Veil of the Goddess (16 page)

Which meant they couldn't stay here like mice frozen by the hypnotic gaze of a cobra.

He gathered Ivy up in his arms and carried her around the van to the passenger side. “Lay down the passenger seat,” he told Cejno. “We're going to keep moving."

"Is that safe for Miss Ivy?"

"Better than sitting here."

After making Ivy a pillow out of a couple of blankets, rejecting Cejno's offer to ease her pain by feeding her a bit of hashish, and inspecting the van's underpinnings for broken transmission or oil lines, Zack reversed back to the highway and headed west.

By European standards, Turkey is a good-sized country, one and a half times as large as France. By American standards, it was maybe the size of Texas, but with a population much larger than that of California.

Using decent freeways, they could have crossed it in a long day.

But while Turkey does have superhighways, Zack didn't trust them. It would be too easy for the military to put roadblocks across the major arteries. He guessed that the Navy hadn't positively identified their van as holding the Cross, but they probably had photographed all of the vehicles in the area of the temple. Within hours, the the Turkish authorities and an official suggestion that each of them be inspected.

Since they'd left the heavily Kurdish territories, he couldn't even rely on Cejno's contacts for updates on where the roadblocks might be located.

Fortunately, as he veered away from the coast, he and Cejno were able to spot a series of small roads, some paved, many not. With a bit of help from the GPS, He picked one that seemed to lead in the right direction.

There were probably a million such roads in Turkey. It would take incredibly bad luck for them to stumble across a military checkpoint as long as they stayed off the beaten path.

Ivy emptied her Kalashnikov into the monster, but her bullets seemed to pass through it like a sword through the fog.

It reared closer, its breath foul, stinking of rotten flesh and fresh blood.

She considered fighting but her courage failed. Instead, she turned and ran.

Tried to run, anyway.

Her feet couldn't grip the ground. With each step, she slipped back almost as much as she moved forward. Terror swept over her and she could do nothing to control it.

The monster didn't have any problems with his chase, though. He came closer until she felt the heat of its breath against her neck and naked back.

She redoubled her efforts to run, but now her legs wouldn't move at all. Something wrapped around them, constrained them.

The monster's tentacles, she realized. How could she have missed seeing those?

She was going to have to fight after all.

She tried to turn, but even that was beyond her.

"I'm not going that easy, you son of a bitch,” she screamed.

"Hey. Are you all right?"

Zack. He was here too? Why wasn't he doing something to help her? Could
they
have gotten to him, converted him? Was he too one of her enemies?

"Come on and fight me, bastard."

Something struck her shoulder, gripped her, shook her.

She lashed out with a palm thrust and connected with something.

"Jesus."

Good. It might kill her, but at least the monster would know it had been in a fight.

"Wake up, Ivy. You're having a nightmare."

Nightmare? She didn't think so. Her eyes were open. She could see the monster, feel the tentacles around her.

Just to prove it, she opened her eyes—again.

"Oh."

Zack leaned over her. One of his eyes was puffy and red, showing signs of what she suspected would become a monster of a shiner before long.

"Was that me? Sorry I hit you. I must have been dreaming after all.” A horrible thought hit her. She'd been driving. “Did I fall asleep at the wheel? Is everyone all right?"

"You didn't fall asleep. Something hit you all of a sudden. You went unconscious and bled like a pig."

That didn't make much sense. If the Foundation could reach out and disable her, she had to believe they would have done more than send her into a nasty nightmare. But she didn't have time to worry about that now. “Okay, so where are we?"

"We're getting near a town called Yaylaalan."

She tried to remember what she'd seen of the map of Turkey they'd studied earlier that day—or the last day she'd been conscious anyway. “Is that on the coast?"

"Maybe thirty kilometers inland,” Cejno said. “We thought it wise to get off the coast road. The Army will be looking for us there."

There was that. It seemed that no matter what they did, the CIA and the Foundation always found them. Of course, her trick with Aphrodite's temple hadn't helped.

"So, why are we parked by the side of the road?” If there was one thing they'd learned for certain, it was that the CIA was better at spotting them still than when they were moving.

"You started thrashing so badly you hit me a couple of times,” Zack admitted. “I was afraid you were going to make me drive off the road."

"Is that what happened to your eye?"

He rubbed it. “That was a few minutes later when I tried to wake you up. Do you have any idea what happened? Do you think the Cross's cure could be wearing off?"

Since she'd been dead before the Cross had ‘
cured'
her, she had to hope that wasn't it.

"Who knows? Anyway, I'm not going to clobber you again so let's get going."

Zack headed for the drivers side and Ivy shook her head. “Maybe I should drive."

"You almost killed us last time you tried that."

"I
really
think I should drive."

"Listen, you got sick, bled all over the place, and then had a nightmare you couldn't wake up from. You can drive some tomorrow, after you've had a good night's sleep and something to eat."

Her stomach churned. “I've got a feeling, Zack."

"You also had a feeling you should go into that temple. I'm not sure we can trust your feelings to keep us safe, Ivy."

She felt a painful emptiness when she thought about that temple to Aphrodite. She still thought she'd done something important and powerful, although she wouldn't argue that it had been smart. And she guessed she shouldn't argue with Zack about that, either. It wasn't as if he was going to change his mind.

Still, her body remained tense as Zack rattled the Mercedes along a road that had certainly been paved once, but could hardly be considered paved now.

They were in the mountains again. Although the sea was only a few miles distant, low shrubs and the occasional grazing goat had replaced the beach-going tourists and the denser populations of the Mediterranean coast.

When Zack had insisted on taking the wheel, she'd felt uneasy, but the pressure on the inside of her brain abruptly multiplied into a huge headache. “Stop.” She could barely make the words out as a whisper.

"There's a crossroad in Yaylaalan.” Zack's voice held pity and annoying condescension. “We can decide on our directions there."

"Damn it Zack, don't humor me. Turn this crate around. Now."

Fortunately, he listened this time, hitting the brakes despite the disbelief written all over his face.

Unfortunately, he'd waited too long.

"I think we have the company,” Cejno said.

Ivy's instincts might have warned them away from the Turkish Army roadblock. Once they'd been spotted, though, she would have wanted Zack at the wheel. He'd been armor and it showed.

He leaned his skid into a turn, abruptly reversing direction without fully coming to a stop and headed away from the roadblock even faster than he'd approached it.

"Guess you were right,” he growled. “Sorry."

"I would have settled for being wrong and safe."

"If I lose the hashish, the drug makers will kill my parents,” Cejno wailed. “This is very quite horrible."

Zack turned onto a dirt road, then shifted into four-wheel drive and wallowed along a dry creekbed until he came to another dirt road.

He followed that until he came to an apricot orchard, then went off-road under the trees.

"Here's where we bail.” He switched off the engine and reached into the back for his Kalashnikov. “Let's get the Cross."

"But what about me?” Cejno demanded.

"What do you want? You can come with us if you want to. But if our theory is right, they'll be tracking the Cross, not the van."

"But they will recognize the van. The Army will know what to stop. Even if they don't find you, they will find the hashish. And they'll keep it for themselves."

Zack shrugged. “I owe you, Cejno. You saved our lives and I'd save yours if I could. But right now, I think the safest thing is for you to lay low for a couple of days. Find an abandoned barn or garage to hide in. Call your friends back home to come and give you a change of license plates and maybe a new paint job for the van."

Cejno nodded. “This is a good plan. Then I can meet up with you when you are safe."

"We owe you too much already, Cejno."

"We are friends, no? Of course I will help you get to Istanbul."

He nudged the GPS system, scrolling across the map of Turkey. “We meet in Isparta. In one week. I shall find you outside the central mosque. There is always a mosque."

Ivy nodded. “A mosque would give us some cover. If we make it, we'll be there. Good luck, Cejno."

"You as well have good luck, Miss Ivy. I hope Allah will speed your journey.” Cejno shoved a packet at Zack, waited until Zack and Ivy had taken their sections, and then grasped the keys from Zack.

Zack hefted his section of Cross, watched Cejno head off toward the north, then turned deliberately west. “It's just us again."

Ivy nodded.

"Did I tell you I was sorry I didn't trust you?"

She shrugged. “Who would?"

He didn't have an answer for that, so he walked along with her, first on the road and then, when a sheep-trail headed off the road, he followed that.

It had been a horribly long day, but Zack was still surprised when the glare of the setting sun partially blinded him.

"We need to find someplace safe to rest,” he said.

"I haven't had much luck with that."

He shuddered when he remembered that monster sheep. “We're still alive."

She had to think about that before finally nodding. “Guess that's one way to look at it. I'll see if I can sense anything."

She stopped walking and closed her eyes.

Zack studied her. The strain of their disastrous adventures was telling on her. She hadn't had much excess weight to start out with and now she looked gaunt rather than merely slender. Still, her face demonstrated a strength more subtle than the purely physical.

"Pretty much straight ahead,” she said, finally opening her eyes. “We can follow this path. It looks like it will lead us somewhere."

Night came quickly in the hills of southern Anatolia. Stars were beginning to creep out when he finally saw the lights.

"There are people here,” he whispered. “They'll turn us over to the police."

Ivy shrugged. “Turkey isn't like Texas, Zack. There are people everywhere."

That wasn't especially reassuring. Still, the last time he'd overridden Ivy's judgment, he'd driven into an Army checkpoint. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to walk forward.

The village wasn't much. Maybe twenty houses, a couple of small shops, and a tiny mosque.

Ivy headed straight for the mosque.

He grabbed her arm. “We can't go in there."

"This isn't Mecca,” she reminded him. “And it's not Iraq where clerics use their mosques to arm their militias. A Mosque is like a church. Most of them welcome everyone."

Still, he was relieved when she leaned her Cross piece against the outside of the mosque and sat down on it. “At least it doesn't look like rain."

He edged his own section next to hers. “Why don't we take a look at whatever Cejno thought we needed to have?"

What Cejno thought they needed turned out to look pretty useful. There was the blanket he'd wrapped Ivy in, a thin wad of hundred dollar bills, and a water bottle. Nothing to eat, unfortunately, and Zack was hungry, but the water helped.

He shared the bottle with Ivy, then wrapped the blanket around both of them. Away from the coast, and in the altitude of the hills, it got cool in the night, even in August.

Ivy resisted a bit when he moved closer to her so they could share body heat.

Her fear and discomfort with his proximity was his own fault, he knew. He'd been an idiot to let himself get carried away in the temple.

"You know they're going to catch us sooner or later, don't you?” Ivy finally relaxed enough to let him near to her.

"We've stayed ahead of them so far."

"But we haven't
done
anything. We're running around without a plan and they are triangulating and narrowing down the kill zone."

"We're heading to Istanbul and then to Venice?"

"Those seem like impossible dreams to me."

Zack had never been to Venice, but he'd seen pictures and movies. From them, he had the idea of a sort of fairy tale city, all canals, ancient palazzos, and singing gondoliers.

"We'll make it."

Ivy laughed. “I know I'm just an NCO, Zack, but you don't have to give me the officer pep-talk."

He took another sip of water, then leaned back against the mosque's walls and closed his eyes. He didn't have much hope either, but they were still alive and still free. Considering the alternatives, he couldn't complain.

The monster swept a clawed hand at her face and Ivy held up her sword in response. But it wasn't her sword: it was the Cross.

The monster's foot struck the cross and vanished in the glare of an explosion.

She jerked awake.

"It was just a truck backfiring,” Zack said.

"Huh-uh. My dreams are trying to tell me something. We've been so busy running that we haven't really thought about what's going on."

"We know what's going on. The Foundation wants the Cross and is willing to kill to get it."

"But we've learned more than that. We know it's the
key
.” She stood, yanked the blanket away from Zack, and folded it into a pad that she could rest the Cross section on.