The Medusa Stone

Chapter 25

Claire woke up in a well-furnished bedroom. Dazed, she sat up on the bed where she woke. Looking around, she could see barren walls which were only broken in their monotony by bright dark green drapes, lined with a golden meander motif along the edges. A large potted palm decorated the corner in a gilded pot and on her bedside table stood a jug of water with a tall upturned glass.

“Anyone here?” Claire called into the corridor past her open doorway. “Hello? Where am I?” There was no answer and the place was deathly quiet save for the buzz of a refrigerator in the kitchen a few feet from her door. But Claire was reluctant to explore. After all, she was well aware that she was being held somewhere by the men who had seized her and Professor Barry.

“Oh shit,” she said to herself. “Professor Barry.”

Claire had absolutely no idea what to do. The circumstances were just too strange to derive a conclusion from. How was it that as a captive, her door was left open? Why was she not gagged or restrained? From her clothing and lack of injury, she found that she had not been harmed or handled with any sort of disrespect at all. Her shoes had been removed and her purse were missing, though. Those were the only tell-tale signs that she was held captive at all.

On her tip-toes, she snuck along the lavish house’s corridor to the next room and found Helen Barry lying on the bed of the equally fancy bedroom.

“My God, Helen!” Claire cried and lunged forward onto the bed in her pants suit, her unkempt hair flopping about her slender face. The professor appeared to be sleeping off the effects of the Rohypnol, taking considerably longer than Claire to metabolize the sedative drug. “Professor? Professor Barry? Helen?” Claire persisted, lightly nudging her boss not to cause alarm in the poor disorientated woman.

Helen’s eyes fluttered a little at first, but she fell back into her slumber.

“Helen! You’re going to be late! Get up!” Claire exclaimed next to her, opting for the panic induced wakening technique she so frequently used on drunk roommates in college. It seemed to work. The professor started mumbling incoherently and tried to pry her eyes open.

“There we go!” Claire egged her on. “That’s a good girl! Come on!”

Helen’s eyes opened and she scowled heavily, trying to make sense of what she saw. “Claire?”

“Yes! Yes, Professor,” she smiled.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” Helen asked with a groan. She did not realize, at first, that she was not home. But as she woke slowly the events at the British Museum came back to her. At the recollection of the abduction and the locker room, the large black car and the jet, her eyes widened suddenly.

“Oh, God! Where are we?” she shouted.

“Shh! We are safe. Just don’t make too much noise until we know what is going on,” her assistant implored.

“Alright. Alright, what is all this? Where are we, Claire?” Helen asked, still very confused. She was incessantly running her hands through her dark blond hair, looking obsessive, until Claire took her hand from her hair and held it between hers.

“Listen, I just woke up now too. But look, our doors are open, we are not bound or hurt,” she informed her boss.

“That is weird,” Helen remarked.

“Yes, but it is good, isn’t it? It’s not like they threw us in a stinking dungeon with rats, tied us to a rack and raped us, Professor,” Claire smiled. “I think we are not being held by a monster.”

Helen looked around, took a moment to listen and her eyes trailed the ceiling and windows. Slowly she nodded. “You know what? Usually they treat women well before selling them to the highest bidder. Remember that,” she said. “When they treat you well it is because you will be serving another, usually more sinister, purpose later.”

“Great,” Claire sighed. “You just made this much scarier than it should be, Professor.”

“Trust me, Claire,” Helen said.

“Look, they did not even lock our rooms,” she smiled at Helen, pointing to the open door. “We are not imprisoned.”

“Not in our rooms, sweetie pie,” Helen said indifferently. “I bet it would be a different matter if we tried to walk out the bloody front door. You see, we are not being kept captive in our rooms. We are held in this house. The house is our prison.”

Claire did not like the sound of that at all. Professor Barry only twisted the knitting needle she was shoving into Claire’s positivity. “Besides, they are giving us the illusion of freedom only because they have utmost control over our every move already. Look for surveillance cameras. Worry about what they put in your food. There are many ways to keep someone from leaving. I bet you this house is far away from civilization. They don’t need to gag you where no-one can hear you screaming, love.”

“Oh my God,” Claire moaned. “Oh my God, Professor, you are right!”

“Don’t panic,” Helen comforted her young assistant. “There is no use in losing your mind. Just accept your fate and keep an eye out for signs of a way out. Pretend that you are content with the conditions, otherwise, they might get rid of you.”

“We will do no such thing, Professor Barry,” a man said from the doorway, scaring both women into a yelp of fright.

In the door stood a tall, muscular old man, about 65 years of age, dressed in a loose white shirt and black pants. Around his waist he wore an expensive, elaborately woven belt of black leather with a silvery sheen to it. He had a well-groomed beard and black and grey hair in a ponytails. His voice was deep and his piercing eyes were dark, just like his eyebrows. Claire looked at her boss and whispered, “Sean Connery meets Dumbledore.”

The man laughed. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

“She did not mean anything by that,” Helen defended her assistant.

“Oh rubbish,” he smiled. “She meant every word. And since one is the personification of wisdom and the other is a ladies’ man, I cannot find fault in her assessment at all.”

“Well, she does speak her mind,” Helen chuckled sheepishly.

“I have come to invite you ladies to have dinner with me. Just the three of us, if you do not mind? You must be famished,” he said.

Both women almost jumped up at the invitation. They were indeed, starving.

“And you are?” Helen asked cordially.

“Oh! Where are my manners?” he laughed. “I am Deon. Deon Fidikos.”

“You are Soula’s husband,” Helen gasped. She had never met him before, having only dealt with Soula as one of the biggest benefactors of the British Museum. “It is good to finally meet you.”

As Helen instructed her assistant, she kept her cool, playing along as if she were a guest. Nothing merited the mistreatment of a prisoner like someone behaving like one.

“Claire, this is Soula’s husband, would you believe?” Helen told Claire, who nodded profusely to play into her boss’ ruse.

“You look nothing like I imagined, Mr. Fidikos,” Claire smiled. “Oh, and that really is a compliment.”

He shook their hands and smiled. “Come ladies. If you do not mind walking on your stockings. I prefer it so. Don’t ask.”

“Of course. It is after all your house,” Helen agreed.

“One of many,” he noted unceremoniously as he led them down the hallway, down carpeted steps into a large dining room. Helen had a bad feeling about it all. There was just too much trust. There was just too much freedom. It was almost as if this man was so powerful that he needed no protection or guards to watch his prisoners. Such power was never good. People like that had to be feared.