Authors: Kailin Gow
Tavian looked at him then, and patted the vampire’s shoulder in a brotherly fashion. “So where to?”
“That is for Scarlett to determine,” Cruces said. “Scarlett? What comes to mind? How will we find Cupid’s bow?”
“Cecilia and Gordon, too,” Scarlett said.
“Yes, of course, Cecilia and Gordon, too,” Tavian said.
For a moment, Scarlett did not know. She was not sure quite what it was she was meant to do. Then Aphrodite and Hephaestus walked over to her, placing their hands on her. Their touch was almost electric, and as it came, images came with it. They swam across her vision one by one. Images of a place where the skies were blue, where waves pounded against sandy beaches, and where buildings that were in an ancient style, but which still looked new and cared for stood.
“It looks like Athens,” Scarlett said, thinking back to some of her parents’ archaeological journeys overseas, “only it is different. It looks… almost like Athens would have been centuries ago. There are buildings where the ruins would be, and they have the same kind of columns, but they aren’t collapsing. It’s like they are brand new.”
Cruces nodded. “I know the place that you mean. It will not take much to get us there.”
He reached out to put a hand on Scarlett’s shoulder, and Scarlett saw him reach down for the ring that he wore with no warning. Did he intend to leave Tavian behind? Scarlett was not about to allow that to happen. She turned, trying to shout a warning to the gypsy boy, but it appeared that it was unnecessary. Tavian’s hand clamped onto her wrist in the instant before Cruces did something with his ring that Scarlett could not see.
The instant after that, the world around them changed.
F
or several moments after Cruces did whatever it was he had done to the ring he wore, Scarlett felt like the universe was spinning around her. It was a strange feeling, both terrifying and curiously exhilarating at once, as if Scarlett was, for that moment, the focal point of everything around her. To step between worlds like this made her feel almost invincible, since she was doing something most girls simply could not dream of, and yet also curiously vulnerable. For the few moments while they were between worlds, it felt like the simplest things no longer applied. If they could do this, after all, how could any of the basic rules of the universe be real?
Then they arrived at their destination, and Scarlett no longer had time for that kind of thought. She was too busy staring around her. The houses looked… ancient was the wrong word. They were in a style that Scarlett’s mind automatically labeled that way, but they all looked new, well-cared for. They were like one of the places her parents studied that had come to life.
It all looked Greek, with the marble buildings and brightly painted statuary of the classical style. Columns rose up to support the roofs of the larger buildings, while the people there were dressed in clothing not a long way from the kind of thing that Aphrodite and Hephaestus had been wearing. They were in the right place then which was good news, but there were subtle differences.
It took Scarlett a moment to latch onto them. There was the way everybody was paying attention to one man on the edge of a crowd, who practically glowed with the supernatural. There was the way what looked very much like a spirit shot past, and people’s heads snapped around to watch it. People here were actually paying attention to the supernatural, like it was a part of their lives. That normalcy was far stranger to Scarlett than the supernatural ever was. It was one thing being told that they were going to the Greece of the immortals, and quite another to actually see it. For a moment she reeled, just trying to take the whole place in.
Cruces grabbed her by the shoulders, jerking her back just as a chariot thundered past, drawn by two white horses. The near miss was enough to jerk Scarlett away from her staring temporarily, and they made their way down the streets of the city they were in.
“This is Athens?” Scarlett asked, wanting to be sure.
“The Athens of this world, yes,” Cruces replied. “It is probably easiest to think of it as a mirror of the one that used to exist on your world, rather than as the original.”
They started to walk, and quickly found themselves in a bustling marketplace, where vendors sold everything from simple foodstuffs to elaborately dyed cloths. Scarlett’s eyes flicked from stand to stand while the owners shouted out to her. One oddity occurred to her: she could understand everything they were saying, as plainly as if they had been speaking English. When she mentioned that to Cruces, the vampire shrugged.
“It is a side effect of travelling with the ring. Now, have you seen anything so far that looks like it might be a bow?”
Scarlett almost laughed at that, but she saw that Cruces was serious. “You really think that Zeus would have placed something as powerful as Cupid’s bow in a marketplace where anyone could buy it?”
“He’s done worse,” Cruces said, and for a moment, his expression darkened. “Oh, he’s done worse. It would probably amuse him to see some poor mortal finding the bow and trying to handle its powers.”
“Even if it did not destroy them,” Tavian said, “they would abuse the power. They might do it unwittingly, but they would. The bow is not a tool designed with mortals in mind.”
“So Zeus and the others would have a good laugh at someone’s expense,” Scarlett said. She found herself looking over at Cruces. “Are mortals just playthings to the greater immortals, the way they seem to be so often to vampires?”
Cruces’ lips twitched a little then, and Scarlett got the feeling that he wanted to say something clever and witty as a response, but he did not. Instead, he leaned in close to Scarlett, speaking so softly that even she could barely hear the words. “You were never just a plaything to me, Scarlett. Never. And you never will be just that.”
Scarlett could practically feel the desire radiating from Cruces as he stared into her eyes. She had never seen his expression that intent on her before, not even on the occasions when he had kissed her. How much did that have to do with Aphrodite’s power? How much had those few simple words from the goddess done to make Cruces more passionate, rawer, and less able to control himself?
Scarlett did not know, and more to the point, she did not care. Right then, she simply did not feel what Cruces wanted her to feel towards him. She could remember a time when she had, and it wasn’t that long ago, but it was not like that now. Yes, she knew that was because of Aphrodite too, but that did not make what she felt any less intense. She turned to smile at Tavian, slipping her hand into his. Cruces groaned and stepped back, but Scarlett ignored him.
She was too busy kissing Tavian by that point, for one thing. Tavian bent his head down and captured her lips with his, holding her there for several seconds where it seemed that the market around them did not exist.
Scarlett was quite surprised when Cruces practically pulled them apart from one another. Tavian, meanwhile, didn’t just seem surprised. He was clearly furious.
“How dare you…”
“There’s no time for that,” Cruces said, though he said it with a smirk that made it clear ending the kiss was an added benefit of whatever he was doing. “Come with me, Scarlett. You too, gypsy boy.”
He pulled Scarlett over to a nearby stall, filled with bronze and iron work. Fragments of things that had obviously been found, or repaired, or well used. For a moment or two, Scarlett could not see what Cruces had brought her there for, but then she spotted it. There, in the middle of the stall, was a walking stick of very familiar design.
Gordon’s swordstick.
“May I see that stick?” Scarlett asked the vendor, who was a fairly young man with dark curls and a friendly smile.
“Yes,” he said, but he said it nervously, his eyes widening slightly. “Of course.”
Scarlett tried to understand that nervousness. It occurred to her that perhaps the young man was not used to women asking for things directly. From what Scarlett remembered, the noblewomen of ancient Athens in her own world had mostly been shut away from the outside world. Or maybe it was just the strangeness of the way they were all dressed.
Still, the stallholder recovered well. “Although I wouldn’t know why a beautiful girl like you would want an old walking stick.”
Scarlett took the stick and checked it over. The iron head of the cane was inscribed with Gordon’s initials, while a brief check with her back turned to the stallholder, confirmed to Scarlett that the blade within the cane was intact. It was better for now not to let him see something like that, because as far as she knew it was not an idea the Ancient Greeks had possessed. Even the steel of the blade, rather than their usual iron, would make the stick too special for the man to part with.
“This is Gordon’s,” Scarlett said to the other two. “He was here.”
“But he does not have it any longer,” Tavian pointed out.
“No,” Scarlett agreed, “and that is not a good sign. I cannot imagine that Gordon would have left the sword behind willingly. Not in a place so different from everywhere he has been.”
Tavian nodded his agreement to that, and Scarlett turned back towards the vendor.
“Please, can you tell me where you got this? It is important.”
The stallholder shrugged. “From a peddler.”
“And where did he get it?” Scarlett asked.
Another shrug. “Are you going to buy the stick?”
Scarlett fumbled with her purse, wondering how she would be able to do that. She had money, certainly, but it was in pounds, shillings and pence rather than drachma and obols. Cruces solved the problem by simply stepping past her to drop a number of coins into the vendor’s hand. Scarlett did not know if he had somehow acquired the right kind of money, or if he was just doing something that was far more Cruces, and throwing more than the stick was worth at it in the Empire’s coin, on the assumption that it would be accepted.
“Now,” Cruces said, “where did the peddler get the stick?”
The vendor shook his head. “You know peddlers like to keep their secrets, or other people will get to the next thing before them.”
Scarlett stepped up and touched the hand of the young vendor. She smiled her most engaging smile and looked him in the eyes. “I would very much appreciate you letting me know where you think he found this stick,” she said, as sweetly as she could. “It belonged to a dear friend of mine, whom I miss greatly, and I would be very grateful for any news of him.”
If the stallholder had been resolute before, it faded quickly then. In fact, he looked very much like he would gladly do anything Scarlett asked.
“The peddler didn’t say much, but he mentioned that he found it near both the forest and the sea.”
“Thank you,” Scarlett said, bringing his hands to her lips.
The young man blushed, and blurted out, “I think he meant the area south of the city.”
“Thank you…”
“Caesar.”
“Caesar,” Scarlett repeated, with a smile that seemed to have the young man blushing. “Now my friends and I must go.”
She turned to Tavian, who stood there looking at her with an adoring expression that matched the way she felt about him.
“It seems we have to find an area near both forest and sea,” Scarlett said, repeating what Caesar had told her. “After that, we will simply have to search for any sign of Gordon, or what could have happened to him.”
Tavian nodded, but he looked a little uncomfortable. “That is quite a broad description,” he said, “and it could mean many spots.”
“But Ceasar made it sound like the peddler meant somewhere specific, so perhaps it is just a question of local knowledge,” Scarlett said.
“What do you think, Cruces?” Tavian asked. “You know this place better than…”
Tavian tailed off as they looked around. Scarlett had expected the vampire to be standing just a little way away, yet now, there seemed to be no sign of him. It was as though Cruces had vanished into thin air.
S
carlett’s first thought on seeing that Cruces had disappeared was that something must have happened to the vampire. That did not make her as frantic as it might have just a day or so before, but it still had her looking around for some sign of him. There was none, however, and that seemed more than a little strange. After all, nothing would have been able to grab Cruces without a fight, and any fight involving a vampire thousands of years old would have been easy to notice given how close she and Tavian had been standing to him.
Which presumably meant Cruces had left voluntarily. Would he have run off in pursuit of some clue or other? He might, but Scarlett suspected it was not that. After all, he had been quick enough to draw Gordon’s sword stick to her attention. No, it was far likelier that the vampire had gone off for some reason of his own, either because he did not want to be around her and Tavian, or for the simpler reason that he needed blood. Yes, that would be just like Cruces. After all, he had abandoned their last investigation to seek out a drink from a public house that catered to his kind, so why not this one? The vampire was insufferable sometimes.