The Relic (6 page)

His face hurt as he tried really hard to stop a grin breaking out. “You said it yourself, Mags. We’ve got to get down to business.”

Damned if she didn’t look disappointed for a second there. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he loved needling her. She was so damn cute when her eyes were flashing and her skin all flushed just like she’d looked after she’d had a third mind-blowing orgasm.
Oh yeah…those were the days.

Somehow he got himself together enough to sound serious. “Give us what you’ve got from your LAW friends. Some of that legend hocus pocus stuff might give us a clue as to where to look.”

“That ‘hocus pocus stuff’, as you put it,” she said as her lips twitched, “has some well-researched historical facts behind it, Stone, so don’t discount its value.”

He grinned back at her, loving the fact that she was having trouble staying mad at him. “I don’t discount it for a minute, Mags. Most legends have some historical fact behind them. Look at how that helped Indiana Jones find the Ark of the Covenant.”

Magda started shaking, and he heard a snorting sound coming from her direction. Her hand went to cover her mouth, but it was no use. She burst out laughing, tears pouring down her face.

“You are an idiot, you know that, Stone?” she said, stifling a hiccup.

“But I had you going there for a minute, didn’t I? You were coiled so tight you were headed for an explosion so I figured pissing yourself laughing would be a safer option for
my
health. You have a mean right hook, if I remember rightly.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled. “Thanks. I needed that. I’m sorry I’ve been so serious. I guess it was a reaction to yesterday, although it’s not as if I haven’t been in similar situations before. Just not all on the same day. It’s not every day you get shot at, forced to jump off a balcony and then followed into the jungle. I’ll be fine now.”

“No worries, Mags. Now I suppose we can get back to the problem at hand. Finding this bloody thing and getting the hell out of here.”

Magda pulled her tablet out of her pocket and turned it on, scrolling through a few pages with the stylus. “I had a look briefly last night and there’s a reference here to the Sultan of Kedah, who was the last traditional ruler of Penang before handing it over to the East India Company in the eighteenth century. He is the connection to Alexander the Great, so we need to concentrate on anything we can find about his connection with modern-day Penang.”

“Does it give the name of the sultan?”

Magda flicked through a few more pages and scrolled her stylus again, her eyes narrowed in concentration. “Here it is. His name was Sultan
Abdullah Makarram Shah the third.” She looked up at him, her eyes alive with the anticipation of the game. “Does it ring any bells?”

Vincent stroked his chin, thinking hard. “Nope. Nothing familiar about that. Maybe we should go back to that village we were in yesterday. I am guessing you and I were both steered there for a reason.”

“I suppose it won’t hurt. As long as we’re careful. They weren’t very happy to see us before. What makes you think they will cooperate with us this time?”

Vincent smiled as an idea formed in his head. “Don’t worry, Mags. I have a plan.”

Magda’s brow furrowed. “A plan? Great! Why do I feel so much better now? Not!”

* * * *

I’m going to kill him!

Magda struggled to walk next to Vincent as they made their way to the middle of the village. Today the open space between the huts was a crowded marketplace, and unlike the quiet of yesterday, when the place had been deserted.

I have a plan, he said.

Don’t worry, he said.

Yeah right.
Great idea of his trying to blend in with the natives.
Not!

When word got out that a couple of Aussies had paid one-thousand
Ringget
for two sets of clothes, then the game would be up. Almost three hundred dollars for something that usually cost less than twenty. The whole village would be after them for a share of that if they found out, and the people that were after them, well, they would have to pretty stupid not to work out who the idiots splashing money around were. The
hijab
scarf she wore scratched her face where it wrapped over her nose and mouth, and the
jilbab
shift covering her body was sticky and uncomfortable. She scratched a particularly bothersome spot on her midriff and adjusted her clothing underneath. She swore there were mites nesting inside the nasty smelling material. Hadn’t these people heard of soap and water or deodorant?

She took a short look across at Vincent and caught him rubbing his neck. The only consolation to this situation was that he suffered in his garb as much as she did. Pulling on his sleeve, she slowed down their progress and leaned closer to Vincent. “Okay, Einstein. We’re here. What’s the next phase of your plan?”

He freed himself from her grip, his face unreadable as he distanced himself from her. “Don’t get too close,” he hissed. “The local women do not initiate conversations with their men in public.”

“Fine,” she whispered back through her teeth. “I won’t touch you again, but I need to know where we are going and what you hope to achieve.”

“There’s someone I want to see first, so just follow my lead.”

“So I guess you’re going to surprise me then.”

“It’ll work. Trust me.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

“And don’t forget to behave like the submissive female.”

A sound welled up in the back of her throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl, but it couldn’t be that. She didn’t growl.

Well, hardly ever.

“Mags—keep it down,” he whispered loudly as he turned from her and headed forward, leaving her seething under her scarf.

Looking at the ground, she saw a small rock and was so tempted to pick it up and throw it at his back, but even in her annoyance, she realized they had to at least try to blend in. So she continued to follow Vincent as he walked through the village almost to the end of the market stalls. He stopped, and since she wasn’t expecting it, she bumped into him.

“What the—?”

“Shhh…”

Turning left abruptly, Vincent walked down a short clearing between two mud huts, similar to the ones where they had met up yesterday morning. One of the huts had a door facing them and Vincent headed over in that direction.

“
Selamat pagi
,” he called toward the open doorway.

“Huh? I didn’t know you spoke Malay.”

“Shhh,” he whispered, turning his head back toward where she stood behind him. “Only a few words. All I said was ‘good morning’. Let me do the talking.”

Fine!
She folded her arms across her chest.
Let him shut me out of the action—again.

A short, stocky Malay man came out of the hut and smiled at Vincent. He walked toward them and stopped short in front of Vince, ignoring Magda.

“
Awak apa khabar, kawan
,” said the man.

Vincent turned toward the villager. “I am well, my friend.
Boleh awak tolong saya?
”

What the hell are they saying?
Magda glared at Vincent’s back, hoping to fire enough animosity in his direction that he would get the picture.

Vincent glanced back at her with a contrite expression and shrugged. Turning back to the villager again, he started speaking in Malay again. “
Awak boleh berbahasa Inggeris?”

The man nodded and smiled, his teeth surprisingly white given the several gaps in his gums. “Yes. I speak your language. I did not always live here in the village. I studied at the university in Kuala Lumpur.”

Hallelujah. At least she could now follow the conversation. Apparently boring your eyes into a person’s back did do something. Who would have thought?

“That’s great. My Malay is not so good, and my woman does not understand your language.”

The villager turned to Magda as if he only just realized she was there. What she saw in his eyes, however, was little more than contempt.

“What does it matter that a woman understands?”

Ha! Arrogant old bastard.

Vincent glared at her as she felt her hackles rising to boiling point. Okay, so she needed to control herself…and she was going to try really hard, but boy, did this guy push all her wrong buttons. Bracing herself, she cast her eyes downward. A good thing she had her face covered in a scarf. She was beginning to like this
hijab
scarf quite a lot, she thought as she scowled into the material scratching against her face, confident the arrogant villager could not see her scathing expression. Anyone looking would only see the bowed head of a respectful woman.

Fat lot of good trying to play along with Vince did her, because when she shifted her eyes upwards to see what was happening, she was just in time to see Vince disappear into the hut with the man. It nearly killed her to wait outside, but she knew what a patriarchal society this was and as much as she didn’t like it, if she walked in to that hut right now, she would ruin their chances of getting any information. But hey, that didn’t mean she couldn’t take a quick look around the village, did it?

Bowing down to the retreating men, Magda backed away. Once they were out of sight, she turned and made her way back to the market. Not really sure what she was looking for, she scanned the stalls on her right. The village stallholders looked up from their cross-legged positions on the ground at the chance of a potential sale, only to dismiss her outright when they saw her.

She tried not to be insulted. It was probably the outfit. If she’d been in her western gear, they most likely would have been falling all over her to buy, since these natives seemed to believe that all white people were rich. As if! A visit to the outer suburbs of Sydney where she’d grown up would set them straight.

Not finding anything remarkable, she moved to the other side. A stall offering various pieces of handmade jewelry caught her eye. An assortment of brightly colored stones attached to thin strips of cord lay strewn across the small blanket, but it was a carved statue that captured her attention. If she didn’t know better, she would think it was the image of
Alexander the Great
.

Being careful to avoid any of the men in the crowd, she made her way quickly over to the stall. A young couple distracted the male stallholder, so Magda inclined her head to catch the eye of the woman seated behind him and pointed to the statue. The woman nodded and she tentatively picked it up. There was nothing remarkable about it. It felt cold in her hand as she held it and turned it over, looking for some clue to the whereabouts of the relic.

On the base, there was an unusual symbol. It featured concentric circles with a pentagram in the center and a large eye in the uppermost point.

She gestured to the woman and pointed to the symbol, but the woman shook her head vigorously, pulling away and lowering her head.

What the—?

Maybe she was onto something here. She leaned forward and touched the woman’s sleeve. The woman shrank back in her place, her eyes radiating sheer terror. The man at her side turned to them, and seeing the statue in Magda’s hand, he grabbed it, shouting at the woman in Malay and slapping her face making her fall backwards.

Magda was horrified and leaned forward to assist the woman.

A firm hand took hold of her arm, preventing her from moving, and turned her around.

She met the blazing eyes of Vincent as he looked about to explode.

“I was just having a look—”

“Shut up!” he hissed as he pulled her clear of the crowd and behind one of the many huts lining the edge of the village. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble!”

Magda rubbed her arm where his hand had held her. “I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t even speak. I was just looking at a statue.”

Vincent took in a breath and let it out. “When I told you to act the submissive female, did you not get what I meant?”

“Again, I repeat—I didn’t say anything and I had my head lowered most of the time.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“These women do not move around un-chaperoned. You brought attention to us both by defying that rule. How could you be so stupid?”

Mags winced at his harsh words. Of course he was probably right. She should have known better, but he didn’t have to make such a big deal out of it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Vince turned and started pacing back and forth on the small pathway. “Damn right you didn’t.”

“I said I’m sorry, but I did find out some—”

“Sorry won’t do us any good if our cover is blown.”

Shit. Magda took in a deep breath.

He’s not even listening to what I am saying!

“I know, but we might have a lea—”

On his third or fourth pass in front of her, he continued the rant. “Don’t you realize how easily they can find us? If word gets out a couple of
anglos
have been hanging around this village, we’ll be history in a very short space of time.”

All right then, if that was the way he was going to be he could just stew in his own juices. Magda turned on her heel and started walking out of the village and back toward the track that would take them back to his hut.

Seconds later, a hand took hold of her arm, and before she could protest, she was swiftly drawn toward a hard body and held firmly in place. Warm breath tickled her skin and she shivered as Vincent whispered in her ear.

“Okay, I went a little overboard, but we have to be so careful, Mags, and your running away from me isn’t going to help things.”

Shifting a little in her place, Magda tried unsuccessfully to get out of Vince’s strong grip. Although he wasn’t hurting her, she definitely wasn’t going anywhere.

“Yelling at me isn’t going to help things either, you idiot!”

His hand hiked up and over the
hijab
to cover her mouth. “Keep it down, Mags. At least until we get out of earshot.”