by Brenda Drake
Eyes dark and rimmed red.
I back away and trip on the step. He snatches my arm before I land, his tight grip cutting off the circulation. It hardly takes him any effort to drag me over to him.
“Let me go,” I say, finding my words, but they’re weak and not threatening at all.
He stares down at me. “Where is it?”
I can’t speak. There’s movement in his irises. People. Thousands. Millions. Bodies writhing in a sea of molten tar. Faces contorted in pain. Eyes pleading for help.
“You have it,” he says in the deepest voice I’ve ever heard. “I sense it on you.”
Tears run hot down my face. I can’t pull my eyes away from his. Away from the people drowning in dispair.
He could easily crush my head in his hands. I’m pretty sure he will.
I don’t want to die.
Chapter Thirty
Images of Dalton, Safta, Saba, and even Jane flash through my mind. But the one I hold on to is Marek, and it gives me a little strength. I’ll beg for my life.
“Please, don’t hurt me.” My voice is barely audible.
Distraction.
Keep him distracted.
“Wh-what? What do you want?”
“The Divinity’s Soul,” he says, his voice hissing like an echoing serpent. He holds his free hand a couple of inches away from my face, guides it down as if it’s a metal detector, and stops at my front pocket.
He tries to remove my dad’s lighter, but the pocket is small and my jeggings are tight.
“Give it to me,” he demands, and it’s a sharp, loud crack like when thunder goes off directly over the house. And it shakes me. Stuns me.
My eyes go to his again, and I can barely see through the tears burning mine. But I know they’re there. The people in pain. I blink, clearing my vision briefly, and I realize all the faces are his. Thousands. Millions. All him.
He releases me suddenly. “Bastet,” he growls and runs off.
I drop onto the step, shaking, watching him disappear over a brick wall. Burying my face into my lap, I hug my knees and sob. There’re people in the chapel. I should get up and run inside for help, but I can’t move. Or think.
I take a deep breath.
And another.
What chased him off?
I’m lost. I don’t know where Pazuzu went or if he’s hiding somewhere waiting for me to leave.
I need a phone. With trembling fingers, I wipe away my tears. There are people in the chapel. They can help me. Someone has to have a phone. But Marek doesn’t.
A black cat comes out of a nearby bush and slinks up to me, arching its silky back and rubbing up against my leg.
I reach down and rub behind her ears. “Are you lost, too?”
There’s a collar hanging from her neck. It’s gold with light blue stones. I pick up the tag and read it.
“Bastet? As in the Egyptian goddess?” I run my fingers down her back.
Pazuzu said her name before he ran off.
“Did you chase him off?”
She purrs under my touch. Analiese.
“You did.”
I’m here with you. You’re safe. I won’t leave you.
“Why are you helping me?”
Richard.
“My grandfather—I mean, Eli’s father?”
Not many mortals I can tolerate. I loved him.
I raise an eyebrow.
Was not as you think. He was my pet.
“Wait. I’ve seen you in photographs with him.” I run a more steady hand down her back again. Her fur is plush. “You have to be old.”
I am immortal. You are better. We must go.
“No.” I shake my head “He’s out there waiting.”
You are safe with me.
I raise an eyebrow. I’m not sure if I believe her.
I chased him away, didn’t I?
“Well then, I guess I should get directions to that hotel.” I stand and wipe some dust off of my black pants.
Before I can go up the steps to find someone to ask, Bastet practically trips me, snaking her body between my legs.
“Hey,” I say, edging her away with my foot. “You’re going to make me fall.” I pound up the steps, and Bastet jumps in front of me. “What is it?”
She dashes down the steps and turns to face me.
“You want me to follow you?”
She darts a few feet away from me and sits as if waiting for me to chase after her.
“Why don’t you just say so.” I sigh and drop my shoulders, crossing the gravel drive to her.
We almost backtrack the way I came, except we go through smaller roads and alleys. When I left the Colosseum earlier and went up that thin road, I was close to the hotel, but I took one wrong turn and missed it.
Two palm trees flank the Mercure Hotel’s awning-covered entry. Its modern architecture looks out of place with the ancient Colosseum as its backdrop.
Bastet doesn’t stop; she darts away. I will be nearby. Pazuzu will not come while I am here. Whenever you want to hide from an immortal, get near copper. It will block the energy coming off you. She disappears before I can say thank you.
Copper?
That explains why Pazuzu didn’t find us when we were hiding behind that wall with those copper vines. Probably why no immortals find us when we’re in hotels. The pipes. Except for Ares, but he could’ve spotted us on a street or some place else and followed us to our hotel.
Marek meets me before I enter the hotel lobby. He pulls me into a hug. “I was worried when you weren’t here. And I thought—” He swallows hard and releases me. “You’re shaking. What happened?”
“I was chased by Horus and Inanna, and Bjorn joined them. I ditched them, and Pazuzu caught me at a chapel.”
“That man with the locusts?” The pitch in his voice sounds a little higher than normal.
“Yes, him. Bastet chased him off.” I tug my dad’s lighter out from my pants pocket. “He wanted this. Said I have something called the Divinity’s Soul.”
He covers the lighter with his hand and glances around the lobby. “Let’s go up to our room.”
The room is small with one double bed pushed up against a wall. I don’t even care if we share. I’m so tired I could sleep on a hard floor.
I stretch out on the bed and lean against the headboard, turning the lighter around in my hands. “I don’t get it. There’s no writing on this. It’s nothing special.” I flip up the cap and dig my nail into the seam, trying to pop the top off, and it doesn’t budge. “It’s stuck. I need a knife or something.”
Marek searches the drawers. “There’s nothing here that’d work.”
My thumb spins the spark wheel.
“Ana, come on. You don’t always have to follow the trail.” I can almost hear Dad’s voice when I refused to go off the path during a hike once.
“Of course.”
“What?”
I smile and spin the wheel the other way, and the body of the lighter pops open. Inside is a gold medallion with a death’s-head hawkmoth on top of an intricately woven wreath.
“When did those moths start appearing? Before or after you got that?”
“After,” I say, flipping it in my hand, examining the front then the back.
“It looks just like the one on the catacomb wall.”
“Yeah, I wonder what it is.”
“Does it come with instructions?”
I inspect the lighter. “No. Nothing.”
Marek sits on the edge of the bed and takes out the silver circular canister he retrieved in the catacomb. “Well, guess we should see what’s in this.” He removes a rolled note from inside.
“What is it?” I slip the medallion back into the lighter and close it.
“A note from my gramp
s.” He unrolls it.
I notice the letterhead on the stationary. It’s from Caesars Palace. “Your grandfather was in Las Vegas.” I tap the gold lettering at the top of the paper.
“All the time. My grandma loves it there. Let’s see what it says.” He reads it out loud.
Danny,
Last time we met, you were young. Quiet as you were. Wise as an owl. Keen on doing your own thing. Happy to be alone. Fearful of the future. Lonely on a bench. When I left, you cried. Boy as you were. Rightly so. I shouldn’t have gone. Only if I knew. Lost time is never returned. Joking didn’t help ease the pain. Kindness always wins. We are the same, you and me. Very much so. Kindness always wins. Happy once before. Very much so. Pondering the past. Lonely as I was. On that bench. Happy no more. Very much alone.
Adam
“What does that mean?” I ask. “Do you know a Danny?”
Marek tries to straighten the note on his thigh. “Danny is code. This letter is a clue. We used to drive Grams nuts with them. She never knew why we’d write things that didn’t make sense.”
“So how do you decode it?” My stomach growls.
He smirks. “Let’s eat and then we’ll work on it.”
We eat stuffed Italian bread and fruit that Marek grabbed at a market on his way to the hotel. After finishing, we wash up. I wrap my hair in a towel and join Marek back on the bed.
Sitting beside each other, backs resting on pillows pushed up against the headboard, we put our heads together as we study the letter. The hotel pad of paper balances on my knees, and I’m ready to write. The pencil is one of those short ones. Like the type they’d give us to keep score at our bowling tournaments before they came out of the Stone Age and got computerized.
“Ready?” I gaze at him.
He rolls his head against the wall to look at me. Our faces are so close, I can feel his breath on mine. So close, I can feel the heat coming from his body. Close enough that one movement from either of us and our noses will touch.
I suddenly forget how to swallow.
His deep brown eyes search mine. “I never noticed you have a widow’s peak. It makes your face look like a heart.”
Um, thank you? I’m not sure what to say to that, so I just stare into those eyes of his, so captivating I lose the ability to function normally. A wet strand of hair must’ve escaped from the towel wrapped around my head, because he brushes it away from my forehead, making me shudder. There’s a thin red thread linking us together, and I know only I can see it.
I shudder again.
“You cold?” His voice is raspy. Like you get from overuse or first thing in the morning after waking up.
I love everything about Marek’s face. I should look away, but I can’t. I’m caught in a spell, and I’m hopeless to break it.
So he does. He returns his attention to the letter on his thigh. “Let’s see. My gramps’s cryptic notes would change every time. The letter for the clue is always in the same position in each word. I’ll call out the first ones, and you write them down.”
“Okay. I’m ready.” I hope he doesn’t hear the shaky tone in my voice.
He rattles off the letters, and I write them down.
lqwkhflwbrioljkwvvkhvplohv
“Doesn’t spell anything,” I say.
We try the next letter position in all the words of the note and it isn’t coherent, either. We continue through all of them, and none of them spells out anything. We even look at them backward.
Staring at the paper, he lifts it closer to his face, and I notice indentations at the bottom right corner.
“What’s that?” I touch it.
He studies the spot. “They’re marks. Like you get when you put two sheets of paper together and write hard on the top sheet. Whatever is written on the top one transfers to the bottom one. Let me see the pencil.”
I hand it to him, and he shades the lead over the indented letters, exposing the word decipher.
“He had to cipher it,” I state the obvious. “Probably another ROT13 code.”
I move through each line of letters I wrote on the pad. It takes time, but when I’m done, nothing’s coherent. I throw myself back against the pillows and sigh. It’s a little dramatic, and I don’t even care. It’s a release to emphasize my frustration.
“This is so annoying.” I cross my ankles.
Marek stares at the note as if it’s going to suddenly reveal all the answers. “What are we missing?”
“Exactly what will happen if we solve this clue?” I shift onto my side, pointing my frown at Marek. “Is there going to be another one, then another, and another? Will this ever end?”
He moves to his side, too, and he’s not frowning. His lips are curled up, and his eyes are dancing all over my face.
I wrinkle my eyebrows at him. “What?”
“You’re cute when you’re agitated.”
“Agitated? Really? Who uses that word?” Wait. He just said I was cute. Is that in a good way or in a way that you’d think about your best friend’s kid sister?
“My grams,” he says. “She uses it on me all the time. And I’ve figured it out.”
Figured what out? That I’m kind of, maybe, sort of, possibly falling for you? “Well, are you going to tell me or what?”
He holds up the stationery. “It’s in plain sight.”
I’m not seeing it. Just the note and the elegant writing.
“You don’t see it,” he repeats what I’m thinking.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
He finally gives in and points to the letterhead. “Ceasars Palace.”
“It’s a Caesar Cipher. So is ROT13.” It surprises me that he doesn’t know that.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Look at the address.”
I read the address. The first number in 3570 S Las Vegas Blvd. is circled. “We use a shift of three.”
I sit up, and Marek joins me.
We decode the first line containing the first letter of the first word in each sentence of the note.
So this lqwkhflwbrioljkwvvkhvplohv becomes this inthecityoflightsshesmiles.
I bounce a little, and the mattress shakes. “We have it.”
“That was a tough one.” He pulls his fingers through his hair. His eyes are droopy, and he yawns.
I put brackets between the words, then write it out so we can read it better.
In the City of Lights, she smiles.
“Paris,” I say. “Though I have to say, I believe he has it wrong. It’s the City of Light. But he’d think you would know the one Americans use.”
“Or maybe he just needed an S for the code.”
“Yeah, that could be it. Anyway, the second half of the sentence must mean the Mona Lisa. Why spend all this time in Rome, then send us to France? Why not just give one clue and be done?”
“He’s drawing all the gods and goddesses here.” He swings his legs over the side of the bed. “The things my gramps taught me. Nobody else could know his thought process. The clues in Rome are to throw off anyone following me. To keep them away from the real location of the Parzalis.”
“So, we need to sneak to Paris,” I say. “Without being followed.”
“Looks like it.”
I skim over Mr. Conte’s note again and a thought hits me. “I think your grandfather knew he was going to die that day. He was looking for me. Giving me his bag to put you and me together. He wanted us to team up on this search. That’s why he and Eli were meeting. They were training us.”
He leans over his knees and sighs. “They thought it was them, but it was us. The ones to end the immortal’s war.”
As if it’s the most natural thing to do, he holds my hand, and we just stare at the wall for a long while until he faces me.
“We’re going to be okay,” he says, and he means it.
I’m stuck between Marek and the wall, so I scoot down the bed and stand. Removing the towel from my head, I avoid eye contact with him. I don’t want to get snared in those brown eyes again. Not with my emotions all over the place as they are.
There isn’t time for infatuations or whatever I’m feeling. We have to figure this out. I do need to get home eventually. Dalton probably has read my direct message by now. Hopefully, it was before he panicked after not hearing from me and told Jane I was missing. It would be inconvenient to have the Italian police searching for us, too.
Dalton. I’m not sure why the thought hadn’t hit me before, but it does right now, and I drop the towel.
Dalton!
Chapter Thirty-One
In one quick movement, Marek is swiftly off the bed, worry pinching his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”
“If Eli was a Death Riser, Dalton could be, too. He could be in danger.” I flip around and face him. “I have to warn him.”
I don’t realize I’m shaking until Marek places his hand on my cheek. “It’ll be okay. We’ll buy a prepaid calling card and use the phone here.”
I nod against his hand. “All right.”
After I quickly dress, we leave the room. The elevator is crowded and it bumps a few times when it lands on the first floor. Sitting in the lounge, beaten and tired, is Lugh. I hurry to him.
“What happened? Are you okay? Do you need water? How about—”
He holds up his hand to stop me. “I be fine. Do you have a room?”
“Yes,” Marek says, reaching his hand out. “Let me help you.”
Lugh takes Marek’s offered hand, and they hobble to the elevator.
“How did you find us?” I step inside with them and push the button to our floor.
“Bastet brought me to you.”
There are still wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. Silver streaks his sideburns. He hasn’t entirely renewed after aging himself.
The elevator lifts, and I grip the railing attached to the mirrored walls. “What happened in the library? Did those beasts get you? Those Risen.”
“They weren’t aware it was me. Not in me old state. I was too slow in getting out of their way. They hurt many others, as well.”
