No, the answer wasn’t anything we could find by touch.
If there was anything else out there in the room, then it was moving around. Evading us.
If it was evading us, then it was human.
One minute.
My palms sweated as my hands formed fists by my sides. “Whoever else is in this room, show yourself.”
Richard jerked around to me, eyebrows raised.
No response.
But then a glow. A candle being lit. And a face—a mask—that matched the mask in the picture.
“Holy—” Richard exclaimed.
Then another candle from the other side of the room, and another and another and another.
Five monks, all wearing the masks.
Six monks altogether. But because we’d only seen one, we’d assumed there was only one.
I shivered internally at the thought of these masked people silently stepping around us in the darkness.
The clock stopped with seconds to go.
The bulb below turned green.
Richard and I stared at each other. It was over.
54. Gray
RICO VASILIOU WAS WAITING FOR us on the landing of his apartment.
“Yassou, yassou.” He pulled a surprised Constance in for a hug and then gave me a back-slapping hug, his shirt smelling of tobacco and olives. “Come in, you both.”
We’d given him and his wife fake names—Michael and Lara. I repeated our new names in my mind as I entered the apartment so that I didn’t slip up.
The apartment was large and airy. Bright artworks covered the walls—all of a bay with white Greek houses dotting the hills. Everything in the apartment was decorated in clean whites and blues. The round-edge, ornate door frames were distinctly Greek.
Rico’s wife came out to greet us. “Hello and welcome. I’m Petrina. Can I get you two a cold drink? The heat must be stifling out there.” She was short—short hair too. Together with her large, expressive eyes, she had a kind of pixie look.
Rico and Petrina seemed genuine. But I remained wary.
“Oh, yes, please—anything cold would be lovely.” Constance mopped her brow with a handkerchief.
I nodded. “Cold would be great.”
That didn’t seem to be enough information for Petrina. “Iced tea, Retsina, ouzito?”
A single, deep wrinkle appeared between Constance’s eyebrows. “I don’t drink anything alcoholic or caffeinated.”
“Make mine alcoholic,” I said quickly.
Petrina smiled warmly. “I’ll get you ouzito, Michael. Retsina can be a little strong if you’re not used to it. And water with lemon for you, Lara?”
She showed us out to a tiny balcony where the view swept far into the city.
Constance watched her step back inside then turned to me. “They seem okay?”
“Maybe.” I whispered back. I stuck my head over the balcony railing and checked the street below. What would we do now if two carloads of Yeqon’s Saviours thugs suddenly screeched up? We’d be trapped.
I wanted to zip this up quickly so we could get out of here.
The Vasilious returned together. Rico placed a platter of bite-sized things on the table—olives, sliced cucumbers, triangles of pita bread, three little cups of dip and some cheese-filled eggplant rolls. Petrina set down two glass jugs, one of water that had ice and sliced lemon floating in it and another of what I assumed was ouzito.
“I hope you like it how I make it,” Petrina told me as she poured a glass. “It’s got ouzo, sugar, soda water and lime. I didn’t have any mint, but I prefer the lime anyway.”
I sipped the drink. “Tastes good to me.” I didn’t tell her that I’d never had ouzo before, let alone ouzito. I liked it, so I wasn’t lying.
Constance delicately touched a pita bread triangle to a cup of dip as though she were anointing it. I guessed nothing on the plate was her kind of food.
Petrina tucked stray strands of hair behind her ears, her eyes bright. “So, you two are students of Greek history?” She looked from one of us to the other, seeming to be asking more than she was saying. I guessed she was trying to figure out who we were and why we were travelling together.
But I wasn’t going to volunteer any information. “Yes, that’s right. We’re interested in ancient symbols. Can I show you the one we’ve come across?”
Rico nodded, downing his ouzito. I caught a flicker of something in his eye. Apprehension?
Reaching for my satchel, I took out the photocopy and handed it to him.
He studied the picture, looking up at me twice before he spoke. “What is your interest in this symbol?”