by Dana Cameron
I began to recognize the images in a moment, because they were my memories.
I dropped the disk and threw my arm over my face to block it all out.
My head ached as if I’d been clipped with a brick. I tasted copper and bile. When my breathing slowed, I poked the disk, very carefully.
Nothing.
I brushed at the surface with my blood on it, but there was nothing there, no telltale burr, no rough edge I could have cut myself on.
I took a deep breath, then another, and went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I examined my finger carefully, but could see no cut. Nothing to clean out. I rubbed antibiotic ointment into the fingertip anyway before I went out to examine the disk again.
Very, very cautiously I picked it up.
Nothing special happened.
It had to be pure gold. It was so heavy.
It was a very short cylinder, about three and a half inches across and three-quarters of an inch thick. The edges were ornately decorated in a continuous band. The side facing me was blank.
I flipped it over, carefully, carefully. Maybe I had a head-rush, maybe fatigue and my heavy conscience was catching up with me—
I paused.
There were marks. Man-made.
I wasn’t breathing as I tried to find the sense in the lines that were fine, but deeply engraved into the surface. Some were curved, some were straight, and—
—and that one was a letter.
It wasn’t English or any modern language. It looked like Greek, but while I could recognize the alphabet, I don’t read Greek. Some of the letters were…well…archaic looking.
It was the circular form that gave me my first clue. There was a kind of squiggly circle, not entirely closed, that fit inside the edges of the circle. The letters formed four words, distributed unevenly across the surface.
It was a map. The ancient Greeks believed the world was round, the top of a column suspended in space.
Δελϕοι.
OK, the first one was delta, and the next, epsilon and lambda…DEL…
Delpoi?
A thought struck me. I got out my phone and Googled it.
Delphi.
I grabbed my recently acquired and well-worn map of Europe, and compared modern Greece with the shape on the gold disk. It was hopelessly crude by modern standards, but even I could make out the stiletto heel of modern Italy, the mainland of Greece, and coastal Turkey. The names were scattered across what today is the Aegean. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the words were, but a little longer to determine what they represented.
Delphi. Delos. Didyma. Claros.
There was a kind of mark I couldn’t quite read, under Claros, like a compass rose. I assumed it represented the importance of Claros, because, as far as I could remember, compass roses were a later convention.
I knew they were all the sites of temples. More specifically, temples with oracles, all dedicated to Apollo. Importantly, they were places that Grayling had mentioned with relation to the figurines. But what connection might they have to Pandora’s Box?
What I’d originally thought was just touristic trash seemed to be connected to some very heavy-duty temple sites. Sites associated with Apollo, sites associated with oracles. Claudia had said there were oracles among the Fangborn. It got me thinking about the snake aspect of the Fangborn; there were many serpents associated with Apollo. Perhaps this was yet another connection.
I had no idea what the disk might mean. Maybe it was nothing at all to do with my problems, a coincidence, but it was probably worth a fortune in gold alone.
As soon as I had the thought, I knew it was incorrect. The disk had to be related to my troubles. The reaction I’d had when Sean had pointed out the Via Cavalli, the way the thing had—tasted me was what came to mind—when I picked it up the first time; it was finding out who I was. It wanted to be found. It wanted me to find it. Somehow the disk was acting on my Fangborn nature.
That scared the shit out of me.
With shaking hands, I photographed all the objects from several angles with my phone. Just to be on the safe side.
Then I crashed. It was morning, just a few hours before we were supposed to leave. I fell asleep, the disk still in my pocket.
When I woke, I pulled apart all my things and set them on the bed, trying to reorganize and take stock. Underwear was becoming a priority and a problem; I was still OK for toothpaste and had one shirt that wasn’t covered in red dust.
I pulled out the figurines to make sure they were still carefully wrapped. Realizing the cardboard box I’d kept them in was crushed, I cast about for an alternative.
I picked up my plastic pencil box, removed the freezer bag I had closed around it. Its vibrant yellow had faded over the past twenty years. I emptied out the playing cards and the SuperBalls, and sadly said farewell to Optimus Prime, setting him on the bedside table. Nice for him to end his days peacefully in Venice.
I carefully tucked the figurines into the box and nodded, satisfied. A snug fit, but better protection. I slipped the freezer bag around it, another layer of waterproofing.
The door opened. Sean or the maid. Cursing, I jammed the pencil case into my bag.
“I’ll be three more minutes. Tre minuti, per favore, signora.”
It wasn’t Sean or the maid.
It was Dmitri’s attacker from Berlin.
He seemed twice as large as he had in Berlin, close up and personal. Still with the Red Sox cap, blond, and sunburned now. He’d been out in the Italian sun, it seemed. His nose wasn’t quite straight, as if it had been broken and badly set. Scary, intense light-blue eyes. “Adam Nichols. I’m a government official.”
Government officials were more than eager to tell you which part they represented; this guy was a total phony. “Prove it. Better yet, get out of my room.”
He held out a badge for an agency I’d never heard of, signed by Senator Edward Knight. The senator who’d been so very interested in Greek pottery, according to Professor Schulz. The one who was also Fangborn. He seemed to be awfully close to the trail I was on.
I nodded. “I got one of those, too. Came with furry handcuffs and a policewoman’s uniform with the breakaway snaps.”
“I assure you, my title, my badge, and my power are all quite genuine. I don’t want to hurt you—”
“And I don’t want to be hurt.”
“But I want those figurines you have.”
“Can’t do it. I need to save my cousin. Dmitri, that guy you were pounding into Silly Putty in Berlin? He’s got Danny. I need to meet him with the figurines, or he’ll kill Danny.” A thought occurred to me, and hope kindled in me. “Or is he out of the picture? Please tell me you locked him up someplace horrible, that he’s no longer a threat to me or Danny!”
“Dmitri Parshin got away,” Adam Nichols said, his face grim. “You can imagine he’s not pleased with you.”
I couldn’t help it. I swallowed.
“And he doesn’t need the figurines anyway, not for what he really wants. Nothing can give him that—not even you, Zoe, with all your powers.”
The blood rushed from my face. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, Dmitri thinks he can become like you, Fangborn, a werewolf, with the right artifacts, the right spells. Only it’s nonsense. You can’t be bitten, you can’t be made. You can only be born to the fang. You know that, or should.” He shook his head. “It’s gonna kill him if he ever figures it out.”
He had the door blocked. I backed away. “Wait, how do you know this? How do you know about—?”
Adam reached for the backpack in my hands.
I took another step back until I could feel the cool of the wall behind my back, felt the rough stucco through my shirt.
“It will all be easier if you give it to me. Then all of this goes away. It would be a great relief, wouldn’t it?” He closed the space between us with two steps, and I was trapped. “I’ll get it back where it belongs, I’ll capture Dmitri, and y
our cousin will be safe. All this will be behind you. No more running, Zoe.”
His presence was more than menacing: he was very large, very strong, very determined, and at least a little crazy. I’d seen him beat Dmitri like a bongo, and the fact he’d followed me to Italy and broken into my room scared the hell out of me. But I didn’t know what he wanted with the figurines, only that his interest in them seemed to make no sense. If they wouldn’t turn you into a Fangborn, who cared?
There was no reason for me to believe him. Why did he know about the Fangborn? How did he know about me? There was no time to concentrate for the Beast; there were too many questions.
He reached for my backpack, managed to unclip the flap. He gave me a suggestive leer.
Angered, I jerked it away. “What do you want with Dmitri?”
“Don’t be like our friend Grayling in London. The man just didn’t know when to let go—”
My eyes widened. Adam snatched the bag away.
The door slammed open, knocking Adam over.
Sean shoved himself through the doorway. “Zoe, trouble! Some guys asking about you downstairs! We gotta go!”
Adam still held onto my now-open backpack, but I refused to let go. He reached inside, grabbed the carefully wrapped yellow pencil box. The slick plastic bag made it slide right out, as if it was jumping into his hand.
“No!” I cried.
“Yeah, now!” Sean said. He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and pulled me from the room. I managed to keep hold of my backpack, because as Adam tried to follow me, Sean stepped in and slammed his fist into Adam’s jaw. As Adam crumpled, Sean shoved him inside, slammed the door.
“Sean, he has the—!”
“Doesn’t matter what he’s got.” Sean grabbed my arm, practically dragged me down the stairs. “What you said about those guys in Berlin? We don’t get out of here in about five minutes, we’re gonna die here.”
There was something powerful about the figurines, but I knew they wouldn’t make Dmitri a werewolf. But that fact didn’t matter much if I wanted Danny back. I still needed them because Dmitri wanted them.
I turned to go back upstairs; the door to my room opened. A gun appeared. Held by a very pissed-off-looking Adam Nichols.
Fuck this. If there was ever a time to unleash the Beast…
I yanked my arm away from Sean, tried to imagine I was squeezing my anger into a box too small for it.
I felt the stirring of the Beast. A prickle at the back of my neck.
“Out the back,” Sean hissed.
I squeezed my eyes harder and held up a hand. “Shut up!”
Heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Doors opening. I opened my eyes and found a little tourist girl staring at me before her mother took one look around and grabbed her back into their room.
There were too many people. Too little time. The Beast was nowhere to be found.
Amateur. Squib. Muggle.
With a curse, I turned back, fled down the stairs.
I ran through the kitchen, glad Sean had gone first. The cook was still screaming and waving her knife around. I didn’t need to speak Italian to know how dangerous this shortcut was.
Sean was running blind, no plan in mind. I nearly overtook him when he dove down another alley. Maybe he was trying to lose our pursuers by going off the main tourist track, but we needed to be where we’d blend in.
And where there was bound to be a lot of cops.
I stopped, put my fingers to my lips, and whistled.
It’s a piercing noise, one Sean has always hated. He stopped, whirled around, scowling.
I jerked my head and ran. He could follow if he wanted. If he was smart.
What were the chances?
A plan came to me as I ran and made the last corner. Through the archway and into the Piazza San Marco.
A final burst of speed that almost left Sean behind, and I realized I’d just caught a massive break. There, near the Museo. A young carabiniere, looking quite sharp in his uniform.
“Signore,” I began. I spoke rapid Italian, gesturing to the men following us. I could see Adam Nichols and his three men entering the piazza now.
The carabiniere had smiled at first, no doubt pleased to see such a prettily flustered foreigner speaking such idiomatic Italian. Then his smile faded, his face grew concerned, and then finally angry. He compressed his lips; another piercing whistle echoed through the piazza.
A squad of young and muscular men, dressed in navy or black uniforms and bristling with automatic weapons emerged from the administrative building behind us.
The carabiniere motioned for me and Sean to stay where we were.
Sean looked questioningly at me; I shook my head almost imperceptibly, held up one finger. We had to wait another minute before—
When Adam Nichols and his men reached the piazza, he was surrounded by a grim-faced mob of soldiers all pointing their weapons at him.
When he began to protest—and he did, loudly with gestured Italian and flashing his badge—the soldiers reacted strongly.
I thoroughly approved of their roughness.
Sean was about to step forward and reclaim my possessions when I stopped him.
“You want them to find out all those things are really mine? You want them to ask you how I happen to have them? How do you think that will go?”
“I just thought I would help. Sorry.”
Since when did Sean voluntarily talk to the authorities? I cast a last desperate look at Adam and realized, even if I had the figurines, Dmitri wouldn’t believe me when I told him nothing could make him a werewolf if he wasn’t born one.
I thought about the gold disk hidden in my shirt. Maybe I could trade on that if he was into Fangborn weirdness, which this seemed to be in buckets. Or for its monetary and antiquary worth, maybe. That much gold, at today’s prices…it was a fortune.
After three eternal seconds, I nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
We hurried away, all eyes on the exciting scrum in the center of one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, and went around the corner and out to the water taxi stand on the Grand Canal. At last, luck was with me and the strike was over, so we jumped on the first vaporetto we found.
The last thing I saw as we passed the lion-guarded columns of San Marco was the team of soldiers piling onto Nichols and his men, now almost invisible beneath them. They handcuffed them as their fellows tore through the contents of their pockets and briefcases.
I thought I saw a flash of yellow plastic, and I turned away in distress. They had my pencil box. They had everything.
“What the hell did you tell that guard?” His breath recovered, his ego at full bloom, Sean had admiration enough even for me. “Whatever it was, it worked!”
“I told the guard that there was a man following us who’d been boasting about being able to slip past the border to deal with antiquities. That I’d heard him in the hotel today and that he was showing artifacts around, trying to sell them. I was afraid that he was after us because I told him off.”
“And who were those guys? What were they about?”
“The Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, the TPC. It’s the arm of the caribinieri dedicated to the protection of Italian antiquities.” I settled back in my seat. I was shaking and sweating now that the moment of action was passed. “You do not want to mess with them. Imagine a group with the obsessiveness of archaeologists and the training and tactics of a SWAT team. With a government mandate to hunt down antiquities thieves.”
Sean whistled and suddenly looked nervous. “It’s a good thing I didn’t run into them when I was at the field school in Ravenna.”
I looked up. “What happened in Ravenna?”
“Another time.” He ducked down, made sure his pack was secure. “I’m only sorry we couldn’t stay to see what happened to that bastard! Who is he? What was he doing in your room?”
“Well, that guy—I think his name is Adam Nichols?—was trying to take some…things from m
e, which he did. Things I needed for Dmitri to save Danny. Things I risked my life for and broke the law for. So we’re pretty well screwed.”
I shook my head. “I say ‘we,’ but this isn’t your problem. Sean, you should leave.”
“Why? Haven’t I helped? At the apartment, in the cemetery, at the airport?”
“You have. I’m just worried for you. This situation is getting worse and more complicated and more dangerous every minute.”
“Yeah.” He glanced out over the canal. He took a deep breath. “But it would be worse for me if you got hurt.”
I waved my hand tiredly. “I’m fine, he just scared me.”
“No, Zoe. I wouldn’t…I couldn’t take it if anything happened to you.” He turned red and refused to look at me. “It’s been like that forever, but you wanted Will.”
I felt the blood rush from my face. I would have given anything to stop him speaking. You’ll ruin everything, just don’t say it—
“…And you don’t say anything to your best friend’s girl. Not unless you’re a real shitheel.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again. “Sean, I—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it, I know. And it’s fine.”
I didn’t know what to do. His admission was as unexpected as it was badly timed. Best stick with the simple truth. “You’re my friend, Sean. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. It was bad enough, those, uh, muggers in Boston—”
At the word “Boston,” Sean blinked hard and seemed to shiver. “I don’t think you should go to Delos. I think you should wait for everyone to catch up to you here.”
“But Dmitri said Delos…” Why had he so suddenly switched subjects? “Why do you keep saying that I should stay here?”
“I just have this feeling it will be better to stay put. Stay here, Zoe. Tell Dmitri you’ll meet him here.”
“I can’t. You know that.” Sean’s sudden change confused me. Why was he so hung up on me staying in Venice? He’d been like that since Berlin. “Danny.”
“Danny will be fine. He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”
Sean said it so mechanically, I stared at him. He didn’t look like Sean. He looked…blank. The way he had when Claudia had drugged him.
