Even after the eighth hour of the flight, you can't bring yourself to open the briefcase.

The plane is crowded in a way that overnight flights rarely are, yet still holds on to that unusual half life. The pre-dawn light filters in through the windows of the more oblivious passengers. People blink slowly, moving only to beg the stewardesses for coffee. Even the businessmen can hardly focus their bloodshot eyes onto their glowing screens for more than a moment.

Through it all you sit, faded, yet unwilling to close your eyes for even a second. You know what you will see on the back of them.

You catch a flash of green out of the corner of your eye and jerk away holding the leather-wrapped briefcase out in front of you like a shield. It is just emeralds, or more likely colored glass, on the woman's bracelet across the aisle. You relax, or try to as your neighbor inches away.

The intercom crackles and announces the landing, first in Greek, then in Spanish, then in lightly accented English. Few move, even as the plane begins its descent. You look out your open window hoping to see the Acropolis in the distance, but it is still too dark and the airport is too far away.

The plane lands, and the corresponding jolt rushes people to waking better than words ever could.

You are at the front of the line to deplane by merit of packing light and skirting the reaching passengers with a dexterity that surprises you. A middle aged professor moving like a wraith. Apparently, the crushing need for a brandy is better training than any gym.

Though, you reflect, it would be criminal to drink anything other than wine this deep in the mediterranean. That or tea, but tea lacks the more refined hammer that alcohol employs so well.

Dissociation takes you through the offboarding process and into the customs line. The airport is notable only for its greek lettering and fading interior. You let it fade even further into the background as you move up the line, idly wondering if anyone will judge you if you chug several glasses worth of wine. You doubt it, airports are usually exempt from the customs of man.

You get to the window, which frames the face of a rather bored guard, barely one cup of coffee away from death. He glances at your passport "Anything to declare?" he asks in English.

That takes you back a second, realizing that you have a knife in your briefcase and several items of questionable legality. "Uhh... No."

He glances at the case with disinterest then does a double take. He hands you back the passport, rubbing at his eyes with exhaustion even as his posture is ramrod straight. "Line four please."

You stand there, wary for a moment, but the gate beckons and the guard is already waving the next person in line. You go, shooting furtive looks over your shoulder, but he never looks at you again.

Paranoid, you're just paranoid.

It feels like the first time you ever got into a car accident. Before, driving was nothing. You would get ice cream or go to the corner store at the drop of a hat. Then you crash and for weeks, you grip the wheel with whitened knuckles, even when there isn't another soul on the road.

Now it was like that with people. Once you saw the underbelly of society, it removed your blindfold and made unfathomable horror a possibility, no, a probability.

You hope your anxiety will fade with time.

You consider all this as you walk through line four which looks more like a maintenance corridor than a security line. This early, it is empty with half the lights off. You breeze through, nervously concocting various explanations for your luggage.

It never becomes necessary, line four simply spits you out next to the train station where you convert half your cash to euros and board the train. You breathe a sigh of relief as you sit on the empty train, all the other passengers still working their way through customs.

A man hops on the train at the last minute, barely acknowledging you as he slumps onto the seat at the end of the car.

A half dozen stations go by in a colorless blur. Your eyes track him warily, but he might as well be a statue for all the life he shows.

Finally your station comes and you crawl out of the subways underbelly and into the dull gray mist of dawn. The man doesn't follow, he just pulls his coat tighter and mumbles.

Despite everything, you pause for a moment when you reach the street to stare upward at the acropolis.

Athens, the city of wisdom.

At least you hope it will be. You could use some wisdom right now.

The streets are a mess as older streets often are and these are ancient. Forged of convenience, they dismiss the modern love affair with straight lines. They wander through the city, carelessly slicing blocks in half and forcing buildings to pick a side. New is crushed in with old, proclaiming its independence loudly, in the same way a tree roots to the top of a mountain and claims it is higher.

No one knows these streets fully, but you know them enough to get by, walking until you find a bar that is closed then one that is closing. It's depressing how comfortable you are getting with bribery. It's more depressing to know that half the population will do anything for enough money.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

This is not a nice bar, stained wooden chairs are scattered to the corners of the room, illuminated by lighting designed to minimize the energy bill. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust enough to even see the other patrons. There are four of them, three men and a woman, and each look to be deep into the bottoms of their bottles. You decide it would be a good idea to join them

You grab a glass and sit in a corner, but you can barely finish half of your first drink, fear staving off the few drops of alcohol you manage to get down. It takes the edge off, you guess, but you still find yourself examining each of the drunks in turn.

Of the three men, two are slumped over, dreaming whatever dreams alcoholics use bottles to search for. The other rests a pale, shaking hand on his glass, quaffing wine with wild abandon. It looks like he is substituting it for something else, replacing an addiction to painkillers perhaps.

The woman hasn't taken a sip since you walked in, staring off into space and slowly rocking as drunks do when they try to stand still. Her dark hair covers most of her face.

The bartender resigns himself to his late night or, at this point, early morning and pours himself a drink. If you can't beat them, you suppose.

All in all, no one is prepared to react when two men throw open the door and hurl themselves at you.

They have your briefcase before you even hear the door slam into the wall. You hang onto the handle desperately as they pull you over the table and halfway across the room. The man spins, belatedly realizing what he is dragging and aims a fist at your face. You cringe back recognizing him from the train. The punch lands on your upheld arm, throwing you to the side with inhuman force.

There is a pop of glass shattering and the man stumbles, a concussion forcing him into the ranks of the rest of the drunks in the bar.

The woman has thrown her bottle with deadly accuracy, but looks like she forgot what to do next. The bartender pulls a bat from under the counter with a familiarity that would have made you rethink your patronage. He points it at the second man with the bland look of a man about to take out the garbage.

The man doesn't hesitate, leaping for the briefcase as if it were filled with diamonds. The bartender starts swinging, cracking the bat on any exposed limbs, then tackling the man when he seems unperturbed by his breaking bones.

The other man,the one from the train shakes his head a few times, eyes slowly refocusing. You yank him to the ground before he has a chance, swinging the briefcase at his face on instinct alone.

It connects with a softness that makes you drop it entirely. The man's jaw is now hanging at an odd angle, his eyes rolled back in pain. Still he paws for the briefcase like a man in the desert gasps for water.

The feeling echoes in your hands and in your soul. Humans are nothing more than squishy sacks of meat and fluid. You know this intimately now. Memories crash in a knife plunging deep, of flesh parting like a curtain.

You feel nauseous and look wildly for the exit.

The bartender is still rolling around with the second man. He seems to have the advantage of skill, but the tenacity of his assailant has set their match to a draw. The woman is busy garroting the shaking patron who looked to have been ready to join the fight. Who he would have been fighting for was anyone's guess, including his own.

The briefcase lies abandoned on the floor so you snatch it up, stumbling over the body and several chairs as you move to the exit. You throw one more glance back into the mess before you run and are arrested by the woman staring at you.

Staring at you with glowing green eyes so hot that smoke curls from the corners.

You run, a wild flight that takes you around corners and across streets without looking. It is a raw thing, an animalistic sense that scrambles all thought, save survival. Breath scrapes through your throat and into your lungs. Your heart pounds.

After an age you slow, ducking into an alley and slumping behind a trash bin. Your heart returns to normal pace remarkably quickly for your age, but you still feel scattered. The case in your hand seems to weigh a thousand pounds.

You try to unpack it all and lay it out in order, but the feeling of breaking the man’s jaw keeps crashing into your mind, disrupting rational thought. You breathe deeply, forcing yourself to calm down, though panic still flickers on the edge of your mind. You're in an alley, you have no idea if you were followed, you have no idea where you even are. You have no place to stay and nowhere seems to be safe. You are alone.

The woman from the bar saunters around the corner into the alley.

Your heart jumps back into full flight mode and you plaster yourself to the wall, barely hidden behind the bin.

She leans against the wall on the other side and crosses her arms. "Surely no one," she begins in a unnaturally cheerful tone, "would be so unfathomably stupid as to bring Artifacts into this city."

You say nothing, ancient mammal instincts convinced that if you stay very still and very quiet, the monsters can't find you.

She pokes her head around the bin. "So, are you dumb or just ignorant?"

Her eyes are normal now, just dark spots even as the dawn begins to brighten into true day. She is more focused now, like the fight burned through the alcohol in her system.

You take a breath. "Both I guess."

The ghost of a smile touches her lips. If you are to be incompetent, at least be likeably so. You are way over your head here. That is more and more clear with each passing minute.

"The way I see it, you have two options," she says, settling back against the wall, "You either come with me and I help you shield what’s in that briefcase, or I take it from you to keep it out of Apollo's hands."

You have so many questions, but you lay them all aside with effort, glancing down the alley, gauging your chances to run.

She chuckles as if sensing your intent, "You're fast for an old man, but I'm faster. Also," she sighs and rolls her eyes, "if its because the glowing eyes thing, I promise I haven't succumbed"

So many questions whirl around in your mind, who is this woman and what does she mean succumb? How did she find you so easily? Who was Apollo?

You consider it for a few moments, running scenarios in your head then stop as you realize you don't have a choice. You stand meekly and walk out from your hiding place, looking into her eyes just long enough to confirm them as a regular brown before looking at your feet. She gives a small shrug and sets out at a light jog, you rush to keep up.

In your head the scenarios still flash, you running and her chasing, her fighting and choking you to death as easily as she garotted the man in the bar.

These scare you, but they are the usual fear, the manageable fear.

No, the true fear is the reality in which you win.

The reality that you once again take a life.