“Absolutely,” Erik concurred. “You guys did great.” He stood up. “I need to split too. I’m still working a part-time gig this week.” He paused and glanced at his former teammates. “So are we good?”
Griffin considered before answering. “Yes, I believe we are.”
The paladin fixed his full attention on the pythia. They stared at one another for a long moment, his unanswered question hanging in the air between them. Cassie fancied she caught a glimpse of regret in his eyes.
Finally, she gave a wistful nod. “Yeah, we’re good.”
Erik broke into a relieved smile and headed for the door.
“Watch your back, dude,” Cassie cautioned.
“Always, toots.”
Chapter 54—Regression Analysis
After the meeting broke up, Cassie wandered in the direction of her office. She wanted to assess the artifact backlog situation before leaving for home. When she switched on the lights, she could see Maddie hadn’t exaggerated. Objects were stacked around the corners of her desk, and other piles lined the walls. The waterfall panels trickled softly, and the dim background lights offered a mellow glow. Ordinarily, the sight and sound would have cheered her, but she was too tired to respond. Throwing herself into her chair, she slumped forward over her desk, resting her cheek on its cool obsidian surface. A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Might I have a word?” Griffin tentatively poked his head around the frame.
“Sure. C’mon in. I thought you’d have gone by now.”
The scrivener entered and, maneuvering around the scattered artifacts, took a chair in front of Cassie’s desk. “I wanted to sort out a bit of filing first. I must say it felt good to surround myself with mundane matters again.”
Cassie shook her head, baffled by his enthusiasm. “You really are a cup-half-full kind of guy, aren’t you?”
“You’re hardly one to talk given your own appalling brand of optimism.” He propped his elbows on her desk and studied her face. Apparently noting its weary expression, he said, “Give us a smile.”
She regarded him gravely. “I shot an innocent geezer with fifty thousand volts of electricity—twice! I’m still processing that.”
“It was all in the line of duty. You shouldn’t take it to heart.”
“I don’t think the actual zapping is what’s bothering me.” She frowned in concentration, collecting her thoughts. “I’m supposed to have these mad intuitive skills. If I could channel an entire city at Mohenjo-Daro, why couldn’t I sense the harmlessness of one lone guy who was sent to guard us?”
The scrivener raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re blaming yourself for not being able to distinguish between a votary and a villain? There we disagree. I’m convinced your instincts about him were spot on. He posed a genuine threat.”
She peered at him uncomprehendingly. “I’m too tired to unpack that. You’ll have to do it for me.”
Griffin elaborated. “I believe Erik and Maddie seriously underestimated the danger of our situation. Those pilgrims were out to apprehend two thieves who had desecrated their shrine and stolen a holy relic. In point of fact, that’s exactly what we did. All they lacked was the proof of our crime. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that while we were being detained, they examined the forgery. Paste gems and gold plating wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, and our misdeeds would have been exposed. How do you suppose those innocent pilgrims might have dealt with us?”
Cassie laughed grimly. “I’m guessing they would have hustled us over to the Darchen police station and then the Chinese government would have stepped in. It could have gotten ugly.”
“It could have gotten far uglier if they’d taken matters into their own hands,” he countered.
The pythia gasped as the implication struck her. “They wouldn’t! Would they?”
The scrivener gave a thin smile. “It seems to me that if they’d planned to involve the police, they wouldn’t have attacked us in the first place. They would have summoned the authorities to apprehend us instead. But they didn’t. They intended to mete out justice themselves. When people’s sacred beliefs are threatened, they are driven by emotion, not by reason and certainly not by the rule of law.”
She offered one final objection. “But there was only half a dozen of them. How bad could it have gotten?”
“Word of our sacrilege would have spread quickly. Angry mobs form much like snowballs rolling downhill. They get bigger as they travel.”
Cassie sat upright, her imagination painting a shocking picture of the probable outcome of Griffin’s scenario. “Well, when you put it that way—three cheers for Team Arkana! Kicking pilgrim butt was the right way to go.”
“Most assuredly, but we did far more than ‘kick pilgrim butt.’ Don’t you see?” His tone was urgent. “It was just the two of us, Cassie, yet we managed to give our captors the slip all the same. We didn’t need someone else to ride to our rescue. Doesn’t it reassure you to know that the next time trouble finds us, as it most certainly will, we’ll be more than a match for it?”
“Talk about appalling optimism.” Her voice was skeptical, but she felt her mood improving just the same.
Griffin continued. “Though I didn’t perceive it initially, Erik’s absence was a blessing in disguise. We’ve always relied on him not just as a security coordinator but as something of a security blanket. Without him, we were forced to draw on our own resources which proved to be considerable.”
The pythia grew pensive at his comment. “It seems like we’ve been drawing on our own resources for a long time now. Right before he quit the team, Erik reminded us that you saved the day in Spain and I was the one who got us out of Africa alive. He saw that we could take care of ourselves way before we did.”
Griffin
