Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

“Gabriel,” he said reluctantly.

“I knew it,” the man said. “I do know you. Gabriel Hunt, right? Darling, you remember, that book with the Phoenician temple art. You wrote that, right?”

“No,” Gabriel said.

“But I recognize you, from the photo on the back.”

“I just wrote the introduction,” Gabriel said. “The publisher slapped my picture on it. Now, I’m sorry but I really have to go—”

“So soon?” came another voice, and a second woman walked out from behind the nearer of the columns with the fearsome head of Medusa carved at the base. She was slender—no, more than that, she was skinny, almost gaunt; even in the red-tinged light Gabriel could see that her skin was pale, her cheeks hollow. She wore her dark hair chopped in a spiky pixie cut with ragged bangs and had a row of four or five silver rings in each earlobe. A tattoo of a serpent with a flicking tongue trailed down her throat, its tail disappearing beneath her chin. She was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, both of which looked battered enough that they probably wouldn’t survive another laundering, which made it just as well that they didn’t seem likely to get one any time soon. Her heavy boots added at least three inches to her height, but even so she only came to Gabriel’s chin. Over one shoulder was slung the strap of a bulging canvas satchel whose contents looked like they might weigh almost as much as she did.

But none of these things about her were what made Gabriel take a step back in disbelief.

He did that because he recognized her.

“The famous Gabriel Hunt,” she said. “Stay a while, why don’t you? Greet your fans.”

“Lucy?” Gabriel said, and a wicked smile crossed her face.

“Cifer,” she said.

“Excuse us, please,” Gabriel said and pulled his sister by the arm toward an empty section of the cistern.

“That wasn’t very polite,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” she said. “For now. You’re the one who’s dropping in out of nowhere and heading right back out an hour later.”

“Does Michael know…?”

“What, that the mysterious guy who’s been helping him out with one thing or another for the past two years is his kid sister? Not a chance. And you’re not going to tell him, either. Not if you ever want to get your e-mail delivered again.”

“I don’t have e-mail.”

She rolled her eyes. “Figures. Fine. If you don’t want a tax audit each year for the next decade. Computers are powerful things, Gabriel.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Well, don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of telling Michael. It would break his heart.”

She looked off to one side. “He wouldn’t care.”

“Are you kidding? He hasn’t seen his sister in nine years, hasn’t heard from her, not a letter, not a call—as far as he knows. If he found out you’ve been playing him for a fool—”

“That’s not fair,” she said. “I’ve been helping him.”

“You’ve been lying to him.”

“Helpfully,” Lucy said.

Gabriel shook his head. He gave her a long look, taking her in from head to toe. “What’s happened to you? You haven’t been eating well.”

“I eat fine,” she said. “Just, you know, vegan. It’s a bitch getting your protein. But on the other hand the food’s cheap.”

“Cheap?” Gabriel said. He lowered his voice. “My god, Lucy, you shouldn’t be worried about money. You could have all the money you want—more than you could want—”

“Not that money. I don’t want it. It’s theirs, not ours.”

Gabriel put a hand on her shoulder but she shook it off. “They’re dead,” he said gently.

“They’re missing, ” she said.

“It’s been nine years,” Gabriel said.

“It’s been nine years since you saw me, too. Am I dead?”

“Pretty close,” Gabriel said. “Look at you.” He pulled her heavy bag off her shoulder, slung it over his. She let him. “Come on. I’m buying you a proper meal.” Then he remembered he had no cash left. He went through a mental list of places he knew in the area that would be open at midnight and where the proprietor might throw the bill away. “Devrim. He’ll feed you.”

She followed him up the stairs to street level. “No meat,” she warned. He didn’t say anything. “Did you hear me? I’m serious. Not on my plate, not on yours, or I’m walking.”

“All right, princess,” Gabriel said.

“Call me that again and—”

“I know,” Gabriel said, “you’re walking.”

“No,” Lucy said. “Call me that again and you’re not walking, because I’ll break both your legs.”

They stared each other down. Then a crooked grin crept onto Gabriel’s face and, reaching out, he pulled her into a hug. After a moment, he could feel her thin arms digging hard into his back.

“My god, Lucy, it’s so good to see you again.”

She burrowed her forehead into his chest. When she spoke he could barely make out the words. “Why couldn’t you find them?”

He stroked back her hair. “I tried, Lucy. I tried.”

Devrim’s place was off Tevkifhane Street, up a flight of stairs. You couldn’t see it from outside. You just had to know it was there.

The big man greeted Gabriel warmly, slapping a meaty paw on either side of Gabriel’s hand and shaking vigorously. Then he turned to Lucy. “And who is this creature you bring to me, this starved thing? We fatten her up, no?”

“Gabriel—” she said, but he shushed her. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped one foot.

“This is my sister,” Gabriel told Devrim.

“Ah. My apologies, miss. Any relative of Gabriel’s…” His voice trailed off. “Sit, I bring wine.”

They took a table in the corner farthest from the door and turned a pair of high-backed wooden chairs to screen them from view. Not that there was anyone else here at the moment, and not that Devrim himself would pry, but—

When Lucy began unpacking the satchel, Gabriel felt a bit like a surgical trainee on his first day in the OR, watching the doctors lay out instruments of which he didn’t even know the names, much less the functions. He sipped from the fat-bellied goblet of wine Devrim had brought and watched Lucy hook cables from this device to that, looked on as a little screen flickered to life and text began racing across it. “Spill that wine on anything you see and you’re a dead man,” Lucy said, her fingers darting nimbly over a keyboard.

“Not a problem,” Gabriel said, and drained the glass.

It was good wine. Devrim always managed to get his hands on the best.

“So Michael says you need a phone number traced,” Lucy said. “You’ve got what, a cell phone that called the number?”

“I’ve got a broken cell phone,” Gabriel said, “that was called by the number.” He took Andras’ phone from his pocket, set it down, and slid it across the scarred wooden surface of the table. Lucy looked at it. The screen had a jagged crack down its center and the phone’s hinged top half hung lopsidedly from the bottom. Lucy pressed the power button a couple of times and nothing happened.

“You don’t make things easy, do you?”

“Rarely,” Gabriel said.

Lucy pried open a panel at the back of the phone, popped out the battery, and dug around inside the body of the phone. She slapped it twice, hard, against the heel of her hand, as though trying to jar something loose, then went digging again.

“Go talk to your friend,” she said, not looking at him as she poked at the phone’s innards. “I’m going to be a while.”

“Okay,” Gabriel said. “Take your time.”

He found Devrim at the top of the stairs, smoking a long, thin, brown cigarette, the heavy smell of Turkish tobacco hanging in the corridor.