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"They could’ve gone down the night before and been waiting for us," Drake said "They told us to go ho to find those roo her head "The skeleton, the Minotaur or whatever--his fingers broke off e slid the altar back If anyone else had gone down that way before us, that would’ve happened then, not now"
Drake pondered that, running a finger inside the collar of his neeater The tag was bugging hi with Jada’s point Not that he had actually believed the hooded killers had slipped past the dig workers or security and gone down through the upper-level worship chamber Sure, he’d seen the way they seemed able to melt silently in and out of shadows like some kind of crazy ninja assassins, but if they wanted to, he would have bet they could have killed every person working on the dig teaht They weren’t going to kill people who didn’t break the Drake, Sully, and Jada the benefit of the doubt? The hoodedfor the three of them to cross some invisible line? To trespass?
"We already talked about there being another way in," he re By now, Hilary Russo and her people--and probably the antiquities minister or whoever--have already found the other entry point"
"Agreed," Jada said When she nodded, her hair veiled her face again "But the labyrinth was buried for, like, thousands of years If the archaeologists unearthing the site didn’t know there was another way in, how did they?"
"Now you’re just creepingmyself out!" Jada said " ’Cause the next question is, if they knew the bat cave entrance to that labyrinth, do they know about this one?"
Drake caught another whiff of the pipe smoke he’d smelled before Mixed in with that odor were delicious aro onions and spices Froun to play, the kind of thuhtclub he had always avoided But earlier they had passed a young bearded guy playing a bouzouki, and Drake had allowed hi errand and without the specter of Luka’s death loo over them
"I don’t think I want the answer to that," he adure we’ll find out e find the labyrinth on Therasia"
"Can’t wait," Jada ree on froht Drake’s attention, a shifting of the night shadows on top of the darkened jewelry store to their left He glanced up and froze, staring
Jada walked on several steps before she realized he wasn’t with her
"Nate?" she asked, turning to see what had snagged his attention
Drake started walking again, taking her elbow and hurrying along the path He glanced over his shoulder, looking at the jewelry store’s roof and then checking others on both sides of the path They went down five steps, and he picked up his pace further
"What the hell’s wrong with--" she started "Wait, did you see one of theuys?"
"I’m not sure," Drake said
And he wasn’t It had been aitself fro had been ht up with them this quickly, the h to lurk in shadows
"You think they’re trailing us right now?" Jada asked
"Maybe"
"Why just watch? They don’t knohat totheir time?"
Drake wanted to co people what they needed to hear instead of what they wanted to hear And Jada wasn’t exactly a dauys are like shadows They don’t like being seen," Drake said "They took a risk back in Egypt with so uess is they didn’t like it They’re doing what any decent hunter would do, waiting for the right moment They’ll want us alone, away from a crowd Better still if they can take us one by one"
Jada’s face went slack "Oh, no Uncle Vic"
Drake felt his heart sink He couldn’t be sure of what he’d seen, but if they were being shadowed--if these ninja assholes really did want to take them out--and they’d left Sully alone--
He took Jada’s hand, and together they ran
They raced along the ay, past the bars and darkened shops, watching rooftops and shadows for any further threat But Drake’s thoughts had shifted away from self-preservation The fear thatto do with his own safety He hadn’t seen the corpse of Luka Hzujak, but he kne the dead s cut off and his decapitated head resting on his chest, abandoned on a train platfor up fro out beneath it on a vintage guayabera, the copper stink of blood o of his hand, and he wished she had held on But they needed to run faster, and that didn’t leave ti a narrow path that led down, cut into the cliff face The island fell away to the right There were homes and hotels and even a few more restaurants below, slashed into the rock, but none of them were likely to save therew around the path, along with fall flowers, athe severely arid cli as he whipped by, but those were the sorts of things that grew on Santorini--the prickly, dangerous ones
A chorus of laughter rippled into the air ahead They descended narrow steps carved fro slash of a terrace, a ay filled with ed Germans on holiday Several of theh therab Jada’s ar him away Drake smelled licorice and knew that one of them had spilled ouzo on his clothes These were the details he absorbed as he ran, the hts
"He’ll be all right," Jada whispered as she ran beside hiuns had occurred to Drake the ure on the rooftop He and Jada had not wanted to risk carrying illegal weapons in public unless they were sure they would need theht now Careless They weren’t on holiday The very idea of a moonlit stroll had been ridiculous The three of the for daybreak, when they could search for the labyrinth
The hotel lay ahead They reached a narrow set of stairs winding up the cliff face and ran up the seventeen steps to the top, and the doorway looht blue under the lights, heated just enough that a few brave souls stood quietly flirting with one another in the water and ad in the ht
Drake scanned the entrance, checked the darkness beyond the lights of the pool Nothing He hauled the door open and hurried inside, Jada darting along in his wake They hurried through the lobby, trying to nored the elevator They were only two stories up He vaulted the first three steps, gaining speed as he ascended, holding on to the railing By the time he reached the third floor corridor--the walls curved to follow the line of the cave in which the hotel had been built--he had a lead of half a flight of stairs on Jada, but he didn’t wait for her
He sprinted, slowing as he neared his room so he could retrieve the key card from his wallet As he slid the key into the slot, he held his breath Jada ca toward hireen and he shoved the door open, his hands aching for a gun
They entered, and Jada pushed the door quietly shut behind thelanced into the bathroom, where the faucet dripped and there was evidence that Sully had shaved The suite’s bar was open, a bottle of wine open on the small table in the common room Jada ducked into her roo her head No sign of Sully But she held the gun that had been in her duffel, so that, at least, had been left alone