“We ran into traffic.” Wearing a smug smile, Panos placed his free hand on Caedmon’s shoulder. “And would you deprive me of an additional fifteen minutes with my new English friend?”
His jaw set tight, his mouth little more than a taut slash, Caedmon stared straight ahead.
Hang in there, Caedmon. The train is about to leave the station.
“Gee, you certainly know how to make a girl feel unwanted. And speaking of girls, there she be… the Emerald Tablet.” Edie gestured toward the niche. “Yours for the taking.” She’d set the lantern on the stone altar, aiming it directly at the coveted relic, the inlaid gold script of the Eight Precepts gleaming in the fluorescent beam.
What man could refuse so gorgeous an object?
An awestruck expression on his face, Panos strode across the chamber. But in the wrong direction! Bypassing the niche completely.
“What the—” Edie caught herself in mid-curse. Flabbergasted, she watched as the dark-haired man came to a halt in front of a carved pilaster that was set between two octagonal walls.
Raising his hand, Panos caressed a bas-relief carving of an eight-pointed star that was set in the middle of the pilaster. “It’s beautiful.”
The octogram. The same symbol that Panos had scrawled at each of the murder scenes.
Admittedly baffled, Edie wondered what she was missing. Saviour Panos had killed four men to get the Emerald Tablet, and yet since entering the sanctuary, he’d given the relic little more than a passing glance.
“Ah, yes, the octogram. In Islamic art it’s known as the khatim sulayman,” Caedmon remarked. “You clearly have an affinity for the symbol.”
An affinity? Was Caedmon being for real? Try deadly obsession.
“According to legend, King Solomon used the symbol to capture an evil jinn. A jinn, of course, being a demon similar to Asmodeus,” Caedmon continued in a surreally calm tone of voice. One that belied the deeply etched lines of pain that furrowed his brow.
Why was Caedmon placating the bastard? And ruining her carefully conceived plan.
Prior to their arrival, she’d spent two hours on her hands and knees painstakingly examining every square inch of the sanctuary. In addition to the concealed trap that she’d fallen into when she and Caedmon had first discovered the chamber, she found one other trap. This one cunningly placed dead center in front of the niche. Emphasis on the word dead.
And to lure the bad guy, she’d placed her colorful bait — the Emerald Tablet — in the carved-out recess. All she had to do was get Panos to walk over to the niche before he pulled the trigger and killed them. Because she was fairly certain that was his plan.
“You ought to check out the octogram that’s on the back of the Emerald Tablet,” Edie said enticingly, hoping to nudge the monster in the right direction. “It’s a real beaut. Takes up the whole backside of the relic. In fact, it’s my understanding that the octogram is the key to unlock the secret of creation. That’s why the Emerald Tablet is such a holy relic.”
The sales pitch took, Panos finally deigning to glance at the green crystalline tablet displayed in the niche.
“He will be so pleased,” Panos cryptically murmured as he stepped toward the altar.
Holding her breath, Edie counted the steps until the bastard unexpectedly plunged to his death.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a quick moving blur. Turning her head, she saw Caedmon, a feral gleam in his eyes, rush toward the altar.
Right toward the concealed death trap!
CHAPTER 91
“Caedmon, don’t!”
To Edie’s horror, he ignored the shouted plea.
Like uncoiled springs, Caedmon’s cuffed wrists thrust upward into the air, then looped over the top of Panos’s head. With a grunt, he yanked the other man against his chest, strangling him with the metal chain that linked the two cuffs.
Panos wildly thrashed against Caedmon, the two men no more than three feet from the trap. Having a height advantage, Caedmon managed to hold firm. Grimacing. Grunting. His face a mask of pained determination. With his left hand, Panos impotently clawed at Caedmon’s face. In his right hand, the Greek still held fast to the revolver. Given their close proximity, he obviously realized that he risked shooting himself if he fired it.
Edie, hands fearfully clasped to her mouth, stood frozen in place. With no weapon at the ready, she was afraid to intervene. Afraid she might break Caedmon’s deadly focus. Given the amount of pain that he had to be suffering, what she was witnessing was nothing less than heroic. Superhuman, in fact.
Face beginning to turn blue, Panos suddenly used his revolver in an unexpected manner — he forcibly rammed the butt of the weapon against Caedmon’s battered left hand.
“Fucking bloody bastard!”
Caedmon raised his manacled wrists, releasing the hold on his blue-faced captive. Gasping, he recoiled from the other man.
Oh God!
With a sickening sense of certainty, Edie knew how the violent tableau would end. As soon as Rico Suave caught his breath — which could be any second — he would kill Caedmon!
As though reading her mind, Panos bared his teeth and growled. A savage animal. “I’m going to blow a hole in your conniving heart, boutso gliftie!” he hissed, his malice recharged.
Hearing his intention so bluntly put propelled Edie into action. Like a snapped rubber band, she lunged forward, her survival instincts kicking in. Literally.
Falling back on the six weeks of kickboxing that she took at the YMCA, she quickly advanced on her target. She’d taken the course three years ago, so there was only one move she actually remembered. Probably because it was the only one she’d mastered with whambam proficiency — the side kick. Able to hear her instructor’s voice in her head—Slide! Chamber! Kick! — Edie assumed an offensive posture. Funneling her fear into one dynamic, quick motion, she smashed her hiking boot into Saviour Panos’s crotch.
The wailing howl that ensued was perversely gratifying.
As expected, the wounded gunman doubled over — a defensive move programmed into the male DNA — shielding his groin from another attack. Bleating, he muttered what sounded like a string of foul epithets in a foreign language.
Caedmon quickly jabbed his right knee upward, catching Panos in the chin. The hard-hitting knee strike sent Panos reeling backward. The younger man gracelessly windmilled his arms, attempting to regain his balance. Still holding the revolver, he crashed into the stone altar.
Edie instinctively ducked, afraid the loaded gun would accidentally discharge.
Grunting, Panos bounced off the edge of the rough-hewn altar, staggered several feet, and—
Plunged through the concealed death trap in front of the niche!
Vanishing without so much as a whimper. Or a foul-mouthed curse.
Caedmon, slack-jawed, stared at the gaping hole. “My God.”
Edie exuberantly thrust her right fist into the air. Recalling her favorite episode of Lassie, she happily exclaimed, “Timmy’s in the well!” Yeah, boy!
Euphoric, she rushed over to Caedmon, who calmly peered into the hole. “A deadly fall from grace,” he said dispassionately. No love lost.