The Lost Sisterhood

by Anne Fortier

  “Where is she?” said one.

  “I thought I saw her,” replied the other, “but now I’m not sure.”

  There was another snort, a sneered sentence I didn’t understand … and the women were off again, galloping back into the forest, urging on their horses with guttural commands.

  So shaken I could barely coordinate my limbs, I scrambled on all fours as quickly as I could, then got to my feet briefly, in order to get away faster … only to step right into nothing and tumble down a slope several meters before sliding headlong into shrubbery sprouting from a mud puddle.

  Gasping with shock, I extracted myself from the slimy bush and wiped the mud from my face. Amazingly, my new handbag still hung across my shoulders, and although it was as soaked as I, at least it was there.

  Huddled on my knees, I tried to make out my surroundings. Once my eyes became sufficiently accustomed to the dark I saw a faint light ahead. It turned out to be the illuminated sign marking the entrance to the museum parking lot across the highway. I had quite literally fallen out of the woods and into a fallow field, no more than a few hundred meters from the driveway of the abandoned farm.

  By the time I finally got my rental car started, heater going full blast, I was so weak from cold and exhaustion I could barely sit up straight. Backing out the gravel driveway, it took all my focus to steer the vehicle around another car that had been parked there sometime since my arrival.

  A dark blue Mercedes. The same Mercedes I had noticed before in downtown Bramsche, when I had left the hotel earlier that afternoon. Now I saw that it had Geneva plates.

  Within a few heartbeats my fury had outrun my fear. Whoever these people were, they would follow me no more. Almost intoxicated with anger, I pulled over and attacked the first-aid kit in the backseat, looking for something useful. There were no knives, of course, and nothing else that might help me slash the tires. But there were bandages and adhesive Band-Aids … enough to make two tight balls that fitted perfectly in the Mercedes’s tailpipes.

  “If it’s an old car, don’t waste your time,” had been Granny’s advice when she told me how to do it. “It only works if there’s no leak in the system.”

  When I drove away at last, it was all I could do to bend my cold fingers around the gearshift and press my numb toes against the gas pedal. But a sense of defiant accomplishment soon began to warm me from the inside out. Something evil had happened in that forest, but I had survived. There had been men and women with horses and guns, but none of them had been able to catch me. And now I had won myself a little extra time—at least I hoped so.

  BACK AT THE HOTEL, I stepped right into a hot shower with all my clothes on. Peeling off the muddy layers one by one, I thought through my options. It didn’t take long, since there was only one thing to do: leave immediately.

  If there had been a small part of me dreaming of a joyful reunion with Granny at the end of all my tribulations, or at least a friendly encounter with people who had known her, the events of this afternoon had thoroughly cured me. Assuming Dr. Jäger had mobilized the women hunting me in the forest, then I had to conclude these present-day Amazons—for it was hard to call them anything else—were as threatening to me as Reznik.

  Wrapped in a towel, I tore around the room for a few minutes, gathering up my things. There was no time to check whether Granny’s notebook or the Historia Amazonum had survived the mudslide unscathed—what I needed was to find my map of Germany. Where the hell was it?

  Three quick knocks interrupted my frantic search.

  Petrified, I stared at the door, half-expecting it to burst open. But instead, I saw something sliding in underneath and realized it was a piece of paper.

  Inching closer, I stretched to read the message scribbled on it: “You’re in danger. I can help. Nick.”

  A quick glance through the peephole confirmed that it really was him outside my door, unshaven and frowning with impatience.

  For a few breathless seconds, my mind was awash with indecision. I had stolen a top-secret envelope from this man, together with a priceless manuscript, and I knew I should be afraid of him—knew he must be livid. And yet the sight of him set off a completely unexpected sense of relief and, dastardly hiding behind the relief, an overwhelming, incandescent joy that made it impossible for me to dismiss him.

  My heart beating wildly from the suddenness of it all, I reached out and opened the door. Only then, as he entered my room, did it occur to me I was wearing nothing but a towel and that it might be wise of me to find some means of self-defense, just in case.

  Nick scanned the room suspiciously before turning to me. His eyes darkened as he took in my sparsely wrapped form and, I am sure, the emotions still at odds in my face. Then, as if realizing I was waiting for him to speak, he said, somewhat stupidly, “I am here to save you.”

  “Actually—” I closed the door behind him. “You’re slowing me down.”

  I am not sure who started it. Nick certainly didn’t mean to, nor did I … but suddenly we were in each other’s arms, closing the torturous, soul-destroying gap between Istanbul and Bramsche.

  It was frightening how quickly everything else—even all my doubts and deceptions—faded away to nothing as soon as his mouth was against mine. Groaning, it seemed, at his own weakness, Nick kissed me with frenetic abandon, as if I were the only other human being in a world of brutes and he had spent his whole life searching for me.

  “Welcome to Germany,” I whispered after a while, in a vain attempt at catching my breath. Even through his sweater, I could feel the warmth and energy radiating from his body, and the thought of letting go was extremely unappealing. “Feel free to stay, but I’m afraid I have to leave.”

  “Not so fast, Goddess,” muttered Nick against my ear. “This time we leave together.” But the way he held me trapped between himself and the wall suggested he was in no hurry to make tracks.

  “You’re a bad man.” I ran my hands through his hair, still unable to fathom it was truly him—that he had come this far to get me back. “I should have left hours ago … and never let you find me.”

  “Oh, I would have found you anywhere.”

  I tried to look him in the eye. “What does al-Aqrab want from me?”

  Nick leaned in to kiss me again. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  I gasped when I felt his hand underneath the towel, indulging in my nakedness. It was shocking to discover that while there was still a distinct jackal’s voice in my head warning me to stay in control and demand an explanation, there was also a rogue, fatalistic part of me that wanted nothing more than to let Nick right in, all seventeen versions of him. “Aren’t you afraid,” I whispered, “of being skewered by my Amazon sisters?”

  “Yes.” He began kissing my naked shoulder, all the way to the angle of my neck, drawing from me an involuntary accompaniment of treacherous little sighs. “But you’re worth it.”

  Just then, the room phone rang.

  “Damn!” I pushed him away. “See who’s outside.”

  While Nick looked out through the closed curtains, I picked up the receiver with a brisk “Hello?”

  There was no response, and the line went dead.

  “What do you see?” I asked Nick. “A blue Mercedes?”

  “Not sure,” he replied, peeking out still. “A dark Audi just pulled in.”

  “How about this,” I said, as I raced around the room, throwing on random pieces of clothing. Much as it pained me to even contemplate, I thought of one possible strategy of retreat. “What about we leave the Historia Amazonum right here, on the bed?”

  Nick shook his head and came over to help me gather up my things. “Reznik doesn’t give a shit about the manuscript. That was just bait to catch the Amazons who killed his son. Now he thinks you’re one of them.”

  “How on earth,” I yelled from the bathroom, quickly scraping together my newly purchased—and rather pricey—toiletries, “can he think I’m an Amazon?”

  “Because Rezn
ik is a paranoid son of a bitch,” Nick yelled back, “who takes X-rays of his guests without their knowledge. He is looking for hidden weapons, of course, but jackal bracelets happen to show up, too.”

  Moments later we were rushing down the quiet hallway, headed for the emergency exit. But just as Nick reached out for the white metal door, it was torn open from the other side, and two women emerged.

  Since they were dressed in jogging suits and had towels over their shoulders, my first thought was that they were simply hotel guests returning from the exercise room. But no sooner had I nodded a friendly greeting than one of them punched Nick right in the stomach and brought his face down hard on her knee.

  I was so shocked at this explosion of brutality, it took me a moment to comprehend what was happening. Despite a bleeding nose, Nick fought back admirably, dealing his attackers a few solid blows they were clearly not expecting … but then a third woman appeared.

  I had just managed to lift a heavy painting from the wall with the intent of using it as a weapon, when I caught sight of other people approaching from the far end of the corridor.

  Only then did it occur to me to yell for help, but it was already too late. The two men coming toward us were reaching into their jackets, and I could see in their faces we were precisely what they were after.

  Crying out in fear, I managed to alert the three women to the danger, and they immediately dropped Nick and darted down the hallway to intercept the men before bullets started flying.

  “Come on!” I urged Nick, pulling at his arm. “This is our chance.”

  Picking up whatever bags were within reach I scrambled down the emergency staircase ahead of him. Seconds later we erupted through the back door to find ourselves in the hotel garden.

  “This way,” said Nick, and in the darkness all I could see was his silhouette as he ran in front of me through the dewy grass. Ducking under an electric fence, we continued across a bumpy, sodden field full of silent sheep until reaching a small gravel road and a car parked in the lee of a toolshed.

  “No!” I said, when he opened the passenger door for me. “I drive. You just focus on your nose.”

  We didn’t exchange another word until we were on the autobahn. I was too busy making sure no one was following, and Nick had put back the seat as far as it would go in an attempt at stopping his nosebleed.

  “Is it broken?” I asked eventually.

  Nick groaned. “It takes a lot more to break this schnozzle. What the hell happened back there?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question twice today,” I said. “I think we’ve gotten trapped in crossfire. Some of Reznik’s goons from Geneva have been trailing me in a Mercedes, and I’m quite sure those three lovely ladies were Amazons. What do you think?”

  Nick made a pained sound that might have been intended as a chuckle. “Well, you did warn me not to piss off your Amazon sisters. Here.” Opening the middle console, he took something out and handed it to me. “This is your new passport. We’ll have to play dead for a while. Your name is Artemis Panagopoulos. I thought we should be Greek. You can do the talking. I’ll just be your doting husband. How about a beach hut on a nice little faraway island, compliments of the boss?”

  It was all I could do to focus on the road when really, I wanted to take Nick by the collar and shake him. “I thought you had quit your job! You said al-Aqrab doesn’t know where you are—”

  “He doesn’t. But I’m still working for him.” Nick looked at me uncertainly. “If it’s any consolation, I almost got fired for stealing the Historia Amazonum.”

  “Really?” I felt my mood improving at this little curveball. “But if al-Aqrab didn’t order you to take it … then why did you?”

  Nick sighed. “Apparently, Reznik had that manuscript stolen from a small archive in Romania. A janitor was framed for the theft.”

  “But that’s not why you took it.”

  “All right.” He put his seat up a bit. “This is what happened: I had strict orders not to attend Reznik’s party, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to see you again. However, before I could make contact with you, I was sidetracked by a woman in a cat suit who stared at me as if she knew me before running off with a friend in a mouse suit—”

  “Wait a minute.” I tried to recall the hostile cat woman I had encountered in Reznik’s bathroom. “I saw them, too. The mouse woman stole my phone in Nafplio. And I bet she was the one who mugged me in the labyrinth.”

  “I don’t think so.” Nick moved in his seat and winced with pain. “The person who attacked you in the labyrinth stole your laptop, and your laptop was in Reznik’s house well before the party started. I’m pretty sure those two women broke in to steal it from him. Now it’s on the bottom of the Black Sea, sleeping with the fishes and your cellphone. But anyway—and I’m sorry if this bursts your image of me as a hardened criminal—I saw these lovely chicks sneaking into Reznik’s little antiques collection during the party. I decided to follow and could hear them going all the way to the top floor. This gave me a chance to check out the library. And there it was, ready for the taking: Diana Morgan’s academic future. I wanted to give it to you that night, as a present, but then things got a little … strange.”

  I glanced at him, softened by his frank confession. “I appreciate the gesture, except now we have a bunch of Reznik’s thugs plus some hardhitting Amazons riding our wake.”

  Nick made an unhappy grunt. “Okay, I made a mistake. I was sure they had disabled the security cameras together with the alarm system. However, if I hadn’t pinched the Historia, then your noble boyfriend would never have ratted on me, and Reznik would never have contacted my people in Dubai about the theft, and I would never have learned about the X-ray that turned you into an Amazon. Show me the Greek tragedy that can rival that one.”

  We drove for a while in silence. Here, away from the Teutoburger Wald, the night was calm and clear, with stars twinkling around us and a shimmering scythe of moon hovering on the horizon. But the clarity outside did not penetrate to my interior. Layer after layer of confusion continued deep into my consciousness, and it frustrated me that even now, sitting right here next to Nick, I still didn’t know what lay behind the Aqrab Foundation’s interest in the Amazons. But I knew enough to not ask him while we were going 130. Instead, I said, “How did you find me?”

  “Let’s see.” Nick sounded amused. “You traveled under your own name, rented a car in your own name, and registered at the Idingshof Hotel under your own name.” I sensed he was smiling at me. “I’m sorry, Dr. Livingstone, but if you really didn’t want me to come, you shouldn’t have left a trail as wide as the Nile … or should I say the Amazon?” When I didn’t respond, he sighed and added, “I called Rebecca. She was more than happy to help. Said Mr. Telemakhos had told you to go to Kalkriese. After that, all I had to do was call around to hotels nearby—”

  I felt a twinge of outrage. “Bex trusted you?”

  “Why shouldn’t she?”

  A thousand reasons sprang to mind, but they all looked rather pathetic next to the fact that Nick had defied the mighty al-Aqrab and come all the way to Germany to save my life and have his nose squashed.

  IT TOOK ME THE rest of our drive to relate my misadventures in Kalkriese, including my suspicions about the auction catalogs and Dr. Jäger being an Amazon newsletter distributor. “It would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it?” I said, as we exited the autobahn at last. “Of course the Amazons can’t risk someone discovering their secret means of communication—especially not with Reznik’s million-dollar bounty on their heads.”

  I was so absorbed in our conversation I barely noticed the blackness around us until I heard the unmistakable crunching of a dirt road. Nick had given me directions, and I had done as he told me, but …

  “This is not the Frankfurt Airport,” was all I could think of saying as we pulled up in front of a dark cottage.

  “No fooling a philologist,” said Nick, getting out of the car. “I thought we nee
ded a little peace and quiet.”

  I heard him unlocking the cottage door with an old-fashioned key.

  “Where exactly are we?” I asked, getting out of the driver’s seat and trying in vain to make out the landscape around us. It smelled like forest, and the only sounds were the hoots of a distant owl, but I couldn’t remember seeing many trees along the dirt road. “The Aqrab safe house in Frankfurt?”

  “Anything but,” replied Nick, turning on a few lamps inside. “Welcome to my Germany. This is the Taunus, not too far from the airport. You can’t see it now, but there’s a great view of the Main valley from up here.” He smiled at me over his shoulder. “I’ve slept off a lot of jet lag in this house. It’s actually the only piece of real estate I own.”

  I entered the small cottage after him. Besides a large bed there wasn’t much furniture. One small desk and a rickety chair stood facing a window, and the only other place to sit was on a large cushion in front of the fireplace.

  “What is it?” asked Nick, kneeling down to crumble up an old newspaper. “Not posh enough for Dr. Livingstone?”

  I looked around at the rough stone walls and wooden ceiling. There was something utterly seductive about the helpless rusticity and faint smell of charred wood hanging in the air. It was not the Çira?an Palace Hotel, but given the choice I would still rather be here.

  When I returned from the tiny bathroom, Nick was leaning on the mantelpiece, waiting for the fire to catch.

  “Here.” I handed him a wet washcloth. “Your turn.”

  He shot me a wry smile. “I know I’m a mess—”

  “No more than usual.” I helped him pull off the blood-spattered sweater and saw him cringing at the motion, favoring his shoulder. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “I’ve been in a lot of pain since the day I met you.” The way Nick looked at me made it abundantly clear what he meant.

  “You should have fired me when you had the chance,” I whispered, running my hands underneath his T-shirt. “Or left me to die in the temple.”