Brody lugged over another tub filled with the muriatic solution to wash the coins they’d brought to the surface earlier. Callie, Leslie, and Brody had tagged and assigned ID numbers to this morning’s artifacts. They’d logged the DGPS coordinates, as well as bottom terrain and depth, then entered everything into the Cutter Salvage database. The squared centers were lined up to be photographed in individual, labeled clear-plastic bags before they packed them to ship.
Brody came up behind her, resting his hand on Callie’s shoulder. “Hungry?”
He smelled strongly of beer and mouthwash. She shifted out of reach, concentrating on the task at hand. Washing the silver and gold pieces from the junk’s storeroom was a mindless task. But there were a lot of them, and they’d be the first thing transported back to Cutter Cay in the morning. The rest of the artifacts would need days, if not weeks more processing so she could actually see what she had. The artifact with the gear was her top priority. She couldn’t wait to dig into it and uncover what centuries had hidden. “The sandwiches will hold me until dinner,” she said absently. Her hands moved independently from her mind, which was on what the object could possibly be.
Ji Li.
“I thought Jonah wanted you to work exclusively on Atlantis.” Brody leaned his hip on the table beside where Callie worked, watching her fill individual cups with the muriatic-acid-and-water solution to begin dissolving the concretion around the next batch of coins.
The room suddenly darkened as if someone had pulled a blind over the sunlight streaming through the window. She didn’t care for Brody, no matter how hard she tried to push aside old prejudices. “I get paid either way, and we don’t know what city that is. Not yet. And I enjoy exploring a shipwreck just as much as you guys do.”
She’d spent several hours diving the Ji Li with Leslie, and in turn Les had joined her nearby as she searched for artifacts from the city.
Callie found nothing nearly as exciting as the statue head and the gear—lump—but Leslie had handed her a shard of pottery she found, and Callie had it propped up on her worktable to admire the still-fresh colors. Now it was safely photographed and documented and out so she could enjoy it as she worked. The blue swirls and images of birds on the creamy background were a fragment of a vase, she thought. Part of some ancient someone’s daily life.
Now that she’d found some real, datable artifacts, she felt as though she was earning the exorbitant amount Jonah was paying her.
It was possible that the coins came from spillage from the Ji Li, but as encrusted as they were it was impossible to tell yet. The junk, for now, was far more orderly and concrete than some amorphous city that may or may not be the fabled Atlantis. Callie knew she’d go kicking and screaming until she had absolutely undeniable proof that the city was Atlantis.
Until she cleaned the rest of her artifacts, the coins and the broken piece of vase were precious finds and she was going to enjoy every moment she had with them.
“No city?” Brody raised a brow. “Roads, sewage systems, and courtyards? Even to my untrained eye that makes up, if not a city, a civilized town.”
“I didn’t say it isn’t a city. I’m still not convinced it’s Atlantis,” Callie pointed out, her gaze out the window at the unexplainable dusk. “Is that fog?” She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. It had been eighty degrees a few hours ago when they’d come back on board.
Brody twisted his mouth in disbelief, then turned to the window before looking back at her. “Yeah, it is. Thick, too.” He leaned his elbow on the sill, peering through the glass. “Holy crap, did you see that?”
“No. Was that lightning?” The crack of lightning snapped and she mentally counted, waiting for a clap of thunder, but it never came.
Looking concerned, Leslie joined him at the window. “Weird. Unusual for this time of year, isn’t it?”
“Unusual for the time of year, the time of day, and the temperature, sure.” Callie settled a coin in each container. “Brody, will you go ask the captain if there’s a weather front coming in? Maybe we should lock things down.” Suddenly the fog lit up with a bluish glow; this time, she did see it.
“Well, that answers the question. Electrical storm.” She carefully rinsed a silver coin with a worn edge.
Leslie stepped back from the window. “What if we get hit?”
Callie watched the jagged blue streaks light up the clouds crowding against the window. “Salt water is an excellent ground. I wouldn’t go on the top deck holding aloft a golf club, however,” she told the other two drily. “If you stay clear of the window you’ll be fine. It’s actually quite lovely.”
“I hope the guys get back soon.” Leslie perched on one of the long tables nearby. “I want to show them the lava tube cave and get Jonah’s take on those steps.”
Callie pulled off her gloves, tossing them near the plastic container. In her experience, storms like this one never lasted long. Beautiful, deadly if people lacked common sense—something Jonah Cutter had in spades. She wasn’t worried about them. Not really. Not a lot. Hardly at all.
She wished Jonah would get back; she didn’t like thinking of the guys out in a storm in the relatively small Riva. She slid off her stool. “Why don’t we talk to the captain—see on the weather station how big this thing is.”
“I like a good plan,” Brody said with alacrity. “Let’s all go and see what she has to tell us.”
In the few minutes it took to get to the wheelhouse, the white fog grew so thick Callie could see neither the stern nor prow of the ship. The flashes of light in the clouds grew more frequent and spectacular.
“Wow. Hi, Captain, ever see anything like this?” Callie asked as they walked in to see Maura and Gayle talking. It wasn’t a romantic chat if their posture was any indication.
The captain and first mate might be married, but Callie hadn’t seen Maura and Gayle display any overt romantic gestures beyond a look.
Maura frowned, pulled away from their discussion. “The only time I’ve seen fog like this was in San Francisco a couple of years ago, remember, Gay? It shouldn’t be here.”
“That was fog and low-lying stratus clouds,” Gayle pointed out, tapping the instruments as one would kick a car tire. “Lightning storms at sea are really rare,” she told Callie and the others. “Except when you’re in coastal water twenty or so miles from shore. This is a first for me, too. Let’s get Thanos up here to run some diagnostics when this is over. Hopefully all systems will return to full functionality. If things are wonky afterward, someone will have to go and get parts.”
“We have the backup generator if we need it,” Maura reminded her. “But let’s see how the storm plays out. This might only last an hour or three. Thanos is with Jonah and the guys, remember? Let me call Dell up here to see if he can figure out what’s wrong.” Dell Quist was both deckhand and second engineer.
The captain called him, then turned to lean against the table. “Wonky?” she repeated, a smile in her voice. “Is that your professional opinion as my first officer?” Maura’s pinkie brushed her wife’s for a second as their hands lay side by side on the mahogany table edge.
It was a sweet gesture that spoke volumes about the two women’s relationship.
“Look how dense it is. It’s as if we dropped off the end of the world,” Gayle observed.
“I’m more worried about the electrical component. It seems to be impacting our instruments,” Maura muttered. The fog pressed against the windows, obliterating everything beyond the glass. Streaks of condensation trailed rivulets down the windows, and blue bolts of light streaked like veins through the white outside.
Even though it was warm inside, Callie shivered, the small hairs raising up on her skin in reaction to the electrical energy circulating in the air. “It’s very horror movie, isn’t it?”
“Oh, please!” Leslie shuddered. “That just freaks me out more than I am already. My God, is it hot in here?”
Callie smiled. “Don’t lose it, this isn’t the Twilight Zone. It’s water vapor, not cement—Holy crap!” She jolted as electric blue light filled the room. The wheelhouse was plunged into semi-darkness as every light went out. Her ears buzzed.
“Hell, there go our instruments! The Carnegie curve?” Maura asked Gayle.
“Wrong time and place, but certainly seems like it.”
“What’s a curve?” Brody asked.
Maura tried to get the control panels back online, but the screen remained dark. She cursed under her breath then turned to face the others. “It’s the rhythm of the electrical heartbeat linked with the earth’s rotation, and the way thunderstorms build. But it usually occurs at around seven p.m. GMT when the earth’s atmosphere crescendos to an electrical peak across the globe. Right now it’s not damn well anywhere close to seven p.m., we are not twenty miles off the coast of California, and this fog shouldn’t be here. I have absolutely no explanation for this. I don’t like not knowing things.”
“As Callie said, we aren’t in some weird paranormal warp,” Gayle added. “It’s an electrical storm that will pass. Once it’s done, we’ll see where we are. Switch to auxiliary power, Captain?”
Maura shot her a smile. “Sure, go ahead.”
A second later the lights flickered on. But the instrument panels remained dark. Callie didn’t like the look of that.
“Have you heard from the guys?” she asked. The captain and first mate were cool, calm, and collected, but she had her doubts about Leslie. And Brody also looked spooked. She kept her voice calm, but knowing Jonah and the others were out there, in the relatively small Riva, worried her. A lot. “They have instruments on board, but can they return to Stormchaser blind, with only their instruments to guide them?” Callie wondered what would happen to the much smaller craft if their instruments went wonky, too.
“All four of them are excellent sailors,” the captain assured her. “And I’d trust my life to Jonah to get me out of any tight jam at sea. They’ll be fine.”
“It’ll blow over pretty fast, right?” Brody leaned over the controls to peer outside, as if his vision would part the fog and they’d see blue sky any minute.
“It came in fast,” Maura said. “Hopefully it’ll dissipate just as quickly.”
* * *
Day three. Everyone was restless, eager for the weather to get its shit together. Wasn’t happening. There didn’t look to be any break in the dense fog, or any abatement in the electrical storm, and they were stuck inside with no AC, no lights other than those hooked up to the generator, and no communications.
Jonah had hoped the fog would dissipate within hours of their return to Stormchaser three days ago. It had been no fun running blind. They’d hit the fog four miles off the coast of Fire Island. One moment it had been hot and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, the next they had zero visibility.
Far from dispersing within hours, it was just as thick and mystifying three days later.
Worse, the electrical storm shorted out all their instruments, leaving them functionally useless. Stormchaser was a literal sitting duck at sea. Without GPS and electronics to help them map the city or the wreck waiting down below, or to refill the tanks and gauge depth, all they could do was sit and wait. Riding out this oppressive pea-souper was like floating on the ocean inside a cotton-filled shoe box.
Jonah didn’t share with the others the captain and first officer’s concern that their instruments might not come back online when the storm did finally blow over. Someone was going to have to navigate through the fog, and communicate with the outside world.
He picked himself. The entire dive team had spent the day before processing coins, tagging and assigning identifications numbers in Callie’s lab while she soaked and chipped away a large clump of something mystifying. It was painstaking work weighing, measuring, documenting, and cleaning, but everyone participated despite the thin tempers.
They all wanted to get back under the water; there were things to see and be discovered. Jonah was intrigued by the description of the lava tube and stairs, and was just as eager as everyone else to go down and explore. But he didn’t want anyone outdoors or in the water until the weather changed.
Once the coins spent ten minutes in the acid bath, they were rinsed in water and ready for three or four days in the electrolysis tank, which required a low-voltage current provided by the generator.
Among them, and with Callie looking over shoulders, they processed all the coins they’d found while he was gone. There were several more steps in the process, but that wouldn’t come for days. The crew was restless now.
He strolled across the room, where Callie stood, hair piled in a neat, braided coil on top of her head, up off her neck, he supposed, in deference to the heat. As he came up behind her, Jonah was tempted to run his teeth along the delicate tendons of her nape, and taste the lightly tanned skin on her shoulders, which looked soft and silky. The smell of her damp, coconut-scented skin was like a drug. He shoved his fists in the front pockets of his shorts instead.
“Spanos has an extensive library of ancient documents,” he said quietly as he stepped up beside her. “I need to get somewhere out of this s—”
“Yes!”
Jonah smiled. Because just looking at her flushed cheeks, glowing with the heat, and the way her water-cool eyes lit up was enough to make a rock smile. “You don’t even know what I was going to suggest.” But whatever he suggested he knew yes would always be the correct answer.
“We’re going to Fire Island?”
“We’ll try there first,” he cautioned, not wanting to get her hopes up. The island was more than likely socked in just as they were. “If this weather extends that far, we might have to travel all the way to Crete.”
“I’m game.” She glanced behind him, where the coin cleaning was winding down. “What about the others?”
“They’re better off here. I have no idea what we’re going to encounter out there.” Not that he wanted to go back three days after being on the island, but the second he mentioned the ancient documents he suspected were in that dusty library back on Fire Island, Callie was going to be like a dog with a bone.
And damn it, it was an opportunity to be alone with her. No funny business, just … alone. So sue him.
Pulling off her gloves, she wiped her hands on a towel. “When do you want to go? Now?”
“Too late. The weather might clear tomorrow, which will be safer. Either way, we’ll go in the morning.”
“Perfect. Then while we’re hanging around here with idle hands, start attaching these electrodes to those coins over there.”
Kallistrate Spanos had given Jonah his phone number. But the freakish electrical static in the air put paid to using the phones, and the radio didn’t work. Still, seeing as how Spanos had offered them hospitality to come and get their fresh food from the island, he wasn’t going to wait for an engraved invitation.
Hopefully when he and Callie showed up unannounced, he’d be just as generous with offering the use of his library.
* * *
“Callie and I are going to Fire Island to see if we can get some outside communications, and get some parts the captain thinks she’ll need when this blows over,” Jonah told the others the next morning after breakfast. They were sprawled on the deep sofas in the salon about to watch a movie on the giant screen thanks to the generator. That’s how bored they were.
Callie pushed to her feet. “Now?”
Watching her eat a slice of jam and toast for breakfast earlier had given Jonah a low-down ache that wasn’t going away. If watching a woman eating breakfast turned him on, his mind boggled at seeing any more of Callie than what her T-shirt and shorts exposed. Her hair was braided and hung in a bumpy, glossy rope down her back, neat and no-nonsense, except that the paintbrush tip of said braid almost reached her narrow waist, and seeing it made him think of crumpled sheets, hot sweaty skin, and a mile of silky dark hair wrapped around his body. He was almost tempted to take Anndra up on her offer. Almost.
“It’s as good a time as any,” he told the object of his fantasies. Diving would help. A huge ocean between them would help, physical activity would help, a fucking frontal lobotomy would help. Being on the ship blind and incapacitated did not help.
He’d already logged more miles jogging around the deck than if he’d been in an Ironman race.
Callie’s face lit up. “Give me five minutes to get my shoes.” She dashed out of the room on silent feet, braid bouncing down her back, and Jonah’s scrotum tightened as it always did when she was around. He was starting to get used to the uncomfortable feeling, and the annoying heightened awareness she always brought with her. He was the lamp, Callie the electrical plug.
Everyone was good-natured about the two of them going off without them. Jonah could’ve let any of the others join them Callie. He trusted his chief engineer to get her to and from Fire Island safely. But if anyone was spending the day with her, it would be himself.
He was a glutton for punishment.
By the time Callie got back—a good fifteen minutes at least—Thanos had the Riva running and ready to go. Not that they could even see the smaller boat. They got down to the dive platform more by instinct and feel than by seeing where the hell they were going. Every time they touched metal, they received a snap of electrical charge for their trouble.
“Ouch!” Callie sucked on her thumb and Jonah briefly thought about just tipping himself into the water to cool off.
The generator had allowed Maura and Gayle to electronically contact someone on a weather channel, apparently. “Any updates from that weather services today?” Jonah asked Thanos as they moved through the eerie whiteness of the fog. Even with the retractable hood up as protection from the elements, the fog felt like small, cold, damp, unpleasant fingers trailing across his skin. Static electricity pinched when he touched anything conducting electricity.
The whole trip was turning into an interesting character study of himself. He didn’t do a lot of belly-button psychology. He’d never been superstitious, never had a particularly active imagination, unless it had something to do with a ship he was designing. Nor did he usually get “feelings” from people or places. But apparently his imagination was working overtime on this salvage.
“It wasn’t a weather service,” Thanos grumbled. “I think the captain managed to get ahold of some kid on a shortwave radio. Whoever he is, he said he’d check.” Thanos pulled his windbreaker collar up around his jaw and hunched his shoulders. “He got back to us half an hour ago. Line was crackling, and sounded fried, but the gist, according to him, was that three reporting stations say there is never this kind of fog bank in this area.” He sounded very Greek as he spoke. He was spooked, and attempting not to show it.
“Someone should come and see it for themselves,” Callie said into the oddly muffling miasma. Moisture beaded on her hair and made her skin look even dewier than usual. She’d changed into jeans and a royal-blue windbreaker, which made her eyes look more deep sea than shallow water.
Jonah wanted to snuggle up with her in the protection of the hood. He wanted the right to hold her close, and warm her body with his …
Fuck. He stared blindly into the blank white world through the windshield. It was good to want things. And God only knew, one rarely got what one wanted, not without a boatload of hard work. Which he’d be more than willing to do, if there wasn’t the small matter of a loving husband waiting for her back home.
Too bad all his wants and needs would have to go unfulfilled. Live with it, buddy.
He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his own jacket and hunched his shoulders, hands fisted to prevent the overwhelming need to grab her. “It’s probably just an anomaly, too low lying to register.”
“It should register,” Thanos said mutinously. “It should alert the weather people. It’s odd, and while unprecedented, their instruments surely should have registered what we can all see plainly with our own fucking eyes. Excuse me, Doctor.”
“Can’t last fo…” Jonah stepped forward. “Well, shit, look at that.” Fire Island appeared ahead of them like a mirage, bathed in brilliant sunshine from a clear, cloudless sky.
Callie looked over her shoulder. “Look behind us.”
Jonah turned. The fog was like a solid mass behind them, yet he felt the heat of the sun hot on his face.
“I’ve never seen anything like this.” Callie came to stand beside him, her sleeve brushing his. “We are in the Twilight Zone.”
“Weird, all right. Let’s ask our host about it. He’s lived here all his life. If anyone knows it’ll be Spanos.”
The ancient-looking fishing boat was tied up where it had been a couple of days before. When the craft bumped the cement wall, Jonah jumped out, then held out his hand to help Callie.
“We’re probably going to be here awhile,” he told Thanos. “Want to hang out here in the sun, or head back to Stormchaser?”
The chief engineer scanned the hillside, then glanced back at Jonah. “Mḕ kheíron béltiston,” he said drily.
“And that means?”
“The least bad choice is the best. I’ll head back. How long you think you need?”
Jonah glanced at Callie, who was looking around, taking it all in. “Four hours?”
“A whole library? At least.”
Jonah glanced at Thanos. “Four hours, but bring something to entertain yourself in case we stay longer.”
Thanos saluted, then angled the boat away from the cement dock. The Riva was clearly visible until it was … not.
“We head this way. Watch your step, the ground is sandy and littered with rocks.” He would’ve taken her hand. A chivalrous gesture Jonah would’ve offered his mother or grandmother. Callie was neither. And if he got hold of her hand he’d never fucking let go. He kept a cautious eye on her as she picked her way up to where scrub grass and shrubs made footing safer.
Callie shaded her eyes to look up at the off-center volcano. “When did your new friends say that last erupted?”
“Spanos didn’t appear to know. He deferred to one of the old guys. He said twelve something.”
“So it could’ve sunk Ji Li. You said Spanos didn’t know about her sinking, right? Then why do you think there could be writing about it in his library.”
“Frankly, I’m not even sure it is his library.”
She looked over at him, so Jonah saw himself reflected in her glasses. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“He said he and his sister consider this home, but he’s hardly ever here. And I get the feeling the old guys don’t much like either Spanos. He was pretty vague about what we’d find in the books, and from the amount of dust on the shelves, I doubt anyone has opened any of them in years. Maybe more than a few years. But that’s not what interests me, and you know it. I want to see what we can find about our city. If it is Atlantis, people living this close to it would know about it.”
“Especially in those days.” Callie paused to look around, skin dewy with perspiration. “If Atlantis existed, and if that is Atlantis down there, it would’ve been a major seaport. Trade ships would’ve been coming and going. Any writing or verbal histories passed down through the generations would have descriptions and details. God, I can’t wait to see what we uncover. It’ll be incredible if he allows us free access.”
If Spanos didn’t, Jonah figured he’d have four hours alone with Callie on a picturesque island. He’d had worse days.
“I think he’s trying to buy my favors so I take his sister off his hands,” Jonah said drily, observing the two black robed men waited for them at the top of the hill. They must be lookouts.
“Is she eighty like the men who visited the ship the other day?”
“Nope. Mid-twenties.”
Callie shook her head. “What twenty-something woman wants to live on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere? Are there any other women living here?”
Jonah shrugged. “Didn’t see any, now that I come to think of it.”
“No wonder he wants you to take her off his hands, poor girl.”
Jonah frowned. “I’d reserve judgment on the ‘poor girl’ until you meet her. Our transportation is waiting up ahead.”
Callie looked up to see the men and the donkeys. “Cute. But I’d prefer to walk.”
“Same here.”
The two old men insisted that they ride, but Jonah was equally insistent that they walk. He remembered the way, so they wouldn’t get lost. After several minutes of back-and-forth in his poor Greek, the men agreed to let them walk.
“Is everyone who lives here as old as Methuselah?” Callie asked as they started off up the first incline.
“Everyone I’ve seen so far, except for Spanos and his sister.”
“Doesn’t look as if anyone lives here.”
“There’s a small settlement tucked between the hills at the foot of the volcano. Maybe twenty houses. They seem self-sustained. They have communal plots for fruit and vegetables. Some chickens and sheep. Clearly they fish.”
“Doesn’t sound like the kind of place a man would bring his sister to live. How old is he?”
“Forty, maybe? I’m not great at judging someone’s age, but he’s about four decades younger than anyone else around.”
“I wonder what he does with himself here?”
Jonah shrugged. “Not a clue. We’ll ask. He’s some kind of cosmetics-something.”
“This is an odd place for a cosmetics-something to hang out, isn’t it?”
“It’s all odd,” Jonah told her drily. “Ever hear of Hebe Cosmetics? He’s listed as CEO on his business card, with addresses in Athens, New York, and London.”
“Never heard of them. But that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t wear makeup that often. And all those addresses don’t mean anything, either. With an Internet connection and a mailbox, anyone can look like a mogul.”
“Yeah. Exactly what I thought.”
It took less time to get to the small village the second time. Certainly it was quicker on foot than on the donkeys.
“This whole place looks like it’s camouflaged,” Callie observed quietly as they walked up to the front door of the largest house on the island. The house was right on the dirt path, with just a narrow skirt of weedy grass where a chicken pecked for its breakfast.
“Have you noticed how quiet it is?” Callie’s voice was pitched low. “No sounds of humans, or animals, or even birdsong.”
“My thoug—Anndra, good morning.” It was barely nine, and she was wearing a low-cut, glittery black sweater, gold jeans, and high-heeled sandals.
“Jonah. I was so happy when they told me you were—Who is this?”
Callie held out her hand. “Dr. Calista West. It’s nice t—”
“You didn’t say you’d be bringing a woman.” It sounded both accusatory and petulant. She ignored Callie’s outstretched hand.
“Callie is our marine archaeologist. She has an even greater interest than I do in your brother’s papers. Are you going to let us in, or should we wait for your brother out here?”
Wordlessly, Anndra widened the heavy wood door and stood back. Jonah ushered Callie ahead of him.
“Kall is busy. We’re both busy. But I’ll let him know you are here. Wait in the library,” Anndra said flatly, all fake niceties gone. “You know the way.”
“Charming,” Callie said under her breath. “She might be best in show, but she needs her distemper shots.”
Jonah grinned.
Callie looked around, clearly having already forgotten the other woman. “I wonder how old this house is? Architectural design hasn’t changed much in this region for hundreds of years, if not thousands. This looks as if it’s been here for centuries.”
“I suspect so,” Jonah said quietly. There was no one around, but walls always had ears. They strode down the dark hallway, but after turning a corner ran into Small.
“Good day, Kyrie Cutter. You are here to visit my—Kallistrate’s very fine library?” Small asked, his voice cordial enough.
“We are. And happy to be allowed to do so. Callie, this is Bion Eliades. Dr. Calista West from Miami.”
“Despinis.” Eliades bowed his head respectfully, then gestured with a pale, plump hand for them to follow him. He was wide enough to plug the corridor ahead, which meant they plodded slowly behind him. The hem of his robe made a soft, rasping sound on the tile floor, and his sandals made a small snap as he walked.
Jonah stepped closer to Callie as the hair on the back of his neck lifted for no apparent reason.