Purdue could not utter a single word in response. It was not because he had nothing to say, but that his throat had closed up at the thought of Nina’s fate if he did not deliver the Medusa stone within the next day.
“Tomorrow, then,” the man signed off. “Good day, Mr. Purdue.”
He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry like a child; like he had not cried since the shock of his twin sister’s death when he left her behind in Venice long ago. Dave Purdue always had a way out. Wealth and genius had always provided him with a guaranteed way out of everything, even when all seemed lost. There was a reason he was always cheerful and suave.
Until now he had never known what it is like to lose control. No longer was he able to take the reins in every sticky situation.
But just as the despair overcame him, his mind became clear one more time. Like the final gasp before the last exhale, he focused on what he had, meager as it was.
“That accent,” he sniffed, wearily propped up on his elbows on the wall desk of his London penthouse. “Why do I know that accent?”
He got up, wiped his eyes and picked up his cell phone again. Pacing up and down, he waited for the call to be answered.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “It’s Purdue. How are you?”
On the other end of the line, an old friend was amazed to hear from him, but Purdue soon made it clear that it was not a social call. After giving his friend a brief twenty-minute account of recent events, Purdue was back to his confident self.
“I need your help. I think I know who the kidnapper is. Can you find out if he is involved with the Black Sun organization? Please get back to me by tonight, latest. Sooner if you can!” Purdue pleaded.
After the call, he arranged to get what he needed to save Helen, and subsequently, Nina too. It would be the most unorthodox rescue he had ever implemented, but he had a good feeling about it. Having been so worried about Nina, it was ironic that the voice of Helen’s captor was the one who notified him that Nina was not dead or missing after all.
He had one night and a morning left to get the Medusa stone before the last call, that call that would seal the fate of two women he adored.
Chapter 35
The sudden silence under the floor of the oven room was almost uncanny. All Nina could hear now was Costa’s heavy breathing as he gradually recovered from his climax. His hands were still firmly on her hips while she tried to absorb what really just happened. In the dark, she smiled to herself. He was not Sam, and she could not even imagine him as Sam since they were unable to see one another, but she did not care. Sometimes a release was just a release, and she needed it after all. Physical heaven granted her reprieve from emotional hell.
‘Well done!’ she thought to herself.
“When you are done, Professor Megalos, we still have a relic to find quite urgently,” she said, half whispering.
He snickered somewhere in the pitch blackness, “Way ahead of you, Dr. Gould. Unlike you, I have my pants on already.”
“How do you know I am not dressed?” she challenged defiantly.
“For one thing, I am wearing my night vision goggles,” he laughed, slapping her on the haunches.
A few seconds later, she had her hair back in the ponytail and was fully dressed as before, only, everything had changed. She could not put her finger on it, but she had bigger matters to take care of right now.
“Shall we dare light the flare?” she asked Costa.
“We will have to if we want to see anything down here,” he replied.
“But it will mark our whereabouts,” she argued with concern.
“Nina, the sooner we find the stone, the sooner we can leave. And what is more, once we have the stone, we can turn anyone into a damn statue if they fuck with us down here,” he snapped. Nina did not like his tone, but she was not going to spoil the moment with a confrontation.
Nina said nothing in retort. She felt around in her backpack for the smooth tubular object she needed. Twisting the cap off and striking the exposed end with it, she pinched her eyes shut to ease in the blinding light. While her eyes were shut, she heard Costa gasp in fascination. When Nina opened her eyes, she let out a yelp in fright.
“Jesus!” she cried as the ignited flare revealed the colossal face on the wall, crumbling around the nose and mouth to leave it looking like a grinning corpse. Costa was spellbound by the massive staring eyes, essentially two deep holes. One was black and the other appeared to glimmer. Nina stepped backward, in awe of the concrete shrine of human bones and snakeskin strewn on the floor in front of the face.
“Costa?” she called out to reduce some reaction from her companion. “Have you turned to stone?” Jesting seemed wasted on him for some reason. He was so serious, so focused all of a sudden.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked monotonously. She passed him a flare, and he ignited it.
“It looks like the head of Medusa,” she remarked. “May I add that it is creeping me the fuck out?”
“Isn’t she breathtaking?” Costa marveled.
Nina raised an eyebrow. “Maybe being straight makes me blind to the allure of females, but this chick is far from breathtaking.”
Costa looked around the chamber under the oven room, seeking out the meaning of the construction apart from the obvious. There were no elaborate markings or anything to indicate that it was a temple, yet the heap of bones denoted some sacrifices were made to the Gorgon.
Nina was reluctant to approach the hideous stone thing, but the one glimmering eye intrigued her no end, begging to be explored. While Costa moved along the walls of the crumbling makeshift temple to find clues, Nina gathered her courage and stepped up against the horrific face. Arduously, she struggled to elevate herself high enough on loose skeletons to stick her arm into the eye.
“Please don’t eat me,” she groaned as she wrestled with the long tubular hole. Her arm was just long enough to reach the shining object deep inside. Nina’s fingertips tap-tapped on the smooth surface until it fell forward and allowed her to claim it. Her heart pounded wildly when she pulled it out and realized that she had just uncovered the elusive Medusa stone.
“Thank you, Dr. Gould,” she heard Costa say. Shrieking in victory she turned to face Costa, but her smile vanished instantly. He stood in front of her, the Stheno stone lifted, but not yet over his eye.
Nina gulped and stumbled backward against the giant face. Her legs threatened to fail her at the betrayal she was facing.
“Give me the Medusa, please,” he requested.
“You wouldn’t!” she shouted. Her voice sounded furious, but it was not anger that filled her words — it was disappointment. “No, Costa!”
“Give me the stone,” he commanded coldly. “I will not ask again.”
“I cannot believe you would be this underhanded,” she frowned in disbelief.
“Not underhanded, just ambitious,” he replied. “Please, Nina, don’t make me do this.”
“You’re going to do it anyway, you bastard! Once you have the stone…”
“Once I have the stones I will have no reason to intimidate you. Don’t you see? I just want the stone,” he coaxed, but still his eyes remained fixed on her, the marble Stheno quivering in his raised hand.
“Right, hand them over!” a voice shouted from the stairs. Costa turned to see a group of men standing there, guns toting. Three of them were the men in the Volvo. One of them winked at Costa, “Hello again, comrade.”
“Fuck you, Commie!” Nina sneered and lifted the Medusa stone to her eye. Costa followed suit as the men opened fire. Neither of them could feel the impact of the bullets as the white fire of Vril charged the stones, collectively engulfing Deon Fidikos’ fire team and rapidly dousing their screeches of agony in casings of eternal stone. As soon as the opposition was silenced Nina fell to the ground, bleeding.