Veil of the Goddess (33 page)

Shotgun urged them onward, until they came to a small farming village.

"Wait here,” he insisted.

He hotwired a farm truck and bundled Ivy and Zack, along with the Queen's granddaughter into the freight compartment and set off.

"You're not going to make any friends around here if you just steal their trucks,” Zack observed.

The girl laughed. “We no make friends anywhere. There are the Roma and there are the, how you say, suckers?"

"Sounds like something an American would say,” Zack warned.

She scowled at him. “That is different. Americans are, what is the word, obnoxious? The Roma are beset. Every man's hand is set against ours. Is that not what it says in your Bible?"

Ivy couldn't remember that quote, but she also couldn't remember the Bible saying anything about gypsies.

The girl, though, wasn't waiting for an answer. She reached out and grabbed Zack's hand. “Let me see your fate, friend of vampire."

Ivy pushed down an irrational surge of jealousy when the girl caressed Zack's hand. She didn't own Zack and even if she had, the gypsy was barely a teen. Hardly someone Zack would be interested in.

"You will go through great adventures,” she murmured although it was so dark, Ivy doubted she actually saw the lines on Zack's hands. “I see water and a strange circle of power."

"Aren't you supposed to tell me I'll marry happily and have three and a half children?"

"The second sight is also useful to see what people want to hear. For the suckers, even if I see their lifeline plunge into death, I promise them long years with grandchildren because then they give me money. You would not believe such nonsense. For you, I share the truth."

"No wife? No children?"

The gypsy girl shrugged. “If you survive, perhaps. If you die, the power of the Cross will not bring you back—you are not like the other, the vampire. If you die, you remain dead. And you may die. Soon."

"Glad I asked about that,” Zack said. He was trying to joke, but he sounded shaken.

"Ordinary people who stand too close to the power are often burned.” The girl put a bit of power into her voice, hinting at horrible danger, suffering, death. Thanks to her developing second sight, Ivy could block the effects of that power. Zack, however was unprotected.

"Sounds like tough times ahead,” Zack quipped. “And after we've been having such a pleasant vacation."

"Those who lie with vampires rarely live long enough to joke."

"That's enough,” Ivy said. “Do you have any idea where we're going or are you just along to keep us from catching up on our sleep?"

"I was sent with you to sense danger. This is my special talent."

"And is there any?"

The girl shrugged. “All around, of course. When is it not?"

"Yeah, that's a useful talent,” Ivy said. “I'm going to take a nap. Wake me when we get wherever we're going."

She laid down her head against the Cross and closed her eyes just as the truck creaked to a stop.

"Quickly,” the girl hissed. “The Americans have just given up searching the camp and are spreading out across the countryside."

Ivy picked up the shorter Cross section and hopped down from the truck.

Zack followed her with the other section. “Are we across the border?"

The shotgun gypsy shrugged. “Nearby. There is a passage. We'll leave you here. You will be met at the other end."

"Good enough,” Ivy said. “Where's the passage?"

Pegleg hadn't spoken the entire time and, from the way Shotgun talked to him now, Ivy guessed that was because he didn't speak any English. Finally, though, Pegleg grunted, then gestured at them.

"You follow him. He leads you. Not to tell anyone, however. The passage is gypsy secret."

Pegleg grunted again, then gestured toward the nearby hills.

Five minutes of walking through an abandoned apricot orchard got Ivy a couple of clunks in the head from running the Cross into trees, and a windfallen apricot.

Pegleg finally gestured to the heavy iron grating over a corrugated drain that stuck out of the mountain.

"This is it?"

Pegleg shrugged.

"How do we get in?” Zack asked. The iron bars looked rusty but plenty solid enough to keep them out.

Pegleg looked disgusted, but he reached his hand through a couple of bars and tripped a latch, swinging the steel grate outward.

"Are you coming with us?"

Pegleg might not speak English, but he was doing a pretty good job understanding Ivy's questions. He gestured at them to enter the two-foot-high opening. Clearly he wasn't going anywhere.

"Looks like we either have to trust him or not,” Zack said. “You did the Queen a favor. So, I figure we should trust them to pay us back."

"The Queen said it,” Ivy answered. “If they wanted us dead, they wouldn't be doing anything this complicated.” She crawled into the opening wondering whether this part of Thrace was big on snakes and scorpions.

Pegleg grunted again, shoved something at Zack, then slammed the grating behind them. They were alone again.

Dragging the Cross across the bumpy corrugated iron pipe felt blasphemous, but Ivy didn't have any choice. They couldn't stand upright and certainly couldn't just carry their burdens.

Dawn had provided a gray lighting outside as they'd scrambled through the apricot orchard, but Zack's bulk behind her cut off almost all of the light. What little got through diminished quickly as she crawled more deeply into the tunnel.

Then, abruptly, light dazzled, almost blinding her.

"Our one-legged friend gave me a flashlight,” Zack admitted.

The pipe dumped them out in a stone cave that felt ancient and holy to Ivy.

The blue tinge to the magic could have indicated Mary worship, but she felt certain whatever had been worshiped here had been ancient before Mary had been born.

Zack flashed his lantern around, stopping at the hammer and sickle hewn into the rock in one spot, at the lettering in another spot that didn't look like either the Greek, Latin, Arabic, or Cyrillic alphabets.

"What's that?"

Zack wrinkled his forehead. “I don't recognize it. Maybe it's Linear B."

"Linear what?"

"It's the old Greek alphabet that was lost in the wars during the Mycenaean dark ages before Homer. The Greeks didn't rediscover writing for hundreds of years and then they had to adapt a whole new alphabet."

Ivy shuddered, reminded again of the vision she'd seen in Mosul. She tried to imagine how a war could be that destructive. It wasn't hard to imagine cities being destroyed. Iraq was full of destroyed cities—some ruined thousands of years ago, others flattened by the American invasion. Even technologies could be lost as had Greek Fire, which had once defended Constantinople against the Arabs. But a loss of knowledge so complete that even the alphabet hadn't survived seemed a huge leap beyond even the massive destruction she'd witnessed.

"Another archeological dream,” Zack whispered. “I don't think anyone knows that Linear B penetrated so far into Thrace.” He sighed, clearly wishing he could stay and explore. “Still, we'd better go. I don't know how long these batteries are going to last."

"Good.” Ivy led the way forward hoping that the cavern wouldn't have multiple branches. Without a guide, it would be easy to become lost in a maze. “Say, you don't think those ancient Greeks were Communists, do you?"

"You mean the hammer and sickle? More likely this was a hiding place and smuggling center during the Greek civil war,” Zack said. “Or maybe part of the resistance during World War II."

The passage showed occasional signs of more recent use. Perhaps the gypsies, or maybe smugglers, had kept alive memory of an ancient cave system that had once been used to celebrate dark mysteries dedicated to a goddess whose name Ivy couldn't even guess.

The flashlight batteries gave out just as they saw the green light of day to the west.

They emerged from a tree-shrouded grotto, splashing their way through a narrow stream the last hundred feet, and finally squeezing themselves through a muddy opening small enough that Zack had to contort his shoulders to get through.

Ivy looked back at the hill behind them and spotted the high fence that separated Turkey from Greece.

Despite Pegleg's promise, no one was at hand to greet them.

"Looks like we're one step closer to Venice,” she said. “Now what?"

"More walking,” Zack said. “The Americans don't have as many bases in Greece as they do in Turkey, but I'm willing to bet that one more border isn't going to stop the Foundation from following us."

Greece involved a
lot
more walking. Eventually, though, they made contact with some of the Constantinople Patriarch's allies in Greece and were bundled onto one of the many Greek shipping lines—on a ship heading for Venice.

"It's not exactly a pleasure cruise.” Ivy filled Zack's bowl with a Greek lamb stew, then dished out another bowl to the Greek sailor behind him.

"Tell me about it.” Zack looked as exhausted as she felt. Because he couldn't speak Greek and had no special on-board skills, he'd been given the most skutwork jobs on the ship.

The ship's whistle sounded before they could gripe any more and the dining room where Ivy had been put to work as assistant cook and food-slopper emptied out.

"Quickly, move.” The cook grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward his room.

She heard the telltale rumble of helicopter turbines just in time to keep from decking the aging sailor. Although they were hundreds of miles from where they'd finally broken contact with the Foundation, the Agents hadn't given up. It didn't help that they could have drawn a line from Mosul in Iraq through Turkey and Greece to get an idea of where she and Zack were heading.

The freighter's engine shifted tone as the captain hove to under threat of attack.

"No woman on ship,” the cook insisted as he shoved her into his room. “Change."

That she could understand. Not that the baggy pants or blue workshirt she wore were especially feminine.

She packed a couple of towels into her shirt, hoping to make her breasts look like fat rather than female, and grabbed the cook's straight razor.

This wouldn't hurt at all.

It only took her about thirty seconds to shave off all of her hair, blacken her eyebrows, yank out her earrings, and head out to the deck.

The cook handed her a greasy sailor's cap which she stuck on top of her shaved head.

A U.S. Navy frigate rocketed through the gray waters of the Adriatic toward them while an ugly black helicopter circled overhead.

As she watched, a rope ladder dropped down from the gunship and two sailors scrabbled down.

The Captain met them at the base of the ladder, screaming at them that he was a registered merchant, that they were conducting an act of piracy and war, that he would notify his government representative, and that the sailor's mother had engaged in sex with a horse's hindquarters.

The sailor listened to the captain for a couple of moments, then shoved him aside.

An angry murmur ran through the watching Greek sailors and several stepped forward carrying improvised weapons, but the roar of Gatling gun bullets convinced them to pull back.

The helicopter crew had fired into the sea, but the warning was clear—they could turn the freighter into so much scrap metal in a few seconds of sustained firing.

"What cargo are you carrying?” the sailor demanded.

The captain brushed himself off. “Olive oil, incense, artwork. Some containers delivered by customers. Those are sealed by Customs. I don't have the keys."

"Yeah, right. Of course you don't. Well, we can get through seals. Show us where they are."

The captain protested for a moment, but everyone could see his heart wasn't in it. He didn't want to let the Americans into his cargo, but he wanted to get shot up even less.

"Tell the rest of your sailors to stay on deck. Anyone else going below will be killed."

The captain shouted something in Greek and, from the angry murmur from the sailors, Ivy thought he had added his opinions of the Americans, but he must also have conveyed his message because no one moved as the captain led the sailors below.

"The men from the chopper are dressed as Navy petty officers, but they stink of Foundation to me.” Zack hadn't moved noticeably, but he'd closed the distance so they could talk. “And jeez, what the heck happened to your head?"

"No women on the ship. I didn't have time for a careful styling."

"It's, uh, unfortunate."

"Too bad. Here I was such a fashionplate before."

"Whatever. So, what are we going to do if they find the Cross?"

They'd hidden it as best they could, but the Foundation had proven able to track them down. These Agents, though, didn't seem especially alert. They were going through the motions of inspecting every ship in the area.

The captain popped up and shouted something else and the cook gestured to Zack and Ivy. “You four, go with the Captain.” He signaled to a couple of others so it wasn't just the two of them. Ivy wondered if the Captain had decided that giving them up would be the safest strategy. Considering how the Foundation Agents treated their witnesses, Ivy didn't he'd be right. Still, it was way too late to warn him.

The Captain put them to work unbolting the cargo holds and bringing up samples of the cargo from below.

"No guns,” he insisted as if he really believed that the Agents were U.S. military and that they were looking for terrorists. “No explosion. We carry same cargo we have carry for twenty years."

"I'm picking up something.” The Agents appeared to have tuned out the captain. “Over to the left."

If Ivy needed convincing that these weren't real sailors, his use of the word ‘left’ rather than ‘port’ would have done it.

Rather than the crucifix Smith and some of the other agents had carried, this pair had a small electronic device the size of a palmtop computer, but with a cute little dish antenna on top. More evidence they were putting every agent into the field that they could.

"Seems to be close."