The girls tried to get together for lunch on Fridays when they could. Having all of them in the same room was a rarity these days, and now there was a new woman to welcome to the tradition. He was pleased they’d invited her. Hisbellezahad never had girlfriends inher life, so to see her spend time with them, smiling and laughing, was a gift. With Gem leaving tomorrow with the Mythos crew, and Kubrick probably jetting off to a new movie location soon, now that Waters was back and recovering, there was no way they were going to miss an opportunity today.
By the sounds of the snorting, giggling, and shrieking, Flame had clearly gotten the advanced reader copies of her new book because the girls were doing a read-aloud—Kubrick as the male voices, Gem as the female voices, and Mouse as the narration. And good lord… it was a sex scene.
After all the good stuff had been read, Midas muted the volume and sent it to a side screen so he could use the big monitor for his findings.
“Have fun acting that one out, big guy?” Nemo teased. He threw a NikNak up in the air and caught it in his mouth.
“We don’t test every sex scene she writes,” TB grumbled.
“No, you just help her create them,” Midas threw back at him. “Don’t even bother to lie. She tells the girls everything.”
“Well, again, it’s not every one of them. She gets the public scenes she does from Gem and Nemo.”
“Happy to be of creative service anytime to my Rapunzel,” Nemo quipped, using his nickname for Flame.
The men laughed good-naturedly.
Midas returned to work mode the fastest. “So I got word from Loki and Gilgamesh. Apparently, our fearless leader disappeared in Bariloche to chase after one snake-eyed Mythos contractor who also fled the scene.”
Steel had found out a few days after waking up at home that when Demon and the rest of the party got to the boat in the cove, Medusa was nowhere to be found. She’d left a note telling them she was following a lead and that they should head to the rendezvous without her. God must have seen her somewhere and followed.
“So where are they?”
“Her tracker stopped working in Ministro Pistarini InternationalAirport. They managed to follow him as far as Switzerland, then his went offline.”
Looking around the room, TB asked, “Should we be concerned?”
“Loki says no, both are fine. They’re back at home base, but they brought home a souvenir.” He hit a key on his keyboard, and on the main telescreen, a picture of Andres Deschamps, one of the missing pieces in the puzzle from St. Lucia, filled the screen.
“Where did they find him?”
“He actually found them. Mythos has a chalet in Switzerland—looks like something out of a Dracula movie—and he just waltzed right up to the door.”
“What’s his story?”
“The kid claims Zion dragged him off in all the chaos in St. Lucia, then threatened him at gunpoint. Self-preservation kept him compliant at first. Turns out he’s really good with computers, and Zion needed him for help. Andres ditched Zion just before the incident at General Howard’s old family home. Some of the artifacts actually belonged to his family, and he, along with quite a few other Salieri members, was using Daleyza’s family home as a form of storage locker.”
“So that’s how they found out about the Salieri way back when.”
“Exactly. Now, Andres has offered up his services to Mythos. He’ll tell them everything he knows in exchange for a job and protection. He’s already given up information on a second Nazi cache he knows about and volunteered to focus on tracking down others he says are out there, funding Salieri members, including the elusive General Howard.”
“God trust him?” Demon grunted. “He may have ‘helped,’ but I don’t know if I’m ready to.”
“Boss is cautiously optimistic, it seems. He’s got the kid working on stuff, but he’s supervised at all times, and everything’s double- and triple-checked before it’s acted on. I think he’s on the up-and-up.”
Demon grunted. “We’ll see.”
“Well, for now, the three of them, and whatever staff they have atthe gothic horror they have out there in the mountains, are working on tracing those leads.”
“What about General Howard and our mystery man?”
Nemo cracked his bubble gum. “That’s where we’re headed. We’re dropping Ka-Bar off with Zahra and their son, then following a lead to Iceland. Facial recognition got a hit on what we think is Howard. It’s only seventy-some percent confirmed, but it’s the best we’ve got right now. And…” he drawled, “turns out that Andres pinpointed a potential Nazi hoard in that area.”
“He’s looking for funds to take him to the next location,” Demon guessed.
“Yup. We figure he picks up an artifact, puts it up for sale on the dark web, secures a buyer, then uses the proceeds to land somewhere for a while. Transfers the cash through however many banks in however many countries. Money is so clean by the time he gets it, it’s easy to stay invisible. But he’s on the run, and people on the run get tired and make mistakes. We’ll catch him eventually.”
“And our mystery man?” Steel asked.
