“Stay put!”
“But I—”
“Under no circumstances are you to leave the loo!” he interjected, shortchanging her objection.
Order issued, he strode back to the lounge. The beautiful bastard was nowhere in sight.
Unnerved rather than relieved, he purposefully marched in front of the makeshift movie screen, briefly sharing the screen with Jeanne Moreau. For those few moments, the projector cast a harsh light onto a tall redheaded bugger with a satchel clutched to his chest. The gauche move incited a good bit of notice, the conversational drone punctuated with audible curses. Perfect. He wanted to make it easy for the bastard to find him. To lure him away from the vestibule on the other side of the lounge. To let the bastard see that he was the one carrying the bulky case that contained the coveted prize.
No sooner was Caedmon out of the projector’s glare than he came upon a swinging door ornamented with silver studs. A small sign affixed to the middle of the door read PRIVATE. No time to squabble over semantics, he shoved his shoulder against the door and stepped inside. As he did, a beam of garish yellow light momentarily invaded the lounge, provoking yet another round of muttered curses.
Finding himself in a small store room illuminated with a bare bulb, he searched for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. He suspected that he only had a few seconds to arm himself.
“Damn,” he muttered, the room stocked with oversized items, not a one of which weighed less than four stone. Industrial vacuums, floor buffers, and stacked cocktail tables. Not a single liquor bottle or fire extinguisher to be had.
Quickly opting for Plan B, he wedged himself into a narrow alcove on the far side of the room. In desperate need of a weapon, he opened the leather satchel strapped around his chest and removed the metal case that contained the Emerald Tablet. Grasping the sturdy case with both hands, he stood at the ready. Waiting . . .
The swinging door turned on its hinge. The loud creak sent a bone-jangling shiver down his spine. Caedmon slowed his breathing, listening as his nemesis cautiously prowled around the storeroom. No doubt wondering where the hell he was hiding.
Caedmon suddenly caught a whiff of sandalwood. His cue.
Lurching from the alcove, metal case hoisted in the air, he swung it toward the bastard’s head, making contact with the other man’s jaw. A sickening, yet satisfying, crunch coincided with a wounded grunt of pain. A dazed look in his eyes, the younger man swayed unsteadily before collapsing on the floor in an ungainly heap. Blood gushed from his nostrils, staining his fashionable suede jacket. A battered Apollo.
Still clutching the case, Caedmon stood over the unconscious bastard, conflicted. All it would take was a firm grasp of the head and one vigorous twist. Problem solved. Jason Lovett and Rubin Woolf could rest in peace. So, too, the overweight glutton at the eatery. Strong-armed justice at its most violent.
Realizing that he’d just contemplated killing the defenseless man sprawled at his feet, Caedmon’s breath caught in his throat. The fact that his nemesis was unconscious left a foul taste in his mouth. Although God knows the beautiful bastard deserved a fate worse than a blackened eye and a bashed jaw.
“Shag it!” he muttered, shoving the metal case back in the satchel. He needed to collect Edie and get out of C’est Bleu before the bloodied beast revived, a wounded animal always more ferocious.
Grateful for the reprieve, he hurriedly strode across the lounge, ignoring the disdainful glances and indignant whispers that followed in his wake.
Reaching the vestibule, he came to an abrupt halt, his heart slamming against his rib cage.
The door to the ladies’ loo was ajar.
With no thought to propriety, he charged through the doorway. And promptly started to cough, gagging on the cloying perfume that permeated the diminutive space. A femme fatale had recently doused herself.
Christ! Where is Edie? At a glance, he could see that the lavatory was empty.
Spinning on his heel, he charged across the hall to the gents.
It, too, was vacant.
Standing in the middle of the vestibule, he turned full circle. Which is when he saw a phosphorescent red glow out of the corner of his eye. A sign at the far end of the hallway marking an emergency exit. He ran down the hall and forcefully shoved both hands against the panic bar.
On the other side of the exit was a deserted alley that reeked of urine, stale perspiration, and a dead animal carcass. No time to take stock, he ran toward the nearest street, that being Edie’s most likely avenue of escape.
Assuming, of course, that she even exited the building. The bastard could have had an accomplice who—
Don’t think it!
An opportunity to escape had presented itself and she seized it. Edie Miller was, if anything, resourceful.
Emerging from the alley, breathless, he came to a full stop, caught in the bright beam of an automobile’s headlight. The auto careened to a screeching halt, the back end wildly fishtailing. The next instant, the passenger door flew open.
Edie leaned across the gear shift. “Get in!”
CHAPTER 82
“All is lost!”
“Do not give up hope,” Mercurius beseeched, trying to calm his distraught amoretto. “We have come far together. Be strong, Saviour. Much is at stake.”
“But the archimalakas has the relic!”
“I know. . . . Let me think.”
You must always remember, little one, that you were named for the Bringer of the Light.
Do not fear the Light, Merkür. For it will lead you to your life’s purpose.
Though he did not know it at the time, being only five years of age, Osman and Moshe had entrusted him with a momentous responsibility—to bring the great work that they began to fruition. To fulfill their vision and liberate the anguished masses from this hideously flawed creation. This godless earth where we are daily force-fed the hypocrisy that misery is a blessing in disguise and suffering an ordeal that must be endured in order to enter the kingdom of God. Not even Moses dared to pass that canard off as “truth.”
The Light did work in mysterious ways, man unable to fathom cause and effect until after the fact. More than forty years ago, in Amman, Jordan, he’d uncovered a single word embedded in the text of the Copper Scroll. Akhenaton. That single, startling word implied a connection, however tenuous, between the Hebrews of the Old Testament and ancient Egypt. Frightened by an anonymous act of vandalism, he’d never published his findings. Instead, he cowered in silence.
But when the Greek crone unceremoniously thrust a loose-leaf manuscript at him seven years ago, Mercurius had been given an unbelievable gift. One bequeathed to him in 1943. The true history of the Hebrew tribes and their connection to the pharaoh Akhenaton.
Within days of that miraculous encounter at his childhood home, he’d been given yet another gift—the beautiful young man, Saviour Panos. Firmly grounded in the material world, his amoretto was the dark to his light. Together, they made a perfect whole. Old and young. Cerebral and visceral. Eromenos and erastes.
Cause and effect.
The two of them would give a great gift to a world at war with itself. A gift that had the power to engender a spiritual awakening of mankind’s collective soul. A gift that would bind up all the wounds. A way to usher the victimized inhabitants of this planet to the Lost Heaven. The only true utopia. Paradise regained.