"You're trembling," Eden said.
"I've waited for you to come back for so long," Jacques whispered. "There were times I thought I'd never see you again."
"I'm here now," Eden smiled, although reality told him it wasn't for long. "Let's make the most of it."
Nimbly, he maneuvered himself over the top of Jacques, positioning himself a slight inch or two above him. They were both breathing harder now, as though lust was trying to steal the air from them. As their bellies heaved in and out, the peaks of their muscled stomachs touched, ever so slightly.
Eden held himself up with one hand, while his other pushed his own pants down a short way, past his pulsing penis, setting it free. The rounded helmet of his long hard Latino cock slapped against Jacques' stomach before Eden pressed himself flat against his lover.
Sprawled on his back, Jacques let the heat of Eden's body seep through him. He closed his eyes.
Eden leaned in and kissed Jacques' neck, feeling the grooves of their bodies gently rubbing against one another. He felt his own aching shaft wedged between their stomachs, burning against his skin. He felt the soft bristle of stubble against his wandering tongue. He felt Jacques' cock pressing hard against the constraints of his own pants, desperate to be freed, longing to rest against Eden's flesh once more.
The Brazilian reached down and unzipped Jacques' trousers. He wasn't wearing any underwear; Eden remembered he never did. In fact, the young marine biologist hated clothes altogether, and when he and Eden were alone on Jacques' research yacht, Jacques would often dive into the oceans as naked as the day he was born.
Now, with no underwear holding it back, Jacques' thick hard cock sprang from its hiding place.
Eden looked down at it, smiling at the thought of all the pleasures that cock had given him. But suddenly, without warning, his joyful eyes grew wide and his lips stopped caressing Jacques' neck.
"Are you okay?" Jacques breathed, suddenly concerned.
Half naked, Eden pulled himself off Jacques and crawled across the floor, his eyes fixed on something he had caught a glimpse of, beyond Jacques, tucked beside on old stone Grecian bust and a badly rolled tapestry.
On hands and knees, his cock still hard and pressing against his belly, Eden reached for the object.
"What is it?" Jacques asked, pulling himself off the floor and crouching next to Eden.
"The stone," Eden breathed, holding the object up. Without taking his eyes off the tablet, his hand grabbed at his jacket on the floor and pulled the original stone tablet from the inside pocket. He held the two stone tablets side by side, closing the centuries old split. The two stones fit together perfectly, and the name "Z E F F E R I N O" was finally complete along the top.
"It's the stone. It's complete. For the first time in almost four hundred years, Zefferino's stone is back together again."
Suddenly, a gruff voice bellowed from behind them. "Sorry to interrupt such an intimate moment, but I'll be takin' vem off yer hands, fanks very much."
Eden recognized the accent as cockney, and without even turning around, he knew it was the one-armed man.
Jacques leaped to his feet and spun around, startled but asserting himself. "Who are you?" he demanded, pulling up his pants and staring down the man in the grinning goat's mask.
The man laughed, and with his only hand, he peeled off his goat's head, revealing his burnt face and toothless grin. Calmly, he reached for the gun inside his jacket and pointed it straight at Jacques.
Eden shoved the two stone tablets behind the Grecian bust, jumped to his feet and pulled Jacques back as soon as he saw the gun.
Dominic Dixon, the one-armed man, looked down at Eden who was still exposed and laughed. "You ain't too good at hidin' fings, are you?"
Eden wasn't embarrassed or intimidated at all; he had no reason to be. Nonetheless, he put himself away and zipped up his pants. If he was about to take on Dominic Dixon, he wasn't going to get very far with his pants around his thighs.
"Who the hell are you?" Jacques demanded again.
"I assure you," Eden said, pulling Jacques behind him. "He's not on the guest list. He's not one of your uncle's associates. He's not even one of his enemies. He's one of mine."
"You know him?"
"His name's Dominic Dixon."
"Ovverwise known as da Holy Ghost of da Crimson Crown," the one-armed man grinned proudly. "And I'm here for da stones."
"If you're going to shoot us, then shoot us," Eden said, his hand reaching behind him now, feeling for something—anything—he could use as a weapon. "But even if you do find the stones, you still don't have the book. So like I said," Eden bluffed. "Go ahead and shoot."
Dominic smirked. "Shoot you?" he asked. "I don't fink I will." He placed the gun down beside him on top of an ancient urn, and then reached for something hidden behind the urn. "No, I found somefink in the next room that'd be a lot more fun."
With that, he produced a gigantic two-headed medieval battle-ax, each blade broader than Eden's shoulders.
"Jesus," Jacques whispered.
Eden swallowed hard, and his fingers fumbled behind him desperately now. He felt some sort of handle. It was long. Like a scepter—which is exactly what it was. He gripped it firmly and whipped it out from behind him, as though brandishing a sword. It was silver and gold with the large crystal orb at the head. It seemed little match for the heavy battle-ax in Dominic Dixon's hand, but it was better than nothing.
The one-armed man looked at it and laughed, and then said, "
En garde
."
Shane pulled up near the bottom of the stairs, clambered to his feet and quickly swung his head around to look for Eric. In the same split second—
thwack
!
A boot collected Shane in the jaw.
He toppled backwards onto the steps, stunned.
Eric threw a punch, but Shane saw it coming and rolled out of the way. Eric's fist slammed into the marble stair where Shane's face was. Several of his knuckles cracked—the bones breaking—and Eric screamed in pain.
Shane took the opportunity to return the favor of planting his boot in Eric's grimacing face. Blood splashed across the steps. Shane leaped to his feet. Eric grabbed groggily onto the stairs, trying to maintain his balance.
"What's the matter?" Shane asked. "Feeling a little light-headed? Funny—that's exactly how I felt last time we met."
Eric wiped the blood from his lip and half-smirked, half-snarled. "I dropped enough poison into that beer to kill a bull in its prime. How the hell did you survive that, anyway?"
Shane smiled. "Something else got to my heart before you did."
"I'm not aiming for your heart this time," Eric said, slipping a set of brass knuckle dusters out of his inside jacket pocket and sliding them onto his right fist. "This time, I'm aiming for that handsome cowboy face of yours."
Suddenly, Eric leaped up.
Shane stopped him with a right hook, straight to his chin.
Eric reeled backward, but only momentarily. He threw a left punch at Shane. It was a decoy—and Shane fell for it.
He blocked the blow but didn't see the right hook coming.
Each brass knuckle had a small stud inserted in it, sharp and pointed and designed to leave a permanent scar.
Eric's right fist impacted with Shane's jaw with such force, that it knocked the cowboy clean off his feet and into the air. Shane came crashing down on the marble staircase, three steps up.
He lifted his head and his eyes blinked frantically, trying to stay focused and conscious. But blackness swam across his vision, his eyes slid up inside his skull, and his head rolled back on his neck, coming to rest with a heavy thud on the marble step.
Eric knew it would have been easy to finish Shane off there and then. Laying there on the steps, unconscious, made the cowboy a sitting duck for a few massive blows to the face.
But easy is one thing, messy is another.
And then there was the tantalizing option of a hostage. The mere thought of tying Shane up, of slipping a lasso knot around his hands and feet and turning this cowboy into his captive, was enough to turn Eric on. He felt himself harden at the thought almost immediately.
Yes, it was indulgent, but he was, after all, the heir to the leadership of the Crimson Crown. He had every right to take whatever he wanted, and deal with the consequences later.
Eric wasted no time pulling one of Shane's arms over his shoulders and hoisting him to his feet. He was heavy, but Eric was strong; strong enough to drag Shane up the stairs and, somewhat audaciously, into the midst of the party where he would simply tell people that his friend had had a little too much to drink.
He placed the white horse mask back on Shane's face to cover the blood and bruises.
Eden and Jacques inched backward as Dominic Dixon stood in place, swinging the battle-ax back and forth, getting a feel for the immense weight of the weapon. All the while, he laughed his gruesome laugh.
Eden looked around at the ceiling. There were no security cameras here.
"Get the stones," he told Jacques in a low voice, who bent instantly and snatched the stone tablets from beside the Grecian bust. "Take them and get help. Find a security camera. Wave at it, and someone will come and find you."
"I'm not leaving you here," Jacques told him.
Dominic nodded. "He's right about vat."
At that moment, the one-armed man put down the ax, and grabbed his pistol off the top of the urn. Before Jacques could so much as move, Dominic Dixon fired a single bullet straight into Jacques' bare stomach.
Jacques gasped and stumbled backward against the wall of the chamber, before sliding to the floor, blood spouting from the wound.
"No!" Eden roared.
He dropped the scepter, fell to his knees beside Jacques and grabbed his shirt, still lying on the floor. He pressed it hard against Jacques' wound and looked intensely into his stunned eyes.
"Listen to me! Look at me! You've been shot. You have to hold this, hold this firmly against the wound. I'll get you out of here."
Jacques nodded, half in shock, half in pain. The stone tablets slipped from his hands, and he pressed the shirt hard against the wound as he was told. Just then, his eyes widened in horror. "Behind you!"
Eden spun around fast and saw Dominic Dixon behind him with his battle-ax raised high, ready to take them both out. But with one sharp kick to Dixon's shin, Eden sent their assailant staggering backward.
Eden jumped to his feet.
Dominic regained his balance and came at him with a savage cry.
Eden moved away from Jacques and used himself as a decoy, making his way along the canal wall. He grabbed a large ceramic vase and threw it at Dixon.
It hit the one-armed man square on the head and shattered into a million pieces, but barely slowed him.
Eden snatched up a small metal statue of Mercury, grabbing it by the head. As Dixon approached, he swung it at the one-armed man, aiming high. With a terrible thud, one of Mercury's winged heels dug into the flesh of Dixon's neck.
But the one-armed man didn't seem to feel a thing.
He simply plucked the Roman god out of his throat, ignoring the trickle of blood that came with it, and slammed his boot straight into the middle of Eden's chest, knocking him against the wall.
Eden's skull hit the stone wall hard.
His eyes clamped shut with the pain.
As his head swirled, he felt a rush of air beside his ear, a swooping noise, and then a sharp clang.
His eyes shot open, sparks filled his vision, and he saw the head of an ancient battle-ax smash into the stone wall next to him, missing his head by an inch.
Dominic chuckled, genuinely amused, and then pulled back the ax and came in for another swing.
Eden dropped to the ground and kicked his leg out again, this time in a sweeping arc. The move knocked Dominic Dixon off his feet altogether, giving Eden enough time to somersault further along the wall. His aim—to get Dominic as far away from Jacques as possible.
But as Eden rolled out of his somersault and back onto his feet, Dixon was already up and wheeling toward him, spinning the ax dramatically and spiraling across the chamber like a tornado with a blade. Eden turned away swiftly, but Dixon cut off his escape with another strike that narrowly missed his face and pierced the wall between two stones with an ear-splitting crack. Chips of rock blasted into the air as the massive battle-ax buried itself into the wall.
Dixon tried to pull the ax free, but the weapon was wedged deep and fast, and all he managed to pull away were more chunks of wall.
Eden seized the moment, charging Dominic Dixon with the full 200 pounds of his weight, wrapping his arms around him and crash-tackling him with all his might.
The one-armed man lost his grip on the ax, and the two of them slammed against the floor—and suddenly, Eden realized the two of them had just skidded face down in a small puddle of water.
Quickly, he looked back at the wall.
The ax was still protruding from it.
And a thin but forceful jet of water was spurting into the chamber from around the ax.
"Oh, my God," he whispered, the gravity of the situation setting in fast. The Grand Canal was on the other side of that wall—
—But wouldn't be for much longer.
Eden shot a glance over at Jacques who was struggling now, trying to maintain the pressure on his wound. But his hands were slipping away. He was losing consciousness fast.
There was another sound now, the hiss of pressure and the trickle of more rocks falling.
Eden glanced back at the wall.
It was beginning to splinter like a fractured damn wall, cracks were spreading outward from the ax, and a much larger jet of water was now shooting halfway across the chamber.
He had to get Jacques out of there.
He had to get them both to safety.
But those were the last thoughts that crossed him mind before he glanced up and saw the Grecian bust—the same one he had hidden the stone tablets behind—come crashing down on him from the hands of Dominic Dixon.