Nobody disagreed. They all knew that Medusa was amusing herself currently by playing a long game. On the surface, there was the shifter alliance. That yacht was full of shifters, brought to the island either to consult at the clinic, or to enjoy the town, the beach, and the mountains, in whatever form they chose. But everyone knew there were spies among them.
Even sending Keraunos after him was part of the game. Medusa didn’t want Nikos dead. Yet. She’d wanted him back, and on the defensive. Ready to “negotiate”—which to her, meant accepting her terms.
Everyone departed to their day’s activities. Cleo and Petra, no longer students but now fully accepted members of the team, went off to their assigned duties. Nikos watched them go, reflecting that this was the last grand tour, at least for some years yet. He’d taken all the hetairoi to visit a destination they chose, single and in pairs, over the years. Two had been lucky enough to find their mates on their tours. One had stayed, and one had left.
As Nikos exited the hall, he reflected that Joey had been around for both those instances. He remembered thinking after he received Joey’s call that maybe Petra or even Cleo would find her mate on their brief visit in California—he had bet on Petra, thinking Cleo still too young emotionally.
Surprise.
Laughing inside, he took off for another cruise.
The hours passed quickly.
He met the hetairoi back in the same hall just before sunset.
“Medusa sat out all day on the deck of that oversized boat, like the Queen of the Nile,” Bryony stated in disgust. “Wearing mirror shades.”
“Yesterday she was buying clothes,” Iliana the nue said, a little of her tiger face momentarily flashing snarling teeth. “As if she can’t buy more fashionable stuff in Athens, or even Paris.”
“She’s playing with us, boss,” Dru the antlered peryton said, looking somber.
In the western sea, the last bit of the sun vanished. Abruptly Nikos shifted back to human. He felt Jen waken, startled, up in the aerie, then curl up to finish her sleep.
He turned to his hetairoi, who formed a half-circle around him. “Let the gorgon play. As long as she’s not attacking anyone, we’ll go on with our lives, ” he said. “Beginning with dinner now.”
Enticing smells wafted out, and they stampeded into the hall to eat. Nikos joined them, and caught up on everyone’s personal news.
At the end of the meal, he addressed them as a group. “I want to remind you all that nothing is to be said, or even thought, about Transfer Gates. As far as you all know, the four of us took a private plane back, landed elsewhere, and flew ourselves to the island.”
Cleo said earnestly, “Which we actually do!”
“That’s correct.” Nikos shot her an encouraging smile—he knew she was trying with all her might to be an adult member of the hetairoi. He flicked a hand toward his forehead. “Those shifters Medusa brought for care are in genuine need, whatever the rest of her tourists are up to. I’ll be spending some time at the infirmary.”
“So we continue to keep our distance, but watch them, boss?” Mateo asked, powerful arms crossed.
“Until they try something, yes.”
A clangor of bells from the church down in the harbor echoed up the mountain. Everyone had grown up hearing those bells, so they’d adapted their watch changes to them. The day watch dispersed to their evening, and the night watch shifted one by one to go on duty.
Calix, the winged bull, leaped out over
the low wall outside the hall and arrowed down the mountain, wings spread. Ava, the eagle shifter, soared up to watch from above as she drifted on the air currents. Orelle the boibhre shifted to her cormorant form to fly along the coast. And finally, Rastus the cockatrice shot down like a night-colored comet toward the sea, where he would circle over the harbor, with Medusa’s yacht at the center.
Nikos, stuck in human form, headed for the archway and began to jog down the narrow switchbacks carved into the side of the mountain by untold generations of donkey and goat hooves as well as human feet. This jog was something he and the hetairoi did once a week as part of their training. A night run would feel good.
Each level brought him closer to the lights of the harbor, casting their warm glow over the jumble of tile roofs and archways with their climbing roses and bougainvillea. The smell of citrus was everywhere, with a homey undertone of the fresh-pressed olive oil that everyone cooked with or ate cold. How he loved his home!
Would Jen?
Before he jogged the last lap into the harbor, he paused to locate her. She’d woken, and was flying with Petra and Iliana the nue, the tiger-faced nightbird shifter, high over the sloping bowl of the valley that formed the ancient caldera of the island’s great volcano. He sensed Jen marveling over the fact that the two mountains she’d thought she’d seen were what remained of a single mountain, one mighty slope with the castle along it, and the opposite one, which formed the north end of the island, far too steep for habitations. The only living things besides the wind-gnarled olive trees perched along the cracks in crags, and the shrubs and wildflowers in season, were the little goats leaping from rock to rock.
Jen was having fun. His own heart lifted at her delight in flying. She became aware of him, and shared her delight in the gleaming jewels of the villages along the coast, and the necklace of starry diamonds above them in the sky.
Her thought met his, golden with warmth, There’s so much light pollution above Southern California that it’s only when you get away that you appreciate just how beautiful the sky is at night!
Enjoy your flight, he sent back.
Nikos jogged the rest of the way down, turning toward one of the labyrinth of twisted paths and alleys that formed the town. Ancient Greek harbor towns had all been built in deliberately confusing twists and turns to discourage pirates, back in the bad old days. There wasn’t a single straight or flat street on the entire island.