. Talk here.” There’s absolutely no way I’m leaving this crowded street.
His lips spread into a slow grin. “If that’s how you want it. Seeing that you won’t go somewhere private, our talk will have to wait for another day.”
“I’m not thickheaded enough to go somewhere alone with you.”
His eyes bug out, and he backs away. “I say nothing to you.”
“Sorry, I was talking to the other guy.” I rush off. That was beyond freaky. Think. What god can body-hop? Think. Think. Think. Okay, a few come to mind.
Wait. He said a “fox in sheep’s clothing.” It’s Kumiho. He has nine tails and can change bodies. Usually, he transforms into beautiful women to lure men. When he has them, he turns back into a fox and eats their hearts and livers.
Perfect. He could be anyone.
When I get back to the hotel, I go straight to the business center and do a search on Lisa del Giocondo. I go through several sites, searching for information on her.
After her husband’s death, Lisa lived in the Convent of Saint Ursula and died there. Nearly an hour searching, I now have two possibilities. Adam Conte either hid his family’s piece of the Divinities Keep in the Convent of Saint Ursula, where Lisa was buried, or Santissima Annunziata Basilica, which held her family’s crypt.
I scribble down the addresses to both on the hotel’s paper, rip it from the pad, and shove it into my purse. Next, I search for the fastest, soonest way to get to Florence. It’s ten hours on a train and about two hundred dollars for a flight, which only takes an hour and forty minutes.
No matter what I do, I’m in trouble. Safta gave me her credit card information to buy the clothes, but just thinking about using it is causing welts to form on my chest.
I fill in my information for the flight, enter Safta’s credit card information in the required fields, and stop before hitting send.
“Safta, what would you do?”
She’d put the fate of the world first before herself. So what if I’m grounded forever, or I’m thrown in a foster home because Jane doesn’t want me anymore. At least we’d all be alive. I hit enter and instantly have buyer’s remorse. I hope Safta forgives me. I print out the tickets.
I go to the room, call my grandparents, and tell them I’m okay. Safta says to order room service and get whatever I want. Which makes me feel even shittier for using her credit card to buy the plane tickets.
My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I need to eat. I’ll just have to feel guilty later when I get back. Since I can’t figure out how to order room service, I decide to go down to one of the dining rooms.
Coming off the elevator, I pause in the middle of the door track.
I’m not sure whether what I’m seeing is actually real or my tired brain playing a trick on me.
“Marek?”
The door starts to close, and I step out before it hits me.
“Hey,” he says, as if it’s no big deal he’s standing in the middle of a fancy hotel lobby instead of being on Flight 56.
“What are you doing here?”
He takes two long strides and tows me into a hug. “He said…said you were in trouble. There’s no way I could leave you.”
I pull back and gaze up at him. “Who told you that?”
“We should go somewhere less open.”
For a minute, I forget where I was going. Then my stomach decides to remind me. “I was on my way out to get something to eat. I can’t read the menu here, and it’s all too fancy.”
A smile lifts his lips. That kind of smile you do when you know you should respond to something but your mind is too preoccupied and you give it half an effort.
“Okay, where to?” he asks.
Marek and I stroll down Rue Boissy d’Anglas and find a cute place with sandwiches, salads, and a yummy macaron desert with basil and raspberries. We decide to wait until after we eat to talk about any of the messed-up stuff going on around us.
I place my spoon beside the remains of the macaron desert, which is pretty much the cream I couldn’t scrape off the plate. “So who told you I was in trouble?”
He takes a sip from his water glass. “I know this sounds messed up. It was several people, but I think it was someone, or whatever the hell it was, hopping from body to body. Like the damn thing was possessing people. Using them to talk to me.”
Him, too? Suddenly everyone in this café becomes a potential danger. The face of evil comes in all shapes and sizes. The least suspect could be the most threatening. The couple in the corner with their heads together and feet tangled, the three couples in their thirties sitting together on our left, two men ignoring each other as they scroll on their phones—any one of them could be a host for whoever or whatever it was trying to talk to me on the street earlier.
It can’t be Kumiho if he’s warning Marek. I thought the Korean god was evil.
Marek’s hand covers mine resting on the table. “Ana, what is it?”
“We need our bill.” I raise my hand, flagging the man serving us. “I know where your grandfather hid the next clue. I have to get you a ticket.”
“Where are we going?”
I glance around. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the hotel.”
I hold back the fact that it may be illegal and involve crypt digging. After all, the shadows have ears.