When the shooting stopped, they took a second to get their bearings. Peering over the table, Hawke saw the men were gone, and he got his first proper look at the room. The Oracle’s private suite was dominated by an enormous, formal room that might have looked more at home in the Vatican than a monastery on a Greek island.
A series of high, arched windows punctuated one of the walls and gave a breathtaking view of the sun setting over the Aegean Sea. The other wall was decorated with original artworks, some of which he recognized as masterpieces of Rembrandt and Caravaggio and standing in front of them in stony silence was a series of statues from the ancient world — Poseidon, Amphitrite, Mars, Odin, Osiris, all the way down to the end.
But there was no sign of the man himself, or any of his guards.
Lea raised her head from behind one of the upturned tables. “Where the hell did they go, Joe?”
“Bugger knows,” he called back. “But they went that way!”
CHAPTER SIX
He scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off as he sprinted toward the double doors at the far end of the room. With Lea and Lexi at his back, he ran into the other room and was met with a meaty fist to the center of his face.
He felt his head jerk backward and fought hard to stay conscious. He blinked a couple of times and through the stars he saw another fist rapidly approaching. This time he ducked and the fist smashed into the wooden paneling of the door behind him.
The man in robes grunted as he withdrew his grazed and shattered fist, but before he had time to survey the damage Hawke delivered a hefty headbutt into the middle of his head and splattered his nose across his face.
This got more than a grunt, and the howling man now cradled his head in his hands and scuttled away before the Englishman caused any more damage. But there was no break in the fighting, and now two more men in black robes flew through the air and landed right in front of them.
Lea felt the anger rise, as one of the men raced toward her. “They’re holding us back while he gets away, dammit!”
The other attacked Lexi and now a third and fourth arrived from a side door and launched themselves at Hawke. The fighting intensified, each of the ECHO team members being pushed to the max just to survive against some of the fastest and most aggressive hand-to-hand combat they had ever experienced.
“We’re in trouble, Joe!”
“Not with the cavalry here!”
Turning, she saw the welcome faces of Scarlet, Ryan and Reaper burst around the corner, followed by a man-mountain of epic proportions. Bronzed, tattooed arms and a torn t-shirt barely containing a muscle-bound chest, and a pair of tight blue jeans fixed at the waist with a Lone Star belt buckle, it was topped off with a torn, sweat-stained ten-gallon cowboy hat.
“What the fuck?” Lea said.
“Wonder where he’s from?” Lexi spun around and kicked her opponent in the stomach, sending him doubling over in pain.
“Meet Zeke,” Scarlet said, rolling her eyes as she waded into the fray. “Zeke, meet the weaker half of the team.”
“Hey everyone!”
“Good to meet… hey!” Lea said, kicking one of the monks in the balls. “Fuck off with that! We’re the best half.”
“And does the best half of the team have a plan?” Ryan said.
Hawke ducked a punch and turned to Ryan. “Just keep going forward until we stumble onto the truth, to be honest mate.”
The fight wore on, and the ECHO team gradually overcame their opponents, desperate to get after the Oracle before he got away with the Codex. The man fighting Lea drew a blade from a holster on the prayer rope around his waist. A look of hatred curdled his young face and struck terror into her, but she never flinched.
He lunged forward, but she was ready for him. Side-stepping the attack, she brought the back of her hand down hard on his wrist and disarmed him, hooking her leg around his and throwing him down to the floor.
As they gathered around him, he scrambled for his knife and shocked everyone to the core by slashing at his own wrists.
“Damn it!” Lea yelled. “Don’t die!”
Lexi ripped some material from her shirt and tried to create two tourniquets around his cut wrists.
A sad, but satisfied smile appeared on his lips. “It’s too late. You can’t torture me for information now. I’m dying…”
She crouched down beside him and twisted the fabric of his cowl around in her fists. Blood bubbles popped at the corners of his mouth and his eyes were rolling back into the back of his head. “The Alexander Codex! Where is it?”
Now a much crueller smile spread on his split, bruised lips. “Why should I tell you?”
Reaper crouched down beside Lea. “Because if you don’t, I can make the end of your life so painful you will wish for la mort, you understand me?”
“This is pretty heavy,” Zeke said. “I only came here to hitchhike the Greek islands!”
Confusion spread on the man’s agonized face as the blood streamed out of his wrists despite Lexi’s improvised tourniquet. “You would torture a dying man?”
Reaper gave his famous Gallic shrug. “Unfortunately, oui.”
“Just tell us where it is, arsehole,” Hawke said, kicking the man’s legs.
The Athanatoi warrior coughed blood up over his lips and wheezed for air. He tried to hoist himself up n his elbows but crashed back down to the floorboards. “I will never tell you where it is. I will never disobey my master.”
“Oh, Christ,” Hawke said. “One of them. It’s so bloody frustrating.”
Scarlet smacked her hands together and started stretching her leg. “You want me to take your frustration out on his balls?”
“Where is the Oracle?”
“He’s not here, you fools.”
“Where is he?”
The man shook his head. “You’re going to lose this war.”
“Where, dammit?!”
“Not here. He left hours ago.”
“Then you be good little lad and tell us where he is and we might save your life.”
The man gave Scarlet a strange, patronizing look. “I don’t want my life saved. I now go to a better place where I can walk in eternal peace.”
“You’ll be walking with an eternal limp if you don’t start talking.”
“It’s too late,” Lea said, lowering the man’s head to the floor. “He’s gone.” She got up and paced away from the dead man, leaning up against the wall near a stone archway. Damn it all, we’re buggered again.”
“Look out!”
Lea turned sharply to see the oncoming threat but it was too late. A black-robed acolyte was already upon her, quickly whipping a garotte around her throat and wrenching it as tight as he could.
Lea struggled to pull the leather strap from her throat, but it was too tight.
Hawke sprinted toward her but the man hurriedly twisted the garotte.
The man called out. “Get back or I will tear it right through her windpipe!”
He skidded to a halt, his heart thumping in his chest. “You hurt her and I’ll kill you where you stand.”
The man made no reply, but gradually walked backwards, pulling his terrified hostage into the darkness of the archway.
And then the blood-streaked tip of a blade poked through his throat.
He released the garotte and Lea stumbled forward, doubling over as she heaved breath into her lungs.
The man fell to his knees and the blade tip vanished again. Hawke ran to Lea, reaching her just as another man in brown robes stepped out of the shadows.