Weapons of the Gods

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Drake dragged the chain from around his neck as the car sped off. The museum was safe, the old man was in hiding, and the mercs had been dispatched. Not a bad few hours’ work if he did say so himself.

“Wait,” Alicia said. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” He was never sure if she was about to crack a joke at his expense.

“Your hands, Drakey. Look at your hands.”

“They’re bloody black bright,” he drawled. “My mum would kill me.”

“That’s not dirt.”

She was right. If anything, it was like coal dust, a covering of inferior black paint perhaps. The incoming thought made his heart leap. “Shit, this isn’t the fucking Chain of Aphrodite.”

“No,” Mai said, staring at his hands and then the chain links that were starting to flake and reveal the silver beneath. “That old man — Doukas — deceived us.”

“Bastard,” Drake swore. “But then, why should we expect anything else from a thief? Kenzie, get us back there.”

“We’ll never find him,” Mai said.

“Oh, I think we might,” Kenzie said, staring ahead through the windshield.

Drake focused. Doukas, even now, was running across the car park area in the direction of the furthest row. His face was panicked, his gait made awkward by a slight limp, and age. When he reached the front of an old gray Nissan, Kenzie swerved her car to within an inch of his knees.

Drake opened his door and stepped out. “Get in.”

His tone brooked no objections. Doukas was practically dragged into the back seat and wedged between Alicia and Drake. Kenzie backed up and then swung the wheel toward the exit.

Three mercs stood in their way, remnants of the earlier force.

“Where did these guys come from?” Luther asked.

“Probably searching the museum.” Drake told it as he saw it, but who really knew? “Doesn’t matter. Kill ’em.”

Mai slammed a fist against her own door handle and allowed it to swing open. “I’m fucking sick of these assholes.”

Alicia let out a noise of shock, gawping after the Japanese woman. “What happened to Little Miss Proper Pants?”

“She’s fucking sick.” Drake threw open his own door. “Don’t you listen?”

Mai fired instantly, not waiting on any kind of ceremony or aggression from the mercs. Her aim was never in doubt, the first bullet smashing one’s shoulder blade and spinning him around, the second taking out an elbow, and the third destroying a knee. The mercs fell, weapons clattering to the ground. Mai’s step didn’t falter as she stalked toward them, closing the gap, lining up the kill shots. One merc groped for his weapon, claimed it, and fell dead over it. Another crawled away, aiming for a spot between parked cars, but died a few seconds later as Mai opened fire.

The last held both hands in the air.

Mai finished him before he could even try to betray her trust.

Drake let out a long breath, balanced by the side of the car with his handgun sighted. Mai turned away from the dead and headed back inside. Drake followed. Luther, in the passenger seat, coughed politely.

“Nice work.”

Mai ignored the American and turned to Doukas. “That is what we do to our enemies, scumbag. Do you want to be our enemy?”

Doukas shook his head, trembling. “No. No. I—”

“Save it,” Mai growled, now eye to eye. “What the fuck are you up to, old man?”

Kenzie took the opportunity to get them moving, driving around the bodies and heading out of the exit. The traffic in this relatively small Greek town was sparse, and the sidewalks quiet. Sirens were screaming in response to the earlier gunfire, but nobody had converged on the museum yet. They had to assume the police would have been led to Doukas’ apartment.

Kenzie threaded a discreet path away from the noise.

Mai ground the barrel of her gun under Doukas’ chin. “Talk, old man. You put us all in extra danger. That’s already unforgivable, but if you spill everything now I might even let you live.”

Doukas couldn’t stop shaking as, finally, he came clean.