Carpathian (59 page)

“Open your hand,” Anya said as she released him.

Everett opened his eyes and looked at the raven-haired beauty as she smiled at him. She was backlit by the fire and Carl could swear she was aglow with a heat that only he could feel. He lowered his eyes and then slowly opened his fist. He felt his mouth open as he gazed upon the image that seemed to be written in bloodred ink. It was an exact likeness of the woman he had been secretly engaged to seven years before. He had lost her in a desert mission that seemed long ago, but the memory of her death was as if it occurred only weeks before. The smiling face of Lisa Willing stared back at him from his own palm. Everett raised his other hand and rubbed at the image.

“Minuscule blood vessels have burst just under the epidural layer. The blood vessels were guided by your own brain power and memory. As I said, there are powers that the world has never understood.”

Again Everett rubbed at the image as if he could erase it.

Anya reached out and placed a hand on Everett’s cheek and he looked at her and she saw the pain at his loss from so long ago. She smiled softly and then pulled his hand to her mouth and once more enclosed Carl’s large hand and then kissed it. She shut her eyes and as she did Carl felt his heart flutter. He also shut his eyes as he felt his heart come into his throat. He felt Anya lower his hand and remove her own from his. He slowly opened his eyes and the image of Lisa was gone. The pain he had always felt and the sense of loss he had every day seemed to vanish from his mind and heart. He slowly stood from the stoop and walked into the small yard. He felt Anya watching him and so he turned to face her. She sat on the stoop and then raised her hands to her mouth as she seemed to come to a realization. She stood and waited.

Captain Carl Everett saw Anya Korvesky and nothing else.

*   *   *

Later that morning Carl stood with Anya just outside the gate to Patinas. He glanced up at the darkened mountain as he placed his arm around the woman he had been doing battle with not two days before in Rome. Everett didn’t try to analyze what it was he was feeling so he just attempted to let his mind and his heart wander free of his common sense. He turned and looked at her and was about to speak when she held a hand up and cocked her head.

“Someone is out there,” she said as she slid from Carl’s arm and looked into the woods and then up the side of the craggy mountain. They heard the snap of a twig and they both turned to see one of the village elders that had accompanied Madam Korvesky and the others into the temple. He stepped up to Carl and Anya, looking from the woman to the large American.

“Your grandmother wishes to see you inside the temple. You are to bring this man with you,” he said and then dipped his head and doffed the small black hat he wore and then moved off toward his home.

Anya watched him leave and then took Carl’s hand. She smiled up at him and that look told Everett all he needed to know about how she felt. It was the same gut-wrenching feeling he was having.

As she pulled Everett toward the trail and the temple higher up, she turned and looked into the woods knowing that the person that had been watching them was still there. She turned away and held Carl’s hand that much tighter.

*   *   *

Marko stepped out of the tree line and onto the trail as Anya vanished with the American naval officer around the bend in the trail. His eyes narrowed at the memory of his sister coming from his grandmother’s home with this man close beside her. He didn’t need his vivid imagination to know that his sister had been compromised by this man. Where that would lead him he knew not. But one thing he did know, he could never allow his little sister to control his people, which would only lead to more of the same for them.

For over three thousand years they had done the bidding of tribes they no longer knew nor loved. The days of slavery and bondage to Pharaoh had never really ended for the Jeddah; it had just changed from one cruel and uncaring hand to the next. The time for the Jeddah to break away clean had come and they would all reap the reward of thousands of years of bondage that was once called freedom, and what Marko and most Jeddah called the biggest lie. The treasure was there for them to use and the Jeddah would start to flood the world with their artifacts.

*   *   *

Carl could not believe what he was seeing as they descended the long and wide staircase that had been carved from solid rock 3,500 years before Everett was born. As he looked down he could see the worn areas that told a tale of millions of pairs of feet over the ages treading this way. As they entered the temple’s main gallery, Everett had to stop and take in the carved magnificence of the Temple of Moses.

“I don’t believe it, it’s actually here,” Carl said under his breath.

“Yes it is, but before you get to impressed just remember it took the Jeddah two thousand years to get this temple built, and all at, or just below your minimum wage,” she teased as she stepped past Carl and into the temple.

“I take it you’re not as impressed with your Jeddah’s achievements as outsiders are,” he said as he caught up with Anya. His eyes roamed to the three pyramids that made up the backdrop of the temple. The columns and the obelisks lined every nook and cranny of the magnificent structure.

“My people have been a slave to this menagerie for far too long, my brother is right about that. A palace built to honor the Exodus from Pharaoh, it is nothing but trouble and should have been buried long ago.” She looked around at the illuminated temple and sighed. “I’m as tired as the people are of maintaining this museum of our history and I just can’t do this anymore.” She looked at Carl. “I’m with Marko on that one point.”

“Why don’t you come over here and explain to me what you can and cannot do, granddaughter.”

Anya turned and saw her grandmother as she sat next to the dais where Mikla was still lying and breathing hard.

“I was explaining how a backward people need to embrace those that they fear the most.”

“As we are the backward people you speak of, the people we fear must mean the rest of the world, is that what I understand, girl-child?”

Carl saw the uncomfortable way that Anya shifted from foot to foot as she faced the queen of the Gypsies. He looked over at Niles and Alice, who were watching the small power play without comment. Charlie and Denise were there also but they had their attention on something behind Carl and Anya.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, child, you did mean. Marko has done a horrible thing and now it must be corrected, so I guess you will get your wish sooner rather than later. This life we have on the mountain is coming to an end. Just what that particular end will be for our people remains to be seen.” Madam Korvesky then nodded to a place behind the newly arrived pair.

Everett and Anya slowly turned. Sitting on his haunches and up about six wide steps from the temple floor was Stanus. The beast was growling and staring at Everett. The yellow eyes were intent and the captain could see the giant wolf curl a black lip over gleaming white teeth. Anya took Everett’s arm and then took a step in front of him.

“Grandmamma, why is Stanus here?” she said as she placed her back against Carl’s front and watched the dangerous beast before them.

“He awaits you and your Man from the Sea. I have a task for both.”

Carl managed to turn his eyes away from the giant sitting menacingly before them. He then noticed Niles standing not far away with the others. He only shrugged, indicating he had no idea what the old woman had planned.

“They have work to do just as you and I have with Mikla this night. We must work soon as the sun is only three hours distant.”

Anya swallowed and saw that Stanus was listening to every word that Madam Korvesky was saying. Its eyes would flick from the two in front of him to her grandmother, all the while the low growl emanating from his throat.

“The work with Mikla must be completed before the first birdsong of the new morning, or he will not survive.” Madam Korvesky laughed and patted Mikla’s sleeping form. “By the bones of Joseph, I may not survive it.” She waved Carl over to her side. Stanus continued to stare from his sitting position on the staircase, its glowing eyes following Everett’s every move. “Stanus isn’t going to care for this all that much,” she said as she took Everett’s large hand into her own.

“Grandmother, what are planning?” Anya asked, worried.

“Your Man from the Sea will walk with the werewolf tonight, and now you must prepare him for the journey.”

“You can’t, Stanus would kill him.” Anya turned and faced Carl. “He could never control him, the beast will out. You remember that saying, Grandmamma? The beast will out. The captain cannot control him.”

“He needs not control, just influence. I need to know the disposition of this man’s friends.”

The old woman smiled and then squeezed Carl’s hand tighter as she looked up and into his eyes.

“Move and prepare your Mr. Captain for his walk. Then we will send him and Stanus on their way and we can get down to the business of spelling Mikla.”

Anya Korvesky closed her eyes and then blindly held out a hand toward Carl, who broke his hold with Madam Korvesky and went to her. She linked her fingers through his.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen to you.”

“If it’s to help my friends down below at the resort, I don’t have a choice but to listen to your grandmother. Whatever it is she wants me to.”

“Didn’t you hear a word she said, you are to walk with Stanus tonight.”

Everett looked over at the spot where Stanus was sitting. The giant wolf never allowed its eyes to leave the form of the big American. It just sat and stared.

“Well, if I’m walking him, I hope you have one hell of a big damn leash.”

“She means something else, Carl,” Alice said as she pushed Charlie Ellenshaw toward the couple in order for him to assist Anya and Everett. Carl looked from Alice to Anya, who looked away and then pulled him toward a small stone enclosure that had no windows or openings save one. Charlie, with an uneasy yet excited look back at Niles, soon joined them.

As for Niles Compton, he and Alice turned away and watched as Madam Korvesky became still and silent. He watched her hand run through Mikla’s fur and the giant wolf whined in its uncomfortable sleep. Alice nudged Niles in the side and they both saw the Gypsy’s eyes rolling underneath the lids.

“It’s as if she’s in a deep sleep and rapid eye movement has started.”

“Look,” Niles said, pointing to Mikla. The wolf was still asleep, but its eyes were working rapidly underneath the lids. Mikla was also starting to dream.

Across the way Carl allowed Anya to pull him inside the small rock-hewn house.

“What does that mean?” Everett asked as Charlie Ellenshaw winced at the answer he knew was coming.

“She means you are to become one with Stanus. My grandmother obviously has a concern for your friends down below. I believe she thinks if anything happens to them even more attention will be cast toward the Jeddah. She can be very selfish.”

“And to become one with Stanus means?”

“Tonight you are going to learn what it’s like to be in an old horror movie.”

“And just what in the hell does that mean?” Everett asked as she took his hand and pulled him inside the torch lit room.

“Tonight you will become a werewolf.”

*   *   *

Inside the small stone-carved room Ellenshaw watched as Carl lay down upon an old Russian-made army cot. Charlie’s eyes roamed the room and that was when he saw the deeply gouged claw marks that were sunk deep into the stone walls. Large swipes had been battered through pure stone from something that looked as if it hadn’t liked being in here.

Carl lay staring up at the ceiling as the five torches inside the enclosed structure issued forth a smoky, dark visual of what Anya was doing. She stood next to a small table and was in the process of mixing a few herbs into a small clay bowl. She used a stone that was worn over the years until it fit perfectly into her small hand, or the hand of the necromancer, whoever was using it at the time. Anya was silent as she mixed her strange concoction.

“The spell will cause small stomach cramps at first and then they will settle as the poison is introduced to your system.”

“Poison?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, there is a small amount of mandrake and nightshade in the mix,” Anya said as she placed the bowl down and looked at nothing, keeping her back toward Carl and Charlie. “I would like to say that the experience is without pain, but that would be a lie. The first five minutes are excruciating as the minds join. Stanus will not like you in his head and you will most definitely not like Stanus in yours.”

“Sounds like some of the drugs working their way through Berkeley in 1969,” Charlie said, “and a lot of those people never came back.” They all looked at Ellenshaw and wondered if he had been one of those that were lost in 1969. “How does the joining, or this spell, work?” Charlie asked, as he knew Carl was thinking about the pain.

“The mixture,” she said as she turned with the small clay bowl placed firmly into her hands, “will open the captain’s mind. Free it if you will. He will feel like he has taken a mild hallucinogen at first, then he will sleep.”

“But how do the minds connect?” Charlie asked, ever the curious scientist. As for Everett he wasn’t sure he wanted to learn that little bit of information.

Anya gave Charlie a sad, knowing smile. “It’s in the hands of the Golia—quite literally. Stanus will join with the captain through touch, the special gift of the werewolf—the joining of two minds that are connected through a million years of evolutionary survival together. The symbiosis allows Carl to hitchhike on the mind of Stanus. He will feel the power of the wolf and also see what it sees. He will be the wolf and know the power of what it is to be feared.”

Anya placed her hands behind Carl’s head and raised it. She placed the small earthen bowl to his lips and tilted it until the dark, viscous liquid flowed into Everett’s mouth making him gag. He coughed and tried to swallow the horrible mixture. Finally he got it down and then he placed his head back on the old, rickety cot.