Cassie jostled Erik’s arm to waken him. “Are you listening to this?”
He yawned and resettled himself “I’ve heard it before. Wake me up when he’s done.”
The scrivener rolled his eyes and resumed. “Try to imagine a waterfall cascading with two hundred times the force of Niagara Falls and a velocity of over fifty miles an hour. The sound of the water crashing across the breach in the sill would have echoed one hundred and twenty miles away. The lake’s water level would have risen so rapidly that the shoreline may have expanded by as much as a mile a day, drowning everything in its path. One can only imagine the catastrophic impact this would have had on the people who lived along the shores of the lake.”
“I’ll say,” Cassie exclaimed in shock. “They wouldn’t have known what hit them.”
“Those living closest to the Bosporus would probably have drowned, of course, but those farther away may have had time to pack some meager belongings, collect their kin and livestock and flee.”
“Where did they all go?”
“It depends on which side of the lake they inhabited. The ones to the north and west were luckiest. They fled up the river valleys into the heart of Europe. Since those river valleys were incredibly fertile, the people who emigrated there were able to continue living as peaceful agriculturists. Others were not so fortunate.”
“That sounds pretty ominous.”
“Indeed it was. To the east and south, the Black Sea is rimmed with mountains. Anyone lucky enough to scale them would find their problems just beginning. Those who skirted the Caucasus Mountains and fled to the northeast would have ended up in the Eurasian steppes. A very inhospitable landscape for farming.”
“What did they do if they couldn’t farm?”
“They became nomads and grazed what little livestock remained. Scarcity became a way of life. There was never enough food to go around, so eventually, they raided nearby groups and stole their livestock. Their neighbors retaliated, and raiding became a way of life for everyone on the steppes. A harsh landscape produces harsh people.”
“Overlord cultures,” Cassie exclaimed, finally comprehending. “Now I understand what Faye was talking about.”
“Oh, there’s much more to the story of what turned them into aggressive, sky god worshippers but I think the Anatolian trove keeper may have more insight to offer on that topic than I do.”
“When do we get to meet him?” Cassie asked eagerly.
Griffin took a sip of his Turkish coffee. “If all goes as planned, tomorrow afternoon. We have to travel to the dig site first, of course, but he did say he would have time to speak with us when we arrived.”
Cassie gazed out over the darkening water and noticed with a start that the sun had already set. She hadn’t realized how long they’d been talking. “I think we need to get some actual sleep before we pick up and go anyplace else.” She rose and turned to regard Erik who was snoring slightly. Pursing her lips, she said, “Guess we should wake him up and tell him to go to bed.”
She was about to nudge Erik when Griffin stopped her. Poising his foot to deliver a well-aimed kick to the legs of Erik’s chair, he said, “Please allow me to do the honors.”
Chapter 11 – Flight of Angels
Leroy Hunt looked at his wristwatch and let out a bored sigh. This flight was taking forever. He didn’t much care for flying to begin with. Airplanes always seemed like coffins with wings. “If God had wanted us to fly,” his momma always said, “He’d have made us rich enough to afford a plane ticket.” He chuckled at the memory. If momma could see him now. She’d been praying over his soul right up to the day she died. Bet she’d be proud to know that he was rubbing elbows with churchy folk these days. Hell, the Nephilim claimed they were part angel. You couldn’t get any churchier than that. According to crazy old Abraham, Leroy was actually doing the Lord’s work. That was neither here nor there as far as he was concerned. He got paid real well and sometimes got to shoot folks, which he always enjoyed. Leroy believed that unless you were aiming at a live target, you were just wasting good ammo.
He cast a glance at the man in the window seat who was literally rubbing elbows with him. He sighed again. The only part of this job he didn’t relish was babysitting the old man’s weasel of a son. Daniel was about as hangdog and gutless a piece of humanity as Leroy had ever seen. Hunt bitterly recalled the time when Daniel had interfered with his hired duty to kill those three thieves who wanted to get to the relics before the Nephilim did. Messing with God’s plan for the merchandise, as it were. Leroy never mentioned the incident to the boy’s daddy, but he never forgot it. Didn’t like the kid and didn’t trust him either.
Hunt reached up and pressed the call button for the stewardess. When she arrived, he asked, “Darlin’, think you could scare up another one of them tiny bottles of whiskey?”
He looked ruefully at the three dead soldiers already lined up on his tray table. Even booze couldn’t seem to move this boat any faster.
The stewardess poured him another drink. He downed it in two gulps and then turned his attention to the sad sack next to him. Daniel was staring at his computer like he was praying over the dead.
“I see you got yourself a new toy,” Hunt observed.
Daniel jumped and stopped mumbling to himself. “Sorry?”
“Your shiny new computer, son,” Leroy hinted.
“Oh, yes that.” Daniel collected his wits. “Father gave me permission to have one because I told him we could recover
