Chapter 12
As we slice silently through the waters of the Strait of Messina, I stare out of the helm window.
Tears prick behind my eyes. I thought so once before, but never truly believed it until now: I have to accept the fact that I cannot go home.
Not when the God Men can track us in an unmarked boat over water.
And since I can’t go home, I need to get somewhere safe and trusted.
If my nonna and her friendship with Arturo are to be believed, the only safe place in the entire world is where Bes and Cec claim they’re taking me.
Whatever secrets they keep, can be their own, as long as it doesn’t put me in peril.
Nonna requires earned faith from her acquaintances, just as I do; she’s who I learned it from.
The telegram Bes showed me at the Temple of Seti I proves her trust in Arturo and Bes, at the very least. And Cec handing me Nonna’s ring, which currently presses against my leg deep inside my pocket, proved his worth.
If they’re bringing me somewhere I’ll be safe—and, if I’m lucky, a place with texts on the Amulet of Amun—like they claim, then I’ll be alright.
Though I do wish I understood why Arturo’s acquaintances have become so comfortable with death. It irks me more now than before, when I watched Bes murder Klaus at the museum. After watching Ailsa sacrifice herself rather than get caught…
“Did Ailsa truly sacrifice her life for the Amulet of Amun?” I ask. The pendant practically hums beneath my shirt at the mention of it.
“Yes and no,” Bes answers. “Unbeknownst to us, we were all marked before the boat docked. The God Men must’ve known someone with her description was traveling with us. Otherwise, the OVRA soldiers wouldn’t have recognized us so quickly. Or been at the docks at all, for that matter.”
I consider this. “Then we were spotted at Alexandria before we departed.”
“It’s the only explanation,” Bes confirms.
“And these supposed secrets that she was willing to die for?” I prod once more. “Do they have to do with the amulet?”
Bes stiffens. “That’s between Ailsa and Arturo.”
Just like the truth the two of you are keeping from me? Maybe that truth is about how his uncle is so connected that he can send his friends and family all the way to Egypt to assist me. Even procuring a damned yacht to do so.
Bes allows for a heavy pause. The rumbling of the boat engine cuts through the silence, until he speaks again.
“You mentioned Claude passed on the legend of the amulet, that the Thule Society believes it possesses ancient Egyptian magic to cause the wearer to be invisible.”
I nod, though it wasn’t a question.
“What if I told you it was true?”
The amulet warms gently against my chest. I never thought I’d hear my fantasies confirmed, yet I’m still having trouble believing them.
“I’d call you certifiable.”
He straightens. “And you’d be well within your rights to do so.”
When he doesn’t expound, I ask, “So, what you’re telling me is, magic is real?”
“Magic is an… antiquated word for it,” Bes explains vaguely.
I raise a brow. Maybe he is certifiable.
Though I don’t see any signs of insanity in him, I struggle to surmise if he’s telling the truth this time.
If magic were real, wouldn’t I know about it?
I’ve been to dozens of places around the world, and none of the artifacts we found contained any magic.
They claimed to, of course, but they always remained inanimate objects after we got our hands on them.
“Our entire existence is antiquated, mate,” Cec counters. Bes shoots him a look he can’t appreciate.
“Well?” I prod, not letting my question go unanswered.
Bes swallows hard, his brow furrowed, gaze refusing to meet mine. “I don’t know any more about the amulet than you do. We’ll have to see what Arturo’s collection of literature might tell us when we get there.”
For Christ’s sake. “Then why bring it up at all?”
He finally meets my eyes, gaze hooded. “Because there’s so much more to this world than you realize, and you deserve to know everything. I want to tell you. We want to tell you,” he explains softly. “But it’s not our place.”
I don’t believe him. Perhaps Bes and Cec are deflecting to hide something else from me. Something worse.
“Let’s say magic is real, that the amulet has the ability to summon the power of heka with the appropriate incantation.
No amount of magic in this world can account for how cavalier you both are about death,” I argue.
“Bes, you watched me kill Claude, and you murdered Klaus without hesitation. And Ailsa…”
I cut myself off, throat thickening at the reminder.
Instead of responding, Bes glances back at his cousin. “Cec? A moment?”
Cec follows the sound of his voice to his side, and Bes places his hands on the wheel. “Just keep it steady.”
Cec nods, a seriousness I’ve never seen before evening his brow and his lips, his chin jutting out slightly.
When Bes leaves the helm for the stern of the boat without another word, disappointment lingers inside me. Then, he glances back over his shoulder and cocks his head to follow.
After giving Cec one last worrisome look, I come up beside him. He places the length of his arms on top of the safety railing. I mimic his stance, leaning on the sturdy metal for support. I recall how he saved me from going over this same railing earlier, how he held me in his arms…
Now’s not the time to be thinking of such things.
Looking out at what I can still see of the Port of Messina, the shoreline ripples alongside all the hustle and bustle of the seaside town. Despite being wholly tainted by today’s events, this place is gorgeous. If I had a lick of artistic talent, I’d paint it.
From this vantage point, I can’t quite mark the spot where we were docked in the small, crowded crook of the teeming port.
In the distance, smoke tumbles gently from the high peak of Mount Etna, an active volcano.
Closer, I spot a church’s belltower, its base invisible behind colorful old buildings with clay tile roofs crowding the skyline.
The only thing ruining the image is the far-off stench of sulfur from the volcano—and remembering that Ailsa’s blood currently stains the Strait of Messina.
God, poor Ailsa. No one deserves to die like that—well, maybe some people do, but not her.
The people who did that to her, on the other hand, deserve a much worse death.
Not that I want to be the one to exact that justice—I may have shot at those OVRA soldiers and killed one of them, but it’s only because I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
My hands tremble at the reminder that I killed another person today. And while some part of my soul regrets it, they killed Ailsa. A life for a life.
Lord, do I actually believe that? In only a couple of days, I’ve become entrenched in so much death. And, just like with Bes and Cec, it’s getting easier and easier to stomach.
To my surprise, Bes lifts a hand and reaches toward my face. His calloused thumb wipes away a hot tear from my cheek I didn’t notice until now. His warmth and unexpected kindness pushes through my skin, burying deep.
“Death is, unfortunately, a prominent figure in Cec and I’s lives,” he says finally. “Has been for some time now.”
My next words come out thick. “And you’re alright with that? Why aren’t you angrier about this? Or dejected? Any emotion would be something.”
He doesn’t answer me at first. Trying to read Bes is like reading a book in English that was translated from English into another language and then translated from that language back into English: most of the words are there, but they’re in the wrong order and therefore make no sense.
“Ailsa’s death is gutting me,” he admits quietly, his voice deepening with sadness. “I’ve known her since I was a boy, and though I’ve barely seen her in the last ten years, I never forgot her.”
He meets my eyes. “But death is unavoidable in this life—our life, Cec and mine’s.”
“Your life as a museum errand boy?” I ask, only half in jest.
He mirrors the tight smile. “Yes, exactly.”
“You should quit,” I say, glancing away from him. “It sounds like a terrible job. Long hours, hazardous work.”
I feel his gaze lingering on me. “It has its moments.”
I stare out into the sea, biting the other side of my lip he can’t see.
“When I feel lost or alone,” he starts, softer than before, “it helps to distract myself with my surroundings, perhaps make up a story about a person I see or an old building.”
In response, I concentrate on the retreating Port of Messina.
My attention focuses on what I first mistake to be a lighthouse.
Squinting , I see it for what it is: a golden statue of a woman posed on a thick pedestal.
She sits at the curled tip of the port, encased by a retaining wall at the base.
The wall is marked with white tile letters that read vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus.
We bless you and your city, if I recall my Latin correctly.
I marvel at the way she glows in the rising sun.
“Who is she?”
His shoulder brushes mine as he shifts toward me to see what I’m looking at, answering me in fluent Italian, “Stele della Madonna della Lettera.”
I suck in a breath. I shouldn’t be impressed by his ability to speak Italian, but I am all the same. I particularly enjoyed the way his tongue rolled the ‘r’ in lettera. And unlike when he explained what OVRA stood for back in the graveyard in Alexandria, there’s little hatred in these words.
“It was blessed by the pope,” he continues.
“The pope blessed a statue?” I eye the white, blocky letters and grime-streaked stone. “Why?”
Doubt taints his next words. “Supposedly, the Apostle Paul traveled to Messina about fourteen-hundred years ago to convert the Sicilians to Christianity.”
“Of course, he did,” I say, not attempting to leach the bitterness from my voice.
There’s a long bloody history of religious zealots who believe they have the right to force their beliefs upon others, often innocents, attempting to convert them to their cause.
To persuade foreigners—often by force—that their beliefs are superior.
It’s one of the many reasons I no longer attend church.
Besides the idiotic belief that saying some words over bread crisps and old wine will turn them into the actual body and blood of an ordinary man who lived and died nearly two thousand years ago.
Bes continues, “The locals weren’t exactly keen on renouncing their old gods, but enough were persuaded.
Some even insisted on accompanying Paul on his journey to Palestine.
It was there where they allegedly met with Mary, the mother of Christ, and persuaded her to write a letter to bring back to the citizens of Messina.
The letter, written in Hebrew, was rolled and tied…
” he grimaced. “…with a lock of her hair.”
I grimace. “That’s horrific.”
“Can’t disagree with that,” Cec chimes from the helm. I flinch. Good Lord, his hearing is practically supernatural. I wonder if he heard our more hushed conversation before. “Though the ancient Egyptians did much worse than that.”
“In the letter,” Bes continues as if Cec hadn’t spoken, “she wrote some rubbish about how she cherished their devotion and would grant them eternal protection. As if it were within her power to promise such a thing.” Bes points to the disappearing base. “And she signed it with those words.”
I stare at it until I can no longer see the words and the tiles start to blur.
Bes remains silent at my side. I try to imagine the celebration in the town that day: the cries of joy ringing out through the streets, people falling to their knees to praise the will of a god they’d come to accept but wouldn’t have known anything about if it weren’t for the apostle who left his home to spread the “good” word.
Were there those who cried for their lost gods?
Who hadn’t accepted this new god but knew they’d be persecuted if they didn’t falsify their devotion?
It reminds me of a quote from the German philosopher Karl Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Nonna would call me blasphemous—or worse, a communist—but Marx was right.
Religion is like a drug to the oppressed, the downtrodden, and a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Considering Germany lost the Great War… perhaps Hitler and his brand of religion are a kind of opiate to the German people after suffering the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles.
Or, maybe the Third Reich is more like a salve for the wounds that refuse to heal?
Perhaps a bit of both. Nations throughout time have sought to use war as a remedy for their ancient, festering wounds.
There were undoubtedly some of the German elite who welcomed the idea of starting a war in the name of expansion.
Yet, it wasn’t the elite who fought and died for it, only to end up losing anyway. It was the ordinary people. The poor and oppressed.
And now, they’re being promised redemption.
Bes was right—that distracted me well enough.
Peering over at him, something else occurs to me: as interesting as that little history lesson was, how the hell does he know so much about it?
This has gone well beyond common knowledge.
Does he often visit Messina? Did he read an entire set of encyclopedias, having memorized the section where this tidbit might be kept?
My gut continues to nag at me that something here isn’t right—and even though I’ve decided to trust them, I trust my gut more. Bes outright admitted to me that the two of them are lying to me, that those same lies protect me. Protect the amulet.
How many of them are simply… lies?
Before I can question him directly, Bes turns wordlessly and heads back to the helm, relieving Cec and effectively closing the subject.
I find I’m trembling too hard from shooting one of the God Men to push the subject.
For now.