The Hermaphrodite's Curse Ch. 29

PART FOUR - BODRUM

- 7 -

Gabe froze as the door to the cellar began to open. Saphy slammed herself back against the wall on the side of the door that was beginning to open. She motioned dramatically at Gabe for him to do the same, a frown on her face beneath the flame coloured hair. As the entrance to the room opened, all Gabe could do was try and conceal himself behind the swinging door.

There were two of the Hospitaller guards dressed in the black robes with white crosses, both with hoods up. The first guard stepped into the room and saw the open, empty cells and gave out a startled grunt. Turning round, he instantly spotted Saphy backed against the wall.

However, in doing so he turned his back completely on Gabe, seeming to forget that there were supposed to be two people in the room. Grasping the first heavy thing to hand, the camera he still held, Gabe's only thought was to hit the guard as hard as he possibly could, to knock him down in one go.

Raising the camera above his head, he swung with his full strength, bringing the weight of the camera down on the unsuspecting skull of the hooded guard. There was a sickening crunch, a crack in both head and camera, and the guard slumped at Gabe's feet.

Just at that moment, the second guard crossed the threshold to see his partner lying prone on the cellar floor. He looked up with surprise, but the split second he had spent processing what might have happened to his companion was enough for Saphy, desperate and violent, to seize the advantage.

Wearing her biker boots once more, she stamped down hard on his foot causing him to stagger forward. Not allowing him the chance to regain his balance, she planted her sharp knee right into his groin causing him to double over with pain. Gabe now jumped in, bringing the now split open camera down on a second head. Another crunch, another thud, and the second guard sprawled out next to the first.

Gabe looked down in disappointment at his broken camera. It had got them this far, had helped them solve a few clues. But, more importantly, it had always been how he defined himself, something to cling onto, something to hide behind.

"Never mind that now," Saphy said, "We've got to get out of here. Help me get these guards into the cells. Take off their robes."

With one last look at his shattered camera, Gabe cast it aside. After that kiss, he felt like a different person anyway, felt like a new start. Perhaps he didn't need the camera's safety blanket quality any more.

It took a while to drag the heavy bodies of the Hospitaller guards across the cellar, but they were fortunate in that the Hospitallers in the rest of the building seemed happy that those two guards would be enough to look after their less capable prisoners and, therefore, nobody came to check on them.

Finally, they were able to leave the two of them in their cells and Saphy did her best job of locking them in. Gabe and Saphy were now dressed in the Hospitaller robes, Gabe still in his white prisoner smock underneath, Saphy in her biker boots poking out of the bottom of the robe.

"Keep your hood up," said Saphy, raising hers to hide her bright red hair, "And we should fit in. All we need to do then is walk steadily and calmly until we find a way out. Do nothing to attract attention and we'll be fine."

With their black hoods raised, everything around seemed darker and harder to see. Gabe could understand now why the guards had not immediately noticed them when they had walked into the cellar, the hoods may have been good for anonymity but they clearly weren't designed for good peripheral vision. He decided just to focus on what was in front of him and keep walking.

Above the cellar the building was a maze of identical grey corridors. Picking a likely route, or at least one that was as likely as any other, Saphy set out along one of these and Gabe followed close behind. Occasionally, they would pass other figures in black robes, their faces covered by cowls just like Saphy and Gabe. The Hospitallers asked no questions and Saphy and Gabe were only too pleased not to have to respond.

After what was, in reality, a few minutes, but felt like plenty more, it appeared they were going nowhere. They continued to pass identical looking dark wood doors that hid who knows what secrets. But, finally, what appeared to be an exit came into sight, a large set of double doors with a push bar. Both Saphy and Gabe could sense that beyond that door lay the city of Bodrum and their chance for escape. Before they could get to it, however, there was a room where one of the doors was slightly ajar.

"Do not assume we will not have our ways of extracting whatever information we desire from you," the familiar creeping voice of Raymond Gerard, the Grand Prior, drifted from the room. This is what they would have to pass to reach the exit.

Saphy made a move to slip quietly past the semi-ajar doorway, but Gabe could not help but let his curiosity take over. If Gerard was about to learn some answers from the naiad then he wanted to hear them too. Against his better judgement, and Saphy's angry gesticulating, Gabe moved closer to the doorway, peering through into the room beyond, listening in on what was happening within.

The room was small and dark with the naiad, still dressed in the same sort of smock that Gabe was wearing beneath his robe, strapped to a sort of angled metal table in the middle of the room under the only light source, a bright spotlight, her ankles and wrists were tied to the corners of the table. She was flanked either side by the two tall bald assassins, Phobus and Deimus along with one other hooded Hospitaller guard. The only other person in the room was Gerard, who, Gabe noticed, had a cut across his forehead. Obviously the naiad had not submitted to being tied down without putting up a fight.

"We took this from our erstwhile colleague, Professor White," he was explaining, his hand on an ivory miniature of the Borghese Hermaphroditus sculpture, it was a container for some sort of liquid, "He found out about this in the diaries of John Evelyn, reputedly it contains the actual waters of the Fountain of Salmacis," the naiad remained stubbornly silent, "That is to say that baptising somebody in these waters should turn them female. Why don't we put it to the test?"

Gerard summoned the guard forward. He stepped up somewhat reluctantly, removing his hood. It was Detective Inspector Gilbert, the supposed Cambridge policeman and secret Hospitaller. His partner in crime had already been disposed of and now he seemed nervous about what was about to be done to him.

Gerard poured the waters of the miniature sculpture over Gilbert's head as if baptising him. The clear waters ran down the police inspector's face and Gabe's heart skipped a beat in excited anticipation. Perhaps now he was finally about to see the true effects of the Fountain. Perhaps it did really work!

He waited excitedly and watched as nothing at all happened. Gilbert looked relieved to be still in his previous, male body, albeit slightly wetter. Gerard looked at him with a look that conveyed a certain amount of contempt, but appeared completely unsurprised by the lack of an outcome. Presumably this was not the first time he had tried this experiment. The twin assassins did not look much impressed either. Gabe began to wonder how far they were really supporting the abomination against nature that they must perceive the Fountain's supposed magical powers.

"Nothing," Gerard returned his attention to the defiant, silent naiad, "And yet we know that Professor White found it much more instructive. What, may I ask, is the secret White knew that we did not? That is all I want from you my pretty little thing."

"No," she said in a quiet but determined voice, the first words she had uttered, "I will never give up the secrets of my sisterhood. Each naiad would rather die than tell these."

"There are worse things a man can do to an innocent like you than to kill you," Gerard sneered.

Gabe stopped listening here as Saphy grabbed his arm angrily and pulled him against the wall.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed, "We need to leave. Now."

"We can't just leave," Gabe replied, "We have to do something."

"Do something?"

"We have to stop them. To rescue her. We can't let the Hospitallers do whatever they want with her."

"Yeah, 'cause she'd do everything she could to rescue us if the tables were turned," Saphy interjected sarcastically, "Going in there is a surefire way to get us all captured and, quite probably, killed. I didn't go through all that bloody effort to get out of the cell just to end up back there."

For a moment, Gabe looked back into the interrogation room.

"You see, my pretty thing, you naiads do not fear death," Gerard was saying as he loomed over her, "We know this. But it does not make you fearless. You fear violation. Violation of your oaths, of your pure body. That is what we will give you unless you provide us with our answers."

The naiad's previously composed expression had now switched to one of wide eyed fear, but she kept resolutely quiet on providing the information Gerard sought.

Gerard tore her smock apart with a violent action until her near naked body was just draped in shreds of ripped fabric. He leered unpleasantly at her and began to open his own robe, unbuttoning the pants beneath as she began to struggle against her bonds.

"This is not what we agreed," the angry voice of one of the bald eunuchs came in.

"This is a disgrace to your cause and to us," the other added.

"Leave us then," Gerard growled back at them, "I am done with you. You have no understanding of what needs to be done to achieve real power."

He laughed menacingly and positioned himself between the innocent naiad's naked legs as his two hired assassins strode toward the door where Saphy and Gabe stood outside.

"Come on," Gabe grabbed her arm, "We have to help."

"We have to leave," Saphy countered.

"They're going to rape her!" he said urgently.

"I'm going to regret this," Saphy sighed, before bursting through the door of the interrogation room, "Stop now and we'll show you the way right to the Fountain," she said to Gerard as he hideously pushed himself between the naiad's thighs.

"Ha," he laughed, "No need if it doesn't work. I'll get just what I want from this one."

Gabe rushed into the room to join Saphy but, as he did so, everything became truly chaotic. Without caring what they did, Phobus and Deimus, the tall, strong bald killers strode past and slammed Gabe and Saphy back into the walls, not looking back to finish the job. Both walked into the corridor. Gabe and Saphy were painfully winded and bruised as they hit the wall, but otherwise fine.

Saphy staggered to her feet watching in horror as the Grand Prior did as he wished with the naiad. She stumbled forward, determined to stop him. Despite his pain, Gabe knew that he had to be there with her. Clawing himself to his feet, he followed Saphy's lead.

"Get them, Gilbert," the Grand Prior screamed, not turning from his vicious purpose, "Kill them."

On this command, Gilbert stepped toward Saphy, prepared to strike her down, prepared to revenge himself for all that Gabe and Saphy had done as well as the naiad's killing of his partner. Still Saphy staggered forward, but she never made it.

An oddly familiar sound was heard as something too fast to be seen zipped through the air. Gilbert stopped in his tracks, he coughed and blood flowed from his lips. Looking down in shock he saw an arrow stuck from his chest, where it was shortly joined by another. He staggered one more step and then collapsed in front of a surprised Saphy.

Both Gabe and Saphy looked up to see the tall, elegant naiad Atalanta. She stood in the doorway, dressed in flowing white, an arrow drawn on her bow, the last from her now empty quiver, looking for all the world like one of the classical statues where they had first met in the Louvre.

"Leave now, you two," she said in a commanding tone, "Leave. Escape. There is no further help for our sister but for what I can give."

Gabe stumbled over to Saphy and pulled her out of the way, staggering out of the room just as Atalanta unleashed her final arrow which flew across the room with speed and grace, passing right through her sister naiad as she lay in pain and horror on the table, killing her in an instant.

Before Gerard could comprehend what had happened, Atalanta had turned and swept out of the door, her fleet feet carrying her to the exit far quicker than Gabe and Saphy.

Nevertheless, in moments the two of them burst through the double doors and out into the hot Turkish sun. There was no sign of Atalanta or Phobus and Deimus and none of any living Hospitallers, although two guards were slumped either side of the door, arrows through their chests.

Beginning to hear the sounds of panic and footsteps inside the Hospitaller building, Gabe grabbed Saphy's hand and they ran as best they could, her in biker boots, him still barefooted, through the streets of the town, ran until they were completely lost, so lost none of the Hospitallers could have followed them this way.

They were free. Free and in possession of directions to the end of their quest, the real Fountain the naiads had guarded so long.

END OF PART FOUR