“What now?” Dani said. “I’m sort of thinking we shouldn’t open it. Like, what ifthisis Pandora’s box?”
Pandora’s box. Originally a jar containing all the evils and terrors of the world.
Dani was right. It didn’t feel right opening the box, not like this. Not under cover of night after breaking into the Acropolis. It was a coffin, after all.
“I agree.”
“What do you think we should do with it?” she asked.
“Maybe we alert Andreas and see if he can help?” Theo said.
Out of nowhere, a bright light pointed directly at them. Both Theo and Dani shielded their eyes.
Fuck.They’d been caught.
Theo had the urge to curse Harold, until the spotlight wasreplaced by a lantern that illuminated the entire cavern and revealed their guests.
Pierre Vautour, Maurice, and Louis.
How? No one knew where they were except Harold. And the chance that he’d somehow been connected to Vautour seemed even more far-fetched than the likelihood that a Minotaur lay in that larnax.
Maurice held the lantern high above his shoulders as Vautour stepped into the room and clapped.
“Bravo, Dr. Galanis. I knew you’d succeed,” Vautour said.
As much as he wanted to give Dani the credit for the find, now wasn’t the time.
“How did you find us?” Theo asked, in fighting stance.
“You didn’t think I’d let my most important asset travel around Greece without some security, did you? Maurice and Louis could only do so much,” Vautour said, like that providedanysort of explanation. “Your medallion,” he then offered, motioning to the gold chain that hung around Theo’s neck.
Theo’s hand shot to the necklace that he’d worn for almost the entirety of his adult life, feeling the pendant between his fingers.
“I replaced it with a new one with tracking inside it some months ago,” Vautour explain. “I’ve kept tabs on you since day one, though we lost you a few times when the signal was a bit spotty.”
Since day one? So Theo never had a chance. He never would have been able to get away, not as long as he wore the necklace. The necklace his papou had left to him after he’d died.
Theo’s arm jerked forcefully, ripping the chain from his neck and tossing it in the dirt.
“Where is mine?” he asked, trying to hold himself together.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think we got rid of it, didn’t we, Maurice?” Vautour asked.
“Probably,” Maurice said.
“That was my grandfather’s,” Theo said.
“Oops.” Vautour shrugged.
Theo clenched his fists. God, he wanted to punch him. Both of them.
“Anyway,” Vautour continued, clearly not giving one shit about Theo’s papou, “we saw you seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time at the Acropolis today and figured we might as well see what you were up to. Maurice always suspected that you knew more than what you were telling him. Now, open it.”
Vautour pointed to the larnax.
“No,” Theo said.
Vautour sighed. “I’m getting really tired of you thinking you have the upper hand here.”
