by Laura Wylde
She contemplated the question. “I didn’t kill it. I didn’t apply enough pressure to kill it. Honest. I don’t even know why it died.”
I don’t know why, but I wanted to test my waters with her. I wanted to see how much she was capable of understanding – and accepting. I squirmed in my seat until I was facing her. “Has it occurred to you that what you have found isn’t just an artifact suspended in time – it’s suspended in space? It goes by different rules.”
Those starlit eyes didn’t blink. “You sound like Dr. Schneider. He has a degree in physics, you know. He talks about space overlaps where time and space stand still.”
“What do you believe?”
She also shifted so she could face me directly and wrapped her arms around her backpack. “I believe there is a lot your team isn’t telling me.”
Orson
The resort wasn’t really a luxury arrangement. There were none of the casinos, girls gone wild or brightly lit dance halls I had promised Damian. How was I to know archeologists were so modest? I apologized but for once, he didn’t seem disappointed. It was probably the dig. There was magic there unlike any we had ever known.
The hotel had two things in its favor – a well-stocked bar and a large swimming pool. The pool was well-lighted, the water inviting, yet at this hour of the night, there wasn’t a single swimmer. Not that I minded. I’m a powerful swimmer and need an Olympic sized pool to myself just to do my laps. I stripped down to my very brief brief’s and dived into the water.
I was doing some mad strokes, trying to drive to the back of my mind some things that disturbed me. I had seen the way the etched letters shifted three-dimensionally for just a moment when Damian passed his hand over it. I saw the melded rock and metal. I watched the snake disintegrate. The snake bothered me the most. It seemed to appear out of nowhere – or from under the wall, an aspect that made me feel more uneasy than sudden materialization. The wall wasn’t designed for anything to come out from the other side. That much I knew.
The other thing that bothered me was The Girl. Who was she? She was everything her online profile said she was and much that it had not mentioned. Dr. Schneider treated her like a favored daughter. Tim, the kid with the big ears and even bigger grin followed her around like she was the queen of the jungle. You could see this Johnny Quest devotion in him, although his queen treated him like a pal.
Heath looked at her with puppy dog eyes and Damian was doing a full-on John Travolta. I was trying to stay out of it, but every time I caught a glimpse of her, my willpower shot itself in the foot.
I’ve seen a lot of beautiful women. I’ve been with dames that looked like they had been sculpted by the gods, themselves. Women like me for the opposite reason they are attracted to Heath. Heath is a brawny, two- hundred- pound hunk. I’m sure Irene is still puzzling over how he squeezed through that tiny cave opening but he can move the earth around him like a mole. We couldn’t tell her these things. Not yet. I don’t know why I wanted to tell her later.
Women were attracted to me for the same reason they are attracted to the French. I look civilized; so civilized they sometimes suspected I was one of them. It’s a forgivable identity mistake and doesn’t insult me at all as men have been known to have the same impression. It allows me a privilege. Women often confide things to me that they usually only confide to their best girlfriends.
I don’t know why I wanted to get close to Irene. She didn’t seem hungry for a best friend or close confident. I just did. It was more than being attracted to a beautiful woman. I wanted to tell her… I wanted to let her know everything about me. It was foolishness and I had to let it go. We were on a mission and things could get dangerous.
From one end of the pool to the other, I swam, keeping a steady rhythm, rarely coming up for air. Even in human form, I can remain underwater far longer than the average person. There are tiny gills at the back of my ears that I can enlarge if I want to stay long periods under the sea in human form, but I wasn’t inclined to use them in a swimming pool. Just the smallest amount of chlorine filtering through them made my sinuses drip. Can’t tolerate it, so no open gills in swimming pools.
My sensitive hearing picked up the sound of sandals flapping from the direction of the showers. The steps were light and springy, reaching the edge of the pool quickly. I head the dive and felt water rippling away from the intruder. I slowed down and flipped to my back to see who it was. A head of sleek, black hair rose above the water, followed by intense blue eyes. Her lips broke into a smile. “Do you swim at night to keep from burning? Your skin is so light, it almost blends with the water.”
I waited until she was paddling beside me. “I swim every chance I get. I don’t burn. I don’t tan, but I don’t burn either.”
She pondered. “The sun doesn’t affect you one way or the other?”
“I like it.” Talking to her was nice. Talking to her was like sitting down with someone you haven’t seen in a long time. “It doesn’t affect my skin, though. Maybe I’m so light-colored, I reflect the sun.”
She laughed. “You must be an alien then!”
We did a leisurely side stroke facing each other. How finely shaped her head was with her hair so slick and wet, how beautiful were her eyes with waterdrops hanging heavily from the thick lashes. “You swim very fluidly,” she said, “as though you were part of the water.”
I stretched languidly and flipped over, feeling the ripples slide deliciously over me. I turned back to my side. “You’re a pretty good swimmer, yourself.”
“Not like you. I’m a land animal. I think you are a water animal.”
We had reached the deep end of the pool. I held on to the side, watching her. She had propped herself up on the edge, so her bust was out of the water. She was wearing a tiny bikini top that consisted of two small triangles of cloth placed over the top of her perfectly rounded breasts. “Are they compatible?” I asked. “Water animals and land animals?”
“I think so.” She slid back down into the water, paddling so close, her tits touched me, and her legs brushed against my thighs. “You have an extraordinary face. Very extraordinary. Are you gay?”
“No!” I said, not as offended as I would like to have been. Too many people have asked me that question. Just because I don’t have the manly-man look doesn’t mean I don’t like women, okay? In fact, I like them a lot and this one was turning me into a live cannon. I felt my member uncurl and swell as she continued to brush up against me, tits and thighs barely touching as she swam.
Experimentally, I nudged a little closer. Her hand went between my legs. “Oh, you’re not gay.”
I touched the two little triangles delicately. She didn’t pull back. Those two little pieces of cloth didn’t hide much of anything. My hands slid inside easily and found the joyously erect nipples. I squeezed them, and the warm melon ripeness of her breasts. She responded by pulling away my trunks and scooping up my balls in both hands. She nestled them, her fingers crawling up over them until found they found my fully engorged cock. Up her hands went, filled with sweet, secret touches, guiding me as my shaft sniffed between her legs and found a warm little hole to snuggle into. I groaned and held her close in the water, feeling those wet, swelling breasts against my chest, the triangular mat of hair grinding against mine, the tingling pleasure of burying m cock deeply inside her, bringing it out with her cum and the water mixing together, then burying it again, groaning in ecstasy. Who was she? I didn’t care. With one final thrust, my rod searched deep inside her and found that pinnacle of success. We climaxed together.
I felt reluctant to come out of the water, but there was that perfectly formed butt wriggling ahead of me and pulling over the side. I had no choice but to follow.
“That was good,” she said as she flopped down in a lounge chair, her lovely body dripping deliciously, practically nude with the tiny bikini plastered to her skin. “I’m not sure what came over me. I saw you swimming, and it was incredible. You are a beautiful man. It was a turn
on.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” I said. “Are you feeling regretful now?”
“Not regretful. I’m curious, really, about all of you. How do you know so much about the cave?”
I took a towel and began drying off. “It’s not the cave. It’s what’s in it. We’ve read about it.”
“Where have you read about it?”
“That’s classified.”
“By AMP?”
I nodded. “Why?” She asked in exasperation. “What could possibly be gained by suppressing new findings?”
I scratched the back of my neck, not sure how to answer. “Let me ask you this. Do you believe that before written history, there could have been another race? A race with technology so powerful, they were like gods?”
“It’s what we are searching for, isn’t it?”
“And if we didn’t understand their technology? We would be like cavemen discovering a nuclear warhead.”
“You’re afraid we will blow ourselves up?”
“You could.”
She shrugged and wrapped a robe around her. “I think you’re hiding something but I’m going to learn what it is.”
I considered this and the abrupt way she had turned the conversation. I was suddenly annoyed. Civilized I may be, but dragons always have quick tempers. “Is that why you fucked me?”
“No.” She stood up, knotting the robe, locking away all the lovely playthings. “You were irresistible. I had to.”
My temper died as quickly as it had flared. “Will you fuck me again?”
She bent over me to kiss me, her breasts spilling into my face. “I probably will.”
I thought she was going to leave then, but she settled back in her chair. “Can I tell you something private? Do you promise not to laugh?”
Eh. Wouldn’t you know? The story of my life. First, she thought I was gay. Now, I was her best friend. Oh, well. Like I said. These confidences are a privilege. “I wouldn’t laugh at you.”
Still, she hesitated and twisted the belt of her robe as she thought about what to say. “When I first entered the walled cavern with Tim, that’s the cameraman with the big smile…”
“Yes, I know who Tim is. “Do you two have a thing together?”
“Tim? No. No. We’re just good friends. I’ve known him since my freshman days at college. He’s more of a technical guy, a geek. I like studying things. I’m a nerd. There’s a difference.”
I’ve heard women call themselves a lot of things; and not all of them nice; but I’ve never heard one call herself a nerd. “I didn’t know nerds could look like you.”
“Why not?” She laughed. “You’re a nerd, too. I see it. Your favorite book is Chaucer. You adore Botticelli.”
Now, I was impressed. “How did you know?”
“You’re a French fashion statement. How couldn’t I know?” She stopped laughing and frowned. “What I wanted to say is, when I was in the cave with Tim, I thought I heard somebody sigh and whisper the word, Artemis.”
I sat up, hoping she didn’t notice the sudden tension that shot up my back. “Did Tim hear it?”
She shook her head. “He says he didn’t, but it sounded very clear to me. I’m not making it up. You know there are other mysteries there.”
I curled my hands over the arms of the deck chair to hide their jittering. “Maybe you shouldn’t go back,” I suggested in the least offensive voice I could find.
She stood up and tucked every inch of her lovely little body inside her robe. “Oh, no. I’m going back. You can’t talk me out of it. I have to go, Orson. It calls to me.”
She walked away and I sat staring out at the night. The disquiet I felt before diving into the pool came back. Something was stirring. Something was awakening that had been asleep a long, long time. I could feel it.
I stopped by the bar and drank down two shots of whiskey before returning to my suite. There was no need to mention Irene to the others. They were caught up in their own daydreams about her. What was disturbing though, was that they might not be fantasies. She didn’t leave me feeling like I owned her, and I had seen her make close contact with Damian. Whatever she did to Heath in the privacy of the cave had left his tongue hanging for the rest of the day. I had to put it aside because we had other, more pressing worries.
We probably should have shut them down that day. The gut feeling was in all of us. This wasn’t the same as finding the birthplace of Zeus or a long-lost underwater city. This was like encountering Ra. We were disturbing the gods.
We talked over our concerns in the early morning before leaving for the site. Heath and Damian were on my side, but Barnaby. Good old Barnaby. He was playing it by the book. “I sent all our findings from yesterday to AMP. They said to continue with the research of the cavern. Just leave the wall alone.”
Heath hissed - his lips drawn back from his teeth. “Did they read the DNA analysis I sent them on the viper?”
“They said it wasn’t conclusive. It was created with a type of magic practiced as late as two thousand B.C. They want us to continue. They still have not been able to decipher the symbols nor identify the carvings.” He closed his laptop and stood up. “They want to learn more.”
If we were still going against majority advice, Damian was going to make plenty of noise about it. He slapped on more metal weaponry than he usually carried, including a titanium shield. “What?” Demanded Barnaby. “Are you Captain America now?”
Damion flashed him a dark look. “If I’m going back in that hole, I want to be prepared.”
He chuckled. “Are you afraid? Did a little snake cause you to lose your balls?”
“I’m not afraid but we’ve got five scientists with us. It’s our duty to protect them.”
Barnaby scoffed as he gathered his gear. “I never took you for such a panty waist.”
The uneasiness that had clung to me all evening continued to gnaw at my guts. “Damian’s right,” I told him. “Not even AMP knows what’s down there. We need to be cautious.”
Nobody said much on the way to the site. Irene was sitting at the front of the bus with the rest of the scientists, while we sat in back, looking at her and moping. It was obvious they had all fallen head over heels, which made me feel oddly relieved that she had not committed to me after our poolside encounter. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have that woman hanging on my arm day and night, but it didn’t feel right to do it at the expense of making my comrades miserable. We dragons are a bit clannish that way. When one or more love the same woman, we’ve got to sort things out. We’ve got to settle our differences. I hoped it didn’t show I had been with her.
Barnaby
Going back to the cave wasn’t really my call to make. I wish the others would realize that. AMP was excited about the new find because there were no previous records, no artifacts that tied in with these ancient symbols. It was like looking at hieroglyphics for the first time, but these stretched deeper; far deeper; into the past. How could they complete their data base if they shut the door on things they didn’t know? Oh, I understood the thirst of the scientists and I understood AMP’s hunger. I wasn’t going to let our team wimp out because they got a creepy feeling. That’s not the way it works.
They didn’t speak all the way to the dig. They were pissed. It was obvious they still saw me as the culprit, but I didn’t make the rules. I only follow them. The archeologists, on the other hand, were practically leaping out the windows, they were so excited. They stood and leaned over each other’s seats, comparing their notes and drawings and pointing at certain landmarks as the bus wound slowly through the pass.
They burst through the door of the bus as soon as soon as it rolled to a stop, then fell silent. They just stood there. The camp was nearly empty. All that was left, looking sleepy and rumpled after a night in their sleeping bags, were the students. Not one of the locals who had been hired to carry the dirt up in buckets for the students to shift through, prepare the meals and do other odd jobs around the site w
as to be seen.
Dr. Schneider was having himself a hernia. For an old guy, he could really move. He had no trouble climbing around in caves and he had no trouble storming into camp looking very irate and intimidating. “What happened to our hired help?” He demanded.
“I don’t know,” squeaked one of the students. She was a young girl, about twenty, a little plump for a caver but with enough passion for the field to find other ways of making herself useful, usually in picking through the trays to find tiny traces of human occupation. Right now, she wanted passionately to please Dr. Schneider. “They wouldn’t stay. They began slipping away about midnight. I tried to stop them. They were afraid of something. I finally got one to talk to me before he left. He said they won’t stay because it’s the Cave of the Titans.”
Irene didn’t look as annoyed as she did suddenly hungry for more information. “They believe the Titans built the wall?”
Dr. Schneider placed a hand on her shoulder. “Not the Titans, no. The wall was built to imprison the Titans.”
She gave an odd, half-excited, half-disbelieving laugh. “Then we have to see what’s on the other side of the wall.”
That was exactly what they were not going to do. If left up to me, I wouldn’t even let them breathe on the wall, but AMP had given them permission within guidelines. “Miss Morrison. Dr. Schneider, with all due respect, nobody is going to crack open one inch of the wall. Take pictures of it all you want. Dust every inch of the cavern floor. I don’t care. You will not touch the wall. Do not come close to the wall.”
Dr. Schneider assured me he understood, but I don’t think Irene did. She shook my arm and got right in my face. It was everything I could do to hold back a fireball. I swallowed, let it steam in my stomach. “Why are you afraid of what you will find on the other side of the wall?” She asked accusingly. “Some dried- up old bones will shake your faith?”
I put her arms back by her side and looked just past her face, refusing to let those sapphire eyes hypnotize me. “We won’t find bones. They are gods.”
