Fifteen minutes later, even the sound of their footfalls on the trail was gone.
The pythia finally allowed herself to breathe. “Did that really just happen?”
“What?” Griffin whispered back.
“For the first time since...ever...our plan actually worked out the way we wanted it to. We were backed into a dead-end cave with those guys, and nobody got hurt. There’s something very wrong about that.”
“One should never look a gift horse in the mouth,” the scrivener reminded her. He rose up from their cramped hiding place and stretched. “That feels infinitely better!”
Cassie peeped out over the mountainside from between the chortens. She could see two lights bobbing far below her on the trail back to Darchen. “They’re not wasting any time,” she observed. Then she rose and stretched as well.
The pair set to work placing the second false relic in the shrine niche. They then reattached the glass shield and its metal frame.
Cassie consulted her watch. “How much lead time should we give them?”
“That depends on how confident you feel.”
“Of what?”
“We can leave now if you don’t mind traveling in the dark. If we were to use our torches, Daniel and his minion might notice the lights on the path above them and come back to investigate.”
“I see your point,” Cassie conceded. “Considering how often we’ve hiked this route in the past week, I could probably make the trip blind-folded.”
“I expect that’s very nearly how it will feel,” Griffin remarked. “There’s no moon out tonight.”
“Moon or no moon, I still want to get out of here ASAP,” the pythia urged. “The longer we hang around, the more we increase the odds that something will go wrong.”
“My dear pythia, I had no idea you were such a fatalist,” Griffin teased.
“Not a fatalist,” she corrected. “Just a realist. No matter how you try to fight it, Murphy’s Law will always apply and at the worst possible time.”
Chapter 48—Murphy’s Codicil of Optical Occlusion
Cassie and Griffin traveled down the mountain in silence. The journey was slower than the trip up since they’d dispensed with their flashlights to avoid being seen by Daniel and Hunt. Two hours on the path felt like four, but eventually the ground leveled out, and they knew they were approaching the base of the mountain.
Cassie paused to catch her breath. “How much farther do you think it is?”
“I’d say we’re no more than a mile away now.”
“I heard a car motor a few minutes ago,” the pythia remarked. “Sound really travels out here in the middle of nowhere. Since everybody else in town is still tucked into their beds, I’m guessing the roar of that particular engine came from our Nephilim buddies hitting the road.”
“Then it’s good riddance to bad rubbish,” said the scrivener.
“As long as we know they’re gone, it should be safe to use our flashlights again.” The pythia switched hers on and checked the display on her watch. “4:30. That gives us an hour and a half before the sun comes up. We need to be out of Darchen by then.”
They made quicker progress down the remainder of the trail with their lights to guide them.
“Almost there,” Cassie said when they were half a mile away from town.
“And nothing terrible happened,” Griffin countered. “So much for that Murphy chap of yours. It’s merely a silly superstition to believe that if something can go wrong, it—”
“Watch out!” The pythia’s warning came too late.
Several dark figures swarmed from behind the boulders lining the trail, jumping Cassie and Griffin. Before the pair knew what was happening, they were body-slammed to the ground.
Half a dozen voices were talking at once, demanding answers in a language Cassie didn’t understand. She blinked as half a dozen flashlights pointed their intrusive beams in her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked dazedly. “Does anybody here speak English?”
More voices joined the hostile chorus. Rough hands reached out to drag her toward some unknown destination. She stumbled up a rock-strewn path and was thrust inside a small tent. Griffin was propelled in after her. Two of their assailants followed and forced them to sit back-to-back against the central tent pole, tethering their hands to the stake with thick hemp rope.
Without a word of explanation, their attackers left and shut the tent flap behind them. The voices outside continued to angrily debate some unknown topic.
Cassie tried to twist around but couldn’t. “Griffin?” she called anxiously. “Are you alright?” She felt the reassuring pressure of his fingers looping through hers.
“I’m fine, all things considered. And you?”
“Other than a few bruises, I’m OK too,” she answered.
The two of them sat back-to-back in silence for several moments, listening to the bellowing match outside.
“That’s what you get for mocking Murphy,” Cassie said wryly. “Especially the dreaded Codicil of Optical Occlusion.”
“The what?”
“Murphy’s Codicil of Optical Occlusion. It’s an addendum to the other rules.”
“You’re making that up, aren’t you?”
The pythia gave an exasperated sigh. “When have you ever known me to make up three-syllable words and string them together in a sentence? That’s your department.”
“I stand corrected. So what words of wisdom does Mr. Murphy have to offer in his codicil?”
“That when a thing that can go wrong is about to go wrong at the worst possible time—you won’t be able to dodge it because you’ll never see it coming.”
The scrivener shrugged philosophically. “On the whole, this night might have gone worse. Whoever they are, at least they didn’t kill us.”
“The night’s not over yet,” Cassie remarked ominously.
Chapter 49—A Flawless Plan
The argument among Cassie’s and Griffin’s captors continued for another quarter hour. Eventually, the voices receded into the distance. It sounded as if they were traveling back up the mountain.
The pair relaxed slightly once the gang was out of earshot.
“Who were those guys?” the pythia asked. “They weren’t Nephilim. I know that because we’re not dead.”
“I have no idea. I didn’t recognize the dialect they were speaking.”
A lantern glowed just beyond the tent flap, bathing the interior in a dim yellow light.
“It doesn’t sound like they
