The Starry Sphinx

by V X Lloyd

  Moony smiled broadly. "Mr. Shakahara."

  He felt a sharp pain at the back of his head and a metallic taste.

  The floor raced up to meet him.

  All went black.

  *

  Moony found himself tied to a wooden chair. He felt cold, dizzy, disoriented, and very achy. He was in a damp brick-walled room surrounded by kegs and dusty bottles of wine. A few incandescent light fixtures buzzed in their wall sconces.

  He tried sitting up, but nothing happened. He felt his legs flex, could feel his feet press downward against the floor, but no change from his seated position.

  His hands were cold, numb. Tied to something.

  He looked down. His thighs were tied to the chair.

  "Well, shit."

  Being held hostage wasn't nearly as cool as in the movies.

  His head hurt like hell and he desperately needed to take a piss and wondered if this was going to be the second time in this story that he, our hero, wet his pants.

  He didn't suppose his hosts would be so understanding as to permit him the simple courtesy of a bathroom break. But what should he do, then? What was the bathroom protocol when tied to a chair in a wine cellar?

  Craning his head to look around, he found where his hands were. His right was tied to a rail of the wooden chair. His left was tied to someone else's hand. He blinked. It was a familiar hand. Deb's. He took a deep breath. His vision was a little blurry, and it was dark down here. The only light came from small bulbs on wall sconces. Deb was sitting next to him, also tied to a chair. Her head lolled forward.

  No trace of Perry, though. It was just the two of him, as far as he could tell. He gulped. What had he gotten these innocent apartment managers into? He hoped Perry was all right.

  He moved and wiggled, trying not to panic. If only he had stayed at home, he could be sitting on his couch playing Double Dragon. His chi would be through the roof. But he had to get involved in a worldwide conspiracy.

  He felt the circulation gradually return to his hands.

  Deb raised her head and looked over at him.

  "You're here," she said. Her voice sounded rough, like she had been screaming and had gone hoarse. She gave a weak smile.

  Moony felt his hand moving. Deb pulled it closer to her, brought it over onto her right thigh. She unzipped the zipper to her skirt, then moved their hands down the front of her skirt, sliding along the smoothness of her inner thigh, until his fingers reached something else: warm metal. She guided his hand a bit further down. A gun. He undid the button securing it to its holster, wrapped his hand around the grip, and pulled it out.

  She winked at him.

  Oh, shit, he thought to himself. I'm holding a gun. He looked down at it. It was quite small, but it was definitely a real gun. He found the safety and turned it off, then figured out how to pull the trigger back so that it was ready to fire.

  He tried to slow his breathing.

  Anticipating an interrogation, he mentally rehearsed his story: "I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy."

  He nodded to himself. That was about all he had.

  He reached out to the Sphinx.

  A descending wash of patterned gold and he felt his face as if it was covered by an immense Egyptian mask. All flooded to dark. A funerary mask? he wondered, not liking what that might connote for his near future. It was cool against his face, and he felt safe, protected, hidden. Then the feeling faded and the world returned to its mundane state.

  From behind him, he heard heavy footsteps move down stone steps.

  He slid his hand, holding the gun, back beneath Deb's skirt.

  The sound of a dozen more footsteps until the person stood right behind him.

  "You're the Gypsy's pawn."

  He recognized the voice of the diamond thief.

  "I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy," Moony said.

  "Oh, no we don't. Celia doesn't send us wrong guys. When I've got someone in this seat, that person is the right guy." Unnervingly, the diamond thief stayed standing behind them. "You mean to tell me you came all the way from Colorado just to say hello to Mr. Shakahara? Just to drop by?" Moony definitely smelled garlic on the man’s breath.

  Hearing him say Celia's name again threw Moony for a loop, but he engaged Moony-mode and kept his cool.

  "Yeah, just looking for the bathroom. Speaking of which--"

  "And you thought you'd swindle Mr. Shakahara out of a hundred grand on your way."

  "Look at us. Do we look like people who know how to swindle anyone, much less Mr. Shakahara?"

  The diamond thief snorted. "Oh-ho! Look at you two flirts. You got a little alone time and thought you'd fool around?"

  Deb let out a gasp that sounded both fearful and sexy. "You want to watch, don't you?"

  More footsteps, heavy ones, coming down the stairs and approaching them from behind.

  Whispers.

  Two men came around to stand in front of Moony and Deb. One was Shane, breathing heavily, his face dripping with sweat. The other was short, red-haired, thin and unathletic. At a glance, he looked rather harmless. A closer look at his face revealed several scars and cold, heavily-lidded eyes. An accountant's body, a killer's face.

  Shane reached into his chest holster and brought out a large chrome-plated absurdity of a gun: a Model 29 .44 Magnum. He pointed the gun at Moony's face.

  "Don't," the thin man said. "Not till we have the recipe."

  Shane looked above Moony's head at the diamond thief, motioning with his head to the left. "You might want to step out of the way, Elysio, unless you want to get alien brains on your nice suit."

  Elysio made his way around, and Shane glanced down at Deb's lap. "You two trying to get your sexy on?" He smiled. "Too bad for you I'm going to end your party."

  Shane brought his thumb back to cock the gun.

  Two loud cracks.

  Shane winced and grabbed his chest.

  Elysio fell to his knees.

  Shane dropped his gun with a clatter and flopped backwards onto his back, his head pounding against the floor with a celery-snap crack sound straight out of a kung fu movie.

  The thin man raised his hands.

  "No, no, not me. I'm yours. I'll do whatever you want. Just don't shoot."

  Meanwhile, Elysio reached his hand into suit.

  Moony shot twice more and Elysio fell to the floor, stone dead.

  "Not me, not me," the thin man said again, his hands raised high, his eyes wide as a Qualid's flying saucer. "I'm yours, OK? I'm yours."

  "Nice shooting, Moony." She kissed his cheek.

  Real life violence felt nothing like video game violence. But all the practice had come in handy.

  Moony addressed the thin man. "Kick that gun away. Nudge this way, toward us. Gently. Like that. And now you back your back against those barrels there."

  Deb leaned in. "But we want him to untie us."

  "Oh yeah. Come here and untie us."

  He produced a long fillet knife. "I only have this."

  "Start with my left hand," Deb said. "No sudden movements. We have plenty of bullets. There's only one you."

  Moony was impressed with Deb's banter. Had she done something like this before? After all, she had come prepared with a gun in a secret holster.

  "What's your name?" Deb asked as Pheelix sliced through a rope.

  "Pheelix."

  "Hand me the knife."

  Pheelix paused.

  "Hand me the fucking knife."

  "There you go."

  Deb gave a sharp little nod with her head, gesturing upwards. "Touch the sky, Pheelix."

  Pheelix raised his hands and held them behind his head, looking like he himself had done something like this before. There were heavy sweat rings under his armpits that had soaked all the way through his sport coat.

  "Back against the wall," She ordered, slicing through the rope that held her right arm to Moony's gun arm.

  "What's in that door?" Moony asked, gun pointed at Pheelix.
/>
  "Very old wines. Not, I'd imagine, what you're looking for."

  "Is there another way out of here?"

  "Give me the formula, and I'll talk."

  She and Moony looked at each other, shaking their heads.

  She answered. "I'll give you the formula to a gunshot in your kneecap, Pheelix. Talk."

  He pointed to the corridor behind them.

  As Deb freed her legs, Moony consulted the Sphinx. He felt cold terror that these guys had mentioned Celia's name. Had she betrayed them? Was she safe?

  The response was two bookmarks. One from East Aleranian Proverbs, and another from An Acausal History of Captain Grey's Defunct Ships. He checked the first one.

  The way out is not level and plain.

  The wise do not always hesitate to make it rain.

  He wondered if that meant he should shoot him.

  From beyond the stairs came distant voices. Deb cut Moony's remaining ropes.

  "They'll kill me for letting you escape."

  "It's your lucky day, Pheelix," she said. "You're coming with us, so you'll be safe. You lead the way."

  She grabbed Shane's Magnum and checked to make sure it was loaded. She nodded.

  Moony nodded, too. The big gun suited her.

  From above came a heavy spray of water from overhead sprinklers.

  Make it rain, Moony thought. The Sphinx seemed to have suggested this. He didn't understand why.

  They continued down the hallway and through a heavy wooden door. No more sprinklers -- this room was dry. Moony switched on the light.

  "Perry?"

  Sure enough, there stood his landlord, leaning over the body of a man in a white suit, rummaging through the man's pockets.

  A chair was knocked on its back in the middle of the room, ropes loosely tangled around it. A second man in a white suit lay on his back, his arms splayed, his head twisted at an unnatural angle.

  Perry looked over at Moony, squinting at the light, and smiled broadly, pulling an ornate wooden box from the man's pocket. He dropped it into the ample storage of his cargo shorts.

  "How the hell did you do that?"

  "Told you, I used to be a cop."

  "Yeah, but---"

  "Get down!"

  The loud pop of a gunshot, and the room's single lightbulb went out.

  Moony ducked, scanning the area. At the room's far end, he saw movement.

  He raised the gun and fired.

  Footsteps. Whoever it had been was running away now. The footsteps sounded even and fast.

  Painfully bright white illumination. Perry held a small flashlight in his hands, and he was shining it around the room. There was another door and a dark hallway. Perry pointed down the hallway.

  What's down that way? Deb asked Pheelix.

  "The way continues for some distance. But if you go that way, eventually you come to... the cave."

  "The secret sacred cave?"

  Pheelix was shaking his head. "Yes, of course. But -- please. You don't want to go closer to that haunted Rosicrucian nightmare. There are so many terrible rumors about that place. Nobody dares to venture that way anymore. If they do, they never come back alive."

  "That's where we're headed," Moony said. "And you're going to lead the way. If there's a booby trap, you're going to be our booby."

  Perry chuckled.

  With a sneer, Pheelix headed reluctantly down the hallway, complaining and deriding his captors as he went. "You suicidal fools. You don't understand. If we go this way, there's no way out. The only exit is back the way we came. There's no hope, but there could be hope if you cooperate with me. These guys are crazy. They'll kill us all."

  They ignored him.

  "Perry, thank God you found that flashlight," Deb said. "One of those guys had it?"

  Craning around to look at her, Perry inadvertently shone the flashlight back at her for a bit, and she squinted and waved her hands and actually hissed at him.

  "The flashlight? No, I had it in my underwear."

  A long moment of silence. Moony looked to Deb for clarification, but she just sighed.

  Moony consulted the bookmark from An Acausal History of Captain Grey.

  Thus I reflected on many things that morning, my head in my hands.

  I resolved, then and there, never to keep her distant from me or my goings-on. It joyed me for the moment to know that my lady was indeed safe at our new home. If only I had been open with her sooner, it would not have come to this. She had consulted her friend merely for elucidation, because what news I had delivered her was a most confusing packet.

  Before opening oneself fully, making the heart known to one's fellow men, it must be said that woe will betide he who fails to indicate which things are secret and which are fair game.

  Beyond this, it could be suggested that an intimate friend can be made to share almost any detail about the events of their past, even those events which were at the time regarded to be secrets. Just as intimacy brings people close in the warmth of companionship, it also breaks the bonds of confidentiality when those bonds were made based on a foundation of prior companionship. Thusly, the new relationship may render these prior arrangements effectively null and void. A relationship which witnesses the exchange of secrets must, for the sake of the state, be handled with caution. The heart, witness how it opens when experiencing something new. Alas, it was merely my loins that betrayed me!

  Moony's interpretation of this was that Celia was safe, and that though she had been implicated somehow, she did not intentionally betray them. He appreciated that the bookmark mentioned loins. It left him with a sick feeling, all the same. He hated that she was involved. He had kept her in the dark. If only he had been open with her, things could have gone better.

  The path down the long, gradually curving hallway sloped gently downward. The yellow-grey carved stone walls had been chiseled smooth. A slight breeze came towards them, bringing the distinctive smell of sulfur.

  "Smells like eggs," Perry said.

  Pheelix's response conveyed a sense of annoyance. "Yes, yes. The natural springs, they smell that way."

  "Smells like eggs, though."

  More silence as they walked, their feet making crunching sounds on the hallway's rough gravel.

  Perry felt that it was high time to make small talk. "So what's that you were saying about the Rosicrucians?"

  "The cave was a ritual site sacred to a secret order, a mystery sect of some occult importance, long before it was used by those Rosies. They did rituals and who knows what else in there. I don't doubt that it's booby trapped. In fact, I know it is. They say it contains many artifacts from a bygone era, but they're all cursed. They say it's filled with undead. They say---"

  Pheelix stopped and turned to face Perry.

  "Stop stalling," Moony said, gesturing with the little gun. "You can make up more ghost stories while you walk."

  Pheelix made an innocent face and looked at Moony. "You really think I would try and delay you?"

  Moony cocked the gun.

  Pheelix's face went blank and he resumed walking.

  The hallway's surface had become even more damp with condensation. The walls were layered with overlapping swaths of horizontal lines, centuries of mineral deposits like the sweat rings of the earth's chilly nethers. The slope remained constant, taking them gradually deeper, but the hall became more serpentine in its curves -- it took them a bit to the right, then rounded back to the left, back and forth.

  As he walked, Perry's shoes made random squeaky sounds like he was trying to outmaneuver someone on a basketball court. The amount of squeak that made my his shoes was completely out of proportion with the normal steady steps he took in them.

  They continued that way in silence until Deb signaled that they should stop.

  "Listen," she raised a finger to her lips. "Do you hear that?"

  Sure enough, Moony could make out a faint hissing sound coming from the hallway up ahead.

  She looked at Pheelix. He shr
ugged. "What? What do you hear?"

  "It's probably the sound of the spring," Moony offered. "Is that what you're going to say? Up ahead, it's not just any sacred Rosicrucian cave, but the spring it contains is haunted. It's a haunted spring that kills anyone who gets too close."

  Perry's flashlight dimmed, flickered, and went out.

  "Ah, Christ." Bright flashes on the stone walls as Perry shook the flashlight until its light returned and stayed steady.

  They continued on. The path curved again and leveled off.

  Trudging along, Moony's eyelids felt heavy. He was exhausted. How long had it been since he had slept? The unrestful dozing on the international flight hadn't brought balance to his chi. Did being knocked out and tied to a chair in the basement count as rest? The answer, Moony could tell you, was "no." The temporary peaks of energy afforded by his body's bursts of adrenaline had left him in a trough of torpor. To rouse himself, he reminded himself how near he was to finishing his great quest. He was on the pinnacle of his grand endeavor. All he needed was one single thing. To claim for himself the key ingredient needed to brew the checkered potion and put an end to the Gypsy's horror show. With this potion, he could eliminate for all time the widespread servitude she intended for all of Earth, which, from how he understood it, played a crucial part in the galactic battle between dark and light.

  Breathing deeply, his mind wandered towards sex, and he thought of Celia. He missed her. How would he ever make things right between them? What sort of man did he need to be so that she was happy with him, and so that he could be content with her? When he saw her again, he resolved to become an honest man. Honest as Abe Lincoln, and as honorable, and maybe even as bearded. He would do whatever it took.

  He remembered something Celia had said to him maybe a month earlier. Leaning against the passenger door of his car, she opened her arms, beckoning him toward her. She tilted her head in that way. It made him feel special. He believed she reserved that adorable head tilt for him alone. Approaching her, Moony brushed her hair back and looked into her eyes. That was the moment Moony knew that the love he felt for Celia was different from what he had ever felt for anyone before, and it scared him. But he hadn't thought to access the Cosmic Lover's Compendium of Surefire One-Liners. He just stood there in silence, feeling her in his arms, and he in hers.