“Here’s a wild idea,” Cassie offered. “What if the Sage Stone really does have some kind of supernatural mojo? Metcalf is staking his entire evil plot on the fact that it does. Since I’m the one who’s going to grab it first, maybe I can use it to protect us.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Maddie countered. “All those crazy stories about the mystical power of the Sage Stone are just that—stories. Nobody in the Arkana believes in that nonsense. We try to keep our feet on the ground.”
“Then how do you explain me?” Cassie objected. “The Arkana relies on a pythia’s psychic powers to find artifacts. That’s about as airy-fairy as it gets. What if magic is just science that we still haven’t found a way to measure and understand?”
Maddie rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious,” the pythia persisted. “There are things in this world that defy logic. Maybe the Sage Stone is one of them.”
“She’s right,” Griffin agreed. “Science has no rational explanation for a very long list of phenomena: spontaneous human combustion, telekinesis, incorruptible bodies that refuse to decay hundreds of years after death, just to name a few.”
“What’s your point?” Maddie glared at the pythia with irritation.
“My point is that I don’t think the Minoans were stupid,” Cassie shot back. “They wouldn’t have gone to the extremes they did just to protect a worthless chunk of rock.”
“I’m sure its meaning was symbolic,” the chatelaine retorted.
“Not according to the accounts I’ve read,” Griffin chimed in. “Ancient sources insisted that the stone possessed unearthly powers.”
“Fine!” Maddie threw her hands up in the air. “So, maybe it can do something to help us, but I’m not willing to stake all our lives on a maybe. We need to base our strategy on known facts. We know Metcalf is mentally unbalanced and that we can poke a hole in his destined claim to the Sage Stone. We know it will take him a few minutes to recover from that upset. We know his confusion will buy us enough time to make our move. We blast the reliquary wall with bullets to force a cave-in and then get the hell out of there.”
“But that’s suicide!” Cassie cried.
“Maybe not,” the chatelaine said. “We can position ourselves near the exit tunnel beforehand. At least some of us should make it out alive.”
“You do realize that the only quick escape from that mountain is by helicopter,” Griffin ventured.
“The Arkana has its own air support division,” the chatelaine informed them.
“We do?” Cassie and Zach both said in unison.
“We do,” Maddie confirmed.
“You never let us use company helicopters on our missions,” the pythia complained. “We had to rent them.”
“That’s because ours are for emergency airlift only. Like the one we’re planning now. I’ll arrange an armed escort to make sure our chopper gets in and out of that place—assuming there are any survivors.”
“Say we do get out of there alive,” Zach said. “Metcalf might do the same.”
“But he won’t have the Sage Stone which means we’ll have averted a global catastrophe,” the chatelaine pointed out.
Zach ignored her comment and forged ahead. “But he’ll make it his number one priority to hunt us down and take the artifact back.”
“That means the Arkana will have to go dark after all.” The pythia frowned. “Griffin and I tried so hard to keep that from happening.”
“Sorry, kiddo,” Maddie said. “The upside is that we shouldn’t have to stay dark for very long. Metcalf is a frail old man. His crazy scheme to destroy the world should die with him in a few short years.”
Griffin sighed. “Hiding underground until he snuffs it is hardly an ideal solution.”
The four lapsed into a glum silence, pondering their limited options.
“Let me get this straight,” Zach finally said. “We walk into a trap and snag the Sage Stone which will piss off an old geezer with a plague-wielding army. Then we trigger a cave collapse, and, assuming any of us escape, we run for our lives. Is that it? That’s all we’ve got going for us?”
“That plus maybe a magic rock,” Cassie murmured.
“Forget about the magic rock already!” Maddie groaned and rubbed her eyes. “The little we’ve got is all we’re gonna get. We have to find a way to make it work!”
***
Leroy Hunt drove up to the gates of the main compound. The guards in the sentry tower knew better than to detain him. They opened the barrier and waved him forward. He parked near the front doors and strode through them like he owned the place. The cowboy reasoned that the glad tidings he was about to deliver had earned him an all-access pass. One of Metcalf’s kids told him the old man was in his prayer closet. Hunt already knew the way to that room too. He knocked briefly and then took the liberty of letting himself in.
The preacher glanced up from his bible stand by the window. “Hello, Mr. Hunt.”
The cowboy blinked in surprise at the old man’s decline since their last meeting. Metcalf looked as broken down as ten miles of bad road. Leroy thought it was a good thing the codger was already wearing a funeral suit because it would save the undertaker some time.
Hunt removed his hat and gave a hopeful smile.
“I assume from this unseemly interruption that you have something urgent to report?” Metcalf rasped in a reedy voice.
“Yessir, I do.” The cowboy wavered, glancing around the room suspiciously. “You ain’t got no phones in here, do you?”
“Of course not. This chamber is for private prayer, not for transacting business.”
“Good. A feller can’t be too careful. I lost track of how many phones Mr. Big put a tracer on. Best we talk private, man to man.”
Without being invited, Hunt took a seat below the dour portrait of Metcalf’s predecessor.
The old man shuffled across the room and lowered himself into the chair opposite, waiting testily for an explanation.
Hunt immediately obliged. “After I plugged that little foreign doc like you wanted, I went back to
