Hunter's Hope

by M. J. O'Shea

  Aaaannd the moment is lost.

  Alo made a face. “My dad had pipe dreams of me getting into the financial world with him. Those died pretty quickly after I bombed my math AP test.”

  “Too bad. I think math is sexy,” Jack growled. But he couldn’t keep a straight face. He started giggling. Giggling.

  Alo shoved at his shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  Jack leaned forward and sucked a kiss into Alo’s neck. Alo shuddered when unexpected tingles shot down his spine.

  “Not making fun of you,” Jack said. “Just trying to figure out what’s okay.”

  “Anything,” Alo breathed. He didn’t even care that he sounded like an adolescent with a crush, instead of a grown man.

  Jack grinned. “Why don’t we take it slow.”

  They didn’t talk much after that. It was back to kissing and to Jack’s sure but sweet touch skimming up Alo’s back under his shirt. Jack tugged at the hem of the shirt eventually.

  “Can I take this off?” he asked quietly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Alo wriggled out of his shirt and tossed it to the ground. He was beyond caring about the fact that he was a little on the thin side and pale as a new moon. He just wanted his skin touching Jack’s.

  Alo moaned when their chests collided. They kissed some more, long minutes until they had to break apart to breathe.

  “I haven’t just kissed someone like this in years,” Jack said.

  Alo cringed. Of course Jack wouldn’t be happy with a little virginal fumbling and some making out under the sheets.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. He’d never felt so very out of his league.

  “Hey.” Jack cupped Alo’s chin and kissed him again. “No ‘sorry.’ I was going to say I forgot how nice this is. I love kissing you.”

  “Really?” Alo’s body was all over the place. Happy and nervous, swooping belly and skin full of shuddery shimmery gooseflesh.

  “Yeah. Can I take these off too?” Jack tugged on the band of Alo’s sweats. Alo wasn’t wearing anything under them, but he bit his lip and nodded. He felt like he’d been waiting for this moment for twenty-two years. It was time.

  Jack pulled and Alo lifted his hips off the bed. Jack ran his palm all the way down Alo’s belly, his hip, back up the inside of this thigh, teasing, torturing. Alo gripped the sheets until his fingers turned white.

  “Your skin....” Jack looked at Alo like he was something special.

  Alo was caught between screaming with frustration and melting right into the bed. Jack leaned over and kissed him, deep and breathless, but that was a distraction. Because at the same time he cupped Alo’s cock, then wrapped his fingers around it.

  Alo arched his back off the bed and groaned. He reached up and threaded his fingers into Jack’s hair. Nothing, nothing, had ever felt so good. “Jack,” Alo groaned. He barely recognized his own voice.

  “I’ve got you, kid.”

  Alo choked on something that came out between a laugh and a groan. “I think right now, I’m d-definitely not a kid. Fuck.” Jack knew exactly what he was doing. Alo was coming apart at Jack’s touch. Every moment strung out, glittery and hot. He bit his lip.

  “Not anymore.”

  Alo let his thighs fall open, and he lifted his head to draw Jack into another kiss. Jack was relentless with his touches, and they got firmer as Alo drew closer to the edge. “I can’t. I’m....”

  He could barely speak, he was so lost in the touch. Alo moved his hips and deepened the kiss. He was climbing closer, closer. Embarrassingly fast. He tried to fight it.

  “Let go, babe. I still have you.” Jack increased his pace, tightened his grip, and mouthed down Alo’s jaw to suck a mark into his neck. It was that one moment, that rough bitey kiss, that made Alo lose it. His belly tightened and then let loose in waves of heat and clenching pleasure. He tumbled over the edge and fell shivering into the dark.

  “Damn,” he finally whispered.

  Jack grinned. “Yeah?”

  Alo would’ve reached up and punched his shoulder if he had any energy at all. “Don’t be cocky,” he muttered. Then he remembered he hadn’t gotten to touch Jack. Not really. Alo tried to turn over, but Jack stopped him.

  “Another time. We’ve got to get to sleep.”

  Alo was too boneless to be disappointed. “Okay.”

  Jack wiped Alo’s belly off with a few tissues, then gathered Alo into his arms. “You’ve got to be tired.”

  “A little, I guess.”

  “Then fall asleep. My guess is we’re not going to be doing a lot of it in the next couple of days.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jack was distracted when they landed in Krakow. He’d been distracted ever since he’d fallen asleep in Alo’s arms, surrounded by pale skin and lanky limbs. Jack hadn’t had such a hard time putting a night of what was practically just kissing out of his head, well, ever. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Every few minutes on the airplane, Alo had brushed up against him, bumped him, smiled at him—all innocent. All nothing. Jack seriously had to keep himself from attacking. In public. In front of Kendra and Brad, who probably knew what was going on but pretended they didn’t.

  It was late morning when they landed in Krakow. The city was cold and gray from his point of view. He hadn’t wanted to get out of bed earlier and drag himself to another city and away from Alo’s warmth, but so be it.

  They weren’t traipsing around Europe so Jack could flirt. He was busy saving his career. And from early feedback at the network, it sure as hell was working. Marshall could take his bad attitude and his fame-hungry girlfriend and shove them up his ass.

  But really, Jack didn’t have strong feelings about it.

  “Alo. You know where we’re going?”

  “Of course,” Alo said. “Wawel.”

  “Wawel?” Jack asked. He frowned. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

  Alo showed him an image on his phone. “It’s a castle. And a cathedral. And some other things. It’s a big complex actually.”

  Jack snorted. “Oh good. I was worried the building would be too small to be a challenge, and we’d get bored.”

  “No. I think we’ll be fine. Ira used the word gold four times. We’re looking for something gold, and I already think I found it.”

  Alo showed them the picture again of the cathedral. Right there in front was a smaller chapel with a gold dome roof. “Unless I’m completely wrong, this is it.”

  “Guys. This isn’t it. This is another clue. What the hell....” Alo sounded mystified. Jack didn’t blame him. Ira didn’t leave clues. He left treasures to be found. Jack didn’t get it any more than Alo did. Alo quirked his eyebrow up and read the note that his great-grandfather had left to himself. A note. Not a painting or a gold statue. A damn note. “He’s never done this before.”

  “What the hell kind of game was he playing?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe he felt like this location wasn’t secure? Maybe he—really, I don’t know. I’m not sure what this note means.”

  “What if we get to the next place and there’s another clue like this one? We don’t have time for games,” Jack said.

  His distraction from earlier had turned into tension. Very real tension. He hadn’t seen any of their friends from Munich in days, but he felt something on the back of his neck. Little hairs prickled. Jack was on edge.

  “Jack. Chill.” Kendra reached out and cupped his arm. “Why don’t we figure this one out. See where it leads. If there’s nothing there, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  “Fine. Alo, what do you have?”

  “Nothing, yet. Give me a second. I don’t know what this means. It’s not his usual way of doing things. This isn’t a cipher. It’s a... riddle.” Jack sat and watched Alo puzzle over his great-grandfather’s cryptic message. He paced. He bit his lip. He hovered. Finally Kendra put her arm out again and stopped him.

  “Jack. Why don’t you go find us something t
o eat.”

  “Snacks? Seriously. Do I look like craft services?”

  “Yes.” She made a face. “You’re freaking Alo out. You need to go calm your ass down.”

  So Jack went for snacks. Even he had to admit he hadn’t left very gracefully. By the time he came back, the others were still sitting there staring at the yellowed sheet of paper.

  “Hey. I’m back. Sorry for earlier.”

  Alo shrugged. “It happens.”

  “Do you have any idea what Ira was trying to say?”

  “Nothing concrete. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do this?”

  He thought it might be a mystery they’d never solve. But what they did need to solve was the actual riddle itself. Unless they wanted to leave Krakow empty-handed.

  “Try reading it aloud. Translate it into English. It might help a little if we can all work on it.”

  “Umm, I’ll try. It doesn’t always translate exactly word for word.” Alo cleared his throat. “A sea of stone, blended—no, surrounded—in green....”

  Fantastic. This sounds clear as mud.

  “The history of our people, etched in rows, crumbling in time.”

  “That’s mostly it.” Alo stared at the paper some more.

  They all stared at the paper. It wasn’t helping. Jack tied his scarf a little harder around his neck and tried to not be freezing.

  “I got it, guys,” Alo finally said on a gasp. “I feel stupid for missing it. A sea of stone surrounded by green. Etched in rows and crumbling. We’re looking for a cemetery. A cemetery where a lot of Jewish people are buried.”

  Kendra pulled out her phone and started tapping away at the screen. “I think this has to be it,” she said and showed Alo the screen.

  “Remuh Synagogue,” he muttered. “Yes. And cemetery. It’s really old.”

  “Then I think that’s our best shot.”

  Remuh cemetery. Old and fitting. It was beside a synagogue in the old Jewish part of Krakow. According to Alo, the Nazis had torn the place apart and harvested the gravestones for paving and to sell, but a number of them had been restored after the war. They could only hope that the right one had.

  Jack didn’t like cemeteries. In all his years of Treasure Quest, he tried to avoid them as much as possible. A burial mound out in the middle of nowhere was one thing. It was just a hill of dirt and some bones. But stones, with peoples’ names and lives and histories inscribed right there to read? He could nearly feel the ghosts watching over him.

  Jack didn’t really need a reason not to like them. They were fucking spooky, and that was all. Especially when some of the graves were five hundred and some years old like the ones in Remuh.

  “Okay, Alo. Do your magic. I really don’t want to stay in this place any longer than we have to.”

  “Scared?” Alo asked.

  Jack shuddered. “Just not my favorite place to be. What are we looking for?”

  “The riddle. It spoke of cemeteries and our people. The only other thing I can think of as an answer is son. We’re looking for son.”

  Jack looked up. “A sun? Like carved on a stone.”

  “No, not sun, like in the sky. Son. Like his child. My grandpa.” Alo looked like a light had gone off but he shuddered a little.

  “You okay?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah,” Alo said. “It just kind of hit me how real this all is. That the guy who wrote these letters knew my grandpa. That he was a real person.”

  Jack wanted to reach out and give Alo a reassuring touch. He knew that weird sinking feeling, the one that rushed over you when you had those momentary realizations that it wasn’t just artifacts, bones, and dust. That real people had been there. It must’ve been a million times worse knowing it was someone in his own family.

  Alo cleared his throat. “Do any of you read Hebrew?”

  “I can a little bit,” Brad said. “I studied it in high school. It’s been years.”

  “Brad. Good. I need your help. We’re looking for the name Saul. And we’re going to hope it’s not on very many of these stones. One would be preferable.”

  “Only one stone with the name Saul? How likely is that?” Kendra asked.

  Alo only laughed sarcastically. “I think you probably know the answer to that. We’d better start looking.”

  “I’ll film,” Jack said. He reached his hand out for Brad’s camera. Brad didn’t look too comfortable being on the other side of the lens for once, but he nodded. “Let’s go for it.”

  “Skip the ones that are way too old to even see words. If they’re rubbed off now they were probably rubbed off by the ’40s as well,” Alo said.

  Maybe not the best logic, but there wasn’t much point in searching through the stones they couldn’t read. It would be a lost cause.

  “Look for his initials too,” Kendra said. “Hopefully they’ll still stick out a little in the stone.”

  Jack followed Alo with the camera while Kendra gestured to her phone and followed Brad with it.

  They searched around the gravestones for nearly an hour, crawling around in the grass in some spots. Jack started to think that maybe they were out of luck in Krakow and it was best to move on. That was until they found it. Brad called out for them to come over.

  “Look. I think this is it. That says Saul, right?”

  Alo leaned over and then nodded. “And there are his initials scratched onto the base. You got it, man.”

  Brad looked quite pleased with himself. “I can’t believe they’ve lasted all this time. Do you think whatever he hid here is buried in the grass?”

  Jack shrugged to try and cover his unease. “I can’t imagine where else it would be. Jesus. This has got to top everything we’ve done this trip. Digging in an actual grave. It better not be buried that deep.”

  If Ira had managed to put it all the way down in the coffin, Jack was out. Fucking out. He might have dug around in caves and stuff for a living, but the headstone changed his game entirely.

  “Do we have anything to dig with?” Alo asked.

  “What do you think?” Jack muttered. Alo had walked in with them. He knew exactly what they were all carrying. “We are so not doing this right now anyway. We’re going to have to come back at night.” Then he realized what he’d just said. The cemetery. At night. Digging near a grave. “I quit,” Jack muttered.

  Kendra laughed. “You can stay back tonight, scaredy-cat.”

  He seriously wanted to. So much. “No. I’m not going to leave you guys out here. If things get hairy, I want to be with my crew.”

  Jack knew he didn’t imagine the relief that sank over Alo’s face. He probably wasn’t in love with the idea either. Who would be?

  “So we come back later with... tools?”

  “Yeah. We come back later. Shit.”

  The mist had settled by the time they found their way back to the cemetery that night. It wound around the headstones like some slinky gray cat. Jack shivered and cursed their luck right and left. The damn place looked like something out of a horror movie. At least it wasn’t snowing.

  “I hate this,” Jack said. “I just want to be perfectly clear.”

  He’d like nothing more than to get the hell out of the old cemetery. He barely cared what Ira had hid in the ground. No, strike that. He didn’t care at all.

  “I’m not a huge fan of it myself,” Brad muttered. “I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible.”

  Alo nodded vehemently. Only Kendra grinned like she was in the middle of some huge adventure. Nutcase.

  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  They had only the lights they needed, one small trowel—there was no way they were trouncing into the graveyard with a huge shovel—and Brad’s smaller camera. They were in a landmark. Breaking and entering as usual. Jack hoped whatever the hell they had to do would happen and happen quickly.

  “Let’s start on this side,” he said. “It’s where the initials are.”

  Alo nodded and since he’d been th
e lucky one to carry the shovel he started digging.

  “Careful,” Jack said.

  “Jack. I know.” Alo reached out and cupped his hand around Jack’s arm.

  “Yeah, I know you know. Sorry.” Jack couldn’t help freaking out. He didn’t mean to, but he hadn’t realized how much he would really not like being in the cemetery. His nerves were manifesting in him being bossy.

  Jack watched Alo dig. He wished he could yank the shovel from Alo’s hand and do it himself, get it over with. There was a good chance they wouldn’t find anything, just like there always was, but—

  A solid clank pierced the air. Luckily, it was nowhere near as deep as the actual coffin would be. They all breathed a relieved sigh.

  “There’s something here,” Alo said. Jackpot.

  It took a while to pry the old metal box from the ground, but finally Alo did. Then he lifted the rusted lid gently and pulled out a velvet bag that seemed to be in decent condition. Alo pulled the drawstring on the bag and turned it into his palm.

  There were three things—at least that’s what it looked like in the dark. A bracelet of some sort, heavy with a circular clasp, a ring, and a pendant. Jack shone a light right on them. The stones glowed warm amber gold.

  Alo’s stomach dropped. He had a moment of recognition. He’d seen that necklace before. At least pictures of it. No. That’s not possible. Then he remembered where they were, had a minor heart attack, dropped the items into the velvet pouch and into his bag, and smoothed the dirt over as much as possible.

  “Let’s go,” Alo said. Jack nodded and stood from where he was crouched over Alo. Kendra and Brad went to move too.

  “You know what that is, don’t you?” Jack asked.

  “I think so. The necklace at least. If I’m right — “ he swallowed thickly.

  Then Alo heard shouting. He didn’t know Polish, but he did know they were in trouble.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here. Now.”

  He bolted for the gate and hoped they could slip around whoever was shouting at them. Hopefully it was just a guard and not the police. The last thing any of them needed was to end the night in a Polish prison with no explanation for why they were defiling property. The shouting got nearer.