“You’re lying,” Roche hissed. “I saw you take it.”
Despite the roaring of blood in her ears, the primal urge to flee or if necessary fight, something about the statement pulled Jade back from her panic.
He saw? Is it possible?
“You think I want to steal it?” she said defiantly. “Like you stole it from the Science Museum?”
Something changed in Roche’s expression confirming the truth of her accusation, but also revealing the deeper implications of that fact. Roche could not simply turn her over to the police because doing so would bring his own crimes to light. Jade felt a premonition of her own; not the déjà vu of a dark matter-fueled glimpse into alternate dimensions, but a grim certainty that this paranoid lunatic had no intention of letting her merely slink away empty handed. Roche was going to kill her.
Dorion gazed out the window of the SUV, desperately hoping to see Jade strolling toward them, but there was no sign of her. This was taking too long. He never should have let her go to this meeting alone.
“Maybe we should go look for her,” he prompted one of the security men.
The man gave him a blank look, but before he could answer, his face screwed up in consternation. He reached into a pocket and took out a cell phone. “Hello?” A pause. “I’ll put him on.”
He passed the phone to Dorion. “Yes?”
The voice on the other end belonged to Chapman — Professor, he thought, that’s what Jade calls him. “Paul? How goes the search at your end?”
Dorion wasn’t sure what to say. “Ah, Jade is meeting with someone right now.”
“That’s okay. I was actually hoping to talk to you. It’s about Delphi. Were you aware that the oracle only entered the sanctuary on the seventh day of each month?”
Dorion was having trouble concentrating on the question. “I don’t recall. Why would it matter?”
“The Greeks used a lunar calendar. The first day of each month always corresponded to the appearance of the first crescent moon. The seventh day would always fall on the first quarter moon.”
“So?”
“You said that dark matter is influenced by gravity. The phases of the moon affect the earth’s gravity. New and full moons exert the greatest influence because the earth, moon and sun are all aligned. The tidal effect is most pronounced at those times. When the moon is in its quarter phases, the tidal forces are weakest.”
Dorion finally saw what Professor was driving at. “And the Delphic oracle was active only when the gravitational field was at its weakest.”
“Maybe that’s why you never felt anything at Delphi. Maybe you were there at the wrong time. What I can’t figure though is why the effect would be stronger when the tidal forces are weakest. Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“Not necessarily. The effect works because close proximity to the dark matter field causes a relativistic change. You are literally traveling at a different speed, relative to the rest of the universe, when you are near a dark matter field. During the full moon, the gravitation effect is so strong, it probably cancels out the dark matter field.”
“That makes sense.”
“Are you saying there might still be a dark matter field there at Delphi?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s still there after sixteen hundred years, but it might explain how the oracle was able to continue making accurate prophecies hundreds of years after the Omphalos was stolen.”
“I will tell Jade. We will come there as soon as we can.”
Dorion rang off and handed the phone back to the security man. “Where is she?” he said, more to himself than to the other man. “We need to get to Delphi as soon as possible. This search for Dr. Dee’s crystal ball is clearly a dead end.”
Jade calculated the distance between herself and Roche. She kicked herself for having retreated at the first sight of the pistol. “Mr. Roche, I don’t want to steal anything from you. I’ve told you the complete and honest truth.”
“My visions have never led me astray,” Roche said. He twisted the gun slightly in his hand, swiping off the safety catch with his thumb.
“You actually saw me steal that crystal ball in a vision?” she asked, trying to sound incredulous, even as she shifted her weight, priming herself for action. “Did it look something like this?”
She stepped toward, spinning on her outstretched foot so that, at the critical moment, she was turned sideways and no longer in his sights. The pistol banged loudly and she felt the hot eruption of gases from the barrel, but the round sizzled harmlessly past her, shattering the glass on one of the display cases. It had been a reflexive shot and Roche hastily tried to aim the weapon again, but she was already inside his reach. She threw her left arm out in a rising block that knocked the gun hand away, and then followed through with a solid punch to his lower jaw. Dazed, Roche flew back, rebounding off another display case, dropping the pistol and inadvertently flinging the crystal ball away.
Jade kept advancing and snatched the orb out of the air. It was heavier than she expected. As her fingers closed over the smooth quartz globe, she wondered if she would be hit by a vision. Instead of a warning from another dimension however, she heard a shout from the top of the stairs; the bodyguard, asking if there was a problem. Roche’s wild shot might not have hit her, but it had still done some damage.
She bolted for the stairs, the only way out of the basement gallery. As expected, Roche’s bodyguard was on his way down. Jade didn’t slow or try to evade him, but instead drove forward, cutting the man’s legs out from under him and plowing through as he tumbled down the stairs behind her.
Because the house was unfamiliar territory, Jade bypassed the first floor and kept ascending, back to the patio where she had entered. Before she reached the top of the second flight, she heard footsteps on the stairs below. The bodyguard had recovered and was giving chase.
She darted through the house and reached the door to the balcony just as her pursuer reached the top of the stairs. Damn, he’s fast, she thought, glancing back and jamming the crystal ball into an empty pocket.
She didn’t bother with the stairs down to the river walk, but instead vaulted over the patio rail and into the open air. As soon as her feet touched the lawn, she rolled forward into a somersault, trying to redirect some of the energy from the impact. It must have been the right thing to do, because instead of breaking her legs, she somehow wound up in what could almost pass for a sprinter’s crouch.
The bodyguard appeared at the railing above, but instead of attempting to imitate her, he simply aimed his gun.
Jade erupted from her crouch, running headlong toward the river’s edge, knowing even as she did that every step was taking her further from Dorion and Ophelia’s security team. Unfortunately, getting back to Mortlake High Street meant running the gauntlet with Roche’s man.
But if I can reach the river….
She crossed the sandy bank and splashed out into the water until it came up to her knees, and then launched into a headfirst dive. Her hands split the chilly water like the tip of a harpoon, and she plunged into the murky depths, dolphin kicking to propel herself as far from the shore — and the man with the gun — as she could go on a single breath. When she finally broke the surface, she was more than a hundred feet out into the river.
“Are you okay?”
She turned toward the voice and found a young man, sitting astride a sleek torpedo-hulled scull, drifting in her direction. She paddled toward him. “Just out for a swim.” She tried to sound casual, but the cold water made her teeth chatter.