The Hermaphrodite's Curse Ch. 27

PART FOUR - BODRUM

- 5 -

Gabe, sitting on the floor beside the pool, watched as Saphy dived to the ground just as a second arrow whizzed threw the air and embedded itself in the timber roof support just beyond where she had been standing. She flattened herself low against the ground and began to inch her way, slithering dignity free across the dirt, slowly and methodically, seeking the small amount of shelter offered by the stone wall around the pool, the same wall behind which Gabe had just ducked.

The second black robed Hospitaller took one look at his comrade, impaled by the arrow, and put his back to the wall to the right of the narrow tunnel that was the only way in or out of the chamber. Another arrow whistled through the air towards the commanding figure of the Grand Prior, Raymond Gerard. Gabe was certain that he was about to see the man he had previously viewed as an ageing academic stuck with a sharp shaft penetrating his flesh. However, the moment that the arrow hit the spot where Gerard had been standing, he was no longer there. Following the example set by his guard, Gerard had backed himself against the wall.

Peering out from behind the wall, Gabe watched as Gerard drew a pistol from his jacket pocket. In unison, Gerard and the other Hospitaller spun around to face the narrow tunnel and fired three shots each, lighting up the dark, dusty walkway with flashes and flares. Here, in the quiet deep beneath the town, undisturbed in generations, each gunshot shook right through Gabe's body. He was starting to breathe heavily, he felt the blood rush to his ears as everything seemed blurred and confusing like film slowed down with the sound on mute.

He looked across at Saphy, hiding, her back against the low wall of the pool. Even in the haze of his vision, Gabe could see her eyes widened and her chest rising and falling with sharp, excitable breaths. While he slumped against the wall, just praying for it to be over, she was alert, her eyes darting around the darkened chamber for anything that could be a way out for them. They made quite a pair, cowering in the dirt, him covered in mucky water from the pool, her with muddy slime down her front from slithering across the floor.

After the quick burst of flashes and ear splitting noise that came from both men's handguns, there was a temporary silent respite in which Gabe tried to follow Saphy's example, get his head together and look for a way out. Meanwhile, Gerard gesticulated from his companion to the tunnel down which they had just fired, indicating that the reluctant Hospitaller should be the one to ensure that their blind shots had hit their target.

Glancing around awkwardly, the black robed figure stepped out from his position against the wall and directed the beam of his flashlight down the dusty tunnel. As Gerard remained out of harm's way, the other man took a few ginger steps down the tunnel until the light he was shining was swallowed up by the dark. Gabe looked from the tunnel to Saphy and back again during the agonising few seconds of silent waiting, unsure which he would rather see, that black robe emerging from the tunnel once again, ready to turn his killer attention back on them, or nobody to return and him and Saphy left to become a pin cushion for the naiads' white feathered arrows.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by another flash of gunfire and a muffled cry. A second later, the Hospitaller staggered back into the chamber, his gun clattered to the floor as he stumbled backwards. His other hand clutched at his chest. Thick, dark crimson blood welled up on his lips. His hand flailed around but failed to do anything about the arrow shaft that pierced his lung. Finally, his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the floor, his head just inches from the pool that Gabe and Saphy were using as a hiding place.

He was still breathing, but with the arrow stuck inside him he was coughing up bubbles of blood. Even though this man was about to kill him a few minutes earlier, Gabe struggled to watch his slow and painful death. It reminded him so much of the first person he had seen shot with one of those arrows, the woman at the National Gallery.

Gabe had no more time to contemplate the body, however, as he felt Saphy grab his hand and pull him to his feet. He looked across at where the Hospitaller had stumbled back and saw Gerard discharge the rest of his pistol wildly around the entrance to the tunnel. A white dressed figure took a shot to the chest and slumped into the room, but she was swiftly followed by another. This second naiad dropped her bow and pulled from her quiver full of arrows a long, slender knife and turned on the erstwhile classics professor.

"Come on," Saphy hissed as she pulled Gabe against the wall of the dark chamber, keeping them in the shadows, "Don't look."

He noticed that for all her decisive conduct, she kept her eyes turned away from the spluttering body of the dying Hospitaller. She too, it seemed, could not get the image of the first victim from her mind. However, she was focusing her energies and attention instead on getting well away from it, and the possibility of the same thing happening to them.

Gerard had the naiad grabbed by the wrist as they struggled over her knife. His wasted pistol dropped to the floor with the one his companion had let fall as he collapsed to the ground. Locked as they were in this struggle, neither noticed the movement in the shadows at the edge of the chamber, the two shapes that inched along the wall toward the tunnel that would lead them back to daylight and, just perhaps, to make their escape.

Gabe's heart beat a rapid, irregular pace. His hand grasped Saphy's with unashamed panic. He felt no distress at putting himself entirely in her control, he just wanted her to get them out of this. She, for once, offered no resistance to the intimacy of this childlike pressing together of their sweaty skin in the dark moment. Over his other arm, he had slung the camera bag, another security blanket in his moment of panic. It weighed heavily on his shoulder and thumped against his thigh, but he did nothing to cast it aside or drop it.

Their progress to the entrance to the chamber was painfully slow, worried that either of the two figures struggling in the centre of the room would catch their escape, but as they neared the dusty tunnel, Saphy began to pick up the pace, starting to tug at Gabe's hand, to pull him on and away. He, however, was experiencing a certain reluctance to leave the pool and statue behind. He knew the desperation of their situation, but that beautiful, androgynous reclining figure and that stagnant water represented their one last and best chance at uncovering the mystery, at finally making their way to the transformative fountain of his dreams.

Nevertheless, he could not ignore the more immediate danger. And so, with one final regretful glance at the statue in that pose that started it all, he allowed Saphy to tug him into the tunnel. Now, away from the sight lines of Gerard and the naiad, they quickened their pace until they broke into a run, making their way back through the dusty dark so much quicker than they had come the other way.

Daylight raced towards them as a hand grasped at Saphy's flailing ankle. It was another woman dressed in a white tunic, only this tunic was quickly turning dark red. There were bullet wounds in her stomach and shoulder. Barely glancing down, Saphy broke her step only to stamp hard and brutally down on the grasping hand and keep running, never looking back to see what damage she had done, just desperate to get out of there. Her hand, still held in Gabe's felt warm and sweaty.

Their lungs filled with fresh air as they felt the heat of the Turkish sun hit them with a blast at the bottom of the stone steps. They paused for a moment to take a breath of it. They had been gasping at centuries old dust and dirt down there and real air felt so good in their exhausted, panicked throats. Then, hand in hand, they bounded up the steps two at a time. They were so close to being back in the castle, back in Bodrum the tourist seaside town where murder and mythology seemed so far from people's minds.

Gabe and Saphy emerged, blinking and dazzled into the sunshine. They took a moment to catch their breath and exchanged looks of relief and silly pleasure to be away from the dark. Saphy's clothing, already ripped and held together with safety pins, was even more torn up and covered in slimy dirt. Her flame red hair was an utter mess and there was a streak of mud running across her left cheek. Still, she had a glow of life that made her, to Gabe's eyes, seem genuinely attractive in a way he had never quite thought of before. He could only imagine how he must look, still dripping wet from the dirty, ancient water.

After a moment, they realised that they were still holding hands. Both blushed in unison and quickly withdrew them, unsure of quite what to say. Gabe turned his gaze away, not wanting to look Saphy in the eye, and caught sight of a shadow falling across the sun. He turned back to mention it to Saphy. Too late, however, strong, long arms already held her in a firm grip.

In seconds, the twin of those arms grabbed his chest so tight it took the breath right out of him. Odd looking shaven heads, no less sinister for their increasing familiarity, loomed above them. Saphy struggled against the grip, stamped her feet, but the assassin holding her had seen this technique from her before. He lifted her an inch or two from the ground and held her around her waist, so her arms were pinned to her side. All she could do was flail and kick at air and, eventually, she seemed to realise the futility of it. Gabe, for his part, was near paralysed with fear of what was to come.

"You should know, sinners, you cannot escape us," hissed the assassin, Phobus or possibly Deimus, that held Saphy, "You may flee, you may hide, but wherever you go, fear and dread will always find you eventually."

"Soon, however, your nightmare will be over," the other said in his high pitched lisping sigh, "We will purify this world of you."

"Now, now, there'll be a time for that soon enough," came the voice of Raymond Gerard, now emerging from the ley tunnel beneath the castle, "We may need them yet. But I have perhaps found a better solution that could lead us even quicker to our end."

As he appeared over the top of the steps and out of the collapsed wall around the tunnel, it became clear that he too was escorting a captive. The naiad that he had been struggling with was now held by his grip in one hand, with the other holding her own long knife to her throat. She looked young and pretty, younger than Saphy, with long, dark curls. She was less tall, strong and imposing than Atalanta, the other naiad Gabe had seen properly, but she retained a look of stern defiance in the face of her capture.

Gabe wished that he could mirror that look, but he knew he felt real panic. He knew now that his life and Saphy's were only valuable while Gerard and the Hospitallers thought they could be of assistance. If they could extract the information they needed from the naiad, then the rest of their lives could be very short indeed.