Lost Things: Three Adventure Novels

by K. T. Tomb

  His eyes were star-filled and dreamy, but as he found Julie, they turned dark and angry, his grin fading into a disturbing frown.

  “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to ruin all of this for us, aren’t you?”

  He gave out a guttural growl. He wasn’t even sure where that had come from, but he couldn’t deny that he liked it. Liked how primitive it made him feel, how masculine and animalistic. Yes, he was an animal, and now he was staring at the woman who pretended to hunt him, with the dropped pistol shaking violently in her hand. Yes, she could pretend that she was going to kill him, but he knew the truth and he suspected that she did as well.

  “You killed him!” she screeched.

  After all this time, he discovered that her voice was, in fact, annoying. Not cute and endearing like he had tried to convince himself that it was for so long. She was just so irritating! How could he have not seen this before now? She shook, the gun bouncing around dangerously. Did she even know how to fire one of those things? She’d always felt strongly about gun violence and through all of their years together, he couldn’t recall her actually being around a gun even once in their lives, much less firing one.

  “You didn’t have to kill him! What the hell! I thought you said we were going to help him! That’s what you said! That’s what you told him!”

  She was crying; thick, salty tears streaking down her face even as fat drops fell from the sky. They began to mingle so that he couldn’t tell one from the other, but it didn’t matter, it would all be over soon.

  “I did it for us, baby! I did it for our future!”

  He wore a crooked smile as he watched her heave. Her vision must be becoming blurry now, her mind foggy and confused. That was exactly what he needed. That was his opportunity. Just a little longer now and it would all be over.

  “You didn’t really think that I was just going to give him the coins did you? Let him toss them to the bottom of the ocean? Sure, let’s just toss our entire lives down there with it, everything that we could have. Come on babe, I know you see it too!”

  “Toss me the coins,” she demanded, not knowing what else to do, what else to say to him.

  The corruption was tearing at him already, the curse working its way and she could see that he was almost at the deep end and prepared to drown for those damned coins. He looked at her blankly, either unhearing or uncaring. Those coins were his mistress now and, no matter his words, Julie knew that she no longer meant to him what she once had.

  “Toss. Me. The coins!” she repeated harshly.

  Piers’ lip twitched, his brow furrowed deeply, but still he bent at her command and scooped up a handful of coins, skipping their pouch altogether. The coins scattered at her feet but she bent to scoop them, reluctant to feel their metal against her skin. They were like poison to the touch and she was worried that the corruption would seep into her blood with just that one touch.

  “The rest of them, now.”

  Maybe if she could toss them overboard and somehow restrain Piers, the curse would let him go. Just if he didn’t have them anymore, if they were no longer present to corrupt him, her fiancé. Maybe he could make it back to her. He sneered as he bent again and tossed the remaining coins to her. She scooped the rest into her hand, the cool metal seeming to warm the longer she held them. It was comforting, soothing, like a mother singing her child a lullaby during a winter storm. It was a warm blanket wrapped around her shoulders telling her that everything was all right. It would be over soon.

  The shot rang out like a missile before hitting its target. Her ears throbbed and her eyes watered. She nearly cried, but she was tougher than that. Piers dropped instantly, without even a chance to register the surprise that he was sure to have felt if she’d given him the chance. She should have felt remorse, she knew, but she didn’t. She’d never shot a gun before, had never even considered it, really. She thought they were vile things, as was any form of violence, but damn it, it had felt good! The gun was light in her hand, like it was at home being there. Like she’d been meant to wield the weapon. She’d been nervous at first, hadn’t even really thought about pulling the trigger, not really, until right before it had happened. She’d still hoped that she and Piers could work through his ‘disease,’ but then she just hadn’t cared. He couldn’t be healed, so why let him suffer? Bang! Done, nothing more to worry about. And now, it was all over, right?

  The rain had started pounding at her. Piers’ body was drenched, the blood running thinly across the surface of the boat. She didn’t care. Really, she kind of liked it. It was invigorating and for once in her life, she felt free. She gathered the coins lovingly and dumped them into the leather purse. She hated to let them out of her sight, but for now it was what was best. She had enough common sense to see how easily they could escape her grasp if she wasn’t careful.

  The sails were billowing back and forth as the winds changed. The boat rocked and she had grabbed onto some rigging to steady herself before the sailboat righted itself again. She sighed. She’d have to toss his body before she could go anywhere. She wouldn’t have an answer for having a dead fiancé on board, so she pulled and strained, fighting with all she had. She was thankful that it was Piers and not Gerald lying here. She’d never have been able to get Gerald over the rails, but after a great deal of heaving, she lifted Piers’ body to the rail and pushed it over, watching as it rose and fell with the increasingly violent waves, and then they pulled it down beneath the surface. She watched for a moment longer, but it was gone.

  Julie had never been sailing and was unsure how to tear down the sails, so she went to the engine and, clicking it on, hoped it would be enough to fight the winds. The sky was dark and ominous, no sign of the moon remained. The rain was coming down faster, harder, and the wind whipped around her, cutting into her skin and clothes. Her shirt was matted to her body and her jeans felt heavy and awkward. The only thing that felt right was the leather coin purse tied to her wrist. She felt the creak and groan of the boat as it jerked from one side to another. She wasn’t worried, though. The sails stretched so taut that she thought they might tear, rip from their hold and go flying off into the distance without any restraint. That’s what she felt like doing. Flying off into the distance. Soon. She’d be able to, soon enough.

  She snatched the wheel and did her best to find the Boston lights. Were those lights in the distance? She began in that direction, feeling wave after wave pound relentlessly against the hull of the boat. It careened to the left, but she held fast, waiting for it to straighten out. The rain pelted down, burning her face; thunder, not so far in the distance, and then a brilliant streak of lightening overhead. Water sloshed across the deck and across her running shoes. It was chilly, but she barely felt it. Another burst of thunder, this time coupled with the lightning. The storm was directly overhead, but she wasn’t worried about it. It would be over soon.

  The End

  Thank you for reading

  Lost Things

  I hope you enjoyed it.

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Also available:

  “A” IS FOR AMETHYST

  An adventure novel #1

  (read on for a sample)

  Chapter One

  Somewhere a million miles away a phone was bleating rudely.

  Travis didn’t move to answer it. Angelo didn’t move to answer it either, but then, he was only a Jack Russell. Travis had no excuse, being a grown man of thirty-nine years of age, except that he was very drunk, lying on the floor, and feeling incredibly sorry for himself for at least the fifth time this morning. Angelo looked at him with his usual curious canine face. At least he could be depended on to be exactly the same. Travis shrugged back at him, and rolled over on the floor onto his belly. The third bottle of wine was probably a mistake. But he had found that since getting shot by Russian criminals and spending far too long on Ultram and Valium during his recovery that; in large quantities, whiskey made him maudlin, beer caused him to urinate to
o frequently and was too weak to produce the desired effect...an alcohol-induced coma. The phone stopped ringing, but Travis was at least semi-conscious now, so he rolled over again and sat up, inadvertently kicking Angelo in the muzzle. The small dog yelped and ran under the desk in one corner of the office.

  “Crap, sorry buddy. You ok?” His voice was old leather and Angelo glowered at him. Travis wanted a cigarette, but he knew it would probably just make him feel sick. He tried to make friends with his dog, but Angelo decided he hadn’t forgiven him yet and slunk further under cover. As to why he was camping out most nights in the office, Travis knew the uncomfortable truth. Despite four months of recovery, of which only the first month and a half were for the physical trauma of the gunshot, Travis had not been able to shake the events in Russia from his mind. He was, after all, an anthropology professor, not a mercenary. Of course he had seen a counselor who had prescribed some anti-depressants (which remained untouched) and he knew about the process of post-traumatic stress. Travis didn’t care. He wanted to be alone, and too many people knew his home number. After taking a sabbatical from the university, he packed a small bag of essentials and moved into the Alpha Adventurers Inc. offices in downtown Atlanta. Naturally, he had felt no need to speak to his colleagues in the project about this decision. Thyri and Adam, by whose usual outstanding aesthetic taste the office was decorated, had returned to Europe within days of touching down in the States after the Russian escapade; Thyri to continue her clandestine industrialist role, Adam to Britain, to host a series of antiques- related shows. Fiona had, eventually, been dissuaded from skipping bail all together to fight pollution in Antarctica or whaling in wherever, and assented to serve a rather draconian sentence of six months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in HMP Holloway. Apparently the British judicial system looked unkindly on those who decided to run halfway across Europe while awaiting trial. Travis couldn’t say he was particularly upset about that, Fiona could definitely use a cooling off period from reality...and people. Especially Travis himself.

  Then there was Savannah. Beautiful, well-educated, multilingual, whisky-soaked Savannah. She had tried to help him through the bleakest parts, and she at least helped him see that his days of slamming bourbon with freshmen were long over, drinking him under the table three times in as many days. She had held her patience with him admirably, he felt, until her lecturing duties began again at the start of term. Now they spoke fairly infrequently. It infuriated him that he, as a well-educated, reasonably smart, man could see that he was closing himself off from the few people he knew well. He had never been one for making many friends, although he was quite successful with the fairer sex- or at least he used to be. He hadn’t been on a date since Baikal. In fact, he hadn’t done much of anything since Baikal, apart from substantially increasing the profits of the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. He hadn’t answered his emails (mainly from Adam, although some of his students had got in touch too), he certainly hadn’t answered his phone, and he was damned if he was going to be answering the landline in the Alpha Adventures office.

  The phone on the table rang again. Travis clawed his way into the high backed office chair, which was no easy task as the seat swiveled away under his inebriated half-timed lurch. He groaned a mixture of frustration at the chair and himself with a measure of pain as his burgeoning hangover gave his forehead a swift stab with a dull spear. The phone rang uncaringly. Travis looked at Angelo, still under the desk, but no longer cowering.

  “Don’t suppose you want to get that, do you?”

  The dog didn’t look like he fancied the job at all. Travis guessed the call must be important, if the caller called twice in the five minutes it had taken him to get off the floor and into a chair. Resentfully he picked the receiver up and promptly managed to knock a delicate marble statue of Ganesha off the edge of the table. The statue landed neatly, the right way up and entirely unscathed.

  “Fuck! Oh, you lucky elephant bastard.”

  “Who are you calling an elephant bastard?”

  The voice on the line was slightly indignant, but amused. Savannah.

  “Oh, hey Sav,”

  Travis found he was actually glad to hear from her.

  “No one is, I just nearly killed a Hindu god, which I’m pretty sure is a bad idea as far as escaping the cycle of karma goes.”

  “That’s fascinating, Travis. Now, listen, put some coffee on, and try to sober up a bit. I’ll be with you in an hour. And open a window for God’s sake; if you’ve been in that office for as long as I think you have, it’ll stink of booze and dog.”

  Travis tried not to tell the obvious lie, but he did it anyway.

  “I’m not drunk, I’m fine. Just had a few glasses, reading up on the Marid myths of the Middle East, actually.”

  He had honestly meant to read up about the Marids, but had barely got to page five of his book before inebriation rendered the exercise futile. Savannah made a noise that indicated she didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Sav, what’s the big rush? Alpha Adventures is inactive, everyone’s off somewhere else.”

  Travis walked around the office, trying to clear up one-handed, holding the phone in the other. Bottles clinked, and Angelo gave the entire game away by barking at his feet.

  “Traitor!” Travis hissed.

  Savannah, to her credit, pretended not to hear.

  “I have been trying to get hold of you all morning.”

  Travis checked his watch. He must have blacked out for hours. Consequently, he must look like road kill, and smell about as fragrant.

  “I just had a call from Thyri,” Savannah continued, “she feels it would be a good idea if we took on a little job ourselves, keep our eye in, so to speak. Fall break begins this weekend at the University, so I have the time and you... well. You need to get motivated by something.”

  “Is that you speaking, or Thyri?”

  Travis was annoyed he had been discussed in private ‘and’ but he guessed it had happened at least more than once.

  “Thyri. I’ve kept her in the loop, and she does finance this project, she had a right to know if one of us is having trouble. Travis, you need to get out of Atlanta for a bit. I’d suggest a holiday, but you’d probably just be holed up in a hotel room getting hammered for a week. You need something to do. Look, get on to Prometheus’ Torch and have a poke about, see if there’s anything easy that we can do, just you and me, okay?”

  Savannah had the slightest hint of pleading in her voice. Travis guessed she must be more worried about him than he had thought.

  “Yeah, OK. See you later.”

  He dropped the wine bottles he was holding in the trash, and hung up the phone. Drawing the curtains, he saw the skyline of Atlanta draped in heavy clouds. He knew a storm was coming and that the October climate would be thick, heavy with rush hour pollution and humidity. Still, the grey skies reminded him, oddly, of London. He had the office looking presentable in only a few minutes. Thyri and Adam had covered most surfaces with antiques, pictures of explorers and objet d’art from around the world. The effect was, with the mahogany furniture, very much of the office a very wealthy time traveler would have. Most of the pieces didn’t belong together, separated by centuries in time and thousands of miles, but they had been purchased with enough care that there were similarities between adjacent pieces, a use of color, or similar material linking items stylistically, if not historically. Travis had to admit Adam knew his stuff when it came to artifacts from the past. He noticed a half empty wine bottle hiding behind a large figurine of Eris, Greek goddess of discord. Appropriate, Travis thought, that she would be trying to sew trouble by concealing the evidence until Savannah arrived. Satisfied that he had collected all the incriminating items, he picked up the trash bag and took it down the three flights of stairs to the bins outside. He passed a couple of workers from one of the other offices, who gave him odd looks. His clothing was creased, hair unkempt, he couldn’t remember the last time he had shaved, and there was presumab
ly more red in his eyes than white. Travis made a point of smiling a madman’s grin at them. Once safely back in the office, Travis had meant to put some coffee on and turn on the PC, but his head was swimming. Instead, he sat back in the ornate swiveling chair, put his feet on the desk, and fell right back to sleep.

  He did not wake until Angelo barked to announce Savannah’s entrance to the Alpha Adventures office.

  Chapter Two

  Fortunately for Travis, the thunderous disapproval that he had anticipated from Savannah did not arrive as he had feared. She did, “however” greet Angelo much more warmly than him, but then Angelo didn’t smell like a distillery. The little dog submitted to a merciless fussing that he had not experienced from his owner in a considerable time. To assuage yet more guilt, Travis made coffee. He despised instant, but with only a small kitchenette stapled on to the side of the office room there was no room for a hot plate and he had not gotten around to purchasing a coffee maker, nor, for that matter, had he bought any milk or sugar in quite some time. The milk in the refrigerator was at least some of the way to being classified as an intelligent species in its own right, and Travis managed to glean half a teaspoon of sugar for each cup in a vain attempt to make the black mess palatable.

  He delivered the coffee to Savannah with what he hoped was an apologetic face. Savannah barely looked at him, now occupying his place in the office chair and engrossed in catching up on the Alpha Adventures emails that Travis had not bothered to read. Behind her half-moon glasses, Savannah’s eyes darted from side to side as she digested the information on the monitor.