Now that high speed air travel had shrunk the world, the citadels served more as repositories for the secrets the Society was obliged to safeguard. It was one such secret that prompted Gallo to pause a few steps beyond the doorway and lift her gaze to the ceiling. The upper reaches of this cavern were cloaked in shadow, but she could hear them, creeping stealthily amidst the hanging stalactites.
They were called the Forgotten, and once, long ago, they had been human. Now they were…something else.
In ancient times, Alexander Diotrephes, the man who would someday be remembered as the legendary Hercules, had waged a long war against mankind’s greatest enemy: Death. In the early days of that struggle, he had conducted radical scientific experiments with human tissue, and inadvertently unleashed a plague that had transformed an entire city — men, women and children — into terrifying monstrosities. Imbued with the very immortality he sought, but cursed with a primal thirst for human blood, the wraith-like creatures were the inspiration for nearly every legend of ghouls and vampires.
The Forgotten were Alexander’s greatest regret, the offspring of his hubris. He labored for centuries, looking for a cure, and in return, the Forgotten served as guardians for the Herculean Society citadels. It was a dangerous alliance. Although Alexander had eventually synthesized a compound to satiate their macabre hunger, the instinct to hunt and consume living victims remained strong. Finding some kind of permanent cure for the Forgotten remained one of the Herculean Society’s secondary missions, but the prospects for a workable solution were not good. The problem had confounded Alexander for more than three thousand years.
The tattoo on Gallo’s wrist had no special intrinsic power to repel the creatures. But it was the symbol of an ancient agreement, made with a man who no longer inhabited the world of humankind. The Forgotten were on the honor system.
“I really do despise this place.”
Her voice was soft, with a flowing drawl that was in stark contrast to most people’s first impression of her. Despite her surname, to say nothing of her appearance — long black hair, olive complexion, and both the face and physique of an Italian swimsuit model — Augustina Gallo was about as Roman as a Georgia peach. A decade living abroad, teaching classical studies and mythology at the University of Athens, had reduced none of her genteel Southern charm.
Pierce, seated at a table in the center of the room, nodded but did not look up from his computer screen. The citadels were short on creature comforts, but one thing they did have was an electronic lifeline to the outside world, courtesy of concealed fiber optic lines that provided high speed Internet access for both computers and phones.
Behind Pierce, Fiona lay stretched out on a cot. She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows. “Hey, Aunt Gus.”
Gallo returned a patient smile. “Darlin’, just because we happen to be in the same after-school club, don’t think for a second that you are entitled to eschew proper decorum.”
Fiona rolled her eyes, and then in an exaggerated approximation of Gallo’s style of speech, said, “Professor Gallo, I humbly beg your pardon for my overly familiar manner of address.”
“Better.”
Ordinarily, Gallo would have quietly tolerated Fiona’s youthful banter, but Pierce’s demand that she drop everything and fly to Gibraltar to join him in the citadel, surrounded by an army of creepy vampires, had trimmed her fuse down to a nub. She stopped by Pierce, who was too preoccupied by his work to even notice the exchange between his adopted ‘niece’ and his long-time girlfriend and confidant. She cleared her throat. “Ahem.”
Pierce looked up, but his expression was not the least bit apologetic. “Grab a chair. There’s a lot to go over.”
His uncharacteristically intense demeanor stopped her in her tracks. Whatever the crisis he was dealing with, it had robbed him of his customary easy-going nature. She decided to dial back her own irritation in favor of a more supportive role, and settled in beside him. “What can I do?”
Pierce, who was in the midst of sending a live-chat message, did not immediately answer. Gallo recognized the user name of the person on the receiving end. It belonged to Cintia Dourado, the Herculean Society’s senior logistician.
Dourado’s affiliation with the Society went back even further than Pierce’s. As a teenaged prodigy living in the slums of her native Belem, Brazil, the self-styled ‘black hat’ had, on a whim, followed a trail of whispered rumors to their source. She hacked the Herculean Society’s computer network. Alexander, impressed by her innate talent, and perhaps more importantly, recognizing that the best defense against a hacker of Dourado’s skill was Dourado herself, had personally recruited her into the fold. He had used her to organize operations around the globe and to search out and erase rumors of the sort that had led her to the Society in the first place. Gallo had never met Dourado in person — the young woman was the quintessential telecommuter, now operating from a slightly more upscale residence in Belem — but they had communicated often by e-mail and teleconference.
Pierce sent his message, and then he turned to face Gallo. His expression remained grim, which prompted Gallo to lean forward and give him a light kiss on the lips. When she drew back, she saw little change. “What’s wrong?”
“Fiona and I had a little run-in with your old boyfriend.”
The acid in his tone felt like a physical assault. “My old…?”
“Liam Kenner. He tried to kill us.”
“Kenner and I were never… Wait. Tried to kill you? How? Why?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. He knew we’d go to Heraklion. He knew that we would be going after the Phaistos Disc.”
It took a moment for the significance of this to sink in. Gallo felt her pulse quicken as her body went into full defensive mode. “You don’t actually think that I had anything to do with that? I haven’t spoken to Kenner in years. I haven’t even thought about him. And not that it’s any of your business, but we were never together. He asked me out. I refused. End of story.”
Pierce closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes still closed. “I guess almost getting buried under Mount Psiloritis has me a little on edge.”
Gallo glanced over at Fiona, who was watching the exchange wide-eyed. The mere fact of the girl’s presence was enough for her to bring her ire under control — she was averse to causing a scene. Though the matter was far from resolved. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
Pierce nodded and related the events of the previous evening, beginning with the immediate aftermath of their escape from the museum, when Kenner first accosted Fiona, and ending with the early morning flight to the citadel.
“He’s been tracking us,” Pierce concluded. “Stalking me, all these years. Piecing it all together.”
Gallo resisted the urge to emphasize that it was Pierce, and not she, that had been Kenner’s target. After listening to Pierce relive the ordeal he and Fiona had narrowly survived, she felt a little more inclined to excuse his brusque manner. “You weren’t exactly the soul of discretion back then.”