The Lost Labyrinth

III

Nico was sleeping on his side when the attack started, a malevolent demon reaching down his throat into his chest, taking hold of his heart and wrenching it sideways. He cried out and fell onto his back, clawing at his bedside table, searching blindly for the pills upon it, the glass of water; but the demon was too strong for him, a wrestler pinning him to the mat, pummelling at his heart. Another jolt ran through him. He arched silently. A sudden memory of his finest hour, a fifteen-yearold at the national weightlifting championships in Athens, a boy taking on men and yet not backing down; and that moment conflated with the reaction to Knox's talk earlier that day, that gratifying moment of silence before the applause started, all that glorious applause, a whole auditorium on the rise.

The vision faded. He slumped with exhaustion. One crowded hour of glorious life; that was all he'd ever wanted. What wouldn't he give now for an age without a name? Minutes passed. His sweat cooled and chilled. His heart settled back into its proper rhythm. The tunnel receded.

Not this time. Not this time. But soon.

He sighed and swung his legs to the side of the bed, sat up and buried his face in his hands. Living alone as he did, the squalor of death preoccupied him. The thought of being found like poor Antonius…it was almost worse than death itself. He needed someone in his life who loved him, someone who could check up on him, perhaps even be there when the time came. It wasn't a burden he could lay upon any of his friends or colleagues, nor even upon his brother and Charissa. Burdens like that, you could only ask of parents or spouse or children. And he was unmarried, childless.

He lay back on his bed and resolved to make the call in the morning, But it was a resolution he'd made a hundred times before, and still he was alone.