She returned to the front of the chair and crossed her arms, regarding him dispassionately. “Dreaming or something worse.”
“What could be worse than a nightmare?”
“Nightmares disappear when you wake up. I don’t.”
He labored to make his limbs obey him. It was as if they were clamped to the chair with iron bands. “What do you want from me?” His tone was petulant.
“Nothing,” she rejoined innocently. “My form is just an illusion concocted from equal parts poppy juice and self-loathing—summoned to annoy you.”
“That’s absurd!” he exclaimed. “I never summoned you.”
“Oh, but you did,” she asserted slyly. “This evening you were busy disposing of another troublesome woman just like me.”
“Rachel,” he quavered. “You mean Rachel.”
“What to do, sad but true,” she chanted in a sing-song voice. “Another bride who won’t mind you.”
“She was possessed by a demon,” he countered.
“That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it?” she asked airily. “Blame the devil, not yourself. Another bride pitched off the shelf.”
Abraham tugged vainly against his invisible restraints. “Why won’t you leave me in peace?”
“Peace?” Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “The best you can hope for these days is a dreamless cat nap, Father.”
She leaned forward and clutched his shoulder.
He felt the distinct sensation of fingers digging into his flesh. That, too, was impossible.
“In days to come, you’ll look back on this moment as the calm before the real storm began.”
Her face was so close to his that he could see the pupils of her eyes dilate. It couldn’t be.
“I’ll visit again soon.”
Abraham’s head spun dizzily. He could feel himself blacking out. One final thought occurred to him before he lost consciousness. Oblivion was the closest thing to peace he was going to feel if Annabeth was telling the truth.
Chapter 30—Static Cling
Cassie dropped into a chair in the hotel lobby to wait for the others to come down from their rooms. She thought back to the past four days and ruefully admitted that she should have taken Olga’s advice. Rather than getting some rest while on the Trans-Siberian train, the pythia had spent much of the trip glued to the window of her compartment hoping to pick up a trace of the Minoans. Thousands of miles of evergreen forests, tundra, mountain ranges, and the Amur River passed her by without offering a single clue no matter how intensely she concentrated. The closer the train came to Lake Baikal, the more her anxiety grew.
At four o’clock that same morning, the Arkana group finally reached Irkutsk—a city thirty miles up the Angara River from the southwest shore of the lake. The short summer night was already giving way to a glimmer of light in the east. As Cassie stepped off the train, she registered surprise at the balmy pre-dawn air. The word “Siberia” always conjured images of frostbite. Instead, the temperature was a pleasant sixty-five degrees with noon highs expected to climb well into the eighties.
The team wasted no time exploring the city since the journey to Olkhon Island would require the better part of the day to complete. Although there was a boat that traveled directly to their destination, it only ran once a week. The local bus schedule was equally inconvenient for the team’s purposes. They opted instead to hire a car and driver to get them to the ferry landing one hundred and fifty miles to the north. Even covering such a short distance took hours over narrow, winding roads. After arriving at the landing, they had to cool their heels waiting for the next boat. Ironically, the fifteen-minute crossing to the island was the shortest part of their trip that day.
Disembarking from the ferry didn’t mark the end of their journey, however. They needed an additional source of transportation to carry them across the seventy-mile island. Olga bargained with one of the locals for the use of his car. Once a deal was struck, she took possession of his battered old rust bucket and drove the Arkana operatives to Khuzir. With a population of two thousand, it was the largest town on the island and the only place offering decent accommodations. They found a modern hotel which boasted its own restaurant and the unparalleled luxury of showers in every room. Immediately after registering, the four scattered to unpack and wash up. They agreed to meet back downstairs an hour later to regroup.
Cassie had returned to the lobby ahead of the others and was now savoring the sensation of sitting motionless for the first time in days. She glanced up to see Olga crossing the room toward her.
The scout stood for a moment, gazing out the picture windows to admire the panoramic view of the lake and mountains beyond. “It is very beautiful here, no?” She took a seat beside Cassie.
“Not just beautiful,” the pythia said. “The energy of this place is really strong. I can sense why Lake Baikal became Shaman Central.”
A few moments later, Griffin arrived with Daniel in tow.
The scrivener checked his wristwatch. “It’s only half past three in the afternoon. I realize today has already been exceptionally long, but we may still be able to accomplish something useful before dark.”
“We have enough time to go to Shaman Rock,” Olga suggested. “It is only a little walk from here. There is a cave that you should see. It may be where your Minoan relic is hidden.”
“There’s no guarantee that the Sage Stone will still be there,” the scion countered skeptically. “Is the cave easy to access?”
“Sadly, yes. Shaman Rock was once considered such a holy place that people feared to visit it. Only shamans went there to perform ceremonies. Now, nothing prohibits tourists from climbing the rock and exploring the cave.”
“I think it’s still worth checking out,” Cassie said. “Even if the Sage Stone isn’t there, at least I might be able to pick up the trail of the Minoans.”
“Very well then, it’s settled.” The scrivener swept his arm toward the exit. “Shall we?”
The little party
