These had to be the priestesses. They were in their twenties or thirties, Chad guessed, but their faces lacked the fresh allure that young women normally had at that age. Their hard features looked as if they had been chipped out of marble. Lush mouths were compressed into tight expressions that revealed no emotion. Heavy liner made the arc of their brows longer and more exaggerated so that their eyes looked larger than they were. The cheeks were rouged with make-up. Chad had spent enough time in drug-induced la-la land to know from their glazed, fixed expressions that the women were stoned out of their minds.
The leader of the procession was holding a clay vessel. Behind her marched a pair of priestesses who were playing flutes. The next pair of marchers held leafy boughs on their shoulders. They formed two lines and the music stopped. The priestess with the vessel stepped forward and offered it to Chad. Just follow instructions, Salazar said. He took the vessel and raised it to his lips. His first sip was tentative. Not bad. A little medicinal. Earthy, though, and slightly sweet. He took a second swallow and handed the vessel back.
Wham.
Chad had tried a lot of addictive substances, but nothing had ever acted with such speed. Not even speed. It felt as if someone had poured a glass of LSD directly into his brain. First came a flush of heat. He imagined his cheeks glowing red-hot. The hot flush passed and he felt a tingling from head to toe. He stared off at the wall. The colors glowed and pulsated. The painted figures seemed to move. The acrobats were vaulting between the horns of the bulls. The octopi and fish were dancing with each other.
His sense of hearing had become more acute. He could hear the swish of skirts and the soft padding of bare feet on the hard floor as the priestesses began to dance around him. He smiled as they morphed from humans into beautiful, whirling flowers.
The musicians started to play again. But the music that had been so awful when he first heard it was now beautiful. They chanted the same words again and again.
She is near. She must die.
The lead priestess was the most animated. She whirled around, her arms extended above her head. The circle of dancers moved faster and faster, the chanting louder. Chad was losing it. The chanting and music, the moving circle of glowing colors, the weird effects of the drugs — all were getting to him. He clutched the bull’s head closer so he wouldn’t drop it.
Then the lead priestess stopped dancing. The hands that had been flailing above her head dropped to waist level, palms down. She was facing the door. It was obviously the signal for the music and the dancing to stop. The priestesses had broken out of their circle. Their cheeks were still flushed from the orgiastic dance. At the head of each line was a blue-headed man holding a leash with a pit bull on steroids.
They formed lines on both sides again. With Chad in the middle carrying the bull’s head as if it were radioactive, they filed into the sanctuary of the high priestess.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Abby’s technical evaluation had been right on the mark when she said the water main would end in a cistern. Hawkins played the beam of his wrist light on the stone walls of the circular chamber, then he swam up until his head broke the surface. Calvin bobbed up beside him.
The cistern was around six feet across. He pulled himself up onto the low wall, then reached down to help Calvin with the bags. Once all their gear was out of the cistern, Calvin joined him at the edge of the pool.
Hawkins removed his mouthpiece and took a tentative sniff. “Air is musty and damp, but breathable,” he pronounced. He stood and walked around the cistern. “Getting Kalliste out this way could be a problem.”
“I’m thinking the same thing,” Calvin said. “We don’t know what shape Kalliste is in, but even if she’s okay, trying to muscle her back through that drainage pipe is not going to work.”
“Which means we stick with standard SEAL protocol. Get in one way and go out another.”
The cistern was at the center of a room around fifteen feet square that had only one doorway. They slipped the Draegers off their backs, leaving them with the spare unit they had brought for Kalliste, then peeled off their dry suits down to their camouflage uniforms. Calvin tied the drive-on rag around his head and Hawkins tucked his hair under his floppy hat. They picked up their gear bags and went through the doorway into a long, narrow room. There was a stone shelf along one wall with circular holes cut into it.
“Reminds me of the outhouse our family had, except ours was a one-holer,” Calvin said. “Guess the Minoans didn’t put a lot a value on privy-cy.”
“Looks that way, but I wasn’t privy to their thoughts.”
“Damn, Hawk, that was worse than mine.”
“Remember this moment the next time you feel the need to unleash your puns on a captive audience.”
A door connecting to a passageway is where they felt a slight breeze blowing. The corridor led to a tunnel big enough to drive a car through. Hawkins surveyed the walls and ceiling that dripped with moisture. The tunnel was a remarkable example of ancient engineering. He estimated the dimensions at around twenty feet across and ten feet high. Hawkins noticed that the lichen-splotched surfaces were honey-combed with cracks.
Hawkins had taken a photo of the Minotaur’s maze diagram with his tablet. Using the map as a guide, they soon found their way to the doorway pictured in the photo of Kalliste and the dog creature. Hawkins gazed up at the axe head lintel and pictured Kalliste standing in the doorway. Then, with Calvin standing watch, he checked the apartment, taking in the unmade bed, and the remnants of food on the table. There were pieces of the broken ceramic vessel on the floor. Something had happened here, and that worried him even more.
Hawkins stepped back into the passageway and shook his head. They set off along the tunnel at a fast trot and came to a junction where the passageway ended in a ‘T.’ The map showed that the right hand turn went to a blank wall. They turned left and picked up the pace, moving so fast that when a strange sound brought Hawkins to a sudden halt, Calvin almost bowled him over.
“What was that god-awful noise?” Calvin said.
The bawling sound that had brought them to a stop repeated itself. The noise sounded as if it were being made by an animal, but it had a mournful human quality to it as well.
“Whatever it is doesn’t sound happy. Maybe we should try to go around it.”
“No argument there,” Calvin said. When they checked the map they saw that they could only move forward and back. All the other outlets were dead ends.
Calvin slipped the CAR-15 off his shoulder. Hawkins took the Sig Sauer from its holster leaving one hand free to hold the map. As they continued down the passageway the bellowing grew louder. It seemed to echo from every part of the maze so that it was almost impossible to pinpoint its source at first. But as they made their way through the tunnel, it became apparent that whatever was making the noise was directly ahead.
The bawling combined with a new sound, a steady clop-clop, as if two coconut shells were being clapped together, like a scene from “Monty Python.” Hawkins brought the pistol up in both hands. Calvin lifted the CAR-15 to waist level.
They took a right turn and discovered they were no longer alone. Framed in the tunnel, silhouetted against a bluish back light, was what looked like a gigantic bull. It stepped forward, and wall sconces that must have been motion sensitive flicked on.