by G. E. White
He noted with disappointment that despite the fact the thief stood right in front of him their identity remained a mystery. The large cloak hid both body type and gender, while the hood shielded the majority of the person’s face and a scarf-like mask hid the rest.
During the awkward standoff between the three adults, the High Priestess, along with several guards, flocked into the hall, blocking all visible exits. Edelias stepped forward, past both Quinn and his companions to address the trapped criminal.
"Stand down. There is nowhere for you to go."
The thief glanced about seeing for himself he was surrounded. Still clutching the Star under his left arm, the figure slowly raised his right hand in surrender.
"Lower your weapons," she said to Jared and Surina.
"You can't be serious?" Surina protested.
"I will not have unnecessary bloodshed in this temple," the old woman hissed. Turning a pleading look on Jared she gently asked, "Please Lord Thanatos? I'm sure you'll get more information out of a live body than a dead one."
"That's your opinion," he snipped, but did as he was asked.
Surina followed the instruction as well, though the jut of her chin and harsh line of her mouth betrayed her reluctance to do so.
Once the threat of imminent death had been removed, Edelias turned to the still crouched burglar. "Now who are you?" She demanded.
For a moment there was no answer, as neither Edelias nor the cornered figure attempted to move. But then the thief held up a single finger asking for a minute. Slowly opening one side of his cloak he displayed a rolled piece of parchment. Silently he motioned that he was going to take it out.
The High Priestess nodded her consent and stepped even closer to receive the document.
Quinn scrutinized the scene but found his eyes drawn to the sight of metal encircling the thief’s left wrist; a bracelet or perhaps a watch. Either way there was something about it that attracted his attention.
The thief held out the scroll towards Edelias the way a professor might present a student with a diploma, the curled end of the paper offered first.
The glint of another piece of metal was all the warning the teen got as the Earthen magi's hand suddenly pushed forward, thrusting the paper and the small stiletto dagger concealed inside the rolled parchment into Edelias’ chest.
Quinn opened his mouth to shout a warning but it was too late. Edelias tumbled back from the thief; the blade plunged deep between her ribs.
"No!" cried Surina, dragging most of the notice away from the thief to the temple’s fallen leader.
Yet while the other people focused on the wounded woman Quinn turned his head to the attacker and was able to catch a glimpse of the thief fiddling with the cuff on his left hand. A second later he, along with Polaris, snapped out of sight; disappearing as silently as he appeared.
Quinn stood statue still, his mind almost unable to process what was happening before him, his gaze moving to the crumpled woman. The elderly woman laid limp as a rag doll on the ground, while her life’s blood stained her silver robes and hair a vibrant rust red. Her brown eyes, clouded with her parting, seemed to plead with Quinn for some understanding as to how this happened.
Surina had rushed to the woman’s side, her bow lying forgotten on the floor where she dropped it. Her hands trembled as they hovered over the woman’s body, her breath shuddering out of her ribcage, too shocked to do anything else.
The other magi who had been patrolling the area made no move to rush to the Priestess’ side. Instead it was Jared who broke the tableau, his feet silent on the marble floor as he approached the body.
Quinn felt a quiver of hope enter his body as the older man crouched down beside Edelias. He was the God of Death, Quinn was certain that if anyone could recall her soul it would be him. The teen watched in anticipation as Jared placed his hand on the woman’s face, his eyes closed in concentration. Quinn waited to see the woman’s fingers twitch, or for her eyes to clear of death and blink back into life.
But there was nothing except for the teen’s choked inhale as Jared closed the woman’s eyes forever. The God of Death reached into his pocket and pulled out two golden coins, placing one on each of her shut eyelids.
Standing, Jared faced the onlookers, but his expression did not betray any sadness, resignation perhaps, and a bone deep weariness.
It was then that instructor Sylvia, followed by several other magi rushed into the hall from one of the side corridors; though they skidded to a stop as they took in the scene before them. Sylvia’s mouth gaped open in shock and disbelief at the sight of her fallen superior. Locking her eyes with Jared’s the young man simply shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning and walking briskly from the hall into one of the corridors, the other magi parting for him like the Red Sea.
The two words broke the crowd from their daze as they scrambled into motion crowding around the fallen High Priestess.
Quinn, on the other hand, knew that there was nothing that he could do for them, but anger and confusion coursed through him. He was certain that Jared could have saved her, but did nothing. Making a decision the teen fled the scene chasing after the Death God.
Jared hadn’t gone very far, just far enough to be alone having escaped the corridor and up a flight of stairs to a balcony overlooking the surrounding forest.
Quinn barged onto the balcony and marched right up to the man, giving him a harsh shove, causing the man to stagger.
Jared turned on him snarling, “What?”
“What is wrong with you?!” Quinn yelled. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“There was nothing I could do.”
“The hell there wasn’t! You’re the Grim Reaper – the God of Death! If anyone could have saved her it was you! I’m sure they could have healed her if they had the time.”
Jared looked away from the teen, his expression grim. “Not if it’s her time.”
Quinn recoiled as if struck – his observations from earlier that evening finally making sense. “You knew. Tonight at dinner you kept staring at her. You knew and you didn’t warn her?”
“Warn her? What good would that have done? For all I knew at the time she was to die in her sleep. Who was I to tell her that her time was up? To let her last few hours be spent agonizing about how little time she had left and all the things she would leave unfinished?”
Quinn’s angry expression softened slightly as the older man railed at him. “You could have changed it,” he said weakly.
“No I couldn’t, I just can’t negate death because I feel like it,” Jared replied sternly, whipping around to face him. “These powers we have are not here for our own convenience. They’re a responsibility and the sooner you learn that the better.”
The blonde boy lowered his head in contrition as Jared swept past him and back down the stairs. The second that the other man had exited, the strength in Quinn’s legs gave out as he surrendered himself to the shock that wracked his body.
He collapsed to a seated position on the floor. His chest grew tight and his eyes began to burn, but he refused to let a tear fall as he sat on the cold stone floor cradling his head in his hands.
For the rest of the night sleep eluded Quinn. He spent the next hour not moving from his spot on the ground, but when his own thoughts began to overwhelm him he sought to use the remaining hours till dawn roaming the halls. The few magi and initiates he stumbled across in his wanderings edged around him, as if sensing his desire for solitude. Guilt clouded his thoughts as he tried to distance himself from Jared's words.
During the short time that he had known about his role as a god, Quinn had believed this was his chance to truly make a difference in the world. But witnessing Jared's inability to change something he supposedly had control of, shook the teen’s confidence. If Jared was powerless in that situation what hope did Quinn have of being any help?
Worse still, was the sinking feeling that he had offended the older man and had no idea of
how to rectify the situation or of what comfort he could offer Surina who was most likely in distress.
Quinn’s wanderings led him back to the library and the books that had always soothed his troubled mind. Walking his fingers along the spines of dozens of books he was about to give up on finding one to bury himself in when the gilded words of a leather-bound tome jumped out at him: “The Gods: Their Symbols, Signs and Realms of Power”.
Pulling the book from the shelf, Quinn turned to slide down the edge of the bookcase to sit on the floor. He carefully pulled back the heavy cover and flipped past the table of contents to the first chapter, all about the animal symbols associated with gods. He skims over the introductory paragraph but pauses to look at the table below listing the gods and their symbols.
According to the text, most gods have more than one animal they are associated with and though his powerful brain absorbed all the information before him, Quinn took a moment to note some of the key players that he knew about.
Apollo was most often associated with a swan, but also had connections with the raven, mouse and wolf. As he already knew Artemis’ chief animal was the stag, while her other symbols also were usually part of hunt, animals such as the bear, wild boar and quail.
Quinn was surprised to note that he only had two animal symbols, the first of course being the owl the second the crow. Further down the table Demeter was listed as having a gecko, pig and a garden snake as her icons.
The mention of the snake peaked his curiosity. As he recalled, the second shadow that had emerged from Surina had been a snake – was it possible that she also had a connection to Demeter? But as he searched his mind for the memory of the incident, Quinn distinctly remembered that the shadow behind Surina had displayed a hood, similar to a cobra and as far as he knew garden snakes didn’t have hoods.
The alphabetical listing of the gods went on but once he saw the name Thanatos Quinn quickly turned the page. Part of him wished to read on, to find out just how much influence Jared had, but with the argument he had just had with the man still fresh in his mind, Quinn felt it would be act of mistrust. However, the sound of the breakfast bell tolling made the choice for him. Closing the book and placing it back on the shelf, he trudged through the corridors to the mess.
The temple initiates and magi hung like shadows in their seats picking away at their food. At the head table Instructor, or perhaps it was now High Priestess, Sylvia sat attempting to put on a brave face. Her expression, though calm, did not reach her eyes that welled with worry and regret.
Surina's face was schooled into her ever-present mask of composed strength, though the trained eye might notice the small quiver of her lips. Edelias’ chair stood vacant at the center of the head table; a monument to what had been lost only hours earlier.
Quinn briefly wondered what had been done with Edelias’ body. There had not been enough time for her to have been cremated or buried. Most likely she would be given some sort of honorary plot in the cemetery behind the temple, but he doubted the three of them would be able to stick around for the funeral.
Quinn slowed as he approached the table, his eyes focused on the hunched dark figure who mindlessly pushed his porridge around in his bowl. He had been lucky enough not to have run into Jared during the night. Not that he was scared of the older man, though at this point he was at odds with what to say to him.
"Quinn, I was starting to worry,” Surina called to him.
Her words only reminded Quinn that Jared wasn't the only one he didn't know what to say to. Even though he had only seen Surina and Edelias interact for a day he could tell they had been close.
"I didn't mean to worry you, I just…" he trailed off as his eyes traveled over to Jared, noticing for the first time his less than immaculate appearance. It seemed he wasn't the only one who failed to get some rest.
"I know, I was shocked too," Surina finished for him.
"So what happens now?" he asked.
"Well, there's not much point in sticking around here," Jared said from his end of the table, finally joining the conversation.
"What do you mean?"
The Death God's eyes seemed to radiate a biting frost as he met Quinn's gaze. "What I mean is that so far our presence hasn't helped much anyway." Jared stood, pushing his half-eaten bowl of porridge away. "It's time to move on and maybe be of some use." With those words the dark-haired man shouldered his way past the teen, anger and defeat coloring his words.
Quinn turned to follow but Surina's hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Let him go. He won’t go far without us, he's just frustrated."
Quinn nodded, secretly knowing that it was more than just frustration that angered the other man. Unsure of how to fix the situation with his friend he opened his mouth to tell Surina about the argument when a shrill sound warbled through the air, appearing to be emanating from Surina's hip.
Sure enough, the demi-god fished the ringing phone from her jacket pocket. "Hello? One second Tyrell."
She pulled the device away from her ear and pressed the speakerphone button as Quinn huddled closer. "Okay, go ahead."
"Who else is listening?" Tyrell’s deep and heavily accented voice came through the speaker.
“Just myself and Quinn, uh Lord Athena that is.”
“Really?” the man replied.
"Yes, in fact he was the one to notice your symbol on the bracelet I showed you,” Surina said. “So do you have any information for us?"
"Well I’m not a hundred percent sure. I would have to actually hold the cuff to be absolutely certain, but it appears that the materials were mine, but the actual cuff is not of my design."
"Do you know what the materials were for?" Quinn asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do Lord Athena.”
“Quinn’s fine,” the boy assured.
“Alright then Quinn - apparently, someone raided one of my storehouses, but they were very specific in what they took. The only things missing were some spare parts for the Phantasm.”
As those words exited the phone Quinn's mind was drawn back to the night before. Moments before the thief appeared in the temple both he and Surina had experienced the electric crackle that the guards at the Solar temple had described. At the time the sensation was oddly familiar, yet he had dismissed the thought as the theft escalated to murder.
Quinn suddenly realized where he had experienced that feeling before.
"Surina, give me the cuff," he demanded.
Her brows rose behind the frames of her glasses but she complied, fishing the device from the bag at her feet. "What do you need that for?"
"I want to try something," Quinn answered, snatching the cuff from her hand.
"Tyrell, I'll have to call you back," she said into the receiver and without waiting for an answer pressed the button ending the call.
Clutching the metal bracelet Quinn jogged out of the dining hall, Surina following close behind. In a short trek the blonde teen led them back to the scene of the crime. Standing on the little apron surrounding the display where Polaris once hung Quinn slipped the cuff onto his own wrist.
"What are you doing? Take that off!" Surina commanded.
"Sorry, you're just going to have to trust me on this."
Surina leapt forward to pull him from his perch but found herself grasping thin air.
Quinn was gone.
~ Chapter 23 ~
Quinn went from staring at Surina's concerned face to gazing out at the ruins of ancient Ephesus. When he had turned the dial, he had felt the tingle of electricity in the air that he associated with the Phantasm, but also a momentary sensation of weightlessness, which soon dispersed after he landed in his new location.
In the distance, he could hear the rabble of the visiting tour groups as they dawdled along the stone walkways.
Only a single column remained of the temple he had been standing in only moments ago; In fact, what was left of this temple could barely begin to tell the story of the massive building he h
ad just been in.
The ruins he stood in appeared to be somewhat off the normal path of most of the tour which afforded Quinn the time to inspect his surroundings thoroughly. Already he could see that the dust below had been disturbed not only by his appearance but by the footprints of another. But what confirmed Quinn’s suspicion of this being the escape route of the thief was the splattering of recently dried blood that progressed along with the footprints down to the undergrowth.
"And right over this hill we'll see the remains of the Temple of Artemis," came the heavy Turkish accent of one of the tour guides.
Startled out of his investigation the blonde teen scrambled to push his sleeve up and reveal the device. Turning the dial back to its original position Quinn once again felt the sensation of electricity followed by a moment of weightlessness before he found himself back in the First Realm temple.
Surina stood a few feet from him, the tension in her body rushing out of her as she caught sight of him; yet her relieved expression quickly gave way to anger as she stalked towards him, giving the teen a harsh shove. "Don't you ever do that again! What the hell were you thinking? You could've been killed," she shouted.
"I seriously doubt that," Quinn responded.
"Did you have any idea what that thing could even do?"
"I had a pretty good idea," he replied with a shrug. He really hadn’t meant to worry her, but after seeing the thief actually use the device he had figured that it was used for transportation. Though the more he thought about it, he realized that his actions were a tad hasty as the cuff could have delivered him straight into the clutches of the thief.
"I swear, if you weren’t under my protection I'd kill you myself for pulling a stunt like that,” she threatened, though Quinn knew she wasn’t truly angry as a tone of worry was present in her voice. “So what happened?" she asked as she calmed himself.
"I figured out how our thief has been getting around – by using this," he explained holding up his arm to display the cuff.
