Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

“So...are we expecting Ancients or Fish-People?” Rick yelled into his headset over the roar of the loaned helicopter’s rotor blades above. The helicopter swung low across the vast expanse of ocean below, the heat shimmer blurring the line of the horizon. The sun continued to beat down from above, washing the surface of the sea with gleams of perfect white. Andrew sat in the seat next to him, crouched in the small ‘seating space’ in the back of the helicopter. Unfortunately, none of them quite had Angel’s ability to fly. Sandy had been working on it – with no success thus far.

“Neither,” Andrew explained, “In fact, I don’t even think we’re going to find Atlantis.”

“Then why are we here?” he asked. The din was almost deafening but thanks to the headphones there was at least some two-way communication.

“According to his most recent research Nate had become obsessed with the explorer Diego Juarez,” he explained, “He was a seventeenth-century explorer specialising in early underwater exploration. He was rumoured to have found the Lost Library of Alexander the Great – several artefacts which flooded the black market around the time point to the rumours being true. Unfortunately, before he could tell anyone his ship was sunk in a great storm – given Nate’s speciality I’m thinking he’s found that ship.”

“Then why the hell are we going there? Are we building a collection or something?” Rick countered, feeling his head ringing a little.

“The location his ship is anchored at is the site of a dormant underwater volcano,” Andrew explained, “Two thousand years ago that volcano would have breached the surface of the water forming a small island. There is only one reason I can think of for Juarez’s ship to be out there is if that island was, as I believe, the location of the Lost Library of Alexander the Great. It would explain why it was lost – between the rising sea levels and occasional volcanic activity.”

“You’re taking us to a volcano...and a library?” Rick asked, blandly, feeling his enthusiasm slipping away.

“Look if the ship has coins from this supposed Atlantis on there, it may have other artefacts,” he explained, “If I’m right, and Juarez was sunk while actually at the Lost Library, then there may be other things there as well. Now in the final years of his reign, it was noted that he found something, a map which he believed would lead them to the location of The City of the Lost, ancient-speak for Atlantis. After finding this, he ordered his Library sealed with the map inside – never to be opened again.”

“So you want us to go down into the water to visit a submerged Spanish explorer’s ship to search it and if possible, the Lost Library of Alexander the Great for a map which will lead us ceremoniously to Atlantis?” Rick clarified.

“Simply put.”

“And when do we call Harrison Ford?” Andrew rolled his eyes, “No, really, I want to know because I think he’d be pissed if we didn’t.”

“What happened to your belief in weird things?” Andrew challenged.

“Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t believe it, I just figure we’re jumping the shark rather early in our career as superheroes.”

Thinking back, Rick had rather been the least vocal of the opposition to the idea that they had uncovered evidence of Atlantis. Sandy had naturally reacted with scepticism, Louise and Ben (understandably) with wearied surprise, Ruth and Angel both with a strange form of stoic contemplative silence. After a brief conversation not too unlike the one they were having again in the helicopter to fill the silence, Andrew had laid out his belief that if the coin was a remnant from a lost city and not some ancient version of a joke, and that if it was indeed the New Order who were attempting to find it then it must have a connection to the Temple Builders. And if there was one thing they didn’t want the New Order to have – it was anything connected to the Temple Builders.

After a brief discussion about who would go (in which he had pointed out that Sandy would fizzle, Angel would be unable to fly underwater and Louise would freckle too much) he and a reluctant Andrew were the chosen ones. So he had driven himself and Andrew to the airport and they were in the air less than an hour later. Rick didn’t like to think about the favours Ruth would have had to call in to get them emergency clearance for the third time in the space of forty-eight hours, perhaps it was best not to kiss and tell, but they’d arrived in Gibraltar only a couple of hours later and were on the helicopter less than an hour after that. It had taken them a further hour to get so far out across the ocean and they were nearly there.

“How much further?” he asked Andrew above the constant thwump-thwump.

“Should be just up ahead.”

Sure enough, as they pounded low across the ocean the boat they’d been looking for appeared on the horizon. She was anchored, Rick could see that even from their current distance, bobbing slightly with the chop of the water. He could see no movement on the sleek deck however, it seemed as dead and lifeless as a ghost ship. It reminded him of a mix of a Bond-villains’ boat and the Mary Celeste.

“How are you guys going to get down?” the pilot finally piped up.

They were close enough by that point for Andrew to do his thing. He disappeared into a thick puff of olive-yellow shimmer and appeared a split second later standing dry and safe on the back of the ship. He held up a hand and waved, so Rick stuck up a finger.

“He likes to show off,” Rick pointed out even as he slid open the side door to the helicopter. He chucked his headset off to one side and leapt out of the open side, performing what was probably his best swan dive as he crashed into the icy depths below with barely a ripple. He could almost hear the stilted shock of the helicopter pilot who would undoubtedly believe he’d snapped his neck by the force of the landing.

A moment later and he used the ladder at the back to climb, dripping wet, from the ocean and onto the boat. He gave a smirk and a thumbs up, then waved him away. Even as he did peel away, Rick and Andrew shared a little look.

“Okay, so what do we do if the boat isn’t drive-worthy?” Rick asked.

“This is why I decided not to get wet,” Andrew pointed out, producing a satellite phone from the clip on his utility belt (Rick’s idea to have a utility belt, the others had mocked).

Rick took a step past him, across the lacquered deck and peered into the cramped and dark control room.

“Looks like no one’s home,” he explained, “Maybe the New Order has already come and gone.”

“Then let’s hope they didn’t find what they were looking for,” Andrew offered and headed past him, towards the steps leading down to the bowels of the ship. He opened the door while Rick remained up top and stepped into the stifled heat of the lower decks. It was more spacious than it looked from the outside but still was pretty dark from the lack of lighting. “Hello?” he called out. There was only silence followed by a whisper of a slight creak.

Suddenly stars exploded in his vision as something thick and heavy connected with the back of his skull with some force. He fell forward, yelling out, feeling someone or something rush past him up the steps back to the top deck. He heard shouting as if from afar and held himself steady under the pain began to dissipate a little and his head began to clear.

“Let go of me you twat!” he heard a woman yell from the deck. He recognized the voice but the murky shadows in his head weren’t giving him access to it.

“I, unlike other men, will hit you,” he heard a man snap. He turned, blinking in the suddenly blindingly harsh sunlight. It wasn’t like that before, was it? He stumbled up the steps, the fog behind his eyes beginning to clear until finally, he saw a struggling woman he recognised as Mia wrapped in a bear hug by Rick, sporting scratch marks on his cheek.

“Bastards!”

“Mia, it’s okay,” Andrew croaked. Finally, her wild eyes locked on him and shook with instant recognition. “It’s me, it’s Andrew.”

“Andrew?” she asked, suddenly quizzically calm. She slowed her struggles and frowned at him, without comprehension. “What the hell are you doing here? Who is this...this...”

“Twat,” Rick supplied.

“Right, who’s the twat holding me?” she asked, now just a woman being held in a bear hug and staring questioningly at an old friend with a cracked skull.

“Dr Rick Carter,” Rick explained, “Could you not scratch me? Makes me look like a pervert.”

“Um, you’re the perv who’s holding me,” Mia snapped back.

“I’m gay but thanks.”

He let her go, allowing her to regain her own feet and look at both of them with suspicious eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she asked them, “Andrew...Dr. Carter, what do you want? And what the hell are you wearing?”

“You know, I dyed these myself,” Rick pointed out, unhelpfully.

“Things are going on, Mia,” Andrew told her, “Some things you probably won’t believe.”

“Is it about the coin Nate found?” she asked. “Why isn’t he with you?”

“Yes, Mia, it’s about the coin,” Andrew agreed, “But I have bad news. Nate’s dead, Mia. He was shot last night.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then stumbled back onto one of the lounge chairs. She held it in for a long time but then she began to sob. Andrew went over and offered comfort, while Rick turned away to the dying splendour of the sunset and left them to it. If there was one thing he believed, it was that grief was private.

* * *

Darkness came shockingly swift on the ocean. They gathered in the small galley under the control room around the scratched oaken table, the blackness surprisingly not total, diffuse starlight coming in through the portholes. They had one light in the room, a low hanging lamp with a dim bulb that provided a bright circle of light, to a small portion of the table.

There was a large bottle of whiskey between them, now half empty, and three tin cups with varying amounts of the devil’s water in them. Rick, Andrew and Mia sat gathered around the table feeling the weight of the day coming off them and the heat likewise rising back to the sky from whence it came.

“How did it happen?” she asked Andrew, her eyes red from the crying and a little puffed up from the drinking.

“He and Dr Nelson were shot,” Andrew explained, “In their office. By the New Order.”

“New Order?” she asked, confused.

“Very bad men,” Rick told her, slurring a little more than intended, “Look, basically that coin points to a five hundred thousand-year-old city built by the Temple Builders, very ancient peoples. And if the bad guys get their hands on what’s inside...” he trailed off a little then decided to elaborate by making an explosion sound. “The world is theirs.”

“You really believe that?”

“Ask lanky, tanned and brooding over there,” he offered.

“It’s true,” Andrew agreed, “God I wish it wasn’t true.”

“And you have powers?”

“I can take a piss without undoing my fly,” Rick boasted.

“That’s called wetting yourself,” Mia countered. She giggled for the first time all night and Rick couldn’t help joining in. Drunken laughter was probably the best type of laughter. Once settled a little, she focused her wavering eyes at Andrew, “You remember Turkey? When we went with Nate?”

“You went on holiday?” Rick asked him, surprised.

“An expedition,” he replied.

“We went to Mount Ararat,” Mia explained, “Took a look at the supposed Noah’s Ark. But then Nate said it wasn’t a Hebrew ship because it wasn’t the right shape. He got chased out of the country by the locals.”

“Just for that?”

“Well, he also slept with the daughter of the leader of the local town...” she explained, “And the three of us belly danced naked in the town hall fountain after too much Ouzo.”

“Andrew, you wild thing,” Rick chided him.

“That’s how I got this,” she said, bringing her right leg up on the table and showing him a thick scar on her calf. “I fell over in the fountain. Had to have eight stitches.”

“That’s nothing,” Rick told her, bending his head over and pulling apart the hair to show her the large ugly white line running there. “That’s where I got hit by falling rock while the Temple collapsed. I don’t even remember how many stitches, but it made me red-green colour blind.”

“Oh please,” she muttered and opened her shirt to reveal a large scar on the right-hand side of her chest near her right boob. “I got this by getting caught in a rockslide in King Ramses the seventh’s tomb. Punctured my lung.”

“Oh please, I was dead when the New Order headquarters blew up and lost ninety-nine per cent of my skin to charred flesh,” he told her. She looked at him a little sceptically despite the drink, “I got better.”

She chuckled and took another swig as did he. He was feeling decidedly drunk by that point, enough so that the subtle whimsy which was normally suppressed through his normal life was somewhat reduced. He glanced over to Andrew who was remaining noticeably quiet.

“What about you, Andrew?” he asked him, “There any scars you wanna share?”

“Too many,” was his reply. Their eyes connected for a moment and Rick felt the pointed silence of things unsaid hanging between them.

“You know, I think we’d best get to sleep,” Rick told them. “I don’t know about you two, but I think that’s not what it says on the tin.”

“There’s a hammock in the back,” Mia told him.

“Darlin’, I think you’re gonna be a shtar...” he replied, throwing on a thick Casablanca accent before he toddled off to bed. Mia reached out and squeezed Andrew’s hand before they both (separately) retired for the night.