“Where to?”
I’d screwed us both and put us in a ridiculous amount of danger, trapping us four stories below ground with only one viable exit. I’d foolishly laid all the blame for the men hunting us on his tail, hung it all on his buyer, wasting time researching leads and avenues to tie all this back to a single man who’d really only been a pawn for Azazel. I would not make that mistake again. We had one enemy—Azazel. And the best way to win against him was to get the relics. Nothing else mattered and we’d have to deal with our killers as they came. “Airport. Let’s get to Greece.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. We need to face what’s there and get this over with.” I sighed and unloaded the weapons, clicking on safeties and making sure that none of them would accidentally fire if shit got out of hand again before the airport. We’d need to take them all to Greece and I wanted to pick up more ammo before we got to the site.
I made the necessary calls to ensure that the plane and vehicles would be ready, along with ammo for the weapons we carried, and a few more just in case. I hung up, hoping that Clarissa had been the only compromised contact on my end. I’d changed us to a different, smaller airport that was only twenty minutes from here—no commercial service, only private planes. I had to trust that Azazel would let us get to Greece before attempting to take us out again. Hopefully he was limited to the same slices of time that Metatron was, and wasn’t running a live stream that allowed him to know that we’d just escaped—again.
Clay pulled into the airport and we were both strung tight as bows. I grabbed the weapons and he lifted the bag from the backseat, silently closing the back door. His shoulders were tight and his jerky movements belied any surety he was projecting. “What about the car?”
I shrugged. “They’ll handle it. Agencies steal half the missing cars out there. I’m not worried about it.” I laid a hand on his forearm and waited for him to look at me. The muscle in his jaw bulged. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Not your fault. I clearly need to do better screening on the girls I…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, that could have gone worse.”
My fingers tightened along with my chest. Much worse. I hated that we owed our lives to Metatron right now. Not that we wouldn’t have taken her out. He’d made a hell of a move and timed it perfectly to take her out the moment my knife connected. Still, I’d have been shot, probably severely. Bad enough that I’d have bled out before the agents above could have saved me. Agent Richards was deadly and a hell of an agent, no matter who she worked for.
I was glad Clay had been there, glad he hadn’t hesitated when I needed him. I finally felt like I could count on him to have my back. We were becoming a hell of a team. I tipped my chin, careful not to let us descend back into the feelings we’d damn-near shared. “Leg sweep, huh?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s the only thing that ever surprises you. Figured she might not expect it either.”
“It was good,” I said as he linked our fingers together and we walked to the plane. “It was very good.”
Chapter Fifteen
We arrived in Greece in the pre-dawn hours and threw the weapons bag in the back of a silver BMW. I drove and Clay pulled up a map to the archeological site. We didn’t have far to go from the airport, and we stayed off the main roads, winding toward the small town on an indirect route. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, wary of a tail. We were both edgy and our conversation was as minimal in the car as it had been on the plane, both of us deep into work mode. Clay had lost his jovial edge and my senses were alert.
A mile from the perimeter of the dig, we scouted the neighboring blocks, making two full circles and working slowly inward. Thankfully, the landscape was flat and open, concealing nothing. The houses were spaced apart, eliminating all but the smallest shadows. Spata was a sleepy town and I relaxed a little. No tail and no unwarranted attention. Traffic was nonexistent, which made spotting a tail easier, but also made it impossible for us to hide. I had to hope that we had a few hours’ head start.
“There it is” Clay pointed through the darkness to scaffolding and excavated dirt. I didn't slow as we passed the dig. For all the clean walls of dirt and equipment, it looked like any other archeological site. Chain-link kept curious onlookers at a safe distance, but the gates weren’t secured by anything more than simple locks. The site sat in the middle of the city, which on any other day wouldn't have been a big deal. But right now it was deserted, and walking onto it left us incredibly exposed. On our third rotation, I decided on a squat, three-story parking garage across the street for a stakeout spot.
At least they hadn't unearthed the relic yet. Otherwise, we'd have been forced to up our time table. It would happen today, and that made me incredibly uneasy. The last thing I wanted to do was sit here, waiting and watching, because that gave everybody else an opportunity to find us. I'd prefer to storm in right now, grab the relic, and head out. But by now, anyone who wanted this relic knew it was here.
Azazal knew I was coming to get it and he’d probably already laid a trap. I wouldn't be surprised if he's corrupted the entire archeological team, found some way to exploit their fears or even their overwhelming need for the glory of the find.
I parked on the second-highest level in the center beside three other cars that probably belonged to locals. The Beemer stuck out more than I cared for, and now I wished I would've more specific when I requested wheels. It would have to do. And really … at this point, stealth was impossible.
We got out. I loaded two handguns for each of us and pocketed four clips of ammunition, then laid out the Mossberg and our remaining weapons in the trunk along with our extra ammo, in case we needed to grab any of it on the run.
Clay's fingers covered mine. "You look like you're ready for a war."
"Yeah. I kind of am."
Clay took his weapons and holstered them, looking like a professional. I was now completely at ease at having him with me. He was less of a liability now and finally an asset. Shit might have gone very wrong in the basement of the training facility, but we’d come out better off.
We walked the edge of the parking structure and I scanned the open area beyond. Buildings pressed on the dig with old-world stone masonry, competing with brand-new steel and glass. Three stories below, the dig opened up into the underbelly of Spata. The hole was fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long, and stretched down twenty. Orange tape fluttered, marking off the boundaries of the dig.
Nobody. Nothing.
I glanced at my watch. “We have a good hour, maybe two, before anyone shows.”
“I'm going down,” Clay said.
I shook my head. “No. Let’s watch for a few minutes and let the day unfold.”
“We have to make a move.” He leaned back and glanced down to the far corner of the garage at a set of stairs. “Now, before there’s too much foot traffic.”
I didn’t like it, but waiting wasn’t helping us. Azazel would not send a single agent again. This time, he’d send an army. One I was not equipped to battle. We’d lost Metatron as an ally—shitty as he was, I kept hoping that he’d call down a heavenly army for us if things got to that point. I’d let my temper get the best of me and now I’d put us on our own.
“We have to re-con the area,” Clay said.
He was right. We hadn't been able to get a hold of any electronic blueprints because the dig was so new, and the plans we had been able to find for the sewage system showed that it all had be re-routed to maintain the integrity of the site, leaving us no way to access it underground.
I hated splitting up, though. I’d gone from being a complete loner to depending on him… This mission had me jacked in more ways than I cared to admit. If we were together, I could take out the threats immediately, but apart, there were too many uncertainties
"I'll be fine,” Clay said, seeming to read my thoughts. “Besides, if one of us needs to cover the other, you know this is the best way to keep us both al
ive."
Dammit. I walked back to the car and took out the sniper rifle. From here, handguns were useless and the scope would help me see into the shadows. I loaded and cocked it. "I still don't feel good about it.”
“Give me another choice, I'll take it."
We didn't have one. And as long as I didn't get overtaken first, I did have the superior positioning to take out anyone on the ground coming after him.
I moved over ten feet and set up behind a pillar where I could watch everything down below, as well as the incoming ramp to this level of the garage. "I want you back up here in six minutes."
"What if I find something?"
"Six minutes. Then we go back down together."
He clenched his teeth. "Fine."
He passed behind me and took the opening stairs leading down to the main level and street. I scanned the building faces—doors, windows, pools of darkness. Quiet was the mood of the morning, but wouldn't be for long. A few blocks away, a dog barked, but nothing stirred below.
At the bottom of the stairs, Clay paused before stepping out into the street, looked both ways, and drew his weapon. I smiled. Two days ago that sequence wouldn't have occurred to him, and he'd have walked in cocky and invincible. I hated our close calls, but I didn't mind the added awareness it had brought him.
He stepped through the shadows, moving stealthily along the building. He walked the entire perimeter before descending into the lower level. I lost sight of him for too long and held my breath until he moved past the edge of the dig that had concealed him.
The layout of this dig was different than what I was used to, since Mom's were always in unimproved dirt areas. Here, they’d had to work around the existing structure of the underground, laying out each level amid pipes and concrete and expensive wiring. Clay moved easily from level to level, pausing at the far end to examine the entrance of one of the blocked-off tunnels. I would have liked to have been inside one, for the concealment and stealthy vantage.
Clay aimed his weapon into the yawing hole, shoulders hunching with a heightened anxiety, as if something had moved or made a noise. I was too far away to have picked up on either. Taking a cue from his posture, I sighted in over his head and into the blackness beyond. I had no idea what he'd seen, but if anything moved, I was taking it out.
I held my breath and clicked off the safety.
He lowered his weapon and backed away, then hurried out of the excavation and back up the stairs. I didn’t take my sights off the dig, just in case. He crossed to me, panting.
"You're not going to believe this.”
Chapter Sixteen
"This has trap written all over it. You know that, right?" My stomach squeezed as we moved further along the bowels of the Spata sewer system.
"Yeah. I know,” Clay said, checking our six over his shoulder. “But we're less exposed down here."
I didn't like that we were being directed against every set of plans we’d had available to us. Had we known this was an option, we’d never have bothered with the parking garage. This entire length of access had been marked as unused, according to every set of blueprints we'd been able to come up with. Clay's recon trip down here had exposed the misinformation, and we’d backtracked the line to a manhole and dropped in, which now had us working our way toward the excavation, coming at it on the opposite side of the parking garage. Water dripped from the ceiling, pinging against the puddles as we moved deeper along the line.
Clay had the Mossberg strapped to his back and pockets full of shells, along with two handguns and three knives. I’d left the sniper rifle, but had a dozen knives, my handguns, and enough ammo to take down any reasonable offense. None of that made me feel comfortable about our odds. We hadn’t come down here to ambush anyone, only to stay protected as long as we could. I didn’t have any preconceived notions that this was going to go easy or well, but I liked being down here a lot better than I’d liked the garage with its open sides and impossible numerous entry points. Here we had one exit, one entrance. Easy to protect, easy to leave.
Our footsteps splashed in the stagnant water left over from the efforts to drain this once they’d started the excavation. I’d been in my fair share of sewer systems, and a dry one was definitely preferable to a live one, but the fumes still made my eyes water.
We walked forward slowly, guns drawn and ready, eyes scanning every shadow.
"First shift should start in thirty minutes," Clay said quietly, his words reverberating off the stone walls and ceiling.
I nodded, then made us pause fifteen feet from the end, anticipating, ready, alert. Bright sunlight streamed past the nearby buildings, illuminating the entire dig with early-morning light. They probably loved that for working on it, but I loved it for the distinct shadow it cast on the tunnel. The lighting change from bright light to immediate dark kept us in shadow and no one in the pit would have a straight line of sight into this portion of the tunnel, either. We were invisible.
Nothing moved, and we pressed forward. Without a good idea of what the excavation team had come up with in the last few days and what they’d planned to tackle today, we didn’t know how today would play out, but I was prepared to sit and wait until nightfall if we had to. We would be here when they found it.
College students and archaeologists filtered in over the course of the next half hour. I assessed the threat level of each one, hoping desperately they hadn't all been corrupted. I didn't want to have to kill these kids or their easygoing leader, who’d been cracking jokes since setting foot on the dig. He was dressed in khakis and a worn denim shirt, blond hair sticking out from beneath a John Deere ball cap. His attitude reminded me of Dad, and being on a dig had already reopened wounds about Mom. I didn’t need any emotion creeping in on this, so I spent my time counting windows that might hold possible threats and cataloging the make and model of every car that drove past the dig.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Which made me very nervous. I wanted a glaring discrepancy, something I could pinpoint that would tell us where the threat was today. So far, we were stuck with immature students and a couple of experts who loved their jobs. Conversations filtered to us, but again, nothing that helped me at all. They talked about beer, a new club, and a cute girl who’d moved into the building. My nerves were frayed.
We shifted position and traded off shifts, one staying guard over the goings-on in the dig, and one walking back to where we'd entered the system to make sure no one had set off my makeshift trip wires. Other than our nerves, the day stayed quiet.
I was crouched in the shade of the opening, out of sight from all the workers, continually scanning the scene before us, looking for anything odd. The level of activity had bored me right out of my brain and Clay was struggling to sit still.
“Holy shit!” One of the interns waved the group over. “Matty, come take a look at this.”
Clay and I scrambled to our feet, careful to make little noise as we rose. It was mid-afternoon and the waiting had gotten increasingly painful with every hour. I was almost wishing for a shootout just so we could get it over with. The tension was nearly unbearable.
With the excavation team occupied, I waved Clay forward, then checked behind us. We were still alone in our stakeout location, but if they’d just found the relic, I could be sure that Azazel was about to put his plan in motion.
Warmth spread through my belly and I moved closer to Clay. The entire excavation team peered into a new hole that they’d knocked away in the system. We couldn’t see anything from our vantage and now I wished we’d have stayed high.
“Can you feel it?” he whispered.
The warmth spread outward, making my fingers tingle. This piece called to me far more than any of the others. Maybe it was the dig, maybe it was a fierce connection to my mother here, but we’d found what we’d come for.
Now all we had to do was get it from the dozen people handling it without calling down an army of angels.
Chapter Seventeen
They finally quit oohing and ahhing over it and we got our first look. The instructor, Matty, took the piece to the examination table and most of the students filtered back to their work. A few hung around him, interested in getting a better look at the day’s treasure. The sword wasn’t very big, an oversized knife, really. I wished I had the scope or a pair of field glasses so I could get a clearer look, but they hadn’t pulled up anything else today and that had to be what was pinging me.
The blade was badly rusted and looked exactly like you’d think for something that had been in the underbelly of a city for centuries. The hilt had a small hole in it, but I couldn’t tell from here if that was from rust or by design. Strangely, the hole was almost the same size as the ring that had been the first relic. It was a design feature I hadn’t seen before, but I didn’t exactly deal in antique blades. I cared a lot more about the carbonite blades and ones that could take a beating than pretty ones. My life revolved around function over form.
Until today.
We needed that pretty knife like I’d never needed anything else. Possessing that put us nearly to the finish line. One left. One last piece and we’d be on our way to get Griffin.
Matty took his sweet time cleaning and examining the piece. The afternoon air in the dank sewer thickened until I could nearly chew it. Agonizing minutes turned into hours as Matty explained detail after detail about the knife, comparing it to the other bits they’d found and speculating about how it had gotten down here and who it might have belonged to. They didn’t get anywhere close to the truth of its itinerary.
The God Game: Evangeline Heart Book 2 (Evangeline Heart Adventures) Page 7
