“A break! A fu-” Drake heard Wells’ low tones, then silence. He felt Kennedy sit near his feet, saw her tight smile, and felt her shaking body through his toes.
“How’s the kid?”
“Missing college,” Drake made himself laugh. “Fellow band members. The pubs of York. Free cinema night. KFC. Call of Duty. You know, student boy things.”
Kennedy peered more closely. “That’s not what student boys and girls do in my experience.”
Now Ben opened his eyes and tried a strained smile. He inched himself around on hands and knees. Once facing upwards again, still on hands and knees, he climbed up one gruelling step after another.
Inch by inch, step by perilous step, they ascended. Drake felt the stress making his head and heart ache. If Ben fell he would willingly block the boy’s fall with his own body, if only to save him.
Without question or hesitation.
Another full circle and they were about twenty feet from their goal — a ledge that mirrored the one they had just traversed. Drake studied it in the flickering torchlight. It led back towards the entrance shaft but obviously one level up.
Level up? He thought. Christ, he’d been ‘retro-ing’ it too much with Sonic the damn Hedgehog.
Above him he saw Dahl waver. The Swede had stood up too fast, over-balanced, and now had too much weight on his back foot. There were no sounds, just the silent struggle. He could only imagine the tortures flooding Dahl’s mind. The space at his back, the safety in front, the thought of the long, torturous drop.
Then the Swede flung himself forward, hit the steps, and clung for dear life. Drake heard his heavy breathing from ten feet down.
A few minutes later and the arduous climb continued. At last Dahl stepped off the stairs and onto the ledge, then crawled forward on hands and knees to make space. Drake followed not long after, pulling Kennedy with him, feeling stunned relief at being back on their narrow ledge that still left them only a slip from screaming death.
When they were all accounted for, Dahl breathed. “Let’s get to the next niche and call a rest,” he said. “I, for one, am totally blasted.”
After five more minutes of shuffling their sore bodies and fighting off increasing muscle cramps they stumbled into the fourth niche, the one that stood directly above Aphrodite’s Tomb.
No one saw the resident God at first. They were all on their knees resting and panting. Drake thought wryly that this was what civilian life had led him to, and only looked up when Parnevik uttered an expletive that would have seemed odd coming from anyone else, but not him.
“Woof!”
“What?”
“Woof! Doghead. It’s Anubis.”
“The jackal?” Wells sat back on his arse and gripped his knees to his chest. “Well. I’ll be…..”
“An Egyptian deity,” Parnevik said. “And this one undoubtedly linked to death.”
Drake took in row upon row of mummies and coal-coloured jackal statuettes. Gold-inlaid coffins and emerald-studded ankhs. Unimpressed, he turned his back on the God’s burial chamber and broke into a KitKat. A moment later, Kennedy was seated by his side.
“So,” she said, unwrapping her own food and drink.
“Damn, you’re good at the chat-up lines,” Drake grinned. “I’m feeling myself aroused already.”
“Listen, buddy, if I wanted you aroused then you’d be putty in my hands.” Kennedy shot him a grin both cheeky and exasperated. “Damn, you guys can’t quit it for a minute can you?”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Just playing. What’s up?”
He watched Kennedy peer off into the void. Saw her eyes widen when she caught the faint sound of Frey’s soldiers catching them up. “This… thing… we’ve been skirting around for a while. Do you think, um, we’ve actually got something, Drake?”
“I certainly think Odin’s down here.”
Kennedy rose, about to walk away but Drake put a hand on her knee to stop her. The touch almost produced sparks.
“There,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think I’ll have much of a job when we get back,” she whispered. “What with the Thomas Kaleb serial killer thing and all. That bastard killed again, you know, the day before we got to Manhattan.”
“What? No.”
“Yes. That’s where I went, to walk the murder scene. And to pay my respects.”
“I’m so sorry.” Drake refrained from hugging her, recognising it was the last thing she needed right now
“Thank you, I know. You’re one of the most honest men I’ve ever known, Drake. And the most selfless. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”
“Despite my annoying comments?”
“Very much despite those.”
Drake finished the last of his chocolate, and decided against tossing his KitKat wrapper into the void. Knowing his luck he’d trigger an ancient litter-trap or something.
“But no job means no ties,” Kennedy went on. “I have no true friends in New York. No family. I guess I might need to disappear from the public eye anyway.”
“Well,” Drake mused, “you’re an enticing prospect, I can see.” He gave her goofy eyes. “Maybe you could say bollox to gay ole Paris and come visit merry old York.”
“But where would I stay?”
Drake heard Dahl mustering the troops. “Well, we’ll just have to come up with a way for you to earn your keep.” He waited until she had climbed to her feet then caught hold of her shoulders and gazed into her sparkling eyes.
“Seriously, Kennedy, the answer to all your questions is yes. But I can’t deal with all that right now. I have my own baggage that we need to discuss, and I so need to keep focused.” He nodded towards the void. “Down there is Alicia Myles. You might think of our journey so far as being dangerous, of this Tomb as being dangerous, but, believe me, they’re nothing compared to that bitch.”
“He’s right,” Wells came up and caught the last comment. “And I’m seeing no other way out of here, Drake. No way to avoid her.”
“And we can’t block the route because we need a way out,” Drake nodded. “Yes, I’ve trawled through every scenario too.”
“Knew you would have.” Wells smiled as if he’d known all along that Drake was still one of his boys. “C’mon, the turnip’s bellowing.”
Drake followed his old boss to the ledge, then took his place behind Ben and Dahl. One appraising glance saw everyone refreshed but edgy about what lay ahead.
“Four down,” Dahl said, and shuffled away across the ledge, mountain at his back.
The next niche was a surprise and gave them all a fortifying boost. It was the Tomb of Thor, son of Odin.
Parnevik was bleating as if he’d discovered a Yeti camped out in Death Valley. And, for him, he had. The Professor of Nordic mythology had located the Tomb of Thor, arguably the best known Nordic figure of all time thanks in part to Marvel comics.
Pure elation.
And for Drake, the presence of Thor suddenly made it all the more real.
There was a respectful silence. Everyone knew of Thor, or at least some incarnation of the Viking God of thunder and lightning. Parnevik lectured about Thorsday, or as we now know it — Thursday. This interlaced with Wednesday — or Wodensday, or Odinsday. Thor was the greatest warrior-god known to man, a hammer-wielding, enemy-felling tour de force. The pure epitome of Viking manhood.
It was all they could do to drag Parnevik away and stop him from trying to examine Thor’s bones there and then. The next niche, the sixth, contained Loki, the brother of Thor and another of Odin’s sons.