It’s dark when you wake up. You lay there for a moment trying to pinpoint what it was that brought you out of the deepest sleep of your life.

You feel refreshed, but it will take several more days of sleep and food to make up for your ordeal and the jet lag. That, and a few years of therapy.

You hear a soft sliding sound and a distinct rhythmic clicking like a slow prize wheel at the fair.

That’s all the warning you get before the handle of your door turns and the door is thrown into the wall with a dull thud. Kael hurtles through the room, bypassing Opal kneeling on the ground, lockpicking equipment still in her hands. You yank out your knife and hold it in front of you threateningly. She ignores it and throws herself at you, trapping your hand to your body and driving you back on to the bed.

Your wrist flicks of its own accord, slipping the blade from the pin and sliding unerringly toward where you can feel her heart beating low and rhythmic in her chest. You stop it at the final moment, the point digging a small hole in her jacket. She freezes on top of you, hands buried in your collar, staring at you with wide eyes. Something whispers in your mind.

You mirror her shock and throw the knife to the side where it bounces on the carpet and comes to rest, still pointing at Kael’s heart. She releases you and steps back, eyeing you warily.

Opal glances at the knife as she crosses the room but she seems to have noticed nothing amiss and busies herself with fastening a rope ladder to your windowsill. She is confident in Kael’s ability. So were you until a moment ago.

“You know an Eater,” Kael says finally, breaking the silence, absently fingering the new hole in her clothing.

You stare at her, neither confirming nor denying this accusation.

“An Eater landed at the airport an hour ago and killed a gate guard and one of my spotters,” she continues, the revelation reinflating her earlier fire. “He asked about a professor on a flight from Mexico.”

You swallow heavily. “Caville.”

She looks at you and then looks at the knife on the floor and clenches her fists “You will pay for their blood one day, but for now, I am bound to oppose Eaters at every turn.” She frowns sourly, “In this case that means sheltering you from one of the most relentless, dangerous beings that walk this plane.”

Opal clears her throat by the window, “Worse than Apollo?”

“If Apollo is a pebble, Eaters are an asteroid,” Then quieter she continues, “and we are like grains of sand. Come, the hotels will be the first places he searches.”

She strides briskly to the window and throws the ladder down then drops quickly out of sight. Opal followed her swiftly, leaving you alone in the room with a clear choice. Stay and face Caville or follow the green eyed women that broke into your room in the middle of the night to kidnap you.

You sigh, barely giving it a thought before stepping out onto a rope ladder suspended several stories above the pavement.

It really wasn’t any choice at all.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

_____

Your fear of heights has abated since you climbed those stairs in Mexico. There is nothing like real, concrete fears to give the abstract ones clarity. Falling to your death was in your hands, in your coordination and the strength of your muscles. Husks and Eaters were unfathomable and therefore impossible to control. The swinging, sagging ladder is easy and you make it to the ground without incident.

This time, the flight through the city is a controlled one. You walk quickly, but don’t run, sticking to the shadows and keeping your eyes out. The hour is late enough that some bars are letting out, but early enough that three people can mingle with the crowd and pass completely unnoticed among the drunk population. Kael sends a few longing glances at the bottles behind the bar, but she purses her lips and presses on.

While running, you try to process what happened with the knife, but find every explanation distasteful so you put it from your thoughts and focus on putting more air into your lungs. A therapist might advise against locking it away in the vault in the back of your mind where it can’t hurt you, but examining your feelings in an armchair with a cup of tea is different than on the run.

The building that you come to is different than the one before, though marked with the same crumbling white plaster walls and flaking paint. Kael takes a side entrance, dragging a basement door open and disappearing into the darkness. You have a moment of misgiving, but Opal gives you a brisk shove between the shoulderblades and you follow rather than tumble down the stairs. She drags the door back closed behind you, plunging everything into darkness.

There is a click and the lights flare to life illuminating a room full of comfortably used, second-hand furniture and deep carpets. There is a kitchen to one side, laughably stocked with random food goods that have a good shelf life. Kael stands there, fixing a drink, first putting her hands on a bottle, then sighing and making a pot of tea.

“Talk.” she says without turning around. Opal gives you a look and drifts over to the couch, looking at the room with open curiosity. You sit across from her.

You take a deep breath. “Four days ago,” you pause and count on your fingers. Was it only four days ago? It’s impossible to tell with all the traveling and the time differences. It doesn’t matter, you decide. “Four days ago I was a professor of archaeology.”

Kael makes a “get on with it” gesture.

“A professor employed by Dr. Caville,” You raise your hands, forestalling any objection, “I didn’t know at the time that he was an Eater, nor what an Eater was. I just knew that there was a man that would pay me to go on digs and find items of historical value. I never found anything he cared about until that tomb.”

“When he..” you stop and take a breath, remembering the destruction of the temple, “when he … ate… the temple he tried to eat me as well because I started asking questions. I got out with an artifact and have been fleeing ever since, learning what I can about this secret world from scraps and ruins.”

“You served an Eater?” Opal says in disbelief.

You nod and she looks like she might attack you then and there. You look to Kael for help, but she just looks thoughtful. The kettle whistles and she pours the tea out into three cups, giving you the one with a chipped rim.

You take a sip even though it is much too hot and are rewarded with the strong taste of Olympus tea, or ironwort if you are inclined to the less sensationalized name.

“So you are after information then?” Kael says sipping her tea thoughtfully, apparently immune to its heat. “Lucky for you I have everything that you could ever need.”

You sit up, all traces of exhaustion leaving. Here is someone who can make it all make sense, someone who can finally sate your endless desire for knowledge, a desire that got you into this mess in the first place.

“What are Eaters?” you ask with barely contained enthusiasm, “And how did ancient people use magic? And why is none of this in the history books? And who is Apollo?”

Kael smiles, but it is not a nice smile, it is the smile of a fisherman that has a fish hooked and knows what he will be eating for dinner. “I’ll answer all of that and more, but I need you to do a little something for me first.”

“What sort of thing?” you ask, suddenly on your guard.

“I’ve never had an artificer on my crew before,” she says, grinning like a shark. “It opens up so many interesting opportunities.”