Gryphon and His Thief (14 page)

"Whoa, no way!" Calli couldn't help laughing.
"He probably shouldn't have insulted her." She studied Professor
Leander's reaction and— "Play it back," she told Darrien, waving
her hand at the computer.

"All of it?" he asked in confusion as he sat
forward to do as she asked.

"No, just the last few seconds."

He did.

"There. That's it," she said and couldn't
keep the excitement out of her voice.

Darrien stared at her, obviously not getting
it at all.

"Play it again, but concentrate on her
eyes."

Darrien did as she requested. "I'll be
damned," he said in awe.

"There's our proof," Calli said. "She's a
friggin' Gryphon too." As she said the words, she realized what
this meant. The vision she had was probably real also. She inhaled
deeply as she let it all sink in. "Beastie Darrien said Isa killed
his wife." She stood and paced. "So if Professor Leander is truly
Isa
… He'd know." She pointed to the statue. "We'll have to
wait until he wakes. He'll confirm if it's her. Even if she's not,
she's a Gryphon."

Darrien continued to frown. "But what does
she want? After all these years…centuries… Why now has she made
herself known?"

"I don't know." That part remained a
mystery.

The door to the museum opened and she turned
to see the repairman who'd been there earlier with two guys
flanking him.

"Where's the glass for the window?" Darrien
murmured.

She had a bad feeling about this and went for
the gun strapped beneath the pant leg of her jeans. Nice and slow,
so not to alarm anyone. She heard Darrien's intake of breath as he
caught sight of what she was doing, but she couldn't worry about
him now. These men meant business, and she had a hunch it wasn't
the
glass business.

She whipped the gun out. "Don't come any
closer," she warned, already deciding the one in the middle would
get it first, if he even twitched the wrong way. He was the guy who
had been there earlier and was most likely the leader of this
soirée. She glanced at his nametag on his shirt that read Bert.

"What are you doing?" Darrien demanded
beneath his breath, but he figured it out soon enough.

Bert grinned and it wasn't an all nice and
cozy kind of smile. In the next second, she knew why. His men came
packing too, but with bigger guns.

"Put down your little toy," Bert ordered,
referring to her weapon.

"You'll excuse me if I don't." She kept it
locked on Bert with her finger on the trigger. "What do you
want?"

He waved for his men to lower their weapons,
but she wasn't fooled. In a moment's notice, they'd be ready to
shoot.

"Only what was promised to Professor
Leander," he said. "You did not deliver the artifact."

"I have until October 31st. I don't know what
calendar you boys use, but I still have plenty of time."

His lips curved. "We'll take the item now, if
you please." He held out his hand as if she'd just plop the stone
in his palm and call it a day. "Professor Leander doesn't want you
getting any ideas."

"And what ideas are those?" she asked. She
didn't care to be backed into a corner and it looked like Professor
Leander was pushy. Guess her phone call with her earlier gave the
impression she was having those second thoughts.

"Just give it to him," Darrien said, loud
enough for the thugs to hear.

"What?" she chanced a look at him then
noticed his finger rested on a button beneath the desk. She didn't
have time to contemplate what would happen when he pushed the
button. He'd already made the decision for both of them. One second
she faced three thugs, the next she was free falling beneath the
museum on a slide, listening to Darrien curse behind her. If they
lived through this, she was going to kill him.

As the slide came to an abrupt end, she flew
through the air for a brief moment before she landed hard on her
rump. She rolled away, and not an instant too soon, since Darrien
landed in a heap where she'd been seconds before if the
harrumph
was any indication of where he'd landed. She
couldn't see him as the lighting in the room proved
non-existent.

She crawled to her feet, wondering where her
gun went. She'd lost it in the fall. "Where are we?" she asked,
wondering if they were in an underground cave.

She heard a click to the right of her then
light illuminated around them. Once her eyesight adjusted, she
realized they were in what appeared to be a storage room with cases
of food, water, ammo, and other goodies one might need in a
dystopian world. With the impending zombie threat – if Isa got her
hands on the stone – this might come in handy.

"We're in an underground bunker," Darrien
told her, as if having a bunker beneath a museum with an escape
hatch was a normal thing. "I can add this to the
real
column," he said.

He hadn't been sure it was here before he
pushed the button? They'd have to have a little talk about that.
"So there's an escape route, but what about the guys topside? Huh?
Do you think there just going to stand there and not try to find
us? What's stopping them from taking a ride down the slide right
now?"

"If you haven't noticed, my cape is at the
cleaners." His words dripped with sarcasm as he glanced at his
attire before meeting her gaze with meaning. "Those were three
armed men, if you hadn't discerned, and we only had one itsy-bitsy
revolver between us. Please, I dare say, do the math and tell me
what you come up with."

When he put it that way… She rather liked
uppity Darrien. "But now we're trapped," she spoke the obvious.
"What about the slide?"

"The buttons will not work a second time
unless reset and it has to be done from down here. Besides, we
aren't trapped, but the thugs are." He strode over to a monitor
bolted to the wall on the far corner. He activated it and the
screen revealed the museum above them. Two things hung from the
ceiling, swaying back and forth like pendulums. It took her a
moment, but then she realized it was two of the thugs, hanging by
their feet. "There are a few buttons beneath my desk," he
clarified. "I activated the trap and pushed the button that took us
down here.

"Where's the leader of the pack?" she asked
with dread, not seeing him anywhere in sight.

He changed the screens on the monitor,
activating other cameras in the room.

"I never noticed cameras in the museum," she
said and stepped closer.

"You wouldn't have. Think of them as nanny
cams strategically placed in each room. One is a tiny fly on a
wall, another is a statue of Buddha, and yet another is a lion; the
camera is located in its tail and the tail moves so I can see the
entire room."

"Impressive, and I'd like to pick your brain
on all this, but I'm worried where Bert is." She really didn't want
the leader running back to Professor Leander and telling her what
went down. Heck, he could be calling her on his cell phone as they
sat down here admiring nanny cams. "We have to go topside."

"Up there?" his voice rose and cracked.

"Do you have a better idea? We can't stay
down here. It's only a matter of time before Bert figures out how
to get to us. I want to have the advantage."

She whirled around in search of her gun and
spotted it near the slide. She strode over to retrieve it then
turned to face Darrien. He appeared none too pleased with her
suggestion. "Listen, you can stay here," she told him. "I'll go
up—"

"No, I'm coming with you." He stood up taller
and inhaled deeply before letting his breath out in a whoosh.
Glasses, cardigan, and attitude…check. He may not realize it yet,
but he'd just donned that cape.

"Let's do it then," she told him, keeping her
gun ready. She glanced at the slide then to Darrien, hoping he knew
of another way out of here. She hadn't climbed up a slide since she
was six years old and she had a hunch the attempt wouldn't be
nearly as fun as she remembered. "Please tell me there's a door out
of here?"

"Right," Darrien said and strode over to the
opposite wall where a keypad was mounted. He entered a code then
stood back. Clanking noises deafened the room as metal movements
grinded against each other. The wall beside the keypad began to
open, revealing a steel door with another keypad next to it. There
were no buttons, but a smooth surface. Darrien strode over to it
and used his thumb to activate this keypad. The lock mechanism
clicked and the door slid open, revealing a narrow hallway and
stairs leading up. Lights mounted on the wall flickered to life
with a buzz and snap of electricity to reveal at the top of the
steep incline a hatch with an exit sign nailed above it.

"The stairs lead to the outside where the
carport is located," he told her and led the way.

Once Darrien pried the door open at the top,
he stepped through then leaned down to give her a hand up.

"Well, well what do we have here?" the deep
voice boomed from around the dusty vehicle parked in the
carport.

Darrien screamed and wrapped his arms around
Calli in a bear hug, but just as quickly, he released her. "Sorry,"
he apologized and stood beside her and straightened his cardigan,
probably hoping to regain his dignity.

"You weren't going to leave without saying
goodbye, were you?" Bert asked. "Too bad I was quicker than your
traps inside the museum, huh?" He nodded with his head toward the
building.

"Yeah, right. Too bad," Darrien murmured.

"Now drop your gun, Miss Angelis, or the nerd
boy gets it."

She dropped it at her feet, which didn't
please Bert in the least.

"Kick it toward me. Now!" he demanded.

She did what she was told and Bert hunkered
down to retrieve it while still keeping his gun trained on them.
Once he stood at his full height, he addressed her. "Now, I'll have
the stone, Miss Angelis," he demanded with a wave of the gun, as if
they could forget he could shoot them just for the heck of it.

"I don't have it on me," she told him.

His brows lifted. "Come now."

"No, it's true," she repeated. "Why would I
carry the item on me and chance losing it? And look what happened
today. The museum was held up by thugs." She gave him a cheesy grin
then just as quickly pursed her lips.

He didn't appear pleased at her sarcasm.
"You're a might cozy with the curator. Makes me wonder if you were
cutting a deal with him."

"Him?" she said and jabbed her thumb in
Darrien's direction. "He didn't even know I had the stone until
now." She placed the back of her hand near her mouth and whispered,
"Thanks for ratting me out." Truly, her mockery was lost on this
guy. He only cared about the stone.

Bert glanced at Darrien who shrugged. "Don't
look at me, mate. I don't know where it is."

"So why are you here then?" Bert demanded to
know.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked with a girly
chuckle. "I wanted some alone time with Darrien. A girl gets lonely
on the road, if you know what I mean." She winked at Bert. "We were
about to take our meeting to a more private setting until you
barged in."

"We were?" Darrien's gaze riveted to her as
he pulled at his collar. If they made it out of this alive, she was
going to remove his tie and burn it.

"Yes," she said with meaning as she turned to
give him a wink that Bert couldn't see. She needed Darrien to play
along with this.

"I don't care how you get your jollies, Miss
Angelis," Bert sneered. "I just want the stone."

She let out an exaggerated sigh as she
glanced at Darrien. "We'll have to pick up where we started later,
darling." She drew him nearer with one arm around his neck, as if
she were about to give him a lip-lock from a girl madly in love…or
the way she believed it was done. Truly, it proved easy to kiss
Darrien. Passion seemed to spark between them whenever their lips
touched, but now wasn't the time to indulge in such fantasies. Her
hand palmed the pouch housing the stone from her pocket along with
her cell phone. She then transferred the items into Darrien's
pocket of his cardigan.

"Enough already," Bert snapped with
annoyance. "You're coming with me, Miss Angelis."

She broke the kiss, but didn't release
Darrien right away. He appeared flustered from their embrace, and
in truth she was a bit unsteady herself. "Darlin', you do know how
to kiss," she murmured and ran a forefinger over his lips before
she faced Bert.

"Go," he demanded of her as he waved the gun
at her. She'd taken only a few steps when she noticed Bert raising
his other hand. He held her gun in his grip and pointed it at
Darrien. Then it dawned on her what he was about to do.

"No!" she cried, but he'd already pulled the
trigger.

Chapter Fifteen

Darrien opened his eyes and blinked as he
tried to recall why he was sprawled on the ground in the carport,
but the pain radiating down his shoulder and back, made deciphering
anything impossible.

"Think," he told himself and squeezed his
eyes shut.
Calli and he were in the museum… Thugs arrived with
guns… Attempt to escape… Bert trying to stop them.

He groaned as fragmented moments came into
sharp focus.
Where was Calli?
He used his good arm to push
himself into a sitting position, the jerky movements causing him to
wince. He plopped back against the side of the building and
swallowed back the nausea. Luckily, his glasses were still on his
head or seeing would have been another drawback to this spectacular
day. He adjusted them so they sat on the bridge of his nose and not
lopsided off one ear. The carport immediately came into focus.
"Much better." A quick survey told him Calli wasn't sharing his
fate, but it still didn't tell him where she'd gone. She wouldn't
have left him willingly. This much he could count on.