Unmasked

by Dale Mayer

  And then his gaze landed on the empty pasta bowl in front of her. He frowned as she reached for the garlic bread still on the table and slathered it with extra butter. Finally she sat back with a happy smile and said, “Good food.”

  The others glanced at her and chuckled.

  “You were hungry, weren’t you?” Chana said.

  Lacey smiled and said, “If you can’t finish yours, just let me know.”

  At that, Chana slid her bowl toward her. “Go for it. I ate sandwiches at lunch, and I’m still full.”

  Lacey didn’t hesitate. She leaned forward, popped the last of the garlic bread into her mouth and dove into Chana’s pasta. Sebastian’s own appetite fled as he watched her genteel way of inhaling Chana’s food. When she was done, she reached for her water, drank the whole glass, refilled it from the water pitcher on the table and drank that glassful too. He realized he could no longer toss this off as a light suspicion. Something really ugly was going on here.

  The conversation around them was lighthearted. Katie told them all about having finished the cataloging with all of Lacey’s photography expertise, so everything was done and boxed and ready to be shipped back to the foundation now. They all cheered, patting Lacey on the shoulder.

  “I knew she could do it,” Chana said proudly. “Being here is her big dream.”

  Lacey lifted her wineglass. “To dreams.”

  At that, a big cheer went up around the table, and they all chinked glasses.

  Sebastian watched to see how she would handle the wine. Lacey took a big sip and then choked. He leaned forward as he realized what was happening. She didn’t understand though. She put down the wineglass and reached for the water and drank another glass of water until she stopped coughing, but she never picked up the wineglass again.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. He drank down his wine and said, “Lacey, how about a quick second trip back to the doctor to make sure you’re okay?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t need to. Not only am I fine,” she said, “but there’s no bruising.” She twisted slightly so he could see the back of her arm where it had been scraped.

  The wound was almost gone now. In less than twenty-four hours. His breath caught in the back of his throat, and his hand trembled. “That’s amazing.”

  But he wasn’t amazed; he was pissed. He was terrified. This was well past stage one of something he’d seen before. Lacey had headed into this without passing go, without stopping at any of the signs that he had seen before. She’d headed straight into stage two. And now he knew they were all in deep shit. Well past the help of a normal doctor.

  Chapter 6

  The wine tasted funny. As she held out her glass to Chana, Lacey whispered, “If I eat your dinner that you didn’t like, will you finish my wine that I don’t like?”

  Chana’s face lit up with a smile. “Anytime,” she said, accepting the wineglass. She tossed the wine back and said, “I’m surprised you don’t like this one. It’s a favorite here.”

  “Doesn’t taste right tonight. Maybe it was the pairing with the pasta, or maybe I’m cheerfully happy from dinner,” she said.

  The group rose soon afterward, ready to head back to the apartments.

  With an arm linked with her cousin, Lacey loved the short walk. She pointed out the stars. “I can’t believe you can see Orion’s Belt from here.”

  Chana chuckled. “I forgot you were as crazy about astrology as you are about Pompeii.”

  “Well, that would be astronomy,” she said, “but I do love astrology too.”

  “Do you check the daily stars to see if the love of your life will show up today?” Mark teased.

  Everybody had a good laugh.

  “Not today I didn’t.” Lacey took their good-natured teasing with a big smile. It was great having a group of friends to enjoy the evening with. She squeezed Chana’s arm and whispered, “You have nice friends.”

  Chana chuckled. “I do.”

  Back in the apartment, Lacey said, “I’m the only one who didn’t get a shower earlier, so if you all don’t mind …”

  “Please do,” Mark said, pinching his nose, “as a favor to the rest of us.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, grabbed her nightclothes and headed into the shower. She stripped down and looked at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t lied when she had told Sebastian that she had almost no bruising. She looked incredibly fit and healthy. She didn’t know when she’d started to feel that much better but figured sometime around early afternoon. Maybe she’d just needed to sit down and recharge.

  Feeling stronger and more limber, she stood in the hot water until her hair ran free of dirt, then shampooed and conditioned it gently and washed the rest of her thoroughly. By the time she was done, she figured she’d pretty well emptied the hot water tank. She wrung her hair of most of the water, then put it into a braid for the night. Redressed, she walked back out, wondering about the pain pills and muscle relaxants. Should she take more? It seemed foolish when she felt good.

  With her dirty clothes and the pills in hand, she went back into the bedroom. “Not sure when we do laundry, but I didn’t bring a ton of clothing and will need to wash some soon. I didn’t consider how dusty everything is here.”

  “If you can make it until the weekend,” Chana said, “we can do a wash then.”

  “Perfect. Maybe we should go shopping so I can get a couple more outfits.”

  Chana was already deep into her book, but she nodded.

  “No boyfriend for you these days?” Lacey asked. “I thought maybe you and Tom had something going on.” She glanced at her and caught color rolling up her cousin’s face. She chuckled. “Or was I not supposed to notice?”

  “It’s a little hard to have a relationship in a gang like this,” she said with a sigh. “Still I’d try it if it weren’t for other issues.”

  “Who made these sleeping arrangements?” Lacey asked. She sat down on the bed, tucked her legs under the covers and stretched out. She might be feeling a hell of a lot better, but she loved being here in bed, relaxing for the evening.

  “I think Sebastian set up the roommates,” Chana said. “Besides, it’s probably not a good idea to have a relationship with somebody you’re working with.”

  “It’s great when it’s all good,” Lacey said. “But it sucks the minute things go bad.”

  Chana agreed. She reached over and turned off her bedside light. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. Good night.” She rolled over and almost immediately fell asleep.

  Lacey, even with all the pills she’d taken that day, wasn’t tired—she was hungry. What the hell? She’d eaten a huge amount of food at dinnertime. Besides, there was nothing for her to snack on here, so too bad.

  She lay in bed, the lights out, when she heard people walking through the apartment. Somebody went into the kitchen, got water, opened the fridge, and she wondered if they were snacking too. Such a strange feeling to be sharing an apartment with other people after living alone for so long. It had been different when she had lived with her mother too, because her mother hadn’t been very mobile. All the audible footsteps in the house, all the noises had been mostly Lacey making them. Here, however, any number of people walked around.

  The two crew apartments also had connecting doors. Both belonged to the foundation. Another door opened and closed again. It could have been either of the apartment doors. Whatever.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

  But raised voices quickly had her fully awake. She glanced at Chana, only her cousin slept heavily. Lacey bounded to her feet, quietly opened her bedroom door and stepped out so she could at least hear who was talking. It was Mark and Tom.

  She walked into the living room, frowning at the two of them.

  Mark saw her enter and apologized. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you.”

  She shrugged. “That’s all right. I hadn’t fallen asleep yet.” She glanced at Tom, then back at Mark, wondering if she should just go back to
bed.

  “Isn’t it a bit late for this?” Tom asked Mark.

  Mark struggled to bite back words, spun on his heel and walked out of the apartment, slamming the door hard behind him.

  Lacey glanced at Tom and said, “Not everything is happy in heaven, huh?”

  He gave her a wry look. “Definitely not.” He walked down the hallway and shut the connecting door—quietly.

  With nothing else to do, she headed back to bed to get some sleep. But her mind wouldn’t let it be. She swore she’d heard Tom say something about theft. What she didn’t know was what the hell had been stolen and by whom?

  *

  Jeremiah arrived at midnight. Sebastian studied his face, then his friend’s appearance, normally a calm person with an eternally young attitude, he looked frustrated, frazzled. “What happened to you?”

  Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “Nothing, just having an off day …”

  “Any particular reason?”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “You know me, moody as hell. Today is just one of those days.” “So what the hell’s going on here?” Jeremiah sagged into the big living room chair. “Never thought we’d see this again.”

  Sebastian watched him, seeing the fatigue on his friend’s face. “You didn’t have to come, if it was too much, you know.”

  Jeremiah just waved it away. “Anything new developing?”

  “Not necessarily. The woman hit by the vehicle is doing better in that respect.”

  “I don’t think you told me about her.”

  Sebastian filled him in. “The thing that bothers me is she is doing very well.”

  “So, you’d be happier if she was doing badly?”

  “No. But she’s doing better than she should be.”

  “In what way?” Jeremiah asked slowly, leaning back into the recliner. He glanced around. “You don’t have a beer, do you?”

  Sebastian walked into the kitchen, grabbed two cans of beer, popped the top of his and came out, placing Jeremiah’s on the coffee table beside him, even though Sebastian knew it would remain untouched. He always asked and never drank but it was part of his social routine.

  “She’s healed remarkably well is what I mean. Just yesterday she was in the accident—last night on their way to eat—but the scrapes have already closed over, the bruises and scabs have almost disappeared. She’s moving a lot better than she was even this morning.”

  “Good drugs? Good ointment? Lord, you think it’s related?”

  Sebastian had to ponder that. He’d been disturbed at the fast healing of Lacey’s system. He was grateful she wasn’t seriously hurt, and obviously it could have been so much worse. But the fact was, she was moving as if she wasn’t injured at all, and she didn’t show any lingering signs of pain. Yet he’d seen her hip and calf immediately after the accident. They had been scraped up pretty bad. A bit of redness remained, but he suspected, by tomorrow, that would be all gone. “It’s possible she’s got an incredible immune system, but it doesn’t feel like it.” Then he remembered the other issues he’d noticed. “She has a crazy appetite and is thirsty all the time. Then tonight alcohol didn’t agree with her.”

  “We’ve certainly learned to listen to our feelings, to our intuition,” Jeremiah said.

  “I know, and in this case it feels off. But we’ve never seen anybody heal this fast. Down in the Mayan ruins, they were getting stupid injuries that had no explanations. Sure there was the crazy hunger and thirst, but there were also headaches, blurry vision, aches and pains, even open wounds, but we never saw any open wounds heal completely overnight, so I don’t see how they could be related.” Sebastian didn’t know what else to say. He knew no two incidents would be exactly the same. It was never that neat and tidy when dealing with energy. There were always slight differences that add to the confusion. “It was the weird zap between us that really got to me. It happened once between one of the doctors and myself. It was like a foretelling of something to come. Immediately I wanted to take her back to the doctor and have him take a second look, but she refused.”

  “You could have insisted.”

  “I could have, but it seemed strange to insist when she’s doing so well. I’m trying not to set off any alarms as it is.”

  “Is anything else going on at the site?”

  “Yes. I just don’t know how serious it all is,” he said. “I’m not sure the team is being honest with me, and they seem be fighting among themselves, tempers flaring. I feel like I need to be here every day to see for myself and stop things from getting worse.”

  “I didn’t notice anything when I was here last.” Jeremiah leaned forward, resting his elbows on his hands. “But if you can’t trust your team …”

  Sebastian hopped up and paced the living room. “I’ve never had to question their honesty or integrity before, so I’m not sure what to think. It could be something as simple as one having an affair with another, or two who were having an affair have broken up, and things are difficult now.”

  “That’s always the worst, isn’t it? And it happens all the time.” Jeremiah was quiet then asked, “Maybe it’s the new arrival. Is she pretty, young, single?”

  Instantly the picture of Lacey’s fresh innocence slammed into Sebastian’s brain. “Yes, to all of them.” His voice was softer than he had intended.

  And, of course, Jeremiah wasn’t fooled. “Ahh. You like her.”

  “Nothing not to like,” he answered in a mild tone.

  “And yet?”

  “And yet, there’s something about her. There’s a glow within—a special light. If there’s any evil energy around, it’ll be attracted to her like bees to honey.”

  “Now I’m really fascinated.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “You’ll meet her tomorrow.”

  While they sat here talking, he heard an apartment door slam shut in the outer hallway. Frowning, he walked to the front door and peered out. But nobody was there. It could have been one of his team, or it could have been somebody else who lives on this floor.

  He closed the door slowly and walked back to his friend. “It’ll be good to have you around,” he said.

  “I have been around. Remember? Just not always where you can see me.”

  The two friends exchanged long looks. They’d been friends since way before the Mayan expedition. The love of the past and an opportunity to work in a corner of Pompeii was too irresistible for either of them.

  “Anyway, it’s bedtime,” Sebastian said. “See you early tomorrow morning—trying to beat the heat.”

  “Can’t wait,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He got up and headed to his room.

  Sebastian sat in the living room for another long moment, finishing his beer. He felt like he was on the cusp of something momentous. But it didn’t feel good. It wasn’t a place he wanted to be. He didn’t like the undertones and the undercurrents and especially didn’t like all he didn’t understand.

  He carried the beer cans back into the kitchen, putting his on the counter and Jeremiah’s back into the fridge. He stared outside at the sky, then turned his gaze in the direction of the ruins. There was almost a malevolence out there—waiting, watching. What he didn’t know was what or who it waited for. He turned and headed to his bed. He needed to have all his strength for whatever tomorrow would bring.

  Chapter 7

  A new person arrived the next morning. He walked onto the site to cries of welcome.

  “Hey, Hunter.”

  “Good to see you again, Hunter.”

  Hunter. A man who stared at Lacey a little too intently. She smiled and excused herself, finding his presence too strong to ignore and needing to step back while everyone else appeared to welcome him. By noon, Lacey had completely forgotten about her injuries. She felt fine, back to her happy, contented self. Even Hunter appeared less interested in her. She smiled easily at everybody as she worked through the photographs she needed to take and then shifted to more location-based shots.

  She found what
appeared to be a partial footprint set in a path. It looked old, as in baked into the mud and the dirt of the surroundings. Potentially when the rock blocks were formed, as if a child had stepped where he wasn’t supposed to. Fascinated, she took several photographs.

  As she wandered, she took more and more photographs. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of it. She glanced past the area where they were working, wondering if she could take a few hours and just wander.

  “Lacey?” her cousin called out.

  She twisted to see Chana waving. Lacey walked over, carefully making her way down to the level where Chana worked.

  “Would you mind taking some photographs as we work on this?”

  “Sure.” It looked like they were unearthing a kitchen hearth.

  As they worked at the slow and careful pace all archaeologists seemed to move at, Lacey took pictures of their progress. Several areas were being worked on at one time, and Lacey found it fascinating to see what was uncovered from one moment to the next. The longer she was here, the more addicted she became. It was a fascinating place. There was just something about the sun, the weather and the breeze, the old meeting the new, the digging into the mysteries that she found enthralling.

  She wandered over to the odd-shaped doorless room they had broken into the other day. She took several more photos. Reaching down to remove a rock, she took pictures under and around it.

  Changing her filters, she lowered her camera inside the dark room so she could take photos inside with a flash. It wasn’t a very big area, and it was apparently empty. She moved slowly away from the group, taking photos of everything that interested her—a rock at a certain angle, a low-lying branch atop a stack of rocks, a partial wall not even yet begun to be excavated, a mound that hid who-knew-what. Tall grass. More odd indiscernible shapes to the landscape.

  Moving back farther and farther, she kept clicking, fascinated by the world and what was hidden below. In her heart she was so sorry for all the people who had died here. The panic and the pain of the volcanic eruption would have been absolutely horrific. For most of them, death should have been fast. That didn’t make it any easier to Lacey.